I'm pretty sure that yes, it should be a physical item.
What datberry means i think is, the exosuit compartment is entered by rightclicking it and selecting an option 'Enter Passenger Compartment'. And that's what he wants to see
Ie, it should be possible to unfold it without being inside it, though presumably once it's activated, opening it would vent the air inside
Here's how i see implementing it:
A rescue ball has two states, folded and unfolded. When folded, its a small item that fits inside the internals box that everyone spawns with. When unfolded, its a physical item that sits on the ground and looks roughly spherical.
When unfolded, the rescue ball will initially take on the atmosphere of the area around it
You can unfold a rescue ball by holding it in your hand and clicking it, the same way rollerbeds and bodybags work.
You can fold a rescue ball back up by clicking and dragging it onto yourself, which will put it into your hand in a folded state.
A person can enter it by right clicking it and selecting Enter Rescue Ball from a context menu. A person can be placed into it by grabbing them and then clicking on the ball with the grab.
A person can leave the rescue ball by rightclicking it and selecting Open Rescue Ball while inside it (or maybe as an option from the Object tab that would appear there.) A person can be removed the exact same way, by anyone outside it. When the rescue ball is opened, the person inside would be ejected, and the atmosphere in the ball would take on the same properties as the atmosphere of the tile its on.
A rescue ball can be activated by anyone, with a rightclick option 'Activate Rescue Ball'. Or it can be activated by someone inside it, by simply leftclicking it. Once activated, the rescue ball would deploy a single-use chemical reaction which would create a breathable contained atmosphere inside. This would also set an internal flag to signal that it's been activated (so it can't be activated again). Ideally this would also alter the name of it to Rescue Ball (used).
A rescue ball can be locked from the outside, by using a lit welding torch on it. When locked, a rescue ball can't be opened until you unweld it.
Hope that's not too overcomplicated, it would require several new verbs to be added, but i think it's a reasonable implementation, that would allow its usage both for personal survival, and for hostage taking.
Yeah that makes sense. I don't agree on welding though, what's this ball made of?