Arbitrary Maximum Range: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction! You are ''not'' a ''cowboy shooting from the hip!''''
|The '''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}sCoHT_cHPzY Gunnery Chief]''' from ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' tells it like it is.}}
Weapons used on an atmosphere-bearing planet ([[Captain Obvious|like the one you live on]]) will suffer air resistance, gravity and other restricting factors. In space, there's no such thing. However, the word "maximum range" will frequently pop up in space battles, which makes no sense. All weapons in space have unlimited range. This can be especially jarring if [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser beams]] are immediately cut off and bullets disappear when they reach maximum range, which happens frequently in video games.
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See also [[Short-Range Long-Range Weapon]] and [[Old School Dogfighting]].
{{examples|Examples (and Aversions)}}▼
▲{{examples|Examples (and Aversions)}}
== Anime
* Averted in ''[[Starship Operators]]''. Ships move toward each other to get to optimum range before firing, and the first episode shows the effect of distance on the weapons.
* Averted for the most part in ''[[Toward the Terra]]''. Several space battles are shown to be taking place at such distances that the opposing sides can't even see each other. At one point a {{spoiler|[[Kill Sat]]}} is fired at a target on one one planet from the orbit of another.
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** The ranges for beam weaponry (in space) are mentioned to be that of a few ''million'' kilometres though. Arbitrary, but nonetheless huge.
* [[Justified Trope]] in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', where the second biggest influence on the setting are the [[Minovsky Physics|Minovsky Particles]] that, among other effects, tend to play merry hell with non-visual targeting methods.
** Most other Gundam settings still use similar ranges out of pure habit, even where Minovsky Particles are not an explicit part of the setting.
* Played straight in ''[[
** Friction depends on velocity. Even if the coin melts, the molten stream of metal retains the velocity it had before melting. The specified distance might actually mean the distance at which the coin's material evaporates into thin air - but even then, the result would be a rapidly scattering cloud of metal molecules with an effect similar to a ''really'' hot flamethrower. Still, this doesn't explain how the one she fired {{spoiler|against Telestina}} simply disappeared as soon as it reached maximum range due to the target [[Awesomeness By Analysis|knowing how it works and backing off in time]]. That or {{spoiler|Telestina simply coated her mecha with an extremely heat-resistant material}}.
** On the other hand, Mikoto can launch objects MUCH bigger than a coin; the one time we see her do it, the projectile draws a thick heat trail ''at least'' several hundred meters long (we don't get to see how far it flies). She simply prefers coins due to their [[Boring but Practical|small size and being readily available at just about everywhere]].
** [[Fridge Logic]]: In episode 1 of the anime, Mikoto mentioned that she had to limit herself in order for the examiners to get any readings at all.
== Comic Books ==
* Averted as strongly as possible in one of Paul Chadwick's "100 Horrors" backup features collected with ''[[Concrete]]''; it describes a vaporizing ray, fired from an immeasurable distance an immeasurably long time ago intersecting the earth, instantaneously boring a gigantic hole through the planet. At the edges, cities, buildings, pets and ''people'' are neatly sliced down the middle.
** That might actually be an inversion. Any ray would probably diffuse to a large degree after that amount of time. To have the effect described, the beam would have to stay coherent for ridiculous amounts of time.
*** It depends on how tightly the beam was originally. Maybe that ''was'' diffused...
* Implied aversion in ''[[
* Averted in Joss Whedon's ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|Astonishing X-Men]]'': the ruler of a distant planet plans to destroy Earth by launching a huge missile through space to shatter our planet. The X-Men find about this and plan to stop the missile by messing up with its engine. {{spoiler|Only after it's launched do they find out that it's not a missile, but a giant bullet. There's no engine to mess up with, the momentum gained in launching the bullet is enough to carry it to Earth.}} However, even though Whedon got that bit of physics right, there's still the matter that {{spoiler|the bullet}} [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|appears to reach Earth within a couple of days]].
** Defensible: stargate technology exists in the setting, and firing the space bullet through one could potentially put it anywhere.
