Ideal Pirate Ship Configeration And Size? ...

SWM wrote:On the other hand, how much money can you get for a couple million tons of loot? Or just the valuable stuff, if you don't want to haul the whole ship away.

The economics of space piracy is an interesting question. A pirate (who has higher expenses and fences goods for a lower price) can't make a profit from a bulk hauler who is merely making a modest living. He would have to hope for higher value goods, or perhaps good ransoms. But most pirates must be living hand-to-mouth, hoping the big score. For every pirate who makes that big score, there must be dozens who never do. Only a handful of pirates retire rich.

That's one reason why pirates like to have inside information on shipping.

Theemile wrote:I realize that different planets can have different levels of wealth, but even Hauptman had a difficult time building 14 Frigates for the Ballroom/Torch with outside assistance.

So if one of the richest men in the Universe can't afford to build a BC out of his own pocket, who can? And if you have the money to build/acquire a BC, you don't need to go into piracy to make money (Oh, you may front a pirate on the side, but you won't be getting your hands dirty. - and you won't be draining the coffers to give him a BC.)

Somtaaw wrote:For speed, all military-grade ships have the same top end of .8c, so you can only compare acceleration. But you also have to keep in mind the minor issue that most navies, and even system defense forces (that we've seen) dont build them. Most people skip right from LAC to DD/CL.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:For speed, all military-grade ships have the same top end of .8c, so you can only compare acceleration. But you also have to keep in mind the minor issue that most navies, and even system defense forces (that we've seen) dont build them. Most people skip right from LAC to DD/CL.

That's true, but further top speed is usually only relevant if you wanted to pull off a mid-hyper intercept (not where pirates usually lurk); and there the top speed is 0.6c anyway.

There just isn't room inside the hyper limit for a starship to get up to 0.9c -- not unless they took a very long running start for some odd reason.

But most ships drop out fairly need the hyper limit, with some margin for nav errors. And the very fastest they can be going at that point is 0.04c (because dropping into, or out of, Alpha bleeds 92% of your velocity -- taking you from a top speed of 0.6c to an entry speed of 0.04c)
And from that velocity even a Manti warship accelerating at 700g across the system (call it 44lm) would only build back up to 0.37c.

So, for n-space intercepts, acceleration is far more important that top-speed. Though if you can stealthily build up a significant base vector you can often avoid interception even with a significant acceleration deficit. So a significant advantage in sensor range can sometimes be even more important than raw acceleration.

Honor Among Enemies, Chapter 9 wrote:An impeller drive vessel's nodes generated a pair of inclined, plate-like gravity waves which trapped a pocket of normal space in their wedge-shaped grasp. The ship floated in that pocket, like a surfer poised in the curl of a comber which, in theory, could have been accelerated instantaneously to light-speed, taking the vessel with them. But minor practical considerations—like the fact that it would have turned the ship's crew into paste—mitigated against it, and the fact that the physics of the drive required the bow and stern aspects of the wedge to be open limited the maximum speed of any starship, as well. Whatever its possible acceleration, the open throat of a ship's wedge meant it had to worry about particle densities and the rare but not unknown micro-meteorite. A warship's particle and anti-radiation fields let her pull a maximum normal-space velocity of .8 light-speed in the conditions which obtained within the average star system (max speeds were twenty-five percent lower in h-space, where particle densities were higher, and somewhat higher in areas of particularly low densities), but merchant designers wouldn't accept the expense and mass penalties of generators that powerful. As a consequence, merchantmen were limited to a maximum n-space velocity of about .7 c and a max h-space velocity of no more than .5 c . . . and Wayfarer was a merchant design.

Somtaaw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's true, but further top speed is usually only relevant if you wanted to pull off a mid-hyper intercept (not where pirates usually lurk); and there the top speed is 0.6c anyway.

There just isn't room inside the hyper limit for a starship to get up to 0.9c -- not unless they took a very long running start for some odd reason.

But most ships drop out fairly need the hyper limit, with some margin for nav errors. And the very fastest they can be going at that point is 0.04c (because dropping into, or out of, Alpha bleeds 92% of your velocity -- taking you from a top speed of 0.6c to an entry speed of 0.04c)
And from that velocity even a Manti warship accelerating at 700g across the system (call it 44lm) would only build back up to 0.37c.

