Low Berth to Medic Ratios for Crew Requirements

[sinbadsam]

I am trying to design a ship that has 10,000+ low berths, but I am unable to locate/find anything in the T20 books or in the forums here that give any information on how many medical personnel are needed for so many low berths.

Previous iterations of Traveller had such a ratio.

 

[Liam Devlin]

This was discussed before the forum reset, and I am not sure if we can find those articles sinbad sam.
What I do recall however was this:

The civilian model was 1 steward/medic per 20 LB's.

 

[sinbadsam]

Liam,

Thanks it is similar to what previous iterations of Traveller had.

Sinbad Sam

 

[BetterThanLife]

I have found that if you fall back on LBB1-8 for most rules not covered explicitly in the THB you will not go far wrong. (With the exception of skills where you need to stick with the T20 concept.

)

 

[Rover]

The handbook says that a medic should be present at time of revival. Pg 343 Medical check DC 10 +1 per skill level. If the check fails then character must roll a Fort Save DC6.

Those are pretty bad odds.

Assume a medic skill of 5 minimum for a MD that means statistically 25% would have to roll a fort save. Of those 2,500 (assume 10 CON Average and Merchant class 5th level) you can expect 250 deaths. Save DC6 +3 fort save means on average that you have a 2.5% chance of dying even with a qualified MD present.

As to your question, given what the handbook says there need not be any medic present when the characters go into low sleep nor must there be any present during the voyage. From that we can assume then, the ship would only require the standard medical compliment for the given crew size. Pg 276 1 medic per 200 tons an additional medic per 120 passengers. As per page 96, a medic is defined as a character with 1 skill point in T/medical. Note this does not represent dedicated medical staff. Gunners, stewards, engineers can also pull double duty as a medic.

Given that your ship will quite large you may want to have a dedicated Dr. on board along with a nursing staff. But by the book it is not required.

At the destination location you can have as many medic present as you want, unless they have to be part of the ships crew. I.e. showing up at a remote outpost. There are no rules on how long it takes to revive from cold sleep, nor how many sleepers a medic can monitor at a given time. If we make some assumptions, a half hour revival time and 25 patients per medic we are looking at 1 medic waking 500 passengers in a 10 hour day, that would mean a staff of 20 can wake the whole compliment in 10 hours. These are just my assumptions, you will have to make your own based on how things work in YTU.

Just a thought, given the large scale of this operation you may want to house rule some Low Berth tech skill or feat that would give an edge to dc roll on the revival.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Sinbad Sam:
Liam,

Thanks it is similar to what previous iterations of Traveller had.

Sinbad Sam

You're most welcome!

The lost discussion was in fact revolving around your topic, and another lay in a side thread of one of Ms. Mickazoid's ships, a TL-11, 3kton orbital assault ship, and shuttles, carrying about a 80 troops in LB's.

edit:
here:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000990

 

[sinbadsam]

Actually I am trying to create/recreate a ship that many times in the various iterations of Traveller existed. A large cold berth colonizer ship.

So far have a 20k hull that will hold 25,000 cold berth colonists.

For that many cold berths I would need 1250 medical personnel for "thawing" the colonists at there destination. Thinking of having most of the medical staff in the cold berths too.

IIRC cold berths have a small amount of gear storage for the occupant.

IIRC an issue of the Traveller Digest had an article on the various types of cold berths and about persons who use them to prolong their lives.

 

[Liam Devlin]

I thought so, Sinbad Sam. I was referencing the thread i could find--so no harm done!

with 1250 med personnel, you'd be looking at having 62-63 waking crew a rotation then in this generation colony ship, right? (not counting those piloting running engineering, yes?).

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Sinbad Sam:
For that many cold berths I would need 1250 medical personnel for "thawing" the colonists at there destination.

Sinbad,

Remember, those requirements are for commercial and/or military service where there is a need to thaw about people safely and fast. Your colony ship doesn't need to wake everyone within a day, a week, or even a month after arrival.

I'd link the revival rate, and thus the number of medical types required, to the rate at which you can shift people to the colony below. That's going to depend not the ship's shuttle capacity or medical staffing but the situation on the ground.

If the colony ship is the first one to arrive, it will take some time to prepare housing and arrange for rations and/or local foodstuffs. If the ship is simply adding to a pre-existing population, you still needn't shift people to the surface as quickly as an OTU passenger liner. Making living arrangements for and feeding meals to 25K new arrivals is quite a bit of work.

Just a WAG here, but I'd think that even a ~500 per day revival rate would be really pushing things. You got the thaw out the poor slobs, deal with any medical problems that will arise (and they will), issue them clothes, issue them some sort of basic personal goods in a kit bag, get a meal in them, move them through the ship to all the locations they need to visit (stores issue, mess deck, freshers, etc.), and then finally load them on shuttle{s} for the trip to the planet below. Think of all the space you'll need on board for all that work too.

Even if you make it a 24/7 operation, you're still looking at a lot of work and a lot of work space.


Have fun,
Bill