Vacc Suit Damage/Air Loss Illogic
Jeffery Martin
the suit means a loss of 10% of the suits air in 3 seconds.
Therefore, one vacc suit with no air tanks, containing just 5 minutes of
air, will take the same amout of time to lose all of its air as a vacc
suit with two air tanks, which contain 4 hours of air?
Isn't there a more logical way? Has someone else come up with something?
-dsr-
I would read that as "10% of the air in the suit" not 10% of the air in
the suit and tanks.
So, the vacc suit without tanks has 30 seconds to patch the leak (and
the user will start rolling for low pressure effects after the first
round, and trying that great breath control skill almost immediately).
Meanwhile, the user of the well-equipped suit with 4 hour tanks would
lose 10% of suit air in the first 3 seconds, and in all probability
would turn up the air control to MAX EMERGENCY in that time, and lose
30 seconds worth of air (10% of 5 minutes) every 3 seconds until they
get a patch on the hole.
Suits with more years of experience in their design will do this
automatically; really advanced suits will be able to repair themselves.
If this were combat, I would let an aimed or critical hit hole the
faceplate or an airtank. I would treat a successful hit on a tank as the
immediate loss of all air in the tank, but not a leak -- the regulator
valve should prevent more than minimal air loss.
-dsr-
ANTIcarrot
-dsr- <d...@tao.debian.org> wrote in message
news:jX3s8.11429$%s3.40...@typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net...
> In article <3CB0BAAB...@yahoo.com>, Jeffery Martin wrote:
> >On p. UT25 and p. S62 the rules state that any damage which penetrates
> >the suit means a loss of 10% of the suits air in 3 seconds.
> If this were combat, I would let an aimed or critical hit hole the
> faceplate or an airtank. I would treat a successful hit on a tank as the
> immediate loss of all air in the tank, but not a leak -- the regulator
> valve should prevent more than minimal air loss.
>
> -dsr-
Also if they hit the tank then you should roll for explosive dammage - as
those are pressurised cylinders which will go off like a bomb. God knows
*exactly* what you'd roll though...
ANTIcarrot.
Ray Cochener
"Jeffery Martin" <roi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3CB0BAAB...@yahoo.com...
Ray Cochener
"ANTIcarrot" <dante.f...@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:WW4s8.5385$NG3.9...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...
released with the air rushing out a single hole- now imagine it from the
baloons perspective.
At TL:7 a 2 hour tank is pressurized to 2000 PSI. add 50% per tech level
above 7. Figure a standard wound hole is about 1/4 a square inch- means a
500 pound thruster is now attached to your back, losing 50 pounds thrust
every 3 seconds.
Now if the valve attachment is knocked off you have a 1 square inch
hole, meaning 2000 pounds of thrust loosing 200 pounds every 3 seconds.
SD Anderson
50%?
The weight carried on your back is the real limiting factor.
Compressing the air to 4000 psi was possible at TL 6. They could have
made 4000 psi tanks then. The cost would be notably higher for light
weight metal that could safely hold the air.
Using Space's 1 day's worth of air = 73 lbs weight, 2 hours worth
of air weigs a bit more than six pounds. If you can cut three pounds
tank weight off you can add 50% more air. Going by the weight
reduction on armor materials (assuming a tank is built using standard
metal armor to contain the pressure) you see a 20% weight drop from TL
7 to TL 8 (0.5 to 0.4). From there it drops to 0.25 at TL 9. By TL
12 the material used is so light that futher advances won't
significantly improve the amount of air added.
Gregory L. Hansen
>news:<yt8s8.25507$ml2.2...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
>> "ANTIcarrot" <dante.f...@virgin.net> wrote in message
>> news:WW4s8.5385$NG3.9...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...
>> > Also if they hit the tank then you should roll for explosive dammage - as
>> > those are pressurised cylinders which will go off like a bomb. God knows
>> > *exactly* what you'd roll though...
>> >
>> More likely like a rocket. You have seen a baloon inflated and then
>> released with the air rushing out a single hole- now imagine it from the
>> baloons perspective.
