251 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

The Quarians have a long and difficult journey ahead of them. They'll probably have to make the journey in legs But considering they're well used to living nomadically, and they know there's a home waiting for them at the end, after centuries of exile, I think they'd say it was worth it.

The Asari probably won't feel a massive need to leave Earth immediately. They like being around other races. Salarians too, many of them might prefer to stick around on earth - their lifespan is a bit short to spend it travelling between stars.

The Primarch would probably feel obliged to get back to the homeworld. Other Turians might consider if there's any nearer worlds suitable for dextros.

Wrex really does need to get back home ASAP. But the Krogan in general seem ill suited to the journey.

[Zolt51]

The Angry One wrote...

Common sense. A 7 billion ton space station would not be able to maintain such a low Earth orbit without using the mass effect technology that everything else uses.

How does its mass even factor in? Why would a big space station fall and a small one not? Starting velocity is pretty much the only thing that matters here.

Modifié par Zolt51, 03 avril 2012 - 04:33 .

[The Angry One]

Zolt51 wrote...

Quarians are moslty seen negociating for *parts* or new ships to repair old ones. That's the whole point of the pilgrimage. Supplies are necessary in ME3 because they just fought a major battle and are preparing for another. They also need some equipment and supplies to start rebuilding Rannoch.

The Quarian fleet has relied on stealth and secrecy for centuries to protect themselves. They hang out in remote systems, and keep the location of the fleet secret. Big shipments of He-3, or even any significant purchase of Dextro food would be noticed immediately. In the novels even Cerberus didn't have an easy time finding the migrant fleet.

Show me one instance of a Quarian buying He-3 fuel from other systems and I'll wholeheartedly jump on your ship, but with what money would they even buy it? They're not exactly big exporters of anything.

I'm not saying they need to buy helium 3, I'm saying that without external supplies their infrastructure will eventually go belly up.
They cannot plonk down mines every system like Starcraft, sell them with space magic and move on. Eventually their ships will break down without maintenance or new supplies and that's assuming they hit solar systems with the appropriate resources every time.

[Vhalkyrie]

Zolt51 wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

count_4, good point about the citadel explosion. I think that cutscene suffers from the same problem as everything else in the ending. They did not mean to imply exctinction level events, they simply didn't think this through.

Actually, I'd say it's the players that didn't think it through. The citadel blowing up does not in any way imply an extinction event. I don't know where people got the idea that if things blow up in space they will inevitably fall *down*. We wouldn't have so much space junk floating around if that were the case.

Bioware might be guilty as charged on other counts but on this one *not*. Even if the Citadel did fall straight down it wouldn't be extinction level event. Just run the numbers.

Again, an explosion of the magnitude to break apart 7 billion metric tons is more than enough to propel debris out of orbit and into Earth's atmosphere.  According to Mass Effect lore, the hull would not burn up as it entered the atmosphere, so those citadel pieces land intact.  The Chicxulub crater in Mexico that is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and triggered an ice age was 10km in diameter.    The citadel is 44.7km in length and 12.8km in diameter.

So let's say only half of the citadel could blow into Earth, since explosions are radial.  Please do run the numbers.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 03 avril 2012 - 04:34 .

[The Angry One]

Zolt51 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

Common sense. A 7 billion ton space station would not be able to maintain such a low Earth orbit without using the mass effect technology that everything else uses.

How does its mass even factor in? Why would a big space station fall and a small one not? Starting velocity is pretty much the only thing that matters here.

Mass? Gravity? Not to mention that huge explosion clearly forces the Citadel to move and it's arms to buckle. It is clearly not stable anymore.

[CELL55]

Uh, space is mostly empty. That's why it's called space. The planets, suns and gas giants that you seem to think are so ever-present in the galaxy really only take up an incredibly small amount of the galaxy's total area. You can't just go jumping around in space and keep expecting to find the VAST resources such a venture would require.

[hippanda]

Unless I'm mistaken, fuel consumption isn't going to be limited to accelerating/decelerating and "letting inertia do the rest." Do we have any estimates for how much fuel is required to maintain the mass effect fields?

[Zolt51]

The Angry One wrote...

