Windrunner Gear Should Be Better

[Aminar]

Just now, Karger said:

You could still make iron blocks rain down.

You could carry blocks up and soulcast them to heavier things. But I'm not going to lie, that seems wasteful and basically impossible to aim. I don't think Soulcasting stuff up high and dropping them is useful compared to what you can do with soulcasters already. 

[+Bzhydack]

5 hours ago, Karger said:

Soulcasting does not preserve mass it preserves shape.

No. It preserve mass. For example, weve seen during Battle of Thaylen, when Jasnah soulcast wall from air - air was literaly sucked, to refill mass. Also this is why rocs/walls are turned into smoke - smoke can have equal mass, but with much smaller density.

[Karger]

40 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

No. It preserve mass. For example, weve seen during Battle of Thaylen, when Jasnah soulcast wall from air - air was literaly sucked, to refill mass. Also this is why rocs/walls are turned into smoke - smoke can have equal mass, but with much smaller density.

Not quite.

Quote

Sorana (paraphrased)

Is Soulcasting volume- or mass-preserving?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's mass-preserving, but there are some strange things going on and that's why we don't get as much explosions as we should. You can see a bit of what is going on when Jasnah Soulcasts air, there are some little reactions, but not as strong as you ought to get.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

Somebody did the math and Jasnah turning the bolder to smoke in WoKs would have killed everyone in the area.

46 minutes ago, Aminar said:

You could carry blocks up and soulcast them to heavier things. But I'm not going to lie, that seems wasteful and basically impossible to aim. I don't think Soulcasting stuff up high and dropping them is useful compared to what you can do with soulcasters already. 

I was thinking you would just soulcast something out of the air.  If you had nail shaped molds you could rain down nails.

[+Oltux72]

On 11/08/2020 at 3:31 PM, king of nowhere said:

on the other hand, when you are flying every bit of weight reduces your manueverability.

They are not flying. They are falling. In fact they would be a bit denser with armor, hence their terminal velocity increases.

Are you suggesting that Windrunners lash only their bodies, not their equipment?

 

[theTruthshaper]

22 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

They are not flying. They are falling. In fact they would be a bit denser with armor, hence their terminal velocity increases.

Are you suggesting that Windrunners lash only their bodies, not their equipment?

 

It will still reduce your maneuverability. Maneuverability depends upon the mass of the equipment.

[+Oltux72]

Just now, The_Truthwatcher said:

It will still reduce your maneuverability. Maneuverability depends upon the mass of the equipment.

Why? To be blunt, that statement looks false to me. It depends on the possible acceleration and the speed with which you can change your vector. But they change gravity. Your acceleration if you do a single lashing is uniform.

[theTruthshaper]

5 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Why? To be blunt, that statement looks false to me. It depends on the possible acceleration and the speed with which you can change your vector. But they change gravity. Your acceleration if you do a single lashing is uniform.

Most of Kaladin's maneuverability comes from him 'sculpting' the winds, which does not change in force. Also, it is more difficult to move in massive equipment (eg. Astronauts).

[Gisaku75]

1 hour ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Most of Kaladin's maneuverability comes from him 'sculpting' the winds, which does not change in force. Also, it is more difficult to move in massive equipment (eg. Astronauts).

the astronaut suits weigh a hundred kilos. Here we are talking about wearing armor that will weigh at most 20 kilos or to attach a 2/3 kilos of darts to the uniform. It's like comparing a fighter fully loaded with missiles to one without armament. In a year of field training the advantages of ranged weapons and armor would be evident in my opinion.

[king of nowhere]

11 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

They are not flying. They are falling. In fact they would be a bit denser with armor, hence their terminal velocity increases.

Are you suggesting that Windrunners lash only their bodies, not their equipment?

 

actually, yes. windrunners lash their bodies, unless they are specifically trying to lash their stuff too. their clothes are just dragged along with the rest of the body.

i can't think of any specific quote from a book that can clarify the question for sure, but it's very likely this way. after all, when renarin heals with stormlight, he does not mend clothing too. i don't see why lashings would affect your equipment if healing does not.

and carrying heavy gear will slow you down. worse, the gear will pull in one direction (normal gravity) while the rest of your body is pulling somewhere else, making it more difficult to control your flight.

even assuming that the lashing act on your equipment too, it should be more expensive in that case, it should take more stormlight to make the same lashing because you are affecting more stuff. but in this case there would be no big downside to carrying up to 10 kg of gear or so. more than that, it will significantly affect agility in combat too.

[Karger]

45 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

even assuming that the lashing act on your equipment too, it should be more expensive in that case, it should take more stormlight to make the same lashing because you are affecting more stuff. but in this case there would be no big downside to carrying up to 10 kg of gear or so. more than that, it will significantly affect agility in combat too.

Bridge four manages long spears or pikes.  Those could easily be a good 5 kg on their own.  I don't think a couple of extra kg of gear will matter too much.  Kaladin also carried several days rations while fighting during Theylen field.

[theTruthshaper]

On 8/14/2020 at 6:41 AM, king of nowhere said:

actually, yes. windrunners lash their bodies, unless they are specifically trying to lash their stuff too. their clothes are just dragged along with the rest of the body.

i can't think of any specific quote from a book that can clarify the question for sure, but it's very likely this way. after all, when renarin heals with stormlight, he does not mend clothing too. i don't see why lashings would affect your equipment if healing does not.

and carrying heavy gear will slow you down. worse, the gear will pull in one direction (normal gravity) while the rest of your body is pulling somewhere else, making it more difficult to control your flight.

even assuming that the lashing act on your equipment too, it should be more expensive in that case, it should take more stormlight to make the same lashing because you are affecting more stuff. but in this case there would be no big downside to carrying up to 10 kg of gear or so. more than that, it will significantly affect agility in combat too.

