Radiation

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

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

That's skin cancer, and he already said it meaningfully affects the skin.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

That's skin cancer, and he already said it meaningfully affects the skin.

Not terribly effective does not fit with potentially lethal cancer, in my book.
Radiation damage is what sunburns are no matter how you define it. And a possible effect of radiation damage is cancer.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Not terribly effective does not fit with potentially lethal cancer, in my book.

The amount of genetic damage, in comparison to the amount of energy, is quite low. It's dangerous because there's quite a lot of it, relatively speaking.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Not terribly effective does not fit with potentially lethal cancer, in my book.

Sure it does:

Many people get exposure to the sun.
A few of those people get skin cancer.

A few people get exposure to intense gamma rays.
Many of those people get cancer.


Sunlight is a very ineffective way of getting cancer.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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.

Galactic cosmic ray doses seem to be below the threshold for acute dose (what GURPS radiation damage normally gives), but other space radiation hazards can certainly be above this (planetary radiation belts, solar storms).

Luke

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Radiation damage is what sunburns are no matter how you define it.

So is sticking your hand in a fire, but it doesn't get kicked over into the radiation system. "All electromagnetic radiation" is not a category that GURPS cares to track as "radiation".

GURPS reserves the bare word "radiation" for things that the common person would recognize as radiation (mostly or entirely particle radiation - not sure if GURPS tracks very high frequency EM like X-Rays as radiation but I'm guessing it does).

Visible light and UV Lasers do not do tox damage with the radiation modifiers, nor burn damage with radiation modifiers, despite being damage from energetic electromagnetic radiation. Standing too close to a fire does not do radiation damage either, and hoo boy is that celular damage from infrared radiation. But we don't call it "irradiating", we call it "cooking".

Not the same thing. This isn't really even a GURPS-term-of-art problem here, but an English-language use.

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

-snip-

I do wonder how one might model this for the PC's.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Jonas

I do wonder how one might model this for the PC's.

Some of the 3e Transhuman Space books have good estimates for all of this. Cosmic background radiation is 1 rad/week, but it's hard radiation that divides any PF by 100. The Van Allen Belt and Jupiter's insane radiation field are also discussed in TS. I think they gloss over Saturn's radiation belt, but it's not that horrible, iirc. Likewise, I believe the other planets don't really have a radiation belt.

I asked some questions about how to handle radiation in another thread and got some clarification. I'll try to dig it up and link in an edit.

[EDIT]
Link!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Galactic cosmic ray doses seem to be below the threshold for acute dose

It is, but not below the cancer dose, for which there isn't an accepted curve at low doses but is usually assumed to be linear no-threshold. Best I can find on that is along the lines of

In accordance with current knowledge of radiation health risks, the Health Physics Society recommends against quantitative estimation of health risks below an individual dose of 5 rem in one year or a lifetime dose of 10 rem above that received from natural sources.

GCRs with a basic hull amount to ~10 rem/year (not sure of the original source for 1/week, it might include other hazards).

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Jonas

I do wonder how one might model this for the PC's.

The easiest way is to let all radiation dose heal. Just like you don't worry about chronic injury when your barbarian warrior gets run through with a spear but manages to survive. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that acute radiation effects cannot be healed with time (chronic exposure certainly does build up, though).

For chronic exposure, you could just say that after 5 years spent in space, make a HT check. If you fail, you get Terminally Ill (10 - margin of failure years, minimum 1 year).

GURPS radiation injury also sets in at much lower doses than you see in real life - 1 to 10 rads is not going to cause any effects.

Luke