Ideal Pirate Ship Configeration And Size? ...

SWM wrote:

kzt wrote:It's obvious, from tSVW, that you can FIGHT a ship with a dozen crew. The problem is keeping it running and repairing damage if you take any.

Where in SVW do you see this?

When the bridge crew and the computers killed a bunch of peep BCs with a total engagement time of under 30 seconds.

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:Where in SVW do you see this?

When the bridge crew and the computers killed a bunch of peep BCs with a total engagement time of under 30 seconds.

Letting the computer handle a 30 second engagement is not the same as fighting a ship with a dozen crew. In any longer engagement you need a lot more than that. ECM, tactics, and communications. Besides, as I pointed out to hauke earlier, you aren't counting the people who were running the sensors which plotted the targets, or the people running the equipment behind the weapons in that 30 second engagement. I'm not talking about the weapons mount crews, I mean the ones operating the power and controls inside the hull. There were a lot more people on active duty directly involved in that action than just the two people we saw on the bridge.

A lot of the convoy/escort work we saw being done on a point-to-point basis in the early books was situations like Hawkwing and other DDs covering freighters. Escort to and from specific places. For you garden variety pirates, a DD, even an older one is more than sufficent.
A DD is going to be able to engage most things like a converted merchant that is taking ships. It is faster, way better armed and general is going to have a better engagement range, certainly better scanning and tactical gear plus drones etc.

Earlier and at the same time we see cruisers and BC being used to hunt active pirates who have been causing ships to vanish ( the missing ships were presumed to have been lost to piracy and the larger warships sent out to find and kill the pirates).

Sure, you have CL/CA/CH and BCs out patrolling in troubled areas or where you need to make a strong presence known but unless you are expecting somebody like Warneke's (formerly actual warships from an SDF) or the kind of commerce raiding that PRH was doing in Silesia, even an older SEM or IAM DD is going to do just fine.

The Crusier to BC classes give you that extended range and crusing time to go hunting and loitering in likely spots and then shift as needed. The DDs take their charges someplace and then go on the next mission even if it continuing with the freighter(s) to the next system, taking a new convoy in the reverse direction or showing the flag/general patrol.

I guess a key to this is that you have to have enough small escorts to handle "regular" piracy but need to field sufficient of the larger ships in the mix to keep the pirates attention focused on staying away from your own shipping interests and be able to react fast and effectively if something large shows up.

SWM wrote:Letting the computer handle a 30 second engagement is not the same as fighting a ship with a dozen crew. In any longer engagement you need a lot more than that. ECM, tactics, and communications. Besides, as I pointed out to hauke earlier, you aren't counting the people who were running the sensors which plotted the targets, or the people running the equipment behind the weapons in that 30 second engagement. I'm not talking about the weapons mount crews, I mean the ones operating the power and controls inside the hull. There were a lot more people on active duty directly involved in that action than just the two people we saw on the bridge.

I suspect the computers are pretty good at running sensors. Everything you would see displayed is a result of the computers processing of the noise the sensors actually resolve.

As far as can be determined, the main thing that people who are in charge of the sensors do is maintenance. They seem unlikely to be standing on the hull running on a treadmill so the radar keeps scanning. Particularity as they are all phased arrays.

Heck, the bridge crew shown doing the actual target refinement, which pretty much means there isn't anyone doing this for them somewhere else. Except when David is trying to justify KH2.

pirate type 1

wants profit likes to kill and have evil fun

DD

fast can run from anything best stealth to hide, cheap and can kill unarmed merchants

bullyboys dream

pirate 2

wants profit, needs maximume prise crews

killing and raping is bad for profit

light cruiser, can use prizes crew

comercial piracy

pirate 3

wants profit but wants a name more

wants to fuck anyone that crosses him

heavy cruiser

pirate 4

got illusions of grandeaure

wants to own a system

BC as main 2 light cruisers and 4 destroyers

very dangerouse

pirate 5

warlord

1 bc in orbit around his misarable planet

1 bc as backup for his pirates, 2-4 light cruisers, 6-12 dd

bad news

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote:When I was thinking BCs, I was thinking something big enough to give convoy escorts and system defense forces pause...

