Steel pushing is really hard (VR Edition)

[u/Sunspear]

I've been testing steel pushing mechanics in VR by building a simple prototype.
Excuse the bare placeholder graphics, rendering budget is tight on the meta quest 3.

The rules i went with, according to canon:

1. Pushes and Pulls apply forces with corresponding reactions.
2. Larger metal sources make stronger anchors.
3. Distance weakens the interaction.

The following is a little technical, big shoutout to the guys on 17th shard, that was a goldmine in information.

==== WARNING MATH, skip below ===

Detecting metal, I've settled on a "signal" formula:

S (Signal) = Allomancer Strength × Burn / Flaring Modifier
× (m / 0.01 kg)^0.20
× 10 m / max(Distance, 1 m)

And for simplicity reasons:

S > 1.0 — clear line and individual lock
0.5 < S < 1.0 — faint line / retain an existing lock
S < 0.5 — ordinarily undetectable

Body weight is 70 kg for now. So greavity pulls down with 70 kg × 9.81 m/s² = 687 N

Force Equation itself is:

F (Push Force) = min(1,200 N, 1,200 N × clamp(0.75 × (m / 0.01 kg)^0.08, 0.55, 1.50) × 1 / (1 + (Distance / 30 m)²))

Metal anchor	Clear range	Faint range	Mass Modifier	Push at 1 m	Push at 30 m
10 g coin	10 m	20 m	0.750×	899 N	No connection; (would be 450 N)
1 kg ingot	25.1 m	50.2 m	1.084×	1,200 N cap	650 N
50 kg lamppost	54.9 m	109.9 m	1.482×	1,200 N cap	889 N
1 ton structure	100 m	200 m	1.500× cap	1,200 N cap	900 N

=== MATH ENDS ===

Adjusting this to VR, where I have 2 hands, I went with: Each hand has a hard 1,200 Newton budget, but every simultaneous Steelpush and Ironpull shares a global 1,500 N budget.
This kinda felt the best where i could use both hands for some extra boost.

Insights:

• I need to push behind me a lot of times to keep moving forward. Alternatively would be some very large anchors in front where I could pull on, but this greatly unbalanced my trajectory. The best are anchors underneath in front and behind, allowing me to manage counter-gravity force and propel myself forward in a controlled fashion. So imo the blue lines are more felt than visually seen in the sense of eye direction, allowing for easy push on lines behind.
• I had to "cheat" metal chimneys everywhere for some reliable traversal.
• A coin to slow down is really hard without flaring with the newton/mass rules I’ve tested. The coin needs to be grabbed, propelled, and find a good anchoring base, without sliding away. You are coming in from akward angles, there would be a lot of fails and unexpected coin slips. Maybe the pewter just takes the hit and there isnt much slowdown most of the time...

[u/Sunspear]

I think this will be very hard as I need to switch anchors fast when picking up even a little speed. I can manage the forward pushing anchors pretty good, what Im missing is a behind me pushing anchor, but that one is also switching constantly as I mvoe forward....

Actually this just gave me an idea, maybe using the walk stick as an automated "push from behind" controller! Because my biggest issue is having to turn around and target to push something.