I'm not saying they need to buy helium 3, I'm saying that without external supplies their infrastructure will eventually go belly up.
They cannot plonk down mines every system like Starcraft, sell them with space magic and move on. Eventually their ships will break down without maintenance or new supplies and that's assuming they hit solar systems with the appropriate resources every time.

Eventually, after several years or decades that would be valid yes. OP is saying they don't need that long.
If they try to make the journey with the whole fleet yes. Remember that their ships are running with much smaller crews than usual: they left all the civilians on Rannoch. If they squeeze on the best ships and scrap the others for parts they'll have plenty. Hell, they're in the middle of the biggest galactic scrap yard ever! They won't even *think* about going home until they've had a chance to salvage stuff from that. Their whole culture is built on that!

Anyway, you don't set up *mines* on a gas giant. Like you say, it's not Starcraft. More like you skim the necessary gas from the higher atmosphere. They would have to have ships specialized for that purpose.

[Zolt51]

hippanda wrote...

Unless I'm mistaken, fuel consumption isn't going to be limited to accelerating/decelerating and "letting inertia do the rest." Do we have any estimates for how much fuel is required to maintain the mass effect fields?

Impossible to estimate. He-3 is used for the actual propulsion. ME field just allows you to bend the rules and get a LOT more bang for your buck. There is no indication that the ME field requires fuel to stay on. Just Eezo to build the ME core in the first place. Evidence would seem to indicate that not, or else the Relays would require constant supplies.

I'm not saying the journey HAS to be possible, or easy. But there's nothing to let you categorically reject the possibility. And you don't need space magic, just the principles of the ME universe that have been established since ME1.

Modifié par Zolt51, 03 avril 2012 - 04:46 .

[The Angry One]

Zolt51 wrote...

Eventually, after several years or decades that would be valid yes. OP is saying they don't need that long.
If they try to make the journey with the whole fleet yes. Remember that their ships are running with much smaller crews than usual: they left all the civilians on Rannoch. If they squeeze on the best ships and scrap the others for parts they'll have plenty. Hell, they're in the middle of the biggest galactic scrap yard ever! They won't even *think* about going home until they've had a chance to salvage stuff from that. Their whole culture is built on that!

Even the OP calculated that it'd take 14 years from Earth to Rannoch, assuming no stops for fuel.
So it'd be more like 30 years, assuming they reach a suitable system each time and have to make no major detours.

Anyway, you don't set up *mines* on a gas giant. Like you say, it's not Starcraft. More like you skim the necessary gas from the higher atmosphere. They would have to have ships specialized for that purpose.

Examine gas giants in game, it specifically says that dedicated orbital stations and helium-3 collectors have to be set up, and that the Reapers have systematically destroyed them.

[hippanda]

Zolt51 wrote...

hippanda wrote...

Unless I'm mistaken, fuel consumption isn't going to be limited to accelerating/decelerating and "letting inertia do the rest." Do we have any estimates for how much fuel is required to maintain the mass effect fields?

Impossible to estimate. He-3 is used for the actual propulsion. ME field just allows you to bend the rules and get a LOT more bang for your buck. There is no indication that the ME field requires fuel to stay on. Just Eezo to build the ME core in the first place. Evidence would seem to indicate that not, or else the Relays would require constant supplies.

Umm ... There's direct evidence that it requires fuel to maintian. You have to pass a current through the eezo to generate the field (and continue doing so to maintain it). The strength of the field is proportional to the strength of the current (stronger mass effect fields being necessary to reduce the mass of more massive ships and allow them to FTL travel). Where do you think the current comes from?

From what I remember the relays work in a different manner (don't remember all the details, but I think they interact with the ship's FTL drive in some capacity).

Modifié par hippanda, 03 avril 2012 - 04:51 .

[Beliyaal]

Hippanda is right. The electricity required to run the eezo core comes from the ship's conventional power plant. Which is usually fusion and therefore HE3-powered.

[The Angry One]

Actually... do Quarian starships even have FTL drives?
A lot of the flotilla are civilian and police ships from before they lost Rannoch, I'm not sure why they would have them.
At Rannoch, the flotilla is trapped because the mass relay is blockaded. If they had FTL drives, wouldn't they just use them to immediately jump to the mass relay? Or at least hide the flotilla outside of the system?

[leewells]

a.m.p wrote...

There has been a lot of debate on what the distances between the homeworlds are and how long it would take to get there, now that the relays are down (provided they did not go supernova).