You guys have valid points about crew size, etc. But still, there is still something to be said for cruising range, additional time of station and survivability. The answer to larger crews and less payout might be to take more merchis.

Any pirate with military grade compensators will catch any merchant, assuming time and vectors that aren't grossly unfavorable. So your take is limited by the merchies you can find, not your size. So, taking more merchies isn't going to be anything a BC is directly better able to do. Indirectly, it can take merchies against better defenses, so it could work in a tougher "market" than the smaller ships. If it turns out there's enough of that market, a BC could do as well or better in it than a FG/DD/CL in a weaker one. I have to question that assumption though: how many spots to take merchies are there that a BC can handle with ease that would give a smaller pirate ship pause, and how many merchies are there to catch there that you can't catch somewhere easier? Enough, in both cases, to cover far higher operating and crew costs?

The other idea that's come up here that I like is Harold's about usng Q Ships so you would need smaller crews and still be able to carry more crew for prizes.

Don

But you'd have a hard time running down some merchies and an impossible time evading defenders. If you can build the thing to look like a freighter, even under inspection, but move liek a warship, you're set - but that sort of custom build is going to require exactly that dream pirate starting capital.

My point is that with better endurance and more room for prize crews, you could stay out longer before you head for port and wait for your prizes to be fenced. Perhaps you could take 10 merchis rather than four. As for Q ships, your tactics would rely on guile rather than running down your prey. And if there are escorts, you play innocent merchi and report pirates in the area and could we travel in company...

Finally, remember that the way the discussion is set up, Hutch's ill intentioned soul does have deep pockets which I take it to mean that he has more capital to invest than your typical garden variety pirate.

Don

I would say FFs for sparsely populated trade lanes and DDs for one with more regular travel since the FF traditionally have more supplies and thus more time to hunt ships while maintaining a similar crew requirement to number of hulls ratio while DDs have higher chances of surviving against escorts.

Maybe a couple of BCs with courier support to ambush any warships sent to hunt you down and buy time for you to relocate to new hunting grounds.

svenhauke wrote:pirate type 1

1) Welcome to the board
2) Please stop the double spaced posts. They are VERY annoying to read.

No Pirate motivated by profit would use any (former) military vessel. Because military vessels are expensive and expensive means less profit. Rebels, warlords, freedom fighters, privateers or counter revolutionaries might have other priorities. But as the Peoples Navy in Exile showed keeping such vessels operational financed only by piracy proved to be difficult.
So what is the ideal vessel for pirating for fun and profit. In my opinion whatever is cheap, cheap, cheap and theoretically able to capture are merchantmen.
So what do you do if your prize is escorted? Wait for the next prize witch isn't. But we can totally take them despite the escort? Does not matter ammunition and repairing battle damage costs money. Money I would rather spend on hookers and blow (or whatever else a pirate spends his ill gotten gains on). But I am very ambitious should I not invest in maybe better sensors or upgrade my propulsion systems so I can catch more merchants? You could do that and risk your unusual hardware purchased tracked back to you or you could pull another cheap cheap cheap vessel out of a scrap yard somewhere and get a better return of investment for lower risk.

To the original question, given a choice I'd want a small heavy cruiser (CA-) for my main ship, and use smaller ships (FF or DD) for my main piraty-efforts. My CA lets me do things like mutiny suppression by the captains of said smaller ships, and likely has enough extra crewing for perhaps several prize crews in the event that I get lucky and jump an unescorted convoy, etc. The armoring may get me out of a scrape long enough for me to run for the hills if I get caught in my dastardly plans by folks such as Admiral Sarnow, HHA, etc.

Of course, properly speaking I personally would be in the privateer business, and would space any crew member committing even the smallest atrocity/crime against a captured crew. Not saying I'd be the Robin Hood of Sector X, mind you -- but I'd at least choose to be on the side of the righteous where slavers and other "pirate scum" were concerned.

Over time I'd try to trick that CA-'s compensator, fire control and tactical systems out to as close to first-line naval levels as I possibly could, however. Primarily to go along with my personal baseline mission aka keeping my sorry backside alive in nearly any scrape.