A funny thought about Samson PA

[StormSeeker]

So, with a very impressive running speed of 150 mph, the Samson power armor is one of the fastest non-flying units in the game.

But a funny thought/visual occured to me:
Note that the Samson (as depicted, which is non-canon, I know) is roughly in human proportion. If we assume that A) running does NOT involve the jet boosters, and B) it has a running stride of approximately 10', it would need to take 22 running steps per SECOND to reach it's max speed.

It would be like the Speedy Gonzales cartoons; the legs would be just a vague blur

[Killer Cyborg]

Cool!

[glitterboy2098]

IMO, the max speed would include long, loping strides, so it is less running and more like power-skipping.

[Mack]

So I'll take a different tack...

A speed of 150 miles per hour equates to 220 feet per second.
Assuming 4 steps per second (something that human legs could support) then it's 55 feet per step.

[Tor]

Running 220 feet in a second is pretty cool...

[rifter72]

Tripping over a curb at that speed would leave a big mess, or even trying stop fast would suck.
Human couple enjoying dinner in their home in the burbs.
"Dear would you mind getting me a drink"
"Sure Hun..." loud crashing noise and wall caves in SAMAS comes barreling in.
"Opps" said the SAMAS "Was running to fast to take that turn, Sorry; have a nice day" as the power armor gets up and walks out.

[glitterboy2098]

So I'll take a different tack...

A speed of 150 miles per hour equates to 220 feet per second.
Assuming 4 steps per second (something that human legs could support) then it's 55 feet per step.

given the suit is twice as tall as a person (suggesting that it might have more in common with appleseed's landmates in terms of where the pilot sits, pilot legs only being in the upper part of the suit's legs for example) it is going to have larger strides than a person.. hmm..

there may also be some enhancing tech involved.. for example maybe something similar to the Rocket Boots invented by a russian student, which use explosive release of force at each step to boost running speed.. allowing a human to reach velocities of up to 15+mph..

http://youtu.be/42VAEF8g00Q


http://youtu.be/xJvmAXCh6Ak

[Blue_Lion]

In the military double time (running) is 180 steps per minute. About 3 steps per second Sprinting may be more but would tire you out real quick so we can assume 3 steps per minute is what an average operator can sustain. So assuming 3 steps per second would be 73.3 feet per step(about 22.2M per step).

Although the limit to how many steps you can take in a second is gravity. IE your foot can only fall so fast.

[Tor]

Would zombies in Samson PA be able to keep up? They're instinctively kinda slow.

I guess if they trip the crash damage is more easy to recover from than the living.

Am thinking zombies in PA may have trouble doing things like using flight systems or missiles, even if they can sorta manage guns.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Any mundane running speed it limited by how much the pull of gravity is. This means that someone can not run faster then they can fall.

If you don't understand try thinking of running as a controlled fall forward to get the physics of running.

So any speed over a chars terminal V can not be acheived unless there is some force that acts on the char to make her go faster. Jets, rockets, magic, psi, superpowers....etc...

[Tor]

I'm not sure if falling speed would necessarily be a cap, if you had enough traction on the ground then you could 'pull' yourself toward where you have anchored your limb...

Perhaps things like the Samson rely on that?

[Zer0 Kay]

Why can't it be that the legs allow bounding strides without jet assistance? Sure you can't add additional velocity while in the air but what if there speed at launch from the synthetic muscles, or whatever it uses propels it foward faster, and higher up?

[Tor]

There might be some physics calculating involved... I'm very out of practise...

I think there was something involving cannons where if you wanted to launch a cannonball the furthest distanceo on a flat plane then you had to aim it 45 degrees because if you aimed higher not enough horizantal velocity is created and if you aimed lower then it would hit the ground too soon.

Although this might be entirely different if we're talking about a series of cannonball strikes, where hitting the ground too soon wouldn't necessarily be bad because then you could fire the next shot sooner.

In the case of both the cannonball and the samson (and even the strider) I believe they're using friction to create some of the horizantal force though...

If I were on a frictionless field I couldn't jump forward or run forward, right? So it's more than just a fall...

