Watt to Damage Conversion and things.

[Jazath]

Any formula to calculate watt to damage die?

More specifically How much is a single Megawatt and TeraJoule of damage in a single instance?


Total Power Requirement of a Borg ship: 18,721,080 TeraJoules/s (Since we harness unlimited energy amounts it doesn't make a difference for the requirements)
18,721,080 TeraJoules/s = 18,721,080,000,000,000,000 Watt Second

If a cube were to explode, how much damage would it deal and what would the radius of the explosion be with a power output of that sort?
Basically a supernova? (I used a site to figure the damage to be 16,666,666d6 Fire Damage)

Also Borg Ships can rearrange themselves and move around power nodes, Waveguide Conduits, Power Nodes, The Transwarp Drive Chamber and Maturation Chamber and such around when damaged.
Should this take 1d4 rounds? A Free Action? Or just a plain Round/Minute?

If a borg cube is damaged without rearranging systems and such, how high percentage would be lost during and assault of damage?
if something dealt 200,000 and we didn't get a chance to rearrange, we would lose 20% of our efficiency?

[InvisibleBison]

My first instinct is to say that the damage rules are far too abstract for any sort of direct conversion. But let's give it a shot!

Falling Damage
A fall of 10 feet deals 1d6 points of damage. According to this calculator (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/flobi.html#c1%22) that I found, a fall such as that would have 2940 J of kinetic energy just before impact. So 1d6 damage = 2940 J.

Dynamite
According to the DMG, 1 lb of dynamite deals 2d6 points of bludgeoning damage in a 5 foot radius. Since a 5 foot radius affects 8 squares, a stick of dynamite deals a total of 16d6 points of damage. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT#Energy_content), 1 lb of dynamite (2.2 kg) contains 16.5 MJ. So 1d6 = 1 MJ (approximately).

Conclusions
My initial hypothesis appears to be correct: The damage rules are far too abstract for any sort of direct conversion from energy to damage.

[Jack_Simth]

Any formula to calculate watt to damage die?

More specifically How much is a single Megawatt and TeraJoule of damage in a single instance?


Total Power Requirement of a Borg ship: 18,721,080 TeraJoules/s (Since we harness unlimited energy amounts it doesn't make a difference for the requirements)
18,721,080 TeraJoules/s = 18,721,080,000,000,000,000 Watt Second

If a cube were to explode, how much damage would it deal and what would the radius of the explosion be with a power output of that sort?
Basically a supernova? (I used a site to figure the damage to be 16,666,666d6 Fire Damage)You are severely underestimating the power output of a supernova (https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/01/the_incomprehensible_power_of_a_supernova.html). But that's OK. EVERYONE DOES. 2.2 x 10^38 watts per second on the example real supernova, vs. 1.8 x 10^19 on your output there.

[noob]

Also the energy needed to deal an amount x damage is not linear: you need exponential force to increase linearly damage.
For each extra 10 str you can lift four times as much(basically you can exert 4 times more energy) but your damage with a longsword is increased by a +5 each time.
So if we use that evaluation system to estimate damage then it would probably hurt more than just a lightning but not ridiculously more(something around 150 more damage).

[Crake]

You are severely underestimating the power output of a supernova (https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/01/the_incomprehensible_power_of_a_supernova.html). But that's OK. EVERYONE DOES. 2.2 x 10^38 watts per second on the example real supernova, vs. 1.8 x 10^19 on your output there.

It must be close though ^19 is only half of ^38

[Fizban]

Depends entirely on what you're using to define the measure (and that "damage" is in any way a measure of energy when it's not, but that is the premise here). The 'ol tnt conversion has been mentioned already, and I hadn't thought of falling damage.

If you go by fire damage melting via Frostburn's ruling, you might find my posts from an old Industrialization Thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?522922-Industrializing-a-Setting&p=21968878&viewfull=1#post21968878) useful. So that's 868 kJ per point of fire damage.

[OracleofWuffing]

Fire Immunity would no-sell the entire thing, regardless of the scientific notation. Either make it typeless damage, or like 36 different damage types all at once (See Hellball (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/hellball.htm), but bigger. A LOT bigger).

