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[Tylui]

Side note:

Speed and Power are inversely proportional.  This is why you accelerate a car while in 1st or 2nd gear, but go 50 mph in 5th.

This isn't... true.

Power equals Work over Time.  Right?  Right.

Well, let's say you increase the power.  That means that you can either do a greater amount of work while the time stays the same, or you can do the same amount of work in less time.

Therefore, power can be directly proportional to speed.


The reason switching gears works, is because it's taking advantage of Mechanical Advantage.

If you stayed in 1st gear, but provided the gears with a looooot more power, you could still go as fast.  It's just not as efficient...  At all. 


EDIT:  I made a picture. :B

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EDIT2:

...umiman

[Areyar]

Have thought about this sort of mechanism too. 

I disagree with Deragon on the recoil issue, I can see these kind of mecanisms well suited for huge moving fortress bulkheads/doors. that kind of use requires a two-state object, like bridges (Up/Down, extended/retracted)

Moving stuff with them would be great, esp. fluids.

as for crushing: I'd say: if it can be moved and something blocks it, it is smashed against it, if it survives it is not crushed and the ramrod halted...
but only for one step, next step the rod tries again and again and again untill the thing is dead moved away or destroyed. (or the obstruction is destroyed)
 

[Draco18s]

Then why have a setting at all?  Why not have every ramrod at full speed and full force?  Sometimes science needs to take a backseat when designing a game.

For instance, if you're fighting Cthuhlu-ian monsters and you're an unphasable person (mind like a steel lump) then you'd fight better right?

Not in the game Arkham Horror.  Fight and Willpower are inversely proportional: you keel stuff gud, you go crazy fast.

[LumenPlacidum]

The difficulty involved here is that you used the term power instead of force.

Power is Work per Time, as was said above, but if you rearrange terms and differentiate by time, you get the following:

Instantaneous Power = Force (vector) dot Velocity (vector).  When the force and the velocity are in the same direction, then you get all magnitudes:
P = F v

Thus, with a limited amount of Power you trade off Force versus velocity.  Force and velocity become inversely proportional.

[Veroule]

Sorry, I was still on my first cup of coffee in the morning when I posted.  In order to clarify a few things:
Speed: just how fast we want the thing to move.
Strength: just how much force we want it to be able to exert.  Automatically sert the minimum based on all the materials in the construction.
Power: the calculated amount of DF energy units (windmill makes 40) that is required to move it at that speed and strength.

If we look at this in physics terms: F=ma and mv=Ft both apply.  The only thing that is really being ignored in my post is the acceleration curve required by Newton's first law of motion.  I think we can get away with ignoring it for this, since we already violating the same law with bridges, floodgates, hatches, etc.