What real use are escape pods?

[Condottiere]

I can speak from the High Guardesque aspect, and additions to such.

And, apparently, deep dive submersibles, as well as what's happening in Ukraine.

This depends on the complexity of the machinery involved, and I'd guess, reaction time/latency.

You probably could simplify the interface/controls to a games controller, assuming that the pilot understands the feedback he's given, and the controller delivers instructions exactly as the pilot understands how the *craft involved interacts with it's environment.

For Traveller, we have a cut off, currently, at fifty tonne hulls, for cockpits, so anything sized upto that, in accordance to the rules, should be permittable.

 

[agentwigggles]

when the small craft undocks it has the same velocity as its mothership. So it can just scoot in front of it. The crew may not have means to repair the m drive but they have the means to make temporary struts. Even if they have to cannibalize part of the ship. And any amount of retro thrust will reduce the mothership speed. They have a 2 week time frame to slow down the ship. SO they wont need to apply high thrust, risk the struts breaking.

 

[agentwigggles]

Ok, you made your point. No need to respond.

So, essentially you can have O2 with fire or you can have no fire and no O2,. We're getting somewhere. If you have fire, you're having stuff melting (plastics, insulators, control surfaces). If you vent to get rid of the meltiness (that's also consuming your O2), you have an O2 free environment. Winning.

At some point, a life raft starts to look better than the out of control, and eother on fire or vented mass. That's maybe not the hardest science out there but we're talking about games with jump drives and psionics

I would also guess that none of this is being done in a safe, orderly controlled environment. And may involve dice rolls (so something may go wrong).

As for attitude adjustment, I'm sure I could work out the distance for a 5 degree change over 2 days at 16,000km/s but I'll keep that for myTraveller. You don't need to respond.

You can evacuate the air as part of fire suppression without the air being lost. And if you didnt have the atmosphere to repopulate the fire damage room. Then you just leave it sealed off and dont worry about it.
This is where how movie dramatic YTU is about holes in space.
In real life, its not that dramatic. It can be very deadly. Just visually boring and short lived. Air is restricted from leaving a volume based on tis diameter. Small holes, small leaks. Even if the leak is to vacuum. Big holes will have that hurricane effect we see in media, but only for a few moments. Its unlikely to move an adult size person with force out into space unless you got unlikely and where at at the hole when it was formed. Though if you were at the hole when it was formed, you're probably dead anyway.
Its totally valid to run it like Aliens 3 where a hole in the hull has sustain infinite force, and will suck anything through it. Just make sure everyone at the table knows. This is a thing the characters would know, as well they lived, or worked in space all their life.

 

[swordtart]

Some of this thread appears to be an assertion that nothing sufficiently bad can happen on a ship that can't be resolved with a vacc-suit or rescue bubble.

Now if YTU runs on rails and there are never incidents and everything is deterministic then you don't need insurance in any form and any discussion is moot. No escape pods won't have any use in your game as nothing can happen that requires them. It's like the game only focusses on when you get to the dungeon and there are no wilderness encounters.

I on the other hand play a game where things do happen unexpectedly... because that is what happens in real life and is kind of the point of playing the game. Every transit runs a reasonable chance of some minor hiccup that requires a little effort by the players to resolve and to exercise some of their non-combat skills. rarely are they life threatening, but poor decisions can escalate.

But even in the plain vanilla game there are chances things can go wrong. Lets say you run a 200 Dton free trader and because of funds skip a maintenance event. One of the possible outcomes is a fuel leak where you loose 10-60% of your fuel capacity. Now you might decide that these things only happen when you are on the pan in the star port or on the 1st of the month, but logic dictates these things happen when you are not expecting it. So lets roll a d30 and see the day it occurs after that missed maintenance check.

If the is area so well populated with a healthy traffic then help might be only a call away. But then again so might someone who sees a ship that is dead in space as an opportunity. How many ships are within range.

Lets say however that you are off the beaten track a bit (because that is where the trade and adventures are).

I can fix it you say. Sure if you have spares (and if you could afford them, you could have afforded the maintenance), tools, a vacc suit and 1d6 hours and a successful engineering check you can repair the leak, but you don't get the lost fuel back. I am going to presume that until you get that leak fixed you have to isolate the fuel system and cannot operate the power plant (or the critical has no impact other than a few credits fuel and you might as well keep rolling and that is not how fuel leaks work or criticals should work). With no power you have no life support, ships systems (including the computer or comms) or m-drive. Life pods if you had them could launch under their own power. Still never mind, you won't asphyxiate in a few hours and you can always climb into a bubble right?

