StarDestroyer.Net BBS

You might want to get a snack, this is going to take a while.

It was mentioned in earlier threads that no one had really tried to quantify the technology used in the Metroid series. This is understandable, considering there is very little to go on. There are no technical manuals. There are no creatures whose response to attacks can be easily compared to any creatures we are familiar with. There are no weapons that can really be directly compared to any human weapon, no armor that can easily be compared to armor we have available. This all makes quantification very difficult. However, I am going to give it a shot nonetheless simply because the Metroid series seems to come up in vs. battles that don’t seem to go anywhere because no one can make any real comparisons. It is also a fun exercise since this is my first sci-fi tech quantification. I expect to make some mistakes, so be thorough when reading this. Please check the math in particular since that is the key to the analysis.

First I have to establish something to base my quantification on. There are currently 7 real Metroid games: Metroid, Metroid II, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Prime, and Metroid Prime 2. Of these, Prime and Prime 2 are 3D first-person games. This makes it very difficult to quantify them relative to the other series due to the perspective issue, lack of a uniform distance metric, inability to directly see Samus, splash damage issues, non-constant frame rate, and the fact that I don’t have either of these games handy at the moment. Additionally, the weapons in the Prime games are completely different than the weapons in any other Metroid game. Although some of the names may be similar, the weapon behavior is completely different. This would limit the applicability to the other Metroid games.

Metroid can be excluded right away because it is a rather low-resolution 8-bit game and only has a handful of the weapons. Samus is also pretty deformed relative to later incarnations. Additionally, Zero Mission supersedes Metroid in the story arc so Metroid is really redundant now. Metroid II is more similar in terms of the resolution and Samus’s proportions, but lacks most of the more powerful weapons present in later games.

This leaves Super Metroid, a 16-bit game, and Fusion and Zero Mission, 32-bit games. Fusion can be ruled out because Samus’s armor and several weapons had to be completely changed due to her X-parasite infection, all the enemies have been significantly modified due to X-parasite infection, and she never actually kills anything using her weapons (she simply causes the X-parasites to revert to their true form then she consumes them). In the end I think Super Metroid is the best option, for a variety of reasons. First, Samus has a much larger variety of weapons and abilities available to her in Super Metroid than in the Zero Mission. Second, I am far more intimately familiar with Super Metroid, having beaten it dozens of times. Third, I already have a relative quantification of weapon damage levels and enemy responses to weapons for Super Metroid. Fourth, the weapon I am using as a basis for this quantification, by some coincidence, happens to both be used by Samus and against her in this game, giving my a basis for quantifying both offensive and defensive abilities (more on this later). Finally, Super Metroid gives Samus the unique ability to activate and de-activate weapons and abilities as desired, allowing me to analyze weapons and abilities in isolation from one another and in locations or against enemies ideally suited for this analysis. No other Metroid game has this option. I should note that some things that can be expected to be constant will be used from other games (I will notify you when I do this). Also note I am not including the images I used for the analysis, but I can submit one or all of them if anyone requests it (although it may take a little time to get it into a form that is presentable).

It should be noted that overall weapon behavior among the 2D games is relatively consistent. It can probably be safely assumed that the quantifications of the weapons here can be applied to all the 2D Metroid games within a reasonable margin. The same could be said of defensive abilities if you exclude Fusion, where Samus does not have the same suit of armor as in the other games. The 3D Metroid games are another matter entirely. Defensive information is probably applicable, since it is known that Samus’s power suit from Zero Mission is the same as the one from Prime, and Prime 2 is very similar. Additionally, the normal power beam, charge beam, missiles, bombs, and power bombs in Prime and Prime 2 are likely at least similar to those in Super Metroid. However, comparison between the other weapons and abilities is futile since they bear no resemblance to the weapons and abilities from the 2D games.

Now that I have established that I am going to be basing this mostly on Super Metroid, the first and most basic thing is to establish a distance metric I can use to analyze lengths. This is central to all my other analyses. From the Metroid II instruction manual, Samus’s height is 1m 90cm = 6ft 2.8in and her weight is 90kg = 198.4 lb. It is unlikely that she grew or shrank significantly in the very short time between Metroid II and Super Metroid (Super Metroid takes place almost immediately after Metroid II). However, this is her outside of her Power Suit. In the games she is wearing a suit of armor that adds significantly to her height. By using an image from the Zero Mission ending animation, I was able to determine that her helmet added (23-20)/20=15% to the distance between her eye and the top of her head, including her hair (note that raw data from images is expressed in pixels in this analysis). An image from the Super Metroid official Nintendo Player’s Guide shows distance between her eye and the top of her head is 38/692=5.5% of her total height (taking into account the angle of her leg in the image). This would make the added height 0.055*0.15=0.83% of her total height. For a 1.9m height, adding 1cm for hair (1.91m, a rather insignificant change due to the size of the pixels in the game), this would be 1.91m*0.0083=1.58cm=0.624in. Using the picture from the Super Metroid manual, the soles of her shoes are 33/692=4.77% of her height total height, or 1.91m*0.0477=9.11cm=3.59in. So this would add approximately 6.4in to her total height in-game, making it about 1.91m+0.0156cm+0.911cm=2.017m=6ft 7.4in. Note that there are some minor perspective issues in the Super Metroid Player’s Guide image, but considering my precision is limited to the in-game pixel size I don’t think they will matter significantly.