== Film ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Judge Dredd (
** The scene in question, Dredd states that "lethal" range for the flechette ammunition being used is 200 meters. He then adds that he and his two fellow Judges are on a street 300 meters from the firing point of origin, so this would probably fall until maximum effective range instead.
*** Given that something as small as flechettes would have a serious drag problem, and that lethality would fall off with velocity, Dredd is almost certainly speaking about maximum effective range.
* ''[[
** They're supposed to be warning shots; maybe they're more intimidating if they explode?
* ''[[Star Wars]]'', particularly the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Expanded Universe]], presents range limits as more the limits of the computer targeting programs than the actual weapons themselves. Also, the weapons aren't lasers; they're "blasters", which according to the EU are plasma weapons, hence subject to dissipation. The various video game adaptations play it straight, though.
** ''[[Revenge of the Sith|Episode III]]'' has a space battle at point-blank range as the first scene in the movie. But this isn't limited to the new trilogy - ''[[The Empire Strikes Back|Episode V]]'' has two Imperial Star Destroyers very nearly ram into each other while chasing the Millenium Falcon, which shows both remarkable incompetence and that the ships were far too close to their target to begin with.
== Literature ==
* Entirely averted in the ''[[
** [[Frickin' Laser Beams|Energy weapons]] has the beam divergence and on-the-way dispersion that tends to limit its effectiveness at the extreme ranges, but most significant problem is aiming. It's already a [[Rule of Cool|major miracle]] that laser cannons could aim at all, given that targets often move on relativistic speeds and the typical range is light seconds to light minutes, [[Shown Their Work|as Weber very consciously averts]] [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]] trope. It doesn't matter how powerful your laser is (and how many gazillions of kilometers it can go) if you have a 99.99% chance of missing anyway.
*** The beam divergence problem is exacerbated by the fact that warships are protected against fire from the sides by gravity 'sidewalls' that weaken incoming fire. At ranges of over 500,000
** The missiles' engagement range is objectively much smaller, but the fact that they are homing made them the primary long-range weapon in Honorverse. They are, however, limited by their drive
*** The engagement range of the oldest, nuclear armed missiles is truly a lot less than energy weapons. The engagement range of modern, bomb pumped (X-Ray) laserheads? Not so. These missiles use a gravity-lensed nuclear shaped-charge to pump lasing rods and are therefore immensely powerful energy weapons. A lot cruder concept of this weapon, does exist in real life, though no working models have been created so far.
*** Except that since they were too far away to receive useful input from the firing ships targeting computers they were relatively ineffective anyway unless [[Macross Missile Massacre|launched in massed salvos]] {{spoiler|until the development of Project Apollo which gave the firing ship FTL control over them.}}
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== Live-Action TV ==
* The first Romulan episode of ''[[Star Trek:
** This is because this episode (entitled "Balance of Terror") was based on a WWII destroyer-versus-submarine script. The ''Enterprise'' played the role of the destroyer and the Romulan ship represented the submarine. This explains the use of depth charge-like weapons [[In Space]], torpedoes, and the [[Stealth in Space|cloaking device]]. And of course the weaponry operating as if they were in [[Space Is an Ocean|the Pacific]], with limited ranges and all.
** It didn't help that this was an early episode and the SFX crew hadn't really established what the ship's armament looked like when it fired, so the "depth charges" were shown as balls of light that resembled the as-yet-unseen photon torpedoes despite supposedly being phaser shots (as distinct from the blue beams later used for the phasers). It might have made more sense if the depth charges ''were'' torpedoes.
** This was continued throughout all the TV series, onscreen battles were always extremely short-ranged affairs. Ranges beyond a few kilometers only appear in the Expanded Universe or were not represented onscreen, using either tactical readouts (like in the TNG episode, "The Wounded", citing ranges of about 200,000 kilometers), or calling out distances (several episodes of The Original Series called out distances on the scale of tens of thousands of kilometers).
