Emergency Situations and Responses II
- Thread starter Hal
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
rtg = radioisotope thermoelectric generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
That might be true as far as rule mechanics go, but from an in-game perspective, I am not so sure this statement would hold true (concerning mis-jump probability being virtually nil, that is). From real life, even with regular routine maintenance, things can occasionally go dreadfully wrong (e.g. the "replacement part" that you received for such-and-such a device was defective from the factory, etc). Emergency Procedure will be in place to deal with these situations. The question would become (which you raised in your post above): what is the cost-benefit analysis of having ELBs aboard ship (i.e. just how rarely does a genuinely "accidental" mis-jump occur {in-game} vs. the expense of installing ELBs).
I agree that there might be push-back from merchants, but (in your opinion) which do you think would be more weighty in terms of SPA policy making (considering the cost on the one hand, versus the safety margin on the other)?
Yes, it does hold true. In order for it to NOT be true you have to make House Rules. Which you are free to do. HOWEVER, you must lay out those house rules for discussion. And of course, it doesn't effect the way things work under the RAW.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
The cost for an unmodified limited capability ELB would be Cr. 14,000,000 (MgT Core Rules) plus the cost of lost revenue due to the space it takes plus other incidentals. Any benefits to the ELB would be misjump situationaly specific so I'm not sure how to do an analysis other than say without additional points to support otherwise, IMTU it's not a legal necessity and would be up to the individual corporation or captain.
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Yes, really. The many conditions under which J-drives fail and cause a misjump are WELL documented in the rules. I suggest you read the rules since you seem to be unfamiliar with them. It is a good idea to do so before discussing them...
The big problem with that statement is that there is no such thing as the RAW. There are, what is it, 9 or 10 different RAWs. So in order for it to be true, you have to choose on specific RAW over all the other RAWs. Which you are free to do, but others are free to reject your choice.
That's a major reason why I prefer the conceit that the OTU is one single reality and that the ten (or whatever) different RAWs are every single one of them simplifed and sometimes erroneous reflections of that one reality.
It's simpler that way...
Hans
Expense.
Most ships will not mount anything not actually required either by law or to do their assigned task. And the stuff only required by law will be (typically) as cheap and minimal as they can get away from.
I'm talking about this specific situation. I can look in any of the versions (don't know about T20), and they have rules for mis-jumps. THAT is to what I'm referring. Anything outside of it (pick a version) is a House Rule. So, you have misinterpreted what I said...
But the rules for misjumps differ from version to version. Which means that one's version's RAW is another version's house rule.
Hans
You missed the point. The earlier proposed misjump scenarios would be House Rules under ALL versions of the game. That's why the argument was easy to shut down. They violated the rules under every published rule set. And thus, were proposed House Rules for anyone.
Actually, in MT, yes, they can, RAW. 1/36 jumps, RAW, has a mishap in MT, no matter how cautious the crew. Only 3/35 of those are going to dump one someplace other than expected, tho'. So 3/1260 jumps, RAW, puts you in the wrong system. So you misjump on average, once every 17 years. 14/1260 have a relativity error, and take 1d+4 days, while 18/1260 put you out "1d*8 hours" from the target body.
See MT IE p. 92 step 7, p 93 step 15, and MT RM p. 14, rt col.
I'll stick with Ref Manuel. Where does it state that it is a Hazardous task?
I have already discussed my reasoning at length, and I am not going to do so further. Anyone who wants to meanigfully contribute to the discussion is free to do so (preferably without the snarky attitude).
Right col... bolding mine
Automatic Failure: If the task roll is exactly 2 (disregarding
DMs), a fumble mishap occurs. On a hazardous task, a mishap
occurs on exceptional failure. On a fateful task, a mishap
always occurs when the task does not succeed (whenever any
level of failure occurs).
DMs), a fumble mishap occurs. On a hazardous task, a mishap
occurs on exceptional failure. On a fateful task, a mishap
always occurs when the task does not succeed (whenever any
level of failure occurs).
Any task has a mishap on a natural 2. ("Safe" tasks, which no starship jump tasks are, still mishap, but always have a superficial mishap)
List the task type as found in the rule book for a Jump.
Occam's razor. 1 in 36 attempts don't result in a misjump. Especially since the rules don't state it is that type of task...
Ah, yes, the "Omygoda2!" rule. Hateful thing, but it's there.
