Low Berth travel is for the condemned only?

[sideranautae]

After combing the CRB it is clear that travel via Low Berth is insanely risky.

Based on the Medic skill examples the skill check would be at best, Average (+0). If you assume a DM of +3 and average End score for the Popsicle, that makes for a death rate of ~16.67%

Who other that the formally or figuratively condemned would use this method of interstellar travel?

The average Hi Pop World's Star Port would have bodies stacking up like cord wood. Maybe that helps support the Soylent Green Corp?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

After combing the CRB it is clear that travel via Low Berth is insanely risky.

Based on the Medic skill examples the skill check would be at best, Average (+0). If you assume a DM of +3 and average End score for the Popsicle, that makes for a death rate of ~16.67%

Who other that the formally or figuratively condemned would use this method of interstellar travel?

The average Hi Pop World's Star Port would have bodies stacking up like cord wood. Maybe that helps support the Soylent Green Corp?

I have a question. Do they have lawyers in the Traveller Universe?
Kind of depends whether low berths are reliable or unreliable.
I think life boats should be equipped with them. You can't always count on a habitable planet being nearby when you must abandon ship, for those instances, you have escape pods and life boats equipped with low berths. What do you think?

 

[AndrewW]

I have a question. Do they have lawyers in the Traveller Universe?

Advocate skill.

Kind of depends whether low berths are reliable or unreliable.
I think life boats should be equipped with them. You can't always count on a habitable planet being nearby when you must abandon ship, for those instances, you have escape pods and life boats equipped with low berths. What do you think?

Could be the entire life boat could act as one.

 

[sideranautae]

I think life boats should be equipped with them. You can't always count on a habitable planet being nearby when you must abandon ship, for those instances, you have escape pods and life boats equipped with low berths. What do you think?

Other than exploratory ships (maybe mil too) lifeboats aren't that useful. A passenger ship goes from 100D limit to 100D limit. Even an inaccurate jump means they are within a couple days from a rescue. There are just about 0% chance of needing to leave the ship. Anything that catastrophic has probably killed all on board anyway. You can't "sink" a spaceship like a ship on the water.

 

[GypsyComet]

After combing the CRB it is clear that travel via Low Berth is insanely risky.

Based on the Medic skill examples the skill check would be at best, Average (+0). If you assume a DM of +3 and average End score for the Popsicle, that makes for a death rate of ~16.67%

Take extra time and that drops to 1 in 36. Add in circumstantial DMs, or an actual specialist attending (Medic-3 or more, or with ranks in the right Life Science), and fatalities become quite rare (task system notwithstanding).

Giving low passengers the Cattle Car treatment will lose a lot of them, though.

 

[sideranautae]

After combing the CRB it is clear that travel via Low Berth is insanely risky.

Based on the Medic skill examples the skill check would be at best, Average (+0). If you assume a DM of +3 and average End score for the Popsicle, that makes for a death rate of ~16.67%

Take extra time and that drops to 1 in 36. Add in circumstantial DMs, or an actual specialist attending (Medic-3 or more, or with ranks in the right Life Science), and fatalities become quite rare (task system notwithstanding).

Giving low passengers the Cattle Car treatment will lose a lot of them, though.

Medic 2 in MgT is an MD. You aren't getting SUPER MD's to look after LB passengers. I am already giving a +3 to the roll in my calculations. So, you ARE looking at HUGE, GIGANTIC death tolls per RAW.

Your House Rules not withstanding.

 

[Infojunky]

Medic 2 in MgT is an MD. You aren't getting SUPER MD's to look after LB passengers. I am already giving a +3 to the roll in my calculations. So, you ARE looking at HUGE, GIGANTIC death tolls per RAW.

Your House Rules not withstanding.

Yet Cold berths remain a part of Cannon as a crew replacement mechanism in the form of Frozen Watches.

So obviously there are Exceptions to the RAW......

 

[GypsyComet]

Medic-2+ is only rare as a pick-up skill. The actual Physician path under Scholar is going to see Medic-3 pretty frequently.

Extra time is a standard rule.

The ideas of circumstance DMs for facilities, careful cold berth insertions (the basis for Cold Watch berths), or a Task Chain assist DM from having Sci:Biology or Xenology, are not outside the rules, but are certainly not specifically cited.

I look at the presented mechanic for low berths in MGT to be the "worst acceptable case": some PC with a little medical training hoping he doesn't have any freezer burn to deal with. Larger scale commercial low berth passage is handled with more care by trained professionals and has a much lower fatality rate.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I think life boats should be equipped with them. You can't always count on a habitable planet being nearby when you must abandon ship, for those instances, you have escape pods and life boats equipped with low berths. What do you think?