So, for n-space intercepts, acceleration is far more important that top-speed. Though if you can stealthily build up a significant base vector you can often avoid interception even with a significant acceleration deficit. So a significant advantage in sensor range can sometimes be even more important than raw acceleration.

I was under the impression warships could get that high even in normal space. The math was wrong during tHotQ & FiE, that Peep warships could accelerate their ships upto .8c and then fire off their Single-Drive missiles to get the missile travelling at .9c Now the math is wrong that even firing a missile at .8c, the missiles of the day just could not accelerate fast enough to reach .9c, but the ship getting that high was solid (I thought)

Thats why Honor chose to travel out to engage with First squadrons SDs, rather than stay near the forts, she couldn't allow the Peeps to flit around the outer system that fast.

Somtaaw wrote:

Honor Among Enemies, Chapter 9 wrote:An impeller drive vessel's nodes generated a pair of inclined, plate-like gravity waves which trapped a pocket of normal space in their wedge-shaped grasp. The ship floated in that pocket, like a surfer poised in the curl of a comber which, in theory, could have been accelerated instantaneously to light-speed, taking the vessel with them. But minor practical considerations—like the fact that it would have turned the ship's crew into paste—mitigated against it, and the fact that the physics of the drive required the bow and stern aspects of the wedge to be open limited the maximum speed of any starship, as well. Whatever its possible acceleration, the open throat of a ship's wedge meant it had to worry about particle densities and the rare but not unknown micro-meteorite. A warship's particle and anti-radiation fields let her pull a maximum normal-space velocity of .8 light-speed in the conditions which obtained within the average star system (max speeds were twenty-five percent lower in h-space, where particle densities were higher, and somewhat higher in areas of particularly low densities), but merchant designers wouldn't accept the expense and mass penalties of generators that powerful. As a consequence, merchantmen were limited to a maximum n-space velocity of about .7 c and a max h-space velocity of no more than .5 c . . . and Wayfarer was a merchant design.

Was just re-reading the series for the umpteenth million time, so I actually only just passed this nugget. Bold is my emphasis. Unless this got retconned in a Pearl somewhere?

The problem lay in the new data Commander Hauser had provided. Raiding patterns had shifted since ONI put together her own pre-deployment background brief. Ships had been disappearing in ones and twos in Breslau and the neighboring Posnan Sector, and they still were. But where whoever it was had been snapping up single ships and then pulling out, so that the next half-dozen or so got through safely, now as many as three or even four ships in a row were disappearing—all in the same system. Losses were actually higher now in Posnan than in Breslau, which was what had forced Honor to rethink her original deployment plans, but the new pattern of consecutive losses was almost more worrisome than the total numbers. Consecutive losses meant raiders were hanging around to snatch up more targets, and that was wrong. Raiders shouldn't do that . . . or not, at least, if they were operating in the normal singletons.

No raider captain wanted to stooge around with a prize in tow, because two pirates carried sufficient crew to man more than two or three—at most four—prize ships unless they captured the original ships' companies and made them operate their ships' systems.

~ ~ ~ SNIP ~ ~ ~

"You know what I wish?" Truman asked. Honor looked at her, and the other captain shrugged. "I wish we knew who was funding and supporting the bastards. You know as well as I do that the average piracy ring can afford to lose and replace vessels—and crews—all year long if as much as a it. These eleven ships"—she tapped her screen, where the names of the most recently missing vessels were displayed—"represent an aggregate value of almost twelve billion just for the hulls. You can buy a lot of ships heavy enough to kill merchies for that kind of money."

Somtaaw wrote:

Theemile wrote:I realize that different planets can have different levels of wealth, but even Hauptman had a difficult time building 14 Frigates for the Ballroom/Torch with outside assistance.

So if one of the richest men in the Universe can't afford to build a BC out of his own pocket, who can? And if you have the money to build/acquire a BC, you don't need to go into piracy to make money (Oh, you may front a pirate on the side, but you won't be getting your hands dirty. - and you won't be draining the coffers to give him a BC.)