Now, going by a screenshot from the game I can try to compare this height to her height in-game to get a size for each pixel in the game. This is complicated by the fact that Samus doesn’t stand up straight. She keeps her knees bent and her heels well off the ground. This requires using the Pythagorean theorem to get an actual height. The end result is Samus is (12^+11^2)^(1/2)+29=45 pixels tall, approximately. This would make each pixel 2.017m/45=4.48cm=1.76in. I will round to 1.75in/pixel=4.45cm/pixel for simplicity.

I mentioned before that I had found a weapon that I could use as a basis for quantification. Although it is not a perfect option, it is the best I have been able to find. The weapon is the super missile. For those not familiar with the series, the super missile is an unguided rocket weapon used primarily as an anti-armor weapon. It has limited ammunition, although Samus can get ammunition refills by killing enemies. What makes the super missile best suited for this role is that it is the only weapon that creates a noticeable, measurable effect that can be directly compared to something that is well-known on Earth. Upon detonation, the super missile generates a significant earthquake (or zebes-quake, technically) that shakes the entire room. Using the Richter scale I can determine the rough energy dissipated by the earthquake, and thus get a lower limit on the destructive power of the super missile.

The Richter scale is based on mean horizontal motion amplitude during the earthquake. In the case of the super missile, this is a 2 pixels or 3.5in=88.9mm displacement (the displacement is in mm for the Richter scale). The Richter magnitude is computed using the formula M=log(A)-log(A0)+d, where A is the amplitude of the measurement on a seismograph, A0 is the measurement of the seismograph amplitude in response to an magnitude 1 earthquake, and d is a fudge factor for the seismograph in question. Solving for 1=log(A0) we find that log(A0) should be 1, since d is not an issue because we are measuring actual ground movement at the epicenter so there is no distance and no seismograph to take into consideration. Another issue is that the seismographs do not measure actual movement, they are calibrated with a gain of 2800. So a real movement of 1mm would lead to a measurement of 2800mm. So this leaves us with M=log(2800*88.9)-1+0=4.40 earthquake. This is equivalent to the energy in 1.244 kilotons of TNT, or about the energy of a small fission bomb. With 50 available, this weapons gives her about 62 kilotons of destructive ability from this weapon alone.

Not all energy from the explosion would necessarily be converted directly into the earthquake, there are additionally forms of energy such as heat and radiation that may harm a target but not cause ground displacement, but it does put a lower limit on the energy coupled to a target. It should be noted that at most half the energy from the super missile could be coupled to the wall of the cavern you are in, since half of it radiates away from the wall. However, unless you are shooting it into an small, enclosed space (such as when you shoot the super missile into the mouths of the giant monsters Kraid and Crocomire), half the energy would be directed away from the target anyway so this would be likely give a pretty valid idea about the energy coupling to a target. Now some people might argue that there is no noticeable effect on the walls resulting from this blast. Keep in mind this is a 2D, 16-bit game. There is no mechanism in place for editing the room tiles in such a way to make such an effect obvious. There are inherent technological limitations in the presentation of the effect of this weapon. However, no matter what the case the energy dissipated by the room as a result of having a super missile detonate against it is in this range, so the energy must be there somehow. If you want to take it absolutely literally you could say that the rocks are just really tough, but the energy needed to cause the earthquake seen must be in the super missile in some form.

Another important factor to keep in mind is the blast radius of the super missile, or lack thereof. There is absolutely no splash damage from the super missile, even one pixel. That means the radius of the damaging part of the super missile explosion must be less than or equal to the radius of the missile itself. This radius is 3 pixels = 5.25in. There is a ball of light from the explosion that is several times that radius, but it does not cause any damage to even the weakest foes so it must be a relatively harmless side-effect of the real damage-causing mechanism.

As I mentioned earlier, the super missile is also unique in that it is the only one of yours weapons in the game that an enemy uses against you. Towards the end of the game you encounter a tall, humanoid mini-boss called Gold Torizo. If you fire a super missile at Gold Torizo, the creature will catch it in mid-air and throw it back at you, at which point it detonates in the normal manner. When you are hit by your own super missile you are dealt 50 units of damage. This is out of a maximum possible of 1400 units of energy plus 400 reserve units (1800 units total). So it would take 36 super missiles to destroy Samus. This also gives a measure of her damage resistance. Assuming a linear relationship between weapon yield and damage to Samus, we are talking about 24 tons of TNT per unit of energy or about 44 kilotons to kill Samus entirely.

The final factors regarding the super missile are its velocity and rate of fire. It travels 25 pixels = 43.75in in one frame. The frame rate of Super Metroid is fixed at 60 fps. This means the super missile has a velocity of 43.75in/(1/60s) = 150mph =240kph= 66.675m/s. So no where near as fast as a bullet but fast enough that it would be difficult or impossible to dodge at close range. There is also little warning of the firing, since the sound the super missile makes when fired is pretty quiet and there is no muzzle flash from the firing or flame from the sustainer motor. There is an intermittent smoke trail, but it dissipates after only a fraction of a second and is not particularly dense to begin with, with several feet between each small puff of smoke. The super missile can be fired at 180 rounds per minute, or about 224 kilotons per minute. Samus will go through her maximum supply of 50 super missiles in about 17 sec if she fires them as fast as she can.