Other than exploratory ships (maybe mil too) lifeboats aren't that useful. A passenger ship goes from 100D limit to 100D limit. Even an inaccurate jump means they are within a couple days from a rescue. There are just about 0% chance of needing to leave the ship. Anything that catastrophic has probably killed all on board anyway. You can't "sink" a spaceship like a ship on the water.

What if its the 100D limit of a gas giant, the ship was intending to refuel at and then something went wrong? What if the system the gas giant was in, was uninhabited, all the system was is a refueling stop for ships intending to make a further jump to an inhabited system? Lets say the ship is in the gas giant's atmosphere, it gets a little too deep, and is struck by lightning, shorting out the control panel, the crew runs to the life boats while the ship plummets towards the center of the gas giant, crew members climb inside close the hatches and launch the life boats. The life boats reach orbit using their maneuver drives. The life boats are in low orbit, there is no one their to rescue them, but they figure someone will eventually be around to refuel, so they set up the automatic distress beacon and they go into their low berths to be rescued.

 

[Reynard]

There's always been the low berth lottery among ship crews in Traveller so the death rate is known and accepted. Desperation can make people do all kinds of risky things and lack of money is a common form of desperation. You can't talk to the popsicles so you don't know what their background is that they must travel by low berth.

Historically, Earth regularly has populations travel under very dangerous conditions from the steerage of sailing ships to busses and trains packed with people even on the roof. If a transportation owner can get away with such conditions and make money, it will be done. If the owner has any conscience and is reputable, there will be a well trained medical staff and facilities in part to successfully revive the low berth passages. This is especially true on military vessel with Watches. Climbing on to a tramp frighter with a few cryos in the back of the hold is definitely taking a big challenge.

And don't forget Time Travellers, people (with money) who regularly travel in cryo to awaken now and then to how the universe has changed while they are still relatively haven't aged.

 

[phavoc]

Two separate issues here - lifeboats and low berths as a travel option.

I have always been of the firm opinion that low berths aren't equivalent to steerage. I think they were put into the game as a mechanic in the very beginning because suspended animation sounded cool. Except you do run a high risk of death when being thawed. That's a fundamental flaw because as it was pointed out, individual ships aren't going to have doctor's on board, especially tramp freighters. That is completely unrealistic. Low berths as emergency devices make far more sense. If you are rescued while a corpsicle, then your rescuers can leave you frozen until they have a doctor available to thaw you out. That makes perfect sense.

The issue of lifeboats has always struck me as a funny one. The arguments against them are silly. If you look at history, our naval traditions have moved forward to ensuring crews have adequate or at least reasonable safety options. Space crews always have an escape capsule. Fighter pilots have ejection seats. Passengers have, uh, flotation cushions in the event you are going to be in the Hudson. Ships have lifeboats, and rarely are they required, but sometimes you do need them. I get the argument that a starship's hull provides you with a lot of protections. But, for whatever reason, if that hull becomes untenable, you gotta leave. Hell, the rules don't even cover if passengers get emergency temp vac suits - kind of important if you are in a vacuum, eh?

I think lifeboats would be standard in passenger ships, and smaller private ships like a free trader probably wouldn't be required to have them. Bigger warships should because their purpose is to get shot up. So yeah, their hulls might become untenable at any time. As to whether or not they should have low berths, I dunno. Those would make sense if you would expect weeks or months to go bye before rescue. The thing is, the universe is a big place. There has to be a huge amount of in-system travel - it makes no sense that the entire Imperium exists only from jump to jump. But the game has rarely discussed what a populated and busy star system looks like. In some ways a solar system is just a pretty picture frame to hold up to the main planet with the main starport. It's sad, but that's the way it's been.

In a system with a class A/B starport and enough traffic, yeah, rescue might be only a few days away. That's assuming they get your signal. But in a different systemm, with less traffic or a starport that doesn't have the resources to mount a rescue, that lifeboat might be your only salvation to get somewhere safe while you prey that you get lucky and somebody hears your distress signal.

 

[sideranautae]

What if its the 100D limit of a gas giant, the ship was intending to refuel at and then something went wrong? What if the system the gas giant was in, was uninhabited, all the system was is a refueling stop for ships intending to make a further jump to an inhabited system? Lets say the ship is in the gas giant's atmosphere, it gets a little too deep, and is struck by lightning, shorting out the control panel, the crew runs to the life boats while the ship plummets towards the center of the gas giant,

If this happens at skimming speed (which is GG orbital speed ~30 km/sec) you will be dead. No time to get to lifeboats as you plunge into the dense atmosphere and are torn apart.

Now, if a ship is regularly going to be going to uninhabited systems (which is not what 99% of commercial vessels do, then it might be a good idea. Please reread the OP as it covers that.

But, other than that there is no real case to be made FOR lifeboats.

