Flight vs Teleportation

[Dausuul]

For me personally, I'd go with flight, because it just looks like so damn much fun. Teleportation would be more useful, but boring.

As an adventurer, both can be very useful, but at-will teleportation is generally better than at-will flight.

 

[RSKennan]

One question: does momentum get conserved by the process of teleporting?

Each has its advantages: it it is conserved, you COULD charge someone with it...but you couldn't save yourself from a terminal velocity fall.

You could, if you could teleport to the other side of the planet and fall upwards, then teleport back to the ground on the other side at the apogee.

Changing latitudes would be rough too.

If it isn't conserved, you're the man for getting rid of volatile grenades...but if you're teleporting from one spot to another on a moving surface, you could wind up prone VERY easily.

But if it isn't conserved, then you inherently match v and acceleration with the target, right? What difference does it make if it's a planet vs. a truck?

Me, I'd take teleporting any day. I've thought about it a lot.

 

[Pbartender]

You could, if you could teleport to the other side of the planet and fall upwards, then teleport back to the ground on the other side at the apogee.

Don't forget, though, that when you arrive on the opposite side of the earth, you would also be suddenly traveling westward at something like a 2000 mph (assuming you tried this feat near the equator).

 

[Nifft]

Don't forget, though, that when you arrive on the opposite side of the earth, you would also be suddenly traveling westward at something like a 2000 mph (assuming you tried this feat near the equator).

If my teleportation power is nice enough to move air & stuff out of the way when I bamph in, perhaps it'll also be nice enough to grant me locally appropriate inertia.

If it's NOT nice enough to impart locally appropriate inertia, well, I've just got myself a job as a perpetual motion device.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Doug McCrae]

Flight's cooler, teleport is for powergamers. Wallcrawling and superleap are best, tho.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Flight is fun, but there are too many places where I wouldn't want to fly over during hunting season. So I'll go with teleport-- and probably a limited form of it, along the lines of shadowstep, or dimension door, or mirrorwalk or via phonebooths or the like.

Even if it's just a few times a day, that would be enough to keep me out of most kinds of trouble I'm likely to get into. And if it were unlimited use, then I could effectively get a few hundred feet per footstep/second, enough to get across a large country in a few hours.

But if really pushed? I choose incorporeality!

 

[Stormonu]

BTW, with conservation of motion, you could "fly" with teleport by teleporting and shifting your orientation so that your "falling" becoming flying.

"That's falling with style."

 

[Stormonu]

But if really pushed? I choose incorporeality!

Hmmm... Which is better - incorporeality or invisibility?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Hmmm... Which is better - incorporeality or invisibility?

I'm not sure if that's a fair question. With many forms of incorporeality you can become invisible.

 

[steenan]

I'd surely take teleportation over flight. Flight can be fun, but teleportation is just too useful. Flying to work in rain or cold weather would be extremely uncomfortable and would attract a lot of unnecessary attention; teleporting, on the other hand, would just save me about two hours a day, and that's quite a lot. The only case in which I'd choose flight is if teleportation came with high risk of landing in wrong places, inside solid things etc.