If this analysis stands up to your scrutiny, it will give me a basis by which to gather information for the other weapons and technology found in the game. Based on Darth Wong’s recommendations, I think it would be logical to get feedback on these results before I begin applying them to other weapons and technology. That way I am not doing calculations that are flawed or irrelevant. Once you all are satisfied with these results I will begin analyzing the rest of the technology in the game. Hopefully I will be able to get enough detail that the results will be of use to the forum.

Assuming a linear relationship between weapon yield and damage to Samus, we are talking about 24 tons of TNT per unit of energy or about 44 kilotons to kill Samus entirely.

Most enlightening, this would support the fact that even a small breach of energy is enough to kill Samus- (The death animations only have her face plating cracked but this is apparently enough to kill her despite her exceptional durability [Due to the Chozo blood transfusion, although only Agility and strength are explicitly stated to be given in the SSBM manual]).

Would you like any of my help on this? (Or are you done?)

I don't have SuperM, but I do have M.Fusion and could Calculate the Damage Per Second caused by Lava on the basic suit form [To use as a base for the heat dissipation of the advanced form of armour that is totally unharmed by swimming in the lava], and damagePS from the extremely high/low temperatures in some of the enviroments.

The damage from the S-AX's ice beam weapons [which inflict increased damage due to Samus's metroid altered Physiology] and damage from the other SA-X attacks [for Freeze or normal missiles, as for some reason the SA-X does not use super missiles] might be used to calculate Samus's relative abilities during Fusion in comparison to her abilities during Super Metroid.
Very interesting little read .

Well, it might not be much, but I think I've got something that could give a reasonable bit of help...

Fanboys being fanboys, idiots being idiots, and wankers being wankers, one of the most common discussion topics on Gaia Online's gaming forum, in the strain of SDN-style debates but horribly bastardized and devoid of logic, are various versus match-ups between characters. Naturally, many of these are simply for the pure stroking pleasure of the ignorant masses, though a few good ones come along once in a while, and I had the somewhat...neutral agknowledgement, I suppose...of being involved in a match-up between Samus Aran and the Master Chief of Halo.

Normally, it's horrifically difficult, if not outright impossible, to quantify any kind of game character (exceptions being in the instances of exterior media like novels, movies, and the like) so of course it comes down to which character has more fans stroking off to their image. As I'm crushing hopes and dreams and generally getting myself set up for another temp-ban, someone intelligent decided to pop in and set the record straight.

Apparently, as part of a promotional gimmick or some such sort for the release of one of the recent Metroid titles, Nintendo had organized an e-comic of sorts done in flash (with sound effects and glitz to boot, so I heard) and the guy I was debating had made some assessments of Samus' basic capabilities from certain frames and such. Memory's a bit hazy, but here's what I generally remember from the clips (which actually got me to switch sides, I might add):

A) The basic power beam seems to have variable yields ("No shit!") with a range that goes from "swat an RC plane plated in armor out of the sky" to "grenade-radius or larger explosions that can vaporize a whole bunch of said planes".
B) Screw attack/air jump seems to come standard with the suit - it's also powerful enough to repel energy weapon fire of considerable yield (they were causin' 'splosions of decent size after being bent away from her). Of course, the validity of this is questionable, since I don't know if the Screw Jump actually causes temp-invulnerability or damage resistance on all the games.
C) Samus herself is actually tricked-out, physically - she's able to do Advent Children-style jumps to scale rock faces with ease, so it's not just the suit. Actual physical strength (as in lifting things) wasn't touched on, though.

Unfortunetily, that's all that we could gleam - no missiles, no bombs, no actual damage that was done to her.

EDIT: Minor note I felt I should add.

Sharpshooter wrote:Apparently, as part of a promotional gimmick or some such sort for the release of one of the recent Metroid titles, Nintendo had organized an e-comic of sorts done in flash (with sound effects and glitz to boot, so I heard) and the guy I was debating had made some assessments of Samus' basic capabilities from certain frames and such. Memory's a bit hazy, but here's what I generally remember from the clips (which actually got me to switch sides, I might add):

Yeah, the metroid e-manga. I have the earlier issues, I will try to find the later ones as well when I get a chance.

Sharpshooter wrote:A) The basic power beam seems to have variable yields ("No shit!") with a range that goes from "swat an RC plane plated in armor out of the sky" to "grenade-radius or larger explosions that can vaporize a whole bunch of said planes".

The beam was effective at taking out robots, but was also used to simply knock guns out of the hands of these little flying chipmunks. So what the guy said makes sense.

Sharpshooter wrote:B) Screw attack/air jump seems to come standard with the suit - it's also powerful enough to repel energy weapon fire of considerable yield (they were causin' 'splosions of decent size after being bent away from her). Of course, the validity of this is questionable, since I don't know if the Screw Jump actually causes temp-invulnerability or damage resistance on all the games.

