On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Delgado Bluefin VII Lifeboat v1.0 (GURPS Traveller TL7) > > > Copyright 2009 by Onno Meyer > > > > Modern real-world lifeboats are closed, so they can't get swamped and, > > Also good for fire hazards and free-fall lifeboats. But that > is, in GURPS 3E terms, a late TL7 development. This one is > more an early TL7 design, with some twists for being Traveller > (i.e. a fuel cell at this relatively low TL). > Ignoring, for the moment, the woeful lack of understanding of economics that the Traveller setting demonstrates, thisn't isn't really a technology-driven development. It's more a change in knowledge and in attitude. In real history, before the early 20th century, a lifeboat wouldn't really do you much good. It was for show. With improved search and rescue techniques, survival in a lifeboat became possible, so concerns about making them survivable increased. There's no reason a lifeboat made of TL6 techniques and materials couldn't be made enclosed. > > > more > > likely, to keep idiots (who are the expected passengers, after all) from > > being washed out and exposed to the weather. > > It is for the ships of the two previous weeks -- fishermen. > They're still just as prone to drowning or dying of exposure as idiot passengers. (And they're likely to be exhausted, injured, and otherwise not at their best. Design safety and survival equipment for idiots, and you'll never go wrong.) > > > Non-inflatable ones are > > usually unsinkable, as well. It also needs a rescue beacon. > > It has a radio, which is pretty good for 60s or early 70s > tech. Many lifeboats still had to make do with a portable > station shared between several lifeboats of a ship. > Well once you've got GPS (and if you tell me that a planet that exists to support *ORBITAL* miners, and which has regular trade of bulky, heavy things between surface and orbit doesn't have GPS, I'll laugh at you so hard I'll require supplemental oxygen.), it makes a whole lot of sense to use it. The cost of modern (21st century earth) EPIRB is pretty low, and they're not exactly cutting edge tech. They consist of a GPS receiver, some control circuitry and a radio transmitter (and it's not a terribly sophisticated transmitter. it transmits a simple digital code at a fixed frequency at low power (5W, with a low duty cycle). The packaging and relatively low demand is what makes them cost anything at all. > > I'm not clear on what the thing is made of, either. > > Probably GRP, but it could also be metal rather than glass. > > > Nor how it would be > > deployed. > > David Scheidt > > Rangent is a system with a water world and belt miners > which has suffered a technological decline from TL9 or > TL10 down to TL7. Advanced imports can be used for the > most critical needs, notably spacecraft and shuttles, > but most gear is TL7. In a setting with interstellar > trade, low tech means either blocked trade or more > likely poverty, as in this case, so the TL7 is an > early TL7 with few expensive backups. > > TL7 has no artificial gravity and no decent synthetic > food, so the water world provides both processed > biomass and "rest and restoration" to the belters, > who in turn provide metals to the planet and to > interstellar buyers (who come in some numbers because > they can get low prices on metal and high prices on > real beef). > > In the next weeks, there will be the floating surface > starport, the orbital starport and a couple of subs > for undersea bases. > What I meant is how you get the lifeboat from the mother ship into the water. I was following the sequence of whips. (I think the whole situation rather unlikely from an economic point of view. More so than most Traveller, even.) > > Onno > _______________________________________________ > GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> > http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l > -- David Scheidt [email protected] _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
