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Ripple Effect

Units

The Convert card turns a quantity in one unit into another. It knows the units below and nothing else; the table is the engine’s, and a host playing a campaign converts by the same one.

The units

Section titled “The units”

A unit converts only into another of the same kind.

Kind Units, with their symbol
Length millimetres mm, centimetres cm, metres m, kilometres km, inches in, feet ft, yards yd, miles mi
Area square centimetres cm², square metres m², hectares ha, square kilometres km², square inches in², square feet ft², acres ac, square miles mi²
Volume millilitres mL, litres L, cubic metres m³, US fluid ounces fl oz, US pints pt, US gallons gal, imperial fluid ounces imp fl oz, imperial pints imp pt, imperial gallons imp gal
Mass milligrams mg, grams g, kilograms kg, tonnes t, ounces oz, pounds lb, stone st
Temperature degrees Celsius °C, degrees Fahrenheit °F, kelvins K
Speed metres per second m/s, kilometres per hour km/h, miles per hour mph, knots kn
Time milliseconds ms, seconds s, minutes min, hours h, days d, weeks wk

On a wire, a unit is named by its id: the English singular in lower case, with hyphens — kilometer, square-foot, fluid-ounce-imperial, mile-per-hour.

There is no currency. A rate changes from day to day, and every factor in this table is fixed by definition: an inch is exactly 0.0254 m, a pound 0.45359237 kg, a US gallon 3.785411784 L.

A quantity typed as text

Section titled “A quantity typed as text”

With From the text, the card reads the unit off the value: a number, then the unit.

  • A dot is the only decimal point. 1,500 m is not read, because it is fifteen hundred in English and one and a half in Italian. Neither is 1e3 m.
  • The unit may be its id, its symbol or its English name, singular or plural: 12 km, 12 kilometres, 12km, 72°F, 72 F, 3.5 lb, 2 Liters.
  • A one-letter symbol keeps its case: m is a metre and M is nothing.

A value the card cannot read leaves by unavailable.

Reader’s system

Section titled “Reader’s system”

Reader’s system answers in the unit the reader’s region measures in, which comes from the language they are reading in. en-US is the United States, en-GB the United Kingdom, and every other region is metric.

From Metric reader US reader UK reader
kilometres kilometres miles miles
miles kilometres miles miles
metres metres feet metres
feet, yards metres feet, yards metres
centimetres, millimetres the same inches the same
kilograms kilograms pounds kilograms
pounds kilograms pounds kilograms
stone kilograms pounds stone
litres litres US pints litres
°C °C °F °C
°F °C °F °C
km/h km/h mph mph

The rest follow the same pattern: square units with the lengths they are made of, hectares with acres, imperial volumes with the US ones. Time and knots are never changed.

Section titled “Related”