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Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:59 am
by isawarenshi
They are able to take robot electronics and robot mechanics and both require electrical engineering skill but it's not listed as available in their related skill choices. Is it supposed to be available or was is supposed to be included in the rcc skills?

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:13 pm
by wyrmraker
Hmm. An interesting oversight. I would rule to allow it as an OCC Skill, since it's a pre-requisite for one of the skills that can DEFINITELY be taken as an OCC Related skill. It's much like our house ruling that Techno-Wizards should automatically come with Lore: Magic and Gemology.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:03 pm
by FluidicAztec
Page 299 of RUE covers this. If the OCC/RCC starts with a skill that has a prerequisite, assume the character has that skill as part of their training.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:48 pm
by FatherMorpheus
FluidicAztec wrote:Page 299 of RUE covers this. If the OCC/RCC starts with a skill that has a prerequisite, assume the character has that skill as part of their training.


Nice catch. Of course, this was a correction on their various over sights when they have build OCCs. :)

Oh well.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:06 pm
by Tiree
FatherMorpheus wrote:
FluidicAztec wrote:Page 299 of RUE covers this. If the OCC/RCC starts with a skill that has a prerequisite, assume the character has that skill as part of their training.


Nice catch. Of course, this was a correction on their various over sights when they have build OCCs. :)

Oh well.

But that is if it is a Skill that falls within OCC/RCC starting skills, not OCC Related or Secondary Skills. Thus - if they don't have a skill that has Electrical Engineer as a prereq as a OCC/RCC skill then the available skills via OCC Related are invalid. If that is the case, I would rule that the Character could get the prereq skill, and it was an omission within the OCC Related text.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:51 pm
by Zer0 Kay
wyrmraker wrote:Hmm. An interesting oversight. I would rule to allow it as an OCC Skill, since it's a pre-requisite for one of the skills that can DEFINITELY be taken as an OCC Related skill. It's much like our house ruling that Techno-Wizards should automatically come with Lore: Magic and Gemology.

That would be funny if they understood advanced engineering but didn't know electrons in an electrical circuit flowed from negative to possitive or that railguns work because of lorentz forces or that it is the magnets moving the electrons in a generator that create electricity. Or that AC was invented and DC discovered... Stuff like that.

It'd be like old hackers vs. the near generation. The old guys had to write their own code. The new script kiddies use the tools the old guys wrote.

So maybe the Malvoren can build and design stuff but they can't buld it from the ground up.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:14 pm
by Shark_Force
to be fair, it wasn't that long ago that *we* had the direction of electrical current backwards. we still managed to make perfectly functional electronic devices.

(somewhat relevant but more of an inside joke: http://xkcd.com/567/ )

(just as an example, in a transistor, you have three wires. in one type of transistor, the names for the three wires are base, emitter, and collector. the base essentially controls the flow from one to the other, the emitter is where current comes in, and collector is where current comes out because for hundreds of years, and even today, most professionals use what is called conventional current... which is actually completely backwards (and also obviously works just fine, otherwise we'd have stopped using it). which has been making life miserable for those who've had to learn the theory behind electricity for over a hundred years, now).

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:18 am
by Nightmask
Shark_Force wrote:to be fair, it wasn't that long ago that *we* had the direction of electrical current backwards. we still managed to make perfectly functional electronic devices.

(somewhat relevant but more of an inside joke: http://xkcd.com/567/ )

(just as an example, in a transistor, you have three wires. in one type of transistor, the names for the three wires are base, emitter, and collector. the base essentially controls the flow from one to the other, the emitter is where current comes in, and collector is where current comes out because for hundreds of years, and even today, most professionals use what is called conventional current... which is actually completely backwards (and also obviously works just fine, otherwise we'd have stopped using it). which has been making life miserable for those who've had to learn the theory behind electricity for over a hundred years, now).


Yes it made it quite fun going from electrical engineering classes to electronic technology classes, with one going 'no it's positive to negative' and the other going 'no it's negative to positive'.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:31 am
by Zer0 Kay
Shark_Force wrote:to be fair, it wasn't that long ago that *we* had the direction of electrical current backwards. we still managed to make perfectly functional electronic devices.

