Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
I know that In CT we have the basic cost of Cr2000 per 2 weeks per sophont crew member needed to cover life support expenses ever since LBB2.77.
This setup is essentially "open cycle" where consumables (food, water, air, scrubbers, etc.) require restock and replacement.
Was there ever an extension to the rules made which enabled "regenerative life support" so that Cr2000 per 2 weeks cost would not need to be paid (that way)?
I'm wondering if something akin to a 4 ton/MCr0.5 Workshop space per sophont crew member/"live" passenger (low berths have different life support requirements) was ever contemplated as a workaround for a kind of "closed cycle" of life support in which everything gets recycled (like they say on the international space station ... yesterday's coffee is today's coffee is tomorrow's coffee) thanks to the "miracle" of high tech life support reclamation systems (thanks to Makertech).
So instead of needing to pay Cr2000 every 2 weeks for a total of 25 times per year (so as to include 2 weeks of annual overhaul maintenance every 52 weeks) for a total of Cr50,000 per year in consumables ... if you instead dedicate 4 tons of Workshop space/cost per sophont aboard to the task at MCr0.5 per sophont, then you only need to "pay" for that regenerative "closed cycle" life support capacity once per year as part of the cost of annual overhaul maintenance (which would be Cr500 per year, not including the larger hull size to accommodate).
Of course, at that point, you're looking at a 100:1 cost differential between open cycle and closed cycle life support systems, which might be too much of an advantage for the long haul closed cycle approach if you're talking deep space explorer/survey/research vessel, or even just a credit clipping merchant prince who wants to cut every corner off the perfect sphere of their profit margins.
However, from a pure economic advantage standpoint, a merchant ship would be "saving" on life support costs, while at the same time be "losing" on cargo/passenger capacity (4 tons of cargo space is Cr4000 per 2 weeks revenue potential, compared to Cr2000 per 2 weeks of life support cost in this context). So although the Workshop: Life Support notion would seem to be advantageous at first glance, this current interpretation I'm using here (4 tons per sophont as a starting point for the conversation) winds up costing elsewhere on the balance sheet (trading costs reduced for revenue reduced).
So this solution is kinda ... kludgy ... and not really satisfying.
Resorting to use of CT Beltstrike, p3 and its 150 person/days per ton of life support reserves yields a basic conversion of life support extension per ton, where each additional 1 ton per person is slightly over 0.4 years of life support (150/365=0.4109589) ... so 5 tons per person slightly exceeds 2 years of life support per person.
If using the assumption that a ship WILL be receiving annual overhaul maintenance at least once per year (no exceptions!) because the ship isn't designed for "5 year missions" beyond the fringes of known space (for example), you can can safely assume that reserve life support capacity in excess of 351 days becomes superfluous (because of the 2 week/14 days of annual overhaul maintenance per year, during which this reserve capacity gets replenished as part of the annual overhaul "flush and refill" process).
365/150=2.433333 tons per person for 365 days of life support reserves
351/150=2.34 tons per person for 351 days of life support reserves
However, if you start with the assumption that each single occupancy 4 ton stateroom has a default life support capacity of 20 person/days, then you would only need an additional 331 days of reserve life support capacity per year per person
331/150=2.20666667 tons per person for 331 days of life support reserves
330/150=2.2 tons per person for 330 days of life support reserves
Beltstrike (as written) claims a Cr1000 per person/day cost for life support reserves, which is just ridiculous and seriously looks like an "off by one (digit)" error/errata to me if you're talking about straight up consumables that need to be replenished. I'm basically convinced that the proper cost ought to be Cr100 per person/day since that aligns cleanly with the notion of 4 ton staterooms having 20 person/days of life support capacity (enough for 1 sophont for 20 days or 2 sophonts for 10 days in double occupancy, sufficient for 8 days of jump time plus 2 days of maneuver in a worst case scenario) at a cost of Cr2000 for 20 person/days. Note that Cr100 per day is still more than 3x the cost of luxurious accommodations and food at a planetside hotel according to LBB3, so for me at least the Cr100 per person/day corrected pricing makes sense when compared to other known cost quantities of long standing within the CT rules.
