THE PIRATE'S CAMPAIGN

This is a game inspired by a suggestion by Steve Petrick. The general flow of the game is that each player begins with an Orion LR of a cartel they choose at game start, in a certain year. At the end of a certain amount of missions, they need to have captured a certain amount of cargo spaces from freighters. Repairs and expended munitions (drones, mines, etc) come out of the captured stock (but crew costs, fuel, etc. are already figured into the goal.) If they fail to make the cargo value after their missions, they lose the campaign (and might restart.) If they succeed, then they are promoted to a larger Orion ship and begin again with more challenging opponents.

CAMPAIGN SETUP

Each player begins with a base-variant LR fitted with only weapons and equipment (Annex #8B) from the empire of the home territory (R8.1) of the cartel they choose. Before Y129 this is a YLR and before Y117 this is a WFF. There does not need to be a designated player to play the civilian forces that the other players interact with, other participating Orion players can trade off for this duty. New players can be added at any time without affecting the existing players.

CAMPAIGN END

The campaign ends for a given player in certain circumstances. The campaign for other players does not end at this point: a given campaign could theoretically continue indefinately. A player comes to the end when:
• FORCED RETIREMENT: When they fail to reach thier goal in cargo. The cartel's life insurance policy comes due.
• THE LIFE OF EASE: The player decides to move on to greener pastures. The Pirate lives like a king in some remote place.
• BUY A FARM: The player's ship is destroyed. Note to self: There's no profit in this.

PLAYER PROGRESSION

OVERVIEW: The campaign is split up into several levels. At each level, the player has a better ship but requires more profits from raiding in order to succeed. Those levels are:
• Level 1: (750 cargo spaces) An LR. Slavers or OPT/OFT are allowed. Before Y129, use the YCT.
• Level 2: (1,500 cargo spaces) A DBR, LR-variant, or an Slaver-variant. If before Y129, use the YLR, YSL, or YVK.
• Level 3: (1,250 cargo spaces) A CR, MR, or a DBR-variant. Before Y127, use the YCR.
• Level 4: (1,500 cargo spaces) An AR, BR, SAL, or a CR-variant. Note that in middle-year campaigns (late Y120s to the Y160s), this level is basically played as a CR variant since there is no BR or SAL designs yet. Before those years, this level and further advancement is not possible except if Gangs are in use.
• Level 5: (1,500 cargo spaces) A CA, BR-variant, or a SAL-variant.
• Level 6: (1,500 cargo spaces) A BC, BRH, or a CA-variant.
• Level 7: (1,500 cargo spaces) A BCH, a BC-variant or a BRH-variant.
• Level 8: A DN, DNL, or a BCH-variant.

In all cases, the ship is presumed to have any year-appropriate refits (shield refit, drone rack refit, OAKDISC if 3 or more seeking weapons, sabot plasma, etc) when recieved. X-tech ships are treated as the ship they replace, in the appropriate years. Ships with cloaking devices, the mech-link refit (R1.R1), and/or partial X refits are treated as a variant of the base ship (e.g. the player may fly a ship with a cloak at a level above when the base-hull is available.) The minelayer refit (R8.R1) is not allowed, nor is the aegis refit (R8.R7), but the plasma-rack refit (R8.R5) is allowed if the ship is allowed to mount plasma-Ds in it's option mounts. Fighters (J1.85) and PFs are purchased at the economic costs and are treated as part of the ship's cost for purposes of the campaign.

GANGS: (optional) Instead of recieveing a larger ship when advancing, the player may instead keep the ship they have and gain a ship from the Level-1 list. When leveling up next, the player may advance that ship to the Level-2 slot or advance their current "main" ship to the next slot. And so on when advancing. A player may have as many as three ships at a time in this fashion, but if their "main" ship is destroyed they are still out of the campaign. If any of the other ships are destroyed, then they are not replaced for free. If changing cartels, these "extra" ships are lost.