I'd start by going "No save, just die" if you're within 75% of the explosion's maximum radius. Then, anything between 75-95% saves or dies, and anything that made its save up to the """safe""" zone of the explosion takes damage. But, well, at this point, it's easier to list things that can survive taking that amount of HP damage and giving them specific immunity to the explosion instead of determining how much damage to actually do... So, it turns into 0-75% rocks fall you die, 75-95% save or die then die of taking "Yes" HP damage, and 95%-100% die from taking "Yes" HP damage. If you have complete damage immunity, you do not die.

Also, make your massive damage fort save for taking over 50 HP of damage.

I think the takeaway from this is that it is generally not a good idea to explode sufficiency advanced space ships.

[Jazath]

Depends entirely on what you're using to define the measure (and that "damage" is in any way a measure of energy when it's not, but that is the premise here). The 'ol tnt conversion has been mentioned already, and I hadn't thought of falling damage.

If you go by fire damage melting via Frostburn's ruling, you might find my posts from an old Industrialization Thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?522922-Industrializing-a-Setting&p=21968878&viewfull=1#post21968878) useful. So that's 868 kJ per point of fire damage.

Is your name derived from Paladines avatar Fizban? Just curious.

This seems like a lot of work, but in order to figure and run a campaign """Sorta""" realistically (Not really, but hey what the heck) we figured the evil hands of mathematics and quantum mechanics (Joke) would stand in our way.

So, thank you.

[Jazath]

Fire Immunity would no-sell the entire thing, regardless of the scientific notation. Either make it typeless damage, or like 36 different damage types all at once (See Hellball (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/hellball.htm), but bigger. A LOT bigger).

I'd start by going "No save, just die" if you're within 75% of the explosion's maximum radius. Then, anything between 75-95% saves or dies, and anything that made its save up to the """safe""" zone of the explosion takes damage. But, well, at this point, it's easier to list things that can survive taking that amount of HP damage and giving them specific immunity to the explosion instead of determining how much damage to actually do... So, it turns into 0-75% rocks fall you die, 75-95% save or die then die of taking "Yes" HP damage, and 95%-100% die from taking "Yes" HP damage. If you have complete damage immunity, you do not die.

Also, make your massive damage fort save for taking over 50 HP of damage.

I think the takeaway from this is that it is generally not a good idea to explode sufficiency advanced space ships.


Agreed on a few terms, but sometimes a being makes an exception to the rule. But that would generally mean a First One/ Greater Overgod or Nexus Dragon entered the chat.

So when a Cube explodes everybody is simply screwed royally to the point of no return, unless they make a ridiculous save?

[Fizban]

Is your name derived from Paladines avatar Fizban? Just curious.
Indeed, was quite surprised it wasn't taken already. 'Course I've been using it so long I see it as more my name than his, especially since I don't actually care for the "lol fireball your own party" style of humor, not since I was a kid anyway.

Back to ridiculous giant explosion- obviously past a certain point "heat" should surpass "fire" immunity, as enough energy will make anything fly apart. How much "fire damage"? Take the highest hit point monster (as in, normal monster that gets hit points simply from existing), maybe multiply by some appropriate factor, and see what you get. For example, the Tarrasque has some 800+ hit points. Round that up and say 1,000 is basically maximum possible hit points, and we can then say that 10,000 or 100,000 points of fire damage, being ten or one hundred times what is required to kill the toughest monster possible, is enough that it exceeds the limits of "fire immunity" and deals damage anyway because reasons, whether subtractive or fractional. You could instead use the highest possible instance of damage, if you weren't clearly leaving damage unbounded. The point here being that even if it takes 100,000 points of "fire" damage to get one point through immunity, the explosion still kills anything with hit points that aren't similarly absurd, as it should.

Materials will give you no good data, since even the most "fire immune" of materials are of course measured in paltry hardness and hit points, such that a mere 100 points of fire damage will harm "Obdurium."

Unless you decide to say, calculate the hit points of a planet (or a star) and use that to determine your damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Basically a supernova? (I used a site to figure the damage to be 16,666,666d6 Fire Damage)
A supernova doesn't deal arbitrarily huge amounts of fire damage (which could be no-selled by a rogue with Evasion...)