However ... if you're talking about a permanent modification to a ship's life support systems to make them more of a closed cycle regenerative type of system, rather than simply having a bigger stockpile of MREs, H2O and CO2 scrubber filters in an open cycle life support system ... a more permanent integrated closed cycle reclamation system for life support would more properly increase starship construction costs (and thus annual overhaul maintenance costs) by Cr1000 per person/day. Since I'm looking for a 1 year life support capacity closed cycle system, rather than a 1 year life support capacity open cycle system, I'll be using the Cr1000 per person/day for starship construction cost rather than a Cr100 per person/day consumables replenishment cost.
So, the best compromise I can think of using the Beltstrike approach to the problem is to say:
351 / 150 = 2.34 tons per person for 351 days of closed life support reserves (plus 14 days of drydock "downtime" for annual overhaul maintenance is 365 days)
You then wind up with single occupancy starship staterooms that are 6.34 tons each (1 year life support per stateroom) costing MCr0.851 each to purchase as part of starship construction (so a MCr0.351 cost premium per stateroom, which amounts to a Cr351 increase in net annual overhaul maintenance costs over the standard stateroom for the first in class ship, additional ships in volume production would see a discount beyond that base price).
Note that although the cost savings of Cr2000 per person/2 weeks for a single occupancy stateroom computes out to a 2 tons of cargo revenue at Cr1000 per ton equivalency, so the closed cycle regenerative life support option isn't quite yet cost competitive with the open cycle option.
Ultimately, however, for sheer CT styled simplicity then ... what ought to be happening is something akin to this:
I don't know about anyone else, but having such a "frontier life support" option available would probably make quite a difference in some old legacy starship designs that we're all familiar with.
I'm looking at you, Type-S Scout/Courier with your smelly underpowered default life support system for starters ...
This setup is essentially "open cycle" where consumables (food, water, air, scrubbers, etc.) require restock and replacement.
Was there ever an extension to the rules made which enabled "regenerative life support" so that Cr2000 per 2 weeks cost would not need to be paid (that way)?
I'm wondering if something akin to a 4 ton/MCr0.5 Workshop space per sophont crew member/"live" passenger (low berths have different life support requirements) was ever contemplated as a workaround for a kind of "closed cycle" of life support in which everything gets recycled (like they say on the international space station ... yesterday's coffee is today's coffee is tomorrow's coffee) thanks to the "miracle" of high tech life support reclamation systems (thanks to Makertech).
So instead of needing to pay Cr2000 every 2 weeks for a total of 25 times per year (so as to include 2 weeks of annual overhaul maintenance every 52 weeks) for a total of Cr50,000 per year in consumables ... if you instead dedicate 4 tons of Workshop space/cost per sophont aboard to the task at MCr0.5 per sophont, then you only need to "pay" for that regenerative "closed cycle" life support capacity once per year as part of the cost of annual overhaul maintenance (which would be Cr500 per year, not including the larger hull size to accommodate).
Of course, at that point, you're looking at a 100:1 cost differential between open cycle and closed cycle life support systems, which might be too much of an advantage for the long haul closed cycle approach if you're talking deep space explorer/survey/research vessel, or even just a credit clipping merchant prince who wants to cut every corner off the perfect sphere of their profit margins.
However, from a pure economic advantage standpoint, a merchant ship would be "saving" on life support costs, while at the same time be "losing" on cargo/passenger capacity (4 tons of cargo space is Cr4000 per 2 weeks revenue potential, compared to Cr2000 per 2 weeks of life support cost in this context). So although the Workshop: Life Support notion would seem to be advantageous at first glance, this current interpretation I'm using here (4 tons per sophont as a starting point for the conversation) winds up costing elsewhere on the balance sheet (trading costs reduced for revenue reduced).
So this solution is kinda ... kludgy ... and not really satisfying.

Resorting to use of CT Beltstrike, p3 and its 150 person/days per ton of life support reserves yields a basic conversion of life support extension per ton, where each additional 1 ton per person is slightly over 0.4 years of life support (150/365=0.4109589) ... so 5 tons per person slightly exceeds 2 years of life support per person.
