Okay, a character spent a great deal of time in meditation. He prepared. He slagged orichalcum and turned it into divining runes (norse tradition). He roleplayed well. I let him know there was a good possiblity he'd be kicked out an airlock in the near future.

First thing he does? He starts trying to create a spell using Street Magic guidelins, Caster Only, to let him survive in the void of space. Let that sink in a moment. What I want to know is one: What should I set the DV at? I'm thinking f/2-3 (-2 for environmental manipulation, -1 for caster only, +1 for physical effect). Despite modifiers, simply because it's useless anywhere there is not a colossal mana void. And 2) Unless I've missed something, I think this is possible under the spell creation rules. Is it possible?

Aaaaand... he is good enough to cast against a -12 Mana vacuum in space? Nearly nobody (or really nobody) is good enough to cast in space.

Ah well, back to the spell: I don't have much love for composition spells. What he needs is: A spell to somehow turn useless junk into air in his body (or bring his body to not use oxygen somehow) One spell against the vacuum forcibly deflate his lungs and generally being horrible to his body and one to keep horrible radiation from burning up his skin like a compressed day at the beach in minutes.

If all these problems are dealt with... there shouldn't be a problem, or have i missed something? (What's with an unlucky hit of a micro-asteroid?)

Edit: Ach forget it.. no chance he can cast in space. Just forget everything i said.

Right, if he tries this, tell him clearly (rules wise) how his spell would hav to be set up.

Absolute Zero: -270 degrees celcius
Solar Flares: Intense Radiation
Asphyxiation: Deadly
Vacuum: Pressure Protection

These are FOUR effects he needs to counter in ONE spell.

Now we add a few more problems.

Momentum: Does the character have any propulsion unit/spell
Navigation: Navigation in zero G is a vastly different from walking
Re-Entry: Is it getting HOT yet?
Mana Void: -12 to casting...

He's got 14 to cast normally (7 spellcasting, 7 magic) and a +2 to manipulation spells from a specialty. So yes. Only just. I imagine he'd be pissing away a lot of edge. I'm a little more curious if it's even possible, although I'm starting to think it's not - oxygenate, for example, wasn't quite what I thought it was. I suppose there's always handwavium, and we'll call it a one time only magical.. something. Like a nocturnal emission. Magic wet dreams. Great.

Nope he isn't... the -12 come off his magic too. He needs 7 initiations and maxed out magic of 13 to be able to pump out a mighty Force 2- spell (if he overcasts). He is barely able to cast in a Mana-ebb on earth. Never in space.

Oh and the drain goes up too... as if he would cast a force 14 spell... bwahahaha... that will hurt.

So he's getting thrown out of an airlock. His spell needs to cover

- Vacuum. That's easy enough, only a 1 atmospheric pressure differential
- Heat. He'll need a way to radiate body heat if he's going to spend any amount of time in space - there's no mass in vacuum to transfer heat, he's in near perfect isolation. Something with water might do the trick, expose it to vacuum and it boils, that sucks a lot heat.
- Sunshine. If he gets released into sunshine undiminished by atmosphere, and unable to radiate heat, he'll cook quickly - mirror effect?
- Oxygen. Does he capture the air in the airlock, does the spell solve the problem metabolically, does it perform photosynthesis inside the air bubble?
- Movement. Getting thrown out the airlock with just the means to survive will suck big time. How does he move if he's blown clear? (And how does he get back in?)
- Radiation. Cosmic and solar radiation can be very problematic if he goes out during a solar flare or similar, but that's an unlikely event.

That spell needs to do a shitload of stuff, drain should be a lot higher imo.

This isn't an issue, since there's no mass in vacuum to suck the heat out of you.

If you freeze in space, it is because your body fluids boil due to the low pressure, but since the spell is going to provide him with pressure, that should be covered.

Absolute Zero is actually -273 and a bit, but space "is" 3 degrees above that. However, that's its ambient "temperature." You don't actually freeze.

Absolute zero is not -270 C, it's -273 C. However you are right that the temperature of space can be rendered as ~-270 C.

