Which of Valve's creative guns doyou want?

[headprogrammingczar]

You can play through HL2 with the portal gun with a little hacking. The portal gun works on just about every surface in that game that is large enough to fit a portal.

[SlyReaper]

You can play through HL2 with the portal gun with a little hacking. The portal gun works on just about every surface in that game that is large enough to fit a portal.

But I heard that hack stops any sound playing. Somewhat immersion breaking for an RPG.

[thicknavyrain]

I would take Gravity gun because I know I would get myself killed too quickly with the Portal gun. If my safety was assured it would be Portal gun for the win but until then, definitely Gravity gun. It's like an almighty energy efficient catapult.

But I heard that hack stops any sound playing. Somewhat immersion breaking for an RPG.

WHAT?! Half Life isn't an RPG! Did you mean FPS?

[Brooklynxman]

I would use the portal gun for instant commute most of the time.

Although, now, Im in a long distance relationship. Portal gun would be mad useful in this case.

It is way too tough to choose between the 2.

[headprogrammingczar]

You can play through HL2 with the portal gun with a little hacking. The portal gun works on just about every surface in that game that is large enough to fit a portal.

But I heard that hack stops any sound playing. Somewhat immersion breaking for an RPG.

Sound DOES work. You just have to not be braindead and extract the ENTIRE .gcf and not just the maps.

[darkspork]

I've just realized something. In real life, there are virtually no stationary flat vertical surfaces large enough for a portal. I'm still rooting for the toolgun, though.

You can play through HL2 with the portal gun with a little hacking. The portal gun works on just about every surface in that game that is large enough to fit a portal.

But I heard that hack stops any sound playing. Somewhat immersion breaking for an RPG.

Sound DOES work. You just have to not be braindead and extract the ENTIRE .gcf and not just the maps.

There's another way you can do it. It involves using the Source SDK and setting the mod base number to Portal's.

[SlyReaper]

I would take Gravity gun because I know I would get myself killed too quickly with the Portal gun. If my safety was assured it would be Portal gun for the win but until then, definitely Gravity gun. It's like an almighty energy efficient catapult.

But I heard that hack stops any sound playing. Somewhat immersion breaking for an RPG.

WHAT?! Half Life isn't an RPG! Did you mean FPS?

They aren't mutually exclusive things, you know? You role play a theoretical physicist with an unusual aptitude for armed combat. Sounds like an RPG to me.

Anyway, it's good to know you can still have sound. I have the feeling that having a portal gun in HL2 would be rather gamebreaking - no need to fight your way through legions of combine when you can just zap a portal straight up to the top of the building and be done with it.

[ian]

Yes, but in the context of video games as it was used, it is not an RPG.

It is only a role playing game in the sense that 99% of games are. It is no more an RPG than Sonic is, and has no RPG mechanics

[SJ Zero]

The gravity gun basically follows the laws of physics. The portal gun take them and makes a complete mockery of them.

When I'm not using the portal gun for fun and games, I could create a perpetual motion machine that would let me generate nearly limitless amounts of electricity. Imagine you place one portal at the bottom of a lake, and another portal pretty much anywhere: Suddenly, you're raping the laws of god and man, and making massive profits doing it.

[phlip]

The gravity gun basically follows the laws of physics.

Really? I'll let Newton know that his third law doesn't count as a law of Physics, then. Good to know.

[SJ Zero]

Messing with one law of physics is nothing compared to the way the portal gun takes the laws of physics and straps it to a bed, has it's way with the laws of physics, and leaves the laws of physics to be discovered by the cleaning staff the next day.

[MotorToad]

The gravity gun basically follows the laws of physics. The portal gun take them and makes a complete mockery of them.

When I'm not using the portal gun for fun and games, I could create a perpetual motion machine that would let me generate nearly limitless amounts of electricity. Imagine you place one portal at the bottom of a lake, and another portal pretty much anywhere: Suddenly, you're raping the laws of god and man, and making massive profits doing it.

