Ship repair after gas giant dive

[markus_d]

We are playing "Trip Wire" and I am a new gamemaster. Questions come up during our gaming sessions.

To escape the approaching Zhodani Ship in Ao-Dai my players decided to fly into the gas giant. I decided that this is dangerous but possible.
I ruled that the Zhodani will not follow to prevent their ships destruction.
My players ship stayed in the giant for 15 hours which they used to fly to the other side of the giant. With 0,25 maneuver speed.
I decided that they have to take 15 times a 10% chance that their ship gets damaged. Which resulted in damage to the hull and damage to the fuel section. Kindof lucky I guess.
So they survived in a way the campeign did not think of.

Do you think an escape like this makes sense? How would you have handled that?

It brings me to the situation where I have to decide what the ships repair costs. I do not get it from the repair section of the rules.
Do they simply need 2 Tons of spare parts to repair that? How much do spare parts cost? Or is there a fixed cost for crystal iron?

 

[Hopeless]

They dealt with something like this in the first season of Gene Roddenbury's Andromeda where they stayed hidden within a gas giant to escape a pursuing warship.

Babylon V did something similar when the White Star escaped a Shadow ship since it was nowhere near as massive and managed to trick the insane ship into diving too far inside a Gas Giant.

Not sure if either of those help in this situation though!

 

[Reynard]

Not sure which edition you're using but in Traveller 2e page 150 Repairs, spare parts cost KCr.100 per ton and repairs for critical hits and hull are described. Effect from the Engineer or Mechanic task for criticals reduced the amount of spare parts needed whereas 1 ton spare parts always fixes each 10 hull points if the Mechanic check is made.

The GG dive sounds very good and cinematic.

 

[Sigtrygg]

This is from the original Secret of the Ancients adventure:

Ships and Small Craft: A 3G maneuver drive is required before a vessel can enter the atmosphere below 37,000 km. Commercial vessels (traders, merchants, liners) can withstand up to 1,000 K and up to 1,000 atmospheres.
Military vessels can handle temperatures to 1,500 K and pressures to 2,000 atmospheres. System defense boats are specifically constructed to handle temperatures to 2,500 K and pressures to 3,000 atmospheres.

 

[Condottiere]

SBDs play U-Boot in gas giants.

So if the ship's hull can survive the pressure and escape the gravity pull.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

We are playing "Trip Wire" and I am a new gamemaster. Questions come up during our gaming sessions.

To escape the approaching Zhodani Ship in Ao-Dai my players decided to fly into the gas giant. I decided that this is dangerous but possible.
I ruled that the Zhodani will not follow to prevent their ships destruction.
My players ship stayed in the giant for 15 hours which they used to fly to the other side of the giant. With 0,25 maneuver speed.
I decided that they have to take 15 times a 10% chance that their ship gets damaged. Which resulted in damage to the hull and damage to the fuel section. Kindof lucky I guess.
So they survived in a way the campeign did not think of.

Do you think an escape like this makes sense? How would you have handled that?

It brings me to the situation where I have to decide what the ships repair costs. I do not get it from the repair section of the rules.
Do they simply need 2 Tons of spare parts to repair that? How much do spare parts cost? Or is there a fixed cost for crystal iron?

What damages the ship? A gas giant is mostly made of gas, there is nothing to crash into. If a starship can fly into the atmosphere of a regular planet, the atmosphere of a gas giant should present no special problems, unless they go too deep!

 

[-Daniel-]

SBDs play U-Boot in gas giants.

Did you mean SDB ?

 

[fusor]

What damages the ship? A gas giant is mostly made of gas, there is nothing to crash into.

Tell that to Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Or the Galileo orbiter.

 

[Reynard]

Gas giant atmospheres get thick fast and the air movement will toss a ship. Even on the outer edges a ship can get tossed and take damage. You play nice with worlds that can wash a mild storm over the entire Earth over and over.

