[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

I'm not contesting Goose's findings, however, you should remember that Subaru -who is by no means a ranged expert- also formed a Wing Road at pinpoint accuracy along the same range. Are you saying that Subaru outranges Nanoha now?

Define "pinpoint" and "at the same range." I've had it of believing your pronouncements - they never seem to come true on objective analysis.

Looks pretty similar, don't you think?

I have 20/200 in one eye (damage) and my other is not 20/20 even corrected thanks to extreme myopia. I must wonder what your eyes are like to call that flame and that glow "similar"... by the way, you started out with "exact copy". Now it is only "pretty similar"?

because A: Signum described it as an armor, and B: Signum is a close combat specialist. A defense that pins you down is a useless defense for a melee specialist, it only allows those with range to stay away from your weapons while you sustain fire.

A far better explanation for Signum to stay put is the intimidation effect it would bring, which is exactly what happened.

Actually, armor is generally restricting. People tend to only move because of unarmored or at least less armored weaknesses in their armor, known as joints. Tanks move on their unarmored tracks. APCs have exposed wheels because armored skirts will restrict their ability to turn. Armored ships move propelled by unarmored screws.

Now look at PG. It is all encompassing. Do you see something resembling an opening to allow movement? If you see one, give me a screenshot. Thanks.

Flip B around. As a close combat specialist, Signum needs a method to survive the long range encounter phases of combat ... even if it restricts movement.

Oh I get it, I just don't buy it. A veteran shocked to the point where they can't even move out of the way of a snails pace attack? Sounds rather unbelievable.

It is still coming at her at the speed of a car (16m/s).

Because there is no need for acceleration. You'll notice that acceleration of scenes happens almost never in anime, whereas slowing does. Now, I know you'll protest against this reasoning, so I'll give you another example: A's 2 around the 16:50 mark clearly shows a real time situation thanks to Nanoha on the foreground. In the background, we see high-speed flashes of battle. That is how fast mage battles normally are.

You mean that geometric line dance? Isn't that just a phase of high speed skirmish combat?

Slowing down is pinned down when they start having sounds. Try halving the speed of the playback one time and seeing what happens to all the sounds. That did not happen. So if you insist time manipulation took place, it must be the one without such sounds that yields the place of realtime.

*tired sigh* See, this is why I keep telling you that frame-by-frame analysis of anime doesn't work for calculating trajectory speeds in anime. You can grab almost any series that has rapid fire bullets, like, say, macross and do the same analysis and finding the real bullets fired by aircraft suddenly extremely lacking in speed.

As I said, anime bullet speed = not. But you promised me bullet speed. I don't see it.

But that's beside the point. At any rate, there is a clear sign that the defenser got broken. Note that when Signum strikes the defenser, she struck exactly where Bardiche's head was, when Yuuno found Fate, Bardiche's head was all battered up. Clearly the hit (a Shiden'Issen I might add, and a normal hit was already shown penetrating Fate's barrier later on) broke the barrer and hit Bardiche.

IIRC the damage to the head was next time. But either way, even if it was broken, the Defenser could simply be regenerated. It is supposed to be a fast acting Auto Guard, you know...

Also, I will once more (though I doupt you will even listen) point out that this is a magical girl anime. Now note that last word. In anime, many things happen that are not conform to the laws of physics, that's what makes them fun to watch to begin with.

I'll deal with this paragraph along with a similar one from WG.

I'd like to argue that one, actuallly. In the manga it was stated that they did hold back a lot during the fights (which is supported by the fact that neither Signum, nor Vita, nor even zafira use their ultimate techniques untill the final fight).

Definitely agree.

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Oh, I'm well aware of all this. I was just tired and annoyed with ark's insistence on stocks and wanted to get in an admittedly faulty argument before I slept.

So basicaly in StrikerS, Quattro was just 100 meters away from Nanoha.

Yeah. Really.

Considering the lack of ranging cues in that one, how would you disprove this?

Also, regarding people surviving 400MPH impacts: when a body freefalls down it eventually reaches a speed of 200MPH. Barring unusual exceptions, when that happens to people, they die on impact when they hit the ground.

So, why do people insist that thin little BJ, without even the give of an airbag, saved Fate?

As Keroko keeps saying and as I keep trying to point out, this is a Magical Girl Anime. Thus, stadia ranging and frame timings are going to be inherently flawed due to Magical Girl anime conventions as well as one simple thing: technological limitations of anime.

For another example, the Super Robot Wars games on GBA. You can have hugeass mecha and even bigger ships taking up the same space on the grid as the smallest grunt mecha. Why? Simplification and technological limitations of the platform. The same happens in anime; they need to cut production costs so they'll simplify as much as possible, which means that any timings/stadia ranging is inherently flawed.

As I've always said, I really tried to turn my brain off while watching MGLN, having gotten a bit tired of overanalyzing the Star Wars universe. Ep17 exceeded the limits on the tactical part, but I still tried to close my eyes on the technical. You will notice I didn't really get into the Magic and Tech thread until later on. I let Tk3997 do most of that stuff. But then I got sucked into technical discussions ... and that was that. SoD came back, full force. And when I go into SoD mode, I stick with it best I can.

