Fullborn V.S. 5th Ideal Windrunners

[Frustration Herald]

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

In a tackle you hit them at the side.

And? It was the force of the entire body.

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

Yes, show me the WoB where he says the book is wrong about force transference from higher mass. Again, the one where he talks about the the tapping weight and punches he doesn't say Sazed or the book is wrong. Also, there have been many times where a WoB has been wrong and when someone brings up the contradiction he's admitted to be mistaken. It's almost like a questions immediately answered isn’t always accurate.

When he says Sazed is making a mistake he says "that's what we decided it needed to be" meaning Dragonsteel saw a problem and had a discussion about it, so no that's not just him hearing the wrong question. And that is overriding the books. When he says punches don't transfer force the other WoB overruled any scenes that even implied it was wrong, so it doesn't contradict anything.

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

Sazed hits Marsh.

Tapping pewter.

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

You are really overusing that density quote here. He figured that one out, it's manipulating the higgs field. 

Brandon mentions higgs field stuff, but he never says you can punch with incredible force. And you would think if it were possible Wax would have done it at least once, however anytime Wax needs to break down a door he doesn't punch it but rather slams his entire body into it. Nor does he use it to punch people in combat, despite several times it would be helpful.

1 hour ago, Heilven said:

Anyway, he doesn't ever retcon a scene to be incorrect, he very much doesn't want to do that ever. He has only retconned stuff with unreliable narrators.

There isn't any scenes that are wrong, just Sazed descriptions of them.

[Heilven Ardent]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Brandon mentions higgs field stuff, but he never says you can punch with incredible force. And you would think if it were possible Wax would have done it at least once, however anytime Wax needs to break down a door he doesn't punch it but rather slams his entire body into it. Nor does he use it to punch people in combat, despite several times it would be helpful.

Why would he confirm you gain more force when tapping mass? That's not something anyone has asked him about. And Wax doesn't have a need to punch people 2~3x as hard, he has a gun. Why would he waste mass just to break down a door with a punch? Slamming his entire body into it is significantly more effective. And I seriously doubt the effectivity of an increased mass punch for Wax. You could maybe hit twice to three times as hard, which doesn't matter when you are fighting thugs or anyone with a goldmind. Plus it isn't something he needs to do often, so he never thinks about it.

Also yeah, a tackle is a hit from the side. Of course it is the force of the whole body, who cares. Tackling is generally more effective than punching, because there's more mass behind it. The main reason you don't do it is because you end up in a more precarious situation. Tackling someone while tapping mass would also be more effective for the exact same reason that punching someone would be more effective. It's just not very useful to Wax, a primarily ranged combatant with a ton of other methods for fighting someone than using up a valuable resource that takes time to accumulate.

[StanLemon Worldbringer]

Ok, I had to wait till I had a computer because it was taking way to long to type on mobile

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He was using them only occasionally, he himself says so.

How did you get 630 hours for travel time? That would mean that 6 weeks trip would expect Sazed to move for over 17 hours every day. Typically on longer trips you spend less time traveling each day, not more.

6 weeks trip would be ~336 hours of travel time, at the high end, which we want to squeeze to ~80 hours (if Sazed is pushing himself really hard).

All Sazed has to do is store weight + lightly tap Pewter (e.g. just for doubled strength). and Bendalloy (Energy), Electrum (Determination) and Gold (to keep himself healthy) to move faster and for longer times than human could (since he would be half as heavy, twice as strong and in peak physical condition the entire time).

So yeah, the WoB can still makes sense, since he can use his other powers to aid in his travel time as well.
 

Ok here we go.

So 6 weeks is 1008 hours. Assuming the travel time estimate is including 8 hours a day of sleep, that brings travel time down 672 hrs. Being more generous than my previous estimate, lets assume the estimate is 3 hours of day for meals. That would bring travel time down to 546 hrs. 6 days is 144 hours. He would have to make the trip 4x faster than normal on average across the whole trip to do this, this is with assuming that he ate rations on the go and tapped his Bronzemind to not sleep.

Now let's see what Sazed's speed stores would look like. Every 5th day for 5 months. Because it's supposed to be an earth analogue, let's give Sazed 3 months of 31 days and 2 of 30 days. That gives him 30.6 days. Assuming he stores for 16 full hours each of those days at 80% stored the entire time for the absolute maximum he would likely have had stored. That would give him 489.6 hours of stored 80% speed. 

Now let's start calculating. To use the model of the WoB, it would look like this for getting 4x faster for the trip. 

• 1 to 1 tapping Sazed moves at 1.8x speed (489.6 hours of speed available/20.4 days)
• first compression Sazed moves at 2.6x speed (244.8 hours of speed available/10.2 days)
• second compression Sazed moves at 3.4x speed (122.4 hours of speed available/5.1 days)
• third compression Sazed moves at 4.2x speed (61.2 hours of speed available/2.55 days)

As should be clear, just to hit the speed Sazed would need to make the trip in the time he did, he just does not have enough speed stored up and that's before you take into account the loss of time from compressing the Investiture. He'll run out by the third day, around halfway through his journey. And that's if he was tapping constantly. But as you pointed out he was only using the Steelminds occasionally. So he would have to compress the traits even more to keep that 4x average. He would run out of speed long before he got where he was going. The math just doesn't work with the WoB model you and Frustration want to use. Ignoring the fact that Sazed didn't have Electrum, your other suggestions just wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. I'm sure they would help, but it just would not be enough to compare to more than 2x speed at best.

Speaking of speed. I'm convinced people on this forum just do not understand how much faster even a two time speed increase is. I'm out of shape and I can do a hundred meter dash in about 17-18 seconds. Usain Bolt, has a record of 9 and a half seconds. That means the fastest sprinter alive isn't even fully twice my speed.

Edited March 15 by StanLemon

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine Arbiter]

2 hours ago, Heilven said:

Why would he confirm you gain more force when tapping mass? That's not something anyone has asked him about. And Wax doesn't have a need to punch people 2~3x as hard, he has a gun. Why would he waste mass just to break down a door with a punch? Slamming his entire body into it is significantly more effective. And I seriously doubt the effectivity of an increased mass punch for Wax. You could maybe hit twice to three times as hard, which doesn't matter when you are fighting thugs or anyone with a goldmind. Plus it isn't something he needs to do often, so he never thinks about it.

Also yeah, a tackle is a hit from the side. Of course it is the force of the whole body, who cares. Tackling is generally more effective than punching, because there's more mass behind it. The main reason you don't do it is because you end up in a more precarious situation. Tackling someone while tapping mass would also be more effective for the exact same reason that punching someone would be more effective. It's just not very useful to Wax, a primarily ranged combatant with a ton of other methods for fighting someone than using up a valuable resource that takes time to accumulate.

 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

And? It was the force of the entire body.

When he says Sazed is making a mistake he says "that's what we decided it needed to be" meaning Dragonsteel saw a problem and had a discussion about it, so no that's not just him hearing the wrong question. And that is overriding the books. When he says punches don't transfer force the other WoB overruled any scenes that even implied it was wrong, so it doesn't contradict anything.

Tapping pewter.

Brandon mentions higgs field stuff, but he never says you can punch with incredible force. And you would think if it were possible Wax would have done it at least once, however anytime Wax needs to break down a door he doesn't punch it but rather slams his entire body into it. Nor does he use it to punch people in combat, despite several times it would be helpful.

