Telekinetic Flight

[Mack]

Was leafing through RUE the other day when I noticed a passage at the end of minor psionic power Telekinesis...

Telekinesis does not allow psychics to levitate themselves or fly, due to the weight limitation (see Super Telekinesis).

Huh, never saw that before. I always assumed flight was possible, just didn't realize there was a canon statement.

Jumping over to Super TK, there's no speed listed for how fast objects can be moved, which left me wondering how fast a psychic could fly. I've seen a reference to TK Flight in South America 2, but I don't have that book so I decided to calculate it based on the info I do have.

Two bits of data:
1) Damage from Super TK is 1D4x10 SDC per 100 lbs (RUE p182)
2) Damage from a Collision is 2D4 SDC per 10 mph (RUE p345)

So if I round up a psychic character's weigh to 200 lbs, then the damage from him flying his squishy body into a wall would be 2D4x10 SDC. Then per the Collision Rule, he'd would have been traveling at 100 mph to take that much damage.

One hundred mph seems like a reasonable top speed for a psychic. It's definitely quick, but not "fly circles around Sams" quick. At 5th level, a psychic could cover about 16 miles in his 10 minute duration, which ain't shabby. He won't be able to travel across the country, but it's certainly enough to get out of trouble.

[Killer Cyborg]

Was leafing through RUE the other day when I noticed a passage at the end of minor psionic power Telekinesis...

Telekinesis does not allow psychics to levitate themselves or fly, due to the weight limitation (see Super Telekinesis).

Huh, never saw that before. I always assumed flight was possible, just didn't realize there was a canon statement.

Jumping over to Super TK, there's no speed listed for how fast objects can be moved, which left me wondering how fast a psychic could fly. I've seen a reference to TK Flight in South America 2, but I don't have that book so I decided to calculate it based on the info I do have.

Two bits of data:
1) Damage from Super TK is 1D4x10 SDC per 100 lbs (RUE p182)
2) Damage from a Collision is 2D4 SDC per 10 mph (RUE p345)

So if I round up a psychic character's weigh to 200 lbs, then the damage from him flying his squishy body into a wall would be 2D4x10 SDC. Then per the Collision Rule, he'd would have been traveling at 100 mph to take that much damage.

One hundred mph seems like a reasonable top speed for a psychic. It's definitely quick, but not "fly circles around Sams" quick. At 5th level, a psychic could cover about 16 miles in his 10 minute duration, which ain't shabby. He won't be able to travel across the country, but it's certainly enough to get out of trouble.

Whew!!
Gone back and forth over THIS issue before. It sticks out, because it's one of the times where I was forced to change my mind.

Here's the summary:

viewtopic.php?p=2343662#p2343662

When trying to use normal TK to move something as heavy as a person, you CAN do it, but it's going to be slowed down simply because the range is slowed down.
If you can normally move an object out to 60' in one attack (2-3 seconds), that's pretty fast.
Roughly 240' per melee round, which comes to 960' per minute, or about 10.9 miles per hour, if I have things right.
(check my math on this )

BUT if you drop the range to 1/4 of that, then it's a LOT less useful, moving at only 60' per melee round, or 240' per minute, or about 2.7 miles per hour.
Which is a LOT less useful, slower even than the speed of 6 (about 4 mph) that the MOPs granted.
Which could explain the change from the MOPs to RUE: somebody did enough of the math to know they were way off.
(or they just forgot that they'd ever said it in the first place)
So in RUE, they decided that whatever movement you might be able to accomplish with normal TK, it wouldn't constitute "flying."

Meanwhile, since Super TK lacks that weight restriction, you retain full range of movement regardless of weight, which means that at first level a person with Super TK could move themselves 100' per level.
At first level, this would mean 100' per 2-3 seconds, roughly 400' per melee round, or 1600' per minute, which would come out in the neighborhood of 18.18 miles per hour.
(again, check my math- I'm kinda sleepy)

Not great compared to a jetpack or Fly As The Eagle, but certainly fast enough to constitute "flight."
And since the range increases per level, the speed would be roughly 18 mph per level.

By 5th level, this would be about 90 mph.
By 10th level, this would be about 180 mph.

Which is actually pretty well balanced.

