Now that helicopters are functional as so far as flight is concerned, perhaps we can revist the wings mutations.
So, currently, both bird and insect wings don’t offer the ability to actually fly with the reason given that you are simply too heavy, but the bird wings are at least strong enough to allow you to glide.
So I was wondering… bird wings are not post-threshold, and neither are hollow bones. The tiny mutation, (which is post) if you start off at lowest starting height, puts you at 1 foot six inches and at 11 pounds for normal weight. (hollow bones are not accounted for.) I would imagine that at that size and weight, a mutant should be able to fly if they keep their gear below X weight. Anything above the weight limit means you simply cant take off, but gliding down is still possible.
Also, there are a number of mutations that are 2 staged where your anatomy “catches up” with the first bit, like cat eyes being useless until you get feline vision afterwards. Flight could very well be the same way like "your back muscles and skeleture have finally adjusted to allowing your wings to fully support your weight.
Now, granted, tiny and little would also make your wings smaller, and large birds do exist, but I put those 2 mutations there for balance more than anything else. But the UI could easily support the inclusion of flight weight right next to the current carry weight.
And what about gas pockets with lighter than air gas in them? That is the lore reason that some gaint bugs are able to fly. Could be an option for insect mutant if they also take all of the other mutations nessecery to reduce weight.
Yea… that’s not really going to do more than a token improvement unless you’re hauling around a huge gas bladder.
The total air displaced by an average human weighs about… 76g if I’m mathing right.
Given how big some birds are it doesn’t seem too unreasonable with sufficient weight reducing mutations. Having 12 feet (3.7m) of wing or likely more will cause it’s own problems that could help balance it along with the fragility. Your wings are going to be absolutely massive making things a lot tougher to work around. Lack of carry weight, probably a reduction in strength as muscle is heavy, it will be a very specialized and likely minimally equipped character. An ankle sheath would probably be what your rolling with, assuming you have arms and that’s an assumption that doesn’t necessarily have to be true. Not like you can’t fight and wreck face in cataclysm without using your arms, npc bases will be needed for crafting, if you need crafting at that point. Might need more structures though as birds are disturbingly good home engineers despite lack of arms.
If someone goes injecting themselves into a bird it’s not like they don’t know what a bird is. Give em all the benefits and the consequences. Post thresh could make you a massive bird of prey or something.
But it would reduce your weight quite well (at the expense of strength and HP since you can mostly miss those tisseus but the rest is pretty vital to your long term survival)
Sorry Kevin, but while a vacuum bladder (however that would be kept inflated) might produce a “negative weight” of 76 g, there would be a mass reduction from the flesh that does no longer fill that volume, which is what I think spicyshadow refers to. The respiratory system of birds consists of a lot of air sacks in the body, increasing the volume but with little effect on the weight (and allowing for a more efficient breathing than the model used by mammals).
However, if weight reduction due to a lower amount of tissue (whether in the form of a hollow interior or a smaller total volume) would be enough to allow for enough lift to produce flight is something I can’t estimate.
IF you wanted a large flying creature the pterodactyl is probably a better model. It seems they were able to be comparatively heavy and still take off thanks to a quadropedal takeoff (and ought to allow for the arms/front legs to retain some fingers usable for limited manipulation). If you want something that’s actually able to retain manipulation on the human level you’d probably have to have the wings completely separated from the arms along the line of the mythical 6-limbed model of angels, pegasii, and (winged) dragons.
Or the body can just be smaller, which is one of the things I outlined.
Yes a pterodactyl or possibly even a Quetzalcoatlus would provide an interesting model to follow, but it would still h as ve the issues I outlined around loss of dexterity.
The Kori Bustard is another one to look at as it’s the current living heaviest bird for pure weight though doesn’t win for volume or wingspan. Being heavy it spends most of it’s time land bound and needs a running start to go airborne but it can indeed fly. Sounds like a good potential model. Being currently alive it’s a lot easier to study too.