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Revising Dragon Ball Flight Speed (Dragon Ball + DBZ + DBS Manga)

Damage3245 said:
Okay, I'd like us to focus on just the Saiyan Arc and the Namek Arc for now, and I'll do my best to prove to you that there is a meaningful difference in the series between Flight Speed and typical Combat Speed.

For this breakdown of feats, I'm only looking specifically at characters are flying through the air, both long distance and extremely short distance. To begin with, I'll just go over the Saiyan Arc first.

Saiyan Arc

Long Distance Flights

1) Raditz flying an unknown distance across the Earth to get to Goku on Roshi's island. It takes Raditz at least multiple minutes to get there. [Chapter 2]
  • Raditz regards Goku's velocity as "high" despite Goku riding on the Flying Nimbus which has a maximum speed of Mach 1.5 according to the Daizenshuu.

2) Goku and Piccolo fly to where Raditz pod had landed from Roshi's island. [Chapter 3]
  • Goku has to check if Piccolo can keep up with his Flying Nimbus, which Piccolo does.
  • Raditz again regards them as approaching "quickly."

3) Goku starts his journey on the 1 Million kilometer-long Snake Way by flying... and almost immediately he is out of power and has to start running. [Chapter 11]
  • What does this tell you? Well, even if we assume that Goku was capable of flying high speed there for a moment... he obviously cannot sustain it. He still has to complete the remainder of his journey over 6 months of travel.

4) For his travel back along Snake Way, King Kai estimates that it would take Goku two days to travel 1 million kilometers. [Chapter 18]
  • It's a big improvement from the 6 months of running, flying and sleeping that Goku did on his first trip to King Kai, but obviously still not insanely fast.

5) The Saiyans arrive at 11:43 AM, and the Z Fighters like Tien, Chaozu and Yamcha begin flying towards Piccolo and Gohan shortly afterwards. They don't arrive until after 12:20 PM. Same applies for Vegeta and Nappa who started flying towards Piccolo and Gohan shortly after they arrived. [Chapter 19]

6) The whole time the Nappa vs. Z Fighters fight is going on, Goku is still flying across Snake Way... not suppressing himself, not holding back. He's in a hurry. And he still takes hours to fly the remaining distance. [Chapter 25]

7) King Kai regards Goku's travel across Snake Way as "unbelievable speed". [Chapter 26]

8) After Goku returns to Earth, he gets on board the Flying Nimbus and flies straight towards his friends. After covering some distance while Nappa fights Krillin, Gohan and Piccolo, Goku is finally sensed by Piccolo and Vegeta who deduces that Goku will arrive in four minutes. [Chapter 26 - 28]
  • Let's be real here; Goku is in a hurry. He's urging the Flying Nimbus to go as fast as he it can possibly go. If he could blitz ahead of the Flying Nimbus and arrive to where his friends are at in a second, he would... and yet Vegeta senses it will take him multiple minutes to fly there despite Goku's urgency.

9) After Goku and Vegeta begin their battle, Gohan and Krillin start flying back towards Roshi's house. Despite travelling for some time while Goku and Vegeta have been fightng and it becoming sunset, the two of them still haven't made it to Roshi's house. [Chapter 33 - 39]

10) Gohan and Krillin then fly back towards where Goku and Vegeta have been battling, and again it takes them some time because the battle between Goku and Vegeta continued, with Goku even having enough time to form the Spirit Bomb and then lose it, before Gohan and Krillin get there. [Chapter 39 - 41]

Short Distance Flights

1) Nappa evades Piccolo's and Krillin's Ki blasts in midair after being stunned and recovering. [Chapter 24]

2) The Flying Nimbus saves Gohan from Nappa's stomp, surprising Nappa. [Chapter 29]

3) Goku tries flying after Nappa to stop him from attacking Gohan and Krillin, but realizes he won't make it in time. He uses the Kaio-ken to boost his flight speed and catches up to Nappa. [Chapter 32]

4) Goku and Vegeta battle each other whilst flying in short bursts. Goku can only use the Kaio-ken briefly at this time. [Chapter 34]

5) Vegeta's after powering-up surprises Goku and he headbutts him by flying at him. [Chapter 35]

6) After Goku powers up with Kaio-ken x 3, he overwhelms Vegeta with short bursts of speed, flying around him, evading a thrown Ki blast and attacking him from unexpected angles. [Chapter 36]

7) A weakened Vegeta dodges a weakened Gohan's Ki blast in midair. [Chapter 43]

My Thoughts Overall

We have to admit that there are plenty of times where Toriyama gives us reason to believe that his characters are travelling much slower than Relativistic speeds in the Saiyan Arc.

