Hrm... There is problem. Admittedly, it's not one you neccessarily knew about. I should have tossed it into the Laws, and I did not. My apologies. Have done so now.
Specifically, handwavium conserves mass and energy - or, at least, that's been the understanding I had had of the general consensus. Quick micro-speed-drive boosts take almost no energy. I'm not really liking the idea of direct matter-to-energy converters in general, except as one of the extreme ends of "my nifty little research toy", but that's a personal thing. (We normally get around that with the funky "It's drawing energy from *somewhere* - I just can't tell *where*." generators. Perhaps we'll have an interesting plot somewhere down the line where we find out where all that power is actually coming from.) Regardless, this would give *wayyy* too much energy for the effect even if that *were* what it was doing
Basically, recharging one attack off of a quick hit to the character's internal energy reserves sounds about right. If you're using the "alter" ability, not only do you have to explain how the ability works in the first place (doable), you have to explain how Random Thing Foo gets turned into a spike (still doable, if not trivial) and what happens to the spike/mass/energy afterwards (err....) If you are willing to *not* include the "consumes bits of landscape" part, then you can explain it relatively easily. The spikes are an odd sort of battery. For whatever reason, they protrude when charged up and sink back in when expended. Done.
I *am* amused by the idea of him throwing around a couple of Really Powerful Punches at thin air right outside his ship, so that he can fit into the seat properly.
It also occurs to me - his other arm doesn't have any of the biomod benefits, but I suspect that you'd still have a significant advantage in hitting people with it when you had to. With a right arm like that, *nobody* would be expecting the left hook. Alternately, for a more balanced fighting style, you could carry a knife of a gun in that hand - but you really wouldn't have any need to until after the boarding actions started heating up.
Also, one of the storylets I'd really like to see out of this character, set after the war against the Boskonians gets ugly, is having him rescue a large group of fangirls... just for that beautiful little moment of "Okay. Fight's over. I won. Thank goodness. Now I can.... I can.... I can... run away. That's what I can do. I can run as fast as my little legs will carry me."
Specifically, handwavium conserves mass and energy - or, at least, that's been the understanding I had had of the general consensus. Quick micro-speed-drive boosts take almost no energy. I'm not really liking the idea of direct matter-to-energy converters in general, except as one of the extreme ends of "my nifty little research toy", but that's a personal thing. (We normally get around that with the funky "It's drawing energy from *somewhere* - I just can't tell *where*." generators. Perhaps we'll have an interesting plot somewhere down the line where we find out where all that power is actually coming from.) Regardless, this would give *wayyy* too much energy for the effect even if that *were* what it was doing
Basically, recharging one attack off of a quick hit to the character's internal energy reserves sounds about right. If you're using the "alter" ability, not only do you have to explain how the ability works in the first place (doable), you have to explain how Random Thing Foo gets turned into a spike (still doable, if not trivial) and what happens to the spike/mass/energy afterwards (err....) If you are willing to *not* include the "consumes bits of landscape" part, then you can explain it relatively easily. The spikes are an odd sort of battery. For whatever reason, they protrude when charged up and sink back in when expended. Done.
I *am* amused by the idea of him throwing around a couple of Really Powerful Punches at thin air right outside his ship, so that he can fit into the seat properly.
It also occurs to me - his other arm doesn't have any of the biomod benefits, but I suspect that you'd still have a significant advantage in hitting people with it when you had to. With a right arm like that, *nobody* would be expecting the left hook. Alternately, for a more balanced fighting style, you could carry a knife of a gun in that hand - but you really wouldn't have any need to until after the boarding actions started heating up.
Also, one of the storylets I'd really like to see out of this character, set after the war against the Boskonians gets ugly, is having him rescue a large group of fangirls... just for that beautiful little moment of "Okay. Fight's over. I won. Thank goodness. Now I can.... I can.... I can... run away. That's what I can do. I can run as fast as my little legs will carry me."