But since you only loose heat through radiation in space, you don't really have to worry about that too much. Your main problem is going to be preventing yourself from heating up too much, not from cooling off too fast.

So, what will kill you fastest? We'll have to deal with that first?

The vacuum will do you in the fastest, since it prevents your body from working properly. So if you can provide pressure with magic, that'll keep you alive as long as your oxygen lasts. So that's probably some sort of barrier, that you throw up around your body. So we'd need to throw up a physical barrier around ourselves. Thankfully, the barrier really doesn't have to be very tough, since it's not going to be dealing with that much pressure. So maybe a force 2 or force 3 barrier?

Once you've got the barrier up, you've got plenty of time to worry about stacking the other spells you'd need on top of that. Of course, the sustained spell penalty and the stupid levels of drain you'll be looking at in space are going to make this difficult all around.

Then, we'll need to deal with the problem of lacking air. Assuming we don't have the cyberware lung tank, we'll need some stronger version of the oxygenate spell. Since the oxygenate spell specifically doesn't let us get away with not breathing at all, we'll need something stronger; assuming it can be made under the current spell design rules.

Next, we'll need some way of keeping our little magic spaceship from heating up. Thankfully since there are spells like Ice Sheet, we know that magic has little problem with managing stuff like that. So we need some sort of sustained thermostat spell (do they still let spells do environmental changes?)

Next, radiation. Since our magic barrier would protect us vs stuff like lasers and elemental attack magic, it should provide plenty of protection from the radiation of space. So we won't even have to worry too much about paying for genetic reconstruction surgery when we get back home.

And a simple levitate spell should let us move around.

If you have a CO2 scrubber or something in your pocket when you are thrown out the airlock, and manage to get a spherical barrier up before the vacuum knocks you out you'll at least have some time for someone else to come and rescue you. And since you'd have around 3 to 5 combat turns of consciousness, that's plenty of time to cast your barrier.

Not really. Space has no temperature. It has no substance to suck away your heat faster than your body can radiate it, as modified by clothing and local illumination. Earth orbit thus tends to warm up objects quite a bit from Earth's infrared emissions and sunlight reflected off Earth, and sunlight can significantly warm an object in Earth orbit (depending on its albedo). If you get stuck in shade for days on end then you could radiate down to -270C, and tens of minutes in shade would threaten frost bite to even insulated extremities, but there are more immediate issues (like asphyxiation).

Temperature control would be the easiest of issues to deal with, probably handled automatically by the generation of an elemental air bubble around the caster.



If he's in Earth orbit, then this isn't a big deal. Modern manned spacecraft and stations essentially have no radiation protection; their flare protection comes from Earth's magnetic field. Flights beyond ~40,000km altitude are another matter.

So, this is pretty easy to ignore.



These are the key ones.



That is an issue, though the availability of a sustained air source would offer a low drain cost means of addressing it.



He's apparently been in space long enough to face being thrown out an airlock. He'll understand the basics of zero-G maneuvering.



Re-entries are hot because they're fast and in the atmosphere. There are a number of ways to avoid the problem:

1) High acceleration, sustained thrust in orbit. If he can somehow manage 3Gs, and assuming his initial walk out the airlock happened at 350-400km+, he can brake to nearly subsonic speeds before reaching the atmosphere.

2) Use a very extended air bubble with good integrity. Relatively gentle entries can be achieved in the upper atmosphere with very large, light heat shields.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/saver.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/irdt.htm



And that's the real killer. No need to be difficult on other counts when the guy can hardly cast the spell and has 15 to 30 seconds before passing out.

Anyway...

I'd recommend an elemental manipulation spell that maintains a comfortable air bubble around the target (and maybe simplify the spell with "self" targeting option). If you want to be fancy, say it can controllably vent air to steer the bubble, and make it sustained. Call it flat F/2 drain, the character has enough being thrown at him with that mana void.

