MFTL+: Is It Too Broad?

[Flashlight237]

I have seen various feats of speed that are rated at MFTL+, most recently one that is 1 trillion times the speed of light: See Here

I even did a couple myself with feats that are worth 80 million times the speed of light and 10 billion times the speed of light: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Flashlight237/Sinistar_Calcs

Death Battle even shows feats of traveling across the universe in seconds as being quarillions or quintillions of times the speed of light (most notably in Heracles vs Sun Wukong, but there are others)

It makes me wonder... Despite the speed page's assurances, is MFTL+ too broad?

Let's look at the minimum for it 1000x the speed of light is equivalent to traveling from here to Alpha Centauri in 37.2555 hours. Unless a time frame is specifically stated, I'm fairly certain that visible time frames last a lot shorter than 37 hours. At the same time, using this as a reference, you can get from Earth to Pluto in around 25 seconds: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html

To cross the Heliopause, which is done at 119 AU, you would need to go almost a single minute.

By comparison, various Star Trek warp factor estimates have reached thousands of c and one even millions of c: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor

Do note that the distances linked reach into intergalactic territory while the minimum for MFTL+ in our wiki is, at best, just leaving the solar system. Our systems tend to go for ratings matching interstellar, galactic, intergalactic, and universal ratings.

But then, what constitutes reasonable travel distances? Should we go off a real-life work commute? Should we go off seconds of travel like fiction tends to do? Hmm... Let's use both for the sake of discussion.

Let's pretend that our hypothetical new speed ratings are "Interstellar," "Galactic," "Intergalactic," and "Universal." Here are our distances for such:

Light Year (reference): 9460730472580.8 km; 9460730472580800 meters

Interstellar: 4.25 light years (rule-of-thumb distance from Earth to Alpha-Centauri); 4.020810451*10^16 meters
Galactic: 43700 light years (radius of the milky way); 4.134339217*10^20 meters
Intergalactic: 2.5 million light years (distance from the Milky Way to the Andromeda Galaxy); 2.365182618*10^22 meters
Universal: 46.5 billion light years (radius of the observable universe; should be good enough to match Sun Wukong's universal leap); 4.39923967*10^26 meters

According to the census bureau, the average one-way commute to work is 27.6 minutes or 1656 seconds: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-travel-time-to-work-rises.html

For work commute ratings, I can estimate our hypothetical speed ratings based on travel distances as the following:

Interstellar: 4.020810451*10^16/1656=2.428025635*10^13 m/s; 80990.21739c
Galactic: 4.134339217*10^20/1656=2.496581652*10^17 m/s; 832770000c
Intergalactic: 2.365182618*10^22/1656=1.428250373*10^19 m/s; 4.764130435*10^10c
Universal: 4.39923967*10^26/1656=2.656545694*10^23 m/s; 8.861282609*10^14c

For more fiction-based ratings (let's assume 10 seconds since fictional showings tend to be <10 seconds), I can gather the following:

Interstellar: 4.020810451*10^15 m/s; 13411980c
Galactic: 4.134339217*10^19 m/s; 1.37906712*10^11c
Intergalactic: 2.365182618*10^21 m/s; 7.8894*10^12c
Universal: 4.39923967*10^25 m/s; 1.4674284*10^17c

Those are my estimates. No, I didn't pull the numbers for the hypothetical speed ratings out of my arse; these are names and range guidelines from our own Range article, so I can get some additional validity points out of this ordeal. I would've included the Virgo Supercluster in this list under the name "Sub-Universal" (since superclusters are basically the largest thing that aren't the universe itself), but uh, who cares about that really?

The main reason I bring this up? Well, it was either I bring this up, or someone's going to bring it up in 2035 when the vagueness of the MFTL+ rating would actually be a major issue, and I'd rather swat it before that happens. And no, I don't think adding a "MFTL++" rating like an Outskirts Battledome user is exactly a solution. So yeah, there's that.

