Does a spaceship need Affects Others on its Immunites to keep its passengers safe?

Question

Say one is making a vehicle to travel through a particularly hostile environment, such as space. Naturally, one would grant the vehicle the Immunity applied to the various dangers of the environment, such a Immunity to vacuum and radiation in our example. However, say the vehicle is being designed to carry passengers through the aforementioned hostile environment.

Does a passenger vehicle need to apply 'affects other' to all its Immunities to protect its occupants as well, or is the effect always applied to passengers?

Answer 1

In much the same way as you don't need to specify "People don't recognize my hero out-of-costume", you don't need to specifically say, "The motorcycle can carry a passenger" or "The spaceship has a life-support system."

The D20 HeroSRD (which includes the Open Game Content from M&M 3E) says this about vehicles:

Vehicles and Environments

A vehicle is assumed to provide the necessary life support for its passengers for the environments it is equipped to move through. So, for example, an aquatic vehicle is assumed to be water-tight and have its own oxygen supply, while a space vehicle is assumed to provide a safe, breathable environment, and even gravity. These are part of the vehicle’s descriptors and have no point cost. The GM may wish to permit the lack of such environmental systems as a Quirk on the vehicle’s cost or a complication in play. Certainly the disruption of such systems constitutes a complication!

Immunity to environments or other effects not normally part of the vehicle’s mode(s) of movement is acquired as a power for the vehicle, typically Affects Others and Others Only for a net +0 modifier, protecting everyone inside the vehicle.

So, no. You don't need to specifically buy the obvious stuff for your super-vehicle. Non-obvious stuff, like the fact that the vehicle also has an AI Pilot that can remotely hack other ships? That you have to pay points for.