Book 2 - Text Updates 039

[BLANDCorporatio]

Mid-term speculation though (since I'm not that interested in the details of the fall mechanics yet)- the Atrium is cleared. It's the decision that makes sense, and we knew this is what Jetstone was doing. It helps limit the friendly fire damage as well as any decryption. Finally, it forces GK units to fit through (presumably) choke-points- the entrances to the Atrium.

So Sylvia is doing well to try and get some cannon fodder now and deny it to the enemy, for the later push will be even more brutal. And that's just it, the battle is not yet won. GK's most valuable 2 units (Wanda and Jack) are in a closed off yard, needing to fight their way out through walls of infantry, possibly while under enemy fire.

They can fight, so it's not as desperate as before. But Parson needs to pull off one more trick to really tip the scales. So we await the Portal abuse with anticipation. It will probably involve ambushing Slately somehow, assuming Wanda and co. can keep most of Jetstone distracted.

[bdares]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I wonder if arrows also RISE at a constant rate? either way, This is going to have wacky consequences for things like ballistic tables...

There's no need for things to fall at a constant rate for Sylvia's experience to happen. If the arrows' peak height is approximately the same as the height at which Sylvia was when she croaked her mount, the velocities would match for Newtonian physics as well.

[Krennson]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I wonder if arrows also RISE at a constant rate? either way, This is going to have wacky consequences for things like ballistic tables...

There's no need for things to fall at a constant rate for Sylvia's experience to happen. If the arrows' peak height is approximately the same as the height at which Sylvia was when she croaked her mount, the velocities would match for Newtonian physics as well.

not really. The arrow is made of denser material than a dragon, and has a smaller cross section than a dragon. in a newtonian world, the arrow would have had proportionally less air resistance, and would have accellerated faster, and reached a higher terminal velocity.

Also, in your scenario, where sylvia croaked her mount at the same height as the arrow's apex, she wouldn't have noticed the arrows slowing down at all, they would have just instantly been moving at the same speed.

Since she describes the arrow as "slowing down", it appears that the arrows were already moving at their max velocity, and the dragon slowly increased it's rate of fall until the dragon was falling at the same rate as the arrows.

[HandofShadows]

Fud should be an Orc and go "WAAARGH!" with the rest of The Boyz. Sylvia continues to survive (Yea!) and demonstrates that "Those that dare, Win".

[slb]

Will Red survive ? For what I understand of incapacitating rules, the unit will croak at end of turn if not healed.
1) Will Wanda spare a healing scroll on her
2) Is she not really incapacitated but merely have the effects of an incapacitation due to the dwagon weight on her ?

[Vreejack]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I wonder if arrows also RISE at a constant rate? either way, This is going to have wacky consequences for things like ballistic tables...

There's no need for things to fall at a constant rate for Sylvia's experience to happen. If the arrows' peak height is approximately the same as the height at which Sylvia was when she croaked her mount, the velocities would match for Newtonian physics as well.

not really. The arrow is made of denser material than a dragon, and has a smaller cross section than a dragon. in a newtonian world, the arrow would have had proportionally less air resistance, and would have accelerated faster, and reached a higher terminal velocity.

Not really. Arrows have a low cross-sectional friction coefficient but their skin friction is very high. Arrows are not optimum aerodynamic shapes but are a compromise for the need of carrying around lots of them and being able to fire them from a bow. The optimum shape that minimizes friction (both skin friction and cross-sectional) in a fluid (air) is that of a chicken egg with the pointy side leading. You will have to agree that arrows are far from that configuration and dwagons are actually quite a bit closer. Even pointing straight down an arrow would have a lower terminal velocity than a dwagon. One of the archer's goals is to make sure that the arrow hits its target long, long before it reaches terminal velocity, clearly something that is not happening in Erf physics.

Also arrows, being mostly made of dry wood, are certainly less dense than flesh. While a less-dense arrow is slowed down faster by air resistance it can also be given a higher starting speed off the bow, so the two effects tend to cancel out---though not completely because air drag operates at the square of speed while starting speed only increases linearly with reductions in arrow mass. A very heavy arrow shot from a powerful bow would have the greatest range and speed at target: i.e., a longbow. But it would still have a lower terminal velocity than a falling dwagon, it would just take a very long time to reach terminal velocity, usually much longer than the archer has given it time or space for.