 

[Testarossa002]

I don't disagree with the intent but I do hold issue with the nomenclature
Our speed ratings convey a general idea of how fast they are, relative to some real world constant
SUBsonic - below sound speed
HYPERsonic - above sound speed
SUB-relativistic - below light speed
FTL - Faster than light speed
and so on
Interstellar/galactic speed doesn't really convey the idea of the speed ratings like those aforementioned
Unfortunately, I don't have any suitable alternatives

 

[Saqphire]

Yeah I also disagree with the naming of the hypothetical new tiers.

My proposal would be to follow the theme but change the word to something considered in the English lexicon to be bigger than "massive", like for example "enormous" for speeds that reach the millions and the billions

Massively FTL
Massively FTL+
Enormously FTL - Speeds as fast or faster than one million times the speed of light
Enormously FTL+ - Speeds as fast or faster than one billion times the speed of light

 

[CloverDragon03]

I think this exact kind of proposal was made before and it was rejected

 

[Psychomaster35]

I will admit that it can be difficult to keep track of how exactly fast an MFTL+ character is in speed, which was why I was having the thought that the MFTL+ rating should be separated into new tiers to differentiate these types of characters especially when you have some absurd speed feats like these three here, for example. Though like Clover said, that proposal ended up being rejected for being too time-consuming to implement IIRC.

 

[Ghostimuscrime]

I feel like continuing the way previous speed tiers are named is better

since 100c is massively ftl
one way of adding more similarly named tiers, superFTL, hyperFTL etc with increasing x10 for each tier

 

[StarShooter80]

I agree with the proposal but not with the additional tier names, since many galactic-like crossing feats can vary a lot with the time frame

Massively FTL
Massively FTL+
Enormously FTL - Speeds as fast or faster than one million times the speed of light
Enormously FTL+ - Speeds as fast or faster than one billion times the speed of light

This works better even if it is a bit simple

 

[Flashlight237]

Yeah I also disagree with the naming of the hypothetical new tiers.

My proposal would be to follow the theme but change the word to something considered in the English lexicon to be bigger than "massive", like for example "enormous" for speeds that reach the millions and the billions

Massively FTL
Massively FTL+
Enormously FTL - Speeds as fast or faster than one million times the speed of light
Enormously FTL+ - Speeds as fast or faster than one billion times the speed of light

That works too.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I don't see the point of this. There's nothing to actually be gained from adding some new tiers, and the work is not worth it. Just keeping MFTL+ at 1000c and up is not actually a problem

 

[Saqphire]

I don't see the point of this. There's nothing to actually be gained from adding some new tiers, and the work is not worth it. Just keeping MFTL+ at 1000c and up is not actually a problem

It's kind of a problem when you argue two MFTL+ characters fighting each other, as it sorta hides the fact that someone being a million times faster than light and someone being barely above 1000c can't fight each other due to the immense speed difference, yet they're both considered the same tier

 

[DontTalkDT]

It's kind of a problem when you argue two MFTL+ characters fighting each other, as it sorta hides the fact that someone being a million times faster than light and someone being barely above 1000c can't fight each other due to the immense speed difference, yet they're both considered the same tier

And then we add a new tier for a million times FTL, but then you notice that now a billion times faster and a million times faster are still in the same as if they couldn't blitiz each other.
So then we add another tier for a billion times faster, but then we notice that characters a trillion times faster are still in that tier, despite blitzing the billion times FTL characters. So we need a trillion times FTL tier.
But then we notice that a trillion times FTL characters and a quadrillion times FTL characters are still in the same tier, despite blitzing. So we need another tier...

---

Anyway, anyone know which percentage of characters are MFTL+?

