What real use are escape pods?

[Limpin Legin]

I'm talking about while in space Why would a pilot go below orbital speed?

Yes, I too was talking about space - or, at least the space where planetary gravity exists.

Why would a pilot go below orbital speed?

While it might not be desirable, I was referring to episodes where the main ship lost control - either deliberately or by accident. Could be that the main m-drive malfunctioned, for example. Or, perhaps the pilot lost control while hallucinating, etc.

AND, if you are hovering in Jupiter's atmosphere a 1 ton escape pod will probably not make it out of the gravity well

Splendid reasoning, except would anything save the crew if their main vessel had lost control under the same circumstances? (other than to regain control of the main ship before it crash lands.)

 

[mavikfelna]

Yes, I too was talking about space - or, at least the space where planetary gravity exists.

While it might not be desirable, I was referring to episodes where the main ship lost control - either deliberately or by accident. Could be that the main m-drive malfunctioned, for example. Or, perhaps the pilot lost control while hallucinating, etc.


Splendid reasoning, except would anything save the crew if their main vessel had lost control under the same circumstances? (other than to regain control of the main ship before it crash lands.)

Small craft, in most cases, should be able to escape.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Small craft, in most cases, should be able to escape.

Yes, that would be good where there is skilled personnel available, to pilot the emergency small craft. If you plan for a scenario where you cannot guarantee someone skilled to be available ... - then what?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Use the autopilot feature.

 

[MarcusIII]

Splendid reasoning, except would anything save the crew if their main vessel had lost control under the same circumstances? (other than to regain control of the main ship before it crash lands.)

Not that I know of. But that wouldn't justify buying escape pods that also wouldn't effective in one of the only circumstances you'd need them in. Which is one of the reasons this the thread started. To figure out such a useless piece of equipment is being listed

 

[MarcusIII]

If you plan for a scenario where you cannot guarantee someone skilled to be available ... - then what?

On today's ships, military, cargo & passenger all life boats are designed for one skilled operator. They are not designed for having zero skilled personnel on board.

 

[MarcusIII]

Use the autopilot feature.

Yes, with the computers that would be available at those TLs it would be trivial to have such a program and human facing interface. Having continuous data from the Bridge fed into it the small craft would always "know" what course to to follow in an emergency.

 

[Condottiere]

A vault usually survives the destruction of its ship and is sealed so any occupants contained within can survive in a vacuum for a limited period of time. The vault can contain cargo, staterooms or any other internal ship components. Vaults vary between 4–40 tons.

 

[MarcusIII]

A vault usually survives the destruction of its ship and is sealed so any occupants contained within can survive in a vacuum for a limited period of time. The vault can contain cargo, staterooms or any other internal ship components. Vaults vary between 4–40 tons.

Right. Part of the mantra, "Stay with the ship if possible". Large military ships would probably have these

 

[swordtart]

Not that I know of. But that wouldn't justify buying escape pods that also wouldn't effective in one of the only circumstances you'd need them in. Which is one of the reasons this the thread started. To figure out such a useless piece of equipment is being listed

When you say escape pods what specific equipment do you mean. I have been assuming re-entry capsules but escape is only one purpose for them. Certainly the higher tech versions are clearly designed for planetary assault, but even the TL8 ones would serve for covert insertion in the right circumstances. The only mention of Escape Pods is in the chapter on deck plans and then only as one of a number of features.

I am assuming lifeboats are out of scope as they are not specifically listed as equipment. Also any custom vehicle we might design is out of scope as it is not listed (and if we didn't want it we wouldn't have to design it).

Useless is a relative term. Personally I cannot see why loading belts were listed for example. To my mind they are just fluff and filler.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

When I was just designing a freighter I was about to add escape. pods and then I realized that for a ship of this type that just jumps from one large system to another there is no real need for them.

It's not good, but in an emergency, better than nothing... See X-Boat, HG'22, p158.
At 0.5 Dt ≈ 7 m³ a re-entry capsule is presumably much sturdier and more capable than a vacc suit, essentially a tiny one-man small craft. Military versions can even have armour and ECM.

Of course a small craft is better, but also bigger and more expensive per rescuee.


Civilian usage would perhaps involve pirate attack, asteroid collision, or drive failure while landing. Unlikely sure, but not impossible...

In a naval setting an escape pod is presumably not a legal target among civilised foes, but a small craft might be.

MgT1 even had a space combat action "Prepare to abandon ship!" to let crew survive ship destruction in escape pods.

