Re: Companies in Spelljammer

> >The point is it's a good place to make part of your territory.
> Maybe
> >you live in the region of abandoned asteroids.  They probably
> wouldn't
> >be your prime targets but great targets of opportunity.  Wait until
> the
> >ship is almost full of harvested breadfruit (or whatever) then
> strike
> >while 90% of the crew are off cutting breadfruit, hauling them, or
> >tired from just having got off shift.  I just think they'd be places
> a
> >pirate would watch, not the sole way pirates make their living.
>
> The main cost of the fruit is going to be the ship time getting
> there,
> the cost of the harvest crew, and the cost of the preservation spell.

I'm not sure what that has to do with what I wrote.  You just aided my
point, however, since the pirates don't have to pay the harvest crew
nor spend time getting there.  I'm not sure why you think a
preservation spell is required since there weren't any in real life and
daily castings of the 1st level priest spell (0 level in 3e?) purify
food and drink will take care of things for you anyway.

> What you get out of it depends a lot on whether you have a ready
> market for the fruit, and a reputation for good product.

No.  What you get out of it is where you sell it.  If it's in demand,
you'll sell it.  Of course, as you said, you do have to go soemwhere
there's a market.  But then, the merchant wouldn't be carrying it if
there wasn't a market, would he?

> A pirate would have to pay the cost of a crew, a ship, the

Both of which he already has.  This is his business.

> preservation
> spell

Nope, see above.

 and probably not get anywhere near the price for the fruit,
> since it would likely be damaged.

How so?  You think it all got bruised in the brief battle that
occurred?

  It would need to hang around for
> a considerable period of time to be sure of getting in during a
> good window, and that is _not_ safe behavior for a pirate!

You didn't bother to read my post, did you?

> Going pirate involves almost the same investment as going legit, as
> has much higher risk.

You're already a pirate?  What does any of this have to do with
anything?  And where do you get additional cost?  I saved cost by not
having to hire the gatherers nor pay someone to find the asteroid.

> If attacked, the colony would try to save the ship,

What colony?  The point was there is no colony, they landed on an
uninhabited asteroid and harvested.  And if there's a colony (I
addressed this elsewhere) how did they have enough money to buy
defenses and hire mercs to keep themselves safe from slavers?

 and the workers
> would scatter into the jungle with the food supplies.  So you get a
> load of fruit.  Your pirate ship, heavily loaded with pirates, is
> unlikely
> to be efficiently designed for transporting large quantities of fruit
> in good condition.

So I also steal the ship.  No problem.  And my pirate ship probably is
designed for transporting stores of goods, just like any other ship.
Why would I use a completely different ship design?  Do you have any
idea how real pirates operated?  I fail to see any point to your post
in realation to mine (which it is a reply to) as well as you having
some sort of strange idea piracy won't occur and it's non-viable.
Piracy does occur and it is viable, for a number of reasons.

> A lot of emergency supply caches could be buried secretly, leaving
> the pirates in the wonderful situation of stealing a load of fruit
> that
> they can sell for _maybe_ 1/10 the cost of the ship, and there are
> hundreds of eyewitnesses to exactly who robbed them.

Hunh?  What does this have to do with anything?  There are always
witnesses to piracy unless you kill everyone.  So what's the
difference?  All the pirates have done is improve their reputation.

> No, pirates want the things which were bought for 1000 gp/ton
> to be sold for 1050 gp/ton.  Not the things bought/gathered for
> 50 gp/ton to be sold for 80 gp/ton.

?  Pirates are opportunists.  They don't get picky, they get rich by
taking everything they can.  1050 gp/ton prizes are defended like 1050
gp/ton prizes.  Your 80 gp/ton prizes are completely undefended by what
I see from you.  30 gp/ton is apparently enough for a merchant to make
a decent profit so why wouldn't a pirate take 3x that for none of the
usual risk to life and limb?

> >Why not take both?  You really don't think slavers didn't also take
> the
> >valuables of the enslaved, do you?  With the PoTs, Company of the
> >Chalice, other slavers, elves, and so on, it's not profitable for
> >slavers to run colonies outside of some unknown or otherwise secured
> >area.  And since they are slavers, they're probably selling the
> slaves
> >to the people who run those slave production areas.  Slaving must be
> >very profitable for people to do it in SJ, otherwise they wouldn't.
>
> If you can capture the colony's supplies, then you can ransom them
> for
> the saleable goods.  Otherwise, good luck tracking down colonists in
> a rugged enviroment that they are familiar with, not the pirates.
> The criminal element that is to be feared is one that is familiar
> with
> the enviroment.

?  What are you smoking?  Apparently you assume slaving is useless.  Do
you have slavers and pirates IYC?  Apparently not.  Tracking down
people on an asteroid with your ship in orbit above really isn't hard.
And if you're worried about it, just fire the asteroid after you've
stolen their possessions.  They will either come to you willingly or
die as the air envelope fouls.

> I can think of less fun places to assault than a ramble of
> inter-connected
> mine tunnels against miners who know where the cave-ins are, who
> don't need light sources to navigate, but I have to think about it
> for a bit.

