[Spaceships] Life Pods as Habitat Options

[Langy]

They were in Ultra-Tech, not Spaceships, but yes, they're also in the Spaceships Designer's Notes.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Langy

They were in Ultra-Tech, not Spaceships, but yes, they're also in the Spaceships Designer's Notes.

Ah yes, they are at the end of the Designer's Notes under the Drop Capsules section. Thanks for the tip guys!

[scialytic]

Something that has been confusing me is in the designers notes it states "[drop capsules] may also replace 32cm or larger missiles and be carried in missile launchers.".

Ultra-Tech describes a life pod as "equipped with padded acceleration seats for four people and a pair of lockers holding 200 lbs. of cargo. These are usually stuffed with medical and survival kits, but in an emergency the lockers can be emptied, allowing an extra person to cram into each locker."

Unless the capsule is some kind of dimensional pocket I can't see all that fitting into something with a 32cm diameter.

Even if the capsule was just a long tube with each person stacked foot to head, I'm 6' with an average build for a man and I'm 50cm at the shoulders, even my female friend who's 5'4" and a slim build is 37cm at the shoulders.

The only way I can maybe see it working is if just the base of the capsule is 32cm and it fits into to missile launcher like a big plug. You would have to have air locks around you launchers in order to man them meaning the ship would have to specially designed to use drop capsules in the missile launchers. Therefore you could at most have one capsule per missile launcher, so you couldn't just buy some capsules and load them like a regular missile and fire people out like they did with Spock in The Wrath of Khan.

So if we go with that idea we can run some numbers:

SM +8 (The smallest size that can have 32cm launchers in a Major Battery System):

System ---------- Capsules -- Cost (not including capsules)
----------------------------------------------------------
Major Battery ------ 1 ------ 6M
Habitat ----------- 30 ------ 1M
Hanger Bay -------- 30 ------ 0.1M


SM +11 (The smallest size that can have 32cm launchers in a Tertiary Battery System):

System ---------- Capsules -- Cost (not including capsules)
----------------------------------------------------------
Tertiary Battery --- 30 ----- 150M
Habitat ----------- 1000 ----- 30M
Hanger Bay -------- 1000 ------ 3M


We can see that it is horribly uneconomical to use missile launchers that way.

If anybody has any other ideas on how to interpret this I would love to hear them.

[lexington]

I take it that the UT Life Pod is a just sample, smaller or larger ones could certainly be designed. A 32cm tube could hold a small person, scrunched up, or a very flexible medium sized person. It wouldn't be comfortable but better than being dead.

[scialytic]

Originally Posted by lexington

I take it that the UT Life Pod is a just sample, smaller or larger ones could certainly be designed. A 32cm tube could hold a small person, scrunched up, or a very flexible medium sized person. It wouldn't be comfortable but better than being dead.

I considered that too but 32cm is the outside diameter once you account for armour/shielding and padding your going to have even less room inside. Unless your using it to launch children on their own I can't see it working.

If we look at the Gun and Missile Ammunition Table a 48cm missile has the same SM as a Life Pod even if the description in UT doesn't match with the diameter of the missile we'll assume they are equal for the sake of argument. Let's also assume we are going to use just one system for emergency evacuation. We will also used the smallest SM ship that can support a 48cm missile launcher in a Major Battery, SM +10, and say it's got an occupancy of 36 people.

A Major Battery could launch missiles when not launching life pods which is a bonus. As long as the pods are loaded in with the 50 missile shots so they don't need to be move from a cargo bay it has a launch rate of 3 per minute and with 4 people to a pod it will take 3 minutes to evacuate the ship.

A Hanger Bay can hold 300 tons, minus 9 tons for the life pods, which could also be beneficial. It has a launch rate of 100 tons per minute and with 4 people to a pod it can evacuate the whole ship in one minute.

