An air/raft has 4 grav modules, a power supply and the controls and avionics. Liquid coolant isn't that common, since it's orbit-rated. Depending on how the badguys disabled it, you've got some options. Avionics includes the ELT - Emergency Landing Transponder. This is a small radio system buried in the frame for maximum survivability in the event of a crash. For the scenario you're describing, it'd be a dead giveaway this isn't a natural death if they fiddled with it. If the bad guys made it look like your PC landed and then the air/raft failed, then he might be able to rig some way to trigger the ELT and thus send for help. This is probably the best bet overall for survival. The grav modules are solid state. There's a connector that plugs them in for power, another for the control bus, another for the backup control bus, and either 4 or 6 bolts that hold it in to the mounts. These are a lot like the motor mounts on a car. The module's underside and top have heat exchange fins, like the heat sink on a cpu. There's ducting for that runs air over the module when the air/raft is moving, and there's a couple spring-loaded doors with bimetal actuators that close when it's too cold. (The module will work in near-zero kelvin, but if ice forms inside the fractal fins of the heat sink, it can bend them and they they don't work right. Ever again. No matter how much you screw with them. Replace the whole heat sink, otherwise you never know when the overheat will come back to bite you.) Oh, and don't break or bend the cooling fins while you're messing with the cover. You'll regret it later. There's either 8 or 12 bolts around the top of the module, but opening it won't yield much. About 1 in 20 air/rafts (mostly older ones) will have at least 2 of the bolts be a different head size than the others. I don't think they came from the factory this way. About 1 in 50 air/rafts have one bolt that's stripped. I know they didn't come from the factory that way. There's a couple super capacitors in there for handling surge loads, and if they haven't self discharged or been safety-discharged you can get hurt with them. You could carefully dismount them and use them to throw big sparks to make a camp fire, but that's not that useful here. Some electronics, six big coils that if you fiddle with them without alignment tools you'll mess up, some sensors. Nothing really useful in this context. The power supply is either a battery pack (more super caps, really) or a small fusion pack. Either way kinda dangerous to play with without tools, and no moving parts or coolant inside. If you're a "Fusion+" Traveller game, there may be a few ounces of water you can get out of the fusion pack. There's normally conduit around the bigger cables, so you could figure a way to get that out for your survival still. Some (<10%) air/rafts that see a lot of ground/orbit work have a PLSS you can plug your vac suit into - in that case, you might be able to access the water reservoir in it. You might even be able to bleed off the oxygen bottle, with would make a pretty serious pressure drop and might cause some condensation to form. You might be able to do something really creative with the CO2 scrubber. The PLSS should have it's own battery, which you might be able to rig to power the vehicle radio. If the air/raft has an air/conditioner, you might be able to get some condensation out of it if it was running before the crash and it hasn't evaporated while the PCs were unconscious. The A/C is solid state, except for a couple fans, so venting the pressure lines to make condensation won't work - no pressure lines. You can remove the crash airbags (if they weren't already deployed in the 'crash') and use those for your survival still tarp. Might even be able to cut up a couple of them and make a lean-to for shade. If you can pry out the sealant around one of the windshield panes, you can lever out that whole sheet of plastic, and that makes a really good top for a solar still. Hopefully there's an empty drink cup in the vehicle somewhere for a collection container for the still. If not, then you could smash up the console between the front seats and get the cup-holder part out to use as a little bowl. If the airbags didn't automatically deploy, you might be able to salvage the squibs. That and the PLSS battery and the chemicals from the scrubber might make you a little grenade.... if your air/raft has the PLSS. Vehicle tool kit... yeah,no jack, no tire iron. There should be a small screwdriver and a box of spare fuses for the avionics, but that's put in by the manufacturer mostly to give people something to do while waiting for a repair vehicle to come. Most of the time if there's an avionics problem replacing the fuse will just cause the new fuse to blow. The screwdriver is for opening the fuse compartment. You can use it