There isn't any scenes that are wrong, just Sazed descriptions of them.

It is totally possible that the combat mechanics of iron haven't been worked out yet because of our subject pool.  A feruchemist scholar and a ranged combatant with no access to other attribute storage.  

Iron tapping makes you more sluggish and slower.  Also it doesn't really make you denser or increase toughness the way A pewter does.  

I think the biggest reason Sazed didn't use it was because he didn't know how to fight or what to do.  Rereading chapter 53 of WoA it is really obvious that he had no idea what he could do.  His first tapping of pewter he talks about not needing as much as he tapped and backing it down only to be disappointed that he used too much and wasted it all while wishing he had tapped more.  He says again the next page over something along the same lines, wishing he had been storing weight more often.  

I also imagine that throwing a big heavy hand could be just as dangerous to the feruchemist in that bones could easily break and you are just moving slower to the point where you may not hit what you want to anyway.  

To effectively use iron feruchemy you really need something else to help you.  Either strength and healing or strength and durability would be needed to successfully throw an attack and not be injured by it yourself.  

Spoiler

Questioner

How effective would pewter Allomancy and iron Feruchemy be in a Twinborn?

Brandon Sanderson

That would do some really cool stuff. Some really cool stuff.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

Spoiler

Questioner

[question about using Feruchemy in Dungeons and Dragons]

Brandon Sanderson

Why Feruchemy "works" in book terms is because it's about intrinsic trade off. We see the character pay something, so we accept when later on, they're able to do something dramatic. Narratively, their boost is "earned" in much the same way that a character "earns" their ending winning a duel by showing us through the story that they've been practicing with the sword.

You need to "earn" your boosts. If I were a GM, I'd suggest that you can store attributes during one day of gameplay, to use it during another day of gameplay. -2STR for one day, +2STR for the next day. I'd say no more than -/+2 at first--with feats or Feruchemist prestige class levels allowing you to do 4 or even 6. Storing senses could be covered with WIS, and health with CON.

Alternately, if you want to get into the specifics, you could try something where when you land a hit, you can use a smaller damage die (a d4 instead of d6) to "store up" strength. Then later, when you need it, you can trade in one of those stored moments (which would be capped with a maximum number that could be stored at once, to be raised by requiring you to find special metals) to raise a damage die during a climactic battle--maybe making your d6 into a d10. You could do the same thing with spot checks (take a penalty for specific rolls to be able to add to the later on.) HP could be done the same way--drop your HP for a battle to "store" then raise them for another battle.

This is more of a tweak to the way the books use the magic, but the idea is to make certain your cost is still a cost. You get ahead by choosing the times to - or +, making it fun--but you are always paying a price.

So the first question I'd ask myself is do I want this to be a time period thing or a specific instances thing--which would be more fun to play? Then ask is this about attributes or specific skills/hit points, etc? Define some rules, define how you get better, and then have fun within the system.

Personally, I'd avoid the will save as a cost to drawing out the attribute or ability. Perhaps make it require concentration checks if you want to make it tougher--but requiring a will save to magically gain strength doesn't feel very "feruchemist" to me and downplays the real fun you could have with the character. Role playing a day spent with very low spot checks, or a terrible constitution, could be really fun.

I'd also figure out if you can do some kind of "super move" with the abilities by storing up a whole lot. (Like ten units, however you decide upon them.)

My take on the attributes: Iron: To be used in a role playing way, making yourself lighter or heavier, with no battle implications. Steel: Increase/decrease movement speed in a fight. OR under the effects of a "slow" spell for a day, vs under the effects of a "haste" spell. Super move: Very limited time stop. Tin: Spot Checks or WIS. Pewter: STR checks, damage die, or +/- damage to each hit. Zinc: Bonus to hit (for thinking through the situation) or bonus to initiative. (With corresponding negatives.) Brass: Specific fortitude checks.Copper: Mostly role playing. Memorize a book, or an entire library, if given time. Blank things from your mind to prevent mind reading. Bronze: Mostly role playing, with (perhaps) being able to "rest" immediately and get back any abilities that come with it. (Haven't played 5e--these were big in 4e, but don't know if they kept them.)

These metals are going to be rare.

Cadmium: Not having to breathe for a time could have all kinds of applications, though I'd love to hear you role play hyperventilating all day for one session. Bendalloy: Not eating and storing calories. Great for role playing.Gold: CON bonus, hit points, or something like that. Sudden healing is great for gaming. Electrum: General bonus to all skills. Chromium: Bonus or minus to any roll.

The rest aren't even understood in-world, so I'd stop there. If you go all in on this, I'd say you need some kind of class built around it--perhaps a rogue or monk base, replacing their bonuses with feruchemical abilities that you gain over time.

General Reddit 2015 (Aug. 28, 2015)

I get that it isn't purely cannon but Brandon was okay enough with pewter adding damage that he not only mentions this here but also in the MAG irons whole thing is tap more and deal more damage.  

I think iron on its own would be really really difficult to use in combat.  But we are talking about a fullborn who will have access to all of the strength, speed and healing that they could need to make use out of it.  

[therunner Originator]

6 hours ago, StanLemon said:

In a tackle you hit them at the side. And in WoA he explicitly says increases weight adds force to blows. Brandon has never said this was wrong. The closest was is saying Sazed was wrong about density. There is a WoB about weight and punches, but it is contradicted by the books and he didn't say the book was wrong

Where does he say that? Can you please at least link a chapter? I reread Sazed viewpoints and could not find it anywhere in WoA (but it was late so I might have missed it).

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Yes, show me the WoB where he says the book is wrong about force transference from higher mass. Again, the one where he talks about the the tapping weight and punches he doesn't say Sazed or the book is wrong. Also, there have been many times where a WoB has been wrong and when someone brings up the contradiction he's admitted to be mistaken. It's almost like a questions immediately answered isn’t always accurate.

Sure, right here

Spoiler

Questioner

Does Iron store mass or weight?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

He literally says that tapping weight does not make you hit harder, not sure what more do you want.
It does make you fall 'harder', so tackling/dropping on someone etc. are viable tactics, and we do in fact see Wax do those things. We never see Wax 'megaton' punch someone, even when it would be useful (i.e. fighting Miles on top of the train). And neither does Sazed megaton punch anything.

5 hours ago, Heilven said:

You are really overusing that density quote here. He figured that one out, it's manipulating the higgs field. Your density definitely does increase, you just don't have any extra electromagnetic force holding your body together(Aka, no extra stuff, that stuff just has more mass). If your fist has more mass but you can move it at the same speed, you most certainly can hit harder. But as other people have explained, increasing your mass to a point where you get a meaningful change to your punch energy, but don't fall through the floor/ground, is a very small margin. Plus, it would take a ton of stored weight for one punch. We never see anyone do it because Sazed could always tap pewter, and Wax didn't ever want to be in melee combat to begin with..

Except that there is a WoB and he says that, no, you cannot hit harder when tapping F-Iron. It is quoted in full above (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/239/#e10010)
Wax was in melee combat with Miles, and there having punches land harder would have helped him a lot (since he could use anything to get an edge).

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Also I think we should be specific about retcons. He has never retconned something to say "that definitely shouldn't have been able to be possible". He has always retconned something as "that person was wrong/didn't know the full picture". So atium/nalatium simply retcons something no one was capable of actually knowing. I also think nalatium is a good retcon and he should keep that for the movies but that's just my thinking.

