Is a Star Shaman immune to the effects of hitting interstellar dust grains while flying at half the speed of light, or is that simply something that we don't worry about in this kind of fantasy/space opera setting?
Call it an environmental effect of space that they're immune to.
I'm not sure Zero G rules really apply, so you might actually just stop after your movement since your using your space flight speed.
You don't think movement in zero g rules apply to movement in zero g? I think I've identified your problem.
Exactly Pantshandshake. The Zero G rules are written with the assumption that you have no means to maneuver through space on your own.
Moving in Zero-G: A creature that moves in a given direction continues to move in that direction at the same speed at the beginning of its turn each round (without taking any action); it must move the full distance unless it is able to change its motion by latching on to an object or creature, pushing off in a new direction, or creating thrust of some kind (all of which are considered move actions).
Quite the contrary, the rules contemplate anticipate that you are able to maneuver through space on your own with thrust. Thrust, of course, is provided by many means of flight.
But is the Starflight ability considered THRUST?
But is the Starflight ability considered THRUST?
Not in the sense that it's ejecting mass from one end to propel you in the other. (One can safely assume.) But if it's not treated the same way, if you shove off of something your flight ability (whether from this or from something like a Forcepack) can't stop you.
The "thrust" inclusion was presumably intended to allow things like fire extinguishers and jump jets (if you allow them to store their own reaction mass) to help you out if you're drifting in free fall.
Is a Star Shaman immune to the effects of hitting interstellar dust grains while flying at half the speed of light, or is that simply something that we don't worry about in this kind of fantasy/space opera setting?Call it an environmental effect of space that they're immune to.
Or as an alternative (partial) solution, you use divination magic to detect hazards that will intersect with your current path. They'd be rare enough that Divination would probably be sufficient in frequency (you don't have to try to cast Augury every half hour in perpetuity), although the 25% failure would surely catch up with you eventually.
Pen & Paper Rule Nr. 1:
"NEVER EVER try to apply real world logic/physic to the game!"The original psionics supplement in the LLB days had this problem where telekinesis was a concentration effect and defined as acceleration of so many feet per second - you could push javelins, sling bolts etc to supersonic speeds given time.
And of course pair this with a crystal ball and continual light spell's to help with tracking and scrying you could have a ranged attack.
hypersonic javelin vs dragon *game over man*
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According to wikipedia, 1 g (9.8m/s^2) acceleration can take you across the diameter of the galaxy in 113,000 years, but the traveler will only experience 12 years. The Star Shaman only accelerates at about 1/9 that rate, but I don't think it's a linear relation if you change the acceleration. In any case, I don't think any reasonable intragalaxy travel would require many android rebirths (maybe 0-1), so maybe make him an intergalactic traveler who is a nonstandard android.OMG.
Just had a great (very rough) idea for a campaign seed -
Android Star Shaman arrives at X. He's carrying a RING OF SUSTENANCE and thus was sustained physically.
He's been born and reborn multiple times on a journey of indeterminate length. He no longer knows why he was sent or where he was going. He doesn't know if he was supposed to arrive at X or not.
He carries a message with him - a claw of some indeterminate, but perhaps... insectile? creature? (or something else).
You also have to remember that the traveler will have to turn around halfway there and accelerate the other way in order to stop. Otherwise, he's an object the mass of an android hitting his target destination at near lightspeed.
Odd Michael-Jackson-semi-related tangent:
Which led to the hilarious (and kind of epic) image of the android's long-awaited arrival... being him moonwalking to a dead stop.
Which then lead to the notion of a scene right out of Forrest Gump, where our Star Shaman android is joined by whole generations of marathoners all moonwalking right beside him.
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Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-b&+*% in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?
First Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!
Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!
First Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!
Second Recruit: Sir, yes sir!
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And just to reiterate, this would be just as bad for the destination as the android. Doing some rough calculations, the explosive force of impact would be in the 10 gigaton range, if the guy is flying at .99C and is 100KG mass. That won't *necessarily* wipe out all life on a planet, but it probably would cause a mass extinction event.According to wikipedia, 1 g (9.8m/s^2) acceleration can take you across the diameter of the galaxy in 113,000 years, but the traveler will only experience 12 years. The Star Shaman only accelerates at about 1/9 that rate, but I don't think it's a linear relation if you change the acceleration. In any case, I don't think any reasonable intragalaxy travel would require many android rebirths (maybe 0-1), so maybe make him an intergalactic traveler who is a nonstandard android.OMG.
