Elerium

[BladeFireLight]

For an undamaged UFO how much has everyone found on each type?

[Edit Zombie: changed title to Elerium]

-Blade FireLight

[NKF]

1 Elerium pod per power unit. Or a total elerium of 50 x n power units, where n is the number of power units found.

 

The only exception being alien bases, where the module with two power units only has 1 power unit that is powered. (I don't know if the unique cydonia base module (which you cannot access) is powered or not, not that it matters)

 

In TFTD, there are tons of Ion Beam Accelerators(all shapes and sizes, apparently), but only a select few are actually 'powered' with zrbite.

 

- NKF

[JellyfishGreen]

power unit=engine=glowy orange cylinder with purple Elerium pod in the base

 

Supply ships have a sweet 3 engines, x50 = 150 elerium

[Psy Guy]

Ship Name Amount of E-115

Small Scout 0 (Forget the E-115. Give me what ever powers the small scout)

Medium Scout 50

Large Scout 50

Harvester 100

Abductor 100

Terror ship 100

Supply ship 150

Battleship 200

Alien Bases * *(2)

 

*Depends on the layout

*(2) Amiga versons have 0 E-115 in alien bases

[Zombie]

NKF - I assume that for a Power Source to be "powered" it requires 1 canister of Elerium-115 or 50 units, right?

 

The Power Sources in the Cydonia base mission do not have Elerium powering them. The base of a normal Power Source has a small "plate" on the front that is usually purple in color if it has Elerium inside. Cydonian Power Sources are grey in color so obviously no Elerium (I shot them out to be sure).

 

As for the Power Sources at an alien base - if they can be found at a base they always have Elerium powering them. So 2 power sources yield 100 units of Elerium. At least this is true for the PSX version - I'll have to try this on the PC sometime.

 

How can those Small Scouts even fly without some sort of power source or navigational inputs? Remote control? Very strange!

[Zombie]

I almost forgot!

 

Terror Ships have 4 Power Sources yielding 200 units of Elerium.

Other than that, those numbers are correct Psy Guy.

 

NKF - Those "unique" modules you speak of in Cydonia, do they look the same as the ones in a normal base? A long corridor on level 0 leading up to a room with 4 doors on level 1, right? I can access the power source room like any other room with a door at base. Unless you have a radically different PC version of the game!

[BladeFireLight]

I belive he's talking about map "ubase_12" it's basicly a dead end on all 4 sides, unless you fly over the wall because the second floor is all open space.

 

-Blade FireLight

[NKF]

Correct, it is indeed a dead-end module, which you cannot properly access(there are walls on all sides). You can use xcomutil to reveal its contents, and there are a number of power sources in there. Still, as it only appears on the cydonia mission, any elerium in it would just be void.

 

 

As for the module with the long corridor and the four store rooms, that has two power sources in it, but only one is powered. No idea why. At least this is true for the PC version.

 

- NKF

[BladeFireLight]

I was under the opinion that not all power sorces had fule in either game. It would make sence if they all were, but then the game would have an almost endless supply of elerium/zerbit

[EclipseDog]

Actually having no fuel cells in the power sources makes sense when you think about it from a certain mindset. The kamakazi mindset. Those aliens are determined to take our world and retreat is not an option. They are given only enough fuel cells to reach their intended destination and then fulfill their mission parameters. If they won only then would the supply flotila arrive with endless stores of fuel.

 

There is just one thing I don't understand... why don't any of the ships ever have a pantry full of extra fuel cells... certainly not all of those aliens are expendable (such as the leaders and commanders). So why don't we ever come across any stacked fuel cells inside a storage unit or locked away in some room on-ship? I mean if you think about it... the elerium on the hybrid crafts use up their fuel cells just travelling across the globe. Even if the full alien craft handle the fuel usage at a much better rate it still would not explain how they could travel even the distance from Mars to Earth... and I doubt I even have to explain the insanely impossible task of intergalactic travel with that kind of a fuel rate usage and no fuel cell stock rooms.

