Why did they wait?

[Tsukiyumi]

Amen.

[Coalition]

snip

Why would you have to rebuild a whole ship after one use??? The Intrepid class can land and all you need is a ramp on the back of the ship for vehicles to travel down. That or just attach a container with the vehicles in them to the bottom of the ship. Ship lands, drops containers, deploys personnel and then you good to go.

The Life support would likely be overloaded by the number of people on board, needing the overhaul. Wasn't sure if the ramp was part of the Intrepid, or had to be added. I'd also want a cargo transporter so replacement Argos can be beamed in to the grounded Intrepids.

[alexmann]

It would have to be added.

[Deepcrush]

snip

Why would you have to rebuild a whole ship after one use??? The Intrepid class can land and all you need is a ramp on the back of the ship for vehicles to travel down. That or just attach a container with the vehicles in them to the bottom of the ship. Ship lands, drops containers, deploys personnel and then you good to go.

The Life support would likely be overloaded by the number of people on board, needing the overhaul. Wasn't sure if the ramp was part of the Intrepid, or had to be added. I'd also want a cargo transporter so replacement Argos can be beamed in to the grounded Intrepids.

Again, why would you have to add life support to a ship that already has it? They blow out whole sections of the hull and replace the lost atmo in seconds without concern.

[alexmann]

I always wondered, when they replaced the atmo did they just use are from the rest of the ship or is there a tank?

[Coalition]

Again, why would you have to add life support to a ship that already has it? They blow out whole sections of the hull and replace the lost atmo in seconds without concern.

The ship's life support normally only handles the regular crew, plus some emergency capacity. Adding extra troops means more people needing to breathe, use the bathroom, eat, etc. before they get to the planet. Since it isn't an emergency, I'd want more reliable life-support capacity than 'emergency'. It could be in the form of compressed air brought by the troops, Starfleet brand port-a-pottys, meal packs or similar for short-duration stays, to dedicated equipment and maintenance personnel if the ground troops are going to be staying on board a long time.

If a ship only handles 200 people normally, and you pack in ~1000 troops, the ship's life support is going to be stressed. You can either bring along extra life support, hope the ship's life support lasts, or expect casualties as the troops fight each other and non-engineering personnel for the last pockets of oxygen on the ship, until the number of crew has been reduced sufficiently.

Unless you are referring to battle damage, where they replace the oxygen from onboard storage tanks. That might work for a short period of time, as people only need a quarter ton of oxygen per year, but you also need CO2 scrubbing. Since there are the same number (or less) people on board after a battle, the life support system is not that strained. When you add more people, the life support system has to either do more work, or have less people contributing to the strain.

[stitch626]

I always wondered, when they replaced the atmo did they just use are from the rest of the ship or is there a tank?

My guess (and that is all that is is) would be that some form of replicators mass produce oxygen and other air molecules rapidly.


And on troop abilities, we've seen Voyager handle hundreds more on many occasions, whether hey be refugees or guests. And never was the life support system an issue. I would think (based on issues seen in Trek) that fuel for the replicators/food storage would be the real problem.

[alexmann]

Fuel and food were about the only things that they ever ran out of.

[Mikey]

If ENT can make boots out of shit, I don't think a couple of air scrubbers are going to be a problem.

[alexmann]

Just get a few brushes and a robotic arm.

[Deepcrush]

I'm still waiting for Coalition to prove they can't do what we've seen them do for the last 30 years...

[SomosFuga]

I'm still waiting for Coalition to prove they can't do what we've seen them do for the last 30 years...

What exactly?

[SomosFuga]

It is logical that too many people on board may overload the life support system and i like the idea ("captain we can't afford to evacuate all that peolple, life support would be overloaded) but AFAIK we have never seen that. We have seen life support failing for many reasons like computer troubles, battle damage, etc but never because there are too many people breathing.

That said, would be space the only limit to the number of people that a ship can carry?

[Mikey]

Replicators need a stock of some sort, so that would be a limiting factor as well.

[Deepcrush]

Thing is we've heard of not enough food, not enough room (because in TNG they only have guest quarter for couples even though I could fit two fully kitted squads in them) but never have I heard "we don't have enough air for them."

So until then, its not a factor to transportation.