Lifeboats

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Pwyll:
i am curious to know how many folks actually HAVE used lifeboats or even lifebubbles in games, and what their game experiences were

I once stuck my players chasing a bad guy through a science research space station when the bad guy (actually a woman) opened the whole place to vaccum (she had a vacc suit on). The PCs had to get into the rescue balls and then move inside the station (while still inside the rescue balls; gravity was still on) and finally get to where the vacc suits were stored so they could suit up (using an airlock as a pressure chamber) and then continue the pursuit of the villain. The trickiest part was figuring out how to push the buttons for the doors while rolling around in the rescue balls. And avoiding ripping their rescue balls on various random edges and corners, of course.

I've never had a game where my PCs had to use rescue balls or lifeboats for what they were designed for.

 

[kaladorn]

Rescue Balls, Vacc Suits, and Atmo Reentry Kits are fine for *crew*. Or even that sort of half-crew one calls *troops* *marines* or *jarheads*. But civs running a reentry kit? or even a vacc suit? Yeah right. And they'll be mighty uncomfortable in a agoraphobic little ball, floating in space, with no bathroom, with no sensors, with no comms, with the view of the big empty, and knowing no one might ever pick them up.... (or feelign that way at any rate).....

I think if you're relying on rescue balls, you're doing the airplane equivalent of the drills about folding yourself over and assuming 'crash position' (aka kiss yer butt goodbye).

On the research station situation, that sounds a lot like what they *were* intended for!

Though rolling a rescue ball without falling on your face might be tough. I'd have thought a small grav unit (think grav belt) with a very limited power output and a joystick would have been a good way to get these around in zero G. Or perhaps a small thruster if your AG won't work once grav kicks out.

 

[Madarin Dude]

I have been thinkig that since traveller is dependant on volume and not mass. Making a collapsable lifeboat. that woudl take have the nomal volume inside would be simple web seats. When extended to full volume would be ready for use. This would not be a craft for daily use because the streangth and durability would be affected. But it is a concept for emergancy lifboats. The extra space that would be had can be used for profit. Using only 25 tons for lifeboats instead of 50 makes a diffeence. Just a thought.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by Madarin Dude:
I have been thinkig that since traveller is dependant on volume and not mass. Making a collapsable lifeboat. that woudl take have the nomal volume inside would be simple web seats. When extended to full volume would be ready for use. This would not be a craft for daily use because the streangth and durability would be affected. But it is a concept for emergancy lifboats. The extra space that would be had can be used for profit. Using only 25 tons for lifeboats instead of 50 makes a diffeence. Just a thought.

And what a thought it is!

Lemme think on this: You couldn't collapse fuel, avionics, etc, and the hull might end up a bit weaker, but you could collapse the passenger area, perhaps by as much as a ratio of 4 or 6 to one. That might buy you a 20 ton lifeboat compressing into 8-12 tons. That's a pretty significant saving, especially for a big liner.

Now, how to cost it, how to rate it.... this is (IMO) a *DARN* good idea, but it does bring up the idea of folding shuttlecraft etc.

Maybe it is time to invoke the Unholy Gearhead Alliance to speak on these matters. Folding fuel cells to be setup inside of cargo bays from time to time to bridge big jump gaps? The possibilities are numerous!

 

[flykiller]

Making a collapsable lifeboat. that woudl take have the nomal volume inside would be simple web seats. When extended to full volume would be ready for use.

now that is indeed an interesting thought.

it may not prove effective, though. traveller lifeboats may have to cross very large distances, or even park in orbit to await rescue. they should have low berths, but collapsible boats won't be able to accomodate these any more efficiently than solid-hull boats. if you expect only short trips by conscious people, though, then collapsible boats sound like a good idea.

by the way, welcome to these boards. how does someone in china find out about traveller?

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Madarin Dude:
I have been thinkig that since traveller is dependant on volume and not mass. Making a collapsable lifeboat. that woudl take have the nomal volume inside would be simple web seats. When extended to full volume would be ready for use. This would not be a craft for daily use because the streangth and durability would be affected. But it is a concept for emergancy lifboats. The extra space that would be had can be used for profit. Using only 25 tons for lifeboats instead of 50 makes a diffeence. Just a thought.

And what a thought it is!

