In the description of the Swarmoid morph, they list the size as being comparible to 'a small insect'. Sadly, this is a lot more vague than the writers would have intended, as it covers a few magnitudes.
Has there been any clarification on what end of the scale that they intended? My GM and I have rather different interpretations of what would be appropriate.
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Swarmoid Size Clarification
Thu, 2012-08-16 10:46
#1
Nike
Swarmoid Size Clarification
Thu, 2012-08-16 13:44
#2
DivineWrath
No, near as I can tell, there
No, near as I can tell, there hasn't been any further mention of that type of morph. I imagine that it would be possible to design the individual units in different sizes, so some could the be the size of an ant, while others could be big spiders.
If you intend to ask further questions regarding swarmoid morphs, I suggest you download the Eye Fanzine issue #1. One of the topics included is a fan base attempt to make more sense of the swarmoid morph.
http://www.firewall-darkcast.com/the_eye/The_Eye_Fanzine_Issue001.pdf
You can find other issues here
http://www.firewall-darkcast.com/theeye
Sadly, they haven't been getting enough submissions to keep the project going.
Fri, 2012-08-17 03:57
#3
Decivre
I assume it's about the size
I assume it's about the size of a silverfish.
A bit more specific for you?
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Fri, 2012-08-17 06:41
#4
Arenamontanus
One way of estimating the
One way of estimating the size is the flying speed.
According to http://jeb.biologists.org/content/202/23/3439.full.pdf insect wing area is proportional to mass^(2/3) on average, wingbeat frequency increases as size decreases, scaling as mass^(−1/4). Figure 7 shows maximum speed as a function of wing size and wing frequency. Given the EP stats, swarmanoids seem to be in the yellow area. So they could have 2 mm wings flapping at 200 Hz or 1 cm wings flapping at 20. Then there are various concerns about mass and energy production. The paper concludes that "Therefore, within any limitations imposed by the design specifications, longer wings rather than higher frequencies offer a better route for mass support" - so winged devices likely become more like the dragonfly morph than the swarmanoid.
Of course, real swarmanoids use ion thrusters. If we assume they have a thrust force F proportional to the energy put into them and drag equal to 0.5*rho*v^2*A where rho is air density, v is velocity, A is area (drag coefficient assumed to be 1 - no streamlining), then their max speed will be v=sqrt(2F/rho*A). Plugging in a max speed on the order of a meter per second means that the force will be around the area (in m^2) divided by two. A grows with the square of size R, the energy reserves grow with the cube. So the time it can stay aloft will behave as R^3 / R^2 = R - the larger they are the better they will stay up. Again an argument for fairly biggish component units.
Incidentally, this is why a pure nanoswarm is going to be a slow flyer and not able to resist a wind. TITAN nanoswarms likely clump together into ad hoc mini-fliers when they want to go somewhere: suddenly the cloud turns into a swarm of rocket-propelled swifts.
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