Lawful Pirating

[RickJames]

As far as resources go, the point about pirates is that the pirate factions such as the Corsairs don't have the same level of resources as the house militaries. See for example OPG's post about capital ship registration - they have to steal all their H-Fuel and MOX from convoys.

Also, real-life naval forces use heavy warships to interdict smugglers all the time - google prince william carribean if you don't believe me. Avoiding house military patrols is part of the skill of being a smuggler - the reason for the rule about pirates in capital ships is so that you don't have a cruiser or battleship taking on a Mammoth (for example) - in fact personally I'd restrict pirates to snub vessels, a gunboat with inferno cannons is always going to beat a transport.

Excellent suggestion. The HMS Iron Duke is not a true navy capital ship.

The HMS Iron Duke is a Type 23 Frigate.

Length 133 meters
Beam 16 meters
Draught 7 meters
Displaciing 4200 tons
Crew of 181

Compare that with say a Ticonderoga Class Cruiser

Length 173 meters
Beam 17 meters
Draught 10 meters
Displacing 9,600 tons
Crew of 360

Compare that to an Iowa Class Battleship

Length 270 meters
Beam 33 meters
Draught 11.3 meters
Displacment 45,000 tons
Crew 2788

I'd place the Frigate to be comparable to a Gunboat, which would be exactly what Prince William is using to combat piracy and drug smuggling in the Carribean. Which if the rules were changed would allow lawfuls to go after smugglers in gb's.

Of course z-21 is an entirely different situation. Being in Alaska or z21 really should not have anything to do with smuggling. Far as I'm concerned if SA or LSF scan and see someone in either area with contraband... just blow them up. To have them halt and drop cargo or pay a fine is a bit oorp. Smugglers in those areas should not get a warning or be fined. In addition, a Cruiser/BS blockade of Alaska is to me is right on the money. This also applies to any smuggler using a guard system such as omi-100...the smuggler should just be destroyed.

Edit: Keep in mind to scale all the ship's down to compare to FL capitals. The FL capitals are not anywere near the size of their ocean going cousins. GB's tend to only have a crew of around 5. In addition, cargo size does not nesesarily relate to crew size. As GB's also have a cargo capacity in the 300-400 range.