Lemme think on this: You couldn't collapse fuel, avionics, etc, and the hull might end up a bit weaker, but you could collapse the passenger area, perhaps by as much as a ratio of 4 or 6 to one. That might buy you a 20 ton lifeboat compressing into 8-12 tons. That's a pretty significant saving, especially for a big liner.

Now, how to cost it, how to rate it.... this is (IMO) a *DARN* good idea, but it does bring up the idea of folding shuttlecraft etc.

Maybe it is time to invoke the Unholy Gearhead Alliance to speak on these matters. Folding fuel cells to be setup inside of cargo bays from time to time to bridge big jump gaps? The possibilities are numerous! </font>[/QUOTE]Hmm, yes, very interesting indeed. My thoughts:

1 - Fuel could be collapsed hard tankage (special dismountable tankage in FF&S). No need (in most cases) to have it fueled up. When the emergency is declared and the order to lower(?) the lifeboat is given just have it siphon a full fuel load from the ship's tanks (only a fuel tank shattered hit would be a problem, and even then it could be allowed that the siphon gets it before its lost). The previous rules for such tankage was 25% volume while stored and cr7,000 per T. So lets double that volume and cost for the automated inflation feature.

2 - Passenger capacity volume could be like you say 50% when stored, and perhaps double cost for the feature. Probably just seats like you say but possibly cabins if you want to get fancy, like on a Yacht.

3 - I think the thrusters and power plant could also be 50% volume during storage, with the understanding that they are not serviceable. Costs would be double again for the essentially preserved until deployed nature.

4 - The hull I think I'd treat similar to a drop tank of the deployed volume but double the cost again for the collapsible nature. Maximum of fully streamlined configuration?

5 - Controls. Computers and electronics, probably not required. Helm as small craft but again double cost.

This could be an excellent solution to some of the arguments against canon lifeboats. Who's to say the 'bridge' requirements for Spaceships and Starships don't include this in every design, at least as a minimal design. Say 25% of the 'bridge' tonnage being an inflatable lifeboat(s) of a deployed volume equal to twice that. Maybe even allow the cost to be assumed in the 'bridge' cost. This would be a bare bones, 1G and minimal power, with a duration of the standard 4 weeks with included rations for the capacity. Sanitary facilities would be primitive and room to stretch your legs non-existant. The best option would be to make a habitable planetfall and use the ship as a shelter till rescue. Naturally it will have a standard ELT that would run indefinately, happily squaking GK.

 

[flykiller]

Who's to say the 'bridge' requirements for Spaceships and Starships don't include this in every design

if no-one else will, I'll say it. "bridge" does not mean "lifeboat".

 

[Drakon]

Actually, I was not comparing subs to starships, simply noting how and why things are done on a submarine. Its my background. You can take the guy out of the boat, but you can't take the boat out of the guy

But then again, worst possible case, the ship explodes. Whether you are in a lifeboat (as opposed to a shuttlecraft) capable of either warp and/or planetary landing means little more than prolonging the inevitable.

That is the thing that would require the evacuation of the ship, the ship leaving existence.

And if the ship does not explode, diving for the lifeboat actually REDUCES the amount of resources you have to deal with the problem you are facing. Contrasted to maritime vessels, starships don't sink, don't disappear. They stay where they are, (unless they explode)

As fusion, as a famous engineering officer once said, "You kinna change the laws of physics". Fusion requires a lot of energy to accomplish. Just to get it started and keep it running. Whether that energy is pressure, gravitic, electrical, or muon creation, is beside the point. You turn off that source of energy, the process stops.

Protons have a very strong electrical charge, they don't like ganging together. You have to override that tendency to stay apart to fuse the hydrogen. You got nature working against you already, so again, it looks fairly easy to simply let it do its job.

This is completely different from uranium, which wants to decay, wants to spit out neutrons, and (depending on the design of the reactor) wants keep the chain reaction going to produce heat and energy.

 

[Drakon]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I find I have to agree with Anthony here.

if you like, but so far the case against lifeboats consists of best-case assumptions for itself, and worst case assumptions for the lifeboats. </font>[/QUOTE]Not quite. If there is no comms available, or parts or the rest, if ALL redundant systems have failed, or are damaged, you are pretty much screwed anyway. But again, as long as the ship is there, you still have the ship. You have the resources of the ship. Going to a lifeboat actually reduces the available resources you have at your disposal.