But I think the Samson would have to create greater friction (and more stress on the terrain) to achieve higher land speeds...

and if the terrain were too soft, it might be like running in mud, where the amount of friction terrain can provide (prior to breaking apart) could limit the speed.

[Shark_Force]

basically, if you run forward too fast, you eventually start flying

(though if you don't have some means to maintain your forward speed, you'll slow down to the point where you're not flying any more).

that said, you'd have to run pretty danged fast before that starts happening. generally speaking, i wouldn't worry about it too much, unless your body happens to be shaped like a wing and is made of rather light materials.

[Tor]

You don't start flying if you're gripping the ground to prevent that from happening... but the more upward force you have to counteract the more you'll be ripping up your runway.

[drewkitty ~..~]

If you are jumping then you are not running.
If you are flying then you are not running.

[eliakon]

I guess then we have yet another place where the physics of Palladium-verse differ from ours. Because in the Palladium-verse running speeds have no cut off point, and can be as arbitrarily high as desired. Where as it has been posited that running in our reality running speed has a speed gap (I don't know, I am not a physicist and I don't know the definitions involved here, but it sounds arcane levels of semantics are involved).

[Nightmask]

Someone noted that there was a limit on how fast you can run in part due to gravity deciding how fast your feet come down, although given it's a power armor couldn't it have jets that push you down faster, rather than simply helping you up faster?

[Blue_Lion]

I'm not sure if falling speed would necessarily be a cap, if you had enough traction on the ground then you could 'pull' yourself toward where you have anchored your limb...

Perhaps things like the Samson rely on that?

I do not think traction is the right word in this case. In any case if you did have so much traction you can pull your leg down faster that in itself would slow you down as you are now stuck to the ground. (sound more like the friction hairs on a gecko's foot.

The traditional limit of running is how much forward movement you can make in a stride. With the number of strides being limited by gravity. Typically movement is called running when all feet leave the ground to move in a stride. In a two footed creature the left foot pushes off the ground and you land on the right foot. Four footed creature it works more like two sets of two legs IE either the both front legs move together in a run or both left legs in creatures like camels.

[Blue_Lion]

If you are jumping then you are not running.
If you are flying then you are not running.

Actually running can be seen as series of jumps.

[Blue_Lion]

Someone noted that there was a limit on how fast you can run in part due to gravity deciding how fast your feet come down, although given it's a power armor couldn't it have jets that push you down faster, rather than simply helping you up faster?

hmmmm... Well the number of steps you can take is limited by gravity, but the length of the strides could be adjusted to give more speed than normal. Running with a type of long loping(might have the wrong word) stride. What you are talking about is more a control method to give the ability to stop and make adjustments than achieving speed. I would see thrusters on feet as a accident waiting to happen(getting clogged.)

[glitterboy2098]

maybe when running it unfolds powerbocking stilts to give it bigger strides?

[kaid]

Given we have examples of land animals like the cheetahs that can hit 70+ MPH land speed I don't find it that hard to believe that something as big and powerful as a samson that we know has jump jet assist thrusters could attain 150 MPH land speeds in ideal circumstances for a period of time.

I have seen some odd tests done to allow normal people to do a 4 minute mile by carrying a small ducted fan thruster on their back to help push them forward http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/ne ... le-jetpack.

[Smooth Operator]

You run into other problems before gravity becomes the limiting factor. You would be limited by how fast you can get one foot in front of the other and how much forward force you can generate in the limited amount of time your feet touch the ground.

People tend to top out at around 180 to 200 strides per minute. If you set that as a constant, then you get a fairly complex formula where you're balancing air resistance against the amount of forward force applied with each stride, keeping in mind that the faster you go, the less time you have to apply that force. Eventually you get to a point where the you're moving across the ground so fast that the ground moves away from your foot as fast as you can push.

[kaid]

And its made more complicated by the active jet system on the armor. How configurable is it and how powerful is it. You could use the jets to provide forward and downward thrust to help you hug the ground and push you forward as you run. Honestly for ground speeds like this I do tend to find things like terrain hoppers/aurora blazers/mantis style jet assisted leaping hopping travel mode likely is a more realistic way for powered armor to move very rapidly.