A supernova utterly annihilates everything, no save, no immunities, no iron heart surge, within a radius measured on a cosmic scale. If you're feeling generous it can grant a DC 100 fort save solely to determine whether you can be true-resurrected afterwards, but this doesn't otherwise mitigate the utter annilation.

[Lapak]

You are severely underestimating the power output of a supernova (https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/01/the_incomprehensible_power_of_a_supernova.html). But that's OK. EVERYONE DOES. 2.2 x 10^38 watts per second on the example real supernova, vs. 1.8 x 10^19 on your output there.
One of my favorite XKCDs (https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/) applies here, concerning how one could be exposed to a lethal dose of neutrinos.

Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:
- A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or
- The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?
Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude.

[Tzardok]

Back to ridiculous giant explosion- obviously past a certain point "heat" should surpass "fire" immunity, as enough energy will make anything fly apart. How much "fire damage"? Take the highest hit point monster (as in, normal monster that gets hit points simply from existing), maybe multiply by some appropriate factor, and see what you get.

I'm not quite sure this rule of thumb works for things like fire elementals.

[Lapak]

I'm not quite sure this rule of thumb works for things like fire elementals.
I think it does; 'fire' and 'nuclear fusion' and very different in terms of type, not just degree, though both can be measured on the same theoretical scale in terms of energy output.

[OracleofWuffing]

Agreed on a few terms, but sometimes a being makes an exception to the rule. But that would generally mean a First One/ Greater Overgod or Nexus Dragon entered the chat.

So when a Cube explodes everybody is simply screwed royally to the point of no return, unless they make a ridiculous save?
I'm not good at realism, verisimilitude, or space stuff, but I'm thinking that's as fair a representation of this kind of explosion as the next. If anything, I'm inclined to believe that the save is generously in favor of being too weak, but the game's gotta be a game. Part of the reason why I threw in that you take damage after succeeding the save is for stuff like Kurald Galain pointed out- a rogue rogue astronaut (You see, it's an astronaut with rogue classes, that has gone rogue, so rogue twice, and yes, it sells rouge) could survive by standing still if the damage was tied to the save itself. There's also a funny possibility of a spacecraft getting vaporized plasmatized but not its crew inside, which are all equipped to survive the vacuum of space afterwards.

Dollar-store overgods can bring along Alter Reality and whatever else you want to tie with Divine Ranks. They're fine, they have a supernova hall pass. But the more you try to tie traditional mechanics and set damage numbers to, the more likely you'll find builds that'll survive it without breaking a sweat. It's one of the reasons why the Lady of Pain doesn't have a statblock and one of the reasons why you'd chuckle at official deity stat blocks. Plus, it's a little bit easier to estimate the radius of a supernova.

[Jazath]

I'm not good at realism, verisimilitude, or space stuff, but I'm thinking that's as fair a representation of this kind of explosion as the next. If anything, I'm inclined to believe that the save is generously in favor of being too weak, but the game's gotta be a game. Part of the reason why I threw in that you take damage after succeeding the save is for stuff like Kurald Galain pointed out- a rogue rogue astronaut (You see, it's an astronaut with rogue classes, that has gone rogue, so rogue twice, and yes, it sells rouge) could survive by standing still if the damage was tied to the save itself. There's also a funny possibility of a spacecraft getting vaporized plasmatized but not its crew inside, which are all equipped to survive the vacuum of space afterwards.

Dollar-store overgods can bring along Alter Reality and whatever else you want to tie with Divine Ranks. They're fine, they have a supernova hall pass. But the more you try to tie traditional mechanics and set damage numbers to, the more likely you'll find builds that'll survive it without breaking a sweat. It's one of the reasons why the Lady of Pain doesn't have a statblock and one of the reasons why you'd chuckle at official deity stat blocks. Plus, it's a little bit easier to estimate the radius of a supernova.

Borg Collective: Species 213902 just destroyed cube identification number 1340-3274-5606-7008! HOLY ****!! WARP 9!!

So if one of our cubes are destroyed, best bet is to turn your tails and flee as the explosion engulfs the solar system! XD

Indeed, I should simply look up the radius of a supernova and go "If your in this radius, you have 1 single moment to turn your stuff and flee, or be vaporized. Overgods+: Your good."