The problem with you ("you" in the group sense) is that you are inconsistent in whether you take the SoD perspective or not. A typical argument with Keroko, for example, goes like this:

A: MGLN combat is close ranged (really trying not to look too closely).
K: No it isn't! Look at EpX of Y. Nanoha shot at Vita, who was a dot in the sky!
A: (Grabs frame; ranges) It was a 5px blob. The range is only about 100m, unless you want to insist on a zoom (but then no ranging is possible).
K: It looks further than that to me.
A: I did objective calcs. You used your subjective feelings.
K: Urr (realizes he isn't winning that way). It doesn't count! It is only anime! Anime cannot be ranged!
A: Then why the f*ck did you try to use "Vita is a dot" as an argument. Is it because all of a sudden, the conclusions of stadia ranging proved inconvenient?

It is one or the other. Presumably, Magic&Tech thread means we actually try and use everything (what little there is) to analyze out something. Fine.

Spoiler for Length:

By the way, I'm sure some nipticker's going to bring up the "funny looking humans" in anime as a counterpoint, so I'll take the initiative here. Anime, admittedly, is not film, but the basic rules apply - how will you analyze it if you are told the anime depicts real events. Here's an example: Being an anime, the visual is a recreation and thus does not have as overriding a status as in live film. [b}For example[/b], if they actually said the range was 500m, but it looks like 100, we'll (probably) accept the 500m and rationalize the visual as a forced perspective recreation (in live film, generally we call the blabber an idiot ). Then of course are the pesky anime conventions (male and female eyes don't look that different...) But the golden rule - how will you analyze it if you are told the anime (and manga) depicts real events, that Uminari and Midchildra actually exists, that the 97th is actually us?

Another thing IMO is Maximum Plausible Data Retention. Technically, when you claim Anime Convention or Blooper, you are throwing a small piece of potential data away. Sometimes this is justifiable. For example, if a real handgun (say it is identifiable as a Glock) was depicted at "anime bullet speed" (read: NOT), you might throw away that data, referencing the real-life bullet velocity (think: the gunfight happened in your world, with a Glock). Anime humans you can do it similarly, by referencing real humans. But what reference will you use to throw away speed data on magical rounds or the appearance of a magical dragon. So, data retention.

At least as important as that, however, remains the need for simple consistency:
1) If you want to say you don't have a lot of faith in anime stadia ranging, fine. However, at the very least don't tell me in your previous / next line that Vice shot at over 100m based on the visual and your experience of target sizes at certain distances - that's just an informal form of stadia ranging. And don't contest a range concluded based on stadia-ranging - it is obviously the ranger had a different base assumption on the rangeability of anime, and since you have no hard references (you said you don't think there are any), on what basis do you contest his conclusions?
2) Don't think timings and speeds are reliable? Fine. But don't tell me next sentence that Chrono's shots moved at "bullet speed", and don't casually contest someone's analysis of bullet speed for the above reason.
3) Want to say they "defy physics"? Fine. We accept that with Animaniacs. But don't tell me then that Fate is going to die without a magicobabble inertial compensator that realistically will put her in even direr straits.

Originally Posted by ghazghkull

Yeah...I have to agree with Keroko. Nanoha's and possibly Hayate's range of fire is immense. Not may characters could possibly match their range. Plus here's the thing...Nanoha is an Ace! She's going to have superb range.

Hayate's range is good ... on indirect fire artillery bombardment. Nanoha ... well, we've ranged it.

I don't even want to comment on Ace = superb range arguments...

The day I see that happen is that day I get myself shot for being a stupid idiot and not dodge something I had pleanty of time for. Vita did not. Here's a something that might help you get an idea: try considering that it's the anime version of Matrix time.

You will shoot yourself afterwards. At that moment, being in shock means just that ... you don't think much at all.

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Well, we've seen that Mid mages have a method of cushioning ground impacts - Yuuno used it to save Nanoha from falling early in S1, and Chrono managed to brake right at ground level in A's after getting walloped by Mask. (But the first was an active-type defense - RH didn't do it on its own - and the second may have just been Chrono's flight spell recovering...)

Glad you agree.

We know Fate is just plain quick; obviously if she's using Sonic Move, that's a significant amount of acceleration that she's being cushioned against. So it's at least not beyond the ability of a mage to survive that kind of acceleration in other circumstances (and, indeed, she did survive it.)

Or maybe she's just resisting it like a good pilot. I do notice that Sonic Move does not often get activated very long - a few seconds, say. Maybe that's why. Further, the acceleration configuration of Sonic Move is unclear - it is entirely possible that the entire body is accelerated at once (instead of a rocket booster at back creating a pressure) - in that case the body won't feel stress.

Actually, here's a good question - how often do we see a character sustain an injury through the barrier jacket? That would give us an idea of what it takes to penetrate the jackets, and the sorts of things it protects poorly against.

The fastest one will be how Nanoha and Vita got shanked by a Type IV. Sein managed to cut Erio's hand even without any blades on her part.

Hm... Season 1, we don't see a lot of this. Chrono got a head wound in the Garden somewhere, and Yuuno's taping up Nanoha's ankle, but we don't see either injury happen. (Let's discount the outliers, like Fate grabbing on to an unsealed Jewel Seed, or Fate's mom going through her jacket like hot butter.)

Fate's jacket takes a lot of damage from Nanoha's Divine Buster and then Starlight Breaker, but Fate doesn't actually sustain much in the way of damage (even though she had an uncontrolled fall into water at the end.)

The jacket is supposed to be magical - Nanoha is "deleting" the magic with her anti-magic strike.