PF 006 Lonestar.

[mmartin798]

It is still a stretch for a bolt hole to be in a offshore rig. A compliant tower is anchored to the seafloor, but they are designed to flex and that would seem to be contrary to long term survivability. That leaves us with a steel jacket fixed platform.

While it is conceivable that you could build a bolt hole inside the jacket of a leg prior to final construction, the jacket does get most of its strength from being round rolled steel welded together with the smaller braces welded between them. This would mean that everything would have to be inside the bolt hole before the jacket was finished and that you could not update the contents of it once sealed. There is also the problem of it jacket being constructed on its side and then having one end slowly submerged to stand it after it is towed to the final location. This means that everything has to be very firmly strapped down to the "floor", including all the vehicles, since it will be on its side for a decent amount of time. These straps would likely entail some sort of steel bracing, brackets and large explosive bolts for the vehicles. Assuming there is such a bolt hole, the normal wake up and launch would be thaw the personnel, have them detonate the bolts to free the vehicles, and then punch the button to activate the thermite charges to burn the door through the jacket with a laser or cutting torch in reserve to use if the thermite fails to open the side correctly for any reason.

This just seems like a lot of work when a more "conventional" design that is used in hundreds of location would just make more sense from an economics and design standpoint.

[tsofian]

Lots of rigs are towed completed and in an upright position. The vehicles would need to be tied down anyway, Oil rigs are dynamic structures and move with the wave action.

I can see a couple of reasons to do this. One has to do with the large number of potential nuke targets on the Gulf Coast. There is also the possibility of the bad guys using tsunami bombs against the entire region. Additionally the threat of hurricanes and weather isn't just against an oil rig. Look at the recent flooding in Texas or Louisiana and the question becomes how many bolt holes could be lost in a Cat 5 hurricane hitting those areas

Also having CT-13 in the middle of the Gulf gives MP the option of deploying them to anywhere in the Gulf from Mexico all the way around to Florida.

I think there will be some really interesting "one off" bolt holes scattered around, just so all the MP eggs aren't in one kind of basket.

Plus the Team Wake up is so much fun for the PD. Tom, Jeff and I made an audio tape (yes it was THAT long ago) of the bolt hole computer letting the team know their house is falling apart around their ears. I also took four pieces of foam and stuck hundreds of little cocktail toothpicks in them. I had a "Remove Before Flight" ribbon and told the players each toothpick was such a ribbon and they had to pull them all out (one by one) before they could safely get the craft operational. Plus their gear was all downstairs.

The visual of the door falling away when the explosive bolts fire and then the big wave coming in is just a great way to introduce players to the world!

EMBRACE THE SUCK!

[mmartin798]

Lots of rigs are towed completed and in an upright position. The vehicles would need to be tied down anyway, Oil rigs are dynamic structures and move with the wave action.

I eliminated floating platforms because of secrecy. There would be no place that does not receive periodic inspections where you could hide the bolt hole. You could assume that the entire platform is owned and operated by a Morrow company and all the platform operators and workers have fairly high security clearance. Though you still have government inspectors to deal with. Not all of them will take a bribe.

[tsofian]

I eliminated floating platforms because of secrecy. There would be no place that does not receive periodic inspections where you could hide the bolt hole. You could assume that the entire platform is owned and operated by a Morrow company and all the platform operators and workers have fairly high security clearance. Though you still have government inspectors to deal with. Not all of them will take a bribe.

That depends on the time period. Before 1990 there might be fewer and less in dept inspections. WE know from the Deepwater Horizon incident that the inspections, even of the mobile platforms were shoddy.

This isn't a floating platform, but is a fixed one. There are a lot of these out there http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...nd_gas_we.html

[mmartin798]

That depends on the time period. Before 1990 there might be fewer and less in dept inspections. WE know from the Deepwater Horizon incident that the inspections, even of the mobile platforms were shoddy.

This isn't a floating platform, but is a fixed one. There are a lot of these out there http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...nd_gas_we.html

I don't mean to be overly pedantic, but in this case it make a big difference with regard to characteristics and descriptions of different platform types. The numbers are also important since there is a vast discrepancy between oil well and drilling platform.

Just to be clear, the assumption here is that the team is in a fixed platform. I am in total agreement that the team is in a fixed platform. So now, what is a fixed platform and what are its characteristics A fixed platform has an underwater steel jacket that is firmly anchored to the floor by steel piles that themselves are over 100 ft long. The jacket extends above the sea level by a height greater than the expected wave height from storms and the platform is built on the jacket at this height and above. Once completed, baring structural failure of the jacket, the fixed platform will not move, rock, twist or in any way show movement from storm and surge. This is how they are designed to work.

As for the number of platforms that exist, that number is much smaller than the number of wells drilled. From a report written in 1997 forecasting the number of fixed structures in the Gulf of Mexico, since the first offshore structure was built in the Gulf of Mexico in 1942, there have been a total of 5,561 fixed structures installed. During that same period about 1,645 platforms were removed, leaving 3,916. There is not a one-to-one correlation to the over 27,000 wells and the number of platforms. The report also showed the trend was more platforms being removed than being built, leading to a decline in their numbers to about 3,000 in 2017. With the time to asteroid discovery to impact being just over a year, it is unlikely the number would be any higher.

The other consideration is that the average lifespan of a platform before it is removed and recycled is less than 20 years. So the platform in question should be built and operational by 1998. That will tell you where your should limit the gear to if the bolt hole is sealed into the jacket.

[tsofian]

With a few thousands out there having a handful that have some sort of MP resource on them doesn't seem ridiculous. Even if most are getting recycled those owned by Morrow Industries could be publicly repurposed as automated weather, climate and marine pollution monitoring stations.

[cosmicfish]

Nothing important (including freeze tubes) should be on a mobile facility long term. Too hard to control, too hard to maintain, not very durable, more at the mercy of the elements, etc. If you want an unmanned sensor or comms station on an oil rig, sure - you've got an overfilled network, you can lose a few without impacting operations. But don't freeze people on an oil rig for 20 years.

[tsofian]

Nothing important (including freeze tubes) should be on a mobile facility long term. Too hard to control, too hard to maintain, not very durable, more at the mercy of the elements, etc. If you want an unmanned sensor or comms station on an oil rig, sure - you've got an overfilled network, you can lose a few without impacting operations. But don't freeze people on an oil rig for 20 years.

An oil rig isn't a mobile structure once it is emplaced. The Principality of Sealand is built on a very similar structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand. It's been standing since emplaced in the 1940s. So this structure has been around for 70 years and it absolutely wasn't built to last through the war.

[tsofian]

Crossposted from another thread

The Republic of Texas is pretty loose and mostly small villages. The Army there is the only large and coherent organization. Lonestar is barely functioning as a State above the village level. All it really has is good Law and Order and the Army to keep the villages safe. The Universities and Oil Industries serve themselves.

Just looked through Operation Lonestar, The lesser state of Texas has a population of 5 million. This is about the same as the population of ALL of Texas in 1920. So there is no way this is a land of small villages.

The Brotherhood has 1 million in total population of which 100,000 are warriors. This is their level of technology

"Thus medicine, forging, husbandry, agriculture and myriad other skill either declined or disappeared. ... Only those technical skills which related to small arms and ammunition maintenance and production were preserved."