General The plants that would (probably) be taken to the stars

[Commander Truestar]

The homebrew rules I cooked up (which @Silverhawk links to) require crew positions (steward + medic).

Steward crew positions assigned to the regenerative biome life support are "not available" for attending to high passengers. So if you want to have 8 high passengers (requires 1 Steward) AND a regenerative biome life support system, you'll need (at least) +1 Steward crew position who will be tending to the biome (and doing the cooking of the meals harvested from it). The "extra Steward(s)" are calculated based on LBB5.80 crew needed for the Service Department ... so 3 Steward crew positions per 1000 tons (no ship's troops) OR 2 Steward crew positions per 1000 tons (with ship's troops).

I'm curious why you use the Steward?
I'm of the "opinion" a crew member for this work "should be" a scientist.
Either a full-out biologist or horticulturalist. As someone who has studied their science, this person could also be a medic, nurse or doctor.
While they could be part of the crew or passenger serving medical department, the bulk of their time would be spent managing the on-ship horticultural Biome.

When my players have suggested creating something along the lines of horticultural spaces, I first asked them what they could do without?
That's because you need space, hydro and electro services which would have to be re-routed. And, that also takes space aboard from other systems and wiring. With that added to the actual physical spaces of the horticultural material, you then have to consider spiking oxy and other gas levels. So, that leads to more changes in the ship's systems in the affected compartment.

And after you get all that done, you have to start looking at the rise in hydration within the compartment.
Because any plant-life, you will have a rise in airborne moisture and humidity. And, when that starts building, you have moisture getting into wiring.

The answer to that is always, "we would have to create an isolated compartment in the cargo bay".
That allows all the tech work to create a secure horticultural space which can have the added filtration and dehumidifier systems to prevent bad things growing out of the moisture results.

So, it was never not possible, but it cut down on cargo space to earn the ship money.

 

[Dragoner]

Trade, Farming; or Science, Life Sciences, Botany in my game. Much more likely in stations, than ships.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm curious why you use the Steward?

LBB2.81, p22:

Find me another skill description in LBB1 that even mentions (or head fakes) in the direction of ... cooking.

Then there's LBB5.80, p33:

If I had to use the "standard" crew position options from LBB2 for staffing this department ... who would fill these Service Crew positions?

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

Oh and hey look ... there's that mention of "food service" again!

And by the way ... "shops and storage" duties would also include things like the senior Steward being given the role of Supercargo on a merchant starship (with subordinate stewards, if any, assisting). The senior Steward (Purser) would be responsible for safely stowing cargoes in the cargo hold, and they would have training in the maintenance of manifests and "load balancing" distribution of what gets loaded into the cargo hold(s) of starships. Consumables that need to be accessed during flight go HERE and stuff that needs to be unloaded first but which requires no access during flight goes THERE. High mass stuff needs to be located towards the center of mass for the starship (to prevent unwanted maneuvering characteristics from manifesting while under thrust) ... and so on and so forth.

And then there's this precedent ...

What skillset do you need in order to be able to inventory a cargo bay full of assorted (random) stuff, breakbulk or otherwise, accurately and without errors ... and do so in a way that doesn't compromise the performance of the craft that stuff is loaded into?

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

 

[Condottiere]

For biodomes, in Traveller:

1. It takes a very long time for return on investment

2. Are they self sustaining

 

[Grav_Moped]

For biodomes, in Traveller:

1. It takes a very long time for return on investment

2. Are they self sustaining

1. Ships are expected to last 40 years. It'll pay off, if you're willing to allocate the investment in interior space and ongoing skilled labor.
2. With active management, yes. Standard life support is managed by replacing expendables (the things that wear out easily get swapped every couple of weeks when you get a replenishment, or annually during overhaul). Regenerative life support requires a bit less default parts-swapping and a bit more periodic tinkering with the mechanicals and a lot more management of the organic side of it.

 

[Commander Truestar]

LBB2.81, p22:

Find me another skill description in LBB1 that even mentions (or head fakes) in the direction of ... cooking.

Then there's LBB5.80, p33:

If I had to use the "standard" crew position options from LBB2 for staffing this department ... who would fill these Service Crew positions?

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

Oh and hey look ... there's that mention of "food service" again!

