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[Sandbox47]

Tali says at some point (I don't know if it's in ME or ME2) that she would rather enter a battle on one of the Flotilla ships because she would feel safer about something she herself had worked on. It suggests that she feels that a Flotilla ship can hold it's own in a battle. Also, remember that though the ships are old, it doesn't mean that they are run down. Hand repairs and ineffective repairs are two different things.

I could make a computer, that wouldn't mean that it's reliable, but does it have to mean that it's worse than any other? (Alright, I couldn't make a computer, but my point is still valid, we trust companies too much to see the value of hand craft).

[General User]

Technology only changes the context within which historical realities are applied?


Admiral White Haven approves +10

Modifié par General User, 14 janvier 2011 - 10:53 .

[Jzadek72]

General User wrote...

Jzadek72 wrote...

General User wrote...

Nukes aren’t designed to come into physical contact with their targets. They explode prior to impact.
 
The idea is not to go for sheer quantity of energy, so much as to use a form of energy the Reapers have not yet demonstrated any defense against, ie heat.
 
Kinetic barriers are specifically mentioned as being useless against heat. So if a nuke, even in deep space, exploded less than 100 meters or so short of a Reaper's kinetic barrier…
 
Nukes also have the advantage of being mass producible, by the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) and deliverable by almost any means imaginable, from mass accelerators, to missiles, to fighter craft.

A nuke is still inefficient, because, in space, the nuke needs to transfer heat in a way that isn't convection or conduction. Radiation is the only way, but it is painfully inefficient. The amount of energy the Reaper recieved would be much smaller than the nuke's payload. There would have to be simpler ways of applying it.

Aye, conventional nukes in deep space are radically inefficient in terms of delivering destructive energy to a target. Since the energy of a nuclear explosion radiates in all directions,the most they can hope for is to create a (really rather small) “area of effect”, delivering damage to whatever portions of a Reaper might happen to be in that area.
 
Though even this need not necessarily be the case. Being far better informed on the matter than I, a fellow poster on these forums by the username ‘adam-grif’ has written many excellent posts on the subject of how the destructive energy of a nuclear blast could be channeled or focused.
 
adam_grif’s posts are very well written and well worth the read. In a nutshell the idea is broadly similar to that of a shaped charge, or an EFP, only with an eye towards channeling different forms of energy such as X-rays.
 
The name escapes me, but someone once said “quantity has a quality all its own.” Inefficient though they may be, nukes can penetrate Reaper barriers and can be built and deployed in massive numbers.

You have a point, but I think it would be much more effective (and epic) to move mass relays into places. They can fire a ship from one end of the galaxy to another nearly instantaneously. Now put a Reaper in front of the ship or chunk of metal coming out the end of the relay. I think that might be revealed to be the secret behind Klendagon.

Modifié par Jzadek72, 14 janvier 2011 - 11:17 .

[Tasker]

General User wrote...

Technology only changes the context within which historical realities are applied?


Admiral White Haven approves +10

Give Admiral Harrington the fleet and the Reapers are dead before they can fire a shot.

Modifié par Orkboy, 14 janvier 2011 - 11:21 .

[General User]

Jzadek72 wrote...
You have a point, but I think it would be much more effective (and epic) to move mass relays into places. They can fire a ship from one end of the galaxy to another nearly instantaneously. Now put a Reaper in front of the ship or chunk of metal coming out the end of the relay. I think that might be revealed to be the secret behind Klendagon.

Now, it’s my understanding that the “drift” associated with exiting a mass relay can be up to several thousand kilometers. How do you propose to target such a weapon at a maneuvering starship under those conditions? The Dark Switches perhaps?  But how would you aim?
 
Unless you intend to strike a planet as a whole… Perhaps a planet where the Reapers are landing in every major city? 

In which case you'd still have to maneuver the mass relay into position.  How would the "tug boats" avoid detection and destruction?

Modifié par General User, 14 janvier 2011 - 11:34 .

[Jzadek72]

General User wrote...

Jzadek72 wrote...
You have a point, but I think it would be much more effective (and epic) to move mass relays into places. They can fire a ship from one end of the galaxy to another nearly instantaneously. Now put a Reaper in front of the ship or chunk of metal coming out the end of the relay. I think that might be revealed to be the secret behind Klendagon.

Now, it’s my understanding that the “drift” associated with exiting a mass relay can be up to several thousand kilometers. How do you propose to target such a weapon at a maneuvering starship under those conditions? The Dark Switches perhaps?  But how would you aim?
 
Unless you intend to strike a planet as a whole… Perhaps a planet where the Reapers are landing in every major city? 

In which case you'd still have to maneuver the mass relay into position.  How would the "tug boats" avoid detection and destruction?

The Reaper fleet I'm assuming will be large. Hope to hit one, and the shrapnel will have similar energy. Or alternatively refine it like the Reaper IFF did.

Oh, and your sig is bang on.

Modifié par Jzadek72, 14 janvier 2011 - 11:42 .

[General User]

Thanks. And I like my dog too!

Even assuming that the refined transit protocols were a function of the IFF and not the Omega-4 relay itself (which may or may not be the case), how do you propose to get even a single Reaper, let alone an entire fleet, into the exit zone of a relay?

Modifié par General User, 14 janvier 2011 - 11:56 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Clearly, we must chase the Reapers!

[Winterfly]

Sandbox47 wrote...

Tali says at some point (I don't know if it's in ME or ME2) that she would rather enter a battle on one of the Flotilla ships because she would feel safer about something she herself had worked on. It suggests that she feels that a Flotilla ship can hold it's own in a battle. Also, remember that though the ships are old, it doesn't mean that they are run down. Hand repairs and ineffective repairs are two different things.
I could make a computer, that wouldn't mean that it's reliable, but does it have to mean that it's worse than any other? (Alright, I couldn't make a computer, but my point is still valid, we trust companies too much to see the value of hand craft).

I would even say that their ships might have a ton of upgrades and build in a time when one put more energy into making heavy, strong ships while today, there is "peace" and the ships are slimmer, faster and so on. Volvo is one of those brands who made a car which today was the bane of the company. It still today barely breaks down and is the best car they made for the consumer. 

[Dean_the_Young]

We should keep in mind that the Quarians get more use out of what they have than anyone else. It's them, after all, and not, say, the Alliance or the Council or even Cerberus, which is the source for the advanced shielding technology we need in ME2 for a perfect runthrough.

[adam_grif]

In a nutshell the idea is broadly similar to that of a shaped charge, or an EFP, only with an eye towards channeling different forms of energy such as X-rays.

In short, you surround a nuclear device with an X-ray opaque shell on all sides except the "front" (front defined as the direction you're channeling the explosion). This results in a spear of plama ejecting in a narrow cone (significantly less than 30 degrees), where it travels at a very high speed (the narrower the cone, the higher the speed).



In long, you surround a nuclear device with an X-ray opaque shell on all sides except the "front". This causes the majority of the X-rays (which are the main form of energy release from an A-bomb, the blast, heatwave etc are all secondary effects caused by the X-rays interacting with the atmosphere) to move forwards, where they run straight into a plate of metal (Tungsten was the material used in the initial designs but others are more desirable for a weaponized version). The metal is superheated, and ends up spraying out in a cone whose angle is controlled by the atomic mass of the material being heated.



This makes it, effectively, an extremely powerful single shot particle beam. The Project Orion study responsible for inventing this concept estimated that 85% of the energy of the nuclear detonation would get channeled in the direction you wanted, which is an enormous improvement over a conventional omnidirectional explosion. It is unknown if any prototypes were constructed since many details of the project are still classified.



Regarding the Mass Effect universe, specifically. this should be a fantastic weapon. The reasoning is that the beam produced by the nuclear shaped charge, that of a super-hot metal flung at an extremely high speed, is awfully similar in concept to that of the Thanix gun, only the metal is even hotter (it's in a plasma state instead of just liquid) and there is considerably more energy pumped into it. Given that the Thanix gun's energy is supploeid by the ship's power planet, and Dreadnoughts produce 38 kt slugs, this can easily outclass that firepower since fission-fusion warheads easily scale into the "hundreds of kilotonnes" in shockingly small packages. 85% of 100 KT is 85 KT, compared to 38 with a Dreadnought.



We also know that the Thanix is "more effective" than standard mass driver weaponry, since the energy output of a ship substantially less massive than a cruiser is capable of doing damage to other ships on par with a cruiser. Even fighters are said to mount the Thanix that the SR2 had, and also wield "cruiser firepower". There's no way a fighter power plant matches a cruiser power plant, ergo the stream of hot, fast moving metal is more effective htan a solid slug.



Since this is even hotter and even faster moving, and has much higher overall yield, and can be mounted on fighters, frigates or whatever you want, it should be the most powerful weapon ever conceived in-universe.

[Yakko77]

StarGateGod wrote...

why do we doubt the combat ability of the quarians? the are very tech specialists

I don't doubt the combat abilities of the quarians but I do wonder about the percentage of ships in the quarian fleet that are combat capable.  If their fleet is mostly salvaged wrecks and transport ships then what good is that against a Reaper fleet?  Still, one would have to assume a decent percentage of the fleet is armed and capable of defending itself or else the Geth would've swarmed in and finished off the "creator threat" a long time ago.

[GuardianAngel470]

Evac vessels, especially the big ones. Protected by Geth, turian, Human, Asari, Salarian, Rachni, or any combination thereof.



Think about it, that fleet houses comfortably (relatively) 17 million people that are the size of humans. You could pack more than that in them for short range trips just fine, maybe even 19-20 million. Certainly not an entire home planet like Earth or Palaven but a colony.

[GuardianAngel470]

Yakko77 wrote...

StarGateGod wrote...

why do we doubt the combat ability of the quarians? the are very tech specialists

I don't doubt the combat abilities of the quarians but I do wonder about the percentage of ships in the quarian fleet that are combat capable.  If their fleet is mostly salvaged wrecks and transport ships then what good is that against a Reaper fleet?  Still, one would have to assume a decent percentage of the fleet is armed and capable of defending itself or else the Geth would've swarmed in and finished off the "creator threat" a long time ago.

It wouldn't cost much to make them combat worthy.  Its the difference between building a ship from scratch and modifying a ship to be on par with the Normandy.