He gives us explicit timeframes, he gives us distances the characters travel, he's given us several instances where travel speed/flight speed is actually relevant to the plot and cannot simply be ignored. If you're going to ignore every single example of long distance travel speed I've presented to you from the manga itself, then what good reason is there not to just ignore every speed feat in the series, good or bad?

So how do we reconcile the apparent difference between what we currently scale the character's combat speed to be, and the numerous instances of travel speed/flight speed that contradict that?

Well, personally I think part of the issue is in how we approach the scaling for Ki blasts.

Piccolo shot a Ki blast at the Moon in roughly 3 seconds. Because of that, we rate his Ki blast as being 0.54c, and because we make a correlation between the power of a character and their attack speed, his charged up Special Beam Cannon must also be at least 0.54c. Therefore when Raditz dodged the attack by sidestepping it (whilst being grazed) we rate Raditz as being 0.54c too and then it all carries on from there...

But just because Ki blasts get faster in general as the user gets more powerful, this doesn't necessarily mean every Ki blast will be that way.

When Krillin uses his Scattering Bullet attack, it is noted by Piccolo as being powerful but has "no speed". This attack is done by a Krillin more powerful than Piccolo's charged Special Beam Cannon, yet the Saibamen (equals to Raditz) have an easier time dodging it. Krillin then redirects that attack to go into the sky before splitting it apart into multiple smaller Ki blasts that are seemingly faster. So Ki attacks are not necessarily all one consistent speed. It may be counterintuitive but if Ki blasts can vary in speed and be "slow" even from a character who was more powerful than Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon, then it isn't exactly a fact that Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon had to be as fast as his attack which blew up the Moon.

But I know, this probably won't be a popular perspective. We like scaling to be simple and easy. "Ki blast = 0.54c = Special Beam Cannon = Raditz' speed." That's simple... Even if it isn't necessarily true to begin with. After all, Raditz only side-stepped the beam. He may have only "travelled" 30 cm in the time it took the Special Beam Cannon to cross 3 meters. There's no good way of using that though as it becomes a matter of calc stacking due to our assumption of the Special Beam Cannon being as fast as the other calced Ki blast.

So, personally I see a few different options, not all of them equally good:

1) Piccolo's Attack Speed when he blew up the Moon is an outlier; the event obviously happened but for the sake of the plot and speeding up events on-screen, Toriyama just had Piccolo blow up the Moon without intending this to be a consistent speed that characters should scale to. After all, in this Saiyan Arc we have ONE non-scaling Relativistic feat, and SEVERAL non-scaling feats which go against it (assuming we cannot truly split flight speed and combat speed). If we care about consistency (and there is no AOE Fallacy here that makes this feats invalid) then the SEVERAL should take higer priority than the ONE.

2) Piccolo's Attack Speed is only that fast for that actual attack he used to blow up the Moon. I admit it may be counterintuitive; why would he not attack that quickly all the time? There's no good reason aside from PIS and typical Dragon Ball inconsistency. But we know Ki blasts can vary in speed. In this case, he may be rated as "X speed normally, up to Y attack speed."

3) Characters can only move extremely quickly over short bursts, so we separate out their short-range combat speed and their long-range travel/flight speed. We see Yamcha and the Saibamen fighting at "super speed" according to Piccolo, and we have the statement from Piccolo in later arcs that the Z Fighters can increase their power tremendously in one enormous burst. In this case, we rate the characters as having "X combat speed, Y flight speed". Even if characters can move very quickly over short distances, Goku's numerous instances of failing to cross huge distances in a short span of time shows that it cannot be sustained and isn't applicable to their normal speed.

