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This thread is being made to discuss what end of this calculation (assuming a 4.5 Richter scale equivalent) should be applied to the character's profiles. You can read my comment there raising some concerns about utilizing the low end (which is essentially just the radiated energy) for that calc specifically. But it also brings up a question about how earthquake feats are being evaluated on site, which I wanted some clarification on.
From my understanding, utilizing seismic moment for calcs is only acceptable when the tectonic plates themselves are being directly manipulated to cause the resulting damage. To be brief, this seems pretty faulty. Given this hobby entails suspension of belief to a sizeable extent, I don't see why a non-natural energy source affecting the ground wouldn't be assumed to be equivalent in the seismic moment to an earthquake of comparable output. Shallow Earthquakes exist and are actually quite abundant/powerful while also obviously being considered in earthquake calculations.
It seems confusion may arise from utilizing the Richter scale, which is more so about calculating radiated energy. This has been replaced by the Moment magnitude scale and does not saturate data to only account for the aforementioned.
Clarification on this would be very helpful for ranking the verse so any help is greatly appreciated.
From my understanding, utilizing seismic moment for calcs is only acceptable when the tectonic plates themselves are being directly manipulated to cause the resulting damage. To be brief, this seems pretty faulty. Given this hobby entails suspension of belief to a sizeable extent, I don't see why a non-natural energy source affecting the ground wouldn't be assumed to be equivalent in the seismic moment to an earthquake of comparable output. Shallow Earthquakes exist and are actually quite abundant/powerful while also obviously being considered in earthquake calculations.
It seems confusion may arise from utilizing the Richter scale, which is more so about calculating radiated energy. This has been replaced by the Moment magnitude scale and does not saturate data to only account for the aforementioned.
Clarification on this would be very helpful for ranking the verse so any help is greatly appreciated.
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