Anyway, he doesn't ever retcon a scene to be incorrect, he very much doesn't want to do that ever. He has only retconned stuff with unreliable narrators.

You can argue he retconned what F-Iron does, because in Era 1 Sazed is pretty clear that tapping Iron does not make you stronger, and he needed to tap F-pewter to be able to move when tapping a lot of F-Iron.
He had those powers for decades and was educated about them by Keepers, there is no reason for him to get that wrong.

However, that means that F-Iron on its own is not useful power, so he changed the rules (retconned) so that in Era 2 Twinborns like Wax could use it.
Stricly speaking, the scene can still happen as it does, it is just that Sazed is wrong. However, there is little reason for Sazed to get it wrong considering what Keepers are.

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

So 6 weeks is 1008 hours. Assuming the travel time estimate is including 8 hours a day of sleep, that brings travel time down 672 hrs. Being more generous than my previous estimate, lets assume the estimate is 3 hours of day for meals. That would bring travel time down to 546 hrs. 6 days is 144 hours. He would have to make the trip 4x faster than normal on average across the whole trip to do this, this is with assuming that he ate rations on the go and tapped his Bronzemind to not sleep.

Now let's see what Sazed's speed stores would look like. Every 5th day for 5 months. Because it's supposed to be an earth analogue, let's give Sazed 3 months of 31 days and 2 of 30 days. That gives him 30.6 days. Assuming he stores for 16 full hours each of those days at 80% stored the entire time for the absolute maximum he would likely have had stored. That would give him 489.6 hours of stored 80% speed.

Again, when taking long trips no one travels 13 hours a day. People who go on long treks, 8 hours a day is about a maximum you can sustain for weeks. Maybe 10 if you push it.
Human body has limits.

What I am seeing is that you assume travel time is quite long, and reduce the time he spent storing and assume that compressing attribute halves the time.

So my calculation is

• 6 weeks journey = 420 hours of travel time, if we are being generous
• 6 days compressed = 72 hours of travel time, since he is pushing himself
• 5 months of storing every 5th day = if he tapped Bronze, he could store 24 hours a day -> 31*24 = 744 hours of stored speed

Store weight for half mass, tap pewter for double strength, suddenly Sazed is proportionally 4x as strong. This means Sazed will tire ~4x slower, so instead of walking he can lightly jog for most of the day. This alone doubles his movement speed, so we are at 210 hours. Now if he taps at 3x the rate, and we use formula T_N = T/(N)*5/6*(3/5)^(N-1) with N = 3, he will use up his stores in ~75 hours, and during that time he will move 3 times as fast. 210/3 = 70, so he can make it.
Which, even if he taps only occasionally is more then enough.

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Now let's start calculating. To use the model of the WoB, it would look like this for getting 4x faster for the trip. 

• 1 to 1 tapping Sazed moves at 1.8x speed (489.6 hours of speed available/20.4 days)
• first compression Sazed moves at 2.6x speed (244.8 hours of speed available/10.2 days)
• second compression Sazed moves at 3.4x speed (122.4 hours of speed available/5.1 days)
• third compression Sazed moves at 4.2x speed (61.2 hours of speed available/2.55 days)

As should be clear, just to hit the speed Sazed would need to make the trip in the time he did, he just does not have enough speed stored up and that's before you take into account the loss of time from compressing the Investiture. He'll run out by the third day, around halfway through his journey. And that's if he was tapping constantly. But as you pointed out he was only using the Steelminds occasionally. So he would have to compress the traits even more to keep that 4x average. He would run out of speed long before he got where he was going.

Also, you don't have to halve it everytime. Or, you could, but then you get very insane numbers like BoM storing trillions of years worth of speed.

It makes more sense that the reduction is proportionally (tap N-times as fast, time is reduced N-fold) with some loss from compression of attribute (which we don't know, using WoB it can be estimated). So the formula I am using

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The math just doesn't work with the WoB model you and Frustration want to use. Ignoring the fact that Sazed didn't have Electrum, your other suggestions just wouldn't be enough to make up the difference. I'm sure they would help, but it just would not be enough to compare to more than 2x speed at best.

Well, he clearly does it, so clearly it is possible. If the rest of Feruchemy alone can help him twice as fast as he would on that trip, then Steel has to only 3x his movement speed. Add in spending more hours per day traveling, then if you were taking a journey without world ending deadline, and he can make it.

And the WoB model I am using works for this case, you are using different math than I do (you have exponential loss with T_N = T* (1/2)^N , I use T_N = T/(N)*5/6*(3/5)^(N-1) which fits data in the WoB).
So yes, the WoB can be considered as consistent with what we see in books.
The trip Sazed does can be made consistent, his using up years of Strength in hours also makes sense (if he was tapping at ~10x rates which would put him above Koloss in strength, he would need only ~8000 hours of stored Pewter to tap at that rate for 6 hours)

Thanks for pointing out that Electrum would not be available (or Bendalloy for that matter). Still tapping Gold should help to remain healthy.

Edited March 15 by therunner

[cometaryorbit Radiant Squire]

14 hours ago, StanLemon said:

This is directly contradicted by HoA where Sazed hits a Kandra hard enough to break its stone True Body.  Until he retcons this in a book the book takes priority 

Sazed drops his fist (swinging downwards where it's accelerated by gravity) rather than a normal punch (primarily forwards) there.

F-iron is weird, but it's not inanimate vs living objects that makes it weird, it's density and momentum issues.

[StanLemon Worldbringer]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Also, you don't have to halve it everytime. Or, you could, but then you get very insane numbers like BoM storing trillions of years worth of speed.

Here is where the problem comes. According to the WoB you do have to half it every time. Brandon's example strait up halves it every time and then takes a little extra time off for the Investiture loss. If you say you don't have to half it to get each multiple you are no longer being consistent with the WoB. That's why the WoB doesn't make sense mathematically. 

Edited March 15 by StanLemon

[therunner Originator]

48 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Here is where the problem comes. According to the WoB you do have to half it every time. Brandon's example strait up halves it every time and then takes a little extra time off for the Investiture loss. If you say you don't have to half it to get each multiple you are no longer being consistent with the WoB. That's why the WoB doesn't make sense mathematically. 

No, it does not halve it every time, not necessarily. Let's take a look at WoB

Spoiler

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

The data points (such as they are) are:

• 60 minutes at 150% (1x rate)
• 25 minutes at 200% (2x rate)
• 10 minutes at 250% (3x rate)
• each increment being harder (this is the crucial part)

If we simply halve each time, then we must subtract 5 minutes at each point as the loss, i.e. in this case increment are equally hard (halve and substract 5 minutes).
So this naive formula is T_N = T*(1/2)^(N-1)-5minutes . This has two flaws, one it leads to ridiculous requirements on stores (trillions of years for what Marasi did) and two the loss from compression being fixed for some reason.

If we consider idealized scenario of Feruchemist who taps at any rate without penalty, the natural assumption is that if he goes N-times as hard, the time lost is proportional (since no attribute is lost in compression). E.g. considering F-Iron, if you have 60 (5 kg per hour)*hours stored (as in I stored 5kg of weight for 60 hours), then without loss you can tap it either for sixty hours as 5 kg, or for 5 hours as 60 kg, so that total amount of attribute withdrawn is the same (ideal scenario without loss).
Hence ideal Feruchemist the time goes like T_n = T/N .