to open the headlight and taillight covers to replace bulbs there, although the bulbs are usually LED and last 100k hours and never need replacing. But if it's a Vilani air/raft it's made to run for 50 years so that the 40 year financing on it pays off, and that's long enough to burn out a bulb. Besides, Vilani are hardcore about things lasting forever with proper maintenance, so of course you can swap parts. It's it's a Solomani air/raft, they used cheap bulbs and there might even be a replacement bulb in the toolkit... because General Gravitics sells them in pairs, so if one burns out you have to buy both, which leaves one good one left over which rattles around in storage forever. If you take it out of the vehicle storage, it's fate that within 7 days the other headlight will burn out and you end up buying another pair. If you leave it in, the other light will last 3 years. (Am I bitter, much? There's a bin in the type-S with 3 of these bulbs. You tell me.) If it's a Sylean model, they used good bulbs,but they're specifically designed to need 're certification' for a small fee every year. The dealer doesn't have a parts cost for replacing your bulb, so that's all profit. Anyway, taking apart a headlight would give you a nice mirror for signalling for help. Smashing the lens repeatedly should break it, which gives you a sharp edge for cutting up the airbags and seat covers. Air/rafts sold on some 'rural' worlds might and IISS rafts will have a "Jungle Crash" kit in a compartment you can reach from inside the vehicle. This is for coping with crashing an air/raft in the upper canopy of dense jungle, where the vehicle hangs up and doesn't fall through to the ground. The 'kit' consists of a good quality rappelling rope and 4 cheap swiss seat style harnesses. The idea is you tie off to the tree, then drop down on the side of the trunk opposite the air/raft so you get to the ground before the branches eventually break and the vehicle plummets you to your death. I'm not sure this actually works, I think there's a kickback somewhere in the procurement process for IISS air/rafts that lets somebody get cr10 per air/raft on this deal. Air/Rafts have 'feet' on the bottom, about 2cm thick, for landing. These mate up to the deck latches on a Type-S. You can leave them in 'idle/locked' which keeps the vehicle locked in position relative to the object directly below them. Some people do this when they park on landing stages they don't quite trust, or on lawns they don't want to hurt. On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 5:32 AM, Timothy Collinson <xxxxxx@port.ac.uk> wrote: > Hi there, > > In my (newish) ongoing lunchtime game with some work colleagues, the baddies > maybe about to abandon the PCs in a desert to die. Dumping them with no > supplies and their grav vehicle, an air/raft, incapacitated. (So the whole > thing should look like an unfortunate accident rather than murder.) > > My question is, particularly as I want this to be survivable before they - > perhaps at "last gasp" meet nomadic tribesmen, what parts of an air/raft are > there that might help someone with Survival 3 (i.e. some knowledge) to > survive? > > For example, looking at the terrific Keith brothers _The Desert > Environment_, you can construct a solar still with tarpaulin and a tube. > Now the tube I could easily see being stripped from the vehicle and I guess > some clothing used in place of the tarp. But are there any other 'parts' > (that are removable without tools[1]) that would be useful. In general I'm > just imagining a car (automobile) but, for example, what does an antigrav > unit consist of?! [2] (In particular does it require any amount of water > that might salvageable!) (I'm presuming antifreeze is poisonous.) > > I'm also assuming they will attempt to hike out as no one knows they're > there (well, aside from the baddies) so they can't expect rescue. > > While I'm here, IYTU do grav vehicles 'at rest' sit on the ground or have > some low power hover mode when parked? (I'm trying to recall Luke's > landspeeder ever sitting on the ground). > > tc > > > [1] I suppose I could imagine there was a small, very basic toolkit in the > boot (trunk) although aside from spare wheel changing tools I personally > don't carry much in that way as so much of engines/electronics these days > are closed units. Of course spare wheel changing gear is the one thing I > assume grav vehicles *don't* have! > > [2] All right, I appreciate no one knows, but I thought someone might have > developed some thinking on this to pick apart. > > ----- > The Traveller Mailing List > Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml > Report problems to xxxxxx@simplelists.com > To unsubscribe from this list please goto > http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=vSy3NFQJMSbZKrzPfC3XucFBsUCMtKrI