Just had a great (very rough) idea for a campaign seed -
Android Star Shaman arrives at X. He's carrying a RING OF SUSTENANCE and thus was sustained physically.
He's been born and reborn multiple times on a journey of indeterminate length. He no longer knows why he was sent or where he was going. He doesn't know if he was supposed to arrive at X or not.
He carries a message with him - a claw of some indeterminate, but perhaps... insectile? creature? (or something else).
You also have to remember that the traveler will have to turn around halfway there and accelerate the other way in order to stop. Otherwise, he's an object the mass of an android hitting his target destination at near lightspeed.
Odd Michael-Jackson-semi-related tangent:
** spoiler omitted **
On the other hand, it would be epic if the android picked right before he hit the planet to turn around and start decelerating.
"What killed the dinosaurs?"
"An android moonwalking."
The actual rules I quoted seem to indicate that speed is maintained in zero-g unless an outside force acts upon the object/creature in question.
Count me in for saying that you can continue accelerating round after round.
Then why do starships stop an the end of each round unless someone takes a piloting action to move them again?
This zero-g rule that this entire thread is based on is found in the environment settings rules next to the effects of high gravity and aquatic environments.
The rule seems more like flavor than an actual mechanics rule. Because everything else in the game system uses non-Newtonian physics.
In any case, it is of limited use, doesn't break the game, and better simulates what we know of reality more accurately, so I don't see the big deal in following this interpretation. It's all ultimately academic.
It could end up breaking scenarios where the GM has removed the player's access to their starship. On a planet it would be fine since the ability doesn't work in gravity fields. But on a space station, that could end up being an awkward ability for the GM to have to justify not allowing the player to use.
So make sure you bring snacks! :)Starfinder physics don't work that way.
You don't accelerate, mostly because the rules don't say you do. You fly at a speed of 20ft per action, that's it.
The ultimate answer is: You starve to death trying to traverse the vast distance of space or spend an incredibly boring amount of time to travel.
There is an aeon stone, clear spindle, that gives you sustenance so you are not required to eat or drink water. Nevertheless you would probably die of boredom or go insane in the process of travel.
Hmm... OK. I'll indulge this a bit.
To find the actual thrust produced by this Star Shaman we have
d = V0*t + 1/2*a*t*t
Assuming V0 is 0
t is 6 seconds
d is 20 ft
We get that our Mystic is producing about 1.11 ft/second squared of thrust.
At the end of that first round, the Star Shaman is travelling at 6.66 ft per second:
a = (V1 - V0)/t
with V0 = 0
a = 1.11
t = 6 seconds
So in 2 rounds (12 seconds), our friend here would have travelled about 80 ft. 20 in the first round, and another 60 in the second. Not the 40 ft for the second round that you were expecting:
d = V0*t + 1/2*a*t*t
with V0 = 0
t = 12
a = 1.11
or with V0 = 6.66
t = 6
a = 1.11
BRB looking up the distance between our solar system and Alpha Centauri as well as the escape velocity of the earth.
The actual rules I quoted seem to indicate that speed is maintained in zero-g unless an outside force acts upon the object/creature in question.
Count me in for saying that you can continue accelerating round after round.
Then why do starships stop an the end of each round unless someone takes a piloting action to move them again?
Starship combat is an entirely made up abstraction with no relation at all to what is going on in reality, so that you can ignore (and Paizo doesn't have to lay down the law on) distance, time, and the third dimension.
OK. So the first thing that I have to do is make sure that all of the units are the same. I am using metric for scientific work, so that is meters and seconds.
The 1.11 ft/second^2 thrust converts to 0.338 m/s^2
Other numbers that I need:
Escape velocity of the Earth: 1.12 x10e4 m/s
Orbital speed of the international space station: 7.66 x10e3 m/s
Distance to Alpha Centauri: 4.132 x10e16 m
Remember, just because you are experiencing zero-g while in orbit, it doesn't mean that you are outside of the gravitational field of the planet. So from the space station, you have to accelerate to escape velocity.
a = (V1 - V0)/t
with a = 0.338
V0 = 7.66 x10e3
I'm getting 1.04 x10e4 seconds. Or about 29 hours.
