Grrl Power #825 – Punch practice
I had a much longer fight scene planned between Ren and Max, but this more or less gets the point across. The only thing missing is Max giving Ren the occasional jab to amp him up. Remember he has super adrenaline – basically he starts at like 10x the boost of a normal human, and it ramps up from there. They haven’t discovered if he has an upper limit yet, which is partially the point of the exercise they’re doing now. That’s what all the fanfare in the back is, everyone is betting on whether or not he can actually connect with Max.
It’s got to be a weird job where you’re encouraged to try and punch your boss in the face.
On the previous page, a lot of people commented that Sydney ought to whack the Punchomatic 6000 with the lighthook, and here you go. Sydney probably knew she couldn’t really punch it through the wall, but she certainly didn’t expect to come in seventh.
People were trying to figure out where the rest of the team ranked. I had originally planned to put names in the triangles but they were way too small. Hiro and Stalwart are way up there, obviously. I wasn’t actually sure where to place Anvil though. She can hit pretty hard normally, but if she absorbed enough kinetic energy beforehand, she could maybe even outpunch Max.
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Her Vegata Attempt failed.
Sydney, your Lighthook still punches sixth hardest in Arc. Your punch, however (trying REAL hard to stifle a snort and an evil giggle)
Stop trying to hit it and hit it!
Seventh. There are six triangles above hers.
Ah. Missed the fact that two are so close together that they are almost indistinguishable from each other. I stand corrected…..well, sit corrected.
And isn’t that a nice play on words Dave gave us: He had the machine call “bull” on Sydney.
And she can probably level up to punch a whole lot harder.
Making the Lighthook Fist as big as it is actually hurt Sydney’s ranking. The larger fist spreads out the kinetic energy, so it’s LESS force impacting the mat per square inch.
But the total force is the same, so it doesn’t actually reduce her score. It’s just less likely to make a hole in the machine
I suspect, if Sydney had punched it with the tip of the lightbook,(molesticles) the she would have punched right through the machine…
I suspect Maxima’s punch is with zero ranks in power.
A larger surface with the same force gives you less pressure and that is how a punch transfers energy. So Anvil’s huge hands have to put more force into a punch than others to get the same pressure and injury potential.
I totally get where you’re trying to go with this, but it’s actually wrong.
At the other end of the pad, there’s probably some sort of uber force transducer. These things measure force by taking a physical value, say the amount of bend in a super small beam, measuring that value, and then using maths and physics to correlate that to a force.
Regardless of whether the input force was spread over a large surface area or net, the transducer still sees the same force.
Some use a cantilever strain gauge as you described while others use pneumatics.
Stainless or glass bead in a tapered tube where the amount of vertical travel is proportional to the moment of force used on the punch pad. The rest as you said is electronics, physics and math.
Does Harem have different markers depending on how many bodies she has out? (Since un-‘porting makes her remaining bodies stronger)
Well, there are some of the place markers that have the same color but multiple locations, so maybe yes?
I was thinking it might be beyond her power curve. But the old one that talked about her strenght said 1 was about x16 human, putting her on par with Raw Anvil.
YES, THANK YOU!! Both of us here wanted to see Sydney use the Lighthook used to punch that thing. Daniel the Human wanted a separate marker for it tho, maybe pink with a blue outline? Either way, looks like 16 tons lifting strength gets her up the list…
It seems to be automatically marking based on proximity, or login. I doubt the machine knows not to count it. Doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t “code” it in later though :)
16 tons… bless her soul…
She loads 16 tons? What does she get?
a nother day older and deeper in debt.
But in Sydney’s case, she’d probably find herself two weeks younger and up a buck fifty.
Ok, so Max at top, then Hiro and Stalwart, Anvil, Harem-in-one-Body, and… is Dabbler that strong? Who else would be above lighthook Syds?
Likely Math, but Dabbler is likely to be up there as well.
No possible way is Math anywhere in the upper area. Don’t forget that Math is human. He thrives on technical skill not strength. Sydney’s lighthook can lift TONS, and she was swinging it around, giving it extra momentum (assuming it actually swung and wasn’t all in her control and therefore useless). Considering how this appears to be set up, I would think Math falls somewhere in Mustang.
Since the lighthook probably has vanishingly small mass, in all likelihood it doesn’t do momentum. Move it as fast as you like, it’s going to hit the same regardless, just a sudden push at it’s force limit. Which is why it doesn’t register higher.
