Variable Option Common Vessel

Nicknamed "Vox" the V.O.C.V. or Variable Option Common Vessel is a type of container used by the Gudersnipe Foundation for orbital-to-surface transport.

Description

At its core, the vox is little more than a giant, air-tight metal box equipped with life-support systems. Geometry and support structures allow it to be clamped on to a variety of vehicles, in order to be carried from a spacecraft to the planet surface. The vox can be equipped with an active heat-shield, parachute, and retro-rockets, allowing it to be de-orbited. It can also be "flown" to the surface by a number of vehicles.

Variants

The basic vox structure is designed to support a number of interior configurations, either for cargo, vehicle-delivery, or personnel-transport. The most common sue of the vox is simple cargo-delivery.

Secondary Unity Delivery

Though the drop ship is the standard first-in unit delivery vehicle, the personnel-carrier version of the vox is designed for large-scale deployments. Essentially, the inside is fittied with up to 80 re-entry couches and various other ammeneties so that it can act as a troop-transport. Typically personnel are not confined to the vox for more than a few hours, though in semi-rare cases troops have spent up to three days on-board awaiting deployment.

Mean Battle Tank

Several voxs have been configured to carry various MEAN vehicles into combat. The tank is the favored vehicle as they are often needed to support ground personnel. Though the vox has space inside for two MEAN Battle Tanks, typically only one is placed inside as it is difficult to deploy more than that rapidly. Only the MEAN Battle Tank and armored personnel carrier are deployed this way.

Instant-Base System

Since the vox system includes a robust powerplant, they have often been contigured with entire facilities inside of them(such as hospitals, repair shops, etc) so that a series of vox can be delivered to a location and form an instant base. This variant of the vox, combined with other forms of containerization, has proved vary useful in ground-to-space deployments.

Evacuation Option

Though infrequently used, the EOV or Evacuation Option V.O.C.V., is a fitting of the vox equipped with extended life support and additional seating, so that it can hold up to 300 people for 32 hours. These were designed as a special-use module for rapid, large-scale evacuations. This variant of the vox could not be used to transport foot soldiers as it lacked the necessary space to stow their gear. It was intended from the outset to carry civilians.

Due to it's limited functionality, the EOV was not widely produced. Dedicated large-transport ships could often do a better job at evacuating civilians. In a pinch, the much more commonly-available secondary-unity delivery version could be used to safely evacuate up to two hundred civilians, so a dedicated civilian-use variant was not ultimately very useful.

Amenities

The base vox structure includes artificial gravity, inertial damping, and full heating/ventilation/cooling as well as air-filtration. According to GS-standards it has a life-support rating of 100-man/96 hours(meaning it can provide a comfortable, stable, shirt-sleeve environment for 100 men for 96 hours). The high-rating and large internal space has made it an excellent piece of equipment for use in large-scale evacuations as several hundred people can be loading inside for short periods of time.

The vox is not equipped with bathrooms, however fittings are standard and a modular 'bathroom attachment' is available. When empty voxs are shipped aboard carriers or personnel transport ships, the bathroom module is usually added in the event the vox might be required for an evacuation.