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Posted by: Cheops Feb 24 2007, 02:10 AM

Was thinking while reading a Patrick O'Brian book that pirates in the Carib League would probably do pretty well with tall ships. There is a boom of magic in most Carib states, and a full blown houngan war, and a bust on heavy industry. This would make modern, metal ships very expensive. So expensive that magically-enhanced wooden ships may suddenly become competitive.

The object resistance of the components of a tall ship wouldn't be above 2 (worked wood, hemp, and cloth) or at most 3 (for cannons, ring bolts, other metal components). Use a steel bottom instead of the traditional copper. You could prepare the ship as a vessel and put a spirit in it. Or if that was too expensive you could inhabit specific components (air spirit in the sails, guardian spirit in the cannons, water spirit in the hull). Since the mage can easily help make the ship the threshold for enchanting stays low so anchoring can be done. Really ambitious mages could even bottom it with orichalcum!

And to take it one step further, you could make it the Black Pearl by using zombies and corpse cadavers to run the ship. You'd only need humans for the officers and warrant officers.

As I said 'though since magic should be pretty cheap and heavy, modern industry expensive, seeing something like this in a campaign should be believable.

Posted by: Serial_Peacemaker Feb 24 2007, 05:41 AM

Well I do like the pirate aspect of shadowrun. However actual tall ships seems iffy. After all even if the carib itself has crappy industry ships are by definition mobile. I would be surprised if there were not ships in the waters all across the planet that were made in the north sea at a SK ship yard, the great lakes by Ares etc. However I am sure that the more magically active pirates do use things quite similar to what you propose. With wooden ships etc. However I think they would most likely be of a design and manufacture that would be somewhat alien to the traditional tall ship. If only so they could mount a more modern naval weapon.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 05:45 AM

You might see wooden hulled power boats. Those were quite common before fiberglass came along. Sailing ships could be used as recon, but they wouldn't stand much chance against a military vessel or an armed transport.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 05:51 AM

Problem is that even making tall ships are rather resource intensive in terms of wood to make the hull, the cloth needed for the sails, the hundreds of feet of rope. It was a major endeavour back in the day to build the tall ships and I'm not sure if there's enough of the right kind of trees they need for the ships. England used up a lot of their forests (of oak and whatever trees they used) and I don't think the forests have ever recovered from that period.

Pirates will take what ships they can that are available and that's mostly modern day ships. Any tall ships they would pick up may be from museum pieces and private yachts they may come upon. The modern ships from the corporate shipyards would still be bought by the carib league.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 24 2007, 06:06 AM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 06:12 AM

Yes the forests are regenerating, but I can see certaing groups that would be unhappy if you start up with the massive deforestation project such as the amount needed for the tall ships. It all depends, it might be faster to build them now since there are now modern power tools to aid in making the ships, but then again, there's something to be said for being able to cast a hull from metal or plastic. The modern day tonnage capacity outstrips the tall ship designs.

By the way, I like the idea of tall ships running around, but I'm playing devil's advocate just to flesh out the feasibility and for what reasons/conditions that would allow for this to happen.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 24 2007, 06:55 AM

Hate to burst your bubble but industrialization is what caused the deforestation of England...not the building of tall ships. What do you think they burned until they figured out better ways of using coal? Plus there's the need to clear forest to build, you know, cities and the farmland to support those cities.

Any pirate that goes up against a naval ship is a dumb-ass. Modern day pirates know enough not to do that so I figure that future pirates would also know that. The vast bulk of pirate activity is actually undertaken in port, not at sea, so you just need a lot of guys with knives and the willingness to kill someone for money. Also, tall ships become a lot more effective just by using explosive rounds instead of the old non-exploding shells. The guns that they used on the tall ships were actually as big, or bigger than the guns the Brits used to smash German tanks in WW2. As for defense, if you have magic you can make it as strong as modern ships. Pirates much rather take merchantmen and pleasure boats than a military vessel. Merchants have stuff that you can resell and you can use the boat too. Military vessels have nothing in them except a bunch of marines and big guns that can kill you.

The British had over 1000 tall ships on the list at the height of their naval deployment in the Napoleonic wars. Added to that were all the private men of war, who were private citizens who owned and outfitted a ship and sailed under a letter of marque. Some wealthy patrons even had small squadrons of privateers. This is back when these ships were modern and expensive.

Imagine nowadays. The spot price for US lumber is about 260 per tonne. Take for example, the Surprise (of Aubrey fame), which was a real ship that displaced about 350 tonnes (if I remember correctly) fully equiped and carried 28 guns (all of 9 lbs or bigger which can take out any of Pz series tanks up to the later IV models). That's roughly 78,000 USD to buy the equivalent amount of wood. Since we're building this thing ourselves we don't need to mark-up for construction etc. Probably wouldn't run you more than 100,000 or 120,000 just for the mundane, raw materials. And as stated the building time would be much lower due to power tools, AR overlays, modern construction techniques, etc.

A ship of that size would be more than a match for any merchantman or cruise ship, especially when magically enhanced. A Guardian spirit inhabited cannon is a scary thing.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 07:38 AM

Burst my bubble, hardly, I love to read up on information and if I get corrected on it, that's fine. After the schooling I did, I know how much I do not know and welcome input from people who have info and thoughts on the matter.

One problem I do see is something like this would be a bit noticeable, especially to authorities. "Be on the look out for a large masted ship." Most of the piracy such as those occurring in the South Asian Straits are mainly by smaller fast boats that would go up and have the pirates board the ship. The problem is that you can't tell who the pirates are from the rest of the boats. The magical augmentation, while that's fine and such, what can they do to be less noticeable, especially from maritime patrol?

edit: btw, I do own the first book of the Master and Commander series, I bought it to read before the movie came out. I do love that day and age.

