Radiation

[Aigol]

I am running a space campaign and considering using real consequences for radiation and I am a little confused by the rules.


I was reading spaceships 8 about the PF factors by the amount of mass shielding systems and am curious if the rad exposure is 1 per week and you have an effective PF of 3 do you round down and not pick up any rads or does it mean you get 1 rad every 3 weeks?


Also when healing it says that 10% of the accumulated dose remains, what do you count for the dose for a 1 per week cosmic ray situation, do you only do it once they leave space and can heal and count the total dose received during their time in space, or does each 1 rad dose count separate and when you heal it rounds down leaving you with no remaining rads?

And do you roll every day as long as you still have accumulated rads?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Aigol

I am running a space campaign and considering using real consequences for radiation and I am a little confused by the rules.


I was reading spaceships 8 about the PF factors by the amount of mass shielding systems and am curious if the rad exposure is 1 per week and you have an effective PF of 3 do you round down and not pick up any rads or does it mean you get 1 rad every 3 weeks?


Also when healing it says that 10% of the accumulated dose remains, what do you count for the dose for a 1 per week cosmic ray situation, do you only do it once they leave space and can heal and count the total dose received during their time in space, or does each 1 rad dose count separate and when you heal it rounds down leaving you with no remaining rads?

And do you roll every day as long as you still have accumulated rads?

It heals normally, but never rounds.

[Aigol]

so you end up with fractional remaining accumulation?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Aigol

so you end up with fractional remaining accumulation?

That's how it works in real life. Of course it simplifies things _greatly_ if you allow some kind of ultratech treatment that removes long term rads.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Aigol

so you end up with fractional remaining accumulation?

That's realistic. Radiation damage can be recovered from (if it's not lethal), but never 100% (or usually not, biology is always full of exceptions and surprises). Over time, residual accumulated damage can be a serious problem.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That's how it works in real life.

Sort of. The latest evidence is that there is a threshold for dose rate at which radiation doesn't do anything (note that this idea has been around for a long time, and has been quite controversial for a long time, and the new evidence might not be the last word on the subject). If you take dose below this threshold your cells can regenerate the damage and everything is hunky dory. If you take damage above this threshold, you get cumulative genetic injury that can cause long term (chronic) problems like cancer. You still are able to recover from injury that causes acute effects (basically, radiation sickness). Only at significantly higher dose rates do acute effects start happening.

If you want, you can think of acute radiation effects as occurring when too many cells die. Chronic effects are when not enough cells die.

Luke

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Sort of. The latest evidence is that there is a threshold for dose rate at which radiation doesn't do anything (note that this idea has been around for a long time, and has been quite controversial for a long time, and the new evidence might not be the last word on the subject).

The evidence is that, if that dose rate exists, it's pretty low, so that can be ignored for the radiation doses in space unless PF is very high.

[Flyndaran]

Less than even moderate sunlight is almost cute by naked space standards, eh?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Less than even moderate sunlight is almost cute by naked space standards, eh?

Huh? Moderate sunlight generates no detectable full-body radiation dose, it only meaningfully affects the skin and isn't terribly effective even there.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Huh? Moderate sunlight generates no detectable full-body radiation dose, it only meaningfully affects the skin and isn't terribly effective even there.

It noticeably increases cancer risks, so I wouldn't call it not meaningful, especially to those with malignant melinomas.