Megascale and acceleration

[nexus]

I'd like to put in a houserule about it taking sme time to accelerate to Megascale speeds during combat time for more "realistic" games where jumping from 0 to Mach 3 in 2 seconds is a bit too over the top. Has anyone fooled around with anything like this?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I'd like to put in a houserule about it taking sme time to accelerate to Megascale speeds during combat time for more "realistic" games where jumping from 0 to Mach 3 in 2 seconds is a bit too over the top. Has anyone fooled around with anything like this?

 

Easy as cake. Give the megascale flight a minimum speed limitation (kind of like a stall speed lim), Somewhere up in the top Non-Combat speed range. What this boils down to is that the megascale advantage or slot can't be used till you've gotten up to speed in conventional mode. In a MP, you might even consider building in another flight slot using the very optional cumulative flight rules from SH to represent full burn accelleration leading up to Megascale mode.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

The way I do it is that Megascale movement does take time. Each multiple takes time to move to that level. So 1" = 1km, the basic time requires a number of conditions to be meet to even use.

 

1. Out of Combat.

2. Clear to Accelerate.

 

Just basic understanding of that is all I use.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Whenever I see a character with a 2 slot flight multipower (combat + megascale) I always ask what the rational is for the character to be unable to go 500 mph when 1000 mph is easy? I see it as a control issue. The 2 slot guy can run away very well but can't chase worth a damn if the target has 3 slots (non-megascale with multiple non-combat multiples) allowing for high but subsonic movement. Using acceleration rules with megascale just makes dedicated speedsters more expensive.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Whenever I see a character with a 2 slot flight multipower (combat + megascale) I always ask what the rational is for the character to be unable to go 500 mph when 1000 mph is easy? I see it as a control issue. The 2 slot guy can run away very well but can't chase worth a damn if the target has 3 slots (non-megascale with multiple non-combat multiples) allowing for high but subsonic movement. Using acceleration rules with megascale just makes dedicated speedsters more expensive.

 

I want to have some form of accelerationi required because it just pushes my SOD to have characters go from standing still to Super Sonic speeds instantly in some instances when it they have to accelerate to reach substantally lower speeds in others. Using acceleration doesn't make Speedsters more expensive. They can still reach Megascale Speeds, it just takes them some time to do so or they must buy an ability to reach it instantly. YMMV, of course, that's why its a House Rulel not a call for something like it to be added to the base game.

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I'd like to put in a houserule about it taking sme time to accelerate to Megascale speeds during combat time for more "realistic" games where jumping from 0 to Mach 3 in 2 seconds is a bit too over the top.

I'm not sure I get the problem from a "realistic" perspective. . . .

 

Some guns fire bullets at more than Mach 3. And, in the real world, those bullets go from 0 to full speed in much less than 2 seconds.

 

If a bullet can accelerate that quickly, why can't other objects do the same?

 

The same force that would provide an acceleration of 10 m/s to a 100 ton object, would provide 10,000 m/s acceleration to a 100 kg person.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I'm not sure I get the problem from a "realistic" perspective. . . .

 

Because providing enough energy to do that, sustain the speeds (or higher, you can get enough Megal scale.. well to half move to the moon from a standing start to get ridiculous). what I want for certain games and brings up some other questions. Its much easier to suddenly accelerate a small chunk of metal to those speeds when all it basically has to do is hit a target in basically a straight line then to accelerate a man to those speeds, have him survive the experience and be able to manuver, perceive, etc with absolutely no ill effects using, for instance, a pack strapped to his back. It takes things a little more over the top than I normally want them to be.

 

Basically its takes much easier to peusdo realistically justify suddenly accelerating a small peice of metal (or whatever) to the degree of speed, have it survive (essentially) long enough to just hit a target than a roughly 200 pound complex objects (a character and his gear) to that degree and have them be fully functional and unharmed and able to continue moving at the speed. It takes less handwavium if there is some degree of accleration required.

 

Yes, comics bend realism and physics all the time, but that's a little much for SOD in most of the games I run so I want to House Rule it and its not even something I'd apply in all games.

 

In short YMMV.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Easy as cake. Give the megascale flight a minimum speed limitation (kind of like a stall speed lim)' date=' Somewhere up in the top Non-Combat speed range. What this boils down to is that the megascale advantage or slot can't be used till you've gotten up to speed in conventional mode. In a MP, you might even consider building in another flight slot using the very optional cumulative flight rules from SH to represent full burn accelleration leading up to Megascale mode.[/quote']

 

Thanks! this looks like pretty much what I'd like. I'll check out cumulative flight too.

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Basically its takes much easier to peusdo realistically justify suddenly accelerating a small peice of metal (or whatever) to the degree of speed, have it survive (essentially) long enough to just hit a target than a roughly 200 pound complex objects (a character and his gear) to that degree and have them be fully functional and unharmed and able to continue moving at the speed. It takes less handwavium if there is some degree of accleration required.