Such a spell implicitly, partially addresses temperature control by providing room temperature air. This provides additional thermal mass against temperature swings and a means of removing heat from overheated, sun-lit surfaces on the character. While sustained, the spell continually replaces air vented for movement with fresh air of a comfortable temperature, further moderating light/dark temperature swings. (Of course, if the air doesn't vent from the bubble, then overheating or freezing are possible.) I'd threaten 2P or 3P hot and cold checks once per entry into a bright or dark area.

This spell does not address radiation (which is only a problem over a period of years, if the guy's in Earth orbit). An exception is UV light - if the guy spends more than 5-10 minutes in sunlight, exposed skin will be somewhat burned (as in areas on Earth with ozone holes). But you can largely ignore that.

This spell also does not address re-entry, which would require an additional barrier component to maintain the bubble against aerodynamic forces. I don't see the two combining well.

I suggest allowing the PC to re-enter the spaceship or space station after going out the air lock, using an air jet system. (Be careful: temperature control of the bubble doesn't instantly make spacecraft surfaces room temperature. Shaded surfaces will be frostbite threats while illuminated surfaces can be scorching hot. Some rolls to avoid 1P or 2P damage sound reasonable and won't interfere with the story flow.) Whether he goes on to defeat his foes or steals an escape capsule is up to you and whatever works for the game.

Well, the barrier rating of the spelll will need to be fairly high. Not because of the atmosphere of pressure that will need to be maintained.

Why?

Micrometeors. Pieces of dust travelling at speeds greatly exceeding the speed of sound. Space is NOT an empty vacuum. There's a lot of crap floating & zipping around in space.

Given that most hypervelocity weapons inflict some sort of AP against barrriers, you'd want a decent strength barrier to protect against such things.

But yeah, otherwise the workup is fairly benign. Magic can handle each of those things reasonably well. The real trick will be casting spells in a -12 warp. *THAT* will suck big time. I would suggest using Quickening or a strong enough Sustaining Focus so you don't lose those dice from the sustaining penalty. Every die will count in those casting tests.

Likewise, prior to getting ejected into space, perhaps the mage should have a few quickened spells in place. I'm thinking Increase Body / Willpower / Drain_Stat for starters.

Folks, ya'll know that real astronauts essentially don't have radiation shielding now, right? Radiation in space is only a fast threat when you're outside a strong planetary magnetic field and get caught by a flare, or when you're in a planetary radiation belt.

Someone going out an airlock without a space suit has about as much radiation protection as an astronaut in bulky, modern space suit.

Spaces station and satellites aren't exactly armored like tanks yet manage that hasard fairly well. Even a big one like MIR or the ISS. The hazard exists, but even in hearth orbit there's still enough room to make the odds fairly low.

In my opinion, using a low strength barrier and hoping you don't meet something unpleasant is a safer be that trying to cast a powerful barrier or armor spell with the huge penalty of space. Especially when you have less than a minute before lack of oxygen knocks you out.

You can cast the protection spell once you're breathing to be on the safe side, but it will still a gold-plated bitch to cast.

Of course, NASA tracks over...8500* objects 10cm in diameter or greater as to avoid collisions.

*IIRC. At 1cm and greater there are some 10 million objects, IIRC.

Filtering (page 61, Street Magic) would be neccessary. It amazes me how so many forget about that gem.

Perhaps near the space station it is not true -12 magic

If the station has a large population, and lots of plants, you might still be in the Gaisphere of the station. If the station was used for magical research for example, this would be necessary. Next, the station might have a beneficial background count. If he could attune to the background of the station, and does not have much escape velocity, he would have a good chance of getting positive numbers (or at least not too horrible). I don't believe that there are any rules stating how far the Gaiaspere will emanate from a station, but if the GM wants to reward the character for putting up a fight, he could decide that it goes 50 meters from the hull.

The character gets shot out of the airlock, and for a few seconds is out of that range. As Gravity brings him smashing back to the hull of the station, his magic returns. If I GM'd this, I would make it a point to make him a bit pessimistic about the -12 background count, but allow him to do some research, and find out that there is a faint hope. Then make him think that all was lost as he is just barely out of range of the 50meter barrier. Maybe make him take some damage from vaccuum, and then have him slam into the hull and return his magical abilities.

