Cthulhu wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:09 am
But are the life support systems really so easy to sabotage?
No one said it was easy.
Are you saying it has to have be easy, or a girl couldn't have done it?
j/k
Cthulhu wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:09 am
What did they take out, though?
1. Oxygen generation; it will still leave the bugs a few hours until it is depleted.
2. CO2 absorption; same as above, it's not an instant death.
3. Temperature regulation; not fast enough to freeze everyone either.
4. Venting atmosphere; This would likely trigger automatic emergency measures, sealing off parts of the ship.
I had the same thoughts more or less, and I agree that just not generating oxygen, not scrubbing CO2 and not regulating temperature would be too slow to have any noticeable immediate impact, and would only be viable in an attrition scenario.
As to venting atmosphere, there's explosive decompression you could get with just opening an airlock or blasting a wall, and there's minor leaks that can be made with tiny holes that 'slowly' sap the air in anything from minutes to hours. Automatic sealing of parts of the ship could be advantageous for attackers, as it lets you fight a smaller number of enemies at a time.
Whatever kind of sabotage you do that corrupts the air (burning toxic fumes from some ship system or weapon, diluting the air, etc) works first of all as a distraction - the Umiak have to deal with this instead of dealing with the invaders.
Cthulhu wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 10:09 am
The only viable strategy would be to tamper with the air's composition, for example increasing CO2 or N2 levels past a lethal threshold. However, I strongly doubt that any normal control panel would allow for such changes to be made. It's like integrating a "kill crew" button into your systems, why would anyone do it?
Hard to imagine lethal N2 levels for us humans here on earth for whom N2 is pretty much inert, but I understand the idea that toxic air conditions can be achieved.
Why would anyone allow it?
1. Pest control.
2. Unintentionally - you just have tanks of gasses used for various purposes - cooling of weapon systems, operation of the power generator etc. Open the wrong valves, make a hole in some pipe, and your crew's breathing toxic fumes.
3. Giving low level controls to engineers allows them to come up with creative solutions quickly. Umiak hate the red tape of having to request usage of some material just because if it leaked into the ship's atmosphere it would kill everyone.