Advanced Low Berth?

[MonsterX]

You seem to assume that there is a "universal authority" who writes and enforces regulations. I am aware of none that exist in Traveller. Is there a reference to this somewhere? This would seem to tie back into the whole "Dark Imperium" thing.

There's no universal authority on Earth IRL, yet there there are standards for safety on ships - SOLAS convention- and in many other areas too. I don't assume a universal authority, and authorities in different areas will do things differently, but mostly they'll try to keep business running smoothly, and there will be various standards and agreements which make sure it does. Passengers taking completely unnecessary risks on low berths is business not running smoothly. There's going to be places where that regulation doesn't happen. These are often the kind of places where PCs end up, for whatever reason, but that's just because PCs are gonna be PCs, and the sleazy and corruption of those kinds of places can be contrasted with better run localities to provide pathos.

To take the military unit example, the Imperial Marines will have an SOP that makes sure accidents don't happen to frozen watch and this will be standardized across the Imperium because they are the Imperial Marines. It costs a lot to train a marine, and it undermines unit cohesion if they obviously don't care about their people. A well run mercenary unit will have its own SOP with the same goal and for the same reason. A badly run mercenary unit might not, or they might have but then fxck it up. The PC that gets mixed up with this last kind of unit realizes he's in a bad place, when you show him the low berth procedures - and the ontrast with his time in the Marines.

In commercial shipping, passengers will be aware of the danger of low berths and want to know it is safe. Governments - planetary or otherwise . may have safety inspections in some places - but IMTU, the Imperium as a whole is not that systematic. So companies will have their reputations, and companies that don't have reputations will get certified by private organizations who inspect and certify. They'll slap safety stickers on their machinery, and give certificates to the captain to show passengers and authorities that it is a tight ship. Obviously, there will be corrupt inspectors, yahoos who aren't certified, forged certificates etc. But for most people, for most of the time, they'll be travelling in a safe casket. This is just for the Imperium though: other places will have tighter regs, or sometimes looser ones.

The overall coherence and integrity of these systems will be higher or lower in different times and places. It's not whether the Imperium is Dark or not - having a Light part of the Imperium helps make the Dark seem really dark.

 

[MasterGwydion]

There's no universal authority on Earth IRL, yet there there are standards for safety on ships - SOLAS convention- and in many other areas too. I don't assume a universal authority, and authorities in different areas will do things differently, but mostly they'll try to keep business running smoothly, and there will be various standards and agreements which make sure it does. Passengers taking completely unnecessary risks on low berths is business not running smoothly. There's going to be places where that regulation doesn't happen. These are often the kind of places where PCs end up, for whatever reason, but that's just because PCs are gonna be PCs, and the sleazy and corruption of those kinds of places can be contrasted with better run localities to provide pathos.

To take the military unit example, the Imperial Marines will have an SOP that makes sure accidents don't happen to frozen watch and this will be standardized across the Imperium because they are the Imperial Marines. It costs a lot to train a marine, and it undermines unit cohesion if they obviously don't care about their people. A well run mercenary unit will have its own SOP with the same goal and for the same reason. A badly run mercenary unit might not, or they might have but then fxck it up. The PC that gets mixed up with this last kind of unit realizes he's in a bad place, when you show him the low berth procedures - and the ontrast with his time in the Marines.

In commercial shipping, passengers will be aware of the danger of low berths and want to know it is safe. Governments - planetary or otherwise . may have safety inspections in some places - but IMTU, the Imperium as a whole is not that systematic. So companies will have their reputations, and companies that don't have reputations will get certified by private organizations who inspect and certify. They'll slap safety stickers on their machinery, and give certificates to the captain to show passengers and authorities that it is a tight ship. Obviously, there will be corrupt inspectors, yahoos who aren't certified, forged certificates etc. But for most people, for most of the time, they'll be travelling in a safe casket. This is just for the Imperium though: other places will have tighter regs, or sometimes looser ones.

The overall coherence and integrity of these systems will be higher or lower in different times and places. It's not whether the Imperium is Dark or not - having a Light part of the Imperium helps make the Dark seem really dark.

