190 réponses à ce sujet

[JGDD]

Probably has to do with the enormous mass effect fields generated by the relays. Given they are bigger than the reapers and their (reaper) mass effect fields are large enough to allow a ship the size of Sovereign to land on a planet.

[Mithrennon]

That's the same thing I was thinking. But then the citadel and omega both are supposed to be basically indestructible as well. And while we could again use sheer size as the reason, neither of them actually generates a mass effect field beyond a bit of gravity.

[Shadow_broker]

I KNOW HOW TO KILL THE REAPERS!



...

[Moiaussi]

Mithrennon wrote...

I know they were, but what I was trying to say is that the relays can take more punishment than a reaper itself can. So even if a relay is reaper tech, it's a higher level of tech than the ones reapers...err...made themselves with. If that makes any sense.

They can take more punishment than Sovereign could. Sovereign was a vanguard and for all we know was merely a scoutship.

We have no intel on Reaper fleet strength or composition. It is dangerous to assume that Sovereign was typical.

[Moiaussi]

[quote]Teivel wrote...

Just some points that i'd like to throw into the ring. Some on Nukes, some on anti reaper combat in general.

1) The figure we a quoted for dreadnaught firepower is the sub hundred kiloton range.

2) Dreadnaught class vessels are quoted as having refire rates of aproximately 2 seconds.[/quote]
 
At very long ranges hits are not a given. How many nukes are the allied ships carrying? More to the point, if nukes are as effective as you suggest in ME, why isn't everyone already using them?

[quote]3) A nuclear weapon in space is extremely deadly, provided it detonates relatively close to the target so that the widest range of detonation products will cause harm.[/quote]

And mass shielding is not tight against the ship. Consider the Collector base and the fact that the Normandy entered its mass field and still had to fly a bit to dock.

[quote]4) The largest nuclear weapon ever designed by humanity yielded 50 megatons. that's three orders of magnitude on a conventional DN main gun. [/quote]

The writers really seem to have trouble comprehending magnitude. They keep talking about hundreds or thousands of deaths or even millions of deaths as if those are big numbers. Deaths in the Rachni or Krogan wars must have been in the Billiions, or these were skirmishes.

Over 60 million is the figure estimated killed in WWII, and that was a war on Earth that humanity recovered from without too much trouble, within a couple decades, really.

Regardless, the fact remains that if nukes are as effective as you suggest, why aren't ships already armed with them? In space there are no environmental issues.

[quote]5) Theoretically there is nothing stopping you from developing larger multistage warhead designs. There is little to say gigaton yield devices are out of the question besides basic mass restrictions which become lessened in space.

6) Nuclear missiles can be salvoed giving a capital vessel a much heavier throw weight over the shorter period.[/quote]

Except those are all tactics already available, yet they are not used. Why? Even if the other races inexplicably didn't think of them, there is no way the Alliance wouldn't have considered them.

[quote]7) Normally this strategy would be handicaped by laser point defence technology, the presence of small screening forces and the much longer delivery time between a missile and a solid slug.[/quote]

If you are talking about actual missiles instead of nuclear linear accelerator rounds, the answer is simple. The other side can always retrograde until the missiles are all dead. When the enemy runs out of missiles, they press the attack.

[quote]8) The reapers have no frigates, appear to have a very limited assortment of weapons and increadible firepower is the order of the day.[/quote]

For all we know, Sovereign was a Reaper shuttlecraft. We have know intel on Reaper fleet composition.

[quote]Conclusion: Nuclear weapons can offer destructive potential equivalent to anywhere from 1,000-100,000 impacts from a DN main cannon. Their effects are undiminished by KBs and would give the reapers something to think about. Ships equiped en mass with these weapons, whether in missile or drone form would be a devestating weapon against a foe that depends entirely on unwieldy supercapital ships with a suboptimised CIWS suite and no fighter/frigate screen.[/quote]

As pointed out above, your conclusion is based on a lot of supposition, most of which is likely false.


[quote]The Sensor Issue (or how a big fleet of supercaps is vulnerable without frigate cover)

1) So far as we know the Reapers are made up of vessels of approximately the same size and make, they are all big, ugly supercaps.[/quote]

You know this how? Or you are supposing that the two examples we have seen equal the sum total of reaper design? Have you considered that based on the firefight at the end of ME2, the new reaper under construction seemed only around the size of the Normandy, based on relative scale compared to the combatants? If even that big?

[quote]2) Their weaponary consists of sub-c velocity kinetic weapons, with each individual vessel employing several on flexible mounts.[/quote]

Even less intel there. We only saw Sovereign fight briefly, and it was attached to ths citadel at the time. Again, where are you getting your intel?

[quote]3) Such weapons are ideal for the engagement of large targets given their firepower but are woefully underoptimised for small targets. [/quote]

That would be true if your intel is right, but since your intel seems to be close to pure conjecture.....

[quote]4) FTL sensor technology does not exist in the Mass Effect Universe[/quote]

That is not quite true. If that was true, there would be no FTL communications. Com buoys can relay data FTL. Since communications all seem to be in real time with no delay, despite ships never being parked on com buoys when they send messages, it follows that ships themselves have FTL communications capacity. Given that tech is based on reaper tech, the reapers could almost certainly hack it. Consider the Collector ship saw the Normandy despite it being in stealth mode.