Oh, speaking of deforestation of england from the industrial age, yes, there is that from the need of charcoal. But there was definitely overharvesting of the mature wood needed for shipbuilding. Tell me, how much wood is needed for one ship? How much are also needed to help in forging of all the needed iron also? (which would be moot in the current shadowrun conversation since there'll be plentiful iron provided without needing to use wood as a power source for forging).

http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2003/jessiewhit/deforestation.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire/content/articles/2005/03/24/newforest_history_feature.shtml
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/eh/9.3/mcneill.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation

Posted by: Crakkerjakk Feb 24 2007, 08:13 AM

Fun fact:

Back in the day(1745-1844) the most successful pirate was a Chinese woman who took over her husband's fleet when he died. Controlled an estimated 2000 ships and over a hundred thousand sailors. The Chinese government at the time declared war on her, got their hoops soundly kicked, and went to foreign powers(Portugal and England, I think) for help. They agreed, and also got their tails handed to them. She finally got tired of pirating, and asked the government for a pardon, retiring to run a gambling den, and died a ridiculously wealthy old woman.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 08:15 AM

Yup, read about her when I was looking up on chinese pirates, was curious about the one that Chow Yun Fat is playing for the third pirates of the carribean movie.

Posted by: knasser Feb 24 2007, 08:27 AM

I tend to restrict the size and complexity of objects that can be possessed in my game by Force (e.g. "no - your little air spirit can't possess the entire house"), so this would take a high force spirit in my game (but there's no such restriction in the RAW): Possessing / Inhabiting the ship! Some of the downsides to a wooden ship are compensated for this way, e.g. a force 7 spirit would lend it 14 points of hardened armour against normal weapons. That's got to be equivalent to a metal hull. Movement power inherent and permanent, not to mention some of the more outlandish powers - need I point out that water spirits have Weather Control as an optional power?

And I can certainly see some spirits being more comfortable in an old fashioned sailing ship than some clanking, complex, computer driven monstrosity. Particularly some pre-existing Free Spirit. I picture the old sailor sitting on the dock watching the tides when the faint whisper is heard by him alone... "If you build it, I will come"

That's not to say it has to be a nice spirit. A powerful shadowspirit with Concealment and Movement could make for a deeply sinister ship. Give it a spirit pact with its chosen captain and voila - Flying Dutchman.

I don't see a big flock of tall ships. But in a setting where dark magic has returned, I can see that an old sea ghost story might have a bit more substance than you'd want.

-K.

Posted by: Thain Feb 24 2007, 01:04 PM

The stealth capacity of a sailing vessel should not be underestimated, yes, it will show up on radar and visual scanning (i.e, guy with binoculars), but it is going to be quiet, have little heat signature, zero power consumption, et cetera.

I don't see many pirates using it, but a sigle possessed Flying Dutchman, definatly.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 24 2007, 04:11 PM

Keep in mind, I don't think it would be financially feasible to make full sized frigates or brigs. These ships would be capping out as sloops, ships which are able to quickly sail at almost any point, which are light-weight, easy to make, almost invisible to radar and sonar. They won't be able to outrun any military ship and some freighters, but they'll be almost impossible to spot until they get within visual range. With magical support, they'll still be a threat to a freighter (or specifically, to its crew). The question is whether they take cargo by manning the freighter and bringing the whole boat back to sell, or by just taking the few tons their small ship can hold (two tons of cyberdecks would clearly pay for itself, but two tons of soy probably wouldn't).

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 05:09 PM

One thing for modern day pirates is they will take some of the crew has hostage and they'll try and rob the ship's safe. Yeah, if the cargo has a high value per weight/volume then I can see them taking some of the cargo. The other consideration is if they have a potential large scale port city nearby with questionable businessmen. Years ago, there was a Times article on a group of pirates that took a large cargo ship and they sailed it to China and IIRC the pirates managed to reap a profit... But, I think this was an extreme case.

Very cool though, the merchant ship's watch standing there on the bridge on a dark night, a shroud of fog comes out and envelops the ship. Then, the watch stares stunned as a 'ghost' ship silently coming out of the shroud of fog up close to a large modern day merchant ship. The grappels fly out and the pirates being swarming up on to the decks of the merchant ship (even better, a cruise ship), and the fun begins as those who are unluckly cry out as their body tasted steel from blades and bullets. After a relatively short time, the pirates scurry back onto their ship and the 'ghost' ship silently slips away into the night back into the fog... slowly the fog begins to dissipate around the merchant ship, leaving only the stunned survivors and the cries of those unfortunate...

Posted by: Cheops Feb 24 2007, 05:25 PM

Spirits with concealment make for a deadly effective pirate ship no matter if it is modern. Fleets of these things will probably be pretty uncommon but imagine a Houngan building one or two full blown "ghost ships" and fighting the Houngan War that way! Would be a viable threat to the other houngans and the other pirates. And presumably some of those might respond.

These old ships are a lot sturdier and more able than people seem to be giving them credit. There is no fuel in these bad boys, only a magazine. This makes them a hell of a lot less vulnerable than an equivalent modern ship which uses hordes of fuel and therefore needs a lot of storage space for it. Ships only sink a few ways--hits below the waterline, taking in water through other holes, or a hit to the magazine or fuel tanks. I don't see many merchantmen willingly spending the thousands of dollars per shot for torpedoes, and how effective are assault rifle rounds against the barrier rating of 3' of wood? (not to mention possible hardened spirit armor). Plus you can't really demoralize Guardian spirit inhabited marine zombies...so watch out!

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 05:32 PM

How effective is it against mounted assault cannons, quad .50 caliber guns, grenade launchers, attack drones (air and water), hell maybe even flame throwers and incindiery rounds/grenades?

A response by the corporations hit a number of times by the Hougan fleet might be including Q-ships and such in their fleet (disguised merchantships), hiring runners and security details for ambushes, any number of things including mages/shamans they can hire.

edit: Anyway, I can see this being effective in hit and fade tactics. As long as they play it smart and avoid traps and such. Most of the merchant ships they'll face will be easy pickings, but if they make too large of dent in shipping and who they're hitting in particular, I can see a nasty response by whatever corp/nation.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 24 2007, 06:08 PM

Modern torpedoes would be completely ineffective against anything but the largest tall ships. Freighters would have to defend themselves relying on small arms or rockets and missiles, with small arms probably being the most cost effective. Assault cannons and MMGs would be the word of the day. Unfortunately, with freighters running on the small skeleton crews they generally rely on, a small, quick sloop could probably close in pretty quickly and avoid most of the fire. It would be very, very dangerous, but quite possible.

Posted by: Jack Kain Feb 24 2007, 06:15 PM

You do know that piracy thrives even today. Modern pirates use small speed boats possibly mounted with machine guns. They move in swiftly on large slow moving vessels. Oil Tanker's, Cargo Ships and Cruise Lines.
http://www.cargolaw.com/presentations_pirates.html
This little report should help out in under standing modern piracy.