Once you are at escape velocity you can start accelerating towards the destination. As someone pointed out, you really only want to accelerate for half of the journey. The other half should be spent decelerating so that you can arrive at low enough speed to not cause yourself or the solar system any serious problems.
d = V0*t + 1/2*a*t^2
with d = 2.0 x10e16
V0 = 7.66 x10e3
a = 0.338
Hmm...
2 x10e16 = 1.12 x10e4 * t + 1/2(0.338)t^2
Looks like a job for the quadratic formula:
A = 1/2(0.338)
B = 1.12 x10e4
C = -2 x10e16
-1.12 x10e4 + sqrt((1.12 x10e8)^2 -4(1/2)(0.338)(-2 x10e16)) / 2(1/2)(0.338)
Calculating -4(1/2)(0.338)(-2 x10e16) gives me 1.35 x10e16, which dwarfs the (1.12 x10e8)^2.
sqrt(1.35 x10e16) is 1.16 x10e8, which also dwarfs the -1.12 x10e4.
So time t for half the journey is 3.437 x10e8 seconds. Or about 10.9 years.
So round up to about 22 years for the entire journey.
Also, the top speed reached is
a = (V1 - V0)/t
with V0 = 1.12 x10e4
t = 3.437 x10e8
a = 0.338
Which comes out to 1.16 x10e8 m/s. Or about 0.39 c.
And while this has been a fascinating way to spend the last several hours, I think I will stick to the non-Newtonian physics when playing a game.
Starship combat is an entirely made up abstraction with no relation at all to what is going on in reality, so that you can ignore (and Paizo doesn't have to lay down the law on) distance, time, and the third dimension.The actual rules I quoted seem to indicate that speed is maintained in zero-g unless an outside force acts upon the object/creature in question.
Count me in for saying that you can continue accelerating round after round.
Then why do starships stop an the end of each round unless someone takes a piloting action to move them again?
And the Void Walk ability isn't?
???
It is a combat movement ability. That is why it is listed in units of feet per round.
In fact all combat movement abilities are made up abstractions with no relation to what actually goes on in reality. Do you honestly think that all people can move at the same speed? That difficult terrain always slows a person down by the same amount? That small burrowing animals can actually move through the ground at multiple feet every 6 seconds and without leaving a tunnel behind them?
It’s a matter of (considerable!) degree.
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They said that they would bring a clear spindle aeon stone for food and water.
And a LOT of reading material.
Starship combat is an entirely made up abstraction with no relation at all to what is going on in reality, so that you can ignore (and Paizo doesn't have to lay down the law on) distance, time, and the third dimension.The actual rules I quoted seem to indicate that speed is maintained in zero-g unless an outside force acts upon the object/creature in question.
Count me in for saying that you can continue accelerating round after round.
Then why do starships stop an the end of each round unless someone takes a piloting action to move them again?
Also in theory given how small the playmaps are for space what you are doing during your turns is vector changing and velocity changing. You are not stopping every round but until you can only really see your position as it relates to other things on the field. So if you are chasing after something you are not both coming to stops at the end of each turn. If neither accelerates or decelerates both are maintaining the same course and heading in relation to each other and the only differences would be piloting actions to change headings or speed so it is all relative.
That could actually make for an interesting Drift/Space random encounter. The party is just flying along minding their own business when all of a sudden a railgun shot that was fired 10 thousand years ago slams into the side of their ship.Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-b##&~ in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?
First Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!
Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!
First Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!
Second Recruit: Sir, yes sir!
There's an old Star Trek novel, Crisis on Centaurus, where, while the Enterprise is on its way to answer a distress call, they run into a microscopic black hole that forms and evaporates inside their main computer, significantly hobbling their ability to provide aid.
I imagine one could do the same with a Sphere of Annihilation.
The Sarcesians can do this better, explaining how they moved around and settled the Diaspora pre-starflight. They just need a way to breathe longer than an hour, easy enough with armor and spells now.
Sarcesians can go 1 hour without breathing and can exist in a vacuum without suffering the associated environmental effects. When in a vacuum, they automatically grow wings made from pure energy that grant them a supernatural fly speed of 60 feet (average maneuverability) but that work only in a vacuum.