That said I read an article that showed that the human body is physically capable of speeds up to 40MPH with zero agumentations. So the speed of most power armors listed which are 50 to 90 is pretty reasonable for a man sized unit. For something thats about twice man sized I am not sure how that would impact the maximum possible running speed.

[flatline]

Assuming the ground is strong enough to withstand the force of your foot landing and pushing away, traction increases as gravity increases. This means that gravity (or the lack thereof) helps determine how fast you can accelerate when running, but does not directly impose a limit on how fast you can run.

The upper limit on how fast you can run probably has more to do with drag and the tensile strength and grippiness of the surface you're running on.

--flatline

[Smooth Operator]

If traction is all you need, just add cleats.

[flatline]

If traction is all you need, just add cleats.

If your foot is already sinking into the ground, I don't see how cleats would offer any advantage...

--flatline

[eliakon]

And we are back into "Physics in palladium do not use the same rules your used too"

[Alrik Vas]

A sprinter's average stride length is 1.35 times their height. Sampson is 11 ft tall, so the sprint stride length should be 14.85 ft. This means the actual speed, just running, without bounding like a Russian student, at 4 strides a second, is 59.4 ft per second, or about 40 mph. The other 110 mph probably come from jet assisted strides that cover a hundred feet or more at a time.

[Smooth Operator]

If traction is all you need, just add cleats.

If your foot is already sinking into the ground, I don't see how cleats would offer any advantage...

--flatline

They allow you to push against more of the ground. Mud boots don't have those big treads for nothing.

[Smooth Operator]

A sprinter's average stride length is 1.35 times their height. Sampson is 11 ft tall, so the sprint stride length should be 14.85 ft. This means the actual speed, just running, without bounding like a Russian student, at 4 strides a second, is 59.4 ft per second, or about 40 mph. The other 110 mph probably come from jet assisted strides that cover a hundred feet or more at a time.

That seems short. When running at a decent pace at constant speed, I used to cover about 5 yards per stride (our field had lines every 5 yards). When I was accelerating, I probably was around that stride length, but once I was up to speed I covered a lot more ground with each stride.

[Alrik Vas]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

[glitterboy2098]

in a flat out sprint it would be for the sampson. add in the bounding half-jumping approach to get more distance on a stride and you could boost that.. then toss in the suit's thrusters going to push it forward and keep it from losing energy and you might be able to pull it off..

[Smooth Operator]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

Yeah, I'd hit a yard line every stride. Three footfalls in 30 feet. Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I was pretty fast. I used to race my friends on their 10 speeds and win.

EDIT: Brain fart. Three footfalls in 30 feet is only 10 feet per stride. We can validate this number rather easily with some math. A world class sprinter runs the 100m dash in 10 seconds, give or take. We know that the maximum stride frequency is 180 to 200 strides per minute or 3 to 3.33 strides per second. Therefore, the 100m dash is completed in 30 to 33 strides. This works out to an average of between 10 and 11 feet per stride. It stands to reason that the strides at the start of the race are shorter than the strides at the end of the race, but I couldn't guess on how much stride length varies over the course of the race.

[Tor]

If you are jumping then you are not running.

I dunno, the line between a rapid series of horizantally-inclined 1-legged jumps and a sprint begins to blur a bit...

Someone noted that there was a limit on how fast you can run in part due to gravity deciding how fast your feet come down

Nonsense, people do not simply drop their feet during a run, they forcefully extend the leg.

I do not think traction is the right word in this case.

It is for what I am thinking of but we may have different ideas in mind.

In any case if you did have so much traction you can pull your leg down faster

Friction does not pull the leg down, the leg is driven down by muscular power, or in this case, nuclear power. Friction is what translates a pushing motion into horizantal motion.

that in itself would slow you down as you are now stuck to the ground.

Not if it alternates with cadence, no. We naturally alter the amount of friction on our feet with our weight, anyway. The foot our weight is on has more frictional bonding, this is how we shuffle forward on terrain without even lifting our feet if desired.

The traditional limit of running is how much forward movement you can make in a stride.

No, that is the limit of walking, because one foot will always be touching so you can measure it that way.

Running is effectively a series of jumps where we are airborne between steps, so the distance between the left and right foot can actually exceed the length of your legs. That is what I think of when I hear stride, sounds like going for a stroll, I want a cooler-sounding word for the distance between running steps.

the number of strides being limited by gravity.