Now, if she had a depleted uranium Kongo stick, using the lighthook to swing THAT hard would increase the impact.
She has 16 tons of force, putting it at the base of a pole would increase the force at the end of the pole.
That said it’s also true of everyone else on that list, at least those who could lift a 16 ton club.
DOES it measure force, though? Or is it momentum, impulse, energy, or power?
Probably energy delivered. That’s why punches work, you put all that energy into your arm, and then when your fist is stopped by the target, the force applied ramps up to whatever it takes to deliver that energy over the distance the target moves. (Or the distance your knuckles crush, if you punch Maxima…) And the energy does damage. To the target, or you.
But the light hook has no momentum, no matter how fast it’s moving, it just applies that 16 tons of force, times whatever distance the punching machine deflects under that force. It isn’t really a punching sort of thing.
So to hit with the light hook, she should pick up a brick first…
I’m curious what a hit directly with an orb rates. Like she did in her first fight.
I don’t think so: Math strength is probably somewhere between the upper limit of what is considered human and the lower limit of what is considered superhuman. He is mostly skill.
Isn’t dabbler a Demon? Not a few weeks ago, she was explicating the difference between demons and devils… I can only think she hasn’t yet punched it (?)
only half and not fully trained.
Depends on the Theological basis Dave’s using, Ours holds that succubus were Probably not even demons just used by modified by or created by them, they don’t really have a gender the way we know it, but are probably actually genderless and able to assume forms in order to act as to put it bluntly to transfer sperm from a male then change forms and give that now tainted sperm to a Woman. There’s also a open admission that those claims of such actions were an attempt to blame Birth defects and miscarriage on demonic influences through this alleged action.
In other words there’s two possible reasons for what was being observed, Demonic influence from a semi demonic entity that goes to the trouble of getting laid as a Succubus then turning incubus to impregnate a woman with the used sperm….
Or some lout blaming it on a demon because its not his fault.
Harem isn’t super strong, her cast page power icons give her a 2 star ‘Strength’ ranking, so… if she’s combined in one body, she might have five times her normal strength. Enough to maybe bench press half a ton. She IS stronger than Math, who is most likely ‘peak human’ for his build.
The cast page power rankings as I understand them
Maxima – 5/5 Flight, Durability, Strength, Blaster and Speed. (can push a power higher at the cost of the others)
Sydney – 4/5 Flight, 3/5 Blaster, 5/5 Force Field, 1/5 ESP (Telepresence), 3/5 Telekinesis (slightly outdated)
Dabbler – 4/5 Close Quarter Combat, 3/5 Blaster, 2/5 Force Field, 4/5 Tinker, 3/5 Ranged Combat, 2/5 Hyperintellect
Anvil – 3/5 Strength, 4/5 Energy Absorption, 2/5 CQC
Harem – 3/5 Duplication, 3/5 ESP (Telepathy), 3/5 CQC (Clone Coordination), 2/5 Strength
Peggy – 4/5 Ranged Combat
Heatwave – 1/5 Flight, 3/5 Blaster, 4/5 Damage Shield
Math – 5/5 CQC, 4/5 Speed, 2/5 Durability, 1/5 Strength, 3/5 Blaster
Mr. Amorphus – 3/5 Shapeshifting, 4/5 Durability, 3/5 Blunt Damage Reduction, 3/5 Strength
Achilles – 6/5 Durability, 1/5 Strength
Hiro – 3/5 Flight, 3/5 Durability, 4/5 Strength
Stalwart – 4/5 Durability, 4/5 Strength (is noted as being the second strongest behind Maxima)
Jiggawatt – 3/5 Energy Form, 3/5 Energy Absorbtion, 2/5 ESP (Electroperception)
Oops, The ESP listings should actually be Teleportation
Sydney’s Flight rank is also a bit out-of-date…
Not really. We just don’t have a firm grip on her speed limits… Yet.
For example, I can well imagine Mach 25 in Earth atmosphere, but I’d want to be in a different hemisphere at the time. I was going to say M32, but the arithmetic is too gross. Wikipedia gives M25 as ~ 8,507m/sec after complicated long division.
I’m not even about to speculate on her interstellar speed, due to recent discoveries* on the nature of “space”, but having said that, 0.2L (59,958,491.6m/sec) seems almost reasonable.
* It seems “space” is not actually “nothing”, but is filled with “stuff”… (And it ain’t just stars.)
