318 réponses à ce sujet

[Slash1667]

Positronics wrote...

Slash1667 wrote...

Positronics wrote...

Stop equating the Reapers vs the Galaxy as the US vs the Vietcong/Iraqis/whatever. The difference between US and NVA tech was much much slimmer than Reaper/Galaxy tech, and btw, the motives for any war that Americans or Vietnamese or Iraqis wage would be far different than that of the Reapers. Vietnam was won by the North because invading Hanoi was politically impossible, the Reapers have no such restrictions.

The British could have absolutely destroyed us poor Americans during the Revolution, but they had way bigger fish to fry in the form of France, a rival superpower who was kicking their ass (with the help of Spain and the former Hapsburgs) in Europe and knocking on their doorstep.

Please stop the historic references, they are poorly made and sillly.

A guerilla war against Reapers would be just as silly. We would lose. Someone please explain to me how we could defeat them in a conventional sense, and I will explain how that person is wrong.

I just told you. The Galactic Forces probably wouldn't win using conventional warfare. You can't ignore historical references. They prove that winning with conventional weapons can be possible. Conventional warfight styles can not defeat the Reapers.

Tell me specifically then how they can be defeated, because just saying so doesn't make it true. There are 85 dreadnoughts in 2186, and most of those are destroyed by the time of the Battle of Earth. It takes 4 dreadnoughts to beat a Reaper. Being generous, that means 21 Sovereign-class Reapers have been destroyed by the time our dreadnought count reaches 0. There are at least 250 "big" Reapers out there. Battle of annihilation doesn't work, as shown by the "Miracle" and the ending. Attrition wouldn't work. The Reapers have no supply lines, can make new capital ships faster than we can, especially since their harvesting rates would be through the roof at that point. Your strategic depth works completely against you, because your numbers become their numbers. They already have half the galaxy wiped out, all of the Council races production centers are gone, and oh yeah, the galactic economy crashes in a year.

Explain how you win

Last response so don't bother replying.

A Reaper capital ship can't be replaced faster than a Galactic Dreadnaught.

1. IRC the Collectors harvested 100,000 colonist by the end of ME2 and didn't even have one half-built.

2. The Reapers have no safe zone to even think about building one.

3. In many sci-fi adventures (movies, books, games) it breaks down to roughly 1 Dreadnaught=2 Cruisers=4 to 6 frigates=2 12 ship fighter squadrons.

4. Ships are a non-issue. The Quarian fleet ALONE out numbers the Reaper fleet if the numbers in an earlier post are anywhere near accurate.

5. Everyone is fixating on Dreadnaughts. Saying that anything smaller can't harm a Reaper is false. Sting it enough and it will die.

6. While the majority of the Reaper fleet (as informed in game) is at earth, abandon earth and hit Palavan or Thessia. After clearing one system head to the next while the Reapers respond to the first attack.

7. Reaper capital ships can turn faster than a Galactic ship. Surround him and no matter where he turns he's STILL getting hit in the back.

8. Last but not least, Forget sending commando teams to the Citadel, Send them onboard the damn Reapers. Indoctrination is NOT instant. It takes time. Get in, set the charges, blow the core and get the hell out.

[RiouHotaru]

Those conventional strategies relay on a fair amount of luck, and usually incredible losses.

[Corvus74]

Positronics wrote...


Tell me specifically then how they can be defeated, because just saying so doesn't make it true. There are 85 dreadnoughts in 2186, and most of those are destroyed by the time of the Battle of Earth. It takes 4 dreadnoughts to beat a Reaper. Being generous, that means 21 Sovereign-class Reapers have been destroyed by the time our dreadnought count reaches 0. There are at least 250 "big" Reapers out there. Battle of annihilation doesn't work, as shown by the "Miracle" and the ending. Attrition wouldn't work. The Reapers have no supply lines, can make new capital ships faster than we can, especially since their harvesting rates would be through the roof at that point. Your strategic depth works completely against you, because your numbers become their numbers. They already have half the galaxy wiped out, all of the Council races production centers are gone, and oh yeah, the galactic economy crashes in a year.

