On 29/5/20 3:10 am, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
> <snip>
>

>
> Here's one possible take:
>
> Here's one way to look at a cryoberth that justifies a long
> freeze/thaw cycle. Step 1 is pump you full of slow drug (aside: do
> slow/fast/etc drugs all work for other races? If not, are there some
> drugs that can't work for a particular race? Separate thread of
> discussion on this sometime later). Once you are on really low
> metabolism, they freeze you. They thaw is the opposite - unfreeze,
> then you are still under slow drug, then they bring you all the way
> out slowly as the slow drug wears off.
>
> You *can* go straight to freeze, but that ups the risks of damage. You
> can come right out of freeze, but ups the risk of damage. If you use
> slow drug and then freeze, maybe you get a +1 DM.

Ooh, I like.

IIRC, GT 2e had revival be automatic if supervised by someone with
Physician 10+ or Electronic Ops (Medical) 10+.  J. Random only dies on a
critical HT failure.  GT:IW has revival be automatic if supervised by
Electronic Ops (Medical) 10+, with J. Random dying on a failed HT+6 roll.

>
> The presence of the low berth for standard passages sure suggests it
> must be used in people movement on non-military craft. That being the
> case, the original CT numbers and even an avg 8+ for the berth seems
> too high. You'd constantly be losing people. They'd demand better
> outcomes. (Well, the families would) Routine (6+) might be more
> reasonable.

Or low-berth travellers are either desperate enough to hang the risk,
feel it's an acceptable tradeoff, etc.

The MGT2 book straight-out states that low-berth deaths are common
enough to have a lottery going.

Maybe require the initial failure to be verified?  Ie, roll twice, and
on at least one success, RANDOM LIVES!

Or roll with a boon?

>
> Also, as we look at how far and how fast tech advances in energy,
> lasers, ships systems, medicine, etc, you'd think that there should be
> impacts on survivability between TL 8 (where the berth exists) and TL
> 12 and more beyond. And given the key role in early generation ships
> and any forms of exploratory or military ships, you'd want very high
> survival odds. Frozen watches would otherwise cost a lot of cash.

The _technology_ may well go like a Mythbusters-modified car in hot
pursuit of a myth, but the _humans_ being frozen don't change that much.

Very high survival odds may not be viewed as cost effective over
reasonably-high.  The threshold will change by use case - Zhodani Navy
low berths on Core Route ships may well be among the best available in
Charted Space, while emergency low berths on a Siigiizuni at the tail
end of the IW may ... not.

>
> Also, there should probably be some variant of the rules for long
> stays (I imagine long enough stays should have impacts beyond just the
> normal freeze/thaw issues.... physical and psychological impacts).
Well, off top of head, you'd have to worry about autoirradiation and the
resulting damage that's not getting repaired because J. Random is
switchoff.  Psykers could be a whole different boatload of lunatics.
>
> I think I'll link but not tightly couple my little rules
> extension/variant of low berth recovery and an article about a richer
> low berth system with more models, more variations in benefits and
> risks, etc. That way someone could just use a more forgiving or
> story-rich revival table OR they could go further and pick and choose
> some of the other suggestions I'm thinking of.
Hmm... whatcha got for say the 2120s AD? :)
>
> Now, some of you say 'Why would we bother with that? I've never seen
> anyone inquire about that.' Or 'why not just rule ad hoc?'. Well, the
> answer to the latter is 'you can, always!' and to the former is more
> historical (We wrote rules for airships, early rockets, and every form
> of system in the construction systems... even though the number of
> players or GMs worried about that was probably low). Having options
> that have been thought out and have some rich idea fodder (and as Tim
> said, all consolidated somewhere) is a nice option if you want it.
No complaint here.  I've found compilations to be very effective in
knocking ideas loose.
>
> I started this thread focused on MgT/MgT2 because that's the basis for
> Freelance Traveller. I will also do a historical search (Starship Ops
> Manual, etc) and see what can be found. Maybe a short summary of all
> that would be a good preamble to showcase the variations by version.
> Or maybe that's another related but not integrated article vice my
> current low berth variations.
See above for the GT variants.
>
> <snip>
>
> And some thought about good or not automated revival protocols and
> about how easy it might be to sabotage one, power fail scenarios, etc.
> and as Jeff brought up, how dependent on the outside world (computers,
> staff) they are.
At one extreme, I'd imagine an immediately pre-Maghiz TTL17 low berth
may well have a pseudo-AI built in to make recovery completely
autonomous.  A nasty way to muck one up would be to frag up its _error
checking_.
<snip>
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