** The makers of ''[[Star Trek II:
*
** Ditto the late 1970s/early 1980s TV version of ''[[Buck Rogers]]'', made by the same production company.
*** Both presumably made so space fighters could fly through flak.
* In any of the air-battle scenes in ''[[Captain Power and
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[
** In old versions, the spell's range is the maximum distance to its ''point of origin'': a fireball without set target flies to its maximum range and detonates as a
** Worse, your ''eyesight'' may have a cutoff range of 30' ... if you have infravision/darkvision/reviseforeditionvision - ''just about'' credible if it was some kind of active scanning sense, but the fluff generally makes clear that it isn't.
** The same was true for ranged weapons until d20 set a more flexible range limitation in given (but arbitrary) number of [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#weaponQualities range increments].
** [[Justified Trope|Entirely justified]] for arms which impart energy to a projectile, as a crossbow is cocked to a set amount of force or a bow can only be drawn so far before it would be mechanically damaged by the setting's often superhumanly strong player characters. This trope really applies in two places. First, any bow of a particular type has the exact same range (barring magic), regardless if it's a common [[Red Shirt]]'s bow or the massive, [[
*** Epic-level characters can [[Subverted Trope]] this by taking the epic feat Distant Shot. It removes maximum ranges and range increment penalties for all ranged weapons, projectile or thrown. This means a character with this feat has the same chance to hit the orc standing on the horizon as to hit the orc standing 30 feet away. Thanks to a lack of adjustments to the combat mechanics for extremely long ranges, the attack will also REACH the orc on the horizon just as quickly as it would reach the nearer orc, with no increase in damage for this obviously greatly increased velocity.
** Despite its... purposefully bizarre physics, one thing that the ''[[Spelljammer]]'' setting did well was weapon ranges. Maximum range was just "snowball's chance in hell at hitting", and if you did fire at long range it would often take ''several turns'' for the arrow to get there. For heavy weapons, "range" is given for the first round, when the target have no time to get away; then a missile marker moves on at the same speed until it either hits something or reaches the tactical map border.
* The ''[[Star Fleet Battles]]'' board game reduces the damage of phaser weapons as the range increases, and the hit roll is used to see how much damage is done, not if they hit at all. This despite the [[Fridge Logic]] that the ships are notionally travelling at warp speeds and therefore speed-of-light weaponry shouldn't work at all.
** SFB is following the example of its source material, namely the original ''[[Star Trek:
** Lasers, which are light-speed weapons (as opposed to Phasers, which are explicitly FTL weapons) have a maximum range of only one hex - the distance light can travel in one turn.
** SFB also solves the Romulan plasma problem by noting that the plasma is actually an FTL torpedo weapon.
* Similarly, the FASA ''[[Renegade Legion]]'' series of board games has laser weapons attenuate at range. Although all weapons have an absolute maximum range of 30 hexes regardless of type, this is more of a game balancing factor than a realism issue.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[GURPS]]'', missiles in space have unlimited range, they drift, but beams weapons do not. However the cut off ranges are high enough (the shortest in 20 miles) that probably represent effective range.
* The Sixth Edition Warhammer Fantasy rulebook discussed the relatively short ranges ascribed to its bows and cannons with words to the effect of, "Accept that these distances don't scale to real-world distances, or else go find an empty parking lot to stage your battles".
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*** One White Dwarf article informed readers that distance in 40K telescopes as you go further, so 48" represents a distance way more than twice that represented by 24".
** [[Justified Trope]] in the [[Gaiden Game]] ''[[Battlefleet Gothic]]''. Since the model of a ship represents a microscopic particle in the middle of it's base, a maximum range of 12' (which is standard for most guns) is actually hundreds of thousands of kilometers of vacuum and is the maximum range at which the gunners bother to fire, since anything farther away than that would be long gone by the time the shells got there. [[Averted Trope|Completely averted]] with torpedoes however. Once fired they keep going until they are destroyed or hit something, be it the enemy, a celestial body or your own poorly placed ships.