[Squishalot]

Will Red survive ? For what I understand of incapacitating rules, the unit will croak at end of turn if not healed.
1) Will Wanda spare a healing scroll on her
2) Is she not really incapacitated but merely have the effects of an incapacitation due to the dwagon weight on her ?

Based on what she's said, it's the start of her next turn. Which, unless Charlie intervenes, is as good as 'end of turn' anyway, in this instance.

I believe the question is more towards (1) of your list. I interpreted it as that she is incapacitated, in the context of the game, due to the damage she took from the dwagon falling on her (in much the same way that a brick falling would cause damage).

And is it just me, or is the picture of Captain Archer slightly misleading? He's definitely not grinning in that picture....

[Smoker]

I thought that she was just pinned by the dwagon, and the "rule" for being pinned puts you down as incapacitated, as a kind of catch-all status for someone who cant engage etc.

When the dwagon decrypts or decays at start of next turn, Sylvia will be fine.

[Althernai]

Will Red survive ? For what I understand of incapacitating rules, the unit will croak at end of turn if not healed.
1) Will Wanda spare a healing scroll on her
2) Is she not really incapacitated but merely have the effects of an incapacitation due to the dwagon weight on her ?

The update explains this:

Incapacitation could take a number of forms. All of them meant that you could not move, could not initiate engagement or disengage, could not personally fight or cast. Some meant that you would croak (or be dusted) if an enemy so much as struck you a single blow. Others, that you would live only until the start of your next turn, unless healed. Sometimes you were conscious, and sometimes not.

Sylvia was conscious, and not terribly wounded. But she was pinned, much like she had been hit with pink dwagon goo or another incapacitation special.

So she will survive unless a Jetstone unit dusts her -- she does not require healing, she's just stuck. If Wanda decrypts the dwagon, the incapacitation should go away.

[jlpicard2]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I don't see that. Newtonian physics only requires all objects to fall at the same rate of acceleration. Without air resistance, such as on the moon, a feather and a bowling ball dropped at the same time fall at the same speed and land at the same time. Of course the arrows would continue to move horizontally at whatever their initial horizontal speed was, not freeze.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5_dOEyAfk

[CNagy]

When the dwagon decrypts or decays at start of next turn, Sylvia will be fine.

Agreed. Sylvia took some damage from the fall, but "Her body had massive bruising and tearing, but she was not incapacitated" tells us that she survived the death possibilities (immediate death and incapacitation leading to death) of the fall. Then, she gets incapacitated by the dragon, but that is the extent of it, as shown by "Sylvia was conscious, and not terribly wounded. But she was pinned, much like she had been hit with pink dwagon goo or another incapacitation special." It's like the difference between getting hit with a Hold Person spell and being on the ground at -9 hit points.

[Krennson]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I don't see that. Newtonian physics only requires all objects to fall at the same rate of acceleration. Without air resistance, such as on the moon, a feather and a bowling ball dropped at the same time fall at the same speed and land at the same time. Of course the arrows would continue to move horizontally at whatever their initial horizontal speed was, not freeze.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5_dOEyAfk

yeah, but we already know that erfworld physics don't work exactly the same way as on earth. And Erfworld is definitly an enviroment which has 'air'

on earth, a falling human hits terminal velocity at about 120 mph: air resistance simply won't let them fall any faster.
on earth, A modern compound bow fires an arrow at roughly 210 mph.

on earth, An arrow shot straight up at 210 mph should de-acellerate to 0 mph at the highest point in it's flight path, and should have re-accellerated back to ~210 mph by the time it returns to earth.

a dragon should have a lower terminal velocity than a human: They're bigger, they have wings, they were intended to fly: they should create more drag per pound than human does. But we'll assume that a dragon and a human are identical.

On earth, a falling human would STILL see bow-fired arrows as falling faster than he does.

On erfworld, that isn't the case... which implies that all objects fall at the same maximum speed, regardless of air resistance.

[Utoryo]

Awesome text update, I agree with those who said it's the best ever (so far!) - it's great to see that Rob's perfectionism is paying off even if I can't help but wish I could have my cake and eat it too (i.e. more updates with the same quality).

But I don't understand the timeline here. Tramennis only ordered a volley to the Atrium after he saw dragons being harvested but here it seems the two are simultaneous (and if the images are in order then he only ordered it after Wanda had landed). And yet Sylvia sees arrows while still falling! If we were willing to consider a crazy explanation that had no support anywhere, I'd be tempted to think that turns are subdivided into much smaller 'sub-turns' and as long as you and your enemy/ally issue the command in the same sub-turn (e.g. 30-60 seconds of perceived time by the units), they are processed as if they were given at the exact same time. I've always felt that Erfworld had too many real-time elements for a turn-based game/reality, so maybe I am just hoping too hard for an obscure mechanism to mitigate that. And it would certainly create problems in terms of unit consciousness/perception. So not very likely but who knows (remember the Summer Update about time perception? That was awesome, but also completely crazy!)