The in-game map isn't exaclty made for distance measuring, and I haven't been able to find anything that looks like an accurate galaxy map, so I decided to make one. It's here.

And here is the spreadsheet with the coordinates I used. The data was extracted by staring intently at the screen.

I have most probably missed some clusters because I do not at this point have ME1 and ME2 with all DLC installed. If I did, please point them out, I'll fix it.

Also if any of you sneaky data miners know how to extract the galaxy map coordinates from the game itself, I'd be happy to hear that.

It’s worth to point out that according to this data the distances and FTL travel times at 12 ly/day between homeworlds are as follows:

                               Distance from Sol (ly)        FTL travel time (years)
Sur'Kesh                          9504                                    2,2
Tuchanka                       16359                                   3,7
Palaven                           17468                                  4
Thessia                           28167                                  6,4
Rannoch                         64433                                  14,7

EDIT: as people state in the comments below these numbers should be doubled or tripled (or quadrupled) to account for scanning, refueling, plotting a safe course and so on. It's still an estimate.

And yes, I know about fuel and discharging the core. In my ending there are lots of very dead reapers with cores that don’t need to be discharged scattered all over the place. They're working on it.
And I'm not giving up on Mass Effect because of one broken ending.

Also:

Dear Bioware, you don't have to completely obliterate galactic
civilization to the point of turning Shepard into a myth. Just saying.

I found it humerous that you are trying to quote astrophysics and then jump to say you need to refuel... LOL  "A body in motion tends to stay in motion".

[The Angry One]

leewells wrote...

I found it humerous that you are trying to quote astrophysics and then jump to say you need to refuel... LOL  "A body in motion tends to stay in motion".

We don't know the physics of FTL travel. If it even remotely resembles in game travel (and nothing says it doesn't) then there's barely any inertia once you cut the engines.

Edit: Or it could indeed be that fuel is required to maintain the current through the Eezo core. Either way, fuel is required constantly.

Modifié par The Angry One, 03 avril 2012 - 04:56 .

[xxLDZxx]

Zolt51 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

I'm not saying they need to buy helium 3, I'm saying that without external supplies their infrastructure will eventually go belly up.
They cannot plonk down mines every system like Starcraft, sell them with space magic and move on. Eventually their ships will break down without maintenance or new supplies and that's assuming they hit solar systems with the appropriate resources every time.

Eventually, after several years or decades that would be valid yes. OP is saying they don't need that long.
If they try to make the journey with the whole fleet yes. Remember that their ships are running with much smaller crews than usual: they left all the civilians on Rannoch. If they squeeze on the best ships and scrap the others for parts they'll have plenty. Hell, they're in the middle of the biggest galactic scrap yard ever! They won't even *think* about going home until they've had a chance to salvage stuff from that. Their whole culture is built on that!

Anyway, you don't set up *mines* on a gas giant. Like you say, it's not Starcraft. More like you skim the necessary gas from the higher atmosphere. They would have to have ships specialized for that purpose.

Only the heavy fleet is fighting in Sol why would the quarions take Civilian ships to battle or to sol?
Even today the Navy´s do not send there supply ships on the front line.


You don't Pop a straw above gas giant and sux all the H3 out of it. There is whole Industry build around it. Rafinery working to make it useful, this sure takes time. This is how it sounds what have written. Pop a straw and go.

[SentientSurfer]

Zolt51 wrote...

SentientSurfer wrote...

How do your FTL times jive with relativity? It takes 30yrs to the people on the ships, but won't that be 100s of years to people stranded on their homeworlds? O_o

By definition, you aren't *stranded* when you are at *home*. 

If all the roads around my house were washed away, I would be stranded at home. Stranded gains its meaning from perspective. To the fleets in the Sol system, Quarians on Rannoch are stranded there. To those on Rannoch, the fleet is stranded in Sol.

I don't know why you're nikpicking that.

While its true that there should be no friction in space, and that you should only need initial thrust, the Normandy continually burns through fuel when traveling at FTL speeds, so its safe to assume the other fleets would too. 


 

Modifié par SentientSurfer, 03 avril 2012 - 04:58 .

[The Angry One]

xxLDZxx wrote...