 

[CloverDragon03]

It's kind of a problem when you argue two MFTL+ characters fighting each other, as it sorta hides the fact that someone being a million times faster than light and someone being barely above 1000c can't fight each other due to the immense speed difference, yet they're both considered the same tier

You would hate our 4-B, 4-A, and 3-B AP tiers then. Hell, you would hate 3-A the most because it's most similar to Massively FTL+ in terms of situations

Genuinely, the existence of large tier gaps is not a valid reason to arbitrarily create more tiers

 

[ssgengar]

Isn’t it just much easier to prioritize updated scaling notes on verse pages or adding specific value notes for profiles? So to avoid confusion of what exact value MFTL+ characters scale to, users can just refer to verse pages/profile notes rather than what seems like an overly tedious job of adjusting our speed tiers and every single affected character, which I imagine is a shit ton

 

[Chritin]

While I do agree that there should maybe be some deeper distinction in the MFTL+ tier, I do also agree with Testarossa in that using "interplanetary, interstellar, intergalactic, etc." doesn't really convey a value of speed. However, I do have an idea, one that involves prefixes we already use.

According to wikipedia, "Superluminal" is a similar word to Supersonic which describes any object moving faster than the speed of light. Using this word would allow us to to have more specific levels of higher FTL speed such as:

• Superluminal
• Superluminal+
• Hyperluminal
• Hyperluminal+
• High Hyperluminal
• High Hyperluminal+
• Massively Hyperluminal
• Massively Hyperluminal+

The only problem I forsee with doing this that the levels of the different speed tiers (relative to how we use them for faster than sound movement) wpuldn't really solve the problem. For example, Supersonic is Mach 1.1-2.5, Supersonic+ is 2.5-5, and Hypersonic is 5-10. If we did a similar thing for FTL speeds, that would mean Hyperluminal would only be equal to the bottom end of Hyperluminal. For this, we would need to stretch how far many of these speed tiers go. For example, Superluminal could 1c-10c, Superluminal+ could be 10-100, Hyperluminal could be 100-1000, etc.

 

[Epyriel]

Hell, you would hate 3-A the most because it's most similar to Massively FTL+ in terms of situations

Genuinely, the existence of large tier gaps is not a valid reason to arbitrarily create more tiers

I think the difference here is that pretty much everyone in Tier 3-A can just destroy the observable universe, while the number of characters who can destroy a finite amount more than the observable universe is incredibly sparse. The observable universe is just a natural point of reference that pretty much everyone in that tier centres around it.

Meanwhile Massively FTL+ has no such benefit, 1000c is arbitrary and there are plenty of characters that go well well beyond it.

While Tier 3-A has about 400 pages (nearly entirely limited to lower end of the tier), Massively FTL+ has over 5000 appearances with vast disparities between referenced characters’s speeds.

While the handful of characters who are far above everyone else in Tier 3-A don’t deserve their own category, I feel the vast number of characters who are far above 1000c in Massively FTL+ do. To answer the question in the title, yes, I think MFTL+ is too broad.

 

[CloverDragon03]

There is no legitimate reason to randomly add a new tier for this. It'll just fall back into the same "problem," so it realistically just accomplishes nothing

 

[Ebihara]

Isn’t it just much easier to prioritize updated scaling notes on verse pages or adding specific value notes for profiles?

I think this would be the best solution. I also think MTFL is too broad, if the point is to have pages indexed for vs threads and this would help alot when making matchups even more for new users who may just look at MTFL and think they are all similar enough for a matchup. I think it can only help to have more specific tiers for it that a insanely large amount of characters are part of yet are so vastly apart that them being in the same tier is silly but not a major issue like you said scaling notes and verse pages where more up to date and better quality. I do agree with the point you can just keep making speed tiers ad nauseum and we will never get anywhere so overall so while Id like to see it happen I think its a bad idea to make new tiers or rather just unproductive when making notes sections better is just overall better anyways.

