Gravitation vs. steel/ iron Allomancy flight and combat.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

33 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

Na I uped it to thirty gs though do we know the air resistance on roshar is different from earths cause that could also have messed up my calculations

 

32 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Roshar's atmoshpere has a higher oxygen content, so it would be less dense.

Would each increase in lashings be less effective going off of Roshars gravity anyways?  

30 lashings at Roshars 70% of the cosmere standard would only be 21x earth gravity.  

Edit.  I would be super interested in seeing the math for this.  Its a pretty significant change from what we have had mathed out before.  

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

 

Would each increase in lashings be less effective going off of Roshars gravity anyways?  

30 lashings at Roshars 70% of the cosmere standard would only be 21x earth gravity.  

Each lashing is 1 Rosharan g yes.

[alder24]

53 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

just plugged it into a terminal velocity calculator using about the size and mass of small stone and it said your terminal velocity would be about 50m/s witch is about 112 mph

I don't know what kind of calculator you used, but I've got vastly different numbers. Spherical rock of the diameter of 5 cm, density of 2.7 g/cm3 (quartzite), has a Cross-section area of 0,0019635 m2 and mass of 0.17 kg, which with 30 Earth-g and Earth air gives terminal velocity of 376.0999 m/s (1,353.9598 km/h, 841.3113 mph for you Americans). 

Edit: This is 30 m/s faster than the speed of sound.

Edited January 25, 2023 by alder24

[Wits instant noodles]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

a Cross-section area of 0,0019635 m2

did you perhaps use the equation for a rectangle cross section cause if your diameter is 5 your radis is 2.5 square that and you get 6.25 times by 3.14 and you get 19.62 maybe try this cross section and see what happens? also as stated Roshar has lower gravity so it would be about 21 gs I need to get my hands on an actual rock to calculate the exact numbers but I struggle to find one under snow. 

[offer]

4 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

did you perhaps use the equation for a rectangle cross section cause if your diameter is 5 your radis is 2.5 square that and you get 6.25 times by 3.14 and you get 19.62 maybe try this cross section and see what happens? also as stated Roshar has lower gravity so it would be about 21 gs I need to get my hands on an actual rock to calculate the exact numbers but I struggle to find one under snow. 

2.5cm=0.025m when you square it you get 0.000625m^2. His calculation is correct.

 

[Wits instant noodles]

3 minutes ago, offer said:

2.5cm=0.025m when you square it you get 0.000625m^2. His calculation is correct.

 

yep realizing maybe my conversion was off

[alder24]

12 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

did you perhaps use the equation for a rectangle cross section cause if your diameter is 5 your radis is 2.5 square that and you get 6.25 times by 3.14 and you get 19.62 maybe try this cross section and see what happens? also as stated Roshar has lower gravity so it would be about 21 gs I need to get my hands on an actual rock to calculate the exact numbers but I struggle to find one under snow. 

No, a cross-section of a sphere is just a circle Radius and diameter were not confused by me.

Oh, yeah, I seen now what you mean. I'm using metric. 2.5 cm = 0.025 m. Metric is easy.

Also you won't calculate precise speed on Roshar because of different values for drag coefficient and air density, which we just don't know.

Edited January 25, 2023 by alder24

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I don't know what kind of calculator you used, but I've got vastly different numbers. Spherical rock of the diameter of 5 cm, density of 2.7 g/cm3 (quartzite), has a Cross-section area of 0,0019635 m2 and mass of 0.17 kg, which with 30 Earth-g and Earth air gives terminal velocity of 376.0999 m/s (1,353.9598 km/h, 841.3113 mph for you Americans). 

Edit: This is 30 m/s faster than the speed of sound.

Given it is calculating a perfect sphere and you lose nearly 1/3 going to a cube I think numbers would be slightly different and likely somewhere in between?  Maybe a jagged wonky rock would be even lower than a nice smooth cube.  

