Shipboard life support and food per person per day?

[agorski]

When designing a ship, cargo space is usually whatever tonnage is leftover at the end. I'm assuming spare parts can be stored in ship's workshops. But some cargo space must provide supplies for personnel aboard ship during travel. Searching T5 and here didn't give me any insights. Does anyone have numbers for what's required per sophont per day of travel?

 

[Condottiere]

Life support is one of those nebulous game mechanisms.

If you need two litres of water per day, and maybe three meal packs, which could be substituted for instant ramen, what remains is climate control and oxygen regeneration.

 

[bookwyrm]

TNE 1248 introduced a Galley of 2 dtons for KCr 0.1. No mention of maximum crew/passengers 1 Galley can serve. I looked online to see what there was for Navy ships and Cruise ships, but wasn't really sure of Galley size versus crew & passengers and duration. I just now thought that this Galley could handle enough food for a maximum of 20 people for 4 weeks (based on purchasing 1 dton of life support at a discount for 20 people for 4 weeks).

For Life Support, I think 1 dton of a Stateroom and 0.5 dtons of a Small Cabin are for Life Support (not including food if using a Galley). I drew up a few deck plans with the Life Support taking up it's own space a few years ago. Kind of interesting making things fit.

 

[TamsinP]

5 litres per person per day should cover food (3 litres) and water (2 litres) components. Air (and water, really) would be covered within the volume of accommodations, in the floor/ceiling voids.

MgT2e has the idea of "Supply Units" in High Guard to cover all of that, plus small parts needed for routine maintenance, which are assumed (up to a point) to be carried in various storage cupboards/lockers throughout the ship; you can carry additional Supply Units in cargo space. The amount per day is based on the tonnage of the ship.
Actually, I've just checked - in High Guard it says you need to allocate cargo space for all Supply Units; it's in the Naval Campaign Guide and Naval adventures that the first 100 days are "free". It's also only applied to military vessels - no price is given, presumably because the ship would just sign a chit or a letter of payment when restocking.

 

[kilemall]

The classic value is the one from Beltstrike, I don’t have it on hand so someone will be along presently to quote it. Pretty small volume wise, a typical two week trip probably sees it all applied in the actual life support systems and larders.

Stacking up some extra in the cargo area is probably a very good practice.

Always figured life support was some fraction of the stateroom dtons and a lot of it in floors and ceilings.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The classic value is the one from Beltstrike, I don’t have it on hand so someone will be along presently to quote it.

CT Beltstrike, p3.
1 ton of consumables = Cr150,000 = 150 person/weeks

"Ordinary" life support = Cr2000 = 2 person/weeks = 0 tons (assumed to be capacity of 1 single occupancy stateroom)

 

[TamsinP]

Just checked - the British Army 24hr ration pack box is roughly 20cm x 20cm x 12cm, so just under 5 litres in volume. 1 dTon would hold 14 x (1000/5) = 2800 of those.

 

[Condottiere]

Not worrying about other contaminants, what you want is the chemical that neutralizes carbon dioxide and restores the oxygen balance, how much of that you'd need, and how much it costs.

If it's not a starship, strain the oxygen out of the water tank, and carbonate the water.

 

[whartung]

CT Beltstrike, p3.
1 ton of consumables = Cr150,000 = 150 person/weeks

9.3l/person using a 1400 m^3 dTon.

 

[TamsinP]

9.3l/person using a 1400 m^3 dTon.

1 dTon = 14 m^3 = 14000 litres.

14000/150/7 = 13.33 litres/person/day

 

[Enoki]

Well, let's see... 3 x the number of crew and passengers, times say, 30 days x the size of one of these, and...

 

[Black Vulmea]

If you need two litres of water per day . . .

5 litres per person per day should cover food (3 litres) and water (2 litres) . . .

Are you also accounting for showering/bathing and laundry?

Or do high passengers step out of the airlock smelling like well-worn gym socks?

 

[Condottiere]

Recycling comes to mind.

 

[Badenov]

So as I understand things, your stateroom's tonnage includes a month's life support supplies. Mongoose 1's book on space stations includes a provision for extending that, at the cost of 1% of hull space per month for consumables for the crew. The cost isn't stated, but consumables are a standard cost, so I assume you would just pay for an extra month or however long you're stocking up for.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I made this back in 2018.

Crew Food

TV Dinners should taste amazing at Tech Level 14.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I made this back in 2018.

Crew Food

TV Dinners should taste amazing at Tech Level 14.

3D-TV Dinners?

 

[TamsinP]

Are you also accounting for showering/bathing and laundry?

Or do high passengers step out of the airlock smelling like well-worn gym socks?

No, that doesn't include the water for bathing, laundry and general cleaning. If you look at the rest of the post where I note that water would, along with air, really be included within the stateroom volume; my assumption regarding water for purposes other than drinking is that it is included within the stateroom volume.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Recycling comes to mind.

And if your water recycler breaks down ten minutes after you jump?

I think Imperial standards require a reservoir no less than the minimum necessary to maintain crew and passengers for the duration of a jump and a few days more, should they need rescue. You can supplement that with a recycler but you can't rely on it in place of that pool.

 

[Condottiere]

This stuff is never really thought through in Traveller.

As long as you have a water tank, to be used for the reactor, you should have enough; black and grey water can be fed directly to the reactor, even if first it has to go through the fuel processor.

Recycling is when you go for min/maxing spacecraft performance.

 

[Badenov]

And if your water recycler breaks down ten minutes after you jump?

I think Imperial standards require a reservoir no less than the minimum necessary to maintain crew and passengers for the duration of a jump and a few days more, should they need rescue. You can supplement that with a recycler but you can't rely on it in place of that pool.

That presumes you need water to bathe, an ancient practice no longer needed in modern times, when you can (insert technobabble) to do a far better job of cleaning yourself than getting all nasty and wet. Anyhow, systems reliability in the 55th century ought to be better than today, for water showers or technobabble, and for all important systems, redundancy is a thing. You don't design a system with a single point of failure. Your sonic shower goes out, they send a steward around to fix it in an hour. If the power goes out on the ship, possibly due to a mishap, engineers are all on top of that. You'll be fine without a shower for the time it takes to fix.

And if you find yourself adrift without power, possibly because you've taken too many fuel-1 hits, you've got a lot bigger problems than the ability to look your best.