Yep, Arcian already answered for me. Most of it is in the Codex, which actually goes into remarkably deep detail about how FTL travel in Mass Effect works. Ashley's statement was the very first comment on speed in the trilogy at all, and is probably an approximation for casual conversation. If I am driving 18 hours in my car, I am going to say it will "take a day for me to get there". The average speed of FTL is therefore 12 light years per day on the low end, and 15 on the upper due to the constraints that Reaper FTL puts on it by Reapers being 30 light years per day and "twice as fast".
And to expand on Arcian's description of drive discharge, specifically it requires discharging into the magnetic field of a star or planet (typically a planet) OR directly grounding the charge by landing on a planet without a magnetic field. The stronger the magnetic field, the faster and more efficient the discharge. Within days of accumulation, the internal temperature of the ship would rise to the point that the crew is fried. Interestingly, an exact timeframe for this IS listed in the codex. I believe 57 hours, but I may be mistaken as this is the one lore quantity given that I haven't really memorized because it is irrelevant. While that is the absolute timeframe for discharge, obviously ships would need to discharge at EVERY opportunity they had to prevent even getting close to that limit and preventing strain on the ship's systems. Most star systems have gas giants with a suitable magnetic field, so most ships probably discharge to and from a given systems mass relay or when they are on their way out of a system via FTL.
Also, completely irrelevant but interesting astronomy fact of the day: If we were able to actually see Jupiter's magnetic field from Earth, it would be roughly 5 times the size of the full moon despite being 1700 times further away.
EDIT: Initially, I erroneously stated 3 times the full moon on the upper limit. Quickly checked my facts and it is, in fact, five times larger. Which is astonishing.
http://space.stackex...pace-dissipatedHow heat dissipates as radiation.
Now if the static buildup is converted to heat then the heat will or can be converted to radiation, which wouldn't requier grounding or physical Contact or magnetic fields or anything.
The thign is, if you keep going indeffinately and ignore the buildup in your core the temperature will rise dramatically and "Cook" you. If you stop Before that happens, then wont build up as much heat.
If it would truly be a problem then you could build the Craft in two sections, one with the core that builds up static charges and eventualy goes hot and a crew section that can separate from the core to avoid getting cooked as the Engine sections get hot.
After a while the Engine section would have cooled down and then you can reconnect the two sections and keep going til the next disscharge.
Either don't run the Engine hot, or design it so that your crew doesn't get cooked if you do. I don't see the problem, the laws physics is on our side when it commes to getting rid of the surplus charge, it just might make the trip take a Little longer than a non-stop burn.
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