Explain how you win

Er, wrong on a number of points.  There are 85 dreadnaughts in Citadel space to start with, and if anything they are more likely to survive than lighter units.  We have no idea how many exist outside Citadel space in the regions not governed by self limiting treaties.  We don't know how many the Geth, Quarians, Batarians and Terminus Races have.

We are told it takes the firepower of 4 DNs to overwhelm the shields of a Reaper capital ship.  They don't have to be DNs though - if two cruisers have the firepower of 1 DN, then all it takes is 8 cruisers.  And the grand alliance has tens of thousands of ships.  Moreso, we are told that Thanix weapons ignore shields, and a large portion of the fleet has been fitted out with those weapons.  We also see what happens to a Reaper without its shields - it dies rather easily.

Geth production has not been touched yet, and they would be able to build faster than anyone around - and did you see that monster Dreadnaught they built?  It survived a pounding far better than any Reaper we ever saw.  Give the Geth Thanix weapons to mount on them and get them to churn out those ships (with allied crews) and the Reapers are in all sorts of trouble.

And the Reapers can not make up for the losses they had already sustianed in this Cycle prio to the battle at Earth.  We are told they produce one, and only one, capital ship per cycle, plus a bunch of destroyers (which, according to the Codex make up the vast majority of their forces and can be destroyed by mere fighters).  In a battle of attrittion they loose.

[Sangheili_1337]

Slash1667 wrote...

Positronics wrote...

Slash1667 wrote...

Positronics wrote...

Stop equating the Reapers vs the Galaxy as the US vs the Vietcong/Iraqis/whatever. The difference between US and NVA tech was much much slimmer than Reaper/Galaxy tech, and btw, the motives for any war that Americans or Vietnamese or Iraqis wage would be far different than that of the Reapers. Vietnam was won by the North because invading Hanoi was politically impossible, the Reapers have no such restrictions.

The British could have absolutely destroyed us poor Americans during the Revolution, but they had way bigger fish to fry in the form of France, a rival superpower who was kicking their ass (with the help of Spain and the former Hapsburgs) in Europe and knocking on their doorstep.

Please stop the historic references, they are poorly made and sillly.

A guerilla war against Reapers would be just as silly. We would lose. Someone please explain to me how we could defeat them in a conventional sense, and I will explain how that person is wrong.

I just told you. The Galactic Forces probably wouldn't win using conventional warfare. You can't ignore historical references. They prove that winning with conventional weapons can be possible. Conventional warfight styles can not defeat the Reapers.

Tell me specifically then how they can be defeated, because just saying so doesn't make it true. There are 85 dreadnoughts in 2186, and most of those are destroyed by the time of the Battle of Earth. It takes 4 dreadnoughts to beat a Reaper. Being generous, that means 21 Sovereign-class Reapers have been destroyed by the time our dreadnought count reaches 0. There are at least 250 "big" Reapers out there. Battle of annihilation doesn't work, as shown by the "Miracle" and the ending. Attrition wouldn't work. The Reapers have no supply lines, can make new capital ships faster than we can, especially since their harvesting rates would be through the roof at that point. Your strategic depth works completely against you, because your numbers become their numbers. They already have half the galaxy wiped out, all of the Council races production centers are gone, and oh yeah, the galactic economy crashes in a year.

Explain how you win

Last response so don't bother replying.

A Reaper capital ship can't be replaced faster than a Galactic Dreadnaught.

1. IRC the Collectors harvested 100,000 colonist by the end of ME2 and didn't even have one half-built.

2. The Reapers have no safe zone to even think about building one.

3. In many sci-fi adventures (movies, books, games) it breaks down to roughly 1 Dreadnaught=2 Cruisers=4 to 6 frigates=2 12 ship fighter squadrons.

4. Ships are a non-issue. The Quarian fleet ALONE out numbers the Reaper fleet if the numbers in an earlier post are anywhere near accurate.

5. Everyone is fixating on Dreadnaughts. Saying that anything smaller can't harm a Reaper is false. Sting it enough and it will die.

6. While the majority of the Reaper fleet (as informed in game) is at earth, abandon earth and hit Palavan or Thessia. After clearing one system head to the next while the Reapers respond to the first attack.