[Zombie]

EclipseDog - Not too long ago I did some number crunching on how long it would take a UFO to reach Earth from Mars according to their maximum velocity. The Small Scout would take 2 Years, 69 days and change to reach Earth (799 days). The Battleship would take 351.9 days or a little less than a year at its maximum velocity!

 

On average, Earth is 48,600,000 miles from Mars. So let us assume a one-month trip to get to Earth is a tolerable amount of time. To get a speed out of this you need to divide 48,600,000 miles by 730.5 (the average number of hours in an average month in an average year). The result is 66,530 mph, 107,069 kph, 57,813 knots, or over Mach 87.5! NASA's space shuttle returns from earths orbit at a speedy Mach 25 but this is nowhere near the Mach 88 average sustainable velocity necessary to reach Earth in one month!

 

I also determined the fuel efficiency of X-COM crafts a while ago. Each ship was sent from my base in northern Mongolia to the north pole for a round-trip of 12,210 miles. The Avenger is the most fuel efficient craft in the game using up 20% of its fuel or 2.4 units of Elerium out of 12 for this mission. On a full tank of 12 units of Elerium, the Avenger could theoretically fly 61,050 miles non-stop. Just to get to Mars, it would use 9553 units of Elerium, and require 796 refuelings! This is assuming that the Avenger gets the same velocity on Earth as in space, which is a bad assumption.

 

The reason you do not see UFOs carrying huge stockpiles of Elerium on board is because they already do! Each Power Source has 50 units of Elerium to use - the Avenger only has 12 units for 2 engines! This is why the larger UFOs can out-distance the Avenger any day of the week.

 

The Avenger, with 2 Power Sources, is more fuel efficient than the Firestorm with 1 Power Source - but not by much. The law of deminishing returns must start to apply with craft with 2 or more engines. Most likely, the 2nd engine only adds to the range of the craft and not much to the velocity. The Battleship and Terror Ship have 4 Power Sources and 200 units of Elerium to draw upon. Even with 4 engines, these UFOs get about the same velocity as the Avenger, but the main point is that they can out-range your Avengers without even trying!

 

Each additional engine beyond the 1st one adds to the range. So with 4 engines, and assuming the same fuel efficiency as the Avenger, the range of the Battleship and Terror Ship should be 1,017,500 miles or roughly 42 times around Earth's equator! WOW!

 

So to summarize:

All craft probably get way-better velocity and fuel efficiency in space than on Earth. This is because of air friction and the density of air in Earth's atmosphere. In space there is hardly any friction and almost zero density because the molecules are spread so far apart. Also, these craft can keep accelerating in space, whereas on Earth acceleration is capped because of friction and the like. The maximum velocity the game gives is probably the maximum velocity on Earth, not in space - meaning these craft are capable of much higher velocities than shown.

[JellyfishGreen]

Nicely put, Zombie. The air-friction idea makes the most sense to me, too.

[Psy Guy]

You sure? I know that the battleship is the only craft with 200 E-115. The terror ship has a power supplies on the left and right side of the middle room on the first floor. Out of all the times i played x-com ive never gotten 200 E-115 from a terrorship. Please someone comform this so i don't go insane from the thought that i don't the layout of a terrorship. :mad:

[Zombie]

Psy Guy - Very rarely are Terror Ships found on the ground and undamaged. Usually they get shot down because it is easier to deal with just aliens than aliens and stupid civilians in a terror mission. In addition, you can recover corpses, weapons, navigational units etc. There are 4 Power Sources arranged in a + (plus) pattern in the center of level 0 equidistant from the central lift by 2 tiles.

 

The Official Strategy Guide by David Ellis says there is a 70% chance that each Power Source will explode when shot down. Sometimes 1, 2, or even 3 power sources survive the impact, but the chances of all 4 surviving are pretty slim! I have only seen this happen maybe 2 times in all the years I have played this wonderful game! In each of those cases I recovered 200 Elerium-115.

