User blog:Friendlysociopath/A Few Differences

A vague title for a vague premise, this is just a blog where I'll be throwing a few tidbits of wisdom/bullshit around. Read at your own risk. I'll do my best to include links for anything and everything I want.

Nukes vs Bullets
Tanking a nuke is a good feat- shows quite the superhuman resistance to radiation, heat, and even that giant wave of force.

But, (of course there's a but) know what that doesn't mean? Bullets won't hurt you. That's right, tanking a nuke in no way means bullets aren't effective. And that is why I constantly go on to various people (Namely Des, a lot of it was chatting with Des) that these attack potency things aren't always relevant.

Because it's a matter of pressure. These two articles may be useful to understanding this.

Now, notice something about the numbers on the goverment link? As little as a 20 psi change can kill a normal human for almost certain. If you read further it will talk about shrapnel and whatnot, which is actually a bit more important than the actual "bang ". Obviously a nuke will put out more than 20 psi from a change mind you, but I just wanted to give you a small example of what is required to knock over a building -.

But if 20 psi can destroy a building, how much psi can a gun possibly put out ? Funny you should ask, over 34,000. Now, obviously bullets do not tear down buildings- but I'm not talking about buildings am I? I'm talking about people (this applies to swords as well btw). The smaller the area you can focus the force, the better the pressure will be. The more pressure you output, the better you can pierce something.

This is why Link vs Cloud narrowed down to that PSI calc for the Golden Gauntlets. Link can tank 61,000 psi on the area the Golden Gauntlets cover- Link's gauntlets- and possibly his entire body- are bulletproof for most weapons. Even a 50cal only outputs about 55,000 psi

This is also why whenever someone indicates a character is "City-block level" I ask whether that was from a bullet, blade, fist, or just an explosion. These are incredibly different pressures. Now, do not confuse catching or blocking with outright tanking the bullets; tanking the bullets is a bit more rare in fiction than the former two.

Some of you have asked me about a needle affecting Goku? That would be pressure, imagine the size of a bullet- imagine the size of the head of a needle.

Precognition in Battle
Precognition, the ability to know something will happen before it does. However, something else that must be kept in mind is the combat speed the person with precog is capable of.

Let's take a well-known example, Spider-Man. His precog allows him to sense incoming attacks almost before they happen- does this mean he can dodge any attack? No, he can dodge the fastest attack he has dodged with precog (Which happens to be lightspeed attacks ). But what happens when someone can consistantly fight at those speeds? I don't mean firing lasers with a humans limit on aiming and pulling the trigger, I mean someone who actually punches and moves at relativistic speeds. Spider-Man may be able to predict the attacks coming, but if he cannot move quickly enough to respond to multiple attacks at those speeds, his precog will be overwhelmed because he can't keep up. Spider-Man cannot move at those speeds. Most of the time he's running around and fighting at supersonic to hypersonic speeds; his reaction speed is higher than his combat speed because of his precog.

An extreme example: Imagine you had half a second precog in combat, now try to think what that would do against the Flash- by the time you've moved to deal with the first hit- a dozen more could land on you. Obviously a massively overbearing example, but it makes the point come across fairly well, you need speed to back up your precog. Precog alone is not enough.

This is why the combat speed of the precog person matters, if you aren't fast enough then that precog won't prevent more than the first few attacks. Area of Effect is another story, because you then have to be moving fast enough to get out of the area before it hits. Again, speed is a key thing to consider alongside the precog.

Something else to keep in mind is whether the precog has ever failed. Spider-Man's Spider Sense has pretty much always worked unless something deliberately was screwing with it. It doesn't just turn off. But if another character has precognition that leaves them open to being attacked, that allows someone to get the jump on them, that precog must be noted to not be foolproof. If it doesn't always work in the universe it comes from, then it can't be considered to always work in a Deathbattle. How you use this information is obviously up to you, but it is not fair to use precog that can fail as infallible when there are actually infallible precognition powers out there.

Pistols
The slowest of the firearms, pistols occasionally are subsonic in speed; though most current pistols will easily be supersonic. What's important to note is the possibility of aim-dodging. Many peak-humans are capable of aim-dodging a bullet, after all- you know where it's going if you're looking at the gun. Some key things to look for are: the dodger noting the weapon before it is used, the person being shown to be moving before the weapons fires, and the shooter giving any sort of warning like a threat.

Shotguns
Not often is the shotgun seen, it is an unromantic weapon compared to the pistol; although the most likely reason is the short range limitation as well as requiring more work to show correctly compared to the "bullet" weapons as a spray of pellets can be harder to show. However, a few things to note where shotguns are in play.

1) You cannot block a shotgun spread with a sword- that is not how shotgun pellets work. Any character that can deflect a shotgun spread with their hand or sword should be looked at in a special light as that's simply defying how the weapon functions. It exists to spread, if a narrow object hits a cloud then the rest of the cloud goes on.

2) It is possible for shotguns to fire single-shot rounds similar to bullets. It's not really the point of the shotgun but it is possible, be sure to watch for telltale signs to determine the type of projectile it fires- the type of bullet can have a substantial effect for the speed of any firearm.

3) Shotguns boast the slowest speed of the 4 firearm categories listed, they can be anywhere from 250 m/s to higher than 500m/s. Be sure to look very carefully at the weapon in use to try and make an accurate measure of the speed.