I know, it's heretical to suggest downgrading Dragon Ball, but I think some people are too quick to gloss over some of these very real and relevant feats. If we're talking about Consistency and Accuracy, then we shouldn't hold onto the notion that Piccolo's attack on the Moon is the sole defining feat of the verse's speed.

I'll go over Namek Arc later today when I have time.

EDIT: Just in case people think I'm being completely unreasonable by even suggesting that Piccolo's attack speed feat be treated as an outlier, here's my quick look at the 5 guidelines supplied to us on the Outliers page.

1) Is it a big jump in speed? (Yes, the only prior calc remotely close to this was Master Roshi's own Moon-busting feat which is about 5.5x slower, and everything else in the verse beforehand and in this arc is significantly slower)

2) Is it a unique or exceptional incident? (Yes, in the Saiyan arc it is the only feat of this level of speed. In the series overall, it is the second time the Moon has been destroyed.)

3) Is the event unexplained and unjustified? (Yes/No; there is no reason given for Piccolo's attack to be this fast compared to everything else other than just us shrugging and say "It's just that fast.")

4) Does the event break the previously established power-scaling? (Yes; in regards to the speed demonstrated by everyone else. This is only an issue if we cannot split Combat Speed and Flight Speed)

5) Does the event break with the narrative of the work? (No, I wouldn't say so. The narrative required Piccolo to blow up the Moon and it's not like it was stated he couldn't do it. The event is consistent with the narrative... the speed of it inconsistent with everything else in the series up to that point.)

Again, I'm not suggesting treating Piccolo's speed this way is the only option, I'm just saying it's not baseless as an option.
Click to expand...
Although I am more of a fan of FTL speed, I wanted to mention two possible anti-feats that should not be overlooked:

In chapter 229, Vegeta attacks Goku with a ki attack, after the latter dodges it and removes the Kaio-Ken, it can be seen that the Ki attack has not yet left the atmosphere.


In chapter 232, we can see how Goku and Yajirobe have a conversation after Vegeta received Goku's kamehameha, which was pushing him into the stratosphere at the time. And as we can see, Vegeta still hadn't gotten out of there even after the conversation ended (remember Saiyans can't survive in space).
 
None of these are actual anti feats. Talking is a free action, and often not represented accurately (as in, taking sound speed into consideration). The first just means the period between Goku dodging, deactivating the Kaioken, and talking is less than period necessary for the ki to leave the atmosphere, it's still not measurable, thus, not an anti feat.
 
Actions performed by superhuman characters, over a few meters, while the blast covered thousands upon thousands of times that same distance, isn't quite an anti-feat for that blast.
 
Using talking or words spoken as a justification as a justification for slow, or fast speed, or measurement of speed as a whole, is forbidden now. It's a free action and too inconsistent.

It was banned since the calc for Madara travelling to the moon using Words-Per-Minute.

It's basically the whole "Flash talks in super-speed" moment but Dragon Ball version.
 
Besides, you may as well argue that Krillin and Gohan talking to each other mid-flight while flying at mach speeds is subsonic because logically, the sound from the voices would be left behind.
Or the multiple other times exactly that has happened, even in cases where they're confirmed going supersonic like with Nimbus, would actually be subsonic for that same reason.
Talking is an ACTUAL free action in DBZ.
 
Chariot190 said:
Besides, you may as well argue that Krillin and Gohan talking to each other mid-flight while flying at mach speeds is subsonic because logically, the sound from the voices would be left behind.
Or the multiple other times exactly that has happened, even in cases where they're confirmed going supersonic like with Nimbus, would actually be subsonic for that same reason.
Talking is an ACTUAL free action in DBZ.
Click to expand...
Again, it doesn't matter if it's a free action, TALKING CANNOT BE USED TO DOWNGRADE OR UPGRADE ANYONE'S SPEED ANYMORE. IT'S TOO INCONSISTENT OF A FREE ACTION TO BE MEASURED PROPERLY AT ANY RATE. Just ask Madara who got his Relativistic calc for flying to the moon whacked because it employed the use of words-per-minute.

Or else we'd be seeing downgrades for all verses involving speedsters talking during MFTL+ flight, like Flash or Green Lanterns or Superman for the dumbest reasons one could think of.
 