I wonder if such treaties are even allowed by the Imperium, since it could be considered a "restriction" on trade. (At least that is how every corporation on Earth responds when governments try and regulate them.) Add in that, even non-megacorps are more powerful than 99% of the planetary governments. A Megacorp is nearly as powerful, if not more powerful, than sector-level governments. The Zhodani for sure would have something to safeguard it's citizens, but I doubt the Aslan would.

 

[Fresnel]

I wonder if such treaties are even allowed by the Imperium, since it could be considered a "restriction" on trade. (At least that is how every corporation on Earth responds when governments try and regulate them.) Add in that, even non-megacorps are more powerful than 99% of the planetary governments. A Megacorp is nearly as powerful, if not more powerful, than sector-level governments. The Zhodani for sure would have something to safeguard it's citizens, but I doubt the Aslan would.

Free Market rules! Customers don't want bureaucrats and their red tape driving up costs for the working man.

Don't let those socialists take away your right to economy low berth.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Free Market rules! Customers don't want bureaucrats and their red tape driving up costs for the working man.

Don't let those socialists take away your right to economy low berth.

I could totally see businesses in the Third Imperium making those exact claims! lol

 

[Condottiere]

One problem with frozen watch is that when you need them, you're probably in the middle of a battle, and half the starwarship is on fire.

So, expediency and lack of medical personnel might be an issue.

I remember one ship entry was that a logistics ship had low berths for personnel replacements, which sort of places them in the rear area.

 

[MonsterX]

Even making a couple of tweaks to the advanced model makes it only a bit more expensive and improves survival odds.

Good to see you are hard at work saving lives (even if it is only of hypothetical NPCs in an imaginary universe).

 

[MonsterX]

I could totally see businesses in the Third Imperium making those exact claims! lol

Some would totally do that, whenever it hurts their business. Then they would make the opposite claim when it hurts their competitors. Where does that get us for low berth regulation? Big companies who run regular liner service will want tight regulation because it is easy for them to have a large well equipped medical staff at each end. The could be processing hundreds or thousands of people coming out of each ship, so could have full medical staff on salary, whereas a tramp trader would need to expensively hire someone for a few hours at a time. Big companies will want an expanding travel market, and so will want their low berths to seem reliable and safe. They won't want a bunch of cowboys around offering cheaper service, resulting in deaths which get on the news and cause travel bookings to dry up. In such cases, they will talk about "level playing fields" and "maintaining the reputation of the industry". The cost involved will make it harder for tramp traders to compete, but the big companies are ok with that.

Obviously, this only applies between major destinations. In other places, the low berth experience is likely to be more varied.

 

[MonsterX]

One problem with frozen watch is that when you need them, you're probably in the middle of a battle, and half the starwarship is on fire.

So, expediency and lack of medical personnel might be an issue.

I remember one ship entry was that a logistics ship had low berths for personnel replacements, which sort of places them in the rear area.

That might happen, and I think soldiers will understand and accept that; after all, lots of things happen in war and it is a dangerous profession. In my experience, though, military personnel are a lot less accepting of risk due to incompetence and neglect of the leadership.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Some would totally do that, whenever it hurts their business. Then they would make the opposite claim when it hurts their competitors. Where does that get us for low berth regulation? Big companies who run regular liner service will want tight regulation because it is easy for them to have a large well equipped medical staff at each end. The could be processing hundreds or thousands of people coming out of each ship, so could have full medical staff on salary, whereas a tramp trader would need to expensively hire someone for a few hours at a time. Big companies will want an expanding travel market, and so will want their low berths to seem reliable and safe. They won't want a bunch of cowboys around offering cheaper service, resulting in deaths which get on the news and cause travel bookings to dry up. In such cases, they will talk about "level playing fields" and "maintaining the reputation of the industry". The cost involved will make it harder for tramp traders to compete, but the big companies are ok with that.

Obviously, this only applies between major destinations. In other places, the low berth experience is likely to be more varied.

