Exploration

Will you have a spaceship?

Bob McCabe:
Well, it was through the discovery of space travel that humans were able to first introduce themselves to the galactic community. As well, you will have the option to explore a large number of planets as you move through the game. So yeah, I think it's safe to say that you'll likely obtain some space craft pr vehicles to travel around with, and it's likely that these vehicles will have armor and weaponry.

What is the Normandy ?

ActionTrip: Give us a brief description of The Normandy. Casey Hudson: The Normandy is a prototype stealth ship of the Human Alliance. It is capable of faster-than-light travel, and has the ability to make itself invisible to sensors so that it can enter a star system and land undetected. The Normandy is about the size of a 747, but is extremely sleek and on the inside it resembles something more like a large Navy submarine - with a substantial crew and even a large bay to store ground-based vehicles. You can explore the entire ship any time you're on board, and you can talk to any of the crewmembers - you're their Commander!

Where did the name 'Normandy' come from?

Posted 05/11/06 by Maricus Teci
Pretty much just assumed 'Normandy' was a reference to 'The Battle of...' I like it. A nice, original, ship name, with a military connection. Kind of like how 'Serenity' was named after the battle of Serenity Valley.

Way I understand it, humanity's still getting it's feet wet, out in the 'Great Beyond.' We get our first chance to name a ship in an interplanetary military fleet, it makes sense to name it after a great military battle of our own. Says who we are, where we've come from, and why you should be scared of us. Save the 'Cool, Sci-Fi' names for when we're getting taken seriously. Bob McCabe:
*bing!* You get a cookie (oatmeal) for having the correct answer, and a nicely stated one at that.

As a side note, this applies across the setting to all ship names, by the way...

What will the interiors of the Normandy (your ship) be like?

Bob McCabe:
Most of what's been requested in this thread will be delivered. You'll be able to walk about the Normandy, it'll be larger than the Ebon Hawk, you'll be able to see the rover (I'm pretty sure), you'll be able to talk with your henchmen there, you'll be able to watch stars fly by, etc. Chris Priestly:
I would say a little larger than a 747 actually. Something with multiple rooms, elevators, staircases, engine room, control room, common area, star map, med bay, hanger for a MAKO, that sort of thing.

Definately not just 2 rooms. :)

What does SSV on the side of the Normandy stand for?

Posted 10/18/06 22:40 (GMT) by Chris L'Etoile:
SSV stands for Systems (Alliance) Space Vehicle.

Will there be space travel?

Chris Priestly:
We will definately have multiple planets to visit in Mass Effect (I'm not going to name the actual names of the planets yet, but that is the sort of thing to stay tuned for updates in the future).

We're even going to have a large number of uncharted, unexplored planets available to be visited that will not be directly tied to the main story. Just cool planets to go visit to try out your cool weaponry or a new tactic you want to try out. Plus we feel being an explorer on uncharted worlds is a key part of cool Sci-Fi.

Pretty much at any time during the campaign, the player will be able to choose to head off and visit one of these planets in an All-Terrain Rover to discover what lies of the surface - such as new alien life, resources, ruined civilizations and powerful technology.

Overall, exploration and travel will be a cool feature in Mass Effect.

How does space travel work in Mass Effect?

Posted 08/25/06 by Chris L'Etoile
Something to keep in mind when discussing the blueshift/redshift thing. Ships moving at FTL are enclosed within a mass effect field that lowers the mass of a volume of spacetime around them. The speed of light is effectively higher within this subjective chunk of spacetime.

This causes exterior EM sources to be redshifted when they enter the field - they're coming from the lower-energy environment of the objective frame of reference.

Conversely, EM sources generated by a ship within a mass effect field appear blueshifted to an outside observer, because they are entering the objective frame of referance from a higher-energy environment.

So you have that "overhead" spectral shift in addition to any due to velocity.

Later...

Posted 08/25/06 by Chris L'Etoile
The mass effect was more or less described in the EGM or 1Up article. I hope I don't get fired for connecting the dots. That would kind of suck...

To be obnoxiously pedantic, a field lowers *mass*, not weight. Weight is the force that gravity exerts on a mass. A massive object can only be weightless in a null-gravity environment. A nearly massless object can be nearly weightless on the surface of the Earth (for example).

