The Wilma Deering docks with the freighter Black Orpheus, on a standard 4-day course bound for Ceres.
The freighter has only 3 crew: Captain Samuel Locke his wife Tamika, and ship security Egan Tull. As the crews get to know each other, Tamika fixes Quinn's transponder and deactivates it properly, Tull and Lutrin get into a pissing contest, and Captain Locke grills Tony about the contraband crates his ship is carrying.
Later, the captain cooks a cheap-but-delicious dinner for everyone. Tamika arrives late and explains they are now tracking at least 4 Martian ships searching the area between Luna and Mars. Tony and friends are tight-lipped about Gem's troubles.
After dinner, Tamika pulls Lutrin aside and asks if his crew knows he is a synth. She's sympathetic. "You have as much right to be here as I do."
The next day, the ship's AI alerts the crew that one of the Martian ships is on an intercept course: the guncutter RNS Shiva is now 3 hours away. Captain Locke demands to know what they could possibly be carrying that would draw the attention of the Republic Navy. Tony confesses it's not the crate but his crew that the Martian are after. Locke gravely asks, "dead, or alive?"
Tony guesses that Gem might be tagged with some kind of tracker, but repeated scans show nothing. It seems the Martians are searching all nearby ships at random. They decide to cast off in the Wilma Deering and let the Martians search the Orpheus and come up empty. Hopefully, they will be able to catch up and dock again later.
So yeah, I was all psyched up for a big shootout in space, but we got a late start, dragged on with exposition, and then they decided to avoid the guncutter altogether. We'll see how that works out next week.
@scribe I'm running with the idea that a small ship running dark with no transponder would be very difficult to spot -- even with active sensors -- unless you knew exactly where to look. Space is very, very big.
@greymorn, What you are describing is a delicate balance. When writing the rules, I intentionally accounted for the fact that space piracy is good fun in a sci fi game. That is why it states that attacking ships can perform high-burn maneuvers to catch other ships including those running at 1G acceleration. In reality, there is nowhere to hide and very little way to catch another ship running at 1G acceleration. While that might be realistic, from my perspective, it is also extremely boring.
You should handle it as you see fit, but be consistent. If the players can hide by shutting down their transponder then "all" ships, up to no good, would be very hard to catch. Just be sure that is the precedent you are trying to set.
My take is this... The ship's transponder is its iDent. Disabling it prevents the Martian ships from identifying the vessel. But, if the ship is running its particle impulse engines, grav-flux generators, and has atmosphere/heat... it is not really "running dark". No one likes things to be "scripted (gasp!)"... so, the precedent of how this works consistently becomes important. The rules intentionally don't establish a ship's sensor range so that it is narrative. The Martian ships were detected, so they are in sensor range. You could allow an opposed Tech (sensors) check to see if the Wilma Deering eludes the Republican ships. I would not apply Disadvantage to the Martians as this is what a Cloaking Array does and the Wilma Deering doesn't have one. If they get spotted and "narratively" they are at extreme sensor range, you could then have them make opposed Navigate (interstellar) checks to see if the Martians can cut them off and get into position for a high-burn closing maneuver. If the Tech (sensor) check had a Critical in the mix (Success on the part of the Martians or Failure for the Wilma Deering), I'd skip the Navigate check and say they are able to intercept immediately.
I also envision ranges in space combat as abstract (meaning, not meters - should have mentioned that somewhere); space is big and works different from in atmo. If an intercept occurs, I would decide in advance what the opening range would be based a high-burn maneuver. The cutter has two weapon systems with a maximum range of 6000, so you might start at 3000 or 4000 when they come out of high-burn and combat starts. Bear in mind the Wilma Deering's weapon ranges. For example, the Alpha Auto-Cannon on the cutter has a maximum range of a 1000, so it could be many turns, if at all, before it come into play. That is also relative to what the ship's positions are at intercept.
Have at it from there and use the Escape (core rules page 120) and Pursuit (outland page 55) rules if they try to run.
Scribe of the Adventure System