Not sure why you're telling me this, I don't have any qualms with that rule.
I'm just listing that as another issue with this in regards to DB for Kulf or anyone else who might think it has merit.
 
Chariot190 said:
Not sure why you're telling me this, I don't have any qualms with that rule.
Click to expand...
Nah, just saying that "speaking during mid-attack" was never a viable way to determine attack speed at all, only that it became a rule after the Madara calc got yeeted, so majority of Kulf's argument gets negged by that alone.

Chariot190 said:
I'm just listing that as another issue with this in regards to DB for Kulf or anyone else who might think it has merit. q
Click to expand...
That's what I'm doing too.
 
Chariot190 said:
Actions performed by superhuman characters, over a few meters, while the blast covered thousands upon thousands of times that same distance, isn't quite an anti-feat for that blast.
Click to expand...
Goku was completely exhausted and the fight was already over, there was no point in him moving at very high speeds.

And Yajirobe doesn't seem to be moving at full speed.
 
Okay. Here is the start of the explanations blog. (sandbox for now)

I want these feats/calcs to be accepted as legitimate in batches to avoid complicating the matters by discussing 20 different feats at the same time and getting nowhere.

If people feel there are any additional context missing from my explanations and breakdowns of the feats here, please post them.

For now, I am very confident in these feats being legitimate and should be used to justify a flight speed rating on the profiles for Gohan, Krillin and characters who scale off of them.

Will address the next batch of feats once these ones are accepted.

@DarkDragonMedeus @AKM sama @SamanPatou @Elizhaa
 
Damage3245 said:
Okay. Here is the start of the explanations blog. (sandbox for now)

I want these feats/calcs to be accepted as legitimate in batches to avoid complicating the matters by discussing 20 different feats at the same time and getting nowhere.

If people feel there are any additional context missing from my explanations and breakdowns of the feats here, please post them.

For now, I am very confident in these feats being legitimate and should be used to justify a flight speed rating on the profiles for Gohan, Krillin and characters who scale off of them.

Will address the next batch of feats once these ones are accepted.

@DarkDragonMedeus @AKM sama @SamanPatou @Elizhaa
Click to expand...
Could add this to the list and blog it
Qawsedf234 said:
I mean, that's still rather bad distance wise. 1,000 * 1,000 / 20 / 60 = 833.34 m/s or mach 2.42
Click to expand...
It's still something and has higher results than the rest of those and I think charmander is looking through the android and cell saga for feats
 
GodlyCharmander said:
I have some calcs on the Early DB saga analysis I'd like to be evaluated too.
Click to expand...
Are they only in the evaluations thread? If so they'd probably be best here since we have calc members following this who can evaluate them as we move forward so we can structure this stuff and see what works
 
Damage3245 said:
Okay. Here is the start of the explanations blog. (sandbox for now)

I want these feats/calcs to be accepted as legitimate in batches to avoid complicating the matters by discussing 20 different feats at the same time and getting nowhere.

If people feel there are any additional context missing from my explanations and breakdowns of the feats here, please post them.

For now, I am very confident in these feats being legitimate and should be used to justify a flight speed rating on the profiles for Gohan, Krillin and characters who scale off of them.

Will address the next batch of feats once these ones are accepted.

@DarkDragonMedeus @AKM sama @SamanPatou @Elizhaa
Click to expand...
I guess the flight speed are slower than I expected. My viewpoints were similar to Medeus' and AKM's, from what I read earlier. It may be subject to changed; I am curious on their new inputs first.
 
It is not about flight speed is lower, more like they don't exert themselves at the same level when they are fighting. Also stamima is in the consideration since they all save their strength for fighting and avoid wasting their energy for trivial thing like flying unless in some circumstances
 
GodlyCharmander said:
Flight Speed over a certain range is slower because while they can fly at FTL Speeds, their energy would be completely drained in just a few hundred meters for using so much energy.
Click to expand...
It is not just for speed, but also overall strength. Multiple time in Dragon Ball, when casually fighting someone weaker, characters look like they can go on forever, but when an equal battle occuring, the fight is not long, then they start wearing themselves out, their power get lower and lower due to the ki reserve getting burned and they have less and less ki to access to go full power, their strength drop as the result
 
Elizhaa said:
I guess the flight speed are slower than I expected. My viewpoints were similar to Medeus' and AKM's, from what I read earlier. It may be subject to changed; I am curious on their new inputs first.
Click to expand...
Thanks for responding.
 