What if it takes more than 2 hours (the average is 3.5 hours) or the engineer fails the roll or you don't have the spares? Your passengers could be dead.

Let's say you fix it and can now assess the impact.

If it is just after emergence so you burned all the jump fuel which left you with 1DTon. You left the previous planet over a week ago and maybe almost 2 weeks previously. You ran the m-drive all the way out to the jump-point so your power plant has been running all the while. You are burning 1/4 DTon per week. Lets say the journey so far has been. Normally you would have a decent reserve at this point (lets say 20 days fuel left).

But if you were unlucky and suffer fuel loss and roll a 60% for the amount that reserve is now reduced to much lower. If we are generous and say it is 60% of your non-jump fuel so would loose 18 days of fuel. That leaves you with 2 days fuel. You now have to choose between between a few days life support or using your m-drive to try to make it to the main world. You could eke it out with a boost coast, but you might not have enough to land (and maybe there is no orbital refuelling).

Maybe there is a moon a bit closer that has a small mining base on it. If you had escape pods you could drop the passengers and all but essential crew there and reduce the life support burden and be able to limp in to the main. You could maybe land there instead, but risk being stuck there until a supply ship comes out.

Life pods give you options, that is all.

 

[WHULorigan]

. . .
This is where how movie dramatic YTU is about holes in space.
. . . Big holes will have that hurricane effect we see in media, but only for a few moments. Its unlikely to move an adult size person with force out into space unless you got unlikely and where at at the hole when it was formed. Though if you were at the hole when it was formed, you're probably dead anyway.
Its totally valid to run it like Aliens 3 where a hole in the hull has sustain infinite force, and will suck anything through it. Just make sure everyone at the table knows. This is a thing the characters would know, as well they lived, or worked in space all their life.

Don't you ever WATCH those movies? The hole isn't venting and BLOWING you out into the vacuum as the pressure drops, it is SUCKING you into space from OUTSIDE and will continue to do so until you lose your grip, or your adversary does (however long that takes) and the person finally flies thru the hole. Only then does the hurricane-force windstorm begin to drop off and let up so that whoever is left can pull themselves to safety with difficulty (regardless of the interior volume of the room, size of the hole, or how much atmosphere it could possibly have held at 1.0 atm pressure to begin with).

 

[WHULorigan]

Some of this thread appears to be an assertion that nothing sufficiently bad can happen on a ship that can't be resolved with a vacc-suit or rescue bubble.

I think it is more of an "actuarial" cost/benefit issue, from an in-game perspective:

Sure we can all engage our imagination and come up with a scenario with a particular set of special conditions in which either a "Lifepod" or "Lifeboat" would be both useful and desirable. But the people who live in this Universe (like us) will be constrained by the same factors of "What would I like to have in my perfect world" vs. "What is reasonable to have concerning the costs, resources, and sacrifices involved in making this happen as compared to the likelihood of actually needing it, and the severity of the need should such circumstances arise?" In other words, are the naval architects who build vessels (civilian or otherwise) going to include it in the design if it is going to significantly inflate the cost for something that is merely a contingency plan against a long-shot or freak unlikely occurrence? (Especially when there are already rescue systems such as Rescue Balls, Vacc-Suits, and Emergency Re-entry Kits that are cheaply available and are standardly mandated emergency equipment - Or when it is advisable in many cases to simply stay with the disabled ship?)

Alternatively, if you can make the "Escape Vehicle" useful for other purposes by making it a "multi-mission" component, you increase its value and the justification for having it on board . . .

 

[Condottiere]

Starting at TL9, all hulls are self-sealing. A self-sealing hull automatically repairs minor breaches, such as micrometeoroid impacts, and prevents hull hits from causing explosive decompression.

 

[Sigtrygg]

In the Third Imperium setting of the 57th century space travel has been routine and trivial for 10,000 years depending on the world in question.