Since there are losses though, they have to be included, and this can be done by fitting the numbers from the WoB, for the result T_N = T/(N)*5/6*(3/5)^(N-1) .

So yes you can be consistent with the WoB mathematically, the results can make sense and are broadly in line with what we see in books (both what Sazed does, and what Marasi shows with Bands).

Edited March 15 by therunner

[Frustration Herald]

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

Why would he confirm you gain more force when tapping mass? That's not something anyone has asked him about.

Yes it is, and he has said that you don't.

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

And Wax doesn't have a need to punch people 2~3x as hard, he has a gun.

Liquidating Miles would have been pretty useful, as would fighting the other coinshot on the train in BoM, or countless other scenarios.

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

You could maybe hit twice to three times as hard, which doesn't matter when you are fighting thugs or anyone with a goldmind.

If density increased it would increase proportionally, meaning if Wax made himself 100 times heavier he would punch with 100 times more force, easily killing anyone short of miles instantly, and even Miles would take serious damage.

58 minutes ago, therunner said:

No, it does not halve it every time, not necessarily. Let's take a look at WoB

  Reveal hidden contents

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

The data points (such as they are) are:

• 60 minutes at 150% (1x rate)
• 25 minutes at 200% (2x rate)
• 10 minutes at 250% (3x rate)
• each increment being harder (this is the crucial part)

If we simply halve each time, then we must subtract 5 minutes at each point as the loss, i.e. in this case increment are equally hard (halve and substract 5 minutes).
So this naive formula is T_N = T*(1/2)^(N-1)-5minutes . This has two flaws, one it leads to ridiculous requirements on stores (trillions of years for what Marasi did) and two the loss from compression being fixed for some reason.

If we consider idealized scenario of Feruchemist who taps at any rate without penalty, the natural assumption is that if he goes N-times as hard, the time lost is proportional (since no attribute is lost in compression). E.g. considering F-Iron, if you have 60 (5 kg per hour)*hours stored (as in I stored 5kg of weight for 60 hours), then without loss you can tap it either for sixty hours as 5 kg, or for 5 hours as 60 kg, so that total amount of attribute withdrawn is the same (ideal scenario without loss).
Hence ideal Feruchemist the time goes like T_n = T/N .

Since there are losses though, they have to be included, and this can be done by fitting the numbers from the WoB, for the result T_N = T/(N)*5/6*(3/5)^(N-1) .

This is way smarter than anything I could do, but I'm not sure I understand, I tried putting the numbers in but could you show me what the variables mean, and how you get them to come out correctly?

[Heilven Ardent]

5 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Yes it is, and he has said that you don't.

Okay are you talking about this WoB?

Quote

Questioner

Does Iron store mass or weight?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

Because the questioner absolutely does not ask if tapping weight lets you punch with more force, first of all. Second of all, he doesn't say that tapping mass doesn't allow you to tap with more force. He says:

Quote

when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

Which, first of all, doesn't make much sense as a sentence. Likely because it's something he said offhand and we are reading far, far too much into it. Also he explicitly says that he doesn't quite know the math and it needed to get figured out later. Also this was from 12 years ago, before he decided a lot of stuff about F-Iron.

Okay, reading into this quote too much though, loosely translated he says "When a feruchemist punches, he doesn't punch with a thousand pounds of force". There are a variety of reasons that this could be true. Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting. If you are twice as heavy, but move at 3/4 speed (for example) you are barely punching any harder than normal (9/16 * 2, or 12.5% harder). This likely compounds with higher masses, meaning that an iron ferring has little use for iron in a combat situation. Also, punching someone twice as hard as normal is not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. A basic human punches with around 1000N. A trained kickboxer can punch with 5000N. So Sazed tapping mass to make himself 5 times as heavy (which he doesn't have much stored mass for), even if he uses pewter to make himself able to move with the same speeds, only hits as good as a normal person with high end training.

In this situations where Wax is in melee combat, he is absolutely not capable of these feats. Liquidating Miles might have been valuable, but would have required him to put himself in a risky situation, if that is something he is even capable of (seeing as gathering the mass required would make him very slow). Also, he couldn't liquidate Miles, only punch a hole through him. Still possibly useful, but now your arm is stuck in a guy who heals almost instantly and feels no pain. He would simply die. And if he tried using mass to help himself in the fight on the train, he would have broken the train. At the very least he would have been thrown backward as his velocity relative to the train rapidly decreased. Changing your mass while moving is a bad idea if everything else is moving too. Besides, Wax is a ranged combatant who never has to think about tapping mass to possibly increase his force, especially when there are a million downsides.

All in all, an Iron Ferring is relatively useless during combat, as to see true benefits he would need to succumb to significant downsides. A Fullborn, however, could use the variety of metals he has available to punch with far, far more force than would normally be possible. At the very least it would allow him to conserve some pewter which is useful for many other tasks.

Even still, a 5th ideal windrunner can out heal almost anything thrown at him. A windrunner simply has far more investiture available, and all he needs to do is defend himself as best as possible until the fullborn runs out of steel. Once the fullborn isn't moving with any real speed, a windrunner just kills him. It doesn't matter if you can see lightly into your own future if every future leads to your immediate death.

[therunner Originator]

19 minutes ago, Frustration said:

This is way smarter than anything I could do, but I'm not sure I understand, I tried putting the numbers in but could you show me what the variables mean, and how you get them to come out correctly?

Sure.
Basically you have

• T - original time you spent storing
• T_N - the final time you can spend tappping, assuming you withdraw at rate N
• N - the rate at which you tap in multiples of original storing rate,
  • i.e. if you originally stored at 50%, then tapping for it for the same gain (for total of 100% + 50%) would be N = 1, tapping it for total of 200% = 100% + 2*50% would be N=2

For these variables, the formula T_N = T/(N)*5/6*(3/5)^(N-2) (note in the posts above it was N-1, instead of N-2, so the estimate for loss in speed time was worse then it should be)  fits with what is in WoB, e.g. T = 60 minutes, N is 2,3 and if we plug that in we get

• T = 60 minutes, N = 2 -> 25 minutes
• T = 60 minutes, N = 3 -> 10 minutes

So you see this formula fits WoB. The terms mean the following

• T/(N)  - you are compressing the attribute, this represents just that the amount of attribute does not change (so it does not reflect loss)
• 5/6*(3/5)^(N-2) - this part represents the loss from inefficiency of tapping at multiples of original storage (or from stretching the spiritweb beyond human limits).
  • The 5/6 is for the first compression (going to 2x), and the (3/5)^(N-2) are for all the higher ones (so it assumes equally difficulty as well, beyond N = 3).

 

Of course this is just my interpretation, however I don't think halving can make any sense, since as stated multiple times, it would require BoM to hold trillions of years of speed. That is ridiculous even by Compounder standards.

By contrast, if we invert the formula above, and search for T, with known T_N (~2 seconds) and N  (~40x for slightly beyond Mach 1), we get 228 years worth of speed being required. This is a lot, but far more achievable.

 

Sidenote: I notice that I have made a mistake in my post above, in that I calculated the loss worse than it should be, so in fact Sazed at N=3 would have ~120 hours (from original 744 hours).