IIrc one comic said that one-body Harem is close to uncharged Anvil. So she’s not bad off!
Oh, Mr. Amorphus? He’s reasonably strong.
Yeah, I think that would make sense! :)
Math at peak human doesn’t convey his proper skill. He could probably destroy the machine with a single punch as he’s learned how to focus all his attack power into an instant. He is very likely the black marker.
Ren, Varia and Jabberwocky.
Varia, Ren and Jabberwocky(all under the right circumstances)
Mr amorphous has strength in the same ball park as anvil according to the cast page. I’d bet one of them is him.
To be perfectly fair to Sydney, on a scale of kitten to Maxima, that is at best 2M tall, the difference between Sydney and Ali(Tyson, Tszyu etc) is probably measured in mm
I strongly suspect this isn’t a linear scale, but a logaritmical scale.
Agreed. Somewhere around Mustang seems to be the upper limit of human capability.
Standard physical strength probably… but when you see a martial artist strike a tree with their finger and produce a hole…
True, I did have similar suspicions, still, it ramps from kitten to mantis shrimp, which relative to a human is like being able to punch holes in 1/2′ concrete
If you don’t take into account the square cube law
This is actually fairly stupid, to the point of breaking willing suspension of disbelief. Predators don’t punch. They bite and tear. Grazers punch, or rather, ram. Ostriches, moose, goats, and so on. As to relative strengths, well, time for some field practice.
Yea…it couldn’t possibly be based on the power rankings that people have been putting on animals and mythological beasts for millennia…I mean come on, who puts tigers next to dragons in anything?
Sure, except mantis shrimp which many species literally punch to hunt their prey – I think the point is strength, though, so… I think you should definitely get a webcomic with a large following and a punch meter, so you can put all the grazing animals in a proper ranking and correct this grievous error.
Sure, it’s hard to compare the sustained force of a bite to the impulse energy of a punch/kick, from a pure physics standpoint. But there’s no reason to let simple things like physics and logic prevent people enjoying “who would win” discussions. Or building a punching machine with bragging-rights labels.
Its not stupid; it is, in fact, a joke… It’s an expanded and slightly rearranged version of the monster threat levels in the One-punch Man manga (Dragon & Demon are reversed, God is missing or replaced by Maxima – and that scale STARTS at Tiger I think).
FALCONS PUNCH!
Actually this kinda makes sense since she was proven to not be near as strong as others with her whip when they were doing the construction work. I’m assuming the the black arrow is Hiro, seems pretty obvious. I’m more curious as to who fell into Mantis Shrimp though. Might be Gwen, since she is technically a super but fully falls under “support” status, and therefore likely won’t need to get actual training to pull her into Wolf?
Gwen’s not a Super, she’s a mage
Sidney soloed a planet destroying giant alien. She isn’t a support class. Maybe a utility tank?
Her really strong powers are a force field and an energy weapon. You can’t apply those to a punch machine.
I find your lack of imagination…disturbing.
First, the brainless one. Sydney with flight at mach 16 + force field == flattened machine. Not even close. I’m actually waiting for some application of this. (And yes, at ground level, that would do damage like a tornado with a really bad attitude or a hurricane in a hurry.)
Second, the slightly more subtle one. This would take some effort, but there are several ways to convert the energy from an energy weapon into force. Pick one. Experiment with it until to get something that’s at least 1% efficient & controllable. I expect respectable results.
Er, hurricanes do more damage by simply loitering. Obviously if they’ve spent a bit of time over warm water for longer then they’ve had a chance to muscle up, but they really do resemble a dog in Mama’s flower garden: take your time and get it right!
I know this is more story convenient, but I think it would be more effective to have him punch a speedy version of the punch o meter.
On this kind of stuff a machine would actually surpass Maxima in convenience, accuracy, range and utility.
Presumably he already did that. This isnt to figure out his CURRENT best, this is to stretch out and reach his next gear.
Besides, machines are boring- nothing to trigger super-adreniline, so it CANT get an accurate rating. “Holy shit I’m fighting my boss”, on the other hand…
Good point.
I had to do a double take at Jabberwocky. Zoomed out (and thanks to that arm next to her) I thought she was pantsless with a censor bar for a second.
So did I
I thought her shorts had ripped up the side-seam and was only held on by the waist-band at the top. Then I noticed that was actually somebody else’s arm and not more of her thigh.
