An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Phong breathe in carbon dioxide and (we might suppose) breathe out oxygen.

So if you had a ship crewed by an appropriate mix of human and Phong crew members, you wouldn't need any atmospheric processing equipment at all=-)

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

LOL

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Carbon Dioxide: Some call it pollution, Phong call it life.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

See, now what occurrs to me is to enslave the Phong and restrain them in cages like chickens. Then the Humans could go on crewing the ship while the Phong serve as an organic life support system.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Wow this is a cool idea. But wouldnt it require a hatch in order to exchange the different atmospheres ? The two races wouldnt be able to life in the same room, wouldnt they ?

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Probably not live together as we require ~20% oxygen in the atmosphere to remain counscious.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

...So *That's* how the quantum reactor works!...

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

This is how I power all my ships and maintain a proper atmosphere at the same time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

http://www.secenter.org/phongwheel.png

Can't say I remember who made the phong troop image but I believe it was dogscoff

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

What would happen if some of the crew are killed in battle, and the balance of Humans to Phong is changed? Now there's too much oxygen or too much carbon dioxide. Then the air would gradually become unbreathable for the race with more survivors. Then if some of the members of the larger race die from the bad air, equilibrium will be restored automatically and the air mixture would go back to normal.

For example:
Many humans die in battle -> less oxygen is used up and less carbon dioxide generated -> percentage of oxygen in air rises, carbon dioxide decreases -> bad for Phong -> Phong die -> ratio of Human / Phong restored.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Clearly you just have to space a few of the other race to restore balance.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Yes but the percentage of oxygen is not breathed in by any indiviual, thus that once they run out of their percentage they expire tipping the balance. If there is more CO2 being generated than oxygen, the humans will go along breathing enough until the total amount of oxygen is depeleted at which time the humans will all drop dead enmasse. This all of course avoids the issue that if the atmosphere is an equal amount of CO2 to Oxygen neither species should be able to breathe properly, I think.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

If there is too much oxygen and too little carbon dioxide, you just need to start a nice fire inside the ship to restore balance.

Maybe when you go on a spacewalk, you don't need to carry any tanks of air on your back. You just go in pairs, one human and one phong, and have a tube connecting the two spacesuits.

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Then the enslaved Phong holds his breath while out on an EVA with a human, killing the human simply by refusing to breathe!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Wooo, 2500th post!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

CW: Lol!

(Yes, it was me)

Re: An idle thought: Reducing life support load
 

Yaay for R13!