Like a rocket if you're lucky. Stress concentrates around cracks, and the
material can rip like a bag of chips when you pull it open but just happen
to get a tear going in the wrong direction. Like a pin into a fully
inflated balloon...
There are things that can reduce or prevent the possibility, like fiber
reinforcements. But holed pressure tanks can explode.
--
"For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong. "
-- Henry Louis Mencken
Jeffery Martin
ISP/newsreader. I had to go to Google to see everyone's responses.
Since this newsreader is new, and my ISP is lame, it could be either.
Therefore, this will be a multi-response post.
d...@tao.debian.org explained the rules in a way that made sense, but
then why didn't SJG simply write: "Every 3 seconds means a loss of 30
seconds of the suit's air." Okay, that question was rhetorical unless
you actually know the answer.
SD Anderson: I am not sure where you are getting the armor weight
reduction by TL. I see nothing describing that in Ultra-Tech, Space, or
GURPS Traveller. In fact, I see several references to the opposite:
that armor does not weight less at higher TL's only the DR is higher.
Just so everyone knows, this is GURPS Traveller with TL 10 equipment,
and coincidentally, my character was shot in the torso from behind.
Which makes me wonder, could he patch the leak at all?
Gregory L. Hansen
I'm not sure what patches in Traveller are like, but the Starship Troopers
cartoon had a spray can that applies a foaming glue of some kind. That
seems very sensible to me because it's fast and easy to apply, and it
fills volume. Spray it around behind you and you're bound to get the
leak.
Ray Cochener
"SD Anderson" <10225...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:ad847902.02040...@posting.google.com...
The more extreem limitation for a personal supply is the weight of the
tank. At TL:8 it should go up to 3000 PSI. Also remember that the higher the
pressure the smaller the tank can be (though that would mess with the
falloff numbers for pressure)- a tank at 5000 PSI (TL:10) can be quite
small, and use very little material to contain that air. At that point you
probably *have* cut out 3 lbs of weight from the tank and could boost to 3
hours of air instead, but past that it would be reduction in size as the
primary effect.
I know that in the late 80's NASA was exprimenting with graphite to hold
air at 3000 PSI, while a standard TL:7 scuba tank held it at 2000 with
significantly more tank weight. Pressure support and armor capabilities do
not exactly parallel.
SD Anderson
> I know that in the late 80's NASA was exprimenting with graphite to hold
> air at 3000 PSI, while a standard TL:7 scuba tank held it at 2000 with
> significantly more tank weight. Pressure support and armor capabilities do
> not exactly parallel.
True but they tend to use the similar materials. Something that
can shrug off an explosion does a good job of containing pressure.
Rather than invent materials specifically for that job and adjusting
them for tech level I assume the follow the basic cost/weight changes
tech advance gives for armor.
SD Anderson
>
> SD Anderson: I am not sure where you are getting the armor weight
> reduction by TL. I see nothing describing that in Ultra-Tech, Space, or
> GURPS Traveller. In fact, I see several references to the opposite:
> that armor does not weight less at higher TL's only the DR is higher.
GURPS Vehicles. P.22. The assumption of the armors in UT etc is
that a given weight load is ideal for the armor. As tech level
improves and ultra advanced materials become commonplace they'll be
used in place of the old materials AT the established weight. Thus TL
9 armor has better DR than TL 8 armor instead of lighter weight.
In the case of air tanks, you really don't need that much tensile
strength for the job of containing air. If you can lighten the weight
of the tank, you can replace the weight with additional air. I just
refered to a listing that covers high strength materials by weight per
tech level.
Jeffery Martin
Gregory Hansen, about those vacc suit patches: to quote GURPS Space on
p. 62, "Any vacc suit has a front pocket with 10 emergency patches. Any
damage that penetrates the suit must be patched immediately. This
requires 3 seconds and a Vacc Suit roll. If the first attempt fails,
each further attempt is at a cumulative -1."
That sounds to me like non-spray patches.
Ray Cochener
"SD Anderson" <10225...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:ad847902.02040...@posting.google.com...
you can also shrink the size of the tank. so if at TL:8 you have a material
which can, for the same weight/area contain 3000 PSI instead of 2000 PSI
then you can have 2/3 the volume, reducing the surface area by 12.6%, which
cuts into the weight as well.
