Coldness, Wind Chill, and Survival

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Generally, if it causes structural damage, then it's damage not fatigue based temperature issues. Fireballs cause burning not fatigue, for example.
When that point gets crossed involves FAR too many variables for any playable game to cover.
Water doesn't have to be fire hot to injure or kill. People can momentarily dip their hands in molten lead or carefully ingest liquid nitrogen without injury due to their very low thermal conductivity.

Yeah, what I got from the Cold and Heat sections of Hazards in Basic Set was that no amount of Temperature Control is going to be able to disable an attacker in a timely fashion, unless maybe we get the temperature up to 160 (and assume that 100% thermal conductivity is part of the Advantage). But how cold/hot does it have to be before a gun's Malf changes? Before objects get penalties on HT rolls to avoid breaking? Before a vehicle or computer's performance is affected? You mentioned that water doesn't have to be boiling to injure someone, but how hot does it have to be? Those are the sorts of things I would want Temperature Control to be able to do; and, having no idea how to adjudicate them, I'd forbid more than one level of Temperature Control in a game I ran. I'd probably also give it a mandatory "temperature must approach 70 degrees farenheit" limitation, so it could be used to mitigate extreme temperatures, but not create them. Because otherwise, I simply wouldn't know what it can do, in any mechanical sense.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I know I would risk hypothermia in light clothing after a few hours anywhere near 32 F.

I had to convert 32°F to °C.

Oh, what do you consider light clothing? Shorts and a t shirt?

Anyway speaking as someone who lives in a region that reaches that temperature regularly you don't have to dress of heavily to be comfy in that temperature. Jeans (or other full length pants/trousers), t-shirt, light sweater, and a light coat. You could even skip the sweater, and some people wear shorts but that just looks goofy.

[Bruno]

Acclimatization is a thing, and an important one at that.

Here, by the end of winter, once it gets above about -5°C/20°F you will see people out in shorts and t-shirts on sunny days with little wind (not when it's overcast and breezy). When there's snow on the ground, sunny days are ferociously sunny, due to all the reflected light. Even the more easily chilled folks will be out and about with jeans and a sweater (and hat and mittens/gloves) for short bits of pottering around, in the sun.

Also, frustration with having been wrapped up in a jillion layers for months in the dark pays into it. Having your skin get a little chilled is a small price to pay for feeling sunlight and fresh air on it. It can make you feel a little giddy.

32°F in the sun and out of the wind is a nice temperature. I like that range up to about 50°F the most for outside weather. We keep the house at 60-65°F in the winter and I'm usually wearing denim pants and a t-shirt or t-shirt-weight long-sleeved shirt inside. My husband is more heat sensitive, and will often be in boxers and t-shirt after work.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Acclimatization is a thing, and an important one at that.

I can remember meeting some people from one of the islands north of New Guinea (might have been Bougainville) at expo 88 in Australia where it was 35c (95f) and they were wearing sweaters.

[whswhs]

Heat sensitivity is really variable, too, at an individual level. I used to sit in my office in a big corporate building and hear the women on the other side of the partition talk about how cold they were, and needing to put on sweaters, and having trouble typing because their fingers were stiff. And I'd be sitting in the same air conditioning, down to shirtsleeves, sweating, and having trouble staying awake because I was hot.

I'm a southern Californian, and I think that 50°F is chilly and calls for putting on another layer of clothing. I don't know if we ever get down to 35°F; I don't know what it would feel like. Here in Riverside, we occasionally turn on the air conditioning to get things down to 75°F, and that feels definitely cool.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

I had to convert 32°F to °C.

Oh, what do you consider light clothing? Shorts and a t shirt?

Anyway speaking as someone who lives in a region that reaches that temperature regularly you don't have to dress of heavily to be comfy in that temperature. Jeans (or other full length pants/trousers), t-shirt, light sweater, and a light coat. You could even skip the sweater, and some people wear shorts but that just looks goofy.

No, you could do that, but I cannot. Not anymore at least. I used to run around barefoot in the snow for fun until my late 30s. Now, my hands get stiff and painful when sitting too long in areas slightly below room temp. My body shifted itself. It's not like I moved anywhere. Just metabolic changes, while ironically I now exercise and am much more active. But that internal heating only happens during and for an hour or two after exercise.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Heat sensitivity is really variable, too, at an individual level. I used to sit in my office in a big corporate building and hear the women on the other side of the partition talk about how cold they were, and needing to put on sweaters, and having trouble typing because their fingers were stiff. And I'd be sitting in the same air conditioning, down to shirtsleeves, sweating, and having trouble staying awake because I was hot.

Though to be fair, some ventilation systems really are that bad; the difference between "an air vent is pointing at me" and "off in a corner where air doesn't circulate" is quite large.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm a southern Californian, and I think that 50°F is chilly and calls for putting on another layer of clothing. I don't know if we ever get down to 35°F

I also live in Southern California, where we have mountains which have snow on them sometimes. 32°F < 35°F...

I have been backpacking where the low dropped below 35°F even at lower altitudes in the high desert, in winter though. At Twenty-Nine Palms, we had water freezing in the barracks sometimes.

As a teenager in Apple Valley, I remember many days when we had snow, or when rain puddles froze overnight.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I also live in Southern California, where we have mountains which have snow on them sometimes.

Obviously depends on where in Southern California you are; LA basin certainly doesn't have snow.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

As a teenager in Apple Valley, I remember many days when we had snow, or when rain puddles froze overnight.

I live in the SF bay area, and we used to have fairly common frost and the occasional patchy snow in the hills. Frost has become a lot rarer and can't remember the last time I saw snow in the hills.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Obviously depends on where in Southern California you are; LA basin certainly doesn't have snow.

Sometimes the Santa Monicas get snow and you can see it. I live in Ventura, it has snowed here like I think twice in last century (maybe once, not sure), but I don't have to go more than an hour to get to snow for most of winter. Pine Mountain is less than an hour away from me (by car, I know Bill doesn't drive, but that also means it is about a day's hike too). It gets colder in Riverside than it does here, and he's close to the San Gabriels (IIRC you can see San Jacinto, San Antonio, and Gorgonio peaks from Riverside). Riverside is closer to Wrightwood than it is to Santa Monica...