Rules Only: Regenerative Life Support

[Grav_Moped]

If I had to build a ship with this regenerative life support (I see its usefulness for space stations and other crafts wich wil lbe long time without a port of call, as long distance explorers), I agree taht scale would be important. A few people are likely to need more tonnage per person than a large number of them.

So, I's set at a tonnage per person (I won't dare to even suggest how much), but with an efficiency scale (as MT Power plants), so that a 3 people crew would be quite inefficient (and so needing quite more tonnage), while a 10000 population would have increased efficiency, so needing quite less tonnage per person.

Of course, TL would also increase efficiency, as algae can be genetically tailored for the duty...

My take on it is that your basic TL-8 1Td/2-person unit does air processing, and dispenses water and "food".
Alleged food. Yes, you won't starve and you won't suffer from malnutrition; keep the grow lights lit and you'll survive indefinitely.
Nobody likes it, though (the consistency is weird and it tastes peculiar). Steward skill is needed to make it tolerable rather than a last resort.

At TL-9, it's tolerable. Steward skill can improve it to "meh. not bad." Still nobody's first choice, or likely even their second choice.

At TL-13 (base; TL Stage Effects allow this at lower TLs at greater cost and complexity, or lower quality) cloning and forced-growth technology enable regen life support units that produce cloned meat, vegetables, and fruits. Or rather, uniform blocks or slices of such material that lack the form factor of the originals. Early devices "print" slices, later ones can produce blocks or slabs. The concept here is that the bioreactor generates algae/yeast/whatever that becomes feedstock for the food cloning units. Even at base TL, the devices require many hours to produce cloned foodstuffs -- fresh meals take some advance planning. Early models require a large minimum size if such diversity is desired, because of the specialized equipment necessary. A similar process can produce milk and dairy products, but this requires dedicated and specialized machinery and a longer lead time for complex dairy products (cheese, etc.).

At TL-15, production is faster but still takes time. The cloned food products resemble the originals from which they were copied.

 

[Spinward Flow]

So, I's set at a tonnage per person (I won't dare to even suggest how much), but with an efficiency scale (as MT Power plants), so that a 3 people crew would be quite inefficient (and so needing quite more tonnage), while a 10000 population would have increased efficiency, so needing quite less tonnage per person.

Of course, TL would also increase efficiency, as algae can be genetically tailored for the duty...

Easy enough solution to that would be to take the USP crew code factor and include that into the formula to determine how many Workshops are needed to reach the capacity desired/required.
Crew: 1 (1-9 crew) = +0 TL
Crew: 2 (10-99 crew) = +1 TL
Crew: 3 (100-999 crew) = +2 TL
Crew: 4 (1000-9999 crew) = +3 TL
... and so on and so forth ...

Gives you the necessary economy of scaling for really LARGE quantities of recycled life support habitat.
Note that USP crew codes match up quite nicely with UWP world population codes ... {suggestive eyebrow waggling}

Of course, the +0 TL starting point could be shifted around, such that it perhaps starts at Crew: 2 instead of Crew: 1 ... so Crew: 1 (1-9 crew) determines capacity as if it were -1 TL to what it actually is built at, due to the lack of economies of scale for load balancing (with so few people involved, the load balancing for the engineering is much more finicky and tricky, hence the penalty). Or maybe the +0 TL starting point is set at Crew: 3 (100-999 crew) instead so as to put a more severe -2 TL penalty on Crew: 1 (1-9 crew), reinforcing the notion that such a technology is really best suited for large(r) populations than what is commonly seen on Adventure Class Ships.

I like that idea.
Good addition for additional texture.

Steward skill can improve it

Actually, I was already moving in that direction of wanting to incorporate Steward skill as a way to upgrade the recycled food as a quality of life improvement that would affect crew morale (which isn't really a "thing" in CT). Yet another "flavor" point for the technology (pun unintended, but accepted anyway).

I see its usefulness for space stations and other crafts wich will be long time without a port of call, as long distance explorers

For Belters and civilians living in space based habitats, I figure it ought to be something of a necessity.

Beltstrike and JTAS #3 already touched on the need for extended life support for Belters out prospecting for extended durations during the CT era. I'm just thinking that a more formalized and "long term" solution ought to be added to the toolkit.

 

[Grav_Moped]

For Belters and civilians living in space based habitats, I figure it ought to be something of a necessity.

