The terrifying part about space combat is knowing that a few bad rolls could cause an explosive TPK. That's what made me start thinking about escape pods. I know the Falcon has them, but are they standard features on most ships bigger than fighters? Do ships tend to have at least one for every crew member listed in ship stats?

I haven't seen any escape pods in the books so far, but I may have missed that page. If they're not there, it's homebrew time!

As for the escape pods themselves, what are they like? Based on the escape pod from the opening of Ep IV, my guess would be that they're silhouette 2 and can hold up to people or droids, but can they even be piloted, or are they preprogrammed? What kind of system strain and hull trauma threshold are we looking at? Are they fast enough to actually escape pursuing ships?

If escape pods aren't a standard feature, how many hard points should they take up?

And most importantly, are there enough hard points to trick out my escape pod with a class 0.75 hyperdrive and a turbolaser turret?

The terrifying part about space combat is knowing that a few bad rolls could cause an explosive TPK. That's what made me start thinking about escape pods. I know the Falcon has them, but are they standard features on most ships bigger than fighters? Do ships tend to have at least one for every crew member listed in ship stats?

So, take a look at my signature below, for a reminder that everything I’m going to say here is just my personal opinion. Please keep that in mind.

I don’t recall seeing any official discussion of escape pods anywhere. I think the reason is that if there are escape pods in use, then something seriously wrong has probably happened, and the developers wisely decided to leave handling everything about that situation up to the GM. So, I believe that they have intentionally avoided creating any stats or anything.

That said, I also believe that all ships larger than Starfighters do typically have escape pods.

I haven't seen any escape pods in the books so far, but I may have missed that page. If they're not there, it's homebrew time!

I’d plan on breaking out the brewing kit.

As for the escape pods themselves, what are they like? Based on the escape pod from the opening of Ep IV, my guess would be that they're silhouette 2 and can hold up to people or droids, but can they even be piloted, or are they preprogrammed? What kind of system strain and hull trauma threshold are we looking at? Are they fast enough to actually escape pursuing ships?

I’d be willing to bet that they are largely pre-programmed to head for the nearest place that might potentially be life-sustaining for their passengers, send out distress calls, etc…. Speed-wise, I think they’re the equivalent of modern lifeboats here on Earth, so they’d probably be just about the slowest craft in space, and not able to sustain much damage.

If you were mechanically inclined and knew what you were doing with Piloting (Space), I would be inclined to give you a chance to over-ride the pre-programmed course, but I think we have to assume that most individuals who are in an Escape Pod probably don’t know how to do the piloting themselves.

On that same vein, I would also assume that all craft carrying passengers would be required to go through regular Safety Of Life In Space (SOLIS) drills before actually departing from the spaceport. You need to know how to put on your life suit, what your muster station is, what to do if your muster station is damaged and you can’t get there, etc….

If escape pods aren't a standard feature, how many hard points should they take up?

Personally, I’d assume that they are built into the design of the ship and they don’t take up any extra hard points.

And most importantly, are there enough hard points to trick out my escape pod with a class 0.75 hyperdrive and a turbolaser turret?

No hyperdrive, and no weapons. IMO, of course.

The terrifying part about space combat is knowing that a few bad rolls could cause an explosive TPK.

Why? Just because your ship is taken out of combat doesn't mean it automatically blows up and kills everyone. That may be true for npcs but doesn't hold for PCs. Do you automatically kill PCs if they go down in regular combat? Losing a space combat just means your ship is disabled. Unless you are a jerk GM and plan to have they're opponents finish them off, they should either end up out of combat or maybe taken prisoner if appropriate. Or maybe forgotten long enough to get away into hyperspace after some quick repairs. There's lots of other things that can happen.

AoR GM's screen has both life pods and life boats stated out.

As a brief overview:

Life-pods carry 6 people, no hyperdrive and have 2 weeks of supplies. These are the sort of pods that a Sil 4 ship would have.

Life-boats are much bigger, carry 26 people, hold 2 moths of supplies and have a (crappy) hyperdrive. No navi comp tho and need an astromech droid. At sil 3, these boats are probably to big to be found on any ship smaller than the Neb-B in the adventure that they are found on.

Either type can be caught and destroyed by small ships fairly easily, but would have a reasonable chance of escaping BIG capital ships (ie the ones with tractor beams!).

