You're right, RAW does cover that. It doesnt cover a lot of superficial things that would also be affected by lack of maintenance, because its too granular to care about. Like replacing seals on doors, lubing things that require to lube, checking emergency stores. Lack of maintenance in one a thing is epidemic in lack of maintenance in all things. And you're right some thing can survive better without maintenance then others. Though we're talking about lack of maintenance which caused an incident which couldnt be recovered and had to be abandoned. Thats pretty serious failure of some kind. The crew that let to happen, isnt going to exempt escape pods. Escape pods that are just tinier space ships. They need space ship maintaince.
If you are using the door every day it will need lubrication regularly as it wears. If you are only using it once it only needs to be lubricated on installation as there is no wear. I replace the brake pads every 2 years or so. The brake disks every 5 years or so. My car is a 2007 and for the first time ever I had to replace a brake calliper. I will never have to replace it again because well designed things have sacrificial parts to protect the important and expensive stuff. That granularity that we don't have equally easily accommodates easily replaced fuses in order to prevent internal overloads.
Escape pods are a ship component and require the same maintenance cost as other ship components (i.e. 0.1% of their cost per year). The Jump Drive for a Subsidised Liner costs KCr75 per year in maintenance. A Re-entry capsule costs Cr20 per year in maintenance. The Liner might have 100 of them and it will cost less than Cr200 per month to service all of them.
You cant have escape pods reachable with so little time, without the ship being made out of mostly escape pods. Especially with the proposal of for them to be on larger liners. Escape pods can only be on the outside not on the inside.
Ship deck plans are an entirely personal matter. You can put any component where you want. You can put all staterooms as outermost facing components and then an escape pod that is built into the stateroom will be adjacent to space. On the Subsidised Liner 24 of the 30 staterooms on the passenger deck are outermost facing. The six internal staterooms might require a little more work, but they can always eject upwards (or downwards depending on how the decks are arranged) ditto the crew staterooms.
If everyone is in the dining room when a bulkhead blows out then no they won't get to a pod, but they won't get to anything else either so that is a wash. Most accidents logically happen when the ship is stressed, that isn't the time you hold the masked ball, it is when passengers are confined to their staterooms and preferably strapped into their safety seat/escape pod in preparation for emergence or jump.
Almost all planets will kill you. Not everyone of them. But pretty much all of them. Have you ever taken a gander at sector books? A lot of tidal locked hell worlds, or having to live under crystal iron domes have to use a HEV or life-support masks to get around. If you're chief complaint to me is circumstance, then pleading for the most improbable circumstances should cause some amount of self reflection. Escape pods are fine, because the ships only fail where they can land and let folks walk outside without support.
Most planets generated using the world generation rules won't kill you. The atmosphere is 2d6-7 plus planet size (which itself 2d-2). Most Atmosphere 2-9 can be managed with cheap survival supplies (filter respirator). 1-2 and 10 can be survived with an Emergency Soft Suit (which might be in more upmarket survival kits and can be recharged using the pods life support).
Both rolls need to be pretty high to generate 11+ worlds. All but Atmosphere 11 can be survived by staying in the pod (possibly under Fast drug as otherwise it will become very tedious) and even 11 can be survived by staying in orbit. Any of the 11+ worlds that are inhabited will by definition have somewhere that atmosphere is managed (or there wouldn't be a settlement)
Published systems generally only document the main world and not the other worlds and moons in the system. The chances of there being no planet in the entire system that isn't atmosphere 11 is vanishingly small. You also have to wonder what the ship that had the accident is doing in such a system in the first place.
And no it wont take any special effort to kill espace pods. A one hit point, slowly plodding away thing. They dont have stealth. So its impossible to lose track of them. They're just popcorn chicken of war crimes.
Unless we're now saying that escape pods, that cant fail because of maintenance, or will be more tolerate to lack of maintenance have a top of line M drives in them to escape.
Pods can be ejected at speed (using the ships ejectors system) and only need an m-drive to manoeuvre once they emerge from their launch bays/tubes. Even so a 0.5 DTon pod only needs a 0.0005 Dton drive to make thrust 1. You could get thrust 5 for only 0.0025 DTon. The power requirement and therefore fuel requirement is tiny. If you want to splash the cash for your high passengers you can even get the TL14 capsules that have additional protection and are harder to detect.
In your spider egg sact example, at the prodigious number of a 100 escape pods. I guess from just sheer amount of time, some may escape even if they're plodding away.
A dedicated pirate could certainly track down every escaping pod, they are probably bleeping on emergency frequencies for a start but why bother. It just means spending time in system at the scene of the crime. It will be even easier to kill the people on the ship who have been forced into Vacc Suits and Rescue Bubbles.
And yea, it takes tiny amount of fuel to run power in a powerplant for 4 weeks. This just keeps heat and water and air going. Doesnt keep food going. I will concede that fast drug being a good use. Which doesnt need to be in an escape pod to be used like that.
You can survive for about a month without food even without Fast Drug. It is apparently tough for the first few days and then you get used to it and some even say your wits sharpen up. The pod survival kit likely contains some food, but probably a week at most (and it will taste awful). Without fast or sedation you are likely to go insane if forced to remain conscious floating in orbit for more than a few days (or even hours for some). We can hope the survival kit contains some sedative or anti-anxiety drugs.
If you are staying on the ship under Fast then operating at 60th speed is likely to kill you. Fast slows your metabolism it doesn't make you fall any slower (and it will make it impossible to walk). Fast is designed for people in controlled environments. Sitting in a failing ship while crew rush around you trying to save it at 60 times speed doesn't sound like it. Tucked into a safety chair out of the way with systems designed to manage things for you does. But it is a choice.
Most atmosphere will kill you. Except reg and low. Most temps will kill. Too much water will you. Too much gravity kills you. To little also kills you but takes a long longer.
You can survive in the pod in orbit for months. You only have to land if the systems determine that landing improves your chances. Even on dangerous worlds not all locations are equally dangerous.
And if we're making the escape pod have a full on m1. The more spaceship parts we give it the more spaceship maintenance it needs. But sure, it has a zippy m1 to cruise around. For that to happen, that means that the escape pod needs a sensor suit so it knows where its going. Unless we're just eyeballing everything?
It needs the same maintenance as any other KCr20 ship component and costs Cr20 per year.
Basic Sensors are free and take up no Dtons.
And yea, I suppose I should amend my statement of uninhabited and inhabited to trafficked and untrafficed.
With a fast drug, what is a escape doing that isnt being done by a vacc suit or rescue ball.
Vacc Suit and Rescue balls have limited air. You can make that 4 hours last for 10 days at most with Fast Drug. Under your own criteria you are not expecting rescue for at least 14 days (unless someone random wanders past). If the ship is still sufficiently operational for there to be functional life support to plumb into you don't need the Vacc suit or the ball.
Don't get me wrong the experience will probably give you PTSD. You might decide to crash onto that insidious atmosphere just to end it all. You might go crazy and become feral. Or it might be the making of you. With really bad luck you might just starve in space off your face on Fast and sedatives.
If you can stay with the ship that should always be Plan A, especially if rescue is expected in hours. A survivable planet is better than a semi-survivable ship as a longer term proposition. If you have no better choices then Vacc Suit or Rescue Ball are better than nothing, but only offer very short term survivability.
With the default rules we have escape pods are viable and with a little work using the small craft book and proper kitting out from CSC and other equipment books they could be the preferred option (particularly for an under-pressure captain who could save his ship if only he could get those panicked civies out of the way for a few days).
