Tramp Freighter Regs on EmergLB & Esc Pods

[CosmicGamer]

I sometimes think of it in different ways

Like automobiles.

The vast majority of traffic is on busy roads where there are emergency services and/or other traffic available in an emergency.

Yes there are those that travel on the less trafficked routes.

In general, a certain amount of safety equipment may be required as part of the construction like air bags and seat belts but much would be up to the individual like flares, fit a flat, flashlight, blanket, med kit...

Or boats.

You have to comply with the local rules for the area you operate and these can vary from one location to another. There are few, if any, requirements when operating outside the local jurisdictions.

Or based on the Traveller rules (this may vary from version to version)

There is little to no requirement for safety equipment like vacc suits or the skill to use such. Medical expertise and supplies may not be required. Emergency and damage control supplies are generally left up to the captain and crew to decide what to carry. With the lack of regulation and need for the more common safety precautions, I'd think emergency LB and escape pods would not be a Imperial wide requirement on tramp merchants. This is also backed up by the typical ship design and breakdown.

Another concept is that a jump ship spends a large percentage of time in jump so a "need to fix the problem and survive on board" perspective may be the norm instead of a "abandon ship" mentality. The fact that a ship is a quite valuable item also encourages methods of being able to safely stay with the ship verses cutting out and running.

As many have pointed out here and in other threads, situations where one could not survive on the ship with proper and cheaper survival gear than an escape vessel would likely be rare (for the average vessel and not one that is part of a GM plot).

 

[Carlobrand]

We're dealing with a tramp freighter. Very different needs than a scout or a warship. At the top of the list, the tramp needs to make money - every square foot that isn't supporting that mission is dead weight. On the other hand, the tramp, of all merchants, is the one most likely to find itself trading at a world where rescue is nonexistent or incompetent - or pulling something weird to make money like delivering some group to an uninhabited ball of rock for an archaeological dig.

I do not think the Imperium would impose regulations requiring escape pods per se on merchantmen, because they're just not needed. They MIGHT impose more general regulations requiring a ship going to some destination without available rescue to carry some form of transport to get people off the ship and down to someplace safe, along with such supplies and provisions as are needed to keep then alive until rescue shows up. That would be more in line with what Marooned is doing.

If you are really wedded to the idea of escape pods, then you can maybe argue that it's an ancient relic of a regulation left over from the days when the Imperium was expanding and things were a good deal woolier; and shipbuilders and passengers are just conservative enough that the idea of scrapping the requirement gives them the heebie-jeebies even though the need is long-since past. In that case, my favorite design is the MegaTrav Errata Emergency Atmospheric Re-entry Capsule (EARC) - which I mentioned - because it's small enough to sneak into existing designs without having to make any changes. Well, unless you have deck plans, and then it's still pretty easy to squeeze them in and call them part of the standard equipment. 3 persons to a 1 dT capsule and launcher, it's pretty easy to take that out of the 4 dT stateroom allotment rather than trying to change the ship parameters. Again, add some solar panels, some fast drug, and you've got a way to survive for a month or two.

If you are not, then my argument would be for dual-use craft. You can turn anything down to and including an enclosed air/raft into a serviceable escape vehicle with the right equipment, and some of that would be the same equipment you'd carry on the ship itself to see you through a life-support emergency on the ship. Just grab it from the ship and bring it aboard the whatever-craft-your-using, and voila: your 20 dT cargo launch becomes a lifeboat.

For example:

http://www.molecularproducts.com/pdf/Oxygen Generator (CAN33) UK DS V3.pdf

http://www.molecularproducts.com/pdf/caspa tech data sheet v4.pdf

These products are used in submarines and in mines to keep occupants alive for long periods while rescue tries to reach them. I think I calculated once that one would need a bit less than a dTon to store the necessaries for a cutter with 60 people for a week - and that without the use of low berths or fast drug. They could be part of your ship's standard required emergency equipment, for use in the event of a life support failure, and if you decide your emergency requires you to leave the ship, you haul as many of them from stores as you can and into the whatever-craft-you're-using and turn the craft into an improvised lifeboat. Have some doses of fast-drug ready, and even your water problem is solved - for a month or two, anyway.

 

[rancke]

The original question dealt with regulations. So what is efficient or needful or smart isn't really the issue. The issue is, what would a regulation-writing government/committee/agency think was necessary and sufficient in the way of safety equipment? And would they distinguish between free traders and regular shipping? Perhaps by size of vessel?


