Commercial starship lifeboat requirements

[HG_B]

Independent of HOW (rules wise) to build one, what would be the performance requirements of a lifeboat? Assuming traveling in populated systems with interstellar traffic (even if low volume).

I'm looking at:

1) 3 week duration of life support. (Probably with all but one person on Fast drug.)

2) Minimal maneuver to avoid crashing into a planet.

3) Distress/location beacon.

 

[CosmicGamer]

what would be the performance requirements of a lifeboat? Assuming traveling in populated systems with interstellar traffic (even if low volume).

1) 3 week duration of life support. (Probably with all but one person on Fast drug.)

2) Minimal maneuver to avoid crashing into a planet.

3) Distress/location beacon.

For duration you might want to compute the maximum using the following for one of the largest planets or getting out to a stars 100d limit for a system that is well inside it - I don't know which would be greater.
1) Time for a distress call to be received from out at the 100d limit.
2) Time for a ship and crew to prepare for rescue - assuming a less prepared system that may not have a rescue ship and crew on standby
3) Time for rescue to get out to the 100d limit.

Add that all together.

 

[HG_B]

For duration you might want to compute the maximum using the following for one of the largest planets or getting out to a stars 100d limit for a system that is well inside it - I don't know which would be greater.
1) Time for a distress call to be received from out at the 100d limit.
2) Time for a ship and crew to prepare for rescue - assuming a less prepared system that may not have a rescue ship and crew on standby
3) Time for rescue to get out to the 100d limit.

Add that all together.

2-4 days. I think more Life support is needed than that though.

 

[Selandia]

Lifeboat (as oppose to life raft, i.e something beyond the sheer minimum) for Starship (might not be in well traveled area after misjump)

Starship's Lifeboat

Auto launch
1G
Auto pilot (collision avoidance/boarding compliance & automatic reentry if launched within reach of an habitable world)
1 month Life support, (message torpedo and return rescue) fast drug or -better- emergency lowberth)
Distress/Location Beacon
Air Lock

Spaceship's Liferaft

A man portable container with air recycling and power plugs for up to 8 vacc-suits/survival buble ( 30 days/persons = about 1 week for 4 suits), Distress/Location Beacon

have fun

Selandia

 

[Matt123]

I include emergency low berths in mine, which double as couches and use 10tn hulls, no bridge, Comp1, 2 crew couches & MD1.

This is one I used in a TCS campaign a couple of years ago.

*** 10tn Lifeboat
USP
ZB-0501101-000000-00000-0 MCr 7.725 10 Tons
Bat Bear Crew: 1
Bat TL: 10

Cargo: 0 Emergency Low: 5 Fuel: 1 EP: 0.100 Agility: 1
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 0.078 Cost in Quantity: MCr 6.180

Notes:
The standard lifeboat, capable of taking 20 people in emergency low berths
and carrying .5tn of lifeboat supplies. PP fuel is sufficient for 40 weeks. Many
times longer if the PP is dialed down while the low berths are in use.

Also may be used for interface journeys carrying 20 passengers.

 

[HG_B]

1G
Auto pilot (collision avoidance/boarding compliance & automatic reentry if launched within reach of an habitable world)

How much time at 1G thrust?

 

[HG_B]

Cargo: 0 Emergency Low: 5 Fuel: 1 EP: 0.100 Agility: 1
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 0.078 Cost in Quantity: MCr 6.180

This could be an economical one for large freighters & passenger liners.

 

[pennshome723]

I think on the way it was set up, it might actually be a Cryo Sleep tube, that slips into life pod that has some higher level brain features, like auto distress beacon, and maybe some minor scanners and thrusters to try and place something in orbit. I would think it would be extremely limited ability or fuctions, and it's best hope would be long battery life to keep the person in Cyro-Sleep and keep the beacon sending a distress signal.

 

[atpollard]

1) 3 week duration of life support. (Probably with all but one person on Fast drug.)