Close to 3/34, actually - a small fraction of the rerolls take you into a misjump. Or to be a wee bit more precise, 8.8095% of the fumble results, or 0.2447% of all jumps - which is a complicated way of saying someone in the Marches is doing it right now.
If I'm remembering my math right, a 0.2447% chance of a misjump per jump translates to a 91.37% chance of misjumping during the life of that 40 year loan, assuming one jump every 2 weeks and accounting for annual maintenance. In other words, it's something a captain expects to happen eventually. That's roughly 10,000 times worse than your odds of being killed on a major airline flight. Jeez, and I thought MegaTrav was safer. Lloyds must be getting their butts kicked.
Definitely, if I am a captain who expects to be making jumps for several decades, I'm gonna have an ELB, an emergency power generator, and a beacon. And, I'm gonna have an infrastructure in place to listen for those two-year-old attenuated signals, 'cause those frequent-flyer nobles are at increased risk too.
Okay, so there you are, crew of a starship, lost in the deep black for the first of probably 2 or 3 times in your 40-year career. What do you do?
Unless there's some way to infer your location by observing your jump, finding you is like finding a single white particle of dust in the middle of the Pacific without having any idea of where exactly that particle ended up. Canon science tells us the ranges achieved by misjumps can't be achieved by normal jump, and if they could infer where you went, they could hypothetically infer how you did it and have at least some hope of reverse-engineering the event at some higher future tech level. So, introducing some method of inferring jump destination by observation is tricky for canon, though I suspect nobody's going to complain if your rule makes it possible for Grandfather to begin researching ways to apply nanotech-level power manipulation to eventually achieve jump-36; the old gnome needs something to keep him busy after all.
So, let's go with the single-white-particle-of-dust-in-the-Pacific paradigm and see where that leads us in our effort to live to retirement. You've got a system-range radio - you want to use that. System-range in MT means you're covering 1000 AU with the thing. Now you're covering a radius of 150 billion kilometers against a volume of space possibly 15.5 trillion kilometers in radius. You are now more like an undiscovered island the size of Hawaii somewhere in the Pacific: odds of someone randomly jumping close enough to hear your signal are around 1 in 10,000. That still depends on them knowing what parsec you jumped into - random misjump into space means on average you could be in any one of a hundred-and-some empty hexes (or any one of a hundred-and-some hexes with systems).
In other words, it's still pretty much up to you to call for help unless the Imperium's fielding a million or so scouts to go hunting the occasional misjumper.
So your radio signal goes out. It gets thinner and thinner ... but let's suppose MT's interstellar range sensors can pick up traces of a system-range radio signal at two parsec's range. Might not be able to make sense of the signal, but they can get a bearing, a little work with a second ship gives a triangulation, and the signal only needs to be very clearly man-made - a man-made signal in the middle of emptiness is obviously a ship in trouble.
Takes a year and a half for the signal to reach someone, not too long after that to coordinate a rescue, but living in deep space for a year and a half is a real trick.
Fact: MT ships have a 0.2447% chance of misjump.
Assumption: the average person will not pursue a mode of transport where your odds of dying approximate the odds of catching AIDS from unprotected sex with a person known to be infected. The average crewman will not pursue a career with an almost 20% chance of fatality per term - and those odds are almost an order of magnitude higher than the canon odds of death during character generation.
Conclusion: some method exists to rescue the greater majority of misjump victims.
Fact: the only long-term sources of significant levels of power in deep space are fission, fusion, and that assumes an available fuel supply.
Deduction: in the absence of an 18-month fuel supply on the typical merchantman, the average MT ship routinely carry a separate microfusion emergency power plant capable of delivering sufficient power to maintain the ship's emergency systems for at least 1 1/2 years.
(A fission reactor is an alternative idea but minimum MT size is 5 cubic meters, making it somewhat impractically large, though it delivers a respectable 5 Mw at that size. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) is also an alternative but suffers from size/output problems: Mars-rover's unit for example generates 0.001 to 0.002 Mw of thermal power [120 watts electrical] and weighs 45 kg, making it suitable for a low berth but not for powering basic life support, which requires 0.001 Mw for each cubic meter of space; the idea needs to be included in the game, though, as there are applications for which it is superior to batteries or solar panels.)
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl//files/mep/MMRTG_Jan2008.pdf
Now, given power, how do you actually live?
