Got a problem with Missed Sleep rule

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Here’s what happens:
Monday, 1 hour of missed sleep, doubled to 2 hours for purposes of day length. At 6 a.m., he has missed one hour of sleep (doubled to 2 hours is still less than the four hours that constitute a quarter-day, [which is calculated from the non-sleeping 16-hour day and not the more usual 24-hour day]), so he doesn’t lose 1 FP for that. The two hours of missed sleep shorten his day to 14 hours. After 8 p.m., he is “staying up late”. If he doesn’t go to bed at 8 p.m., it costs him 1 FP. If he stays up late for until 11 p.m., he has stayed awake for 3 hours, which coupled with the hour of missed sleep from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. constitutes a missed quarter-day for Monday and now costs him a further 1 FP for a total of -2 FP at 11 p.m.

[...]

Sorry but I don't understand your calculation here. 6 AM + 14h = 8 PM and between 8 PM and 11 PM, there are only 3 hours, not 4.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I suspect the problem lies in an ignored underlying assumption. Sleep is generally the last thing people give up. If you need to work an extra hour each day, you don’t usually give up an hour’s sleep, you give up watching McGyver or Murdock Mysteries.

You do that if you are very serious, indeed. But a lot of people, including me, don't do that. I go on posting on that forum even when I know I shouldn't, for instance ... As long as I know that I will be able to sleep as much as I want during the week-end, of course! Or as long as I'm not to exhausted - which is even less serious.

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

I’d say the problem is that this only applies when you’re already working a 16-hour day and you start stretching it into a 17-hour or more day. When you’re looking at 17+-hour days, the rules look pretty reasonable.

There are specific rules for that: Long Tasks.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Sorry but I don't understand your calculation here. 6 AM + 14h = 8 PM and between 8 PM and 11 PM, there are only 3 hours, not 4.

Breaking it down:
It probably should have been 6 a.m. = 06:00 + 14:00 = 20:00 = 8 p.m, for clarity.

You lose 1 FP per quarter-day, you stay awake after that. 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. is indeed only 3 hours, but I also counted the period 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. for an additional hour, making 4 hours total for the day, which I probably shouldn't have, according to a strict reading of the rules.

<snip>

There are specific rules for that: Long Tasks.

Yes and no. Long tasks [p. B499] says nothing that would imply more than an 8-hour work day, though it also doesn't say anything that would imply you couldn't put in "overtime." Long Tasks (p. B346) which is the other reference, deals with working more than a 10-hour shift and tells you how many effective man-hours you can contribute if you exceed an 8-hour shift, penalties you roll at and the possible additional FP penalties you take if you exceed a 10-hour shift "day".

Long tasks say nothing about FP loss from Missed Sleep if you work a 17+-hour shift day. I would treat the FP losses from Long Tasks and Missed Sleep as separate and cumulative.

Addendum: re: napping

I just read the forum thread on napping (and not the napping studies reference, yet).

Long term FP loss definitely sounds useful here. As a house rule, I'd suggest that long naps recover FP loss at 1 FP per 2 hours, but only for quarter-day FP loss, i.e., you still have to get a full night's sleep (usually 8 hours) to recover the 1 FP lost for not going to bed when you were tired. It counts one for one against the doubled time for making up missed sleep. If you've missed two hours sleep (doubled to four hours), a 1-hour nap will reduce your day loss to 3 hours (I'd figure it as counting against doubled time first, in case it would ever make a difference), a 2-hour nap would reduce the day loss to 2 hours (figured as 1 hour [doubled]), a 3-hour nap reduces the day loss to 1 hour (undoubled), and a 4-hour nap removes the day loss.

As a house rule, a power nap counts as being engaged in activity for the first two hours after awakening. If you are at half FP due to loss of sleep and are engaged in inactivity, the next 2 hours of inactivity don't count towards making a Will roll. If you are at less than 1/3 FP due to sleep loss, you have to make a Will roll in 2 hours rather than 30 minutes if engaged in inactivity. It doesn't help if you're at less than 1/3 FP and engaged in activity anyway, unless you also have the Slow Riser disadvantage, in which case, it removes the extra -1, for the next Will roll only.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Long tasks say nothing about FP loss from Missed Sleep if you work a 17+-hour shift day. I would treat the FP losses from Long Tasks and Missed Sleep as separate and cumulative.

Either would I.

Working 17 hours a day would mean making a HT-7 (!) roll and taking the margin of failure FP in addition to the FP earned with the missed sleep. Both would be separate, indeed, but they would still be cumulative for general fatigue effects (half move, risk of collapse, lost of HP).