 

[phavoc]

What damages the ship? A gas giant is mostly made of gas, there is nothing to crash into. If a starship can fly into the atmosphere of a regular planet, the atmosphere of a gas giant should present no special problems, unless they go too deep!

That gas has density. That gas has mass - the more concentrated the gas, the more mass it has. And that gas isn't necessarily just floating there. Atmospheres have storms. Our atmosphere has storms. Planes have been literally knocked around and out of the sky. You have air currents, electrical discharges, etc.

There are plenty of things that can damage a starship in the atmosphere of a planet or a gas giant.

 

[Reynard]

Most damage to a starship in a gas giant atmosphere is the referees' imagination. It should be interesting, exciting and do something to move or expand the adventure. It could be physical just from the force of the atmosphere or a gigantic jovian tentacle gas bladder creature or it could be effects on systems from energy discharges from lightning or static build up.

 

[Condottiere]

Or was it STD?

 

[-Daniel-]

Or was it STD?

?? Space Herpes ??

 

[Condottiere]

SS Space Herpie.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

What damages the ship? A gas giant is mostly made of gas, there is nothing to crash into. If a starship can fly into the atmosphere of a regular planet, the atmosphere of a gas giant should present no special problems, unless they go too deep!

That gas has density. That gas has mass - the more concentrated the gas, the more mass it has. And that gas isn't necessarily just floating there. Atmospheres have storms. Our atmosphere has storms. Planes have been literally knocked around and out of the sky. You have air currents, electrical discharges, etc.

There are plenty of things that can damage a starship in the atmosphere of a planet or a gas giant.

If it was a ring-shaped lab ship or other dispersed hull that was not meant to go into an atmosphere, if it was a scout ship however, that is what it was built for, skimming gas giants!

 

[Reynard]

As long as you stay in the relative safety of the higher atmosphere. The rules (Traveller 2e page 143) state even streamlined ships may experience difficulties that need Piloting checks to prevent crashes in extreme weather conditions in normal planetary atmospheres. A gas giant is in no way normal.

 

[phavoc]

Starship aren't invulnerable. Even a ship designed to operate in an atmosphere can be damaged or destroyed by it.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Starship aren't invulnerable. Even a ship designed to operate in an atmosphere can be damaged or destroyed by it.

Also a hydrogen atmosphere would over time tend to leak into the ship, especially if he pressure on the outside is greater than the pressure on the inside, and if enough hydrogen gets into the passenger cabin and there is a spark...

 

[Reynard]

Remember that once you take damage and crash land in an ammonia sea of a gas giant, you won't have much time to escape if you have a small craft on board. There is the chance you will attract blobs that live in the ammonia. The gravity makes all but walking impossible and climbing will be very exhausting. This is from the rambling of the only surviving member claiming to be a member of a salvage team on the Haunting Thunder, an Azhanti High Lightning class that supposedly when down by Zhodani SDBs over a gas giant in the Querion system....

Of course everyone knows that it's impossible to land on a jovian 'surface' and live even with and environment suit. The man was taken by Imperial military authorities for indefinite observation under the file Incident V: Dead Ship.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Remember that once you take damage and crash land in an ammonia sea of a gas giant, you won't have much time to escape if you have a small craft on board. There is the chance you will attract blobs that live in the ammonia. The gravity makes all but walking impossible and climbing will be very exhausting. This is from the rambling of the only surviving member claiming to be a member of a salvage team on the Haunting Thunder, an Azhanti High Lightning class that supposedly when down by Zhodani SDBs over a gas giant in the Querion system....

Of course everyone knows that it's impossible to land on a jovian 'surface' and live even with and environment suit. The man was taken by Imperial military authorities for indefinite observation under the file Incident V: Dead Ship.

The gravity of the three out of four gas giants in our Solar System isn't that bad. The ocean in Jupiter and Saturn is liquid hydrogen, the small gas giants have ammonia water oceans underneath their thick atmospheres.