Boil off an ocean??

[garhkal]

Yes i know its space pulp, but i was looking for mroe of a story idea.. Such as the PCs get charged with leading a mission to rescue people ON a planet undergoing such a bombardment, while say 2-3 other tables of pcs, leads missions to try and disrupt the bombardment..

What sort of weather and other atmospheric conditions would there be to fly through?

How powerful would lightning resulting from said "boil off" be? How prevalent?

What of survival rolls when outside of the ship, trying to grab people, to shuffle them to the ship?
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[MrNexx]

So, as I said, I think it would take days for a good sized flotilla to boil off the oceans, especially if they have to simultaneously maintain a blockade (you mentioned 10 ISDs and 30 sub-ISD Capital ships). I'm going to assume that the "boiling force" is worth about 10 ISDs of capacity, while the "containing force" is worth about those 30 sub-ISD cap ships... just a convenient way to do it.

If the Empire has put a death mark on a planet like this, I think their first step would be to destroy obvious spaceports and "clear" the planetary orbit. Depending on the system, this will probably take two or three days... TIE Bomber runs on spaceports and planetary defenses, sustained attacks on orbital stations, combined with a containing force to keep too many ships from evading the blockade and escaping. You might be able to do it faster, but the two to three days means you don't have to push your pilots as hard and can do a proper resupply and repair between runs.

From there, you settle in to bombard the planet's oceans, with your containing force becoming a "double-bubble"... one looking inward to keep anyone from escaping, and one looking outward, to keep anyone from coming to help. As the bombardment continues, you can shift a bit more planet-watch to inbound-watch, as there's less likelihood that someone will be alive to escape, and in increased chance that reinforcements/rescue crews will be able to make it from outsystem.

I think, for story purposes, you want it to take about a week or two to significantly boil off the oceans... there's still going to be some standing water in the deep ocean, and lots of atmospheric vapor, but there will be a lot LESS water, as some of it will have debonded (as I talked about above).

I'd probably start rating it in Planet Hazard ratings and, because I like the nice progression of it, I'd go with a number of days equal to the new hazard rating to increase the rating by 1... so, by the end of the second day of bombardment, you have a Type 2 Planet... one that suggests safety precautions to deal with the heavy atmospheric disruption. By the end of the first week (three more days), you're requiring safety precautions, and you've got lots of atmospheric problems. If you last 4 more days, the world becomes more or less uninhabitable, a Type IV world, except in sealed environments (bear in mind, a starship that HASN'T taken off, just running life support, will likely be completely fine through this process; weeks of supplies, a sealed environment that can handle trans-atmospheric action... unless something falls on it, navigation shields and life support should be fine).

Because I'm a simple person, I'd assess a penalty equal to the current atmosphere type to a lot of actions... a type II world would give you a 2D to a lot of actions... flight, sensors, maybe ground-level movement, while a type III would give you a 3D penalty. If you want a more gradual ratcheting up of penalties, go with 1 pip per day. After the first day, you're going to have disruption, weather models will be off and current weather will be unpredictable, etc. By day 3, you have a 1D penalty. Day 6, a 2D penalty.

This two weeks does not mean the planet is New Tattooine... it means its closer to Venus, but with water vapor instead of sulphuric acid. Without the energy dump from the ISDs (who will eventually have to go off and ruin someone else's week), the planet will slowly return to close to its usual atmospheric conditions... a bit less water, a whole lot of broken ecosystems, but you'll be able to breath the smell of poached fish without a breath mask. For that, I'd go with months equal to the current atmosphere level to drop one level... so, if they went all the way to a type IV atmosphere, in 4 months, it will drop down to a type III, three months after that it will be a type II, and two months after that, you can call in the Ithorians to help create an ecosystem that works. If you ship can last out 11 months of being sealed, you'll be fine, just sick of your shipmates. For a good chunk of that, your ship won't even need to be entirely sealed; it will still be able to get oxygen and water... but your food stores will be really, really low. Like, Timothy low.

(These are some pulled-out-of-the-butt numbers that look neat, and fit my love of that particular progression).
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[CRMcNeill]

Since the ImpSB lists separate Bombard Fleets as part of the organization of the Imperial Navy, this would seem right up their alley. Maybe a few Torpedo Spheres unloading 500 round salvos of hydrothermal warheads, set for delayed detonation so as to maximize their effects in the higher pressures of deep water.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

That, too. I've always felt that, while turbolasers and ion cannon are just fine for general purpose combat, any sort of specialized effect is best packaged into a warhead, and there is nothing EU quite so equipped for warhead delivery as the Torpedo Spheres.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[MrNexx]

[CRMcNeill]

[Melkor]

Mother of god that rewrite is beautiful. I also like the Tector Class in the link as well.

[CRMcNeill]