Where are the Vacc Suits kept?

[Infojunky]

A chief bitch of mine is that with each successive update to the game, or perhaps that's too generous of a description for the republication of the same material, is that rarely are things looked at and adjusted from the original 1970's assumptions. But I guess by not doing so it keeps the rest of us going strong sharing our views on the boards. And putting out our own supplements and such.

Kinda....

In that there is another underlying structure that a lot of assumptions are build off driving these views and that is Tech Level. That and the all or nothing view of how things are made.

In MTU Tailored environment/Vacc Suits are more about how much you spend on them than unitary items, off the rack suits exist, but mostly if you work in space you have your own suit if you have the skill (I treat this as an unofficial mustering out benefit for characters who receive Vacc Suit 1 or better)

Where they are stored is more of how bulky/involved the donning process is, as well as the suit inherent maneuverability in a gravity environment. I am a huge believer in form follows function...

As for vacuum tight conditions, consider this every deck is assumed to be a bulkhead, and there will be a number of transverse multi-deck bulkheads as well, with variable airtight compartments within each of these zones.

 

[GypsyComet]

One thing to keep in mind in the Imperium setting is that, as of 1105, three races of Humaniti (Vilani, Geonee, and Suerrat) that make up quite a lot of the Imperium between them have all been space-faring for ten thousand years. Most of the rest, including most of the other Major races, have been space-faring for five thousand years. Even the youngest of the Majors (the Aslan) has been space-faring for well over a thousand years. Things like making a ship safe, or placement of suits, were figured out a very long time ago. If the Imperium builds ships that look like the Marava or the Beowulf, it is because they can do so safely.

 

[Infojunky]

What he said!

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I wonder if some passengers would pack their own Vacc Suit in their luggage?

 

[Wil Mireu]

A chief bitch of mine is that with each successive update to the game, or perhaps that's too generous of a description for the republication of the same material, is that rarely are things looked at and adjusted from the original 1970's assumptions. But I guess by not doing so it keeps the rest of us going strong sharing our views on the boards. And putting out our own supplements and such.

My belief is that it's really hard to stick to '1970s assumptions' unless you're completely immersed in a 1970s environment. Otherwise, it's really hard to not think "hey, the way this is done now is so much better" or "we've changed how we think about this since then" and slip some modern assumptions in.

And obviously, as time goes on we go further and further away from what we thought was 1970s, so it's harder to retain that 'pure 1970s mindset'.

 

[GypsyComet]

The transition of Traveller from "Hard SF" to "Period SF" started twenty years ago.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Ask 10 people what sci-fi is, you get 10 different answers.

 

[Infojunky]

Ask 10 people what sci-fi is, you get 10 different answers.

Ain't that the Truth!

Speaking as a mostly literary SF sorta fan.

And the funny thing is if you go through the various releases/supplements/editions of Traveller they are all slightly different in focus. Which is grand in that everybody and take the parts that make sense to them and run with them.....

And quite frankly that has been the entire subtext of this conversation, it is more about each posters vision of what a Traveller starship is, and how it operates than the rather banal location of Vacc Suits. The easiest answer was always they are in the Ship's Locker, but how many deckplans has a specific "Ship's Locker"? Heck how many real Maritime ships have a Ship's Locker?

 

[Wil Mireu]

And quite frankly that has been the entire subtext of this conversation, it is more about each posters vision of what a Traveller starship is, and how it operates than the rather banal location of Vacc Suits. The easiest answer was always they are in the Ship's Locker, but how many deckplans has a specific "Ship's Locker"? Heck how many real Maritime ships have a Ship's Locker?

Just googling for "Ship's Locker" reveals that the majority of hits from the first three pages of returns are related to games like WoW and Traveller. If they do still exist on ships then that seems to indicate that either they're not called that anymore or nobody's talking about them online...

 

[Infojunky]

Just googling for "Ship's Locker" reveals that the majority of hits from the first three pages of returns are related to games like WoW and Traveller. If they do still exist on ships then that seems to indicate that either they're not called that anymore or nobody's talking about them online...

Locker's exist but they generally for specific function i.e. Paint Locker, Dive Locker, storing things that are specific to that function. Or they are a locker in a specific location again storing things that are used around that location, i.e. the Engineering Locker or Toolroom.... With all that most working ship's have lockers all over the place, thus IMHO the "Ship's Locker" really is a amalgamation of all those lockers into a generic whole....