 

[MarcusIII]

It's not good, but in an emergency, better than nothing

Correct. After analyzing the odds of the possible scenarios where they WOULD be useful and the tonnage and cost per person it was determined that in almost every case a small craft, as you point out is better. It also has usefulness otherwise.

 

[Condottiere]

Tends to come down as to how much you want to invest in possible futures.

 

[MarcusIII]

Straight cost benefit analysis.

 

[rinku]

My 1DTon was based on two escape capsules at 0.5 Dton each per HG.

Yeah, but most of that tonnage is likely space for the passengers, An ejectable stateroom has that aspect (as well as life support) covered. A tenth of a ton for the ejection mechanism (which doesn't need to be a rocket... the pod itself is reaction mass as far as the ship is concerned. An simple electromagnet setup could impart the push). I would expect most other things that need to be done wouldn't take up much volume or mass, and may already be standard features of a Stateroom. Automatic sealing of severed utility feeds, for example. Adding a basic distress beacon to the existing stateroom electronics and comms would only be a credit cost.

 

[mavikfelna]

Yeah, but most of that tonnage is likely space for the passengers, An ejectable stateroom has that aspect (as well as life support) covered. A tenth of a ton for the ejection mechanism (which doesn't need to be a rocket... the pod itself is reaction mass as far as the ship is concerned. An simple electromagnet setup could impart the push). I would expect most other things that need to be done wouldn't take up much volume or mass, and may already be standard features of a Stateroom. Automatic sealing of severed utility feeds, for example. Adding a basic distress beacon to the existing stateroom electronics and comms would only be a credit cost.

You could just use the detachable bridge rules for staterooms if you want that ability.

 

[rinku]

Yeah, but what I'm thinking of is even more basic. The ejected room is not expected to do much more than be recovered. Detachable bridges are functional spaceships with a two week endurance. Even Thrust 0 can travel a decent distance in 14 days.

You might also use the modular hull rules to help do it. As it is, there's no problem at all designating a bunch of staterooms as modular, paying the overhead for that and swapping them for other stuff (labs, for example, which are also 4 tons).

For me, it's not something that would be *required* like a 21st century ocean lifeboat, but a feature that some ships might have as a flex.

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[Maxijohndoe]

Thinking about it one big difference between a ship on the ocean and a starship is, while a ship on the ocean without power will drift with the current and wind, a starship will keep travelling at the speed it was going when it lost power.

I actually was looking at doing this in one of my campaigns. The Travellers were in Foreven and had made enemies of a powerful local family. As the Travellers were Imperial Citizens murdering them outright could bring reprecussions, so how about an unfortunate accident?

Basically a small spider bot bomb would be smuggled onto the Travellers' ship with the cargo. Assuming the Travellers failed to detect it it would get into the conduits and work its way to a point where a small detonation would cut power to the drives.

The Travellers would be heading out to the gas giant to skim fuel, so the spider bot waited until the ship started its deceleration half way into the trip. At this point the starship had been accelerating at 1-G for hours so it was going pretty fast. The crippled ship would continue at this speed, missing the gas giant and head out towards the edge of the solar system.

The Travellers had the option to carry out repairs or they could contact allies they had in the belt so rescue was possible.

But imagine you are in a crippled starship heading away from the star and possibly away from the orbital plain out into space. Factor in communication lag and even if other starships are in the system they may be unable to chase down the cripple before life support gives out.

Or you are heading towards a planet or the star with no ability to manoeuvre. That would be like being in a crippled ship drifting towards a reef or cliffs.

In those circumstances getting off the ship in something with its own drive makes sense.

That probably means a small craft. Now if you want a true lifeboat equip that small craft with emergency cold berths to save on life support.

 

[MarcusIII]

In those circumstances getting off the ship in something with its own drive makes sense.

Yes, if you had a small craft it would save you. An escape pod of the type in this thread would be of zero use in that situation. The reason being the extremely limited Δv available from the tiny solid fuel motor in the pod. Maybe a few minutes of 1G acceleration. The velocity of the ship at midpoint at 1G if going from Earth to Mars would be about 1,600 kilometers per second. The pod could only change that velocity by about 3 kilometers per second. No real use saving you.

 

[rinku]

In that situation, if you had operable small craft them best action would likely be to use the small craft's drive to change the ship's vector. It would take time, but you potentially could use the gas giant itself. If the velocity at arrival was too high to get into any kind of orbit, aerobraking might be possible.

Example: A Safari ship's Launch (20 tons,Thrust 1) could move the combined 220 tons of launch plus ship at 1/11th Thrust. That doesn't sound a lot, but it adds up. Especially if it's applied mostly to change heading and move the ship into an orbit heading towards help.