Distance Learning for fun and profit...
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
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Hidden One
Not the Boss, possibly a Playa
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- Sol;Terra;EU;D;NRW
O'Make deserves a very nice stout for this.
Possibly followed by a classic Dr. Pepper and Captain Morgan.
Possibly followed by a classic Dr. Pepper and Captain Morgan.
This seems to be an entirely consistent speed for the actual relay traverse. So yeah, can go stupidly fast from one relay to another, but since you can only enter that mode at a relay and also can only exit at a connected relay...
... that. So, "entire local group in an hour" would be AFTER someone goes and build relays at both ends the slow way. (And any linking parts if you can't get enough range with a direct connection.)
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Remember, in Mass Effect 1 Shepard and company get to the Citidel at the end of the game via driving the Mako tank into a relay built by the Protheans, coming out at the paired relay on the Citidel. The only reason the average mass relay requires you to use a starship is because you need one to reach the relay. All you really need is an insulated container to protect the squishy biological beings and provide motive force.
EDIT: Also, based on the data logs in-game and how long they say it takes for a ship to travel from a given relay to anywhere in the local group (hours to days), then the FTL drives are more fuel efficent then the sublight drives. In ME2 you are constantly having to refuel. want to fly from one planet in a solar system to another planet in the solar system? Unless it's a really small system, you'll probably have to go back to refuel after nearly every planetary visit. Going from one system to another in the local cluster is also going to drain your fuel reserves something fierce. Now that I think about it, the sublight drives in ME are even less fuel efficent then the ones used in the Apollo rockets. In large part because the ME engines need to be firing constantly, while NASA does short duration controlled burns.
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- Location
- Neptune
It's okay but I prefer a less commercial soundtrack as well as one that's not sending everyone's mind back to a well-known movie.
If we assume the sending relay adds beacons/acts as beacons when necessary and the receiving relay removes them/acts as them, the it's essentially entirely equivalent to Taylor's teleportation/portal tech.
Hmm. And given the unlocked version the Collectors use lets you show up in a pinpoint location far from a relay, it's definitely equivalent.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
A slight misconception that I think needs to be addressed. Mass Effect doesn't have FTL drives. What happens is the ship's Mass Effect core drastically lowers the effective mass of the vessel, which somehow shifts the effective speed of light of the vessel upwards. But it's still using whatever regular drive system it has for propulsion, and within its own frame of reference, never actually exceeds the speed of light.
The Codex would disagree. It explicitly has an entry entitled "FTL Drive". Several of them, as it turns out.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Both of you are right, for certain values of 'right'
ME Codex said:
Essentially, as it's explained and as I understood it, the Eezo Magic Space Rocktm system makes your ship basically massless, and the Magic of Eezotm means that this somehow makes light go faster. You know, light, ie photons, which are already massless for all practical purposes...
No, don't think too hard about it, it's not good for you
Anyway, what it doesn't do is make your ship move. You still need some form of reaction drive for that. In most ships, that's a fusion torch, or some other similar technology. The MEverse doesn't actually seem to have genuine antigravity at least as far as ship drives go, or if it does, it's only good for making the ship hang ominously in the air in exactly the way bricks don't. Not for pushing them around all over the place without requiring throwing mass out the back really really fast...
Taylor's GRF system is far superior to what they use for sublight speeds, and the SQUID makes eezo FTL look rather pointless. To be honest, it is, many SF FTL drives are actually a lot better for most purposes, as they don't use such prodigous amounts of fuel and require inexplicible regular stops to somehow get rid of large quantities of the wrong sort of electricity... Where the MEverse has a really good use for eezo, it's in the Relays, which are to be fair very good indeed for moving a ship from specific points to other specific points very quickly although once you go off-grid they're mostly useless, in weapons to allow very high shot velocities although there too they really don't utilize it to the extent they could, and in kinetic barriers. Which are certainly useful if you're being shot at with someone using much the same tech, even if they're not going to help much against quite a lot of things.
This statement made me realize a plot hole. If those ME Relays are throwing around even mass reduced hunks of matter (most call ships) then what is actually anchoring said Relays in place preventing them from being pushed backwards with a force equal to the force imparted to said hunks of matter?
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains!" *hands waving*
That makes them double massless! No wonder FTL works!
ME is video game space opera so I usually just shrug and ignore it.
- Location
- Russia
Probably some bullshit use of Element Zero that reverses the effect and makes them have infinite mass or something like that.
dragn982
dozing in the sand
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If I'm not mistaken, they aren't. the Mass Relays create a mass less corridor/tunnel between two relays and then punt the ship down it; they're not firing anything.
EDIT: This is also how they supposedly avoid the whole problem of a ship being vaporized by hitting a piece of debris in the dark space between systems.
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- Location
- So near, yet so far
I thought it was negative mass? "Somehow" and "magic" parts definitely stands.
- Location
- Poland
SQUID as an acronym is already taken, as Superconducting QUantum Interference Device, which is a very sensitive magnetometer used to measure extremely subtle magnetic fields, based on superconducting loops containing Josephson junctions.
- Location
- On the sofa. (Probably)
You know if the new Fusion generator is a pulsed fusion apparatus where power output scales linearly with pulse repetition and you named the new fusion engine HAMSTER you could have a situation where the phrase "Make the HAMSTER run faster, we need more power to the SQUID!" is uttered on the bridge. 😁
Edit: you could also have engineers telling people that their new highly advanced thingamabob is HAMSTER powered. The looks they'd get would be amazing.
Edit: you could also have engineers telling people that their new highly advanced thingamabob is HAMSTER powered. The looks they'd get would be amazing.
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- Location
- Poland
Funny that there is Lamborghini sports car, and there is Lamborghini tractor...
...but first is produced by Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., and the second by Lamborghini Trattori (same founder, though: Ferruccio Lamborghini)
- Location
- Livin' in the Land of the LOST! *roar*
I think Taylor would appreciate the poetry of the Technomage understandings. Simplistic, but beautifully poetic. She figures she could catch Elric up in a few hours of discussion.
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- Location
- Here
Except with the Teleport Beacons, one can go from any beacon to any other beacon, or even go to any beacon from anywhere. With Mass Effect Relays, it's literally between two fixed points most of the time. This makes the teleportation/portal tech FAR superior.
- Location
- Neptune
Their own mass, their stationkeeping thrusters and the fact that they don't reduce their own mass when generating the massless corridor.
Even if it's possible for them to increase their own mass when "firing" a ship off to the next Relay, Physics says there is an equal and opposite reaction to motion in space.
I guess they can futts stuff to make what little movement there is something they can compensate for by thrust of some kind to move back into perfect alignment. But, it just seems like a hand waved detail that made me go *huh*.
Given how long they stay in place without any kind of supply drop offs, I doubt they use thrusters. They would likely run out of whatever material they use. Unless they collect it I guess.
Really not important, but still a head scratcher.
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- Location
- Neptune
WTF are you talking about? Their own mass is already at least two orders of magnitude larger than the ships they fire off, before mass-reducing the ships. Even ion thrusters will be enough to keep them in place.
- Location
- Livin' in the Land of the LOST! *roar*
Actually, if the relay makes the ship massless when it sends it, there's no action to generate a reaction. F=ma - if m is zero, F is zero, no matter what a is. No force, no action, so no reaction.
Note - yes, that's Newtonian, but relativistic effects don't actually apply when you're futzing around with Eezo. (And seriously - Eezo {element zero} is just pure neutronium. Seriously, Bioware/EA?)