AndrewW said:
phavoc said:
The rule about it offsetting life support costs don't match reality as the rules are written. By that I mean you incur life support costs regardless of whether or not a cabin is occupied. If that is the rule, then having hydroponics cannot offset any costs since they are fixed. But I don't think anyone is actually paying attention to the add-on rules that fly in the face of logic.
It offsets the per person cost, not per stateroom.
Per HG - Biosphere: This is an area depicted to flora and fauna, either for the production of food or as a leisure area. Every ton dedicated to a biosphere will eliminate the life support costs for two passengers.
We also have the Stables description (also per HG) -
Used by traders, stables are low-grade housing for animals and, in some systems, slaves. Stables come with their own air scrubbers and waste-collectors, avoiding the need to tax the existing life support systems of the ship.
Stables cost Cr25000 per ten tons. A ten ton stable is capable of housing 20 human-sized or 10 cattle-sized creatures. Life support costs are Cr250 per ton. Really these are just barracks.
Life support costs are Cr250/ton for all staterooms, except for luxury, which are Cr500/ton (also per HG)
From the CRB, we have a bit more of a mish-mash of rules. From the table -
Life support costs are Cr1000 per stateroom, Cr3000 for double occupancy, Cr100 per low berth, Cr1000 per person.
If you look at the description below,
Life Support and Supplies: Each stateroom on a ship costs Cr1000 per month. This cost covers supplies for the life support system as well as food and water, although meals at this level will be rather Spartan. Each person on board a ship who is not in a low berth will cost an additional Cr1000 in life support costs.
This has been a perennial problem between books. In some instances you are supposed to ADD the new rules on top of the previous ones. In other instances you are to DISCARD the first rules and use the second set.
HG is breaking the costs down per ton, so it's still Cr1,000/month for a stateroom. The HG rule does not mention double occupancy (unless I missed that), just
cost per ton. Which if you read it as stated, that becomes a fixed cost. If you read the biosphere as written, it states it as per two passengers. So within the same book you have two different understandings of essentially the same thing.
So EITHER costs are fixed OR they are variable, depending on the number of people on board. From a simple, logical perspective, life support costs for the machinery should be built into the annual maintenance. The variable costs are for food, chemicals, filters, etc, for actively using life support. But filters and chemicals are cheap (as would O2 be as well, since it's a free byproduct of processing your own fuel - everything else gets recycled). But the calculations for life support costs assume a fixed cost when you look at ship descriptions.
This has been a continuous disconnect. In the case of the biosphere, I don't think you would actually save any real money from food production. Old School brings up a very valid point - the need to stagger crops with different growing seasons/times to provide fresh fruit/vegetables. The idea always sounds better than the practicality. If you just want fresh herbs/flowers then it would would like a champ. Even on cruise ships today it is more efficient to pick up what you need when you get into port. The logistics train is well-oiled machine. War, of course, throws off every well-oiled machine - especially when someone is trying to shoot holes in your machine.