New Item: Emergency Life Bubble

[Loreguard]

Ok, I will admit that when I first read the spacecraft rules, I found the Escape Pods and Lifeboats as being an expansion bay, and it being something that frequently ships would not be able to maintain enough capacity for a normal crew capacity.

With that in mind, I though, we needed some form of homebrew device to allow some better safety for space travelers that wouldn't invalidate current rules.

I decided having an emergency 'life-raft' could make sense as a type of technology that could be standard frequently aboard spacecraft. Something that who's existence could make lifeboats and escape pods more of a luxury than an expected safety requirement.

Interesting thing was as I tried to start piecing together similar items to base them on, I found that there was something that in Raw may very well work for this, even though it is not specifically advertised as being usable for that purpose.

So I will start this Homebrew suggestion with a strictly raw suggestion, and then move on to what I'd probably do to make it specifically cover the given use case.

The raw, base item is interesting enough Tent, Mobile Hotelier this is a powered 'tent' that provides the same environmental protections as armors. Armors provide vacuum and other hostile environmental protection for a while, so this means this tent provides similar protections.

So I see this as an emergency pod you pull out from a wall, activate the first step, it opens up allowing someone (or a pair of people) to climb into it. You then activate it the next step and it fills the bubble up. It is a tough enough bubble that it should not 'Pop' because of hitting objects in the ship short of shrapnel issues from potential explosions.

As I see it, the 'sales lines' for this product suggest that even if a ship is 'destroyed' that the shell of the ship is a better protection, than being in a small tin can outside in space. The life bubble keeps you in a tolerable environment, and the ship's hull provides continued physical protections from stray asteroids or meteors.

What it lacks, that seems like a bit of necessity would be an Emergency Beacon, which is of course another raw device, so you should be able to bundle it. (and I imagine a few oxygen candles, potentially some rations would make sense for other items to have packed away inside the pack/bubble.

So my suggested combination/bundling of these items into a combined product would be something like this:

Emergency Life Bubble
aka: (the Void Life Raft or VLR)
Source: Forums (LoreGuard Industries)
Category: Starship Emergency Equipment
Level: 1; Price 200; Bulk 2
Description: This specialized disposable emergency vacuum hotelier tent, is constructed to provide up to 2 medium creatures a safe environment in the case that the ship they are on suddenly loses pressurization. Although the bubble is relatively tough and resists general rupture, it primarily relies on the existing ship super structure for physical protection from larger threats. However, the bubble can in theory survive in the vastness of space outside of the shell of any spacecraft for as long as its resources survive, and the bubble picked up by a rescuing craft either through a craft bay, or airlock. When the survival bubble is fully activated, it also activates an emergency beacon which is enclosed. The harmonics of the beacon are such that when multiple beacons are operating within range of one another, the general range of them as a whole is amplified by the number of beacons operating within each other's normal range. (so if some 20 life bubbles were activated within a derelict ship, their beacons would effectively be operating at a 20x range) The pack normally includes a pair of oxygen candles, and a package of about five field ration meals. The bubbles are designed to support both occupants for about 5 days. A single occupant in a bubble, will last about twice as long. The lower power the beacon has, the longer time period between bursts it gives, insuring full powered bursts when they trigger.

[Ixal]

I just noticed that the emergency beacon is very useless.
In space its range is basically nonexistent, even with your multiplicative rule, unless you are in orbit of a planet in which case a personal comm unit would have the same function.

To achieve long range broadcasting you need to hook it up to a existing comm system which begs the question why you aren't using that comm system in the first place.

Their only function seems to be to guide people to a planetary location.

A pair of oxygen candles lasts 10 hours, not 5 days. To achieve 5 days of air for 2 creatures you would need 24 candles which would cost far more than the life bubble itself.

The cheaper solution would be a environmental field collar (those things are so OP) with a spare battery and 1 to 4 weeks of rations.

Still leaves the problem with communicating with others which is the real limit on where such escape pods will be of use.

When you eject in orbit of a inhabited, spacefaring planet you are in range of the beacon, but don't really need long term space survivability to be rescued.
In system space already a beacon is not sufficient and your only hope is that the ship got off a emergency message with its normal communication before it became inoperable. In that case a 1 week survival raft might be of use and the beacon might help to guide rescuers in once they arrive, but 100 miles is still very short in space.

For anything else the use of life rafts is at best questionable if not completely useless (drift).

[kadance]

Perhaps it's intended that you sent a mayday before getting in the escape pod and just need to keep alive for a few days until someone (hopefully) comes to look for you?

[Loreguard]

The life pod by default provides life support similar to armor, which if you read armor’s environmental protections, that is supposed to support an individual for up to 5 days. The oxygen candle is for a boost, or if some air is lost/used up extra.

Edit: also the hotelier tent which this is based on has a battery of 20 charges and uses 1 charge per 8 hours to maintain support. Which incidentally equals 5 days.