Constant Encumbrance during daily activity and fatigue?

[AlexanderHowl]

Honestly, you suffer FP loss, but I would have it occur at the end of the work day, to represent cumulative fatigue (+1 FP per hour beyond the eight hour work day), halved if you have Very Fit. Sixteen hour work days are exhauting, as I found out in the Navy occasionally. This is assuming normal breaks and calculated on daily average load (the average soldier with an average daily load of medium encumbrance would suffer 11 FP after working 16 hours)

[tanksoldier]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Could you describe the gear? .

I never weighed each individual piece of gear, but buck nekkid I weigh about 250 and suited up I weigh about 290. I actually weighed myself one morning getting ready for work.

So:

Clothing... boots, socks, Chuck Norris underroos, wicking t-shirt, bullet resistant vest, 5.11 holster t-shirt, uniform pants and blouse, shirt garters, pants belt... badge, name plate.

Gear in pockets... pens, notebook, work cell phone, personal cell phone, Miranda card, DUI clue card, spare car key, cuff key, spare cuff key, business cards, leather gloves, vinyl gloves, spare flashlight, wallet, blowout kit...

Gear on duty belt... duty belt, suspenders, main flashlight, vhf radio, hand mic, ear piece, cuffs x2, Gerber multitool...

Weapons... Sig P320fs, Sig P320sc, spare mags x3, baton, taser, oc spray, benchmade infidel knife, spare patrol rifle mag

I also had a safe with a patrol rifle, shotgun and rifle plate vest in it at the courthouse, and of course they were in my truck on patrol.

I'm having trouble imagining what you could need there that would weigh so much

My gear at court was essentially the same as what I had as a road deputy.

I was the only deputy at the courthouse, so I had to be able to handle anything until backup could arrive. I had to be able to do everything a road deputy could do. I made more arrests at the court house than the entire rest of the department combined some months. Aside from taking people into custody at the order of the court, people appeared with warrants in other cases, people drove to court drunk, people drove to court with suspended licenses, people drove to court in stolen cars (true story!), people got into fights during their divorce cases, people got into fights during lawsuits, people threatened judges, prosecutors, even their defense attorneys.

I had 4 sets of cuffs, two on my duty belt and two more in my patrol bag, and there were days when all 4 sets were over at the jail waiting for me to pick them up because I arrested so many people and had mobile units do the transports.

The one place somebody knew they could find their baby momma, ex wife, old landlord or whatever was at court... so they brought their grudges with them.

In the jail when I started the gear was essentially the same except you didn’t have your guns or knives inside. Baton, taser, radio, vest was all the same and you’d put on your guns if you were doing something outside.

Thinking about it, maybe I did lose FPs and just got used to that.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by tanksoldier

Thinking about it, maybe I did lose FPs and just got used to that.

If you're talking about burning calories, you definitely spent the FP.

Additionally, your body definitely developed muscles which allowed you to stand around all day, mostly in your lower body and core.

Since you were essentially on guard duty and might have had to engage in constant, somewhat stressful mental activity (e.g., "If this guy I'm patting down is packing heat, where is he most likely to be hiding it?") you were burning calories there, too. The human brain needs a LOT of calories and O2 to stay happy.

In GURPS terms, that means increased ST which reduced your 40 lb. load to the equivalent of "No Encumbrance" so you didn't suffer any extra FP loss for carrying it around. Alternately, you gained the Fit advantage or an FP which offset the FP loss for bearing a load for 8+ hours.

The combination of extra muscle plus somewhat active job description meant that your body needed more calories. You might not have noticed it, but you probably ate and drank a bit more than normal (maybe 200-300 extra calories a day, about the equivalent of a typical pint of craft beer, a doughnut, or a slice of cheese pizza) without gaining weight.

GURPS mostly handwaves calorie requirements, probably because GURPS Weight Watchers would be a drug on the market, but it's a big deal for combat ops or any other sort of work or sport which involves extreme exertion. It's also a really big deal for cold weather ops, since shivering burns a lot of calories. For example, most combat rations deliver about 3200 calories, about double that of the calories in a normal healthy for a somewhat active civilian male. In 1812, sailors aboard the USS Constitution got a diet which provided over 4,000 calories, and they weren't getting fat! Having to quickly climb up and down rigging at all hours, often in chilly conditions, to fight with big wet pieces of wind-blown canvas, required a lot of energy.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Cowrie

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I can't find any rules that specify fatigue loss when undergoing sustained, normal activity while constantly carrying non-zero encumbrance. However, to me, it seems like logically, leisurely walking, or even just standing around, all day carrying medium or heavy encumbrance, let alone very heavy encumbrance, would get pretty exhausting. I could maybe buy into standing mostly in one place while holding light encumbrance not costing fatigue, but even that I have doubts about.