It definitely isn't standard, it has to be obtained in every game (generally pretty late in the game). It does render Samus invulnerable to nearly any attack in Super Metroid (there is one and only one enemy that can hurt her when in screw attack mode). I haven't gotten to the screw attack analysis yet, I will do that later (along with her other jumping capabilities).

Sharpshooter wrote:C) Samus herself is actually tricked-out, physically - she's able to do Advent Children-style jumps to scale rock faces with ease, so it's not just the suit. Actual physical strength (as in lifting things) wasn't touched on, though.

This is backed by her abilites in Zero Mission without her armor, when she is able to jump just as high as with her suit on. As for physical strength, in her suit she was able to smash a heavily armored robot with just one punch.

DEATH wrote:I don't have SuperM, but I do have M.Fusion and could Calculate the Damage Per Second caused by Lava on the basic suit form [To use as a base for the heat dissipation of the advanced form of armour that is totally unharmed by swimming in the lava], and damagePS from the extremely high/low temperatures in some of the enviroments.

The damage from the S-AX's ice beam weapons [which inflict increased damage due to Samus's metroid altered Physiology] and damage from the other SA-X attacks [for Freeze or normal missiles, as for some reason the SA-X does not use super missiles] might be used to calculate Samus's relative abilities during Fusion in comparison to her abilities during Super Metroid.
Very interesting little read .

The fusion analysis would be useful, as I don't intend to repeat my analysis for Fusion any time soon (for the reasons I listed above). Just quantifying Super Metroid is a big enough job on its own.

TheBlackCat wrote:It definitely isn't standard, it has to be obtained in every game (generally pretty late in the game). It does render Samus invulnerable to nearly any attack in Super Metroid (there is one and only one enemy that can hurt her when in screw attack mode). I haven't gotten to the screw attack analysis yet, I will do that later (along with her other jumping capabilities).

Could always be that she somehow lost the ability to use it, sort of like the loss of her I and II power-ups. I'm assuming the suit came factory-fresh already loaded with stuff, or whatever the situation is (since this is before her career as a bounty hunter begins).

[facetious]Well, it could be that the non-standard features of the suit have an expiration date for the software license, like with the demo version of Photoshop.[/facetious]

Also, I don't know how applicable this is, but I usually peg the suit at 2m, since the Morph Ball is stated to have a 1m diameter in Prime, and the Morph Ball is usually roughly half of Samus' height in the 2D games.

I remember Samus' lava resistance coming up once in one of the Samus v Master Chief threads here. Someone said that you could use the apparent lack of viscosity in the lava to calculate a lower limit for the lava.

Speaking of the Screw Attack, don't forget the poor man's Screw Attack. It's utterly worthless against anything that can take more than a single missile hit, but it's fun.

Strangely enough, the jumpsuit that Samus wears underneath the armor appears to be shielded, judging from the fact that the Pirate weapons fire (which kills other Pirates on the spot) only deals maybe 100 points of damage. I'll have to check the exact figure, though.

I don't think the Primes can be considered canon, they were completely designed and developed in Texas by Retro Studios and generally feature everything as weaker than it should be. The best example of this being Metroid can be killed by the power beam.

Darth Yoshi wrote:[/snip]
Strangely enough, the jumpsuit that Samus wears underneath the armor appears to be shielded, judging from the fact that the Pirate weapons fire (which kills other Pirates on the spot) only deals maybe 100 points of damage. I'll have to check the exact figure, though.

According to the first MZM FAQ on GameFAQs, Samus takes the same damage with the undersuit as she does with the original power suit. In addition, the damage listing for the red Space Pirates is given as 50. I assume this is for each individual shot, which the Pirates fire two at a time.

Would knowing that Samus is 6'3 and 200 bs in the armor help? (From several of the game manuals)

That would make it possible to do scaling based on the base visuals.

I.e how fast some of those monsters move, how fast her speed boaster is, etc

Solauren wrote:Would knowing that Samus is 6'3 and 200 bs in the armor help? (From several of the game manuals)

That would make it possible to do scaling based on the base visuals.

I.e how fast some of those monsters move, how fast her speed boaster is, etc

Of course, that is the whole point. As I said I haven't finished the analysis yet. The first post was simply establishing basic units of measure: distance, time, damage etc. I will apply those to other aspects of the game to get a complete picture. I already know the length of a single pixel based on her height, and I have the screenshots needed to do many of the analyses, I just haven't had a chance to do it yet. I wanted to give people a chance to critique my work before I proceeded with the analysis so I didn't apply faulty data..

Anarchist Bunny wrote:I don't think the Primes can be considered canon, they were completely designed and developed in Texas by Retro Studios and generally feature everything as weaker than it should be. The best example of this being Metroid can be killed by the power beam.

They may have been developed by Retro Studios, but they were monitored very closely by Nintendo and it ultimately has the full weight of Nintendo behind it. Just because it may not have been developed by Nintendo does not mean Nintendo does not treat it as part of the continuity. In fact one of the main roles of Zero Mission is to connect Prime to the original continuity better. The end of Zero Mission would be meaningless if it wasn't for Prime, so it must connect to the 2D continuity.

