Pirates gaining new crew from boarding actions would make a lot of sense in a harsher setting. A sailor in the British navy was usually forced into service, barely paid, and had a boring and difficult life. Pirates on the other hand got equal share of pay and could just kinda do whatever they wanted. It was freedom, a sailor could hop to a new nation and make a new life with his stolen riches instead of dying of scurvy or something
I remember this from a sci-fi book I read years ago. Only a small percentage of people could even physically withstand "hyperspace". Consequently most ships were chronically undermanned and Spacers were always in demand. If a ship surrendered to you giving the captured spacers (the non-officers anyway) a billet on your ship was standard procedure, as was them accepting it. It wasn't uncommon for even a naval warship to have crew (non-officers at least) from 5 or 6 different nations aboard, sometimes even from the nation you were at war with, and nobody thought anything of it. A Spacer's loyalty was to the "spacer's guild" as a whole and to the individual ship you happened to be on at the moment.
I used this concept fir a specific group of pirates called blood raiders. They reside in one astroid feild terrain to lure ships in to steal supplies and crew. Other groups were just outlaws or crime syndicates that modified public ships with paints and anything they wanted. One syndicate called the eclipsed had their own ship designs since they owned a planet and did anything for profit.
@@Generalphoenix8438 "I used this concept fir a specific group of pirates called blood raiders. " You might want to look up EVE Online's Blood Raiders.
Hey, you’re mentioning Starsector a lot! It’s great! I let the developers know about your Dreadnoughts video and they were tickled pink! Maybe you should talk about the various varieties of space magic sometime, like SS’s drive field and AM canisters any dude can carry. I think it compares favorably against settings like Star Wars where the space magic is explicit but unexplained and inconsistent.
Elite Dangerous showcased this very well. Pirates came, scanned your cargo, asked you to drop some of it since your ship was no match for theirs, they pick up what small amount they can carry and they leave
Used to roleplay as a pirate/privateer way back when. Pull traders from SC, ask for a donation or payment and I'd escort them to the target station. Community goals were great for that.
@@boxinthefield In a late-90s game called "Terminus" someone in the most powerful type of ship camped outside a main space station and charged people to enter. I told them I would do it so they wouldn't be suspicious as I dive-bombed them with a missile that heavily damaged them and a friend finished them off.
Sometimes if you have a high combat rank and a good ship they'll fly up to you, scan you and be like "oh, uh sorry, I'll be on my way now...". Had that happen once while I was hunting pirates at a hazardous resource extraction zone.
Shoutout to Moretsu Pirates for a fun take. Essentially all pirates are holdovers from an Independance war a few centuries past. They all have letters of marque from their respective governments and will act as a military force if there's a war. But during peace, they raid cruise ships.....as a form of entertainment. Anything they take is covered by insurance companies....that employ them to raid said cruise ships...on a schedule.
I love how Starsector and some of it's mods have pirate ships often being random scrap and junk from dead ships that's thrown together to have as many guns as possible. Absolute favorite type of ship design. Or lack thereof.
In Star Wars home made junk ships are called uglies. They are usually flying coffins, with some being just barely average and some just barely functioning.
Yooooo fellow Starsector enjoyer! I like some of the pirate designs, in that they’re just transport ships with their mounts converted to weapons from cargo (like the colossus mk2 or the atlas mk2) as well as their fleets consisting of lots of smaller vessels (which are really fun to bulldoze through with Flak and fighters). Honestly, a big part of why I dislike the Legio Infernalis from the Tahlan Shipworks mod is that they’re far too strong militarily, given that they’re a pirate raider faction that routinely pisses off every other faction in the sector. And yet despite that they have some really strong ships and can outfit most of them with Alpha-core equivalent AI. They feel too organised for a pirate/raider faction. Then again I suppose I’m not really in a position to cast all that much judgement on account of enjoying the UAF capitals (especially the semibreves)
A pirate base growing into a colony all it's own makes sense. You start with a simple place to do repairs in a remote corner of the galaxy where you stow some surplus supplies and swag. This grows to some basic infrastructure. Then you leave behind someone to guard said stash with some weapons as well as some habitat modules and sensor satellites. You work with another crew and show them this location and let them use it as long as they pay and play nice. A few more people learn about this and you get more customers. Since your all pirates here, you can also trade stolen goods you might need. You also get a small freighter to travel to other places to fence stolen goods. Facilities expand, including proper docks, workshops to get fix components and eventually a bar where crews can mingle and exchange gossip, as well as a place to make things a bit nicer for the crew. These require more crew, which means more life support and more supplies. Adding food production capacity can provide not only food but also oxygen and deal with human waste. Expand it enough and the bar can produce it's own booze for sale and eventually sell booze. The repair shops grow to include machine shops where new spare parts can be fabricated so you are not 100% dependant on stealing or buying every single nut and bolt. To keep the bar safe, you hire a few bouncers and eventually a few guards for internal security. Eventually a few kids get born at this remote port, which will lead to a school. You need more people to fix the life support systems who need things, so you get an informal market were people barter and then shops. In the end, you have a productive settlement grown from pirate activity.
And as it expands, it starts to have a larger and larger "civilian" population who aren't really pirates themselves, but who run industries that the pirates depend on. Because these are so important, the pirate captains know they shouldn't antagonize them too much, so they lay down frameworks of rules for how the pirate crews interact with the civilians, establishing an early code of laws. As the pirate fleets and their settlement grow, shipping traffic through the region isn't enough to fully sustain them on piracy, so their industries continue to grow, making more and more of what they need through mining, farming, and manufacturing. Eventually they realize that exporting the goods they produce could be a new source of profit, so the pirates, who by this point have been operating for decades and have a level of experience and professionalism rivaling some navies, establish safe zones where merchants can trade without fear of attack, so long as the pirates get a modest cut of the profit. Soon enough the pirate navies are spending more time patrolling the safe lanes and enforcing customs fees than they are committing acts of piracy, and before you know it, the pirate base has become a nation state all its own.
I quite like the concept of the anime Mouretsu Pirates. Pirates are basically just a scam/tourist attraction to get the insurance to pay the shipping companies money.
In that case, it's also mutually beneficial for everyone involved. The passengers knowingly pay to see a rare spectacle, since there are so few active pirates remaining; the pirates "commit an act of piracy", allowing them to legally keep their letter of marque active; the liner company gets a cut from the insurance; and the Navy stays out of it because nobody's actually getting hurt. They'd be called privateers in any other story, but Japan doesn't have a historical equivalent to privateers.
@@davehood2667 While you are correct, that kind of thing happens more than you would expect in real life Places where you would expect very tight cybersecurity practices are often complete shambles
Can I just quickly point out how great it is to see this channel having grown from a good, but dime-a-dozen channel doing ship breakdowns to arguably UA-cam's best resource for writing one's own sci-fi stories!
I think one of my favorite ways I've seen "pirates" used in sci fi is where they're a loose collection of nomadic nations essentially. Sure, some of them may have hidden infrastructure in deep space, but overall their fleets are supposed to be entirely self sufficient, kind of like how pirates in POTC were inferred to work. Sure, there were areas meant to be neutral, like Tortuga, and even a sort of 'code' in place, but overall it's every man for himself.
Like the survivors of the wrecked sleeper ship "Hispania" in Freelancer, their ship malfunctioned due to sabotage and drifted off course. Half of the population abandoned the ship and became nomadic privateers and the other half stayed on the ship until they could reach a planet, but with the misfortune that they arrived at a toxic planet, where their DNA was altered, and now depend on that atmosphere to survive. And they became a criminal syndicate trafficking drugs synthesized from plants native to their toxic planet.
Also makes sense to use RL examples where they were mostly mercenaries working for other opposing powers during times of war. Then there was the Barbary Coast pirates /nation-states who plagued international shipping until the US decided to say "Hands off our boats"
@@Klaaismor just the Barbary Pirates, where they were effectively the navy of four Islamic nations, three of which were the tributaries of the Ottomans and that's how they paid taxes to the Ottomans and the Ottomans actively supported their efforts. Meaning that certain states in Sci-fi would then be supplying the Pirates under the table. For a commonly recognized example the Romulans totally would be the ones supporting piracy in Federation space in Star Trek
Captain Hondo Onaka is a fine example, his drive is profit and is willing to work with and or double cross both sides of a war for profit until it is "no longer profitable".
Plus, he asks for payment in spice as opposed to credits, because spice can't be traced and the value of credits can change depending on the outcome of a war (either through military victory/loss or the impact of said war on the relevant economies).
Pirate ships really need only three things: -cargo capacity for the loot -enough guns to intimidate lightly armed transport ships and/or their escorts (and depending on the setting, a way of disabling FTL) -being fast enough to catch up to their pray and fast enough to outrun a real warship So the most common pirate ships would just be upgunned cargo ships, possibly with some mobility upgrades. But since I love the idea of pirates having actual warships too, (if they somehow manage to get their hands on some and have a way of maintaining them, crewing them, etc.) their options are: -Scout Corvettes/Frigates, since they're probably built for speed and stealth already and might be adapted to stay ahead of a fleet for a long time (therefore probably having extra cargo space for supplies). -Light Cruisers, as long as they're speed focused, they might lack the cargo capacity or the stealth of a smaller ship but could be used to strike against high value or select military targets and just have the cargo get picked up by a dedicated transport ship. -Carriers, could be used as mobile stations/motherships since they already come with landing bays, tons of crew and cargo space. -Battle Cruisers, powerful enough to destroy almost anything that comes in their way, fast enough to run away from the rest and probably big enough to fit some loot here and there. The odd heavy cruiser or battleships being converted into space fortresses could be a neat idea too (it's like beaching a man'o'war to make it into a fortress), but probably wouldn't fit as actual "active" pirate ships
No way in hell would any reasonable space faring civilisation allow pirates to get their hands on carriers or battlecruisers. Hell, I think even them getting their hands on a light cruiser would be a stretch. Among other things, no pirate would want the heat called down on them from owning a ship that big. Too high profile. Especially when they can earn enough for beer and prostitutes by plundering much smaller vessels with much smaller vessels. The only reason you'd see Pirates with something as big as a cruiser is a sort of space version of what's going on with Haiti rn where criminal gangs control most of the country, except they're not really criminal gangs, their warlords by this point. By the time a pirate group has got up to the point of owning something the size of a cruiser, you could basically consider them a minor space warlord.
Upgunned freighters or patrol craft would be right. As pirate ships also must be stealthy and unassuming for ambushes and traps, only revealing their true nature when close enough to their prey that it cannot really run anymore. Because successful piracy has 3 main components: speed, surprise and fear. Quick in and out again is key to evade anti-piracy forces. And a suprised victim that faces a credibly fearsome opponent is more likely to just yield and comply without actually using any force, which always comes with risks. Of course, small pirate fleets would probably be most effective in having dedicated combat and pursuit ships to catch and disable the prey, while the actual transport craft are waiting at a safe distance to pick up the cargo. Or tow away the captured and possibly disabled ships.
For pirates with actual warships, one can easily go with a nation that used to be relatively formidable, but collapsed due to infighting. And all of a sudden a navy admiral might set themselves up as a warlord that does piracy
A thing you also need to consider is automated transport and projectile containers. Which is likely the way we'll be doing it when we begin to mine the asteroid belt. Just place the mined resources into a metal container. Load it into the Ship's MAC and fire it in the direction and the speed that will make it enter the orbit of it's destination. Stealing that would have more to do with orbital calculations than ship boardings.
