 Falling Semiballistic, A math related question |
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 Jan 7 2006, 09:17 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 1-April 04 Member No.: 6,211  |
So, I'm getting ready to blow up my own little world to usher in SR4. I'm planning several "scenes" to show just how bad the crash of the entire matrix would be.
In my St. Louis, an aging Lambert Intl. Airport was taken over by Fed-Boeing who revitalized the old MacDonald Douglas plant. Now know as MacDonald-Douglas Internatioanl airport (or "the Mac" to the locals) the vastly improved facility was home to the first Semi-ballistic launch and landing. (only in my world, I have no idea where the first was according to cannon.) As part of the Matrix crash, I was planning on having a out-of-control semiballisitic slam into the Mac. I asked a friend much smarter than I am what kind of devestation this would cause and he said I'm looking at nuclear blast-level shockwaves from the impact of something that large moving that fast. What say you, oh Dumpshockers? How much damage would an falling semiballistic slamming into the ground at near full speed cause? |
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Jan 7 2006, 09:30 PM
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#2
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,086 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 364 |
I'd put it in the same ballpark as the Tunguska impact event.
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Jan 7 2006, 09:40 PM
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#3
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i really don't think a semiballistic is going to put out as much of a shockwave as a nuke.
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Jan 7 2006, 09:41 PM
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#4
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,507 Joined: 27-January 05 From: ...and I'm all out of bubblegum Member No.: 7,021 |
Blood in the Boardroom has a semiballistic crash in it (Flight 118, IIRC). I'll look it up to see what kind of damage it caused.
EDIT: Looked it up. I'd probably compare it to a SCUD blast, or some other type of industrial explosion (refinary or chemical plant). BitB mentions that the wreckage of the crashed semiballistic was scattered over a large area, so you'd have a primary impact point with secondary damage occuring as the plane kept going after impact. |
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Jan 7 2006, 09:42 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 165 Joined: 30-September 04 Member No.: 6,715 |
Depends largely on the wieight of the object, but yeah, you'd be looking at a fairly large blast.
In quite a few novels one side or another have what are basically 'rocks droped from orbit'. Hard to hit a stationary target with, but great if you need to take out a hardened fortification without the messiness of nuclear fallout. The Rich Man's Nuke, as its been put. |
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Jan 7 2006, 09:42 PM
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#6
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Shooting Target Group: Retired Admins Posts: 1,784 Joined: 28-July 04 From: Cleveland, OH Member No.: 6,522 |
Sounds about like a Thor Shot hitting.
Lessee, it's coming in at Mach 19 per R3R. The smaller one has a cargo capacity of 8000kg + 126 Passengers (@ say 70kg each) = 16820kg that's more than 18 US tons, and it doesn't allow for the mass of the Vehicle itself. On the plus side, it probably didn't have much fuel. :P Yeah, nuclear blast impact seems reasonable. |
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Jan 7 2006, 09:45 PM
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#7
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Creating a god with his own hands Group: Members Posts: 1,405 Joined: 30-September 02 From: 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 Member No.: 3,364 |
In Blood in the Boardroom, the Semiballistic landed in Redmond, so no one really cared about the damage it did on the ground (or the people living there).
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Jan 7 2006, 09:46 PM
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#8
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Wasn't that a suborbital trying to land and 'just' missing the airport?
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Jan 7 2006, 09:48 PM
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#9
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I'm really not sure why anyone would make a semiballistic. In the world of Shadowrun, a regular plane that flies within the atmosphere can be accelerated with the movement power and protected with the guard power. A semi-ballistic leaves the atmosphere and can't benefit from either one.
A 747 has an economical cruising speed of 907 km/hr. So if each airport sends them off with a Force 4 unbound spirit on remote service, they are traveling at 3628 km/hr. That means that you can easily make it from Seattle to New York in an hour. With a 747 and a Force 4 spirit. You could also invest real money and power and get much better speeds. -Frank |
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Jan 7 2006, 09:53 PM
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#10
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
that's a lot of mages working at airports. also, in SR3, the movement power is not nearly as handy for vehicles as it is for living beings. don't know about SR4.
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Jan 7 2006, 09:57 PM
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#11
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Creating a god with his own hands Group: Members Posts: 1,405 Joined: 30-September 02 From: 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 Member No.: 3,364 |
In Target:Wastelands, there was a section on space travel,
of which there is a lot of corp-owned space stations, with regular transfer of CEOs and other important peeps up and down the gravity well. (Zurich Orbital is one example) having a semiballistic that can make ground to ground transfers, as well as space-ground and ground-space would be immensley usefull, as well as the fact that you could go from beijing to NYC in a matter of an hour or two. |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:16 PM
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#12
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
Actually, no semiballistics are used for space travel:
They really are only able of semiballistic flight - no big maneuvering, no circling, nothing. For those occasions, suborbitals are equipped with additional booster rockets. |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:19 PM
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#13
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Not really. A single magician can conjure a Force 4 spirit and send it off to motivate an airplane every 6 seconds until he becomes too tired (drain is extremely random - one out of 81 spirits summoned forces a character to resist 8S). But even if you do take a big pile of Drain, you can get your mage back up and running with First Aid in less than a minute. What you're really going to run short on is medkits. A single Magician + Medical Staff unit can speed every plane that leaves an airport. If you think there's any magical security in airports at all, you can bet your ass that every plane gets movemented by a Force 4 Spirit. The prospect of saving 180,000 litres of jet fuel per tank is simply too lucrative of a proposition to pass up. -Frank |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:35 PM
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#14
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
don't magicians have a limit on the number of unbound spirits they can have at one time? and are you sure there aren't any special rules for using the movement power on vehicles in SR4? i ask because there are in SR3, but few people realized it.
