Rule of thumb for passengers as cargo

[Spartan159]

Basically, how many people/aliens can you stuff into a cargo bay in a dire emergency?

The Calculation would be for standard height cargo deck, the double height cargo bay of a subsidized merchant would be half wasted without a temporary deck installed for instance.

With regards to aliens, I would think that Vargr and Aslan would use the roughly the same room as humans, Droyne 1/2 to 1/3 maybe, K'kree at least x3 and I've no clue for hivers.

I don't suppose there are already rules in place for such events?

And yes, life support would be an issue. I am using the variant rules from https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/lifesupport.html, modified in that Maximum lifeforms = 4 humanoid life forms per stateroom. Anything over 4 * Staterooms use the refugee rules.

Some Information I found in a FEMA guideline recommended a minimum of 65 cubic foot per person or about 1.84 cubic meters, giving about 2 meters headroom results in 0.92 square meters per person, call it 4.89 persons per 4.5 square meters of deck space, or about 489 people on the cargo deck of a standard Subsidized trader, bumped to 978 with a second deck in the cargo hold for very short term transportation, much less for any length due to life support costs without carrying extra life support. Thoughts?

 

[Condottiere]

I think you pretty much have to install life support equipment to cover extra mouth breathers.

It's possible that there's a redundancy built into the usual ones, so that if run at full blast, you can provide for more passengers, and/or you can temporarily overclock the equipment.

 

[Spartan159]

I think you pretty much have to install life support equipment to cover extra mouth breathers.

It's possible that there's a redundancy built into the usual ones, so that if run at full blast, you can provide for more passengers, and/or you can temporarily overclock the equipment.

Oh, I'd think you were definitely overstressing the life support system. What repairs would be needed is another guess given that there is no direct life support system cost. Maybe 10% of the combined stateroom cost?

 

[rust2]

As for the life support problem, there is the standard 20 dton launch which is described as a lifeboat in the core rules, although it only has life support for the cockpit crew and no life support system at all for any passengers. This seems to indicate that either the life expectancy in a standard lifeboat is unpleasantly short, or that a normal life support system can be made much more efficient for a limited amount of time.

 

[Reynard]

Add acceleration benches or acceleration seats and the lifeboat is a passenger carrier, HOWEVER, it's not built for long duration flights. Even the 95 ton Passenger Shuttle has no fresher facilities so you better 'hold it' until it docks or bring a honey pot with you. Normally one needs a stateroom facility for food and water but even the lowly cargo hold has air for a shirt sleeve environment throughout weeks of operation but are not meant to be lived in. Even the acceleration seat has the caveat "it is commonly used on commercial small craft designed for short haul flights to and from orbit and flights to close satellites." Peanuts and drinks may or may not be included. The lifeboat is that mostly in name only but has the advantage over a Re-entry Pod to get passengers and crew to a more distant objective rather than from orbit. I's going to smell and passengers are going to face dehydration and hunger the longer the trip takes. These are truly 'emergency' small craft.

You might use the Acceleration Bench as a rule for how tight you can fit passenger in 1 ton at 4 human sized people while not straining the air. You could squeeze more very uncomfortably but now the scrubbers should be suffering as the air goes quickly stale in a few days then begins to fail maybe after... two weeks? The maintenance and replacement schedule is probably generous to prevent hardship or actual danger to ships but overload will degenerate effectiveness quickly.

I mentioned the King Richard over in the Starliner thread having 'lifeboats' but there were no stats just a brief description which does sound like the 20 ton launch modified to have 20 low berths and a crew of 3. This would be a true lifeboat with provisions normally supplied to the crew for the craft's operating endurance until rescue or reaching a base or planet.

For not dire emergency situation, you can have cattle boats, ships using barracks for the truly desperate passengers. In some ways this could also be Stables described in HG2e pg. 47 which can house 20 humans.

"Steerage is the lower deck of a ship, where the cargo was stored above the closed hold. During the early 1900s many immigrants were too poor to travel on the upper decks, with wealthy passengers, so they were stuffed in converted cargo spaces which provided the lowest cost and lowest class of travel. The living conditions on the steerage deck were often horrible, with no bathroom facilities besides pots and pans. These horrible conditions caused many deaths due to unsanitary and cramped quarters. Gradual improvements to steerage class after the arrival of ocean liners led to its replacement by Third Class cabins."

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I would assume the life support facilities are included in the accommodations. A stateroom includes long-term life support for two people. It can probably be overtaxed for a while.

I would allow a two-fold safety margin for a week in jump (comparable to double bunking in small craft staterooms in CT). It would be smelly and perhaps not have enough water for daily showers, but it would get you out alive. See basic passage in MgT.


For short trips: You can squeeze in about 4 people per m² sitting on the floor. A cargo hold would have about 4.7 m² floor per dT, so about 19 people per dT. Add a few jury-rigged oxygen tanks and CO₂ scrubbers, and it should be good for a few hours.

Airline cattle-class seating is about 10 people per dT, and people suffer that voluntarily and even pay for the pleasure

 

[Condottiere]

I think you can double the number of air breathers for a given value, but it places a strain on the system.

Cargo holds could be equipped to act as stables, or should I say, must be equipped with a Stable life support system, if you want to use them as accommodations.

 

[heron61]

Stables can hold up to 2 people per dTon, but a brig is 4dTon, and can hold 6 normally and can "uncomfortably hold
double that number in a pinch." HG2, page 38. So, for long-term refugee class travel, 3 people per dTon sounds about right, and maybe up to 4/dTon, since you don't need the thick walls and security measures of a brig. However, I'd definitely limit things to 4/dTon for any sort of long term travel, and at that level of crowding, no one is going to be happy or comfortable.