And by the way ... "shops and storage" duties would also include things like the senior Steward being given the role of Supercargo on a merchant starship (with subordinate stewards, if any, assisting). The senior Steward (Purser) would be responsible for safely stowing cargoes in the cargo hold, and they would have training in the maintenance of manifests and "load balancing" distribution of what gets loaded into the cargo hold(s) of starships. Consumables that need to be accessed during flight go HERE and stuff that needs to be unloaded first but which requires no access during flight goes THERE. High mass stuff needs to be located towards the center of mass for the starship (to prevent unwanted maneuvering characteristics from manifesting while under thrust) ... and so on and so forth.

And then there's this precedent ...

What skillset do you need in order to be able to inventory a cargo bay full of assorted (random) stuff, breakbulk or otherwise, accurately and without errors ... and do so in a way that doesn't compromise the performance of the craft that stuff is loaded into?

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

What I disagree with in this post is the assumption that "serving food" equates to managing an entire compartment devoted to biomass growth or hydroponics. So, this post ignores all the details up to "let's grab the food and cook it."
You are ignoring the need to design and maintain the electronic and mechanical systems of the compartment in which you are trying to grow the food.
You are ignoring the need to design and maintain the growing space conditions, including managing a nutrient feed(hydroponics) or soil conditions(Acidity, nutrient levels, etc) of the soil....not to mention where the soil comes from?
Also, how is the compartment hydrated? How is the humidity managed? What happens when the humidity gets into the electronics? Or, escapes the compartment to mess with the environment in the living spaces of the ship?

Basically, you are ignoring so very much and saying "Oh! This is food service so stick the Steward with it"
As such, I disagree with your suggestion and recommend you look deeper into the very many details that a crew will be forced to deal with.

Once you've dealt with all that, you can hand the "crops" to the steward to cook it

 

[Spinward Flow]

Basically, you are ignoring so very much
As such, I disagree with your suggestion

My solution:

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

If I'm reading you correctly, your suggestion:

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

 

[Vargr Breath]

Doesn't a lot of what we are talking about depend on the size of the ship? 100/200/400-ton ships are not going to have a lot of room for plants or extra crew. You would need to have a really large ship to have big enough gardens to do a lot of good, plus having a crew member to take care of them.

 

[Commander Truestar]

My solution:

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

If I'm reading you correctly, your suggestion:

1. Pilot
2. Navigator
3. Engineer
4. Steward
5. Medical
6. Gunner

Go back to my previous posts
I stated clearly that adding a biosystem of any kind would require added a scientist(Botanist/ Hydroponics to the crew as well as a dedicated engineer[and, perhaps, a mechanic-plumber])

You are trying to read my comments through a "book-positions only" lens - which has never been a limit of the Traveller DNA.
Traveller has always been a base set of rules onto which the Game Master and players are expected to add.

In this case, you have to step beyond the limited roles provided by the book and accept enforced needs determined by reality

No luck is needed. Just learn to think outside the books

 

[Grav_Moped]

Go back to my previous posts
I stated clearly that adding a biosystem of any kind would require added a scientist(Botanist/ Hydroponics to the crew as well as a dedicated engineer[and, perhaps, a mechanic-plumber])

You are trying to read my comments through a "book-positions only" lens - which has never been a limit of the Traveller DNA.
Traveller has always been a base set of rules onto which the Game Master and players are expected to add.

In this case, you have to step beyond the limited roles provided by the book and accept enforced needs determined by reality

No luck is needed. Just learn to think outside the books

Liked, but disagree to an extent.

So there's regenerative life support for starships.
There's a specific skill needed to maintain it.
There's no provision for a player character to acquire this skill.
There's no salary given for hiring a crew member with this skill.
Seems awkward, and irrrelevant for players anyhow.

This reaches back to the old (Classic) concept of broadly defined skills. In current versions, you can be very good at maintaining Jump Drives yet mediocre at fixing power plants. The older version didn't break it out -- if you have the skill, you can do all of it at that level. As another example, Pilot skill included a limited subset of Navigation skill.

S-Flow's approach seems to be to see which existing skills (broadly defined) could be used here instead of creating an entirely new skill. It's a different way of looking at the problem, but it's not being narrow-minded.

Edit to add [Note: was typing while @Vargr Breath was upvoting] one other thing: from an economic point of view, regenerative life support shouldn't be less expensive (including externalties such as the opportunity cost of the required equipment space) in the long run than the standard life support consumables. If it were, it would be the default and the R.A.W. system would be an optional alternative!