So, are there any rules for FP loss under these sorts of conditions? If so, what are they? If not, what would you suggest as being fair?

I think that there are optional rules for long-term fatigue somewhere, but I don't know where. They are meant to represent weakness after weeks of hiking on bad food, or being too tired in the evening after a long shift to do much effectively, whereas regular Fatigue is things which will go away after half an hour lying down in the shade.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I think that there are optional rules for long-term fatigue somewhere, but I don't know where. They are meant to represent weakness after weeks of hiking on bad food, or being too tired in the evening after a long shift to do much effectively, whereas regular Fatigue is things which will go away after half an hour lying down in the shade.

I think that they're in one of the later GURPS 3E supplements. Maybe WW2?

If you want to look at it rationally, GURPS has five FP loss "schedules"

1. Battle - lose FP after 10 seconds. Don't bother tracking it unless more than 2-3 minutes have passed. This FP loss is as much due to mental stress as actual physical stress.

2. "Sprint" - lose 1 FP (or roll vs. skill or HT to avoid losing FP) every 15 seconds.

3. "Paced Fast Action" - As above, but FP losses happen every 60 seconds.

4. Paced Steady Work - As above but FP losses happen every hour.

FP losses from these sources can be regained every 10 minutes, possibly faster or slower based on Unfit/Fit.

5. Sleep Cycle - lose FP due to sleepiness. FP lost from this source can only be regained by sufficient sleep. FP losses can be indirectly reduced using Less Sleep and eliminated with Doesn't Sleep.

[namada]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

If you're talking about burning calories, you definitely spent the FP.

I'd say that this is simply untrue. The human body burns calories 24/7, even while a person rests (and is thus regaining FP in GURPS terms,) so to say burning calories is equal to spending FP in GURPS is nonsensical to me. Fatigue in GURPS is simply a measure of extreme exertions upon the body, so things like walking around all day carrying 40 lbs, standing on your feet for 8 hours, etc., are simply not extreme enough to measure on this scale.

As for the OP's question, at the very most, I'd say if the activity was really stressful, I'd assign it a cost of 1FP at the end of the shift/day/whatever. In other words, usually not worth taking the time to track, unless there's something else going on where it might come into play.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

...The human brain needs a LOT of calories and O2 to stay happy.
....

The brain needs around 350 Calories a day regardless of activity levels. I don't think many of us would really call that a LOT.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by namada

I'd say that this is simply untrue. The human body burns calories 24/7, even while a person rests (and is thus regaining FP in GURPS terms,) so to say burning calories is equal to spending FP in GURPS is nonsensical to me.

The rate at which you burn calories above metabolic baseline is a "not bad" way of tracking FP loss (although it admittedly misses things like aerobic vs. anaerobic metabolism or tissue damage from overexertion).

It's just a scientific fact that standing around in 40+ lbs. of kit is going to burn more energy than lying in bed. Over time, your body will adapt to allow you to efficiently carry that kit, which means greater muscle mass. Since muscle burns energy faster than fat cells, you're inherently burning more calories, although fewer than you would if your body wasn't adapted. That's why exercise increases basal metabolic rate.

To take a more extreme example, shivering burns calories at 5 times the normal rate. If you're lying down but shivering due to cold, you're effectively losing FP.

As another example, if you're trying to run a 4-minute mile, your MET is at ~24, but if you're trying to run a 10-minute mile it's around 10. That means you're burning more calories to run faster which nicely tracks with spending FP to use Sprint Movement or Extra Effort.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The brain needs around 350 Calories a day regardless of activity levels. I don't think many of us would really call that a LOT.

By the standards of other animals, it IS a lot, given that 350 calories represents the better part of a typical meal, or about 1/5 of all calories required for a 1,600 calorie diet.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

The rate at which you burn calories above metabolic baseline is a "not bad" way of tracking FP loss

It's not a very good one, though. Fatigue conflates several things, but all of them amount to metabolic debt, where you are consuming resources faster than they can be replenished, accumulating poisons faster than they can be removed, or suffering strain faster than it can be repaired. That's not consumption above baseline, that's consumption about sustained max.