Random encounters...in wildspace?!?

One thing that I never could wrap my mind around:
How can you have random encounters during a voyage at spelljamming speed?

I can accept that there is a certain probability of meeting other ships or 
monsters/wildspace inhabitants when being near the orbit of a planet 
(either by arriving there or reaching it from the ground). Even 
then, "orbit" is a friggin' HUGE area: take the map of the planets surface 
area and multiply several times - and then take into account that compared 
to the vast numbers of groundling inhabitants, there is almost nobody in 
the orbit any given time! ...but still, "orbit" is probably the most busy 
area in wildspace. That's certainly different when approaching Bral or 
other small "asteroid-type" worlds, but I picture an orbit of anything as 
big as a planet as a quite lonely place.

And this gets even worse when a ship moves AWAY from a world. After only a 
few minutes of spelljamming, you are thousands upon thousands of miles away 
from "the action" - with no chance of close on another ship (spelljamming 
speed being a constant) and no chance of being caught up. 

Even after thinking long and hard about it, I still can not see how "deep 
space piracy" is thought to work. Imagine you are a pirate or privateer 
captain. Apart from loitering in orbit of a world (and hoping not to get 
caught!), what are your options? How big is the chance of meeting another 
ship in the vastness of wildspace?

One possible exception to the "lonelyness of wildspace" are the travel 
routes between worlds (planets, asteriod belts, etc.). Therem our pirate 
captain just _might_ have a chance of meeting prey. But then again, a ship 
only has to travel a tiny degree "off course" - and it would be thousands 
of miles away from the "standard travel route" - effectively alone in "deep 
wildspace" and thus safe from pirates. 

Even if our pirate captain has informants or whistle-blowers in a 
spelljammer haven who tells him when a ship leaves and its destination: 
without the EXACT(!!!) course data there is almost no chance of getting 
close enough to force it out of spelljamming speed. If the ships starts 
only a few minute too early or late, the revolution of the planets/worlds 
will cause a slightly different course. And since there are no sufficiently 
exact methods of keeping time (much less something like a 
universal "standard time"), the ship would be far away from our poor pirate.

I am not so sure about the portals in a chrystal sphere, but I don't think 
the chances for encounters are much bigger there. After all, natural 
portals appear randomly, and a spherewall is a HUUUUGE thing - the 
aforementioned "orbit-area" is tiny compared to it! 


I think this is one of the "fundamental problems" that need an explanation 
that's at least good enough for keeping the suspension of disbelief alive. 
Like the "gravity-problem" that was discussed a while back.

I'm quite sure there are more of these problems "out there", waiting to be 
discovered by players. ...and woe betide the Dungeonmaster who hasn't at 
least a superficial explanation! *grin*


Daniel
p.s.: If this topic was already discussed on the list, I apologize. I 
didn't find anything (but perhaps I just wasn't looking hard enough)...