287 réponses à ce sujet

[GnusmasTHX]

Warrior Craess wrote...

Umm the Taurians have carriers as well.  it's the reason they didn't have a strong pressence at the Relay, they used Carriers to gain intel.  And according to the codex, there are 85 Dreadnaughts in existance in 2186.   Most of those are probably still in play.  While I agree that we couldn't win a conventional war, it's not becuase the military isn't capable of devizing tactics that could beat the reapers.  We can no longer win becuase we've lost the ability to repair, resupply and rebuild, and the ability to communicate and coordinate effectively outside of the local area. 

Maybe they do, never heard of them using any.

Also I very much doubt all those dreadnoughts are in play. The turians lose a lot. You can assume the Alliane lost about half, seeing as how they're only ever seen with at most 4 or 5 dreadnoughts.

[Warrior Craess]

111987 wrote...

ronnok wrote...

111987 wrote...

ronnok wrote...

111987 wrote...

No way could we have won conventionally. If on average, one new Reaper Capital ship is added to their overall ranks each cycle (they lose a few, make a few so roughly it evens out; if it didn't, the Reapers would have adjusted their plans or they would slowly be dying out), and we know the Reapers are at LEAST 1 billion years old (Leviathan of Dis), that suggests there are about 20,000 Reaper Capital ships. Even if you want to divide that in half, that's 10,000 to deal with. Not to mention the thousands of Destroyers (it's stated Destroyers make up the bulk of the Reaper fleet).

The Turians and Geth have about 80 dreadnaughts total, the Asari 20, the Salarians 16, the Humans 8. This is also at the start of the war; we know each of the races has lost dreadnaughts. So even though on average you need 3-4 dreadnaughts to take down one Reaper Capital ship, the Reapers FAR outnumber the Citadel races dreadnaughts (which are the only real threats to Reaper Capital ships).

if that were true i think the cycle would be complete alot faster....

The galaxy is a big place, my friend.

How the hell could the turians have any resistance at all if there were thousands of reaper capital ships attacking palaven alone. their fleet would not have just been pushed back and suffered heavy losses, they would have been obliterated almost immediately. no resistance they would be just gone. and what exactly in the game provides you with evidence of 10,000 reaper capital ships anyway?

The Reaper forces were obviously spread out.

Read my post closely.

Correct, reaper forces are spread out, which gives it some vulnerablity.  If Shepards' warning had been taken serioously then Council forces could have been consildated, and they could respond in overwhelming force in 1 area, destroy the reapers there, then bug out to a hidden repair/resupply/rebuild facility to recover. 

If the military option had been seriously considered from the beginning, and the approriate actions taken, then a military victory wouldn't be all that far fetched.  

As it stands, there isn't a snowballs chance in a nuclear explosion of us winning a conventional war. 

[Yokokorama]

You know . . . they could have just used remote controlled asteroids like they did in the Arrival to soften up the Reaper forces. Then, once the Reapers are weakened, the main fleet can come and definitely beat them with conventional means.

[GnusmasTHX]

Yokokorama wrote...

You know . . . they could have just used remote controlled asteroids like they did in the Arrival to soften up the Reaper forces. Then, once the Reapers are weakened, the main fleet can come and definitely beat them with conventional means.

See... Posts like these make it seem like it's beyond the realm of possibility that the Reapers devise new tactics as well. 

Granted they have a shoddy track record, but they could.

All these tactics could be employed by the Reapers too. In fact the Reapers would probably do it better.

Or, you know. The Reapers finally remember they can turn off the Relays.

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 25 mars 2012 - 04:08 .

[Grasich]

Remember what Javik says: Our best hope is in the diversity of the species we have. In uniting that diversity, he believed we had a chance and HE SAW THE LAST CYCLE.

So I would say that we were already NOT using conventional methods by the very fact that we had united the galaxy. Previous cycles had their governments annihilated in the very beginning by taking over the Citadel, and were split up with no warning.

In this cycle we had warning, we did not lose the Citadel until the very end, and had the united force of a diverse galaxy.