 

Most often, either all the Power Sources explode, or 2 will remain intact right across from each other. The chances that 1 or 3 will survive are also slim, but greater than all 4 will. The reason you only saw 100 Elerium is because 2 engines survived. I have never seen an "unpowered" engine or only 2 Power Sources in a completely intact Terror Ship. You can also use a game editor for the PC version to "force" the UFO to remain undamaged, and in those cases you can recover 200 Elerium!

[NKF]

Going aside for a bit:

 

About the ships, that would probably also explain why the ships are the way they are.

 

The Lightning, for example, has less acceleration than the Firestorm, although it has the same number of engines and can store the same amount of fuel. It's slower and even with the reduction of one weapon hardpoint, it still needs to compensate for the weight of the troops. If only the game actively modified the speeds of your ships, we'd be able to modify the maximum speeds of the ships merely by adjusting the weight loaded on the ship.

 

With the Avenger, the additional engine makes up all the difference that the weight and extra hardpoint provides, increases acceleration and doubles the fuel capacity at the same time, giving it more air-time.

 

Now, just imagine an avenger with four engines, each with a full 50 elerium capacity (ala the battleship). It might be able to get to Mars on its own. I imagine that's what they did with the booster module (see game cover/manual). On the other hand, once you are in space, it doesn't take much propulsion to get you moving. I imagine it's the starts, stops and reentry that would need the most use of the engines.

 

As for the propulsion of the small scout...er, flatulance? Just kidding. Alien alloys must be very light as well as being very strong. I mean, look at how easily the battleships move about despite its bulk and an un-aerodynamic build. (and if you don't believe in clean-up teams that swoop in, tidy up the area and return to base before your troops start the return trip, then just imagine them folding up a battleship and tucking it away inside a Skyranger! )

 

The small scouts probably use a primitive rocket propulsion system that's not worth your effort to research and probably glides a lot.

 

On the other hand, sometimes it's best not to delve too much into science fiction as it is. It's fiction. It doesn't have to make sense all the time.

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

Some other stats that might be useful in this whole discussion is how fast each ship can reach its destination...

 

Basically, using speed only (I'm not sure how fuel works in the game) each ship can reach any point on the Earth within this amount of time:

 

Avenger: 2hrs

Firestorm: 2hrs 34min

Lightning: 3hrs 29min

Interceptor: 5hrs 8min

Skyranger: 14hrs 12min

 

One other thing... At the very moment I'm writing this, Mars is 145 million Nautical Miles from Earth, making an Avenger trip take about 3 years!!

 

... And [url="https://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=4&vbody=3&month=3&day=16

[Zager]

Yeah, but let's not forget than we probably can't apply atmospheric speeds to space.

[Psy Guy]

Based on the David Ellis strad guide the terror ship has 4 power supplies (4 in the middle room) but only yields 100 E-115. (i checked it at about 2 in the morning and looked like he had the 2 unknown crap as power sources for a total of 6. Probly a typo) I knew i got that number from somewhere.

And with the fact that terrorships hardly ever land without terrorizing a city. (and when they land to do the infiltration missions most people just shoot them down and land at the battleship sites.) I guess ive never seen an undamaged terrorship. (if you look at the layout of the terrorship's reactors. If one goes they all go)

 

On to the X-COM UFO craft!!

 

The avenger is the best recreation of alien's anti-grav perpulsion they made. The lightning and firestorm even though they look like UFOs aren't a well made recreations of alien anti-grav designs. The second engine only adds to the force it produces resulting in more speed.

 

When it comes to space flight all you need is a boost and you can sail for a while. If you ever played any of the Elite games you would know the benefits of quick boosts followed by long periods of engine cut offs, It really saves on fuel when you don't need to manuver. Very low fuel use you can accelerate to mad speeds.

[EclipseDog]

People keep commenting on how outside earth's atmosphere it wouldn't take as much effort to travel since there is no resistance. Okay... umm but wouldn't that make it harder for the aliens since they are relying on gravity and anti-gravity propulsion systems? If there is no gravity to push against exactly how can it move anywhere using a gravity requiring system? Better question.. how come none of you even thought of that?