This seems to imply a higher level of communication than I was thinking exists in Charted Space. News is at best planetary. Have a bad reputation here, go work a system or 3 over. You have a few exceptions to this with very large Imperial News Service, but it is more like getting a weekly paper than the news broadcasts that We have here on Earth. People dying from low berths may not even be news. It could just be what everyone accepts. That obviously offends Our sensibilities, but none of the fluff I have read in Charted Space implies or states that anyone has a problem with people dying in low berth. Hell, they even host a lottery betting on who lives and who dies. People in Charted Space seem to have a much more cavalier attitude when it comes to death.

Look at it kind of the same way We view the Star Wars movies and shows. You'd think that they never heard of safety regulations. Never any railing to prevent people from falling from great heights. Place the controls in the most dangerous spot possible to access. (Death Star Tractor Beam controls) Have zero regulations about flying very fast in densely packed urban areas. Have no repercussions for crashing into buildings and crows, etc.

 

[Condottiere]

This is where scaling works for large transportation spacelines.

With regular schedules and large numbers of passengers and cargo, they can set up their own terminals in each system.

That would include medical staff and facilities on stand by, and because of the traffic, wouldn't be underemployed.

 

[Terry Mixon]

One thing about the low berths designed using the Robot Handbook and the ones I made that are better than them is that they have arms in with the passenger, a medikit, and medic skill. No need for vast squads of medics. The berth itself is the medic for getting the passenger into sleep and back out. The basic low berth isn’t that helpful though it can do the job without negative DMs, but the advanced and better obliviate the need to have herds of medics on hand. A couple for emergencies would be enough even for a big ship.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Because I can, let me break down the survival odds for each class of low berth.

First, the modifiers:

Check: Routine (6+) 1Dx10 Minutes INT: +0

Passenger END 0: -3
Passenger END 1-2: -2
Passenger END 3-5: -1
Passenger END 6-8: 0
Passenger END 9-11: +1
Passenger END 12-14: +2
Passenger END 15+: +3

Basic Low Berth:

Medikit (basic): +0
Medic 1: +1
INT 3: -1

Mod: +0

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 9+ (27.8%)
Passenger END 1-2: 8+ (41.7%)
Passenger END 3-5: 7+ (58.4%)
Passenger END 6-8: 6+ (72.3%)
Passenger END 9-11: 5+ (83.4%)
Passenger END 12-14: 4+ (91.7%)
Passenger END 15+: 3+ (97.3%)

A serious chance of dying even for the healthy. An average Joe has almost a 3 in 10 chance of croaking. I'd recommend taking 1D6 Hours for revival which grants a +2 to survival rolls.

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 7+ (58.4%)
Passenger END 1-2: 6+ (72.3%)
Passenger END 3-5: 5+ (83.4%)
Passenger END 6-8: 4+ (91.7%)
Passenger END 9-11: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 12+: Automatic

Better, but still chancy as the average Joe still has almost a 1 in 10 chance of dying.

Advanced Low Berth:

Medikit (improved): +1
Medic 2: +2
INT 8: 0
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +4

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 5+ (83.4%)
Passenger END 1-2: 4+ (91.7%)
Passenger END 3-4: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 5+: Automatic

Safe for anyone healthy. The frail will still need the longer timeframes.

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 1+: Automatic

Going to 1D6 Hours for the frail will get automatic success for almost everyone. The robotic medic built into the low berth could make that determination automatically.

Advanced Plus Low Berth:

Medikit (enhanced): +2
Medic 2: +2
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +6

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 1+: Automatic

Almost flawless recovery. Only the very frailest would require 1D6 Hours to wake and they would automatically survive.

Superior Low Berth:

Medikit (advanced): +3
Medic 2: +2
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +7

Passenger Survival: Automatic

With these odds, someone with a superior low berth could jump the revival time to 1D minutes for most patients and accept the -2 to survival for all but the frailest passengers. That would save a lot of time and could be a selling point for the more expensive units.