In what way would gravity limit stride length... you have not explained this.

This may work better if we think in terms of the movement of the center of mass. It may move up and down to some degree during running. The higher it is, the less weight the feet can apply to the ground, and the less traction there is, and it needs to land down h decently enough each time before pressing against the earth again to apply more force, so too much upward travel of central mass would both waste force and also lengthen the delay until the next step could be taken, but the more forward they lean to become efficient, the more the ground will get scraped up and the more traction it will need to avoid slipping.

Anyway... although muscular force can drive the leg down faster, you are right about gravity being an agent that controls the downward stride, but of the overall mass, and a longer fall-delay would be needed the more rebound you had from the impact and the less efficient the run was. I assume that Samson PAs are super-efficient and the person would a be leaning forward a HUGE deal. This would have to be done anyway to counteract the air resistance.

[Blue_Lion]

The traditional limit of running is how much forward movement you can make in a stride.

No, that is the limit of walking, because one foot will always be touching so you can measure it that way.

Running is effectively a series of jumps where we are airborne between steps, so the distance between the left and right foot can actually exceed the length of your legs. That is what I think of when I hear stride, sounds like going for a stroll, I want a cooler-sounding word for the distance between running steps.

the number of strides being limited by gravity.

In what way would gravity limit stride length... you have not explained this.

This may work better if we think in terms of the movement of the center of mass. It may move up and down to some degree during running. The higher it is, the less weight the feet can apply to the ground, and the less traction there is, and it needs to land down h decently enough each time before pressing against the earth again to apply more force, so too much upward travel of central mass would both waste force and also lengthen the delay until the next step could be taken, but the more forward they lean to become efficient, the more the ground will get scraped up and the more traction it will need to avoid slipping.

Anyway... although muscular force can drive the leg down faster, you are right about gravity being an agent that controls the downward stride, but of the overall mass, and a longer fall-delay would be needed the more rebound you had from the impact and the less efficient the run was. I assume that Samson PAs are super-efficient and the person would a be leaning forward a HUGE deal. This would have to be done anyway to counteract the air resistance.

I did not explain why gravity limits forward movement because I did not say that it did. You are again picking apart and not looking at how the whole affects it.

Gravity limits the number of strides/steps you can take in a minute. IE your foot can only fall to the ground so many times in a minute. To achieve higher speed it is necessary to increase the distance that is covered in a stride. A stride is the distance of a step in both running and walking. (By the way that is just restating the reply you picked apart.)

Using friction to pull down your foot faster means that both feet are in contact with the ground and that you would have to constantly turn it on and off. It might give you better mobility control but would not be able to match the speed of running as you just made in to complicated and are tying up processing power needlessly. (again restating what I said earlier in different words.) Nothing new was said so unless you have something new instead of trying to make it look like I am saying things I am not please do not necro again.

[Tor]

I am looking at the whole, I just mis-summarized, I meant to ask how you think gravity limits stride frequency. We would bob around on the moon taking few steps but that may be due to generating too much power, someone who practices sprinting on the moon should be able to be more ginger about applying force and minimize how much they fly off the earth.

I do not see gravity as a limiting factor for how fast my foot can hit the ground, I can accelerate my foot faster than that, that his how someone stomps the ground hard. That we can jump at all is testimony that our feet push faster than gravity.

Friction does not put feet down faster, friction is what allows us to grip the terrain instead of running in place, it translates our force into forward vectors.

Friction does not require 2 feet touching the ground, I have no clue what you mean when you talk about friction.

This thread is too fresh to be necro-d. I misquoted you by mistake, please address the actual question about what you did say, which is how gravity supposedly limits cadence frequently.

[Blue_Lion]

I am looking at the whole, I just mis-summarized, I meant to ask how you think gravity limits stride frequency. We would bob around on the moon taking few steps but that may be due to generating too much power, someone who practices sprinting on the moon should be able to be more ginger about applying force and minimize how much they fly off the earth.

I do not see gravity as a limiting factor for how fast my foot can hit the ground, I can accelerate my foot faster than that, that his how someone stomps the ground hard. That we can jump at all is testimony that our feet push faster than gravity.