7. Reaper capital ships can turn faster than a Galactic ship. Surround him and no matter where he turns he's STILL getting hit in the back.

8. Last but not least, Forget sending commando teams to the Citadel, Send them onboard the damn Reapers. Indoctrination is NOT instant. It takes time. Get in, set the charges, blow the core and get the hell out.

1. I dont see any evidence that Reapers are slow to replenish their numbers. How would the cycles even work if they only a few ships in the beginning against a galaxy full of antagonists. We know Reapers were killed before, and yet they are still here and not attritioned to death over the millenia.

2. Wherever they have ships, they have a safe haven.

3. Other universes have no bearing on the Mass Effect universe.

4.The Reapers are able to engage multiple species on multiple fronts and still win. The Quarians cant even handle Reaper upgraded Geth. There is also no proof that the Quarians have higher numbers.

5. Reaper's shields recharge so rapidly that 3 dreadnaughts cant bring down their shields with indefinite fire. The scale is simply too large for smaller ships to do anything.

6. The Reapers still have a presence on all fronts. You are assuming that the galaxy alliance can even handle the Reapers on smaller fronts. Even if they could, hit and run tactics will not work when you enemy has twice your FTL speed and no need to feed them selves, do maintainance on their ships or refuel. The alliance has to go planetside to keep up the war effort and the Reapers would be waiting.

7. How would they be able to board a Reaper, it has never been done. You would have to blow their barriers away before boarding, it would be much simpler to destroy the ship if they even get to that point.

[bloodstone2007]

the reapers are fighting a war of attrition, the longer you wait the less you have in forcer or civilians and supply lines. I believe there was mention somewhere while playing that some resources were getting low and that they could only hold out for another year. What they fleet needs is a reaper one shot one kill, that I thought was the crucible/catalyst. Unfortunately we have no diffinitive proof that how the war on earth ends, and just speculation. If the ending are the end, then it is pretty bleak, since we still don;t know the state of the fleets. If its indoctrination theory is accurate then we have even less valid information.

[jarms48]

Positronics wrote...

Attrition wouldn't work. The Reapers have no supply lines, can make new capital ships faster than we can, especially since their harvesting rates would be through the roof at that point.

Explain how you win

Reaper weapons seem very counter productive in there intended goals of creating more Reapers the Laser weapons the Destroyers and Capital Ships possess are shown to disintegrate their targets leaving nothing for them to harvest. Also a point to be raised is can husks be converted into Reapers even after having their organics replaced with synthetic components as that would also be considered counter productive in space combat.

As evidence of the human reaper it takes hundreds of thousands of people to create a reaper. Even millions if we take sovereigns million minds one nation quote into account. In any case if the alliance still held any ship manufacturing infrastructure it would seem all that possible they could out produce the reapers with space faring vessels.

[HTTP 404]

the codex tells of a turian battles with reapers and noted that several reapers were taken out. Conventionally it is possible to destroy the reapers, however you would need a fleet for every 2 to 3 reapers to make it an even match. Thats even assuming this cycle is more advanced than the last due to Thanix and other reaper tech modified in the last 3 years.

If the reapers are more conventional "weak" as you say, then the amount of reapers would dwindle over the cycles, not increase. I am assuming, with all the human population in the world they could possibly create a dozen reapers? if they don't turn any humans to husks or annihilate them. The protheans existed for centuries after the reapers arrived only so that the reapers can harvest them without damaging (killing) their product.

[Corvus74]

Sangheili_1337 wrote...

1. I dont see any evidence that Reapers are slow to replenish their numbers. How would the cycles even work if they only a few ships in the beginning against a galaxy full of antagonists. We know Reapers were killed before, and yet they are still here and not attritioned to death over the millenia.

They do it by bushwaking their foes in such a way as to allow no chance at losses.  They hit the Citadel, shut down the Mass Relays and isolate the galaxy into small pockets that can be easily ovewhelmed by the entire Reaper force.  They had no need to split their forces like they did in the current cycle.

Modifié par Corvus74, 27 mars 2012 - 05:38 .