[Bomb Bloke]

You want elerium, just build a base next to an alien base (preferably floater, in the arctic).

 

I played through a game of UFO and got about 250 units of elerium, total. Shooting down craft jsut doesn't cut it. https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/sarcastic.gif

[Zombie]

EclipseDog - without diving too deep into an intense discussion of theoretical physics and celestial mechanics I think we should take a look at what the good ol' UFOpaedia has to say about the UFO Power Source. Here is a direct quote:

 

"The power source of an alien craft is an anti-matter reactor which uses Elerium (element 115) to generate powerful gravity waves as well as other forms of energy. The conversion of matter to energy is an incredible 99% efficient, therefore tiny amounts of Elerium can produce a huge amount power. This unit can be reproduced easily using alien alloys."

 

Truth be told, the aliens are NOT relying on gravity and anti-gravity propulsion. The description does mention gravity waves though. What is the difference you may ask? Like you said, an anti-gravity propulsion system requires actual gravity to interact with to produce thrust (or motion). However, the description never mentions anti-gravity, only gravity waves.

 

Ok, so how does the UFO move? This is my take on the subject: The Power Source combines Elerium-115 (matter) with anti-matter (don't ask me where the aliens get a huge supply of anti-matter - maybe the spontaneous decay of Elerium?), which annihilate when they meet. The result of this annihilation is the production of various subatomic particles at a high speed. This explosion is non-directional in nature meaning the particles fly every which way producing very inefficient thrust.

 

In order to align these particles so they all move in the same direction, the Power Source again uses Elerium-115 to produce gravity waves to "channel" these particles out of an orifice in a fine stream. By aligning these particles, they exit the "nozzle" almost single-file, and at a high rate of speed, producing very efficient thrust.

 

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so every particle that exits the nozzle will move the spacecraft forward with a force equal to its mass times its acceleration: F=ma. Granted, the mass of a subatomic particle is miniscule, but this is multiplied by the particle's acceleration (which is very fast). The force produced (which is not very much) gets added to the spacecraft's current speed. Add this force many times in a row and you get a slow, but steady, increase in velocity. The only drawback - it takes a while to get up to speed, and to slow down!

 

So yes, I did think this through!

 

Take no offence in my explanation EclipseDog, your questions keep us all honest! :angel:

[EclipseDog]

No offense taken, to the contrary I'm glad to see people who I can freely exchange ideas and possibilities with, without being mired by peers who simply cannot 'see'.

 

*smiles* I love how easily this board can become very thought provoking with this group. Zombie, I thought about your response and it did strike a chord since it does make for a more sensible solution to propulsion since your description sounds close to something already in the drawingboard process, "The Ion Drive". Since your theoretical application has its roots in an already established future tech by earth's scientists I could easily imagine it or a system similar in design to it being produced by an intellectual species of aliens.

 

However, where your theory loses me is where everyone went in response to my query about fuel usage and distance travelled per fuel unit.

 

With the example you just gave the aliens would quickly exhaust even the biggest of fuel cell stockpiles. First they would need to create the anti-matter and for that process they would use the Elerium. Second they'd need an untapped Elerium unit to clash with the anti-matter unit. And third they'd need a third unit of Elerium just to control the directional thrust and strength.

 

Thus you'd need 3 units of elerium for each momentary instant of thrust (no matter how great that thrust would be during that instant), which I think would lead to needing sporadic re-bursts in order to maintain a set rate of speed and direction.

 

And that is just with a single engine craft... each additional engine would require its own massive stockpile or else the craft could easily be sent off-course or spinning wildly enough as to make life within such a craft impossible.

 

NKF is right though in that all of this is purely fiction... but then again so was Jules Verne's submarine and many other prophetic fictionary elements. It seems a waste if minds such as ours can conceive of something that should be theoretically possible, come up with all the roadblocks to its conception, and then find a logical solution to make something work... only to let it waste away after labelling it pure fantasy.