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 4+ (91.7%)
Passenger END 1-2: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 3+: Automatic

Deluxe Low Berth:

Medikit (advanced): +3
Medic 3: +3
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +8

Passenger Survival: Automatic

Passenger Survival at 1D6 minutes revival time:

Passenger END 0: 3+ (97.3%)
Passenger END 1+: Automatic

For the busy lines, this top-tier option might be tempting. Only the very frailest passengers would take more than 1D6 minutes to revive and there would be no pesky dead bodies to deal with.

And finally, for the lines catering to the most discerning Traveller, we have the Iridium Low Berth.

Iridium Low Berth:

Medikit (advanced): +3
Medic 3: +3
INT 12: +2
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +9

Passenger Survival: Automatic

And at 1D6 minutes revival:

Passenger Survival: Automatic

Pricy, but for luxury lines and for high value clients, well worth the credits.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Because I can, let me break down the survival odds for each class of low berth.

First, the modifiers:

Check: Routine (6+) 1Dx10 Minutes INT: +0

Passenger END 0: -3
Passenger END 1-2: -2
Passenger END 3-5: -1
Passenger END 6-8: 0
Passenger END 9-11: +1
Passenger END 12-14: +2
Passenger END 15+: +3

Basic Low Berth:

Medikit (basic): +0
Medic 1: +1
INT 3: -1

Mod: +0

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 9+
Passenger END 1-2: 8+
Passenger END 3-5: 7+
Passenger END 6-8: 6+
Passenger END 9-11: 5+
Passenger END 12-14: 4+
Passenger END 15+: 3+

A non-trvial chance of dying. Recommend taking 1D6 Hours for revival which grants a +2 to survival rolls.

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 7+
Passenger END 1-2: 6+
Passenger END 3-5: 5+
Passenger END 6-8: 4+
Passenger END 9-11: 3+
Passenger END 12+: Automatic

Better, but still potentially chancy.

Advanced Low Berth:

Medikit (improved): +1
Medic 2: +2
INT 8: 0
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +4

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 5+
Passenger END 1-2: 4+
Passenger END 3-4: 3+
Passenger END 5+: Automatic

Safe for anyone healthy. Going to 1D6 Hours for the frail will get automatic success for everyone. The robotic medic built into the low berth could make that determination automatically.

Advanced Plus Low Berth:

Medikit (enhanced): +2
Medic 2: +2
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +6

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 3+
Passenger END 1+: Automatic

Almost flawless recovery. Only the very frailest would require 1D6 Hours to wake and they would automatically survive.

Superior Low Berth:

Medikit (advanced): +3
Medic 2: +2
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +7

Passenger Survival: Automatic

With these odds, someone with a superior low berth could jump the revival time to 1D minutes for most patients and accept the -2 to survival for all but the frailest passengers. That would save a lot of time and could be a selling point for the more expensive units.

Passenger Survival:

Passenger END 0: 4+
Passenger END 1-2: 3+
Passenger END 3+: Automatic

Deluxe Low Berth:

Medikit (advanced): +3
Medic 3: +3
INT 9: +1
Low Berth (improved) +1

Mod: +8

Passenger Survival: Automatic

Passenger Survival at 1D6 minutes revival time:

Passenger END 0: 3+
Passenger END 1+: Automatic

For the busy lines, this top-tier option might be tempting. Only the very frailest passengers would take more than 1D6 minutes to revive and there would be no pesky dead bodies to deal with.

I love mechanical explorations like this as it helps us analyze the game setting and forces us to re-examine our assumptions about the setting as well as evaluating if the writers of the fluff had ever read and understood the mechanics of the game they were writing for or not.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I love mechanical explorations like this as it helps us analyze the game setting and forces us to re-examine our assumptions about the setting as well as evaluating if the writers of the fluff had ever read and understood the mechanics of the game they were writing for or not.

Updated to add percentages to make it clearer what survival odds look like.

 

[Terry Mixon]

And for completeness, I present the Iridium Low Berth. It has no chance of a Traveller dying even at 1D6 minutes revival time. I'll add the statistics to my other post shortly.