I was thinking miniskirt or short shorts with a slit, but yeah.
If that was the case, Math would not still be stood watching the test (behind Maxima’s speech bubble, panel 3). Kicking off a new fight, on the other hand…
Part of me want’s to know if Bunney, Kitten, Mantis Shrimp etc are actually super hero names. I know in Dont Tell my Parents I’m a supervillain there is a villain called Bull, And Sharkey is a common in hero and villain circles. I could totally believe these are actual non-deplumes
Nom de plume
Noms de plume
Are you two hungry?
( yes I’m being sarcastic, thanks for the correction )
One thing that super hero comics never get right, speed is strength. Force equals mass time acceleration, a speedster capable of punching at 10x speed probably is hitting much harder than a brick who is 10x human strength. So if Ren is really that fast then his punches would be causing explosions in his target’s flesh (and his own unless he has some protection from acceleration). Another factor is flight, if say superman and the hulk had equivalent strength superman would punch way harder because he can resist the opposite reaction with his flight power. Maxima having flight and strength and speed would be order of magnitude above everyone else save for Hiro.
While mostly true for a normal fight, this doesn’t go up for the punch O meter, since someone with non-superspeedy/flying super strength and durability that can handle their own strength could just press really hard and ground themselves in the ground to avoid the problems of non-flyers.
Your Hulk vs superman example is actually problematic, since the hulk is very heavy and so has his own corigating factor to compete with superman.
Ren wouldn’t cause explosions, but implosions, since he would be directing the momentum inwards in the bodies.
That depends. Suppose a speedster was faster because they could reduce their own inertial mass; The normal forces their muscles applied would move them proportionately faster, all the chemical reactions in their body would accelerate, they’d think faster because everything would operate faster if every particle in their body had less inertia. But they wouldn’t have any more momentum, so they wouldn’t hit any harder.
OTOH, a speedster could probably pull off a real chestnut fist, punch somebody in the same place a few hundred times before they had a chance to react.
The real danger of a speedster punch is the sonic boom shredding you organs.
You know looking at it if she used just the tip (pun Intended) of her light hook. That would be one really powerful puncturing weapon even if a bit dull.
Y’know, I had a thought.
Wouldn’t it make sense for Maxima to just punch Anvil a few times before a fight to get her massively charged up ahead of time?
*) Assuming that Anvil can regulate her attacks to only discharge a controlled portion of her stored energy, and
*) Her stored energy doesn’t noticeably decay over time
That thought has been made many times before, over the years. I don’t remember if DaveB has ever stated if this strategy gets used. Those are some valid assumptions, but I don’t know if they have been explored yet.
See commentary on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-517-here-comes-the-wha-boom/
Have to wonder who designed that thing. Whoever did I certainly hope they are also the building’s architect because that is one Solid machine.
ArcSparQ or Dabbler.
Jabberwocky looks like she isn’t wearing any pants/shorts, just a loin cloth. Oops.
She’s wearing the usual short-shorts, same as anvil beside her.
Maybe the other person’s arm in front of her right leg is messing it up for you?
Yeah, that’s probably what it is. Not entirely clear at first look.
“It’s got to be a weird job where you’re encouraged to try and punch your boss in the face.”
Not really if you think about. Pro boxers hiring someone to spar with them is one example. I’m pretty sure if we looked up really weird jobs, “punching your boss in he face” wouldn’t even register.
Halo should hit it with the light hook wile flying at super sonic speed. Stack them buffs up grrl
She should hit it with the force field while flying with as much speed as she can generate inside that room. I am not sure if that would be supersonic.
She DOESN’T want to try going supersonic in a closed room. Ignoring comic book physics for a moment, the shockwave from breaking the sound barrier would kill everyone that’s not invulnerable and air displacement would explode / implode the walls.
My biggest hang up is how in the hell does this machine work? How can Max hit it (presumably as hard as she can if it’s a full 2 categories above stalwart) and not break the thing? And yet it could register the punches of a 5 year old? My engineer brain is having trouble imagining such a system. “Magic” is probably the best response. Some spell that absorbs kinetic energy and releases it into sand or something.
It was built by a tech-based super (maybe dabbler?) so it runs on the same system that super-powers do, i.e. the power of bullshi- I MEAN PLOT!