Now lets look at some SR possibilities.

Using small boats would still be ideal. They are less likely to show up, magic can easily be used to disguise or even render the small ship invisible.

That being said, The Carribean likely has to many military vessels in the area for effective SR piracy. It be easier to strike the ship in port or wait until it travels into a nations waters that doesn't maintain a sizable navy.

A wooden sailing ship might be hard to track, but it wouldn't be hard to find once it makes port. It stand out in the modern world. And the Carribean would have to many military grade vessels anway. Be they real millitary or corp.

I'd imagine SR pirates to operate in much the same way as modern pirates in similar areas.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 06:16 PM

With a rigger at the control of the freighter along with the host of devices/sensors that can be placed throughout the ship, add in remote gun drones and the ability to open and seal hatches and such. Who knows, it depends on how much the shipping corporation are willing to spend to outfit their fleet. If it's a very large cargo vessel with a good amount of valuable cargo, a megacorp can easily place some countermeasures especially for boarders.

edit: what Jack Kain said, but then again, I mentioned that earlier in my earlier post about fast ships that would blend with normal traffic.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 24 2007, 07:49 PM

I doubt they'd go into public ports with it. They'd moor it in a cove somewhere, out of sight, then use another, modern boat to transfer gear. If they're based out of somewhere with an isolated village, they'd have all the materials needed to maintain a wooden sloop, they could disappear easily, and the money from a successful raid would more than make up the cost of services rendered by said village.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 24 2007, 08:36 PM

Posted by: Mistwalker Feb 24 2007, 11:26 PM

Interesting article Jack

I would see the Ghost Ship only appearing in fog (magical or mundane), with it's home port being somewhere where it cannot be observed. Maybe the underground anchorage from pirate novels, with a tunnel leading to a warehouse, where the pirated goods are loaded onto legit vessels.

If they take the whole ship, they set up a phantom ship, from Jack's article, with a hacker(s) inserting the new name and destination in various databases.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 25 2007, 02:01 AM

Posted by: nezumi Feb 25 2007, 02:10 AM

If we look at a sloop-of-war, that pretty well describes what I was thinking of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloop-of-war

10-18 guns.

Remember also, while the megas certainly have the resources to defend a ship, it's all a question of cost-benefit ratios. Putting $50,000 worth of equipment on every freighter quickly gets very, very pricey, especially if it almost never gets used. So certainly, any of the corps could blow this sloop out of the water if they knew to expect it. The primary benefit of the sloop is surprise.

I also imagine it's one of few ships that could attack freighters out at sea rather than in port. Small boats are generally limited by fuel, large ones are too easy to spot. A sloop is limited only by food for the crew (and of course, questions of profit, but if we have the village houngan running out of Guayana, their time is cheap). With a spirit's help, they don't have to worry about the environmental pressures that used to restrict small boats to more coastal areas. So they can cruise the shipping lanes a thousand miles out from shore, almost completely silent, catch their prey at night when they're hidden from radar, sonar and sight, then use the spirit's power to hide them again as they escape. They put-to somewhere on the Spanish main and use trucks to transport the goods from their little coastal village to Amazonia for sale. As long as the village supports them, they require only the cost of tools and a few odds and ends.

Posted by: Thain Feb 25 2007, 02:16 AM

For what its worth, piracy occurs in the Carribean today, not just the horn of Africa.

Carribean pirates tend to be drug runners or human trafficers who happen across a rich American in a pleasure yatch, and decide to pull the nautical equivelent of carjacking a rich guy's Mercedes. Infrequent, mind you, but fairly profitable.

Beleive it or not, back in... oh... `03, I think it was, some thing similar happened on Lake Michigan. Drunk idiots decide to wave handguns at a nice Canadian couple, and steal their cabin cruiser... the Canadians radio the USCG from their dingy, and the drunk idiots get to stare down a fully armed cutter a few hours later.

I'm not exactly certain what became of those morons, but they were charged with piracy. I think we turned them over to Canada.

Here's a safe boating tip: do not run from the Coast Guard. You'll lose.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 25 2007, 03:28 AM

Personally, if I were rich enough to own a yacht I'd cut out the middle man and just mount a phalanx on its bow.

Posted by: Thain Feb 25 2007, 12:54 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 25 2007, 02:55 PM

You can't shoot down missiles with a handgun.

Posted by: Butterblume Feb 25 2007, 03:23 PM

You actually can shoot down missles with a handgun, but I wouldn't depend on it;).

Posted by: ornot Feb 25 2007, 03:31 PM

If someone's launching missiles at your pleasure boat, you're pretty much fragged anyway.

Posted by: Banaticus Feb 26 2007, 06:54 AM

As someone else pointed out, most of the juicy targets will be owned by mega corps which have one awesome advantage that pirates didn't have to contend with in bygone years -- satellites.

Remember, if someone isn't looking at the video camera in real time, if they're watching recorded footage, invisibility doesn't work. So, once you find the ship where the ship was, you extrapolate how fast it can go and where it might be -- then you fly a couple mages onto a destroyer and they set off hunting the tall ship down, constantly checking the recorded satellite images (which could be updated every five minutes or so).

Posted by: Mistwalker Feb 26 2007, 07:03 AM

Hich level spirit concealment would help even with the satelite and the wake left by the ship

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 02:22 PM

Posted by: Thain Feb 26 2007, 02:55 PM

The Caribbean Sea is 2,754,000 km² (1,063,000 square miles) in area....

The KH-12 (aka Keyhole) spy satellite can take images every five seconds, which is basically about as "real time" as it gets. Ground resolution is probably 0.15 meters (6 inches) or better. (This is all from Jane's Defence Weekly, fwiw.)

The USCGC Eagle (WX-327) is the only tall ship that ever sees regular use by the US military, and is a pretty good basis for our fictional flying dutchman. She's capable of 17 kt (31 km/h) under sail, has a waterline length of 234 ft (71.0 m) and a beam of 39 ft 1 in (11.9 m).

Let's round things off a bit, and call it 70 m x 12 m. That's 840 m² or 0.84 km²

Now, I have no doubt that a KH-12 satellite could, in fact, detect a 840 m² object from orbit. This things can read license plates, after all...

The problem is finding a moving object.