[quote]Conclusion: As Range increases, the ability to which reapers are able to accurately plot a target decreases as a fuction of  a targets ability to change course and speed.  In other words, given that they will be dealing with old data on their sensors, they will only be able to plot an area of space within which the target may be when their weapon fire finally arives. Given the apparent manoeverability disparity before small and large vessels in the ME universe, this means that the range necessary to make engagement for the reapers extremely difficult will be much smaller for frigate or fighter class contacts than for dreadnaughts.[/quote]

Stealth frigates may be a noteworthy exception (and do constitute a potential advantage, despite the note regarding the Collector vessel seeing the Normandy), however there is another factor you are missing. Capital ships usually have massively larger sensor arrays than escort vessels, simply due to having more space for them and more power to supply to them. Also when you consider the ranges DN's engage at, the size difference disipates relatively quickly. Meanwhile the DN's still have fields the frigates cannot normally penetrate and the DN's can still retrograde while firing.

[quote]Alliance vessels and the like however, while also lacking FTL sensors, possess FTL communications and a diverse range of vessels.[/quote]
 
And are all based on reaper tech, so it is strange that you assume reapers do not have these things. Not only are you saying that no other race has used nukes against the reapers before, but no other race has fielded a variety of ship classes.

[quote]This also fascilitates a brand of ambush tactics if Reapers are restricted to mass relays (sensor drones providing data to a fleet standing by far distant from the gate. Reapers would have a very limited time to react before projectiles began imacting, specifically the time taken for incoming projectiles to travel the distance vs the speed of light and the time taken to orient and fire the weapons.)

[/quote]

This might be possible given the new stealth technology, however since the Collector ship saw the Normandy, that advantage might be lost.

[Teivel]

Moiaussi wrote...


 
At very long ranges hits are not a given. How many nukes are the allied ships carrying? More to the point, if nukes are as effective as you suggest in ME, why isn't everyone already using them?

There could be many reasons. Diminshed conbat longevity vs a power generation/inert projectile mix, larger projectiles being more vaulnerable to detection and interception, guidance considerations, manufacturing limitations, decreased weapon versitility etc.

And mass shielding is not tight against the ship. Consider the Collector base and the fact that the Normandy entered its mass field and still had to fly a bit to dock.

That field was a far cry from a kinetic barrier, out one example of a reaper vessels kinetic barriers in actions showed it neutralising impacts at a relatively short distance from the hull. In addition to this the codex alludes to the fact that sufficiently massive projectiles can't be stopped by kinetic barriers or can wear them down. For this reason disruption torps often employ mass increasing fields at short range.


The writers really seem to have trouble comprehending magnitude. They keep talking about hundreds or thousands of deaths or even millions of deaths as if those are big numbers. Deaths in the Rachni or Krogan wars must have been in the Billiions, or these were skirmishes.

Aye, just as writers don't always think through their fictional combat scenarios or choice of weapons. The ME codex had to have projectile velocities retconed at a later date in order to bring the DN guns up to the level of destructiveness they were invisioning. But we are analysing a fictional medium, we have to infer what we can from the evidence we have avialble. 

Over 60 million is the figure estimated killed in WWII, and that was a war on Earth that humanity recovered from without too much trouble, within a couple decades, really.

Agreed, which also makes one wonder why the losses at the citadel have everyone so overextended and concerned. Compared to the size of the Turian navy, 20 cruisers is a drop in the bucket, just a few less mercantile escort details.

Regardless, the fact remains that if nukes are as effective as you suggest, why aren't ships already armed with them? In space there are no environmental issues.

As i've already pointed out, there are many issues, we have no evidence as to which if any may apply.  The Fact is that from what we have seen they are not infact armed with these weapons, only kinetic an disruption based devices, the latter proving extremely effective against Sovereign after the failure of its barriers.

5) Theoretically there is nothing stopping you from developing larger multistage warhead designs. There is little to say gigaton yield devices are out of the question besides basic mass restrictions which become lessened in space.

6) Nuclear missiles can be salvoed giving a capital vessel a much heavier throw weight over the shorter period.

Adding to what i've said above, and once more frustrated by the fact that we are only given a limited amount of information through the games and books, it seems that these weapons, while quite effective against the reapers, are simply uneccessary or underoptimised against the targets that the navies currently expect to be fighting.



If you are talking about actual missiles instead of nuclear linear accelerator rounds, the answer is simple. The other side can always retrograde until the missiles are all dead. When the enemy runs out of missiles, they press the attack.

While atomic linear accelerator rounds are possible, they would require retrofiting larger bore weapons and lack the massive increase in short term throw weight that can be achieved with a system of missile cells.  Remember that the launching ships velocity forms the lower limit of the pace to which the missiles would travel towards the enemy.  Without knowing much about the abilility of reaper vessels to accelerate/deccelerate and later course, it's difficult to calculate wheather backing off would be a viable tactic. If so then the ideal sittution would be to engage from multiple angles.