Hans

 

[Patron Zero]

Perhaps I'm approaching the idea of a lifeboat or escape pod differently than most might but if anything I remain consistent in such.

What if the lifeboats were some sort of collapsible vehicle attached to the ship's outer hull, such stowed in a compact form until needed for evacuation of crew or passengers.

Could be that here might be a hybrid of the standard rescue ball and the traditional escape pod, oxygen and other necessities could be stored in a ring-shaped section that could fit across a standard iris-type hatch. Said ring in a standby position adjacent to the iris hatch, several available in a sort of 'magazine' on the outer hull.

A person could 'access' the inflatable 'pod' from within the airlock, a simple lever or command-key on an instrument panel would 'summon' the collapsed ring, the ring aligns itself over the hatch then fully deploys once a secondary signal is given.

Mind that's pretty sketchy but should present the concept well enough to see the mechanics involved.

 

[MCEvans]

Along with the "Lifeboat" and rescue ball mentioned by Aramis above there is the Hostile Environment Kit (Individual) which states that "Imperial safety regulations require that one of these kits be carried for each crew member and passenger aboard all starships."
These are in a case 50x40x15 cm (19.7x15.75x6 in)
I can see these being stored neatly in the ships locker as one of the contents is
'Rifle, survival with 500 rounds of ammunition'
Now I have Best of JTAS vol 2 and these are on pp 34 & 35

 

[Carlobrand]

Perhaps I'm approaching the idea of a lifeboat or escape pod differently than most might but if anything I remain consistent in such.

What if the lifeboats were some sort of collapsible vehicle attached to the ship's outer hull, such stowed in a compact form until needed for evacuation of crew or passengers.

Could be that here might be a hybrid of the standard rescue ball and the traditional escape pod, oxygen and other necessities could be stored in a ring-shaped section that could fit across a standard iris-type hatch. Said ring in a standby position adjacent to the iris hatch, several available in a sort of 'magazine' on the outer hull.

A person could 'access' the inflatable 'pod' from within the airlock, a simple lever or command-key on an instrument panel would 'summon' the collapsed ring, the ring aligns itself over the hatch then fully deploys once a secondary signal is given.

Mind that's pretty sketchy but should present the concept well enough to see the mechanics involved.

The idea of being in a collapsible in space scares the willies out of me, so I'll step your idea up a notch: take a piece of the hull with you.

You're in the lounge, it's an emergency, you need to evacuate. You go to the nearest wall, activate the escape pod. A section of the hull lifts up away from the rest of the hull, on an expanding inflatable cylinder, the cylinder walls filling with an expanding foam. When it's fully deployed, the wall panel slides up and you are presented with a simple hatch. You open the hatch, climb in, maybe three to a pod, close the hatch behind you - that triggers the wall panel to slide back down so you don't depressurize the ship with your departure. Chemical jets in the hull section pull the construct away from the ship. You're now in a construct consisting of a hullmetal floor, expanded foam walls of about bulkhead strength, and a bulkhead-thickness ceiling with a simple hatch in it and a parachute for that final stage of re-entry.

Maybe the expanding foam also fills out three seats, or maybe it's just a case of body harnesses in the walls that you strap into. It's fully automated, with enough maneuver to get you into a re-entry trajectory - though if your ship was traveling fast with respect to the planet at the time, you may still end up dead. A few moments ago, it was part of your hull, so there's not really room for survival gear unless you have time to toss some gear in, maybe a mini CO2 scrubber sufficient to serve the three of you for an hour, and a little O2 candle that will serve as long, just long enough to get from ship to ground, and a radio beacon so they can find you, and a few hull patches in case you take a hole during the chaos. In the lounge, an overhead compartment above the emergency escape port contains some equipment to toss in as you leave: survival kits, a larger CO2 scrubber and O2 candle designed to serve the space for 12 hours, and a med kit with 3 doses of fast drug. If you remember to grab that, the three of you are good for two weeks in open space if you have to evacuate away from a planet.

The advantage is that you can be off the ship within about three minutes of a declared emergency, and the heat shield leading your re-entry is a section of ship hull. And it doesn't take up any space to speak of.