If using the assumption that a ship WILL be receiving annual overhaul maintenance at least once per year (no exceptions!) because the ship isn't designed for "5 year missions" beyond the fringes of known space (for example), you can can safely assume that reserve life support capacity in excess of 351 days becomes superfluous (because of the 2 week/14 days of annual overhaul maintenance per year, during which this reserve capacity gets replenished as part of the annual overhaul "flush and refill" process).
365/150=2.433333 tons per person for 365 days of life support reserves
351/150=2.34 tons per person for 351 days of life support reserves
However, if you start with the assumption that each single occupancy 4 ton stateroom has a default life support capacity of 20 person/days, then you would only need an additional 331 days of reserve life support capacity per year per person
331/150=2.20666667 tons per person for 331 days of life support reserves
330/150=2.2 tons per person for 330 days of life support reserves
Beltstrike (as written) claims a Cr1000 per person/day cost for life support reserves, which is just ridiculous and seriously looks like an "off by one (digit)" error/errata to me if you're talking about straight up consumables that need to be replenished. I'm basically convinced that the proper cost ought to be Cr100 per person/day since that aligns cleanly with the notion of 4 ton staterooms having 20 person/days of life support capacity (enough for 1 sophont for 20 days or 2 sophonts for 10 days in double occupancy, sufficient for 8 days of jump time plus 2 days of maneuver in a worst case scenario) at a cost of Cr2000 for 20 person/days. Note that Cr100 per day is still more than 3x the cost of luxurious accommodations and food at a planetside hotel according to LBB3, so for me at least the Cr100 per person/day corrected pricing makes sense when compared to other known cost quantities of long standing within the CT rules.
However ... if you're talking about a permanent modification to a ship's life support systems to make them more of a closed cycle regenerative type of system, rather than simply having a bigger stockpile of MREs, H2O and CO2 scrubber filters in an open cycle life support system ... a more permanent integrated closed cycle reclamation system for life support would more properly increase starship construction costs (and thus annual overhaul maintenance costs) by Cr1000 per person/day. Since I'm looking for a 1 year life support capacity closed cycle system, rather than a 1 year life support capacity open cycle system, I'll be using the Cr1000 per person/day for starship construction cost rather than a Cr100 per person/day consumables replenishment cost.
So, the best compromise I can think of using the Beltstrike approach to the problem is to say:
351 / 150 = 2.34 tons per person for 351 days of closed life support reserves (plus 14 days of drydock "downtime" for annual overhaul maintenance is 365 days)
You then wind up with single occupancy starship staterooms that are 6.34 tons each (1 year life support per stateroom) costing MCr0.851 each to purchase as part of starship construction (so a MCr0.351 cost premium per stateroom, which amounts to a Cr351 increase in net annual overhaul maintenance costs over the standard stateroom for the first in class ship, additional ships in volume production would see a discount beyond that base price).
Note that although the cost savings of Cr2000 per person/2 weeks for a single occupancy stateroom computes out to a 2 tons of cargo revenue at Cr1000 per ton equivalency, so the closed cycle regenerative life support option isn't quite yet cost competitive with the open cycle option.
Ultimately, however, for sheer CT styled simplicity then ... what ought to be happening is something akin to this:
- (Standard) Open cycle life support stateroom: 4 tons displacement, MCr0.5, 20 person/days capacity, Cr100 per person/day consumables replenishment cost
- Closed cycle life support single occupancy stateroom: 6 tons displacement, MCr0.85, 365 person/days capacity, annual overhaul maintenance replenishes
- Closed cycle life support double occupancy stateroom: 8 tons displacement, MCr1.2, 730 person/days capacity, annual overhaul maintenance replenishes
I don't know about anyone else, but having such a "frontier life support" option available would probably make quite a difference in some old legacy starship designs that we're all familiar with.

I'm looking at you, Type-S Scout/Courier with your smelly underpowered default life support system for starters ...
