Orbital Movement, Warp factor 5, Mr. Sulu... Options

[Big D]

Movement has been covered here several times, but I'm not sure that we've really taken the high ground into consideration, beyond things like making Mars trips shorter.

Now, as a disclaimer, I'd recommend against putting on a spacesuit and having a spirit use Movement+Levitate. That might get you to space, but you'd have no real orbital velocity (that would take like a F30 spirit), and would fall straight back down when you ran out of tasks. In addition, if a corp builds a rocket, it can't just plop a spirit inside and expect it to survive space without some big honking support spells or massive biosupport to generate a mana field.

That said, there do appear to be options. For starters, you could use Movement to rapidly get to the edge of the manasphere, at which point the spirit disembarks. This dramatically reduces the total atmospheric drag and shrinks fuel requirements (which has a multiplicative effect, as you can carry less tankage, which means less fuel, which...). However, if you can solve the problem of keeping a spirit safe and comfortable outside the manasphere, then Movement really opens up a can of worms.

For starters, Movement multiplies velocity, not accelleration. Therefore, the instant that the spirit drops Movement, the ship immmediately reverts back to its Newtonian velocity. So, while you could *get* to orbit, you couldn't stay there unless you kept Movement running the entire time, or accellerated to the point at which you could keep orbit without Movement--but in the meantime, Movement would have sent you halfway to the Moon.

Secondly, what happens when a ship under Movement closes with and gently docks with a station running in Newtonian mode? Or, for that matter, another ship running at a different Movement multiplier? Does the other body come under Movement for half a second, causing it to tear off the docking collar and spurt ahead? Do either or both bodies change their base or Movement speeds? And, once docking is complete, can Movement safely be dropped from the ship without (again) tearing both ship and station apart as the ship "drops out of warp"?

On a more grounded note, the same issues apply if you drive a car (*cough* KITT *cough*) with Movement up a ramp into a semi that also has Movement on. Mythbusters, alas, didn't have any handy bound spirits available to test that out on.

So, thoughts?

[Moon-Hawk]

[Big D]

Simple. You divide by 0 and the universe implodes.

[Wasabi]

Wow... sounds like its straight from some sourcebook's sidebar. :-)

[otakusensei]

I think it's all achademic until you get the spirit to perform Movement INTO a Level 10 Manawarp instead of THE HELL AWAY.


Wait a tick, was space a Manawarp or a Void? What book was that again?

[Seven-7]

Double post, crappy work connection.

[Big D]

It's a -10 void now, but the difference is about the same as that between ph1 and ph12... both will kill a spirit very fast if it's not protected, just in different ways.

But if you want that Movement goodness in sustainable orbits... that's where the spirit has to go. Unless there's a way for the spirit to keep Movement up while staying safely inside the manasphere...

[Wasabi]

Do multiple spirits using the Movement power each multiply the movement?

Note: Not really curious but its a funny mental picture: "JOE! Quick, re-bind engine #3!"

:-)

[Seven-7]

I don't have my books with me at the moment (Always a great start to a post about rules) but could you, in theory, use Levitate on another person then with a spirit service 'raise' the subject a few thousand feet before dropping the spell?

[Wasabi]

Wow... a grappling fire spirit flying upwards burns the target on the way up until they break free and fall to their death.

WOW. I suddenly feel the need to play a summoner very, very badly. :-)

[Kyoto Kid]

...gahh, all this talk of spirits and orbital velocity. I'll just stick to simple good ol' fashioned rocket science with simple good ol' fashioned rocket fuel.
.

[Adarael]

In theory you could. Practically, you'd start running into LOS after a few hundred feet. But that's actually good enough for what you're looking for anyway.

Honestly, getting physics to kill people for you is sometimes easier than doing it yourself. People might say the first murder was Cain killing Abel with a rock, but I'm pretty sure a caveman pushed another caveman off a cliff or down a hill first.

[Seven-7]

Then I guess the next question is if the Spirit of Man can gain/have Movement. If so then I'll have to dig up my old Conjurer of Man.

[Big D]

You're talking about an average flight speed of Force(spell)*Force(Movement)*(Force/3)(hits). So, a F6 Man could barely match the base speed of an Air.

[Seven-7]

Your thinking small, the Summoner of Man summons F12 SoM without a sweat.

[Kyoto Kid]

...I''ll stick with a Vostok or a Proton. Old school stove bolt tech, but reliable & no drain backlash to worry about. :D

[Big D]

Yes, but imagine how much more payload you could carry on one if a spirit was backing it up...

And by "you", I mean "a corp".

[Seven-7]

12(Levitate Force)*12(Movement Power)*(Hits/3?)

144m/Pass then, at a min, pass is three seconds if I remember...We have 48m/s or roughly 158ft/s. To reach plane level (35,000 Feet, something even the most highly bod centered troll could not survive) it would take 221.518s, or 74 passes. On one success (If I'm reading what you're saying correctly.

[Seven-7]

On that same formula it would only take a optical (If that rule still persists in SR4) telescope of the 'target' (For LOS purposes) and you could have someone on the moon in 266,945.139 passes, or 9.26892844 days. I think thats faster than most ship travels to the moon, correct?

[WeaverMount]

Apollo 11 launch July 16 1969, and passed behind Luna on July 19 1969. So thats a fair bit slower. Also could line the space elevator with fiber-optic cable and have ground mages/spirits chucking spells across the gravity well.

[otakusensei]

A spirit taking you up to the edge of the manasphere would make it quite a bit easier to reach escape velocity. Has there been anything published on the upper height of the field versus low earth orbit?

[Kyoto Kid]

[Jaid]

1) iirc, sustaining spirit powers does not require LOS. as such, the spirit doesn't ever have to go into the void, provided the target is in it's line of sight when it starts the power.

2) movement *does* have an affect on the capacity of those russian rockets. if movement increases it's speed by 4 times, for example, it will get to it's destination in 1/4 the time, thereby using up 1/4 the amount of fuel. when it comes to rockets designed to take you into space, 1/4 the amount of fuel is a *lot*

3) even if movement does only increase the accelleration, you can accellerate beyond the max as i recall. thus, movement would still increase the effective maximum speed of a vehicle.

that being said, the spirit movement power does not work by increasing speed. it just gets you from point A to point B "somehow". we don't really know how... it just does it. if i had to give you an explanation, i would say it shortens the distance somehow, without shortening the apparent distance (and yet somehow not increasing the apparent speed) to the people under it's effect.

what can i say, it's magic...

[Kyoto Kid]

...it would still take one heck of a high force spirit to move even 45 MT (the empty weight of a Proton with payload). Or, is mass no longer a consideration?

As I understand the increase to vehicle acceleration was something like adding the Spirit's force. Also, it did not have an effect on the actual maximum speed of the vehicle, only in how quickly it was able to reach that speed. I do not have access to my PDFs at the moment (as I am at work) to actually research this.

[darthmord]

Well, the BBB says on page 289 this about Movement (power)...