How To Abandon Ship?

cthia wrote:Thanks again Vince! Marvelous textev.

I'm almost there. Again, thanks to the both of you. Jonathan. Vince. The hole remaining for me is this. Re: A coaster that has lost lock. Can it reacquire or acquire the ship that has aimlessly wandered onto its path? Even though its drive is down and it cannot go after the newly acquired ship, would it conceivably still have the ability to acquire another ship, such as the unfortunate idiot that has wandered onto its path? "Yea, keep on coming you idiot. I "see" you. I've reacquired, and you're the new target." Then of course it can detonate at its standoff range.

One other question born from the included textev. Maneuvering on attitude thrusters is simply a roll, right? Certainly thrusters cannot significantly change vector of missiles with such speed. But they can "roll" the missile toward its optimum blast front? Is what I'm getting. That correct?

BTW, where is all of this technical stuff found? Jaynes and HoS?

And do forgive my mixing up Brigham and Truman.

cthia wrote:It seems like pods would be in danger from friendly launches as well. Are individual pods big enough to register on a ship's sensors before launching?

And what about the emergency maneuvering of ships out of formation to avoid friendlies breaking apart. Wouldn't unlucky pods in the wrong place at the right time be in danger of being run over?

They must have blips registering on CIC radar. But even so, emergency maneuverings, and uncontrolled maneuverings may put you in an even better seat in the rafters. Especially if CIC, and or radar is damaged and can't see you.

MaxxQ wrote:https://maxxqbunine.deviantart.com/art/ ... -475462450

In the image, note the flat "discs" on the dorsal surface. Those are the escape pod tube hatch covers. The tubes continue through the ship to the centerline, and on ships with armored core hulls, the tubes go into the core hull, but no farther. There are no escape pod hatches/tubes on the ventral surface.

There are no escape pods for the spaces between the core hull and the outer hull, because those are spaces that should not be manned during battle, and are evacuated of atmosphere to limit pressure wave transmission of hits. Everyone should be either inside the core hull, or their weapons crew pods, or otherwise wherever their battle stations are located. On ships without a core hull (anything smaller than a Star Knight), well... I guess you can figure out what they do and where they ought to be.

There are several pods per tube, each pod holds five people. A pod lines up with a hatch, people get in, and the pod is ejected. The next pod moves into place, lather rinse, repeat.

Not visible in any of the images is a "cutout" beneath each weapons port (on older ships), or a cutout for every few weapons ports (on newer-build, manpower-reduced ships). These "cutouts" are armored plugs, and behind them are the weapons crew pods. In an "abandon ship" scenario, the plugs blow out and the weapons crew pods are ejected.

As already mentioned, another means of escape is the pinnaces/cutters/other parasite craft in the boat bay(s). A pinnace can hold around 200 personnel in skinsuits, including flight crew. A cutter could hold maybe 20 people at a pinch, but it would be cramped.

Other ways to abandon ship are the personnel and cargo hatches located on the lower, center broadside areas, in the boat bays, and possibly other locations. As previously mentioned, all personnel should be in skinsuits, which will keep them alive for several hours, even in hard vacuum, and they are equipped with emergency beacons so the person can be located.

There's also the simple expedient of jumping out a hole that has been blasted into the ship, if all else fails.

MaxxQ wrote:

cthia wrote:I think I've identified the discs you were speaking of Maxx. As soon as I realized that dorsal means "rear" as well as "top." The reason I wanted to be clear, is because if someone just leaps, there momentum may not take them clear of the upcoming rear hammerhead. And smash!


I remember that Ajax couldn't get her bay doors open and was frantically trying to repair them. Why didn't suited people go for an emergency jump exit? Run and jump as if you are parachuting. ::another shrug::

In the image I linked, there is a group of four escape pod hatches forward of the superstructure, and another pair forward of the radiators. Keep in mind that these are not necessarily the final locations or numbers of escape pod tubes.

Referencing other posts, as well as this one, when the order to abandon ship is given, it's usually because there's a chance the ship is going to blow, or otherwise break apart. Just surrendering, there's no real need to abandon ship, unless so ordered by the victor.

