Thrown weapons and F steel

[DoctaDajman]

Why should a steel runner ever use anything other than thrown weapons?  

If you could pitch a baseball at even 85mph and then sped up all of that mechanism by 10x would that then mean that that baseball is traveling supersonic or would it not transfer quite like that?  

I think WoBs have said something about the energy calculations being skewered to not be so overpowered... but if it is all things other than the feruchemist that are effected how is it that clothes and other objects, like carrying a person, don't destroy the feruchemist as they tap speed either?  

 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, DoctaDajman said:

would it not transfer quite like that?

It would not transfer like that. @DrPhysics can weigh in, but the speed that an arm is moving is only one component to how a thrown weapon works. 

Also, specifically something like Throwing Knives - faster is not better. A skilled knife or axe thrower has to be able to judge distance to revolutions of the blade and throw at the exact speed necessary to make sure it lands at the correct attitude (yaw, pitch, and roll). In fact, I would guess the F-Zinc is much better for throwing weapons than F-Steel could ever be.

[DoctaDajman]

27 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

It would not transfer like that. @DrPhysics can weigh in, but the speed that an arm is moving is only one component to how a thrown weapon works. 

Also, specifically something like Throwing Knives - faster is not better. A skilled knife or axe thrower has to be able to judge distance to revolutions of the blade and throw at the exact speed necessary to make sure it lands at the correct attitude (yaw, pitch, and roll). In fact, I would guess the F-Zinc is much better for throwing weapons than F-Steel could ever be.

What about for a rock or lead shot?  Do you think you could effectively move quickly enough to launch a half lb worth of something golf ball sized to sling it faster than a sling could throw one?  

How much speed would you need to tap to make your thrown rocks travel supersonic?  

[DrPhysics he/him]

We're missing the information needed to answer this one. 

Here's the conundrum. when throwing something, we hit two limits: How fast we can move our muscles and how hard we can push. Throwing something at double speed means not only are we moving our arm twice as fast, but we also quadruple the amount of force  (work= kinetic energy -> F×d=1/2mv^2. Double the speed, you quadruple the energy and also quadruple the force since our arm still moves through the same displacement).

 

The WOB are all vague on this one, and we don't see many interactions from the point of view of a steel runner.

 

It many cases we see that the cognitive aspect plays a role, thing happen like you expect them to. We don't see clothes getting torn apart because a steelrunner accelerated out of them harder than the tensile strength of the fabric, but we dont know why. If it doesnt happen because the steelrunner has learned to limit acceleration so that they don't leave their clothes behind,  then that's a type of world where a steelrunner wouldn't be strong enough to throw something much faster than they normally would. Or, they might not leave their clothes behind because they see the clothes as part of themselves/their sped up timeline and so investiture speeds the clothes up too. In that world, a steelrunner throwing things could be incredibly deadly.

 

In the books, (as far as I can remember, if there's a scene i forgot call it out here) we mostly see steelrunners attack with small weapons, like a dagger, or carrying a gun. Accelerating a 6 oz dagger at 10 times speed could feel like swinging around a 10-30 pound weight (depending on the acceleration), which is heavy but doable, especially because you'd only feel the increased weight when you were changing its speed or direction. Or, if it sped up like it was part of you, you wouldn't feel any difference moving it around at 10x speed as it would at regular speed.

 

Since both options are feasible, we just won't know which method works with steel running until we see it from the steel runner's perspective.

[Treamayne]

7 hours ago, DrPhysics said:

Since both options are feasible, we just won't know which method works with steel running until we see it from the steel runner's perspective.

We do have two Steelrunning PoV scenes - but lack of information is, technically, not confirmation.

Spoiler

WoA Ch 58:

Quote

His thoughts sped up, and he quickly saw the trajectory of the lamp. Marsh would be able to use it as a weapon against him. So Sazed tapped steel. Allomancy and Feruchemy had one fundamental difference: Allomancy drew its powers from the metals themselves, and so the amount of power was limited; in Feruchemy, one could compound an attribute many times, drawing out months’ worth of power in a few minutes.

Steel stored physical speed. Sazed zipped across the room, air rushing in his ears as he shot past the open doorway. He snatched the lamp out of the air, then tapped iron hard—increasing his weight manyfold—and tapped pewter to give himself massive strength.

Marsh didn’t have time to react. He was now Pulling on a lamp held in Sazed’s inhumanly strong, inhumanly heavy, hand. Again, Marsh was yanked by his own Allomancy. The Pull threw him across the room, directly toward Sazed.

Sazed turned, slamming the lamp into Marsh’s face. The metal bent in his hand, and the force threw Marsh backward. The Inquisitor hit the marble wall, a spray of blood misting in the air. As Marsh slumped to the ground, Sazed could see that he’d driven one of the eye-spikes back into the front of the skull, crushing the bone around the socket.

