Stocking your Life Pod

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

ISo this is a "Pray we land on an earth habitable planet life-pod" then Fred?

That life-pods are useful is a setting conceit, sort of "science-fantasy". In a very rigorous setting, yes, you are always better off staying with your spaceship and trying to repair it. Even if you have some sort of problem with the reactor the solution is not to leave your highly capable life support system, it is to eject the core and trigger the distress beacon.

But given that it's a conceit of the setting:

I suspect that the designers' assumption would be that in most situations in which a life-pod gets used that the crew would already be in pressure suits of some sort. So that is worn already, and probably doesn't count towards the weight allotment. Likewise, footgear would likely be assumed already, unless the setting has "ship slippers" as standard or something.

Your lists look pretty good.

Stocking Torpine is a neat idea.

Having seen a lot of survival equipment, I suspect that a solar recharger is more likely than a E cell.

A shelter of some sort is pretty key. In any halfway realistic setting one might claim that they are better off staying/living at the pod, but forcing use of the pod seems like a GM's mechanism to encourage exploration. So, encourage exploration. Give them a tent. Or at least a tarp.

Agree, a compass is pretty key. There is one in every survival kit I've ever seen. As is cord of some type.

Agree a raft is unlikely. If they land in an ocean the pod should float, and in that situation one would not want to leave the pod, anyway. A raft is of no real benefit. However, including fishing tackle and some sort of purification/desalinization rig might be handy. But I guess the vapor canteens cover water, huh? And ne would never be sure of what the fishing would be like on alien worlds. Here on Earth, castaways with access to food and water have drifted around for over a year and survived. Usually they collect rainwater, granted. And the ones with the longest records generally ate their fellow castaways. But still...

For something just "stocked to a legal standard" don't for get to make everything of cheap quality. :) And a simple, cheap backpack is much more likely than an LBV or such.

Some sort of cold-weather parka or the UT equivalent seems like a pretty obvious need for people who might get stranded on an unknown world.

I could argue that a stranded group is expected to stay together, so they wouldn't need the four radios. I'd make it two radios, assumed to be one for the exploring pair and one for the basecamp pair. You want to be in at least pairs, not alone, and the radio in the pod provides the needed redundancy. Likewise, the "legal standard" might be one first aid kit instead of three (plus the crash kit, that is).

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

How close do you need to be? Farther away than orbit is posible. The pod has 1000 yards per second of Delta-V which you could turn into 2000 miles per hour of speed.

The pod also has 90 man-days of limited life support and a capacity of 4. So over 22.5 days at 2000 miles per hour you could travel about a million miles. Then you add in what you'd gain from gravity. If that was similar to the downhill run from the Moon to the Earth taken by an Apollo capsule add in another c. 250,000 miles.

I don't think that would work. In the habitable zone, the sun's gravity has too much influence to allow point and shoot to be as effective as this. After all, the Earth is moving at 67 thousand miles an hour. The 2000 miles an hour isn't going to really work for you. What you would aim to do is to change orbits so you intercept with the planets orbit, but given the delta-V budget you have, it's probably going to take longer than the 22.5 days (unless your in some kind of orbit of the planet) you have...