 

PS: This whole subject of thrust and gravity have led me to several perhaps profound thoughts that I'd like to share with everyone.

 

Imagine if we or an alien race ever came up with a way to synthesize gravity to the level of making the galaxy's own inate gravitational pulls of planets and suns do the work of travel for us. Such a feat would require the ability to temporarily remake your craft's gravitational pull to the equivalent of a small planet or in some cases even a large one, thus causing it to be dragged into the pull of the pre-existing gravity fields surrounding all celestial objects. Sounds like a wonderful concept at first glance... until you realize the frailty of the gravitational balance throughout our system. Imagine if your brief 'pull' was enough to nudge ever so slightly a single moon or planet off its regular orbit. This would in turn minutely change anything else effected by the pull from that object, until all would be affected in a giant house of cards or dominoes.

 

But let's leave the theoretical and move to things that are already occurring. I'm sure you all are aware of the large chunks of a much larger meteorite which slammed into Jupiter's atmosphere a year or more back now. All of the scientists at the time were thrilled and amazed to be able to witness firsthand what an impact of such a large body could do to a planet... but they never even stopped to think of the bigger picture. A main part of this fuel usage thread has been thrust, so I'm sure many of you are aware where I am already going with this considerring my last real world 'what-if' scenario and that theme. What if those rocks sped up the planet's orbit or alterred it? What if it nudged it slightly off-axis so the gravity of the planet no longer is aligned to stay in its planetary orbit? What if the extra mass caused by these rocks has caused the gravitational pull to become stronger?

 

Have I got your gears whirling yet? Well how about another bit of theoretical disertion towards events that are already in motion... Taking the same theme we've been working with all along, 'Thrust', and applying it to something that is so commonplace in our own world that it rarely even ever makes the international news any longer. What I am speaking of is volcanic eruptions. An extreme amount of force can be released in these eruptions, and unlike a space travel experiment gone awry or a freak meteor strike that may never truly affect life on planet Earth... volcanic eruptions are much closer to home and a constant source for disruption to the natural balance. Each 'blast' must alter the path our planet takes, if ever so slightly. This is incredibly bad since volcanoes do not erupt at the same time on opposite sides of the planet and so they never can be cancelled out.

 

These observations of real events and their possible consequences leads me to my next theoretical observation... is it possible that 'Global Warming' if real is in fact caused by the earth's orbit being shifted closer to the sun by the change caused by any of these things? Jupiter is a very big planet after all and a shift of its gravity could easily also affect us in small ways, similar to how the sun when it gives off solar flares and storms affects us. And let us not forget the thrusts of our own volcanoes releasing their power to the surface.

 

I leave you all with one last thought... humans often mess with things they do not fully understand until after its too late. Centuries after the whale hunting trade was banned and we're still seeing the effects from it. And everyone has heard the repercussions we shall be facing in the coming years due to deforesting and air pollution... but has anyone or any government or private organization ever done research on the aftereffects of the blasts caused by the A-bombs and others like it? Does anyone have any clue whether those blasts went off while facing one direction or another and whether it had any affect on our planetary orbit? Can it actually be possible that the mysterious cause of global warming if true be in fact this overlooked matter? Have we humans managed to move our own home closer to the sun perhaps..? Personally, I'd really be interrested to see these possibilities and more researched even if in the end it turned out my worries were for naught. And considering all of the things we humans waste time, money, and effort upon it seems foolhardy not to adequately research qualms which may indeed prove legitimate fears.

[Zager]

Does anyone have any clue whether those blasts went off while facing one direction or another and whether it had any affect on our planetary orbit?

 

The Earth is so incredibly massive that atomic bombs would have no affect on its orbit.

 

Can it actually be possible that the mysterious cause of global warming if true be in fact this overlooked matter?

 

Astrophysicists would know if this had happened.

