Upscaled LS for Large Sizes

[Agnaa]

Some calculations use upscaled lifting strength of real animals, such as this one and this one. I'm told there's more.

I take two issues with this:

1. The formula as used is incorrect. Muscle strength is proportional to cross-sectional area, not to volume. I think that's a decent part of why smaller animals can be so strong relative to their body weight. As such, if this sort of thing is to be done, it should be done with the square of the size increase, not the cube.
2. Using this at all feels really discordant with our standards on Large Size Calculations; since we ban scaling up AP, and we don't allow scaling up speed unless the character shows relatively fast speeds, why should we allow scaling up lifting strength when featless? Given both how similar LS is to AP a lot of the time, and how LS involves the application of acceleration.

Give thoughts please.

 

[Agnaa]

Mentioning DontTalk and the first 7 CGMs from a randomised list.

@DontTalkDT @Damage3245 @Migue79 @DMUA @M3X_2.0 @Therefir @DemiiPowa @Spinosaurus75DinosaurFan

 

[ElajRuengies]

Not a Calc Group Member but, if the LS was upscaled with the cross section of muscle though, wouldn't it become lower than the actual body weight for uber-large creatures?

Edit: Oh wait the examples are bite force, which wouldn't be relevant to the whole lifting-the-body thing.

Anywho, agree.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Some calculations use upscaled lifting strength of real animals, such as this one and this one. I'm told there's more.

I take two issues with this:

1. The formula as used is incorrect. Muscle strength is proportional to cross-sectional area, not to volume. I think that's a decent part of why smaller animals can be so strong relative to their body weight. As such, if this sort of thing is to be done, it should be done with the square of the size increase, not the cube.
2. Using this at all feels really discordant with our standards on Large Size Calculations; since we ban scaling up AP, and we don't allow scaling up speed unless the character shows relatively fast speeds, why should we allow scaling up lifting strength when featless? Given both how similar LS is to AP a lot of the time, and how LS involves the application of acceleration.

Give thoughts please.

I believe we have in the past already debated that we don't upscale LS at all.
For one, lifting strength is what weight you can lift aside from your own body. (So bite force for one is no lifting strength anyway)
Since your body weight upscales too, the weight your muscles have to support anyway already increases to cancel out the muscles to some extent.
And, in general, fiction doesn't really care about muscle mass at all. It's not like a city level character is proportionally more muscular than a street level character of the same series. So I don't think it even makes sense to think in that direction.

Not to mention that there are probably who knows what kind of biological factors that impact effectiveness of muscle mass.

 

[SeijiSetto]

(not a CGM)

i mentioned this to agnaa earlier so naturally i am of the opinion that upscaling it like that doesn't work, agree with OP.

 

[DMUA]

The formula as used is incorrect. Muscle strength is proportional to cross-sectional area, not to volume. I think that's a decent part of why smaller animals can be so strong relative to their body weight. As such, if this sort of thing is to be done, it should be done with the square of the size increase, not the cube.

Makes sense

Using this at all feels really discordant with our standards on Large Size Calculations; since we ban scaling up AP, and we don't allow scaling up speed unless the character shows relatively fast speeds, why should we allow scaling up lifting strength when featless? Given both how similar LS is to AP a lot of the time, and how LS involves the application of acceleration.

I also disagree with large size calculation standards to begin with, so

Speed I get since large entities are very frequently made much slower than they would be in terms of pure proportions, but in terms of strength I can't think of a lot of cases where they'd be unable to lift at least a comparable number to their own bodyweight, AP is a little bit iffier since often it involves KE which ties back into speed, but otherwise

For one, lifting strength is what weight you can lift aside from your own body. (So bite force for one is no lifting strength anyway)
Since your body weight upscales too, the weight your muscles have to support anyway already increases to cancel out the muscles to some extent.

That is a factor but unless they're actively struggling to move themselves (or just outright are stationary/explicitly struggle to lift weights lower than they should in terms of proportions), it seems strange to say they'd be unable to deadlift something much less than half their weight

 

[Flashlight237]

I'm with DMUA here. Doubling your size according to the square-cube law means octupling your mass. For a 60-kg human, this amounts to 480 kg. Saying a 480-kg, 3.4-meter-tall human could only lift 60 kg in spite of them weighing 480 kg because we don't upscale lifting strength is like assuming that same 480-kg person only has the same lifting strength as their literal skeleton. Plus we already provide rules of thumb for speed-scaling.: https://prnt.sc/Bt6GvCcq6LZt

Why can't we rule-of-thumb our way through LS under the same circumstances?

 

[SeijiSetto]

I'm with DMUA here. Doubling your size according to the square-cube law means octupling your mass. For a 60-kg human, this amounts to 480 kg. Saying a 480-kg, 3.4-meter-tall human could only lift 60 kg in spite of them weighing 480 kg because we don't upscale lifting strength is like assuming that same 480-kg person only has the same lifting strength as their literal skeleton.

but large size calcs ALREADY scale large beings to their own mass as LS (given they perform some feat that takes more effort than just walking, like jumping or squatting or any mildly acrobatic movement), no?

 

[Migue79]

but large size calcs ALREADY scale large beings to their own mass as LS (given they perform some feat that takes more effort than just walking, like jumping or squatting or any mildly acrobatic movement), no?

