[Low-Tech] [High-Tech] Portable cooling: higher-TL replacement of water jugs?

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm sure it felt that way. But it would take scientific analysis to separate physical cooling from almost as important psychological morale improvements.

Well, let's think about it. I'm about 165lbs, so that's 75kg, right? About 70% of me is water, so that's what, 52 liters or so? During the summer months while working, consuming 2 to 4 liters of water in 5-6.5 hours was a regular thing, with few breaks to urinate. That's about 3-5% of my total water content in a work period. And I would have considered myself poorly hydrated through-out that period.

Yes, if we're talking about a few ounces of cool water, that's no big deal. But if we are talking about multiple liters of water consumed and lost, then that's a pretty significant amount of my water mass. But over a day, you need to consume about a gallon and a half of water to be healthy. GURPS lets us get away with what, 2 quarts day? Which is a half gallon, which is about on the minimum I would put back for a day if I suspected potable water to be hard to come by.

Speaking of those shifts, when I think about it, I'd be taking something like 10-13 HT checks at -2 over the course of a shift. Of, and depending on how you'd like to asses penalties for exertion, say 1 or 2 fatigue per hour. Which doubles up quickly in near hundred degree heat.

In that kind of heat and humidity, you sweat copious amounts of water, so when you have a moment to pause, you drink massive ammounts of water. Consuming 20 ounces at a time is routine, heck, downing 20 ounces, then filling it up with cold water from the fountain and guzzling that is a normal thing. Then right back to work.

But yeah, a bonus to survival and FP loss due to heat is probably due. After-all, if I'm losing 1fp an hour due to work, and that was doubled by the heat, then that's 10-12 FP lost over the course of the night, without failures on that check at -2 every 30 minutes. So either I have really good health, or water helps.