Species Tolerance

[dammrebel (OP)]

Anyone know what human tolerances truly are in game terms? I realize the game sets it randomly and you as a player can change them in the set up, but Im curious what they truly are for running a more realistic campaign.

thanks,
Jeff

[a1s]

That really depends.
A naked human would have temperature tolerance of maybe 10 degrees I guess (from about 25-30), but just by having clothing and basic housing this can be raised to 30-40 degrees (again cold is easier to deal with than warmth).
Oxygen tolerance is also tricky, a typical human will lose the ability to work (strain himself or concentrate heavily) at about 0.15atm oxygen pressure,   will fall unconscious at about 0.1atm, and die in 1 minute in 0.05atm. However even a single month of training (gradually decreasing oxygen content) can shift those figures down a step (this is commonly done for mountain climbing), presumably you could train up to even lower oxygen content.
Pressure tolerance is bullsmeg- humans can exist indefinite periods in high pressures (over 10 atmospheres, easy. Though I guess not really in the middle of a gas giant).
Gravitational tolerance is up for debate, while it's possible to survive for years (well, 2 years) in 0g environment (as proven by the soviet space program), but... I don't know, people are just not sure

[Steve Walmsley]

That really depends.
A naked human would have temperature tolerance of maybe 10 degrees I guess (from about 25-30), but just by having clothing and basic housing this can be raised to 30-40 degrees (again cold is easier to deal with than warmth).
Oxygen tolerance is also tricky, a typical human will lose the ability to work (strain himself or concentrate heavily) at about 0.15atm oxygen pressure,   will fall unconscious at about 0.1atm, and die in 1 minute in 0.05atm. However even a single month of training (gradually decreasing oxygen content) can shift those figures down a step (this is commonly done for mountain climbing), presumably you could train up to even lower oxygen content.
Pressure tolerance is bullsmeg- humans can exist indefinite periods in high pressures (over 10 atmospheres, easy. Though I guess not really in the middle of a gas giant).
Gravitational tolerance is up for debate, while it's possible to survive for years (well, 2 years) in 0g environment (as proven by the soviet space program), but... I don't know, people are just not sure

I have only been to 12,000 feet but I went from sea level to that height within an hour. I think atmospheric pressure at that level is about 60% of sea level, which means an oxygen atm of about 0.12. It was relatively easy to breathe if I sat still but any exertion had me breathing hard. I do have asthma though so that probably doesn't help at altitude

Steve

[Commodore_Areyar]

Just saw a doku on spaceflight and they mentioned the Apollo spacecraft had a 100% oxygen atmosphere at 0.2bar or so, so humans can easilly survive in lowpressure environments as well, as long as the O2 pressure is adequate.
Just don't try to smoke or do anything that makes sparks. (such as wearing a synthetic sweater...you'd have to shave all your hair too.)  

humans that live at sealevel also tend to have damaged lungs compared to mountain dwellers.
More moisture in the air, more microparticles in general, lung diseases etc.

Moisture is also a big factor actually for temperature tolerance.
in the cold high moisture is a liability, the air will be more conducting to heat, making it seem much colder.
in high heat environment high moisture reduces the ability to cool down and thus reduces activity, low moisture is only dangerous if there is no replacement water available.
Your corpse will last for ages there though.
Come to think of it, a low pressure environment will probably induce moisture loss as well.

[Steve Walmsley]

Just saw a doku on spaceflight and they mentioned the Apollo spacecraft had a 100% oxygen atmosphere at 0.2bar or so, so humans can easilly survive in lowpressure environments as well, as long as the O2 pressure is adequate.
Just don't try to smoke or do anything that makes sparks. (such as wearing a synthetic sweater...you'd have to shave all your hair too.)  

Breathing oxygen is OK in the short-term but prolonged breathing of pure oxygen leads to a lot of problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

Steve

[Commodore_Areyar]

a lot of problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

Oo!
Good point, but is 0.2bar not elevated pressure, but rather pretty close to normal pO2 of 21%?
 
Funny link: most of those hyperbaric symptoms are more prevalent in sealevel populations than mountainmen.

The game rule that high oxygen is toxic is verymuch true, I'm not contesting that.
If only for my flaming beard!

or in dwarfspeak:
!!  !!

[Vanigo]

Also worth mentioning: The surface temperature of the Earth isn't 22 degrees Celsius. It is, according to Wikipedia, 14 degrees. It just seems higher to us because we don't live in the Arctic and Antarctic. Within a fairly broad range, dealing with high and low temperatures when establishing a colony is pretty simple - just land closer or further from the equator.

[ShadoCat]

I was wondering about allowing small populations for minor temperature variations without infrastructure as you pick the easiest places to live.

A counter argument might be that want you want on the planet might not be where it is convenient to live.

[a1s]

I have only been to 12,000 feet but I went from sea level to that height within an hour.

um... an altitude change of 4 kilometers is roughly as high as Everest (from bottom to peak), are you sure you aren't, well, mistaken?
(I never tried mountain climbing, so I'm really just going on what the internet says your oxygen requirements should be...)