Another thing I'm not sure about is the Atrium evacuation. Is this the one in Book 2, Text Update 8? Atomic says his reciting the poem (I presume that one) took 1:50 minutes, and when I tried to do it very fast it took me exactly 1:00 (obviously made a few mistakes since unlike Sylvia I didn't write it myself and am not reciting it from memory). That means she must have waited between 10 and 20 minutes there. Why are there still Jetstone troops in the Atrium so long after Tramennis gave the evacuation order?! Antium was clearly immediately aware of the evacuation order (natural thinkamancy?) - so either the Atrium is ridiculously big and takes 30 minutes to evacuate for units in-between the two exits (surely they're not all evacuating to the same side), or those units who had lost leadership do not automatically follow the order (or maybe even forget the order if they lose leadership during evacuation). I guess a combination of the two makes a lot of sense. EDIT: Although the most logical is still that we're not talking about the same poem and this one is shorter...

Still I'm convinced of my own explanation of the arrow timeline above, not impossible that Rob made a mistake. I'm not annoyed by it at all though, and if anything I hope he becomes slightly less perfectionist about these things rather than more - the plot is too awesome to keep us waiting to long between updates! I do appreciate the slightly faster updates in the last few weeks though.

[danhaas]

hmmm... so if I'm reading this right, max falling speed is constant across all objects?

it looks like the arrows only change speed during a few seconds at the top of their curve, then fall towards the ground at a constant rate.... which is also the same constant rate that dead dragons fall.

I wonder if arrows also RISE at a constant rate? either way, This is going to have wacky consequences for things like ballistic tables...

There's no need for things to fall at a constant rate for Sylvia's experience to happen. If the arrows' peak height is approximately the same as the height at which Sylvia was when she croaked her mount, the velocities would match for Newtonian physics as well.

not really. The arrow is made of denser material than a dragon, and has a smaller cross section than a dragon. in a newtonian world, the arrow would have had proportionally less air resistance, and would have accelerated faster, and reached a higher terminal velocity.

Not really. Arrows have a low cross-sectional friction coefficient but their skin friction is very high. Arrows are not optimum aerodynamic shapes but are a compromise for the need of carrying around lots of them and being able to fire them from a bow. The optimum shape that minimizes friction (both skin friction and cross-sectional) in a fluid (air) is that of a chicken egg with the pointy side leading. You will have to agree that arrows are far from that configuration and dwagons are actually quite a bit closer. Even pointing straight down an arrow would have a lower terminal velocity than a dwagon. One of the archer's goals is to make sure that the arrow hits its target long, long before it reaches terminal velocity, clearly something that is not happening in Erf physics.

Also arrows, being mostly made of dry wood, are certainly less dense than flesh. While a less-dense arrow is slowed down faster by air resistance it can also be given a higher starting speed off the bow, so the two effects tend to cancel out---though not completely because air drag operates at the square of speed while starting speed only increases linearly with reductions in arrow mass. A very heavy arrow shot from a powerful bow would have the greatest range and speed at target: i.e., a longbow. But it would still have a lower terminal velocity than a falling dwagon, it would just take a very long time to reach terminal velocity, usually much longer than the archer has given it time or space for.

Thank you, you've pointed most of the physics. But you forgot that arrows have a metal tip, which can increase its average density a lot. One other thing is that objects of same form and density, but differente sizes, DO have different terminal velocities. Both cross-sectional friction and skin friction are proportional to the area of the body, and the weight depends on the volume of the body. That's why wind can lift sand but not rocks. There are a lot of parameters around, and they can certainly be tweaked so the arrow and the dwagon have the same terminal velocity.

And let's not forget that this is Erfworld, for christ's sake, the physics doesn't have to be the same.

[bdares]

Um... let me put this straight.

In our world, neglecting air resistance, things that have 0 vertical speed will gain vertical speed at rate (acceleration*time).

If two objects have 0 vertical speed at the same time, and are in free-fall, then until at least one of them hits the ground they will move at exactly the same vertical speed. From one's perspective, the other simply won't be moving vertically.

