Homebrew Star Wars D6 - Exposure to Vacuum Rules

[Deset Gled]

I found the official rules from 2e under Hyperdrive Mishaps, which includes the possibility of a ruptured spaceship hull:

"All characters in the ruptured area of a ship must make a Moderate survival total to get into survival suits in one round. If the character doesn't, he must make a new stamina check each round to avoid passing out from lack of air - in the first round, the difficulty is Easy, then Moderate, then Difficult, then Very Difficult, then Heroic."

 

[Celebrim]

I found the official rules from 2e under Hyperdrive Mishaps, which includes the possibility of a ruptured spaceship hull:

"All characters in the ruptured area of a ship must make a Moderate survival total to get into survival suits in one round. If the character doesn't, he must make a new stamina check each round to avoid passing out from lack of air - in the first round, the difficulty is Easy, then Moderate, then Difficult, then Very Difficult, then Heroic."

Cool.

That's close to what I'm doing. I do have the escalating difficulty thing going, though it's not clear what the intention of "passing out from lack of air" means. Does that mean vacuum is never life threatening in Star Wars? You go unconscious and then...?

I have to adjudicate something more complex than putting on a suit. Also, unless the hull is fully ruptured and we are in an explosive decompression sort of situation, I'd probably give more than one round before you had to start taking checks.

Also, your more serious sorts of spacer - the ones lacking the fragile ego that don't need to go around looking fashionable all the time - typically wear suits whenever in space and just need to lock the helmet in place (typically clipped to a belt). Three or four of the pilots in the bar in Mos Eisley are still in their flight suits. I'd guess they don't take them off in space!

All of my PC bounty hunters either normally wear an armored flight suit or else wear environmentally sealed armor.

I'd presume the Mandalorian rule of never taking your helmet off evolved from safety regulations aboard ship.

 

[jian]

One thing that is notable is that the Rebels generally aren’t wearing respirators and full body suits when piloting their fighters but the Imperial pilots are. Ejecting out of a shot up X-Wing will be a lot less fun if you can’t breathe afterwards. One rare occasion when the Empire cares a little bit more about its personnel than the Rebels?

(We all know the Doylist reason, of course, which is that Lucas thinks that heroes should show their faces.)

 

[Celebrim]

One thing that is notable is that the Rebels generally aren’t wearing respirators and full body suits when piloting their fighters but the Imperial pilots are. Ejecting out of a shot up X-Wing will be a lot less fun if you can’t breathe afterwards. One rare occasion when the Empire cares a little bit more about its personnel than the Rebels?

(We all know the Doylist reason, of course, which is that Lucas thinks that heroes should show their faces.)

Canonically, the ejection system of the X-Wing is more like an escape pod than an ejector seat. Of course, that wouldn't do you any good if the canopy was breached.

However, I chalk it up to the Alliance just being a bunch of insurgents without a lot of military discipline or bearing. Besides, the Imps can generally count on the ISN picking up any stragglers, while the Alliance's hit and run tactics mean that any stragglers are going to be executed as traitors by the Imps, and then only after being tortured by the IIS. So maybe if you're a rebel you don't want to survive the explosion of your craft.

The level of evil in the Empire varies widely. Sheev Palpatine is an insane psychopath, but at the level of the ISN, the level of actual snarling evil is pretty low. Personnel are expendable, but not at the level of wasting them. Most commanders legitimately believe they are the good guys, that they are preserving peace and order and civilization, and that the Rebels are terrorists and traitors that are unnecessarily plunging the galaxy into another ruinous war. Individual Tie Fighter pilots are generally honorable patriots from core worlds who have no reason to think that they are villains and believe that they are tasked with defending the galaxy from pirates, terrorists, and separatists. By late in Imperial rule, there are politically connected officers that are indoctrinated in the Imperial cult and basically Sith in philosophy, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

 

[jian]

Canonically, the ejection system of the X-Wing is more like an escape pod than an ejector seat. Of course, that wouldn't do you any good if the canopy was breached.

However, I chalk it up to the Alliance just being a bunch of insurgents without a lot of military discipline or bearing. Besides, the Imps can generally count on the ISN picking up any stragglers, while the Alliance's hit and run tactics mean that any stragglers are going to be executed as traitors by the Imps, and then only after being tortured by the IIS. So maybe if you're a rebel you don't want to survive the explosion of your craft.

The level of evil in the Empire varies widely. Sheev Palpatine is an insane psychopath, but at the level of the ISN, the level of actual snarling evil is pretty low. Personnel are expendable, but not at the level of wasting them. Most commanders legitimately believe they are the good guys, that they are preserving peace and order and civilization, and that the Rebels are terrorists and traitors that are unnecessarily plunging the galaxy into another ruinous war. Individual Tie Fighter pilots are generally honorable patriots from core worlds who have no reason to think that they are villains and believe that they are tasked with defending the galaxy from pirates, terrorists, and separatists. By late in Imperial rule, there are politically connected officers that are indoctrinated in the Imperial cult and basically Sith in philosophy, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

It would certainly lead to some interesting conversations around the flight mess table.