Perhaps we are talking different things here. I see a lifeboat as gear that is devoted solely to be used in a catastrophic incident. You don't use the lifeboat as a shuttle, I see those as separate gear. You want to go down to the planet, you'd take your gig or cutter. And if there is none present, well you got a problem anyway, that I don't see being solved by abandoning ship, in fact I see it as reducing your chances rather than increasing it.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Who's to say the 'bridge' requirements for Spaceships and Starships don't include this in every design

if no-one else will, I'll say it. "bridge" does not mean "lifeboat". </font>[/QUOTE]

Perhaps in my brevity I was unclear, take 2...

"Who's to say, in my Traveller universe or yours, the 'bridge' requirements for Spaceships and Starships don't include this in every design."

After all the 'bridge' (hence the quotes) in some of the design systems has implied or specified it as a catch all for much more than just the place the pilot sits and the stuff they have to make the ship go. It has I think always implied an airlock and ship's locker at the very least, as minimal safety requirements. Such a collapsible lifeboat would be suitable in my opinion.

So the question was rhetorical, though it may not have been obvious enough. Or maybe flykiller was just having some sport and my paranoia is running loose again

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Drakon:


<snip>

Contrasted to maritime vessels, starships don't sink, don't disappear. They stay where they are, (unless they explode)

Continuing to say it won't make it so

Starships will sink, in this case if they lose power they will fall (sink) into the nearest gravity well. That could take years or longer in which case you probably want to hang on as long as feasible or until you can make a safe transfer to someplace better. Or it could be a matter of minutes or hours before your ship sinks into a gas-giant or planet, and then you'll want to abandon ship and try for a better place, even a controlled landing on the planet or a stable orbit.

They will almost never just stay where they are. Perhaps you have power and life support, only your thrusters are dead. Your vector is whatever it was when they quite and you are either headed someplace bad in a hurry or slowly, like a close encounter with the systems sun, or beyond the system itself. Time to abandon ship, eventually. Or you might even be in a deadman's tumble in which case no one can dock to rescue you. You will need to get off the ship in a craft that can then stabilize itself. It is possible a vacc-suit with backpack thrusters could do it, if the person is skilled, but there won't be enough for everyone on board. Even if it's just crew, there's probably no more than two eva equipped suits in the standard ship's locker, time for short straws.

By your arguments maybe the best solution for YTU is the Emergency Escape Capsule (tm). When the time comes that all options have been explored and the ship and hands are doomed the captain can issue a single EEC to each. This capsule is designed to be easily swallowed and ensures a quick and peaceful exit from the situation. The captain is advised to use tact and not alarm any civilians by avoiding the facts and instead lie. Telling them that it will induce a state of suspended animation much like lowberths until they are rescued for example. (please roll up new characters)

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Continuing to say it won't make it so

Starships will sink, in this case if they lose power they will fall (sink) into the nearest gravity well.

Only if you have a problem during re-entry, in which case you probably don't have enough time to get into lifeboats anyway. A ballistic path for a ship, unless you really try to hit something, is pretty much guaranteed to be an orbital path that never hits anything.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Anthony:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by far-trader:
Continuing to say it won't make it so

Starships will sink, in this case if they lose power they will fall (sink) into the nearest gravity well.

Only if you have a problem during re-entry, in which case you probably don't have enough time to get into lifeboats anyway. A ballistic path for a ship, unless you really try to hit something, is pretty much guaranteed to be an orbital path that never hits anything. </font>[/QUOTE]Yep, my goof. Though it won't be a stable orbit likely, it should last a good while or skip into space, barring hull damage affecting streamlining.

Anywho I just posted a design based on the above, slightly changing my above design parameters to make it simpler. See Inflatable Lifeboat.

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

Originally posted by far-trader:

They will almost never just stay where they are. Perhaps you have power and life support, only your thrusters are dead. Your vector is whatever it was when they quite and you are either headed someplace bad in a hurry or slowly, like a close encounter with the systems sun, or beyond the system itself. Time to abandon ship, eventually. Or you might even be in a deadman's tumble in which case no can dock to rescue you. You will need to get off the ship in a craft that can then stabilize itself. It is possible a vacc-suit with backpack thrusters could do it, if the person is skilled, but there won't be enough for everyone on board. Even if it's just crew, there's probably no more than two eva equipped suits in the standard ship's locker, time for short straws.

Actually, if the crew and passengers simply jumped they'd not necessarily be tumling, but simply moving slowly away from the ship in whatever direction the lock was pointing when they left it, plus whatever vector the spin added.