(somewhat relevant but more of an inside joke: http://xkcd.com/567/ )

(just as an example, in a transistor, you have three wires. in one type of transistor, the names for the three wires are base, emitter, and collector. the base essentially controls the flow from one to the other, the emitter is where current comes in, and collector is where current comes out because for hundreds of years, and even today, most professionals use what is called conventional current... which is actually completely backwards (and also obviously works just fine, otherwise we'd have stopped using it). which has been making life miserable for those who've had to learn the theory behind electricity for over a hundred years, now).


Thanks that comic was just what I needed this morning. :). Ya know I had always learned pos. to neg. and it was never explained that it is reverse from conventional when we were learning about components. Now the emitter collecting and the collector emmiting makes more sense... duh. Thanks for the miniphany :) tiny epiphany.

Direction would be important over long range dc communication or timing signals wouldn't it?

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:19 pm
by Shark_Force
Zer0 Kay wrote:Direction would be important over long range dc communication or timing signals wouldn't it?


oh, the direction is important, but it doesn't much matter whether you're understanding it "correctly" or "backwards". so long as you're using it consistently, and you understand what the electrical component does in terms of creating the signal, that is.

i mean, obviously if you install the components wrong, you'll have problems.

but whether you think the current is flowing from negative to positive or positive to negative is relatively unimportant, so long as you understand what it does to the circuit on each side of the component.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:09 pm
by Zer0 Kay
Shark_Force wrote:
Zer0 Kay wrote:Direction would be important over long range dc communication or timing signals wouldn't it?


oh, the direction is important, but it doesn't much matter whether you're understanding it "correctly" or "backwards". so long as you're using it consistently, and you understand what the electrical component does in terms of creating the signal, that is.

i mean, obviously if you install the components wrong, you'll have problems.

but whether you think the current is flowing from negative to positive or positive to negative is relatively unimportant, so long as you understand what it does to the circuit on each side of the component.

Hmm, I was just figuring on time sensitive, over long distances, a DC signal would be faster if you were going with the flow. Time sensitive as in the time it takes for the signal to go from one place to another as apposed to consistency. I figure it would be like having a water hose with full of air and then you turn the water on and have to wait for the flow. But that's a poor analogy since the conductor doesn't empty of electrons when not in use. Hmm, k so their shouldn't be any time delay regardless of applying a signal with a positive or electric current. Maybe instead of thinking of it as flow like liquid it would be more accurate to think of it as pushing or pulling the electrons.

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:53 pm
by Shark_Force
well yeah, there's a delay for distance. unless you're talking very long distances, it's not much of a delay though. in fact, iirc electrical current moves at approximately the speed of light. give or take, that is (really, the speed of light is a bit of a misnomer; typically people are referencing the speed of light in a vaccuum, which is a specific value, but light actually travels at different speeds through different materials, which is responsible for all sorts of interesting effects :P not to mention, in some cases the electrons aren't strictly moving... just the charge)

Re: Malvoren and electrical engineer skill?

Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 7:06 pm
by Zer0 Kay
Shark_Force wrote:well yeah, there's a delay for distance. unless you're talking very long distances, it's not much of a delay though. in fact, iirc electrical current moves at approximately the speed of light. give or take, that is (really, the speed of light is a bit of a misnomer; typically people are referencing the speed of light in a vaccuum, which is a specific value, but light actually travels at different speeds through different materials, which is responsible for all sorts of interesting effects :P not to mention, in some cases the electrons aren't strictly moving... just the charge)


Thanks, I realize this. I'm a prior service USAF ground radar technician. It is the delay in distance that we use fiber optics instead of copper to go from the ASR to the RAPCON to the tower for the PDIP before we changed to STARS. I understand that it is the charge on the electrons swapping and the is why I said its never empty. So it is more like kinnetic balls it doesn't matter if you push or pull it, the reaction time is the same as long as the whole system is set to work the same way.