"Man, have you seen inside an X-wing cockpit? No proper vac suit, no respirator - what are you supposed to do when you have to eject? Grab your SpaceCostCo oxygen bottle from under the seat?"

"Yeah, but they have shields, dude. Just sayin'."

"Stow that seditious talk, Arkanen! I've got my eye on you!"

"Oh, and they have astromech droids so you don't have to adjust the inertial compensators manually while moving in low gravity. Anyone else find that a pain in the ass?"

"This is your last warning, Arkanen!"

"Oh, whatcha gonna do, Wing Commander? Stop me from risking my life in a tiny metal box with no shields and eff-all inertial compensation? Wow, I'm scared!"

"How about a stint in the infantry, Arkanen? That scare you?"

"... I'll be good..."

 

[Celebrim]

It would certainly lead to some interesting conversations around the flight mess table.

Not all the ISN was snarling mustachioed evil villains that kicked babies and ate puppies. The ISN was fully aware that the X-Wing was a good space superiority fighter, but in theory an interceptor leaning TIE should have the edge on space superiority fighters in a dog fight based on clone wars experience that smaller, faster, more nimble craft had the edge in dogfight. ISN fighter pilots likely discussed that you did not attack an X-Wing head on, but treated it more like a bomber and tried to out maneuver it.

Most ISN commanders were not indoctrinated members of the Imperial Cult. Saying that the rebels had good ships and good pilots wouldn't have been treasonous. The ISN knew those things were true, and you can see that right from ANH when it's the Navy officer who is most respectful of his rebel opponents.

The thing that would have gotten Arkanen in trouble was him saying that Rebel pilots were better trained than Imperial pilots. TIE fighter pilots were taught that they had received superior training and were the best in the galaxy, and any deficiency in the TIE was the result of pilot error. To some extent that's true. In theory the faster more nimble TIE should chew up X-Wings - elite well trained squadrons could in fact do that. The problem was that in vastly expanding the Navy, the Empire cut corners on training, TIE commanders themselves often weren't competent to improve on the training in the field, the whole corps was arrogant and believed the brainwashing about them being the best of the best and so they didn't need to keep improving their skills, and the TIE was utterly unforgiving in combat. Many pilots never survived long enough to develop the elite skills that the TIE demanded since one mistake was lethal. Imperial snub fighter strategy was based on Jedi and robot pilots, not on actual biological sentients.

Saying that out loud too often would have gotten you sent to the infantry for undermining moral and questioning the orders of a superior officer.

"Yes, the X-Wing is a good craft Arkanan. It's got a high tech hyperdrive. It's got high tech shields. It's got a high-tech life support system. It's got an escape pod. It's even got a survival kit and portable fusion generator tucked into it in case you crash land. It's got a complex energy system to distribute power to its various components. It's got provisions for several photon torpedoes. It's got a Astromech to help the pilot manage the overwhelming amount of information all those systems provide. You know what all of those systems have in common Arkanen?"

Akranen sheepishly reciting academy training: Mass, sir.

"That's right. Mass. All that mass allocated to systems that also have in common that none of them have anything to do with seeking out and destroying another snub fighter. It's an over engineered monstrosity designed to pamper and give a sense of security to pilot that has inferior training. But those shields won't deflect direct hits from modern weaponry, and all that mass means that you are a target and not a predator. Once you get on the tail of an X-Wing, you can just stay there, and there isn't doo-doo that the pilot can do about it."

 

[Umbran]

4) The worst possible result should be "mortally wounded". Vacuum exposure doesn't kill, but can put you in a dying state where you will die shortly and by that point you need major medical intervention like a Baatha Tank

*Bacta tank.

With respect, vacuum exposure will kill you, just like any other form of suffocation.

While there are thankfully few actual human cases to base off of: You are probably conscious for 15-30 seconds. You can be exposed for a couple of minutes and eventually make a full recovery with medical attention. But, after something around 4 minutes, you're dead - brains without oxygen die.

 

[Celebrim]

With respect, vacuum exposure will kill you, just like any other form of suffocation.

With respect, I'm addressing a specific instance of the rules in Star Wars D6. You have a wound track - Stunned, Wounded, Unconscious, Mortally Wounded, Dead. What I am saying is the vacuum damager can't advance you from mortally wounded to dead.

However, in the Mortally Wounded state you will die without intervention in a couple of minutes. This seemed like the best way to simulate the (relatively) slow death of suffocation.

If vacuum damage could advance you from mortally wounded to dead, you would die in a few seconds rather than a few minutes.