G-Forces, Combat Piloting, and Superheroes

[Trebuchet]

My character Zl'f has the necessary Transportation Familiarities to pilot our team's flying submarine, the Sea Raptor. I'm looking to upgrade this soon with XP to Combat Piloting, especially since the aircraft is unarmed. (Nothing it could launch could possibly be as effective as dropping out any one of our team's three flying character anyway.) Based on a extensively-modified variation of the US Air Force's stealthy new F-22 Raptor, it's an extremely high performance aircraft with a top speed of Mach 3.7 and a maximum altitude of 100,000 feet. But this idea leads me to a couple of questions about the effects of G-forces and their interaction with paranormals:

1) How many G's can most people take, and how could one logically calculate how many G's a superhuman pilot could plausibly take before blacking out? How does one calculate the effects of a pressure suit? (While one of our team's three pilots is not technically superhuman, it's reasonable to assume his powered armor if worn would act as a pressure suit since he's a professional fighter pilot and designed his armor to handle high speed maneuvers.)

2) Does anyone know a method of calculating G forces from high speed turns? While Star Hero provides a simple method of calculating G's from straight acceleration, there is no method given to calculate G's from evasive maneuvers.

3) Does anyone have a good method to simulate the effects of too many G's in HERO terms? Simply applying straight damage until the pilot blacks out seems unrealistic, since I know that once the individual stops pulling an excessive number of G's they'll begin to recover immediately. Or is that simply a normal Recovery phase?

Any suggestions or ideas would be welcome.

[Chuckg]

Star Hero, page 186, has a G-forces table and rules section.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Chuckg
Star Hero, page 186, has a G-forces table and rules section.

Yes, but it includes only rules for straight acceleration. And it's vague on other effects, since the assumption seems to be that in the interstellar future G-forces will be taken care of with "rubber science".

[lemming]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
My character Zl'f has the necessary Transportation Familiarities to pilot our team's flying submarine, the Sea Raptor.

At one point, we had this question come up for my speedster. 75" Flight, and could turn on a dime. Somehow we calculated 440 G's. So rubber may be your friend.

The two main effects are blackouts and redouts. Blood rushing away or to the brain. G suits and the like help with this. Con rolls may come in handy.

[JmOz]

Down and dirty try this:

Every G above 1 is a -1 to a con roll
Every point failed by is a 1d6 NND
Now just figure out the G-Force

[Fuzzy Gnome]

Acceleration = v²/r
G-force = v²/5r if v is velocity in hexes per segment, not phase, and r is turn mode in hexes.
For a velocity of 20 hexes/segment (240/Turn) and a Turn Mode of 10 that's 400/50 = 8 Gs.


I vaguely remember hearing details* about people being killed falling from great heights. I also vaguely remember hearing about the test pilot who subjected himself to enormous G forces testing aircraft restraints. My impression is that 40 Gs will break your bones and almost certainly kill you instantly, However, you can survive if you have adequate restraints. But you might still be injured and you won't be happy.
I also have the impression that pilots start to black out at 5 to 10 Gs if it's maintained for long because their bloodflow is messed up. They would recover quickly once their brains start getting blood.
*Other than that falling can actually kill you that is.

[Chuckg]

*goes Googling*

"In a crash at Silverstone race circuit, Northlands, UK in
July 1977, racing driver David Purley survived a deceleration
from 173 km/h (108 mph) to zero in 66 cm (26 in). He endured
179.8 g and suffered a total of 29 fractures, three
dislocations, and six heart stoppages"

1997 Guiness Book of World Records

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by JmOz
Down and dirty try this:

Every G above 1 is a -1 to a con roll
Every point failed by is a 1d6 NND
Now just figure out the G-Force

That's probably not a bad approach, Jm, although I don't think I'd start applying penalties until G forces got up to around 4 or 5 Gs. You'd probably take 3 or 4 G's just turning a corner fast in a sports car. A pressure suit would probably act as a +3 to +5 bonus to the CON rolls. Once blackout starts I think the NND is probably right.

From what I've heard, trained fighter pilots in a G suit can take 10 or 11 G's for a brief time; much over that and it's lights out.

[Lupus]

Another way of doing it is to assume that you don't have any higher G-tolerance unless you buy a power. This is a less good thing, in that it requires spending points. But it's better, because it gives you a definite system way of doing things. Use it if it's good for you.

Under this system, you buy reduced turn mode for flight... GM might require you to either have 'usable by other', or perhaps give you a kickback because you can't use it on yourself, only while piloting. This gives you the effect, without worrying about dice rolls all the time, or calculating just what effect it has beyond the printed rules.

[CarlSagan]

There was a very interesting science fiction story that explored the limits of human endurance to prolonged high acceleration.

In the story a plague broke out on a colony on Pluto. A cure had been found on Earth, but unless it could be transported to Pluto within one week, it would be too late: everyone would die. Normally, the trip would take a month at a constant acceleration of one G. So, they sent a ship with two of their best pilots. They accelerated at four G's the entire way. (I don't recall, but I think that they made the trip in four days.) The story went on and on about the torment they endured. One pilot died en route.

At the end of the story, the surviving pilot was presented a plaque with the name of every soul on Pluto - people he had saved. He was then committed to an insane asylum. He had suffered irreparable brain damage and had the mind of a six year old.

It was a good story. Even though it was fiction, I thought that it might give you a baseline for prolonged exposure.

Hope this helps.

[Southern Cross]

You might also be interested in "Have Spacesuit,Will Travel" by Robert Heinlein,which features the young hero & heroine being kidnapped & taken to Pluto.

[Champsguy]

From what I remember, 5 G-forces for any length of time (more than a phase or so) will cause a normal person to black out. 5 Gs seems to be the dividing line between norms and trained pilots. Pilots can stay conscious up to 8-10 G forces, though at the upper limit of that, just about anyone without superhuman abilities will go unconscious if it lasts more than a moment or two.

You can, apparently, survive huge amounts of G-force for very short periods of time (based on Chuckg's post above).

Given that G forces are just increased gravity, I'd use the Champions lifting chart. One G force would be 10 Str. 2 Gs is double that, so 15 Str (or 3 dice of damage). 4 Gs would be double that, or 20 Str. 8 Gs would be 25 Str. I think 5D6 damage should be enough to make most humans pass out.

It seems to me that a brick with 30 PD and superstrength would be more resistant to G forces than a normal human. Hence, I wouldn't use an NND.

[Champsguy]

By the way, with my estimates, a guy who took 180 Gs (as per the example above) would be hit by about a 9 or 10D6 attack. That seems to represent what happened to that poor 2 PD schmoe pretty well.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Scott Crossfield, one of the test pilots for the X-15, endured a momentary force of 150g when, during a static engine test (in which the aircraft is locked into an anchored frame), a coolant valve froze, the engine heat-spiked, and the fuel tanks exploded. The force of the explosion subjected Crossfield to the 150g acceleration. He survived with nothing but some moderate bruising, and walked away under his own power (after the rescue vehicles hosed down an open path for him through the inferno of burning fuel surrounding where the cockpit had come to rest).

In later life he developed some vision problems which may have been related to this experience. As he himself pointed out, "Do you ever notice how fighter pilots always wear sunglasses and have large watches with oversized numbers? It's because the high-g stuff you experience starts to mess with your vision, and if you get corrective lens, they revoke your flight status."