Then again Roshar gets a ton of rainfall.  Totally possible the rocks are insanely smooth.  

5cm rocks are going to be a lot fewer than a sack of coins.  That said I would love if we could somehow calculate speed of steel pushes.  I wish we could know where the break even point is between the two. Some large lead shot balls would do so much better for a mistborn than coins.   

How on earth do the coins penetrate in the books in the first place?   Wax is pushing on bullets already in flight to increase their speed.  How does that work?   If you could only push something a few hundred mph wouldn't it be counter productive to even try to increase the speed of bullets going significantly faster than that?  

18 minutes ago, Wits instant noodles said:

did you perhaps use the equation for a rectangle cross section cause if your diameter is 5 your radis is 2.5 square that and you get 6.25 times by 3.14 and you get 19.62 maybe try this cross section and see what happens? also as stated Roshar has lower gravity so it would be about 21 gs I need to get my hands on an actual rock to calculate the exact numbers but I struggle to find one under snow. 

Maybe some decimals aren't moving the right amount...  somewhere.  

[Immortal Platypus]

Noodle's 19.62 is in cm^2 while alder's is in m^2. after you multiply Alder's by pi, you get 0.19 cm^2 (ish) so someone is off by two digits. i think the problem is conversion somewhere

Also, I have a rock we can test @Wits instant noodles

EDIT: ninja'd

Edited January 25, 2023 by Being of Cacophony

[alder24]

12 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Given it is calculating a perfect sphere and you lose nearly 1/3 going to a cube I think numbers would be slightly different and likely somewhere in between?  Maybe a jagged wonky rock would be even lower than a nice smooth cube.  

Also, what I've just realized, I didn't change Drag Coefficient value, which was 0.294, corresponding to head diving human - for a sphere it is around 0.5 to 0.7 (after quick google search, it depends on its radius), so for 0.5 drag coefficient, terminal velocity would be 288.3978 m/s.

8 minutes ago, Being of Cacophony said:

Noodle's 19.62 is in cm^2 while alder's is in m^2. after you multiply Alder's by pi, you get 0.19 cm^2 (ish) so someone is off by two digits. i think the problem is conversion somewhere

no, 19.62 in cm2 /100/100 = 0,0019635 m2. 1 m2=10,000 cm2. You need to square the conversion factor too.

Edit: I'm lazy, I used the calculators in which I can choose the units of each number. There was no mistake in conversion.

Edited January 25, 2023 by alder24

[Immortal Platypus]

i forgot about that. thank you. I'm still young and out of my league when it comes to fancy science stuff.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

17 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Technically if you are comparing iron and steel then the option is either a hemalurgist or a mistborn vs someone with gravitation.  Which is worse I don't know?   You certainly don't want to go down the rabbit hole of stacking powers back and forth.  

Gravitation vs just iron and steel is also not much of discussion because then it comes to having stormlight and all that that brings. 

I am convinced that stormlight with no surge access at all is still one of the best single abilities in the cosmere.  Atium might be the only metal that beats it on its own in the allomancy world.  

I just don't know that someone with just gravitation would actually come out on top vs someone with access to both iron and steel.  To assume a hemalurgist stopped at one spike for the fight and there is nothing else that the allomancer gets is kind of stacked one way.  To assume they have more than 1 spike or are a mistborn basically stacks it the other way.

If the option were given to me the gravitation surge vs iron and steel allomancy I would go with allomancy all day.  Since even a single surge comes with perfected body and infinite healing you almost have to go with gravitation.  Not because of gravitation but because stormlight is imba to the max.  

However I take mistborn over windrunner pretty much anyday.  Even if they lose a 1v1.  Way to much versatility in what you can do with the powerset. 

I was specifically excluding stormlight benefits in my calculations. Also, it is possible to get a double misting via lerasium alloys, shardic intervention, etc. Also, an organized duel could limit the allomancer.

I agree that sucking in stormlight is a pretty good combat ability.