Besides, the answer is easy - tie all those without an EVA pack to the guy who has one and jump together.

 

[mike wightman]

According to B2 the humble vacc suit is everything a life boat needs to be.
It provides life support for 16 hours(easily doubled by picking up an additional tank.
It is capable of providing 1.5 G of acceleration once only.
A foamed atmosphere reentry kit is included in the vacc suit package.
So practice those emergency vacc suit drills and don't worry about lifeboats .

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
According to B2 the humble vacc suit is everything a life boat needs to be.
It provides life support for 16 hours(easily doubled by picking up an additional tank.
It is capable of providing 1.5 G of acceleration once only.
A foamed atmosphere reentry kit is included in the vacc suit package.
So practice those emergency vacc suit drills and don't worry about lifeboats .

My copy of B2 gives them 6 hours of air and some basic survival kit (which I take to be a radiation exposure counter, patches, and so on). It says nothing about a PRK or any sort of manoeuvre capability.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
According to B2 the humble vacc suit is everything a life boat needs to be.
It provides life support for 16 hours(easily doubled by picking up an additional tank.
It is capable of providing 1.5 G of acceleration once only.
A foamed atmosphere reentry kit is included in the vacc suit package.
So practice those emergency vacc suit drills and don't worry about lifeboats .

Yep, fine for skilled ex-service types with crew employment, assuming there are enough to go around and that the tanks are all full. You did buy spare tanks and filled them right? Oh that's the Captain's job? Anybody seen him since the abandon ship order?

So the passengers on your free-trader are still outta luck eh? Good luck selling those passage tickets Are you even gonna bother to wake the low-berthers? Nah, let them rest in peace, who needs more panicky civilians running around asking silly questions like "Where are the lifeboats?"

Personally I don't think 18 or 36 hours will be enough in a lot of cases. I'll want a boat with the minimum 4 weeks of life support and a bunch of survival rations so I don't have to go cannibal (or worry about the other survivors going cannibal).

Basically, for the game, I want to give my player's a good chance to survive in general. That means IMTU an accepted standard minimal lifeboat, at least as an option, and legally required on commercial ships if no other subcraft are standard. If they screw that up then c'est la vie.

I guess its all very MTU YTU YMMV.

 

[mike wightman]

In reply to Rupert my info comes from 1st edition Book2, I also have the 2nd edition you are refering to and chose to use 1st edition out of badness (has anyone else noticed that ther are four different editions of CT, all of which contain one or two slightly different rules?)

.
In B2 1st ed the roll to avoid mishap is 6+, no skills required.
The atmosphere entry kit is given a fuller write up in JotTAS 11 and the mishap role becomes 9+ but there are several skill, ability and situation modifiers.
DGP wrote it up for MT in one of its' MT journals, number 3, and gives it a task of routine for preparation phase and difficult for reentry, again with modifiers.

If you need a long duration lifeboat then where exactly are you opperating your cruise line? Wouldn't it be far cheaper to build lifeguard stations equiped with the pickup boats along the route (now there's an interesting job for a plot hook).
If you are opperating outside of civilised space who is coming to rescue you in a few weeks time anyway? How long overdue at the next high(enough to launch a rescue mission)tech world along the route, where on the route through low tech/backwater worlds has disaster struck?
Perhaps large liners and exploration vessels carry an emergency jump capable lifeboat.
Of course there's always A4's jump torpedo

.

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
In reply to Rupert my info comes from 1st edition Book2, I also have the 2nd edition you are refering to and chose to use 1st edition out of badness (has anyone else noticed that ther are four different editions of CT, all of which contain one or two slightly different rules?)

Yes, I had noticed. I've got a copy of the 2nd edition (1981), 1st printing that came as "Deluxe Traveller", and a copy of The traveller Book. I seldom refer to the latter as it's falling apart and is AKAICT very nearly the same as my LBBs.

 

[Pwyll]

far-trader:
By your arguments maybe the best solution for YTU is the Emergency Escape Capsule (tm). When the time comes that all options have been explored and the ship and hands are doomed the captain can issue a single EEC to each. This capsule is designed to be easily swallowed and ensures a quick and peaceful exit from the situation. The captain is advised to use tact and not alarm any civilians by avoiding the facts and instead lie. Telling them that it will induce a state of suspended animation much like lowberths until they are rescued for example. (please roll up new characters)