Only the heavy fleet is fighting in Sol why would the quarions take Civilian ships to battle or to sol?
Even today the Navy´s do not send there supply ships on the front line.

Because the flotilla never breaks up. They took the civilian and patrol fleet to the war with the Geth, they'd do it everywhere.
Also, they're counted as war assets.

[hwf]

Core discharge requires orbit around a body with an active and powerful magnetosphere.
That or landing on a smaller body.

There's your fuel logistics mess.

[hippanda]

The Angry One wrote...

leewells wrote...

I found it humerous that you are trying to quote astrophysics and then jump to say you need to refuel... LOL  "A body in motion tends to stay in motion".

We don't know the physics of FTL travel. If it even remotely resembles in game travel (and nothing says it doesn't) then there's barely any inertia once you cut the engines.

Edit: Or it could indeed be that fuel is required to maintain the current through the Eezo core. Either way, fuel is required constantly.

Considering what's involved here (reducing a starship's apparent mass), I wouldn't be surprised if the eezo core consumed more fuel than the thrusters by an order of magnitude during FTL travel.

Modifié par hippanda, 03 avril 2012 - 04:59 .

[shepskisaac]

One thing is clear. There will be a "Dark Age" for the galaxy, because the destruction of relays will obviously make troubles. However, the in-game lore leaves tons of possible solutions.

Quantum Entanglement technology which does not rely on the relays already exists and is being used. Therefore, at least communication won't be a problem. And with communication, you can pass information and coordinate rebuilt efforts. Aethyta implies that Asari already know how to build the relays.

[Zolt51]

Vhalkyrie wrote...
So let's say only half of the citadel could blow into Earth, since explosions are radial.  Please do run the numbers.

The citadel is shown breaking apart, but the debris don't seem to be propelled away from each other at high speed. They just kind of dislocate.

I have run the numbers actually, for several scenarios. It all depends on initial velocity so if you have any guess on that I'd appreciate it. Highest estimate for the whole thing impacting at LEO velocity (20 km/s give or take, no atmosphere drag): 2x10^21 joules. That's about 250 times less than whatever created the Chixculub crater in Mexico (Dinosaur extinction candidate)

It would still hurt big time wherever it fell, but not the end of life on Earth. 

Velocity is the key. Again, if you have an estimate for initial velocity of the Citadel, I want it. Energy goes up with the square of speed, and bolide impacts are quite a bit faster than earth orbit speeds. That's why they're called bolides.

Now do I get a cookie?

[Zolt51]

IsaacShep wrote...

One thing is clear. There will be a "Dark Age" for the galaxy, because the destruction of relays will obviously make troubles. However, the in-game lore leaves tons of possible solutions.

Quantum Entanglement technology which does not rely on the relays already exists and is being used. Therefore, at least communication won't be a problem. And with communication, you can pass information and coordinate rebuilt efforts. Aethyta implies that Asari already know how to build the relays.

Well, there is just the minor problem that quantum entanglement can't in fact be used to transmit information. But I'm willing to let that slide.

[Exeider]

Alez Zinai wrote...

If i remember correctly Shepard gets from Ilos to Citadel by mass relay build by protheans, so if combined forces built Crucible - then pehaps they can build mass relay relativly fast (1-5 years)

where do you get the crew to build the other relay at the destination? Remember Mass Relays work in PAIRS, sure lets say the crucible team could build another relay at Sol, even though the protheans didn't even have that knowledge, but lets say our people figured it out.

You still have the problem of having a Relay that can't send anyone anywhere because there isnt another relay out there to connect to.

Unless everyone builds a relay, they are stuck, and most people don't have the knowledge, or materials to build a relay. Hell the Element Zero cores to the relays are HUGE, and I don't think any ONE planet has THAT much Eezo.

-Æ

[The Angry One]

IsaacShep wrote...

One thing is clear. There will be a "Dark Age" for the galaxy, because the destruction of relays will obviously make troubles. However, the in-game lore leaves tons of possible solutions.

Quantum Entanglement technology which does not rely on the relays already exists and is being used. Therefore, at least communication won't be a problem. And with communication, you can pass information and coordinate rebuilt efforts. Aethyta implies that Asari already know how to build the relays.

Asking the devastated worlds of the galaxy to build mass relays is like asking the people of Stalingrad to build a high speed train network directly after world war 2. With no external help.