[Beni-Kujaku]

So if one of our cubes are destroyed, best bet is to turn your tails and flee as the explosion engulfs the solar system! XD

Indeed, I should simply look up the radius of a supernova and go "If your in this radius, you have 1 single moment to turn your stuff and flee, or be vaporized. Overgods+: Your good."

You're way off, as someone else already stated. Our sun alone produce 3x10^26 Watts (J/s). That is already 100 million times more than what the cube explosion produces, and still 1000 billion less than a supernova. So, your explosion might obliterate our moon, or any sattelite or ship in a thousand to tens of thousands of kilometers radius, but it would be almost negligible in the scope of a Solar System.

[Jazath]

You're way off, as someone else already stated. Our sun alone produce 3x10^26 Watts (J/s). That is already 100 million times more than what the cube explosion produces, and still 1000 billion less than a supernova. So, your explosion might obliterate our moon, or any sattelite or ship in a thousand to tens of thousands of kilometers radius, but it would be almost negligible in the scope of a Solar System.

I was joking.
Simply though i think I have a decent understanding

[Jack_Simth]

I was joking.
Simply though i think I have a decent understanding
That does bring up a point, though:
You'll need a cooling system that violates the laws of physics rather horrifically.

Energy doesn't just go away when it's used, it turns into heat. In space, that really only dissipates via black body radiation - If you're generating and using 1.8*10^19 watts of power, you'll need to disperse 1.8*10^19 watts of heat if you don't want the cube to turn into a molten sphere under it's own gravity. Let's see... you listed them as 3036 meters on a side? That gives you... 55,303,776 square meters of effective surface area, which means you need to dissipate about 3.3*10^14 watts per square meter. Playing around with an online calculator, that means your cube will (without a cooling system that defies physics) settle on a black body temperature over 150,000 Kelvin. For reference, the surface of the sun only clocks in at about 6,000 K.

[Jazath]

That does bring up a point, though:
You'll need a cooling system that violates the laws of physics rather horrifically.

Energy doesn't just go away when it's used, it turns into heat. In space, that really only dissipates via black body radiation - If you're generating and using 1.8*10^19 watts of power, you'll need to disperse 1.8*10^19 watts of heat if you don't want the cube to turn into a molten sphere under it's own gravity. Let's see... you listed them as 3036 meters on a side? That gives you... 55,303,776 square meters of effective surface area, which means you need to dissipate about 3.3*10^14 watts per square meter. Playing around with an online calculator, that means your cube will (without a cooling system that defies physics) settle on a black body temperature over 150,000 Kelvin. For reference, the surface of the sun only clocks in at about 6,000 K.

Oh those pesky laws! Laws are meant to be horrifically violated and killed in a fantasy/sci-fi game!!!
Would our dampening field or a Anti-matter system, dissipate/negate the excess energy in a controlled enviorment if we balance it right? We see no mention of ST wikis on Borg cubes having a cooling system, so naturally with though "To Baator with it!" and come up with things like A wizard did it!

[JNAProductions]

Oh those pesky laws! Laws are meant to be horrifically violated and killed in a fantasy/sci-fi game!!!
Would our dampening field or a Anti-matter system, dissipate/negate the excess energy in a controlled enviorment if we balance it right? We see no mention of ST wikis on Borg cubes having a cooling system, so naturally with though "To Baator with it!" and come up with things like A wizard did it!

Right, but you're also trying to apply real-world logic to this kind of stuff.

You can't have it both ways.

[Jazath]

Right, but you're also trying to apply real-world logic to this kind of stuff.

You can't have it both ways.

Well, I know. Just needed a rough idea on a few things and how they would work.
But I guess the issue has been resolved. Thank you. We'll use this threads for future campaigns.

[Jack_Simth]

Oh those pesky laws! Laws are meant to be horrifically violated and killed in a fantasy/sci-fi game!!!
Would our dampening field or a Anti-matter system, dissipate/negate the excess energy in a controlled enviorment if we balance it right? We see no mention of ST wikis on Borg cubes having a cooling system, so naturally with though "To Baator with it!" and come up with things like A wizard did it!
Horrifically violating the laws of physics (often by simply not thinking about them) is a staple of the Star Trek line, so you're OK there.

Maybe something like portals to the elemental plane of water? Dump all the heat there. An infinite plane should be able to soak a finite amount of energy, right?