[Shinanygnz]

Everest is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft).  You can go over 12000 ft in the Rockies by just driving up a road (I remember the sign).  I have also been to Peru where we went along the "World's Highest Paved Road" which is about 16000 ft and we stopped to build a little cairn like thousands of travelers in the past.  You can see seven volcanoes from there too.
You do get used to the high altitude fairly quickly (coca leaf tea helps a lot), but you won't be winning any foot races for a while.  The first couple of days are pretty difficult, mostly shortness of breath and nasty headaches.  You're fine just walking around slowly.  After a couple of days acclimatising, you're fairly used to it and can carry on your normal life no problems.  Ask anyone who has walked the Inca Trail. which I didn't because I'm too lazy and like sleeping in a bed rather than a tent on the side of a mountain     After about a week there, we had no trouble climbing Huayna Picchu (which is part of the Machu Picchu complex), which starts at about 7700 ft and is 1200 ft high.

The point of this happy reminiscing is that even an overweight and unfit Westerner (which I was then, slim gym bunny now) can get used to low pressure/oxygen rapidly.

Stephen

[a1s]

Everest is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft).

from the sea level sure, but it's already in on high ground. from base to summit it's roughly 5 and a half kilometres (according to wikianswers) which admittedly is quite a bit more than the 4 kilometres that I claimed. The point is that as you say, when you are already in high altitude you quickly adapt to low pressure and can "win footraces"1 in a month. But ascending 4 kilometers in 1 hour (even in a car or train) is another matter entirely. I remember when I went to Colorado Springs (jut 1.5 kilometres above sea level) I was feeling tired for several days (and then I was fine).

1) yeah, I never win footraces, at any altitude, but if you're the footrace winning kind of guy...

[ShadoCat]

I have only been to 12,000 feet but I went from sea level to that height within an hour.

By US (likely worldwide) flight rules, 12,000 feet is the point above which a pilot in an unpressurized aircraft must have O2.  There is no real danger at that point but people tend to drift off to sleep and we want the pilot to be awake and alert.

This is a common trick used by private pilots to deal with annoying passengers.  If you are in a light aircraft and the pilot requests an altitude change and straps on his O2 mask, prepare for a nap.

I'd say that an unacclimatized population wouldn't be very productive at those pressures.

[Steve Walmsley]

Everest is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft).

from the sea level sure, but it's already in on high ground. from base to summit it's roughly 5 and a half kilometres (according to wikianswers) which admittedly is quite a bit more than the 4 kilometres that I claimed. The point is that as you say, when you are already in high altitude you quickly adapt to low pressure and can "win footraces"1 in a month. But ascending 4 kilometers in 1 hour (even in a car or train) is another matter entirely. I remember when I went to Colorado Springs (jut 1.5 kilometres above sea level) I was feeling tired for several days (and then I was fine).

1) yeah, I never win footraces, at any altitude, but if you're the footrace winning kind of guy...

I went up Mount Teide in the Canary Islands. It is the highest point in the Atlantic Ocean and the highest mountain in Europe outside the Alps. You can drive from the beach up to 2,356 metres and then get a cable car to 3,555 metres (11, 663 feet). The summit is 3718 meters (12,188 feet) but you have to walk the last 150 metres. You are a long away above the clouds and it is a spectactular view. I checked the Wiki site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide) and its mentions that the altitude can cause people with heart or pulmonary conditions to become light headed, dizzy, develop mountain sickness and in extreme cases unconsciousness.

Steve

[Jetman123]

Hyperoxia, or oxygen toxicity, only occurs when you're breathing high concentrations of oxygen at NORMAL atmospheric pressure. If you have vastly reduced atmospheric pressure but a higher oxygen concentration, you'll be fine. 10% of atmospheric pressure combined with near-100% oxygen will do just fine.

Which makes me wonder. You can colonize TITAN in the Sol system straight off, but why not Mars or Luna? I mean, they have no oxygen, but why can't you use your infrastructure to establish a bubble colony? You don't need a world to be suitable at all to establish a colony on it. I don't see the point of having "uninhabitable" worlds, unless they're gas giants. As long as you can get a small part of the place set up to human standards, people can live there. Infrastructure should represent this, meaning that with enough infrastructure you should be able to colonize any world save for ones without solid surfaces or ridicoulously out of human temperature or pressure extremes.

[Father Tim]

Infrastructure should represent this, meaning that with enough infrastructure you should be able to colonize any world save for ones without solid surfaces or ridicoulously out of human temperature or pressure extremes.

Which is exactly the case.  Col Cost 2.0 represents the 'dome colonies' you mentioned, any costs higher than that represent the additional heat and/or pressure shielding required on the domes to stand up to the more extreme atmospheres.  Which is why you can colonize Mars or Luna* right off the bat - the only system bodies you can't colonize are ones outside your gravitational range, and Gas Giants (and Super-Jovians).

Note that "Col Cost N/A" does not mean 'no human can ever set foot upon it's surface', it means 'not suitable for large-scale colonization'.  It's the equivalent of real-world Antartica - a few hardy individuals live there (for scientific or industrial purposes), but it's not the subject of large-scale colonization.

*Luna is an edge case, as due to your specific game's settings it may (probably is) outside of human gravitational tolerances.