[Natasha]

Another method is to compute the work done to raise 200 pounds to a height of 30 feet (double the maximum height of regular TK) and figure the speed from that.

h = 30 feet = 9.144 metres.

On Earth, it is assumed that the gravitational force creates acceleration g = 9.8 m/s².
200 pounds = 90.7185 kg.
Weight = mg, then m = 9.257 kg.

Work = mgΔh = (9.257 kg)(9.8 m/s²)(9.144 m - 0 m) = 829.53 Joules.

From the work-energy theorem or conservation of energy comes the object's speed from this kinetic energy or after falling from a height of 9.144 m near the surface of Earth.

From energy conservation, v² = 2gΔh.
v = 13.386 m/s.

Which is almost exactly 44 ft/s. Since the Speed attribute number is feet per second, this character would fly with Speed 44, slightly faster than Usain Bolt running.

Who'd take 30 miles per hour over 100 miles per hour, though...

[Library Ogre]

I did an article on this for the Rifter, but I don't remember the issue and the index seems defunct. I put the base speed of regular TK at 12, with every 10 pounds over what you need giving you +2 to speed (so if something weighs 50 pounds and I lift it with 60# of force, it will move at 14). Super TK had a base speed of 25, and every 50 pounds added +5 to speed.

[Prysus]

I did an article on this for the Rifter, but I don't remember the issue and the index seems defunct. I put the base speed of regular TK at 12, with every 10 pounds over what you need giving you +2 to speed (so if something weighs 50 pounds and I lift it with 60# of force, it will move at 14). Super TK had a base speed of 25, and every 50 pounds added +5 to speed.

Greetings and Salutations. Rifter 44, page 45: Rifts/Other: Telekinesis & Ectoplasm (using the Rifter Index on the forums). I think that's the article you're discussing. Also, if the defunct index you were looking for is the Nexus Nine version, the site is closed. I have plans to host that index on my site (I also want to update it), but I've been lazy and unmotivated. Maybe on the Fourth of July (at least for the old list, updates will take longer). Farewell and safe journeys.

[Mack]

I did an article on this for the Rifter, but I don't remember the issue and the index seems defunct. I put the base speed of regular TK at 12, with every 10 pounds over what you need giving you +2 to speed (so if something weighs 50 pounds and I lift it with 60# of force, it will move at 14). Super TK had a base speed of 25, and every 50 pounds added +5 to speed.

That's entirely more reasonable.

[Mack]

Whew!!
Gone back and forth over THIS issue before. It sticks out, because it's one of the times where I was forced to change my mind.

Here's the summary:

viewtopic.php?p=2343662#p2343662

When trying to use normal TK to move something as heavy as a person, you CAN do it, but it's going to be slowed down simply because the range is slowed down.
If you can normally move an object out to 60' in one attack (2-3 seconds), that's pretty fast.
Roughly 240' per melee round, which comes to 960' per minute, or about 10.9 miles per hour, if I have things right.
(check my math on this )

BUT if you drop the range to 1/4 of that, then it's a LOT less useful, moving at only 60' per melee round, or 240' per minute, or about 2.7 miles per hour.
Which is a LOT less useful, slower even than the speed of 6 (about 4 mph) that the MOPs granted.
Which could explain the change from the MOPs to RUE: somebody did enough of the math to know they were way off.
(or they just forgot that they'd ever said it in the first place)
So in RUE, they decided that whatever movement you might be able to accomplish with normal TK, it wouldn't constitute "flying."

Meanwhile, since Super TK lacks that weight restriction, you retain full range of movement regardless of weight, which means that at first level a person with Super TK could move themselves 100' per level.
At first level, this would mean 100' per 2-3 seconds, roughly 400' per melee round, or 1600' per minute, which would come out in the neighborhood of 18.18 miles per hour.
(again, check my math- I'm kinda sleepy)

Not great compared to a jetpack or Fly As The Eagle, but certainly fast enough to constitute "flight."
And since the range increases per level, the speed would be roughly 18 mph per level.

By 5th level, this would be about 90 mph.
By 10th level, this would be about 180 mph.

Which is actually pretty well balanced.

KC, the only hitch I see with that approach is that it's dependent on how many actions/melee a character has. It's seems off to have TK speed affected by the character's Boxing skill (or lack thereof), or if they took HtoH Assassin vs HtoH Expert.

