An interesting read on space piracy, but not enough to convince me that it is a viable option. Say your pirate does knock out the target ship's maneuver drive. That target ship does not simply come to an abrupt halt in space, but keeps on going at the same speed on whatever vector it was traveling. This means that it might hit the planet it was traveling too, and without any way of slowing down, is going to make an impressive hole when it hits, or it misses the planet and goes into an orbit about the local star if inbound, so sails off into the depths of space if outbound. That means either the crew manages to get someone to rescue them before dying, or they die. The loss of the ship is going to make the owners a bit unhappy, and really drive up insurance rates. Based on the experience of a couple of World Wars and sundry other actions, when insurance rates hit 10% of the value of ship and cargo, shipping stops, if you trash too many ships, the ships stop coming.
Then there is the problem of getting onboard after knocking out the maneuver drive. If the ship is armored, cutting it open to get in is not going to be a 10 minute job. And because the crew is going to have a pretty good idea as to where you are cutting through, they will have a lot of time to prepare all sorts of welcoming entertainment for the pirate boarders. As the crew is likely to be dead anyway, they might as well make sure that the pirates die too.
I doubt that I will change anyone's minds regarding space piracy, but I thought that I would at least voice me opinion. Ignore it as you wish.
A bit more about surface raiding would have been more useful to me, but then there is always Piper's Space Viking and Paratime series to work from
The above is why I always had problems with the good game/bad sim aspect of the 1977 piracy encounter rules. It was high risk/high rewards to go to the big planets, but any serious plum lke that is going to fund their local navy independent of the far away aspect of whatever empire.
I always figured shipping wouldn't stop, but Cr1000 per ton wasn't going to cut it. Up the fees into multiples depending on the danger- all those turrets and computer programs have to go for something, hmmm?
And of course convoying, a way to stretch those meager frontier defense credits.
As to the pirating problem, yes the M-drive shot out is the way to go, I rather thought that was the point of the original Select program in CT.
The issues you mention however matter.
For the planet strike aspect of the problem, I would expect most starports have a tug on standby, it would go out and at least redirect the path of the ship, if not stop it.
For a D E or X starport I would expect urgent over the radio negotiations for any private parties to do a good deed and get them out.
As for course matching, IMTU the pirates largely operate from small craft with high-Gs from the mother ship that is safely out of lethal range. Course, IMTU you get below 100K km and the punch of starship weapons goes up, so most boarding actions are relatively expendable small craft, helping the case for that.
But there is a simpler solution- go with how historical pirates handled this.
The pro pirates would offer relatively generous terms to ships that surrendered. The cargo was forfeit and they might shanghai critical skilled people like a doctor, but most passengers and crew would be let go alive.
Most ships took that deal.
The alternative of course is they fight it out, and the pirates are going to give no quarter, to make a lesson and increase the fear for future ships to surrender easily.
If a ship takes the deal, no need to cut into the hull or wrestle with a fast closing maneuver- as part of surrender the crew helps match course and opens the airlocks without incident.
Ship ends up intact, which makes it much more valuable on the black market, or assuming the pirates have problems getting starship maintenance, it could be their new ride. Just like the pirates whose ships would eventually fall apart without new sails or professional maintenance or take battle damage, so they would switch to a new one.
A gentleman pirate might even take the most profitable cargo and let the ship and passengers go on their way, both as a matter of style and enlightened policy of keeping new ships coming rather then drive up rates and risk with total losses.
As for opposed boarding, hull cutting is a gentle art for the salvager looking to maintain maximum value. For a pirate where time is life, they just blast a hole with a ship laser charged for long range combat at point blank range- problem solved. Also, should be plenty of holes from previous hits.