The Eagle is capable of moving at a speed of 8.6 meters per second, which means it moves greater than its own length in under 10 seconds. The spy satelite can only capture an image every 5 seconds, so it has to be capturing wide enough area that the ship stays in the frame for several seconds.

But, this gets tricky when you consider that the ship takes up less than 0.0003% of the Caribbean's surface area. Let's assume that you have an idea of which 1% of the sea that the ship is in... you've only reduced things to the point where the ship is 0.003% of the search area... and it's moving.

It is very, very hard to track a moving naval fleet by satellite, unless you are monitoring transponders, SIGINT, heat, or something else...

Frankly, if you wantto find one ship in the Carribean, your best bet is some Coasties in a helo, with good eyesight and powerful binoculars... and have them sit between where you think the ship is coming from, and where you think its heading. This is how we find 12' speedboats loaded with cocaine... and we're not 100% successful.

BIG Ocean, tiny ship.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 03:18 PM

840m^2 is 0.00084km^2 or 0.0000000003% of the surface area of the Caribbean (or 0.00000003% of 1/100th the surface of the Caribbean). So, uhh, yeah, searching it by taking pictures of where it might be is not a good idea with modern technology.

How you see spy satellites working in the 2070s, though, is another matter. Are their capabilities described in any canonical SR literature?

I assume discussing different ways of physically defending the ships from the conventional threats posed by the sorts of vessels and equipment mentioned here would be pointless since the whole point is using lots and lots of magic for all aspects of pirating, right?

Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 26 2007, 03:24 PM

Let's also not forget the wonderful effects of cloud cover when it comes to finding a wooden ship; it's not going to have a major infrared signature, which means that you're going to have to search in the visual spectrum, which means that the ship can hid underneath cloud cover--which an air spirit would undoubted be happy to provide.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 26 2007, 05:26 PM

Funny enough the best way to find our Flying Dutchman is to track it astrally. Thing would shine like a beacon.

This monstrosity is HARD to find and you're not going to be able to stop it.

Best case scenario: it is cruising along at the 15 knots that the Eagle is capable of. With a force 3 spirits that becomes 45 knots and with a force 6 spirit that becomes an incredible 90 knots! According to Wikipedia the current Iroquois-class destroyers used by the RCN can go a max of 29 knots and the proposed Zumwalt-class destroyers in the USN are only capable of a 30.3 knot speed.

Also, if it were a Water spirit how would the movement power work? Would the ship be able to submerge like the Flying Dutchman did in the movie?

So the Gorch Fock-class of barques, made with wood instead of steel, would probably weight the same since you use the lost weight in the steel-wood conversion to add a gun deck. So displacement at full load is 1510 tons or 151,000 kilograms. It would be an Enchanting + Magic (2*3=6, 1 day) extended test to prepare the ship as a vessel and would require 15,100 radicals or 30,200 refined reagents. Hmm...that's actually pretty expensive unless your GM is willing to make a "regular wood" category instead of having to use rare hardwoods.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 06:07 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 07:25 PM

Posted by: Cheops Feb 26 2007, 07:51 PM

Posted by: Thain Feb 26 2007, 08:06 PM

The U.S. Navy's Mk-50 advanced lightweight torpedo... one of their fastest, for use against the faster, deeper-diving and more sophisticated submarines... has a speed of ~40kn (74 km/h).

Our Flying Dutchman is moving at 90 kn, more than twice the speed of the torpedo. (And, incidentally, the same wind speed of a Category 2 hurricane.) Thus, our Dutchman may simply outpace any torpedoes until the batteries on the darn thing die!

Now, an anti-ship missile stands an excellent chance, but targeting is going to be a real wench. Every modern navy does everything in their power to reduce their ships radar signatures and also take measures to reduce their infra-red and acoustic signatures. A tall-ship, with no running diesel engine, has effectively zero infra-red or acoustic telltales, and their radar signature is going to be fairly low too. Frankly, radar sucks for finding ships from other ships... you've heard pilots in the movies talk about "flying under the radar?" Guess why? It doesn't work great close to the surface... and guess where ships are?

Further, there is nothing to stop our Dutchman and her crew of magical cyberpirates from employing any other the dozens of anti-ship missile counter measures available. Anti-missile missiles, anti-aircraft guns, close-in weapon systems (e.g. the phalanx mentioned above), jammers, and good old fashioned chaff... Plus, you've got your shadowrun options like anti-missile lasers, chaff/decoy drones, low-force spirits, barrier spells, and so on.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 08:19 PM

If you can't afford a couple of dozen thousand nuyen for protection in a pirate-heavy area, then I guess all talk of satellites etc. is pointless. The merchant vessels wouldn't have a single guard, and no one would give a fuck if they went missing.

If someone actually wants to protect their shipping, small missiles are a plenty cheap alternative that allow you to safely sink any smaller vessels at 5km+. Considering the cost of having at least 6-8 trained safety personnel on each ship, 100k per sunk pirate boat ain't bad. M2HBs wouldn't be much cheaper, unless you have to sink dozens or hundreds boats.

I'll go ahead and assume that a Force 6 spirit is not enough to protect you from weaponry that will poke big holes into more than 10" of armor steel.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 26 2007, 08:26 PM

If you're hitting large scale merchant ships and such, those are multi-million dollar investments. If the area is started to get bad with pirates, the corporations in the Srun world will do something about it. So they use up a few hundred thousand nuyens to take out a pirate problem, ok, they'll be gone for awhile, worth it more than losing millions in nuyen.

If the pirates cause too much havok, why wouldn't the corp and gov't form a taskforce to deal with the pirates?

Posted by: Thain Feb 26 2007, 08:42 PM

First, http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/666/zz5kx.jpg is not an anti-missile missile. Now, we didn't ever actual use missiles for anything in my USCG days (although, there are Coasties who do), but my gut tells me that is probably a cruise missile.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Loading_AIM-7.jpg/300px-Loading_AIM-7.jpg is a AIM-7M Sparrow air-to-air missile missile being loaded, I use this pic for scale. Because the Sea Sparrow is, for all purposes that matter here, basically the same dang missile. It looks more like http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/7812/images/missile.jpg when launched. Not ideal on a masted ship, but really no more dangerous than cannons. Now, the sensor systems needed to make it work are very, very bulky... but they were designed in the 1960's/70's... for ships that were built in the 1940's.

In 2070, we can fit much more powerful sensor systems into a standard passenger sedan... Ask you local Rigger about his Eurocar Westwind.