With the latter scaled up to industrial scale for large space-based habitats (you did go there, though). Though if they're big enough, there might be room for actual plants and livestock as luxury items.

 

[kilemall]

Hmm, as I recall there is an option in Beltstrike to pre purchase life support supplies, as I recall it was fairly cheap and light on dtonnage use. For expeditionary or even emergency merc/misjump six months’ use, probably going to be the better option rather then tying up the capital and tonnage on regen support.

Probably a different favorable equation for settlements or stations without interplanetary ag support.

High Passage should pretty much Never be possible with regen support, the snobbery and services aspect of those ticket prices demands a certain level of cuisine with fresh ingredients. Unless the passenger is from a regen colony and desires regen cooking like mombot used to make.

 

[Grav_Moped]

High Passage should pretty much Never be possible with regen support, the snobbery and services aspect of those ticket prices demands a certain level of cuisine with fresh ingredients. Unless the passenger is from a regen colony and desires regen cooking like mombot used to make.

It should cover part of the life support expense (air purification and waste disposal), but those sort of passengers demand real food. The "food bricks" the system kicks out for them get dumped right back into the intake hopper for recycling.

 

[Condottiere]

Segmenting Passage does provide motivation to restrict certain services and luxuries.

On RyanAerospace, you can order as much oxygen as you feel you require for your trip, in advance. Onboard purchases come with a premium.

 

[whulorigan]

From GT: Starships, p.27:

Although ships’ life-support systems can produce edible food from algae and mycoprotein, it is not too tempting; the product is a bland-tasting, dry, flaky paste or cake, often gray or brown. Flavor additives (100 single-meal packs weigh 5 lbs. and cost Cr 50) make it more palatable. Vats that produce fauxflesh (a product of artificial tissue-engineering technology) provide real animal protein, but ships with less than 50 staterooms may have room to grow only one variety (“Beef again? I’d kill for lamb!”).

Fresh provisions are the alternative of choice, and a necessity on any ship intending to carry high passengers. Preserved provisions are 2 lbs., 0.04 cf, and Cr6 per person per man-day. Fresh real food ranges from two to four times the price (and up, although at the high end the quality of the product depends more on the Cooking skill of the chef), and has twice the weight and volume. Both are carried as cargo: 2,000 man-days of reserved provisions or 1,000 man-days of fresh food per dton; fresh provisions are also perishable.

 

[Condottiere]

Fusion cuisine is cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. Cuisines of this type are not categorized according to any one particular cuisine style and have played a part in innovations of many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.[1]

...

Foods based on one culture, but prepared using ingredients and flavors inherent to another culture, are also considered forms of fusion cuisine. For instance, pizza made with cheddar and pepper jack cheese, salsa, refried beans or other common taco ingredients is often marketed as "Taco Pizza".[9] This particular dish is a fusion of Italian and Mexican cuisines. Similar approaches have been used for fusion-sushi, such as rolling maki with different types of rice and ingredients such as curry and basmati rice, cheese and salsa with Spanish rice, or spiced ground lamb and capers rolled with Greek-style rice and grape leaves, which resembles inside-out dolmades. Some fusion cuisines have themselves become accepted as a national cuisine, as with Peruvian Nikkei cuisine, which combines Japanese spices and seasonings and Peruvian ingredients like ají (Peruvian peppers) with seafood. A quintessential Peruvian Nikkei dish is 'Maki Acevichado' or ceviche roll, containing Peruvian-style marinated fish rolled up with rice, avocado, or seaweed."[10]

 

[Grav_Moped]

Fusion cuisine is cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. Cuisines of this type are not categorized according to any one particular cuisine style and have played a part in innovations of many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.[1]

...

Foods based on one culture, but prepared using ingredients and flavors inherent to another culture, are also considered forms of fusion cuisine. For instance, pizza made with cheddar and pepper jack cheese, salsa, refried beans or other common taco ingredients is often marketed as "Taco Pizza".[9] This particular dish is a fusion of Italian and Mexican cuisines. Similar approaches have been used for fusion-sushi, such as rolling maki with different types of rice and ingredients such as curry and basmati rice, cheese and salsa with Spanish rice, or spiced ground lamb and capers rolled with Greek-style rice and grape leaves, which resembles inside-out dolmades. Some fusion cuisines have themselves become accepted as a national cuisine, as with Peruvian Nikkei cuisine, which combines Japanese spices and seasonings and Peruvian ingredients like ají (Peruvian peppers) with seafood. A quintessential Peruvian Nikkei dish is 'Maki Acevichado' or ceviche roll, containing Peruvian-style marinated fish rolled up with rice, avocado, or seaweed."[10]

The Vilani are notable for having only developed Fusion Cuisine after discovering Jump Cuisine; normally, it's the other way around.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Following my thoughts on regenerative life support produced for my TL=11-12 300 ton J2-3 5G Modular Couriers design, I think I want to revise and extend my first draft attempt and making this work in a CT context.