I think the AOR Corebook says that either ejection seats or escape pods are standard issue on all craft so any ship a party is on should have them IMO unless the plot requires they stay on the ship..

Star Wars Adventure Journal 9, Feb. 1996, p. 148f: "Spacer's Information Manual", excerpt:

"Ships must maintain operational escape devices in sufficient number for crew and passengers."

As others have said, destroying a starship RAW in this system isn't easy. If you're worried about a TPK you may be doing it wrong.

Moving on...

And most importantly, are there enough hard points to trick out my escape pod with a class 0.75 hyperdrive and a turbolaser turret?

No, and even if there were turbolasers can't be mounted on anything smaller then Sil 5.....

No, and even if there were turbolasers can't be mounted on anything smaller then Sil 5.....

Dangerous Covenants gives a way to squeeze light turbolasers onto Sil 4, but it still won't let them fit on escape pods or lifeboats.

No, and even if there were turbolasers can't be mounted on anything smaller then Sil 5.....

Dangerous Covenants gives a way to squeeze light turbolasers onto Sil 4, but it still won't let them fit on escape pods or lifeboats.

Even the gadget you mention in DC still says it requires GM approval in it's description last I checked. When I see something like that I usually take it as a hint.

The terrifying part about space combat is knowing that a few bad rolls could cause an explosive TPK.

Why? Just because your ship is taken out of combat doesn't mean it automatically blows up and kills everyone. That may be true for npcs but doesn't hold for PCs. Do you automatically kill PCs if they go down in regular combat? Losing a space combat just means your ship is disabled. Unless you are a jerk GM and plan to have they're opponents finish them off, they should either end up out of combat or maybe taken prisoner if appropriate. Or maybe forgotten long enough to get away into hyperspace after some quick repairs. There's lots of other things that can happen.

I realize this. Trying to convince my low-rolling players that sometimes it's OK to man a turret and shoot back instead of trying to flee while polishing up a surrender speech has made a lot of space encounters more of a hassle than they need to be. That's why I thought I'd throw them a nice, warm safety blanket.

As for trying to convince them that a blind hyperspace jump can lead to adventure and not necessarily death... well, let's just say their fear checks didn't go as well as I'd hoped.

This is what I use as a standard on most light freighters

Tho honestly I rather jsut have the ship "Dead in space" then falling apart and needing to use escape pods

I'm sorry Kinnison but I really disagree with that design.

Yes it works perfectly on paper and maybe fine if you are doing practice drills. But in a real emergency evacuation people will not queue patiently for their turn at saving their own life.

What you would probably see in reality is a stampede for the first pod. Then a bit of a brawl with some weaker people being trampled under foot. Maybe a blaster shot or three. Then any survivors of that being crushed by the pod being loaded into position.

Panic and hysteria are great breakers of complex plans. Any design for emergency evac needs to be as simple, and fast, as possible. Because the people evacuating will behave as simply, and as fast, as is humanly possible.

Thoroughly agree about preferring the dead in space approach for PC ships tho.

I'd just shoot em because I don't like sharing.

I'm sorry Kinnison but I really disagree with that design.

Yes it works perfectly on paper and maybe fine if you are doing practice drills. But in a real emergency evacuation people will not queue patiently for their turn at saving their own life.

What you would probably see in reality is a stampede for the first pod. Then a bit of a brawl with some weaker people being trampled under foot. Maybe a blaster shot or three. Then any survivors of that being crushed by the pod being loaded into position.

Panic and hysteria are great breakers of complex plans. Any design for emergency evac needs to be as simple, and fast, as possible. Because the people evacuating will behave as simply, and as fast, as is humanly possible.

Thoroughly agree about preferring the dead in space approach for PC ships tho.

This is not at all true. Crews do crew drills to specifically prevent this. Routine drills give people the confidence they need to handle an emergency situation precisely so they don't stampede to the nearest life boat and kill each other. This is of course exempt on a vessel like a cruise liner where you have dozens of untrained passengers, but we are not talking about Love Boat the Roleplaying Game.

I'm sorry Kinnison but I really disagree with that design.

Yes it works perfectly on paper and maybe fine if you are doing practice drills. But in a real emergency evacuation people will not queue patiently for their turn at saving their own life.

