Rules Only: Alternate Methods of Life Support Recharge?

[Fritz_Brown]

Yeah, cane toads and brown tree snakes (BTS) were the examples in Guam. It made flying in and out a little more tedious as they actually had to inspect the wheel wells before an aircraft could take off for elsewhere. They inspected ships, too - especially ones going to Hawaii.

They also inspected the cars shipped on and off the island. They had to stop using the one set of dogs for the inspection. They were trained to take down the snakes, and the resultant tussles were known to tear up the cars (upholstery, plastic and rubber parts, etc). They went to a passive response (more like bomb dogs). Wonder what you could use in Traveller? (Don't say Vargr.........) :smirk:

There also maybe laws against 'dumping your atmosphere' at a starport. Don't know what sort of nasty germs you brought with you. Thus the charge for recharging the life support system.

So you have to dump it in space? o: I agree with the idea, though.

Which brings about a simple question about quarentining ships? What does a starport adminstration have to do to give a ship, crew and passengers, even cargo, a clean bill of health before introducing it to the planet's biosphere?

Spray down with a really big can of Lysol!

 

[HG_B]

The ability to read and compare MSDS files, and note the relative danger levels of the materials. Plus, having read NASA's evaluation and explanations for why LiOH instead of other scrubbing options for CO2. In other words, basic academic research.

Sorry, doesn't trump trained specialists in the area. NASA has TREMENDOUS weight & power constraints for equip that have nothing to do with Trav ships. So, what NASA considers in that area is totally irrelevant to TL 10+ ships.

 

[aramis]

Sorry, doesn't trump trained specialists in the area. NASA has TREMENDOUS weight & power constraints for equip that have nothing to do with Trav ships. So, what NASA considers in that area is totally irrelevant to TL 10+ ships.

It's not the power that's the issue for NASA. It's the handling safety and ease of use. NASA put the files up several years ago. Don't know that they still are.

And that's a concern that doesn't EVER go away on spacecraft.

To be blunt, the Navy isn't nearly as safety conscious as NASA. But an incautious sailor isn't near as likely to get dead as an incautious spacer. LiOH is, in cartridge form, darned near idiot proof.

(Not that anything shipboard can be truly idiot proof.)

LiOH is only a contact irritant, solid at all human habitable temps, and not prone to release toxic reactions. And it's field manufacturable from raw materials. (Albeit, rare ones.)

A diver of my acquaintance also noted on several occasions that solid scrubbers are much safer under maneuver than liquid, tho less mass efficient. (He was complaining about a dive suit. Didn't mention specific chemical.)

 

[Timerover51]

Which brings about a simple question about quarentining ships? What does a starport adminstration have to do to give a ship, crew and passengers, even cargo, a clean bill of health before introducing it to the planet's biosphere?

One could be cynical and say that upon payment of a sufficient cash bribe to the appropriate official, any ship can be given a clean bill of health.

Realistically, there is no conceivable way to avoid some contamination in the course of interstellar travel. All that can be done it work at minimizing it and deal promptly with them when problems do occur.

 

[BytePro]

IMTU, starships get a 'UV bath' when entering spaceports or enclosed docks; 'sniffers' detect foreign pathogens and toxins release into the airlock or at dirt-side open air docks; personnel get 'sniffed' as well, along with a standard 'atmo bath' consisting of purified and inert gases along with aerosol disinfectants. All this is pretty non-interfering and common enough to result in only brief mention. Exception would be frontier or border systems where greater unknowns present themselves.

Positive contamination checks (from 'sniffers') or declared origins of known concern, however, typically trigger dry-foam decon sprays, along with lock down quarantines if appropriate to facility (such as spaceports). Other protocols may call for high-pressure washing; vacuum exposure; temperature cleansing; irradiation; etc. Personnel may be quarantined and even denied entry, extradited, etc.

For the most part, sophonts just spread their pathogens with them - so its only the real exotic stuff or in special locations that such becomes an issue.

 

[aramis]

IMTU,

Threads with the "Rules Only" prefix are not the place for "IMTU" bits. Rules or real world examples only.

Yes, it's new - I've implemented the prefixes so that people can make it easier for us to judge what is and is not on-topic.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Threads with the "Rules Only" prefix are not the place for "IMTU" bits. Rules or real world examples only.

Where is the line? In the real world there are other SciFi RPG games. Would an example of how another SciFi RPG game handles something be considered valuable to the discussion?




If so, then how isn't IMTU, a real world example of how someone else interprets and implements the Traveller rules, valuable too?

 

[Greylond]

FYI, I decided to mark it "Rules Only" because I was looking for rule suggestions that I could use for a standard "Rules As Written" MgT game but I was open to any rules suggestion from any other version of the Traveller game, preferably something more or less "Official." I could easily have come up with something on my own but wanted to see if there was something that was already written up for any Traveller rules system. Barring actual Traveller rules for it, then something that fits the Traveller OTU in a logical extension of the written rules AND the concept of the RPG.

 

[BytePro]

Threads with the "Rules Only" prefix are not the place for "IMTU" bits. Rules or real world examples only.

Yes, it's new - I've implemented the prefixes so that people can make it easier for us to judge what is and is not on-topic.

Sorry, my bad.

Good idea to help classify thread topics - however, this thread is wrongly prefixed as the OP's initial post explicitly asked for 'opinions' on things he already assumed were not in the rules.

 

[Greylond]

No, I wanted Rules first, then Rules suggestions if Rules didn't exist.