But, I really think a CIWS is the better bet. Much more cost effective, and just as reliable.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 08:55 PM

AE is right to a degree. The ship certainly wouldn't want to mount any launchers or ECM gear or what not. That increases their signature. However, the freighter might. The launcher is $5k. The cheapest missile is $350k (although it's a torpedo, so it wouldn't affect our example boat since its too slow). The next effective missile is $450k. This isn't a small amount of money, and I have no idea how much it costs to maintain them and what sort of skills and cyber the human pilots need to use it. Assuming the only cost is the initial purchase, and we can be fairly certain it'll destroy what it hits, it would perhaps make sense to load half a dozen on super-tankers, and maybe two on smaller ships, in addition to the small-arms. But that's still a lot of cash, and not something they'd spend idly. It would be worth figuring out how likely a missile is to actually hit the ship given someone of below-average skill (probably a 2, no more than a 3, but likely a VCR 1 or 2).

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 08:59 PM

The RIM-66 SM-2 Block III isn't an anti-missile missile? Well, I guess the Navy doesn't come out and call them exactly that, so have it your way.

If you believe the sorts of sensors capable of identifying, tracking and accurately guiding in missiles on high-supersonic, stealthy, ECM-capable objects in extremely short time frames are tiny and ultra-cheap, I don't see what the problem with finding the Dutchman is.

Cannon-based CIWSs are pretty far from reliable against modern (let alone 2070s) anti-ship missiles. They would be great for reducing the Dutchman to kindling, however.

nezumi: SR4 doesn't have any equivalents to the M-GM Outlaw missiles from Rigger 3? Those have range of 10km, have the same Intelligence as AIMs and SAMs (ie. are among the most accurate missiles in the game), are plenty capable of sinking boats, and cost, at most, 35,000 each. [Any of the prices I've discussed above are in real-life terms with $1 = 1 , BTW.]

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 09:10 PM

I was looking at Rigger 3's anti-ship missiles, not SR4.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 09:12 PM

Ah. Then M-GM Outlaw Block IIIs it is.

Posted by: Thain Feb 26 2007, 09:28 PM

The RIM-66 SM-2 is a medium range surface-to-air missile, at least, if my copy of Jane's is to be beleived.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 26 2007, 09:32 PM

Right. And the air targets it is primarily meant to engage include anti-ship missiles, just like with the RIM-7.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 27 2007, 12:35 AM

The real problem with using missiles is that unless you are talking about point-and-click targeting, which I don't think you guys are, then you have to be able to get a sensor lock on the target.

According to the table on p 162, without house ruling anything, the best modifier that your sensors get is +0 to see the ship (+3 for large, -3 for Electric powered/metahuman).

You need to see the Dutchman from a ways off in order to have time to react before it gets too close. Say that it is using a sat uplink so that Signal isn't a factor. Merchantmen don't normally post look-outs but since they're in the Carib and the Dutchman might be around they do but not actively perceiving since it is hard to stare at a radar screen all day (+0). The Dutchman is concealed (-6). If you are relying on the drone brain you have at most 6 dice. If it is a non-adept you probably aren't looking at more than 7 dice (and those are completely maxed out stats for perception). If the Dutchman is trying to hide then you are rolling that against 8 dice (since we maxed out merchantman we max out Dutchman - Infiltration 7 + Reaction 7 - 6 (double handling penalty of yacht)).

Keep in mind that this is maxing out the crews for sensor warfare. That's highly unlikely but even then the Dutchman still has the advantage.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 27 2007, 12:43 AM

The Pirates handbook did say that Corps expected to lose some cargo to pirates and didn't much worry so long as the priates didn't try to steal the whole ship, badly damage or sink the ship or kill the crew, or a combination thereof.

To deal with the Dutchman, a Corp coudl mount light naval cannon, like 3" guns, on their freighter. They have a pretty good range and can carry a lot of ammo. To get around the concealment problem, have a mage on the bridge using astral perception. They coudl give a a bear and rough range to the Dutchman and then give adjustments to walk the rounds into the ship. Keep in ming that the ship might be concealed in the real world but will still stand out on the astral.

For that matter, the Corp could have a couple of gunboats tailing a frieghter that are concealed by spirits. The Dutchman makes its move and the gunboats attack.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 27 2007, 12:59 AM

The gunboat thing isn't too effective unless you know which freighter it will attack (set up an ambush by feeding false info or such not). Mounting the guns is probably the best bet but you'll need a good gunner/mage tandem to walk in the fire because of how fast the Dutchman is going (upwards of 1.5 miles per minute).

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 27 2007, 01:12 AM

Long range missile combat in Rigger 3 does not use the same system of attack resolution as most combat in SR3, allowing (in an uncharacteristic display of realism) the missiles to find their actual target only just before impact.

Assuming extended vehicle combat rules for the 4th Ed function at all similarly, this allows a missile to be fired when you have a good idea where the target might be, and then a rigger or AI steers the missile according to updated information either from the missile's own sensors or any other sensors in the Weapons Control Network. All it takes is one sensor in the network to get a glimpse of the target while the missile is within one CT's movement (~3-7km with a supersonic missile).

For a merchant vessel defending itself against the Dutchman, there'd probably be no WCN (unless those have become a lot cheaper since the early 2060s). On the other hand, the Dutchman wouldn't be hiding and there'd be direct LoS. No idea how that affects the sensor tests in SR4, but in SR3 it helps a lot. If nothing else, that and the very short range (for naval combat) would make manual gunnery reasonably effective.

Posted by: Fix-it Feb 27 2007, 02:23 AM

any pirate worth his salt would use a surplus Chinese or Russian boomer submarine.

get rid of the missile launchers and you have plenty of space for cargo, launching raids, etc.

no worries about the satellite either, even on thermal imaging. go deep and you disapear.

topping off the tanks might be difficult, to say the least...

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 27 2007, 03:04 AM

Posted by: Thain Feb 27 2007, 03:07 AM

The missiles the RIM series are designed to shoot down are things like Scuds, afaik. I'm talking about much smaller missiles.