 

[FreeTrav]

For what it's worth, I toss out two sources of possible ideas/inspiration:

1. Jason Barnabas, "Economy Passage", Freelance Traveller, November/December 2012 and January/February 2025, https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/transferbunk.html

2. Philip José Farmer, Dayworld. Specifically, the 'stoner' that made the social organization possible.

 

[rinku]

One point worth remembering is that low berth occupants only need one revival roll regardless of the number of jumps. It does become more attractive as a means of travel if many jumps are involved. Some professions whose jobs require a lot of long distance travel might even be known for it, even to the extent to it affecting their ageing rate.

For example, Corporate branch managers who often get reassigned to a different subsector, and occasionally need to return to sector HQ. Months and months of travel... such a small overhead compared to regular passage, especially if they're in a mobile berth so the ships can transfer them and deliver them to the top notch company hospital at destination for expert and careful revival.

Even without exceptional equipment, you could rely on Medic-2 and 1D6 hours taken (+4), probably with a Boon for a proper medical team in a well equipped facility. Even the frail managers should make it reliably.

Further to that, even a typical starship quack with INT 9 and Medic-2 that takes 1D x10 minutes per revival is making their roll on 1+, so is only going to occasionally lose extremely frail patients (END 1-2), who really should have been refused low passage on medical grounds anyway. Such passengers would only likely be travelling low if desperate or actually critically ill in the first place.

Big ships with large amounts of low berths would normally employ higher skilled doctors (Medic-3 and INT 11 is not unreasonable for a chief medical officer on that kind of ship) and skilled assistants.

As well, even without luxury robot assisted low berths, an Expert (Medic/1) program (TL11, Cr1000 plus the cost of the computer) gives anyone with Medic skill a +1 for tasks. It would pretty much be malpractice not to use one!

 

[Terry Mixon]

One point worth remembering is that low berth occupants only need one revival roll regardless of the number of jumps. It does become more attractive as a means of travel if many jumps are involved. Some professions whose jobs require a lot of long distance travel might even be known for it, even to the extent to it affecting their ageing rate.

For example, Corporate branch managers who often get reassigned to a different subsector, and occasionally need to return to sector HQ. Months and months of travel... such a small overhead compared to regular passage, especially if they're in a mobile berth so the ships can transfer them and deliver them to the top notch company hospital at destination for expert and careful revival.

Even without exceptional equipment, you could rely on Medic-2 and 1D6 hours taken (+4), probably with a Boon for a proper medical team in a well equipped facility.

I agree with that, but the boon for a medical facility isn't spelled out in the rules. Just looking at the rules as written, that's a non-trivial death rate that will catch up with those kind of people without better low berths.

 

[rinku]

I agree with that, but the boon for a medical facility isn't spelled out in the rules. Just looking at the rules as written, that's a non-trivial death rate that will catch up with those kind of people without better low berths.

No, it's a Referee decision. But it's not unreasonable to grant it for a fully equipped and staffed hospital or specialist revival clinic that's not working under ER conditions.

I'd not hand it out to a typical starship medbay operated by a typical ship's doctor.

But seriously, the +4 bonus for taking 1D6 hours does get most patients through without issue, even with Medic-0 and no other mods.

Expert (Medic) and Medic-1 will be enough to process END 6 or more patients in 1Dx10 minutes each.

 

[rinku]

Further thought.

If there are a large number of passengers, the revival of any frail ones would be overseen by the most skilled members of the medical team, with special care and maybe with more than one person helping. The healthy passengers could be left to the average skilled members of the medical staff. It's not as if the health of the passengers would usually be a mystery to the medical professionals responsible for all of this, although of course in a frontier or free trader context things may well be different ("You the popsicles? Report to Zoidberg in room 3...")

And if we're talking established passenger liners, they'd likely employ ground staff to come on to the ships to help with processing, both for freezing and revival. That makes more sense to me than crewing more that is needed to safely monitor the cargo during flight.

All of the above applies to the Naval context too. Frozen Watch need not be routinely risky, except when rapid emergency revival is required. And it's unlikely any crew with END 5 or less would be allowed to be assigned to it, so average Naval medics should be able to manage most of the work safely. Medic-1, Expert (Medic), 1D6x10 minutes per patient, 2+ roll.