What you would probably see in reality is a stampede for the first pod. Then a bit of a brawl with some weaker people being trampled under foot. Maybe a blaster shot or three. Then any survivors of that being crushed by the pod being loaded into position.

Panic and hysteria are great breakers of complex plans. Any design for emergency evac needs to be as simple, and fast, as possible. Because the people evacuating will behave as simply, and as fast, as is humanly possible.

Thoroughly agree about preferring the dead in space approach for PC ships tho.

This isn't a luxury liner. It is a Light freighter that at the most has 6 sentients on board

I like the way they did escape pods in Mass Effect 2 in the opening sequence. It seems more realistic. It also looks like what we see at the beginning of A New Hope.

Even with all the drills and training in the world, people can still panic, freeze, forget things etc in real life emergency situations.

Light freighters normally only carry about 2 crew. The rest are passengers who may or may not be regular passengers on the ship. Lets say that you and your trusty co-pilot picked up a Wookie family of 5 as paying passengers on your next jump for the extra credits. Good luck using that evac system then.

The above proposed system really just seems to me like it is too complex, too reliant on coordination among evacuees and potentially way too time consuming if the ship has to be evacuated in a real hurry.

Modify it so each pod sits in it's own little cell with it's own access blast door and is ejected through it's own blow-away panel into space and I think you would have a much more practical design in times of real emergencies.

Thinking on it as well, how would you safely evacuate badly injured or unconscious people with as single person pod design?

Even with all the drills and training in the world, people can still panic, freeze, forget things etc in real life emergency situations.

Light freighters normally only carry about 2 crew. The rest are passengers who may or may not be regular passengers on the ship. Lets say that you and your trusty co-pilot picked up a Wookie family of 5 as paying passengers on your next jump for the extra credits. Good luck using that evac system then.

I think that this is why most light freighters have at least two escape pods — separate ones for the crew and the passengers. If there are enough crew, then they can take the more compact ones requiring more coordination. The passengers would take the ones that are more … fool-resistant.

The above proposed system really just seems to me like it is too complex, too reliant on coordination among evacuees and potentially way too time consuming if the ship has to be evacuated in a real hurry.

Modify it so each pod sits in it's own little cell with it's own access blast door and is ejected through it's own blow-away panel into space and I think you would have a much more practical design in times of real emergencies.

Agreed.

Thinking on it as well, how would you safely evacuate badly injured or unconscious people with as single person pod design?

I don’t think they would. I don’t think it would be efficient to have single-person pods, either. I would say a minimum of two people per pod, or maybe even at least four people per pod.

The volume of the pod would constrain the amount of people who can get in, but the surface area of the pod would govern how man windows you could get in and how much space you can make available for propulsion systems. Volume goes up with the cube of the diameter, while surface area increases only with the square of the diameter, and you’d need interior and exterior walls, with the mechanicals placed between those walls.

Obviously, you don’t want escape pods to be too big, but there are significant performance and efficiency issues if you try to make them too small.

Even more importantly, how would my Corellian take his emergency case of Corellian whiskey with him in a one person pod!!!

What about the 154+ "Breaking Up" Crit?

Lining up for rescue, even if feasible, is not the best of ideas, in my opinion.

Page 227 of the EotE Core Rule Book:

Most airspeeders and starships up to Sil 3 are equipped with ejections seats...

Ships of sil 4 or larger are equipped with enough escape pods to evacuate the ship's crew and any passengers. These escape pods are pressurised and have enough consumables to keeper their occupants- typically 4 to 6 sentients- alive for 5 standard days.

Since the escape pod stats from AoR's GM Screen were mentioned, I want to ask if anybody else finds it odd that they have greater sensor range than fighters and most light freighters? It seems weird to me that the sensors of a YT-1300 can't reach as far as those of its escape pods.

The idea was that the escape pods would have to be able to find a suitably safe planet to land on, I believe, but looking backward, I probably could have gone with a navicomputer instead. As a GM, if someone is trying to use those sensors, I'd make them of relatively poor quality, certainly not combat grade. Again, their purpose is to locate a landing site. I'd probably impose a lot of <S> if they are used for any other purpose, and if they get overused, I might even reduce consumables for drawing too much power from them.

The idea was that the escape pods would have to be able to find a suitably safe planet to land on, I believe, but looking backward, I probably could have gone with a navicomputer instead.

I think that this would have been a better approach.