Option-1: carry a whole lot of emergency food. The food out of Marooned is impossibly dense, but we'll assume they've engineered some far-future method for ultradense calories and run with it for the moment. A thirty day supply of food for one person is 1.5 Kg, so a 20-month supply is only 30 Kg; that quantity can be stored in a locked box under a bed. I can't find an MT reference, but CT's dehydrated rations came in at 0.2 kg per day or 6 kg per 30 days, still reasonable without having to alter deckplans or figure storage. Given power and maybe some spares to keep the life support system running (consisting of whatever it is you're spending Cr2000 per trip on, since that's not happening out here), the occupants can survive awake for a very long time. Assuming the life support doesn't actually need outside attention beyond those spares of unknown type and size. Downside is the life support system draws much more power than ELBs, so you need more emergency power: 0.054 Mw per 1-2 person stateroom in zero-G, verses 0.002 Mw per 4-person ELB.
Option-2: Emergency low berths. Low power, commonly considered the preferred method of "storage" for long-term survival. Doesn't take much power: that little RTG will power one for possibly as much as 14 years if we can get a more efficient conversion from heat to electric. (We'd need to craft rules for an RTG. I don't know how radioactive they are. The Mars Rover model above used 4.8 kg of plutonium dioxide, which also means using them puts plutonium where bad guys can get it to craft A-bombs; maybe the Imperium wouldn't synthesize bomb-grade material for power when a small and safer fusion plant could take it's place. U-238's safer but also much less energetic, as are the U235/238 mixes that would be safe.) Problem is you'd need to install them; few canon ships come equipped with ELBs.
Option-3: Fast drug. This one gets complicated. A dose leaves you at 1/60 metabolism (and perception) for 60 days; effect is as if one day passed. Sequential doses should see you through a year and a half as if it were only 9 days. However, some body systems don't scale down: there is no balancing at 1/60 scale, nor anything like effective digestion/elimination nor oral motor functions - you can't even swallow apple sauce at 1/60 speed. Ergo, every 60 days, you spend a day off the drug and eating 3-4000 calories, drinking fluids, and probably taking a laxative so you can be reasonably empty when it comes time for your next 60 days under. On the positive side, you'll be in zero-g if you're under emergency power, so not so much worry about pressure sores forming. Life support need is almost nil: you need to maintain tolerable temperatures and see that the air moves enough to take your 1/60-speed exhalation away. All in all, a very good alternative for a ship that doesn't commit extra space to ELBs, although I would judge there to be a high likelyhood of minor medical complications among the rescued victims.
Option-4: A bit of option-1 with option-2 or -3. Someone should probably remain alert to make sure the equipment keeps running and to deal with any unexpected problems. One or two people, store enough emergency rations for them for the long haul, keep enough life support going to serve them on the bridge, maybe.
Unless there's some way to infer your location by observing your jump, finding you is like finding a single white particle of dust in the middle of the Pacific without having any idea of where exactly that particle ended up. Canon science tells us the ranges achieved by misjumps can't be achieved by normal jump, and if they could infer where you went, they could hypothetically infer how you did it and have at least some hope of reverse-engineering the event at some higher future tech level. So, introducing some method of inferring jump destination by observation is tricky for canon, though I suspect nobody's going to complain if your rule makes it possible for Grandfather to begin researching ways to apply nanotech-level power manipulation to eventually achieve jump-36; the old gnome needs something to keep him busy after all.
So, let's go with the single-white-particle-of-dust-in-the-Pacific paradigm and see where that leads us in our effort to live to retirement. You've got a system-range radio - you want to use that. System-range in MT means you're covering 1000 AU with the thing. Now you're covering a radius of 150 billion kilometers against a volume of space possibly 15.5 trillion kilometers in radius. You are now more like an undiscovered island the size of Hawaii somewhere in the Pacific: odds of someone randomly jumping close enough to hear your signal are around 1 in 10,000. That still depends on them knowing what parsec you jumped into - random misjump into space means on average you could be in any one of a hundred-and-some empty hexes (or any one of a hundred-and-some hexes with systems).
In other words, it's still pretty much up to you to call for help unless the Imperium's fielding a million or so scouts to go hunting the occasional misjumper.
So your radio signal goes out. It gets thinner and thinner ... but let's suppose MT's interstellar range sensors can pick up traces of a system-range radio signal at two parsec's range. Might not be able to make sense of the signal, but they can get a bearing, a little work with a second ship gives a triangulation, and the signal only needs to be very clearly man-made - a man-made signal in the middle of emptiness is obviously a ship in trouble.