In the case of abandoning, wedge and sidewalls would be dropped. It makes no sense to have them up when you're abandoning ship. With the wedge down, the ship may still be moving, but it won't be accelerating, and therefore, when one jumps out, you're still carrying the same momentum as the ship, PLUS the momentum in whichever direction you jump. In a vacuum, there's nothing to slow you down to slam into the hammerheads.

That also takes care of the issue of suddenly going from the protection of the compensator field to, NOT being in the field - the ship isn't accelerating (it's just coasting) - so technically, there's no need for the compensator field.

As for incoming missiles, well, that's the chances you take. Lightspeed limitations would cause issues with sending a self-destruct command, or a command to veer off, even with FTL comms.

cthia wrote:*Though I personally don't know how Ajax's drive being up only on her forward rings would affect her sidewalls? Unless it's intuitive, leaving only forward sidewalls.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:*Though I personally don't know how Ajax's drive being up only on her forward rings would affect her sidewalls? Unless it's intuitive, leaving only forward sidewalls.

A single ring can produce a weaker, but as far as I know, full sized wedge. And the sidewalls should be happy to tie into whatever strength wedge the ship is producing.

On the other hand nobody was shooting at Ajax during the length period they were evacuating non-essential crew - so I assume that they'd have lowered the sidewalls for that operation. (There'd be plenty of time to snap the sidewalls back up if someone launched missiles at them)

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:A single ring can produce a weaker, but as far as I know, full sized wedge. And the sidewalls should be happy to tie into whatever strength wedge the ship is producing.

On the other hand nobody was shooting at Ajax during the length period they were evacuating non-essential crew - so I assume that they'd have lowered the sidewalls for that operation. (There'd be plenty of time to snap the sidewalls back up if someone launched missiles at them)

The sidewalls can be lowered without dropping the wedge? Because dropping the wedge would kill acceleration. And Ajax was hauling ass for dear life.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:A single ring can produce a weaker, but as far as I know, full sized wedge. And the sidewalls should be happy to tie into whatever strength wedge the ship is producing.

On the other hand nobody was shooting at Ajax during the length period they were evacuating non-essential crew - so I assume that they'd have lowered the sidewalls for that operation. (There'd be plenty of time to snap the sidewalls back up if someone launched missiles at them)

The sidewalls can be lowered without dropping the wedge? Because dropping the wedge would kill acceleration. And Ajax was hauling ass for dear life.

Jonathan_S wrote: Of course they can.

MAxxq wrote:As for the question earlier about pods clearing the sidewalls, I thought I had made it clear earlier that wedge and sidewalls would be DOWN when an abandon ship order is given. Any ship commander that gave an order to abandon ship with wedge and/or sidewalls UP should be court-martialed if he survives.

cthia wrote:Surely you're not puzzled that I'm not a tech head. LOL

Great! Then that simply refers back to my original post asking whether during evacuations the sidewalls are dropped for boats, pinnaces and pods -- like in Star Trek where shield harmonics are adjusted?, so a craft can exit. Posts seem to imply that the wedge needs to be down and would be down, because of surrendering. And I stated that a ship may not always be surrendering though still may need to abandon, like Ajax."

pappilon wrote:

cthia wrote:Surely you're not puzzled that I'm not a tech head. LOL

Great! Then that simply refers back to my original post asking whether during evacuations the sidewalls are dropped for boats, pinnaces and pods -- like in Star Trek where shield harmonics are adjusted?, so a craft can exit. Posts seem to imply that the wedge needs to be down and would be down, because of surrendering. And I stated that a ship may not always be surrendering though still may need to abandon, like Ajax."

Not a tech head either but IIRC: alpha nodes generate the Warsawski sails, beta nodes generate the wedge which is an impenetrable grav layer on the top and bottom of the ship. hence the lack of need for protective armor plating. Sidewall generators create the sidewalls which are "stitched together (by handwavium, I assume) with the wedge. the missile laser impacts on the sidewall eventually overload the sidewall generators and they fail. At which point the ship is defenseless like the Enterprise when the shields are down in battle. At which point a prudent captain orders the crew to abandon ship. Since the sidewall generators are down but the wedge is still up, there is no need to punch a hole in it. But on the other hand there has to be a way to punch a hole in it to get a missile fired through it.