 

[sideranautae]

The issue of lifeboats has always struck me as a funny one. The arguments against them are silly. If you look at history, our naval traditions have moved forward to ensuring crews have adequate or at least reasonable safety

Apple's & asteroids. Forget the wet navy. There is no real TECHNICAL case to be made except as I outlined above. Don't refer to floating on a liquid surface to make the case. At first quick glance it sounds like a good analogy but, as you model it, you find the similarities are not really there.

If one can make a good case using the environment of space and how Trav ships (excepting the exceptions in the OP) for life boats, it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Reynard]

Unlike a wet transportation environment that must traverse the entire route from point A to point B, a starship, most especially commercial vessels, jump from one 100d to another most often in high traffic main worlds. That odds there will be emergency service available in a timely manner is enormous. Rescue bubbles are perfect for this situation. This is also why commercial ships should be refueling at refined depots over all that free stuff far from the main world. They prefer cargo and passenger space over a small craft capable to carry crew and passengers. If your ship is in distress within a GG atmosphere, it's probably too late to use a lifeboat.

Frontier refueling is done by desperate, greedy merchant, those insane adventurers or military units taking calculated risks.

 

[sideranautae]

Unlike a wet transportation environment that must traverse the entire route from point A to point B, a starship, most especially commercial vessels, jump from one 100d to another most often in high traffic main worlds. That odds there will be emergency service available in a timely manner is enormous. Rescue bubbles are perfect for this situation. This is also why commercial ships should be refueling at refined depots over all that free stuff far from the main world. They prefer cargo and passenger space over a small craft capable to carry crew and passengers. If your ship is in distress within a GG atmosphere, it's probably too late to use a lifeboat.

Frontier refueling is done by desperate, greedy merchant, those insane adventurers or military units taking calculated risks.

Yes. If you look at the tools available they are really good. Rescue bubbles and Medical Fast drug. Heck put people in Vacc suits with a 12 hour air supply and then give 'em Fast. That's 30 days of life while waiting...

 

[DickTurpin]

Reviving low berth passengers is done billions of times each day across the Traveller universe. The check should at worst be Routine (+2) and with the specialized medical programming you would expect to be installed in the low berths themselves, it could be considered Easy (+4). Using a portable Mediscanner (CSC p. 167) grants a +1 DM to the Medic roll. Add in a bonus for taking your time and it should be impossible to fail unless the passenger was especially frail.

Things to remember to avoid legal action for wrongful death: Make sure to use a trained technician (at least Medic-0), have the correct medical gear on hand, Take the time to do it right!, if the passenger is injured or frail then have a medical expert or Autodoc assist.

 

[phavoc]

I'm not as fixated on starships vs. spaceships as everyone else seems to be. Intra-system traffic will be dominated by non-jump ships (with a few exceptions). System-to-system is, of course, an area exclusive to jump capable ships.

As to drawing naval inferences, I did, in fact, mention the only space capabilities that this planet has seen. And those stations have always had a lifeboat for the crewmembers to leave if an emergency comes up and they have to abandon ship. Considering how much people toss off (myself included) the comment "that's not very realistic", NOT having emergency systems/lifeboats/etc seems pretty unrealistic to me.

This is an argument that never ends. Anyone should feel free to say that disasters and fuck-ups will never occur in your Traveller universe, ergo you either live or die on your ship. I don't see it that way. Safety will always be a priority, and more so when the environment is as deadly as space is. To never prepare for something that will occur is insane.

 

[sideranautae]

Reviving low berth passengers is done billions of times each day across the Traveller universe. The check should at worst be Routine (+2) and with the specialized medical programming you would expect to be installed in the low berths themselves, it could be considered Easy (+4). Using a portable Mediscanner (CSC p. 167) grants a +1 DM to the Medic roll. Add in a bonus for taking your time and it should be impossible to fail unless the passenger was especially frail.

Lowberths have NO autodoc or med ability per the rules. No help there. Per the Medic skill examples, something as medically involved as reviving a person from a near dead state would be at LEAST as medically complex as applying first aid to an injured person (see examples) which is a +0 difficulty.

Either the rules get rewritten; maybe in a manner like you suggest or, sane people don't travel via that route.

 

[sideranautae]

As to drawing naval inferences, I did, in fact, mention the only space capabilities that this planet has seen. And those stations have always had a lifeboat for the crewmembers

Sure, at TL 7. You are NOT examining the tech available at even Early Interstellar levels.

You need to make a case using what is/isn't available at THOSE TL's. You haven't even attempted that. The first step would be to outline possible case examples of where and why a starship would need a life boat. Simply citing that a TL 7 tincan in low orbit around Earth has one doesn't qualify in the least.

That would be similar to stating that TODAY, commercial airliners must carry a dedicated Navigator because they did to at TL 6.

 

[Reynard]

"Things to remember to avoid legal action for wrongful death:"

Make them sign a waiver.