Sick Bays, Med Labs, ect

[whtknght]

1. In CT, sick bays were installed in ships. Are they no longer required in MGT, or are they possibly included in the stateroom misc. cost and space requirements? If not, what is the space / cost to install a sick bay on a ship, and what advantages would it provide per TL?

My house-rules:

Standard Medlabs are subsumed in the stateroom tonnage and cost. Assume 0.25 tons of medical equipment available per stateroom – small ships have medical equipment lockers and a folding stretcher or two, while larger ships have actual infirmaries. Regardless of size, Standard Medlabs have paramedic-level or ambulance-level equipment. While they allow rudimentary surgery and long-term care to be administered, they incur a -2 DM to these tasks due to the limited equipment available. Furthermore, the Referee may decide that certain medical procedures would be too complex for such basic facilities to perform. Standard Medlabs do not provide any additional life support beyond what the ship's staterooms already provide.

Each Dedicated Medlab unit displaces 8 tons and cost MCr1.5 and provide facilities – including dedicated life support and intensive care – for up to two patients; each additional patient capacity adds 2 tons and MCr0.25. Its equipment and facilities are on par with those of a small clinic or a tiny hospital, allowing most medical tasks to be carried out without additional difficulty. Each Dedicated Medlab unit requires one medic per four patients (or a fraction thereof), and in many cases a ship would carry as many Dedicated Medlabs as it has medics in its crew listing.

A Shipboard Hospital displaces 16 tons, costs MCr5 and houses up to two patients with complete life support facilities; each additional patient capacity adds 2 tons and MCr0.5. It is a fully-fledged hospital, complete with laboratories and extensive imaging systems, allowing complex medical procedures such as cybernetic implantation and giving a +2 DM to all medical tasks. A Shipboard Hospital requires one doctor per 8 patients (or a fraction thereof) and one nurse per 4 patients (or a fraction thereof).

Very usable rules. But, I am a geek and have to add my two centicredits;

Your space requirements look good. Some Tech Level adjustments might be useful. Lower Tech Level treatment facilities might require more space.

Costs seem a little low to me. Book 2: High Guard (page 47) only lists a generic Lab as 1 MCr per 4 tons. But that would be for a single scientific discipline. I keep thinking of all the different tests Doctors order to diagnose us today (ie. Blood Tests, Biopsies, Cultures, X-rays, MRI, Ultrasound, Cat Scans).

Any thoughts or ideas out there?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Use the High Tech/Low Tech cost and size adjustments from HG to influence the size of your labs. That could also provide a guide as to what tests could be run.

I have always imagined that Medical Labs are more like an ER than a true Level 1 Trauma Center with the full backing of a University level hospital facility.

YMMV

 

[BP]

...Costs seem a little low to me. Book 2: High Guard (page 47) only lists a generic Lab as 1 MCr per 4 tons. But that would be for a single scientific discipline. I keep thinking of all the different tests Doctors order to diagnose us today (ie. Blood Tests, Biopsies, Cultures, X-rays, MRI, Ultrasound, Cat Scans). ...

Yeah - most of those tests are unneccessary and harmfull (radiation and infection)!

Seriously, (not that I wasn't above) good point about tech, though most of the space would just be for moving around the patient - 13.5 cubic meters is quite a bit of space - and the things you listed would be preformed by just two devices - a scanner and a sample analyzer.

Bearing in mind that starship components are mostly TL7+ and most starships are built at even higher levels.

At higher TL8, the scanner should be like an MRI- with better clarity and a simple ring one sweeps down the patient -the software can take care of the motion dynamics (with the exception of the stagnation that patents provide we would easily already be there today).

The anaylzer for blood and tissue would simply be a handheld device with built in sterilizer. It would test down to the subcellular level - easlily nucleic acids and protiens, most viruses, etc. Again, TL8+ for that. Cultures need not be grown - the base constituents are checked directly. Exotic or extremely small viruses and full genetics should require more dedicated equipment - these units would cover the most common and predifined testing and anaylsis.

So, for higher TL, I would just say things are less cramped due to more advanced equipment and keep tonnage the same.

Not that I agree with the tonnages or other figures posted - I generally don't. For simplicity I have used the lab numbers for sick bays and treating upto two patients. Cyroberths and medical droids make more advanced facility redundant for all but larger vessels and dedicated medical ships.

(RTT's post beat mine - good idea about the HG TL mods).

 

[Golan2072]

When I created these rules, I had TL10 in mind, or, for the very least, 'mature' TL9. I was thinking about a lot of miniaturization and automation, with high-tech electronics, biotech and software reducing both the size and cost of the equipment necessary to run detailed medical tests and treatments.

At mid-late TL8 or early TL9, I'd double the size of the Dedicated Medlab and the Shipboard Hospital and quadruple their cost. At TL7 or lower (or early TL8), the dedicated Medlab would be 5x the size and x20 the cost and the shipboard hospital would probably be at least 100 dtons in size and cost quite a bit.

At higher TLs above TL11, miniaturization and automation eventually lead to the Autodoc. A TL12 Autodoc is probably as capable and as well-equipped as a TL10 Dedicated Medlab, and a TL15 or so Autodoc would probably give you better care than a TL10 Shipboard Hospital.

 

[rust]

In GURPS Traveller a shipboard sickbay at TL 10 requires 1 dton and
includes an operating table, a diagnostic table and two automeds (re-
placing hospital beds) for a cost of 160,000 Credits.

Compared to this, Golan's design seems far more plausible to me.

 

[whtknght]

In GURPS Traveller a shipboard sickbay at TL 10 requires 1 dton and
includes an operating table, a diagnostic table and two automeds (re-
placing hospital beds) for a cost of 160,000 Credits.

Compared to this, Golan's design seems far more plausible to me.

That sounds like a small space for all that equipment.

I never designed a ship using GT. I have only used the GT books for their setting info not their mechanics.

Is their ship design process even compatible? Is a ton a ton?

 

[rust]

Is their ship design process even compatible? Is a ton a ton?

Yes, it is mostly compatible, there are only minor differences.

I use it quite often for my setting. GURPS Traveller Starships has lots of
options not mentioned in High Guard, and the considerably lower price
tags fit in better with my setting's economy, where much of starship con-
struction is done by robots.