Elerium

[Zombie]

Very interesting, Pumpkinhead! That is a very cool point! By the way, my Mach numbers are a little off - what is your conversion factor?

[Pumpkinhead]

This was my conversion... with a little bit of working out in between

 

Mach 1 = 331.4 m/s = 1193 km/h = 643 knots

 

Even Mars' escape velocity is 9,740 knots (mach 15)...

[Zombie]

Ahh that's why! The numbers I have are a little different due to the conversion factor. At www.onlineconversion.com their numbers correspond pretty close to mine. 1 Mach = 1,225 km/h = 661 knots.

 

While it is true that the escape velocity of Mars is 9740 knots, it is not Mach 15! Mach numbers depend upon the speed of sound at a certain planet. The speed of sound is also dependant upon the temperature at that altitude. The latest news about this says that the atmosphere of Mars is 1/10 that of Earth! Therefore the true speed of sound is roughly 1/10 of 15 or Mach 1.5! For a fascinating discussion about flying on Mars visit www.x-plane.com/mars.html!

[Pumpkinhead]

According to their conversion, 1 mach = 340.29 m/s, which is true only at 14.58 deg C... I was basing mine off 0 deg C to try and make it standardised B)

[Pumpkinhead]

While it is true that the escape velocity of Mars is 9740 knots, it is not Mach 15! Mach numbers depend upon the speed of sound at a certain planet. The speed of sound is also dependant upon the temperature at that altitude.

Does this mean that Mach numbers cannot be used in space as sound cannot travel there?

[Pumpkinhead]

Just a fun little fact:

 

Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is a novel concept considering that 20,000 leagues = 111,120km, meaning that Jules Verne had his adventurers travelling through the Earth and almost 8x out the other side!... They'd be a quarter of the way to the moon!!

[NKF]

There's fiction for you. It doesn't necessarily move in straight lines.

 

I guess it also depends on how the title translates in your mind. 20, 000 leagues under the sea could mean having moved 20, 000 leagues while under the sea rather than descending through the sea, into the mantle, then the core, and out the other side. Or, Mr. Verne really did mean straight down and just made up the number.

 

Speaking of Jules Verne it's amazing at how many of Mr. Verne's ideas have become a reality today when nothing like that existed during his time.

 

I suppose seeds of realty can be found in fiction.

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

*nods* I always went with the travelling the globe for 20k leagues myself but I can easily see someone without a concept of the ocean's depth making that kind of a mistake in their title back then. Then again... Mr. Verne did seem to be far-advanced for his time.

 

As for the rest... eh I'll go along with most of the rebuttals but I'll disagree with the comment about the astrophysicists knowing if such was the case. Scientists can only research what their brains conceive of. Air pollution can be seen easily which is why such a large emphasis has been put into researching that. The orbital paths of our planet and the others within our system are not so easily spotted though.

 

Since we still have 365 & 1/4 (ap.) day years with the winter and summer solstices occurring at the same time it is obvious that if there is a change thus far it is minute at best when it comes to our orbit. However even a few minutes difference in the orbit could mean enough miles closer to the sun to explain an excess of heat blanketting the earth and we just have not botherred to keep track of the total time spent from one soltstice to the next under the mistaken belief that it would never change. Actually for that matter I'm personally not even sure the solstices are actually the high and low points anymore since I seem to recall last year's being off.

[Zombie]

Pumpkinhead - concerning Mach numbers:

 

The speed of sound (Mach 1) is defined as the following equation: a=sqrt(g*R*T)

where a is the speed of sound, g is the ratio of the specific heat, R is the gas constant, and T is the temperature in Kelvin. The gas constant ( R ) in space is roughly 0 (my back-of-the-matchbook calculation is 3 E-33). The temperature of space is almost a constant at 2.73K due to cosmic background microwave radiation. The ratio of specific heat is also about 0. Plugging these values into the above equation you get the square root of a very small number which is also a very small number. Therefore the speed of sound in space is essentially zero - so Mach numbers do not apply there!

 

Back to the Elerium thread: I just read a very interesting article in the April 2004 edition of Scientific American magazine pertaining to Elerium-115 (element 115). In a joint venture between Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, element 115 was successfully created! They made element 115 by colliding calcium 48 (20 protons) with americium 243 (95 protons). 95+20=115! Element 115 has a somewhat short lifespan of 90 milliseconds and spontaneously decays into element 113 by releasing a helium nucleus (2 protons).

 

Element 113 is the most stable of the two elements with a lifespan of 1.2 seconds. Late last year, scientists also created element 116! The next elements with a plateau of stability are hypothesized to lie at 120 or 126 protons. So "Elerium" really does exist, even though it's lifespan is only 90 milliseconds!

 

Kinda tough to explain why those piles of E-115 at your base do not turn into element 113 after 90 milliseconds - then, 1.2 seconds later, your E-113 is also gone! Eventually the only thing left is lead 208.

Engineer: "Hey, what happened to our Elerium supply?"

Soldier: "I dunno, we just laid it over there in a pile."