A Habitat has 60 cabins, minus 2 for 9 life pods and an extra ton left over for what have you, with only 36 occupants that is a lot extra cabins for any number of specialized rooms and sacrificing 2 for emergency escape is probably a no brainer. There of course aren't any numbers for what the launch rate is but if all the escape pods are modularly plugged in and facing away from the hull they could probably all launch at the same time so we could say the whole ship could be evacuated in one minutes as well.

So if you want more fire power you could go with a Major Battery but it is going to take longer to get every one out in an emergency, even longer if you don't keep the pods loaded. A Hanger Bay will give you extra storage and allow for a fast escape. If you have a few extra cabins a Habitat will allow to have a fast escape and wouldn't require an extra system. The Major Battery is also 6x more expensive than a Habitat and 60x more expensive than a Hanger Bay.

But I still have trouble with the idea that a missile with the diameter of the wheels on this car (19" or 48.26cm) being equivalent to the life pods described in UT.

[Kissamies]

Yes, the launcher rule is weird. No way 32 cm or even 48 cm missile matches the UT lifepod, which seems to be the intention. I might be willing to rule it that a dedicated "lifepod launcher" can completely replace a missile launcher. Still seems wrong. I prefer hangars and habitats.

I think the problem here is how Spaceships goes by the tonnage and ignores volumes and size modifiers. 32 cm missile weighs the same as a lifepod, so they're equals, never mind the diameter. This has also caused me to ponder how certain ships fit certain hangars, but I decided to ignore that problem.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Kissamies

Yes, the launcher rule is weird. No way 32 cm or even 48 cm missile matches the UT lifepod, which seems to be the intention. I might be willing to rule it that a dedicated "lifepod launcher" can completely replace a missile launcher. Still seems wrong. I prefer hangars and habitats.

Yeah, the 32cm tube launching people never made sense to me. I might allow the 40cm+ tubes to fire special pods containing only one person for covert operations. Otherwise for the 32cm launcher I'd just let it toss dropcans containing small items but certainly nothing as large as a person.

[ericbsmith]

Figured I'd chime in and say I came to pretty much all the same conclusions found on this thread for pretty much the same reasons.

Life Pods = 1 ton, 1 Habitat "slot" can hold 5 tons of Cargo, ergo, 1 Habitat "slot" can hold 5 Life Pods. Life Pods don't need much in the way of a launch mechanism; basically explosive bolts to eject the outer hull plating (if you're using Life Pods you really shouldn't care about hull integrity anymore).

Life Pods cannot be shot out a 32cm Gun/Missile Launcher without turning the passengers into spaghetti. The only way I can make that option work in my head is if the Gun/Launcher has been replaced with a "Pod Gun" with a much larger bore diameter, making it unsuitable for firing standard ammunition. I prefer to just ignore it and install the Life Pods as Habitat options. They make more sense there anyway, since Habitats are normally where the Crew & Passengers are kept track of

[scialytic]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Life Pods don't need much in the way of a launch mechanism; basically explosive bolts to eject the outer hull plating (if you're using Life Pods you really shouldn't care about hull integrity anymore).

Yeah, that's a far better description then what I came up with last night. And because each one is able to launch on it's own there would be no limit to the number that could be launched each turn, although you might say it takes a minute to preform all the launch prep and maybe give the ejected hull plating a chance to get clear of the area, etc.

I have to admit I hadn't considered using a Habitat Cabin for the escape pods until I read this thread, I had always used Hanger Bays and it irked me to have to use a System slot just for that. I really like the idea of using a couple Cabins, like ericbsmith said, it makes more sense to have them there.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by scialytic

I have to admit I hadn't considered using a Habitat Cabin for the escape pods until I read this thread, I had always used Hanger Bays and it irked me to have to use a System slot just for that. I really like the idea of using a couple Cabins, like ericbsmith said, it makes more sense to have them there.

It fits the spirit of a last-ditch escape mechanism anyway. A hanger is designed to launch and retrieve craft, whereas a lifeboat is one way, more has a 'boat bay' if you remember those at all from the 3rd Edition version of Space in the old starship rules. I like the current habitat option even better since the lifepods are more efficient as non-re-dockable expendable craft.