But if everyone has portal guns, we're all making our own free energy. (Be careful not to submerge the device, even partially!) I think saying the portal gun is more offensive to physics than the gravity gun shows there's a thing or two about physics that you're missing.

[SummerGlauFan]

What would happen if:
I opened one end of a portal onto a wall, and the other end onto a large, mobile flat surface such as the back of a large cabinet. Then I moved the cabinet directly against said wall just as someone was stepping through the portal, so that the two ends of the portal were either touching or very, very close.

Hmmm...

[SJ Zero]

I wouldn't want to debate too hard on which rape of the laws of physics is harder, since they're fictional creations that don't fit into any models we actually have.

I start thinking about a portal gun that could create infinite energy by teleporting objects from one energy level in a gravity well to another with no apparent energy cost, and I start thinking about a gravity gun that can push and pull objects with no apparent energy cost, and I realise that neither of them follows the most basic laws of physics, which really makes trying to fathom their properties in a real physical world as fruitless as trying to explain how superman can fly using real physics.

[MotorToad]

I wouldn't want to debate too hard on which rape of the laws of physics is harder, since they're fictional creations that don't fit into any models we actually have.

I start thinking about a portal gun that could create infinite energy by teleporting objects from one energy level in a gravity well to another with no apparent energy cost, and I start thinking about a gravity gun that can push and pull objects with no apparent energy cost, and I realise that neither of them follows the most basic laws of physics, which really makes trying to fathom their properties in a real physical world as fruitless as trying to explain how superman can fly using real physics.

That's what I was trying to say. Yes. Neither's worse than the other, they're so unpossible it doesn't matter.

[SlyReaper]

I wouldn't want to debate too hard on which rape of the laws of physics is harder, since they're fictional creations that don't fit into any models we actually have.

I start thinking about a portal gun that could create infinite energy by teleporting objects from one energy level in a gravity well to another with no apparent energy cost, and I start thinking about a gravity gun that can push and pull objects with no apparent energy cost, and I realise that neither of them follows the most basic laws of physics, which really makes trying to fathom their properties in a real physical world as fruitless as trying to explain how superman can fly using real physics.

At the start of episode 2, Alyx says "I forgot how much of a kick this gravity gun has". That suggests there IS some sort of opposite reaction going on when it manipulates objects (and Freeman's suit is just really good at absorbing the recoil). Whether it's an equal reaction is unclear.

[SJ Zero]

The gravity gun can shoot objects of low mass hundreds of meters, and can push objects of relatively high mass short distances as well. It does this thousands of times over the course of the game, without ever requiring a recharge over hundreds of hours of gameplay across several games.

If you used a gravity gun to replace the combustion chamber on a vehicle (just pull the piston up then push it back down), could you drive indefinitely? If you can, that means the laws of thermodynamics would be raped really hard.

[headprogrammingczar]

FTL travel wins over broken thermodynamics any day, and the portal gun can do both.

[SJ Zero]

How do you know it's faster than light?

If it was limited to lightspeed travel, then relativity would muck around with time to ensure you didn't reach the other side of the portal in time to violate causality. You wouldn't be able to notice if the portals were within feet of each other.

You wouldn't know without placing two portals far enough apart for the speed of light to be a significant factor, then doing something like firing a laser through a portal and checking with synchronized atomic clocks to see if the time it arrived was the time it takes for light to travel a few meters or the time it takes for light to travel a few meters plus the distance between the portals.

No wonder everyone's a freaking scientist in the Half Life universe. there's so many cool experiments you could run with physics strapped to a bed!

[headprogrammingczar]

It connects space-time between two planes. Walking through a portal is no different than walking through a doorway.

[darkspork]

It connects space-time between two planes. Walking through a portal is no different than walking through a doorway.

Except that, should you exit the portal far above your entrance, you have just increased your potential energy from nothing. BTW, shouldn't the portal have some sort of depth to it?

