Emergency Passenger Capacity

[mavikfelna]

Ok, so in the rules, you can put a passenger per 2 tons of available space for basic passage and it looks like it doesn't affect the ship's life support capacity at all, just the cost you pay for life support at the end of the month. But in an emergency, how many passengers can I cram in and how long will the life support support it?

On a ship's deckplan, you can put 4 squares in a dTon and 1 person can fit in each square comfortably. in a real emergency where comfort isn't an issue, say we can cram 2 people per square. so 8 per dTon. A 100 ton cargo hold could cram in 800 people. How long could you have them in there? Just a couple of hours probably but there doesn't seem to be a limit. If I have to jump away from the emergency area, how many is reasonable?

A human needs about 14 liters of water, 14,000 calories or around 15Kg (18 liters) of food and 3850 liters of Oxygen a week. We are recycling the Water and Oxygen so those values can be reduced somewhat but lets say we can do 50 liters of supplies per person, so we can store 20 people supplies/week per dTon. That doesn't count the recycling filters or equipment but we're ignoring those for now. So 400 people would need 20 tons of supplies.

How do these numbers check out? Does this look like a viable way to evacuate an area? 8 people for 1 dTon of free space for less than a day, 4 people per 1.2 dTon for a week of jump and less than a day on either side.

 

[Condottiere]

A 10-ton stable is capable of housing 20 human-sized or 10 cattle-sized creatures.

Twenty five kilostarbux per ten tonnes, twenty five hundred starbux life support.

Medium term.

Short term, depends on suffocation rules.

 

[mavikfelna]

A 10-ton stable is capable of housing 20 human-sized or 10 cattle-sized creatures.

Twenty five kilostarbux per ten tonnes, twenty five hundred starbux life support.

Medium term.

Short term, depends on suffocation rules.

Hmm. Interesting. Much more expensive, but it accounts for everything. And has the same capacity that I was proposing above.

 

[Anstett]

I would rule you can evacuate a much higher number for short term, which does not include Jump. Moving people elsewhere in the system for example.

I agree with the Stable idea for an emergency response type of ship that is Jump in, rescue/evacuate Jump out repeat as necessary.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Fast drug. Reduces life support and space requirements.

 

[swordtart]

Life support lasts a month for the staterooms stated occupancy. So you can accommodate around 30 times your normal levels for a day, in life support. If you need to jump away you might only be able to double your capacity as transit times might eat up a week or two.

We don't really know how much of a reserve of spare life support we carry as it is undefined, but a month (or maybe two) seems credible. You pay Cr1000 per person aboard for life support plus another Cr1000 per stateroom. If you knew you were going into an evacuation situation you might stock up on extra life support supplies (and pay the extra per person), but if you are relying on what you normally carry I would say doubling or at a pinch trebling your capacity would be as much as you can manage.

Acceleration couches allow 4 people per Dton and is probably the low end of acceptable accommodation for more than a few hours (and less than a day), I'd allow this as well for short term in an emergency even if there wasn't dedicated seating (people can sit on the floor). This could be unused cargo area, cramming extra people into staterooms and common areas. I might allow a single extra person per DTon allocated to other systems where crew might reasonably have access (like Bridge, Powerplant, Jump Drive etc. but not fuel). After more than a few hours of this I would expect people to become very fractious.

People don't actually need much food to survive and can live for months without eating at all (though they will think they are starving after only a few days and there might be trouble). If your extra "passengers" have already suffered their limits may be lower, but you should last a Jump. Water is most likely recycled, so that probably won't be an issue.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm not quite sure about that.

Oxygen regeneration seems an operation over time, not a reserve tank.

So, like power plant energy generation, per round.

 

[swordtart]

I'm not quite sure about that.

Oxygen regeneration seems an operation over time, not a reserve tank.

So, like power plant energy generation, per round.

Life support is unfortunately undefined, but the costs must represent something. Oxygen regeneration is ok, but it is not necessarily a 100% reversible reaction. Nor do we have any specific ship component other than the biosphere that provides life support.

If it is purely a function of power then we would expect the power requirement to increase with the number of people on board. Power for essential systems is however simply a function of tonnage, 10% regardless of the number of people on board (having switched off the coffee machines).

I am not sure if there is any equipment item that sets this out, but splitting O2 from CO2 uses a lot of energy and/or bulky equipment, far more I suspect than carrying a reserve of O2 and using scrubbers.

To calculate using another method requires more questions to which we don't have answers. So for a finger in the air with the limited information available, I'll stick with my number.

YMMV

 

[Condottiere]

Generally speaking, once you jump you're running on empty.

If you're regenerating, or scrubbing, the oxygen supply, you have to direct the air towards machinery that can do that.

Our default oxygen tanks hold either four or six hours worth, at a hefty markup; how that would translate into an onboard oxygen reserve tank is somewhat unknown.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Generally speaking, once you jump you're running on empty.

If you're regenerating, or scrubbing, the oxygen supply, you have to direct the air towards machinery that can do that.

Our default oxygen tanks hold either four or six hours worth, at a hefty markup; how that would translate into an onboard oxygen reserve tank is somewhat unknown.

Fill a tank with hydrogen dioxide and separate it as needed since power is cheap as hell...

 

[MonsterX]

If you've got access to water you can make it into oxygen using the ship's fuel refinery, which turns water into hydrogen, so it has to have oxygen as a waste product. Only relevant if oxygen is the main constraint and water is not.

Oxygen scrubbers are probably only designed for the ship's rated capacity, with a bit extra just in case someone is a heavy breather. Since staterooms can fit more than they usually carry, it is probably the max capacity that's the target number. It's a chemical process, so you need a supply of those chemicals, as well as an adequate air circulation to bring the old air to the chemicals and the new air to the people, as Condottierre points out. Probably some mechanic or engineer work could repurpose other equipment on the ship or in the cargo and jury rig something. Or take stuff from other ships or whatever you can get your hands on.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If you've got access to water you can make it into oxygen using the ship's fuel refinery, which turns water into hydrogen, so it has to have oxygen as a waste product. Only relevant if oxygen is the main constraint and water is not.

Oxygen scrubbers are probably only designed for the ship's rated capacity, with a bit extra just in case someone is a heavy breather. Since staterooms can fit more than they usually carry, it is probably the max capacity that's the target number. It's a chemical process, so you need a supply of those chemicals, as well as an adequate air circulation to bring the old air to the chemicals and the new air to the people, as Condottierre points out. Probably some mechanic or engineer work could repurpose other equipment on the ship or in the cargo and jury rig something. Or take stuff from other ships or whatever you can get your hands on.

and all of this depends on this technology working in a way we can understand, which I doubt it does. Chemical rebreathers feels extremely low tech considering that we have them now.

 

[Condottiere]

Life support looks overpriced.

If we can separate climate control and oxygen (re)generation, you can make up the difference with instant ramen and coke.

 

[MonsterX]

Life support looks overpriced.

If we can separate climate control and oxygen (re)generation, you can make up the difference with instant ramen and coke.

you'll want the generic cola if cost is the issue. Save the on-brand cola for Christmas and birthdays.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Why is the price of everything in Traveller not connected to SOC? Since We do not have and do not want the granularity in Traveller to have a million different brands of Ramen, why don't we just have some formula or a chart with percentages in the CSC or someplace? The average SOC 8 guy is going to be buying different brands, of the same stuff, than the SOC 2 guy, and the SOC 8 guy's stuff will cost more.

Edit - The Dilettante book covered this for high SOC individuals, but I haven't seen it applied for low SOC individuals.

 

[swordtart]

Unfortunately we don't have any information to support these alternate analyses.