Multiple options:
a. DaveB’s suggestion of liquid displacement could be used in two different ways. Either choose your liquid based on who’s going to punch it or have very sensitive measuring equipment.
b. Use different measuring equipment for different supers and edit the difference in, example: Maxima gets a deep mine and a seismograph, bear and higher get a pool of water with a method of measuring how much water there is at both sides and everything below bear gets a normal punch O meter.
c. Mario Mannons idea: Use plates of increasing thickness from the punching plate and watch how much they can punch backwards and replace everything that gets damaged.
d. Weigh your subject and measure his/her’s fist speed, while they punch the ground or even the air.
e. Measure the depth of an impression they leave on a solid block of any material you can get a lot of.
f. Give your super inductive gloves and put them in an glorified antenna and measure the amount of electricity of a single punch in Achilles pressed to the ground or air.(this one doesn’t work with what we have seen, so you can ignore it)
g. if Anvil can release absorbed energy more spread, have them punch Anvil and have Anvil measure it over time.
Now I read your comment better I realize that the existence of this energy release power/spell has been proven by Vehemence in this part, but it doesn’t seem to be something a normal mage can use on Maxima level.
It is called a strain gauge. In this case it is probably attached to a piece of super hardened steel or titanium or whatever. It may be a custom version, but it is still a simple device and will survive so long as the structure it is attached to does not permanently deform.
Any given strain gauge has only a limited usefulness – be that low forces measured at high precision, high forces at lower precision, or somewhere in between. To get a large enough range and sensitivity to give meaningful results at both the Sydney and Maxima ends of the scale would probably need a chain of several gauges, each with a load-bearing stop: if the punch force gets too high to be comfortable for gauge 1 the plate hits the stop, transferring the remaining force into the heavier gauge 2, and so on. It would take some calibration to correlate the range of applied force to the combination of readings produced, but it should be accurate to a similar percentage-of-load across a much wider range than a single-cell machine.
Ren looks like he’s asleep and his head isn’t attached to his body.
And Maxi grew a second head (oh wait, that must be her chip on her shoulder)
Hey, someone has to post the shit comments when Oberon’s not around
I think he’s just concentrating really intensely, but yeah the extra speed-arms do make some of the positions looks a little awkward. Maybe it would help if there was just 1 solid Ren and everything extra was transparent?
I wonder how well Ren would do against Math, given how fast he is.
I must say that Maxima appears to be utterly enjoying herself. Ren looks all business, but Max looks happy.
Wolf should be below Tiger than it would be all Onepunchman Desasterlevels for the Top with Maxima replacing Godlevel
Mostly dragon and demon are in the wrong order for the disaster levels.
What about, for a DemiGoddess?
So basically if Anvil absorb a few of Maxima punches she can in theory out punch Maxima.
I suspect that there is diminishing returns, since in the Vehemence? (Hope I spelled his name right) fight Max mentions there must be a point of diminishing returns as if she has dealt with power absorption type powers.
Which in the team is either Hiro or Anvil (I dis-include Dabbler since I doubt Max wants to “charge” her up). Since Anvil is the easier one to charge I kinda naturally assumed they would’ve already tried it, and it diminishes by one or more of the following rules:
1. Charge diminishes with amount already charged (like batteries I guess) Where the more charged Anvil is the harder it is to stack more. Like say getting punched once by Max yields A = Mp [A is Anvil and Mp is Max’s single punch] but getting punched twice is A Max she can’t release powers > Max without injuring herself [which is more severe the more she uses over limit, think My Hero Academia], therefore charging her beyond Max does little to help power output, but increases the amount of times she can use her powers.
3. The energy decreases naturally until reaching equilibrium, in this case the power held decays with time, presumably because holding onto power more than you naturally have is hard, and decays with time. Where there is an equilibrium point after which the power no longer decays. This would likely be assumed by everyone as the natural strength of Anvil (since it is the point she is at without extra charge)
4. Like vehemence, where once there is a speed of absorption that once surpassed, injures Anvil. Presumably even for testing purposes I doubt Max would want to injure Anvil and therefore no one really tried to pass a certain point (where going beyond would hurt her if not careful)
These are the ones I can think of, presumably there’s more, I would be most definitely interested if anyone has any more theoretical ideas.
I think there might be formatting tokens I am not used to that bugged,
What I meant to say is
1. For each punch the gain is lessened where one punch by max gives 1Mp power and two is less than 2Mp. I think the less than sign might have been interpreted differently.