Friction does not put feet down faster, friction is what allows us to grip the terrain instead of running in place, it translates our force into forward vectors.

Friction does not require 2 feet touching the ground, I have no clue what you mean when you talk about friction.

This thread is too fresh to be necro-d. I misquoted you by mistake, please address the actual question about what you did say, which is how gravity supposedly limits cadence frequently.

First off on the moon you push off of the ground not the earth. (Petty I know)

The reason gravity limits how often your foot can strike the ground should be fairly self explanatory. It has to do with how fast things can fall. You can move your foot faster than gravity that is how you jump as you so clearly put it, but once up gravity has to bring it back down.

That is why to achieve speed you increase the amount of distance each stride covers once you reach the limit on how many times your foot can hit the ground. (That is why sprinters have longer strides and not maintain a 30" stride at top speed but take more steps.)

With a solid anchor(or highly foolish down ward boot jets) you could take more steps or faster cadence because you legs can move faster than the gravity fall rate. But that is not normal running.

So in normal running gravity limits the number of steps you can take or the cadence.

The part on friction was about some one saying the same could use friction to pull its leg down faster. That would imply that friction is acting like an solid anchor point. That level of friction is not common in most creatures movement the best example of it in use is the movement is a gecko. But to maintain that anchor point you would need to be attached to something with the friction. A system to maintain that much friction that can be toggled on and off for speed running just does not seam practical. Waste of processing speed for a CPU, it is more practical to increase stride distance than use friction to increase the number of strides. However a system to increase friction that much would help in stopping and turning as I said in my original post. (So did you even look at what I was replying to if I have to explain this.)

[Tor]

This foot-fall thing may be easier to envision if I picture a 1-legged guy hopping. Bipedal locomotion messes with the visualization.

When 1 leg extends and presses me up-and-away I begin to tuck it up anyway so it will no be the next to make contact so I do not care how it falls, I care about the other leg, previously-tucked, which I am now propelling down.

This is why I think we should talk in terms of the movement of the entire mass, not the feet.

[Blue_Lion]

This foot-fall thing may be easier to envision if I picture a 1-legged guy hopping. Bipedal locomotion messes with the visualization.

When 1 leg extends and presses me up-and-away I begin to tuck it up anyway so it will no be the next to make contact so I do not care how it falls, I care about the other leg, previously-tucked, which I am now propelling down.

This is why I think we should talk in terms of the movement of the entire mass, not the feet.

Think about you moon example, less gravity means that when you push off you go higher and take longer to come back down the same thing happens to a smaller degree on earth. Even when you run or walk on earth your body bobs up and down. It does not mater how fast you push your leg into the right spot if your have not came down to the point to allow it to make contact yet it will not. The low point in the bounce is often when a foot strikes with the high point happening during the forward movement.

[Tor]

If we were running with the same mechanics as we do on earth, sure. But I expect that if someone got used to running on the moon that after a while they would push off more gently to minimize the time in the air. Someone would aim to lift their foot high enough to avoid dragging it across the ground (friction impeding speed) as they flex the leg to prepare it for the next push-off.

Like... I think someone might try to angle themselves more forward when moon-sprinting so that they travel at less of an upward angle, due to the less gravity.

Any kind of terrain-gripping tech is going to lessen or nullify our concerns about rebounds though I think...

[Blue_Lion]

Terrain gripping tech is more about stopping than speed in normal human like movement.

Lets look at a wheel as it never leaves the ground to move forward. Traction up to a point it moves forward just fine but once the friction with the ground goes past a certain point it is now sapping emerge acting as a break.
The same would be true with running once you increase the friction involved with the ground it starts to require more energy to pull your foot up to move forward. A system like that is toggled off and on would be a processing power in normal movement as they already know by increasing the length of the strides can achieve higher speed. (I read an article that talked about runners trying to increase the number of strides, by 10 strides per minute, to achieve speed and for most runners it is counter productive as you are taking more shorter steps and slowing down over all. Only people that typically over step and are heavy heal strikes could improve speed this way but that style of running places more stress on the joints.)

[Tor]

Didn't even think of wheels, good thought-provokation. Come to think of it, I can shuffle-walk at a faster pace, but it's a lot easier with socks than with shoes.