I don't see a way for the allomancer to win without another ability in all common situations. Blocking lashed projectiles is like getting in a pushing match where your opponent is on a timer rather than being harmed. Either your being flung back or being squished. Either way, not good. So dodging it is. But the gravitation guy can dodge easier and block the projectiles, so the allomancer has disadvantage.

Edited January 25, 2023 by IlstrawberrySeed

[Immortal Platypus]

so, i just used an online calculator for a golf ball (i know, not the same as a rock so there will be some difference) and when it's mass is 0.17 kg, cross-sectional area 19.63 cm^2, coefficient of drag 0.389 (auto generated by calculator) and acceleration 30x the amount auto generated (i assume natural force of Earth's gravity) the terminal velocity is 327.46 m/s (slightly lower than the speed of sound, which makes sense, we never hear sonic booms in the books). However, 30 Rosharan "g"s are different from Earth "g"s. 30 Roshar "g"s are about 21 Earth "g"s so that will be 274 m/s on Earth. I did try to use @alder24's numbers from earlier but I might have done it wrong.

If you see anything wrong with this, feel free to tell me. I could be wrong but I think this if close to accurate.

[Wits instant noodles]

Drag coefficient is slightly off a golf ball has a coefficient of about 0.24 witch changes the answer to about 214

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, Being of Cacophony said:

so, i just used an online calculator for a golf ball (i know, not the same as a rock so there will be some difference) and when it's mass is 0.17 kg, cross-sectional area 19.63 cm^2, coefficient of drag 0.389 (auto generated by calculator) and acceleration 30x the amount auto generated (i assume natural force of Earth's gravity) the terminal velocity is 327.46 m/s (slightly lower than the speed of sound, which makes sense, we never hear sonic booms in the books). However, 30 Rosharan "g"s are different from Earth "g"s. 30 Roshar "g"s are about 21 Earth "g"s so that will be 274 m/s on Earth. I did try to use @alder24's numbers from earlier but I might have done it wrong.

If you see anything wrong with this, feel free to tell me. I could be wrong but I think this if close to accurate.

Mass of the golf ball doesn't match its size and density. I've calculated mass of my rock from its volume and density. You used the same numbers so its the same rock with different drag coefficient. But ignoring this fact, terminal velocity is in the same range, so for a rock it's accurate

Edit: for my spherical rock, with drag coefficient of a sphere being 0.5 and Rosharian g, the terminal velocity is 241.2091 m/s. 

But there is one value we can't know - air density. Roshar has different air composition and most likely also different air pressure due to different gravity. We can only assume Rosharian air is as dense as Earth's.

Edited January 25, 2023 by alder24

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

I was specifically excluding stormlight benefits in my calculations. Also, it is possible to get a double misting via lerasium alloys, shardic intervention, etc. Also, an organized duel could limit the allomancer.

I agree that sucking in stormlight is a pretty good combat ability.

I don't see a way for the allomancer to win without another ability in all common situations. Blocking lashed projectiles is like getting in a pushing match where your opponent is on a timer rather than being harmed. Either your being flung back or being squished. Either way, not good. So dodging it is. But the gravitation guy can dodge easier and block the projectiles, so the allomancer has disadvantage.

Yeah I dont know that we will land at an agreement on this one unfortunately (as these things often go).  With no stormlight healing or other bonuses we have what could be a hit or two for a kill either way.  The mistborn can throw out a handful of projectiles and shotgun them all at once.  I think gravitation might require a bit more thought and intent to actually send out a wave of projectiles.  No doubt they could send them quickly, but for the mistborn it is literally a handful of metal objects tossed in front and shoved all at once going into random straight lines away from it all at once.

Range definately matters but so do so many other factors.  The person who can send out the most projectiles and recover them fastest has the upper hand.  Even if they all miss while the gravitation user is flying they can also all be pulled back.  Gravitation gets one direction of attack and the steel / iron user has forwards and backwards.  With no healing I think the person who can shotgun the most projectiles the easiest and can recover them the easiest would be at a huge advantage.  Once the rock leaves the surgebinders hand it is gone.  Dodged or not.  

