Glen Allen Mcinnes
SOC-12
I'll say they did it with the VP Varg Corsair in CT & MT and GT as well. also i think there are other disined thet did it but i cant think of them off the top of my head
escape pods
- Thread starter jasper
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Merc transport sounds good 
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
And yet...
So shouldn't the Merc Cruiser become a Merc Cutter as well? Or how about Merc Corvette?
</font>[/QUOTE]And further, what of that Modular Cutter? If the old Cruisers are now Cutters? I have no problem with the old nomenclature but if I did make a change then I'm with Sigg, call them Corvettes. I've used it for some of my own smallish desgins.
The term Cutter, in modern naval parlance, covers from 40' to 220', fast, multi-role craft, which usually can be fitted for patrol duties. Some are patrol, some are fast transport, and almost all have a search and rescue funcion.
The breakpoint between small and large craft is 100' in the modern world. Subs, no matter the size, are boats, as are all surface small craft, and surface large craft are ships. (paraphrased from memory out of Naval Science 1, USNA Press.)
So, in traveller, I don't see a problem with cutter being used for the modular cutter and the Type T. The T is about as big as I'd conceed for a cutter.
A corvette, navally, is a small, fast vessel designed to run blockades and/or scout for a fleet. Not used much anymore.
Which is why I dislike corvette for the Type T. It implies the oposite function from the intended design (despite my players having used it as a blockade runner in the past).
But we're drifted way off thread...
The breakpoint between small and large craft is 100' in the modern world. Subs, no matter the size, are boats, as are all surface small craft, and surface large craft are ships. (paraphrased from memory out of Naval Science 1, USNA Press.)
So, in traveller, I don't see a problem with cutter being used for the modular cutter and the Type T. The T is about as big as I'd conceed for a cutter.
A corvette, navally, is a small, fast vessel designed to run blockades and/or scout for a fleet. Not used much anymore.
Which is why I dislike corvette for the Type T. It implies the oposite function from the intended design (despite my players having used it as a blockade runner in the past).
But we're drifted way off thread...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Flower Class Corvettes were used as cheap merchant convoy escorts during the second world war - they were converted whalers, not exactly fast blockade runners .
Hmm, Corvettes in Traveller - this may need its own thread
.Hmm, Corvettes in Traveller - this may need its own thread
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Flower class Corvette - max speed 16 knots
Can you give me some links to the Traveller corvette discussions?
What I had in mind was:
a TL10-13 pocket empire needing warships in a hurry, which merchant vessel standard designs would you convert (like the flower class corvette) to military use? How would you do it?
The reason the flower class was produced was that it could be built by civilian shipyards with no warship construction experience and escorts were needed - urgently.
Can you give me some links to the Traveller corvette discussions?
What I had in mind was:
a TL10-13 pocket empire needing warships in a hurry, which merchant vessel standard designs would you convert (like the flower class corvette) to military use? How would you do it?
The reason the flower class was produced was that it could be built by civilian shipyards with no warship construction experience and escorts were needed - urgently.
Me? I wouldn't convert them.
I'd call in the subbies if I lost a supply ship or several.
I'd reactivate the scouts... so that I could use them as as expendables. 1-2 man crews, like fighters, and similart armaments, but self-jumping.
As for corvette/cutter, do a search for Patrol Cruiser. you'll find a couple of them.
I'd call in the subbies if I lost a supply ship or several.
I'd reactivate the scouts... so that I could use them as as expendables. 1-2 man crews, like fighters, and similart armaments, but self-jumping.
As for corvette/cutter, do a search for Patrol Cruiser. you'll find a couple of them.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Let's see… irrelevent to space travel, irrelevent to space travel, and ummm, irrelevent to space travel.
Titanic hit an iceberg unseen in the night; no lesson there for us. Britannic listed and took in water through open portholes; I think we all know not to open portholes to vaccuum. Olympic sunk from a mine (massive hull breach) hit while hatches in watertight bulkheads were open to permit shift change; hull breach already covered here.
Maybe I've got Britannic and Olympic swapped, but the point is spacecraft accidents are not as survivable as surface naval accidents.
The correct analogy is aircraft, not naval ships. We could make automatic parachute-equipped evacuation pods that would have a small chance of improving survivability over all possible scenarios weighted by probability.
Another more fully analogous comparison is submarines. There are no pods on subs. They either suffer implosion or await on the bottom for remote rescue. Remote in both likelihood of success and in mode of operation.