Posted by: FlakJacket Feb 27 2007, 04:45 AM

Since people have been debating the whole looking for the ship visually by satellite thing, how would something like the old Soviet Naval Space Reconnaissance and Targeting System (MKRT) - what NATO called RORSAT - satellites fair? IIRC they were paired with ELINT systems so if they used any fancy electronics they got caught but even if they went silent then radar could still spot them. By having the radar in low earth orbit you neatly sidestep the whole horizon problem.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 27 2007, 09:56 AM

Posted by: nezumi Feb 27 2007, 02:40 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 27 2007, 04:06 PM

Depends on what you're protecting, the largest container ship may carry good worth up to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship I'm sure they can splurge for higher priority ones.

Heck, don't put on a corporate mage, hire 'contractors' for short term protection, what would a runner/merc team contract be? Give them free room and board for a few months and some good nuyen.

Posted by: Cheops Feb 27 2007, 08:15 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Feb 27 2007, 09:14 PM

Oh, was reading some stuff on the Savage Worlds forums and they had one thread about tramp freighters/ship based games. One guy made a pdf file about http://home.earthlink.net/~djackson24/TrampSteamer.PDF (from the pulp 1930's era) for gaming. Thought, y'all might be interested as a possible 'target' for your dutchman. Yeah, you'll have to do some modification but it does have some interesting info, especially for the smaller/independent merchant ships.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 27 2007, 10:36 PM

Posted by: Cheops Feb 27 2007, 11:20 PM

We've also danced around the obvious problem that the Flying Dutchman could always join one of the established pirate gangs and suddenly it isn't just a lone wolf but part of a fully functioning network or pirates.

Posted by: Thain Feb 28 2007, 03:50 AM

And who's to say that the shaman/mage who created our Dutchman is even interested in pirating mere chattle?

Kidnap for ransom, for example, is an extremely profitable crime engaged in bypirates throughout the world today. Nap the executive vice-president of a AA megacorporation off his pleasure cruise, and net a few hundred thousand nuyen selling him back.

Further, an Awakened villain - such as I assume our Dutchman wouldbe captained by - can have all sorts of other motives. Maybe (s)he just wants to capture some swarthy sailor-types to use for his/her own twisted ends... shedim, blood magic, insect spirits... who knows.

Heck, it needn't even be a capital-t Threat Tradition: a hermetic mage or similar could do all this, and be scouring the Carribean for some lost artefact, or something, and willing to sinkanyone that gets in his way. A bit of piracy when the opportunity arises could just help pay the bills.

Or, with a radical eco-shaman and some TerraFirst! type crew, we could have a sort of reverse Captain Nemo. Nemo, as you'll recall, used incredibly advanced technology to sink warships of all nations to protect the oceans, and in a twisted plan tobring about world peace. Our Dutchman could be the mirror image: a shamanic Captain Nemo using advanced magic to protect the sea, and punish the corporations who've dispoiled Gaia....

Posted by: Cheops Feb 28 2007, 09:35 PM

/signed.

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 01:44 AM

The most effective weapons against pirates would probably be neurostun, slip spray and means to lock yourself in for an extended period, while your drones mop the wannabe boarders up.
This way the boarding party has the choice, being shot to shreds after being stunned or while slipping around the deck.....

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 1 2007, 02:50 AM

The most effective defense against pirates is a picat. The second best defense is being a submarine. The pirates have to board in order to capture the loot and that can be very complicated if the target ship is underwater.

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 03:20 AM

true, but i believe subs are not as cost effective as container ships....

Posted by: nezumi Mar 1 2007, 02:06 PM

I don't know what a picat is, but it sounds very tasty.

A submarine is horribly inefficient when it comes to hauling cargo. The necessary crew size and skillsets, equipment and fuel costs and legal hassles go waaay up, the speed, efficiency, cargo-capacity and safety go way down. At that point, I think it would be cheaper to just use a jet.

Posted by: kigmatzomat Mar 1 2007, 04:23 PM

This sounds like a weapon in search of a target. What we have is a relatively lightly armed vehicle with high stealth and speed but little survivability otherwise. It has a largish crew complement with limited ability to steal cargo. It can work in conjunction with smaller craft but the lesser craft will suffer the same kinds of limitations.

This leads me to believe there are two primary roles for the Ghostship: hostage-taking and hijacking. Hostages take little in the way of cargo space and can be done for either profit (selling a trained navigator back to the company) or terror (making the crews vanish). Hijacking for profit would require targeting pleasure ships or smaller cargo vessels that are easier to move on the open market. Terrorist hijacking would involve sinking the vessel, possibly along with the crew, with the intent to drive away all shipping from the area or stir up troubles. It could be combined with profit by giving tipping off local salvage operations.

I'll point out that arming merchant ships with missles is a good way to start a war. All it takes is a cagey individual with enough EW gear to make an innocent vessel appear to be a pirate so they get shot by a third party. I doubt the cargo vessels would be that adept at dealing with sensor ghosts.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 04:32 PM

It would take quite a bit of electronic warfare gear indeed, or else hacking directly into the sensor and weapon control systems (in which case the hacker could simply launch the weapons themselves anyway). Seems unlikely any merchant vessel under normal circumstances would fire their defensive weaponry except when under a direct threat, which would require 1) an ID of the target; 2) a clear declaration of hostility by the target -- e.g. repeated commands to surrender or be fired upon, incoming fire, etc.; 3) failed warnings.

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 05:40 PM

speaking of weapons on civil ships, i saw a report about a nonlethal weapon system to repel pirates, being installed on luxury liners such as the Queen Mary 2.

still, in order to protect merchants, i think the most vulnerable part of the pirates is the flesh and bone boarding party. There are numerous ways to deal with them and the corps are really experienced in it, since they deploy the same systems to keep their installations secure.

so taking on big merchants would be similar to land based B&E.

Smaller merchants are a different story, but honestly, what would keep the captains of these vessels from forming a convoy and hire one Merc ship to protect them all..?

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 1 2007, 05:49 PM

Here's the part I don't get: why use a wooden ship backed up with magic when you can already use a metal hull that is backed up with Magic?

Seriously, you could bust out a cast-off light container freighter left over from before the awakening (which goes at ~16 knots, or ~30KPH) and then conjure a Force 6 Loa of Agwe and pump that up to 180 KPH, which will get you from Tortuga to the Nicaragua Canal in 8 hours.

There is no reason to use a wooden galleon, because a crappy 20th century vessel can benefit from all the same magical augmentation, and goes faster, carries more cargo, is more resilent to attack, fits in better with normal ocean traffic, and is better suited to mounting modern weaponry.