* In ''Attack Vector: Tactical'', lasers are actually built with energy inputs, conversion efficiencies, wavelengths and diffraction limits and aperture sizes to build the weapon tables. One damage point is 50 MJ delivered 'roughly instantaneously' over an 8
* For what it's worth, to make an interesting game, there's also a meta rule - weapon ranges that are shorter than 1/3 of the distance a unit can move in a turn tend to be very frustrating, unless segmented movement is allowed. Weapon ranges that are longer than about 4x the maximum rate of movement (or 'whole turn of thrust' in momentum based games) tend to render movement decisions obsolete; this isn't so far fetched. It's an accurate description of modern day Naval tactical combat - in the amount of time it takes for a sea skimming missile to cover 200 nautical miles, its target will have covered about 300 yards, and if it's big enough to be worth throwing an anti-ship missile at, might have changed course by 10 degrees.
** Plausible space combat would break that meta rule hard. Ships with thrusts measured in single digit milligees, and depending on who you ask, lasers will either be limited to point defense roles due consumables, or will be so long ranged (and not heat constrained) that you'll be able to start firing weeks before you get to visual range. Beam weapons feasible in 1980-x era could have effective ranges
* In ''[[Rifts]]'' South America 2, this is justified in the case of the Megaversal Legion's Inerta-Beam weapony, in which the beam is used to accelerate a bullet/shell to incredible speeds. One the projectile leaves the beam's effective range, it suddenly loses ''all'' inertia and velocity and comes to a dead stop, dropping straight down to the ground.
** Ranges for all weapons in ''Rifts'' are listed as "maximum effective range," thus possibly averting this trope.
== Video Games ==
* In Egosoft's ''[[X (
* In ''[[
* Weapons in ''[[Freelancer]]'' have maximum ranges that are either ridiculously short or pretty reasonable, depending on your interpretation of the [[Units Not to Scale]]. That is, less than a kilometer in game units, but plausible if compared to the scale of planets and stars. The projectiles do still inexplicably vanish when they reach the limit.
* Averted in ''[[
* Semi-averted in ''[[Vega Strike]]'' (current version, at least). Each weapon has the maximum range property, but also property which controls dissipation, so arbitrary "range" ''could'' be avoided or set many orders of magnitude higher, it's needed only to conserve resources. Missiles are less
* Both averted and played straight in ''[[Free Space]]''. Laser bolts (which more accurately would be plasma weapons) simply vanish a certain distance from the ship that fired them. Justified by the missiles, which explode automatically once they reach their maximum range (presumably after running out of fuel). But averted with the [[Badass]], ginormous energy beams used by the capital ships in the sequel, which can be seen going off into infinity (bonus points for them being true lasers: they strike the target instantaneously). The fact that these weapons still have a "range" setting makes very little sense (fans have attempted to explain this as the computer's effective targeting range: one campaign featured a ship attempting to fire a beam at an enemy outside that range and missing by about thirty degrees. The target jumps out before they have a chance to correct their aim). Then there's the fact that they are both visible in space and have a profound distortion/shimmer effect, but that's an [[Frickin' Laser Beams|entirely different trope]].
** The beam cannons have a 30
** The Kaiser, the one primary weapon that fires actual projectiles, technically has an arbitrary maximum range, but it is so large that it basically avoids the trope. There are few instances in missions where enemies are outside the range of the Kaiser and at long range it is nearly impossible to hit any ship due to accuracy issues.
** [[Gameplay Story Segregation]] does avert this in cutscenes as early as the first game. The Lucifer easily is able to bombard a planet with its beam cannons from a fairly high orbit.
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** It is also mentioned that the first wave of fighters sent against a ship with laser weapons is guaranteed to be hit once they get within a reasonable range where those lasers would have perfect accuracy. They only begin to miss once the weapon itself heats up too much.
** A Gunnery Chief in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' makes ''damn sure'' his underlings have a targeting solution before firing their vessels' mass accelerator, otherwise it keeps going... and going... and going...
{{quote|
** It is a plot element in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', as {{spoiler|a damaged Reaper is found because of a 37 million year old shot that scarred a planet... in a completely different star system.}}
* Missiles in ''Elite 2: Frontier'' will automatically detonate if they run out of fuel before hitting a target. This is explained in the manual as a safety precaution; they don't want armed weapons flying about in space since that time a missile, after drifting for two years, obliterated a planetary settlement.