CARGO: In order to advance, cargo must be delivered to the cartel. There is a time limit to do this, or else the cartel comes calling in order to give the ship (usually at the point of a phaser) to a more profitable captain. Cargo is rated in "cargo spaces"; of which Orion cargo boxes carry 25, "regular" cargo boxes carry 50, and (G25.0) governs the transfer of these cargo spaces.
A player has a time limit of 15 missions to get the required amount of cargo spaces to advance. At the end of that time, if they don't have the goods they are out. If they retrieve the amount of cargo spaces required to advance before the time limit is up, then they may advance early. The amount they need to advance is given in the chart above.

OPTION MOUNTS: When getting a new ship, the option mounts may be filled with legal systems (per Annex #8B) that total no more than 10% of the cost of the ship. Thereafter, cargo spaces can be spent to purchase a new system at the costs given in Annex #8. Note that there is no rebate or discount to the purchase for the system that was in the option before the swap. The swap may only occur between scenarios, before the next scenario is known. The player cannot move their option mount systems around without replacing the system in the mount (the yard would have to extract the systems on both option mounts and re-install them anyways. The player has to pay for it by "buying" both systems again. It's the cost of doing business with the black market.)

REPAIRS: Repairs are performed between scenarios, before the next scenario is known. Shields are repaired for free between scenarios. All other systems cost cargo spaces to repair, at the costs given by Annex #9. Option mounts do not need to be repaired if the system is being swapped out for another system at the same time.

EXPENDABLES: Expendable units must be purchased with cargo spaces. This includes drones, fighters or shuttles of any type, t-bombs, PFs, and marines. Drones are purchased at the costs given in (FD10.0) as if purchased "on the open market". Shuttles and fighters use the economic values given on the master fighter chart (Annex #4). PFs use economic BPV. Anything else is purchased with the costs given in Annex #6. When a drone rack is purchased (or part of a new ship), then the rack includes the drones of the rack (e.g. 4 for an A-rack, 6 for a B-rack) but no reloads. Expendables may only be purchased between scenarios, before the next scenario is known. Fighters and PFs increase the BPV of the Pirate unit(s). Mines, marines, extra UIM modules (if they already had UIM), drones, drogues, and fighter pods do not increase the pirate's BPV.

ADVANCEMENT: A player begins in the home-territory of the cartel they chose. They can choose another operating area after operating in an area for 3 scenarios. The new area must be one that their cartel operates in. If a player wishes to change cartels, they may do this at the time that they level up. However, a player changing cartels will lose a level instead of gaining a level. The year advances when the player and moderator agree to advance the year.

SCENARIOS

For each campaign turn, each player rolls on the chart below for what scenario is available to them this turn. The player may opt out of the scenario (unless it says otherwise) before beginning it, but it counts against their mission time limit regardless.

COMMANDER'S OPTION POINTS: The player does not receive any commander's option points (COs) for these scenarios. Most of what a player could purchase are covered above. Their opponents, however, are allowed COs. But as most of them are civilian units, they may not purchase certain units (primarily mines.)

SCENARIO CHART: Roll 1D6 on the table below. Note that many scenarios change depending on the year, operating area, and/or the BPV of the player ship. Click on the scenario to see it's details.

EXAMPLE OF PLAY

Sarah wants to play as part of the Kublai cartel (whose home territory is ISC space) during Y160. She recieves an un-refit LR and chooses a pair of Plas-Fs and a Ph-1 for her option mounts. For purposes of the campaign, her LR has a BPV of 71.
She begins by rolling on the scenario chart and turns up a Convoy Raid. She performs the raid (against the ISC, because that is the home territory of the cartel she chose) and manages to overhaul a freighter that fills up her cargo boxes before the reinforcements were able to catch her. She gains 75 cargo spaces towards her goal 750 cargo spaces. But she took a point of damage to her warp engines when trying to outrun the police. The repairs cost her 10 of her 75 cargo spaces. Fortunately, she did not use any shuttles and has no other expendables (not even mines) to replace. At this point, she can roll for her second scenario.
After her third scenario, she chooses to move out of ISC territory and into Romulan territory. She also chooses to swap out one of the plasma-Fs in her options for a phaser-1. This costs her a cargo space to buy the new phaser.
Time goes by, and after her 13th mission, she can advance to level 2. She chooses a DBR with three Ph-1s and a pair of Plasma-Fs, making her DBR count as 105 BPV.