pirates...

Carl Rigney:

>> I would think decreasing sensor range would help as well.  Even better,
>> expand the range difference between an at rest pirate with advanced
>> equipment actively watching for a victim, and a short crewed merchant
>> with basic equipment in flight.
>
>Perhaps Traveller Sensors should be like submarine sonar.  When you're
>moving you're blind because you're making too much noise.  For
>something like a neutrino detector this even sounds plausible.  Maximum
>sensitivity comes from turning off your own plant.  The more power you
>generate, the harder it is to detect other people's power plants.  When
>you get close enough and have a bearing on a target you can switch to
>optics, and when you get real close you can switch to something like
>radar or laser-ranging.  Likewise the less power you're using the
>harder you are to see on N-detectors.

That makes a minute amount of sense.  But since pirates will have bigger
power plants, they will have larger signatures.  So once they start to
move to intercept, they lose you on their sensors, and you pick them up
on yours.  Then you change course and let them go on their merry way.
I should point out that ACTIVE sonar is not really affected by submarine
speed.  So radar would work just fine.  And the merchants don't mind using
radar, since they have nothing to hide.  The pirates can't use it because
they DO have something to hide.  Remember ESM.



>Warfleets would have scout boats ahead doing bounding overwatch with
>some moving while others coast on low power looking for unexpected
>power sources, but a merchant can't afford to do that; it's pick up a
>cargo and boost for jump because time is money.

No, warfleets won't.  They'll use drones to scout ahead, and the fleet will
accelerate normally.
And time may be money, but an extra three hours per week is trivial.  And
that's how much longer it would take.  Keep in mind all you have to do is
stop accelerating for a few minutes, look around, then accelerate again.
Warm start of a fusion plant only takes 3 or 4 minutes.  If you sacrifice
that much time every 15 minutes, you still take only 256 minutes to transit
to jump distance, as opposed  to 211 minutes of continuous boost.  I doubt
any merchant will get excited about losing 1.5 hours every two weeks.


>I think the other thing that would aid pirates is reducing weapon
>range, so that 12 warships in a dodecahedron around a planet can't
>cover the entire volume to 100 meters without needing to move.

NO!  That was the whole point of some of those posts.  If weapon ranges
are reduced, then the pirate will have a HARDER time of intercepting
targets in the 3 or 4 hour window he has between boost and jump.

Later...

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