Or there could be a manufacturing plant on an asteroid which has been redirected. The products are produced en route. Future piracy could be stealing the whole factory.
I’m not sure id want to intercept a mass accelerated projectile, the risk of damage is too great. First thought would be interception at the orbital insertion point, but any thought out universe or a competent corp would have defenses set there
@@CMTechnica While generally in that sort of situation while you are unlikely to have the ability to match speed at a reasonable cost. You don't actually have to catch the projectile, just change the course so it ends up somewhere you or your coworkers can acquire it. Because you only need to adjust the speed a tiny amount to change where it ends up there are a lot of ways you could go about it. Hit it with an exhaust plume, have dust in the path, laser it, have a ship pass nearby and project a strong magnetic field, launch a smaller projectile that will match speed and attach an engine. Of course depending on the aim of the piracy you may not need to make the cargo end up somewhere you can get it. With this sort of interception delaying cargo getting to market could be profitable via market manipulation.
Funny you should mention Privateers. The excellent sci-fi web-comic Crimson Dark featured a crew of Privateers, raiding a faction in a war. Being called "Pirates" was a source of annoyance to the Captain!
Awesome a new Timesink. I counter with the Webcomic of Schlock Mercenary. A company of Mercenaries are not above piracy if they are forced to. Always remember Pillage. Then Burn !
I've seen ideas where pirate ships come in two flavors that work together. The work-horses are little ships with big guns, fast and maneuverable and hard-hitting. The second are treasure ships, with the facilities and crew necessary for boarding actions and the like after the little ships have rendered the target helpless or convinced it to heave-to. This would work well in a setting like Babylon 5, where the treasure ship could hang out in the relative safety of hyperspace while the combat ships take down a target.
LANCER, the mech combat rpg, seperates very nicely between orbital fixed target piracy, which is generally local and opportunity driven, and the much more expensive and complicated act of interstellar piracy, which requires one to intercept a target going at 0.995c and is much riskier
The Honorverse solves a lot of the "problems" with piracy by having ships lose a lot of relative velocity when leaving hyperspace, and having to be a certain distance from large masses before being able to enter hyperspace ("hyper limit"). Since merchant ships usually enter a solar system in somewhat predictable locations the pirates can lie in wait for targets to appear. Pirates usually use merchantmen with rudimentary weapons or smaller warships that are often defectors from a smaller navy. Powerful enough to scare unarmed freighters into surrendering, but rarely something that can stand up to a warship from a modern navy.
And when pirates used actual warships from bargain-basement star nations that are a dime a dozen in the Silesian sector, (though not anymore as it's been carved up between the Andermani and the Manties!) those Mickey Mouse navies focused on throw weight for offensive weapons over defensive fits, which meant that when they came across real warships they were good and screwed even with their heavier broadsides, as superior point defence did short work of the pirates' missiles, while warships' missiles were pretty much coming in in complete impunity. And then you got the likes of Aivars Terekhov who lures them in within the effective range of bad breath and hammers them with graser fire.
@@patrickdusablon2789 That's a tactic that will either work brilliantly or end poorly for everyone involved. The example of the later that comes to mind is what happened on Honor's snotty cruise on board HMS War Maiden (CA 39). Yeah they got the pirate CA, but only barely. And War Maiden had to spend time in a yard afterward. Better to simply let them get far enough into missile range they can't escape and then simply hammer the pirate that way.
@@jkirschy not saying the War Maiden/Aivars Terekhov maneuvers are the ideal way of doing things, but it's one of those high risk/high reward propositions. They get within knife range, if you get the first shot off it'll be decisive and end it right there. The safer course of action you mentioned, hammering them from missile range, only works if you've got the ordnance to burn and your missiles can burn through whatever defences the other guys are throwing up, and you've got enough of a range advantage and point-defence capability that you can deal with their return fire.
@@patrickdusablon2789True enough on the high-risk/high-reward option. It is just there is a lot that can go wrong, unnecessarily, especially if you don't get that first shot off. As for the safer option... Given that the preferred anti-piracy patrol ship in the Honorverse seems to be (at least for the RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN) a heavy or light cruiser I imagine that your criteria should be met. Something like a Saganami A/B/C, Mars C/D, or Verfechter class should have ample magazine/pod capacity and missile capability to defeat any pirate ship they come across, short of a BC (and even then I'd probably take those odds). Heck even an older design like a Star Knight/Prince Consort/Crusader/Broadsword/Warrior, Jason Alvarez, Mars A/B, or Sword class should have plenty of magazine capacity and missile capability to deal with a typical pirate. Even something like a Avalon/Apollo/Courageous or a Conqueror/Charles Wade Pope class light cruiser should be adequate for the task (depending on when in the timeline you want to talk about). Especially since as I believe you were the one who pointed out, pirates even when they got their hands on warships, typically were using older designs with the emphasis on offensive throw weight not defensive capability. Even when it comes to the defensive aspect for the anti-piracy cruiser, its doubtful most pirates would have the latest/most capable missiles or enough of them to batter through the defenses of an RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN heavy/light cruiser, especially late in the series when the rise of pod-salvos meant missile defense becomes a VERY IMPORTANT THING (I believe that's how Runs For Celery would use caps in this situation). I'm not saying it couldn't happen if you had a pirate with say an ex-State Sec heavy cruiser or even a Sileasan heavy cruiser who decided to shoot his magazines dry. Just that most pirates, using an older Sileasan frigate, destroyer, or light cruiser (or a civilian ship modified to be a pirate) would probably really, really struggle to do it to the point the odds would be pretty decisively in the favor of the RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN (and maybe even SLN) cruiser.
In Star Wars Legends, when the Bounty Hunter's Guild was the Bounty Hunter's Guilds, there was a House (House Tresario) that specialized in bounties for Pirates.
My memories of playing FTL remind me that EMP weapons would be useful at disabling prey, another way would be sending a boarding craft with expendable drones to fight the ships crew. Another possible motive for piracy is capturing a better ship or capturing inferior ships to scrap for parts and resources.
Heinlein's novel Citizen of the Galaxy has a great solution for capturing ships. In the story, pirate ships are armed with an extremely powerful paralysis beam that works at short range but can instantly disable a ship and its entire crew if it hits properly. It basically solves most of the problems with boarding a ship as long as the pirates are fast enough to get within firing range then are fast enough to board the ship and neutralize the crew before they recover from paralysis. To combat this, trading ships are armed with long-range missiles that can pop a pirate ship in one hit, but of course the pirates also have countermeasures for the missiles. So the game is to control the missile spread smartly to defeat the pirates' anti-missile systems before the pirates get close enough to fire their paralysis beam. Pirate tactics don't really work against proper military ships that have sophisticated automated targeting and a heck of a lot of missiles, but traders can't legally own military targeting equipment (and missiles are expensive), meaning they are dependent on manual fire control. This makes a good fire controlman - basically someone who's really good with math and orbital mechanics - very valuable for the ship.
Historically many naval ships crews were pirates as well. When they saw another countries ship (especially one they are at war with) they would lower their nations flag and raise a pirates flag to single their intent. Most of the time the other ship would give up rather than fight a trained military ship flying a pirate flag. The main thing with a Pirate flag is that indicated you would be given no quarter if you resisted, unlike a ship flying a military flag was technically supposed to.
When my second grade teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said space pirate. My high school teachers asked me the same thing. I still said space pirate.
A pre-existing ship in the setting with extra weapons, fancy spray paint and decals, or general extra stuff added on is always a quick and easy way to design a pirate ship, and it's got the added benefit of free extra world-building.
Star Wars lore did have civilian anti pirate groups. Some amateur some professional. They were grouped as mercenary forces. Some stories used Q ships as unmarked cover, others had hidden starfighters. (Jabba's ship had headhunters aboard for defense) The main stream Star Wars stories were from the underdog spotted, or in the case of Solo, the pirate side. Legends Sector Rangers were tasked with anti pirate duties, or organizations like Cor-Sec.
I really like how pirates act in Delta-V: Rings of Saturn. They'll come within hailing range, and hit you with a "Look pal, we can shoot at each other, or you can pay me to go away. You might be able to take me out, but the repair fees are going to be far more than what I'm asking." And they're right, because in Delta-V, you play as a miner, and both you and the pirates are flying heavy, reasonably durable mining ships equipped with "weapons" meant for breaking apart rocks, not taking out ships. Almost any fight is going to be a slugging match that leaves both parties wounded at best. You can even try to negotiate a price, if you can convince them you're poor!
I always liked Outlaw Star from... Outlaw Star. It is THE most advanced grappler ship in the entire setting, designed by a collaboration of a pirate group and the Space Forces (think galactic police force) for a specific (which I won't spoil) purpose. Space Pirates in Outlaw Star mainly use "grappler" ships aka ships with big robot arms (which in the very beginning were designed for EVA and repairs) which are great for their purposes. Find civilian target, go in, shoot the engines and any weapons and if the target doesn't want to drop the cargo you just use the arms to remove the cargo (maybe the whole compartment) from them. The downside of grapplers is that it takes a really skilled pilot with great spatial awareness or the support of a really powerful ship computer to handle all the calculations. Furthermore they often deploy external cameras so they have a better overview of the area in combat when using the arms, which is hgihly difficult if not outright impossible in dense asteroid fields/belts
And being THE most advanced grappler ship meant the crew of the Outlaw Star was always short on money and/or in debt because of the horrendous repair and ammunition bills.
David Weber's Honorverse has piracy act largely along historical models of semi-professional privateers/freedom fighters, and more independent scallywags with a rouge state backer. His FTL travel requires translation from FTL travel space (the ubiquitous hypespace) at distances determined by a star's mass, generally along semi-predictable paths, but the universe's lack of interstellar ansible or other FTL communication (mostly) tends to put ship capture more along the age of sail goals of "take goods, fence them, sell or reuse the boat". His books are (or were - the later books get into more and more esoteric 'this would be cool' territory) a very good breakdown of historically informed space battles and massive space wars, complete with a semi-militaristic breakdown of the thoughts and intentions behind the figures in them. Forgive the ramble, and please read the books!
And he also doesn't shy away from the ugly side of privacy either. I think it's in Honor Among Enemies where we see that up close with the survivors of Bonaventure.
@@kaltenstein7718 Really depends only on what they say it is, we only see a brief side profile of the ship in the movie, and the model for tzhe backgroud prop in republic commando is identical to the one in the mandalorian.
Interesting thing about modern day pirates is that the target actually often is the crew not the ship, as humans often are far more valuable than the cargo and can be ransomed for more money.
It's also much easier to make a phone call demanding a wire transfer than to navigate a hundred thousand ton cargo ship into port when your only training is on speedboats and several military vessels are hunting you down, and that's before the hassle of unloading it.
I've been writing a sci-fi/space opera novel and one of the fun things I've used for pirates is that they take stuff like normal laser weapons and just turbo-charge them to absurd, likely single-use weapons along with the usual disabling weaponry, or shove a whole bunch of cheap rockets into a single battery. The goal is to have the biggest gun and intimidate people into giving over their stuff, not to fight one on one.