Engineer: "Well, I only see a pile of some grey metal instead of yellow crystals"

Scientist: "Yeah, that stuff is actually lead now so we need to get some more..." !!!

[Bomb Bloke]

It'd keep your field squads busy anyway...

 

https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/confused.gif : We need more Elerium... this lot has dissolved already...

 

https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/power.gif : What?... Again?!

[BladeFireLight]

I thought by adjusting the number on nutrons it was posible to have a stable atom.. like depleted uranium

 

-Blade FireLight

[JellyfishGreen]

No, more neutrons won't always help - a big ball of round magnets will eventually fall apart under its own weight once it gets big enough (he bluffs and handwaves). The best way to stabilize E115 is to accelerate it to a percentage of lightspeed so that time slows down for the particle - the 1.5 seconds to it lasts a few months to us. Only then is it safe to coax it into producing antigravity waves.

[Bomb Bloke]

However, given that you'd really want to use those gravity waves to create the speed, that could create a bit of a vicious circle...

[Sgt. Strike]

Actually, a league is a measurement of distance, I don't think H.G. Welles meant going down, but rather across, not even in a straight line, but going through most of the oceans and seans, etc.

[Bomb Bloke]

That might be valid for a title such as "20,000 Leagues: Under The Sea", but that's not it...

[Zombie]

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)

Recently, I decided to remove a few alien bases from my game because of the constant drain on my funds. As per normal operating procedures, I sent my elite Psi-squad in because they make short work of missions like this. After my men cleaned up one base, I wrote down how much Elerium they recovered as well as the number of Power Sources. Base #1: 2 Power Sources, and 50 Elerium-115. So this verifies that one Power Source module has 2 Power Sources, while only one has Elerium.

 

Okay, now I send my troops to clean up a second base.

Base #2: 4 Power Sources, and 150 Elerium-115. Huh? Shouldn't it be 100 Elerium because each Power Source module has one Elerium-free power source?

Example:

PS module#1 - PS1 (powered with 50 Elerium), PS2 (unpowered). Total = 50 Eleruim

PS module#2 - PS1 (powered with 50 Elerium), PS2 (unpowered). Total = 50 Eleruim

Grand total: 100 Elerium.

 

I guess not. From what my reloads have shown, only one Power Source in an entire base is unpowered. :swoon:

Example:

PS module#1 - PS1 (powered with 50 Elerium), PS2 (unpowered). Total = 50 Eleruim

PS module#2 - PS1 (powered with 50 Elerium), PS2 (powered with 50 elerium). Total = 100 Eleruim

Grand total: 150 Elerium.

 

Granted, this is just for 2 PS modules in a base. You can have up to 4 PS modules in an alien base for a total of 8 power sources. Theoretically, seven would be powered with Elerium, while the 8th is unpowered. I'm still working on this, but preliminary data suggests this result.

 

- Zombie

[Jasonred]

Okay, and here are some interesting? points and theories.

 

1. The alien ships DO have a stockpile of E115. Or rather, HAD a stockpile of it. They used it all up getting from Mars to Earth in the first place. The 50 units per Power Source is all that's LEFT.

 

2. Eh, X-com scientists are good, but they're not THAT good... Our ships are only able to utilize a fraction of the efficiency that the Alien ships have. Compare the mass of an Avenger vs a Battleship, and the number of power sources, and their top speeds and acceleration. ... MAN! Inferior!

 

3. On the other hand, it could just be that our crafts concentrate on Shielding and weapons, whereas alien craft concentrate on fuel efficiency. Since an Avenger can go 1v1 with Battleship. Hmm. And our Plasma Cannons seem GREAT! Better than original tech!

 

4. The aliens actually destroy all Elerium that they have in their storage as soon as X-com attacks their ships. Like a steam train of old, the Power source is usually constantly being topped up at 50 E115 as it goes around. Heck, their engineers must do SOMETHING right? Also, it explains why their fuel is ALWAYS 50 per power source, regardless of how long or far they've flown.

 

 

Of all of these, 4 seems the most likely to me. (other than the "plain old game design" explanation...)

[Zombie]

2. Eh, X-com scientists are good, but they're not THAT good... Our ships are only able to utilize a fraction of the efficiency that the Alien ships have. Compare the mass of an Avenger vs a Battleship, and the number of power sources, and their top speeds and acceleration. ... MAN! Inferior!

Look at it this way. The Avenger has 2 power sources and can go 5400 knots. The only UFO's with 2 power sources are the Harvester (4000 knots) and the Abductor (4300 knots). Both are slightly wider than an Avenger. Now look at the number of levels each ship occupies: 3 for Harvester, 2 for Abductor, and either 2 or 1 for the Avenger (one level of the Avenger is where almost all of the mass resides). Take these facts into consideration and you can see that the Avenger isn't too far off in terms of efficiency.

