05-06-2020, 07:52 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2011
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Mass Effect Spaceships
How would you model mass effect technology(as in the titular game) for spaceships? It would obviously allow contragravity, artificial gravity, and force screens as well as FTL, but I think the most interesting element is how this can modify space travel and cheat the rocket equation. Unless I'm missing something, ships can have higher than normal thrust and delta-v because their inertial mass is decreased. How can this be modeled effectively?
I'm thinking that you get an effective SM reduction for calculating acceleration and delta-v, though I'm not really sure how this should work. Spaceships also has rules for a Negative Mass Propulsion drive, but this is not how it is done in ME. |
05-06-2020, 08:25 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Mass Effect Spaceships
If something has a lower inertia but the same thrust, it's going to experience increased acceleration and you're going to see a boost in delta-v. Unless I'm mistaken, if something is functionally half its normal inertia due to whatever magic/superscience you're applying, it should get twice the acceleration and twice the delta-v. Basically, divide acceleration and delta-v by the ratio of effective vs true inertia. Of course, this relies on your voodoo inertia reduction not applying to the reaction mass you throw out behind you, as you throw it out behind you - if it does apply, you'll see no change in performance.
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05-07-2020, 12:21 PM | #3 | |||
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: Mass Effect Spaceships
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Last edited by warellis; 05-07-2020 at 12:25 PM. |
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05-07-2020, 11:49 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Mass Effect Spaceships
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1) The ships should use the "airplanes in space" rules, as the ships in the cutscenes of the game seem to do airplane style turns, thrust always forward towards where they are going(no reverse thrust to slow down) and so on. 2) The beam weapons in the setting seem to be super accurate, like there is a tech information note on the missile/fighter defense system that says that it will never miss to start with, and only as it overheats does it start to miss. 3) The beam weapons seem way less powerful than the kinetic energy weapons in the setting so some switches are likely needed for that. Also the more advanced beam types do not seem to be in use. I can only remember lasers being mentioned. 4) Ships move very fast though things like star systems and yet when they crash into things they do not cause much damage, so the propulsion should likely have a pseudo velocity switch. 5) The ship force screens exist and are important, but not specified all that much, but it would likely be logical that they are similar to the personal screens that are effective against kinetic things mostly and seem fully ablative. 6) In some parts the FTL distance seems limited by fuel, but the narrative implies that it is very fast within those limits. 7) Contra gravity and artificial gravity exist but seem limited in the base applications. That is there does not seem to be any things like boarding countermeasures that switch rapidly between 0g and 3g gravity in an area. Also it does not apparently get used to help large ships land and the one gravitic vehicle we have in the games seems very limited in usability. 8) Heat management is stated as being a fairly large problem, so there should likely be a design switch for the overheating/using systems for coolants and so on. 9) FTL communication seems to exist and is instantaneous and high bandwidth. But it apparently needs infrastructure or point to point causality com that is said to be very expensive. 10) Larger ships are stated to not be able to land on planets. 11) FTL drives seem to go down to shuttle size and be simple, small and cheap enough that normal shuttles have them. As to your question: The ships as displayed in the games do not follow the rocket equation in any way as they do not actually accelerate in a newtonian way, instead have a intrinsic deceleration if not actively thrusting. Thus they are best modeled with pseudo velocity drives. |
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05-07-2020, 11:57 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Re: Mass Effect Spaceships
This is a cutscene/story segregation issue. It's mentioned several times in dialogue (and the codex, maybe, haven't played in a while) that they do need to reverse thrust to stop.
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05-08-2020, 01:00 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Mass Effect Spaceships
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Only things that I can remember as reverse thrust was a few seconds at one docking maneuvers as in "firing reverse thrusters" or similar a few seconds before docking, so it seemed more like a correction in the maneuver instead of a long deceleration from high velocity. But I could definitely have forgotten mentions of long deceleration burns from some point as the visuals are constantly reinforcing the airplane feel. |
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