Re: (TFT) Magic Carpets and Brooms

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

--- Jay wrote:

>This is directly related to questions like ''Can Conan punch a hole in a
Sopwith Camel?''

PvK: Ooh! ooh! I know this one! Yes (if he is close enough to hit it)! ;-)


>The Atari 2600 had a resolution of something like 160 by 190 (@ 60Hz).

PvK: I know this one too: The most common mode used was probably 160 x 92, 
though it could also do 320 x 192, and a variety of lower resolutions 
offering different numbers of colors at once.


>With a distinct enough silhouette even my old eyes can likely pick out the
major details down to a quarter inch box.

>Not much more than that though.

>Much beyond that quarter inch square (viewed at arms length) our 20 foot
plane becomes 'pixelated'.
...
>Without optics or magic scrying etc. a Figure with normal human vision
probably couldn't recognize a human Figure farther than ~150 Melee-hexes (a
bit more than 200 yards) away.

PvK: I think there is a wide range of quality in what people can and 
can't tell at range, and that it doesn't translate directly to computer-
like resolution. Human eyes have both rods and cones and human minds can
process more than just static color values, and have two-eye parallax and
can move their heads, and can recognize movements and distinguish colors
from background and so on. Some people are near-sighted or far-sighted,
and some people (females moreso than males) can identify people by body
movements farther than they by seeing their features. Bla bla bla - it's
complicated and although I think your geometric approach has some merit,
it's never going to reduce down to an accurate math problem.


>The Marines call 550 m maximum effective and 3500+ maximum range (2 miles)
with the M16 on point targets i.e. a person e.g. J.A.H.

>The Vickers is listed at an effective range of 2000 m and a maximum range
of 4000+ m with a rate around 40 rounds per turn.

Note that effective ranges also have to do with the typical target and the 
point at which the projectile tends to start tumbling, losing its velocity
and accuracy more rapidly.


Also, this again is a topic which GURPS has already treated in a way 
similar to your approach, but with some playtesting and published books.
Which is not to say you can't go do the same thing, but you might want 
to check out what they've done. They end up adding range and relative
perpendicular speed of the target to get a "range + distance", and then
have a sliding scale which is also used for target size. I think it mostly 
works pretty well, or at least gets you close enough that you can start
tweaking to taste.
=====
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