Think all you want.  You assume I have to go into the mines instead of
forcing the miners to come to me.  You've also apparently assumed
slavers will only enslave people on mining asteroids while ignoring
your undefended farming colonies.

> >The point was not to debunk his ideas, just note he hadn't accounted
> >for such things as pirates and slavers.  If those powers are around
> the
> >asteroid will probably already be colonized (at least IMC, habitable
> >asteroids are very rare).  So he's setting up in unpatrolled space
> >(where slavers and pirates hide) and he hasn't provided any means of
> >defense for the colony.  Hiring even a dozen marines and outfitting
> the
> >locals for militia duty could dig deeply into profits.
>
> Finding people in open farmland is easy.  Especially if your raiders
> have superior mobility.

They have a flying ship.  Can maneouverability get any better?

  Searching even a small rock for valuables
> is time-consuming as hell, especially if the defenders go into
> hiding places and secret trails, rather than an aggressive defense,
> as the terrain will _not_ be open in most cases, but hilly and
> overgrown.

What?  It's a farming colony.  Have you ever bothered to pay attention
to any farmland?  It is cultivated.  It is ordered.  It is really easy
to locate things in when you're above it.  Even the hills you've
assumed are easy to locate people in.  Hidden trails are great, until
someone looks down from above.  This is an asteroid we're discussing,
not a planet.  There is nowhere to run.

> The problem for stealing from resource colonies is where you sell
> it.  You don't have navies patrol the resources colonies, accept to
> check up on them from time to time, and bring in witnesses.  You
> patrol the places where the goods have to be sold.

That's a very nice idea.  Until I go sell them at the next Empire
over's ports.  And where exactly do you think slavers sell people?
Obviously they have their own ports if all the local powers dislike
slavery.  What's stopping people from selling to the illithids?

> The idea of defending Bral or other rocks with scattered ballista
> towers always struck me as silly.  You protect small critical
> areas intensely, the food and water stores, the docks, the people.
> Then you have the situation that the rock inhabitants have far
> more supplies stocked up, and the attack force, which _has_ to
> be larger, has a difficult logistic situation.

While it is silly to some extent the fact that someone can come in and
simply burn all your buildings and kill you with fouled air means a
better defense is required.  You also assume the inhabitants are all
anxious to abandon their homes to thieves.  If that were true pirates
wouldn't raid ships, they'd fly to the colonies and just steal from all
the undefended houses.

> >As I said above, I wasn't trying to debunk his ideas, just show they
> >left some things out.  I think they need more fleshing out.  They
> are
> >definitely a new twist on SJ trade and I like that.  But I think
> other
> >factors should be accounted for also.
>
> A lot depends on whether we are talking about rock colonies or planet
> based colonies.  During the first ten years of a rock colony,
> probably
> only company ships and a few select patrol captains even know its
> location.  By that time, it may have grown to become a big enough
> concern that it can't be easily gobbled up, or the colony could have
> moved on to another rock.

If you had bothered to read my post, you'd see I noted how your "rock
colonies" would be set up in uncontrolled areas (that was the original
proposal) so they are in space where the slavers and pirates already
are.  And leaks are notorious.  Just keeping the ships crew quiet and
trying to round up potential colonists (or are you using slaves?)
without telling them where they're going will be nightmares.

> A planet colony can't hide, but unless the planet is highly contested
> by spelljammers, pirates are not going to have a haven nearby, and
> the whole planet can be patrolled, protected dozens of small
> colonies at once.  (Assuming there are decent rules for patrolling
> and intercepting, of course!)

You just expended an entire navy to defend a few small planetary
colonies!  Congratulations.  You now have no profits.

> Even if the planet has several strong SJ factions, they may not
> approve of pirates attacking and destroying resource colonies.
> They are contesting over who dominates trade, not about destroying
> the other nation/faction.

Where you get the latter I have no idea.

  If a resource colony _is_ destroyed, it
> will because one faction or another believes it to be intruding on
> their turf.  Since factions don't always fight, in some periods
> those turf lines will be well-enough defined to allow for prosperity.

Too bad those slavers and pirates are independent and factionless.
They just run around with big monkeywrenches.

> And factions _will_ step on pirates that raid their rivals territory
> if they are not interested in an expensive war at that time.  Bad
> for business, don't you know?

Since when?  Like the Pakistanis are stepping on the Kashmir
terrorists?  Like the Sandinistas were stepped on as they hid across
the border?  Like England never supported privatering against Spain
until they were actual enemies?  Like...  You have a very nice and
orderly world.  I'm glad for your colonists there are no pirates or
slavers to bother them.

> That said, there are situations where resource colonies will get
> hammered,
> but they will still provide a huge return for their capital
> investment.

Only if they survive long enough to provide any resources first.  Of
course, an unscrupulous merchant could always offer to help set up
colonists and then ship them into slavery secretly.  Then he blames it
all on slavers...

> There will be other trade which is more lucrative on a per Hull Space
> basis, or on a manpower basis.

So I guess we're back to not doing it.  And it was such an interesting idea.

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