 

[SeijiSetto]

(as said before)
no matter how you split things you're gonna end up with having the biggest tier be "at least [value] up to any higher finite value", which is the exact thing you seem to take issue with
adding more values won't really help because the same thing'll happen
adding exact values on profiles would help because then you can just see "ok this character is a bit over 1000c vs this guy being quintillions c"

 

[Chritin]

I get the concept that if we keep making divisions we will still end up with a tier that's just some big number trailing off into an unlimited amount of finite numbers, but I feel we're missing the point that this is just to help decrease the number of characters in said broad category. Just going off of a quick search on the wiki, there are roughly 800 pages regarding 3-A characters, while there are 1800 MFTL+ pages. While I do also agree that it would be better for better statistical listings on pages, but still a better book keeping system of a high speed tier like this would be useful.

Also it's probably just me, but I personally hate for massive the [Statistics Value x] note is, and especially on big profiles its so cluttering that I find it annoying to read at a cursory glance. Granted, I hate a vast majority of the wiki's formatting and abhor some of it as is, but I'll save that for another time.

 

[CloverDragon03]

(as said before)
no matter how you split things you're gonna end up with having the biggest tier be "at least [value] up to any higher finite value", which is the exact thing you seem to take issue with
adding more values won't really help because the same thing'll happen
adding exact values on profiles would help because then you can just see "ok this character is a bit over 1000c vs this guy being quintillions c"

Pretty much yeah, and there's the age-old adage here of "too much work for too little gain"

 

[Epyriel]

There is no legitimate reason to randomly add a new tier for this. It'll just fall back into the same "problem," so it realistically just accomplishes nothing

(as said before)
no matter how you split things you're gonna end up with having the biggest tier be "at least [value] up to any higher finite value", which is the exact thing you seem to take issue with
adding more values won't really help because the same thing'll happen

Kind of feels like you guys are missing the argument.

By that logic, why have MFTL at all?
You could apply the same reasoning to just scrap every tier higher than FTL and call it a day. The whole reason we have FTL+, MFTL and MFTL+ is because there are a large number of characters that would benefit being sorted by distinguishing groupings of characters a couple times the speed of light vs thousands of times the speed of light.

Making a new tier for only a handful of characters obviously isn’t worth it (such as distinguishing trillions of times the speed of light vs quadrillions of times the speed of light) but I’d say it definitely is worthwhile when you are considering hundreds of profiles (in fact outnumbering the existing raised example of Tier 3-A).

 

[Testarossa002]

Like Clover said, it's a lot of work for very little gain
Or are you volunteering to go to every MFTL+ page and start applying the new tiers?

 

[KLOL506]

I'm in agreement with Seiji and Clover. The revision in its entirety seems pointless since you're gonna end up with the good old "up to any higher finite value" and the fact that we already mandate to put in "Notes" what the exact speed value is, which in turn renders this entire proposal redundant.

 

[KLOL506]

@Executor_N0 @Migue79 @DMUA @Therefir @AbaddonTheDisappointment @Dalesean027 @Dark-Carioca Your input here would be appreciated.

 

[SeijiSetto]

[...] and the fact that we already mandate to put in "Notes" what the exact speed value is [...]

not to take away from the point of "if the exact values are on profiles then this won't be an issue" [because i agree] i don't think it's mandatory?
if it is could you point me to where it says that for future reference

 

[KLOL506]

not to take away from the point of "if the exact values are on profiles then this won't be an issue" [because i agree] i don't think it's mandatory?
if it is could you point me to where it says that for future reference

Prolly must've mixed it up with the scaling chain list that we put on the verse pages I guess.

 

[ArgentDragonPluto]

Personally, I don't mind there being more speed tiers, and if there won't, then just make sure to index it always correctly in MFTL+ and above. (i.e. stat section, and blatant scaling (don't lump in vague speed feats with actual concrete accepted scaling just to bulk up the section))

As for speed tiers, I will take the naming from @Chritin, and IMO the speed could maybe be divided into three orders of magnitude? Or to put simply, my proposal:

• Massively FTL+ (1,000c – 1,000,000c)
• Superluminal (1,000,000c – 1,000,000,000c)
• Superluminal+ (1,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000c)
• Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Hyperluminal+ (1,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• High Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• High Hyperluminal+ (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Massively Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Massively Hyperluminal+ (1 Octillion c and beyond)