How fast do you guys think a Samson can run backward? Also, would they look like this guy?

[Alrik Vas]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

Yeah, I'd hit a yard line every stride. Three footfalls in 30 feet. Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I was pretty fast. I used to race my friends on their 10 speeds and win.

EDIT: Brain fart. Three footfalls in 30 feet is only 10 feet per stride. We can validate this number rather easily with some math. A world class sprinter runs the 100m dash in 10 seconds, give or take. We know that the maximum stride frequency is 180 to 200 strides per minute or 3 to 3.33 strides per second. Therefore, the 100m dash is completed in 30 to 33 strides. This works out to an average of between 10 and 11 feet per stride. It stands to reason that the strides at the start of the race are shorter than the strides at the end of the race, but I couldn't guess on how much stride length varies over the course of the race.

Which is why the average stride is 1.35 times the height of the runner. Now, if you're breaking 10ft per stride at 6' tall, that's certainly higher than average. If we assume the Sampson was made for running, and given its speed, it's not a poor assumption, we'll give it the same elevation of a pro athlete. So more like 1.6 times height. Makes it 16ft and change. Still not 150mph.


Though your claim is still a little outlandish to me. 15ft strides at 3 strides per second is about 40mph...these guys that do the 100m in 10 seconds are going nearly 23mph.

[Smooth Operator]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

Yeah, I'd hit a yard line every stride. Three footfalls in 30 feet. Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I was pretty fast. I used to race my friends on their 10 speeds and win.

EDIT: Brain fart. Three footfalls in 30 feet is only 10 feet per stride. We can validate this number rather easily with some math. A world class sprinter runs the 100m dash in 10 seconds, give or take. We know that the maximum stride frequency is 180 to 200 strides per minute or 3 to 3.33 strides per second. Therefore, the 100m dash is completed in 30 to 33 strides. This works out to an average of between 10 and 11 feet per stride. It stands to reason that the strides at the start of the race are shorter than the strides at the end of the race, but I couldn't guess on how much stride length varies over the course of the race.

Which is why the average stride is 1.35 times the height of the runner. Now, if you're breaking 10ft per stride at 6' tall, that's certainly higher than average. If we assume the Sampson was made for running, and given its speed, it's not a poor assumption, we'll give it the same elevation of a pro athlete. So more like 1.6 times height. Makes it 16ft and change. Still not 150mph.


Though your claim is still a little outlandish to me. 15ft strides at 3 strides per second is about 40mph...these guys that do the 100m in 10 seconds are going nearly 23mph.

Yeah, that's why I looked at it again. It's more like 30 feet per second. I wouldn't call that outlandish at all.

[kaid]

I am looking at the whole, I just mis-summarized, I meant to ask how you think gravity limits stride frequency. We would bob around on the moon taking few steps but that may be due to generating too much power, someone who practices sprinting on the moon should be able to be more ginger about applying force and minimize how much they fly off the earth.

I do not see gravity as a limiting factor for how fast my foot can hit the ground, I can accelerate my foot faster than that, that his how someone stomps the ground hard. That we can jump at all is testimony that our feet push faster than gravity.

Friction does not put feet down faster, friction is what allows us to grip the terrain instead of running in place, it translates our force into forward vectors.

Friction does not require 2 feet touching the ground, I have no clue what you mean when you talk about friction.

This thread is too fresh to be necro-d. I misquoted you by mistake, please address the actual question about what you did say, which is how gravity supposedly limits cadence frequently.

Gravity is a potential limitation but you also have to take into consideration all the very fast "run speed" power armors like the samson also have complex jump jet systems. If they found the max speed limited by gravity its not that hard to have some of the jets angling forward and down to add downward thrust to magnify the downward pull of gravity as well as a pushing force to help propel you forward.

[Alrik Vas]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

Yeah, I'd hit a yard line every stride. Three footfalls in 30 feet. Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I was pretty fast. I used to race my friends on their 10 speeds and win.