Yes, the available technology and magic of 2071 is such that you could probably pull off some successful piracy with a galleon. But you'd still be way better off going into a mothball fleet of merchant marines and retrofitting a less archaic steel transport.

-Frank

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 1 2007, 05:55 PM

I believe that there was two main reasons for using wooden hulled vessels:

1. The resources are available in the carribean.

2. Harder to detect with a few sensor systems

Posted by: Cheops Mar 1 2007, 06:04 PM

A metal ship is a lot more costly and difficult to build.

A wooden ship can possibly be made by the mage with help from spirits.

The fact that it is A) wood, and B) handmade makes it a lot more open to the various enchanting methods compared to an industrial built ship.

The style factor.

Free Spirits in the Carib might take more kindly to helping a tall ship as opposed to a more modern ship.

Sensors have more trouble detecting a sail powered wooden ship. Unless you are talking about using a metal hull but still being sail powered.

It is much easier and cheaper to maintain and supply a wooden sail ship. Can make moderate repairs by yourself in an isolated cove (unless you are talking about careening the ship or other structural work that requires a dry dock). Metal ship has a hard time doing that. Don't need fuel, just ropes, wood, and cloth.

Wooden ship gets hardened armor once it is possessed anyway so it is still pretty resilient.

I could keep going if you want?

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 06:06 PM

didnt they use Oak and similar woods for these ships? Are u sure these woods grow in numbers in the carib?

Also, a simple plastic hull like they use on todays yachts is as hard to detect, i believe, and it is cheaper...

Think about it, in the SR world synthetic substitutes are cheaper than the 'real' stuff even when it comes to food. So wood is probably going to be pretty expensive.

The only real advantage about a old wooden warship is that it is very hard to sink, but then, it is pretty easily burned or blown up.....

Posted by: knasser Mar 1 2007, 06:09 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 1 2007, 06:21 PM

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 06:23 PM

another thing learned......

Posted by: nezumi Mar 1 2007, 06:25 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 06:30 PM

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 1 2007, 06:33 PM

Posted by: X-Kalibur Mar 1 2007, 06:33 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 06:38 PM

Posted by: maeel Mar 1 2007, 06:56 PM

Posted by: nezumi Mar 1 2007, 07:31 PM

Posted by: DireRadiant Mar 1 2007, 07:37 PM

Plastic Ship and Chrome Men!....

Nope, I think Wooden Ships and Iron Men just sounds better.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 07:49 PM

What is the "price range" of this proposed wooden ship, BTW? You can probably get an obsolete 1,500-ton corvette or patrol craft for a $one or two million.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 1 2007, 08:02 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 1 2007, 08:08 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 1 2007, 08:13 PM

That's what we need, something out of Disney's Tailspin.

We'll have a Carribean where werebear aircaptains fly their cargo plane on courier missions throughout the islands barely keeping their business running, all the while being chased by werewolf sky pirates based out of their zeppelin.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 08:14 PM

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 1 2007, 08:21 PM

It'll be a magic net. Or a giant whaling harpoon.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 08:28 PM

A suction cup harpoon, maybe?

Finally bothered to look at the accompanying "after" picture of the Harpoon impact I linked above. http://web.umr.edu/~rogersda/military_service/Harpoon%20damage.jpg

Posted by: nezumi Mar 1 2007, 08:36 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 08:45 PM

If it was the first, you could just as well get a modern stealthy guided missile corvette. Although if you haven't got trained craftsmen, is the free spirit designing the ship and providing constant guidance and oversight on every step of building it?

Either way there's an opportunity cost which would give us some sort of theoretical price range. For example, how much money could the medicine man of a small village make by engaging in truck trafficking, kidnapping and various minor crime for the time and with all the resources it takes to build this ship (including one or more powerful spirits, a large work force, and the other factors of production)?

Posted by: nezumi Mar 1 2007, 09:12 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 09:25 PM

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 1 2007, 09:35 PM

Posted by: Thane36425 Mar 1 2007, 10:10 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 11:16 PM

Posted by: Cheops Mar 1 2007, 11:18 PM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 1 2007, 11:45 PM

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 2 2007, 12:01 AM

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 2 2007, 12:49 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 12:52 AM

Just saying if you want the game to look like a cartoon, why not go whole hog?

Posted by: Thane36425 Mar 2 2007, 01:07 AM

Posted by: Thane36425 Mar 2 2007, 01:10 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 01:16 AM

Posted by: maeel Mar 2 2007, 01:28 AM

interestingly artillery cannons appear to be implemented again on modern warships..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F125_class_frigate

Posted by: Thane36425 Mar 2 2007, 01:30 AM

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 01:44 AM

I believe that test missile didn't have a warhead in it. Yeah, more than a ton of metal, plastic and rocket fuel at 280m/s (920fps) tends to hurt. [Edit]No idea how much that missile actually weighed. Could be anywhere from 1000kg to 2800kg on impact, depending on exact model, range, and what parts were missing or replaced and with what. Still, damn heavy.[/Edit]

As I said, modern, mechanical point-detonating fuzes commonly have an actual delay of something like 2 milliseconds. They can be anything from hugely sensitive to requiring the aforementioned foot of armor steel. For an anti-ship missile, not likely to run into any natural obstacles before touching its target, it can be set to be very sensitive indeed -- although it can also be set such that it actually only arms once it has found its target and is close to impact.

This with current tech. In the 2070s, you'd want the detonators to be accurate to the microsecond and programmable on the fly, so that the missile can identify the exact type of the ship (or other target) it's attacking, choose the best angle of attack, and delay the detonation to the point where the warhead has penetrated to the most vulnerable area of the hull.

Posted by: maeel Mar 2 2007, 02:19 AM

however modern missiles still seem to fail quite often, i found numerous reports about exocet missiles hitting their target without detonating....
one might wonder if that was because of bad quality or irregular operation... still they caused heavy damage due to fires from propellant.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 02:21 AM

The Exocet will be around 100 years old by 2070.

Posted by: maeel Mar 2 2007, 02:25 AM

sure, i was just amazed how often it failed... i'd never thought it would happen that often...

