Stocking your Life Pod

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by acrosome

Yeah, if the UT solar power sources are "too heavy" then that's an indicator that UT is dated and Real Life (TM) has surpassed it. (Sort of like with 3D printers.)

I sometimes carry an 3.5oz flexible solar cell when hiking.

The UT version counts as 'external power' though, like the TL10+ portable generators do. What you're looking to compare with is the 'Solar Paint (TL9), UT21.

The UT full-sized version probably is over weight at 500 pounds for 400 square feet, but not by that much when you consider it's portable, and thus that weight includes a protective box, and a bunch of collapsible supports and such that an 'install once, never move' model doesn't need.

What UT is missing is a small 1-2 m^2 portable solar array for such things as life pods. One of these with a built-in D cell would make a fine charging station and power supply for a small base camp, such as that which the survivors in a life pod might set up.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

There's a movie about passengers from a starliner marooned in a lifeboat.

A lifeboat system has a problem, and one of the passengers asks a crewmember why there isn't a backup.

The crewmember replies that they're in a lifeboat. It IS the backup.

At some point lifeboat gear has to reach a cutoff, or you eventually put lifeboats on the lifeboats.

Things on a lifeboat will be useful under as many circumstances as possible. They will be small, light, inexpensively made and minimalist. Keep in mind they will probably NEVER be used and are just there to check a box on an inspection.

A tarp can become a tent, a tend can't really become a tarp very well. What if you need a tarp? The lifeboat would have a tarp and some cordage rather than purpose made tents.... ect, etc, etc.

Knives are useful under almost any circumstance, but keep in mind there may be security concerns about hijacers breaking into lifeboats to obtain weapons. Knives, axes and so on may not be present. There is a fire ax on each US flagged airliner... locked in the cockpit.

Seeds are useful only on worlds with appropriate conditions AND a rescue time that extends into months. Unless those are both highly likely there won't be seeds on a lifeboat.

If in fact there are no worlds with appropriate conditions you might as well not get into a life pod. And the rescue time will naturally extend to months unless the world is inhabited and you land near friendly neighbors. Or you are picked up by a friendly ship or at least by enemies willing to follow the rules.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Rupert

What UT is missing is a small 1-2 m^2 portable solar array for such things as life pods. One of these with a built-in D cell would make a fine charging station and power supply for a small base camp, such as that which the survivors in a life pod might set up.

Right... it's in High-Tech, costs $100 and weighs 2 pounds at TL 8....

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Right... it's in High-Tech, costs $100 and weighs 2 pounds at TL 8....

And is somewhat lower in output than I was suggesting, but it is roughly what you'd want.

BTW, the 'external power' version given in HT is TL7 and weighs 1,200 lbs. UT's version at 500 lbs doesn't seem so bad in comparison.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The UT version counts as 'external power' though, like the TL10+ portable generators do. What you're looking to compare with is the 'Solar Paint (TL9), UT21.

The UT full-sized version probably is over weight at 500 pounds for 400 square feet,

Just for the record that's the fold-up Solar Array which is reusable and portable. The actual "Solar Paint" is 1/5th that weight and cost but meant to be painted onto your roof or soemthing like that.

[Dustin]

Looking over a GURPS 3e lifeboat loadout I made for a Star Frontiers game, I see a few items that don't appear to have straightforward 4e versions: the Biosampler and the Orbital Beacon. The Biosampler would seem useful if regulations mandated it, but it is expensive ($500). The beacon is arguably best built into the lifeboat, but detachability doesn't seem out of the question.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It is a fundamnetal assumption of the setting that life pods will end up on Earth-like planets a significant percentage of the time. If this were not true there would be no life pods.

What kind of ship are you building these pods for? I assume most ships near an Earth-like planet would be near one that was already inhabited. After all those are the places there are good reasons to take ships to and from. If you bail out in orbit, never mind anywhere further out than that, there's no good reason to land in the wilderness. You might as well touch down at the capital city airport.

The gear you are likely to want for the boat isn't groundside survival gear, it's stuff you might need immediately while on the boat - first aid kits for people wounded before boarding, hull patches and maybe some basic repair tools in case the boat got holed by whatever disabled the ship, a spare radio capable of enough range to talk to other lifeboats, rescue vessels or air traffic control once you get close to the capital, maybe the orbital equivalent of a GPS or small telescope and sextant in case you need to navigate manually, or a fire extinguisher in case you're a little hot when you touch down and set fire to the field. Camping supplies are not worth the weight.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by malloyd

What kind of ship are you building these pods for?

Let's see if what has been percolating in my brain for a few days moves this closer to a mature concept.

