Just a little compilation of how Piracy and other things work(ed) In My Probably Heretical But The Players Enjoyed It Traveller Universe.
"Pirate" encounters could actually be Pirates, Commerce Raiders, or StarMercs on local war contracts. For purposes of this discussion, we'll limit "Pirate" to mean independent or small groups of ships acting illegally and taking ships as their primary criminal activity.
It's hard to take someone else's ship with you after you board it. Manpower problems (you can't make a ship jump without a navigator on board), frequent lack of fuel aboard the target vessel, and the ability of many shipmasters to lock out all but the most professional hackers from their computers tend to remove the ship itself as a target. Also, selling a ship requires some pretty specialized contacts due to the long paper trail involved - some pirate crews can do it, most find it too involved and more dangerous than taking the ship in the first place.
(Groups who _do_ have the manpower and expertise to crack into ship's computers, kill the crew, fly off with the ship and sell it for a profit don't risk their lives in space combat - they form hijacking teams and ride as passengers. They usually have to take the ship before it enters jumpspace (so they can pick the destination), but they like to strike during jump preparations because that's when the crew and the computer are busiest.)
The "average" pirate will be a small (100 to 400 ton) jump capable vessel. Type S Scout ships are minimally capable for this task, but are popular because they are ubiquitous, often travel with no flight plans, have oddball paper trails as a normal course of business and (IMTU at least) can be kept barely functional without seeing a class-B starport for years - though at a cost of steadily increasing field maintenance efforts.
A variety of 400 ton range vessels are the more common pirate, usually mutinied patrol cruisers or starmerc commerce raiders that ran out of war or were otherwise cashiered - the StarMerc that can't get contracts anymore because of incompetence or inability to follow the rules is a popular image of the "Classic Pirate", and does exist though is rare. Mutinied patrol vessels occur with some frequency because the officers of such vessels are the least competent or least experienced in the Navy (experienced and competent ones get to command Destroyers and up). Further, the crews of such vessels tend to be people that aren't doing well in the big happy family of the Navy. Note that "Navy" here means the Subsector & Sector Navies - the Imperial Navy does a better job at maintaining it's reputation as professionals, even at the patrol vessel level.
Patrol Cruisers, BTW, aren't front-line combat vessels - they are designed as long duration multi-role ships, able to do everything from search & rescue to boarding of suspected smugglers. The enforcement of red zones against ethically challenged free trader captains can be great training for a Patrol Cruiser crew - the skills and actions needed are almost identical to what they'll need after they mutiny and take up piracy. ;)
(Note that the average patrol vessel encountered is Subsector or Sector Navy, colonial ships. Imperial patrols are only encountered around Impie Navy bases and operational fleets, or the occasional anti piracy sweep or patrol maneuvers. The fact that Impie patrol squadrons will do anti piracy sweeps through areas already at least nominally patrolled by local forces should show you what the Impies think of local capabilities. The free trader is ambivalent about the situation - Impies are good at clearing out pirates, but tend to perform board & inspect more often, which can make the free trader a bit nervous.)
The Imperial Scout Service has lost a few X-Boat Tenders to pirates. These ships often make long trips to outlying systems to pick up misdirected X-Boats, and some of these systems turn out to be more dangerous than expected. These ships would be used as mobile bases of operations, rather than as attack ships in their own right.
Pirates will usually try to create a base of operations to perform repairs, stockpile supplies and store stolen cargos. Asteroids are popular, due to the distance from gravity wells and how lonely the average asteroid is. The asteroid will be hollowed out, chunks from a captured ship will be welded into it (hatches, power plant, life support, etc.) and it will be ready for action.
This kind of jury-rigged building and maintenance are a hallmark of all but the best connected pirates. Annual maintenance, battle damage repairs, even refits are performed under dangerous, difficult and poorly equipped conditions, kind of like a medic performing field surgery on someone who ought to be in a hospital. Burn-scarred, maimed pirates are not just the stuff of holovid shows - pulling a fusion plant with nothing but a chopped-down Launch is _dangerous_.
Mainly due to this kind of abuse, pirate vessels won't last the hundreds of years one might get out a well maintained ship. In a hard fight with a patrol cruiser, a pirate vessel is in as much danger from a system failing under stress as it is from the patrol cruiser's guns.
Note for the "must swim with the fishes" people out there: the average pirate ship will _never_ call at a starport that has any kind of legal controls or Imperial presence. It will never, except at long ranges or in the most cursory manner, be able to play the role of honest merchant - and it works within these limitations.
