Ihatei Cruiser
- Thread starter The Hinterworlds Rambler
- Start date
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
Nice ship. But wouldn't a few dozend "freez-dried kitties" (aka LowBerth) make this more of a thread to planets that it "visits"`? After all the Kitties are there to kick butt and take land
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
Sure, you could add 100 or so Low berth modules in the cargobays along the walls of engineering, no problem. But the ship as it stands would carry 4, 8-unit Squads of hardened, veteran, Ihatei Warriors, wide awake and happy to cut the heads off all those that would refer to them as "Kitties".
Low berths, according to the rules are not 100% effective, if one goes by the "Low Lottery". I find thier use to be one of the more grisly "life is cheap" attitudes of Traveller. Im gonna get my man Gwerf working on a 100% survivable one.
Low berths, according to the rules are not 100% effective, if one goes by the "Low Lottery". I find thier use to be one of the more grisly "life is cheap" attitudes of Traveller. Im gonna get my man Gwerf working on a 100% survivable one.
Which is why I prefer to interpret that as being the chance of survival in the average ill-maintained low berth served by the average uneducated 'medic' that you find in tramp ships and that decently maintained low berths served by qualified medical personnel are as safe as described in MT and GT.
(And the Low Lottery is, of course, just an urban myth. A tramp captain might be callous enough to skimp on the maintenance of his low berths, but very, very few would be stupid enough to advertise the fact.)
For short-term (i.e. one or two jumps) passage, just use Fast Drug. Allows you to carry passengers in simple bunks. The 10 days they spend aboard is equivalent to eight hours, so you don't even have to turn them over to prevent bed sores (and if you did, well, it's hardly something you need a licensed medic for). It's a bit more expensive than a regular low berth (especially if you think the Cr200 the rules says Fast Drug cost is a misprint for Cr2000), and there are other problems (they'll arrive with 20 days still to go before the drug wears off, so they either have to pay Cr1200 more for a shot of antidote or for a place to sleep off the remaining days), but at least it's safe. And I can't see any reason why you can't stack them like cordwood in triple-tier bunks.
For spending many months in suspended animation (like Aslan ihatei might need) you'll need something else.
BTW, I have a notion about low berths (which I may have gotten from an old issue of The Traveller's Digest, I'm not sure): There are many different procedures for getting people in and out of low berth. Basically, the more care you take when putting people in, the less care you need to take when you wake them up. So you can have highly qualified medics spend hours doing blood tests and prepping the client when putting him into low berth, allowing him to wake up at the press of a button, or even automatically (like in Alien). Or you can jump into a low berth and press a button, in which case you need a lot of qualified medical attention in a fully equipped hospital when you're woken. Or you can have a medical technician spend ten minutes prepping you and ten minutes waking you up. In all cases the risks are quite low. It's when you get quick down, quick up, or unqualified people doing the prep that you get your appalingly high death rates.
Just my interpretation.
Hans
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
Me, in my game, Low Berthing is like taking a shower. It has been in place since TL 9-10, so its old hat. I use the refinement of time principle.
Getting into a lower tech LB is a gamble, but by TL 11, the many previous accidents and good public relations have made it an option beyond that thing you sell when you roll low mustering out. Some travel exclusively by that means.
Those that end up croaking usually are either sick, old, or have otherwise something wrong with them in the first place. Still, I give it a .01 chance of failure under those conditions.
I also have it that Hivers view them as execution booths, and view them with as much Horror as Kirk and the crew in the old Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon".
Getting into a lower tech LB is a gamble, but by TL 11, the many previous accidents and good public relations have made it an option beyond that thing you sell when you roll low mustering out. Some travel exclusively by that means.
Those that end up croaking usually are either sick, old, or have otherwise something wrong with them in the first place. Still, I give it a .01 chance of failure under those conditions.
I also have it that Hivers view them as execution booths, and view them with as much Horror as Kirk and the crew in the old Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon".
