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I've talked to many staff members about this topic and decided to make a thread to address the issue. I'll get right to the point.
Our speed page states this under flight speed:
As for the bolded part, it's not always correct. Most of these flight speeds come from people traveling in space from one planet to another or across the universe. And the universe is... kinda empty. Only 0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the universe contains any matter. As such, if a character has a feat of flying across galaxies to go to another planet, there is an incredibly small chance that he will run into any planets or stars.
Not to mention, a star can be seen from very very far away (the most distant individual star visible to the unaided eye is a little over 4000 light years away) so the character already knows what's coming in front of him. And by chance the character is heading towards it, he has plenty of time to slow down and adjust a little bit to avoid that star system by a long shot. Many characters like that already have enhanced senses which makes it even easier for them to see something coming up (probability of which is low since space is almost empty).
Basically, flying through space is just like flying an aircraft in a way. You hardly encounter any obstacles so you don't have to manoeuvre. And in case you encounter something, there is plenty of time for you to decelerate (slow down) or make a slight adjustment in advance. In long distance space travels, you will almost never have to worry about taking sharp turns and maneuvering at your top speed.
For a clearer perspective, let's assume a highly unlikely scenario (credit for this goes to @DMUA):
A character is somehow blind enough to not notice a star system or planets from afar, and he ends up coming close to crashing into a planet, but by the time he's within the orbit of it's moon, he notices because it's an entire planet and turns to the side before he hits.
That's around 382,500,000 meters of leeway. Let's say he's flying 1,000,000 times the speed of light.
382,500,000 divided by 2.9979e+14 is a reaction time of 0.00000127589 seconds, Massively Hypersonic+ reaction time.
Keeping all that in mind, I propose that flight speed should not automatically scale to reaction and combat speeds, since the argument we provide as a reason is not factually correct. We should only determine combat speed and reactions from the flight speed feats when we have enough evidence for it. And I think that is already the practice in some verses as far as I know, but due to the current text in the speed page, some other verses do not follow it. We are inconsistent in this regard. The text in the speed page needs to be updated and the matter should be finalized.
Our speed page states this under flight speed:
The speed at which a character or object flies a certain distance, like going from the earth to the sun for example.
High flight speed logically requires similar reaction speed in order to manoeuvre when approaching different objects.
However, certain franchises, such as Marvel Comics (and DC Comics or Image Comics, which follow the same conventions), make a great distinction between regular movement speed and flight speed.
As such, we have generally assumed that the characters' regular reaction or combat speeds are roughly equivalent to their flight speeds unless this is clearly contradicted.
As for the bolded part, it's not always correct. Most of these flight speeds come from people traveling in space from one planet to another or across the universe. And the universe is... kinda empty. Only 0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the universe contains any matter. As such, if a character has a feat of flying across galaxies to go to another planet, there is an incredibly small chance that he will run into any planets or stars.
Not to mention, a star can be seen from very very far away (the most distant individual star visible to the unaided eye is a little over 4000 light years away) so the character already knows what's coming in front of him. And by chance the character is heading towards it, he has plenty of time to slow down and adjust a little bit to avoid that star system by a long shot. Many characters like that already have enhanced senses which makes it even easier for them to see something coming up (probability of which is low since space is almost empty).
Basically, flying through space is just like flying an aircraft in a way. You hardly encounter any obstacles so you don't have to manoeuvre. And in case you encounter something, there is plenty of time for you to decelerate (slow down) or make a slight adjustment in advance. In long distance space travels, you will almost never have to worry about taking sharp turns and maneuvering at your top speed.
For a clearer perspective, let's assume a highly unlikely scenario (credit for this goes to @DMUA):
A character is somehow blind enough to not notice a star system or planets from afar, and he ends up coming close to crashing into a planet, but by the time he's within the orbit of it's moon, he notices because it's an entire planet and turns to the side before he hits.
That's around 382,500,000 meters of leeway. Let's say he's flying 1,000,000 times the speed of light.
382,500,000 divided by 2.9979e+14 is a reaction time of 0.00000127589 seconds, Massively Hypersonic+ reaction time.
Keeping all that in mind, I propose that flight speed should not automatically scale to reaction and combat speeds, since the argument we provide as a reason is not factually correct. We should only determine combat speed and reactions from the flight speed feats when we have enough evidence for it. And I think that is already the practice in some verses as far as I know, but due to the current text in the speed page, some other verses do not follow it. We are inconsistent in this regard. The text in the speed page needs to be updated and the matter should be finalized.
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