Why is Flight so cheap?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Leynok

Two Advantages the same cost don't have to have an equally good effect, how cheap or expensive they are, are the incentive to buy or not.

Yeah, but it would be nice if they were somewhat comparable. I've never had a huge issue with the cost of flight, it's the cost of almost every other movement ability that I think is overpriced. Clinging and Super Jump, in particular, seem very overpriced. The easiest quick fix I can think of is to remove the level of Enhanced Move (Air) that is essentially built into the Flight advantage. So a basic Flight ability would allow movement up to Basic Speed; if you want to go faster either buy up Basic Speed or EM (Air).

[Leynok]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Yeah, but it would be nice if they were somewhat comparable. I've never had a huge issue with the cost of flight, it's the cost of almost every other movement ability that I think is overpriced. Clinging and Super Jump, in particular, seem very overpriced.

Inclined to agree with you there. In the case for Super Jump, I like to price it at 5/level and take away that detail that you use your max jump distance for slams, instead just use the distance you did travel like any other Slam.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Because a bird's flight speed has nothing to do with it's ability to run. And no they aren't expecting a lot of players of humanoid characters to buy down their move so they comically duck walk on the ground.

Nevertheless, those players who do choose to sell down Move deserve to have their characters ridiculed in-world.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No more sound than walking/running.

Any flight other than active gliding produces more sound than a Human walking, unless you've Enhanced Flight (and I think the obvious choice is Low/No Signature). Staying in place, with Flight, is certainly going to be fairly noisy for most birds, except owls.

As for "no more sound than running", running is more or less noisy dependig on surface. I'd say most forms of winged Flight, except swift flapping-free gliding, is as noisy as the most noisy types of running, unless Flight is Enhanced.

The fact that Flight can also be Limited to make it as noisy as a freakin' rocket or jet engine doesn't mean that Flight without that Limitation is at all well suited to stealthiness.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Any flight other than active gliding produces more sound than a Human walking, unless you've Enhanced Flight (and I think the obvious choice is Low/No Signature). Staying in place, with Flight, is certainly going to be fairly noisy for most birds, except owls.

As for "no more sound than running", running is more or less noisy dependig on surface. I'd say most forms of winged Flight, except swift flapping-free gliding, is as noisy as the most noisy types of running, unless Flight is Enhanced.

The fact that Flight can also be Limited to make it as noisy as a freakin' rocket or jet engine doesn't mean that Flight without that Limitation is at all well suited to stealthiness.

Default flight is not what birds have.

Have you got any examples of Flight enhances to make it quiet? Because standard super flight doesn't make any of the noises you've decided it should, and we've got stats for it.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Default flight is not what birds have.

Have you got any examples of Flight enhances to make it quiet? Because standard super flight doesn't make any of the noises you've decided it should, and we've got stats for it.

No officially published examples, no. That's why I maintain that GURPS will benefit hugely from either a GURPS Bestiary, or else from a GURPS Powers: Movement analogous to the already-published GURPS Powers: Senses.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Flight doubles Move, but still requires time to accelerate just like running.

You accelerate at your Move, i.e. your first turn of moving occurs at your full Move.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

No officially published examples, no. That's why I maintain that GURPS will benefit hugely from either a GURPS Bestiary, or else from a GURPS Powers: Movement analogous to the already-published GURPS Powers: Senses.

But we do have examples of the Flight advantage used. For instance, GURPS Supers p42, the Archetype template, offers Flight (Cannot Hover).

Granted I'm not sure why 'cannot hover' is there, but can you think of any application of that template where the flight is noisy?

On the other hand, there may be some cases where Noisy should be present on templates where it seems it isn't. Still, there are a bunch where it is, down to the THS Buzzbot (Temporary Disadvantage: Noisy 2).

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Because a bird's flight speed has nothing to do with it's ability to run. And no they aren't expecting a lot of players of humanoid characters to buy down their move so they comically duck walk on the ground.

But Basic Speed is more "how fast can I react to something?" for turn order and dodging while Move is "how quickly do I move?" with the latter normally derived from the former. Making a movement power based on multiplying the former only makes sense if you assume people are always going to stick with the basic values their DX/HT gives them, just like if Fright Checks had been based on IQ instead of Will or if slams were based on raw ST instead of on HP.

Originally Posted by Walrus

Disadvantage Limit unless it's racial?
And this is because usually Aerial Move has nothing common in locomotion source with Ground Move.

Dropping Basic Move a few steps barely scrapes the Disadvantage Limit except in a campaign where Flight would be too expensive to use anyway.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

But Basic Speed is more "how fast can I react to something?" for turn order and dodging while Move is "how quickly do I move?" with the latter normally derived from the former. Making a movement power based on multiplying the former only makes sense if you assume people are always going to stick with the basic values their DX/HT gives them, just like if Fright Checks had been based on IQ instead of Will or if slams were based on raw ST instead of on HP.

On the other hand, Basic Move is land move, and it starts at Basic Speed. Basic Air Move is just the same except that it starts at 2x Basic Speed, if you have it at all.