How much STR do you need...?

[Susano]

To be able to fit a baseball into orbit (with a bat) and wreck (well, damage) something the size of the Hubble?

 

Seriously.

[OddHat]

Megascale on STR would be the best way to handle it IMO.

 

That ball is going to travel roughly 40,000 hexes (80 kilometers). That's going to take a STR around 8000 to pull off. Megascale could handle it with a STR of 8.

[Susano]

Yeah, someone else come up with a STR of 1117 to hit escape velocity.

[Bartman]

OK the Hubble orbits at an altitude of 612km. Looking at throwing for some reason it doesn't scale logrithmically like most things associated with STR do. Let's say a base ball weighs 1/2 half that of a foot ball. It only takes -25 STR to lift the ball so this gives us an extra 25 STR to throw the ball. For every 5 STR you can throw an object 4" in a running throw 2" in a standing throw and 1" in a prone throw.

 

So lets see at its nearest you would need

 

Running = 76,475 STR

Standing = 152,975 STR

Prone = 305,975 STR

 

The funny thing is at these STR levels you could move the entire mass of the Universe.

 

 

Now a more reasonable way of doing this would be calculate the energy necessary to lift an object to and try to assign that energy to a STR value. The first part of this is easy. PE requirements is simply mass x distance or in this case 1kg * 612,000 m or 612,000 J or 612KJ. This is applied in about 1/2 second so that gives about 1.2MW A quick look here at the old Digital Hero archives tells us that 1.2MW is a rough equivalent to 15DC or 75 STR.

 

Now this is just what you need to get it up there. This would immediately plummit back down. To get it to achive a stable circular orbit you would need an additional 4GW for a total of about 28DC or 140 STR.

 

I still wonder what kind of levels the character has that he thinks he can hit something the size of school bus from at least 612KM away.

[Trebuchet]

I think you're approaching this incorrectly. Mike clearly clearly stated "with a bat." That means you're looking at Knockback distances, not a throw.

 

Realistically, of course, hitting a leather-covered ball with a wooden bat with sufficient force to drive said ball into orbit would vaporize both bat and ball.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I think you're approaching this incorrectly. Mike clearly clearly stated "with a bat." That means you're looking at Knockback distances, not a throw.

 

Realistically, of course, hitting a leather-covered ball with a wooden bat with sufficient force to drive said ball into orbit would vaporize both bat and ball.

 

My guess was based on 40,000 hexes of knockback, sufficient to get into space.

 

Forgot about the indestructible bat and ball problem...

[Fur Face]

Don't forget about super sight, so you can actually see the satellite and gauge the distance, like absolute range sense.

 

For that matter, you could just simulate this ability with megascaled range on an EB.

[Susano]

Thanks for all the estimates guys... I think I'm going with a 50-75 STR.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Susano

Thanks for all the estimates guys... I think I'm going with a 50-75 STR.

 

(Chanting)

 

Megascale! Megascale! Megascale!

 

(End Chanting)

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I think you're approaching this incorrectly. Mike clearly clearly stated "with a bat." That means you're looking at Knockback distances, not a throw.

Sure enough, I did miss that. Which only demonstrates that knockback isn't logrithmic either. I do wish Hero would decide if their system is logrithmic or not. Otherwise we continue to get weird results like this.

Realistically, of course, hitting a leather-covered ball with a wooden bat with sufficient force to drive said ball into orbit would vaporize both bat and ball.

Heh... He said realistically. How many baseball players do you know who can deadlift 100+ tons? I think we left realism a long ways back.

 

But you are of course right. I don't think short of a solid steel ball you are going to find a ball that could survive the force. And I can't think of anything we could use that would survive being the bat.

[Susano]

Well... said character also trashes robots with an apparently indestructable bass guitar, so....

[JMHammer]

It can't be linear

 

The following has no bearing on reality - it assumes your bat and ball can handle all the punishment, ignores the way gravity really works, bastardizes ballistics, and certainly doesn't follow the default throwing/leaping rules:

 

OK, let's say a good home-run hitter can smack a ball 400 feet over a wall consistently. Let's say he can get it up 300 feet in the air. (Why these numbers? Why not!) That gives him the ability to smack a baseball 100 meters, or 50 game inches, upwards.

 

Let's also say that this ballplayer has a STR of 15. A good bit better than average, certainly not superhuman but it is the STR level which most players tend to choose to represent a well-conditioned athlete.

 

We'll assume that distances one can smack a baseball are not linear, instead doubling with each 5 points of STR to match lifting capacity increases. This is not how the default game rules handle jumping and throwing, but let's do it this way for this example.

 

The Hubble Space Telescope is in low Earth orbit, average altitude 368 miles or, let's just say, 130 kilometers. That's 130,000 meters, or 65,000 game inches.

 

If a character with STR 15 can smack a ball 50 inches upwards, STR 20 can get it to 100 inches; STR 25 to 200; etc. STR 65 gets you to 51,200 game inches. STR 70 gets you to 102,400 game inches. So, it seems that STR 68 is about right.

 

So, a baseball hit with a STR of 68 will fly up, tap the Hubble gently (if it hits at all), and then fall back to Earth, eventually impacting the ground or someone's head at terminal velocity (if it didn't burn up on the way up, it won't burn up on the way down). It won't go into orbit because it has no tangential velocity (it was hit more-or-less straight up). Any STR in excess of STR 68 applied to the swing can cause damage to the target.

