Random Questions Thread

If throwing something should work, I suppose something like a gunshot would as well?

Not that he's got a gun, just sort of wondering

Well it would impart momentum. Probably not very much, but if he's not in a hurry, he'll escape eventually.

According to this page, a pistol with a high powered .44 magnum cartridge has a recoil of 21.9fps and a weight of 3lbs. Assuming a human weights 130 pounds, that means that the imparted velocity will be about 0.5 feet / second. So not super fast, but it will get him there in a couple of seconds. Note that this is a very powerful cartridge. Depending on the conditions, it could be as low as 0.1 feet/ second.

Edit: I probably mangled all the gun terminology since I'm not an expert, but this should give an idea.

edited 26th Jan '14 6:59:01 PM by storyyeller

And remember, multiple gunshots can be used to impart more momentum. If one shot gets him going 0.1 ft/s, then two will have him going 0.2, and so on. It's still slow, but faster than a single shot.

At the same time, a traditional shooting stance is going to leave you tumbling because the momentum is off your center of mass.

Actually, it isn't true that you have to throw something to impart momentum to a body in space. Gyroscopes, for example, are sometimes used for short-range maneuvering in space.

I'm assuming that after some trial and error you'll figure out the rhythm eventually.

So throwing things until you get back to the wall then, got it.

Gyroscopes?

Thought they kept things stable in one place. Like a camera or a big gun on a vehicle

edited 26th Jan '14 8:09:18 PM by LeGarcon

Actually, it isn't true that you have to throw something to impart momentum to a body in space. Gyroscopes, for example, are sometimes used for short-range maneuvering in space.

Source? As far as I can tell, gyroscopes are only used for rotation. They can't magically break conservation of momentum.

Note that rotation involves angular momentum, something completely different. Gyroscopes are useful for manipulating angular momentum.

edited 26th Jan '14 8:12:25 PM by storyyeller

Of course, offsetting this is the fact that you have a 130 lb person shooting a .44 Magnum in a spaceship environment.

I was wondering when someone would point that out.

Guns in space are a bad idea. Recoil is important.

Is there a documentary or article I can read on the MODERN (i.e after 2010 preferably) process it takes on creating an animated TV show/anime/movie?

So nobody on the Combat-Writing thread has any clue how a new tattoo would affect combat ability, which is understandable since tattooing and combat are really far off from each other.

I realized after a couple of posts that my question would be "How much can you fight with a new tattoo (which presumably falls under the 'stressful/heavy movement' that most newly-tattooed people are advised not to do) before you end up with a scarred chest, as opposed to a ruined-but-fixable tattoo?"

Other post is here, and my initial question with context/setting was about half a page above.

edited 27th Jan '14 8:16:13 PM by Sharysa

Like you just got a tattoo and suddenly combat?

Yeah, the character got a tattoo maybe three or four days before traveling, and suddenly they get ambushed by raiders.

Shouldn't be too bad.

Might be a bit achey or sore but you should be fine I'd imagine.

Is there any specific cautions regarding the tattoo's location or size? Because her tattoo is around palm-sized and in the middle of the chest, so heavy scarring in that area wouldn't be good for a bodyguard. Especially since the setting is fantasy-Mayan without guns.

edited 27th Jan '14 8:24:21 PM by Sharysa

Eh, heavy scaring is often the mark of a bad job.

But even with scaring and soreness and the like it shouldn't affect a person too much.

Adrenaline is one great anesthetic

Ah yes, I forgot that part. Traditional tattooing methods aside, an unreliable apprentice or the Fantasy-Mayan equivalent of a scratcher definitely wouldn't be allowed to tattoo the princess' bodyguard.

Thanks for the help!

edited 27th Jan '14 9:26:45 PM by Sharysa

Are names copyrighted to an extent for original works? Like I know something like "Harry Potter" would likely get you sued to hell and back by a plethora of companies and Rowling, but what about some more like "Tifa" or "Vaan" (or any JRPG character honestly)

As long as they're CLEARLY different characters and only share a name it should be fine, right?

I think it would take more than a common name to trip a copyright violation- they would have to have some similarities as characters, esp. something iconic or associated with the original character. I could name a character in a story "Mickey Mouse" as long as he isnt an actual anthropomorphic mouse.

What would a gun that's basically a high-powered musket do to someone's head?

Esplode it.

But no seriously, musket balls are big heavy lead things and they fuckin hurt when they impact a guy.

Heavier and larger around than most bullets today actually, one of those fired at very high velocity would reduce a human head to nothing but chunks and bits.

edited 28th Jan '14 4:20:59 PM by LeGarcon

No exit wound, large entry, skull is essentially shattered; musket rounds do not retain kinetic energy worth a damn, but they do massive damage to what they hit. Actual interior injury to the brain will be massive but not exactly the mush a modern firearm would cause.

Muskets lack the velocity to generate a your-head-asplode situation despite its raw mass. They're just too slow to generate that much kinetic force. The rifled muskets of the Civil War are pretty close to where the type tops out and couldn't do that.

edited 28th Jan '14 4:46:31 PM by Night

Well he said high powered so I'm just assuming higher velocity.

And range is a factor.

He'd be pretty dead though

I see.

Well, that was pretty much what I was going for.