Second edit to add: A better example of broad Classic skills would be that SensorOps or Communications weren't separate skills, but something that either the Navigator or Pilot did as a subset of their primary qualifications.

 

[Dragoner]

Thing is we kind of live in a soup of bacteria, and fungi. Plants are weird and delicate in a lot ways, someone brought a t-shirt into a closed biome, and the outgassing killed most of their plants. Where the bacteria, and fungi are mutating on the ISS into potentially dangerous forms, including eating the station.

 

[bookwyrm]

Well, if CT doesn't have a way to add skills when needed, then I think @Spinward Flow made the right choice. Does CT have a Rule 0?
And if really necessary, a GM could just add a ponics type skill

Over here in T20 land, I'd just add a T/Ponics skill to the T/Technical cascade skills (T20 mentions a T/Robotics skill that isn't shown in the T/Technical cascade skills descriptions. I needed to add P/Steward skill, as there wasn't one. GM's choice).
Would there be a minimum ship size using a Ponics system? I was thinking a few days ago while reading this thread that smaller ships with Ponics would be Rich, Noble, Corporate ships while larger ships with Ponics can afford to have this system onboard one way or another.

The way I see it, a person taking care of Ponics has to have either training or knowledge of how a biological system on a ship safely interacts with other ship components. Spin did mention having a Steward dedicated to the Ponics (Post 96). A tough decision but a great compromise.

Edit: I just had the thought that the Steward dedicated to Ponics could also have Eng-0 or 1 to cover the Stewards needs in taking care of a biological system that is integrated with the ship. An experienced Steward might be able to tell by scent alone if something is wrong in the biosphere or if some other part of the ship is being adversely affected by something that somehow 'escaped' the biosphere, because sometimes sensors aren't as fast in discovering a problem as an experienced crewperson.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I stated clearly that adding a biosystem of any kind would require added a scientist(Botanist/ Hydroponics to the crew as well as a dedicated engineer[and, perhaps, a mechanic-plumber])

Show me a precedent, especially in CT ... where additional engineering crew positions are required based on the number of staterooms (and therefore, life support machinery aboard) is a baseline assumption that must be included in the calculations for crew positions.

I can't think of any.

To my knowledge, especially in CT, engineering crew positions (LBB2 or LBB5) are based solely on the tonnage of drives.
The tonnage devoted to staterooms (needing life support, of any variety) is completely non-sequitur to the number of engineering crew positions.

You are trying to read my comments through a "book-positions only" lens - which has never been a limit of the Traveller DNA.

Have you met @AnotherDilbert before on these forums?
Asking for a friend.

Traveller has always been a base set of rules onto which the Game Master and players are expected to add.

True ... but ... the farther afield you wander from the "shared known touchstones" ... the more "suspect" your homebrew addition becomes.
When you wander completely off the reservation, suspicion becomes overwhelming and can quickly devolve into absurdity.

In this case, you have to step beyond the limited roles provided by the book and accept enforced needs determined by reality

You asked me why I chose the crew position of Steward for a crew role involved in the cultivation, harvesting and preparation of foods from a regenerative biome life support system.

I gave you TWO copy/paste screenshot references to a SKILL (Steward) and a Department (Service Crew) that both specifically and explicitly mention cooking (Steward) and food preparation (Service Crew) as the basis for my decision.

You have arbitrarily decided that any evidence I have provided is invalid and not persuasive ... because you think it should be something else entirely, something NOT enumerated in any of the published CT source materials.

I've provided my evidence and reasoning.
I've done what you asked.

The fact that you can accept NEITHER is not on me ... that's on you.

Here are the LBB S4 Citizens of the Imperium skill blocks for the Scientist career (bottom one requires EDU 8+ to be eligible to roll on).
Which of these skills do you think should be considered applicable to a professional regenerative biome life support SCIENTIST?

I await your response and convincing argument supporting your choice.

 

[Spinward Flow]

There's no provision for a player character to acquire this skill.

To be fair, the same problem cropped up with the Naval Architect skill needed for designing starship classes (the 1% fee associated with new designs). How did CT solve it? By giving NAVAL Architect skill to SCOUTS ... because editors forgot to put it into LBB5.80 extended character generation for the NAVY.