[Sangheili_1337]

In order for the Reapers to have the numbers that they have while making a single ship a cycle would mean they have to take zero losses over millions of years. It makes zero sense. Multiple Reapers are killed in ME 3 and the citadel races are far inferior to the Protheans in military strength. A Reaper was killed 37 million years ago. All evidence points to the Reapers having a far stronger industry than that of the organic races. We also see planet summaries all over the galaxy map of the Reapers destroying infrastructure. What you see in the final space battle is pretty much all the organic races could ever hope to muster.

[CroGamer002]

Sepharih wrote...

Arcian wrote...

Reasons why they cannot be beat conventionally:

1) Superior numbers.
2) Superior defense.
3) Superior firepower.
4) Huskification.
5) Indoctrination.

1) Superior numbers is pretty straightforward - if there's 5000 of us and 10000 of them, we're going to lose, even if we kill as many Reapers as they destroy our ships, which doesn't happen anyway because of 2) and 3).

2) Superior defense means it takes longer for us to kill one Reaper than it takes for one Reaper to destroy one of our ships.

3) Superior firepower means it takes them a quarter of the time to kill one of our ships than it does for us to kill one Reaper.

4) Ground forces captured and/or killed by the Reapers are transformed into husks, directly bolstering Reapers forces and extending the fight, made worse by 5).

5) The longer a fight drags on, the more psychological influence the Reapers exert on their enemies. If it takes long enough, allies are going to turn on each other.

This is why the Crucible is necessary.

None of which really answer my primary criticism.....

Except that he did.


Also, Sovereign with Get Heretic fleet almost completely obliterated both Citadel Defense Fleet and 5th Alliance fleet.

And Sovy was just 1 Reaper and a sitting duck!


On Earth, there's an entire legion of Reapers!
No freaking way that we can defeat them conventionally.

At best, Reaper will have Pyrrhic victory.

[Sangheili_1337]

Corvus74 wrote...

Sangheili_1337 wrote...

1. I dont see any evidence that Reapers are slow to replenish their numbers. How would the cycles even work if they only a few ships in the beginning against a galaxy full of antagonists. We know Reapers were killed before, and yet they are still here and not attritioned to death over the millenia.

They do it by bushwaking their foes in such a way as to allow no chance at losses.  They hit the Citadel, shut down the Mass Relays and isolate the galaxy into small pockets that can be easily ovewhelmed by the entire Reaper force.  They had no need to split their forces like they did in the current cycle.

That is true but then again it took a century for them to conquer the Protheans. It shouldnt take so long if they were so unopposed. The citadel trap is big but would not be a I win button if the Reapers werent capable themselves. There is also the Reaper killed 37 million years ago. I dont think such kills are flukes.

[ronnok]

so... didn't the mass effect 2 codex say thanix was mountable on fighters... and that it rivaled a cruisers firepower? if so why are they not using them on a massive scale?

EDIT:masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Ships_and_Vehicles about a quarter way down the page it has the codex for the thanix

Modifié par ronnok, 27 mars 2012 - 05:54 .

[jarms48]

I still believe that at the end of every cycle the Reapers loss more than they gain. Do I think this cycle has a chance possibly yet very slim, do I think later cycles would have a chance conventionally certainly thanks to any further Prothein ruins and the black boxes Liara left.

[CYRAX470]

Once I saw an Alliance cruiser blow off two of a Reapers legs in the final battle, I thought the Crucible became pretty moot.


Why spend all that time and money on a weapon to destroy something that can already be destroyed by conventional means? Uniting the galaxy was enough. Crucible was just added to...uh, what did it do again?

[Geneaux486]

CYRAX470 wrote...

Once I saw an Alliance cruiser blow off two of a Reapers legs in the final battle, I thought the Crucible became pretty moot.


Why spend all that time and money on a weapon to destroy something that can already be destroyed by conventional means? Uniting the galaxy was enough. Crucible was just added to...uh, what did it do again?

Because they can't be destroyed by conventional means.  You can damage and destroy individual ones, but the entire Reaper fleet?  Even with all those fleets united against the Reapers at Earth, our side was still losing.  Like I said before, maybe if people had listened to Shepard and prepared in advance, but as things were, the Crucible was the only option for a full victory.

Modifié par Geneaux486, 27 mars 2012 - 05:57 .