And

Casey Hudson:
You'll be able to navigate a lush galaxy map, viewing space from the galaxy level all the way down to an orbital view. And once your destination is selected, the Normandy uses gigantic Mass Relays -- essentially powerful antennae -- to create a beam of energy that allows you to make jumps of thousands of light years in an instant. Mass Relays, combined with the Normandy's "short range" faster-than-light drives, gives you access to much of the known galaxy.

Will there be space battles?

IGO:
Will there only be one ship you use for transport, and can we expect space dogfights?
Casey Hudson:
Much like in KOTOR, you’ll have one starship, but in Mass Effect it’s staffed with a large crew that are at your command. Huge space battles are a part of the story, but in this game you’ll leave the piloting to your crew as you and your squad take down the enemy face-to-face. You’ll also have your own customizable combat vehicle for lots of exploration and combat fun on Uncharted Worlds, plus there will be a variety of other vehicles you’ll discover in the game.

What is the Mako used for?

Posted 10/10/06 02:59 (GMT) Preston Watamaniuk:
You are correct, the Mako is used for hostile worlds where no spaceport is available.

How big are the planets, and what types are there?

Chris Priestly:
I can say, in a general kind of way, that the planets will be different (so not all city planets, or ice planets, or desert planets or whatever the Art and Design departments have in store). They will likely be of different sizes with different terrains. I don't yet know what sort of restrictions they will have, but they will be less restrictive than the ones in KotOR.

And

Exploration sounds cool. I just hope the different solar systems/planets aren't like KOTOR's where they're just a relatively small part of the place. A planet should be a planet for example though I know that's asking a lot. Bob McCabe:
There are millions of areas to explore, each the size of the island of Morrowind. Um, no - not really. But we'll do our best to make sure you have lots of room to roam.

What are some of the environments in the game? Will players visit Earth or some deep space station? Casey Hudson:
The Mass Effect universe is designed to take players to all possible extremes of environments – in fact, the scope of the story spans the entire galaxy. Specifically, some examples of environments you’ll see are the sulphur deserts of a mining planet, an ancient lost city overgrown by jungle, and the Citadel: a gigantic floating city many times larger than Manhattan island.

Is gravity modelled properly?

Posted 07/11/06 00:28:05 (GMT) by Bob McCabe
We can actually tweak gravity settings with the Unreal engine very easily. I don't know how much we'll use it. It depends on how fun it is, how much it fits, etc. In other words, I can't answer the question yet, but all possibilities are open.

Is the citadel really 30 miles long?

seems a bit like overkill??? Still I'm not complaining :D but will it have grav-trains/transports like Babylon 5? Bob McCabe:
I'm not sure we'll have 30 playable miles (!), but we'll see? Ha. I'd be a little depressed if we did. That's a lot of content to review!

I haven't seen any Babylon 5, but there will be some (realistic) quick transport systems in place for the final game.

Overall, I'm very happy with the E3 demo, and I'm very happy that we didn't split the team up and destroy the forward progress of the game itself (like we may have done on past demos). I think the demo shows how far we need to go - but also how far we've come in a relatively short period of time. But with the game coming out "soon," you know it's going to come together fairly quickly - and be even more impressive than it is in this demonstration.

How may planets are going to be in Mass Effect?

Posted 10/02/06 22:08:27 (GMT) by Chris L'Etoile:
No one has gone beyond the Milky Way galaxy. The reasons will become clear once the details of the tech base are revealed. Known space does stretch across several spiral arms, however.

An aside: I find that the more space you declare an interstellar community to include, the less meaningful the space becomes. The Milky Way is estimated to contain ~400 [i]billion[/i] stars, a number so large as to be practically meaningless. If you limit your community to, say, 50 or 100 stars, you can add more detail to each, and intuit how important each individual system and colony is. With millions or billions, who cares if you lose one? Or a dozen. Or a hundred. Assuming your government can even keep track of them all...

What does the MAKO stand for?

Posted 11/13/06 by Chris L'Etoile:
It's a typo - it shouldn't be in all-caps. Mako doesn't stand for anything, it's just the name of the IFV, like M-2 "Bradley," FV510 "Warrior," or "Marder" 1A3.

Can the Normandy land on planets/without docks?

Posted 11/18/06 by Chris L'Etoile :
Normandy can land. If you see it low to the ground like that, it's already done all the hard work of atmospheric reentry and operating in a gravity well. Adding landing gear is trivial.

The aircraft that carry modern paratroopers into battle can also land. But sometimes its safer to drop and run.