** The lasers in all 3 Elite games avert this, however, as they apparently have vast ranges. The downside is, rather logically, the further away the target the harder it is to hit, though interestingly if you can gauge radar distances right, it is entirely possible to hit out-of-visual-range targets (though it requires quite high skills and more than enough luck).
* [[Dynasty Warriors: Gundam]]: This was especially notable with suits known for their ranged attacks, like the Wing Zero.
** Graphically, this is applied quite oddly. Units firing solid projectiles will usually be firing some kind of explosive, and the warhead will detonate an arbitrary distance away from the firer. Beam weapons, on the other hand, simply cut off...and when the beam in question is the Wing Zero's wider-than-itself [[BFG|Buster Rifle]] shot, this has the effect of resembling nothing so much as a giant glowing cylinder that appears for a second to ruin someone's day.
* Somewhat averted in most of the ''[[Space Empires]]'' games. Numerous beam weapons have a gradually decreasing level of damage as the range increases. It is not consistently true, though, as many still have a nonsensical cutoff range, and missiles simply disappear after a certain distance.
* ''[[Gorf]]''. The range of a shot was limited by when you wanted to fire again. Your shot would last forever, or until the edge of the screen, or until you shoot next.
* ''[[Transcendence]]'', a [[Roguelike]] with [[
* Played straight in the ''[[Wing Commander (
** [[All There in the Manual]]: The Wing Commander manual justifies it in the case of self-propelled weapons (missiles, torpedoes), on the grounds that a space colony was once destroyed by a drifting derelict missile fired years earlier. Confed have taken to fitting their missiles with self-destruct systems that go off when the fuel is exhausted to avoid a similar incident.
* Played completely straight in ''[[Sword of the Stars]]''. Ships won't even fire weapons beyond the set range. And if beams miss, they will simply stop at their max range, instead of some sort of a blooming effect.
* Most of the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' games zig-zag this. Bullets, missiles, rockets, and bombs have a set maximum effective range; but a good player can hit targets beyond that rage by accounting for gravity and leading the target. However, if they don't hit anything for a long enough time, they vanish.
** Worse yet, the game lets you zoom in on the 'clear hud' view. Attempting to utilize your plane as a sniping tool rarely works because the missiles will vanish long before they reach the target.
* ''[[
*** Furthermore, projectile energy weapons such as cannons lose power the further you are away from your target. Shooting a salvo at a target at the maximum 9.
*** On top of that, the game's combat mechanics makes it impossible to exploit the
** This is consistent with the visuals of the show (though a lot of episodes they call out ranges of much larger but such things can't easily be represented on screen), if not the expanded universe. Even in large-scale battles shots are only fired at extreme close range.
** What's ''not'' consistent is that, during on-foot segments, your sidearms have a maximum range as
** Interestingly averted in the old Windows 95 [[Win Trek]] game and its clones. While beam power dissipates, photon torpedo power does not, and since it's grid-based accuracy doesn't have to be all that clear either. Just point in their general direction and fire. No matter how far, the torpedo averages 200-250 points of damage.
* ''[[Star Trek: Bridge Commander]]'' is a little better about this. You can free-fire photon torpedoes and pulse weapons, but good luck hitting any target closer than 60 KM (or closer for faster ships or slower torpedoes). Phasers are most effective if fired at closer than 40KM, and won't fire on a target at all if it's further than 60KM.
* ''[[
** That's still pretty minor when you compare it to the energy beams that got cut off immediately after it reaches maximum range.
* In ''[[Allegiance]]'', missiles seem to disappear at a certain range, however they will actually float around the sector until hitting the edge of the map. they do run out of fuel at max range though.
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* ''[[Steel Battalion]]'' not only has this for each weapon, but an armor modifier on all [[V Ts]] that further detracts from the effective range, depending on which side gets hit. This means that if a VT that would normally be within a weapon's range gets hit, but the armor modifier treats the weapon as out of range, NO damage is taken!
