Tending to be blown up every single time I started thinking on how actually my characters are STILL alive and relatively healthy.
Basically, the escape pod (EP) technology is an answer to this, but when it comes for you to roleplay this particular moment, and you feel that you can't be satisfied with "character XY.Z escaped in his/her/its pod", then you might find useful the thoughts which would be, I hope, provided in this thread by others (as well).
So what are EPs and how do they work? I have though for a bit and came up with couple of scenarios and what is possibly to happen, I will try to put it short. Oh well, forget about it, it is going to be tl;dr:
1. Your ship reached its construction strength limit and: crack opened, exploded, glass shattered into pieces. Lets consider that circumstances [I] and [II] are met.
[I] - You must wear your spacesuit which is armored with firmaments and elastic materials to protect your body from suffering decompression as well as with composite fabrics and plating above vital spots to protect pilot from shrapnel and heat (for a short time), and so has to be with your helmet, it must be fitted firmly and its glass should be closed to protect your face, it must be tough enough to withstand abuse, which is obvious.
[II] - Your chair or the bulkhead which separates your cockpit must be heavily armored to protect you from possible explosion and shrapnel from behind. If you have caught a mine or direct hit into glass... Well, that is why I still wonder WHY we have glass canopies if we could replace them with thick alloys and put cameras all over the place. Nevertheless, it is far worse to get hit in cockpit, and I won't consider such now.
2. Your first reaction, possibly, will be to cover your head with hands and wait, then you'll find yourself among the shattered glass and metal, possibly, thrown away from your cockpit by explosion [III]. If you are sitting in a "non-trigged" EP, which serves you a chair, then you quickly get in right position, or you might have your arms and legs being tied to a pod with retractable ropes so you could trigger them and get into position fast, if you are spinning and confused to do it yourself. In cases [IV] it is pretty much okay for EP to act automatically, so it would retract your body inside and close as soon as possible. Beware of scrap getting stuck and preventing sealing of EP "door".
[III] - Basically, imagine your ship being an object put into a heater with no way for excessive thermal energy (from shots) to go fast, because you are in space, heat is stockpiled fast and the only way for it is to be emitted, but you are not flying a radiator, so at the point when your hull goes "zero" it might actually mean that your ship's innards are made molten and explode. Sure thing it is just a hypothesis.
[IV] - Being exposed to space vacuum while wearing your spacesuit means, let's say, a minute of conscious and ability to act, sure thing, you might have small tanks with oxygen, like 0.5 or 1 liter on your chest just for such cases, and considering that your suit is undamaged you won't suffer loss of conscious for the time you have your oxygen.
If your suit gets damaged things might get worse but it depends on the amount of damage it had taken. Loosing your helmet or glass means ten seconds of conscious if you didn't loose it yet.
3. Alternatively, if you are using capsule-alike pod, then it means you have much more protection [V]. You will just suffer some shaking, spinning and grumbling, unless it is something more serious. I think this is a more convenient way of dealing with a problem, and as argument I can point at EVE capsule system.
[V] - First and foremost - you won't suffer from decompression and explosion less likely to kill you. Less automatics means that your pod could be more armored and simple, thus making it more reliable. What are the drawbacks? Well, you might be unable to get out from it on your own while on flight, your vision is not based on what you see from your window but what you see on a monitor. Even less sense in having glass canopy. You will not be able o move, and this means discomfort for you. You won't be able to interact directly with your ship's systems as well.
4. So you are floating out there, waiting for somebody to pick you up. Let's say you could survive this way for a day some hours, the reason is oxygen shortage and space radiation which is there and it is harsh. Let's assume that you are not suffering it in ship because it has shield mounted. If weight and volume is not a big deal you might want some propulsion system on your pod, but it won't help you if you are in deep space or have to use jumpholes / jumpgates, I suppose it would be reasonable to say that you might die.
The best way to ensure yourself being returned home is to use beacons or inform your local pilots of your route and keep the radio connection online.
For now those are all the ideas I wanted to share, and I will be glad to see your input on this theme as well, because, as I mentioned above, it is vital for my RP.
Or just imagine yourself bring blown up and your conscious is transmitted to a clone at an npc station
That's a little easier than trying to justify how a pod survived after a combat because that's not possible
People want to believe that God has a plan for them.
They don't wanna believe that anyone else does..
(07-20-2015, 01:40 PM)Hannibal Wrote: Or just imagine yourself bring blown up and your conscious is transmitted to a clone at an npc station
That's a little easier than trying to justify how a pod survived after a combat because that's not possible
What about cap ships? Surely not every crew member simply gets chunked when things take time to explode and ships of that size would have escape pods. Gunboats might go down fast enough that the one or two pods it has could be destroyed in the blast but full-size capitals would probably get 1/2 or 1/4 of the ships/pods off and possibly drop a beacon if the bridge wasn't hit, right?
Especially in non-military/non-fanatic caps where not everyone would be willing to go down with the ship. Though that assumes caps have a multi-person crew, a point that can/has been argued both for and against.
Thomas.Holden - independent junker scrapping across sirius Zed.Taylor - former bretonian privateer hunting royalist remnants Tradeknight.7 - industrial trade crew of 4 brothers
Erh, we're not EVE, not having jump clones...Though why won't one poke corporations on this matter, I don't really know.
FL came to us with idea of escape pods and we have to deal with those, mind it.
BTW, Nomads are actually doing things this way, but they do not have blank bodies ready and have to wait in the Mindshare till new body grows up. Still not sure on how much they preserve their identity this way.
(07-20-2015, 01:40 PM)Hannibal Wrote: Or just imagine yourself bring blown up and your conscious is transmitted to a clone at an npc station
That's a little easier than trying to justify how a pod survived after a combat because that's not possible
What about cap ships? Surely not every crew member simply gets chunked when things take time to explode and ships of that size would have escape pods. Gunboats might go down fast enough that the one or two pods it has could be destroyed in the blast but full-size capitals would probably get 1/2 or 1/4 of the ships/pods off and possibly drop a beacon if the bridge wasn't hit, right?
Especially in non-military/non-fanatic caps where not everyone would be willing to go down with the ship. Though that assumes caps have a multi-person crew, a point that can/has been argued both for and against.
The problem is not only surviving the ship destruction but also the space itself for a long period of time before being rescued but only if there would not be any enemy ship nearby to target practice on your unarmed unmanuvrable pod that it was already a waste ejecting it
I know this isn't eve but they did had a good idea with jump clones and so we just have to stick with escape pod even if your ship is just the size of an escape pod itself
People want to believe that God has a plan for them.
They don't wanna believe that anyone else does..
(07-20-2015, 04:59 PM)Hannibal Wrote: The problem is not only surviving the ship destruction but also the space itself for a long period of time before being rescued but only if there would not be any enemy ship nearby to target practice on your unarmed unmanuvrable pod that it was already a waste ejecting it
I know this isn't eve but they did had a good idea with jump clones and so we just have to stick with escape pod even if your ship is just the size of an escape pod itself
Oh for sure. It's why I LIKE that ship destruction and escape pods can be used for both the death of a character or it's survival. If we had jump clones people would have to constantly rp something happening to the clone database or storage depots every time they wanted to kill someone off.
Was it a solo death? Were there allies left? Did they survive, win the fight, or escape before all was lost? Did the enemy ships tractor in the pods, or leave them to drift and die? Was the pod ejection anywhere near/on trajectory for any planets or bases?
So many choices \o/
The /setmsg system even makes for a neat option if a player wants to have a pod ejection/beacon drop put in chat as they lose their ship.
Thomas.Holden - independent junker scrapping across sirius Zed.Taylor - former bretonian privateer hunting royalist remnants Tradeknight.7 - industrial trade crew of 4 brothers