Camping
ENCUMBRANCE
Traveling encumbered is a serious disadvantage, since it cuts movement rates in half. Use the formal encumbrance rules, if you can. They require a detailed list of everything carried and how much it weighs.
EXHAUSTION
Penalties for exhaustion (half movement, dexterity, and reaction speed) come after 10 hours of walking without sleep. If one PC is exhausted, the whole party must travel at half rate or leave the exhausted PC behind.
As Desi explains:
Sleep is defined as five hours of uninterrupted sleep, or six hours of sleep interrupted
by encounters or watch duty.
Characters with military skills understand these limitations. However, if a party travels
without a person with military skills, do not explain this special rule.
The breathers on the environmental suits are very uncomfortable. Each character must make a stamina check to sleep in one. If the check fails, he can try again in an hour or remove the breather. FAILURE INTERRUPTS SLEEP AND CUTS OUT ONE HOUR OF SLEEP. They are not necessary when sleeping in a bivouac unit.
Sleeping in a raft is possible as long as the raft is guided by two paddlers or by one paddler with environmental skills.
WATER DAMAGE
Any character firing weapons while swimming runs a 50% risk of a malfunction, rendering
the weapon completely useless and irreparable. The characters have no experience or training with weapons under these conditions, and have no idea what will happen if they use them.
If the PCs don't protect their electronic gear (tech kits, radios, power backpacks, etc.) against the water, there is an 80% chance of retrieving such equipment every 15 minutes.
Storing equipment inside the bivouac of damage and malfunction to the equipment if it is
dunked. Modify this chance as appropriate. In any case, the damage should be minor and easily repaired if the items can be recovered.
Unsecured equipment may be lost on the bottom of the river. There is a 50% chance of retrieving such equipment every 15 minutes. Storing equipment inside the bivouac units, for example, keeps the equipment dry. The bivouac units float, so they can be easily recovered without delay, even if they go overboard.
If anyone gets dunked in the water, there is a 25% chance that his breather will malfunction. The Malfunction is obvious 90% of the time, and can be repaired by a technician. However, 10% of the time the malfunction is not obvious. In these cases, the
breather ceases to work effectively; its user begins to suffer from atmospheric poisoning
after three hours. At that time, a medic can automatically make an accurate general
and specific diagnosis of the problem. If a technician checks each breather after a
dunking, he always recognizes a malfunctioning breather and can fix it. Temporarily reduce the abilities of characters who are dunked in the river at night. Reduce their abilities in -5% increments, up to one-half of each ability score, for every hour a character remains in wet clothes in the chilly night air. Building a fire, wearing dry clothes, or sleeping in the insulated bivouac unit removes the ill effects.
NIGHT TRAVEL
When traveling at night, all travel rates are halved (except on rivers, where there is no
treetop cover blocking the weak light from the sky, and where footing is not an issue).
Accident danger is doubled for both foot and river travel.
GETTING LOST
The party has a map and emergency equipment. If any character has environmental skills, there is no risk of getting lost. If none of the PCs have environmental skills, make a logic +20% check each hour to avoid getting lost. The first fai led check in a hex means a 15-minute delay. The second consecutive failure means the party enters a randomly-determined adjoining hex other than the one they wanted to enter. All subsequent consecutive failures result in another 15-minute delay. Unless they lose their map, the PCs can't get lost during daylight hours in a ridge, steep slope, stream, or river hex.
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL PENALTIES
Travel rate penalties are cumulative. For example, if a character walks for more than 10 hours, his movement, dexterity, and reaction speed are halved until he sleeps. Therefore, a party traveling at night (1/2 rate) that has walked for more than 10 hours without sleep (1h rate) will travel at 1/4 normal rate (1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4).
ADDITIONAL TIME PENALTIES
Delaying activities may include equipment repairs, raft-building, campsite preparation, experimenting with the robot as a shuttlecraft, and so on. Here are a few guidelines.
1. Minor repairs take 15 minutes.
2. Major repairs (significant damage or delicate devices) take an hour or more, if field repairs can be made at all. Inadequate tools and parts prevent most major repairs.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:35, Tue 18 Feb 2020.