The other point, to address an issue in a previous post, is that armor
relies on a combination of tensile and compression strength that will favor
compression to withstand external blows. Air tanks will rely on a
combination which favors tensile strength over compression. Thus the weight
progression would presumedly *not* be the same- which is why aluminum and
graphite have been used for air tanks and tennis rackets in far greater
demand than they have for armor.
-dsr-
Yup. Feel free to have spraypatches as an extra-cost addon, or a feature
of more expensive or simply better-designed suits, or perhaps as a cultural
thing. There's no rule that says that all your suits come from the same
manufacturer, you know... unless you want to rule that the Interplanetary
Treaty on Space Safety decrees a certain style of patch.
Gregory L. Hansen
By TL10 you'd think they could do better than that. I've often noticed
that GURPS seems to have some token high-tech gadgets, but not really the
complete high-tech lifestyle.
The suit should be self-sealing unless a gaping hole is blown into it.
Even TL8 suits could perhaps be made self-sealing with a rubber liner
(ever drill a hole through rubber and then check to see how big the hole
actually is?) and patching cells that foam out when they're ruptured.
For military suits I might even include tourniquets on the shoulders and
legs-- rip a patch off, pull the cord, and it will seal tight so you don't
bleed to death or lose all your air if a limb gets blown off.
TL9 and TL10 suits should certainly be self-sealing, and might have an
active sealing or repair system instead of the passive system I described
above. Self-mending fabrics, or sealing compounds that are actually
pumped to where they're needed, or something like that.
Silveroak
that point niether self sealant nor spray patches work so you have to use an
emergency patch instead...
Even self sealing tires get punctured, it just takes a bigger nail.
"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:a91k1n$68v$4...@wilson.uits.indiana.edu...
Michael Houghton
In article <a8uri9$t0d$3...@wilson.uits.indiana.edu>,
Gregory L. Hansen <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>
>
>I'm not sure what patches in Traveller are like, but the Starship Troopers
>cartoon had a spray can that applies a foaming glue of some kind. That
>seems very sensible to me because it's fast and easy to apply, and it
>fills volume. Spray it around behind you and you're bound to get the
>leak.
>
I don't think there is a canonical answer, but an early JTAS (paper)
had an article on vacc suits. For real working suits, Robert Bodine
included 'Super Stick Tear 'n' Swear Patches'. Something to peel off
a release paper and slap over the hole. Messy but effective to get
you inside again.
yours,
Michael
--
Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
her...@radix.net | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
| http://www.radix.net/~herveus/
Mark K Styles
"Jeffery Martin" wrote...
> d...@tao.debian.org explained the rules in a way that made sense, but
> then why didn't SJG simply write: "Every 3 seconds means a loss of 30
> seconds of the suit's air." Okay, that question was rhetorical unless
> you actually know the answer.
Or perhaps, "A holed suit loses air at ten times the normal usage rate until
patched."?
Jeffery Martin
> By TL10 you'd think they could do better than that. I've often noticed
> that GURPS seems to have some token high-tech gadgets, but not really the
> complete high-tech lifestyle.
Tell me about it! On p. 113 of GURPS Traveller they have a digital
camera as TL 8 starting at Cr500 and 2#. What?! Therefore, after
shopping around on Amazon.com and finding one for $125, our current
society must be in TL 10. Wow! I must have missed the USA Today
headline about faster-than-light travel.
Oh, and just so you know, you can forget about Palm Pilots being as
small and light-weight as they are now. In the (GURPS) future, they
will be a lot more bulky and expensive.
Gregory L. Hansen
Give the suit a skill level for repairing a leak, subtract blow-through
damage. So maybe a TL8 suit has skill 20, 20 - 10 = 10 for an effective
ability to repair a hole from a rifle bullet. Miss by one, lose 10
seconds of air in 3 turns. Miss by two, lose 20 seconds of air in 3
turns. Miss by 3 or more, lose 30 seconds of air in 3 turns.
Leszek Karlik
<glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> disseminated foul capitalist
propaganda:
[...]