I can see how you'd have an issue with that magnitude of velocity, but I still don't really get the specific issue with the acceleration.

 

The issue with starting slowly, and taking a while to get moving fast is basically a problem with inertia.

 

However, as the magnitude of velocity increases, things like air resistance tend to become bigger factors than inertia.

 

The main barrier which you will experience in trying to move a human form to Mach 3 would be air resistance, not inertia.

 

Lets look at some numbers:

 

We can start by assuming that air resistance limits a normal human form to about 200 fps, at 1 g of acceleration. (that is terminal velocity)

 

Based on that assumption, in order to get that same person to Mach 3 (roughly 3,000 fps) would require about 225 g's of acceleration (that is about 7,200 feet per second per second). At 7,200 fpsps, you'd hit Mach 3 in about half a second. In such a case, overcoming inertia is almost irrelevant. The real barrier would be that Mach 3 "wall of wind" which you'd be flying into. . . .

 

Note 1: the above is based on the assumption that, given a constant drag coefficient, air resistance goes up as the square of velocity. Therefore to increase from 200 fps to 3,000 fps, which is a factor of 15 would actually be an increase of 225 in air resistance.

 

 

Note 2: this type of acceleration is obviously not required for a jet plane, but that is a FAR more aerodynamic object than a human body.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I can see how you'd have an issue with that magnitude of velocity, but I still don't really get the specific issue with the acceleration.

 

I wanted it to take some time to jump to mega speeds for a sense of pesudo realism in some games. I didn't say it was physically impossible for it to happen. There are ways to do it, but none that I know of are trivial or man portable but apply enough force and you could jump to almost light speed from a standing start. Generating the force required and having the object/person in question survive it are different matters. You can handwave those concerns, but for most games I'd prefer not to as it leads to other questions but YMMV.

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Then don't use the House Rule. I wanted it to take some time to jump to mega speeds for a sense of pesudo realism in same games. I didn't say it was physically impossible for it to happen. Apply enough force and you could jump to almost light speed from a standing start, generating that force and the object in question surving it are different matters.

 

There are a few other issues with accelerating a person or relatively complex object at 225 or so Gs as compared to a tiny metal slug. If that's not an issue for you, fine and dandy. Its not even an issue for me in all settings but for most that I would run I want a little handwaving and odd questions coming up about technology and how it pulls some of these stunts off.

There are a number of issues here of all sorts. There can be problems for many characters with just trying to survive the effects of Mach 3 travel through the atmosphere. If a character can survive that, we are already dealing with an extraordinary situation. . . .

 

In any case, the problems with acceleration come from the fact that one part of your vehicle tries to accelerate, but the other parts (such as the pilot) are still trying to remain motionless.

 

The acceleration problems could be fixed with the proper application of force. If the acceleration force is applied uniformly, there would be no problem. For example, if you were in free fall, you could be under a very powerful gravitational acceleration and not even feel it.

 

I'm not saying that you can't do what you want to in your own games, but I am suggesting that perhaps your house rule concept is not as "realistic" as you might think.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I'm not saying that you can't do what you want to in your own games, but I am suggesting that perhaps your house rule concept is not as "realistic" as you might think.

 

I never said it was perfectly "realistic", nor was that my intention. Like I said, I never said was physically impossible to accomplish just that degree of handwaving required is outside my personal comfort zone for most settings so yes, I want reaching Mega velocities, mach 3 or whatever (it was just a number I picked out of the air not represnative of a high rate of speed). If want to run pure space opera with fist sized "inertial dampers" and personal gravity projectors it won't become an issue but I generally don't have the kind of technology as the default even in my comic book based games. What I don't get it why you seem to intent on proving my opinion and preference are "wrong"

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I never said it was perfectly "realistic"' date=' nor was that my intention. Like I said, I never said was physically impossible to accomplish just that degree of handwaving required is outside my personal comfort zone for most settings so yes, I want reaching Mega velocities, mach 3 or whatever (it was just a number I picked out of the air not represnative of a high rate of speed). If want to run pure space opera with fist sized "inertial dampers" and personal gravity projectors it won't become an issue but I generally don't have the kind of technology as the default even in my comic book based games. What I don't get it why you seem to intent on proving my opinion and preference are "wrong" [/quote']

It is not a matter of proving that your personal preference is wrong. Instead, it is more a matter of exploring the reasoning behind those preferences. . . .

 

If you are only talking about current technology or "near-future" technology (like jet planes and rockets), then I can definitely understand where you are coming from. But I have heard others make similar arguments in regard to a supers game.

 

There are a number of characters in the comic books who would simply not have problems with high g acceleration (in some cases this acceleration immunity is due to the nature of the character, and in some cases it is due to the nature of the acceleration itself). Often times attempts to impose gradual acceleration on high speed characters will actually lead to less "realistic" results.

