Arbitrary Maximum Range: Difference between revisions

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** 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.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** 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 sphere—unless something interferes. [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#range In d20] all spells have an arbitrary cutoff range, and can affect nothing further away than that: a fireball with range of 400' hurled at 399' will make a ''hemispherical explosion'' because the half that would go out of range is not allowed to exist.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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.

** What's ''not'' consistent is that, during on-foot segments, your sidearms have a maximum range as well—of about (eyeballing it) 15 meters.

** 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.

* ''[[Homeworld]] 2'' has a bad case of this. Missiles and kinetic rounds fired from ships will magically disappear into thin air (or thin vacuum?) once they reach their maximum in-game range. This is especially ironic considering that in the first Homeworld, missiles that don't hit a target will be seen flying off into distant space rather than disappearing. Realistically it should also to be possible to fire such projectiles from across the map and have them hit the large and slow motherships.

** That's still pretty minor when you compare it to the energy beams that got cut off immediately after it reaches maximum range.

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Space Does Not Work That Way]]