So, the basic idea revolves around the CT Beltstrike p3 stipulation that 1 ton of life support reserves equates to 150 person/weeks of capacity and costs MCr0.15 per ton.

• Stipulating that a regenerative life support system only needs to "endure" for 50 weeks between annual overhaul maintenance cycles once per year, that then equates to 1 ton of life support reserves can supply 3 people per 1 year.
• Consequently, 4 tons devoted to life support reserves is sufficient to support a crew of 12 for 1 year between annual overhauls that "recharge and restock" that life support.

This would mean that for a regenerative life support system to be balanced correctly, crew sizes in multiples of 3 crew per 1 ton of additional life support is the ideal ... and that when dealing with Workshop and Laboratory allocations designated in multiples of 4 tons each (same displacement and cost as a single stateroom) that crew sizes in multiples of 12 are going to be the most efficient match for such life support system capacities (in a CT context).

There is then the question of how to "balance" the ratio of Workshop and Laboratory tonnage allocations against the quantity of crew the regenerative life support is intended to operate with. My thinking on this question has gotten a little bit more nuanced and interlocking since my first attempt in the above thread link, so allow me to expound and pontificate further on this notion below.

---

Here is the citation for the relevant portion of the Environmental Control article on TravellerWiki:

• Type V: Endurance life support provides full closed-loop recycling for air, water, and food through use of hydro/aeroponics, aquaculture, and even cariculture. There are several different levels of Type V life support, each representing a major improvement over the previous. These forms of life support are usually only used aboard space stations and generation ships. Since Type V life support systems are miniature ecosystems, they are vulnerable to sudden changes in population. A sudden influx or outflux of people can change the system balance and cause failures.
  • Type V-a: At this level, air and food are provided by low-level plant life, usually algae which requires processing to create food.
  • Type V-b: This level provides vats and gardens. The gardens provide supplemental foods to the majority algae vat food.
  • Type V-c: This level relies more upon the gardens for providing food than the algae vats. It also incorporates small animals like chickens or fish (usually any edible herbivore up to about 10kg).
  • Type V-d: This level relies entirely upon gardens to provide both air and food. At this level larger animals can be incorpoprated into the evironmental systems. This level is usually only found on the largest space stations or on domed environments.
  • Type V-e: This level is a full working ecosystem incorporating several hundred species of plants and animals. These are usually only found on large domed environments.

---

My thinking on this topic has evolved such that:

• Type V-a requires Workshop: Life Support Recycling tonnage of 1 ton per 3 crew (minimum) at a cost of MCr0.15 per ton in order to achieve the required 50 weeks endurance needed between annual overhaul maintenance cycles every year.
  • Type V-b adds to the V-a requirement an additional requirement of Laboratory: Life Support Biome tonnage of 1 ton per 3 crew (minimum) at a cost of MCr0.15 per ton in order to achieve the required 50 weeks endurance needed between annual overhaul maintenance cycles every year.
  • Type V-c adds to the V-a requirement an additional requirement of Laboratory: Life Support Biome tonnage of 2 tons per 3 crew (minimum) at a cost of MCr0.15 per ton in order to achieve the required 50 weeks endurance needed between annual overhaul maintenance cycles every year.
  • Type V-d requires 2x the normal V-a requirement Workshop: Life Support Recycling plus an additional requirement of Laboratory: Life Support Biome tonnage of 4 tons per 3 crew (minimum) at a cost of MCr0.15 per ton in order to achieve the required 50 weeks endurance needed between annual overhaul maintenance cycles every year.
  • Type V-e requires 4x the normal V-a requirement Workshop: Life Support Recycling plus an additional requirement of Laboratory: Life Support Biome tonnage of 12 tons per 3 crew (minimum) at a cost of MCr0.15 per ton in order to achieve the required 50 weeks endurance needed between annual overhaul maintenance cycles every year.