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Jan 7 2006, 10:38 PM
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#15
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
No special rules.
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Jan 7 2006, 10:39 PM
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#16
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Yes. You can only have 1 unbound spirit at a time. But once you detail the spirit to accelerating the plane it doesn't count against your control limit any more. It's called a Remote Service.
Yep. Sure. Those rules didn't exist in SR1 or SR2, and they don't exist in SR4. -Frank |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:42 PM
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#17
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
Your friend exaggerated. After burning off its fuel, a semiballistic should be 50 to 250 tons (based on RL engineering studies and flown hardware). Assuming that MIRACULOUSLY the semiballistic maintains full orbital velocity (7800m/s) from orbit to the ground, and assuming that the semiballistic was 250 tons on re-entry, impact would yield: 7.6E12 Joules A megaton is 4E16 Joules, so the impact blast would be comparable to 190 tons of TNT. In fact, most re-entry vehicles (due to their basic shape) will slow to about mach 1 if they re-enter intact simply due to drag. You need specialized re-entry vehicle shapes (e.g., MIRVs) to maintain hypersonic velocities through the troposphere. Therefore, a 250-ton semiballistic will only hit with about 11.25 gigajoules (or less than a ton of TNT).
A semiballistic should travel at close to orbital velocities (or it won't travel more than a few dozen miles on a ballistic course.) With orbital velocity being 25000kph, the semiballistic would be 7 times as fast as the 747+spirit. The 747+spirit could get between Seattle and New York in an hour. The semiballistic could get to the far side of the Earth (~20000km) in an hour, allowing for acceleration and braking.
It is attractive for cattle-car and freight flights. However, there are travel markets where speed pays for itself. |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:44 PM
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#18
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
unbound spirits on remote service no longer count towards the magician's maximum.
of course, should that ever get abused by a player, i feel confident the GM will start having the spirits spend edge, but as Frank said, it mostly needs a fairly hefty medical team to work at it's full potential. and a wizard with lots of drain resistance, i guess, but mainly the medical team. oh, plus i personally would probably add a spirit with the Guard power protecting the conjuring magician from glitches. |
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Jan 7 2006, 10:48 PM
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#19
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
egad. i think the worst part about SR4 is the horrible things i could accomplish with it.
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Jan 7 2006, 11:39 PM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 1-April 04 Member No.: 6,211 |
can you give me an idea of how much destruction less than a ton of TNT would cause? |
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| Guest_MK Ultra_* |
Jan 7 2006, 11:58 PM
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#21
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Guests |
As GM, IŽd say, the resistance of the air would lead to movement being less effective at very high speeds. IŽm aware of this problem since realizing that a very powerful NPC Mage of mine could make over Mach 1 with a high powerd Levitationspell in SR3, even without Movement. So I outlawed these MangaŽesqu speeds throu spells and spirits.
Besids, in SR (since SR 1 or 2, NAGRL) even normal long range passenger airplains are hypersonic making Mach 3 or 5 or something. They do the Seattle-Tokio in under 2 hours, semibalistics & suborbitals get you there in under an hour! IŽd allso say a wagemage summoning what, 48 (counting very low) spirits a day wonŽt live very long! Even If he manages it with little drain, attended to by medics, it would have a horrible impact on his organism over the months and years (surely donŽt need to reccon in decades). Being a to the edge doped pro athlet is a cakewalk in comperrison to getting 10 medcit-applications a day! Edit: Aztech in the haydays of sacrificemagic may consider this rout, but IMO it shoud not work. Edit 2: Ah, the crash zone in the redmond barrens is described in some detail in the New Seattle sb. |
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Jan 8 2006, 01:23 AM
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#22
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
so you only have movement on a few planes. this is just to replace the suborbitals and semiballistics remember, not all the planes.
and you have a few different magicians doing it. the airport probably already has several on their payroll. why not have them rotate between security duty and boosting the planes? |
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Jan 8 2006, 01:42 AM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 944 Joined: 19-February 03 Member No.: 4,128 |
A standard 500lb aircraft bomb (roughly 250lbs explosive) can level most small to mid-sized office buildings with a direct hit. (Or midsize to large homes.) A ton of TNT is 8 times that much energy. Your semibal kamakazi won't be apocalyptic, but it will equal all but the largest car bombs you have ever heard of. The bomb that destroyed the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was roughly 2.5 tons. Due to it's composition, is had roughly the same force as 1.25 tons of TNT. Pull up a picture of the Murrah building and picture your semibal doing that. |
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Jan 8 2006, 05:26 AM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 153 Joined: 1-April 04 Member No.: 6,211 |
You guys rock, thanks for the input and the interesting conversation.
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Jan 8 2006, 11:53 AM
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#25
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 316 Joined: 18-April 05 From: France Member No.: 7,343 |
You guys really think a force 4 spirit could accelerate with the movement power a target of a 747 size ??? :shock: ???
Is this a joke ? I don't think it works in the SR world. (otherwise there should seriously have been such example in the sr4 book presentation of magic). the power movement works on a SUBJECT - which is a living thing (to my mind), and this seems quite evident when you compare with other power scale (such as concealment). - if you want a big shock, have a military plane fulled with "normal" and tactical nuclear bomb to crash ... |
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