2. Like a water valve, Avil can store power for each Mp, but releasing beyond Anvil’s exertion limit injures her.
Sorry for the confusion, if anyone knows where I can look up the format of the textbox please let me know. I would be interested in using bold, italic, and other formats if possible.
The comments box uses a subset of HTML commands. It usually interprets the less-than and greater-than angle-brackets as an attempt to call a function or format change, and doesn’t display them. There is a function that disables any other calls, so that characters can be seen as typed, but I’m not sure what it is; in the examples below, substitute ( and ) for less-than and greater-than angle-brackets respectively unless otherwise stated.
Bold and Italic are the calls I’m most familiar with. Bold is entered with (b) and exited with (/b); italic with (i) and (/i).
Anchors are entered with (a) and exited with (/a). They probably mean something in their own right besides the colour, but I only really know/use them as the container for a link: (a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archive/” title=”Testing”)Archive(/a) should implement as Archive in colour, with Testing in a mouseover box, and take you to the archive page if you click it.
Spoiler boxes are a non-default addition in this comments system. They use square brackets instead of angle brackets, but are otherwise similar: (spoiler)here it is(/spoiler) implements as here it is.
Other calls that I’m less confident in are given below. May as well take the opportunity to try them, and it’ll be obvious which don’t work!
underline with (u) and (/u)
strikethroughwith (s) and (/s)superscript with (sup) and (/sup)
subscript with (sub) and (/sub)
And there is a non-default one for block quotes, which I can’t remember.
Calibration error: That is what happens when machine gets -1 as a result. Mind you, Maxima probably also registers -1, but that is a roll-over error.
Sydney: (angrily points at scale) “This is Bull!!”
You punch sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Calibration error? Ouch. That’ll really leave a solid bruise on your ego.
How was it that much less than her first attempt?
It’s not much less, just a little.
This’s a super punch O meter and has obviously a logaritmic scale, so the power distance between upper bunny and the absolute under limit the thing can measure is a lot smaller than for example: under bull to under tiger.
As for why it can’t measure a normal punch for a normal woman, it’s just not just not something ArcsparQ/dabbler designed it to measure, since all supers are peak fit, so that it measures beneath bodybuilder is actually a seemingly futile exercise.
Fly orb and lighthook combined next!
All things being equal, and if they were given the same velocity, I’d rather be hit by Sydney than Anvil…
It’s not the “per square inch” that matters, it’s the total energy transmitted to the target that counts, as well as how it’s distributed.
If you have a larger mass travelling at the same velocity you get more energy and sometimes it’s better to spread it out than to concentrate it, you affect more areas of the target that way.
I’d rather be hit with a thumbtack than a baseball bat, even if they weighed the same.
I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail
It all depends on your limitations compared to that of the other.
Spread force is only preferable if you: don’t have a tensile strength that surpasses your opponent to such a degree that your weapon can surpass it with a much smaller area(this problem increases the smaller the area becomes, because square cube law), so as a non-super I would rather be hit by a slightly above Sydney level charged anvil, but if I was wearing armor I would rather be hit by Sydney. In both cases I would rather not be hit by any of them.
A ballerina, on tippy toes, exerts more force than a good scout tank, per square cm/inch.
Still, provided she does not have super powers, I would rather get into a fight with a ballerina than a tank!
Did… did Syd just did Marsupilami’s tail fist with her lighthook?!
Marsupilami should score on a dragon level.
“You know those stories where the protagonist is hiding the fact that they’re the most powerful being on the planet?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not in one of those stories.”
Correct. Halo has galactic potential.
She is not just the big fish in a small pond. She is a shark, so big that she only fits one fin in the pond!
Sydney just can’t punch very hard. Not her thing.
Or “You’re not the protagonist”.
I want a labeled diagram of the Punchomatic 6000 as a vote incentive! Every triangle marked with the user. Sydney gets two arrows, Harem gets 5. Who’s with me?
«+1» ^Me^‼️
Looks like Sydney has got a long way to go before she can achieve the Maxima level…!
I think everyone is over-analyzing the mechanism of the Punchomatic. A simple block of steel with some strain gauges and possibly accelerometers would cover the entire range of force.
With a simple but tough cover for some padding and maybe a sacrificial plate behind that for the really heavy hitters, you wouldn’t even have to swap out the sensor core that often. Some Cornell students built a simple punching-force detector for under $100 a few years ago with heavy foam and wire mesh, I can’t imagine ArcLight wouldn’t have the budget and expertise to come up with something far more robust.
