How would you capture a spaceship?

Obviously a lot of variables here; Starbug isn't ever going to be able to capture a Super Star Destroyer!

For brute force though, a specially designed spaceship could ram it's opponent, with space suited troopers transferring across through the breach.
 
Here's an idea, assuming that the pirates do not care whether the ship's crew survive. Launch a swarm of small, drilling robots, perhaps shot from a single missile. The robots would magnetically clamp to the ship's hull and maybe weld themselves into place. The robots would then begin to drill through the hull. This drilling need not be fast, it could take hours or days. This, in itself, might be a plausible enough threat to cause the crew to surrender. If not, the robots would drill until the air of the ship escapes. The drill tip could contain an expanding flange, like a molly bolt to secure it inside the ship and this could possibly form an air tight barrier to allow the ship's atmosphere to be replenished. The robot could also inject an epoxy into the hole (do epoxies work in a vacuum?). So, either crew surrenders or they are killed. In either case, the pirates can take the ship.

Countermeasures: Non-magnetic and smooth surfaces could prevent the robots from attaching to the surface, though some nooks and crannies would be inevitable. Crew members and defensive robots could be deployed to clear the ship's hull of the drilling robots. Barring any sudden shifts in direction or speed, the outside of the ship would be non-moving relative to the cleaning crews.
 
Wayne Mack said:
Countermeasures: Non-magnetic and smooth surfaces could prevent the robots from attaching to the surface, though some nooks and crannies would be inevitable. Crew members and defensive robots could be deployed to clear the ship's hull of the drilling robots. Barring any sudden shifts in direction or speed, the outside of the ship would be non-moving relative to the cleaning crews.
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If the cabin / area / space the drilling bot was drilling into was emptied the crew could just seal off that room and ignore the thing while it laboriously drills into an already evacuated room as they worked on plan B.
 
Easiest done when in dock, perhaps? Crew on shore leave and with the right credentials, you could get quite a lot of men and materiel on board. Sabotage the engines and the computer at a predetermined time, perhaps.

Secrecy would be a big problem.
 
Box it in like police cars do and slow down.

Encase it in an enormous mylar balloon and project the stars askew enough to cause navigation to assume that there is a problem with heading control and keep turning to match the new locations of fake stars until the ship ends up where you want it.

Use cables to attach a diffuser behind the main drive that allows you to program the opposite of what the ship wants. Keep adding cables and shoot anything that comes out trying to remove them.
 
If an author is trying to create this event in a story s/he needs to define the technologies available to make it plausible. Part of the world building I suppose.

Even with today's technology the US Navy could make anti-boarding defense systems. What would another 100 years of advancement do? ENIAC hasn't had 100th birthday yet.
 
Attach 45 degree deflector plates to the thrusters to imobilise them. If they try to fire them they'll just rotate.
Then it's just a matter of

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psikeyhackr said:
If an author is trying to create this event in a story s/he needs to define the technologies available to make it plausible. Part of the world building I suppose.
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I agree. Are we talking harder SF, in which case spaceships might be rather like submarines, or something more fanciful (teleport a space demon into the control room!)? Given how big space is and how hard it would be to find a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, maybe the easiest thing would be to capture the space station it's flying to, and then storm the ship when it docks. You'd have the added bonus of capturing it intact, and the commando raid would make a good story.
 
Toby Frost said:
I agree. Are we talking harder SF, in which case spaceships might be rather like submarines, or something more fanciful (teleport a space demon into the control room!)? Given how big space is and how hard it would be to find a spaceship in the middle of nowhere, maybe the easiest thing would be to capture the space station it's flying to, and then storm the ship when it docks. You'd have the added bonus of capturing it intact, and the commando raid would make a good story.
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Truly hard SF would mirror reality - pretty much no spaceships at all.
 
Stealth robot drone with built in nuke.

Sneaks up and attaches to hull. Then contact crew. Surrender or get blown to kingdom come. Except the atheists of course.
 
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