Rules are meant to be a backdrop for the adventure, if you can reason a way to survive, it makes a better story.

That digestion optimization bioware might be worth considering, gas in the intestine can be really nasty during explosive decompression

Doesn't it seem a whole lot easier to just focus your efforts on *not getting pushed out an airlock*?

Quite true!

I think you need to plan for the worst however as well. Hope that you can keep from being thrown out. Make plans to try to avoid it, but if worst comes, being prepared would be good. As the GM, I would decide how much meaning to apply to his prescient vision. Can he avoid it? Is going out the airlock only one of many possibilities? Once I knew the answers, I would try to make it where something the player could do would save the day.

Yes, there is. And collisions are still fairly rare events for structures in space for years. Like radiation, debris is a non-issue for someone who briefly goes out the airlock.



The ISS is actually extensively "armored," but it's not the sort of thing you'd expect when "armor" is mentioned. At typical debris impact velocities, materials behave oddly - more like liquids than solids - so spacecraft armor uses an architecture designed to splash and disperse debris. This sort of armor thus consists of a stand-off "bumper" (a thin sheet of metal), usually some "stuffing" (spaced foil or ceramic cloth sheets), and then the robust hull of the station. Conventional bullets (rifle caliber or larger, anyway) would have no trouble shooting holes through this "Whipple Shielding" and poking holes in the hull, but hypervelocity debris up to 1-1.5cm in diameter is stopped cold.
http://hitf.jsc.nasa.gov/hitfpub/shielddev...icconcepts.html
http://iss.jaxa.jp/iss/kibo/develop_status_09_e.html



The guidelines in SR3's "Wastelands" was 1 or 2 points reduction of the mana warp near heavily populated space stations. Stations on the moon got another 2 points reduction.



A very good point worth repeating.



It's especially easy to forget when the PC doesn't have filtering and doesn't have the time or karma to learn it.



True, but it only means messy shorts if the mage fails to get the spell up before the intestinal gas expels anything...substantial. There are bigger issues.

Thats one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is [pushed out airlock] = [dead] (as this thread nicely illustrates). A contingency plan for being dead is a nice thought, but I'd prefer not to die.

Fortunately, that's really only a problem if you're teleported from a deep underwater arcology. A pressure change of 1 Atmosphere won't kill you.

I suppose one could theoretically cast Deflection to help mitigate the micrometeor hazard.

Everybody has covered most everything, but my pedantic nature and love of space compels me to point this out: ambient temperature in space is not only NOT absolute zero, but it's signficiantly warmer than -270 that people are quoting. That's interplanetary space. In the Troposphere, the temperature is much warmer, though still far below any survivable temperature. There are much more complex things with temperature once you also start dealing with "is he in sun, or in shadow?" but that's the jist - still dead icy, probably, just not 3K icy.

I didn't say a 1-atmosphere pressure change would kill you, I said it'd make your shorts messy if you didn't get that survival spell cast before intestinal gas blew out turds, assuming your intestines were sufficiently "loaded". And a 1-atmosphere pressure difference is sufficient to risk lung and intestinal embolisms if you don't vent gas quickly - don't try to hold your breath or anything else.



If you can cast any spells in space when you go out an airlock, I'd reserve the spells for something lifesaving. Micrometeorites are a non-issue, like worrying about lightning strikes.



The ambient temperature of space is nothing hot or cold. The temperature of an object in space depends on internal heat generation versus radiation (both what the object radiates into space and what nearby objects, like the Sun and Earth, radiate back into the subject). Generally, when you're fully shaded from everything but deep space, then you'll chill to about 3K. This can even be done near Earth with proper shade design and orientation - it's the basis for the James Webb telescope, which will be as close to the sun as Earth (give or take a bit). Lingering in daylight near Earth orbit tends to bring an object up to about 250K to 400K, depending on albedo.