[Frustration Herald]

34 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Which, first of all, doesn't make much sense as a sentence.

Wow, he spoke kind of funny, better throw the whole thing out then.

36 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting.

Tapping weight does not cause the feruchemist to slow down until they start tapping incredibly large amounts, and as seen with Wax moving quickly is still possible.

38 minutes ago, Heilven said:

At the very least he would have been thrown backward as his velocity relative to the train rapidly decreased. Changing your mass while moving is a bad idea if everything else is moving too.

He manipulates his weight on trains multiple times and never experiences anything like that.

39 minutes ago, Heilven said:

It doesn't matter if you can see lightly into your own future if every future leads to your immediate death.

That is completely true.

[Heilven Ardent]

10 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He manipulates his weight on trains multiple times and never experiences anything like that.

Okay I went back and reread the chapter and this is true. I don't know if this is Sanderson forgetting about conservation of momentum, or if it is him totally understanding it and applying it to the whole train. So when wax increases his weight tenfold, he barely makes an effect of the train's total weight. I have to imagine that both him and the train slow down ever so slightly, but not enough to notice. Otherwise we are just throwing out conservation of momentum here, which Sanderson has been explicit about not doing. Anyway, the point still stands to a certain degree. Increasing his weight to a point where punching becomes effective would still be disastrous. If we assume that he can still move with no reduction in speed (which is almost certainly untrue, but simply wasn't mentioned because him moving like 80% as fast as normal / tiring himself more in order to move isn't important to the scene) he would still need upwards of 100 times his weight to do anything substantial to Miles. 

Also

16 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Wow, he spoke kind of funny, better throw the whole thing out then.

I explicitly didn't do this. I have an entire paragraph analyzing this quote in my post. I was making a point in saying that we are giving this quote more meaning than it was ever meant to have. He "spoke kinda funny" because it was offhand. We don't have to throw the whole thing out, but basing most of your argument on this quote definitely meaning that you can't punch with extra force using F-Iron is silly.

And the amount of strength that you gain when tapping mass is very nebulous, likely on purpose. You don't move half as fast when twice your weight, it just takes more energy to move. You gain some nebulous amount of strength, and the relative amount of energy required to move isn't quite as high as it "should" be. "Energy" here being a stand in for "how much do I tire myself" so not Energy Joules or whatever but the colloquial use of the term. I think a reasonable guess as to how much strength you gain is "enough such that you don't just collapse under your own weight". You definitely feel heavier, so it's not giving you super strength, but it's still there. If you put 75kg on a person they would still be able to move around, so it's not a big deal for increases of mass in the 5~10x range. But in the 1000x range you would certainly see something. I bet when Wax tapped all of his mass all at once in AoL, he wouldn't have been able to walk at all, just remain standing.

[Frustration Herald]

9 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Okay I went back and reread the chapter and this is true. I don't know if this is Sanderson forgetting about conservation of momentum, or if it is him totally understanding it and applying it to the whole train. So when wax increases his weight tenfold, he barely makes an effect of the train's total weight. I have to imagine that both him and the train slow down ever so slightly, but not enough to notice. Otherwise we are just throwing out conservation of momentum here, which Sanderson has been explicit about not doing. 

He regularly ignores science in favor of doing what the reader expects, like how Windrunners can black out when making high speed turns, despite that not being at all what would happen.

Spoiler

shinarit?

There is that scene where Kaladin takes a sharp turn at high speeds and he almost blacks out. That is normal for jet pilots, since they experience high G forces when their airplane tries to accelerate them by their backs and bottoms.

But Lashing doesn't work that way, it generates fake gravity. Accelerating your whole body shouldn't cause you anything, you can't even feel it.

Is this something that is an admitted physics hiccup or I misunderstood this kind of Investiture usage?

Brandon Sanderson

This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.

So...that's a RAFO, I'm afraid. More because I'm still tweaking some of the little details of how I want this all to work. (In ways that become increasingly relevant as I look forward toward things like Windrunners in space.)

There are a ton of details to consider, even if I eventually hand-wave some of it with the magic. (For example, the heart pumping blood in a high-g environment. How does that interact, if at all, with stormlight? And the direct oxygenation of the brain implied by not needing to breathe while holding stormlight...)

We have several very large math-ish projects going on behind the scenes.

Phoenixdown

I think it depends on if lashing independently impacts each atom within your body simultaneously, or if it is only a subset.

Brandon Sanderson

There's one important fact you're not considering, but which is vital: reader expectation.

One of the questions I have to ask myself is this: What will the reader expect to happen? How will they expect to feel? Granted, none of us have ever flown like this before--but we generally imagine similar things, similar feelings.

As a writer, one thing I need to balance is when I go against reader expectations and when I don't. Going against the expectations can be interesting, but often takes a large burden of words and explanation to keep reminding them something is not how they'd imagine it to be.

For example, it took a relatively large amount of reader attention (and explanation) to keep reminding people in Mistborn that plants weren't green and the sky wasn't blue. In many ways, making something new (like a chull) is easier on readers than making something familiar into something strange (like the horses in Dragonsteel, which were smaller than Earth horses--and kept causing confusion problems in my alpha readers.)

As annoying as this example can me, this is why Lucas had sound, fire, gravity, etc in space. Starships banking in formation felt real to the viewers, even if it didn't make sense in context. I hope to not go that far, but these questions are something in my mind.

I try to be careful not to remove the sensations of magic, in order to keep the movements of characters grounded. Windrunning has left me having to decide how far I want to go with things like this, in order to preserve the visceral feelings for the reader.

General Reddit 2018 (June 6, 2018)

 

12 minutes ago, Heilven said:

he would still need upwards of 100 times his weight to do anything substantial to Miles.

He also fought the coinshot, and didn't use it, despite getting into a punching match with him when he lost his guns.

14 minutes ago, Heilven said:

We don't have to throw the whole thing out, but basing most of your argument on this quote definitely meaning that you can't punch with extra force using F-Iron is silly.

He says you can't, other WoBs say there are some wierd things with F-Iron, Brandon intentionally altering speed bubbles because he didn't want to irradiate those inside, the books not saying anything on the issue, but no one even tries to use it, etc.

But when direct statements won't convince you I'm not sure what will.

[StanLemon Worldbringer]

22 hours ago, Frustration said:

It halves the time for every amount you draw out equal to what you put in, or 1/2 to the power of the compression factor.

@therunner I apologize, I thought you were thinking like Frustration was in this comment where Frustration thinks the time halves for every compression factor. I got myself a little turned around on what you were saying. 

I'm still incredibly doubtful though that Brandon's rate of decay in that WoB is reflected in the books. Especially for when Feruchemists are drawing out a ton of an attribute. The best test would probably be when he starts pushing a passenger car of a train for a minute or two. Not counting any variances when Wax might store extra, because he also regularly taps his Ironminds as well. Wax stores 25% of his weight, even that he completely drained his Ironminds at the end of Alloy of Law that gives him only a year and a half to two years (can't remember exactly off the top of my head, have to check) of storing a quarter of his weight. Giving Wax a full 16 hours a day, assuming 8 hrs of sleep average and him storing from the moment he wakes up to going to bed. 

[Heilven Ardent]

50 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He regularly ignores science in favor of doing what the reader expects, like how Windrunners can black out when making high speed turns, despite that not being at all what would happen.

