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Old 01-20-2014, 01:28 PM   #31
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
That would be true if the GURPS rules weren't themselves based on the technical definitions.
GURPS "energy" isn't measured in joules it's measured in FP.

Also since GURPS is US Customary, and not SI, shouldn't it measure physical energy in calories?

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Old 01-20-2014, 01:30 PM   #32
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Probably infinite, due to internal resistance of the cells.
Or you can forget about the electrical conversion and use the rules for valuable sacrifices. It'll vary a little depending on the current price of potatoes, but no more than a boxcar load, and possibly as little as a couple tons.

Edit - I now have this post-Resurrection scene stuck in my head: "Welcome back to the living my liege. Praise be to the gods who have returned you to life, accepting in exchange our sacrifice: a train-load of potatoes."
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Old 01-20-2014, 02:21 PM   #33
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
GURPS "energy" isn't measured in joules it's measured in FP.

Also since GURPS is US Customary, and not SI, shouldn't it measure physical energy in calories?
GURPS "energy" is not energy; it's a magical quantity, also known as mana, that has only a figurative relationship to energy, that is, physical energy. The usual GURPS unit of actual energy in GURPS seems to be the kilowatt-second, also known as the kilojoule.

But the Tech College includes spells that deal not only in magical energy, or mana, or FP, but also in energy in the scientific sense, which is measured in joules (or calories, but I don't know of any GURPS supplement that actually discussed calories—either thermodynamic ones or dietetic ones). In fact, they convert energy in that sense into magical "energy," or mana. The conversion rate is

360 kW => 1 FP/second
360 kJ = 360 kWs => 1 FP

And of course that doesn't mean that the physical energy and the magical energy are "the same thing." The underlying nature of magic is not spelled out, and probably could not be in a generic game.

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Old 01-20-2014, 07:31 PM   #34
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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GURPS "energy" is not energy; it's a magical quantity,
Yes, and I thought you were correcting Fred when he was talking about magical energy, but I see on rereading it he was talking about electrical power at the time.

I still don't really understand why GURPS uses kilowatt-seconds but not calories, but feet instead of meters.
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Old 01-20-2014, 10:27 PM   #35
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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I still don't really understand why GURPS uses kilowatt-seconds but not calories, but feet instead of meters.
Because GURPS is concerned with the energy needed to run a machine, which is likely to come from batteries or power lines, whereas it deals with food in terms of how many meals you need in a day and how much they weigh, and ignores energy content?

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Old 01-20-2014, 10:42 PM   #36
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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Because GURPS is concerned with the energy needed to run a machine, which is likely to come from batteries or power lines, whereas it deals with food in terms of how many meals you need in a day and how much they weigh, and ignores energy content?

Bill Stoddard
I think he's considering calories a non-SI unit and assuming that makes them a US Engineering one. Calories are actually metric too, the system having been defined before determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. A properly unified system would have set the size of a degree of temperature on the basis of how much the standard energy unit warmed the standard material - there should be 419 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water.

Anyway, the most common US Engineering energy unit is probably is the kilowatt-hour, electrical units being the same in both systems, though horsepower-hours are occasionally met with. And the heat energy unit is not the calorie, but the BTU.
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Old 01-20-2014, 10:50 PM   #37
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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I think he's considering calories a non-SI unit and assuming that makes them a US Engineering one. Calories are actually metric too, the system having been defined before determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. A properly unified system would have set the size of a degree of temperature on the basis of how much the standard energy unit warmed the standard material - there should be 419 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water.
If you're working in MKsA, you'd want kilograms of water, and it takes a kilocalorie to raise the temperature 1 K. So I think it ought to be 418,700 degrees.

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Old 01-20-2014, 11:13 PM   #38
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

Or you could use 1 mol of ideal gas.
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Old 01-21-2014, 12:36 AM   #39
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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360 kW => 1 FP/second
360 kJ = 360 kWs => 1 FP
Shouldn't those two be the other way around? From the way it stands it looks like if I cast Draw Power on, lets say a flywheel because I don't think batteries can be the target of that spell, that was storing 360 kW I would get 1 FP for every second I maintained the spell, ok, it costs 1 to maintain so I'd need a 720 kW flywheel to have a reason to maintain it, but still.

Now if I find a power line that supplies 360kWs, or 360 kW a second I can only draw one point per casting
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Old 01-21-2014, 01:21 AM   #40
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Default Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power

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Now if I find a power line that supplies 360kWs, or 360 kW a second I can only draw one point per casting
It looks to me like you mistaken in thinking "360kWs" is the same as "360 kW a second". They are more properly "360 kW-s" which is that level of wattage times one second, and "360 kW per second" which is the same wattage divided by one second.
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