Where was it said Hauptman couldn't afford to give the Ballroom BC's? He built their frigates out of almost pocket change, but also because both sides understood the need for trainers. FG's were all they could crew, and because they needed more platforms to handle more interceptions.

I'll track down the exact quote from Thandi Palane, I think right near the end of Wages of Sin, where she herself observed the FG's were trainers. And I think it's in the same book that made the observation that Klaus Hauptman not only built them out of pocket change, he built them in his owned yards, at cost, without the usual markup for military buyers.

But that didn't change the fact that she was also the equivalent of a frigate—in fact, she was a frigate in all but name, designed and built by one of the Manticoran yards which did a lot of naval construction. The Tor fortune made Cathy one of the few private individuals able to finance Pottawatomie's construction. Actually, not even she could have afforded such a project, but she'd been able to advance enough seed money to begin a subscription campaign which had rapidly tapped into a deep well of Manticoran opposition to genetic slavery—a well made deeper than ever by widespread public anger over the way High Ridge had been able to contain the damage done by Montaigne's files.

<snip>

He'd made support for its extirpation one of the major philanthropic commitments of the Hauptman Foundation his father had endowed seventy T-years before and whose board his daughter Stacey now chaired. Hauptman himself had not actually participated directly in the subscription campaign, although Stacey had done so rather discreetly. But what he had done was even more valuable: he owned the shipyard which built the Anti-Slavery League's frigates, and he did the work at cost, with no profit and none of the usual padding which went into military projects.

According to official reports, the Hauptman Cartel had built them at cost. According to unofficial (but exceedingly persistent) reports, Klaus and Stacey Hauptman had picked up somewhere around seventy-five percent of their construction costs out of their own pockets. Given that there were eight of them, that was a pretty hefty sum for even the Hauptmans to shell out.

Somtaaw wrote:I was under the impression warships could get that high even in normal space. The math was wrong during tHotQ & FiE, that Peep warships could accelerate their ships upto .8c and then fire off their Single-Drive missiles to get the missile travelling at .9c Now the math is wrong that even firing a missile at .8c, the missiles of the day just could not accelerate fast enough to reach .9c, but the ship getting that high was solid (I thought)

Thats why Honor chose to travel out to engage with First squadrons SDs, rather than stay near the forts, she couldn't allow the Peeps to flit around the outer system that fast.

SWM wrote:Yes, warships have the physical capability to get up to 0.8c. The problem is that to do that they have to accelerate for several light-hours. The hyper limit has a radius of less than half a light-hour. Most warships try to come out near the hyper limit, so the enemy has less warning time to prepare. In practice, almost no ship ever gets near 0.8 c simply because they would have to drop into normal space so far from the star to get that high a speed.

Dropping into normal space at the hyper limit gets you to the target faster than dropping way the heck out, even if you can get a higher peak velocity that way. The ONLY reason you would ever want to get that fast is to launch a relativistic kinetic strike--in other words, to launch a potential Eridani violation. And anyone who sees you drop into normal space that far out will know that's what you are doing, and prepare to stop it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

SWM wrote:Yes, warships have the physical capability to get up to 0.8c. The problem is that to do that they have to accelerate for several light-hours. The hyper limit has a radius of less than half a light-hour. Most warships try to come out near the hyper limit, so the enemy has less warning time to prepare. In practice, almost no ship ever gets near 0.8 c simply because they would have to drop into normal space so far from the star to get that high a speed.

Dropping into normal space at the hyper limit gets you to the target faster than dropping way the heck out, even if you can get a higher peak velocity that way. The ONLY reason you would ever want to get that fast is to launch a relativistic kinetic strike--in other words, to launch a potential Eridani violation. And anyone who sees you drop into normal space that far out will know that's what you are doing, and prepare to stop it.

I'd nitpick that we've seen ships drop into normal space almost that far out for reasons unrelated to accelerate to large fractions of c in preparation for a ballistic attack.

Sneaking in to probe stealth recon drones (Argus net), high speed passes through the outer system for recon, attacking resource extractors in the outer asteroid belts, going after facilities orbiting gas giants (Blackbird base/yards)

But none of those have the same flight profile as the frac-c bombardment; even though they may share a similar emergency point from hyper.