> By TL10 you'd think they could do better than that. I've often noticed
> that GURPS seems to have some token high-tech gadgets, but not really the
> complete high-tech lifestyle.
Yeah. I mean, where are my talking smartguns with Mind 0.5? :)
Leslie
--
Leszek 'Leslie' Karlik; ailurophile by trade; SNAFU TANJ TANSTAAFL; /^\ lk
Do you want to join the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria? / (*) \
Put $ 3,125.00 in a cigar box and bury it in your backyard. / \
One of our *Underground* Agents will contact you shortly. /_____________\
Silveroak
diameter of the hole, not the 'damage code' of what passed through it. A
small tire puncture that would be less than 1 hit point can be self-sealed
today, but a puncture with more than 1/2 inch diamter cannot. It doesn't
matter if what made that puncture did so as 1 hit point or 0 or 5, it is the
size of the hole going in that matters. Anything larger than a needler or
tight beam laser is going to require a patch.
Silveroak
> Gregory L. Hansen wrote:
>
>
> > By TL10 you'd think they could do better than that. I've often noticed
> > that GURPS seems to have some token high-tech gadgets, but not really
the
> > complete high-tech lifestyle.
>
>
> Tell me about it! On p. 113 of GURPS Traveller they have a digital
> camera as TL 8 starting at Cr500 and 2#. What?! Therefore, after
> shopping around on Amazon.com and finding one for $125, our current
> society must be in TL 10. Wow! I must have missed the USA Today
> headline about faster-than-light travel.
>
-dsr-
Well, eleven if you want to put it that way. (10x loss plus the user's
usage... which is probably higher than normal due to panic).
These are all based on assumptions of small caliber holes: pinprick up
through perhaps 1" diameter.
Now, for a really big hole - say 6" or more - I would deflate the suit
even faster. A foot-long slash should depressurize the suit within 3 seconds
or so, perhaps 2 or 3 rounds if the suit has good airtanks and a MAX
EMERGENCY mode.
At the same time, the wearer is most likely dealing with panic, shock,
trauma, and pain.
Hand to hand space combat: not for wusses.
-dsr-
Gregory L. Hansen
Silveroak <silv...@feist.com> wrote:
>
>"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
>news:a91ocu$74n$4...@wilson.uits.indiana.edu...
>> Give the suit a skill level for repairing a leak, subtract blow-through
>> damage. So maybe a TL8 suit has skill 20, 20 - 10 = 10 for an effective
>> ability to repair a hole from a rifle bullet. Miss by one, lose 10
>> seconds of air in 3 turns. Miss by two, lose 20 seconds of air in 3
>> turns. Miss by 3 or more, lose 30 seconds of air in 3 turns.
>>
> The problem is that self sealing capabilities are limited by the
>diameter of the hole, not the 'damage code' of what passed through it. A
>small tire puncture that would be less than 1 hit point can be self-sealed
>today, but a puncture with more than 1/2 inch diamter cannot. It doesn't
>matter if what made that puncture did so as 1 hit point or 0 or 5, it is the
>size of the hole going in that matters. Anything larger than a needler or
>tight beam laser is going to require a patch.
Feel free to modify it to your liking.
But certainly larger than a needler could be self-repaired. If you're
holed by a needler, you wouldn't be losing 30 seconds of air in three
turns anyway, the leak rate would be pretty low, but the rules are
understandably grainy.
The most basic self-sealing system would be a rubber lining. Rubber
stretches. Ever try to bolt car tires together? You need to use an
oversized drill, or else the rubber will just close up when you remove the
drill bit and you won't be able to push the bolt through. A soft rubber
liner should be very good at turning what would have been fast leaks into
slow leaks. This is about TL6 technology, although it hasn't been applied
to space suits at TL6.
Maybe about TL8 would be cells of foaming sealant built into the liner or
on a backing behind it. A hole would rupture the cells, the sealant would
expand to fix even fairly large tears. Certainly a .30 caliber sized hole
can be repaired, especially as it would be essentially zero diameter in
the liner. Something like this is being developed now as crack-resistant
material, with microbeads of glue, so it's not a great conceptual leap.