** Somewhat realistic, that.
* In the [[
* In [[Chrome Hounds]], made in part by those responsible for the [[
* 4X game ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'' has this for all ships, requiring that they move into range before engaging a target. However, it's averted for the arbitrary "Big Gun" of each faction: building a Novalith cannon, for example, means you can shoot it at any planet on the map, as long as you're willing to wait for the actual impact.
* Averted in the background information of ''[[Halo]]'' MAC slugs are not stated to have an effective range, their primary limitation being firing rate and the time needed to calculate a firing solution. Likewise, Covenant plasma torpedoes are only limited by the mechanism used to fire them, as the firing ship is constantly maintaining a magnetic field to guide and contain them.
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** The fact that Covenant ships have to maintain a magnetic field for their plasma torpedoes means that, if they happen to be destroyed while the torps are on their way, the torpedoes will lose their magnetic bottles, continue moving in a straight line (i.e. no guidance), and rapidly bloom. This is actually done in the novel ''Halo: First Strike''.
* Used in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', where there is a limit on how far away an opponent can be to fire a spell at them. However, the spell doesn't care if they stay within that range after it's been cast, though if they run away for too long they'll take the damage before the spell graphic actually hits them. With a fast flying mount it's possible to travel faster than the projectile. This means someone can aggravate a gargoyle in Icecrown Citadel into shooting at them, run away from it, double back and get fired at again as many times as desired, fly off, land in the Howling Fjord, and finally get hit by a barrage of "40 yard range" spells that just followed them across the entire continent. Admittedly, they won't hurt.
** Something similar occurs in ''[[City of Heroes]]'', hence the [[Homing
* ''[[
* ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' really can't seem to decide what side of this trope to be on at times. ''Mechwarrior 2'' had weapons with listed maximum ranges that seemed to get an unusual amount of distance beyond that (most notable for PPC shots and Gauss rifle slugs, but would occasionally be invoked by missiles too). At almost all other times, though, beams, projectiles, and missiles simply despawn at their maximum range. This can be problematic given the series' notoriously wonky hit detection and damage calculation at times.
* In ''[[All Points Bulletin]]'', weapons fired outside of their optimal range would have suffered from damage falloff, turning, for example, a 2-shot [[Short-Range Shotgun]] into a 4-5 shots kill when fired at mid range. Before a certain patch, though, the game had a far more bizarre behavior - bullet that traveled outside their maximum range would ''disappear into nothing''.
* In ''[[Far Cry]] 2'', all fires will only spread a certain distance, leaving patches of scorched Earth surrounded by untouched grass. Apparently, they put it in after a test fire ''consumed the entire game world'', killing every one in it.
* ''[[
== Web Comics ==
* Averted in ''[[
** But it would have burned up in a nearby star in another couple million years ''anyway'', so it doesn't really matter. Think of it as a mercy killing.
*** The beam has a gravatic component to it that keeps it from dispersing
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== Real Life ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100528134109/http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html#xray Project Rho] considered the limits of beam weapon technology grounded in [[Shown Their Work|real-life physics]]. A 10 megawatt [[Frickin' Laser Beams|X-ray laser]] could quite conceivably kill spacecraft out to at least a light minute... sure, most things that were actively evading would be hard to hit due to lightspeed delay but consider this: such a weapon in orbit around the Earth would be able to vaporize well armored satellites in orbit around Mars when the two planets were at their closest, and thoroughly frazzle the electronics of any unarmored device fifty times further away (over twice the distance between Earth and Mars when they are furthest apart). So, yeah, [[Viewers Are Goldfish|no maximum range, but maximum
* Anti-aircraft shells are designed to avert the trope as described in the top-of-page example. Because AA gunnery in the [[World War II]] fashion basically consists of firing large quantities of explosive-packed steel into the air ''over a major city'', something has to be done to make sure those quantities that miss their targets don't descend upon the people and things you are trying to protect. AA shells have a self-destruct mechanism, which triggers long after they should expect to have hit their target but before they have had a chance to fall to earth. The worst the people below suffer is a light rain of tiny fragments....in theory.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Space Does Not Work That Way]]
[[Category:
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