Just an air scrubber and heat/cooling should be good enough for days. Adding water could stretch survival out to weeks. None of that should cost much or require much room. Food is nice, but is surviving for weeks in space really likely to be necessary? IIRC, Fast Drug lasts for like a month and requires only 1 day of normal life support, so you need 28 days life support for two people to accommodate up to 29 survivors for a month ... way more than should be needed.

2) Minimal maneuver to avoid crashing into a planet.

What about a 0.01G MD. That sucks by starship standards, but is respectable by modern satellite drives. How far could you travel at 0.01G in 14 days with no deceleration at the half point? 100 diameters to orbit and a MOOSE reentry?

3) Distress/location beacon.

Absolutely! Power the whole things with a small battery and some solar film collectors and you may be able to drop the PP.

Ultimately, the system needs to keep people alive until help arrives from the starport - typically hours, but days in a worst case. A ship that may need to abandon people in the outer system (like a fuel tanker to/from the gas giant) should provide a real small craft (launch, ship's boat) as a lifeboat so the crew can just fly back to the port in an emergency.

 

[samuelvss]

I include emergency low berths in mine, which double as couches and use 10tn hulls, no bridge, Comp1, 2 crew couches & MD1.

This is one I used in a TCS campaign a couple of years ago.

*** 10tn Lifeboat
USP
ZB-0501101-000000-00000-0 MCr 7.725 10 Tons
Bat Bear Crew: 1
Bat TL: 10

Cargo: 0 Emergency Low: 5 Fuel: 1 EP: 0.100 Agility: 1
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 0.078 Cost in Quantity: MCr 6.180

Notes:
The standard lifeboat, capable of taking 20 people in emergency low berths
and carrying .5tn of lifeboat supplies. PP fuel is sufficient for 40 weeks. Many
times longer if the PP is dialed down while the low berths are in use.

Also may be used for interface journeys carrying 20 passengers.

I think this is an optimum design. I would not plan on 3 weeks of ANYTHING being sufficient for a life boat. The nature of an emergency is that something unexpected as happened, with a misjump, attack, or another failure being possible.

 

[HG_B]

Ultimately, the system needs to keep people alive until help arrives from the starport - typically hours, but days in a worst case. A ship that may need to abandon people in the outer system (like a fuel tanker to/from the gas giant) should provide a real small craft (launch, ship's boat) as a lifeboat so the crew can just fly back to the port in an emergency.

Exactly. The only time you need more duration is in an untraveled system (no starships to rescue you) or an "empty hex". Otherwise, help is no longer than ~2weeks away no matter where in a system you are.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

Currently on Earth, when dealing with stuff like lifeboats and such, there's a real effort to try and make sure that rules regarding ships and navigation, and the like aren't overly burdensome without providing a reasonable level of appreciable benefit over less costly options. As such organizations like the US Coast Guard will typically publish a "notification of proposed rulemaking" so that they can get feedback from industry to ensure that the rules aren't taken to be "arbitrary and capricious" in nature (which I think really just means that the rules don't come out as being just "do this because we say so whether or not it really provides any additional level of benefit").

Along those lines then I'm kind of thinking that the minimum requirements for a life boat should probably be based at least a little off "what's the minimum level acceptable' and "will anything more realistically give much better benefit".

Additionally, I'd kind of suspect that there could even be additional requirements and such based on the type of operation intended. Specifically, a pure cargo ship may have one level that is acceptable, while a passenger ship (or a ship that typically carries passengers on a regular basis) may have different levels (since on a cargo ship the crew will likely have some level of familiarity with operations in space, but when passengers are involved you'd probably have to assume passengers may not be all that familiar with how to do stuff and may require different levels of life support, and/or lead to a need for them to be easier to access etc).

In addition to all this, I'd also suspect that there is a need to also figure out how to deal with "low passengers" as well. For instance, do you "wake them up", have them move on their own to the "life boats" and then maybe have them "put back into an emergency berth", etc? Or do you assume that the low berths can be temporarily "unplugged", moved to the lifeboat and then "rehooked up" etc?

Finally, do you also assume lifeboat capacity equal to "100% of passengers and crew" or do you regulate some potential overage in the event that damage etc may prevent some passengers or crew from being able to access a specific lifeboat in the event of an emergency.

With all this in mind I could maybe a passenger ship or cargo ship on a regularly scheduled route maybe might only need a week or so of minimal life support while a ship doing speculative trade and/or exploratory stuff may potentially be better served with emergency low berths and the like since there is no guarantee that people will be aware that the ship is overdue.

Just some thoughts.

FC

 

[atpollard]

I'm kind of thinking that the minimum requirements for a life boat should probably be based at least a little off "what's the minimum level acceptable" and "will anything more realistically give much better benefit."

Just for fun, let's push 'minimal' lifeboat requirements to the lowest extreme.

From Emergency Low Berths, we know that people can be packed up to at least 4 to the dTon, so let's use that as a minimum space requirement for the passenger compartment of an Imperial Minumum Lifeboat.

From the description of Fast Drug, it allows one month of real time to pass with only 1 day of subjective time. If everyone gets a shot of Fast Drug, then the lifeboat only needs one day of life support to keep the survivors alive for up to a month.

A practical matter, the lifeboat will need something comparable to a radio to broadcast an automated distress signal and location beacon. Let's assume something like a handcomp as the minimum system to control all of this.

Since life support commonly comes in 1 week increments (7 man days), let's build our Imperial Minumum Lifeboat in 8 man increments (2 dTons) with room for 7 passengers with the '8th man' being the battery, life support, radio, handcomp and 7 doses of fast drug.

So this rather simple lifeboat will keep 7 people alive in space for up to a month waiting for rescue at minimal cost.

Anyone care to work up the price for:
a 2 dT hull
life support for 1 small craft couch for 7 days.
a radio
a handcomp
7 doses of fast drug

If the 'lifeboat' is actually more of an area of refuge within the ship, then you can eliminate even the cost of the 2 dT hull. (high rise buildings are designed with areas of refuge in case of a fire since it may be impractical to evacuate the 98th floor using the stairs, so a starship may operate under similar assumptions ... always stay with the ship.)

If the 2 dT hull fits within a socket in the hull of the ship, then those 2 dT of hull do not need to be paid for twice. The lifeboat hull is included in the cost of the ship.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I guess another thing to consider is whether there are yearly maintenance and support costs for the emergency low berths and/or whether there is a shelf life to the "fast" drug that might add to the costs of these crafts?

 

[Patron Zero]

Under the assumption requirements are met and observed by the operators of commercial liners, one might think that some sort of 'standardization' would be employed as to the compartments where low passage is offered.

Essentially that the section of the ship would be 'rated' to meet several criteria that would include an abandon ship scenario.

Perhaps the compartment is self-contained in regards to having independent power and life-support should the vessel go 'off-line' in an emergency. Not a bad idea if the onboard event is more of a find-and-fix than a bail-out nature.

Another consideration might be that the section holding the low passengers be able to 'eject'-egress the main ship in said circumstances, such capacities would prevent the need to waken 'sleeping' travelers and further encumber the crew already neck-deep in whatever disaster befell them.

One only has to look at recent incidents involving commercial liners in the real world to see that the safety of passengers is not always a crew's first obligation, let's hope such sentiment isn't present when the stars have replaced cresting waves.

 

[atpollard]

Q.A.D. price* for Imperial Minimum Lifeboat:
200,000 = a 2 dT hull
25,000 = life support for 1 small craft couch for 7 days.
5,000 = a radio, a handcomp & 7 doses of fast drug
230,000 credits Initial cost.
207,000 credits in bulk (10% discount)
Annual Maintenance = Cost x 0.001 = 230 credits per year

Remember that the 200,000 credit hull is part of the cost of the ship's hull, so the lifeboat only adds 30,000 credits to the cost of the ship and 30 credits to the annual maintenance. (27,000 credits and 27 credits for Standard Designs).

