14%? Well, for a ship that size I suppose it would make sense.

Impressive trick there, although experienced crews probably would recognize oxygen starvation (although the bad guy at least was distracted by his 'conquest'). I hope they can keep their run of luck (or skilled improvisation) going.

Well that takes care of the people on the ship. Now they just got to hope that no one else is on the other ship.

But if they take the other ship they might get their tug jury-rigged together too get moving again or just take that ship. Two salvage missions and a ship and bounty claim would have to put them in the yellow, right?

*GEEK/NERD MOMENT AHEAD*

Depends on relative pressure/density ANNNNND species.
Maybe for a human at 1 atmosphere earth norm. That percentage at high density (like that say at 1000' under water) and you could still die of oxygen toxicity. Do it in the upper atmosphere say at 50,000' above sea level, and you'll still die of oxygen starvation.

Humanoids, and I imagine the ship is at standard pressure so he's good.

See? This is why I researched this and wanted to make sure I was in the ballpark. If I had said something like 32%, folks would be taking me to task for that too. :)

Alright, go to it. I WANT to see details like this so what do you think different species would require?

I'd be very wary of quoting values for any other species but human. By and large, the crew, for all their different stylings, are of humanoid size and overall shape, are they not? A lot of things which could affect oxygen requirements would themselves be affected by surface area to mass ratio - as it is with nutritional requirements; small creatures, with a MUCH higher such ratio, shed so much heat that they must eat proportionally far more than larger creatures. (cf shrews, which IIRC eat more than their own weight each day, and little brown bats, which eat a good portion of it each night)

Yeah, but there's so many vixens and rabbits out there with huuuuuge chest so it must be for more capacity. That's it.

I must admit this Captain has a nice rack.

No worries mate. You're more than good. After all, we're dealing with a totally non-real universe here. So whatever you choose to put, as long as it falls in the range of believability to keep the suspension of disbelief active in your readers, will work just fine. Really, that's all that most of the so-called professionals do. Look at Roddenberry. He basically consulted NASA on what was theoretically possible that they were looking at, but had not yet figured out how to actually do. Same thing with Michael Crichton with Jurassic park (and really, most of his other near-future books.)

You get too technical, and you end up loosing your storyline in geek speak, and lose attention, and readership. Best advise to follow is to keep the 'science' aspects to whatever will move the story along, and leave the rest to imagination. Sometimes it's not necessary to explain how an infinite improbability drive works, unless your a humorous Brit.

True.

If I recall my basic physics, 1 atm = 14.696 psi.

So, assuming the ship uses 1 atm then a reduction down to 16% (from 100% = 1 atm) is a reduction of about 2 psi.

Unless.. unless that's the end result of venting the atmosphere. In that case it was reduce by 84% or nearly 12.4 psi.

Gods! If the later is true, then ship's atmospheric pressure was about 2.35 psi (and if I recall from reading a Human primate EVA suit is about 7 psi in operation).


Gezz! It's a wonder they ain't dead!

No, no. 16% OXYGEN. The stuff we normally breathe on earth is... what? circa 20%? (checks) Meh, 21%, I was close. So that's removing roughly a quarter of the "breathable" part out of your air, without changing the pressure. yeah, that would mess you up.

I think they kept the air pressure constant. Just flushed out the oxygen with nitrogen or something. 16% is the concentration of oxygen.

Lessee, an Earthlike atmosphere ("air") is 21% oxygen. To get it down to 16%, you could pump 31 percentage points of nitrogen into the air and let the excess (well-mixed) out. Or you could empty out 24 percentage points and refill.

But a continuous replacement is more likely, so with the rate of replacement being proportional to the concentration... (uses Google some more) that's 27 percentage points when the air pressure is constant.

Don't forget that spaceships do not run at 1 atmosphere, except in the movies. They are set at about 8000 to 10,000 feet. Sorry, too lazy to figure out the pressure.

thats a good crew :D

learn to write around it, with some techno babble.
for instance
are they all out yet mac?
Looks to be we are at level 2 oxygen now
Hold there, don't let it drop below 1 or we'll kill them.

see you don't have to say percent just use your own universe metric. that way people won't give you flack.
However, if you want to educate us readers , i am fine with that too

keep up the good work :)

VERY smart bit! Well done!

ok...
my geek out; on why the invading crew may not have noted, what was happening to them....

Hypoxia; is hard to self diagnose, as it is like one is slowling becoming either; durk and/or high... by systemactly causing all of following symptoms:
firstly; acute euphoria.
then; disorientation, confusion, dizziness, and even short term memory loss...
then unconsciousness, followed by permanent brain damage...
and lastly death.

I figured slowly dropping the O2 levels would be a sneaky way to drop everyone- friends and foes alike. If the crew isn't aware of what our badger and otter are up to, they can't give it away either.

Overall, a sneaky trick. And effective.

Yep. Biggest problem with hypoxia is how insanely unpredictable it is. but it is hugely debilitating, and almost impossible to recognize when you're being affected, unless you have a LOT of experience with it.

there was a case here in Australia a few years back - small jet liner slowly depressurized, and the sunset on the dashboard made the warning light next to invisible. Friend of mine's dad died. The flight recorder was harrowing listening - crew and passengers getting increasingly jokey, helpless laughter, wheezing.... silence. And the plane just kept going until it ran out of fuel.

That's how the golfer Payne Stewart lost his life, along with everyone aboard, here in the US...

don't think I heard about that one.

1999, old news now. :/

Damn word balloons are covering up her Bits!
great job of teasing us love the story so far
--Rick

Hey, I like it, very good.

I like that small detail you put into the seats: the backs of them having an "open port" to the right for tails to fit in nicely. It may be just a small touch, but so many people overlook that.

Us roos have big ol' tails to deal with!

Small factoid- years ago I like to play Quake with friends but I made my own maps/levels. I made one cargo ship interior and had a lot of this figured out back then. I decided to put in a bathroom and had to figure out how to make a toilet for species with big tails.

Flintera old buddy, the fact you did the research and incorporated it so well is to be commended. Great story line!

Ah...nice work....but what about the "pirate ship"?

Even more heavy breathing... yay!

Heh not sure why..but was almost expecting her to say "Ship...out of danger?"

It was originally, then had to wonder why that sounded so familiar.

You always have, and will be, my friend...


AAAAAARGH!

Okay, let's just change that line.

I don't mean to critasize because I absolutly HATE critics, but you know the fourth...wait a minute (scrolls up to check the comic page) yes fourth pannel, I can't help but think Jordan looks compleatly different to how he usually does. Assuming it is Jordan that Alex is slumped against. Plus does his actions earlier make the crew hate him less. I mean he was willing to fight to protect them.

Those are valid comments. We haven't seen enough of Jordan really to see his true personality, but it is coming to pass as we continue onwards.

Well that is a day I look forward to my friend. Puls I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this.

I have done the 'lack of Oxygen' thing when I was in training in the service. The weird part is after you start sucking air again, you go back to doing what you were doing when you passed out. It's really weird. Takes about 5 seconds to realize it fully.