A pirate game is generally not that different from a normal game, the biggest difference is one of scale. While a combat involving a Battlestar or Baseship will require the players to use the scale of 1 fighter counter equalling 1 flight of eight fighters, in a pirate game, it is highly doubtful whether the pirates will be able to muster up eight fighters, let alone several flights worth. As such, games should be conducted where one counter should equal one fighter, not one fighter flight.
While I am not about to tell you how to run a campaign or game, as a guide, the largest colonial craft to be generally effective in one of these games should be the Light Cruiser. Anything else has too much firepower to make games fun, unless of course the idea for the pirates is just to see if they can run away and survive to fight again...
While pirate ships have boarding parties as normal, the standard crew can also be used as additional boarding parties, at a ration of 1 crew unit to 1 boarding party, and thus the entire crew of a ship can be used to attack a victim.
Of course, if the crew start to take horrendous casualties, then the pirate ship may well find itself without a minimum crew requirement, which could make life interesting.
Pirates use a combination of four different types of craft - shuttles and fighters, yachts, modified freighters, and captured craft.
Shuttles are about the most common type of craft that a pirate has access to, and any shuttle from the civilian craft lists can be used. Because of a shuttles limitations, pirates craft are almost always armed.
Fighters are also sometimes available, and if a pirate can get hold of some, then they will. Usually Scarab fighters are the only types available, but sometimes a pirate group can get hold of Vipers, Cylon Raiders and even the odd Asp. To a civilian craft the difference is not really noticeable, but when going up against more capable opponents, pirates are nearly always outclassed.
Attack shuttles are also used by pirates in large numbers, although it must be stressed that these are never factory built models, but instead normal shuttles heavily souped up with bigger engines, more powerful weapons and a bit of armour thrown in as well.
All this extra equipment cuts into the cargo space available in the vessel, and as such, the craft can only transport 1 boarding party.
The attack shuttle also has some special rules. For a start, it has two points of armour (which is described as being 2 + 8). This is treated as normal armour in that it takes damage before the shuttle itself takes damage, and it does not count against the shuttles crippled rating.
Attack shuttles may be modified so that they can launch from a fighter bay. In this case, all normal fighter launching rules apply, including speed and direction.
Attack shuttles may control a number of seeking weapons equal to 2.
Attack shuttles also have an option mount which may be used to house an additional weapon.
This can include (at additional BPV cost):
| Item | BPV |
|---|---|
| 1 Phaser 3 (360 arc of fire) | +1 |
| 1 Phaser 2 (FA arc of fire) | +2 |
| 1 Mini-missile launcher | +3 |
| 1 Rocket launcher | +2 |
| 1 Small mine rack | +1 + mine cost |
For details of the mini-missile launcher, rocket launcher and mine rack, please see the page on weapons.
Pirates also have access to the large amounts of pleasure craft that civilians have, sometimes because they own them themselves, sometimes just because were not stolen them or grabbed them as booty.
In any case, pirates have no restrictions on what they may mount in their yachts, unlike civilians.
For more information on yachts, please see the yachts page.
The next common ship that pirates can get hold off, are freighters. However, a freighter as it stands is not a great ship for piracy operations, and thus what happens is that the pirates rip out a large section of the cargo hold and modify it for their own nefarious purposes.
Any civilian ship can be modified, and the following modifications can be done to the cargo bay, at a rate of 1.5 boxes of cargo to 1 box of modification, to a maximum of 12 cargo boxes on small freighters, or 24 boxes of cargo for larger freighters. The ratio is 1.5 to 1 to account for all the interior redesign that has to be done, and the fact that freighters cargo holds are not that great for modifications.
Things that can never be modified include the freighters movement cost, turn mode, life support and size class.
All modifications will change the BPV of the ship (by the amounts shown below), and thus the ships value will have to be modified. Do this by multiply the ships original BPV by ten, subtract 1 per cargo box removed, add the points cost of the modifications, and then divide the final cost by 10, rounding up.
Modifications can include the following:
| Item | BPV | |
|---|---|---|
| Armour | 2 | (A maximum of 15% of the original ships SSD boxes may be converted to armour, keeping within the above modification amounts) |
| Shuttle Box (contains 1 normal shuttle) | 2 | |
| Fighter Bay | 4 + fighter cost | (takes 3 boxes, holds 1 flight, maximum of 1 flight for small freighters, 2 for large freighters, and 4 for ore carriers) |
| Yacht box | 3 | (maximum of 2 per small freighter, or 4 per larger freighter) |
| Aux Con | 6 | (maximum of +2) |
| APR | 4 | |
| WARP | 10 | (maximum of half again the ships total) |
| Battery | 2 | |
| Repair | 6 | |
| Hull | 1 | |
| Phaser 2 (120 arc of fire) | 10 | |
| Phaser 3 (360 arc of fire) | 4 | |
| Phaser 1 (120 arc of fire) | 15 | |
| Mini-missile launcher | 20 | |
| Rocket launcher | 15 | |
| Barracks | 1 + boarding party cost | |
| Upgraded Sensors | 10 | (puts sensors to: 6,4,0) |
| Upgraded Scanner | 10 | (puts scanner to: 0,6,9) |
| Upgraded Damage Control | 10 | (puts dam con to: 3,2,0) |
No other modifications are possible.
A ship may mount a total of 5 weapons for a small freighter, and 10 for a larger ship. A phaser 1 takes up 2 weapon slots.
For details of the mini-missile launcher and rocket launcher please see the page on weapons.
Of course a pirate may always get their hands on other ships, and may then use these as is. They must make sure that they have enough crew to be able to control the ship, and modifications can be made at the description of all players.