 

However, I will add that I have a number of issues with Megascale velocity. There have already been rules for buying high speed non-combat velocity, Megascale just provides a cheaper means for doing the same thing. I'd rather see fast characters buy extra non-combat multiples.

[nexus]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

It is not a matter of proving that your personal preference is wrong. Instead, it is more a matter of exploring the reasoning behind those preferences. . . .

 

If you are only talking about current technology or "near-future" technology (like jet planes and rockets), then I can definitely understand where you are coming from. But I have heard others make similar arguments in regard to a supers game.

 

There are a number of characters in the comic books who would simply not have problems with high g acceleration (in some cases this acceleration immunity is due to the nature of the character, and in some cases it is due to the nature of the acceleration itself). Often times attempts to impose gradual acceleration on high speed characters will actually lead to less "realistic" results.

 

I am talking about my games, supers and otherwise. I don't really care what characaters in other comic book universes can or cannot endure. I didn't ask for the justication, nor to be proven "wrong". If I were playing a games set in universes where characters could leap to that level of speed, they could. How ever I am not and discussing those characters is beyond the parameters of the question I asked. If the characters have somethging that justifies the ability to just to those velocties in my setting, then they'll have to pay points for it not have that ability by default. If it makes instand velocity speedsters rarer and more expensive, good, that is my intention not to model some univeral law as it applies to all settings and preferences.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/PhillipAndriyevsky.shtml

http://www.hypertextbook.com/physics/mechanics/acceleration/

http://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/voshell/gforce.pdf

 

Any degree of realism with acceleration has to be taken in context. What you can survive as ‘instant acceleration’ and what you can survive as ‘constant acceleration’ are very different. The usual limit with constant acceleration involves whether the heart can pump blood to the brain (and the rest of the body) against the acceleration forces. Instant acceleration can be survived at much higher values.

 

The limit for a normal human for ‘constant G’ seems to be 6-8G, and that not for very long, and it depends on which way you are facing (if you accelerate headfirst then your heart has to do more work than if you accelerate chest first, which explains why astronauts face the direction of travel).

 

Now with superheroes there are all sorts of considerations and the first is whether there is a basically human physiology. Assuming there is, is there any power that can explain how you survive extreme acceleration (inertia cancelling type stuff, perhaps, or a massively powerful heart muscle)?

 

Let us start with considering the character: what, given concept and build, do you feel is a realistic top, sustainable acceleration, or, alternatively, how long to you feel it SHOULD take to reach Mach 3?

 

If we start with a figure of 30 seconds, as a ‘reasonable’ time, we are looking at 3-4 G acceleration. If we go for 8G acceleration we are looking around 13 seconds, and if we go for the highest ‘instant G’ survivable by a normal human (46G, form one of the quoted articles, although that was actually deceleration: same thing though) – you can get up to Mach 3 in between 2-3 seconds.

 

There are a number of ways to model this, depending on what you want ‘real’ to be. If you decide ‘Hell, he’s a superhero: he can manage max survivable normal human without breaking a sweat, leave it as is, otherwise, I’d suggest either;

 

Buy your megascale move and include a –0 limitation (takes 30 seconds (or whatever) to attain full velocity

 

OR

 

Set a maximum accelaration rate for megamovement powers (say 1 turn per megascale band)

 

OR

 

Buy this: (example works for a SPD 4 character):

 

3” flight x512 NCM (about Mach 3) 6+40=46 character points and Rapid Non-Combat movement (p124) +1/4 = 57 points, and it will take 8 phases to reach Mach 3

 

 

I know the third one costs a lot more, but I prefer it stylistically, and if you have scads of combat movement with reduced endurance it won’t cost much as a multipower slot.

 

Personally I think that megascale was a mistake, and if you want massive numbers you ought to pay for them.

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

Personally I think that megascale was a mistake, and if you want massive numbers you ought to pay for them.

I like to play speedsters, so I don't mind the "cheap velocity." But I don't mind doing things the old way either. . . .

 

For me the problem is that you have two ways to do something, and one is soooo much cheaper.

 

I just think there should be some sort of rule (or maybe a meta-rule) that: "if there are two ways to build the same power, then you should use the more expensive one."

 

It would seem like such a rule would cause everybody to build using NCM rather than Mega-scale.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

I just think there should be some sort of rule (or maybe a meta-rule) that: "if there are two ways to build the same power, then you should use the more expensive one."

 

It would seem like such a rule would cause everybody to build using NCM rather than Mega-scale.

 

It would also prohibit "Based on ECV" and "Ego Blast", both of which are much cheaper than building an EB, IPE, AVLD Mental Defense, LOS Range.

[Warp9]

Re: Megascale and acceleration

 

It would also prohibit "Based on ECV" and "Ego Blast"' date=' both of which are much cheaper than building an EB, IPE, AVLD Mental Defense, LOS Range.[/quote']

 

Looking at what a mentalist sniper is able to do, one might argue that such a power is too cheap.