A question about Escape Pods/lifeboats

[marauder648]

How many people/crew do they fit?  The fluff for them in TRO 3057 says they can support 6 people, so that's what i've been basing my numbers off, work out the number of crew and divide by 6.  But looking at the TRO again, a ship like the Essex has 12 lifeboats/Escape pods. That's 72 crew if one can take 6, 72 our of a total of 278, that's 25% of the crew. I know the SLDF basically viewed its Destroyers as expendible but surely not the crew O_o

[Vition2]

According to TM, page 216, escape pods have room for 6 people - you have to read the fluff.  TM, page 227 has the lifeboat, and it fits 7 people.

While I think the Essex is particularly low on the lifeboat/escape pod count, I wouldn't be surprised if the designers assumed a high casualty rate before "abandon ship" was called.  Personally I'd put the number around 50%, but I usually build my ships to have lifeboats/escape pods to get 90-100%+ the crew because abandoning a ship doesn't always happen during or immediately post combat.

[Maingunnery]

Also Small Craft might also be assumed to be useful for evacuating the ship.

[Frabby]

In real life there is the viewpoint among some that the (too) easy availability of rescue systems may put the crew in danger, by seducing them into abandoning their craft early and thereby not only lose a ship/aircraft that could have been saved, but also put themselves into a possibly yet more life-threatening situation.

I learned this from a flight instructor and it wasn't meant as a joke.