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how much body does a planet have?


JmOz

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Star Hero 5e, page 197, said that the Earth has 86 BODY.

"A rocky planet like Earth has a volume of about 1.37 x 10^20 hexes, if it’s considered a perfect sphere. Assuming it all counts as stone (19 BODY, 5 DEF), it has a total BODY of 86 (base of 19, +1 for each doubling of size)."

 

Star Hero 6e, page 230, only talked about the BODY of one 2m sphere, but assumed you had to hit the whole planet at once.

"A rocky planet like Earth has a volume of about 1.37 x 10^20 cubic meters, if it’s considered a perfect sphere. assuming it all counts as stone (19 BODY, 5 PD/10 ED), a character needs an attack capable of doing 29 BODY to every part of the planet at once."

 

Those 6e volume numbers are off, since a cubic hex is roughly 7 cubic meters.  5e and 6e shouldn't be the same.

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The 5E Star Hero's statement is just totally, completely, utterly ridiculous, and the thought process behind it is simply incorrect.  Now, if you read the WHOLE sidebar, it basically says the same thing...that the argument they're making is pretty much foolish.  Here's a few more lines from that sidebar:

 

Quote

In rules terms, that may make the Earth a little too easy to destroy. To counteract this effect, assume standard weapons either (a) are so “narrow” in effect they’re considered to have the Beam Limitation when used against worlds, and thus at best only punch relatively small holes in a planet; and (b) surface Area Of Effect/Explosion attacks take the path of least resistance and conform to the planet’s surface (otherwise, nuclear test explosions might already have cracked Earth open!)


I will add...there is no "might" about it by their OWN statements.  Go back to the 5E equipment guide where a 1 megaton blast does 40D killing.  Case closed.

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On 7/12/2020 at 9:01 PM, IndianaJoe3 said:

OK, I want to get this out there so I can stop thinking about it before bed. :)

 

One cubic meter of stone has 19 BODY. Assume that doubling the volume adds 5 BODY. Earth has a volume of ~10^21 cubic meters. That is about 70 doublings, which gives us 369 BODY for Earth.

I think the way area  and thickness are calculated in HERO, doubling the volume would only add 2 to the BODY for each doubling.

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14 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I think the way area  and thickness are calculated in HERO, doubling the volume would only add 2 to the BODY for each doubling.

 

Which leads to patently absurd results, so that method is wrong.  Whether you add 2 or 5, it's just wrong to do "double adds X."  

Heck, look at the rules for Bases in 6E.  The PD, ED, and BODY are implied to be per hex (more or less) of wall, floor, or ceiling...not for the base as a whole.  The rules for BODY increase with size increase relate to an indivisible, inseparable unit...if you nail one part of a vehicle or body, it impacts the entire vehicle/body.  That usually doesn't hold true on larger buildings;  you can blast out the side of my house, but the front door's fine.

 

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On 7/13/2020 at 12:51 PM, massey said:

 

How many D6 damage does sunlight do to us on the ground?  Even on the hottest days I don't think I take more than a point or two of Stun from being outside unless it's for a long time.  The Earth's atmosphere might just be +10 ED only vs sunlight.

Clothes act as armor vs sunlight

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12 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The doubling effect only acts for walls, not stuff like boulders or cars

 

Take a look at the object body table on page 449 (5th ed revised).  Doubling of mass = +1 Body.

 

There's an element of the Hero fan club who can't wrap their head around the idea that +1 DC = twice as powerful, and that it's intentionally skewed so that people survive things they shouldn't because comic books.

 

According to Google, Earth has a mass of 5.972 × 10^24 kg.  So that's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons if I've got my decimals in the right place.  An unliving object massing 6.4 tons has 13 Body.  Every x1000 in mass is +10 Body.  So that's 13+70 = 83 Body for the Earth.

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On 7/17/2020 at 5:46 PM, unclevlad said:

The 5E Star Hero's statement is just totally, completely, utterly ridiculous, and the thought process behind it is simply incorrect.  Now, if you read the WHOLE sidebar, it basically says the same thing...that the argument they're making is pretty much foolish.  Here's a few more lines from that sidebar:

 


I will add...there is no "might" about it by their OWN statements.  Go back to the 5E equipment guide where a 1 megaton blast does 40D killing.  Case closed.

 

Steve Long has always had a fetish for military equipment and big numbers.  His equipment guides and stats have always been way way off.  Case closed.

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15 hours ago, massey said:

 

Take a look at the object body table on page 449 (5th ed revised).  Doubling of mass = +1 Body.

 

There's an element of the Hero fan club who can't wrap their head around the idea that +1 DC = twice as powerful, and that it's intentionally skewed so that people survive things they shouldn't because comic books.

 

According to Google, Earth has a mass of 5.972 × 10^24 kg.  So that's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons if I've got my decimals in the right place.  An unliving object massing 6.4 tons has 13 Body.  Every x1000 in mass is +10 Body.  So that's 13+70 = 83 Body for the Earth.

 

So the rules are basically that if you shove things next to each other so that you can attack them at the same time, the BODY of them as a whole decreases.

 

So if you attack Earth then attack Mars, you would have to do 83 Body to Earth, which destroys it, then 80 Body to Mars, which destroys it. 

 

But if you moved Earth so that it's sitting next to Mars, you could do 84 Body and destroy them both.

 

That seems counter-intuitive. 

 

I could picture myself in a game stacking two tanks next to each other and trying to argue that I should be able to take them both out at the same time by doing one additional BODY. :D 

 

I'm not arguing that you're incorrect. It's just that the game gets weird if you look at large numbers then move it down to a more granular level.

 

If I were to stack the tanks, one behind the other, I don't think that I've played with a GM who would let me argue that the one in front doesn't shelter the one behind because I grouped them close together. But apparently the rules are that Africa doesn't shelter North America if someone is blowing up the planet by shooting through Africa to hit North America.

 

Games are strange.

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Similar to the Star Hero reference that Armitage mentioned, in the Advanced Player's Guide 2 (pg. 114) there is a section titled Attacking And Destroying Large Objects which covers destroying not just the Earth but large objects in general such as mountains.  The section gives multiple options (in terms of rules) for attacking large objects that might be of interest.

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The supervillain Experimento discovers that the Earth has 83 BODY.

 

Experimento builds and activates a massive machine which drains Earth of all its defenses.

 

Then Experimento gives a penknife to an overly-aggressive 5 year old. The knife is designed to do 1 pip of HKA.

 

The experiment is to see how many successful attacks it takes before the toddler destroys the Earth with a penknife.

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1 hour ago, archer said:

The supervillain Experimento discovers that the Earth has 83 BODY.

 

Experimento builds and activates a massive machine which drains Earth of all its defenses.

 

Then Experimento gives a penknife to an overly-aggressive 5 year old. The knife is designed to do 1 pip of HKA.

 

The experiment is to see how many successful attacks it takes before the toddler destroys the Earth with a penknife.

 

Does it make any more sense for the toddler to destroy an Abrams tank, or a skyscraper with a penknife?

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2 hours ago, archer said:

The supervillain Experimento discovers that the Earth has 83 BODY.

 

Experimento builds and activates a massive machine which drains Earth of all its defenses.

 

Then Experimento gives a penknife to an overly-aggressive 5 year old. The knife is designed to do 1 pip of HKA.

 

The experiment is to see how many successful attacks it takes before the toddler destroys the Earth with a penknife.

I'd argue that the absurdity lies in permitting the device to drain Earth's defenses without explaining why it allows a 1 pip HKA to destroy the Earth in under a hundred Phases.  Of course an absurd assumption will create absurd results. 

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