Life Pod [Spaceships]

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Id its power plant can still provide support if the pod can only crash land on a planet. .

Use of a Soft-Landing System is a normal landing and not a crash one.

Likewise your FTL System is a normal one and not an "emergencies only" type.

I'd say that you've designed a type of small transport for mail and a few passengers known as a :packet" in the Age of Sail rather than a life pod.

[AlexanderHowl]

I imagine that a packet would be a bit larger. A proper packet would likely be SM+8, though I imagine that a suspended animation one could get away with SM+6.

A SM+6 packet design would likely have a winged streamlined hull and would have one control room, one engine room, one fusion reaction, one hyperspace engine, one standard reactionless engine, three steel armor, four hanger bays, and eight habitats. Two of the habitats would hold double-occupancy cabins for the four crew and six of the habitats would hold four hibernation tubes each, for a total of 24 passengers. The four hanger bays would contain 3 tons of luggage and supplies for the crew, 3 tons of luggage for the passengers, and 6 tons of cargo.

A SM+6 packet design could also be used for a lifeboat. Passengers from the primary spacecraft would climb into hibernation pods while four crew from the primary spacecraft would keep active. The hanger bays would instead hold 12 tons of supplies for survival, in case the crew needs to land on a habitable planet and wake up the passengers.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A typical life pod is a TL 10^ SM+4 spacecraft designed to transport a number of passengers to safety. They have one control room, one fusion reactor (1 PP), one hyperspace stardrive, one soft landing system, one standard reactionless engine, three nanocomposite armor, and twelve cargo holds. The cargo holds contain six suspended animation tubes and enough supplies and tools for six people to survive for three months.

Four hibernation chambers take up a 'cabin equivalent' in a habitat system. A cabin or equivalent masses 7.5 - 8.333 tons, so a hibernation chamber masses between 1.875 tons and 2.08 tons - 2 tons is a decent round number. Your 12 cargo spaces in a 10 ton ship are going to have a tough time fitting the tubes, plus access space, plus support for them, and three months supplies in.

I expect you're using the stats and weights of the tubes in UT or Bio-Tech, but as there's a system that does the same job already listed in SS I don't think that's reasonable.

Also, the thing doesn't need a soft landing system, as it has thrust.

During an emergency, passengers load into the tubes and the computer automatically puts them into suspended animation. After its passengers are safely asleep, the spacecraft attempts to find the nearest inhabited planet or, failing that, the nearest habitable planet. If need be, the spaceship is capable of traveling for decades until it reaches safety.

This only works if the setting allows automated hyperspace travel and simple course calculations that a small and fairly dumb computer can do automatically. Many don't.

It also assumes no maintenance will be required, for which I'd be charging a lot of money for.

So, how would you use a life pod in your games? Would it just be something that PCs could use just in case things go terribly wrong or would it be the start of the real adventure? Have you ever used that premise in your games and, if so, how did it work out?

The closest thing to a 'lifeboat' is baling out in the ship's shuttle/boat when it's about to blow, suffer an unplanned and uncontrolled re-entry, or otherwise experience an excessively bad day. I haven't seen a party do that in a couple of decades. In my current campaign they've ridden a few ships down to events that count as landings as in the saying "a landing is anything you can walk away from", but they've never bailed out even when it's been an option.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm pretty certain cargo holds aren't meant to be Sealed (they certainly don't spend any mass on it)

Cargo holds are definitely sealed, since opening a cargo door causes depressurization.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Four hibernation chambers take up a 'cabin equivalent' in a habitat system. A cabin or equivalent masses 7.5 - 8.333 tons, so a hibernation chamber masses between 1.875 tons and 2.08 tons - 2 tons is a decent round number. Your 12 cargo spaces in a 10 ton ship are going to have a tough time fitting the tubes, plus access space, plus support for them, and three months supplies in.

To be fair, he's using (presumably-superscience) stasis pods rather than hibernation chambers, which may have a lesser space requirement (those in stasis pods only need power to keep the pod running, while those in hibernation chambers presumably need 1/10th the normal amount of food, water, and air, as they continue to age at 1/10th normal rate). I do agree they probably shouldn't be hauled as cargo, however.

Originally Posted by Rupert

It also assumes no maintenance will be required, for which I'd be charging a lot of money for.

Canonically, vessels below SM+9 don't appear to require any meaningful maintenance (they have no workspaces). It's probably more realistic to state they just require a good deal less maintenance - if we interpret Lacks Automation (from SS7) as multiplying workspace requirements by 10 (which it does for SM+10 and larger vessels) and follow its trend without rounding, each "requires maintenance" (that is, has Workspaces at SM+10 and larger) system on an SM+4 vessel would require 0.001 Workspaces, each of which would cost $5k to automate ($5M*0.001). If we further interpret each Workspace as requiring 8 man-hours of maintenance every 24 hours, that means each such system would require around 30 man-seconds of maintenance every 24 hours, or 8 man-hours of maintenance every 1000 days; I don't know if any of the Spaceships books give guidance on what happens if you have no (or at least insufficient) technicians, but with that low of a maintenance requirement I'd expect the life pods can function a decent amount of time even without total automation.

Originally Posted by RyanW

Cargo holds are definitely sealed, since opening a cargo door causes depressurization.

*checks* Huh, so they are. That makes it hard to reconcile the fact they literally cost and weigh nothing unless refrigerated (in which case they still weigh nothing) and/or shielded. Kind of invalidates the option for steerage cargo (the "pressurized and climate-controlled" benefit applies to the cargo hold as well, at least so long as the livestock and your crew are comfortable in the same temperature range; if not, springing a little extra cash for Refrigerated - which should be adjustable - is still greatly preferable to burning up so much mass on additional Habitat systems).

[AlexanderHowl]

The TL10 suspended animation tubes are 750 lbs and they are self-sufficient for 10 years (Ultra-Tech, p. 198). You could dump them in the middle of the ocean or hide them in a cave in a barren moon and come back a decade later without any major issues (if they are attached to a spaceship with its own reactor, their endurance lasts as long as the endurance of the reactor, plus 10 years for their internal power cell). They could very well be cargo, so it would not be unreasonable for people climb in, turn it on, and hope for the best in a life pod.

Nanostasis pods are another option for cargo at 500 lbs, but they are much more expensive than suspended animation tubes, though they are armored and radiation shielded. In addition, you do not age in the nanostasis pod, it does not draw down power except when putting you out or bringing you back, and it can bring you back without any major complications. You could literally voyage for millions of years in a nanostasis pod, which is one way to do time travel.

The hibernation chambers in Spaceships are for TL9 hibernation chambers and they are not self-sufficient. They supply the minimum life support required for the chamber and, presumably, have a more comfortable place to recover than a cold floor. If someone attempted to use a hibernation chamber in a cargo hold, they would die of suffocation in their sleep.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

*checks* Huh, so they are. That makes it hard to reconcile the fact they literally cost and weigh nothing unless refrigerated (in which case they still weigh nothing) and/or shielded. Kind of invalidates the option for steerage cargo (the "pressurized and climate-controlled" benefit applies to the cargo hold as well, at least so long as the livestock and your crew are comfortable in the same temperature range; if not, springing a little extra cash for Refrigerated - which should be adjustable - is still greatly preferable to burning up so much mass on additional Habitat systems).

My reading is that a cargo hold is pressurized, but it isn't air-conditioned beyond "not freezing, not over 50C in normal operation", and there's no life-support capacity devoted to it. Therefore if you fly too close to a star your living spaces, etc., might still be comfortable, but your cargo might be a bit melted, and anything living in it counts against your habitat spaces for life support and might also have and cause problems - poor air circulation in the holds means something living in them might cause pockets of bad air to form, will probably cause excessive moisture and thus mould, and so on. You can go and inspect the cargo, move through the holds when moving through the ship and so on without trouble, and store stuff in them, but to have people live in them you'll need to run air and water pipes, etc.

Also, a cargo hold won't have as many power sockets as a workspace would, nor good lighting, and so on.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The TL10 suspended animation tubes are 750 lbs and they are self-sufficient for 10 years (Ultra-Tech, p. 198). You could dump them in the middle of the ocean or hide them in a cave in a barren moon and come back a decade later without any major issues (if they are attached to a spaceship with its own reactor, their endurance lasts as long as the endurance of the reactor, plus 10 years for their internal power cell). They could very well be cargo, so it would not be unreasonable for people climb in, turn it on, and hope for the best in a life pod.

And UT's TL9 Hibernation Chambers are all of 200 pounds, yet in SS they require about 2 tons of mass.

The SS series assumes half of a cabin is life support. A bunk uses up one cabin space for four people, and thus each person requires about 2 tons of bunkspace, and therefore 1 ton of life support. Someone in a hibernation chamber needs 1/10th as much, so 0.1 tons. A UT chamber weighs 0.1 tons, so the total mass for tube and exterior life support is 0.1 tons (plus 0.015 tons of rations per year). So there's over 1.5 tons not accounted for if you use UT/BT components. This is why I think it's a mistake to use UT gear in a SS design. If you do, the TL10 system still should use up the same mass.

Nanostasis pods are another option for cargo at 500 lbs, but they are much more expensive than suspended animation tubes, though they are armored and radiation shielded. In addition, you do not age in the nanostasis pod, it does not draw down power except when putting you out or bringing you back, and it can bring you back without any major complications. You could literally voyage for millions of years in a nanostasis pod, which is one way to do time travel.

With a nanostasis pod you only need it to 'freeze' and 'unfreeze' people - they can be stored elsewhere.

[AlexanderHowl]

The nanostais pod presumably is better because it protects them from damage during transport. With DR 100, they have a chance of surviving even if the ship was vaporized (and may avoid damage entirely with any lesser result). Without such protection, they may be damaged too much for recovery.

[Aldric]

So, I'm attempting to make an SM+4 Lifeboat.

Putting people in cold sleep doesn't really work, so I would need a normal habitat, which is not available on a craft of this size.
Abusing the smaller/larger systems rules (which I'm not really familiar with) would require about half of the spaces just to fit 4 bunks.
Other than that, I need a Control Room, an Engine, a couple of Fuel Tanks and a Cargo space or two.

I'm still unsure on what kind of engine to allow on such a craft, if it needs a landing system or not, and if an external clamp is needed to have it attached to the hull of a vessel.

Finally, this will have rrom for 4 people, possibly 5, for about 3-4 months if my math is righr, so plenty of time to be rescued, or even to reach a nearby space station