Did Sylea ever drop to less than TL9 during the long night? Earth certainly didn't, so within the Earth sphere of influemce space travel has been trivially routine for thirty six centuries. In that time TL9+ spacecraft have become so safe lifepods are simply not necessary, stay with the ship until help arrives... any situation that causes you to want to take to life pods has likely killed you already.

 

[Condottiere]

You could add a two tonne flying car, as an atmospheric evacuation vehicle, for a pilot/driver, and two passengers.

Or, addon autopilot.

 

[agentwigggles]

Vacc Suits/rescue ball and an air/raft would do as much good as an escape pod. It'll move under its power in space, if slowly.

 

[MarcusIII]

That leaves you with 2 days fuel. You now have to choose between between a few days life support or using your m-drive to try to make it to the main world. You could eke it out with a boost coast, but you might not have enough to land (and maybe there is no orbital refuelling).

Right, so in that 1:1,000,000 situation you'd take Fast drug and wait for a rescue.

 

[Maxijohndoe]

Obviously there is a wide range of opinions on this topic.

In part this comes about from popular fiction like TV shows and movies which do not necessarily reflect how things would work in Traveller.

Also in part due to the limitations in the materials that have been produced for Traveller over time.

Escape pods.

After running a number of disaster scenarios through my brain I could only come up with one circumstance where an escape pod would be superior to all other options: Naval Battles.

Basically if you have fleet on fleet level engagements you will have circumstances where a ship is becoming unsurvivable. A small craft would allow you to evacuate if you could reach the hangers but a large warship could easily have a number of escape pods positioned where the crew are located. And in the same way pilots do not target other pilots in paracutes I think that naval vessels are unlikely to target escape pods if for no other reason than you might wind up in an escape pod yourself.

Also taking to the escape pods could be a method of indicating that a ship is no longer in the battle, a lowering of the colours.

And compared to a Vacc Suit or Rescue Ball an Escape Pod gets you away from the ship that is being hit by all kinds of weapons, and whatever ships survive the engagement will be in a position to collect the pods.

For comercial or private ships I can't think of a reason why you'd have escape pods.

Lifeboats.

I am probably rare here in that I have created and detailed hundreds of solar systems for Traveller and are aware of the huge range that such systems represent. You have Red Dwarves with a bunch of rocky worlds orbiting in close, to giant stars and binaries where the solar systems cover a hundred AU and you have massive jump shadows.

And this brings up a huge missing part of most Traveller adventures and campaigns: in system travel. Cluster Truck I think addresses this but it is likely that there are many more non-jump capable ships operating in system compared to ships that can jump between them.

If you are jumping into a system with a starport you are arriving at the 100d of the jump shadow assuming no mishaps. The travel time in from the 100d ranges from a few hours to maybe two days at 1G. You are easily within communication range and thus rescue is close.

However in system travel can easily take longer than jumping between system - for example a 1G trip from Earth to Pluto would take around 17 days one way.

So because they don't need jump drives a lot of in system craft will have higher maneuver drives. But faster speeds equals greater danger as you have far less time to identify things with sensors and then take action.

And if jump capable starships are the jet airliners of Traveller then in in system craft are the trucks and buses and light aircraft of Traveller: lower tech, more of them, more accidents and more to go wrong.

So having a degree of self-rescue would be useful for larger in system ships but again cost-benefit might mean many do without.

Explorers.

The final area is what I will term explorative spaceships. These are ships that are travelling outside of the major political boundaries or involved in deep scouting or exploration. These ships need more than just a lifeboat, they'll need to carry enough equipment to survive potentially for years until either someone comes looking for them or someone just happens along.

Just my ideas on the matter.

 

[agentwigggles]

So explorers just need a second ship they dont use they they carry around? Or are you saying exploring should be done in tandem?

Navy one is good.

 

[Maxijohndoe]

So explorers just need a second ship they dont use they they carry around? Or are you saying exploring should be done in tandem?

Navy one is good.

More like carrying a portable habitat, reactor and a 3D printer. And a small craft to fly between the ship and a planet if the ship can't land.

Having two ships in tandem are better than having one, but it is possible that both ships get in trouble, or one ship cannot support the crew of both ships.

The Franklin Expedition had two ships but both became trapped in the ice, so neither could rescue the other. The ships carried enough supplies to last the crews several years but in the end they all died before any rescue could reach them.

