Piracy Campaign

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Jasonft

If Piracy becomes a problem in your campaign universe, you should also consider the problem of 'vikings'. Pirates would be going after your ship traffic but vikings (for lack of a better term) would be going after the more isolated ground targets. The two types of raider would likely both be present if your universe had areas lawless enough that piracy was a big issue.

They aren't really separate types. Whether a marauder will attack cities or ships en route depends on the defenses of the city and how easy it to intercept commerce. The Vikings mostly attacked shorelines because there wasn't much commerce or standing military force on the shore. The Golden Age pirates and privateers mostly raided ships because there were a lot of them, and they carried more lootable cargo than any place on the shore that wasn't protected by troops and shore artillery. Somali pirates attack ships because they're almost undefended and there's no shore location worth looting within their operational range. Piper's Space Vikings and Norton's Jacks, tended to attack colonies because their method of FTL precluded intercepting ships before they hit orbit.