For all we know, Sovereign was a Reaper shuttlecraft. We have know intel on Reaper fleet composition.

This is what we know.

*Harbinger and Sovereign were of similar designs
*When we saw the reaper fleet, it was composed of thousands of vessels, with each appearing to be very close in design.
*Given these vessels have a very similar appearance it is more likely than not that they share similar capabilities and functions. I know it's mere aesthetics but in military vessels aesthetics often follow purpose and we don't have much else to go on
*The reapers are not a fleet so much as a race, despite various species contributing to the genesis of each individual, it makes sense that their overal design parameter would not vary wildly.


As pointed out above, your conclusion is based on a lot of supposition, most of which is likely false.

It's supposition based on the information we have and its the best we can do under the circumstaces. Many of the assumptions may in time be shown to be false, i accept that, but that's always likely when dealing with incomplete information and a fictional universe.

The Sensor Issue (or how a big fleet of supercaps is vulnerable without frigate cover)

1) So far as we know the Reapers are made up of vessels of approximately the same size and make, they are all big, ugly supercaps.

You know this how? Or you are supposing that the two examples we have seen equal the sum total of reaper design? Have you considered that based on the firefight at the end of ME2, the new reaper under construction seemed only around the size of the Normandy, based on relative scale compared to the combatants? If even that big?

I adressed this above, and the general consensus is that the human thing was a larva of sorts that would eventally rest within the generic reaper construct. All reaper vessels we see in the closing image have broadly similar cross sections and dimensions.

2) Their weaponary consists of sub-c velocity kinetic weapons, with each individual vessel employing several on flexible mounts.

The Thanix cannon codex entry states that contrary to popoular belief, sovereign's weapons were kinetic rather than DE weapons. These weapons then formed the basis for the Thanix design.

3) Such weapons are ideal for the engagement of large targets given their firepower but are woefully underoptimised for small targets.

An small number of extremely high powered weapons that travels at sub c velocities...that is a weapon profile that is optimised for large targets. Were you to optimise for small targets you would increase the number of mounts and attempt to increase velocity, DEWs would be one way to do that. Against small targets liek frigates Sovereign's weapons were dramatic overkill.

4) FTL sensor technology does not exist in the Mass Effect Universe

That is not quite true. If that was true, there would be no FTL communications. Com buoys can relay data FTL. Since communications all seem to be in real time with no delay, despite ships never being parked on com buoys when they send messages, it follows that ships themselves have FTL communications capacity. Given that tech is based on reaper tech, the reapers could almost certainly hack it. Consider the Collector ship saw the Normandy despite it being in stealth mode.

Yes is is true. FTL comms is a misnomer. Vessels relay comms at light speed to buoys that then transmit data packets through the mass relays. This system requires a relay at both ends, and bouys to then transmit this data onwards towards the target. When you're dealing with sensors you are limited by light lag.
Quantum entanglement also offers single site to site FTL communications but is obviously useless as a sensor sytem. I refer you to the codex.

Conclusion: As Range increases, the ability to which reapers are able to accurately plot a target decreases as a fuction of  a targets ability to change course and speed.  In other words, given that they will be dealing with old data on their sensors, they will only be able to plot an area of space within which the target may be when their weapon fire finally arives. Given the apparent manoeverability disparity before small and large vessels in the ME universe, this means that the range necessary to make engagement for the reapers extremely difficult will be much smaller for frigate or fighter class contacts than for dreadnaughts.

Stealth frigates may be a noteworthy exception (and do constitute a potential advantage, despite the note regarding the Collector vessel seeing the Normandy), however there is another factor you are missing. Capital ships usually have massively larger sensor arrays than escort vessels, simply due to having more space for them and more power to supply to them. Also when you consider the ranges DN's engage at, the size difference disipates relatively quickly. Meanwhile the DN's still have fields the frigates cannot normally penetrate and the DN's can still retrograde while firing.

It has nothing to do with the size of the arrray. It's next to imposible to hide a ship in space and the fact that the Normandy had to be so specialised in order to do so (albeit unsucessfully) shows as much.  The problem is light lag.  Your ability to engage targets decreases because the further away you are the less sure of where your target is. The smaller and more manoeverable your target, the more uncertain you are.  The reapers may be able to "see" an alliance fleet  but the data may well be light minutes old and that is junk data from a targeting perspective.

Alliance vessels and the like however, while also lacking FTL sensors, possess FTL communications and a diverse range of vessels.

 
And are all based on reaper tech, so it is strange that you assume reapers do not have these things. Not only are you saying that no other race has used nukes against the reapers before, but no other race has fielded a variety of ship classes.

i'm assuming the reapers do have this technology. Withot smaller outrider vessels however they are ill positioned to take advantage of light speed sensor FTL communications synergy.

This also fascilitates a brand of ambush tactics if Reapers are restricted to mass relays (sensor drones providing data to a fleet standing by far distant from the gate. Reapers would have a very limited time to react before projectiles began imacting, specifically the time taken for incoming projectiles to travel the distance vs the speed of light and the time taken to orient and fire the weapons.)