S-Flow's approach seems to be to see which existing skills (broadly defined) could be used here instead of creating an entirely new skill. It's a different way of looking at the problem, but it's not being narrow-minded.

Extend what already exists, rather than create new out of whole cloth.

from an economic point of view, regenerative life support shouldn't be less expensive (including externalties such as the opportunity cost of the required equipment space) in the long run than the standard life support consumables. If it were, it would be the default and the R.A.W. system would be an optional alternative!

I don't think of this as an either/or type of judgement in the direction of good/bad. Instead, it's more a matter of economic pressure and the time horizon for a return on investment.

Think of it this way.
In CT, consumable life support reserves "weigh in" at 150 person/weeks per 1 ton costing Cr150,000 per ton.

Over the (presumably 40 year) operational lifetime of a starship, a single crew member working 48 weeks per year is going to require 1920 person/weeks of life support over that 40 year lifetime of the starship. If you bought that "all up front" at the beginning (during starship construction) and stuffed it into the cargo hold, it would cost 12.8 tons of cargo space and MCr1.92 in initial outlays for a 40 year supply of life support consumables per crew member.

If you assume crews work 50 weeks per year (with 2 weeks off/vacation during annual overhaul maintenance) this consumables equivalent climbs to 2000 person/weeks of life support over 40 years costing 13.333 tons and MCr2 per crew member.

No matter how you slice it, that's a pretty significant chunk of credits to spend over a 40 year (intended) lifespan for a starship.

But that's only if you buy it "all at once" ... up front ... and you do it with the life support consumables path.
However if you do it in "installments" (replenishing your life support consumables every 2 weeks) ... you'll still pay the same amount in cash (Cr1000 per person/week) but you won't need to spend the tonnage on the stockpile of reserves. You'll still have to pay MCr1.9 to MCr2 per person over 40 years in (consumable) life support overhead expenses, but with a limited reserve (4 weeks per stateroom?) you get to save ~13 tons for cargo ticket capacity, which represents a real savings!

You just need to go places that won't price gouge you for life support replenishment costs, that's all.



But ...



If you do a regenerative biome life support system for your starship, you'll be paying close to MCr0.3 per ton for laboratory space and hull metal and will need to allocate additional staterooms (and hull metal) for extra crew to manage the life support system (kind of like how high passengers require extra crew to accommodate them). Needing a larger crew, relative to the alternative, limits the practicality of such life support systems relative to the "alternative minimum" due to the loss of tonnage available for the purposes of generating revenue (cargo hold, low berths, passenger staterooms, you know the drill).

However, the biggest difference between consumables and regenerative life support alternatives shows up in the economics of subsidization.

That's because a subsidized starship has the construction cost "paid for" by the subsidizing government. However, the subsidizing government gets to take a 50% share of any revenues (not profits, revenues!) generated from ticket sales (passengers and freight) to amortize the expense involved in the construction of the starship.

But the real kicker is that the starship operator is 100% liable for all expenses incurred. That means annual overhaul maintenance, fuel, berthing fees, crew salaries, and of course ... life support overhead.

Well, if you can shift the lifetime cost of life support from the "operational overhead expenses" column (that the operator is 100% responsible for) into the "construction cost expenses" column (that the subsidizing government is 100% responsible for) ... you wind up with a starship that is slightly more expensive to construct and buy ... but "cheaper to operate" to the tune of (a little bit under) Cr50,000 per year, per person aboard in recurring operational overhead expenses (which can add up quickly with crew and high/mid passengers).



For anyone familiar with the concept of double bookkeeping (not to mention "cooking the books") this kind of "shell game" with the operational expenses for starship operations shouldn't come as that much of a surprise. The REAL question is ... do you have ENOUGH "spare tonnage" in a starship's design to be able to take advantage of this opportunity and still keep the starship class (as a whole) profitable in merchant operations ... or does it "cost too much" in tonnage to be able to make the investment pay off over the 40 year lifespan of a starship?

There's no singular best answer for the full spectrum of possibilities here.

A J1 Free Trader COULD invest in this kind of regenerative biome life support upgrade, but there would be considerable costs (in tonnage) associated with doing so. A Type: V-c laboratory setup would require 2 tons per person (so call it 20 tons for 10 people, crew+high/mid passengers). As a matter of practicality, you'd probably also want to install a TL=9 fuel purification plant into a stock Free Trader ... and at that point you're already -29 tons lost from your cargo hold capacity, a pretty SERIOUS downgrade relative to the stock Free Trader.

