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Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution

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Considering that we can curve space to singularities and stuff would it be possible for us to massively reduce the effective distance to accelerate? By accelerating particle around a singularity for example we would have a much smaller turning circle than traditional accelerators.

Not sure I thought this through, might be glaring oversights.
 
Ramble said:
IIRC, the Normandy SR-1 is something like 170 meters or something. That might throw things off a bit.
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The SR-2 is 170m long according to an interview I can't seem to find. The SR-1 is significantly smaller so 100m seems right.

Ramble said:
Also, wing mounted guns just kinda irk me. Missiles on the wings is fine since the Cabira is basically like a giant fighter. The 10m guns are kinda pointless as well and unlike the spinal mount or weapons attached to the hull, there's no way to perform maintenance on wing guns without pulling into drydock or someone doing some EVA.
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10m MACs are kinda pointless yes however lasers, missile launchers, and drone bays still work quite well. Besides someone might find a use for them so there is really no point in not putting a mount there.

I'd also point out that while it's hard to tell I'm almost completely certain there are maintenance shafts in the wings. Remember there are engines on the SR-1 on those wings. They'd need a way to service them so something analogous to jefferies tubes would almost certainly have to exist.

Then there is the little fact that EVA is pretty easy in ME. Your combat hardsuit is vacuum rated and combined with magnetic boots I don't it would be much of a hassle. Especially considering that after combat ships need to park and cool down for hours anyway.
 
UberJJK said:
The SR-2 is 170m long according to an interview I can't seem to find. The SR-1 is significantly smaller so 100m seems right.
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Well, the numbers I've seen have the SR1 at either 170 or 130(based on somebody finding that the Normandy when docked is some 73 Kaidens long.)
Also, I've never really gotten the point behind the whole wings thing. I've always liked the UNSC style of ships in that they essentially look like giant guns with engines strapped on. Surely such a design is much more structurally sound.
 
Ramble said:
Also, I've never really gotten the point behind the whole wings thing. I've always liked the UNSC style of ships in that they essentially look like giant guns with engines strapped on. Surely such a design is much more structurally sound.
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Surface Area. Heat management is a major part of Mass Effect space combat and large flat wings provide a massive radiator area while still retraining minimal frontal and lateral cross sections.
 
Ramble said:
IIRC, the Normandy SR-1 is something like 170 meters or something. That might throw things off a bit.
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Isn't one estimate we have based on pulling the models from the game files, which put the SR-2 at a little under 200m?

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Ramble said:
Well, the numbers I've seen have the SR1 at either 170 or 130(based on somebody finding that the Normandy when docked is some 73 Kaidens long.)
Also, I've never really gotten the point behind the whole wings thing. I've always liked the UNSC style of ships in that they essentially look like giant guns with engines strapped on. Surely such a design is much more structurally sound.
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Your source, I think? Yeah, that's putting the SR1 as 130, SR2 at 160.
 
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The Normandy's engines are designed to pivot in order to change the direction of thrust.

It uses differential thrust to grant a better turning circle via actually using its main drives as if they were RCS thrusters.

Worse thing about the Normandy though, is that it's insides are bigger than the outside.

It's basically a TARDIS.
 
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Ramble said:
IIRC, the Normandy SR-1 is something like 170 meters or something. That might throw things off a bit.
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There was an old article the cited the lead artist for ME2 saying the SR-2 was 170m. The SR-1 is ~135m long by that logic. Yes other attempts give larger numbers but frankly I think those are a tad big. SR-1 ran with a crew of ~40 or so IIRC, can't see it being terribly large.

Edit: of course the article is gone... :( stupid internet actually loosing articles.

Hazard said:
Also, if we can get better focusing lenses for our lasers we can start using them in mid range slug fests instead of them being a short range only weapon. With gigaJoule lasers that's... probably actually worthwhile.
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Dreadnought duels are... at around the tens of thousands of km. The current effective range of the frigate primary weapon lases in the 14,000-20,000 km range with the low gigawatt lasers tech. So you can use them in long range dodge-and-stab the dreadnought till it dies fights. I'd actually put my money on the frigate in a 1 pre-PI dreadnought vs 1 PI-laser frigate.
 
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Ramble said:
Also, I've never really gotten the point behind the whole wings thing. I've always liked the UNSC style of ships in that they essentially look like giant guns with engines strapped on. Surely such a design is much more structurally sound.
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Primary engine turning, the wings improve torque and allow the main drive to fire fore and back allow you to decelerate into combat forward.

Or cause it looks cool, art's like that.

Dark as Silver said:
Don't know if you've met SIR ISAAC NEWTON but Dreadnought duels can occur at any range, just after the effective range they have to rely on an honour system of not moving too fast. And generally anyone who does looses.
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Which is what I meant. Codex observes dreadnought effective combat range to be in the tens of thousands of KM vs other dreadnoughts. Frigates at that range are apparently able to evade fairly well according to codex.
 
