FTL Travel in Heart of the Swarm.

[Shadow Archon]

Huh, just noticed this a short while ago from HotS, and before you say it, it isn't the Zerus instance.

2505/2506

The Raynor's Raider's/Umojan Fleet in Heart of the Swarm jump from the Umoja Protectorate, decidedly in the Koprulu Sector, to Phaeton, "a considerable distance from the centers of protoss and terran civilization." Assuming the local time of the research station and shipboard time on the Hyperion is still the same (because the people were at that station for a considerable amount of time and had adjusted to it, it seems), the time frame for this journey is somewhere between 06:38[1] and 06:58[2], and the entire second level took place between this time.

This reinforces they have quick FTL, but the size of the Korpulu Sector is unknown besides that the size is at least more than ~dozens pf solar systems away in each direction of the primary colonized worlds, given the amount of solar systems with planets, not to mention the naturally habitable ones or the hundreds of Protoss worlds.

So, let's assume for a low-end a distance of twelve light years. This is going by the distance of Earth to Tau Ceti, which contains an unconfirmed planet that might be habitable. (11.51 light years to be more exact). The cinematic begins at 6:38, but two minutes pass from that declaration to the end of the cinematic.

So, that's 6:40 beginning the mission.

During the mission, a tram ride happens, one that the player can not speed up. This covers about three minutes and fifty-one seconds.

So, that bumps the time up to 6:43:51.

Then, there's the in-game cinematics.

In order, they last: Twenty seconds, Sixteen seconds, Nine seconds, Seventeen seconds, Sixteen seconds, thirty-three seconds, one minute; thirty one seconds.

That's about three minutes and thirty six seconds.

Which bumps up the time to 6:47:27.

Then you have the conversations (not counting the five minute delay Easter egg or the Archangel during his battle, and assuming you release the Zerglings and not the gas and the tram scene for obvious reasons) that happen during gameplay.

They take up, in order, three seconds, five seconds, two seconds, three seconds, five seconds, eleven seconds, seven seconds, two seconds, three seconds, five seconds, five seconds, nine seconds, twenty-four seconds, one second, six seconds, eight seconds, one second, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds, four seconds, six seconds, three seconds, eight seconds, four seconds, seven seconds, and three seconds.

That's about two minutes and twenty seven seconds.

Which bumps up the time to 6:49:54 seconds.

Which means, for sake of rounding and not counting the time that took place under gameplay that can't be measured, the ships don't leave until about 6:50.

Which means the travel time was about eight minutes (480 seconds) for the low end distance of twelve light years. This means they are going at .025 light years per second. That's 2,160 light years per day, or 788,400 light years per year.

So, this example is 788,400c going by the low-end.

Going by that estimate, the Terran Dominion, Raynor's Raiders, and the Umojan Protectorate are slightly slower than my low-end estimate for the UED expeditionary fleet's journey from Earth, assuming it took a month.

I'm not going to even attempt the FTL from Koprulu (Galaxy Fringe) to Zerus (Galaxy center). Kerrigan's round trip covers about the entire length of the Milky way in very short time frame.

The time frame is an unknown though, so assuming it took a few weeks, its only slightly faster than the UED, and not by a huge margin.

It still kind of tells us that the scale of Starcraft has exploded from what it used to be.

[TheEconomist]

Kerrigan's round trip covers about the entire length of the Milky way in very short time frame.

Makes sense. You know, the Zerg not using technology and all.

[Shadow Archon]

Makes sense. You know, the Zerg not using technology and all.

Space magic bull shit at its finest.

Kerrigan can open wormholes with her mind afterall.

[Robear]

Space magic bull shit at its finest.

Kerrigan can open wormholes with her mind afterall.

That was a thing that bothered me about HotS- where were the wormholes? When the Leviathan goes in and out of its ftl travel, it has some weird orange warp effect. What happened to the purple wormholes in SC1?

- - - Updated - - -

Space magic bull shit at its finest.

Kerrigan can open wormholes with her mind afterall.

That was a thing that bothered me about HotS- where were the wormholes? When the Leviathan goes in and out of its ftl travel, it has some weird orange warp effect. What happened to the purple wormholes in SC1?

[Shadow Archon]

That was a thing that bothered me about HotS- where were the wormholes? When the Leviathan goes in and out of its ftl travel, it has some weird orange warp effect. What happened to the purple wormholes in SC1?

To be fair, we never saw a Zerg ship exit out of a wormhole, except for Liberty's Crusade.

It could be a sort of red shift of the light spectrum when exiting, and a blue shift when entering.

[Turalyon]

That was a thing that bothered me about HotS- where were the wormholes? When the Leviathan goes in and out of its ftl travel, it has some weird orange warp effect. What happened to the purple wormholes in SC1?

Well you see, there's this principle in Starcraft now that stuff can still happen without it even appearing/implying/in actuality to have happened at all.

[Shadow Archon]

Well you see, there's this principle in Starcraft now that stuff can still happen without it even appearing/implying/in actuality to have happened at all.

If you are talking about the Q&As, eh, I guess.

[Turalyon]

I was half-joking and half-mocking how anything in SC occurs is heavily dependent on "a certain point of view" now.

[Shadow Archon]

I was half-joking and half-mocking how anything in SC occurs is heavily dependent on "a certain point of view" now.

...Yeah, that's entirely the truth.

You can interpret many of the vague comments in entirely different ways, leading to wildly differing opinions.

At least I'm enjoying the sequel overall now.

I do have my quirks here and there, but overall, the story isn't bad, to me at least.

[Visions of Khas]

I do have my quirks here and there, but overall, the story isn't bad, to me at least.

Clearly you lack the discerning taste of Gradius and Economist.

If you try to apploy limits or logic to StarCraft, you're going to have a bad time. Just go with the flow and try to enjoy the ride. I hope you know, Shadow Archon, that Blizzard won't even think about limiting themselves to the paremeters you've established from evidence provided.