There was an old Star Trek RPG manual by FASA that suggested that fake distress calls were a bad idea for pirates to use as bait. A commercial vessel in a hurry may be tempted to ignore the call while a military patrol would not. Plus a distress call could actually attract other pirates looking for an easy target that couldn't run away.
You have to have the following, 1. Disable target 2. Have a warship with the right firepower 3. Abile to run/aviod/fool any persuing forces 4. Have a well trained crew 5. Have cargo hold 6. Ability to move bonding parties and or cargo from the captured ship 7. A place if you take the ship for ransom while holding the crew. 8. A place to sell of ill gotten gains
For my setting I have decided to make my space pirates focus on speed, stealth, electronic warfarre and intimidation, utilizing bans on certain technologies and the crews of pirate ships taking extra risks to their wellbeing in ship design (they don't have an artificial gravity spin ring) to get up close, disable a vessel and force a "business deal" for vital resources that are needed to sustain life.
Bodacious space pirates might be a good example of this concept. Arrangements made for insurance claims and also entertainment events and asset write-offs for elites.
My favorite kind of pirate ship comes from "Seiho Bukyo Outlaw Star" where most pirates employ Grapplers. Grapplers are ships equipped with grappler arms, sometimes more than one pair. They are used for seizing cargo, as well as sort of "hand to hand" combat, and the pilots capable of doing it are one of the most respected pilots in the galaxy.
ah you called for me, there is one important factor to include, the flare for the dramatic! serves a vital psychological role in convincing a crew to surrender their cargo. "that ship has a skull with glowing eyes, you really want to mess with that?" "look at those spikes!" "That Pirate captain has a big billowing cape in space? How does that even work?!"
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but for Star Wars the old West End Games TTRPG had an excellent Pirates & Privateers supplement that went in depth into how they'd operate, with a focus on laying gravity shadow traps in hyperspace lanes, ion cannons and even personal weaponry dedicated to boarding actions. The current Lucasfilm TV teams have a love for the old WEG material, so you might see it reimagined on screen.
Definitely appreciated seeing some underappreciated gems highlighted in the video- was disappointed ExoSquad missed the cut (given how much the Pirate Clans were a focus in the show)
The best space pirate game ever was Independence War 2. And that worked well because you had a second AI cargo ship that you could call in and pick up the loot. You flew a bad ass combat ship dealing with escorts but once you defeated them and shot enough holes in the freighter they would drop cargo pods. The game and story also encouraged you to target the evil mega corps and leave the little guys alone, so that was a good mechanic.
I’ve seen a lot of IP’s use modular external shipping similar to modern container ships. A effective tactic once space is in the mix is to just knock some of the containers off. Not like they are going to sink. For that matter no reason not to just cut open the hull near cargo bays on a large hauler and chuck goods out. You don’t have to deal with suppressing the crew directly or the complication of hostile docking. Dump as much as you can, jump out the whole and wait for your ship to scoop you up.
I remember that was what they did in the Independece War games, target the transport proper and the pods would jettison when they either surrendered or died.
Star Citizen has a series of ships designed as an equivalent to modern container ships. The bow and stern of these ships extend on a telescoping spine to deploy long cargo arms that are then loaded with shipping containers (kind of like ornaments on a Christmas tree). Pirates will eventually be able to shoot off containers like taking candy from a pinata. When not carrying cargo, these ships can retract back into a much smaller form (they can't land while carrying cargo).
One of my favourite 'Pirate' vessels in a space game is the Barbarossa made and operated by the Vigour Syndicate in X4: Foundations "Tides of Avarice". It's an L sized vessel, so pretty big and it's a hybrid between 2 of the types if L sized vessels you get in X4: Freighters and Destroyers. The Barbarossa is effectively an incredibly well armed freighter with some powerful engines strapped to it so it can escape the destroyers. It outguns pretty much any non military vessel, and can take on space stations pretty well. The Vigour Syndicate uses the Barbarossa in 3 capacites: Freighter, Raider and Security. It excels in all three of those - so long as it isn't against a proper naval fleet. It also looks cool.
spacedock is like life support for sci fi world building writers, every time i get stuck i just skim over their channel and find something new and cool to write about
You and me both. I'm editing the draft of a sci-fi anthology that I plan to publish at some point, this channel and The Sojourn served as the main inspiration for the worldbuilding aspects that each story is set in.
A bounty hunter in Star Wars does what they're paid to do. Honestly its one of the many, MANY failings of the New Republic in their war against the Syndicates that they didn't just open the government coffers and suck most of the Hutts' manpower out from under them
I've had that impression too... "solo mercenary" or "hired gun" seem like more accurate terms. Maybe the actual bounty hunting is more respectable, so they use the term?
As a pirate (in Star Citizen) my group tends to use small fast ships, sometimes even just hoverbikes. Our preferred capture method is flying off with other people's ship's when they don't properly secure them, but we sometimes find a nice target to use disruptors on (shutting down thier ship with EMPS) and board. Twice now we've had our victim play along so he ended up retaining half his cargo and got a fighter escort to his sell point.
2:40 Battletech space piracy works like this! Pirates wait in the vicinity of jump points or valuable targets in system(since you have to travel at stl to get around once out of the jump point). And since it can take a few weeks to a month to charge for a jump again, once u jump into a system, any waiting pirates have all the time in the world to decide if your worth it or not. (if your a jumpship technician, at least you can rest easy knowing u wont be killed in all likelyhood. too valuable!)
As you listed off the criteria, I couldn't help but think of the Grappler ships from Outlaw Star. If you are unfamiliar, it is explained during a lore dump at the beginning of one episode that they began their life as ships with mechanical Grappler arms that could be used to do repairs and move cargo in space. Criminals would go on to use them for purposes of piracy, resulting in the space forces to also encorporate them for combat. Some may find it goofy, but i personally think its rad as hell that you could equip a rocket ship with a cutlass.
I would think pirate ships would carry larger crew complements to serve as prize crews for any ship they take. And since a merchant ship's goals would be to minimize expenses, those would have a fairly small crew. For example, a supertanker only has a crew of 30 or so, while a Halifax-class frigate has a complement of 240 or so. So an interstellar merchant ship would involve cramming all the necessities for space travel and keeping the crew alive in the minimum volume with the minimum amount of mass, so as much volume and mass as possible can be dedicated to cargo, with as few warm bodies as possible to make it run. So after the initial shock and awe boarding, a small prize crew is all that would be needed for "command functions" and supervising/replacing the existing crew in case they get froggy. As for their overall fit, I could see them using older ships somehow acquired from surplus inventory or from mothball yards, or fairly light merchant hulls, all of them refitted with the best propulsion and sensor and weapons fit they can get their grubby little paws on. That would lead to speedy glass cannon/eggshell armed with a sledgehammer sort of builds that might even be enough to tangle with light warships if push came to shove, especially in sufficiently poor volumes of space that can't afford to have a as large or as advanced a navy/system patrol as they actually need, or have to rely on the odd naval patrols by more advanced polities.
In my setting, the space pirates would use these devices called Harpoons that would force a target to a predetermined location, typically an ambush site or somewhere the target couldn’t flee from. Each Harpoon was essentially makeshift torpedos that would carry a rudimentary FTL drive set to jump itself (and whatever is attached) to a preprogrammed destination set by a jump station, either preexisting or ones made by the pirates
One thing that might often be overlooked is that both official naval ships expecting to take prizes and privateers/pirates (generally the distinction is whether the private military force is sanctioned or not by at least one government) will start off their trip very heavily overloaded with crew and supplies. You might find a space pirate ship double bunking like modern USN Carriers do when at maximum alert, with crew living in cramped and fairly miserable conditions to support an oversized contingent of marines and "prize crew" who will offload onto captured enemies to take command of them. The same for supplies, not only does that oversized crew need more supplies to begin with, but a pirate will be expecting to spend prolonged time operating in enemy territory where friendly or neutral ports are likely going to be scarce. If your setting is remotely realistic (just something as minimal as accounting for the fact that people and cargo take up volume) a pirate ship might be bristling with drop tanks and disposable supply containers which not only keep it's oversized crew alive for long voyages but double as convenient camouflage. In a story you can use these for all kinds of things, places to hide or retreat to during boarding actions, maybe one of them contains a hidden escape ship, they can be used as chaff dumped to confuse an enemy, maybe some of the cargo pods are actually weapons themselves, etc.
Honestly, it sounds like having a small fleet of smaller ships rather than just one somewhat larger vessel would be the best way to go about it. The problem is that you have a few contradictory requirements. Fast and lots of cargo space doesn't typically go together well. You'd have to make it work at least to some degree due to needing to escape anti-piracy operations, but it might be better to have a ship for raiding and then another to carry the cargo long-term that stays out of the way. Similarly, you want to have some form of interdiction but in most cases interdictors tend to be dedicated ships that sacrifice weapons and durability for their interdiction capabilities, so you want to have another ship around to carry the "big guns".
In some of Andre Norton's books, there was a pirate base, reputed and later confirmed to be a space station, in the "present" time known as Waystar. It was several centuries old, predating humans' space travel. And it had ties with, while not entirely subordinate to, the "Thieves Guild" (interstellar Mafia), which provided a good bit of its logistic support. "If past rumor spoke true, there was a rivalry between the Veeps [crime bosses] of Waystar and the center core of the Guild." - "Uncharted Stars," 1969
I think one of my favorite depictions of space pirates is in the "long rim" supplement for TTRPG Lancer, where it describes a high traffic transit corridor for sublight vessels and the vast number of docking stations and orbital habits that sprung up to service ships pass through. The rim litterally has no economic output beyond what what it can squeeze out of the colonist transiting through it so a lot of stations turned to various forms of criminal enterprises just to make up for occasional shortfalls.
8:38 the computer console from TNG Gambit looks incorrect. Most are flat with the black panel and the buttons but this looked like they've put the screen on top and then put a black rubber edging around it. I know some of the visual displays get changed for the remastered so don't know if the console looked like this in the original.
In the world I am building there are space pirates and they are quite a significant threat to merchant shipping. The problem for the in-universe authorities is (as Douglas Adams mentions) that space is really big so there is lots of places for them to hide, the authorities just don't have enough patrol ships to be everywhere and the merchant ships are generally unarmed. This allows some pirate groups to control surprisingly large areas of space, but generally not key space as the authorities patrol the main shipping lanes and protect space stations and colonies. The problems really arise when the authorities are weak or stupid and lose control over areas that merchant ships need to pass through in order to reach certain points, such as remote colonies. And because space is big this can happen quite a bit and quite quickly particularly in outlying areas on the edges of explored space.
Great to see No Man's Sky get represented! The Pirate actions in that game are getting better, if not quite perfect yet. For those who like to level-grind, I recommend the game 'Infinite Space' for DS. Your character becomes a privateer as a major plot point.
Lots of cargo space, speed & and just enough firepower to break shields and disable engines & weapons (Ion weapons, like in Star Wars, fit all of the weapon needs) makes sense.
Something I saw in warframe that could solve the idea of boarding enemy ships was giant cannons used by the Grineer, where they fired giant metal orbs with troops inside of them that would slam into enemy hulls, letting the troops board the ship or station by simply being fired from their own ship. High mortality rate obviously, given the setting, but with tweaking it could be something that pirates in other settings could use.
