Re: (TFT) Swimming

[Jay Carlisle <maou.tsaou@gmail.com>]

Okay try number three.
Ive managed to semi-break Chrome and cant write while in the browser.
Dont feel like dealing with it today so Ill try this.

Mark Talked about swimming and mentioned some stuff that made me think.
I didnt know the caveat about snorkelers opposed to scuba for example.
Ill mention that Ive got a tad of personal experience pertaining to
swimming in full gear and pack, granted it was a generation ago and the
equipment has changed quite a bit (no flack jackets back in the day for
example) but the total load for non-mech infantry still seems to run around
50 to 60 pounds.
Its a breaststroke with a kind of frogkick that moves you forward in ~45
degree thrusts upwards.
Without the weight youd get well out of the water with each stroke.
Im gonna do some pictures on the website to show how the square-hex thing
works to show pacing for things like horses or the mechanics of what Im
talking about with this.
But then theres the stuff like fins and what the most efficient strokes
would be underwater if breathing werent such an issue.
As I currently understand things theres stuff you can do to get slight
advantages that fall under the direct effect on a 5 second turn @ 1.3m units
scale.
Shaving and lotion can take off up to 1 sec. per 50m for example but there
may be ritual-mental stuff going on there as well.
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall2000.web.projects/Tina%20Osness/Physics%2
0Project%20Resistance.html

Id put Mermens webbed hands and feet into this category along with the new
suits and similar fractional second legs up.

I think the real bugbear from a design standpoint is in the idea of just how
a humanoid who was used to the underwater medium actually move.
Stuff like, is the forward crawl effective as an underwater stroke if
breathing wasnt a factor, and, would webbed hands and feet make a big
difference, are interesting questions that could help make the imaginative
experience more immersive if handled well.
If nothing else, if you were seeing Mermen doing the breaststroke and I saw
them crawling then we get to come to some agreement ahead of time as to a
shared visual of how the basic movement is happening if Ive bothered to
describe how Im seeing it to begin with.
It seems to be a bit easier to ignore the visual in flying situations but
the density of water seems to make issues of body position and the particle
Reynolds Number of limbs more immediate in the 5 second turn sense.

So how about taking Slippery Floor and using it in a swimming situation?
In square-hexes Slippery Floor has an area of roughly 16 square feet (on a
quick count of squares).
The human Figure is roughly 1 foot by 2 foot viewed from a top down angle
and standing at military attention.
If its just a two dimensional effect then a 2 foot wide slip-n-slide is 2
hexes long, 14 hexes in length outta a total megahex.
All that does is reshape the original area given in the spell so it should
be pretty cheep to develop.
If it has any volume involved then a swimmer might get a tube of no friction
with his arms propelling him through it.
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