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 2 2007, 02:30 AM

And if people are wondering, the Exocet is 15.4 feet (4.7m) in length, wingspan of 3.6 feet (1.1 m), has a launch weight of 670 kg (1477 lb) of which 165 kg (363.7 lb) is the warhead and speed of 315 m/s (704.6 mph).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet

So if it fails to explode, that'll still hurt.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 02:32 AM

I agree it's rather odd. I don't see any particular reason why an anti-ship missile should be any more prone to such failure than AGMs, and on a quick search no similar failures come up with, say, Harpoons. Maybe it's just some particular oddity of the Exocet.

More pretty pictures http://www.ausairpower.net/Warship-Hits.html.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 2 2007, 08:08 AM

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 2 2007, 08:43 AM

Keep it civil and shiny kiddos

Posted by: Crakkerjakk Mar 2 2007, 08:54 AM

If we do does that make us Big Damn Heroes?

(You asked for it with the shiny ref.)

As an aside, Cheops, even assuming you're only going up against pleasure yachts, tramp freighters, and other non military folk, it's the sixth world. Everyones armed. And paranoid. I mean, the tramp cruiser may not have it's own fleet of attack choppers, but the yacht may have some light ship to ship weaponry, since it's so fricken expensive and the weapons aren't THAT much more. Plus, as soon as the Dutchman becomes too successful, you're gonna get people trying to hunt it down. It may not be easy to find, but it seems to me that the dutchman only really works in a naval force as a privateer, and then only on light merchant ships. It might be kinda cool as a awakened threat type dealie, (return of the Queen Anne's Revenge, captained by a free spirit that claims to be Edward Teach or summat,) or as a cottage industry for deep green eco-freaks out of amazonia, but again, it seems to me that it is insanely expensive compared to a equivalent boat that uses tech. I mean, sure, it could work, but there wouldn't be much of a market outside those that can build it themselves and rich playboy deep greens who want to say that they pirate "old school". Plus it's really expensive to replace when a coast guard cutter puts a shell through it or even hit it with a quad-50. And eventually, pirates do tend to run afoul with the law, or even worse, bigger, nastier pirates.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 2 2007, 09:12 AM

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 2 2007, 11:31 AM

I like Cheops idea, but think it would be something special that would only be taken out once in a while. The main reason for that, is so that no one knows if it really exist, is a legend, a magical phenomen, etc...

Would it be possible to use magic / alchemistry to make wood fire proof? or at least as heat resistant as metal? Sustained spell?

The reason I am asking, is that I was thinking more along the line of PT boats, and having wooden/magical/alchemical engines that burn biodiesel.

If not, could you use fire spirits to flash heat water so that it could be used as a jet, for propulsion, then have the movement power used? No moving parts, a very small amount of metal, if any at all. This idea came from the movie Hunt for the Red October, where the submarine used that type of propulsion system.

To make them more deadly, have them be submersible, not submarines, but able to "sink", to hide without a magical blazing beacon. Even if magic was used, it would be hard to see due to being underwater. I could see limited movement, using the Jet, mostly to be able to get to the hide out thru an underwater tunnel?

The idea of using PT boats would be for kidnapping, or highjacking. They would not be useful to steal/transport cargo. Well, unless you are talking about very small and valuable cargo, say oricalcum, or such.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 2 2007, 12:13 PM

Posted by: Crusher Bob Mar 2 2007, 01:35 PM

The addition to cannon and/or MLRS to new ships is an attempt to provide ships with more ability to support troops on land via artillery fire, not to shoot at other ships with.

Posted by: Mal-2 Mar 2 2007, 03:08 PM

Seems to me that a wooden-hulled sailing vessel is probably no worse off, defense wise, than any other non-military vessel. As far as I understand it, modern fiberglass and plastic hulls aren't substantially sturdier than old-school wooden hulls. They're just a heck of a lot cheaper, and have less problems with hull fouling.

Modern pirates don't generally use military grade vessels, and can't stand up to a naval ship. As far as I recall the pirates described in Cyberpirates generally can't go toe-to-toe with a naval vessel either. I don't think the Flying Dutchman is any worse than a converted civilian yacht or cargo vessel for piracy.

The biggest disadvantage to a sailing ship, of course, is the reliance on local wind conditions for propulsion. You can mitigate that somewhat with magic. The biggest advantage is that it would have a lower Object Resistance, but I don't really see a whole lot of uses for that. I suppose it makes it feasible to use Vehicle Mask on your ship (you only need 6 successes to disguise your ship from another ship, instead of 8 to affect a modern vessel).

I like the idea though.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 2 2007, 04:51 PM

Ship length contributes to speed. Ship mass contributes to carrying capacity.

Wooden ships are heavier and slower for their length than metal ships. They are taller and thus make easier targets. Contrary to what has been repeatedly thrown around on this thread - a wooden ship is easier to spot with "sensors" than a metal ship of the same mass - it has a higher profile and is larger.

Wooden ships are more expensive to maintain, requiring a constant influx of new wood, pitch, and rope just to keep from being disolved by he sea.

With the singular exception of fuel consumption, a wooden ship falls in every category to a steel one. It's slower, carries less cargo, has a larger sillouette, costs more to make, costs more to maintain, requires a larger crew, and is weaker in a fight.

Unless you somehow cannot get your hands on synthetic diesel fuel to save your life (but can somehow get your hands on oak and pine tar regularly), there's no damn reason at all to go for a galleon when there are already scrap fleets of steel vessels that you could just appropriate and retrofit.

Any and all statements about building a galleon "yourself" make no sense to me because galleon production crews have historically been huge industrial affairs with hundreds of workers.

-Frank

Posted by: kigmatzomat Mar 2 2007, 05:04 PM

I don't have the Pirates book but if this is true:

Posted by: fool Mar 3 2007, 09:46 PM

Has anyone read the liveship trilogy by Robin Hobb? It's a series that has ships with sentient and moving figureheads. It's an excellent trilogy thats part of a nine book series. It's my fave trilogy of al time. The ships however, are particularly awesome, being able to align themselves witht he water and wind to move faster than anything else in teh water (of course they weren't going up against deisel powered destroyers.)
I ran an adventure back in sr3 where the team was smuggled into England by the Purple pearl. One of the PCs was Capt. Jack Sparrow (natch) but didn't know if he was actually him or delusional. It was fun and wooden ships seem like they would have a lower signal since a major part of signal is noise. Of course the purple pearl (part of Jack's pirate family) had loads of magical support spirits to copnceal, spells for vehicle mask, spirits to speed it along etc.