Our standards allow that already, yes. The main concern Flashlight & DMUA have is that when they don't do any acrobatics, they don't scale to the mass. At least if I'm understanding correctly.

This aside, Agnaa's first point seems reasonable.

 

[KLOL506]

but large size calcs ALREADY scale large beings to their own mass as LS (given they perform some feat that takes more effort than just walking, like jumping or squatting or any mildly acrobatic movement), no?

No, it's gotta be more strenuous. You need to be able to do push-ups, pull-ups, actual stuff like backflips, climbing up vertical objects or wrestling with another comparable being (Like another upscaled human being) to scale to your own body-mass at that level.

 

[Agnaa]

I'm with DMUA here. Doubling your size according to the square-cube law means octupling your mass. For a 60-kg human, this amounts to 480 kg. Saying a 480-kg, 3.4-meter-tall human could only lift 60 kg in spite of them weighing 480 kg because we don't upscale lifting strength is like assuming that same 480-kg person only has the same lifting strength as their literal skeleton. Plus we already provide rules of thumb for speed-scaling.: https://prnt.sc/Bt6GvCcq6LZt

Why can't we rule-of-thumb our way through LS under the same circumstances?

There's a few misunderstandings here.

LS is the amount a character can lift in addition to their own weight. So such a human would, on the whole, be able to lift 540 kg, but would only be able to lift 60 kg after accounting for its own weight.

And, that speed scaling isn't "rule of thumb"ing our way out. It's not assuming that the speed ratio is equal to that of a normal human, it's giving a table of KE once the speed ratio being the same has been demonstrated. The same thing could be made for LS, but if we take the same route, we would still require indications of comparable lifting strength.

 

[Flashlight237]

I don't think it has to be acrobatic either. Businesses often require that you lift at least 50 lbs (22.68 kg) and it takes six pallbearers to carry 142.6 kg of dead body and coffin, and they have to do it with one hand each or at most one side of their body. That's a one-handed LS of 23.76 kg per pallbearer, equivalent to a two-handed LS of 47.52 kg per pallbearer. I don't think lifting boxes for a business or being a pallbearer are even remotely acrobatic. This is all for normal humans; upscaled humans obviously would upscale from those two common lifting strength feats from normal humans.

At the very least someone should be able to lift half their own body weight, no acrobatics required.

 

[DMUA]

LS is the amount a character can lift in addition to their own weight. So such a human would, on the whole, be able to lift 540 kg, but would only be able to lift 60 kg after accounting for its own weight.

The main thing is that outside of just being able to stand up, people can generally deadlift around their own level of mass (discounting cases where they're particularly unhealthy for one reason or another) so giant characters should be capable of doing the same unless they're shown to be frail (or generally not prone to moving physically)

 

[M3X_2.0]

So bite force for one is no lifting strength anyway

What would you say about bite force then? Do we still need proof of the upscaling like the other stats? Seems kinda of unnecessarily strict.

 

[Agnaa]

The main thing is that outside of just being able to stand up, people can generally deadlift around their own level of mass (discounting cases where they're particularly unhealthy for one reason or another) so giant characters should be capable of doing the same unless they're shown to be frail (or generally not prone to moving physically)

That correspondence for people is just happenstance. For insects, they can lift far above their own level of mass. That correspondence changes as animals get larger, so we shouldn't assume it remains static for large beings.

 

[DontTalkDT]

What would you say about bite force then? Do we still need proof of the upscaling like the other stats? Seems kinda of unnecessarily strict.

I mean, there is no point even thinking about it since it's not a stat?

But otherwise: Yeah, I would still not do upscaling. The evidence really isn't all that much better.

Plus we already provide rules of thumb for speed-scaling.: https://prnt.sc/Bt6GvCcq6LZt

As mentioned in the AP section speed can under circumstances be taken from size. An x-times larger character should also be x-times faster. However, strict confirmation is necessary.

The rules explicitly demand that you proof that speed actually upscales proportionately. That can for speed be done relatively easy, by just looking at how much time the giant takes for a step and confirming that it's about the same time a human needs.
So by the same level of requirement, you would need actual proof that upscaling follows square or cube law. But for LS the evidence is harder to come by. You would basically need to have an actual lifting strength feat on the same scale as the upscaling, making the upscaling in itself completely pointless.
(I'm basically repeating what Agnaa said on that, but I felt it important to be clear on the speed standard)

That is a factor but unless they're actively struggling to move themselves (or just outright are stationary/explicitly struggle to lift weights lower than they should in terms of proportions), it seems strange to say they'd be unable to deadlift something much less than half their weight

That's a huge assumption on fiction depicting movement as proportional to strength. A thing we, as we all know, do not assume. We assume a character can move fast without being strong, as fiction just doesn't work like that.

I mean, you're basically saying that the character being able to perform a very low lifting strength feat (lifting nothing but its body which is 0 LS) very casually, should be enough justification to assume that it is millions of time stronger than the actual feat. The evidence is mismatched with the extent of the claim.

Now, if you could quantify some easy movement, say by calculating it picking up an object very fast, you could use that as LS. Like, it's really not as if giant characters are severely lacking opportunities to perform impressive LS feats.

 

[M3X_2.0]

I mean, there is no point even thinking about it since it's not a stat?

But otherwise: Yeah, I would still not do upscaling. The evidence really isn't all that much better.

I said that because we use it for characters that can hold the mouth open, thus overpowering the bite force of the giant character.