Gravitation can open up more angles of attack but if they are wearing any metal at all they also get cut through so quickly they won't be able to react.  If a surge binder can send a handful of rocks (how big do they have to be to be effective?) into different enough directions all at the same time I think we have more room for discussion.  

Ammo is the limiting factor and deciding factor.  A slug will hit a lot harder at 100 yards... and it would be more accurate at 100 yards.  Buckshot inside of 25 yards and you are putting 9 9mm sized shot into your target. Now as an allomancer with both metals you can alternate pushes and pulls on this and while moving keep it in motion creating a nofly zone for the radiant.  

Both are flying and moving so both have to hit moving targets.  Who hunts fowl with slugs?  This vs battle is the entire reason the shotgun was invented.  Moving targets, especially in the air, are best shot down by sending out a boat load of projectiles at once in a spread.  

And if neither of them is able to heal...

 

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Mass of the golf ball doesn't match its size and density. I've calculated mass of my rock from its volume and density. You used the same numbers so its the same rock with different drag coefficient. But ignoring this fact, terminal velocity is in the same range, so for a rock it's accurate

Edit: for my spherical rock, with drag coefficient of a sphere being 0.5 and Rosharian g, the terminal velocity is 241.2091 m/s. 

But there is one value we can't know - air density. Roshar has different air composition and most likely also different air pressure due to different gravity. We can only assume Rosharian air is as dense as Earth's.

I am curious what a Kaldin sized human would be able to generate in a fall that is a believable distance to make the audiance think it was a drop kick and at just 10 lashings of so?  (How many lashings did he use in the arena?)

I think this could be a really good gauge as to how much punishment plate can take.  Its probably a nightmare to calculate but a person at 7 ft tall and about 240lbs would have a BMI somewhere in the healthy range (perhaps he weighs more than that given being a muscular soldier).  Hitting with only his feet how much force do you think it took to crack all that plate?

[Immortal Platypus]

I think that would be really cool, but we don't know the distance between them (I think) and we don't know if he hit terminal velocity. If someone can calculate that, we can get a lot closer gauge. (Still not as exact as I would like, but...) I wouldn't have even thought of that. Thanks Tamriel!

[IlstrawberrySeed]

14 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Yeah I dont know that we will land at an agreement on this one unfortunately (as these things often go).  With no stormlight healing or other bonuses we have what could be a hit or two for a kill either way.  The mistborn can throw out a handful of projectiles and shotgun them all at once.  I think gravitation might require a bit more thought and intent to actually send out a wave of projectiles.  No doubt they could send them quickly, but for the mistborn it is literally a handful of metal objects tossed in front and shoved all at once going into random straight lines away from it all at once.

Range definately matters but so do so many other factors.  The person who can send out the most projectiles and recover them fastest has the upper hand.  Even if they all miss while the gravitation user is flying they can also all be pulled back.  Gravitation gets one direction of attack and the steel / iron user has forwards and backwards.  With no healing I think the person who can shotgun the most projectiles the easiest and can recover them the easiest would be at a huge advantage.  Once the rock leaves the surgebinders hand it is gone.  Dodged or not.  

Gravitation can open up more angles of attack but if they are wearing any metal at all they also get cut through so quickly they won't be able to react.  If a surge binder can send a handful of rocks (how big do they have to be to be effective?) into different enough directions all at the same time I think we have more room for discussion.  

Ammo is the limiting factor and deciding factor.  A slug will hit a lot harder at 100 yards... and it would be more accurate at 100 yards.  Buckshot inside of 25 yards and you are putting 9 9mm sized shot into your target. Now as an allomancer with both metals you can alternate pushes and pulls on this and while moving keep it in motion creating a nofly zone for the radiant.  