In a CT context, it can thus be stipulated that Workshops and Laboratories are "priced" in design terms as being 4 ton modules (just like single staterooms for starships) that should not be subdivided. At that point, the requirements for a regenerative life support system in CT turn into a question of "crew divide by 12 round up to nearest integer" quantities of 4 ton Workshops (and Laboratories if wanting to get beyond Environmental Control V-a) required.

 

[Spinward Flow]

So in more simplified lookup chart terms, here is what all of that above computes out to:

• Environmental Control Type V-a requires only:
  • 1x 4 ton Workshop: Life Support Recycling per 12 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Workshop.
• Environmental Control Type V-b requires both:
  • 1x 4 ton Workshop: Life Support Recycling per 12 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Workshop.
  • 1x 4 ton Laboratory: Life Support Biome per 12 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Laboratory.
• Environmental Control Type V-c requires both:
  • 1x 4 ton Workshop: Life Support Recycling per 12 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Workshop.
  • 1x 4 ton Laboratory: Life Support Biome per 6 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Laboratory.
• Environmental Control Type V-d requires both:
  • 1x 4 ton Workshop: Life Support Recycling per 6 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Workshop.
  • 1x 4 ton Laboratory: Life Support Biome per 3 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Laboratory.
• Environmental Control Type V-e requires both:
  • 1x 4 ton Workshop: Life Support Recycling per 3 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Workshop.
  • 1x 4 ton Laboratory: Life Support Biome per 1 crew (round fractions up) at MCr0.6 per Laboratory.

---

Now I'm thinking that such a regenerative life support system will place additional demands on crew support in order to manage the regenerative life support system correctly (think "engineers" except for systems other than drives).

The first increase to crew requirement would be that 1x Medic-2 is required per 120 crew members (round fractions up) to monitor and maintain crew health and nutrition adequately to sustain the closed cycle regenerative life support and keep everything properly load balanced for Type V-a and up.
Type V-a will require at least one of the Medics have Medic-2 skill per 120 crew members (round fractions up).
Type V-d will require at least one of the Medics have Medic-3 skill per 600 crew members (round fractions up).
Type V-e will require at least one of the Medics have Medic-4 skill per 1200 crew members (round fractions up).

Type V-b and up will require 1x Steward-1 per 8 crew members (round fractions up) including the Stewards themselves to process and prepare meals for the crew sourced from the regenerative life support system. Stewards assigned this crew role are not available to serve High Passengers.
Type V-c will require at least one of the Stewards have Steward-2 skill per 40 crew.
Type V-d will require at least one of the Stewards have Steward-3 skill per 80 crew.
Type V-e will require at least one of the Stewards have Steward-4 skill per 120 crew.

The above crew requirements are cumulative as Environmental Control quality is increased.

Use LBB2.81 p11, p16 to determine crew salaries, with a +10% premium over Skill-1 and the leader of a department (medic, steward) receiving an additional +10% on top of their bonus pay from their skill level.

---

Regnerative life support systems as outlined above are only capable of meeting the life support needs of a permanent occupation (crew) that will reliably be present aboard. Since passengers are transient occupants who may or may not be present at any given time, regenerative life support systems should not be allocated for passengers aboard (most) starships since they may or may not be present which can disrupt the delicate balance needed by closed cycle life support systems.

Types V-a and V-b have little to no tolerance for variation in supply/demand on life support services.
Type V-c has a +/- 1% tolerance for variation in supply/demand on life support services.
Type V-d has a +/- 3% tolerance for variation in supply/demand on life support services.
Type V-e has a +/- 5% tolerance for variation in supply/demand on life support services.

Ships and stations that commit to a closed loop cycle for their life support needs are also committed to balancing their population that demand those services in order to keep their supply/demand on those life support services relatively stable and predictable. More robust systems (Type V-d and V-e) are better able to handle variations in population due to passengers or other transient occupants.

Failure to meet the needed supply/demand on closed loop regenerative life support systems can result in Malfunctions and Failures that can be temporarily repaired by crew but will need the services of a shipyard to fully correct and properly repair on a permanent basis.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Finally found some more CT reference info and MgT2 meta data with which to reevaluate my above assumptions.

CT Striker 3, p48

Workshop: Includes heavy tools required for major maintenance and repair of vehicles, weapons, and electronics. Designed as a modular unit to operate while loaded on any vehicle with sufficient cargo capacity. Weight: 2 tons. Volume: 16m³. Price: Cr50,000.