Sazed returned his weight to normal, then jumped forward, raising his impromptu weapon again. Marsh, however, threw an arm up and Pushed. Sazed skidded back a few feet before he was able to tap the ironmind again, increasing his weight.

We see no indications of the lamp feeling "heavier" to Sazed, but he is also tapping Pewter and might not notice.

HoA Ch 78:

Quote

Sazed’s greatly increased weight crushing the kandra guard’s bones. They used stone True Bodies, but even that wasn’t enough.

Sazed released the metalmind, then began to fill it instead, making his body incredibly light. He touched his foot to the steel lock, and tapped speed. Suddenly, he was faster than any man had a right to be. He stood up even as the other four guards turned toward him in surprise.

He stopped filling his ironmind, regaining normal weight, then reached with a blurring speed to pick up the hammer of the fallen soldier. He didn’t have enhanced strength, but he had speed. He slammed the hammer down on a kandra shoulder, growing heavier to add to the momentum of his blow.

The kandra’s bones shattered. Sazed snapped his foot on the lock and tapped all of the remaining speed. He crouched, pivoting, and slammed his hammer into the knees of two kandra who were trying to attack him with their own hammers.

They cried out, falling, as Sazed’s speed ran out.

This may be a little more useful, since Sazed is not using Pewter, but the text indicates that the speed helps him wield the hammer by adding to its momentum with his speed.

Niether addresses the perceived weight directly, but there are some indicators.

[Quantus he/him]

On 3/6/2025 at 11:14 PM, DrPhysics said:

We're missing the information needed to answer this one. 

Here's the conundrum. when throwing something, we hit two limits: How fast we can move our muscles and how hard we can push. Throwing something at double speed means not only are we moving our arm twice as fast, but we also quadruple the amount of force  (work= kinetic energy -> F×d=1/2mv^2. Double the speed, you quadruple the energy and also quadruple the force since our arm still moves through the same displacement).

 

The WOB are all vague on this one, and we don't see many interactions from the point of view of a steel runner.

 

It many cases we see that the cognitive aspect plays a role, thing happen like you expect them to. We don't see clothes getting torn apart because a steelrunner accelerated out of them harder than the tensile strength of the fabric, but we dont know why. If it doesnt happen because the steelrunner has learned to limit acceleration so that they don't leave their clothes behind,  then that's a type of world where a steelrunner wouldn't be strong enough to throw something much faster than they normally would. Or, they might not leave their clothes behind because they see the clothes as part of themselves/their sped up timeline and so investiture speeds the clothes up too. In that world, a steelrunner throwing things could be incredibly deadly.

 

In the books, (as far as I can remember, if there's a scene i forgot call it out here) we mostly see steelrunners attack with small weapons, like a dagger, or carrying a gun. Accelerating a 6 oz dagger at 10 times speed could feel like swinging around a 10-30 pound weight (depending on the acceleration), which is heavy but doable, especially because you'd only feel the increased weight when you were changing its speed or direction. Or, if it sped up like it was part of you, you wouldn't feel any difference moving it around at 10x speed as it would at regular speed.

 

Since both options are feasible, we just won't know which method works with steel running until we see it from the steel runner's perspective.

Both of those are an issue because it's technically an external object which arent generally subject to feruchemistry augmentation.  Sooo... Supersonic spit? 

Seriously though, that is more or less the reason I dont think there will be a sensation of additional drag when you throw using feruchemcial superspeed.  Feruchemy seems to draw a sharp distinction at the Internal vs External Boundary, and in the other comparable cases that come to mind the Feruchemist experiences things more or less normally while their interaction to the outside world gets modified, almost like a skin-level field effect. So for the same reason that tapping weight lets you crush what you are standing one without needing or granting any actual magical durability to their bones, I think the ferring will feel as if they just threw the object normally, they'll burn normal calories and gain normal exercise benefits, and both their arm and the ball will simply interact with the outside world on a 2x multi as they cross that Internal/External boundary line.  Whether in-world science proves there's a literal field effect like I describe or if feruchemcial superspeed somehow also increases strength proportionally as a 2ndary subconscious effect or something else entirely with realmic hoodoo, I think the subjective experience for the Ferring is going to be normal-feeling interaction with carried and thrown objects, just in 2x bullet-time.  Otherwise there'd probably be a much more prominent sense of swimming through mud just running at high speeds with of your clothing all pulling against you, and you would literally run the risk of bursting out of your own cloths like the Kool-aid man if you tapped too much.    That didnt happen with the Bands and I cant really think of another metal that could have prevented it if it were a real danger. 

Granted defining that Internal/External line is a whole other conversation thanks to the whole Touch vs Eaten Vs Bind Point Inserted scale already being a rabbit-hole discussion present in the metallic arts.    

 

Edited March 14, 2025 by Quantus
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