AntiPattern
06/18/22 04:04 AM
172.117.115.62
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I was examining the Overlord Dropship and I noticed that it has:
- Base Crew: 37
- Gunners: 6
- Officers: 8
- Bay Personnel 84
But only has 3 Escape Pods (18 people) and 3 Life Boats (18 people).
So when it hits the fan are the Bay Personnel and some of the crew screwed or am I missing something?
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ghostrider
06/18/22 11:41 AM
45.51.181.83
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Running joke is that Battletech runs it's own logic.
Which is true. The example you provided is one such example of it.
36 people are allowed to survive and the rest die with the ship. As the captain should go down with the ship, them missing a spot on the escape vessels should be.
I guess they figure the fighters will be able to get out with maybe a single passenger, and the mechs should be able to jump out, but we know, for the most part, this will not be the case.
I guess this is a prime example of seniority being good. If you are a new recruit, guess what? You get to sit on the dying ship unless the escape units need to leave now, and you are there, while those designated to survive haven't reached there yet.
As the game says, 'Life is cheap.'
Sad thing is, experience is hard to come by.
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AntiPattern
06/18/22 05:57 PM
172.117.115.62
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I was looking at the Union and it has
- Base Crew: 8
- Gunners: 6
- Officers: 3
- Bay Personnel: 28
and 7 Escape Pods (42 people) so it looks like the officers go down with the ship.
Guess no OSHA laws in the old Star League.
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Karagin
06/18/22 09:37 PM
70.118.172.64
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Hold on, these are things set up of WORSE CASE SCENARIOS, so how many people are going to be able to make to the craft?
Yes, they may be rated to hold only 18, but I am sure you find that they will hold as many as can get into it. If the Union, or any starship, is damaged and the crew is abandoning ship, then it's going to be a race to get to the pods/boats. Not all are going to make it, and that is a fact of life for the spaces in the Battletech Universe.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
Edited by Karagin (06/18/22 09:40 PM)
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AntiPattern
06/19/22 03:47 AM
172.117.115.62
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This kind of reminds me of the Elevator Conundrum with dropship design. If the dropship gets too massive you would have to dedicate everything to escape pods.
Edited by AntiPattern (06/19/22 03:47 AM)
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ghostrider
06/19/22 11:07 AM
45.51.181.83
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It is just reality in design.
You can not have what you want, or need, in the quantity you want.
In order to put in say more room for the crew, you have to cut back on something else, like cargo storage.
You want more life support, fuel is removed.
The give and take of space and weight limitations.
Granted, I wouldn't want to be the person that authorized things when the family of those who died from a lack of escape pods gets to suing them.
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Cray
06/19/22 04:52 PM
71.47.208.18
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Quote:
I was examining the Overlord Dropship and I noticed that it has:
- Base Crew: 37
- Gunners: 6
- Officers: 8
- Bay Personnel 84
But only has 3 Escape Pods (18 people) and 3 Life Boats (18 people).
Yep, lots of people are borked on that ship when it's destroyed.
The problem is that crew requirements have varied between rule sets, with the tech squads required beginning in Mercenaries Handbook, Revised, particularly breaking the link between escape pod capacity and crews carried by spacecraft. It's harder to add escape pods (thus breaking the stats) than to add some nebulous support crew that can be accommodated by existing life support rules.
Ships like the Cruiser and Conestoga, written much more recently, have lots of escape pods and life boats.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Pht
08/11/22 12:37 AM
98.21.88.138
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Quote:
Hold on, these are things set up of WORSE CASE SCENARIOS, so how many people are going to be able to make to the craft?
Yes, they may be rated to hold only 18, but I am sure you find that they will hold as many as can get into it. If the Union, or any starship, is damaged and the crew is abandoning ship, then it's going to be a race to get to the pods/boats. Not all are going to make it, and that is a fact of life for the spaces in the Battletech Universe.
It seems like basic human nature applies in the BTU ... life indeed is held cheaply in the IS, though not as cheaply as elsewhere.
After the tragedies with ocean liners and such, we started upping lifeship capacity to more closely match ship capacity.
As far as cramming more into a lifeship or pod than it was designed to hold ... spacers are going to likely straight up do whatever they have to to keep the pods at no more than capacity ... IF ... those pods have limited oxygen making capacity.
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