Change Rules for Blockades

[Parasite]

Police cars pull people over all the time. They mostly don't have anti-vehicle weapons on board. The cars (or invisible freighters) know that BAD things will happen if they don't stop. I put "Don't get hurt" orders on my blockade ships. This way I know that they will not get killed by the imobile planet defenses when they "Strayed" too close.

I like the idea of leaky blockades. Part of it could be based on the planet defenses. A small unarmed and remote colony world would not leak much for fear of being blasted. A heavily defended ringworld could surely sneek out stuff and be glad to do it to spite the blockaders. Enemy and friendly ships in the system could also change things.

[vanbeke]

Factors to influence a blockade's effectiveness should include
- the range of any defenses surrounding the planet - if the blockaders are staying out of the way of those defenses, then the amount of space to be patrolled goes up cubically
- speed of the blockaders
- speed of potential blockade runners
- range / reload time of the blockaders weapon systems
- blockade ships' combat posture. I think "Don't get hurt" would not be an effective blockader, something like "Don't approach fixed defenses" would be a useful strategy to implement.

As to the police cars - the hand guns that are carried are a slight detriment, but they are able to summon more cars so the perps just give up, knowing that their chance of running the "blockade" would be very small, and the shields and armor afforded by most vehicles on the road do not afford much personal protection.

Beke

[dmm]

vanbeke said: if the blockaders are staying out of the way of those defenses, then the amount of space to be patrolled goes up cubically

The perimeter surface area only goes up as the square of the radius, but yeah, that was my point about the range of the planetary defenses. And you are right, the safe volume (for the blockade runners) goes up cubically.

Thanks for the other good comments too.