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It just occurs to me that Shepard is at the moment sitting around playing an economic sim, rolling in cash and science and fame when she was supposed to be rolling around kicking baddies in a terribly exciting third person over the shoulder Role Playing Shooter.
 
Ramble said:
It just occurs to me that Shepard is at the moment sitting around playing an economic sim, rolling in cash and science and fame when she was supposed to be rolling around kicking baddies in a terribly exciting third person over the shoulder Role Playing Shooter.
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...that wasn't obvious after it was dropped the first time? :p
 
Hoyr said:
Which is what I meant. Codex observes dreadnought effective combat range to be in the tens of thousands of KM vs other dreadnoughts. Frigates at that range are apparently able to evade fairly well according to codex.
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Wait, what?

Because, seriously, this is huge. We can destroy the current naval doctrine and force everyone but the Alliance to try and shift paradigms without a clutch by introducing wolf pack tactics using laser frigate groups that dodge all the heavy guns and outrange everything else. Seriously, everything using a mass accelerator just got obsoleted by gigaJoule range lasers.

Where's the design team for the Cabira? We should push a prototype out for testing ASAP and market it to the SA. They won't care if they've got to basically rebuild the entire fleet if they can get their hands on ships as good as a dreadnought for much cheaper and in much greater numbers. The only large hulls you'd see in service would be things like logistical support.
 
Hazard said:
Wait, what?

Because, seriously, this is huge. We can destroy the current naval doctrine and force everyone but the Alliance to try and shift paradigms without a clutch by introducing wolf pack tactics using laser frigate groups that dodge all the heavy guns and outrange everything else. Seriously, everything using a mass accelerator just got obsoleted by gigaJoule range lasers.
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Well...yeah. That was always the point, as far as I know. Laser frigates could actually be spread across the huge territory the Alliance has to defend, and actually defend it.

Where's the design team for the Cabira? We should push a prototype out for testing ASAP and market it to the SA. They won't care if they've got to basically rebuild the entire fleet if they can get their hands on ships as good as a dreadnought for much cheaper and in much greater numbers. The only large hulls you'd see in service would be things like logistical support.
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I think that's what UberJJK was going for with the Pynda. Letting us get hulls out ASAP, with the more exotic tech being installed later as we develop it.
 
I'm compiling a list of all the current ships, buildings, colonies, products etc. we have in production, as well as all the upcoming designs, and I'd appreciate it if people fact-checked, filled in any gaps and said how common they are; I have an idea for an omake or two that requires it.

Plus Hoyr could put it at the front so we don't lose track of all the supertech products we've already built. :)

Current
Products
Personal-sized Arc Reactor (nearly 1,000,000)
Industrial Arc Reactor (One in Landing, one on Earth as part of the particle accelerator, 5 sold to ENE, several bought by that Post-Scarcity Society charity)
Magi Biotic Amp (licensed to Sirta, who offers upgrades from L2 implant. SA government paid for upgrades to its soldiers)
Basic/Advanced Neural Interface (licensed to Sirta. Released as part of the ANI games, recently licensed out to wider community)
Low-cost Genemodding for Diseases and Longevity (in partnership with Sirta, released at near-cost)
Peak Human Treatment (in testing - Revy and Jeff Moreau only recipient so far. Also licensed to Sirta)
Civilian Arc Reactor Shield Belt
Civilian Medium Armour
Civilian Heavy Armour
CASIE implant (see above)
Prothean Dark Energy Blade (fabrication licenses)
Security VI (in-house, not in general release)
Research VI (in-house, only recently released to the Litinana)
Advanced Fire-Control/Point-Defence VI (part of Tiger, proposed for block upgrade to SA ships)
Modular Buildings

Military
Wrist-mounted Submachine Gun (option for Legionary)
Autocannon (DAKKA option for Legionary, Tiger)
Megawatt Laser (Zappy option for Tiger, spaceship)
Mass Accelerator Cannon (Boomy option for Tiger)
Micromissile Launcher (part of Anti-personnel/missile defence for Tiger)
Pilum Anti-shield Missile (in production. Mk II available)
Anti-ship Missile
Lorica armour (Fitted on Tiger)
Repulsor beam (ZORCH option for Tiger, obligatory for Accipiter)
Accipiter drone (Why have pilots, when you can have GUN? Loads. Atmospheric and Space versions)
Arcane Blur Plating

Vehicles
Tiger Infantry Fighting Vehicle (demo model bought by Anderson. 2500 on order. About to take the battlefield by storm)
Legionary Powered Armour (MK I, currently rocking the SA Navy)

Ships
Gladius fighter

Bases
Mindoir Super-Campus (bulk of Factories and research)
Elysium Underground Base (under construction)
Banning Barracks and Biotic Academy (under construction)

Paragon Security (ParSec)
(insert small army here)

Researched, Not Built
Gigawatt Lasers
Single-use Re-entry Shroud for Legionary
Vehicle-scale Ammo Mods
Frigates (insert all the super-frigate variants here)
Asteroid Spin Mining