This might be possible given the new stealth technology, however since the Collector ship saw the Normandy, that advantage might be lost.

Again, stealth is is only an element of the equation. It would likely be harder to detect the normandy and that's a great thing. It's also more difficult to target it than a DN at any given distance due to its greater manoeverability.

In the case i listed the survival of the sensor drones was unimportant, the point was that given the right set up, you could have weapons impacting on targets mere fractions of a second after they became awear of a hostile presence.

[Shadowomega23]

Actually there is another possible way. Either with mass uses of Disruptor tech. or use of Thermal Nuclear weapons laying out a passive minefield near a relay their likely to approach. Have the mines set to standbye mode but set up so they will "drift" onto the reapers and attach to the haul. Due to their slow speed, small profile, and low emitions it is possible these would be ignore by the reapers. Though would personally leave some space debrie out there from a couple factions like dead geth ships and a few Quarian or Alliance vessles just flowing, but something that would make the reapers think that its just debrie from the warships. Once most the reaper fleet has entered the Mine field and the mines have likely attached to the warships, send a code burst to the field activing the whole field, causing a massive Detination, hopefully catching a large majority of the reapers offguard.



This is when I would trow in the first wave of drone gunships into the battle but with their coms removed or shut down/destroyed. Would likely adjust the drone to have added shielding against EMI which is likely how the reapers indocternate and, manipulate tech. As the drones start drawling fire I would start sending in the FTL suicide drone ships aka Kinetic Kill torpedos, as mentioned in my first post here. If the battle looks like its going bad Would pull the fleet back a relay or two. If the battle looks like it is going to well would also pull back, but I would wait after commiting another wave of Drone Gunships to the fight. No matter what at this junction I wouldn't commit the actual fleet.



At the next relay I would have the same set up as the first but the little mine this time would be decoys, and what looked like deralic ships would actually be another wave of drone ships maybe with a few actually ships in there all heavily shielded from EMI and other forums of High energy discharge (might be wrong about it thoug reaper indoc might actually work at quantum level). This time around however the Kinectic kill torpedos would be fired once the possum fleet engages. The mines would actually be behind the reaper fleet and start moving in once the Torpedos start conencting. In this engagement I would likely commit most the main fleet while keeping some in reserve with the reserve fleet. Would hate to be tangling with only a portion of the reaper fleet only to have their biggest ships come up our rears at the relay.

[Moiaussi]

[quote]Teivel wrote...

There could be many reasons. Diminshed conbat longevity vs a power generation/inert projectile mix, larger projectiles being more vaulnerable to detection and interception, guidance considerations, manufacturing limitations, decreased weapon versitility etc.[/quote]

Detection, guidance and interception shouldn't be issues for nuclear projectiles, only for missiles. Manufacturing limitations would exist for any such weapons fielded against the Reapers, too. Regardless, the Council has been in at least two wars of survival, wars in which eliminating ships much less powerful than Sovereign was a neccessity. Even the Normandy seems to be able to take more than one direct hit from a Cruiser of much higher tech and firepower, delivered at relatively close range.




[quote]That field was a far cry from a kinetic barrier, out one example of a reaper vessels kinetic barriers in actions showed it neutralising impacts at a relatively short distance from the hull. In addition to this the codex alludes to the fact that sufficiently massive projectiles can't be stopped by kinetic barriers or can wear them down. For this reason disruption torps often employ mass increasing fields at short range. [/quote]

Having just replayed that, I can report that was actually the derelect reaper, and even though the Normandy was outfitted with the new cannon, Joker's opinion was that it was impossible for the Normandy's main gun to penetrate even the derelect's shields. The 'default' mass field of the ship was what the Normandy entered and it was a noteworthy distance away from the hull. As for the distances shown in the Citadel battle, we don't have anything to provide scale. Also, it could well be that Sovereign was keeping its sheilds in tight so it would be able to dock with the Citadel. It would have been rather embarassing for Sovereign if it had approached only to either bounce off or to have the collision drop its sheilds suddenly leaving it vulnerable.



[quote]Aye, just as writers don't always think through their fictional combat scenarios or choice of weapons. The ME codex had to have projectile velocities retconed at a later date in order to bring the DN guns up to the level of destructiveness they were invisioning. But we are analysing a fictional medium, we have to infer what we can from the evidence we have avialble. [/quote]

Which is precisely what I am doing. My objection is that the pro nuke arguements seem to only look at the convenient facts in making inferences, while ignoring all inconvenient data.



[quote]Agreed, which also makes one wonder why the losses at the citadel have everyone so overextended and concerned. Compared to the size of the Turian navy, 20 cruisers is a drop in the bucket, just a few less mercantile escort details. [/quote]

There could be other issues limitiing fleet size though, such as availabliltiy of element zero and other rare elements.



[quote]As i've already pointed out, there are many issues, we have no evidence as to which if any may apply.  The Fact is that from what we have seen they are not infact armed with these weapons, only kinetic an disruption based devices, the latter proving extremely effective against Sovereign after the failure of its barriers.[/quote]

It doesn't follow though to say 'we don't know the reason so they must be useful.' To the contrary, if they were useful, they would be in use.



