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A question about lightning and electrical devices

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Antvasima

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A question:

Isn't the reason why natural lightning is swifter than the currents in real world man-made electrical devices, such as tazers, simply due to the far greater voltage and energy driving the discharge?

If so, shouldn't attacks using electrons that are at least as powerful as natural lightning be considered to have a similar speed, for simplicity's sake?
 
Will post my reply from a previous thread

  • Cloud-to-ground lightning, in general, produces Large Building level yield in terms of energy, thus any electrical attack that are produced by characters who are above Large Building level in terms of AP should have the speed of their lightning attacks bumped up to actual lightning speed, because...
    • Said character should be able to generate more energy with his/her electricity in comparison to said cloud-to-ground lightning?
 
To clear things up in my reply above, we know that

  • Electric Power (P): Rate of which electrical energy is transferred (not always an electric circuit, in this case), per unit of time.
  • Power (Watt) = 1 Joule/second (energy transferred per unit of time)
Since cloud-to-ground lightning seems to be much faster than the currents in the real world (via machines etc) due to the higher energy utilized in driving said discharge, it makes logical sense that if more energy is utilized in the discharge, said electricity being discharged should move faster as more and more energy is added towards it?

As for how this would affect the rules regarding lightning, as long as said lightning bolt fired by a character is around the same level of AP as a real lightning bolt, said electric bolts should move around the same speed as real lightning.

If a character in question is capable of generating more energy into his/her electrical attacks in comparison to an actual cloud-to-ground lightning, why shouldn't these attacks be moving at similar speeds in comparison to lightning, or higher?
 
I think that this seems reasonable, yes.
 
So, should we make a rule that any electrical discharges of 5x10^9 Joules and above should be considered to have at least average lightning speed?
 
I think that this should be highlighted. It definitely needs staff input
 
Okay. I will do so.
 
On second thought, I am not certain, as it may be better if only the calc group handles this, via invitation.
 
I think that it depends on the analysis. Obviously Elemental real-lightning should have comparable speeds to real lightning, just like the lightning attacks of characters which can make lightning fall from the sky.

As for the lightning from weapons, that should be a case-by-case analysis. If there's reliable statements which allows us to infer that it can be considered real lightning, the speed can scale.
 
I have moved this thread to the staff board, to minimise derailment and too many replies.
 
The issue? We do not know if said lightning bolts will yield 5e9 Joules, or higher, fiction-wise, as rarely we are shown electrical discharges yielding significant values (The most that we see is said discharge make contact with something, resulting in a small explosion).

It would be better if it was stated that any electrical discharges from characters w/Large Building level AP or higher would have their discharges bumped to lightning speed, as these characters should at least be able to generate discharges as strong as a regular-lightning bolt, hence the speed reasoning.
 
According to what Kaltias found, regular Building level would be enough.
 
If we are going by the low end of lightning, regular low ends would be enough (Thus any electrical discharges from Building level characters should have regular lightning speed).

But then one more thing that could be added here is that if a character is able to manipulate cloud-to-ground lightning, any electrical discharges produced by said character should have the same speed as actual lightning.

  • Reason being that said character should be able to wield/manipulate electrical currents comparable in power (or higher) in comparable to lightning.
As for any weapons that fire lightning/electricity, said yield of weapon should be higher than Building level in terms of AP, or said weapon should be specifically stated to fire real lightning bolts, yes.
 
In order to be discussed to be as fast as lightning, the attack itself should be DC current and yield between 12 gigawatts to 24 terawatts; to measure lightning output energy is used watts since energy vary in time.
 
Okay, but is a measurement in watts practically feasible for our estimations here in this wiki?
 
Also, what speeds should we use for 9-B or 9-A discharges, for example?
 
Yes, that is correct, and we technically tend to measure prolonged attacks by energy per second.

I just wonder if it is practical for most cases, when we do not know the timespan involved for a lightning strike. In comparison, 8-C as a lower border would be very convenient for our members to go by.
 
It should be used watts instead of joules, otherwise a tazer would have MHS+ speed if it made contact with a wet person for 0.6 s, or an electricmotor for working a couple of hours. But that only if we decide to value it in that way; also, as nu-Electronic Engineer, we don't use Joule in electric devices, if not watts.
 
A taser's energy isn't in the order of the GigaJoules though
 
A powerful one (650k V) used in a wet person, will disipate around that value in 0.6 s
 
Okay. You are technically correct.

I just wonder how we will make that work in practice when we usually have no idea of the exact timeframes involved for the lightning attacks.
 
Not exactly. We only do so for prolonged activity (storms, moving objects, etcetera), rather than brief attacks.
 
Actual lightning bolts do not take nearly as much to discharge. They need 10 microseconds or so.

Also a common taser discharge only 0.36 J.

I personally like the idea of considering them as CTG lightning bolts if there is a statement or if it's shown to be comparable to a regular one (Avatar's lightning for example). I don't know how i feel saying that any character above building level can make legit lightning bolts if they can make an electric discharge though
 
I think it makes sense. Cloud-to-ground lightning is much faster than man-made electrictical devices do to the greater amount of energy involved in the discharge. There's no reason why 8-A Lightning or Tier 5 lightning wouldn't be as fast.

Of course, there are cases where that isn't even necessary, like Saint Seiya's Massively FTL+ Lightning Bolts.
 
I agree with this as well. Of course we'd have to revise a ton of characters and do a lot of calcs.
 
Nah, if we consider 8-C and upwards electrical attacks as having legitimate lightning speed, this would help us keep most of the characters as is.

Previously there was repeated talk of downgrading all characters scaled from artificial electric currents to less than Mach 2 in speed. This is my manner of suggesting a far less extreme option.
 
Going to mention that applying this rule would make lightning calcs a bit, simpler (according to how we treat rules regarding lightning here).

EDIT: As for how to treat timeframes involving lightning attacks, we can treat these attacks as...

  • Initial speed of lightning/electricity having actual lightning speed (440000 m/s)
  • The distance said lightning was fired from its initial point to its final point (Basically the distance from the character firing said lightning to its target) will largely determine the timeframe passed in case of such an attack.
 
Well, feats still have to conform to our standard requirements detailed in the Lightning Dodging Feats page, in order to qualify.
 
These rules would still conform to the standard requirements in the Lightning Dodging page.

It's just that we're actually officially assigning the speed of electricity (in fiction) = actual lightning speed, provided that said character is able to generate as much energy as an actual lightning bolt (which justifies said lightning bolt's speed).
 
Yes, that is correct.
 
As for the timeframe issue, I see the scenario spanning out like this.

  • Character fires lightning
  • Lightning is shown to travel upwards for a couple seconds
  • Lightning dissipates
As for how to deal with this, we basically treat said lightning bolt as having actual lightning speed, except that...

  • The duration in which said bolt of lightning shown traveling on screen is dependant on the distance said bolt traveled in total instead of the duration of the entire scene said "lightning bolt" was shown traveling.
 
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