[Killer Cyborg]

KC, the only hitch I see with that approach is that it's dependent on how many actions/melee a character has. It's seems off to have TK speed affected by the character's Boxing skill (or lack thereof), or if they took HtoH Assassin vs HtoH Expert.

True, but it's better than how things work with normal SPD, where the more attacks you have, the slower you move per attack.

What it comes down to for me is the "Telekinesis does not allow psychics to levitate themselves or fly, due to the weight limitation (see Super Telekinesis)" part, particularly the "due to weight limitations."
Because the ONLY weight limitation that affects Telekinesis, but does not affect Super TK, is specifically is described on RUE 170, and it is specifically a limit on distance.
(Yes, there is a weight limit per ISP spent, but that's not something that would prevent a psychic from flying; it would only mean that it could cost a lot of ISP, because there's no limit on ISP spent on this power.)

If the "due to weight limitations" doesn't refer to the distance penalties, then I don't know what else it could possibly be referring to... and I spent a LOT of time on this, before I finally came up with this answer.

It might be aesthetically displeasing to have an overall speed determined by your attacks, but it's not entirely unusual.
Telekinetic Leap (RUE 170), for example, allows a person to leap and additional 3' across per level. The duration of the power is "one melee attack/action; in this case, a leap." So the more attacks you have per melee, the more TK leaps you can make in a melee round, and the faster your overall speed will be.
At 10th level, you can jump +30' per attack. If you only have 4 attacks per melee, this means you can travel +120' per melee round if you're using this power to travel. At 6 attacks per melee, that's boosted to +180' per melee, based solely on your number of APM.

A number of teleport type abilities work the same way: each attack, you can use a power which hops you x distance, and Boxing will allow you to teleport one extra time over people who don't box.

It doesn't make perfect sense, but it seems to be the way that flight using TK (Super TK) is intended to be.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Whew!!
Gone back and forth over THIS issue before. It sticks out, because it's one of the times where I was forced to change my mind.

Here's the summary:

viewtopic.php?p=2343662#p2343662

When trying to use normal TK to move something as heavy as a person, you CAN do it, but it's going to be slowed down simply because the range is slowed down.
If you can normally move an object out to 60' in one attack (2-3 seconds), that's pretty fast.
Roughly 240' per melee round, which comes to 960' per minute, or about 10.9 miles per hour, if I have things right.
(check my math on this )

BUT if you drop the range to 1/4 of that, then it's a LOT less useful, moving at only 60' per melee round, or 240' per minute, or about 2.7 miles per hour.
Which is a LOT less useful, slower even than the speed of 6 (about 4 mph) that the MOPs granted.
Which could explain the change from the MOPs to RUE: somebody did enough of the math to know they were way off.
(or they just forgot that they'd ever said it in the first place)
So in RUE, they decided that whatever movement you might be able to accomplish with normal TK, it wouldn't constitute "flying."

Meanwhile, since Super TK lacks that weight restriction, you retain full range of movement regardless of weight, which means that at first level a person with Super TK could move themselves 100' per level.
At first level, this would mean 100' per 2-3 seconds, roughly 400' per melee round, or 1600' per minute, which would come out in the neighborhood of 18.18 miles per hour.
(again, check my math- I'm kinda sleepy)

Not great compared to a jetpack or Fly As The Eagle, but certainly fast enough to constitute "flight."
And since the range increases per level, the speed would be roughly 18 mph per level.

By 5th level, this would be about 90 mph.
By 10th level, this would be about 180 mph.

Which is actually pretty well balanced.

KC, the only hitch I see with that approach is that it's dependent on how many actions/melee a character has. It's seems off to have TK speed affected by the character's Boxing skill (or lack thereof), or if they took HtoH Assassin vs HtoH Expert.

I dunno. Sharp reflexes=sharp mind=think "faster"=move faster via thinking?

[Natasha]

I did an article on this for the Rifter, but I don't remember the issue and the index seems defunct. I put the base speed of regular TK at 12, with every 10 pounds over what you need giving you +2 to speed (so if something weighs 50 pounds and I lift it with 60# of force, it will move at 14). Super TK had a base speed of 25, and every 50 pounds added +5 to speed.