[phlip]

BTW, shouldn't the portal have some sort of depth to it?

Why? There's no obvious reason for it to have to... they're certainly zero-width in the game.

As for travel times... it's a tricky one. If the round-trip time of a particle epsilon on one side of the portal, to epsilon on the other side, and back again, isn't negligible... then that's only going to cause problems when an object is halfway through the portal. I can only see it being painful having the portal, say, in the middle of your brain.

The only resolution that makes sense to me is the one that uses a badly distorted spacetime metric that considers geodesics that go through the portal. That is, if you open a portal here, and one on Alpha Centauri, walk through it, and then close the portal, you've only travelled a couple of meters, not several light years. The bits of spacetime where the portal is opened are connected, and the light cones are thoroughly weird. On such a distance though, relativity of simultaneity will become noticeable... it's meaningless to refer to the same time in a different place... any portal gun would, by necessity, also be a time machine.

[headprogrammingczar]

But a limited time machine. You could not travel in such a way that your light-cone hits itself before you went through.

[phlip]

Not necessarily... You could travel from point A to point B at a time simultaneous in one frame, then travel back to point A at a time simultaneous in some other frame... and potentially end up arriving before you left. And if you lift the restriction that portals are immobile, then you can use time dilation trickses to have two portals in the same place, but at different times.

[SJ Zero]

I'm wondering if you placed a portal on a vacuum on earth, and one on the moon, if you'd see colour shift when images started coming from the portal because of time slowing down on the surface of the portal.

As you passed through such a portal, would you visually change? Would the mass along that slice of your body become great and time slow greatly?

Curse you Gordon Freeman, why couldn't you have stayed a scientist?

[cephalopod9]

I would take Gravity gun because I know I would get myself killed too quickly with the Portal gun. If my safety was assured it would be Portal gun for the win but until then, definitely Gravity gun. It's like an almighty energy efficient catapult.

Bouncey castle practice.

What would happen if:
I opened one end of a portal onto a wall, and the other end onto a large, mobile flat surface such as the back of a large cabinet. Then I moved the cabinet directly against said wall just as someone was stepping through the portal, so that the two ends of the portal were either touching or very, very close.

Hmmm...

I think the person would just be smooshed against themself.
....What happens to momentum if one end of the portal starts to accelerate as you're going through it?

[SlyReaper]

I would take Gravity gun because I know I would get myself killed too quickly with the Portal gun. If my safety was assured it would be Portal gun for the win but until then, definitely Gravity gun. It's like an almighty energy efficient catapult.

Bouncey castle practice.

What would happen if:
I opened one end of a portal onto a wall, and the other end onto a large, mobile flat surface such as the back of a large cabinet. Then I moved the cabinet directly against said wall just as someone was stepping through the portal, so that the two ends of the portal were either touching or very, very close.

Hmmm...

I think the person would just be smooshed against themself.
....What happens to momentum if one end of the portal starts to accelerate as you're going through it?

It gets hideously mangled.

[SJ Zero]

Portals disappear if the object they're resting against move.

[Berengal]

Define "move".

[SJ Zero]

Well, in one of the last test chambers, a button makes a wall change position. If you shoot a portal at that wall, a portal exists. If you move the wall with the button, the portal disappears.

[rrwoods]

Well, sure, that's in game, where we have a very clear definition for "move". We don't really have one in real life.

I mean, after all, isn't the planet "moving"? Isn't the solar system "moving"?

[SJ Zero]

It's a slippery slope, imho. If you stop taking the game as canon, then what is? You can speculate on effects that don't exist such as relativistic effects because the game wouldn't give you a means to test them, but for something you can test, if you start saying "Oh, that won't happen it's just a game", I can't help but think you're heading towards re-imagining the portal device.

And there is such a thing as relative 'rest' and relative 'motion'. Objects are affected by changes in inertia or momentum, and that change could be considered the element of motion that's relevant.