* Classic Traveler Prices and a bit of WAG.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Why not simply a self-contained Emergency Low Berth? Shield it and add a beacon and a survival kit for 4 people: no more than 1.5dT for 4 people. If you think it needs batteries for a longer duration, fine: make it 2dT for 4.

Just plan for a malfunctioning one to last a hundred years in special cases.

 

[Carlobrand]

I'm actually not much of a believer in lifeboats. The only reason to leave the ship is the imminent destruction of the ship. The power plant won't do that. The jump drive might, but there's not a whole lot of time to get far enough away if you realize something there is failing at the wrong time. The maneuver drive - maybe if we manufacture a reason, but that's up to our personal view of the thing, it's mystery tech. Certain battle damage can do it, but that reserves it to warships (civilian weapons don't do criticals) and again there's the question of timeliness.

The odds of your ship finding itself on a destructive course and entirely unable to change course - yet with enough time to get everyone off - are rather low. Space is big, and pilots aren't foolish enough to chart a course that actually intersects a mass until they're very close and ready to de-orbit, at least in my TU. Escape in that rare case would involve getting on something with the thrust to take a different course. Your escape vehicle wouldn't need much in the way of life support - simple half-dTon passenger seats will do (which means any routine passenger boat can double as a lifeboat) - unless there was no rescue within 24 hours thrust, and even then emergency doses of Fast drug mean you can extend that time by a factor of possibly up to 60.

In the vast majority of cases, the best bet is to shelter aboard ship. The ship's hull offers the best protection against radiation and micrometeors, the typical ship is subdivided by airtight bulkheads into multiple compartments against pressure loss, and anything a lifeboat could offer can be had by maintaining a small auxiliary power unit with enough power to operate minimal life support. That in combination with rescue balls and emergency fast drug will keep the passengers and crew through the vast maajority of likely emergencies until rescue can arrive. That being the case, my civilian ships don't carry anything more than rescue balls to protect occupants and get them over to the rescuer's ship.

My warships - above a certain size - all carry one jump-capable escape ship, against the possibility of an emergency while they are without their usual escorts. That is either a 100dT ship with ELBs or a special 50dT cutter design with ELBs, a J-1 jump drive and an expandable jump mesh that allows it to expand out to 100 dT for jump purposes. My TU has tales of warships misjumping into deep space and struggling by on emergency power for a few weeks while the ship's ketch jumps to the nearest friendly port to summon rescuers.

 

[HG_B]

I'm actually not much of a believer in lifeboats. The only reason to leave the ship is the imminent destruction of the ship. The power plant won't do that. The jump drive might, but there's not a whole lot of time to get far enough away if you realize something there is failing at the wrong time. The maneuver drive - maybe if we manufacture a reason, but that's up to our personal view of the thing, it's mystery tech. Certain battle damage can do it, but that reserves it to warships (civilian weapons don't do criticals) and again there's the question of timeliness.

The odds of your ship finding itself on a destructive course and entirely unable to change course - yet with enough time to get everyone off - are rather low. Space is big, and pilots aren't foolish enough to chart a course that actually intersects a mass until they're very close and ready to de-orbit, at least in my TU.

That is true. The actual need for life boats, especially on a commercial ship in "known space" would be almost never I guess.

 

[pennshome723]

I think it all depends on the type of ship (what it's mission is) and where it is. Maybe a yacht might have them installed for the owner(s) and guests, or maybe a science vessel that was doing some type of "gray" area type work...it all depends. Also think of the Alien style movies where travel between star systems has everyone go into Cryo sleep, it makes sense.

I like the concept and I use it within my game.