Are you sure you meant troposphere? The troposphere I'm in right now is rather pleasant, though if I stepped outside the near-0C conditions would be annoying without a jacket.

My concern here si that the characters' survival is essentially being left up to random luck, and not player decision. While I understand that choosing your skills, spells, and attributes should count as 'player decisions', that's not going to carry much weight when you die due to an unfortunate glitch... especially if the situation is forced on you. Just food for thought; you might want to present some alternate avenues of survival other than dumb luck.

I don't think the GM is railroading his player or anything; I mean, the guy could have just as easily used a non-magical alternative to survive in space, but he decided to go all mystical instead. Seems to me that whatever ill happens to him is entirely his fault.

Note: if this ever happens to you, exhale first. You'll live for about 30 seconds before running out of oxygen rather than taking a deep breath and exploding.

In most circumstances it doesn't matter which happens to you, the odds that you get picked up in 30 seconds or less are pretty slim.



It has to do with black body radiation, IIRC.
(Rate of heat dissipation when at a core temperature below "glowing" hot, eg. no visible spectrum radiation)

It's still a luck roll. I understand the player jumped at creating a new spell. If he pulls this off, it'll be friggin awesome! It'd still be nice to have some alternate survival options subtly avail themselves, in case one of them catches his eye. I didn't intend for this to come across as criticism of the GM.

Space typically calls for nonmagical solutions. Any spell you cast will likely kill you because a) every point of mana warp increases the drain by 1, and b) since your magic is so reduced, you'll quickly be overcasting.

In typical space, Mr. Awesome with Magic 13, now has Magic 1 and +12 Drain on any spells cast. He's fairly likely to snuff it just casting a spell at Force 2..



As for a manasphere from the space station.. the moon has a -9 mana warp. I doubt any spaceship will be better than that, or even come close to it; particularly outside.

If there's any chance of him doing it with magic, it's because the GM decides to bend the rules for him. But if he's a serious wizard, he would know IC about this problem, and you should tell the player beforehand.. he might change his mind about developing a spell, preferring to buy some equipment/implants or such, or have rescue standing by to revive him.

Don't know how it is with humans, but dogs can suffocate from an overextending stomach that presses on the diaphragm and lungs. Of course you're going to suffocate anyway

Wasn't there some sort of plant that increased the background count? Maybe if there was some of this plant on the ship to enable the local wage-mages to perform simple stuff, he could steal some of it and stash it around his body to alleviate some of the -12.

What happens to a Power Focus in space? What about Spirits and Aid Spellcasting?

As a GM, I'd probably require an astral quest to acquire the secrets of such a spell; both to represent the unknowns (and never dones) he's dabbling with, and to impress upon him the gravity of his undertaking, so to speak. More work for you, of course, but what better time to pull out ye ol' Azathoth?

What you could do is give him the option to go on a run to steal an extremely high force sustaining focus (like force 14 for the force 2 barrier and because I'm superstitious ) and then have him cast the spell while in the gaia sphere to mitigate the casting in space penalties. Then he just has to carry the astrally glaring focus with him at all times while he's in the space station.

The force of that sustaining focus would drop by the rating of the mana warp, so no dice.

Everyone is quoting RAW here -12 for that -9 for the other. RAW is not the issue. The GM is throwing a player into a situation in which by RAW he cannot survive. If that is the intention, then don't waste time, tell the player to bring a new character to the game, and start over. Otherwise there are a number of GM modifications that will allow the player to do something and survive. Even under the worst cases of rank player stupidity, I prefer to allow the player an attempt to save himself. If the situation is engineered by the GM, it is even more important to grant him one. Each character and each player will choose a different method toward survival, none of them are wrong, they are simply more or less successful. Even the best laid plans, etc...

Here is the argument for allowing the player a chance. The space station has a default -9 to magic. The corporation has used Uber-Handwavium technology to drop that to -6. The station has been used so much for magical experimentation that there is a +3 mana warp benefiting a particular tradition, and the player can theoretically attune himself to that warp granting him a total of -3 to his magic. If he then casts the right spells he is able to survive. This will only work if he does his research and plans accordingly.