[rrwoods]

I don't think you can stop taking the game as canon, but if you're going to talk about bringing a fictional device or concept into the real world, you're going to have inconsistencies to resolve. This is one of those.

How does a portal "know" when the surface it's on is moving, if we don't even have a definition for "move"? You can say "move relative to the other portal" and probably resolve that inconsistancy, though that means no trickses like traveling to another planet / celestial body via portal.

[SJ Zero]

There are plenty of local elements that could be considered something to 'move' through. For example, relative to the earth's magnetic field, a portal on a fixed surface is not 'moving'. However, once the surface begins to move, it is 'moving' compared to the earth's magnetic field. If it conducts, it will induce an emf, which could concievably disrupt the portal somehow.

[SlyReaper]

There are plenty of local elements that could be considered something to 'move' through. For example, relative to the earth's magnetic field, a portal on a fixed surface is not 'moving'. However, once the surface begins to move, it is 'moving' compared to the earth's magnetic field. If it conducts, it will induce an emf, which could concievably disrupt the portal somehow.

The Earth's magnetic field is not static. It is affected by changes in the movement of the liquid iron in the Earth's core as well as interactions with solar particles. The magnetic poles are constantly shifting about as a result. In a similar manner, the Earth's gravitational field is not perfectly static (just static enough for us to not notice it without incredibly sensitive tools) because of interactions with the gravitational fields of the sun, moon and other objects.

Any other frames of reference you had in mind?

[darkspork]

There are plenty of local elements that could be considered something to 'move' through. For example, relative to the earth's magnetic field, a portal on a fixed surface is not 'moving'. However, once the surface begins to move, it is 'moving' compared to the earth's magnetic field. If it conducts, it will induce an emf, which could concievably disrupt the portal somehow.

The Earth's magnetic field is not static. It is affected by changes in the movement of the liquid iron in the Earth's core as well as interactions with solar particles. The magnetic poles are constantly shifting about as a result. In a similar manner, the Earth's gravitational field is not perfectly static (just static enough for us to not notice it without incredibly sensitive tools) because of interactions with the gravitational fields of the sun, moon and other objects.

Any other frames of reference you had in mind?

How about the other portal? Perhaps the portals must maintain a constant distance or fail.

[SlyReaper]

There are plenty of local elements that could be considered something to 'move' through. For example, relative to the earth's magnetic field, a portal on a fixed surface is not 'moving'. However, once the surface begins to move, it is 'moving' compared to the earth's magnetic field. If it conducts, it will induce an emf, which could concievably disrupt the portal somehow.

The Earth's magnetic field is not static. It is affected by changes in the movement of the liquid iron in the Earth's core as well as interactions with solar particles. The magnetic poles are constantly shifting about as a result. In a similar manner, the Earth's gravitational field is not perfectly static (just static enough for us to not notice it without incredibly sensitive tools) because of interactions with the gravitational fields of the sun, moon and other objects.

Any other frames of reference you had in mind?

How about the other portal? Perhaps the portals must maintain a constant distance or fail.

That would make sense. In the game, we never see two portalable surfaces move at the same time in the same direction and same speed do we?

[SJ Zero]

The portal that 'moves' is the one that is destroyed. The other portal remains. If there's a frame of reference (intertial?), it's one outside the portals themselves, because otherwise both would be destroyed upon movement, rather than the one that actually moves.

[sixcorners]

I think you could, with the portal gun, find all kinds of new ways to put on your robe and wizard's hat...

[SpazzyMcGee]

Portal gun, no doubt. It can lift stuff just like the gravity gun, but it can also shoot portals. The only think the gravity gun has going for it is the ability to pull and throw stuff which isn't as cool as creating portals. I see myself putting a portal in my closet back home and one somewhere at my college. There goes the half of my tuition that goes to room and board.

But I don't have those snazzy Leg braces like Chell so I will likely break my legs some afternoon while messing around.