So workshops are for the repair of vehicles, weapons and electronics ... which makes the whole "needs workshop for life support" predicate that I was working with above seems to be pretty much flat out wrong.

Looking at the precedent of the Hummingbird-class Courier/meta for the design (built using MgT2), this line item stands out:

Biosphere (life support) for 6____________________________________3_____0.6____3

So biosphere life support for 6 people costs 0.5 tons per person and MCr0.2 per ton.
Interesting ...

Unfortunately, despite having Lab Ships feature in both LBB S9 (p13) and as the setting for LBB DA3 Death Station, neither book included information about ship construction of laboratory spaces. But then I stumbled across this notation in CT Errata (p12):

The cost of lab space is MCr0.2 per ton.

So lab space is defined kind of like cargo space (by the ton, rather than by the unit/block like say a 4 ton stateroom) but has a cost associated with it (MCr0.2) per ton ... which just so happens to exactly match the cost specified above for the Hummingbird.

So I decided to dive back into the search engine for the wiki using the key word "regenerative" to find starship articles featuring a regenerative biome life support system ... and this time I was able to find two more starship designs including the feature (albeit under MgT2 design rules).

Siyuihwye II class Pirate Ship/meta

Biosphere (2 people capacity)_________________________________1_______0.2_____1

Motherscout class Probe Drone Carrier/meta

Biosphere (for 12 people)____________________6______1.2_____6

And there's the pattern of precedent that I was searching in vain for months ago.

According to MgT2 design rules, regenerative biosphere life support requires 0.5 tons @ MCr0.1 and 1 power point per 1 person.
That tonnage and price point exactly matches the CT Errata (p12) definition of Laboratory cost of 1 ton @ MCr0.2, which would be sufficient for 2 persons.

Notably, not a single one of the three ship designs provided above made any mention of a "crew position" responsible for managing/maintaining the biosphere. There were no added stewards, like I had been proposing, no added medics ... indeed 2 of the 3 designs lacks a medic position entirely (although on Aslan ships the medic crew position is optional, rather than mandatory, per CT AM:1 Aslan, p32) and none of them have stewards at all, but that's the MgT2 design system for you (which I do not have access to).

However, in terms of general bosun's slang in the real world, there is this historical (wet navy) reference that also appeared briefly in the Doctor Who episode Enlightenment, in which Peter Davison's Doctor was initially identified as the ship's cook in part 1 by the crew when he introduced himself to the sailors below decks ...

DOCTOR. The name for a ship’s cook, commonly supposed to have ‘doctored’ the crew’s food.

 

[Spinward Flow]

So ... taking all of the above into account ... how would I want to rework my understanding/interpretation of the starship design rules in order to "backport" the notion of a regenerative life support biome from MgT2 back into CT?

Well, first and foremost is that on the Environmental Control scale laid out by Fire, Fusion & Steel ... I'm thinking along these lines for a CT context for the starship design/naval architect side of things:

• Type I: Minimal life support provides a sealed environment, heat, and light. The Air supply is open loop, meaning there's no attempt to recycle it. Stored air provides fresh oxygen while minimal air processing (filters and chemicals) removes the worst of the waste products from the air. Water and food are not normally provided but may be carried along. Normal duration is three hours.
• Type II: Basic life support provides heat, light, and short-term purified air. This is also an open-loop system but it provides better air processing to clean impurities out. Nether water nor food are included. Normal duration is 12 hours.
• Type III': Standard life support is so named because it's the standard system aboard spacecraft. It provides light, thermal control, closed-loop water recycling, and semi-closed loop air. Food is a carried consumeable, and given the duration it must be separately provided rather than carried on in the passenger compartments. Water is recycled and is basically unlimited. The air is purified and recycled, but filters have a limited life and slowly break down. Normal duration is two weeks.
• Type IV: Extended life support provides light, thermal control, and closed-loop air and water (indefinite). Food is still a carried consumable. Normal duration is limied only by food supply.
• Type V: Endurance life support provides full closed-loop recycling for air, water, and food through use of hydro/aeroponics, aquaculture, and even carniculture. There are several different levels of Type V life support, each representing a major improvement over the previous. These forms of life support are usually only used aboard space stations and generation ships. Since Type V life support systems are miniature ecosystems, they are vulnerable to sudden changes in population. A sudden influx or outflux of people can change the system balance and cause failures.
  • Type V-a: At this level, air and food are provided by low-level plant life, usually algae which requires processing to create food.
  • Type V-b: This level provides vats and gardens. The gardens provide supplemental foods to the majority algae vat food.
  • Type V-c: This level relies more upon the gardens for providing food than the algae vats. It also incorporates small animals like chickens or fish (usually any edible herbivore up to about 10kg).
  • Type V-d: This level relies entirely upon gardens to provide both air and food. At this level larger animals can be incorpoprated into the evironmental systems. This level is usually only found on the largest space stations or in domed environments.
  • Type V-e: This level is a full working ecosystem incorporating several hundred species of plants and animals. These are usually only found in large domed environments.