[Zombie]

It is true that the domino effect changes things we could not possibly forsee. The meteorite that slammed into Jupiter probably had no effect on it's mass, inertial rotation or elliptical path though. Why? Point One: Many scientists believe that Jupiter does not have an actual "surface", or if it does, only a very small core of solid metallic hydrogen. The meteroite would never cause an impact because it would simply "burn up" in Jupiter's very dense (and deep) atmosphere. Point Two: It was not really a meteorite but rather a comet that met its demise (Shoemaker-Levy). Comets are loosly compacted objects consisting mostly of empty space, dust and ice with hardly any mass. When this comet encountered Jupiter's gravitational pull, it broke apart into many smaller pieces. Point Three: The mass of this comet was miniscule compared to Jupiter's mass. Even an object the size of our moon would have little or no effect.

 

Explosions (such as volcanoes or atomic bombs) that happen on a planets surface do nothing to change it's orbit. The atmosphere will absorb most of the kinetic energy as friction, dissipating any "thrust" it could produce. An explosion in space could possibly change an orbit or cause a planet to "wobble", but most scientists agree that this would have to be a pretty big blast to cause any serious damage, especially with a planetary-sized object.

 

As for the thrust of UFO's, my explanation was theoretical in nature due to the description of the Power Source. The OFOpaedia description of Elerium-115 clears up some questions regarding anti-matter production. Here is a direct quote:

"This element has the unusual property of generating anti-matter when bombarded with certain particles. This creates gravity waves and other forms of energy. It is not naturally found in our solar system and cannot be reproduced."

 

So actually, gravity waves AND anti-matter is produced simultaneously from the bombardment of E-115. In addition, the definition claims "certain particles" are used in the bombardment - NOT Elerium-115. Therefore, one bombardment only uses one unit of this rare element, not 3 as I guessed.

 

With bombardments, we are talking about interactions between these "certain particles" and an atom of Elerium-115. What I would like to propose is that one "UNIT" of Elerium-115 does not equal one atom. Even one mole of Elerium (6*10^23 atoms) is a fairly small quantity to even handle! For now, let us just assume that one mole of E-115 = 1 "UNIT".

 

What this means is that one bombardment of E-115 by one particle produces one unit of anti-matter, gravity waves, and energy. The destruction of this anti-matter may produce 100 subatomic particles (just a guess). The equation of this reaction would be:

1 "Particle" + 1 atom Elerium -> 100 subatomic particles + Energy (including gravity waves). The weight of these subatomic particles would have to be less than the original weight of the E-115 due to conservation of mass and energy. The energy produced can be converted into a weight (or mass) by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2.

 

More importantly, those 100 particles are moving at a high rate of speed each adding a small amount of thrust to the craft. Because these bombardments occur atom-by-atom the spacecraft should remain maneuverable even with many per second. Two, three, or even four engine spacecraft could fly easily by synchronizing the bombardments to occur at the same time.

 

So in short (yeah, right!) your supply of Elerium would not be depleted too fast if you think of the Units as moles. My Avenger used 3 units of Elerium for 2 hours of flight. If you convert this ratio to bombardments per second, the result is 2.5*10^20! Seems a little high for me, so my assumption that 1unit = 1mole must be too high. Anyhow, even if 1unit = .00000005mole you are still looking at a fairly high number. Let's say 10,000 atoms per second can be bombarded. If this is true than 1 Unit of Elerium = 24,000,000 atoms (or 2.4*10^7)! If everyone agrees that this rate is possible, then logically, you have to also agree that 1 unit = 24,000,000 atoms (ratios do not lie). This explains why craft do not suddnly run out of fuel in mid-flight!

[Pumpkinhead]

One thing that I think proves the UFOs can go faster than their stats say is the fact that the Earth's escape velocity is 21,693 knots (mach 34)!! That's 9x faster than a Medium Scout or 4x faster than a Battleship, proving that if they want to leave our atmosphere they'd need to be faster than they are rated at

 

NOTE #2 -- Mach Speeds:

 

Skyranger: