How To Abandon Ship?

cthia wrote:Yes, space is big. And those missiles may originally showcase that much elbow room between them, but at the end of their run they will converge on their assigned target(s). And if it is a launch from the Havenites—post Committee of Public Safety—where they've gotten themselves back on balance, the brunt of those missiles will be converging on a few targets. And if the timing of your evacuation for whatever reason is late, well, then you have the best seat in the house.

Also, from a Havenite or SLN perspective facing the RMN, Apollo's brood of missiles are very close together. Even before Apollo, the RMN was always spreading its fire amongst a few targets. Where at the end of their run they converge for a bit of fun. Heeeere's Johnny 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Yes, space is big. And those missiles may originally showcase that much elbow room between them, but at the end of their run they will converge on their assigned target(s). And if it is a launch from the Havenites—post Committee of Public Safety—where they've gotten themselves back on balance, the brunt of those missiles will be converging on a few targets. And if the timing of your evacuation for whatever reason is late, well, then you have the best seat in the house.

Also, from a Havenite or SLN perspective facing the RMN, Apollo's brood of missiles are very close together. Even before Apollo, the RMN was always spreading its fire amongst a few targets. Where at the end of their run they converge for a bit of fun. Heeeere's Johnny 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

They do converge. But with a laserhead standoff range between 30,000 km and 50,000 km they're still not exactly close by.

And yet, even at that distance something causes catastrophic losses, to proximity soft-kill, of pods towed outside the wedge. So you're not getting caught in nuclear fireballs. And since most formations are relatively flat it's unlikely you'd end up between the laserheads and another ship, so you're unlikely to be in the way of either an inbound laserhead's laser or an outbound PDLC (or much worse CM). But whatever is getting all those pods might get you too.

War is an awful mothertrucker that doesn't wear a condom.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:People in the shower, bath or john would seem to be at a disadvantage. Also, the time available to abandon ship seems awfully short.

A warship at battle stations won't have anyone in the shower, bath or john. And if the abandon ship order goes out you're not going to let your attire stop you--you run for the pod or lifeboat even if you're naked.

Given how fast we have seen people get off a doomed ship it basically must mostly involve grav-boosted transport of some kind.

pappilon wrote:
There has never been a maritime law that the captain must go down with her ship, yet the crew is supposed to make sure the passengers are off before they evacuate.

cthia wrote:I can't remember the particulars of Steilman and crews' incarceration. But during any unfortunate stay in the brig, is their fate left up to someone running to free them? Or is the brig too deep in the bowels of the ship that they enjoy that SOL status as well? Fate sealed, along with them?

If they are close enough to the skin of the ship, I certainly wouldn't think it is fair that someone has to waste precious time getting to them before they could head for a boat bay themselves.

I would imagine that their fate is sealed unless someone is posted at the brig continuously.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Are there sidewalls to worry about while abandoning ship? Or does the computer allow exit by momentarily opening a tiny window as with Star Trek's shields?

Well a ship is supposed to cut its wedge to indicate surrender, which should happen about the time you abondon ship - losing the wedge would drop all the sidewalls.

But even if the wedge stayed up the sidewalls are 10 km off each beam so it’s unlikely a pod would be shot out with enough force to cover 10 km before exiting the rear of the wedge. (Because once your far enough out to clear the compensator field, normally maybe a km or less, the ship zips away from you at several hundred gravities of acceleration. And a buckler wall seems a limit problem as it is about the diameter of the ships max width - so unless you bale straigh out the aft of the ship any course that clears the aft hammerhead would also clear an aft buckler wall.

Seems to me about the only way you could hit a sidewalk while abandoning ship is if they were dumb enough to cut accel to zero, leave the wedge and sidewalls up, and the ship survived long enough for the pods to drift 10 km into an intact sidewall. ,

Grashtel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though that doesn't help you survive the EMP from 'nearby' laserheads targeting other ships in your fleet. Life pods are probably pretty EMP hardened, but skinsuits could have a rougher time if you had to do a manual bailout.

EMP is not an issue in space, they are the result of the interaction of the plasma from the blast with a planetary magnetic field so in the absence of that don't happen to any significant degree.