Aberrant RPG - Hypersonic move damage.

[Tangent]

I was watching Reloaded the other night and got to thinking about Neo's cruise down the city streets near the end.

In Ab terms he was moving around Hypersonic 4 or 5 which would be a lot of bashing damage for everything which is obvious. But what would be the best way to show how he was dragging everything behind him? Just apply knockback in the direction he is flying to everything that is behind him?

I portrayed this problem once in a game. The PC wanted to get to a battle his teammates where involved in. I ask how he is getting there.

He responds Hyperflight. I ask him exactly what he is planning on doing. Instead of flying up and over the city he tells me he will fly down the streets. Once the fight was over the police came to arrest the PC because he had did over 30 million in damage to windows, cars and stoplights and had 14 counts of involuntary manslaughter from the tons of falling glass crashing into the streets. Think that was to cruel?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Think that was to cruel?

Had he had to deal with this issue before?

And yes, I'd just use knockback.

[Tangent]

Actually he had never used it in confined spaces before. Normally he would be at high altitude or someplace where people wouldnt bring him to task on what he did. Everytime I run aberrant I try to show the players that is isnt just about having cool powers but what you are doing with them by purpose or accident that drives the game.

On a side not Had the Teragen try to recruit him after his accident. It was a perfect time for them to try.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

PhoeniXForce: Normally he would be at high altitude or someplace where people wouldnt bring him to task on what he did.

So in other words, he knew or should have known and was in a rush.

[Sphere]

Re. Neo.

Did no-one else have a vison of the machines suddenly having huge power failures because of all the people that would die when Neo tears up the city flying through it?

Just me then.

[Brucifer]

No sphere youre right - lol.

Picture the happy Sentinel, merrily scuttling along the sewers looking for his next step in the genocide of humanity when - urk...power failure!

Donk! down he goes.

ROFL

[Sakurako Hino]

He shoulda used Duracell... ^o^

[Charlie]

"...and a form of fusion, the machines had all the power they needed."

I thought the same thing at first then thought, hmmm...downtown, offices, stores, etc. some loss of life, but not like during the daytime.

However a shockwave of that magnitude would have traveled for many miles beyond the city (also killing Trinity). Just catching Trinity at that speed would have splatered her. "Some rules can be bent, others broken."

I have been 100 ft. below a plane that went supersonic well before reaching our position. The sound was loud, like a gunshot, and there was a wind, however, nothing got swept away. It is errie seeing the plane and you know that it is going supersonic, since there is no sound until it has gone well past you. For cars to get swept away, he would have to have been moving much, much faster than 4 or 5, more like Hyperflight 10!

[Tangent]

Just a geek note here. In order for him to get the from the chateau to saving Morpheus he traveled five hundred miles in less than 10 minutes. Roughly three thousand miles per hour.

[Speed]

not a problem...out of combat, I can (ok, my char. can) travel roughly 7500 km/hr for 3 q.p. (but I still don't pull entire blocks of cars and stuff with me...he must have had a trailing force blast)

in combat, I'm even faster..but of course the quantum cost is higher.

[Wakinyan]

You should be doing heavy amounts of damage in your wake with that speed. Unless maybe your phasing. Any form of hypermovement is going to cause issues like that.

[Charlie]

Physics refresher:

"As an airplane flies faster than the speed of sound, it "pushes" on the sound waves in front of it. But sound waves obey the speed limit--they can't travel faster than the speed of sound. So the waves pile up against each other as they are created. These "piled up" waves are called shock waves. The greatest shock waves are at the tip and tail of the plane."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/barrier/boom/concept3.html

"To increase the intensity of a sonic boom, increase the size of the airplane. The larger the aircraft, the more air it displaces and the stronger the shock waves become. Also, the lower the altitude of the plane to the ground, the more intense the boom will be. That's because the shock waves will have less distance to travel before hitting the ground, and they will have lost less energy. Note: other factors influence the intensity of a sonic boom, including aircraft shape and outside air temperature and pressure.

To reduce the intensity of a sonic boom, decrease the size of the plane and increase the flying altitude."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/barrier/boom/answer3.html

Couldn't help throwing in the stuff on Shock Waves from Nova since it illustrates the point so well.

"A typical sonic boom pressure amplitude from a supersonic aircraft is about 2 psf (pounds per square foot) = 0.014 psi = 95 Pa. In acoustics this would be measured as 133 dB (deciBel), which is very loud."

http://sonicbooms.org/boomprimer.html

So unless a character is as large as the Space Shuttle and moving at Mach 20, they are not going to do the special effects damage that Neo did.