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Unless the shpi were in some sort of stealth, I would have to agree that the ships sensors would tell you whether the other vessel had an atmosphere.

LIke using weather radar...you could pick up on the presence of water vapor, for instance...

Not exactly, it wouldn't be radar to do that sort of detection. It would have to be some sort of light sensor. That would measure the spectrum of say portals where light could pass out of the hull. The light would transmit the spectrum of the atmosphere or the lack of one. Just think of the Central Alliance ships, some might not have atmosphere being there are no beings aboard who'd need to breath. (Cyborgs)

It could always be in the ships IFF. That is if the ship isn't under stealth that is. Just a thought. And say the ship was leaking atmosphere, then the distress call would be going out to any passers by.

Gravitonic sensors, read the density profile of the stuff that isn't hull.

That sounds pretty reasonable.

I think that on that we agree totally! Of course I think everything else you've mentioned makes 100% sense to me.

According to the ship creation rules presented in the Rifter article, the standard commercial sensors have gravity wave sensors. seems reasonable that they could detect almost any particle and the gravitational effect it has.

Lets say you cant detect if a ship has air or not. There is something exciting and scary about entering a derilict ship adrift in space with no idea what is inside. After all role playing should be fun.

I myself as a GM have it that there are no clear connections between computers on the ship. Such as the commications system is isolated from other systems computers. It prevents viruses from taking control of your ship. Like what happen in another game system Traveller.

gadrin wrote:I was on another board and the consensus there was that it would be pretty easy to detect whether a ship you encounter floating in space has an atmosphere inside it.

I've forgotten how they accomplished it.

Anyone have any ideas ?

The players ask the GM if sensors detect a breathable atmoshpere on the other starship.

I think that anything within 500 meters would probably set off all of the close proxemity alarms, unless the crew knowingly turn off the alarms. The alarm without any interference might even be able to try an avoid the object thru auto pilot without crew interference.