Preservation II Campaign - Part 6

[Steve Walmsley]

It's fascinating to come back and read these old campaigns since Aurora has changed so much in the last twelve years 

What caused the divergence in size between commercial and naval designs? The first version of Aurora that I played already had it in so I wasn't around for that change.

I did the math on how much volume would be required for a single colonist in a relatively small hibernation pod and realised that the cryogenic modules were far too small. In fact, all the various commercial modules were too small to be realistic, so I starting scaling everything up.

[SevenOfCarina]

I did the math on how much volume would be required for a single colonist in a relatively small hibernation pod and realised that the cryogenic modules were far too small. In fact, all the various commercial modules were too small to be realistic, so I starting scaling everything up.

Speaking of size, I think the current habitat modules are also far too small to be realistic. A 250,000 dT habitat module houses 200,000 people, which is 1.25 dT per person, or about 17.65 cubic metres per person. A cube of that volume has a side length of just 2.60 metres, which is nowhere near enough for a person to not lose their sanity. And that's ignoring the fact that some of that volume must be allocated for life support, recreation, hallways, utilities, businesses, infrastructure, etc.

I think habitats should be around 1,000x as large as they currently are, at the very least.

[Father Tim]

I did the math on how much volume would be required for a single colonist in a relatively small hibernation pod and realised that the cryogenic modules were far too small. In fact, all the various commercial modules were too small to be realistic, so I starting scaling everything up.

Speaking of size, I think the current habitat modules are also far too small to be realistic. A 250,000 dT habitat module houses 200,000 people, which is 1.25 dT per person, or about 17.65 cubic metres per person. A cube of that volume has a side length of just 2.60 metres, which is nowhere near enough for a person to not lose their sanity. And that's ignoring the fact that some of that volume must be allocated for life support, recreation, hallways, utilities, businesses, infrastructure, etc.

I think habitats should be around 1,000x as large as they currently are, at the very least.

Wait, is it?  Two hundred and fifty thousand tons displacement is five thousand ten-by-ten-by-ten metere cubes (at 50 tons = one 10m cube), which is forty people per cube.

Actually, yeah, that sounds fairly crowded.  My apartment is basically 5x5x3 meters, of which twelve would fit into a 10 meter cube.  Even at two people per such apartment, that's barely half the required population density.

I guess Orbital Habitats feature The Fifth Element-style hyper-efficient mini-apartments.

[Steve Walmsley]

The tonnage/volume is for the transit of orbital habitats when towed in their compressed form. Once in position they expand significantly to accommodate much more volume, but as they are stationary at that point the extra size has no game play effect other than providing lots of space for the inhabitants. This compress and expand ability makes towing orbital habitats much easier and is the reason that colonists cannot remain on board during the towing process.