In TL9 we can get creepier technology. Self-repairing fabrics with a
mechanism that brings frayed ends together. Integral sensors and plumbing
that actively brings sealant where it's needed, as much as is needed.
TL10 is anyone's guess. Genetically engineered skins that are literally
living cells supported by a circulating nutrient solution, that repairs
holes in a way similar to but faster than human skin. Nanotechnology that
can repair even large holes and missing material, by transporting raw
materials stored elsewhere and assembling them in place. Force fields
that make the whole idea of a vacc suit or the concept of torn fabric
somewhat obsolete. As "Uncle Al" Schwarz said, advanced technology
doesn't just fix problems, it renders them irrelevant. Maybe that's TL11.
Give the unwashed masses a century of combat and hazardous work in space,
and just see if they're still slapping patches on to plug every little
pinprick.
Demi the C Monkey
> In article <ub9cng7...@corp.supernews.com>, Mark K Styles wrote:
>
>>
>>Or perhaps, "A holed suit loses air at ten times the normal usage rate until
>>patched."?
>
>
> Well, eleven if you want to put it that way. (10x loss plus the user's
> usage... which is probably higher than normal due to panic).
only if it's a novice. a veteran spacer would move fast to patch a
hole, but wouldn't panic.
and like (for instance) cousteau's underwater camera crew, emergencies
would be handled quickly but without increased oxygen usage unless
exertion was required.
>
> -dsr-
demi
--
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Sean O'Flaherty
Jeffery Martin <roi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Tell me about it! On p. 113 of GURPS Traveller they have a digital
>camera as TL 8 starting at Cr500 and 2#. What?! Therefore, after
>shopping around on Amazon.com and finding one for $125, our current
>society must be in TL 10. Wow! I must have missed the USA Today
>headline about faster-than-light travel.
I think the TL8 camera is much higher quality. You could spend well over
$5000 dollars on a digital camera today, not including the lens.
The $100 digital cameras I've seen are about TV quality, but the TL8
camera's standard pictures take 1250 times as much space as TV quality,
so it's probably 1250 time as high resolution. That's probably about
medium format size.
--
...it's our wits that make us men.
From Braveheart
Sean O'Flaherty
Home Page http://home.earthlink.net/~seano1/
Email seano1...@earthlink.net remove "NoSpam" to reply
Jeffery Martin
> In article <3CB4FEB9...@yahoo.com>,
> Jeffery Martin <roi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Tell me about it! On p. 113 of GURPS Traveller they have a digital
>>camera as TL 8 starting at Cr500 and 2#. What?! Therefore, after
>>shopping around on Amazon.com and finding one for $125, our current
>>society must be in TL 10. Wow! I must have missed the USA Today
>>headline about faster-than-light travel.
>>
>
> I think the TL8 camera is much higher quality. You could spend well over
> $5000 dollars on a digital camera today, not including the lens.
>
> The $100 digital cameras I've seen are about TV quality, but the TL8
> camera's standard pictures take 1250 times as much space as TV quality,
> so it's probably 1250 time as high resolution. That's probably about
> medium format size.
>
>
According to the dateline on GURPS Basic, we (first-world nations on
Earth in reality) are now officially in TL 8, right?
Leszek Karlik
disseminated foul capitalist propaganda:
[...]
> According to the dateline on GURPS Basic, we (first-world nations on
> Earth in reality) are now officially in TL 8, right?
Well, in that case I want a Power Cell to power my laptop. :)
(Forget about laser rifles, I'll be able to work for a few
days without recharging! :))).
Richard Brown
Very early TL 8, in a shcheme which puts both WW1 and WW2 in one TL.
The problem is the game TL's have to keep geting revised to keep up
with the real world, Ultra Tech 2 has several examples of devices from
Ulta Tech 1 which had been invented in the real world and went from as
high as TL 10 to TL 7 (the book being published in the 90's). I
expect TL 8 will keep being redifined as whatever hapens in the real
world until 2050 or the invention of FTL travel whichever comes first.
As far at the discrepancy of digital camra prices, what are the
described capabilities of the game one VS the real one, you may be
comparing high end top of the line mature TL 8 to a bargan basement
early TL 8 lemon.