[tanksoldier]

. But since no one of us actually died(it just felt like we were going to) and people were able to somewhat function on day 6 I would say that likely the rules are too harsh.

Maybe. Maybe you’d just acquired the needs less sleep advantage. I think the rules work well for the first few points, but they spiral out of control in extreme cases. Maybe double the time for each FP lost? If it takes one day for the first one, two for the next, four for the next and so on?

Not to derail the thread but keep in mind that normal military training is targeted at the lowest common denominator. In the US services, except maybe the USMC, you don’t get 200 hours of rifle training... so the guy who has never touched a gun in his life is able to qualify using default skill.

The skill rolls for most common military tasks are extremely low... they have to be able to be done by IQ 9 mooks using their default and/ or Soldier skill because everybody has to pass the same tests, so it has to be geared towards the worst case.

Same with PT tests. I think the US Army PT test can be passed by someone with ST9 and HT9. I haven’t tried to figure it if that’s true in game but it should be. Your end of training ruck march should be achievable by someone with HT9 and maybe 1 point in hiking.

[Flyndaran]

If they all can pass with 9 stats, then that means most civilians have 8 or even 7. That doesn't sound reasonable to me.

[tanksoldier]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

If they all can pass with 9 stats, then that means most civilians have 8 or even 7. That doesn't sound reasonable to me.

Why? Soldiers entering basic training ARE civilians, and 12-14 weeks aren’t enough time to actually change a stat. The Army’s PT test actually is easier to max for the 17-21 age group than the next one up because so many civilians entering military service are out of shape and initial training isn’t enough time to get them in shape.

For a 17-21 male it takes 71 push-ups to get a max score of 100, and 42 to get the minimum score of 60. For 22-26 it’s 75 to max and 40 to pass. Females can pass with only 19 push-ups.

The hypothetical average person is 10 across the board, and you can enter the military and graduate training even being slightly below average. How strong is the female passing and graduating with 19 push-ups? GURPS makes no allowance for gender differences but real life does.

You are in better shape when you graduate but did your ST and HT both go up? Doubtful.

More likely you’ve put a point or two into Lifting (Push-ups) and Running than increasing your basic stat.

Again many people enlisting will exceed this, but everything that is tested has to be geared towards the minimal trainee... not the high school football star.

[Flyndaran]

10 is not average at all. It's Gurps default assuming healthy fit for military service 18 year old.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

This might be simply that healthy people have larger FP pools that take longer to be drained combined with many people being at a perpetual -1 or -2 FP, but the recovery rate makes me wonder if there is something else.

I have sleep apnea, which means if I try to sleep without a CPAP machine, my throat collapses and I suffocate. I "micro-wake" enough to gasp for air, and then go back to sleep again, at which point I again suffocate. This happens about 35 times an hour, on average, so more or less every two minutes. I likely started as a little kid (my mother remembers that I 'held my breath' in my sleep, which freaked her out, and I only got my CPAP machine ~a year ago, which goes to show just how tough humans can be sometimes.

Even with the machine I tend to need to wake five times an hour but the difference is still dramatic.

Sleep apnea causes a whole host of health problems, and the horrendous sleep quality it produces (along with the sustained hypoxia while 'sleeping') causes further health problems. Obesity aggravates sleep apnea, and sleep apnea aggravates obesity, never mind the heartattack, stroke, and organ failure that sleep apnea causes due to long term damage caused by suffocating again and again and again every night.

Which is a long way of saying there can be really good reasons why someone who isn't very healthy has little tolerance for sleep disturbance, and takes forever to recover: their "normal" sleep could be absolutely horrid for the same reasons they're unhealthy, so they were already sleep-deprived and they're not actually getting "a full nights sleep" to recover.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

I think the rules work well for the first few points, but they spiral out of control in extreme cases.

It sounds to be the case for several rules, actually.

The problem with the Basic Set hiking rate, for example, was not a problem as soon as the character had encumbrance. It only appeared for characters without any encumbrance, making a trip on a good road several days in a raw ... Brief, another extreme case.

And that problem has been solve with the Ultra-Tech hiking rate.

Does anybody know whether there are any optional rules about sleeping somewhere? In the Last Gap for instance?

[weby]

Originally Posted by Gollum

It sounds to be the case for several rules, actually.

The problem with the Basic Set hiking rate, for example, was not a problem as soon as the character had encumbrance. It only appeared for characters without any encumbrance, making a trip on a good road several days in a raw ... Brief, another extreme case.

A lot of the rules in the basic set break badly at even human levels according to basic set. That is things like how long or how fast you can run, how much you can lift and so on. The rules work fairly well when you are about 10 in attributes, skills slightly above 10 and do not try anything too extreme.

If you go over those things a lot of the things break.