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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8707902" data-attributes="member: 42582">We haven't worried about how big the Imperium is. Our starmaps have grown to two or three dozen worlds, and we know the Imperium is bigger than that!I've used the Book 2 rules to design the Imperial Dreadnaught and Imperial Carrier, both of which the PCs have seen in action - in an Imperial assault on a psionically-inclined world.The only time I've used the Book 5 rules is to help adapt a 70,000 ton outstation from a Spacemaster module, mainly as an experiment to see what it would look like (but it does sit in the starmap, on the edge of the galactic rift). It's hard to see how it makes economic sense, but I'm happy to squint a bit and let it live.I've looked at placing/using pirates in our game - one of the PCs is a (ex-)pirate - and I've had this same thought. It's not clear how they're viable, as everyone who cares can work out where they live.The starship encounter chart that I use combines the 1977 and 1981 charts (assuming a roughly 50/50 split across them). The chance of encountering a pirate vessel in a system with a Class A to D or Class X starport is 1 in 12; in a system with a Class E starport it's 1 in 18. (Why the difference for Class E systems? Don't ask me, I'm just implementing what GDW sold me!)Class X system pirates are, presumably, like the pirates of old(e), living rough, making their own repairs, etc. They must jump into other better-travelled systems, ravage, and return. Why are they not hunted down? And what do they spend their ill-gotten gains on? Who knows!?But the Class A system pirates surely are operating in some sort of connivance with local authorities/power-brokers. Nothing else makes sense! That does fit with the overall cynical perspective the game takes on authority. It does raise the question, What is the Imperium even for? But given that question has no answer even if we ignore the pirates thing, I don't regard the pirates as making it any worse!</blockquote>

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