Of course, if the crew of the merchie fights too hard, vent a little atmo. Most merchies aren't compatmentalized as warships are. And depending on the universe/setting, do they have skinsuits? It's pretty cold out there. The Honorverse and Expanse show how a light fast frigate equivalent, plus hard suits for boarding could make piracy profitable. Especially if you have a prize crew. See Firefly "Out of Gas".
Am glad you showed the newest design of the Arcadia. Mentioned in comments once before and how it addresses by biggest beef in sci fi ship design. Ships laid out like naval ships. Thumbnail arcadia. Big turrets on top only. CG Arcadia. Turrets and ship design axial, not planar. Star trek. Classic enterprise with engineering down low and big high deck. Voyager, a much more axial design. Nacelles make sense because warp field shape. But still is a top doen. Bridge up top, engineering at bottom. One would think vital sections like engineering be central because space has no real gravitational orientation when in orbit. I would love to hear your opinions on that one day :-3
Depends on how your artificial gravity works. I assume Enterprise and similar CAN'T manage a radial gravity field, or maybe it has unpleasant consequences, like making the crew seasick as they deal with the odd perspectives.
@@stevenscott2136 Well, even non radial. From an engineering standpoint. The reason I love Arcadia with Captain Harlock is the gun turrets. Think stars etc. Ships can roll, but functionally a 2D plane vs spherical coverage. Older thumbnail can see that. In the CG movie however is pretty cool. They have turrets, but they rotate fully around the ship for complete coverage. Bridge etc running on a central spine. Is a design we see all the time in non combat realistic sci vessels that doesnt seem to carry over into sci fantasy.
I usually would think Fast moderately armed ships with decent fuel economy for the setting is a basis for a standard pirate ship. The pirate bases have to be pretty much self sufficient to grow food and refine water and fuel. water based ships need a dry dock to clean and repair more effectively with protected harbors. I still miss that pirate ship on mandarlorian as it could have been a mobile base for his people and saved costs on sets.
There is being a space pirate, and all the logical factors going into it. then . . . There is being THE space pirate, Captain Harlock, and having The Arcadia.
In Legends Privateers are pretty common in the Star Wars setting with most major factions employing privateers at some point in their history. The West End Games Star Wars RPG had a Pirate and Privateers sourcebook and a stand alone adventure book focused on a former Imperial Frigate that became a rebel Privateer after mutinying. Back when I played Tabletop RPGs the groups I was part of ran tons of space privateer or pirate focused campaigns in various settings Two things I think would be very helpful for a pirate ship you didn't mention are sensors and stealth system. Longer ranged sensors would make it easier to see other ships before they see you so you can decide what ones are worth targeting before they know you are there, and spot anti-pirate vessels luring in the area. Being able to sneak up on a target makes it easier to catch them and intimidate them. After all just because one of your ships has dropped stealth to demand their surrender or open fire that doesn't mean you might not have more ships nearby still hiding waiting to pounce if needed.
what? no Sol Bianca??? at least a mention for strategically separating a ship's drives and bridge with gunfire, and hauling off cargo at leisure...the high speed precision strike like a shark, then circling back to dismantle.
I know it's an antiquated game, but Escape Velocity: Nova had a ship called the Starbridge that took well to aftermarket modifications and many Pirates used modded Starbridges.
I always liked the Grappler Ships from Outlaw Star. You could fit them into most settings as being able to simply lock yourself onto your target in a place they cant shoot, or threatening to punture the hull, or travelling through hyperspace with the victim. Skilled manipulation can help you maneuver yourself AND your opponent to reduce damage and risk, especially with a disjointed hitbox, honestly, they're a little too perfect.
I'd go with a Klingon Bird of Prey. Plenty of piracy examples with those. The Millenium Falcon worked well also. Pirates have to have some cheaty edge, like speed, maneuverability or cloaking technology. Or just guns, lots of guns. Or stealth technology like in the Expanse, and a genocidal nature also helps!
If we're talking piracy, I feel that if a pirate has at least one large ship as their flagship for intimidation and two smaller ships to their name, it could work for intimidating smaller targets like freelancers or traders. The larger ship is usually reserved as a last result while the two smaller ships do much of the attacking, if any at all. To quote one of their earlier videos, bigger fleets are suspicious and as a pirate the last thing you'd want to do is drawn attention from a planets potentially larger navy. You'd want to remain as anonymous as possible to meet the needs of yourself and your crew.
As far as boarding actions go, you don't really need to dock one large ship to another to board them. As soon as the pirate ship roughly matches velocity with its target, agile shuttles or armoured EVA suits with uprated thrusters could cross the gap and grapple onto the target vessel. You don't even need to gain access to the interior; if you have a large powersuit or small mecha with cutting tools, the threat of depressurization can be enough to force the victims to fall into line. Also, once you're in physical contact with the target vessel, you can practically broadcast to their whole crew. In a setting where the navy or merchant marine are oppressing their underlings - much like the real-life age of piracy - this could also win you some valuable friends on the inside...
Fun video. Would have been funner with a mention of Bebop’s “Wild Horses” pirates and their pirate ship disguised as a freighter with the physical computer virus delivery method.
1:04 I don’t know hijacking cargo ships and stealing supplies weapons or data to sell on the black market to make a profit or just taking the ship outright.
In the golden age of piracy, it was common for pirates to force doctors to sign the articles of agreement and keep them until the company could find another doctor. So this means they were likely there against their will but still had whatever benefits (and rules) that the other crew members had. Voting power for matters of the moment, pay and compensation, et cetera. But depending on the setting, space pirates might have automated medical facilities where technicians might be more important than an actual doctor. Either way, no matter the era or setting, the pirates are gonna force the skilled labor they need into becoming members of the crew. Even if it's entirely willingly, the crew may "force" then into joining for the sake of courtoom sympathy later on down the road.
TTRPG I was in began with a civilian transport on an approximately three and a half hour trip to a distant star, leaving from Earth. Most of that time was Einsteinian space navigation-enough time to get clear of the orbital plane and jump to FTL for a short while, then back to Einsteinian space for approach. Piracy was generally not common in and around population centers because they tended to have defense grids and navies that could guarantee pirates would be sucking vacuum before they could clear orbitals… If it sounds like once a ship got to FTL it was safe, that was generally the understanding. Our party began as civilian passengers on a routine spaceline flight to Antares station. We all had our own reasons for being on the flight, and our GM described a pilot warning the crew and cabin that we'd be jumping to FTL in 30 seconds in a very airline captain sort of voice. Very routine and mundane. We jumped into FTL and … about five minutes later we were being captured by pirates. In FTL. Freakin' how? Passengers to be ransomed, anything of value "claimed", ship for parts and materials probably. The party got away … with a small ship that had tech aboard. They could threaten and even attack ships in FTL now … but so could we. But who'd believe us? Who'd arrest us thinking we were pirates? Or SAY they did to make us disappear so they could make sure they were the only ones who had the greatest advance in military technology "they" had ever invented? And the pirates want their ship back, of course. WE had no truly "safe" port. WE hard to make temporary alliances with smugglers, outlaws, and sometimes criminals until we could learn who was safe enough to trust. Because the secret of what the pirates had got out, and eventually the secret that we had it too also got out. If y'all want to have fun with similar ideas … there's not really much "unique" here, so have at it.
A few ways to counter the FTL drive counter to Piracy is to have the installed FTL drive take time to charge or calculate the jump. Either that, or have the pirates use their own FTL jump capability (with some high end calculations) to jump right on top of their target. The element of surprise catches their prey off guard until there is little choice except surrender.
Pirates gaining new crew from boarding actions would make a lot of sense in a harsher setting. A sailor in the British navy was usually forced into service, barely paid, and had a boring and difficult life. Pirates on the other hand got equal share of pay and could just kinda do whatever they wanted. It was freedom, a sailor could hop to a new nation and make a new life with his stolen riches instead of dying of scurvy or something
Especially from freeing slaves or indentured servants from captured ships.
I remember this from a sci-fi book I read years ago. Only a small percentage of people could even physically withstand "hyperspace". Consequently most ships were chronically undermanned and Spacers were always in demand.
If a ship surrendered to you giving the captured spacers (the non-officers anyway) a billet on your ship was standard procedure, as was them accepting it. It wasn't uncommon for even a naval warship to have crew (non-officers at least) from 5 or 6 different nations aboard, sometimes even from the nation you were at war with, and nobody thought anything of it. A Spacer's loyalty was to the "spacer's guild" as a whole and to the individual ship you happened to be on at the moment.
I used this concept fir a specific group of pirates called blood raiders. They reside in one astroid feild terrain to lure ships in to steal supplies and crew. Other groups were just outlaws or crime syndicates that modified public ships with paints and anything they wanted. One syndicate called the eclipsed had their own ship designs since they owned a planet and did anything for profit.
@@Generalphoenix8438 "I used this concept fir a specific group of pirates called blood raiders. " You might want to look up EVE Online's Blood Raiders.
Hey, you’re mentioning Starsector a lot! It’s great!
I let the developers know about your Dreadnoughts video and they were tickled pink!
Maybe you should talk about the various varieties of space magic sometime, like SS’s drive field and AM canisters any dude can carry.
I think it compares favorably against settings like Star Wars where the space magic is explicit but unexplained and inconsistent.
"Oh no! Space Pirates!"
" 'Space Pirates'?"
"You know, pirates! _But in _*_SPACE!_* "
"Too late do I realize that me children are me only real treasures."
Na na na na na
Space Pirates!
Na na-na na na na
Space Pirates!
@@nathangamble125 🎶 Albator, Albator
🎶 Du fond de la nuit d'or
The appearance of Space Truckers is very appreciated.
I was coming down here to say the same thing. Such a wonderfully terrible forgotten movie!
Seriously, I'd have guessed the fans of that movie number in the low double-digits and people who remember it in the low three digits... 😆
You mean Billy-Bob?
It’s getting a video game.
Terrible, but a classic :D
Elite Dangerous showcased this very well. Pirates came, scanned your cargo, asked you to drop some of it since your ship was no match for theirs, they pick up what small amount they can carry and they leave
Used to roleplay as a pirate/privateer way back when. Pull traders from SC, ask for a donation or payment and I'd escort them to the target station.
Community goals were great for that.
Wonder how that would work for explorer types like me the only thing I'm collecting is data and fuel through scooping (I havnt played in a few years)
@@aarondavis8865might be asked if you have any valuable info or just take what pocket money you have?
@@boxinthefield In a late-90s game called "Terminus" someone in the most powerful type of ship camped outside a main space station and charged people to enter. I told them I would do it so they wouldn't be suspicious as I dive-bombed them with a missile that heavily damaged them and a friend finished them off.
Sometimes if you have a high combat rank and a good ship they'll fly up to you, scan you and be like "oh, uh sorry, I'll be on my way now...". Had that happen once while I was hunting pirates at a hazardous resource extraction zone.
Shoutout to Moretsu Pirates for a fun take. Essentially all pirates are holdovers from an Independance war a few centuries past. They all have letters of marque from their respective governments and will act as a military force if there's a war. But during peace, they raid cruise ships.....as a form of entertainment. Anything they take is covered by insurance companies....that employ them to raid said cruise ships...on a schedule.