That is not conventional already, and by using that, I would say they should have let us win WITHOUT the crucible.

[Jenop]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Should also point out that, even without this theory-crafting, a high-EMS SWORD Fleet doesn't win.

If you consider the purpose of the fleet is to protect the Crucible, and that Harbinger has the freedom to detach himself from his own forces (along with some other Reapers) just to annihilate Hammer, it's obvious that he isn't feeling the heat up there. Considering the fact that Reapers can destroy the Crucible, and that they're right outside the window when you're up there, it's obvious that the SWORD fleet fails to maintain space superiority, regardless of your EMS.

And again, it's unlikely that those are the bulk of the Reaper forces, and they are yours.

So I ask, why didn't they destroy the Crucible to begin with? Or the fleet that was in it? Or why didn't they destroy the fleet protecting the Crucible while it was still in construction, along with the Crucible itself?

Because it was hidden, obviously.

While it was being constructed, sure. But the moment it shows up on the battlefield, it's left untouched, along with the attacking fleet. The Crucible remained attatched to the Citadel for how long? Then there's also the time it took to actually set up, plenty of time for the superior forces of the Reapers to attack and destroy it, yet they left it untouched.

Because of plot, and for whatever reason, the Reapers didn't care enough.

Even then, the Crucible can be destroyed if you wait long enough.

But they knew it was an anti Reaper WMD, since it's been around for as long as it has. The Prothean VI on Thessia says that it wasn't Prothean design, but had been around since the first cycle, and each cycle since then had added their own twist on it. So the Reapers knew what it was, yet they did nothing to stop it.

Ok, honestly, we should stop arguing this point ... it's a plot hole, we're going nowhere fast. Agree to Disagree?

I don't get you.

All I said was the inability of the Sword fleet to protect the Crucible completely and Harbinger's and his retinues ability to leave the battle was indicative of the fact that they were winning the space battle.

If there was an argument, it wasn't with me.

I disagree. Just because Harbinger left the battle doesn't mean that they were winning the space battle, it's not neccesarily indicative of anything. Harbinger broke away with something like 2 other Reapers, a rather small force. And if the SWORD fleet couldn't protect the Crucible, then wouldn't the Crucible have been destroyed before it could make it's way to the Citadel?

We don't ever get a clear picture of the Space Battle or the Ground Battle, we get snippets. Even when Shepard and Anderson are sitting in the Citadel with the arms open, we see small fighters flying past the open arms, and even smaller explosions, we don't actually see the massive ships attacking one another. So in the end, there is no hint of how the actual battle is progressing.

When your left flank is being hit, you don't keep pushing forward and hope the left will take care of itself, you send a detachment to go take care of the left flank. The size of this detachment is dictated by how well you are doing in your initial battle. If you are winning, you send a large force for mop up, if you are losing, you send what you can spare to slow them down. If you are caught in a dead lock, you again send what you can spare.

What I saw was the Reapers sending what they could spare. It was Harbinger who personally stopped the assault onto the Citadel, and only Harbinger. The other Reapers landed a distance away, in different directions to handle different threats. It also seemed to me that Harbinger got a message from the ground saying that we were charging the beam. It's kind of the equivalent of splitting up a squad.

"Perkins, Nash, Harbinger and Simmons, head to the ground and stop them from getting to the beam! The rest of you on me! Make it count boys!"

Again, that's what it seems like to me, and again I say we agree to disagree.

[Americ4nPunk]

Jenop wrote...

SaltyWaffles-PD wrote...

Americ4nPunk wrote...

Looking at how badly Sovereign tore the whole alliance fleet up at the end of the first. I'd say no

It didn't, actually. It took out several cruisers, but that's it. It was only faced with a dozen or so cruisers, period. And Sovereign went down pretty quickly (or at least that's how the Codex suggests it).

It's important to note that capital class Reapers are sometimes referred to as "Sovereign-class"; and the Codex confirms that it only takes 3-4 dreadnaughts to bring them down.

Lets also not forget that it wasn't just Sovereign in that fight, it was the Geth too. So it's pretty safe to assume that a little over half of the total losses were Geth related and not purely Sovereign. After all, Sovereign was pretty busy trying to activate the Citadel's Mass Relay so he didn't do a lot of fighting.

Damn, my memory seems to be fuzzier than I thought I completely forgot most of that battle including the geth. Oh well thanks for clearing that up.

Anyway I was sort of expecting that everybody would try to pull off another mass relay destruction and trap the majority of the reapers in the sol system to buy additional time. Might be wrong again though...

Modifié par Americ4nPunk, 25 mars 2012 - 04:12 .

[Elyiia]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Yokokorama wrote...

You know . . . they could have just used remote controlled asteroids like they did in the Arrival to soften up the Reaper forces. Then, once the Reapers are weakened, the main fleet can come and definitely beat them with conventional means.

See... Posts like these make it seem like it's beyond the realm of possibility that the Reapers devise new tactics as well. 

Granted they have a shoddy track record, but they could.

All these tactics could be employed by the Reapers too. In fact the Reapers would probably do it better.

Or, you know. The Reapers finally remember they can turn off the Relays.

It's unlikely the Reapers would be using similar tactics to what the galaxy forces would be using. If you're fighting to survive you're more likely to accept radical tactics. The Reapers wouldn't be nuking themselves to take out the enemy/stop being captured. Not to mention it's in the Reapers best interests to NOT kill as many as possible.

[Corvus74]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Yokokorama wrote...

You know . . . they could have just used remote controlled asteroids like they did in the Arrival to soften up the Reaper forces. Then, once the Reapers are weakened, the main fleet can come and definitely beat them with conventional means.

See... Posts like these make it seem like it's beyond the realm of possibility that the Reapers devise new tactics as well. 

Granted they have a shoddy track record, but they could.

All these tactics could be employed by the Reapers too. In fact the Reapers would probably do it better.

Or, you know. The Reapers finally remember they can turn off the Relays.

They had been carrying out the exact same strategy for the last 37 million to 1 billion years (depending on who you listen to).  When that didn't work, the next three strategies they tried (Rachni, Saren, Collectors) all failed.

Going on track record the Reapers well and truely suck at devising new tactics.

[GnusmasTHX]

Jenop wrote...

I disagree. Just because Harbinger left the battle doesn't mean that they were winning the space battle, it's not neccesarily indicative of anything. Harbinger broke away with something like 2 other Reapers, a rather small force. And if the SWORD fleet couldn't protect the Crucible, then wouldn't the Crucible have been destroyed before it could make it's way to the Citadel?

We don't ever get a clear picture of the Space Battle or the Ground Battle, we get snippets. Even when Shepard and Anderson are sitting in the Citadel with the arms open, we see small fighters flying past the open arms, and even smaller explosions, we don't actually see the massive ships attacking one another. So in the end, there is no hint of how the actual battle is progressing.

When your left flank is being hit, you don't keep pushing forward and hope the left will take care of itself, you send a detachment to go take care of the left flank. The size of this detachment is dictated by how well you are doing in your initial battle. If you are winning, you send a large force for mop up, if you are losing, you send what you can spare to slow them down. If you are caught in a dead lock, you again send what you can spare.

What I saw was the Reapers sending what they could spare. It was Harbinger who personally stopped the assault onto the Citadel, and only Harbinger. The other Reapers landed a distance away, in different directions to handle different threats. It also seemed to me that Harbinger got a message from the ground saying that we were charging the beam. It's kind of the equivalent of splitting up a squad.

"Perkins, Nash, Harbinger and Simmons, head to the ground and stop them from getting to the beam! The rest of you on me! Make it count boys!"

Again, that's what it seems like to me, and again I say we agree to disagree.

It's indicative of the fact that the leader of the Reapers didn't think it was necessary to be up there.

At the end of all that, too, there are still Reapers on the surface, landing on the surface in fact. I guess every Reaper thought the next Reaper would take care of the Crucible, but by the end they were allocating resources to mop up Hammer rather than Sword. I don't think they'd have three full dreadnoughts on the ground at all, let alone start landing Destroyers if it's going poorly up there. And that's at the very end, right before the Crucible goes off.

The Crucible doesn't come under fire until sometime after it docks, and it can be destroyed if you delay long enough. Obviously whatever afforded it protection from when it docks 'till then doesn't last long enough.

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 25 mars 2012 - 04:32 .

[Lyrandori]

The Thanix Cannon's related information for ME3 says:

« After the Battle of the Citadel, human and turian volunteers spent three months clearing the station's orbit of debris. During the cleanup, the turians secretly salvaged Sovereign's powerful main gun along with much of the weapon's element zero core. Eleven months later, the turians introduced the Thanix, a scaled-down version of the weapon. The Thanix's core is a liquid alloy of iron, uranium, and tungsten suspended in an electromagnetic field powered by element zero. The molten metal, accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, solidifies into a projectile as it is fired, hitting targets with enough force to pierce any known shield or armor. The gun can fire reliably every five seconds. The weapon's relatively small size allows it to be mounted on most fighters or frigates. It is now widely used by the Alliance military and is the primary weapon on the refurbished Normandy SR-2. »

The bolded part is when I had a good laugh. If the Alliance had indeed used it as often as it seems to be implied that it is widely bieng used by them, then I'm pretty sure that we would have SEEN it happen, no? Can anyone recall seeing a SINGLE Alliance ship at the end firing a Thanix-like cannon just ONCE?

Modifié par Lyrandori, 25 mars 2012 - 04:26 .

[Elyiia]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

I disagree. Just because Harbinger left the battle doesn't mean that they were winning the space battle, it's not neccesarily indicative of anything. Harbinger broke away with something like 2 other Reapers, a rather small force. And if the SWORD fleet couldn't protect the Crucible, then wouldn't the Crucible have been destroyed before it could make it's way to the Citadel?

We don't ever get a clear picture of the Space Battle or the Ground Battle, we get snippets. Even when Shepard and Anderson are sitting in the Citadel with the arms open, we see small fighters flying past the open arms, and even smaller explosions, we don't actually see the massive ships attacking one another. So in the end, there is no hint of how the actual battle is progressing.

When your left flank is being hit, you don't keep pushing forward and hope the left will take care of itself, you send a detachment to go take care of the left flank. The size of this detachment is dictated by how well you are doing in your initial battle. If you are winning, you send a large force for mop up, if you are losing, you send what you can spare to slow them down. If you are caught in a dead lock, you again send what you can spare.

What I saw was the Reapers sending what they could spare. It was Harbinger who personally stopped the assault onto the Citadel, and only Harbinger. The other Reapers landed a distance away, in different directions to handle different threats. It also seemed to me that Harbinger got a message from the ground saying that we were charging the beam. It's kind of the equivalent of splitting up a squad.

"Perkins, Nash, Harbinger and Simmons, head to the ground and stop them from getting to the beam! The rest of you on me! Make it count boys!"

Again, that's what it seems like to me, and again I say we agree to disagree.

It's indicative of the fact that the leader of the Reapers didn't think it was necessary to be up there.

At the end of all that, too, there are still Reapers on the surface, landing on the surface in fact. I guess every Reaper thought the next Reaper would take care of the Crucible, but by the end they were allocating resources to mop up Hammer rather than Sword. I don't think they'd have three full dreadnoughts on the ground at all, let alone start landing Destroyers if it's going poorly up there.

The Crucible doesn't come under fire until sometime after it docks, and it can be destroyed if you delay long enough. Obviously whatever afforded it protection from when it docks 'till then doesn't last long enough.

Or Harby realised that Shep getting to the teleporter was more important than having a few more dreadnoughts in the sky.

[Warrior Craess]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Warrior Craess wrote...

Umm the Taurians have carriers as well.  it's the reason they didn't have a strong pressence at the Relay, they used Carriers to gain intel.  And according to the codex, there are 85 Dreadnaughts in existance in 2186.   Most of those are probably still in play.  While I agree that we couldn't win a conventional war, it's not becuase the military isn't capable of devizing tactics that could beat the reapers.  We can no longer win becuase we've lost the ability to repair, resupply and rebuild, and the ability to communicate and coordinate effectively outside of the local area. 

Maybe they do, never heard of them using any.

Also I very much doubt all those dreadnoughts are in play. The turians lose a lot. You can assume the Alliane lost about half, seeing as how they're only ever seen with at most 4 or 5 dreadnoughts.

Read the codex entry for the Battle of Palaven. 

When Taetrus fell, the turians knew little about the Reapers except that they wanted to enrage the turians. Staying calm, the turians massed force around Palaven, their homeworld. Fleet Admiral Irix Coronati, in what became known as the "Fifteen-Minute Plan," stationed only two carriers, Undaunted and Resolute, near the system's relay. When the Reaper fleet emerged, the carriers launched swarms of unmanned fighters and spy drones.   

Modifié par Warrior Craess, 25 mars 2012 - 04:30 .

[GnusmasTHX]

Elyiia wrote...


Or Harby realised that Shep getting to the teleporter was more important than having a few more dreadnoughts in the sky.

If Harbinger knew or cared that Shepard was there, Shepard would've died.

[Jenop]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

I disagree. Just because Harbinger left the battle doesn't mean that they were winning the space battle, it's not neccesarily indicative of anything. Harbinger broke away with something like 2 other Reapers, a rather small force. And if the SWORD fleet couldn't protect the Crucible, then wouldn't the Crucible have been destroyed before it could make it's way to the Citadel?

We don't ever get a clear picture of the Space Battle or the Ground Battle, we get snippets. Even when Shepard and Anderson are sitting in the Citadel with the arms open, we see small fighters flying past the open arms, and even smaller explosions, we don't actually see the massive ships attacking one another. So in the end, there is no hint of how the actual battle is progressing.

When your left flank is being hit, you don't keep pushing forward and hope the left will take care of itself, you send a detachment to go take care of the left flank. The size of this detachment is dictated by how well you are doing in your initial battle. If you are winning, you send a large force for mop up, if you are losing, you send what you can spare to slow them down. If you are caught in a dead lock, you again send what you can spare.

What I saw was the Reapers sending what they could spare. It was Harbinger who personally stopped the assault onto the Citadel, and only Harbinger. The other Reapers landed a distance away, in different directions to handle different threats. It also seemed to me that Harbinger got a message from the ground saying that we were charging the beam. It's kind of the equivalent of splitting up a squad.

"Perkins, Nash, Harbinger and Simmons, head to the ground and stop them from getting to the beam! The rest of you on me! Make it count boys!"

Again, that's what it seems like to me, and again I say we agree to disagree.

It's indicative of the fact that the leader of the Reapers didn't think it was necessary to be up there.

At the end of all that, too, there are still Reapers on the surface, landing on the surface in fact. I guess every Reaper thought the next Reaper would take care of the Crucible, but by the end they were allocating resources to mop up Hammer rather than Sword. I don't think they'd have three full dreadnoughts on the ground at all, let alone start landing Destroyers if it's going poorly up there.

The Crucible doesn't come under fire until sometime after it docks, and it can be destroyed if you delay long enough. Obviously whatever afforded it protection from when it docks 'till then doesn't last long enough.

Still though, there was a rather long period of time from when the Crucible arrived in the Sol System to reach the Citadel. Since the Mass Relay is located past Pluto, then the Crucible would have quite a long ways to travel, all the while being vulnerable to attack, along with it's fleet. If the Reapers were good at any sort of tactics, they would have staged an ambush on the way to Earth from the Relay, but we know they didn't since the main fleet managed to make it to Earth and have a short Mexican Stand Off with the Reaper forces before engaging.

If the Reapers were really winning the space battle, then it wouldn't have been too much for the Reaper commander to give an order to send two or three Reapers off to destroy SWORD and the Crucible, since apparently their eye-beam can cut through most ship hulls like butter. The SWORD fleet would have been destroyed, and the Crucible severely crippled.

I don't mean when the Crucible reaches the Citadel and just sits there, I mean on it's way there too. But since Reapers were being deployed to the ground, why wouldn't they have chosen to focus on the Death Star size ship that just decided to come waltzing through the system like "Hey guys, just gonna plug myself into the Citadel, don't mind me". Surely in the scheme of things, the biggest object on the field would equal the most dangerous.

[GnusmasTHX]

The Reapers send at least one dreadnought to destroy the Crucible, and apparently it's enough, given enough time.

[Jenop]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

The Reapers send at least one dreadnought to destroy the Crucible, and apparently it's enough, given enough time.

Not trying to be snarky, really not, but do you have proof? I would honestly love to see it.

[GnusmasTHX]

Jenop wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

The Reapers send at least one dreadnought to destroy the Crucible, and apparently it's enough, given enough time.

Not trying to be snarky, really not, but do you have proof? I would honestly love to see it.

Well seeing as how you can see one Reaper from the Crucible, and if you wait long enough the Crucible is destroyed, then the two go hand in hand, really.

[That EMT 5410]

I think semi-conventional warfare could have been used. The tactics in the arrival DLC was a little along the lines of what could have been used to defeat the reapers.

Think about this (this is based on my understanding of mass relays and mass effect cores)

The Element Zero in a mass relay is powerful enough to not just nullify the mass of an object, but in fact can give the object "imaginary" mass, therefore allowing it to travel at superluminal speeds.

Remember the DLC in ME1 where you had to save a planet from a mining asteroid which had thrusters attached to it?

You could apply this twice, once to a mass relay and again to another asteroid in order to "aim" the mass relay.

So pretty much giant slingshot of doom. I don't see a reaper evading a FTL slug a few thousand kilometers in diameter LOL

[Jenop]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Jenop wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

The Reapers send at least one dreadnought to destroy the Crucible, and apparently it's enough, given enough time.

Not trying to be snarky, really not, but do you have proof? I would honestly love to see it.

Well seeing as how you can see one Reaper from the Crucible, and if you wait long enough the Crucible is destroyed, then the two go hand in hand, really.

I thought the Crucible was destroyed by it's own activation and not from lack of use. Do you have to wait a long time and not listen to the God-child for it to happen?

[Skyblade012]

Against the massed force of the Reapers, no.

Against bits of them at a time (jump to system en masse, eliminate Reapers, move on), yes.

Part of why I hate the ending. I'd just turn off the relays, and use the Crucible to wipe out Reapers in the local cluster (getting the majority right there), then just jump the fleet one system at a time to clean out the rest.

[Wolven_Soul]

Well, a big thresher maw managed to kill a reaper, and Shepherd managed to kill two of them on foot.  Okay, he just painted the target for the one on Rannoch, but still.  He faced down two Reapers on foot.  The second time it just took a single missile launch.  It is hard to take Reapers as truly being this great unstoppable force with those two scenes. 

[Legbiter]

Not according to Hackett. That and a Manhattan Project, yes, barely.

[Aurawolf]

I think if you were going to try and win this war as just a straight up firefight you would at some point loss to many warships to be effective anymore. I do think a combined force using special forces with unconventional means such as the giant worm on Tuchanka to weaken their defenses it would become possible. You send in special forces to the planet’s surface they find several targets and sabotage them then send in the fleet to hit them during the confusion. You could lure the Reaper ships chasing the Normandy around the systems into a trap and take them out reducing the total number of reapers as you go.

The problem is you would have to change tactics often, or the Reapers adapt and take you apart. You would have to find new and interesting ways to attack the Reapers while they are harvesting worlds, and this would take years if not decades to reach a final victory unless you make leaps and bounds of progress in weapons and defense design to start overwhelming them with firepower.