Pirates make arrangements with criminal groups or even individual smugglers to buy cargos they have stolen. They keep what they need for their jury-rigged ship repairs, and hope for the big haul - except that the mind-set that leads someone into being a pirate often has the big haul make them overconfident, so they go for a bigger one.
A ship hunted by a pirate can expect the following to happen:
1) Some deception may occur. A pirate may pretend to be a customs or patrol vessel - a deception that will not last long, but may allow the first stages of an intercept to occur. Stealth capabilities, for those pirates lucky enough to have them, are made use of.
2) Calling for help will probably do little good, unless they can delay the pirate through unexpected thrust capabilities or good battle tactics/weaponry - many of which will make the pirate give up anyway, unless desperation or prospect of an unusually great haul perks up the pirate's courage. The target was detected by the pirate too far from help, either due to a minor misjump outside the usual traffic lanes or because the target is in a place where patrols don't go. Or perhaps something has already happened to the local patrol ship - if the planet Pinata only has two Patrol Ships, and five or six pirates club together to bushwhack the patrol, they'll have free rein of the system (away from whatever planetary defenses there might be) for weeks.
3) The pirate will intercept. She may order the target to cut engines pretty early - high speed passes won't get you cargo, but they will wreck your merchant ship. It's easier to intercept a target if you don't care about relative velocities at intercept, but impossible to board a ship unless you match velocities - the threat of a battle pass should suffice to keep the target from evading, or even get the target to maneuver to rendezvous with you.
4) The merchant will be boarded. Some pirate vessels have (or the merchant will think they have) too small a crew to force a boarding - the loss of the boarding party might leave the pirate ship too undermanned to keep the merchant from escaping, even from right under it's guns. This will lead to merchant passengers or crew, in some situations, to resist the boarding party. Considering how many interstellar travellers will be wealthy/noble (and have bodyguards) or will be military/ex-military, this happens more often than you might think. Considering how many pirate vessels have severe manpower problems, this works more often than you might think. A rare, though not unheard-of occurrence is for a merchant to come to port with a captured pirate ship following behind it.
5) The merchant will be looted. Damage (to the ship and people aboard) will often depend on how much trouble they gave the pirate. Depending on the time factor, varying amounts of looting will occur. The ship's safe may be cleaned out, usually with the help of the Shipmaster or Chief Purser (obtained at gunpoint). Personal weapons, vacc suits, spare parts, even ship's vehicles or craft may be stolen. Cargo will be a prime target, though the lack of starport loading facilities will hamper this somewhat - you may see improvised cargo transfer gear on a pirate ship. Passengers and crew may be molested, robbed, even raped or kidnapped - the last depending on the pirate crew's connections and capabilities. If a pirate finds the winner of the Miss Regina Beauty Pageant on board, he might decide to kidnap her now and figure out the multi-millon Credit ransom scheme later, even if he doesn't currently have the capabilities to conduct ransom negotiations.
6) The Pirates will go their merry way. Their target will need some restocking and repairs, but won't be destroyed - unless they resist, in which case as an object lesson their ship might be left a gutted hulk, perhaps with them adrift in a life boat or vacc suit - perhaps not.
The objective of all but the most psychopathic (or fanatic) pirate is taking ship's cargos (and the occasional ship) for money, _not_ killing people. Killing happens, but is usually bad for business - Impie attention starts to come to bear much faster.
Note that IMTU Hijackers are seen as a more dangerous threat than pirates,
though piracy is more common - and Hijackers (if identified) make it closer to
the top of Imperial MoJ most wanted lists than pirates do, because the average
outcome of a successful Hijacking is a missing ship and 100% mortality rate for
it's passengers and crew. There is also a cultural factor - someone who sneaks
aboard your ship in port under a false name to murder you and steal your ship
is seen as more
of a monster than the somewhat romanticized pirate who caught you in open space
and leaves you with your life, and your ship. IMTU there is a cultural bias
strongly against those who abuse people's trust to this extreme (as any
slow-communication feudalized society would have such a bias). The pirate made
you no promises, even implied ones - he caught you and robbed you "fair
and square". Cold comfort for the impoverished ship captain, to be sure,
but the bias still exists.
Impie patrol cruisers, of course, have no patience for or romantic notions about pirates, and no respect for them whatsoever - even to the point of underestimating them on occasion. Their definition of "pirate" can also be a bit fuzzy at times, so many independent merchants are leery of "Imperial Entanglements". Subsector and even Sector patrol cruisers are usually more respectful of the threat.
Being a pirate is dangerous, risky, and a bad idea. Many people find it the best choice from a list of really bad ones, or are good at making bad choices - or even good at making bad choices work out.
Just some concatenations of what players encountered IMPHBTPEITU.
Copyright 2001 Walter G. Smith