Securing the Bridge

[Timerover51]

I was just reading the rules about combat and cover. Rocks, corners of buildings, forest... And started thinking about cover on ships. Ducking behind the edge of a hatch and poking your head out perhaps.. and then I thought... Why not armored hatches with gun slits and ballistic view ports for the bridge, engineering and other locations crew might hold up in and try to protect?

Your thoughts?

I guess it depends on how paranoid you are about someone trying to take over the ship. I am assuming that you are mainly thinking of hijackers, as if you are being boarded, you are pretty much out of luck as it is.

As near as I can make out, the decks and bulkheads of civilian ships in Classic Traveller are about half-inch to three-quarter inch high tensile strength steel. (I will present my reasons for that in another thread.) Plate of that thickness, properly framed, will handle a pressure differential of about 10 standard atmospheres, making explosive decompression a bit harder.

For the bridge, and probably engine room, you could put in a double wall bulkhead, 3/4 inch plating with six inches of ablative material between the bulkheads, making it hard to burn through with a laser torch. Manual hatches in each bulkhead, same thickness steel, one opens outwards and one opens inwards into the bridge. The outer hatch can be manually locked with old-fashioned steel bar. Ditto interior hatch. The deck flooring outside of the hatch and the corridor leading to it have pressure sensors to determine if anyone who should not be there is standing outside. Micro Peeping Tom cameras are also covering hatches and corridor. Inside of bridge is a small arms locker to arm the bridge crew, along with Vacc Suits. Same for the engine room. Both of them have separate life support systems, independent of main ships system to avoid gas in the ventilation system. Hatches are normally secured but not locked down. If desired, the corridor outside of the bridge can be vented to vacuum from bridge controls.

If you really want to get serious, then you isolate the ship crew completely from any passengers, with solid bulkheads protecting the bridge, engine room, sleeping quarters, and crew life support. Passengers are responsible for fixing their own meals from pre-planned frozen or microwave meals. Each passenger has his/her own meal selection in his/her cabin. The cargo area upon finishing loading cargo is sealed shut from the rest of the ship, and locked down with no access to cargo hold by passengers.

As I said, how paranoid are you or do you want to get?

 

[Condottiere]

Be like Khan, hack the central computer and turn off the air to the bridge.

 

[McPerth]

My fundemental problem with the whole idea is that with even a relatively small spacecraft we`re talking about a LOT of gas being pumped around and stored.

Say you decide to depressurise about 3/4 of you`re ship before going into combat, that more or less suggests that the atmospheric pressure in the remaining 1/4 is going to end up at about 4 standard atmospheres (in practice it might be a bit less as realworld air and spacecraft dont pressurise to sea level ratings) and it gets worse the smaller the volume you`re using!
There`s also the added problem of whether or not the `storage area` is also being used for something else besides.
For one thing you dont want to be moving anything (or anybody!) in out of these sections under combat conditions or have anyone working inside that area!

Compressors and tanks? Gasses can be stored highly compressed or as liquids. You will have the same problem finding new air whether you depressurize on your own or have it done for you.

Medical oxygen is presurized to about 200 atm, so you could even pump it to smaller space, making the hit on it less probable (while it will probably take more time). MY take would be to pump the air to a small room first and from there to tanks (as Vladika suggests). So you depresurize the ship quicker and make it safer as time allows...

See that depresurizing the ship will also have other effects:

1. Drastically reduces (if not outright avoids) fire danger¹
2. Makes people more dependant on sight, as hearing (and of cours smell) are neutralized
3. Renders ineffective some weapons (sonic weapons², stunning grenades³, flamethrowers, gases) and affects some effects of others (concusión from explosions). Not sure about its effects (if any) to stunners and neural weapons...
4. Probably dispersal smoke used as anti-laser defense will be quicker
5. Forces pople into vacc suits, reducing their maneouverability

While some of those effects are clerly benefical (e.g. reducing/avoiding fire danger) some are two fold (e.g. effect on sound will sure make surprise more likely, and the vacc suit effect in maenuverability will affect both sides)

Note 1: some materials may be self oxydazing, and so may catch fire even in vaccum, but are few and my gess is that they will be rare
Note 2: AFAIK not available in most Traveller versions, They are in GURPS Space (not sure about GT).
Note 3: I'm not an expert on those weapons, but AFAIK most of its efecto is due to sound and concussion effects. I might be wrong on them​

 

[Rabbit 3]

It occurs to me that the most likely place to look for this high pressure gas storage space in a typical Traveller starship is in that half meter interdeck ceiling space that tends often to get overlooked.
Trouble is there are a lot of other things supposed to be there already, like power lines, water and waste pipes, data transfer conduits, air scrubbers and all the other bits of life-support gear that the gas tanks and their pumps are presumably connected to, not to mention the lighting system.

So, in a firefight on a Traveller ship NEVER EVER SHOOT AT THE ROOF!:devil:

 

[aramis]

It occurs to me that the most likely place to look for this high pressure gas storage space in a typical Traveller starship is in that half meter interdeck ceiling space that tends often to get overlooked.
Trouble is there are a lot of other things supposed to be there already, like power lines, water and waste pipes, data transfer conduits, air scrubbers and all the other bits of life-support gear that the gas tanks and their pumps are presumably connected to, not to mention the lighting system.

So, in a firefight on a Traveller ship NEVER EVER SHOOT AT THE ROOF!:devil:

it isn't usually half a meter. The Td is typically 1.5x3x3.11 meters in CT, and a 2.75 to 3m floor top to ceiling bottom space is usually shown.

that 11cm to 36cm is a bit thin for tankage plus structure.

only TNE used 3m deck to ceiling and 3.5 decktop to decktop, and it uses a 2x2x3.5m Td, giving 0.5, but TNE designs are not usually imperial ones.

 

[Rabbit 3]

it isn't usually half a meter. The Td is typically 1.5x3x3.11 meters in CT, and a 2.75 to 3m floor top to ceiling bottom space is usually shown.

that 11cm to 36cm is a bit thin for tankage plus structure.

only TNE used 3m deck to ceiling and 3.5 decktop to decktop, and it uses a 2x2x3.5m Td, giving 0.5, but TNE designs are not usually imperial ones.

The trouble is, if you take that as gospel, 11cm to 36cm is a bit thin for a lot of vital systems necessary for keeping people alive.
Which is why I tend to assume that it`s 3 meters floor surface to floor surface next deck up but minimum ceiling hight tends to hover somewhere round the two meter mark with some ducts or piping being even lower with "mind your head" signs on them!

 

[rancke]

The trouble is, if you take that as gospel, 11cm to 36cm is a bit thin for a lot of vital systems necessary for keeping people alive.
Which is why I tend to assume that it`s 3 meters floor surface to floor surface next deck up but minimum ceiling hight tends to hover somewhere round the two meter mark with some ducts or piping being even lower with "mind your head" signs on them!

IMO the space between the decks on starships absolutely MUST be thick enough to allow for crawl spaces big enough for PCs.

(Note: This is one of my not so common 'game imperatives overrule reality imperatives' opinions.)


Hans

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, you need enough left over for the hull.

 

[McPerth]

It occurs to me that the most likely place to look for this high pressure gas storage space in a typical Traveller starship is in that half meter interdeck ceiling space that tends often to get overlooked.
Trouble is there are a lot of other things supposed to be there already, like power lines, water and waste pipes, data transfer conduits, air scrubbers and all the other bits of life-support gear that the gas tanks and their pumps are presumably connected to, not to mention the lighting system.

So, in a firefight on a Traveller ship NEVER EVER SHOOT AT THE ROOF!:devil:

This will make a hit on those high presure atmosphere reservoirs quite likely...

I guess it would be better to pump it into a small place, where a hit could be more catastrophic, but less likely.

 

[Rabbit 3]

This will make a hit on those high presure atmosphere reservoirs quite likely...

I guess it would be better to pump it into a small place, where a hit could be more catastrophic, but less likely.

Ah the fun you can have as a referee working out what happens to the stray shots that result from some genius firing off a complete magazine from an ACR in a small stateroom in a starship and missing!:rofl: