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"strongest military-grade flashlights"
Of course, everyday tasks surely require military flashlights
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Light Manipulation via Flashlights
- Thread starter Catzlaflame
- Start date
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- Tags
- light manipulation
- 15,038
- 12,769
That link says that, however....
This link doesn't, and this link you provided earlier:
Says that 10-20 lumens is used for searching for things up to 100 meters away, and that 20-150 is for basic household/outdoor activities, and searching things up to 120 meters away.
That sounds a lot more typical of what we see in fiction.
Meanwhile, that link also says that 200-500 is used for sailing, fishing, climbing, hiking, hunting, workplaces, and tactical tasks. That range, where you'd consider it blinding in daytime, is for tasks which are generally less common in fiction.
But hey, those are just two random websites that conflict, so who knows?
Although, a point which bears repeating; this shit is complicated in a way which usually makes those numbers less impressive! Lumens measure the entire light emitted, so simply increasing the area without changing the brightness on any particular spot increases it, which isn't more likely to blind people (which is why light bulbs, typically emitting hundreds of lumens, don't blind you when you look at them). Plus, the brightness which actually hits someone's eyes goes down very quickly with distance; for every time you double the distance to your target, the brightness hitting their eyes gets reduced to a quarter, making even solid brightnesses quickly become useless in a realistic combat scenario for them of the target standing at least a dozen meters away.
Really, all of this should be common sense if you've simply had someone shine an ordinary flashlight at you during the daytime. You're not going to get bloody incapacitated.
Jason_Courne
He/Him- 990
- 1,120
You completely ignored that 200+ lumens are well within the standard for normal LED flashlights and only adressed the obvious scams / outliers like million trillion+ lumen flashlights
I will admit I was using tactical flashlight too loosely, but even civilian grade commercially sold weapon mounted lights range from the 400 to over a thousand lumens
- 15,038
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If something provides 1000 lumens on something eye-sized from 1 meter away, that means it provides the equivalent of 16 lumens on something eye-sized from 8 meters away.
Without the additional information of where that lumen amount is taken, we can't really determine whether it's useful in a fight. And I'd bet it's taken from a misleadingly-close location, because you will not be temporarily blinded by shining an ordinary flashlight in your eyes from arms length during the daytime. There'd be some residual bright spots, but y'all are seriously exaggerating this.
- 15,038
- 12,769
I just flashed this flashlight in my eyes from arms-length away. It says it emits 1,200 lumens. I was not "temporarily blinded". It appeared bright, but I could still see in and around it. I had a small (arms-length pinkie) sized lingering bright spot for a few minutes, but that's about it.
Can we stop this chain of argument now?
Can we stop this chain of argument now?
- 9,327
- 3,303
Most Light Manip is also just lighting up areas, nothing about blinding others or whatever
IDK3465
He/Him- 111
- 38
Personally, I think we should still count flashlights under minor light manip as, unlike other mundane objects, the direct point of a flashlight is to generate light. As long as a character's flashlight is notable and commonly used by them enough to warrant standard equipment (something, mind you, regular humans don't regularly have on them all the time or even own like you seem to claim), it should be notable enough to be listed, especially if they're shown to use it in combat.
Yes, it's a very niche thing to use, but if the character's in a fight with an opponent with darkness manipulation, you can't just pretend that character has something that directly counters it, even if it's mundane.
Yes, it's a very niche thing to use, but if the character's in a fight with an opponent with darkness manipulation, you can't just pretend that character has something that directly counters it, even if it's mundane.
Jason_Courne
He/Him- 990
- 1,120
A 1 meter distance is still high end, nearly above, standard melee range. Even from a 3 meter distance it would still be bright enough cause substantial discomfort for the eyes
I have an old LED Energizer flashlight, it is completely blinding within arms reach and still hurts my eyes from an entire room distance away.
- 15,038
- 12,769
Guess I just resist light manip then, idk.
- 14,749
- 11,838
Can confirm this fuckass light blinded me for like half a second and had lingering effects for a solid 10 seconds.
Not crippling but hey, half a second with slight annoying lingering effects can mean a lot, probably make it harder to react to a punch or knife or something.
Not crippling but hey, half a second with slight annoying lingering effects can mean a lot, probably make it harder to react to a punch or knife or something.
- 4,369
- 2,362
First time you had to personally test something out to convince people?