So in the quote you provided he explicitly says that he didn't ignore science, he actually didn't fully understand it in this example. When it comes to speed bubbles you are correct, but this is brought up in universe and clearly has an in world consequence. Brandon Sanderson is explicit in making rules and following them. They don't have to be the same rules as in the real world, but there are rules. Conservation of momentum is explicitly stated to be true in universe, and I would expect it to apply in a situation like on the train. It just so happens that it didn't apply in the way that I assumed it would.

52 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He also fought the coinshot, and didn't use it, despite getting into a punching match with him when he lost his guns.

The fight with the coinshot was lower stakes, and as I have mentioned time and time again, increasing his weight just to do one punch would have been a bad idea. It is resource intensive and puts him in an uncomfortable situation. Increasing his weight tenfold was clearly not something he does lightly (no pun intended) so he didn't need to do it for the coinshot. You repeatedly ignore my math in stating that you wouldn't get a ton of benefit out of increased mass behind a punch when the consequences are as low as Wax likes them. Playing around with your mass is dangerous, and isn't worth doing in a simple brawl. Maybe if Wayne was an iron ferring he would have figured out a variety of ways to use f-iron in melee combat safely.

56 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He says you can't, other WoBs say there are some wierd things with F-Iron

Again, he doesn't say that you can't. That was the entire point of my post. There are other weird things with F-Iron, but if you state "we don't have all of the information, so you are definitely wrong" then why not throw out the entire argument. If there are no rules, what is the point of the debate? Anyone could say anything. I truly believe that time and time again we have given ample textual evidence and reasoning as towards this facet of Iron Feruchemy. Clearly we cannot solve all of F-Iron, but we are not attempting to.

You cannot keep banking on your one argument being that "He stated you can't, so you all are ridiculous for not accepting we are right". He did not state anything of the sort, and that quote was from 12 years ago, back when he had a much smaller grasp on the full mechanics of the cosmere. 

2 hours ago, Heilven said:

loosely translated he says "When a feruchemist punches, he doesn't punch with a thousand pounds of force". There are a variety of reasons that this could be true. Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting. If you are twice as heavy, but move at 3/4 speed (for example) you are barely punching any harder than normal (9/16 * 2, or 12.5% harder). This likely compounds with higher masses, meaning that an iron ferring has little use for iron in a combat situation. Also, punching someone twice as hard as normal is not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. A basic human punches with around 1000N. A trained kickboxer can punch with 5000N. So Sazed tapping mass to make himself 5 times as heavy (which he doesn't have much stored mass for), even if he uses pewter to make himself able to move with the same speeds, only hits as good as a normal person with high end training.

If you disagree with my translation we can talk about that, but he absolutely does not say that punches from an iron ferring aren't any more powerful than normal. And that's the only argument we are trying to prove, not that you gain ludicrous strength or can vaporize people easily, just that the punch does hit with greater force.

[alder24 Kalad's Phantom]

Quote

but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

Yeah, he doesn't, because his fist weighs 10 pounds so only 10 pounds is "transferring" (whatever it means) during a punch.

This WoB is in no way a definite proof that increasing your mass does nothing when punching. Falling on someone crushes him, because F=ma, so why punches shouldn't be affected by F-iron, when it's the same force F=ma, but instead taking a mass of a whole body, you take only the mass of a hand/arm?

Wax isn't a boxer, or hand to hand fighter like Wayne, he is a marksman, he shoots from a gun, not do excellent punches. This is a reason why he doesn't use F-iron when punching. He doesn't have instincts for it.

[Frustration Herald]

9 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Yeah, he doesn't, because his fist weighs 10 pounds so only 10 pounds is "transferring" (whatever it means) during a punch.

This WoB is in no way a definite proof that increasing your mass does nothing when punching. Falling on someone crushes him, because F=ma, so why punches shouldn't be affected by F-iron, when it's the same force F=ma, but instead taking a mass of a whole body, you take only the mass of a hand/arm?

Wax isn't a boxer, or hand to hand fighter like Wayne, he is a marksman, he shoots from a gun, not do excellent punches. This is a reason why he doesn't use F-iron when punching. He doesn't have instincts for it.

That WoB isn't talking about Wax, and it specifically says that punches are arbitrarilly different from what you would expect, and boxers do put the vast majority of their weight into their punches, so no, punching is different.

Spoiler

Questioner

Does Iron store mass or weight?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

 

36 minutes ago, Heilven said:

The fight with the coinshot was lower stakes, and as I have mentioned time and time again, increasing his weight just to do one punch would have been a bad idea. It is resource intensive and puts him in an uncomfortable situation.

Resources that he has plenty of, and what uncomfortable situation, he clearly is in no danger of being thrown from the train.

37 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Again, he doesn't say that you can't.

He really does, he says that what we see in the books does not support punches hitting as hard as they would if mass increased.

Spoiler

Questioner

Does Iron store mass or weight?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

You are just continuing to ignore this because you don't like it.

45 minutes ago, Heilven said:

You repeatedly ignore my math in stating that you wouldn't get a ton of benefit out of increased mass behind a punch when the consequences are as low as Wax likes them.

What? He repeatedly increases his wieght to several magnitudes beyond normal, and does so at least once in every book.

46 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Again, he doesn't say that you can't.

He says if you look at what happens in the books, it doesn't happen and that it's a tweak on what would happen if it was mass, so yes, he really does.

47 minutes ago, Heilven said:

You cannot keep banking on your one argument being that "He stated you can't, so you all are ridiculous for not accepting we are right"

I can, and I will.

47 minutes ago, Heilven said:

He did not state anything of the sort, and that quote was from 12 years ago, back when he had a much smaller grasp on the full mechanics of the cosmere. 

That was after both AoL and WoK had been published, the mechanics of the Cosmere were very well established at that point.

Additionally there are no more recent WoBs or books saying otherwise, so it stands regardless of how old it is.

50 minutes ago, Heilven said:

If you disagree with my translation we can talk about that, but he absolutely does not say that punches from an iron ferring aren't any more powerful than normal. And that's the only argument we are trying to prove, not that you gain ludicrous strength or can vaporize people easily, just that the punch does hit with greater force.

Alright let's break it down, again.

Spoiler

Questioner

Does Iron store mass or weight?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The thing is it really does involve mass, but I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter) But I try to work within the framework, and I have reasonings built up for myself, and some of them have to be kind of arbitrary. But the thing is, it does store mass if you look at how it interacts, but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else.

So there are a few little tweaks. You can go talk to Peter, because Peter has the actual math. Oh Peter’s back there. Peter is dressed up as Allomancer Jak from the broadsheet. In fact we’re giving some out broadsheets, aren’t we Peter. So when you come through the line, we’re giving out Broadsheets. Please don’t take fifty—I think we might have enough for everybody. The broadsheets are the newspaper from the Alloy of Law time. It’s an inworld newspaper. It’s actually reproduced in the book in four different pages, and we put it together in one big broadsheet.

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

Alloy of Law release party (Nov. 7, 2011)

1. Some Physics rules are broken
2. Some of the rules are arbitrary
3. Mass is not added to punches

Note that on the third point he doesn't say if they have made themselves a thousand pounds, he just says that a feruchemist doesn't hit with a thousand pounds, meaning that in no scenario does the amount of iron someone is taping affect how hard they hit.

