What Realistic Space Travel Concerns Would You Like To See In Andromeda?

Any game relying upon flitting from star system to star system in order to complete a fetch quest relies upon huge quantities of 'space magic'...

There may be a higher degree of realism on-planet, but even there, where did Shepard hide his/her helmet?

Gosh, if only...

Yeah, I dunno exactly how the dilation would work. That is, not sure if it would work in the way your thinking but theres definitely some handwavy Mass Effect fixes that going on in the lore. Literally in the entry it says due to the mass effect field it creates we 'fall into' it increases the speed of light with in that field blah blah space magic whatever.

Anyway, so heres the question I guess. Say we're going from Earth to Pluto in distance with not even FTL, just as fast as light. It's 8 minutes from us to the Sun. That's about 2/3rds the way to pluto apparently. So 4 minutes to get from Earth, to Pluto. So what exactly happens in that 4 minutes? Do we experience it like a month? A second? How can we go from point A to point B that fast but somehow an entire city was formed?

I mean, I can understand the dilation if we where experiencing that time (and thus aging) either faster or slower compared to that 4 minutes but as far as any of the people on those planets are concerned it would be 4 minutes. So wouldn't it more likely be we experience that 4 minutes (technically less) almost instantly and as such don't age the same during that time frame? Or would it seem like a year to us?

From my absurdly basic understanding more speed = less time experienced or less aging. And if point A to B is 4 minutes to the outside, it would I'd assume feel like fraction of a second to us, not the other way around.

edit: As an aside are best FLT is I think 15 times? Reapers where 30. So that 4 minutes would be 16 seconds as far as the people living on the planets are concerned.

"I miss those old games where you had to remember to drink water, and it took five hours real time to fly somewhere." - this thread made me think of this Salarian game salesman in the Citadel I don't think we will create entire cities on planets, more like little camps that will gather things for us and stuff. Tho the gravity thing would be cool

According to current science, light speed is the universal speed limit. Star Wars kind of works around this by allowing ships to shift into hyperspace. Speaking of Star Wars, their ships are excessively fast; ludicrous speed fast. A Mass Relay would be a joke to everyone in Star Wars.

Also, I do agree about the different times on planets.

Yeah, they're also doing it in Andromeda where not only is the galaxy its self bigger, but the density of star to star is far greater as well. Which, ultimately, is the important one for us since we wont be relay hopping. Kinda curious what BioWares idea is gonna be as far as going from system to system. Closest start to us is like... 4.2 light years? That would take like 3 months by x15 FTL.

Wonder how much 'closer' it's gonna be to make it not seem like complete lunacy. I mean, Dilation isn't even working in the direction OP is thinking. The trip would take 3 months as far as people on the planets are concerned, would seem much shorter to us. Either way no cities are cropping up in that amount of time. It's not a thing of technology that slows that, it's birth rates.

edit: I do think it's ultimately pointless to consider overall. Even if going from Solar system to solar system takes a few days in Andromeda (not from the Tempest perspective).

1) Bioware made it so time dilation does not occur for those traveling FTL via the Mass Effect.

2) The lore has it that your suit's mass effect fields that make you feel the gravity you are used to, so for example humans would feel 1 g no matter the planet. 

Well, for the second one it gives me the feeling of something they wrote into the lore to account for the limitations in the games. Since they are using the Frostbite engine now and can do things like jumping, I can see them doing some of what you say. After all, I bet the jump jets we have in our suits will have an explanation involving the mass effect behind them as well as let us experience say maps with little to no gravity since we can use the jump jets to move around(and of course mag boots). 

Very interesting.

I wouldn't want to see a drastic change, and I don't believe it'd theoretically be a drastic change anyway. How much time do you gain by traveling to the other side of the galaxy and back using FTL travel? Days? Weeks? Months?

I wouldn't mind if a couple weeks or months had passed by the time you return, and now your base camp is a fledgling colony. It would make it more realistic, rather than your colony being instantaneously created and fully productive.

I'm just afraid that the answer will be the same place that this guy stores a shotgun, 3 pistols and 20 items of junk... 

Some of these things would be nice but in the end they should be ruled out if they simply get in the way of the story or the fun of the game. If they can be cleverly worked into the stoty I am all for it but if they become an impediment to the story or game play skip it.