You don't have to pay for starport fuel (usually) and you can now waive your overhead expenses for life support, making it MUCH easier to make ends meet on the balance sheet when tallying of profit margins ... but you also have a dramatically reduced cargo capacity to mobilize speculative goods for arbitrage (which is where the REAL PROFITS are to be made!) ... so there are tradeoffs.



So in general, I'm thinking that the "really small" ACS (200- tons) are kind of "too rinky dink" to make best use of a regenerative biome life support system, mainly because such "small" starships don't have a whole lot of room to spare. Bigger starships (300+ tons) are where regenerative biome life support starts becoming a compelling option, because the tonnage needed for it becomes a smaller fraction of the overall starship displacement (the hull gets bigger faster than the life support system does).



Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Show me a precedent, especially in CT ... where additional engineering crew positions are required based on the number of staterooms (and therefore, life support machinery aboard) is a baseline assumption that must be included in the calculations for crew positions.

That - right there - is my point
You are riding in circles and ignoring what I have said.

Traveller has "Always been" a took kit.
Traveller has, according to the statements of Marc Miller, always been a base You, the Game Masters, have to Build on.

You keep saying, "Show me where in Traveller..."

I keep saying, "in real world vessel architecture" and you ignore that while retreating back to "Show me where in Traveller..."

If you step on a modern day cruise liner, you will find crew positions which don't sit in the basic crew positions described in Traveller.

In the real world, they create those positions for hired and trained personnel.
Instead of recognizing that, you retreat to, "it wasn't added In Traveller" and ride that circle again and again

Given there is no profit in trying to get you to recognize your error, I leave you to it

 

[Rupert]

To be fair, the same problem cropped up with the Naval Architect skill needed for designing starship classes (the 1% fee associated with new designs). How did CT solve it? By giving NAVAL Architect skill to SCOUTS ... because editors forgot to put it into LBB5.80 extended character generation for the NAVY.

Which brings up a point - in three book LBB Traveller, the only skills required operate a spaceship and keep it running are: Pilot on a small ship, plus Navigation, Engineering, and Medical as well on most ships, with Steward and Gunnery being required if a ship has passengers or weapons, respectively.

Mechanic and Electronics are not required, even though these would be the obvious choices fo skills to repair, maintain, and operate much of a spaceship's systems. Nor do they require a Computer skill, unless custom programming is intended.

What's more none of the required skills provide any skill in design or building of spaceships or part thereof. Therefore the argument that Steward is somehow not suitable for extension into the running of a biological life-support system seems specious to me. The is no existing skill that covers it in LBB1-3. Medical would be the other possible choice, and it makes no mention of any special skill in life sciences outside of fixing broken people and reviving low passengers.

Even S4: Citizens of the Imperium, which brings us the scientist career, does not add any skill covering biology, botany, ecology, or horticulture (and Survival from LBB4 doesn't make any mention of farming, etc. either).

In the context of the LBBs I don't see a better skill than Steward for covering the job of operating and maintaining these systems. Ideally Mechanic would be used for repair, etc., but that's not how the LBBs do things, so that would be Steward as well.

EDIT: Note that a skill could always be added, just as I'd expect 'Farming' to be added for a Farmer or Colonist career. However, adding such a skill to existing careers is messier, especially when it's going to dilute the skills a character has. At the very least, were I to add such a skill I'd be at giving Steward 'serves as Biolife-support -1'.

 

[Silverhawk]

So I was sitting here reading all this and thinking,

What if some of the life support system is hydroponic/bio in nature. Like a lot of things in Traveller there are somethings that are left vague and for the GM. Maybe the Steward is going to be looking after the plants. But does he have to look after the electronics? What is to prevent him from asking the Ship's Engineer to fix something that is broken?

Look I see @Commander Truestar 's point that there are positions that have no Traveller equivalent. I also see @Spinward Flow wanting to add to the flavor of the game even if he and his players are the only ones. I personally like little details like that if they are handled in a rational way it adds to the enjoyment.

In the case of life support maybe the lack of plants is why the Scout/Courier has the reputation for stinky air requiring frequent filter changes, I don't know.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Which brings up a point - in three book LBB Traveller, the only skills required operate a spaceship and keep it running are: Pilot on a small ship, plus Navigation, Engineering, and Medical as well on most ships, with Steward and Gunnery being required if a ship has passengers or weapons, respectively.