It warms my heart to see so much appreciation for this show in the comments, especially given the utter lack of it in the video itself!
That's a shockingly believable scenario.
Space Pirate Captain Harlock is one of my favourite sci-fi series!
I've never seen it
He is a Badass
@@blagojpejov4155 real
@@andrewreynolds912 you should! I’ll give you some links!
"All hand's listen up: The Captain has taken the Helm. You know what that means." *cuts intercomm*
I love how Starsector and some of it's mods have pirate ships often being random scrap and junk from dead ships that's thrown together to have as many guns as possible. Absolute favorite type of ship design. Or lack thereof.
In Star Wars home made junk ships are called uglies. They are usually flying coffins, with some being just barely average and some just barely functioning.
@@empirednw6624 I love those too! My favorite is the double B-wing, but I still have a soft spot for the cobbled together junkers
@@beanlord4347 I like the tie wing lol. The worst preforming one but it’s a tie fighter cockpit with two y wing engines.
Yooooo fellow Starsector enjoyer! I like some of the pirate designs, in that they’re just transport ships with their mounts converted to weapons from cargo (like the colossus mk2 or the atlas mk2) as well as their fleets consisting of lots of smaller vessels (which are really fun to bulldoze through with Flak and fighters).
Honestly, a big part of why I dislike the Legio Infernalis from the Tahlan Shipworks mod is that they’re far too strong militarily, given that they’re a pirate raider faction that routinely pisses off every other faction in the sector. And yet despite that they have some really strong ships and can outfit most of them with Alpha-core equivalent AI. They feel too organised for a pirate/raider faction. Then again I suppose I’m not really in a position to cast all that much judgement on account of enjoying the UAF capitals (especially the semibreves)
Kitbashing is PERFECT for pirate ships.
A pirate base growing into a colony all it's own makes sense. You start with a simple place to do repairs in a remote corner of the galaxy where you stow some surplus supplies and swag. This grows to some basic infrastructure. Then you leave behind someone to guard said stash with some weapons as well as some habitat modules and sensor satellites. You work with another crew and show them this location and let them use it as long as they pay and play nice. A few more people learn about this and you get more customers. Since your all pirates here, you can also trade stolen goods you might need. You also get a small freighter to travel to other places to fence stolen goods.
Facilities expand, including proper docks, workshops to get fix components and eventually a bar where crews can mingle and exchange gossip, as well as a place to make things a bit nicer for the crew. These require more crew, which means more life support and more supplies. Adding food production capacity can provide not only food but also oxygen and deal with human waste. Expand it enough and the bar can produce it's own booze for sale and eventually sell booze. The repair shops grow to include machine shops where new spare parts can be fabricated so you are not 100% dependant on stealing or buying every single nut and bolt. To keep the bar safe, you hire a few bouncers and eventually a few guards for internal security. Eventually a few kids get born at this remote port, which will lead to a school. You need more people to fix the life support systems who need things, so you get an informal market were people barter and then shops.
In the end, you have a productive settlement grown from pirate activity.
Lois McMaster Bujold did just that with Jackson's Whole in the Vorkosigan Saga.
@@maigretus1 ohh that old book i loved that bookseries.
And as it expands, it starts to have a larger and larger "civilian" population who aren't really pirates themselves, but who run industries that the pirates depend on. Because these are so important, the pirate captains know they shouldn't antagonize them too much, so they lay down frameworks of rules for how the pirate crews interact with the civilians, establishing an early code of laws. As the pirate fleets and their settlement grow, shipping traffic through the region isn't enough to fully sustain them on piracy, so their industries continue to grow, making more and more of what they need through mining, farming, and manufacturing. Eventually they realize that exporting the goods they produce could be a new source of profit, so the pirates, who by this point have been operating for decades and have a level of experience and professionalism rivaling some navies, establish safe zones where merchants can trade without fear of attack, so long as the pirates get a modest cut of the profit. Soon enough the pirate navies are spending more time patrolling the safe lanes and enforcing customs fees than they are committing acts of piracy, and before you know it, the pirate base has become a nation state all its own.
Remember that keeping a low profile gets much harder with size increase.
@@judet2992 it is but it how offen things were in real life. Many islands and coastal areas were at some or other point pirate havens.
FINE I’ll watch Firefly and Serenity again
I'll be in my bunk.
Must be that time again!
Shiny!
Gotta get flying again.
What? Is it Tuesday already? Well okay fine, I'll grab the DVDs and popcorn. 😁
I quite like the concept of the anime Mouretsu Pirates. Pirates are basically just a scam/tourist attraction to get the insurance to pay the shipping companies money.
In that case, it's also mutually beneficial for everyone involved. The passengers knowingly pay to see a rare spectacle, since there are so few active pirates remaining; the pirates "commit an act of piracy", allowing them to legally keep their letter of marque active; the liner company gets a cut from the insurance; and the Navy stays out of it because nobody's actually getting hurt. They'd be called privateers in any other story, but Japan doesn't have a historical equivalent to privateers.
Also love that the real space battle is hacking
Guns are neat and all but if you can remotely control the enemy's life support systems, you just win
@@dappernecromancer5364 Doesn't work very well if the target isn't stupid enough to connect their life support to the modem though.
@@davehood2667 While you are correct, that kind of thing happens more than you would expect in real life
Places where you would expect very tight cybersecurity practices are often complete shambles
They also still serve military/political purposes, the 'pirate' shows are just the bread and butter work.
Can I just quickly point out how great it is to see this channel having grown from a good, but dime-a-dozen channel doing ship breakdowns to arguably UA-cam's best resource for writing one's own sci-fi stories!
I think one of my favorite ways I've seen "pirates" used in sci fi is where they're a loose collection of nomadic nations essentially. Sure, some of them may have hidden infrastructure in deep space, but overall their fleets are supposed to be entirely self sufficient, kind of like how pirates in POTC were inferred to work. Sure, there were areas meant to be neutral, like Tortuga, and even a sort of 'code' in place, but overall it's every man for himself.
Like the survivors of the wrecked sleeper ship "Hispania" in Freelancer, their ship malfunctioned due to sabotage and drifted off course. Half of the population abandoned the ship and became nomadic privateers and the other half stayed on the ship until they could reach a planet, but with the misfortune that they arrived at a toxic planet, where their DNA was altered, and now depend on that atmosphere to survive. And they became a criminal syndicate trafficking drugs synthesized from plants native to their toxic planet.
Also makes sense to use RL examples where they were mostly mercenaries working for other opposing powers during times of war. Then there was the Barbary Coast pirates /nation-states who plagued international shipping until the US decided to say "Hands off our boats"
@@Klaaism That's also a pretty good point. Pirates in sci fi settings might just be more like privateers or para-military organizations.
@@Klaaismor just the Barbary Pirates, where they were effectively the navy of four Islamic nations, three of which were the tributaries of the Ottomans and that's how they paid taxes to the Ottomans and the Ottomans actively supported their efforts.
Meaning that certain states in Sci-fi would then be supplying the Pirates under the table. For a commonly recognized example the Romulans totally would be the ones supporting piracy in Federation space in Star Trek
William Adama, Space Pirate
Captain Hondo Onaka is a fine example, his drive is profit and is willing to work with and or double cross both sides of a war for profit until it is "no longer profitable".
And that is why Onaka is one of my favorite characters.
Plus, he asks for payment in spice as opposed to credits, because spice can't be traced and the value of credits can change depending on the outcome of a war (either through military victory/loss or the impact of said war on the relevant economies).
Honestly I think his lack of shits to give is what led to his crew falling into the unruly stereotypes.
but why would anyone work with hondo? He's going to double cross them as soon as it benefits them. You're inviting the fox into the henhouse.
Pirate ships really need only three things:
-cargo capacity for the loot
-enough guns to intimidate lightly armed transport ships and/or their escorts (and depending on the setting, a way of disabling FTL)
-being fast enough to catch up to their pray and fast enough to outrun a real warship
So the most common pirate ships would just be upgunned cargo ships, possibly with some mobility upgrades.
But since I love the idea of pirates having actual warships too, (if they somehow manage to get their hands on some and have a way of maintaining them, crewing them, etc.) their options are:
-Scout Corvettes/Frigates, since they're probably built for speed and stealth already and might be adapted to stay ahead of a fleet for a long time (therefore probably having extra cargo space for supplies).
-Light Cruisers, as long as they're speed focused, they might lack the cargo capacity or the stealth of a smaller ship but could be used to strike against high value or select military targets and just have the cargo get picked up by a dedicated transport ship.
-Carriers, could be used as mobile stations/motherships since they already come with landing bays, tons of crew and cargo space.
-Battle Cruisers, powerful enough to destroy almost anything that comes in their way, fast enough to run away from the rest and probably big enough to fit some loot here and there.
The odd heavy cruiser or battleships being converted into space fortresses could be a neat idea too (it's like beaching a man'o'war to make it into a fortress), but probably wouldn't fit as actual "active" pirate ships
No way in hell would any reasonable space faring civilisation allow pirates to get their hands on carriers or battlecruisers.
Hell, I think even them getting their hands on a light cruiser would be a stretch.
Among other things, no pirate would want the heat called down on them from owning a ship that big. Too high profile.
Especially when they can earn enough for beer and prostitutes by plundering much smaller vessels with much smaller vessels.
The only reason you'd see Pirates with something as big as a cruiser is a sort of space version of what's going on with Haiti rn where criminal gangs control most of the country, except they're not really criminal gangs, their warlords by this point.
By the time a pirate group has got up to the point of owning something the size of a cruiser, you could basically consider them a minor space warlord.
Exactly. Anything that makes for a real-world good fast commerce raider equivalent makes for a good pirate ship.
Upgunned freighters or patrol craft would be right. As pirate ships also must be stealthy and unassuming for ambushes and traps, only revealing their true nature when close enough to their prey that it cannot really run anymore. Because successful piracy has 3 main components: speed, surprise and fear. Quick in and out again is key to evade anti-piracy forces. And a suprised victim that faces a credibly fearsome opponent is more likely to just yield and comply without actually using any force, which always comes with risks.
Of course, small pirate fleets would probably be most effective in having dedicated combat and pursuit ships to catch and disable the prey, while the actual transport craft are waiting at a safe distance to pick up the cargo. Or tow away the captured and possibly disabled ships.
For pirates with actual warships, one can easily go with a nation that used to be relatively formidable, but collapsed due to infighting. And all of a sudden a navy admiral might set themselves up as a warlord that does piracy
The same things that make a good pirate ship make a good merchant ship and vise versa.
If you can, just steal one of those.
A thing you also need to consider is automated transport and projectile containers.
Which is likely the way we'll be doing it when we begin to mine the asteroid belt.
Just place the mined resources into a metal container. Load it into the Ship's MAC and fire it in the direction and the speed that will make it enter the orbit of it's destination.
Stealing that would have more to do with orbital calculations than ship boardings.
Or there could be a manufacturing plant on an asteroid which has been redirected. The products are produced en route. Future piracy could be stealing the whole factory.
I’m not sure id want to intercept a mass accelerated projectile, the risk of damage is too great.
