I do find it weird that in naval combat characters are still surprised when an enemy fleet pops out of a pirate point.
The concept of a pirate point (IIRC) is derived from the gravity of planets (and other objects) shifting due to ya know drift and rotations around the sun and whatnot. This opens up windows of time where you can jump in and not be ripped apart, or smash into a planet.
Well I mean we can calculate rotations of planets around the sun in today’s technology and I’m pretty sure they were able to do it a long time ago as well. So imagine in the year 3152 (1,000 plus years!) we would have had a LOT of date to extrapolate on how the planets move and therefore ‘seasonal’ pirate points based on that could ‘theoretically’ be VERY easy to calculate.
Obviously not everyone would be perfect but you would assume that large interstellar empires would keep lists of these points around their most important worlds to protect them and at least have a satellite or two aimed in that direction (along with a gun or two). ESPECIALLY worlds settled early in BT History.
ANYWAYS in regards to the original topic: fleet recon in 2776 versus 3152 is obviously different based on available technology and craft. The SLDF could afford to recon with a light Warship squadron or half a dozen Bug surveillance vessels while Alaric Ward can recon with Jumpships or Sea Fox intel. HPG’s obviously help with instant communication but in a time frame like the FedCom Civil War you have to be wary of ComStar (even if they claim they are neutral). A good example of real time intel is the First Succession War and the Battle of Cholame where the Fed Suns had HPG’s on their command ships and they were able to change orders before half the fleet jumped.
Just my two cents
remember these large INTERSTELLAR empires contain large COMMERCIAL empires-for whom, short-cuts in routing and delivery would be valuable enough that even if the central government wasn't keeping the record, it's worth the investment to do so for the private sector.
The money, after all, isn't made by what you're HOLDING in your hold, it's made at two points:
1. where the goods are loaded on
2. where the goods are off-loaded.
the faster you can get goods from 1, to 2, the more money you're going to make, all other factors being equal. Especially if you're also reducing fuel and consumable usage, because merchies have to
pay for all that stuff out of pocket.
Reliable 'tide tables' for your major shipping hubs ends up being worth a LOT-enough that even if the government didn't think the idea's good, (for whatever reasons) the shipping associations, merchant captains, and their corporate clients WOULD pay for that. Cutting a two week transit at one gee down to a few hours is worth BIG MONEY.
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