Mechanic and Electronics are not required, even though these would be the obvious choices fo skills to repair, maintain, and operate much of a spaceship's systems. Nor do they require a Computer skill, unless custom programming is intended.

What's more none of the required skills provide any skill in design or building of spaceships or part thereof. Therefore the argument that Steward is somehow not suitable for extension into the running of a biological life-support system seems specious to me. The is no existing skill that covers it in LBB1-3. Medical would be the other possible choice, and it makes no mention of any special skill in life sciences outside of fixing broken people and reviving low passengers.

Even S4: Citizens of the Imperium, which brings us the scientist career, does not add any skill covering biology, botany, ecology, or horticulture (and Survival from LBB4 doesn't make any mention of farming, etc. either).

In the context of the LBBs I don't see a better skill than Steward for covering the job of operating and maintaining these systems. Ideally Mechanic would be used for repair, etc., but that's not how the LBBs do things, so that would be Steward as well.

EDIT: Note that a skill could always be added, just as I'd expect 'Farming' to be added for a Farmer or Colonist career. However, adding such a skill to existing careers is messier, especially when it's going to dilute the skills a character has. At the very least, were I to add such a skill I'd be at giving Steward 'serves as Biolife-support -1'.

I guess Jack-o-T is your best friend here.
Under Merchant you could have Steward-1, Medical-0, Mechanical-0, and Jack-o-T-0. This mix under LBBs is about enough to cover most stuff. A new Career Type would be best but using CT rules and Career Types I think this would work.

 

[bookwyrm]

What if some of the life support system is hydroponic/bio in nature. Like a lot of things in Traveller there are somethings that are left vague and for the GM. Maybe the Steward is going to be looking after the plants. But does he have to look after the electronics? What is to prevent him from asking the Ship's Engineer to fix something that is broken?

This is something that's been on my mind when I first got back into Traveller with T20. The Low Berth is a medical device that is electronic & mechanical in nature, a specialized device. It seemed to me that a ships medic knows how to use it, but not how to repair it if it ever breaks down or is broken. On the other side, a ships Engineer or any other person with Electronics and/or Mechanical might be able to fix it, but being a delicate, specialized piece of machinery of a medical nature that freezes people for transport between worlds, they might not be able to fix it properly.

Same for Spins Biomes. They're a biological ships component with specialized electronic & mechanical equipment in an environment that is part of and kept apart from the rest of the ship.

If there is a problem with the Low Berths or Biomes, do you wait until you get to the next star port or does someone on the ship have the specialized knowledge/training to fix/repair them? The question then becomes, are the Stewards only able to use the Biomes, like Medics with Low Berths, or fully qualified to do repairs & maintenance? I personally decided to not let that be a problem until such a time as it needs to be or I come up with a decent solution.

 

[Commander Truestar]

So I was sitting here reading all this and thinking,

What if some of the life support system is hydroponic/bio in nature. Like a lot of things in Traveller there are somethings that are left vague and for the GM. Maybe the Steward is going to be looking after the plants. But does he have to look after the electronics? What is to prevent him from asking the Ship's Engineer to fix something that is broken?

Look I see @Commander Truestar 's point that there are positions that have no Traveller equivalent. I also see @Spinward Flow wanting to add to the flavor of the game even if he and his players are the only ones. I personally like little details like that if they are handled in a rational way it adds to the enjoyment.

In the case of life support maybe the lack of plants is why the Scout/Courier has the reputation for stinky air requiring frequent filter changes, I don't know.

Actually,
I used exactly the same trope in a situation I devised to "upgrade" the player's ship from a J-3 mini-yacht to a jump 4 ship.
They misjumped into a system with a star giving off progressive coronal mass ejections and other issues.
After assessing what they had left in their ship, they found a drifting yacht and a Wind Class Imperial carrier.

Among the many things they had to find to fight off failing and damaged systems were a sealed canister of the bio-material needed to rebuild a stable life support system. Eventually, they found a number of badly damaged fighters with still-sealed cockpits. They then had to seal the fighter remains so they could remove the canisters in the space of a mobile pressurized tent. They eventually got enough of the canisters to move to the yacht to get that craft's life support back up and operational.

Still, these were standard canisters used as engineering supplies