First thought would be interception at the orbital insertion point, but any thought out universe or a competent corp would have defenses set there
@@CMTechnica ah, they deleted my comment about intercepting asteroid based factories ;_;
@@CMTechnica No you shoot a laser at it to make them miss their target an go to where your accomplices are waiting for it at a matching speed.
@@CMTechnica While generally in that sort of situation while you are unlikely to have the ability to match speed at a reasonable cost. You don't actually have to catch the projectile, just change the course so it ends up somewhere you or your coworkers can acquire it. Because you only need to adjust the speed a tiny amount to change where it ends up there are a lot of ways you could go about it. Hit it with an exhaust plume, have dust in the path, laser it, have a ship pass nearby and project a strong magnetic field, launch a smaller projectile that will match speed and attach an engine. Of course depending on the aim of the piracy you may not need to make the cargo end up somewhere you can get it. With this sort of interception delaying cargo getting to market could be profitable via market manipulation.
Funny you should mention Privateers. The excellent sci-fi web-comic Crimson Dark featured a crew of Privateers, raiding a faction in a war. Being called "Pirates" was a source of annoyance to the Captain!
Awesome a new Timesink.
I counter with the Webcomic of Schlock Mercenary. A company of Mercenaries are not above piracy if they are forced to.
Always remember Pillage. Then Burn !
I've seen ideas where pirate ships come in two flavors that work together. The work-horses are little ships with big guns, fast and maneuverable and hard-hitting. The second are treasure ships, with the facilities and crew necessary for boarding actions and the like after the little ships have rendered the target helpless or convinced it to heave-to. This would work well in a setting like Babylon 5, where the treasure ship could hang out in the relative safety of hyperspace while the combat ships take down a target.
And these are the exact tactics that Raiders in B5 employ.
"Consider them a series of guidelines rather than actual rules." I see what you did there.
Me too. Love the nod to Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.
LANCER, the mech combat rpg, seperates very nicely between orbital fixed target piracy, which is generally local and opportunity driven, and the much more expensive and complicated act of interstellar piracy, which requires one to intercept a target going at 0.995c and is much riskier
LANCER MENTIONED RAHHHHHHH
I LOVE WELL WRITTEN SCI FI AND MECHS
@@yeetyateyote5570 i think well written is a stretch, its a bit confused ideologically
I mean stationary raids are basically heists except the getaway cars have a lot of guns.
@@sabotabby3372 what part are you confused on, it’s very clear in its ideology?
@@sabotabby3372 the ideology just happens to be radical leftism and a lot of people dislike that
The Honorverse solves a lot of the "problems" with piracy by having ships lose a lot of relative velocity when leaving hyperspace, and having to be a certain distance from large masses before being able to enter hyperspace ("hyper limit"). Since merchant ships usually enter a solar system in somewhat predictable locations the pirates can lie in wait for targets to appear.
Pirates usually use merchantmen with rudimentary weapons or smaller warships that are often defectors from a smaller navy. Powerful enough to scare unarmed freighters into surrendering, but rarely something that can stand up to a warship from a modern navy.
I love that the heroes know that pirates have to be at least smart enough to operate a starship but still have their doubts on that sometimes.
And when pirates used actual warships from bargain-basement star nations that are a dime a dozen in the Silesian sector, (though not anymore as it's been carved up between the Andermani and the Manties!) those Mickey Mouse navies focused on throw weight for offensive weapons over defensive fits, which meant that when they came across real warships they were good and screwed even with their heavier broadsides, as superior point defence did short work of the pirates' missiles, while warships' missiles were pretty much coming in in complete impunity.
And then you got the likes of Aivars Terekhov who lures them in within the effective range of bad breath and hammers them with graser fire.
@@patrickdusablon2789 That's a tactic that will either work brilliantly or end poorly for everyone involved. The example of the later that comes to mind is what happened on Honor's snotty cruise on board HMS War Maiden (CA 39). Yeah they got the pirate CA, but only barely. And War Maiden had to spend time in a yard afterward. Better to simply let them get far enough into missile range they can't escape and then simply hammer the pirate that way.
@@jkirschy not saying the War Maiden/Aivars Terekhov maneuvers are the ideal way of doing things, but it's one of those high risk/high reward propositions. They get within knife range, if you get the first shot off it'll be decisive and end it right there. The safer course of action you mentioned, hammering them from missile range, only works if you've got the ordnance to burn and your missiles can burn through whatever defences the other guys are throwing up, and you've got enough of a range advantage and point-defence capability that you can deal with their return fire.
@@patrickdusablon2789True enough on the high-risk/high-reward option. It is just there is a lot that can go wrong, unnecessarily, especially if you don't get that first shot off.
As for the safer option... Given that the preferred anti-piracy patrol ship in the Honorverse seems to be (at least for the RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN) a heavy or light cruiser I imagine that your criteria should be met. Something like a Saganami A/B/C, Mars C/D, or Verfechter class should have ample magazine/pod capacity and missile capability to defeat any pirate ship they come across, short of a BC (and even then I'd probably take those odds). Heck even an older design like a Star Knight/Prince Consort/Crusader/Broadsword/Warrior, Jason Alvarez, Mars A/B, or Sword class should have plenty of magazine capacity and missile capability to deal with a typical pirate. Even something like a Avalon/Apollo/Courageous or a Conqueror/Charles Wade Pope class light cruiser should be adequate for the task (depending on when in the timeline you want to talk about). Especially since as I believe you were the one who pointed out, pirates even when they got their hands on warships, typically were using older designs with the emphasis on offensive throw weight not defensive capability. Even when it comes to the defensive aspect for the anti-piracy cruiser, its doubtful most pirates would have the latest/most capable missiles or enough of them to batter through the defenses of an RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN heavy/light cruiser, especially late in the series when the rise of pod-salvos meant missile defense becomes a VERY IMPORTANT THING (I believe that's how Runs For Celery would use caps in this situation). I'm not saying it couldn't happen if you had a pirate with say an ex-State Sec heavy cruiser or even a Sileasan heavy cruiser who decided to shoot his magazines dry. Just that most pirates, using an older Sileasan frigate, destroyer, or light cruiser (or a civilian ship modified to be a pirate) would probably really, really struggle to do it to the point the odds would be pretty decisively in the favor of the RMN/GSN/RHN/IAN (and maybe even SLN) cruiser.
In Star Wars Legends, when the Bounty Hunter's Guild was the Bounty Hunter's Guilds, there was a House (House Tresario) that specialized in bounties for Pirates.
My memories of playing FTL remind me that EMP weapons would be useful at disabling prey, another way would be sending a boarding craft with expendable drones to fight the ships crew. Another possible motive for piracy is capturing a better ship or capturing inferior ships to scrap for parts and resources.
Heinlein's novel Citizen of the Galaxy has a great solution for capturing ships. In the story, pirate ships are armed with an extremely powerful paralysis beam that works at short range but can instantly disable a ship and its entire crew if it hits properly. It basically solves most of the problems with boarding a ship as long as the pirates are fast enough to get within firing range then are fast enough to board the ship and neutralize the crew before they recover from paralysis. To combat this, trading ships are armed with long-range missiles that can pop a pirate ship in one hit, but of course the pirates also have countermeasures for the missiles. So the game is to control the missile spread smartly to defeat the pirates' anti-missile systems before the pirates get close enough to fire their paralysis beam. Pirate tactics don't really work against proper military ships that have sophisticated automated targeting and a heck of a lot of missiles, but traders can't legally own military targeting equipment (and missiles are expensive), meaning they are dependent on manual fire control. This makes a good fire controlman - basically someone who's really good with math and orbital mechanics - very valuable for the ship.
Historically many naval ships crews were pirates as well. When they saw another countries ship (especially one they are at war with) they would lower their nations flag and raise a pirates flag to single their intent. Most of the time the other ship would give up rather than fight a trained military ship flying a pirate flag.
The main thing with a Pirate flag is that indicated you would be given no quarter if you resisted, unlike a ship flying a military flag was technically supposed to.
So raising a pirate flag was basically the equivalent of saying “my gloves are coming off; you ready to bleed? 😈” “no! 😱💸”
@@UGNAvalon yup
When my second grade teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said space pirate.
My high school teachers asked me the same thing.
I still said space pirate.
I like the cut of your jib.
@@gregoryvn3 Thanks dawg
I like the pack tactics that pirates used in The Expanse, overwhelming numbers
A pre-existing ship in the setting with extra weapons, fancy spray paint and decals, or general extra stuff added on is always a quick and easy way to design a pirate ship, and it's got the added benefit of free extra world-building.
Star Wars lore did have civilian anti pirate groups. Some amateur some professional. They were grouped as mercenary forces.
Some stories used Q ships as unmarked cover, others had hidden starfighters. (Jabba's ship had headhunters aboard for defense)
The main stream Star Wars stories were from the underdog spotted, or in the case of Solo, the pirate side.
Legends Sector Rangers were tasked with anti pirate duties, or organizations like Cor-Sec.
I really like how pirates act in Delta-V: Rings of Saturn. They'll come within hailing range, and hit you with a "Look pal, we can shoot at each other, or you can pay me to go away. You might be able to take me out, but the repair fees are going to be far more than what I'm asking."
And they're right, because in Delta-V, you play as a miner, and both you and the pirates are flying heavy, reasonably durable mining ships equipped with "weapons" meant for breaking apart rocks, not taking out ships. Almost any fight is going to be a slugging match that leaves both parties wounded at best. You can even try to negotiate a price, if you can convince them you're poor!
I love that game so much. I need to get around to playing it more.
I always liked Outlaw Star from... Outlaw Star. It is THE most advanced grappler ship in the entire setting, designed by a collaboration of a pirate group and the Space Forces (think galactic police force) for a specific (which I won't spoil) purpose.
Space Pirates in Outlaw Star mainly use "grappler" ships aka ships with big robot arms (which in the very beginning were designed for EVA and repairs) which are great for their purposes. Find civilian target, go in, shoot the engines and any weapons and if the target doesn't want to drop the cargo you just use the arms to remove the cargo (maybe the whole compartment) from them.
The downside of grapplers is that it takes a really skilled pilot with great spatial awareness or the support of a really powerful ship computer to handle all the calculations. Furthermore they often deploy external cameras so they have a better overview of the area in combat when using the arms, which is hgihly difficult if not outright impossible in dense asteroid fields/belts
Man that was a favorite when I was a kid. Can’t believe it only went one season.
And being THE most advanced grappler ship meant the crew of the Outlaw Star was always short on money and/or in debt because of the horrendous repair and ammunition bills.
You forgot to mention that most ship-to-ship combat tend to devolve into kungfu-fighting using grappler arms.
David Weber's Honorverse has piracy act largely along historical models of semi-professional privateers/freedom fighters, and more independent scallywags with a rouge state backer.
His FTL travel requires translation from FTL travel space (the ubiquitous hypespace) at distances determined by a star's mass, generally along semi-predictable paths, but the universe's lack of interstellar ansible or other FTL communication (mostly) tends to put ship capture more along the age of sail goals of "take goods, fence them, sell or reuse the boat".
His books are (or were - the later books get into more and more esoteric 'this would be cool' territory) a very good breakdown of historically informed space battles and massive space wars, complete with a semi-militaristic breakdown of the thoughts and intentions behind the figures in them.