 

[HG_B]

FYI, I decided to mark it "Rules Only" because I was looking for rule suggestions that I could use for a standard "Rules As Written" MgT game but I was open to any rules suggestion from any other version of the Traveller game, preferably something more or less "Official." I could easily have come up with something on my own but wanted to see if there was something that was already written up for any Traveller rules system. Barring actual Traveller rules for it, then something that fits the Traveller OTU in a logical extension of the written rules AND the concept of the RPG.

There are no rules much less logical ones about this.

 

[aramis]

There are no rules much less logical ones about this.

AMEN!

Looking at the list I gave - much of it is not essential.

You need the various biochemical "Side effect of life processes" binders/scrubbers. You need food. You probably do not need water - water recycling is good enough. You certainly don't need the linens, towels, nor robes, but those would be expectations for a passenger on HP.

You will need suitable cleaning chemicals that are compatible with your atmosphere scrubber/binder systems.

You will need filter and scrubber/binder recharges, even if using a highly rechargeable system, because human error, battle damage, radiation damage, and both use-induced and time-induced degradation will eventually ruin them.

Note that in one of the MT products from DGP, there is a product called "Grassphault" mentioned... it's a CO₂ binding engineered grass with tolerance for several meganewtons per square meter for periods of days at a time. Carpet the interior with this stuff, and install the correct spectrum lighting, and you can use it as a replacement for some of the CO₂ scrubbing. One can also use it as a leach field... but don't forget to buy a mower.

If you plan on being out in the wild, and doing this living carpet, you hire a geneticist to make you an equivalent that also scrubs the various aromatic byproducts of human digestion and produces some edible berry at 2-3 cm of height. While you're at it, you have them add insectivorous plants as well, to get the wandering pests. Add meshes to allow it to climb the walls, too.

You'll extend your scrubber/binder system that way. Some passengers will pay extra for it, others will refuse to fly aboard because of it, but it's a nifty way to do several important things more efficiently.

Likewise, dust and pollen removal via ionic attraction baffle-plate systems and centrifugal flow systems can extend filter life at the cost of mildly increased power use, and increased maintenance.

Water swap-out is not vital, but is an issue. Anyone taking medications will be excreting either unabsorbed medications and/or breakdown byproducts of the medications, and this may require additional purification to enable water reclamation. It can also render hydrolysis a major fire, corrosion, or explosion hazard in some cases. Likewise, cleaning chemicals (including for personal hygiene) need to be compatible with the liquid waste processing. It's easiest to have a sufficient supply and just dump liquid wastes overboard.

 

[SanDragon]

AMEN!

Note that in one of the MT products from DGP, there is a product called "Grassphault" mentioned... it's a CO₂ binding engineered grass with tolerance for several meganewtons per square meter for periods of days at a time. Carpet the interior with this stuff, and install the correct spectrum lighting, and you can use it as a replacement for some of the CO₂ scrubbing. One can also use it as a leach field... but don't forget to buy a mower.

Chef's Salad!

Biodegradable cleaners, using citrus oils!

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Anyone taking medications will be excreting either unabsorbed medications and/or breakdown byproducts of the medications, and this may require additional purification to enable water reclamation. It can also render hydrolysis a major fire, corrosion, or explosion hazard in some cases.

Why dump it overboard when you can crack it and use it in your engines/powerplant? Depending on how you envision it working, it would be the perfect place to get rid of persistent contaminants, wouldn't it?

 

[aramis]

Why dump it overboard when you can crack it and use it in your engines/powerplant? Depending on how you envision it working, it would be the perfect place to get rid of persistent contaminants, wouldn't it?

Because cracking it can create interesting (and sometimes unpredictable) chemistry in the cracking process. Stuff you don't want mixing. Sometimes stuff which is explosive as it comes out of the solution in the electrolysis. Others which are simply corrosive to the processing gear.

Keep in mind that the gear is optimized for water, methane and ammonia, with traces of sulfides. Adding complex stuff to that is not a wise choice. With careful monitoring, it's doable, but why risk it, especially since water is a byproduct of food, and unrefined fuel is readily cracked and recombined into water?

 

[warwizard]

Well Turning to T4's Fire Fusion and Steel we see a decent exposition on the life support beginning on page 78 through page 80 and the table 207 through table 213 on page 111 to support it.

Nowhere in my readings of the traveller rule sets have I found any actual numbers specifying how much capacity of air storage tanks are installed, even for Fire Fusion and Steel that is below the granularity of the rules sets, and has been abstracted into the volume of the accomodations.

Wilderness life support recharge depends on what class of life support you have the "standard" of CT is class III which close loop recycles the water and simi closed loop recycles the air but has filters as discussed.

I generally install class IV life support systems (with complete air and water recycling systems without consumables), for ships that will be away from civilization for extended periods of time, and include food storage for the selected ration types for the duration of the mission. Of course if they run a bit long they will just have to eat the vegetarian MRE's that nobody would touch as long as there was anything better left.

 

[Cryton]

Hmmmm. I suppose you could seal unused staterooms, and cut life support to them and just not pay for the recharge on those rooms...Really, I mean why pay the life support on rooms you don't use?

Just an idea.

 

[warwizard]

It's already Cr2000 per person, not per stateroom. That cost is reduced to just the cost of the meals if you go with the class IV life support.

 

[aramis]

It's already Cr2000 per person, not per stateroom. That cost is reduced to just the cost of the meals if you go with the class IV life support.

Certain editions are per stateroom, not per person.

 

[Greylond]

It's already Cr2000 per person, not per stateroom.

Depends on the which version of the game you are playing. MgT is per Stateroom.