[alder24 Kalad's Phantom]

Just now, Frustration said:

That WoB isn't talking about Wax, and it specifically says that punches are arbitrarilly different from what you would expect, and boxers do put the vast majority of their weight into their punches, so no, punching is different.

You are talking about Wax, WoB is about F-iron, laws of physics and Brandon's reasoning are arbitrary, not punches. And while boxers put whatever mass they put in their punches, it still isn't 100%, so there is still no 1000 pounds of transfer. 

Arguing for 3 pages about it, is just pointless. This WoB is ambiguous at best and doesn't prove your point.

[Frustration Herald]

Just now, alder24 said:

You are talking about Wax, WoB is about F-iron, laws of physics and Brandon's reasoning are arbitrary, not punches. And while boxers put whatever mass they put in their punches, it still isn't 100%, so there is still no 1000 pounds of transfer. 

It never said the feruchemist was 1000 pounds, only that you don't have people hit with that weight. Meaning there is no additional force.

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

Arguing for 3 pages about it, is just pointless.

Especially when there's a WoB that answers the question

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

This WoB is ambiguous at best and doesn't prove your point.

It is very specific, and proves exactly the point I want.

[Heilven Ardent]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Resources that he has plenty of, and what uncomfortable situation, he clearly is in no danger of being thrown from the train.

Uncomfortable situation being significantly heavier than normal. This would make fighting more difficult. It would make him slower, and easier to knock over. Miles takes advantage of this very fact later in the fight.

 

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He really does, he says that what we see in the books does not support punches hitting as hard as they would if mass increased

 

3 hours ago, Heilven said:

Okay, reading into this quote too much though, loosely translated he says "When a feruchemist punches, he doesn't punch with a thousand pounds of force". There are a variety of reasons that this could be true. Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting. If you are twice as heavy, but move at 3/4 speed (for example) you are barely punching any harder than normal (9/16 * 2, or 12.5% harder). This likely compounds with higher masses, meaning that an iron ferring has little use for iron in a combat situation

 

5 minutes ago, Frustration said:

You are just continuing to ignore this because you don't like it

Demonstrably untrue. I don't know how to debate this. This is simply an incorrect fact.

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That was after both AoL and WoK had been published, the mechanics of the Cosmere were very well established at that point.

 

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.

Hey look that one was from 2018. So we have an example of him saying that he doesn't have the mechanics fully fleshed out not only in the exact quote you keep using, but in another quote you used from 2018. There are a million examples.

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

1. Some Physics rules are broken
2. Some of the rules are arbitrary
3. Mass is not added to punches

Note that on the third point he doesn't say if they have made themselves a thousand pounds, he just says that a feruchemist doesn't hit with a thousand pounds, meaning that in no scenario does the amount of iron someone is taping affect how hard they hit.

 

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I’m breaking some physics rules, basically. I have to break a number of physics rules in order to make Magic work in the first place. Those whole laws of Thermodynamics, I’m like “You are my bane!” (laughter)

He breaks the laws of thermodynamics. He also has to change several laws of physics for the world, those are the arbitrary rules. There are still rules. They just aren't the exact same as ours. They are still quite similar.

And finally, on point number 3. First of all, "he just says that a feruchemist doesn't hit with a thousand pounds, meaning that in no scenario does the amount of iron someone is taping affect how hard they hit." What? So he says one thing is true, therefore something completely different is true? What? And for "Mass is not added to punches"

3 hours ago, Heilven said:

Okay, reading into this quote too much though, loosely translated he says "When a feruchemist punches, he doesn't punch with a thousand pounds of force". There are a variety of reasons that this could be true. Tapping mass does make you move slower, and so without pewter it's mostly useless for fighting. If you are twice as heavy, but move at 3/4 speed (for example) you are barely punching any harder than normal (9/16 * 2, or 12.5% harder). This likely compounds with higher masses, meaning that an iron ferring has little use for iron in a combat situation

 

[cometaryorbit Radiant Squire]

2 hours ago, StanLemon said:

Not counting any variances when Wax might store extra, because he also regularly taps his Ironminds as well. Wax stores 25% of his weight, even that he completely drained his Ironminds at the end of Alloy of Law that gives him only a year and a half to two years (can't remember exactly off the top of my head, have to check) of storing a quarter of his weight. Giving Wax a full 16 hours a day, assuming 8 hrs of sleep average and him storing from the moment he wakes up to going to bed. 

That actually implies a lot of loss.

Let's say Wax is 180lb. He stores 25% of his weight most of the time... say 45lb. A year's storage 12 hours a day is about 15.8 million seconds.

If he tapped it all in 2 seconds he'd weigh about 180,000 tons. I think 1000 tons is easily enough to be "heavier than a building" and break through a floor - even a few hundred tons would be more than enough - so that scene is compatible with something like 99.5% loss. If I believe Google telling me that houses are usually something like 40-80 tons, even 100-200 tons could qualify - so this could even be 99.9% loss.

(It might have been only "months" of storage not a year plus, but still, 99% loss or more...)

It's hard to measure Gold Health. For those attributes that are easily measurable, there's very few cases of clearly operating at very high multipliers. Sazed's super strength and weight at the end of WoA doesn't have to be more than x30; I think the largest koloss are no stronger than that with the most positive assumptions (assuming their Hemalurgic strength increases with square cube law) and they might be more like x10 strength. Telescopic/binocular sight can be x10, maybe a bit more (x10 is quite good binoculars). Even Bleeder's speed in SoS I don't think has to be more than 100mph, which is possible at x10.

Marasi speed with Bands is probably over x100 (if she can run 10mph, a little over 100x puts her past the speed of sound) but the Bands are a special case.

-

There are much worse problems with F-iron physics than punching, though. Wax at say x20 weight should be near immune to aluminum bullets and much less vulnerable to regular bullets - flesh denser than lead means the bullets can't make deep holes. A high speed projectile has to push the material of the target out of the way to make a hole, and by conservation of momentum how much it can move is very dependent on its mass. "Newton's impact depth approximation" says that the depth of the hole a high speed projectile makes is based on the difference in density of projectile and target - so an aluminum bullet (x2.5 denser than flesh, roughly) could make a hole with a depth 2.5 times it's own length, while a lead bullet (about x12) could make a hole with a depth 12 times its own length.

That's why depleted uranium (much denser than lead) is used against tank armor.

Edited March 15 by cometaryorbit

[Frustration Herald]

12 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Uncomfortable situation being significantly heavier than normal. This would make fighting more difficult. It would make him slower, and easier to knock over. Miles takes advantage of this very fact later in the fight.

He's heavier, meaning he can more easily use steel to push his opponent off the train, while being less affected by the same tactic. That's practically the most comfortable thing I can imagine.

12 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Hey look that one was from 2018. So we have an example of him saying that he doesn't have the mechanics fully fleshed out not only in the exact quote you keep using, but in another quote you used from 2018. There are a million examples.

 

Quote

This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.

If you would look at the full context you would realize that what is in flux is Brandon's understanding of acceleration, and his desire to serve reader expectation, not the underlying mechanics of the cosmere, which have been well established for years at that point.

Quote

So anyway, you can talk with him, he’s got more of the math of it. I explained the concept to Peter and he’s better with the actual math, so he said “We’ll figure it out.”