Discussed, Not Built
TIR Shielding
 
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TheEyes said:
Well, even if humanity gets a Councilor, then that'll be the Turians and the Humans versus the Salarians and the Asari, both of whom will be especially wary of the two "warlike" races with all the super-weapons... I think at that point we're going to be facing a lot of pressure from regulators, anti-war activists (since the Batarian conflict will have long since evolved into an active shooting war), conspiracy theorists, economic, technological and social conservatives, and dozens of other interest groups that we'll have pissed off in our inexorable march to the future that we'll never be able to push through something as fraught with controversy as an AI license without having so many forced concessions attached to it that we'd never actually agree. No; I really think that if we don't get it done in the next year and a half then it probably never will get done at all.
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As I said before, at some point we may be able to actually apply force, or, to be more precise, economic and political pressure to the council. We hold the keys to technological singularity, and, by the time our superships roll out, there won't be much council will be able to do against us. They won't go to war against humans if we start developing AI in accordance to human safety regulations, but in defiance of council law. They won't even be really able to apply economic sanctions, as those would hurt them more than us. They, essentially, will have little option but to agree.
 
Yog said:
As I said before, at some point we may be able to actually apply force, or, to be more precise, economic and political pressure to the council. We hold the keys to technological singularity, and, by the time our superships roll out, there won't be much council will be able to do against us. They won't go to war against humans if we start developing AI in accordance to human safety regulations, but in defiance of council law. They won't even be really able to apply economic sanctions, as those would hurt them more than us. They, essentially, will have little option but to agree.
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...We could...theoretically drag the Volus and Elcor into a 'higher' band, somewhere between 'client race' and 'council race', where the SA once sat, but that would probably involve militarising the Elcor systems and designing actual warships they can use....

Dark as Silver said:
Considering that we can curve space to singularities and stuff would it be possible for us to massively reduce the effective distance to accelerate? By accelerating particle around a singularity for example we would have a much smaller turning circle than traditional accelerators.

Not sure I thought this through, might be glaring oversights.
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That is what the Thanix cannon does - it uses a co axial accelerator that is centred around an artificial gravity generator in order to create a circular path that will always be followed, combined with a near fluid ammo that is held together by magento hydromagnetism which means that it will stay stable as it constantly curves around the accelerator.

It's basically a helix coilgun.
 
Tabron89 said:
...We could...theoretically drag the Volus and Elcor into a 'higher' band, somewhere between 'client race' and 'council race', where the SA once sat, but that would probably involve militarising the Elcor systems and designing actual warships they can use....
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You say that like it's hard, we just design a warship and claim that it's a recreation of a original Prothean ship. We might need to forge a schematic or a ruined version to sell it though.
 
Dark as Silver said:
You say that like it's hard, we just design a warship and claim that it's a recreation of a original Prothean ship. We might need to forge a schematic or a ruined version to sell it though.
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The Elcor are a quadruped race with no posable thumbs that prefer 2x times gravity compared to Earth with a tendancy for second guessing.

The fact that it is difficult to build actual warships for them is what led them to building landing vessels to deploy ground troops in canon.

Technically, the Nerve Machine interface should avoid the whole 'building an custom UI' business, but ship repairs?
 
A thing to investigate: vorcha and their history. To me, they seem like a clear cut case of engineered species. Consider:

1) Their total lifespan is 10 (20? Wiki says 20, but I remember 10) years. Vorcha we see in games are likely 6, 8 years old at most (15 if we go with 20 years lifespan). At least some of them weren't born in space, but were kidnapped from their pre - spaceflight, possibly post - apocalyptic home world at some point in their life. Yet, they can function in modern society, operate advanced equipment, are fully mature. Vorcha are quite smart, or at least are very capable learners

2) They don't evolve. This alone proves they are an engineered species. Social pressure alone, if nothing else, would have seen vorcha with biggest packs of unspecified cells produce the most offspring in each generation. In millions of years? Yeah, "their DNA remained the same" is BS. They face serious competition, fighting among themselves. They should be changing. That they don't likely shows that there are mechanisms inbuilt preventing that change.

3) The whole adaptivity thing they have. Let me quote "the lungs of a vorcha placed in a barely-breathable atmosphere will adapt to better use the gases there". Planets, in general, only have a single atmosphere. There's literally no reason for a natural evolution to produce mechanisms that adapt organisms to different gas mixtures as needed. Vorcha can adapt to different gravity levels even. I mean, these are clear indicators that they were engineered to adapt to different planets. You just don't find such variety of environments on a single world.

So, yeah, in my mind vorcha are clearly an engineered species, or someone in a post - apocalyptic situation, where the knowledge of their civilization was lost. So, I think we could try to investigate vorcha history (what's Liara's doing right now, anyway?), and maybe, as an experiment, hire a vorcha to work for us, possibly as a scientist (there have to be some).
 
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