Machineguns
In order to be given consideration for a possibly hypersonic designation for dealing with a machinegun, the character has todeflect multiple bullets from the shooter or be evading the bullets while moving through the stream. Outrunning the stream of bullets, or simply running forwards whlie no bullets go anywhere near the character, does not make you hypersonic. [https://youtu.be/fcPkXRgKvpg?t=45s Catching the bullets from an automatic weapon will work just as well. ] But bottom line- you have to be interacting with the bullets.

Snipers
The fastest of the listed weapons, most sniper rifles can be fired from a distance further than someone can reasonably see the shooter. Aim-dodging is still possible but incredibly unlikely. Pretty much the only scenario that allows aim-dodging is the shooter firing elsewhere first, which would allow a fast and accurate mind to make a good guess which direction the bullets will come from.

The power of the sniper is that by the time you see the flash and hear the weapon go off- you've already been hit. This is why anyone who can deflect a sniper round out of the air is likely hypersonic in reactions because they have nothing to go off of but the incoming bullet. That is the only stimulus they have to work with.

Lowball
Seems like this section should probably be located after the bullet section. When you don't know the value of something as a scientific mind, you want the lowball. A "lowball" is when you use parameters in order to get the lowest result. Because what you want is very simple; you want to be able to say, with complete confidence and no doubts in your mind or the minds of others, "I do not know for sure what the value is, but it must be at least this." The 'at least' bit is crucial, you do not want to assume anymore than you have to, because then someone can make a calc with a lesser value and you will have no proof the higher value is the correct one.

If you do not know what bullet is being used- take the slowest one that makes sense to the scenario.

If you do not know the distance something travels- take the lowest reasonable distance.

If you do not have a timeframe- take the most time that would be appropriate.

Imagine this scenario- you are driving to another city and you do not know how much gas you have. Do you want to assume you have the highest amount of gas or the lowest amount? If you assume a higher value and it isn't enough, you are screwed. If you assume the lowest amount, you're planning for the worst-case scenario and it can only go better in practice.

Now, a few specific notes about some kinds of lowballs

Manga/Comics
Manga and comics almost never have a solid time between images, some sites will accept values for what occurs between but there is no standardized time per image. This is a judgement call on the user but remember the above point, if someone else uses a value that gives a lower result- you have no way to say they are wrong unless you have an actual timeframe, in which case this point would be irrelevant because you have a timeframe.

Cuts, Time Skips, and Fadeaways
If you're watching any video and there is a noticable cut- you cannot get a timeframe for the time that has passed without outside information. A bullet firing from a certain distance and a cut to the person dealing with the bullet can be worked to determine the speed of the bullet and you can get a timeframe from how long it takes to reach the person.

But if there's a cut and then, with no given timeframe information, the person appears elsewhere- you cannot get a timeframe from that. Anything you use for a timeframe is a guess, a total guess, at how much time passes in the cut. Jerry Seinfield walks out of his apartment and appears in the coffee shop multiple times in the series Seinfeld- without any given timeframe- you have no idea how long it took him to get their. The same holds for characters moving or fighting, a cut means you need outside information for the time value, you can't just use real-time and not count the cut.

Combat Speed, Reaction Speed, and Movement Speed
I can throw a baseball at you, you may or may not be able to dodge the baseball. This is your reaction speed- how quickly you can react to incoming stimuli. Professional pitchers can throw at as much as 100 mph. Now say you dodged that- what does it mean? It means you could react to the ball coming at you and move in time to avoid it. By gauging the distance the ball flew and how far you moved during a timeframe, you can also sometimes get combat speed out of it.

Does that mean you move at 100mph (or 44m/s)? Or can throw a punch at that speed? No- a person can dodge a baseball,that doesn't mean their punches are anywhere near the same speed. Your combat speed is how fast you can strike, defend, and move in combat. It goes alongside reaction speed but it is not the same as reaction speed. It can be equal to, less than, or greater than your reaction speed- although the two should be similar to one another.

For example, the written EU version of Grievous vs Obi-Wan shows Grievous' combat speed actually exceeding his reaction speed.

''Grievous, snarling fury, ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attacks—sixteen per second, eighteen—until finally, at twenty strikes per second, he overloaded Obi-Wan’s defense. So Obi-Wan used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brought Obi-Wan’s blade in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the handgrip.''

For those of you who don't study fencing or bladeplay- Obi-Wan holds his saber a bit lower as Grievous attempts to make a vertical strike on him- and Grievous puts his hand through the space where the blightsaber was. He couldn't stop in time because he was fighting at speeds he couldn't react to. His combat speed was greater than his reaction speed.

This is actually more common in fiction than it is in reality, but it does exist in reality as well. Those moments when your fighting exceeds conscious thought and you are moving by instinct or reflex? That is you getting very close to exceeding your reaction speed- if the enemy does something you do not expect you will likely be unable to deal with it. Seriously, if your college has some fencing classes they're a good way to keep in shape and they really help understand bladeplay a lot better, your teachers will also be pretty cool- how could they not be- they get to play with swords all day!

This last bit is more trivia than anything else. Movement speed is sometimes referred to as traveling speed. Very often the speeds demonstrated in battles are not the speeds the characters can move over long distances. The explanations vary from it simply being only available in bursts to them lacking the energy to go all-out like that simply for travel. Both explanations have some credit to them as various speedsters like Raiden and Goku simply do not appear to fly at the speeds they're capable of in combat. Movement speed is seldom brought up in matches simply because the two (or more) characters are supposed to be fighting one another, typically in CQC. Unless one makes a habit of running away to keep a range advantage, travel speed won't be a factor.