[CYRAX470]

Geneaux486 wrote...

CYRAX470 wrote...

Once I saw an Alliance cruiser blow off two of a Reapers legs in the final battle, I thought the Crucible became pretty moot.


Why spend all that time and money on a weapon to destroy something that can already be destroyed by conventional means? Uniting the galaxy was enough. Crucible was just added to...uh, what did it do again?

Because they can't be destroyed by conventional means.  You can damage and destroy individual ones, but the entire Reaper fleet?  Even with all those fleets united against the Reapers at Earth, our side was still losing.  Like I said before, maybe if people had listened to Shepard and prepared in advance, but as things were, the Crucible was the only option for a full victory.

Yes, but that instance was at the final battle. It's pretty logical to assume that given the number of ships brought to Earth, that more Reapers were being killed by regular means. I'm sure that one Reaper wasn't the only one to get peices of it blown off.

[Geneaux486]

CYRAX470 wrote...

Geneaux486 wrote...

CYRAX470 wrote...

Once I saw an Alliance cruiser blow off two of a Reapers legs in the final battle, I thought the Crucible became pretty moot.


Why spend all that time and money on a weapon to destroy something that can already be destroyed by conventional means? Uniting the galaxy was enough. Crucible was just added to...uh, what did it do again?

Because they can't be destroyed by conventional means.  You can damage and destroy individual ones, but the entire Reaper fleet?  Even with all those fleets united against the Reapers at Earth, our side was still losing.  Like I said before, maybe if people had listened to Shepard and prepared in advance, but as things were, the Crucible was the only option for a full victory.

Yes, but that instance was at the final battle. It's pretty logical to assume that given the number of ships brought to Earth, that more Reapers were being killed by regular means. I'm sure that one Reaper wasn't the only one to get peices of it blown off.

A few Reapers were defeated by conventional means, at the cost of massive amounts of fire power, and the loss of many ships, which means that they would then have fewer resources to throw at the next, equally powerful Reaper, and in a battle where there are so many Reaper ships in one area, it's even harder to focus fire on one long enough to kill it and not be obliterated by its buddies.

[Clayless]

People keep on forgetting that the Reapers can make their own plans.

They were intelligent enough to set trap at least a billion years in advance (the Relays) so something tells me that given all their advantages it wouldn't be hard to them to set pretty basic, but quite devestating, traps.

[Corvus74]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

People keep on forgetting that the Reapers can make their own plans.

They were intelligent enough to set trap at least a billion years in advance (the Relays) so something tells me that given all their advantages it wouldn't be hard to them to set pretty basic, but quite devestating, traps.

Except the Reapers have stagnated to such a degree that all subsequent plans have failed.  Everything the tried once the Citadel went silent failed.  They are like those hidebound stuffy old generals fighting the last war all over again when things have changed.

[Clayless]

What? They were winning, everything they tried before they actually arrived failed, but once they got there they went back to winning.

They're not old organics, they're super intelligent and ultra powerful synthetics. For every ship they take out, which they can do in one bullet, it's harder for the other side to take them down, but for every Reaper that falls, it's still just as easy for the rest of the Reapers.

[Aimi]

Positronics wrote...

Tell me specifically then how they can be defeated, because just saying so doesn't make it true. There are 85 dreadnoughts in 2186, and most of those are destroyed by the time of the Battle of Earth.

While I agree with your actual points pretty much completely, I would like to note that your count of dreadnoughts only includes Council dreadnoughts plus the volus dreadnought Kwunu; it does not seem to include the quarian liveships, which could be reclassified as dreadnoughts after their 2185 refit, or the geth dreadnoughts, which the Codex claims to be as numerous as those of the turians (so thirty to forty of those). So we're looking at something more like 120 to 130 as a maximum potential pre-invasion force. And while the human, turian, and asari fleets are in all probability heavily attrited by the time the united galaxy launches its counterattack in the Sol system, the geth may be able to bring all but one of their dreadnoughts to the fight, since the game only depicts the destruction of one of them in the Rannoch campaign.

Since I'm one of the people who first started throwing out the 85 number a few weeks ago, I feel as if I'm partly to blame for that math error. 

Still, these numbers are effectively drops in the ocean, and galactic civilization still has basically no ability to win conventionally against the Reapers.

CYRAX470 wrote...

Yes, but that instance was at the final battle. It's pretty logical to assume that given the number of ships brought to Earth, that more Reapers were being killed by regular means. I'm sure that one Reaper wasn't the only one to get peices of it blown off.

Sure, the Reapers will take more total losses in a battle of annihilation than they normally would in their surprise-attack Reaping or in a somewhat secondary engagement like the Battle of Palaven. This is trivially true. But they wouldn't take enough losses to make such a battle of annihilation by itself a winning proposition for the forces of the united galaxy. Hell, it wouldn't even be close.

Sure, we know that Reaper space naval forces took losses during the Palaven campaign, both in the initial turian strike and after the krogan arrived in large numbers. We also know that despite these losses, allied forces barely made a dent in the Reaper force there and were eventually forced to halt offensive operations to conserve assets for the Earth campaign. This does not sound like a particularly promising basis on which to rest a claim of potential conventional victory over the Reapers in the Sol system.

Modifié par daqs, 27 mars 2012 - 06:23 .

[Seloun]

There's no reason to believe that the Reapers can't be defeated by a sufficiently large 'conventional' force, given that a couple of dreadnaughts can take out a Reaper battleship. The problem is therefore is what is a 'sufficiently large' fleet. I'll assume that the Alliance brass aren't complete morons and are capable of doing basic arithmetic. Presumably they know the number of the Reapers are too many given the forces available at the time. Also, one imagines that they know roughly how fast they can build ships. So by saying the Reapers cannot be defeated conventionally, Hackett essentially is saying there isn't enough time.

That leaves asymmetric warfare - hit and run. The problem is that in order for that to be successful, you have to be able to run. The big problem is that the settled galaxy is extremely small in terms of travel time due to the mass relays. If the Reapers find where you are, they can get there very quickly. I'd argue that it's a miracle that Hackett was able to hide the Cruicible and his fleet (seriously, I have no idea how he managed that, unless the Reapers simply didn't believe it to be a threat).

The only viable strategy seems to be do what the Ilos/Eden Prime Protheans tried to do: buy time and rebuild once the Reapers are gone (if only they'd invested in bigger stasis pod batteries). Or...

I believe that the original purpose of the Crucible was always to destroy the Mass Relays.

It worked with the Alpha Relay (delaying the Reapers). What if every Mass Relay was destroyed? How much time would a civilization that was hiding in a corner have before the Reapers found them? Remember, if the Reapers split up, they can potentially be defeated in detail. If they don't, it takes that much longer before finding the organics. Years, at the minimum. Centuries or millenia isn't out of the picture. Given that amount of time, 'conventional' forces probably could defeat the Reapers outright.

One possibility would be to evacuate to a low-Relay portion of the galaxy (if there is one), settle the adjacent systems and blow the relay. It's possible that there isn't such a region (which is why you have to destroy all of the relays) but otherwise it might have worked to buy enough time to amass a larger fleet.

[Elevas]

poundoffleshaa wrote...

It is hinted at in the codex that the Reapers have always avoided fighting the entire galaxy at one time, that they struck with precision and cunning using all the Citadels Data to target the right places. Facing an allied front and without that tactical data I see no reason the reapers couldn't lose.

This post best ilucidates my viewpoint on this. We upset their applecart.
They didn't get our seat of government wiped out until they die (we think) off screen, and any census data they have on us is likely less complete. They avoid taking everyone on at once for a reason.
I assume that reason isn't some only doctrine but a genuine fear of losses.

[filetemo]

We would know how defeat-able the reapers are if we knew their exact numbers

Are there 500 of them? Maybe defeatable 5000? no way.
If each cycle allows them (I'll make up numers) to build 1 capital ship and 2-3 destroyers...Start counting.

With something like a total force of 1000 reapers and 3000 destroyers...we're doomed

[Silhouett3]

Oh god reading all these 12 pages made my brain hurt. What's is the point of this debate, sending Bioware new space combat tactics and war strategy?

Modifié par Silhouett3, 27 mars 2012 - 12:37 .