Destroyed by Life Support Failure?

[Adseria (OP)]

Ok, this isn't a bug, which is why I'm not posting this there, but it struck me as a bit odd.

So, one of my early exploration ships was doing some exploration (obviously), a fair distance (a few systems) from my homeworld. She'd been out for a while, and she was getting a bit low on maintenance supplies, so I told her to head home for an overhaul. She was en route when I got a message that one of her crew quarters failed and couldn't be repaired due to low MSP.

She was already en route, as I said, so there was nothing I could do except watch. That was when I realised that having insufficient life support not only causes crew morale to drop severely, but also causes strain on any remaining life support systems, causing them to suffer increased failure rate. And, of course, when they failed, I hadn't magically gained MSP to repair them. That meant that the life support was even more strained, which caused a cascade failure.

The way the game represents failures, as I'm sure you're all aware, is that it applies damage to the affected system.

I'm sure you're also aware that, if the game can't allocate damage to an appropriate system, the ship is destroyed?

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Oh, and, to add insult to injury, she exploded one system further out than my existing network of stabilised jump points, so I can't get anyone out there to rescue the 36 survivors. Not that I have any hospital ships anyway; I'd have to somehow cram them onto my 100k-person colony ship 

[Garfunkel]

And we have now learned a valuable lesson!

It could be worse - you could be playing the old version where you could remove the last Mass Driver form Earth even if there were mineral packets underway. Luckily it was a fairly small package that arrived before I got the freighters unloaded again, only quarter-million dead.

[amram]

Ok, this isn't a bug, which is why I'm not posting this there, but it struck me as a bit odd.

So, one of my early exploration ships was doing some exploration (obviously), a fair distance (a few systems) from my homeworld. She'd been out for a while, and she was getting a bit low on maintenance supplies, so I told her to head home for an overhaul. She was en route when I got a message that one of her crew quarters failed and couldn't be repaired due to low MSP.

She was already en route, as I said, so there was nothing I could do except watch. That was when I realised that having insufficient life support not only causes crew morale to drop severely, but also causes strain on any remaining life support systems, causing them to suffer increased failure rate. And, of course, when they failed, I hadn't magically gained MSP to repair them. That meant that the life support was even more strained, which caused a cascade failure.

The way the game represents failures, as I'm sure you're all aware, is that it applies damage to the affected system.

I'm sure you're also aware that, if the game can't allocate damage to an appropriate system, the ship is destroyed?

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Oh, and, to add insult to injury, she exploded one system further out than my existing network of stabilised jump points, so I can't get anyone out there to rescue the 36 survivors. Not that I have any hospital ships anyway; I'd have to somehow cram them onto my 100k-person colony ship 

Have definitely been there before.....

I kinda wish that was a scenario in which you just ran out of crew, and the ship became simply derelict, and you needed boarding parties to get it back.  Even better if it just kept on trucking at whatever speed, on whatever course it was on when the last crew got offed, just wanders out of system until you destroy it, or capture it, or it runs out of fuel.

[Person012345]

Decaying corpses of the perished crew members causes a buildup of dangerous gases, suddenly a spark from a short circuiting wire and boom goes the ship.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

eletrical failiures in the life support overload the other sistems and make the ship go boom.

[Adseria (OP)]

eletrical failiures in the life support overload the other sistems and make the ship go boom.

That makes no sense. Why would the crew overload the life support systems if they knew that was going to happen?

Personally, I agree with Amram; the ship should just become derelict, allowing you to board or salvage it.

[Jorgen_CAB]

eletrical failiures in the life support overload the other sistems and make the ship go boom.

That makes no sense. Why would the crew overload the life support systems if they knew that was going to happen?

Personally, I agree with Amram; the ship should just become derelict, allowing you to board or salvage it.

It is a fairly abstracted mechanic so that we get penalised for not taking care of our crews and ships... but I do agree from a role-play perspective that ships probably should not explode because the crew dies. I also thing that some skeleton crew also should survive even if all crew compartments is destroyed so a ship might limp home to port most of the time without this happening. It is probably pretty severe as it is.

[Migi]

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Life support generates oxygen for people to breath.
People who don't get enough oxygen can't focus.
If they don't focus then they let the control rods slide slightly too far out of the reactor.
The reactor goes critical, explodes and destroys the ship.

[Droll]

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Life support generates oxygen for people to breath.
People who don't get enough oxygen can't focus.
If they don't focus then they let the control rods slide slightly too far out of the reactor.
The reactor goes critical, explodes and destroys the ship.

Sound reasoning with one problem - Exploration ships that don't have beam weapons don't have reactors

[Migi]

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Life support generates oxygen for people to breath.
People who don't get enough oxygen can't focus.
If they don't focus then they let the control rods slide slightly too far out of the reactor.
The reactor goes critical, explodes and destroys the ship.

Sound reasoning with one problem - Exploration ships that don't have beam weapons don't have reactors

The reactor is part of the engine, the engines might use Magneto-Plasma (or whatever) to provide propulsion but the engine needs power itself which is provided by an in-built fission reactor.
There's another reactor in each crew quarter to provide electricity for charging the crew's phones.

[Droll]

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Life support generates oxygen for people to breath.
People who don't get enough oxygen can't focus.
If they don't focus then they let the control rods slide slightly too far out of the reactor.
The reactor goes critical, explodes and destroys the ship.

Sound reasoning with one problem - Exploration ships that don't have beam weapons don't have reactors

The reactor is part of the engine, the engines might use Magneto-Plasma (or whatever) to provide propulsion but the engine needs power itself which is provided by an in-built fission reactor.
There's another reactor in each crew quarter to provide electricity for charging the crew's phones.

You forgot the reactor built in to the captains chair to power the seat warmer.

[liveware]

This reminds of one of my own learning experiences when I was first exploring VB6 Aurora.  I had my first squadron of missile destroyers conducting a training mission in the outer solar system.  I noticed they were running low on MSP so I ordered them back to Earth for resupply.  Around the orbit of Neptune/Uranus, one of my destroyers suffered a catastrophic maintenance failure on one of it's reactors.  The explosion destroyed the other reactor and then the rest of the ship.  100% crew fatalities. 

Hit me in the feels pretty hard.  Reminded me a bit of USS Thresher.  May the souls of her crew rest in peace.

I never salvaged the ship.  I left it there as a memorial to the bravery of her crew.  Then I increased the amount of engineering spaces on all future ship designs.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

How the heck does overloading the life support make the ship explode? Crew dying, sure, but destroying the entire ship?

Life support generates oxygen for people to breath.
People who don't get enough oxygen can't focus.
If they don't focus then they let the control rods slide slightly too far out of the reactor.
The reactor goes critical, explodes and destroys the ship.

Sound reasoning with one problem - Exploration ships that don't have beam weapons don't have reactors

The reactor is part of the engine, the engines might use Magneto-Plasma (or whatever) to provide propulsion but the engine needs power itself which is provided by an in-built fission reactor.
There's another reactor in each crew quarter to provide electricity for charging the crew's phones.

You forgot the reactor built in to the captains chair to power the seat warmer.

So even after the hull has been opened to space and the crew's remains have long gone cold, the captain's chair is still 'hot'?  Is the captain named 'Jeb', per chance?  *checks*  There doesn't seem to be a KSP name theme. 

[Gabethebaldandbold]

also, after refinement duranium tends to spontaneously combust if you dont breathe on top of it every 5 minutes or so. thats the purpose of the crew. really its just that.