Both are flying and moving so both have to hit moving targets.  Who hunts fowl with slugs?  This vs battle is the entire reason the shotgun was invented.  Moving targets, especially in the air, are best shot down by sending out a boat load of projectiles at once in a spread.  

And if neither of them is able to heal...

I forgot about pulling the metal back, but a no-fly zone would be difficult to create due to needing to be able to move in rings around a sphere. That said, it would probably be a fair fight if they can set one up, but gravitation can use delayed lashings to change angle, and even return to them (one can set an object as the source of gravity, similarly to a reverse lashing but by infusing the falling object). It is easier but slower to set up a no-fly zone as a gravitation user than an Allomancer. This fight seems incredibly fair if pre-setting up delayed lashings isn't allowed. Aditionally, one can set the gravity of your projectiles as your enemy. (Or at least their clothes).

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

4 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

I forgot about pulling the metal back, but a no-fly zone would be difficult to create due to needing to be able to move in rings around a sphere. That said, it would probably be a fair fight if they can set one up, but gravitation can use delayed lashings to change angle, and even return to them (one can set an object as the source of gravity, similarly to a reverse lashing but by infusing the falling object). It is easier but slower to set up a no-fly zone as a gravitation user than an Allomancer. This fight seems incredibly fair if pre-setting up delayed lashings isn't allowed. Aditionally, one can set the gravity of your projectiles as your enemy. (Or at least their clothes).

You can set up the gravity as a moving target at range?   So gravitation is launching homing missiles now?  

I would love to see any WoB or reference to a windrunner setting up a point of reference on a moving target for launched projectiles.  

I honestly haven't made it through RoW or even the last 1/4 of oathbringer (and it is now waiting for me to finish TLM as I am frankly bored out of my mind by the radiants utterly failing everything they do despite being handed the most one-sided kits in the cosmere).  

So my bias aside, if gravitation has any evidence for touching a rock and letting it "fall" at speeds peaking at the speed of sound all while telling them that down is simply this thing I am staring at that is moving and changing direction randomly, then I will concede to Roshar again. 

[alder24]

38 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I am curious what a Kaldin sized human would be able to generate in a fall that is a believable distance to make the audiance think it was a drop kick and at just 10 lashings of so?  (How many lashings did he use in the arena?)

I think this could be a really good gauge as to how much punishment plate can take.  Its probably a nightmare to calculate but a person at 7 ft tall and about 240lbs would have a BMI somewhere in the healthy range (perhaps he weighs more than that given being a muscular soldier).  Hitting with only his feet how much force do you think it took to crack all that plate?

This wouldn't be  hard to calculate, it's just free fall, but we don't know the numbers. Kaladin lashed himself "as many times as he could, until his Stormlight ended". That can be 10 lashings or even 100. And we don't know the distance between them. With that many lashings the difference between 1 and 2 meters would be enormous. Terminal velocity wouldn't be reached in 2 meters fall, so we could just ignore the air resistance, like we all love to do in physics. 

16 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

You can set up the gravity as a moving target at range?   So gravitation is launching homing missiles now?  

All Windrunners do is set up undefined point in space as a source of gravity, I see no reason why they can't set it up to some object - it would be more logical to do, as that's literally how gravity works. But maybe it's harder for Windrunners who don't know what gravity is and requires training. I don't remember this happening in the books.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

10 minutes ago, alder24 said:

This wouldn't be  hard to calculate, it's just free fall, but we don't know the numbers. Kaladin lashed himself "as many times as he could, until his Stormlight ended". That can be 10 lashings or even 100. And we don't know the distance between them. With that many lashings the difference between 1 and 2 meters would be enormous. Terminal velocity wouldn't be reached in 2 meters fall, so we could just ignore the air resistance, like we all love to do in physics. 

All Windrunners do is set up undefined point in space as a source of gravity, I see no reason why they can't set it up to some object - it would be more logical to do, as that's literally how gravity works. But maybe it's harder for Windrunners who don't know what gravity is and requires training. I don't remember this happening in the books.