 

[Condottiere]

You can be creative in your use of interior decoration.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

4 people per dT is something like this:

You get to choose between a bunk or a place to sit, but not both...

I really doubt regular starships are built with that much life-support capacity; for 16 people per stateroom.

But I guess it is technically possible...

 

[Reynard]

Was going through my classic Traveller stuff and decided to check out Traders and Gunboats for the small craft launch. Found what I thought was there, the lifeboat variant of the launch as well as the gig variant. The lifeboat carries 6 emergency lowberths as standard. For HG2e, up the power plant slightly to power the berths. Still usable for cargo to but for true lifeboats keep upping the power plant and fill that cargo space with more emergency low berths. It is about dire emergency.

 

[Condottiere]

I've examined the capsule hotel: it's viable as long as you provide enough life support, from whatever source.

It's certainly more comfortable than triple or quadruple decker beds, and provides some form of privacy.

Today, I've learned a new term in dealing with waste management, the Turdis.

 

[Reynard]

There's a lot of discussion about the hard physical measures for the situation and I believe we frequently surpassed system maximums as we pack people in tighter. One thing that would seem obviously important to the hypothesis is time frame. What is it during these emergencies? Are we talking an incident during a standard transit to or from a jump point to port or some long range catastrophe halfway to the far jovian body a week away from port?

Most of us so far acknowledge cramming bodies is going to tax life support if not outright collapse it. Not just food and water but the onboard air scrubbers will reach a point they can not keep up. At least an ocean going life boat doesn't rely on a contain air supply. Getting back to the original concept, a ship with cargo space is in the area of a distressed vessel. With great sorrow, the captain dumps the cargo, reseals and re-pressurizes the bay and begins embarking passengers telling them to follow the crew to the on bare cargo area, sit down and remain calm. More and more people enter and sit because they will not be able to stand for days. We will chalk off a grid of 1.5 x 1.5 squares. Out stretching my arms, that is from one fingertip to the opposite elbow. Use that measure to create a 2D box and that might be enough so each person could lay down uncomfortably in a tight ball. Height means nothing. Each person will have no food or water unless the crew offer what they can knowing the longer the trip is the quicker supplies for all will dry up. A stateroom can be occupied by 2 people at 4tons, barracks hold 1 person at 2 tons and the stable is maxed at 1 person per 1/2 ton. I would say this says this is the smallest space per person and not tax the life support. Each person sitting in a 1.5x1.5 space in the cargo bay is the maximum for air. The question now is how long will the crew and passengers last on what food and water is available at the moment of rescue. Also explains why lifeboats and rescue ships carry emergency low berths that can carry 2 people in that same 1/2 ton space and there's no consumables needed or need to destroy the fresher.

Part of my time remark at the beginning is the rats in a box situation. How many people will freak out as the days go by?

The A-1 Free Trader can carry 162 people... dead or alive.

 

[Condottiere]

You can always question if the bridge, engineering and other non specific crew accommodation, have independent life support, and to what capacity.

 

[vladthemad]

The cargo holds are air filled, and you've always been able to carry livestock as cargo without problem, so why not people? Even with the "multi environmental space", which can accommodate almost every environment for any animal imaginable there's no cost for life support, only for power. You just have to bring food for the livestock, ahem I mean passengers, if you're going to be making a long journey through jumpspace during this hypothetical emergency. If you're just hauling them to another planet or station in the same relative location, you shouldn't have much to worry about. I always felt that the life support tied to staterooms was rather ambiguous, but in my mind the expenses associated with it are more for food and water than O2. The same equipment you use to gather and purify hydrogen for fuel should be usable to gather oxygen for life support. If you're cracking water/ice especially, why would you dump all that precious oxygen? Any time you make planetfall, you'd start up the compressors and gather all that free air. If it's tainted? Run it through the fuel filters! It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense that you're paying very much for air, if any at all, in those life support costs. At worst assume that oxygen comes with the cost of buying hydrogen for fuel at a station as it may very well be a byproduct depending on how they get their fuel to sell, and that "life support" expenses are actually victuals.

 

[Infojunky]

The cargo holds are air filled, and you've always been able to carry livestock as cargo without problem,

That is a big assumption, especially considering the amount of life support overhead shipping awake live stock would need. The traditional assumption Livestock is shipped in Low.

Also Note while the cargo bay might have atmosphere, it doesn't have the active ventilation that the people occupied portions of the ship have.

 

[Condottiere]

I\d install methane scrubbers.

Maybe light a scent candle.

 

[Infojunky]

I\d install methane scrubbers.

That's a small start, think of the amount of muck Livestock generates.

 

[Condottiere]

Biospheres need fertilizers.

I think you can certify it as organic.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Here's what I could find, hope some of it's useful.

A spacecraft or self-contained, sealed structure with power can usually sustain life support for one person per stateroom for one month comfortably, and for six months at a stretch

Presumably a double-occupation stateroom doubles these values. I'd also guess that a bridge has its own life support, since small craft pilots can survive and unlike cockpit the books say nothing specific about their duration (that I've found).

Up to four basic passengers can be crammed into one stateroom and other areas of the ship can be kitted out with simple bunks to carry more – two tons of space is required for every basic passenger not in a stateroom.

Nothing about extra life support equipment being necessary, though it can be argued what exactly is needed to turn engineering or cargo space into bunking areas (and for how long this will work).

Alien Crew and Passengers
Many alien species can cope with vehicles designed for human occupants with a little adjustment, but larger aliens require special facilities for any kind of extended use. Hivers require 50% more Spaces allocated to them, while K’kree require double the amount

Perhaps the most important part, for this subject at least. This is from CSC and primaribly for short trips, but should be viable for long-term as well.