We arrived at the same basic conclusion. The primary differences are you postulated the initial speed is a universal constant and your maths are quickly done. I postulated the initial speed is based on inertia and the maths take a little more time. But spreadsheets to give results for any object or just tabularizing the results would make lookups pretty quick.

[Shark_Force]

if we're presuming the only limitation on speed is the psychic's range with super telekinesis, then a level 1 psychic has a range of 200 feet, not 100. because they can move an object from one end to the other.

[Natasha]

if we're presuming the only limitation on speed is the psychic's range with super telekinesis, then a level 1 psychic has a range of 200 feet, not 100. because they can move an object from one end to the other.

I think this is incorrect.

The range given is not a radius.

[Shark_Force]

if we're presuming the only limitation on speed is the psychic's range with super telekinesis, then a level 1 psychic has a range of 200 feet, not 100. because they can move an object from one end to the other.

I think this is incorrect.

The range given is not a radius.

*shrug* it's an odd assumption that how far you can move something in one action is based on range, but somehow specifically the range from the person using the power only... if it's unlimited movement per action so long as you stay in range, you need to figure that the 100 foot/level range is essentially doubled (provided we assume straight lines only) to be able to make that happen. the range given effectively *is* a radius; a radius in which the psychic can manipulate things via telekinesis.

personally, i'm not sold on the idea that telekinesis is, in fact, intended to allow as much movement as is needed to get from anywhere in range to anywhere in range in one action, but that appears to be what killer cyborg's numbers are based on. frankly, i prefer a more set number... but since rifts has massive consistency problems in this kind of situation, getting anything we can all agree on is going to be nearly impossible.

[Natasha]

if we're presuming the only limitation on speed is the psychic's range with super telekinesis, then a level 1 psychic has a range of 200 feet, not 100. because they can move an object from one end to the other.

I think this is incorrect.

The range given is not a radius.

*shrug* it's an odd assumption that how far you can move something in one action is based on range, but somehow specifically the range from the person using the power only... if it's unlimited movement per action so long as you stay in range, you need to figure that the 100 foot/level range is essentially doubled (provided we assume straight lines only) to be able to make that happen. the range given effectively *is* a radius; a radius in which the psychic can manipulate things via telekinesis.

personally, i'm not sold on the idea that telekinesis is, in fact, intended to allow as much movement as is needed to get from anywhere in range to anywhere in range in one action, but that appears to be what killer cyborg's numbers are based on. frankly, i prefer a more set number... but since rifts has massive consistency problems in this kind of situation, getting anything we can all agree on is going to be nearly impossible.

I see your point now. I misunderstood earlier.

[Killer Cyborg]

if we're presuming the only limitation on speed is the psychic's range with super telekinesis, then a level 1 psychic has a range of 200 feet, not 100. because they can move an object from one end to the other.

With normal TK, the maximum distance a small object may be moved/hurled is 60', which is the same as the range of the power, not the diameter of the power.
I assumed that things work the same for Super TK, but I suppose it might be different.

[Mack]

I did an article on this for the Rifter, but I don't remember the issue and the index seems defunct. I put the base speed of regular TK at 12, with every 10 pounds over what you need giving you +2 to speed (so if something weighs 50 pounds and I lift it with 60# of force, it will move at 14). Super TK had a base speed of 25, and every 50 pounds added +5 to speed.

I toyed around with this approach a bit more, and found that I definitely like it better.

A 5th level psychic, weighing 200lbs, could expend 20 ISP and fly at 17 mph for 10 minutes, covering about 2.8 miles. Or he can kick in an extra 20 ISP and move at 30.7 mph and cover 5.1 miles. Or if he really wants to skedaddle, spend 100 ISP (20 base +80 extra) and fly at 72 mph covering almost 12 miles.

That's a much more measured ability for a master psychic, and it gives the player some reason to think about how much ISP he wants to invest in that flight. (Do I need to just get over an obstacle? Do I need to travel a certain distance? Or do I need to get out of Dodge right now?)

[Axelmania]

How does the magic spell compete with fly as the eagle, this has me wonder. I think nexis proximity raises weight limit to human levels.

If gnomes were psychic even the lesser poet might be enough.

Could this be how Psymbiotes move?