Elven Aging, Proposed Changes to Elven Aging.

OK, taking another look at the Elf Age Calculator, I decided to make a change to how it handles childhood ages/maturing, and I wanted developer comments and/or approval on the new and/or old system before making any code changes. Caution, lost of explaining how the formulas work, and what they represent, for a simpler version of the proposal see next post.

The following are the formulas used in determining an elf's age within the EAC. Please note there are 3 of them.

Elves over 40 years by human appearance use:
Result age = (Target age - 40) * 0.5 + (Lifespan - 20)

This formula basically represents the "Natural" progression of death for elves who have not decided to pass earlier, and limits elves to their life span. Basically what it does is ages the elf twice as fast as a human would age over the course of the last 20 years of their lifespan, so they age 40 years in appearance over 20 years of life.

How this works is simple. We take the entered age and subtract the previous 40 years of physical aging ("(Target age - 40)"), as this would equal the whole lifespan of the elf minus the last 20 years we are interested in. We then half the remain value ("* 0.5"), as a human would age these remaining 40 years (Humans having a lifespan of 80 years.) in 40 years where the elf only has 20 to live, and so ages at twice the rate. Now what we essentially have is how many years the elf is into a forced, "Natural" old age, to get the elf's age we then need to add the rest of the elf's life ("+ (Lifespan - 20)"), you may wish to note that I stated earlier that the subtracted 40 equaled the elf's lifespan short the last 20 years, all we are doing is adding this back on.

Elves over 20 years by human appearance use:
Result age = (Target age - 20) * ((Lifespan - 45) / 20) + 25

This formula represents the elf's adult aging. By human appearance this is generally the 20 years of physical aging following the elf's childhood. This is where aging is the slowest.

This works in a similar manner as the previous formula. We subtracting the human childhood years ("(Target age - 20)" which we are not concerned about. Then we modify how many years their appearance ages ("* ((Lifespan - 45) / 20)"), in this case subtracting the number of years covered by childhood and old age, and then dividing by the number of years their appearance would age, then mutiply it by the previous value. Finally we add the number of years for childhood ("+ 25")

Elves under 20 yours by human appearance use.
Result age = Target age * 1.25

This formula represents the elf's development to "Full Maturity", for ease I considered this to be 20 covering both preteen and teen years. Basically all we have here is a simple modifier resulting in all elves no matter if they live 150 years or 800 years maturing after 25 years of life. And here in lies what my new math intends to correct.

Note: All values displayed by the EAC are rounded.

Now as mentioned I am not happy with all elf tribes maturing at the same rate, wanting shorter lived elves to mature faster, and longer lived elves to mature slower, though not overly so. The new formulas I propose ratio the rate at which an elf matures to his or her lifespan, so an elf that lives 150 years would mature in 22 years (Still longer than humans.), and one that lives 800 years would mature in 40 years. This means the new formulas would be as follows.

Elves over 20 years by human appearance use:
Result age = (Target Age - 20) * ((Lifespan - ((((Lifespan * 20) + 12800) / 720) + 20)) / 20) + (((finalLifespan * 20) + 12800) / 720)

Elves under 20 yours by human appearance use:
Result age = Target age * (Lifespan + 640)/720

Please let me know what you think about how it works now, and my proposed changes to that. I know this may seem small, but last time a change was made their were some conflicts with developers works that they were not happy with. Please also note that "Maturity", and appearance comparisons in the EAC are meant as mathematical generalizations, and that I would expect RPG players, and should need be Devs to follow the tribes entries for further details.

'I am grey. All but those like me see only darkness and light, they do not see the grey between them. In this greyness I dwell. I would not wish this fate on any other.'

Edited by: Terra Artemos at: 4/16/05 0:27