 

Comparing the Avenger to the Battleship is like comparing apples to oranges. The battleship has 4 power sources; yet can only manage 5000 knots. Hmmm. Why don't we look at the number of knots each craft can manage per power source:

 

Craft            Speed     Engines     Speed/Engine
Small Scout       2200        0            N.A.
Medium Scout      2400        1            2400
Large Scout       2700        1            2700
Harvester         4000        2            2000
Abductor          4300        2            2150
Terror Ship       4800        4            1200
Battleship        5000        4            1250
Supply Ship       3200        3            1067
Avenger           5400        2            2700

The Avenger is one of the top-performing craft at speed per engine. True, the Battleship must lug around much more weight than an Avenger does (in fact, the Battleship is 3 times larger). Therefore, the Battleship should get about 3750 knots per engine for a total craft speed of 15000 knots if reduced to the size of an Avenger.

 

Still, the Avenger is faster than any 2-power source UFO's out there. Actually, it is the fastest ship in X-COM. Period.

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Let me get back to the discussion about an alien base and the power sources contained within that special module. Just so that we all know which module I am talking about, I took a couple of map-level pics. The first is a pic taken of Level 0 showing the corridor leading up to (via the red lift in the center) the 4 rooms. The southern doorway upstairs leads to the Power Source chamber. The second pic shows the Level 1 view where the Power Sources are located.

 

 

The yellow squares/large yellow circles are the locations of my soldiers/HWP's across the alien base. In the second pic, please take note of the two Power Sources: the lower one doesn't have a white cross signifying that it is unpowered and Elerium-free.

 

For a better view, I took a battlescape pic showing the reactors. Take special care to look at the plate at the bottom of each Power Source (zoom in if you have to). The unpowered one has 3 small purple/pink dots, while the powered one has a big purple dot plus a small pink one:

 

 

And the final pic for today is taken after I shot out the reactors with a Heavy Plasma.

 

 

Again, look at the Power Sources. See the purple dot in the center of what is left of the top reactor? That's the Elerium. Pick it up and the purple sphere is actually yellow crystals. Cool!

 

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Back to the Elerium thread: I just read a very interesting article in the April 2004 edition of Scientific American magazine pertaining to Elerium-115 (element 115). In a joint venture between Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, element 115 was successfully created! They made element 115 by colliding calcium 48 (20 protons) with americium 243 (95 protons). 95+20=115! Element 115 has a somewhat short lifespan of 90 milliseconds and spontaneously decays into element 113 by releasing a helium nucleus (2 protons).

 

Yes, I realize this is a necro, but I have some new info on element 115. Apparently another group of researchers recently synthesized some ununpentium which leads to credibility of the original team and now there is talk about the possibility of a proper name for the element. Here's an interesting video on it from periodicvideos:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJYDrugEtxY

 

I of course vote for Elerium. There can't be another name.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

So why didn't you post that? Or has it been buried already?

[Zombie]

Post what? I don't quite follow you SV. Please explain.

 

- Zombie

[Space Voyager]

Oh, I was vague, sorry. Why didn't you post "a demand" for naming it Elerium in the YT comments? I did it for us all. Not that it would have an impact, just for fun.

[Zombie]

Oh, I did of course post Elerium in the comments (my YouTube channel name is GrongnardOfXCOM). Elerium was mentioned a few times already before and after my post so there are quite a few people out there who like the name.

 

- Zombie

[Sgt. Strike]

I am going to throw out a few ideas, and to check to see if I'm correct in thinking, etc. I want to address several things in this post. I do not have the game installed, so I can't look myself. However, I am pretty sure I will be correct on some things.

 

Given that time is a factor to the game. And that there have been UFO's that have been shot down, over time, who is to say that not all have been spotted, much less shot down? And have joined up and formed bases to operate from, and more? This I need checked, please. Is there a base, by the aliens, set down somewhere, on the first, of the first month, in the game? If so, then see part two.

 

Following up on my previous point, is if there is a base, and alien material all around is available by stripping parts of their ships to build a base, and then smaller ships. And typically you see small ships at first, no matter the difficulty. Small scout first, then medium sized to large. My thought, and then question, is this, could it be possible that the ships that were shot down, in the previous point, were small sized scout ships, that were possible part of a large fleet, and that fleet was what actually got onto earth, and they used the fleet to build smaller craft, weapons, etc. at first, while Mars was sending reinforcement waves, that we didn't see at all?

 

My next point is a bit of a tough one. Could it be that the aliens, and then the humans, use one of two, or even both methods, of getting to Earth? Allow me to explain in depth. One method is that the aliens coming to Earth, and the humans going to Mars, are placed in a suspended animation type thing, and the ship, with a decent, and careful, AI, then guides the ship, with help from it's parent planet, to the planet it needs to get to. Of course, this would be a craft capable of getting to, and maintaining, almost light speed. The reason I say AI is that no human, or most aliens, can't handle the amount of g forces involved. There are other things to also add to this. And I could go one about various methods. I just covered the simplest one. Think of slingshot here, as well.

Second method to getting to Mars, or Earth, is using faster than light. Not instantaneous, but it can be faster than the previous method. And may not need the preparation that the previous method needs.

I could be wrong, or things go different, etc. on how they are getting to their respective planets, but I am throwing some ideas out.