I'm not even sure what you are trying to argue here? We've known for almost a decade that Brandon knows the concepts Peter has the math.

12 minutes ago, Heilven said:

He breaks the laws of thermodynamics. He also has to change several laws of physics for the world, those are the arbitrary rules. There are still rules. They just aren't the exact same as ours. They are still quite similar.

Iron feruchemy doesn't make sense, he just has to play by the rules he established when writing, and they don't make sense in any scientific capacity

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Six

The fight in the ballroom

From the early days of the Mistborn books, I'd been planning how an Allomantic gunfight would go down. I felt it the next evolution in what has been stylistically a big part of these books.

There is a fine line to walk in a lot of these sequences. I've made something of a name for myself in the fantasy world by attempting to mix some scientific reasoning with my magic systems. At the same time, Allomancy was designed precisely with action sequences in mind. I wanted them to be powerful and cinematic—and a cinematic fight sequence is often at odds with realism. (Watch two people who really know what they're doing fight with swords sometime, then watch any fight sequence in a film. Most of the time, the film sequences stray far from what would really happen.)

So, as I said, I walk a line. Sometimes, there are things I just can't do because they violate what I've set up as the rules of the world. Other times, I design the setting and nature of the fight specifically to allow for certain types of cinematic sequences. One thing I like a lot about Wax’s abilities is the power he has to manipulate his weight. There's some realism to what he does—for example, increasing his weight doesn't make him fall more quickly, but it allows him to do some powerful things while falling. Destroying the chandeliers is an example.

At the same time, I acknowledge that the weight manipulation aspect of Feruchemy is one of its more baffling powers, scientifically. Is he changing his mass? If so, he should become more dense, which I don't actually make the case when it plays out in fights. (Otherwise, increasing his weight enough would make him impervious to bullets.) So, if it's not mass manipulation, is it gravity manipulation, like Szeth and Kaladin do? Well, again, not really—as when his weight increases, his strength and ability to uphold that weight increase as well. Beyond that, Wax can't make himself so light that he has no weight at all.

So . . . well, at this point, the ability to explain it scientifically breaks down. I do like what it does, but I have to set its boundaries and stick to them—and accept that some of what's going on is irrational. (And don't get me started on what should really be happening scientifically when Wayne speeds up time.)

Footnote: Brandon has stated that iron Feruchemy works by manipulating the Higgs field.
The Alloy of Law Annotations (March 14, 2014)

 

15 minutes ago, Heilven said:

And finally, on point number 3. First of all, "he just says that a feruchemist doesn't hit with a thousand pounds, meaning that in no scenario does the amount of iron someone is taping affect how hard they hit." What? So he says one thing is true, therefore something completely different is true? What? And for "Mass is not added to punches"

It is not completely different, it's pretty simple really.

He says "but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else."

and he says this in reference to feruchemy not acting how you would expect it to act if it was mass. Therefore you cannot justify assuming that it is just mass and there is nothing unusual about it as you seem so determined to do.

[Heilven Ardent]

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

He's heavier, meaning he can more easily use steel to push his opponent off the train, while being less affected by the same tactic. That's practically the most comfortable thing I can imagine.

Except they aren't wearing any metal and are inside of the train. And the negatives are that he could be very easily swept off of his feet, and is more sluggish. Both things that make his fight more difficult with Miles when he uses this exact tactic.

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

If you would look at the full context you would realize that what is in flux is Brandon's understanding of acceleration, and his desire to serve reader expectation, not the underlying mechanics of the cosmere, which have been well established for years at that point.

I didn't say the underlying mechanics of the cosmere. I said the full mechanics of the cosmere. He did not fully know how acceleration would work in 2018, he still doesn't quite know how iron feruchemy works. It's extremely complicated and the full physics involved requires a theory of quantum gravity, which is something we don't have in the real world. His desire to serve reader expectation does not go above his desire to maintain the rules he has set up. Besides the fact that the underlying mechanics of the cosmere were clearly not fully established, since he has had to retcon atium since then. My point is that it is not only very possible, but explicitly true that he didn't exactly know how a feruchemist punching someone would work, since he says you would have to ask Peter for the numbers in the exact WoB. That was the point I was making by bringing that point up by the way.

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Iron feruchemy doesn't make sense, he just has to play by the rules he established when writing, and they don't make sense in any scientific capacity

 

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Footnote: Brandon has stated that iron Feruchemy works by manipulating the Higgs field

The higgs field is a perfectly valid scientific explanation to iron feruchemy. The main problem with Iron feruchemy is conservation of energy (Which @alder24 and I have talked about, and he has talked about even more than me) since having a decent answer likely requires something akin to a quantum theory of gravity, as well as the fact that our equations for kinetic and potential energy don't correctly apply to the cosmere. I got this answer from your own quote talking about the issues with F-Iron.

18 minutes ago, Frustration said:

It is not completely different, it's pretty simple really.

He says "but when a Feruchemist punches someone, you’re not having a mass transference of a 1000 pounds transferring the mass into someone else."

and he says this in reference to feruchemy not acting how you would expect it to act if it was mass. Therefore you cannot justify assuming that it is just mass and there is nothing unusual about it as you seem so determined to do.

This is incoherent. I've asked all of my friends if they understand what you mean by this and I don't want to misconstrue your point, so please rephrase this argument. To me it just looks like a complete non-sequitur.

[alder24 Kalad's Phantom]

Can we just back down a little bit? We've been talking in circles for so long now that we made a hole, and it's getting unnecessarily hot here.

The truth is, this WoB is ambiguous and can be interpreted in many different ways. Arguing over semantics is always pointless. The WoB answers the question if F-iron stores mass or weight, and only mentions punching using the weird phrase "mass transfer into someone else '', which for me makes 0 sense as there is no mass transfer during a punch. What’s transferred is energy, not mass. Mass of the guy punching, and the other one who’s being punched, stays the same before and after the punch, so no mass is transferred during a punch. That sentence in the WoB just makes no sense, and proves nothing for me.

And it doesn't really make a difference for our Fullborn and Windrunner. Fullborn can "fall" on Windrunner, tapping iron, and crush his plate into thousands of pieces. He can punch his plate, with or without iron, it doesn't matter, and still smash that plate's segment into hundreds of pieces. Fullborn can punch Windrunner's head like he's serving a volleyball. no matter how any of those situations would happen, Fullborn has the power to do those things. So it doesn't matter if tapping mass is increasing his kinetic energy (Ek=(mv^2)/2) during a punch or not.

 

So can we just stop this whole thing about Wax, Sazed and F-iron now? Just agree to disagree, no quoting, no answering, let's move on and go back to Fullborn vs Windrunner?

We've taken away Fullborn's steel, and while we all have different opinions, we can mostly agree that it's 50-50  with an advantage for a Windrunner. What if we take away Radiant's Plate, as that's his biggest advantage? Windspren have a day off to chill out in Purelake. To equalize the field, Fullborn also loses F-pewter (no one-punch man), but still has A-pewter, and he can't duralumin smooths/riots Radiant (too op without a Plate), but can smooths/riots regularly for some reason. And to make it even more interesting, he forgot his goldminds, and has no Miles levels of health but just Wayne's levels, with which he can still heal a few Shardblade cuts, but has to be more cautious. No iron tapping when punching, to avoid jumping back to this hole. Who do you guys think would win now?