 

[Carlobrand]

Along with the "Lifeboat" and rescue ball mentioned by Aramis above there is the Hostile Environment Kit (Individual) which states that "Imperial safety regulations require that one of these kits be carried for each crew member and passenger aboard all starships."
These are in a case 50x40x15 cm (19.7x15.75x6 in)
I can see these being stored neatly in the ships locker as one of the contents is
'Rifle, survival with 500 rounds of ammunition'
Now I have Best of JTAS vol 2 and these are on pp 34 & 35

That's basically the puppy from Marooned. Handy thing to have in the ship's locker, though I expect on a lot of the tramps one flies you'll run into the same problem they ran into in Marooned: the crew raiding the things for a bit of profit, leaving you a bit short when the emergency occurs.

 

[Patron Zero]

The idea of being in a collapsible in space scares the willies out of me, so I'll step your idea up a notch: take a piece of the hull with you. ..... The advantage is that you can be off the ship within about three minutes of a declared emergency, and the heat shield leading your re-entry is a section of ship hull. And it doesn't take up any space to speak of.

I like that, well-thought logical progression to what I was envisioning, thanks Carlobrand !

 

[MCEvans]

That's basically the puppy from Marooned. Handy thing to have in the ship's locker, though I expect on a lot of the tramps one flies you'll run into the same problem they ran into in Marooned: the crew raiding the things for a bit of profit, leaving you a bit short when the emergency occurs.

The reg say you haft to have one, doesn't say it has to complete or useable :devil:
Hook - new SPA inspector out to make a name for him/herself wants to make sure that the kits are functional or grounded and has done this to every free trader for the past three weeks and there is a backorder of 5 weeks and the PCs have a cargo that's due in three. What due they do? :devil:

 

[Vladika]

The reg say you haft to have one, doesn't say it has to complete or useable :devil:
Hook - new SPA inspector out to make a name for him/herself wants to make sure that the kits are functional or grounded and has done this to every free trader for the past three weeks and there is a backorder of 5 weeks and the PCs have a cargo that's due in three. What due they do? :devil:

Blow on out of the system and deliver the cargo. Deal with the fines latter. They are bound to be cheaper than the lost revenue from the cargo, or the lost reputation as a "get her done" Free Trader.

 

[MCEvans]

Blow on out of the system and deliver the cargo. Deal with the fines latter. They are bound to be cheaper than the lost revenue from the cargo, or the lost reputation as a "get her done" Free Trader.

This is probably heading off topic or at least a tangent to it so ...

Does the Starport/SPA have the ability to physically enforce a grounding for safety regulations/issues. This can be enlarged to quarantine or other such needs or issues. Would it depend upon the size/class?

As for blowing out - "cut to Star Wars and Han Solo leaving Mos Eisley"

 

[rancke]

Blow on out of the system and deliver the cargo. Deal with the fines latter. They are bound to be cheaper than the lost revenue from the cargo, or the lost reputation as a "get her done" Free Trader.

That works for systems too poor to have any system defense vessels. Anywhere else they'd be stopped long before they were anywhere near the jump limit.

As for the size of the fines, they'd better hope that the laws in question aren't based on making sure lawbreakers don't profit from breaking the law. Which is perfectly possible, but not a given.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Does the Starport/SPA have the ability to physically enforce a grounding for safety regulations/issues. This can be enlarged to quarantine or other such needs or issues. Would it depend upon the size/class?

I think it would depend on the system defenses of the world. And their attitude towards requests from the SPA. Membership treaties probably include provisions for cooperation between Imperial and local authorities, but implementation may vary from world to world.


Hans

 

[tinker123]

AFAIK the concept of regulation in RW transport relates to usage, rather than size or shape of vehicle. If you sell tickets to the general public (like a bus or an airliner), you have to carry some gear to protect the livestock. If you drive / fly the same bus for your own entertainment, you can leave all that unnecessary weight in the hangar.
Charter hire probably fits somewhere in the middle.

 

[Patron Zero]

Somehow I see less than scrupulous governments filling their treasuries with fines levied against starship operators unaware of such 'speed' traps awaiting just ahead of them.

 

[rancke]

Somehow I see less than scrupulous governments filling their treasuries with fines levied against starship operators unaware of such 'speed' traps awaiting just ahead of them.

They wouldn't be unaware of any 'speed' trap more than two weeks old (Well, a bit more for backwater worlds where traffic was low). They would be warned by the ships arriving from their destination in neighboring systems.


Hans