Space is an unforgiving medium of travel.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Yeah why bother since the odds of survival are negligible and the chance of accident so remote as to be implausible 
Guess the FAA requirement for passenger planes to have those silly inflatable life vests if flying over water should be scrapped. I mean the likelihood of a modern jet aircraft having to ditch at sea is remote, and if they do the odds of it being a survivable crash are practically nil and even if you did make it down, and out, and away from the wreckage and possible fire you're dead of hypothermia or shark attack before anyone finds you. Lets just forget the whole escape/survival/rescue scenario altogether and just issue everyone a multilingual book of soothing thoughts and a pleasantly flavored chewable "long sleep" pill
Guess the FAA requirement for passenger planes to have those silly inflatable life vests if flying over water should be scrapped. I mean the likelihood of a modern jet aircraft having to ditch at sea is remote, and if they do the odds of it being a survivable crash are practically nil and even if you did make it down, and out, and away from the wreckage and possible fire you're dead of hypothermia or shark attack before anyone finds you. Lets just forget the whole escape/survival/rescue scenario altogether and just issue everyone a multilingual book of soothing thoughts and a pleasantly flavored chewable "long sleep" pill
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Exactly where I was aiming.Originally posted by SanDragon:
Wow. That was dark sir. Unless it was all sarcasm. then...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Straybow wrote:
I would say the lesson is avoid comets
No, the one and only lesson for spacefarers from titanic is that no matter how well engineered, there is still something that can go wrong.
Olympic, Majestic: both are so irrelevant as to make the heaad swim.
Now, the moral from the movie is that If yiou let 3rd class passenger mingle with 1st class, you get smacked by god with an iceberg.
As for the flotation in aircraft: most aircraft failures are non-catastrophic. Take, for example the Hawaiian Airlines incedent: 1/4th the length of the cabin had the body lose the upper half... and it landed safely. Take another example of most of the small plane crashes: 50-70% set down without life-threatening injuries, sometimes with major property damage, but seldom with life threatening injuries. Most of the time, if there are life threatening injuries, they are usually rapidly fatal.
Ditching at sea... well, in a modern plane, the big issues are flotation for the three days it takes to dehydrate to death.
In deep-system flight, a spacecraft can be more than 2 hours away by radio, and several days by even fast ship... if not more than a week.
the cost ratios don't compare. To add escape pods to a Type S, enough for the "Nominal" 4 person rating, is at least 4MCR, or about 20% of the NEW COST.
Seat cushion floation is at worst 1% of the cost of a modern airliner. Probably less.
Olympic, Majestic: both are so irrelevant as to make the heaad swim.
Now, the moral from the movie is that If yiou let 3rd class passenger mingle with 1st class, you get smacked by god with an iceberg.
As for the flotation in aircraft: most aircraft failures are non-catastrophic. Take, for example the Hawaiian Airlines incedent: 1/4th the length of the cabin had the body lose the upper half... and it landed safely. Take another example of most of the small plane crashes: 50-70% set down without life-threatening injuries, sometimes with major property damage, but seldom with life threatening injuries. Most of the time, if there are life threatening injuries, they are usually rapidly fatal.
Ditching at sea... well, in a modern plane, the big issues are flotation for the three days it takes to dehydrate to death.
In deep-system flight, a spacecraft can be more than 2 hours away by radio, and several days by even fast ship... if not more than a week.
the cost ratios don't compare. To add escape pods to a Type S, enough for the "Nominal" 4 person rating, is at least 4MCR, or about 20% of the NEW COST.
Seat cushion floation is at worst 1% of the cost of a modern airliner. Probably less.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Quite right and very valid. I guess a better comparison, both in cost and actual usefulness would be the standard survival bubble which iirc are supposed to be in sufficient quantity for the whole complement aboard.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Feeling touchy, flykiller?
In some extreme examples, shipwreck survivors in open boats or clinging to debris have drifted to safety across thousands of miles over weeks of time. Not gonna happen in space; Apollo 13 was within a few degrees of the vector necessary for safe reentry and even then their odds were quite slim. If you don't like the odds, don't leave the dirtball.
No harm, no foul, far-trader
As an aside, a few years back somebody devised a stall parachute system for high-wing light planes, mounted above the wing. (Low-wing designs require significant structural mods that wouldn't meet FAA approval for commercial applicability.) Almost any loss-of-power or loss-of-control incident becomes survivable, even during takeoff.