EDIT: Brain fart. Three footfalls in 30 feet is only 10 feet per stride. We can validate this number rather easily with some math. A world class sprinter runs the 100m dash in 10 seconds, give or take. We know that the maximum stride frequency is 180 to 200 strides per minute or 3 to 3.33 strides per second. Therefore, the 100m dash is completed in 30 to 33 strides. This works out to an average of between 10 and 11 feet per stride. It stands to reason that the strides at the start of the race are shorter than the strides at the end of the race, but I couldn't guess on how much stride length varies over the course of the race.

Which is why the average stride is 1.35 times the height of the runner. Now, if you're breaking 10ft per stride at 6' tall, that's certainly higher than average. If we assume the Sampson was made for running, and given its speed, it's not a poor assumption, we'll give it the same elevation of a pro athlete. So more like 1.6 times height. Makes it 16ft and change. Still not 150mph.


Though your claim is still a little outlandish to me. 15ft strides at 3 strides per second is about 40mph...these guys that do the 100m in 10 seconds are going nearly 23mph.

Yeah, that's why I looked at it again. It's more like 30 feet per second. I wouldn't call that outlandish at all.

30ft per second is roughly 20mph, that's not outlandish, you're right. but the stride rate we're talking about is 3 per second, which is 45ft per second, you seem to be talking about 30 ft per second, which would be 2 strides at 15ft each, more like a bound. Understandable.

[Smooth Operator]

You're saying, that at a run, every stride was 15+ feet?

Yeah, I'd hit a yard line every stride. Three footfalls in 30 feet. Maybe I'm an outlier. Maybe I was pretty fast. I used to race my friends on their 10 speeds and win.

EDIT: Brain fart. Three footfalls in 30 feet is only 10 feet per stride. We can validate this number rather easily with some math. A world class sprinter runs the 100m dash in 10 seconds, give or take. We know that the maximum stride frequency is 180 to 200 strides per minute or 3 to 3.33 strides per second. Therefore, the 100m dash is completed in 30 to 33 strides. This works out to an average of between 10 and 11 feet per stride. It stands to reason that the strides at the start of the race are shorter than the strides at the end of the race, but I couldn't guess on how much stride length varies over the course of the race.

Which is why the average stride is 1.35 times the height of the runner. Now, if you're breaking 10ft per stride at 6' tall, that's certainly higher than average. If we assume the Sampson was made for running, and given its speed, it's not a poor assumption, we'll give it the same elevation of a pro athlete. So more like 1.6 times height. Makes it 16ft and change. Still not 150mph.


Though your claim is still a little outlandish to me. 15ft strides at 3 strides per second is about 40mph...these guys that do the 100m in 10 seconds are going nearly 23mph.

Yeah, that's why I looked at it again. It's more like 30 feet per second. I wouldn't call that outlandish at all.

30ft per second is roughly 20mph, that's not outlandish, you're right. but the stride rate we're talking about is 3 per second, which is 45ft per second, you seem to be talking about 30 ft per second, which would be 2 strides at 15ft each, more like a bound. Understandable.

Reread the edit to the original post. 10 feet per stride. 3 strides in 30 feet. It is three yard lines in 3 strides, but there's only 10 yards in between 3 yard lines and you don't hit the middle one. My memory was just rusty.

[StormSeeker]

So, with a very impressive running speed of 150 mph, the Samson power armor is one of the fastest non-flying units in the game.

But a funny thought/visual occured to me:
Note that the Samson (as depicted, which is non-canon, I know) is roughly in human proportion. If we assume that A) running does NOT involve the jet boosters, and B) it has a running stride of approximately 10', it would need to take 22 running steps per SECOND to reach it's max speed.

It would be like the Speedy Gonzales cartoons; the legs would be just a vague blur

I just rolled up my first Borg character, and I'd never noticed before that they start with a base speed of 132, which can be upgraded as high as 176. (90 to 120 mph, 60% - 80% of a Samsons max speed)
So, typical height being 60%-80% of a Samson, fair to assume correspondingly shorter legs and thus stride. But unlike the Samson, there's no room to argue to use of the jet boosters.
AAAnnndd, we're back to ~22 strides per second and the Speedy Gonzales visual.
Maybe I'll paint my Borg blue and name him Sonic.


Edit: Hmm, any rules for determining damage for a 1000 lbs 8' borg with vibroblade spikes on his back cannonballing into a target at 120mph?