Interstellar travel in this setting is via a network of spacegates built by unknown aliens at least 100,000 years ago. These tend to be in far orbit of any Earth-like planets. Earth's would be out at L4. This plus its' alien (TL12^) construction help explain why it had not been discovered by the early 21st century.

Ships designed to use this system need only 1 Spaceships Strardrive module and 1 Power pt to run it. Travel to and from the locations of the spacegates is by conventional/hard science drive This is the main thing that makes interstellar travel possible at TL9.

No advanced forms of stardrive are known to the PC's race(s) but appear to have been known to the builders. Contemporary users are limited to what are called "sideroads" which are relatively short-ranged paths through hyperspace. Trips to relativley distant worlds have to make multiple jumps. The Builders seem to have had access to so-called "hyperbahns" which covered much greater distances.

Perhaps due to the age of the system the hyperbahns are no longer accessible in any controlled manner though the primitive nature of Terran hyperdrives may be a factor as well.

The Terrans also do not have a truly good map of hyperspace though every new exit discovered improves the map a little. Finding a viable "side-road" that leads to a proviously unknown destination is difficult and is nomrally limited the SpaceForce's elite Exploration Command.

Whiel you cann not access the hyperbahns deliberately chnce and a not-always reliable gate system can put you onto one accidentally. This is a Bad Thing because it not only takes you a long way from home but it invariably burns out your stardrive system and usually kills your reactor too.

So where are you? Usually somewhere near an Earth-like planet becuase that's where the Builders put most of their spacegates.

How wil you ever get home? Not by repairing your ship unless you have a SOTA research vessel and a highly talented crew. Most ships and crews need to send an expensive message drone back to SpaceForce HQ who will come and get you.

Note that though you got to wherever you are via a hyperbahn you can't send the drone back that way even if it's system were being considered expendable by you. Your trip has put another data point on the hyperspace map and for the drone to find its' way back to known space by previosuly unknown side-roads is difficult but not impossible.

How long will this take? You'd be extremely lucky if SpaceForce could get to you in less than 30 days. Planning on a year or two is more prudent.

Even if your main ship is dead with no power can't you take a landing craft to the nearby planet? Yes, if you have one. SpaceForce explorer ships and Colonial transports generally do but most commercial ships travel space station to space station and have no landing capability but for their life pods.

Can't you just stay with your dead ship? Not if you don't want to run out of air and everything else. Commercial ships normally need only short-term occupancy. A few days at most.

Okay so you land on the near-by planet in your life pod. Why don't you just stay with that pod? If you're goign to be rescued you need to eb near soem place a landing craft can land. This needs to be some place where the ground is firm, level, clear of obstacles and within (pick a number) meters of a hydrogen source so the landing craft can fuel its' HEDM enginses for an ascent.

If it's not clear yet normal spaceships in this setting are industrial looking masses of pods and boxes and cylinders held together by scaffolding and controlled by Pilot(Low Performace Spacecraft). I do not reccommend modeling your character on Han Solo. :)

[Varyon]

Don't discount the "personal effects" the characters bring with them. Some sort of "Survivor Operating System" - naturally called SOS - you can load onto your smartphone to reduce battery drain and change it to work with lower bandwidth, combined with a miniature cell tower attached to the pod, can allow for longer range communications between survivors. Load the phone up with basic - but potentially interactive - how-to guides for survival in the wilderness, as well as possibly some sort of app that can identify dangerous vs safe plants and animals from pictures (if life on undiscovered planets tends to be highly similar to Terran). You could also have a variety of peripherals that could use the smartphone as the processor, like probes to determine water potability (based on things like pH, contaminants, etc). Plus, they already can function as flashlights and compasses, and if recent trends continue are likely to be functionally waterproof and highly resilient by TL 9 (and if not, you can always stock some ruggedized cases on the ship, and require people to switch to those before taking the lifepods down). If the risk of marooning is considered common enough, the ship may also carry GPS-style satellites for deploying in orbit, which would allow for the phones' GPS to function at least part of the day (so you can check your location relative to base camp, and possibly other survivors).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

How long will this take? You'd be extremely lucky if SpaceForce could get to you in less than 30 days. Planning on a year or two is more prudent.

Fire your lifepod designer. Often enough to bother to prepare for (i.e. you have life pods at all, instead of just accepting these ships as lost) your ships risk being stranded somewhere you don't know enough about to optimize the equipment list for between months and *forever*. You don't prepare for this with a couple hundred pounds of gear. Expeditions of a few tens of people, or similar size homesteader groups, can manage multiple years with a few pack animals or a wagon, so you probably should look in the same range - that's a few tons, a lot of it of the tools to make tools sort. At absolute minimum you need enough gear that you can have everybody doing something long term survival useful - or you're going to start suffering psychological casualties quite quickly.