Forgive the ramble, and please read the books!
And he also doesn't shy away from the ugly side of privacy either. I think it's in Honor Among Enemies where we see that up close with the survivors of Bonaventure.
I absolutely love the design of the Mandalorian pirate ship, it looks like a minature eclipse!
Are you talking about the Arquitens/class 546 class cruiser that the Mandalorians took from Moff Gideon at the end of season 2?
@@jkirschy no, the one used by the Pirates in S3
I believe thats a geonosian frigate from episode 2.
@@egoalter1276it looks simmilar, but I dont think it is
@@kaltenstein7718 Really depends only on what they say it is, we only see a brief side profile of the ship in the movie, and the model for tzhe backgroud prop in republic commando is identical to the one in the mandalorian.
Interesting thing about modern day pirates is that the target actually often is the crew not the ship, as humans often are far more valuable than the cargo and can be ransomed for more money.
It's also much easier to make a phone call demanding a wire transfer than to navigate a hundred thousand ton cargo ship into port when your only training is on speedboats and several military vessels are hunting you down, and that's before the hassle of unloading it.
I've been writing a sci-fi/space opera novel and one of the fun things I've used for pirates is that they take stuff like normal laser weapons and just turbo-charge them to absurd, likely single-use weapons along with the usual disabling weaponry, or shove a whole bunch of cheap rockets into a single battery. The goal is to have the biggest gun and intimidate people into giving over their stuff, not to fight one on one.
There was an old Star Trek RPG manual by FASA that suggested that fake distress calls were a bad idea for pirates to use as bait. A commercial vessel in a hurry may be tempted to ignore the call while a military patrol would not. Plus a distress call could actually attract other pirates looking for an easy target that couldn't run away.
You have to have the following, 1. Disable target 2. Have a warship with the right firepower 3. Abile to run/aviod/fool any persuing forces 4. Have a well trained crew 5. Have cargo hold 6. Ability to move bonding parties and or cargo from the captured ship 7. A place if you take the ship for ransom while holding the crew. 8. A place to sell of ill gotten gains
For my setting I have decided to make my space pirates focus on speed, stealth, electronic warfarre and intimidation, utilizing bans on certain technologies and the crews of pirate ships taking extra risks to their wellbeing in ship design (they don't have an artificial gravity spin ring) to get up close, disable a vessel and force a "business deal" for vital resources that are needed to sustain life.
Bodacious space pirates might be a good example of this concept.
Arrangements made for insurance claims and also entertainment events and asset write-offs for elites.
More egalitarian than the regular navy is an understatement if we're talking about the "Golden Age of Piracy" ...
My favorite kind of pirate ship comes from "Seiho Bukyo Outlaw Star" where most pirates employ Grapplers. Grapplers are ships equipped with grappler arms, sometimes more than one pair. They are used for seizing cargo, as well as sort of "hand to hand" combat, and the pilots capable of doing it are one of the most respected pilots in the galaxy.
Appreciate the pirate theme from Starsector was used to showcase an episode about pirates! How apt!
ah you called for me, there is one important factor to include, the flare for the dramatic! serves a vital psychological role in convincing a crew to surrender their cargo. "that ship has a skull with glowing eyes, you really want to mess with that?" "look at those spikes!" "That Pirate captain has a big billowing cape in space? How does that even work?!"
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but for Star Wars the old West End Games TTRPG had an excellent Pirates & Privateers supplement that went in depth into how they'd operate, with a focus on laying gravity shadow traps in hyperspace lanes, ion cannons and even personal weaponry dedicated to boarding actions.
The current Lucasfilm TV teams have a love for the old WEG material, so you might see it reimagined on screen.
Weapons to disable ships. decent storage space for loot. fast engines to intercept and escape
Definitely appreciated seeing some underappreciated gems highlighted in the video- was disappointed ExoSquad missed the cut (given how much the Pirate Clans were a focus in the show)
The best space pirate game ever was Independence War 2. And that worked well because you had a second AI cargo ship that you could call in and pick up the loot. You flew a bad ass combat ship dealing with escorts but once you defeated them and shot enough holes in the freighter they would drop cargo pods. The game and story also encouraged you to target the evil mega corps and leave the little guys alone, so that was a good mechanic.
I’ve seen a lot of IP’s use modular external shipping similar to modern container ships. A effective tactic once space is in the mix is to just knock some of the containers off. Not like they are going to sink. For that matter no reason not to just cut open the hull near cargo bays on a large hauler and chuck goods out. You don’t have to deal with suppressing the crew directly or the complication of hostile docking. Dump as much as you can, jump out the whole and wait for your ship to scoop you up.
I remember that was what they did in the Independece War games, target the transport proper and the pods would jettison when they either surrendered or died.
Star Citizen has a series of ships designed as an equivalent to modern container ships. The bow and stern of these ships extend on a telescoping spine to deploy long cargo arms that are then loaded with shipping containers (kind of like ornaments on a Christmas tree). Pirates will eventually be able to shoot off containers like taking candy from a pinata. When not carrying cargo, these ships can retract back into a much smaller form (they can't land while carrying cargo).
One of my favourite 'Pirate' vessels in a space game is the Barbarossa made and operated by the Vigour Syndicate in X4: Foundations "Tides of Avarice".
It's an L sized vessel, so pretty big and it's a hybrid between 2 of the types if L sized vessels you get in X4: Freighters and Destroyers. The Barbarossa is effectively an incredibly well armed freighter with some powerful engines strapped to it so it can escape the destroyers. It outguns pretty much any non military vessel, and can take on space stations pretty well. The Vigour Syndicate uses the Barbarossa in 3 capacites: Freighter, Raider and Security. It excels in all three of those - so long as it isn't against a proper naval fleet.
It also looks cool.
This was a real good evaluation on what these pirates would/could , do/act upon.
Nice cut scenes. Very fitting.
Keep up the good work.
spacedock is like life support for sci fi world building writers, every time i get stuck i just skim over their channel and find something new and cool to write about
You and me both. I'm editing the draft of a sci-fi anthology that I plan to publish at some point, this channel and The Sojourn served as the main inspiration for the worldbuilding aspects that each story is set in.
Glad to help!
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
I want to say, I am writing a Space Opera-type book and so much of the thoughts you have in these videos have helped. Thank you.
High time that you started exploring piracy in high space.
A bounty hunter in Star Wars does what they're paid to do.
Honestly its one of the many, MANY failings of the New Republic in their war against the Syndicates that they didn't just open the government coffers and suck most of the Hutts' manpower out from under them
thats why the new republic fell again.
The closest we see of this is Din Djarin offering his and Grogu's services to Captain Carson Teva, who accepts under an off the books agreement.
I've had that impression too... "solo mercenary" or "hired gun" seem like more accurate terms. Maybe the actual bounty hunting is more respectable, so they use the term?
As a pirate (in Star Citizen) my group tends to use small fast ships, sometimes even just hoverbikes. Our preferred capture method is flying off with other people's ship's when they don't properly secure them, but we sometimes find a nice target to use disruptors on (shutting down thier ship with EMPS) and board. Twice now we've had our victim play along so he ended up retaining half his cargo and got a fighter escort to his sell point.
2:40 Battletech space piracy works like this! Pirates wait in the vicinity of jump points or valuable targets in system(since you have to travel at stl to get around once out of the jump point). And since it can take a few weeks to a month to charge for a jump again, once u jump into a system, any waiting pirates have all the time in the world to decide if your worth it or not.
(if your a jumpship technician, at least you can rest easy knowing u wont be killed in all likelyhood. too valuable!)
I'm almost offended there isn't any b-roll of Moretsu Pirates, lol. They have an interesting and mutually beneficial piracy system in that anime.
"These filthy pirates against our bold privateers."
"How will we tell the difference?"
"Um...You would ask that!"
As you listed off the criteria, I couldn't help but think of the Grappler ships from Outlaw Star.
If you are unfamiliar, it is explained during a lore dump at the beginning of one episode that they began their life as ships with mechanical Grappler arms that could be used to do repairs and move cargo in space.
Criminals would go on to use them for purposes of piracy, resulting in the space forces to also encorporate them for combat.
Some may find it goofy, but i personally think its rad as hell that you could equip a rocket ship with a cutlass.
I would think pirate ships would carry larger crew complements to serve as prize crews for any ship they take. And since a merchant ship's goals would be to minimize expenses, those would have a fairly small crew. For example, a supertanker only has a crew of 30 or so, while a Halifax-class frigate has a complement of 240 or so. So an interstellar merchant ship would involve cramming all the necessities for space travel and keeping the crew alive in the minimum volume with the minimum amount of mass, so as much volume and mass as possible can be dedicated to cargo, with as few warm bodies as possible to make it run.
So after the initial shock and awe boarding, a small prize crew is all that would be needed for "command functions" and supervising/replacing the existing crew in case they get froggy.
As for their overall fit, I could see them using older ships somehow acquired from surplus inventory or from mothball yards, or fairly light merchant hulls, all of them refitted with the best propulsion and sensor and weapons fit they can get their grubby little paws on. That would lead to speedy glass cannon/eggshell armed with a sledgehammer sort of builds that might even be enough to tangle with light warships if push came to shove, especially in sufficiently poor volumes of space that can't afford to have a as large or as advanced a navy/system patrol as they actually need, or have to rely on the odd naval patrols by more advanced polities.
In my setting, the space pirates would use these devices called Harpoons that would force a target to a predetermined location, typically an ambush site or somewhere the target couldn’t flee from.
Each Harpoon was essentially makeshift torpedos that would carry a rudimentary FTL drive set to jump itself (and whatever is attached) to a preprogrammed destination set by a jump station, either preexisting or ones made by the pirates
One thing that might often be overlooked is that both official naval ships expecting to take prizes and privateers/pirates (generally the distinction is whether the private military force is sanctioned or not by at least one government) will start off their trip very heavily overloaded with crew and supplies. You might find a space pirate ship double bunking like modern USN Carriers do when at maximum alert, with crew living in cramped and fairly miserable conditions to support an oversized contingent of marines and "prize crew" who will offload onto captured enemies to take command of them.
The same for supplies, not only does that oversized crew need more supplies to begin with, but a pirate will be expecting to spend prolonged time operating in enemy territory where friendly or neutral ports are likely going to be scarce. If your setting is remotely realistic (just something as minimal as accounting for the fact that people and cargo take up volume) a pirate ship might be bristling with drop tanks and disposable supply containers which not only keep it's oversized crew alive for long voyages but double as convenient camouflage. In a story you can use these for all kinds of things, places to hide or retreat to during boarding actions, maybe one of them contains a hidden escape ship, they can be used as chaff dumped to confuse an enemy, maybe some of the cargo pods are actually weapons themselves, etc.
Honestly, it sounds like having a small fleet of smaller ships rather than just one somewhat larger vessel would be the best way to go about it. The problem is that you have a few contradictory requirements. Fast and lots of cargo space doesn't typically go together well. You'd have to make it work at least to some degree due to needing to escape anti-piracy operations, but it might be better to have a ship for raiding and then another to carry the cargo long-term that stays out of the way. Similarly, you want to have some form of interdiction but in most cases interdictors tend to be dedicated ships that sacrifice weapons and durability for their interdiction capabilities, so you want to have another ship around to carry the "big guns".