(EDIT)
Doh! almost forgot! Burn a point of edge to survive
end of story!

I'm going to expand on what Cheshyr alluded to above, even though he shied away from it. Like I said, if I were playing this PC I would spend my time and energy avoiding the air lock by whatever means are necessary (i.e.- like killing whoever would push him out, for example). That should negate the foreboding doom thats crashing toward him. If it doesn't, than there is serious railroading afoot, and this PC paid way too much for Divination that he can't use to change his fate away...

{edit: or, what Orcus said...}

Now, as for the intellectual exercise of designing such a spell, well... carry on.

Since we only have a tiny fraction of the campaign information, that statement is a bit strong.

The issue in this thread is to design a spell that can, as easily as possible, save someone thrown out an airlock. Micromanaging and nitpicking someone else's game when we have virtually no information about the game will only produce groundless speculation and irritation.



That's more what I'm talking about - helpful advice to answer the original question.

how about a simple gremlins spell to stop the airlock from working?

On the other hand, he could go for the next nearest thing to Magic - Nanotechnology:

Oxyrush will keep him supplied with Oxygen for a while and a complete Altskin paint job with the Armor and Sealant Upgrades should provide an "invisible" pressure suit.

good idea, nano doesnt hurt essence, bioindex, or magic.

It hurts ¥, though - in the case of AltSkin with options, applied to the whole body for days in preparation... a lot.

its hard to spend nuyen when yer dead.

The OP is certainly free to post more info. If we've misunderstood something then its a non-issue.

Dude, that's an awesome thought.

Background count/warp, not Ebb/void, unfortunately.



I've done everything short of saying "Guys, seriously. After the last few sessions, you will die if you go up here." or "rocks fall, shuttle explodes." Background: They've had their own private vendetta against S-K after a Mr Johnson set them up. They've been talking to their fixer trying to get constant runs against it. I've been dumbing down the pay and upping the difficulty slowly on these, trying to stop them from it - but now they went looking for something to "really hurt" the megacorp. Like, say, the Sky Forge space station. The only plan they have is "Go up as a worker, sneak binary explosives on board". Since they target S-K all the time, and they're being stupid, I'm going to kill one of them unless they come up with a supremely good escape - and since they have no real plan at all, it ain't looking likely. He doesn't even have any edge left, having burnt it all to survive a fight with a Kludde that was rolling exceptionally well and later after walking into a blast furnace that was clearly labelled.

Yes, but we can speak of the average temperature of stuff when in space as a shorthand for the conditions we are dealing with in terms of absorbed & reflected radiation, since actual math is more complex than my brain likes to deal with. Any space station in Shadowrun you get kicked out of will be in low earth orbit (well, ALMOST any. There are like... 2 that aren't, as far as I recall) and rarely completely shaded from all but deep space, due to radiation diffusion across the atmosphere.



Quite right, good catch! I meant thermosphere/LEO.

Alrighty then. 'Nuf said. In that case, I wish the PC the best of luck... he's going to need it.

It's rather moot by now, but I'd like to note that Filtering explicitly does not work in mana ebbs or voids. It only works with positive background count.

edit: just realized someone else said this 10 minutes before me.

since everyone keeps bringing up temperature and saying low values. the James webb telescope is being built right now and they have had to do quite alot of designing to get it shaded from heat sources so its temp will go really low. They only are gona get in the 10K-30K range (I dont remember exact numbers just that it was about as cold as the cold plates on a vacuum cryopump) For satellites in LEO ya can get temperatures a bit below freezing (maybe cryogenic temperatures if the surfaces are all polished to be decent reflectors which is normally not the case. most surfaces are coated with kapton) and temperatures will stay below boiling on most surfaces. Yes the temperature can go much higher than 100C but that is usually a medium or higher orbit and surfaces that are more greybodies instead of reflectors.

I hope you guys feel good you made me think of work after hours