Type I = vehicle scale overpressure
Type II = small craft acceleration couch life support
Type III = small craft and starship stateroom life support
Type IV = CT Beltstrike (p3) life support reserve consumables of 150 person/weeks @ MCr0.15 per 1 ton (1 ton per 3 persons equivalent for 50 weeks duration between 2 week annual overhaul maintenance cycles each 52 week year, requires replenishment at cost, uses cargo hold space)

Type V-a = 0.5 tons of Laboratory per person @ MCr0.2 per 1 ton (1 ton per 2 persons equivalent)
Type V-b = 1 ton of Laboratory per person @ MCr0.2 per 1 ton (1 ton per 1 person equivalent)
Type V-c = 2 tons of Laboratory per person @ MCr0.2 per 1 ton (2 tons per 1 persons equivalent)
Type V-d = 4 tons of Laboratory per person @ MCr0.2 per 1 ton (4 tons per 1 person equivalent)
Type V-e = 8 tons of Laboratory per person @ MCr0.2 per 1 ton (8 tons per 1 person equivalent)

So far so good.

But what about crew positions to maintain the more elaborate regenerative life support systems?
Small and big craft need pilots.
Starships (over 200 tons) need navigators.
Drives need engineers.
(High) Passengers need stewards.
Weapons and screens need gunners.

(Advanced regenerative closed loop cycle) life support above standard should require increasingly skilled medics is my thinking, now.

Type II through Type V-a life support makes no change to the LBB2.81, p16 medic rules that apply to ships 1000 tons or less:

Medic: Each starship of 200 tons or more must have a medic (medic-1 skill or better). In addition, there must be at least one medic per 120 passengers carried. If there is more than one medic, the most skilled is designated ship's doctor and draws 10% more pay. Non-starships and small craft do not require medics.

Type V-b = must have one medic (medic-1 skill or better) per 120 combined crew, troops and passengers carried regardless of craft tonnage.
Type V-c = must have one medic (medic-2 skill or better) per 120 combined crew, troops and passengers carried regardless of craft tonnage.
Type V-d = must have one medic (medic-3 skill or better) per 120 combined crew, troops and passengers carried regardless of craft tonnage.
Type V-e = must have one medic (medic-4 skill or better) per 120 combined crew, troops and passengers carried regardless of craft tonnage.

Note that medic-2+ offers a +1 DM to resuscitation checks when low berths are used, so Type V-c makes for an efficient inflection point of skill requirements in the medical department.
Medic-3 skill is considered professional doctor level (LBB1.81, p20) and 8+ DEX is required in addition to be a surgeon.
Xeno-medicine is considered to be a -2 skill level reduction (LBB1.81, p21) when dealing with alien species.

 

[Condottiere]

Why not just borrow a cargo hold, fill it with earth, divert blackwater waste, and plant potatoes?

How much oxygen does a potato plant produce?

 

[Spinward Flow]

Why not just borrow a cargo hold, fill it with earth, divert blackwater waste, and plant potatoes?

That's Type V-b ...

 

[Condottiere]

Ferenghi fries is covered, but still need to know how much oxygen regeneration you can squeeze per square metre of plants.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

I think Soy beans have the highest? Not sure thou?

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, algae.

Soylent Green is taken.

 

[kilemall]

In theory, algae.

Soylent Green is taken.

Most of IMTU ships have hyperalgae tanks, a genetically engineered strain that converts CO2 to oxygen at a much higher rate then natural.

Stuff like that is a terrifying potential risk for introduction to a biosphere. That’s why it is engineered to die with the slightest exposure to UV.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Another strain of hyperalgae is great in Terraforming...