[Retsof]

Many of you have probably noticed that with all the advanced technology of the GTVA, they still lose countless pilots because they never put in a way to eject.  Wouldn't the canopy seal off, or at least the pilots have EV suits.  You'd think it would be obvious.

[Mustang19]

Well, considering that they court martial Alpha 1 every time he fails to protect the Krios escape pods, and considering that it puts its pilots through about 1 hour of flight training, I get the impression that the GTVA considers its pilots "expenable". I think that Snipes and such are the only pilots who get ejection seats.

[Mobius]

The complete absence of escape pods in fighters and bombers makes the whole game more cruel. Pilots don't have a chance of escaping.

But I don't blame campaign designers who mention escape pods. I find it an interesting idea and makes everything more realistic.

[colecampbell666]

Well, considering that they court martial Alpha 1 every time he fails to protect the Krios escape pods, and considering that it puts its pilots through about 1 hour of flight training, I get the impression that the GTVA considers its pilots "expenable". I think that Snipes and such are the only pilots who get ejection seats.

I've tried to protect the pods, but it is impossible, even on very easy, to protect all of them.

[Bob-san]

Well, considering that they court martial Alpha 1 every time he fails to protect the Krios escape pods, and considering that it puts its pilots through about 1 hour of flight training, I get the impression that the GTVA considers its pilots "expenable". I think that Snipes and such are the only pilots who get ejection seats.

I've tried to protect the pods, but it is impossible, even on very easy, to protect all of them.

There's yer problem... very easy. Put it on Insane and then try to protect them--your wingmen are actually intelligent enough to help you.

[jr2]

Well, EV suits don't seem realistic... I mean, you could do it, but you'd be stuck like a pincushion with the debris from your exploding fighter / bomber.  Now, a detachable cockpit with thrusters might work.  But it'd be that much more time involved with the coders of FS2... plus more time spent to invent craft to recover them, etc, etc.  Not a bad idea... but you have to wonder if its worth it (from the programmer's / modeler's point of view).

[Bob-san]

Depending on what you want to do, it could make sense. However, to effectively escape in an escape pod, you either need support or a jump drive. Unfortunately, it seems that escape pods generally lack support and are too small for a jump drive.

[IceFire]

We asked back during development of Descent: FreeSpace.  Mostly a programming thing.

[lenard27]

As its been stated you'd need to have some sort of recovery craft for the pilot. It wouldn't really be logical to give the cockpit its on set of thrusters because it would need a fuel source and then the cost of manufacturing the fighter would go up too.  And I doubt the recovery craft would be very heavily armed so it would be a sitting duck. And then the recovered pilot would be dead and another one, too. So that wouldn't be very convenient.

And then there's the whole ship design and coding thing too, from a non-universe perspective.

[S-99]

The actual escape pods in the game do have jump drives. It was a crappy deal of like a one time use kind of jump drive, but sounds cheap and easy to manufacture en masse for rather cheap escape pods. Basically all the escape pods need to do is make it to a node. And guarding them can be a *****, makes me wonder why the shivans like to warp in seraphim for taking them out in silent threat (should have warped in a ton of dragons and make it too hard)?

[karajorma]

We asked back during development of Descent: FreeSpace.  Mostly a programming thing.

Yep. Due to the way FS2 is designed adding any kind of ejection system to the game would be a complete nightmare as it would give the player (and ai ships) yet another route out of a mission that would need to be checked for constantly in SEXPs and during the debriefing.

As far as an in-game explanation, this is what I posted last time.

The Shivans are xenophobes. They'd blow anyone in an escape pod away.
The NTF rejected BETAC including it's articles on prisoners of war. They'd blow anyone in an escape pod away.
The HOL think that the Shivans are going to kill everyone. They'd blow anyone in an escape pod away.
Pirates in general are murderers and thieves. Most of them would blow anyone in an escape pod away if only to silence their radios.

Has anyone ever considered the fact that maybe Freespace fighters do have escape pods but it's just that no one we've yet seen has ever been stupid enough to use one?
 As far as I can see you're better off staying with the fighter under almost every circumstance.

[Polpolion]

IIRC there isn't any evidence for or against ejection in any of the Freespace games.

[Nissan]

I'm guessing any FS ejection system would be something like the one in the old game StarLancer...

If you eject from your fighter, there's about a 2-in-3 chance your flying cockpit gets destroyed.  Occasionally, a "nanny ship" that's basically a giant support ship comes to save you, but even then, you get dismissed for apparently being incompetent enough to get shot down.  (This last part doesn't apply to your wingmen, who eject on every mission, only to come back on the next... go figure.)

[Mars]

Considering command won't let you or your wingmen jump out when the fighters involved are on the edge of death, I doubt they'd bother with escape pods.

[Wobble73]

IIRC Colonel Dekker made a mission were there was an escape pod utilised! Bear with me and I will try to find it for you!

[FSW]

The lack of an escape pod is the GTVA's incentive to pilots not to break their expensive machines.

[Wobble73]

Ah Ha!!!! Finally found it, (took some trolling through Dekkers last posts though!)

Whew! Here we are though! I believe the model of the escape pod was made by some else though I can't remember who at this moment. My apologies to you if it is you!

Enjoy!

[Knight Templar]

You never hear about escape pods or suits because they're not important to the plot. If it helps you to sleep at night, you can go ahead an imagine that some pilots survive in suits after their ship blows up. Hell, there's a lot of debris in some fighters, who is to say they're not in the cockpit debris? Again, its moot, never mattered to the plot.

[jr2]

Check the debris LOD for the HTL Perseus...