In fact many planets in the Traveller lore were settled by the crew of starships that wound up stranded on them after misjumps or disasters.

 

[MarcusIII]

So explorers just need a second ship they dont use they they carry around? Or are you saying exploring should be done in tandem?

The Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

 

[swordtart]

I am simply trying to square the quoted uselessness of life pods with the ubiquity of published adventures that rely on them.

If you can accept that a re-entry kit is worthwhile then the escape capsule in HG2022 is a cheaper, more reliable implementation. However there is a cost in dtonnage. Every jump it will cost you 1/2 DTon in lost revenue of you are a trader.

Traveller doesn't detail the consequences of if a passenger dies on you. If a low passenger dies it is seen as an acceptable risk, but what about your Middle and High Passengers. Will you be sued for MCr or will the grieving relatives will just send another group of travellers to punish you. Maybe all hands will be lost and it will all just be seen as a terrible tragedy.

If all space travel is so safe that no emergency equipment other than a rescue ball is needed why do we bother detail the ships using High Guard at all. Surely the standard adventure will be "You arrive safely at X. At the star port you encounter Patron Y with Mission Z". All those adventures that require deliveries of low value goods will instead be consigned to the mail services as they are 100% reliable. There will never be any rescue missions. There should be no "You wake to Klaxons."

I am not sure this makes the game better. Space travel in Traveller is as safe and reliable as Air travel in the 1980's. There are 14 commercial airline crashes listed on Wikipedia for 1980. 720 people died in air accidents in August 1985 alone. A CAP681 report from the CAA cited 314 fatal air accidents in the 80's. Remember that does not include the flights where something went wrong and the crew were able to correct and land without loss of life (whether the aircraft could fly again or not). If this is representative of Traveller as we are asked to believe then people are dying in space crashes all over the third imperium every day. In less well developed polities the numbers could be higher. Not necessarily a high proportion of the number of flights will end in a crash. Not enough to appear in a 2d6 table. Not enough to be a regular occurrence at any particular gaming table, but still a significant number and enough to appear on the balance sheet of lawyers, insurance agents and regulatory authorities.

 

[swordtart]

Right, so in that 1:1,000,000 situation you'd take Fast drug and wait for a rescue.

If you cheap out on maintenance it will be far more likely that 1 in a million.

There are other results in the 2d6 maintenance critical table of which most are easily survivable assuming you haven't just ignored them.

Drive failure is likely the most fatal. Lets say you are have started your descent (or are halfway to orbit) and your M-Drive fails (many ships only have thrust 1 and the M-Drive maintenance crit completely kills it). You are now crashing in minutes with no time to conduct a repair to fix it.

Vacc suits, rescue bubble or Fast drug won't help. If you are strapped into your pod (or maybe re-entry kit) as you should be as this is the most risky part of the flight you will probably be able to eject and be safe. You probably won't have time to get to a lifeboat or air raft, power it up and manoeuvre out of the bay before the crash. Worse you may get there to find that the first few people to get there panicked and took off with a fraction of the seats filled. The flight crew might not make it anyway as they will need to get to a pod (if there is one).

Barring combat, this is probably the most likely cause of fatal crash in Traveller according to the way the rules work.

Will a drive critical always hit you on take off or landing? Those are the times the drive is under the most stress (particularly take-off). If you are lucky it will fail before you even get off the ground. Not everyone is lucky.

 

[MarcusIII]

via: XNN (X-boat News Network)

6 Months ago

News Flash

A recent investigation by the IISS has revealed that Directors at the Interstellar Convention for the Safety of Life in Space (SOLIS) have been taking bribes from Safety First, the largest manufacturer of space craft escape pods in the sector.

According to information obtained, the company was giving money to the SOLIS directors so that they would recommend to insurance companies and ship builders to require or give premium incentives to ship owners who purchased ships with installed escape pods. Apparently there had been push back from ship builders to Safety First sales people because they did not agree that these escape pods brought value to ship owners.

We will be following up on this story for new developments.

 

[Condottiere]

Catastrophic hull failure is more likely to occur with starwarships, so they should have extensive damage control and rescue equipment.

Insurance premiums likely to persuade interstellar transportation corporations to install the same.

And we come to the low end of the totem pole, and for that, it probably depends.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Even if the hull breaks into sections there should be enough behind bulkheads to act as safe rooms.