DDM said he needed more time to think it over. In the meantime, I'll draft together the early Namek Arc characters and begin writing up the context explanation for other feats.
 
This thread hasn't been forgotten about by the way, it's just that my activity on the forum will be a lot less than usual until the 2nd of June most likely.


To give a little bit of a context on another feat I mentioned earlier in the thread. In the Buu Saga, Gohan commutes from his home to his school which is a distance of at least hundreds of miles. (Five hours by jet-flier, according to one of his classmates).

When Gohan flies on his own power, with a visible aura around him, he says it would take him 20 minutes.

I can see there being doubt as to whether this is reflective of Gohan's actual true speed, but to support this, in just the previous chapter to that "20 minute" quote, we see Gohan flying with a visible aura when he states that he is "pretty late" and wants to fly to where he is going at "top speed". So it is supported that Gohan flying there with a visible aura is him flying at his top travel speed.

And logically, if Gohan was making his commute to school... why would he want to spend 20 minutes flying there if he could do the same trip in 5 minutes? Or 1 minute? It is a bigger leap that Gohan wouldn't be flying at his top travel speed than him purposefully flying there many times slower for no good reason.
 
Damage3245 said:
This thread hasn't been forgotten about by the way, it's just that my activity on the forum will be a lot less than usual until the 2nd of June most likely.


To give a little bit of a context on another feat I mentioned earlier in the thread. In the Buu Saga, Gohan commutes from his home to his school which is a distance of at least hundreds of miles. (Five hours by jet-flier, according to one of his classmates).

When Gohan flies on his own power, with a visible aura around him, he says it would take him 20 minutes.

I can see there being doubt as to whether this is reflective of Gohan's actual true speed, but to support this, in just the previous chapter to that "20 minute" quote, we see Gohan flying with a visible aura when he states that he is "pretty late" and wants to fly to where he is going at "top speed". So it is supported that Gohan flying there with a visible aura is him flying at his top travel speed.

And logically, if Gohan was making his commute to school... why would he want to spend 20 minutes flying there if he could do the same trip in 5 minutes? Or 1 minute? It is a bigger leap that Gohan wouldn't be flying at his top travel speed than him purposefully flying there many times slower for no good reason.
Click to expand...
@AKM sama @DarkDragonMedeus
 
Damage3245 said:
This thread hasn't been forgotten about by the way, it's just that my activity on the forum will be a lot less than usual until the 2nd of June most likely.


To give a little bit of a context on another feat I mentioned earlier in the thread. In the Buu Saga, Gohan commutes from his home to his school which is a distance of at least hundreds of miles. (Five hours by jet-flier, according to one of his classmates).

When Gohan flies on his own power, with a visible aura around him, he says it would take him 20 minutes.

I can see there being doubt as to whether this is reflective of Gohan's actual true speed, but to support this, in just the previous chapter to that "20 minute" quote, we see Gohan flying with a visible aura when he states that he is "pretty late" and wants to fly to where he is going at "top speed". So it is supported that Gohan flying there with a visible aura is him flying at his top travel speed.

And logically, if Gohan was making his commute to school... why would he want to spend 20 minutes flying there if he could do the same trip in 5 minutes? Or 1 minute? It is a bigger leap that Gohan wouldn't be flying at his top travel speed than him purposefully flying there many times slower for no good reason.
Click to expand...
That feat is slower than Goku's Snake Way feat.
 
That's only the top speed of the Nimbus, not Gohan. Also remember, given Gohan is a student that people wouldn't take lightly his ability to fly, I don't think Gohan would want to travel via flying.
 
DarkDragonMedeus said:
That's only the top speed of the Nimbus, not Gohan. Also remember, given Gohan is a student that people wouldn't take lightly his ability to fly, I don't think Gohan would want to travel via flying.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstood my breakdown of the feat. My post is concerned with Gohan's flight speed, not the Nimbus. Gohan even outspeeds the Nimbus just before he gives the 20 minute statement.
 
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