I always assumed gravity was set in whatever direction they want.   You would literally never be able to outrun the projectile if a windrunner could look at you and deem you as the ground for the rock.  Teleportation wouldn't even allow you to dodge it.  That rock will find the ground or work as hard as possible to do so until it runs out of stormlight.   Since you can put as many lashings as you want.... 

Take that gravitation also supposedly allows a windrunner to change direction as irradically as they could ever want while moving at the speed of sound and suffer absolutely zero ill effects because there is no inertia with gravitation (I guess?) and there is literally zero way anyone outruns or out maneuvers this object falling faster than a bullet is shot out of the most powerful rifle conceived. 

The consequences of having gravitation work at the range of sight and allowing it to choose objects in motion at any speed as the new "down" is actually terrifyingly horrible imo.  Roshar already takes so much risk out of combat that it is a bore to read... add in rocks being dropped mach 10 at a fly buzzing around and never missing... 

[IlstrawberrySeed]

@alder24 @Tamriel Wolfsbaine I was wrong. I think I thought of it because of an Ars Arcanum entry (which can be wrong), though I totally could have conflated things in my head. Per WoB:

Quote

Balyne

In WoR, when Kaladin is chasing Szeth through the storm, could he have just Lashed himself to Szeth and followed automatically? I realize he was new to his abilities and may not have thought of it, but is it possible?

Brandon Sanderson

One thing about Lashing that is counter-intuative to people who know physics is that Lashings are usually in a direction, not toward an object. It means that physics wise, it's not actually increasing the gravitational pull of an object--but sending you a direction. I did this because of just this type of question; it made the magic too powerful.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 19, 2016)

However, delayed lashings can still provide a no-fly zone and unpredictable(ish - read starsight) patterns, and can return to a point or path that you can get back to easily.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

8 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

@alder24 @Tamriel Wolfsbaine I was wrong. I think I thought of it because of an Ars Arcanum entry (which can be wrong), though I totally could have conflated things in my head. Per WoB:

However, delayed lashings can still provide a no-fly zone and unpredictable(ish - read starsight) patterns, and can return to a point or path that you can get back to easily.

I need to understand delayed lashings a bit as well I think.   So you lash this thing for x seconds this way and then x seconds that way and then?  

How much thought has to go into lashing something like this?   I assume this further limits the gravitation users total possible projectiles.  

Is the idea if delayed lashings a standard gravitation thing or result of a resonance?  

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I always assumed gravity was set in whatever direction they want.   You would literally never be able to outrun the projectile if a windrunner could look at you and deem you as the ground for the rock.  Teleportation wouldn't even allow you to dodge it.  That rock will find the ground or work as hard as possible to do so until it runs out of stormlight.   Since you can put as many lashings as you want.... 

Take that gravitation also supposedly allows a windrunner to change direction as irradically as they could ever want while moving at the speed of sound and suffer absolutely zero ill effects because there is no inertia with gravitation (I guess?) and there is literally zero way anyone outruns or out maneuvers this object falling faster than a bullet is shot out of the most powerful rifle conceived. 

The consequences of having gravitation work at the range of sight and allowing it to choose objects in motion at any speed as the new "down" is actually terrifyingly horrible imo.  Roshar already takes so much risk out of combat that it is a bore to read... add in rocks being dropped mach 10 at a fly buzzing around and never missing... 

Tbf inertia and g-forces should be involved when changing directions, as you change direction of movement. But I guess Stormlight absorbs all the effects of this.

And the object would not move to you following the shortest route - it has speed in one direction, it has to lose it in order to move in opposite direction. So like orbits work. That objects would make big arches, circles and spirals around you, not straight line. The bigger the speed, the bigger the arches, so you could maneuver easily to avoid them.

But @IlstrawberrySeed gives us WoB, so it can't happen.