Except for the fact that you cannot heal clothing. A lashing would most probably also lash the equipment with the Radiant, just cause you would see those things as 'part' of yourself.

On 8/13/2020 at 8:55 PM, Gisaku75 said:

the astronaut suits weigh a hundred kilos. Here we are talking about wearing armor that will weigh at most 20 kilos or to attach a 2/3 kilos of darts to the uniform. It's like comparing a fighter fully loaded with missiles to one without armament. In a year of field training the advantages of ranged weapons and armor would be evident in my opinion.

I did not want to give an astronaut as an example but it's the only one we have. I am unsure about how much even light gear would effect this. (Light armor will easily add about 25% mass. Which would probably make a difference in maneuvering.

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, The_Truthwatcher said:

Except for the fact that you cannot heal clothing. A lashing would most probably also lash the equipment with the Radiant, just cause you would see those things as 'part' of yourself.

when you heal with investiture, you restore your idea of yourself. to the point that if you see a scar or disability as part of yourself, that won't heal.

so, if you see your clothes as part of yourself, then they should "heal" with investiture. as you don't heal clothes, you probably also don't lash them.

i admit that it's not a 100% certainty, but i would definitely call is most unlikely that you lash your equipment with yourself.

[Aminar]

15 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

when you heal with investiture, you restore your idea of yourself. to the point that if you see a scar or disability as part of yourself, that won't heal.

so, if you see your clothes as part of yourself, then they should "heal" with investiture. as you don't heal clothes, you probably also don't lash them.

i admit that it's not a 100% certainty, but i would definitely call is most unlikely that you lash your equipment with yourself.

Until we see descriptive evidence of clothing not being affected by a lashing I'd assume it is. After all, the Heavenly ones trailing cloak things are clearly affected and clothing not being affected would be a major sensory change to the experience. Clothes would billow out in odd ways, tug down constantly in uncomfortable ways while flying horizontally, and in general need to be part of the description. It would be a weakness of the lashing. It's far more likely that intuition of the user plays a big part. They see their clothing as part of themself for moving. But they don't see tears in their clothing as injuries to them. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Aminar

[+Bzhydack]

17 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

so, if you see your clothes as part of yourself, then they should "heal" with investiture. as you don't heal clothes, you probably also don't lash them.

i admit that it's not a 100% certainty, but i would definitely call is most unlikely that you lash your equipment with yourself.

We saw Szeth atempts of Assasination. If his clothes will be not Lashed with him, they will be very problematic - for example, will fall on his face, when Szeth jumps on ceiling, and this is not what happened.

We know that Windrunner (and any Radiant) can Invest everything what thouches his body. We also have example of Instinctive Surge - Shallan is able to instinctively lightweave Ilusion around herself, covering fact she is full of Stormlight, and fuel this ilusion by Stormlight evaporating from her skin. So Falling Windrunner will be acting like this, instinctively Lashing everything he has.

[SecondPlace]

Mass and inertia are proportional, so any extra gear a Windrunner carries would decrease their maneuverability, regardless of whether  they lashed it. This would limit the amount of extra gear a Windrunner could carry and still be able to fight effectively.

[Aminar]

Somewhat. But when you're using a force like Gravity and can apply 10+G's to yourself as propulsion that mass isn't going to be a significant issue. 

[SecondPlace]

However you will still retain the original momentum, even if you dismiss previous lashings. This would make it difficult to make precise movements even without gear, so any additional weight will make a Windrunner’s movements more and more discordant. 

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Truthless16 said:

However you will still retain the original momentum, even if you dismiss previous lashings. This would make it difficult to make precise movements even without gear, so any additional weight will make a Windrunner’s movements more and more discordant. 

Soldiers can move efficiently with more weight then you might expect.  US marines preform combat carrying 60 to a hundred pounds of armor and equipment(22 to 40kg).

[Aminar]

4 hours ago, Truthless16 said:

However you will still retain the original momentum, even if you dismiss previous lashings. This would make it difficult to make precise movements even without gear, so any additional weight will make a Windrunner’s movements more and more discordant. 

Again, only to a degree. They'rr working with the ability to rapidly alter the direction force is being applied to them in incredibly intricate ways. They can make gravity affect them in dozens of directions at once at varying levels of force. The amount of mass their gear will add isn't going to be a significant factor. In fact they'll probably do better in rigid materials just because the wind will blow over it better regardless of its weight if its something they can walk in. Thr biggest thing holding them back is lack of knowledge and precision. Something Szeth could almost certainly teach them given how precise his lashings have been. Basically the flexibility of lashings makes it so that mass only increases the mental load and stormlight consumption needed to maintain the same ridiculous level of maneuverability. After all, Plate is too heavy to walk in and the Radiants managed with that just fine. 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Aminar

[Master Silver]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Well, if they can do it quickly.

Yes. But now compute the energy on impact from that. You'll get a linear relationship with acceleration, but a quadratic relationship with mass. Hence if you use a lashed missile, you'll be better off with a slow heavy missile rather than a fast light missile.

 

@Oltux72Moving to this thread. So what about light an iron shaft coated in lead with steal arrow heads (maybe coated in aluminum). And am I talking to an engineer, mathematician, or physicist? I will certainly concede the math. But the practicality of carrying arrows (and perhaps they can have grips on them so they are easier to hold onto and put 4-5 lashings on them). This would be some work no doubt. But wood workers could make the arrows (and they can be large arrows) then they can be soul cast. Thoughts?

[Kuram]

The easy answer is probably just that they can lash their clothes (and gear) with them when they want to.  It doesn't have to be one or the other, we know they can lash objects they touch or choose not to, so it shouldn't be different for clothing.