As for the creatures, the only thing that was much weaker was the metroids. However, those are not the same as the Metroids encountered in other games, besides being weaker they are also much smaller. It is likely they are either a different variety, negatively impacted by the phazon, or simply jueveniles. But Prime can no longer be non-canon without adding contradictions to the rest of the series.

In Super Metroid the corrupted Chozo statue will grab your missiles and throw them back at you. I don't remember how much damage they do, but if you quantify the shielding for Samus, this can be used to help quantify her weapons power.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:In Super Metroid the corrupted Chozo statue will grab your missiles and throw them back at you. I don't remember how much damage they do, but if you quantify the shielding for Samus, this can be used to help quantify her weapons power.

I am well aware of that. In fact, if you re-read the third-to-last paragraph in the OP, you will see that is exactly what I did.

TheBlackCat wrote:Of these, Prime and Prime 2 are 3D first-person games. This makes it very difficult to quantify them relative to the other series due to the perspective issue, lack of a uniform distance metric, inability to directly see Samus, splash damage issues, non-constant frame rate, and the fact that I don’t have either of these games handy at the moment.

On the other hand, the Prime series may more realistically reflect the Metroid universe than the 2D games can.

For example: Super Missiles do have splash damage in Prime, while weapons fire from Samus with the Spazer powerup in Super Metroid causes beams to materialize out of thin air (and they all disappear when any one hits an object). So Prime would seem to show a bit more realism, even though measurements are much more difficult.

However, unless you are shooting it into an small, enclosed space (such as when you shoot the super missile into the mouths of the giant monsters Kraid and Crocomire), half the energy would be directed away from the target anyway so this would be likely give a pretty valid idea about the energy coupling to a target.

Of course, when talking about a kiloton weapon, most of the environments Samus is found in during the games should be considered a "small, enclosed space."

In the case of the super missile, this is a 2 pixels or 3.5in=88.9mm displacement (the displacement is in mm for the Richter scale).

A 2 pixel movement doesn't really give much precision to calculate off of. Is that 2 pixels as in 2 inches or 2 pixels as in 5 inches?

However, no matter what the case the energy dissipated by the room as a result of having a super missile detonate against it is in this range, so the energy must be there somehow. If you want to take it absolutely literally you could say that the rocks are just really tough, but the energy needed to cause the earthquake seen must be in the super missile in some form.

Or the camera shaking is actually the "camera" shaking from the vibrations, which could exaggerate the actual motion of the cavern, depending on its "mounts." Basically, I doubt that the shaking of a cavern of an alien world with an unknown makeup is a realiable metric for the energy output of a missile weapon.

Another important factor to keep in mind is the blast radius of the super missile, or lack thereof. There is absolutely no splash damage from the super missile, even one pixel.

Then all the energy output would have to go into its target, because it can't just go nowhere.

Which leads to the interesting question of where it goes when a Super Missile kills some bug-like creation flying in the middle of a room.

This isn't as much of a problem in Prime, where there is splash damage; provided, of course, the weapon's yield is decidedly sub-kiloton, which appears to be the case in Prime.

Mad wrote:On the other hand, the Prime series may more realistically reflect the Metroid universe than the 2D games can.

Perhaps, but I am operating under the assumption everyting is a realistic represenation of what is happening in that situation. I thought that was pretty standard for this board.

Mad wrote:For example: Super Missiles do have splash damage in Prime,

So what? Proton torpedos in Star Wars are able to concentrate a multi-megaton explosion in a relatively small area. There is no reason to say that is especially unrealistic.

Mad wrote:while weapons fire from Samus with the Spazer powerup in Super Metroid causes beams to materialize out of thin air (and they all disappear when any one hits an object).

Same with the wave beam in Prime.

Mad wrote:So Prime would seem to show a bit more realism, even though measurements are much more difficult.

I was under the impression we assume that we see is what is actually happening. I thought that was the whole point of trying to have a scientific discussion about a sci-fi topic. Just dismissing something as "unrealistic" completely defeats the purpose of having this sort of discussion. Most of the stuff we discuss on this board is unrealistic, that doesn't stop people from trying to analyze it scientifically as if it was realistic.

Mad wrote:Of course, when talking about a kiloton weapon, most of the environments Samus is found in during the games should be considered a "small, enclosed space."

Not if the explosion is concentrated in a very small space

Mad wrote:A 2 pixel movement doesn't really give much precision to calculate off of. Is that 2 pixels as in 2 inches or 2 pixels as in 5 inches?

That would lead to variantion in Richter magnitude of only about 10%, or a + or - .4 kilotons. It would still be around 1 kiloton.

Mad wrote:Or the camera shaking is actually the "camera" shaking from the vibrations, which could exaggerate the actual motion of the cavern, depending on its "mounts."

If the camera was shaking, everything would shake. This is not the case, things move relative to one another. There is no evidence of any sort of physical camera that is viewing the events, anyway.

Mad wrote:Basically, I doubt that the shaking of a cavern of an alien world with an unknown makeup is a realiable metric for the energy output of a missile weapon.

Do you have any evidence that the energy need to move the rocks is signficantly different on that planet than it is on Earth? If we assume everything is completely different in the series we are viewing than it is in real life, then we can never get anywhere in a discussion. Without some evidence to the contrary, there is little choice but to assume that what we see is similar to what exists in our universe or no analysis is possible.

Mad wrote:Then all the energy output would have to go into its target, because it can't just go nowhere.

Which leads to the interesting question of where it goes when a Super Missile kills some bug-like creation flying in the middle of a room.

It goes into vaporizing the target, as well as an invisible shockwave that shakes the room (although it only shakes horizontally, and not diagonally like when a wall is hit, so a significant portion of the energy must be going into breaking down the target into very small pieces).

TheBlackCat wrote:Perhaps, but I am operating under the assumption everyting is a realistic represenation of what is happening in that situation. I thought that was pretty standard for this board.

Games can be bit different, because of both game engine limitations and gameplay balancing. This is why the Halo novels, for example, mean more than the Halo games. That's why the Metroid comic was brought up in this thread.

So what? Proton torpedos in Star Wars are able to concentrate a multi-megaton explosion in a relatively small area. There is no reason to say that is especially unrealistic.

Are you talking about the proton torpedoes that detonate in space in the Star Wars movies? Because an atmospheric detonation (as in Metroid) is way different than a detonation in space.

Same with the wave beam in Prime.

The wave beam in Prime does not appear out of thin air like the Spazer in Super Metroid does, though I can't recall its impact behavior offhand. Though I do seem to recall each beam at least having an impact animation instead of disappaering.

I was under the impression we assume that we see is what is actually happening. I thought that was the whole point of trying to have a scientific discussion about a sci-fi topic. Just dismissing something as "unrealistic" completely defeats the purpose of having this sort of discussion. Most of the stuff we discuss on this board is unrealistic, that doesn't stop people from trying to analyze it scientifically as if it was realistic.

So then what was with the dismissal of the NES Metroid because of its graphical engine limitations? Or, even more, this:

"Keep in mind this is a 2D, 16-bit game. There is no mechanism in place for editing the room tiles in such a way to make such an effect obvious. There are inherent technological limitations in the presentation of the effect of this weapon. However, no matter what the case the energy dissipated by the room as a result of having a super missile detonate against it is in this range, so the energy must be there somehow. If you want to take it absolutely literally you could say that the rocks are just really tough, but the energy needed to cause the earthquake seen must be in the super missile in some form."

Your alternative doesn't work because it makes the rocks "really tough," which means the materials aren't earth-like at all. They material would have to be much, much denser, and thus would require a different amount of energy to shake the same amount. Which throws the calculations off.

This also doesn't work because you can hit vegetation and even hit underwater targets without harming the plants (unless they are enemy plants) or vaporizing the water.

Mad wrote:Of course, when talking about a kiloton weapon, most of the environments Samus is found in during the games should be considered a "small, enclosed space."

Not if the explosion is concentrated in a very small space

The energy has to go somewhere. This is a basic application of Conservation of Energy. It cannot disappear into nothingness. If half of it is directed away from the wall (as you asserted), then that half will hit the rest of the room (assuming a kiloton-level weapon).

If the camera was shaking, everything would shake. This is not the case, things move relative to one another. There is no evidence of any sort of physical camera that is viewing the events, anyway.

Then why do we see shaking? What is the viewpoint based off of? Even if it's just tracking Samus' movements, then all we know is that Samus and other things in the room are shaking from the blast, but that doesn't give any evidence that the walls are shaking by the same amount.

Do you have any evidence that the energy need to move the rocks is signficantly different on that planet than it is on Earth? If we assume everything is completely different in the series we are viewing than it is in real life, then we can never get anywhere in a discussion. Without some evidence to the contrary, there is little choice but to assume that what we see is similar to what exists in our universe or no analysis is possible.

I would expect that Zebes is earthlike. The fact that we don't see rocks blasted apart or water vaporized or plants fried to a crisp is because of game engine limitations.

However, I would expect that the vibrations measured on the surface from an earthquake (that is, what the Richter scale is based off of) would be far lower than the vibrations at the energy release (what caused the earthquake, or in your case, a Super Missile).

If you could show that a shot fired deep in the caverns of Zebes gave off surface vibrations that measured a 4 on the Richter scale, then you would have a case.

It goes into vaporizing the target, as well as an invisible shockwave that shakes the room (although it only shakes horizontally, and not diagonally like when a wall is hit, so a significant portion of the energy must be going into breaking down the target into very small pieces).

It takes far, far less than a kiloton to completely vaporize a giant bug. The remaining energy would still be effectively a kiloton.

The fireball caused by a kiloton explosion in an atmosphere would have a 30 meters radius. In other words, the entire screen would be filled with a fireball if a kiloton explosion occured anywhere in Super Metroid.

Mad wrote:[snip]
I would expect that Zebes is earthlike. The fact that we don't see rocks blasted apart or water vaporized or plants fried to a crisp is because of game engine limitations.[/snip]

I apologise for this nitpick but I feel that I should point out that the rocks not being blasted apart is actually not apparently due to game mechanics. The self-destruction of Tourian at the end of Metroid and MZM was at least a gigaton-level detonation that covered a much larger portion of the planet than did the area you visit in the game (link*) and yet nothing outside of Tourian suffers any harm and when you revisit Tourian, the only damage you find is that the walls are cracked and pocked and there are a few scattered cave-ins.

*When I did this picture a while back, I forgot to account for the fact that the explosion did not occur in the center of the planetary disk, so these figures are higher than they should be. However, even if they are reduced by an order of magnitude (or three!), even the smaller value gives a value in the order of megatons, which shows that Samus' weapons should be incapable of causing serious harm to the environment.

Mad wrote:It takes far, far less than a kiloton to completely vaporize a giant bug. The remaining energy would still be effectively a kiloton.

The fireball caused by a kiloton explosion in an atmosphere would have a 30 meters radius. In other words, the entire screen would be filled with a fireball if a kiloton explosion occured anywhere in Super Metroid.

It is for that reason (as well as the fact that killing things leaves health and ammo energy behind) that I think Metroid-verse weapons works on a NDF-type principle.

Jogurt, where'd you get the planetary radius figure?

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:

Mad wrote:[snip]
I would expect that Zebes is earthlike. The fact that we don't see rocks blasted apart or water vaporized or plants fried to a crisp is because of game engine limitations.[/snip]

I apologise for this nitpick but I feel that I should point out that the rocks not being blasted apart is actually not apparently due to game mechanics. The self-destruction of Tourian at the end of Metroid and MZM was at least a gigaton-level detonation that covered a much larger portion of the planet than did the area you visit in the game (link*) and yet nothing outside of Tourian suffers any harm and when you revisit Tourian, the only damage you find is that the walls are cracked and pocked and there are a few scattered cave-ins.

*When I did this picture a while back, I forgot to account for the fact that the explosion did not occur in the center of the planetary disk, so these figures are higher than they should be. However, even if they are reduced by an order of magnitude (or three!), even the smaller value gives a value in the order of megatons, which shows that Samus' weapons should be incapable of causing serious harm to the environment.

Metroid Manual, pages 5-6 wrote: The planet Zebes is a natural fortress. Its sides are covered with a special kind of stone, and its interior is a complicated maze. On top of that, the pirates have planted devices and booby traps in the maze, and the pirates' eery [sic] followers lie in wait around every corner. Samus has now succeeded in penetrating Zebes. But time is running out. Will he be able to destroy the Metroid and save the galaxy?

Kinda like that, huh?

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:I apologise for this nitpick but I feel that I should point out that the rocks not being blasted apart is actually not apparently due to game mechanics. The self-destruction of Tourian at the end of Metroid and MZM was at least a gigaton-level detonation that covered a much larger portion of the planet than did the area you visit in the game (link*) and yet nothing outside of Tourian suffers any harm and when you revisit Tourian, the only damage you find is that the walls are cracked and pocked and there are a few scattered cave-ins.

Are you certain the source of the explosion was that close to the where Samus fought Mother Brain? If the source of the explosion was a bit further away (and probably closer to the surface), so that the battle area is closer to the edge of the blast, then there isn't as much of a problem. (Besides, the battle area doesn't look like it took much damage at all.)

Of course, if the caverns of Zebes are strong enough to survive being in the middle of a gigaton-level detonation, then they'd have to be very dense. Zebes has lots of flying creatures, so I doubt its gravity would be significantly greater than 1 G. Samus' falling rate doesn't suggest more than 1 G, either.

In order for a dense planet to have gravity similar to earth's, then the planet would have to be much smaller. (Which then throws off the calculations because neither the planet's radius nor the strength of the rocks can be measured with the data presented thus far.)

Based on the battle area as viewed in Super Metroid, my conclusion is that the blast was simply not close enough to do major damage to that area.

Edit/update: according to Metroid Prime, Zebes is "4.8 trillion teratons," which would be 4.8e27 kg, almost 1,000 times more massive than earth's 6e24 kg. If gravity is similar to earth, then Zebes would be quite a bit smaller than earth.

More precise measurement of gravity would be required to geth Zebes' planetary diameter, though that is difficult because Samus seems to reach terminal velocity very quickly.

Darth Yoshi wrote:[snip]
Jogurt, where'd you get the planetary radius figure?

I'm fairly sure I just assumed Zebes was Earth-sized, since I was too lazy to try to determine the gravitational acceleration and I didn't think there was any evidence of it being too different from Earth.

Mad wrote:Are you certain the source of the explosion was that close to the where Samus fought Mother Brain? If the source of the explosion was a bit further away (and probably closer to the surface), so that the battle area is closer to the edge of the blast, then there isn't as much of a problem. (Besides, the battle area doesn't look like it took much damage at all.)

Tourian is close to the surface of Zebes* and, since there are multiple elevators to the surface (one from Tourian, one from Brinstar, and one (in MZM, but my map of that is too big) from Norfair), two of which took no damage from the blast, I see no reason for the blast to occur above Tourian, since the purpose of the explosion was, I presume, to destroy or trap the Mother Brain's killer.

Actually, don't you return to the surface of the planet after the blast in MZM? How damaged is it? If it's unharmed, that might invalidate scaling based purely on size of the surface blast.

Mad wrote:Edit/update: according to Metroid Prime, Zebes is "4.8 trillion teratons," which would be 4.8e27 kg, almost 1,000 times more massive than earth's 6e24 kg. If gravity is similar to earth, then Zebes would be quite a bit smaller than earth.

