(TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #153

[Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>]

At 3:00 -0400 7/24/11, Jay wrote:
> Im tempted to do something like 3 MA for a distance paced crawl at normal
> effort and 2 MA for the breaststroke but allowing much more additional
> weight to be carried with the breaststroke than the crawl.

	I would not allow the additional weight. The reason crawl is 
faster is *because* the head is immersed, using water to buoy it up, 
as opposed to the breaststroke where the head is held out of the 
water by swimmer's effort or by hydrodynamic lift (acting against the 
inclined body and inducing drag).  Note that competitive 
breast-strokers immerse their heads as much of the time as possible, 
only popping it up to breathe.

	Parenthetically, of modern strokes, my money is on elementary 
backstroke for best speed/effort as well as for load carried, but 
YMMV and you have to be OK wit swimming in a direction you are not 
looking.

	Breast stroke allows swimming completely underwater which 
crawl does not, and in that case the "load carried" difference would 
disappear too (if crawl worked at all).

At 3:00 -0400 7/24/11, TFT Digest wrote:
> A Figure swims faster underwater than on top of water so mer-folk might get
> a +1 MA for Swimming underwater and another +1 MA for the webbed hands and
> feet.
> That would have a Merman complete the 100 yards in well under 9 turns @ 8 MA
> for an underwater crawl stroke at a race-winning pace under 45 seconds.

	See above - crawl can be done underwater but doesn't work well.

	With fins, some variant of the full-body undulation kick (a 
la Aquaman or the free-dive contestants) might well prove to be 
faster than breast-stroke or simple scissors kick, but I would expect 
the difference to be relatively minor.

	Also note the difference between "realistic" full-out running 
speeds and TFT "MA" against the time scale, and the various arguments 
about carrying weapons, being able to reverse directions, etc. etc.

	I think it's not "realistic" to have max. swimming speeds for 
Mermen anywhere near max. running speeds for humans. I would say 
about 1/2 speed is more appropriate, with the same arguments for 
"combat MA" vs. "realistic running/swimming" speeds as above.

	I would also place a *very* high MA penalty on stuff carried 
or worn by swimmers (or long hair, Little Mermaid notwithstanding) - 
since turbulence-induced drag is the main thing slowing them down, 
carrying *anything* would add substantially to the drag and slow them 
substantially. Watch a party of SCUBA divers next to a party of 
snorkelers sometime. It's pretty funny how much faster the snorkelers 
are.
--
						- Mark     210-379-4635
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