In some of Andre Norton's books, there was a pirate base, reputed and later confirmed to be a space station, in the "present" time known as Waystar. It was several centuries old, predating humans' space travel. And it had ties with, while not entirely subordinate to, the "Thieves Guild" (interstellar Mafia), which provided a good bit of its logistic support. "If past rumor spoke true, there was a rivalry between the Veeps [crime bosses] of Waystar and the center core of the Guild." - "Uncharted Stars," 1969
nice little starsector showcase there :)
I think one of my favorite depictions of space pirates is in the "long rim" supplement for TTRPG Lancer, where it describes a high traffic transit corridor for sublight vessels and the vast number of docking stations and orbital habits that sprung up to service ships pass through. The rim litterally has no economic output beyond what what it can squeeze out of the colonist transiting through it so a lot of stations turned to various forms of criminal enterprises just to make up for occasional shortfalls.
8:38 the computer console from TNG Gambit looks incorrect. Most are flat with the black panel and the buttons but this looked like they've put the screen on top and then put a black rubber edging around it. I know some of the visual displays get changed for the remastered so don't know if the console looked like this in the original.
That Hegemony theme hits hard
Please do some videos on the new Dune ships!
I'm surprised not many sci fi channels are talking about it.
In the world I am building there are space pirates and they are quite a significant threat to merchant shipping. The problem for the in-universe authorities is (as Douglas Adams mentions) that space is really big so there is lots of places for them to hide, the authorities just don't have enough patrol ships to be everywhere and the merchant ships are generally unarmed. This allows some pirate groups to control surprisingly large areas of space, but generally not key space as the authorities patrol the main shipping lanes and protect space stations and colonies. The problems really arise when the authorities are weak or stupid and lose control over areas that merchant ships need to pass through in order to reach certain points, such as remote colonies. And because space is big this can happen quite a bit and quite quickly particularly in outlying areas on the edges of explored space.
Space dock is really showing its starsector addiction with this one
Great to see No Man's Sky get represented! The Pirate actions in that game are getting better, if not quite perfect yet. For those who like to level-grind, I recommend the game 'Infinite Space' for DS. Your character becomes a privateer as a major plot point.
Anyone know which halo game 2:18 is from?
Lots of cargo space, speed & and just enough firepower to break shields and disable engines & weapons (Ion weapons, like in Star Wars, fit all of the weapon needs) makes sense.
Didn't expect that starsector clip and ost, it's the best sci-fi rpg out there
Will you be doing a analysis of Captain Harlock's Space Battleship?!? 🤔
Excellent video!! Really interesting idea for making a video around!!
Thanks for this Hooji!!
It's worth pointing out that historical pirates absolutely would kill crew, IF you resisted or tried to flee. Makes for great motive to cooperate.
Something I saw in warframe that could solve the idea of boarding enemy ships was giant cannons used by the Grineer, where they fired giant metal orbs with troops inside of them that would slam into enemy hulls, letting the troops board the ship or station by simply being fired from their own ship. High mortality rate obviously, given the setting, but with tweaking it could be something that pirates in other settings could use.
Of course, if the crew of the merchie fights too hard, vent a little atmo. Most merchies aren't compatmentalized as warships are.
And depending on the universe/setting, do they have skinsuits?
It's pretty cold out there.
The Honorverse and Expanse show how a light fast frigate equivalent, plus hard suits for boarding could make piracy profitable.
Especially if you have a prize crew. See Firefly "Out of Gas".
Am glad you showed the newest design of the Arcadia. Mentioned in comments once before and how it addresses by biggest beef in sci fi ship design. Ships laid out like naval ships. Thumbnail arcadia. Big turrets on top only. CG Arcadia. Turrets and ship design axial, not planar.
Star trek. Classic enterprise with engineering down low and big high deck. Voyager, a much more axial design. Nacelles make sense because warp field shape. But still is a top doen. Bridge up top, engineering at bottom.
One would think vital sections like engineering be central because space has no real gravitational orientation when in orbit.
I would love to hear your opinions on that one day :-3
Depends on how your artificial gravity works. I assume Enterprise and similar CAN'T manage a radial gravity field, or maybe it has unpleasant consequences, like making the crew seasick as they deal with the odd perspectives.
@@stevenscott2136 Well, even non radial. From an engineering standpoint. The reason I love Arcadia with Captain Harlock is the gun turrets. Think stars etc. Ships can roll, but functionally a 2D plane vs spherical coverage. Older thumbnail can see that.
In the CG movie however is pretty cool. They have turrets, but they rotate fully around the ship for complete coverage. Bridge etc running on a central spine.
Is a design we see all the time in non combat realistic sci vessels that doesnt seem to carry over into sci fantasy.
I usually would think Fast moderately armed ships with decent fuel economy for the setting is a basis for a standard pirate ship. The pirate bases have to be pretty much self sufficient to grow food and refine water and fuel. water based ships need a dry dock to clean and repair more effectively with protected harbors. I still miss that pirate ship on mandarlorian as it could have been a mobile base for his people and saved costs on sets.
There is being a space pirate, and all the logical factors going into it.
then . . .
There is being THE space pirate, Captain Harlock, and having The Arcadia.
In Legends Privateers are pretty common in the Star Wars setting with most major factions employing privateers at some point in their history. The West End Games Star Wars RPG had a Pirate and Privateers sourcebook and a stand alone adventure book focused on a former Imperial Frigate that became a rebel Privateer after mutinying. Back when I played Tabletop RPGs the groups I was part of ran tons of space privateer or pirate focused campaigns in various settings
Two things I think would be very helpful for a pirate ship you didn't mention are sensors and stealth system. Longer ranged sensors would make it easier to see other ships before they see you so you can decide what ones are worth targeting before they know you are there, and spot anti-pirate vessels luring in the area.
Being able to sneak up on a target makes it easier to catch them and intimidate them. After all just because one of your ships has dropped stealth to demand their surrender or open fire that doesn't mean you might not have more ships nearby still hiding waiting to pounce if needed.
7:41 i would never have expected to see this in a spacedock video
what? no Sol Bianca??? at least a mention for strategically separating a ship's drives and bridge with gunfire, and hauling off cargo at leisure...the high speed precision strike like a shark, then circling back to dismantle.
Thanks for these videos! They're great and very informative!
Hah, I was just racking my brain thinking of where to find inspiration for an outlaw ship, and here comes Space Dock with just the thing! Thank you
I know it's an antiquated game, but Escape Velocity: Nova had a ship called the Starbridge that took well to aftermarket modifications and many Pirates used modded Starbridges.
I always liked the Grappler Ships from Outlaw Star. You could fit them into most settings as being able to simply lock yourself onto your target in a place they cant shoot, or threatening to punture the hull, or travelling through hyperspace with the victim. Skilled manipulation can help you maneuver yourself AND your opponent to reduce damage and risk, especially with a disjointed hitbox, honestly, they're a little too perfect.
I'd go with a Klingon Bird of Prey. Plenty of piracy examples with those. The Millenium Falcon worked well also. Pirates have to have some cheaty edge, like speed, maneuverability or cloaking technology. Or just guns, lots of guns. Or stealth technology like in the Expanse, and a genocidal nature also helps!
If we're talking piracy, I feel that if a pirate has at least one large ship as their flagship for intimidation and two smaller ships to their name, it could work for intimidating smaller targets like freelancers or traders. The larger ship is usually reserved as a last result while the two smaller ships do much of the attacking, if any at all. To quote one of their earlier videos, bigger fleets are suspicious and as a pirate the last thing you'd want to do is drawn attention from a planets potentially larger navy. You'd want to remain as anonymous as possible to meet the needs of yourself and your crew.
"Target their life support systems," ordered the Captain, "Dead Men don't resist boarding."
As far as boarding actions go, you don't really need to dock one large ship to another to board them. As soon as the pirate ship roughly matches velocity with its target, agile shuttles or armoured EVA suits with uprated thrusters could cross the gap and grapple onto the target vessel. You don't even need to gain access to the interior; if you have a large powersuit or small mecha with cutting tools, the threat of depressurization can be enough to force the victims to fall into line.
Also, once you're in physical contact with the target vessel, you can practically broadcast to their whole crew. In a setting where the navy or merchant marine are oppressing their underlings - much like the real-life age of piracy - this could also win you some valuable friends on the inside...
Fun video.
Would have been funner with a mention of Bebop’s “Wild Horses” pirates and their pirate ship disguised as a freighter with the physical computer virus delivery method.
Is there plans to add civilian ships as a reference book on the patreon? Instead of just fighter ships? Or is it just going to be fighters and stuff.
5:14 it’s not ST Enterprise, it’s The Expanse - sorry Hoojiwana
sweet starsector OST
1:04 I don’t know hijacking cargo ships and stealing supplies weapons or data to sell on the black market to make a profit or just taking the ship outright.
In the golden age of piracy, it was common for pirates to force doctors to sign the articles of agreement and keep them until the company could find another doctor.
So this means they were likely there against their will but still had whatever benefits (and rules) that the other crew members had.
Voting power for matters of the moment, pay and compensation, et cetera. But depending on the setting, space pirates might have automated medical facilities where technicians might be more important than an actual doctor. Either way, no matter the era or setting, the pirates are gonna force the skilled labor they need into becoming members of the crew.
Even if it's entirely willingly, the crew may "force" then into joining for the sake of courtoom sympathy later on down the road.
TTRPG I was in began with a civilian transport on an approximately three and a half hour trip to a distant star, leaving from Earth. Most of that time was Einsteinian space navigation-enough time to get clear of the orbital plane and jump to FTL for a short while, then back to Einsteinian space for approach. Piracy was generally not common in and around population centers because they tended to have defense grids and navies that could guarantee pirates would be sucking vacuum before they could clear orbitals…
If it sounds like once a ship got to FTL it was safe, that was generally the understanding.
Our party began as civilian passengers on a routine spaceline flight to Antares station. We all had our own reasons for being on the flight, and our GM described a pilot warning the crew and cabin that we'd be jumping to FTL in 30 seconds in a very airline captain sort of voice. Very routine and mundane. We jumped into FTL and … about five minutes later we were being captured by pirates. In FTL. Freakin' how? Passengers to be ransomed, anything of value "claimed", ship for parts and materials probably.
The party got away … with a small ship that had tech aboard. They could threaten and even attack ships in FTL now … but so could we. But who'd believe us? Who'd arrest us thinking we were pirates? Or SAY they did to make us disappear so they could make sure they were the only ones who had the greatest advance in military technology "they" had ever invented? And the pirates want their ship back, of course.
WE had no truly "safe" port. WE hard to make temporary alliances with smugglers, outlaws, and sometimes criminals until we could learn who was safe enough to trust. Because the secret of what the pirates had got out, and eventually the secret that we had it too also got out.
If y'all want to have fun with similar ideas … there's not really much "unique" here, so have at it.
A few ways to counter the FTL drive counter to Piracy is to have the installed FTL drive take time to charge or calculate the jump. Either that, or have the pirates use their own FTL jump capability (with some high end calculations) to jump right on top of their target. The element of surprise catches their prey off guard until there is little choice except surrender.