Takes a year and a half for the signal to reach someone, not too long after that to coordinate a rescue, but living in deep space for a year and a half is a real trick.
Fact: MT ships have a 0.2447% chance of misjump.
Assumption: the average person will not pursue a mode of transport where your odds of dying approximate the odds of catching AIDS from unprotected sex with a person known to be infected. The average crewman will not pursue a career with an almost 20% chance of fatality per term - and those odds are almost an order of magnitude higher than the canon odds of death during character generation.
Conclusion: some method exists to rescue the greater majority of misjump victims.
Fact: the only long-term sources of significant levels of power in deep space are fission, fusion, and that assumes an available fuel supply.
Deduction: in the absence of an 18-month fuel supply on the typical merchantman, the average MT ship routinely carry a separate microfusion emergency power plant capable of delivering sufficient power to maintain the ship's emergency systems for at least 1 1/2 years.
(A fission reactor is an alternative idea but minimum MT size is 5 cubic meters, making it somewhat impractically large, though it delivers a respectable 5 Mw at that size. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) is also an alternative but suffers from size/output problems: Mars-rover's unit for example generates 0.001 to 0.002 Mw of thermal power [120 watts electrical] and weighs 45 kg, making it suitable for a low berth but not for powering basic life support, which requires 0.001 Mw for each cubic meter of space; the idea needs to be included in the game, though, as there are applications for which it is superior to batteries or solar panels.)
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl//files/mep/MMRTG_Jan2008.pdf
Now, given power, how do you actually live?
Option-1: carry a whole lot of emergency food. The food out of Marooned is impossibly dense, but we'll assume they've engineered some far-future method for ultradense calories and run with it for the moment. A thirty day supply of food for one person is 1.5 Kg, so a 20-month supply is only 30 Kg; that quantity can be stored in a locked box under a bed. I can't find an MT reference, but CT's dehydrated rations came in at 0.2 kg per day or 6 kg per 30 days, still reasonable without having to alter deckplans or figure storage. Given power and maybe some spares to keep the life support system running (consisting of whatever it is you're spending Cr2000 per trip on, since that's not happening out here), the occupants can survive awake for a very long time. Assuming the life support doesn't actually need outside attention beyond those spares of unknown type and size. Downside is the life support system draws much more power than ELBs, so you need more emergency power: 0.054 Mw per 1-2 person stateroom in zero-G, verses 0.002 Mw per 4-person ELB.
Option-2: Emergency low berths. Low power, commonly considered the preferred method of "storage" for long-term survival. Doesn't take much power: that little RTG will power one for possibly as much as 14 years if we can get a more efficient conversion from heat to electric. (We'd need to craft rules for an RTG. I don't know how radioactive they are. The Mars Rover model above used 4.8 kg of plutonium dioxide, which also means using them puts plutonium where bad guys can get it to craft A-bombs; maybe the Imperium wouldn't synthesize bomb-grade material for power when a small and safer fusion plant could take it's place. U-238's safer but also much less energetic, as are the U235/238 mixes that would be safe.) Problem is you'd need to install them; few canon ships come equipped with ELBs.
Option-3: Fast drug. This one gets complicated. A dose leaves you at 1/60 metabolism (and perception) for 60 days; effect is as if one day passed. Sequential doses should see you through a year and a half as if it were only 9 days. However, some body systems don't scale down: there is no balancing at 1/60 scale, nor anything like effective digestion/elimination nor oral motor functions - you can't even swallow apple sauce at 1/60 speed. Ergo, every 60 days, you spend a day off the drug and eating 3-4000 calories, drinking fluids, and probably taking a laxative so you can be reasonably empty when it comes time for your next 60 days under. On the positive side, you'll be in zero-g if you're under emergency power, so not so much worry about pressure sores forming. Life support need is almost nil: you need to maintain tolerable temperatures and see that the air moves enough to take your 1/60-speed exhalation away. All in all, a very good alternative for a ship that doesn't commit extra space to ELBs, although I would judge there to be a high likelyhood of minor medical complications among the rescued victims.
Option-4: A bit of option-1 with option-2 or -3. Someone should probably remain alert to make sure the equipment keeps running and to deal with any unexpected problems. One or two people, store enough emergency rations for them for the long haul, keep enough life support going to serve them on the bridge, maybe.