I agree.
Sydney needs to use flight to ram her forcefield into the punchomatic (love the name). It ought to get somewhat better results and it’s totally within her character.
That will work, provided she can get the leading edge of the field to touch the strike pad first. Not easy to do with a transparent force field… Someone suggested combining flight with lighthook; I doubt that will work – flight doesn’t seem to effect it’s lifting capacity and shouldn’t alter the level of impact of a solid light construct either.
don’t get why mantis shrimp is considered weak, those things can punch fast and with the force of a .22 bullet
Have you ever been shot with a .22? They sting and break the skin but unless they accidentally hit a vital spot they’re almost non-fatal.
Are… are you thinking of a .22 pellet gun (compressed air) rather than .22 long rifle (gunpowder)? The smaller, slower .22 pellet has only 1/4 the energy of a .22 bullet – according to some (older) studies on shootings, about 1/3 of .22 injuries in the US were fatal.
As for the the mantis shrimp, see previous page’s comments. Yes, it’s fast and energetic, but they’re so small it doesn’t do more than bruise a human. They can only crack tanks (crab shells, etc) because all the force is applied to the tiny contact surface area of their clubs, creating a high stress concentration to initiate the crack. Spreading that force out to the area of a human fist probably* wouldn’t break glass.
*I haven’t done the math and don’t feel like looking up aquarium glass strengths just now
Wow, if they can crack tanks, then they are up to Halo’s PPO damage potential!
The nature of the target probably also has a lot to do with it: crustacean shells and glass tanks are quite rigid compared to squishy human skin. Whereas the rigid object resists being moved by the punch and allows its full force to build up, the soft skin simply deforms to accommodate the movement without putting up much resistance. I’m not sure whether there is data on cases where the shrimp punched an area where the bone isn’t protected by intervening muscle (and I am sure the ethics board would veto any deliberate research to check), but I would expect more damage to the bone in that scenario.
I’m with @brichins on this. In my dotage I plink a lot with a.22 Lithgow singleshot bolt action.
I go out in the bush, I have a few favourite spots where people are almost always scarce, and I can get a clear 100m range, with some crosswind. I like crosswind, it sharpens me up. I use both short and long loads, and I expect to get a minimum of a 50mm grouping with both loads. I’m continously aiming for 25-30mm grouping… Over iron sights. And yes, short rounds will shatter many branches in the 40-50mm thickness.
I cannot say a .22 airgun will not do you damage. Just checking numbers, the cheapest Diana I could find, break-barrel spring piston, delivers .22 at 225m/sec. Obviously, this could be highly annoying if it caught you on the butt… You could even bleed. So even an airgun should never be used as a toy.
Take extra care to check behind your target nowadays. “Spots where people are almost always scarce” are less likely to be that way than before.
$20.°° says this will end somehow in sexual harrasement by Dabbler!
Why are they cheering? Do they just not like Ren and want to watch him get humiliated? Do they think he actually has a chance?
I guess it is adorable to watch your 5 year old seriously try to tackle 280lb uncle Rick. But I can’t imagine cheering for it.
Good job Ren, it looks like you really tried. Way to put forth acceptable effort. All things considered, your eventual defeat was perhaps less anticlimactic than it might have otherwise been. So keep up the relatively noticeable work.
It’s good that Max still plays with the kids.
According to the author’s commentary there’s a betting pool about whether or not he will be able to hit her.
It’s not a fight, and there’s no expectation that Ren would be able to beat Max. And while Max is presumed to be the most powerful overall, there are other characters who can present her with a serious challenge. Math’s not even a super, and according to Max, he’s beaten everyone he’s fought but her in a “straight fight”. So while Ren might not have the raw power to injure her or the means to overcome her force field, and probably wouldn’t take a hit from one of her energy attacks all that well, he might have higher combat speed and reaction time than she does. Which is what they’re trying to find out in the comic above.
I’m worried about Ren. If super-adrenaline is his only major power, the way that Maxima is likely to determine his maximum speed is when his heart gives out–.
Most of the super powers in this setting have the requisite secondary powers necessary to survive the use of the character’s abilities. For instance Heatwave does not burn herself nor suffer heat stroke when deploying her abilities. Likewise the super speeders do not burn up.
Importantly Ren’s perception makes everything run really slowly, from his point of view. So he would have ages to spot any signs that he was overdoing things.