 

Uselessly yours,

John H

 

edit: Bartman points out I converted miles to kilometers incorrectly. He is right; 368 miles is closer to 600km, not 130km. That makes it between STR 80 and STR 85; say STR 83 to tap the satellite.

[Susano]

STR 75 is sounding better and better.

 

Heck, the considering the abuse the character sucks up and keeps on going, she's got around a 40 PD & ED as well.

 

Did I mention she can fly?

 

And dodge bullets?

[Pattern Ghost]

Hey, if you figure out the PLOT she's in, lemme know. I'm on the second run through of that one, and it's still not making too much sense. Just a little bit of sense around the edges. The details are still fuzzy.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: It can't be linear

 

Originally posted by JMHammer

The Hubble Space Telescope is in low Earth orbit, average altitude 368 miles or, let's just say, 130 kilometers. That's 130,000 meters, or 65,000 game inches.

 

Uselessly yours,

John H

 

Gotta call you on that one - It's not useless! I've been meaning to look fpor how far "earth orbit" is and you gave me a good number - THANKS!

 

Now, any idea how many game inches = 1 light year?

[Talon]

Re: Re: It can't be linear

 

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson

Now, any idea how many game inches = 1 light year?

 

Star Hero, page 73: 1 LY = 4.73 quadrillion hexes (that's 4,730,000,000,000,000 if I got my zeroes right).

[Blue Jogger]

Personally, I think the throwing table is linear instead of logrithmic because a game map only goes so far. But now there's Megascale.

 

15d6 Mind Control, Area Effect Radius, No Range (-1/2), Only to convince people that Megascale STR is a good idea (-1), Incantations throughout (-1/2) ("Megascale! Megascale!"), Linked to OddHat's chant (-1/2). (43 Real Points)

 

Megascale on up to 8 STR (+1 1/4 - 10,000 km per hex) OAF - Lucky Baseball Bat which knocks baseballs into orbit (9 Real Points)

 

vs.

 

+70 STR, 0 END on added STR (+1/2), Only to throw baseballs into orbit using a logrithmic throwing chart (-1) OAF - Lucky Baseball Bat (35 Real Points)

 

I much rather try to aim and hit something that is only 7 hexes away than 65,000 hexes away, especially if I can't see it.

[Blue Jogger]

Oops, forgot my "lucky" baseball.

 

(Modifies baseball bat power)

+1/2 One Hex "Accurate", Megascale Area 10,000 km per hex (+1 1/4), IAF - "Target seeking" Baseball (17 Real Points)

 

This may lead into abusive accurate attacks uses megascale weapons.

[Bartman]

Re: It can't be linear

 

Originally posted by JMHammer

The Hubble Space Telescope is in low Earth orbit, average altitude 368 miles or, let's just say, 130 kilometers.

Huh? 368 miles would be 592km not 130km. At 130km it would be suborbital and require a constant burn to keep from falling to the earth.

[JMHammer]

Doh!

 

Woops. You're right, of course, Bartman. For some reason I factored it backwards.

 

edit: Added an addendum with the correction to my original message.

 

FWIW, Georesearch satellite GFZ-1, which was designed to use the lowest possible orbits to meet its mission requirements, was tracked at 230km.

[Blue Jogger]

Oh, oops, we need to bump up the baseball bat power up one more Megascale level (100,000 km not 10,000 km) which on 8 STR would be about 2 more active points, which would be 1 more real point.

 

Same with "target seeking" baseball, 2 more active points, 1 more real point.

 

I just need a ballpark figure.

[Supreme]

How're you guys getting your figures for KB or whatever to put something in orbit? Are you figuring total velocity needed for a single thrust, or are you figuring total distance needed to put it in the vicinity of the HST?

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Bartman

And I can't think of anything we could use that would survive being the bat.

Grond or Dr. D come to mind...

 

Actually, if you really want to figure this out using HERO, you need to take a couple of other factors into account:

 

1) A baseball weighs .8 kg, which is the sane as a character with 40 points of Shrinking. So right there you get a +9" KB.

 

Furthermore, a baseball is designed to fly further than an average object of the same weight. It's not only balanced and symetrical, but the interior structure is designed to provide extra distance. That makes sense; after all no player can throw a baseball as nearly far as a good batter can hit one.

 

A baseball bat is the same as a club (4d6), which is effectively the same as adding 20 STR to whomever uses it.

 

In addition, since a baseball is thrown at the batter, that means he is using Missile Reflection to redirect the "attack" in a direction of his choosing along with additional energy. In essence the energy from the pitcher adds to the energy from the batter and the bat, which is why a good throw gets a better hit than a t-ball stand.

 

So Grond winds up and pitches to Dr. Destroyer...

 

Number crunching I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

[Susano]

Originally posted by Pattern Ghost

Hey, if you figure out the PLOT she's in, lemme know. I'm on the second run through of that one, and it's still not making too much sense. Just a little bit of sense around the edges. The details are still fuzzy.

 

Awww... you found me out!

 

Plot... hmm... plot... I knew I left a plot around here somewhere....

 

Basically, it's a boy meets girl, falls in love, and grows up story. Of course, since it's a massive satire of NGE, one is bound to be conused by the color commentary.

 

[Pattern Ghost]

Ah, the NGE comment explains a lot. The coming of age, boy meets girl, vaguely metaphorical angle, I got. The NGE commentary, I am missing out on, not having seen it.

 

You should do some Big-O writeups next. [hint hint]