Though, I am worried about abbreviations like HH (High Hypersonic) and HH (High Hyperluminal) overlapping, so I tried to make abbreviations lol:

• Superluminal: SL
• Superluminal+: SL+
• Hyperluminal: HYL
• Hyperluminal+: HYL+
• High Hyperluminal: HHYL
• High Hyperluminal+: HHYL+
• Massively Hyperluminal: MHYL
• Massively Hyperluminal+: MHYL+

That's about it from me, I don't have any other ideas that don't just sound terrible lmao

 

[Stefano4444]

Massively FTL
Massively FTL+
Enormously FTL - Speeds as fast or faster than one million times the speed of light
Enormously FTL+ - Speeds as fast or faster than one billion times the speed of light

Personally i would prefer if we use terms Low and High, as Enormously sound a little too similar to Massively.

We could also just throw Massively FTL and use Superluminal and Hyperluminal instead like Chritin proposed.

FTL (>1c to 1000c) [merge both FTL, FTL+ and regular Massively FTL]
Low Superluminal (>1000c to 1e6c) [a difference of 1,000 times]
Low Superluminal+ (>1e6c to 1e9c)
High Superluminal (>1e9c to 1e12c)
High Superluminal+ (>1e12c to 1e15c)
Low Hyperluminal (>1e15c to 1e18c)
Low Hyperluminal+ (>1e18c to 1e21c)
High Hyperluminal (>1e21c to 1e24c)
High Hyperluminal+ (>1e24c to any finite number)

 

[Chritin]

• Massively FTL+ (1,000c – 1,000,000c)
• Superluminal (1,000,000c – 1,000,000,000c)
• Superluminal+ (1,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000c)
• Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Hyperluminal+ (1,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• High Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• High Hyperluminal+ (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Massively Hyperluminal (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c – 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000c)
• Massively Hyperluminal+ (1 Octillion c and beyond)

FTL (>1c to 1000c) [merge both FTL, FTL+ and regular Massively FTL]
Low Superluminal (>1000c to 1e6c) [a difference of 1,000 times]
Low Superluminal+ (>1e6c to 1e9c)
High Superluminal (>1e9c to 1e12c)
High Superluminal+ (>1e12c to 1e15c)
Low Hyperluminal (>1e15c to 1e18c)
Low Hyperluminal+ (>1e18c to 1e21c)
High Hyperluminal (>1e21c to 1e24c)
High Hyperluminal+ (>1e24c to any finite number)

Just wanted to mention that my original idea for the use of -luminal tiers of speed didn't work as an extension of the pre-existing speed tiers, but would instead replace them all together. In which case, the tiering would look something like this:

Superluminal - 1c to 10c
Superluminal+ - 10c to 100c
Hyperluminal - 100c to 1000c
Hyperluminal+ - 1000c to 1*10^6c
High Hyperluminal - 1*10^6c to 1*10^9c
High Hyperluminal+ - 1*10^9c to 1*10^12c
Massively Hyperluminal - 1*10^12c to 1*10^15c
Massively Hyperluminal+ - 1*10^15c to any finite number

Obviously these tiers don't really provide as much leeway as the other tiers you guys suggested (since this only goes up to a quadrillion c), so I'm open to some of the other ideas you guys suggested like using Low and High as indicators for higher or intermediate speed tiers.

 

[DMUA]

Your input here would be appreciated.

You already have several calc group members pointing out the issue and it is the deal breaker here

 

[DontTalkDT]

Well, as already said, there is nothing wrong with the speed tier being broad. That lies in the nature of the highest finite speed tier. Only truly viable reason to split it up further would be if we had an overabundance of MFTL+ characters, but I actually don't think we have that many.

So, looking at the input, I think this is probably rejected and can be closed?

 

[Chritin]

Well, as already said, there is nothing wrong with the speed tier being broad. That lies in the nature of the highest finite speed tier. Only truly viable reason to split it up further would be if we had an overabundance of MFTL+ characters, but I actually don't think we have that many.

As I mentioned before, there are more than double the amount of MFTL+ characters when compared other tiers that contain any finite number beyond a certain point like 3-A. Whether or not you think that is unmanageable is up to you, but I'd argue that's a pretty significant difference and thus could be worthy of some division.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Well, as already said, there is nothing wrong with the speed tier being broad. That lies in the nature of the highest finite speed tier. Only truly viable reason to split it up further would be if we had an overabundance of MFTL+ characters, but I actually don't think we have that many.

So, looking at the input, I think this is probably rejected and can be closed?

I'd say so yeah

 

[Epyriel]

Like Clover said, it's a lot of work for very little gain
Or are you volunteering to go to every MFTL+ page and start applying the new tiers?

It has as much to gain as any other tiering in general.
If we didn’t want to bother tiering characters there is little point to this site, might as well just say ‘Finite Speed’ and call it a day to do away with the work of distinguishing the speeds of any finite characters.

While I’d hope to get some help, yeah I could do all the edits myself.

 

[Stefano4444]

Obviously these tiers don't really provide as much leeway as the other tiers you guys suggested (since this only goes up to a quadrillion c), so I'm open to some of the other ideas you guys suggested like using Low and High as indicators for higher or intermediate speed tiers.

I still think dividing Superluminal and Hyperluminal into Low and High, along with the addition of the +, would work better. This approach would reduce the need to repeatedly use Hyperluminal, while also allowing us to go beyond the Quadrillions and into the Sextillions.

If you'd prefer to fully remove the FTL term, I can understand, though I think it’s fine to keep it. If we do, we could merge it with FTL+ and Massively FTL. This way, we would have a consistent escalation of 1000x per tier of speed from start to finish, which looks better. If not then my proposal of FTL can be renamed as Low Superluminal.

Low Superluminal (>1c to 1000c)
Low Superluminal+ (>1000c to 1e6c)
High Superluminal (>1e6c to 1e9c)
High Superluminal+ (>1e9c to 1e12c)
Low Hyperluminal (>1e12c to 1e15c)
Low Hyperluminal+ (>1e15c to 1e18c)
High Hyperluminal (>1e18c to 1e21c)
High Hyperluminal+ (>1e21c to any finite number)

 

[Flashlight237]

Are you guys done yet?

 

[Livinmeme]

Genuinely, the existence of large tier gaps is not a valid reason to arbitrarily create more tiers

Massively hypersonic is an arbitriary tier, I mean, what is the reference point? Thunder?

 

[Chritin]

If you'd prefer to fully remove the FTL term, I can understand, though I think it’s fine to keep it. If we do, we could merge it with FTL+ and Massively FTL. This way, we would have a consistent escalation of 1000x per tier of speed from start to finish, which looks better. If not then my proposal of FTL can be renamed as Low Superluminal.

I only recommended that it should be removed and instead be replaced by Superluminal, since superluminal literally just means FTL. Granted, if we wanted there could be a "transonic"-esque tier labeled "FTL", but I'd prefer to not do that.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Idk why we're talking about the namings of the tiers as if the thread hasn't been agreed to be closed because of the unanimous rejection

 

[Chritin]

Idk why we're talking about the namings of the tiers as if the thread hasn't been agreed to be closed because of the unanimous rejection

The disagreement isn't unanimous, but if you just want to go off calc group members then whatever. I'm just trying to make a representation to visualize what could be done as a valid solutions, since on the surface just saying "lets split MFTL+ somehow" I'll concede does sound weird. Legitimately though, I don't think any of the calc group members who have responded have made a response to the actual points made, just saying they don't like the idea cause you eventually end up with the same problem no matter what. Which is true, but the whole point isn't to get rid of the problem, but to just have better categorization to minimize a problem most people agree exists.