Author Topic: Is jumping from a Pirate Point as difficult as jumping to a Pirate Point?  (Read 240 times)

Iceweb

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  • Lyran Engineer
So in the lore using Pirate Points is usually described with terms such as insane, suicidal, desperate, and the like. 
I understand the absolute difficulty of plotting a FTL jump to a system where you don't know if a comet might have entered or a dropship might be about and that could have enough mass to alter where the gravity null zone inside the system might be by enough to cause BAD STUFF^TM to happen, let alone worrying that the maps you were given were accurate enough, and no one fat fingered a data point in your stellar cartography to predict the Pirate Point in the first place. 

However jumping from a Pirate Point in the system you are in seems a lot more reasonable.  You are in the system and you can plot the math to figure out where a Pirate Point might appear, and what travel time you will need at what speed to get where you predict it.  Then you can check the local gravity with instruments to make sure you are in a null gravity zone before starting/executing your jump.  Of course you are jumping to Nadir or Zenith point of your target because you aren't going to risk jumping to a pirate point. 

Now I realize most of the time with Jumpship system drives you are spending most of the time at Nadir and  Zenith points so you wouldn't be in where you would need a Pirate Point. 

That said there could be edge cases where a Pirate Point could save a lot of time.  If a Jumpship had to transit or be towed in system to a planetary shipyard for repairs or other reasons it might be viable to use a Pirate point to leave the system instead of traveling to the Nadir or Zenith points. 
Warships might be operating in system and being able to jump out via Pirate Point could be useful for operations. 
And lastly while prohibitively expensive to move a Jumpship in system and not have it jumping all that time it could be moved closer to a planet as part of a command circuit to increase the speed of troops or a VIP getting where they need to faster.   

So is jumping from a Pirate Point just as hard and dangerous as jumping to one, or does being there allow a Jumpship to be pretty safe using one to get out of a system?  Is there something I'm not thinking of that makes jumping from a Pirate Point that much harder than a standard jump point? 
Thanks

AlphaMirage

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It is a +4 so assuming a 5 Navigator you have a 9 which is ~27 chance of success. If you fail that roll there is a second table where 8+ results in a loss of drive integrity (thus it can be rather common). Considering many jumpships during the late Succession Wars have probably been operating continuously for centuries it is entirely likely they have already suffered loss of integrity and thus you can crack the core and render a priceless, irreplicable asset nonfunctional. Post-Clan Invasion you are more likely to have a replacement available and a greater likelihood to receive proper maintenance and repair. Of course in the Dark Age that changed again (foolishly).

Now could you do so? Sure you could, but know that there will be a nonnegligible increase in mishaps that might require extensive repair per year so it would not become a standard thing.

cray

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Strategic Operations' hyperspace rules cover this. Pirate points give different modifiers depending if they're the origin or destination jump point:

Destination is non-standard: +4
Desgination is transient: +4
Origin is non-standard: +2
Origin is transient: +2

So, the modifier is lower if you're departing a pirate point than going to one. Worst case: jumping from a pirate point to a pirate point.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.