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Old 04-08-2016, 09:20 AM   #1
Bruno
 
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Default [ATE] Temperature tolerance simplification and cryogenic environments.

I like the simplification and want to make it a house rule used in all my games, but it seems to make survival in cryogenic environments a bunch cheaper.

The ATE cold rules give a maximum -20 for a worst-case scenario in the cold - are the numbers given intended to be for "modern Earthlike conditions" ie in the -80 to -100F range, plus wind? Or is the -1 to -10 range intended to extend down into extreme cryogenic environments?

A return to Earth's "snowball Earth" phase, where the entire planet was covered in glaciers is still probably within reach of "worst recorded temperatures on Earth today", but I'm also interested in environments like Titan, or in space in the shade of an object (for space adapted bioroids).

A little back of the envelope math suggests that a HT-12 humanoid that's otherwise comfortable at room temperature needs 30+ levels of cold-only Temperature Tolerance to operate down to within screaming distance of Absolute Zero (actual absolute zero being unreachable and pretty boring anyways). That's +60 to HT rolls to survive, which suggests a net -50 for a naked human being in a heat conductive environment down at that temperature.

Otherwise, if the -20 for naked, heat conductive, extreme cold is meant to be down at that level, that's making it 10 points to be chilly (making HT rolls) or 15 points to be quite comfortable (rolling HT + 10 or probably not rolling). About half the price, in other words. So the various robots and undead templates with TT 10 on them as sort of a standard feature can get VERY VERY cold. I would expect even an animated skeleton to start suffering materials failure before that, absent being a heat-sucking cold-themed skeleton.
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Old 04-08-2016, 02:54 PM   #2
PK
 
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Default Re: [ATE] Temperature tolerance simplification and cryogenic environments.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
The ATE cold rules give a maximum -20 for a worst-case scenario in the cold - are the numbers given intended to be for "modern Earthlike conditions" ie in the -80 to -100F range, plus wind? Or is the -1 to -10 range intended to extend down into extreme cryogenic environments?
The former. They're just a simplified adaptation of the existing Cold rules for GURPS. If you need to extend them beyond -10, that's reasonable, though I might suggest at that point treating the cold as a direct burning+fatigue attack on everyone in the climate.
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