[quote]Adding to what i've said above, and once more frustrated by the fact that we are only given a limited amount of information through the games and books, it seems that these weapons, while quite effective against the reapers, are simply uneccessary or underoptimised against the targets that the navies currently expect to be fighting. [/quote]

Given that DN's take multiple hits to disable let alone destroy, that really doesn't follow at all. Where is the information that these weapons *are* quite effective against reapers? We have only fought one, and nuclear weapons were not used against it.



[quote]While atomic linear accelerator rounds are possible, they would require retrofiting larger bore weapons and lack the massive increase in short term throw weight that can be achieved with a system of missile cells.  Remember that the launching ships velocity forms the lower limit of the pace to which the missiles would travel towards the enemy.  Without knowing much about the abilility of reaper vessels to accelerate/deccelerate and later course, it's difficult to calculate wheather backing off would be a viable tactic. If so then the ideal sittution would be to engage from multiple angles. [/quote]

At one point in ME1, Sovereign is described as being able to make a high speed turn that should have snapped it in half. Engaging at multiple angles is problematic, in that there is still always up and down.

There is an additional problem with missiles.. command control. All the enemy has to do is jam their tracking and/or hack them, and they are at best ballistic. An enemy capital ship is going to have much better jamming power than any likely receiver on a missile could handle.

There is another issue in that the missiles might need rare materials such as eezo, which could easily be in short enough supply that their use is impractical.

As for nuclear 'bullets', modern tactical nuclear shells are as small as 50kg, about 2.5 times the weight of DN rounds in ME. There could well be higher yield/more efficient versions by the time of ME, and for the extra power, it would probably be worth the range difference. The Destiny Ascension may already be able to handle shells in that weight range.

[quote]This is what we know.

*Harbinger and Sovereign were of similar designs
*When we saw the reaper fleet, it was composed of thousands of vessels, with each appearing to be very close in design.
*Given these vessels have a very similar appearance it is more likely than not that they share similar capabilities and functions. I know it's mere aesthetics but in military vessels aesthetics often follow purpose and we don't have much else to go on
*The reapers are not a fleet so much as a race, despite various species contributing to the genesis of each individual, it makes sense that their overal design parameter would not vary wildly. [/quote]

Actually what we know is that they have the same hull pattern. We have no scale to compare Harbinger to, nor any other Reaper. Your conclusion regarding lack of variance in overall design parameters is flawed. We now know for an absolute fact that the Geth share a communal mind, yet have a wide variety of designs to suit different purposes.



[quote]I adressed this above, and the general consensus is that the human thing was a larva of sorts that would eventally rest within the generic reaper construct. All reaper vessels we see in the closing image have broadly similar cross sections and dimensions. [/quote]

There is no such scale other than pure guestimates. The Reaper fleet isn't lined up against a cosmic ruler, nor are they lined up beside each other in an evil chorus line.



[quote]An small number of extremely high powered weapons that travels at sub c velocities...that is a weapon profile that is optimised for large targets. Were you to optimise for small targets you would increase the number of mounts and attempt to increase velocity, DEWs would be one way to do that. Against small targets liek frigates Sovereign's weapons were dramatic overkill.[/quote]

The vast majority of Sovereign went boom and wasn't recovered at all. Also you are continuing to discount the concept that Sovereign may have been merely a scout and relatively under-armed. Sovereign never was in a position to show what it could really have done against the fleet. It ignored the fleet until docked, and only engaged once Shep started playing with the Citadel controls, foiling its master plan. It was fighting while still docked (and with its consciousness primarily in Mecha-Saren), which could easily have limited its available options.



[quote]Yes is is true. FTL comms is a misnomer. Vessels relay comms at light speed to buoys that then transmit data packets through the mass relays. This system requires a relay at both ends, and bouys to then transmit this data onwards towards the target. When you're dealing with sensors you are limited by light lag. Quantum entanglement also offers single site to site FTL communications but is obviously useless as a sensor sytem. I refer you to the codex.[/quote]

Actually you quoted the wiki, not the codex. The codex doesn't refer to Reapers in any such context. The only Reaper that has been engaged was Sovereign, and it was only engaged at the Citadel, where it arrived at short range (due to the proximity of the relay). There would also have been issues with the nebula.

There *should* be light lag, but the reality is that all communications in game seem to be real time.




[quote]It has nothing to do with the size of the arrray. It's next to imposible to hide a ship in space and the fact that the Normandy had to be so specialised in order to do so (albeit unsucessfully) shows as much.  The problem is light lag.  Your ability to engage targets decreases because the further away you are the less sure of where your target is. The smaller and more manoeverable your target, the more uncertain you are.  The reapers may be able to "see" an alliance fleet  but the data may well be light minutes old and that is junk data from a targeting perspective. [/quote]

If it was impossible to hide ships in space, all ships would have infinite sensor ranges. At the speeds travel and the ranges DN's engage, noone 'knows' where any other ship is. They rely on predictive targetting based on known course and maneuverability, as well as analysis of enemy evasion patterns. Light lag is a non-issue since the speed of light is constant, and much much faster than the actual projectiles fired.

If the data is even just one light minute old, and the projectiles fire at 1.3% of light speed (per the Wiki, 1.3%), then the flight time to target is approximately 77 minutes... more than an hour! Do you really believe that the targetting computers are capable of predicting ship positions over an hour in advance? Even if the enemy ship was traveling at walking speed (assuming it actively was trying to evade) you wouldn't hit it other than by extreme good luck.



[quote]i'm assuming the reapers do have this technology. Withot smaller outrider vessels however they are ill positioned to take advantage of light speed sensor FTL communications synergy. [/quote]

That makes no sense at all.

[quote]Again, stealth is is only an element of the equation. It would likely be harder to detect the normandy and that's a great thing. It's also more difficult to target it than a DN at any given distance due to its greater manoeverability.

In the case i listed the survival of the sensor drones was unimportant, the point was that given the right set up, you could have weapons impacting on targets mere fractions of a second after they became awear of a hostile presence.[/[/quote]

Not at those ranges you couldn't. Again, there are serious scale issues. Also the frigate can dance around at extreme ranges all it wants. It's gun isn't big enough even at close range. There is some use of missiles at close range, but mostly because other known races didn't use that tactic. Anti fighter /anti-missile tactics aren't used much by the Council races simply because they are new to them. It doesn't make much sense that they would be new to the Reapers.

Modifié par Moiaussi, 27 août 2010 - 09:39 .

[gethspy]

better idea, build an epicly large mass accelerator gun. attach it to a mass relay, use the mass relay's eezo TO FIRE THE GUN not only would the gun be larger than whats used on dreadnaugts but the mass relay would increase the firing velocity by several orders of magnitude this might make it a one shot kill against reapers ( see halo.wikia.com/wiki/Orbital_Defense_Platform )

Modifié par gethspy, 28 août 2010 - 04:11 .

[Shadowomega23]

Lol A gun that big could shot A Reaper so far out so fast that it would pass into null space beyond the wake of the big bang, then likely disappear from from the Universe as if it never existed.

[nikki191]

i can see the conversation at bioware HQ going sort of like this

story writer 1 " Well time to start working on ME3, how are we going to end the story and work out how to destroy the reaper fleet"

story writer 2 "dont worry about it, give it a while and we'll check the forum the fans will nerd rage over all the details and we'll pick the ones we like, problem solved"

Story writer 3 "i still say the darth biotic god should be revealed as shepards father"

Modifié par nikki191, 28 août 2010 - 06:27 .

[Moiaussi]

gethspy wrote...

better idea, build an epicly large mass accelerator gun. attach it to a mass relay, use the mass relay's eezo TO FIRE THE GUN not only would the gun be larger than whats used on dreadnaugts but the mass relay would increase the firing velocity by several orders of magnitude this might make it a one shot kill against reapers ( see halo.wikia.com/wiki/Orbital_Defense_Platform )

1) We don't have full control over the mass relays.

2) We have no ability to aim them.

3) We don't entirely know how they work, and have no ability to modify them or build our own.

4) They are Reaper built or older, and the reapers understand them much better than we. The reapers may well be able to hack such a weapon and turn it against us.

[Monochrome Wench]

Super dreadnaughts are a very poor idea. They become a single big target, when for the same resources you can make a a number of smaller, more manoeuverable frigates that are harder to hit, obviously are larger number of targets, and a loss of one ship doesn't cause a 100% loss of effectiveness. Super dreadnaughts are symbolic only. They are only useful for a war where you are trying to intimidate an enemy of equivilant or lesser power, something the reapers are not.

[Moiaussi]

Monochrome Wench wrote...

Super dreadnaughts are a very poor idea. They become a single big target, when for the same resources you can make a a number of smaller, more manoeuverable frigates that are harder to hit, obviously are larger number of targets, and a loss of one ship doesn't cause a 100% loss of effectiveness. Super dreadnaughts are symbolic only. They are only useful for a war where you are trying to intimidate an enemy of equivilant or lesser power, something the reapers are not.

 
That is not entirely true. Unless you can coordinate fire sufficiently (which gets diminising returns after a while if the frigates are all trying to make full use of their speed and agility), you will not get the same firepower. The capital ships can still mount larger weapons and better defences.

The other thing capital ships can usually do is hit and run, especially against static targets. How do you defend a base or planet against long range DN based bombardment?

Space combat shouldn't all be judged by the citadel battle. That was a specific exception, due to the nebula and proximity of the mass relay.

Modifié par Moiaussi, 28 août 2010 - 02:57 .

[Shadowomega23]

If you look at the weapons lay out for the Yamoto Super Dreadnaughts, its FTL weapon system is ment for support use only, can be used at closer range but less effecivet. Its actual primary weapons are the Thrax Cannons much like the ones on the Normandy 2 just larger and turret mounted, not fixed like the other Dreadnaughts. Each one of those turrets can operate independly from another, and can track targets even relay targeting data between them if Cordinated fire is needed or if a target is passing out of ones firing arch and into another. I know after a volly or two from the Kinetic Kill Torpedos the Reapers would likely try and close the gap on it, and when they do she will show how sharp her teeth are, but cutting a large gash in the side of a couple reapers. I did forget to list that all have a modifed version the the Solarian GUARDIAN laser, which could potentially cut some nice holes.

[Moiaussi]

Shadowomega23 wrote...

If you look at the weapons lay out for the Yamoto Super Dreadnaughts, its FTL weapon system is ment for support use only, can be used at closer range but less effecivet. Its actual primary weapons are the Thrax Cannons much like the ones on the Normandy 2 just larger and turret mounted, not fixed like the other Dreadnaughts. Each one of those turrets can operate independly from another, and can track targets even relay targeting data between them if Cordinated fire is needed or if a target is passing out of ones firing arch and into another. I know after a volly or two from the Kinetic Kill Torpedos the Reapers would likely try and close the gap on it, and when they do she will show how sharp her teeth are, but cutting a large gash in the side of a couple reapers. I did forget to list that all have a modifed version the the Solarian GUARDIAN laser, which could potentially cut some nice holes.

The Yamato's wave motion gun was initially capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets. Later on, it was much less useful (presumably enemy fleets developed defences).

All the big guns in ME are spinal mounts though. There is nothing resembling the efficiency of the Yamato's mains turrets. Ships such as the Ascension are large, but not so large that they have frigate sized turrets. The Yamato's guns were approx 70' long. Pretty sure the Normandy is rather bigger than that.

[DaVanguard]

dont know if this has been posted yet but there could be one weakness to the reaper plan simple: the thanix cannon it is reaper tech just make them drednought/frigate/curser/fighter size arm the fleets with them and the galaxy has a slightly better chance

[Moiaussi]

DaVanguard wrote...

dont know if this has been posted yet but there could be one weakness to the reaper plan simple: the thanix cannon it is reaper tech just make them drednought/frigate/curser/fighter size arm the fleets with them and the galaxy has a slightly better chance

Note:Even after you have the thing installed, Joker informs you that the shields of the DERELECT Reaper are too strong for it. It may have been great against the Collector ship, but if it can't deal with a mostly dead Reaper it certainly wouldn't dent a live one.

[Shadowomega23]

Moiaussi wrote...

Shadowomega23 wrote...
*snip*

The Yamato's wave motion gun was initially capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets. Later on, it was much less useful (presumably enemy fleets developed defences).

All the big guns in ME are spinal mounts though. There is nothing resembling the efficiency of the Yamato's mains turrets. Ships such as the Ascension are large, but not so large that they have frigate sized turrets. The Yamato's guns were approx 70' long. Pretty sure the Normandy is rather bigger than that.

You might want to look back a page or two before saying that. I was not basing it off any anima. I named the ship that off the Orginal ship from WW2, just like all the ships I posted. To honor the powerful gun boats of our past. Yamato, Bismark, Iowa . I based the designs on ME with a little bit of Homeworld built in. So you may want to read further back then just a post or two. But incase you don't the Main weapon system onboard is the Thrax cannon, the upgrade the Normandy could get when you ask Garrus about upgrades for the ship. The only weapon I added that is kind of outside the ME design was the Kinetic Kill Torpedo Launcher, which effectively is a futuristic version of the Steam driven Catipults that push Fighter Jets off of the modern Carrier. This design is intended to push a solid mass like the masive rail guns on a dreadnaught but only pushes it up enough so less energy is spend on the Torpedos own drive system when pushing to FTL. Effecitvely I am making drone suicide ships, and I came up with the idea before the even in the Cerberus Daily News about Taetrus' Capital Obliterated After Blast April 28th 2010. If that was done by a small ship, Imagen what would happen if that had the Mass of the Sr 1 or Sr 2 Normandy behind it going at FTL, no sub FTL.

[Moiaussi]

Shadowomega23 wrote...

Moiaussi wrote...

Shadowomega23 wrote...
*snip*

The Yamato's wave motion gun was initially capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets. Later on, it was much less useful (presumably enemy fleets developed defences).

All the big guns in ME are spinal mounts though. There is nothing resembling the efficiency of the Yamato's mains turrets. Ships such as the Ascension are large, but not so large that they have frigate sized turrets. The Yamato's guns were approx 70' long. Pretty sure the Normandy is rather bigger than that.

You might want to look back a page or two before saying that. I was not basing it off any anima. I named the ship that off the Orginal ship from WW2, just like all the ships I posted. To honor the powerful gun boats of our past. Yamato, Bismark, Iowa . I based the designs on ME with a little bit of Homeworld built in. So you may want to read further back then just a post or two. But incase you don't the Main weapon system onboard is the Thrax cannon, the upgrade the Normandy could get when you ask Garrus about upgrades for the ship. The only weapon I added that is kind of outside the ME design was the Kinetic Kill Torpedo Launcher, which effectively is a futuristic version of the Steam driven Catipults that push Fighter Jets off of the modern Carrier. This design is intended to push a solid mass like the masive rail guns on a dreadnaught but only pushes it up enough so less energy is spend on the Torpedos own drive system when pushing to FTL. Effecitvely I am making drone suicide ships, and I came up with the idea before the even in the Cerberus Daily News about Taetrus' Capital Obliterated After Blast April 28th 2010. If that was done by a small ship, Imagen what would happen if that had the Mass of the Sr 1 or Sr 2 Normandy behind it going at FTL, no sub FTL.

Space Battleship Yamato was literally the Yamato in space. The oceans had been boiled away by orbital bombardment, and the remainder of humanity was driven underground. With help from an alien species that was also opposed to Earth's attackers, they gained enough respite to refit the Yamato into a starship, using tech from their new ally.

The Anime version is pretty much exactly what you describe though, complete with major stategicly important spinal mount. It had torpedo tubes, a minor fighter complement, main guns plus secondaries, and (partly because it was in a 3D environment) minelaying capacity to protect the keel.

The two related series were rather good actually.

[VanguardtoDestruction]

Cheese Elemental wrote...

smudboy wrote...

hamtyl07 wrote...

simply put a nuke solves all look at WWII a couple nukes shut them up

Although I understand the principles of Shock and Awe, nuking Japan wasn't necessary.

Reapers?  I'd imagine there'd be better things than nukes.  Like, launching a nuke from a mass accelerator.

I always figured countering the Reapers' defences would involve the 'Klendagon Weapon'. I might just be reading into the background too much, but it's something to consider.

Actually it was necessary...if we didn't nuke them it would have taken years and years to conquer Japan as they were not going to surrender.  Just look at the islands Japan held in the pacific, some Japanese soldiers held out until the  1950s in their tunnel networks.  If we didn't nuke the plan was to invade Japan with everything we had, with the result being casualties much higher than what happened with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

I agree nukes suck, but you can't dismiss them like that without knowing history. 

[Killjoy Cutter]

VanguardtoDestruction wrote...

Cheese Elemental wrote...

smudboy wrote...

hamtyl07 wrote...

simply put a nuke solves all look at WWII a couple nukes shut them up

Although I understand the principles of Shock and Awe, nuking Japan wasn't necessary.

Reapers?  I'd imagine there'd be better things than nukes.  Like, launching a nuke from a mass accelerator.

I always figured countering the Reapers' defences would involve the 'Klendagon Weapon'. I might just be reading into the background too much, but it's something to consider.

Actually it was necessary...if we didn't nuke them it would have taken years and years to conquer Japan as they were not going to surrender.  Just look at the islands Japan held in the pacific, some Japanese soldiers held out until the  1950s in their tunnel networks.  If we didn't nuke the plan was to invade Japan with everything we had, with the result being casualties much higher than what happened with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

I agree nukes suck, but you can't dismiss them like that without knowing history. 

The use of atomic weapons to end WWII on the Pacific/Japanese front? 

Absolutely the least bad option at the time.  An invasion would have lead to far more Japanese deaths, and far more Allied deaths.  Japan was no near to surrender, and even after TWO atomic bombings, it took the personal intervention of the Japanese Emperor and the failure of a coup attempt before Japan actually surrendered.

[Count Viceroy]

I support the use of nuclear weapons against this thread.

[Moiaussi]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

The use of atomic weapons to end WWII on the Pacific/Japanese front? 

Absolutely the least bad option at the time.  An invasion would have lead to far more Japanese deaths, and far more Allied deaths.  Japan was no near to surrender, and even after TWO atomic bombings, it took the personal intervention of the Japanese Emperor and the failure of a coup attempt before Japan actually surrendered.

At the time though, nukes were the new super weapon that noone else had. Suggesting that the same weapon or tactics would work in an entirely different war against a vastly higher tech opponent is problematic.

[DaVanguard]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

VanguardtoDestruction wrote...

Cheese Elemental wrote...

smudboy wrote...

hamtyl07 wrote...

simply put a nuke solves all look at WWII a couple nukes shut them up

Although I understand the principles of Shock and Awe, nuking Japan wasn't necessary.

Reapers?  I'd imagine there'd be better things than nukes.  Like, launching a nuke from a mass accelerator.

I always figured countering the Reapers' defences would involve the 'Klendagon Weapon'. I might just be reading into the background too much, but it's something to consider.

Actually it was necessary...if we didn't nuke them it would have taken years and years to conquer Japan as they were not going to surrender.  Just look at the islands Japan held in the pacific, some Japanese soldiers held out until the  1950s in their tunnel networks.  If we didn't nuke the plan was to invade Japan with everything we had, with the result being casualties much higher than what happened with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

I agree nukes suck, but you can't dismiss them like that without knowing history. 

The use of atomic weapons to end WWII on the Pacific/Japanese front? 

Absolutely the least bad option at the time.  An invasion would have lead to far more Japanese deaths, and far more Allied deaths.  Japan was no near to surrender, and even after TWO atomic bombings, it took the personal intervention of the Japanese Emperor and the failure of a coup attempt before Japan actually surrendered.

from what I remember it had been estamated that five million US troops would have lost their lives if we invaded and who knows how many japanese would have died.