Starship wrecks

[Travellerspud]

materials start bending long before they break...and the path of forces through a structure is often not obvious (force always finds the weakest link). Often a weak-link will fail, then the forces get re-routed through a secondary path...smart designers plan for this (eg-brass shear pins).

so yes, a bonded super-dense hull could "survive" a crash, but still not have hull integrity (leaks)....or the "frame" could be twisted a bit (like a car after a low-speed crash - looks fine but alignment is off)...this happens all the time with products - they look fine on the outside, but some internal shape gets slightly deformed, and this changes how the device as a whole works. Sometimes it is just one electrical connection that gets messed up - unless that connection is tested, everything else works fine...

My feeling is that without grav compensators, even seated crew are unlikely to survive an unpowered crash...the odds go up if the ship has power and can "skid" in, and the odds go way up if the grav compensators still work (since they provide a 360 degree 6g reduction)

 

[wbyrd]

there is one problem with trying to figure out if a ship could survive a crash landing and still fly. It would depend on how the ship hit the ground. If it hit just right it could end up setting on the ground as if the pilot had parked it there.

If it hits in such a way that the force is transmitted to it's skeleton in a way the engineers didn't plan on, the skeleton would buckle and the ship would break into sections. this could happen in even a low velocity landing, any structure can support it's own weight under the right circumstance. Take a house of cards for example, as long as the load is spread out properly it stays intact..the slightest stress from the wrong angle and it falls apart like a ...well house of cards.

If your trying to decide if it is feasible for a ship to hit, kill off much of it's crew, and still fly..I'd say yes, it is feasible. But the chances are slim. I've seen paramedics pull dead bodies out of a car you could drive away without a problem..but I've also seen them cut relatively uninjured people out of a car that looked like it had been through a compactor.

 

[Selandia]

All interesting stuff.

I'll add ship's structure and planet's characteristics.
T5 Cluster config gives 1G Max acc and Braced 3 G. Not intended to land on world, therefore not fitted with lifter plate or landing gear of any form. If caught in the gravity well of a world w/o athm, they may reach surface where even a "soft" landing could break them up, while still giving hope to those aboards.

Ship's gear too. Like wilderness landing, without the proper gear (or defective gear, because that lack of maintnance is not W/O consequence). Even if controlled enough not to be a forthright crash, a broken skidd/pad/wheel, may lead to a tipped off bird and that to a broken wing. You then have a "wreck" without significant casuality.

Ok, oddball cases. Just talking for fun

have fun

Selandia

 

[Meeko100]

Perhaps one could reverse the grave plates in the floor and make the crew jump up or fly during impact? Maybe slow the crew down, try to keep them decelerating safely?

Of course, if the power is out, then that's out the question I suppose.

 

[shadowcat20]

As said before, interesting stuff.

My take on it is like this,

Ship glides in controlled and lands...crew walks some hull damage possable.

Ship glides in and digs a trench till it stops. Major surface damage and some of crew may walk, Hull could be breached.

Ship out of control entering atmosphere does not matter how it lands, Crew is more than likely cooked from re entry if ship not broken up in mid air. Impact will just finish it. (Taken into account planet size, atmosphere density, and gravity of course)

Simple terms but then unlike others I am not a Rocket Engineer...

 

[CosmicGamer]

Perhaps one could reverse the grave plates in the floor and make the crew jump up or fly during impact? Maybe slow the crew down, try to keep them decelerating safely?

Of course, if the power is out, then that's out the question I suppose.

First off, no reason the orientation has to be such that everyone isn't already "upside down" in the careening craft.

No whiz here at the science and math but I'd think this would not provide much help.

It made me think of a free falling elevator plummeting and someone suggesting they jump just before it slams into the ground.

How about a sky diver who's shoot doesn't deploy until they are ten feet off the ground.

Again, no whiz at the calculations but I fear a little too little a little too late to overcome the forces involved.

 

[navywarlord]

Not dealing with any of the science but didn't the movie PITCH BLACK have a pretty decent crash sequence at the beginning? The ship was wrecked, spread over miles of desert and there were survivors (introducing Riddick, my favorite bad-guy hero)....

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Similar in Serenity. If there is grav compensation, the crew in the compensating sections may survive, depending on the energy imparted from impact itself, if that is compensated and how much. External equipment, like landing gear, external dishes/antennae not so much.

Also there is the friction from atmospheric reentry. If you recall new Battlestar Galactica when they freed the survivors from the Cylons on New Caprica..."99,000 feet sir, dropping like rock"

 

[Dagrill]

There's a question that has occurred to me while thinking about the quest for Norris' warrant. How tough are ultra-tech spaceship hulls?

It seems to me that there are three possible outcomes of a ship hitting the ground:
Hull intact, crew alive.
Hull intact, crew injured or dead.
Hull broken, crew pulped.
The hull broken, some people not dead outcome doesn't seem to me to be an option.
Am I wrong? Can you see a TL15 cruiser strike Algine's surface hard enough to break it open yet lightly enough for (some of) the crew to survive?

Hans

Hi Hans,

I'm not an expert, but if you are using MgT Does the ship have a vault? Or armoured bulkheads on certain sections like the bridge? (If so I'd think there would be a better chance of survival in those areas?)

Regards

David

 

[Travellerspud]

finally, for the definitive answer;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_AMSlNocE

 

[salochin999]

finally, for the definitive answer;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_AMSlNocE

That makes me think a hardened compartment in the rear could be used to let crumpling the front soak up some of the force.

#

edit: maybe another thing noble / ambassadorial yachts have.

 

[mansfeld666]

warrant

Looking at the first post, I find myself confused by the direction that the thread has gone. My recollection of the warrant quest was that it was found on kinunir class ship where the computer had killed the crew.

 

[rancke]

Looking at the first post, I find myself confused by the direction that the thread has gone. My recollection of the warrant quest was that it was found on kinunir class ship where the computer had killed the crew.

The authors of The Regency Sourcebook muddled things up something fierce. They conflated the warrant from the original story from The Spinward Marches Campaign (written in 1104, lost on a wrecked cruiser on Algine in 1105, and still lost in 1107) with the warrant from The Kinunir (written in or before 1084, lost with the Kinunir in 1084, and recovered in 1105).

As it's logically impossible that the two warrants can be the same, I go by the original story.


Hans