 

[Wil Mireu]

Locker's exist but they generally for specific function i.e. Paint Locker, Dive Locker, storing things that are specific to that function. Or they are a locker in a specific location again storing things that are used around that location, i.e. the Engineering Locker or Toolroom.... With all that most working ship's have lockers all over the place, thus IMHO the "Ship's Locker" really is a amalgamation of all those lockers into a generic whole....

Yeah it seemed to me that putting 'lockers' around the ship would be much more useful than having everything in one place (unless of course it's a very small ship/boat, in which case there would only be a need for one locker).

 

[dragoner]

The transition of Traveller from "Hard SF" to "Period SF" started twenty years ago.

To paraphrase murphys law: "Hard SF isn't". People who try to predict the future like Toffler or Kurzweil invariably end up wrong. IIRC, hard sf was coined by Asimov for Analog (now isn't that ironic). CT was barebones, which allowed a good amount of interpretation, but there were still problems, such as why a dagger causes less damage than a pistol, when essentially they are doing the same thing, the pistol's advantage being range and ease of use traditionally. Often I'll try to inject real science when I can, but I'll go RAW as much as possible to stay on the same page, ultimately it is just a game though, it is what it is.

 

[GypsyComet]

People who try to predict the future like Toffler or Kurzweil invariably end up wrong

Jury is still out on Gibson, Williams, and Kornbluth/Pohl, though.

Analog is still going, and still in analog (paper) format. Most of the Hard SF writers are dead, though. Analog still gets a fair bit of decent Spec Fic, but the days of putting enough real science in a story and keeping it readable are past. Too many gun porn addicts these days.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Analog is still going, and still in analog (paper) format. Most of the Hard SF writers are dead, though.

Excuse me? The Hard SF writers are doing quite well actually (as well as they ever have, anyway. Hard SF was always a niche subject).

 

[dragoner]

People who try to predict the future like Toffler or Kurzweil invariably end up wrong

Jury is still out on Gibson, Williams, and Kornbluth/Pohl, though.

Analog is still going, and still in analog (paper) format. Most of the Hard SF writers are dead, though. Analog still gets a fair bit of decent Spec Fic, but the days of putting enough real science in a story and keeping it readable are past. Too many gun porn addicts these days.

Let's hope some of them are wrong, like Gibson. :wink:

I still pick up Analog once in awhile, I think where the term was coined, it was that believable science was key, or a central feature of the story. I like it, I also like Banks, Dick, Vonnegut, etc. who are about character driven fiction, which is in its way scifi played the divine fool, saying things in a way it couldn't otherwise be said. I have seen some scifi sold as hard, but isn't, like Robinson's Mars Trilogy; not that it really upsets me, I'm a fan anyways of scifi in general.

 

[GypsyComet]

Analog is still going, and still in analog (paper) format. Most of the Hard SF writers are dead, though.

Excuse me? The Hard SF writers are doing quite well actually (as well as they ever have, anyway. Hard SF was always a niche subject).

Got some names? Book stores are no help.

 

[rust]

Got some names? Book stores are no help.

For example Alastair Reynolds, Paul J. McAuley, Greg Egan,
Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Jack McDevitt ... and Larry Niven
is still very much alive. There are dozens of science fiction au-
thors out there who write only or mostly hard science fiction,
the reports of the death of the genre are greatly exaggerated.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Got some names? Book stores are no help.

For example Alastair Reynolds, Paul J. McAuley, Greg Egan,
Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Jack McDevitt ... and Larry Niven
is still very much alive. There are dozens of science fiction au-
thors out there who write only or mostly hard science fiction,
the reports of the death of the genre are greatly exaggerated.

What he said .

As for bookstores being no help... that's how I find new authors. Wander around the SF section and read the backcover blurbs, that's usually a good start. Start with those guys and you should have quite a bit to read (Alastair Reynolds and Jack McDevitt are especially good. Greg Egan is really hardcore, high concept stuff. Stephen Baxter has written some great stuff too. Iain M Banks sadly is now dead, but I would argue that his Culture stuff was hard SF - it's grand-scale and ridiculously high technology, but it still has that Hard SF feel).

And then there's movies - things like 2001, Moon, Europa Report.

 

[Mytholder]

Charlie Stross has semi-disowned his Eschaton universe, but the first two books (Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise) would make a great alt-Traveller setting.

 

[F33D]

Got some names? Book stores are no help.

For example Alastair Reynolds, Paul J. McAuley, Greg Egan,
Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Jack McDevitt ... and Larry Niven
is still very much alive.

True. I ran into Larry about a year ago at a little bookstore near me. Said he was working on another book.