Wouldn't that mean that Zebes' radius was larger than Earth's, not smaller? Acceleration from gravity is given by A=G*m*r^-2, so if Zebes' acceleration is equal to Earth's and its mass is 800 times Earth's, then its radius should be roughly 28.3 times as much, right?

[edit: "than" != "then"...]

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:Tourian is close to the surface of Zebes* and, since there are multiple elevators to the surface (one from Tourian, one from Brinstar, and one (in MZM, but my map of that is too big) from Norfair), two of which took no damage from the blast, I see no reason for the blast to occur above Tourian, since the purpose of the explosion was, I presume, to destroy or trap the Mother Brain's killer.

The best evidence that the area is close to the surface is Super Metroid, where you can reach the area from the surface without going through any of those long elevators. (We don't know how long those elevators are. Metroid Prime suggests that Samus has to travel all over the Tallon IV to obtain the Chozo artifacts, which implies each transport shaft could cover a very large distance.)

Actually, don't you return to the surface of the planet after the blast in MZM? How damaged is it? If it's unharmed, that might invalidate scaling based purely on size of the surface blast.

Not having played Zero Mission, I can't comment here.

Wouldn't that mean that Zebes' radius was larger than Earth's, not smaller? Acceleration from gravity is given by A=G*m*r^-2, so if Zebes' acceleration is equal to Earth's and its mass is 800 times Earth's, then its radius should be roughly 28.3 times as much, right?

Oops, yeah, I screwed that up somehow. (Probably because I was still thinking about density from earlier.)

Actually, speaking of density... if Zebes is much larger than earth so as to have earthlike gravity, then Zebes cannot be very dense. After all, at 28.3 times the radius of earth, it would have roughly 22,600 times the volume of earth but only 800 times the mass. Meaning Zebes is less dense than earth.

On the other hand, that explosion you linked to earlier suddenly becomes much, much more impressive.

Mad wrote:[snip]
Actually, speaking of density... if Zebes is much larger than earth so as to have earthlike gravity, then Zebes cannot be very dense. After all, at 28.3 times the radius of earth, it would have roughly 22,600 times the volume of earth but only 800 times the mass. Meaning Zebes is less dense than earth.

True; however, that doesn't mean that the walls of the Pirates' fortress are not dense, or otherwise abnormally strong. As SAMAS has shown, the manual for Metroid states that the walls are made of "a special kind of stone", and Zebes is listed elsewhere in the manual as a "fortress world".

On a side note, if these figures are accurate for Zebes, then, from the formula on this page, the destruction of Zebes in Super Metroid would have required at minimum 3/5*G*m^2*r^-1 = (3/5 * 6.67e-11 * (4.8e27)^2) / 1.81e8 = 5.09e36 J.

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:True; however, that doesn't mean that the walls of the Pirates' fortress are not dense, or otherwise abnormally strong. As SAMAS has shown, the manual for Metroid states that the walls are made of "a special kind of stone", and Zebes is listed elsewhere in the manual as a "fortress world".

But what does "a special kind of stone" actually mean? Obviously, there is something unique about it, but that feature isn't elaborated on. Is it durability? Or maybe they block scans?

Further, the site where Samus battled Mother Brain wasn't made of this 'special stone.' No natural formations are even visible in the room. Further, lights are visible in the background which are inset in the slightly damaged walls. Not really sure what those red lights are supposed to be, but apparently they survived the blast. Are we to expect that these red lights are also superdurable?

There's also the fact that enough of Mother Brain survived for the Space Pirates to resuscitate her (ref: Metroid Prime manual).

Mad wrote:[snip]
But what does "a special kind of stone" actually mean? Obviously, there is something unique about it, but that feature isn't elaborated on. Is it durability? Or maybe they block scans?

True. I was tossing that out as evidence for material strength, but I guess that statement isn't really too helpful for that.

Further, the site where Samus battled Mother Brain wasn't made of this 'special stone.' No natural formations are even visible in the room. Further, lights are visible in the background which are inset in the slightly damaged walls. Not really sure what those red lights are supposed to be, but apparently they survived the blast. Are we to expect that these red lights are also superdurable?

Tourian appears to have been built entirely by the Pirates. However, we don't know the capabilities of the Pirates' materials, so again, this isn't very helpful for anything other than "it isn't rock".
Also, let me go boot up SM. Are you sure those are lights, or are they just glowing parts of the walls?

Edit: Finally made my way back to old Tourian, and yeah, those do look like lights of some sort. Either that, or grills into some glowy red area, but that seems like a rather strange thing to have. The fact that the lights seem to have fared better than everything else is also weird. Tourian now officially confuses me.

There's also the fact that enough of Mother Brain survived for the Space Pirates to resuscitate her (ref: Metroid Prime manual).

True, but the Metroid series is weird when it comes to this. Ridley has been blown to dust/vapor in both Metroid/MZM and Super Metroid (I forget what happens to him in MP) and yet he is able to come back just about every game. Mother Brain even has a better reason to survive bodily destruction than Ridley, since MB is hooked directly into the base's systems (she can look directly through security cameras), so her consciousness could have been copied that way. This doesn't have any evidence, but it's the simplest way for her to have survived the organic bits getting destroyed by Samus.