If we introduce air resistance, we find that the less aerodynamic one will reach its terminal velocity first (Force of air resistance = -Force of gravity), and will thereafter fall at a constant velocity, while the more aerodynamic one will continue acceleration and fall faster.

Now, let's say that the terminal velocity of a particular arrow is 100mph. That is, as long as it's dropped from above, say, 50 meters, it will hit the ground at exactly 100mph. This means if it's dropped from 100 meters, or 1000 meters, or 1000000 meters, it will still hit the ground at 100mph.

What happens if we fire an arrow at 200mph into the air? It reaches a particular point, then drops back down... not exceeding 100mph.

So, with our physics, we can say that the arrows have a similar terminal velocity to a dwagon. Or we can say that they both started falling at the same time from similar heights. Either one works, depending on how you interpret the language:

"Enemy arrows, which had been hissing by in arcs, slowed and froze in space..."

Obviously, the first ones that were hissing by already hit the floor before she started falling, so they're not the ones that are frozen in space. If we include only the ones that are *currently* passing by her, then both explanations still work.

[drachefly]

on earth, A modern compound bow fires an arrow at roughly 210 mph.

on earth, An arrow shot straight up at 210 mph should de-acellerate to 0 mph at the highest point in it's flight path, and should have re-accellerated back to ~210 mph by the time it returns to earth.

only if you neglect air resistance, which will be significant over such a long flight.

a dragon should have a lower terminal velocity than a human: They're bigger, they have wings, they were intended to fly: they should create more drag per pound than human does. But we'll assume that a dragon and a human are identical.

On the other hand, they're much larger. Square-cube rule would give a larger terminal velocity.

[danhaas]

If Sylvia really is incapacitated, a decrypted Healomancer could still save her. Assuming casters be decrypted and retain magic, ofc.
(I don't think she is really incapacitated. Probably Sylvia believes she is incapacitated but actually just pinned down.)

[drachefly]

I think she knows she's pinned. Where's her battle poem? I find it very unlikely that they would be hanging out in the Atrium for 20 minutes (the previous estimate in this thread). I expect she's reciting in her head, which would speed things up substantially.

[Oberon]

Does that mean heavy hobgobwins without Language can be harvested for food?

I think, no. They do speak their own language, just not Language. This satisfies "nothing that can talk" from the situation room notes about harvesting, removing Hobgobwins from the list of unit types which can be harvested.

I thought that she was just pinned by the dwagon, and the "rule" for being pinned puts you down as incapacitated, as a kind of catch-all status for someone who cant engage etc.

When the dwagon decrypts or decays at start of next turn, Sylvia will be fine.

Agreed. The update even related her incapacitation to other non-lethal forms of incapacitation, such as Tram being incapacitated by bubblegum.

P.S. I'm honestly curious if Sylvia's additional level from croaking Ossomer earlier ( http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -12-03.jpg ) helped keep her alive: 1. With that mighty fall... 2. The additional leadership "punch" for Fud.

Hey! Ossomer is useful after all! Kidding, although Ossomer does seem to be, shall we say, underutilized?

On leveling: I'm going to speculate that Fud was a level one heavy. Leveling is described as being an exponential curve, which is why I'm assuming Fud was level 1. Stacked with a dwagon, they killed 10 infantry, and Fud levels (the poor dwagon was killed, but it got credit for "a few" of those kills). Then he stacked with Sylvia, and killed a stack of 4 infantry and a level 1 warlord, and leveled again.

I really enjoyed the thought processes of Fud. Life as a series of nearly monosyllabic observations and simple emotions. "Not so bad."

I wonder if Fud's yellow was Banana?

Now that the GK units are down, Parson should go about increasing their capabilities. Promote to warlord, promote to archer (if possible), etc. That would have been wasted before the fall, but now it is targeted improvements to living or decrypted units, and as seen by Captain Archer it can make a lot of difference.

[Althernai]

I really enjoyed the thought processes of Fud. Life as a series of nearly monosyllabic observations and simple emotions. "Not so bad."

Me too. I think this was the funniest part of the update:

All the way down, Fud had looked at his struggling yellow dwagon and tried to think of something to help it. He kicked it with his newly powerful legs.

How that worked was this: it didn't.

He hit it with his newly powerful fists. How that worked was this: it also didn't.

But how it felt was: good!

Just at the end of the fall, Fud tried flapping his newly powerful arms. How that worked was this: not at all. How it felt was: embarrassing.