444 réponses à ce sujet

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

hammyhamstersy wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

hammyhamstersy wrote...

I would LOVE to see Shep doing that!  I thought it was pretty hilarious that Shep got off the shuttle and fought the reaper on FOOT.  

Well I mean EVERYONE complained about that turret sequence from e3, even the crowds at e3.  shepard heard us and said "Hang on i'm just gonna run back and forth on a shelf instead"

Personally i wish the shelf scene didnt have to involve 3 lazerblasts to the face!!  :/

also a thresher maw probably couldnt beat soverign or harbinger.  Look at it this way: Reapers were so strong that Bioware had to create little baby reapers just so we'd be able to blow some up in this game.  The art book basicly says this outright.  

The first time I played that scene I was first dumbfounded and then I just started laughing hysterically.  The fact that this 'baby' reaper had this slow ass cannon was even more funny and the fact that you can ROLL out of its way.  And also the fact that Shep knew it would work!!  

So that's right the way to win this war against reaper conventionally is to STOP, DROP, and ROLL.  Forget Thanix cannons, just implement the tech that allows your starships to strafe and roll and shoot.  Granted your ships will be filled with vomit afterwards but hey if it works why not??  

Man its a good thing shepard developed stop drop and roll techniques inbetween me2 and me3!  I doubt shepard of me1 would stand a CHANCE.

No but serious the shelf battle was about as poorly thought out as the REALLY LONG STRETCHES OF RUNNING you have to do during the geth consensus segment.  They should have shortened that by like....a ton.  (Having to shoot the destroyer 3 times was stupid and videogamey)

[Elyiia]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

first and third fleet were in the battle of the citadel and helped defend the destiny ascension.

Prove it, I have proof only the Fifth and the Citadel Defence Fleet fought.

reguardless, an entire fleet was unable to damage one actual reaper until shepard sabotaged it and sent it offline.  this is brought up time and time again throughout the series.

Using kinetic based weapons, how are you not getting this? We're the only cycle to turn the Reapers weapons against them.

Snip

There's thousands of examples of wars being won despite having a technological weakness by using tactics.

okay except that this is a prothean device, and research into prothean technology has been the one thing that has pushed our society forward.  every single prothean technology discovered in the mars archives has worked and evolved our technology.  why is this prothean device suddenly "dumb" and "stupid"?

We're not saying Prothean tech is dumb, we're saying putting your only plan into a device which you have no idea what it does it dumb

Snip

Saying there's thousands of Capital Reapers with no evidence to back it up doesn't help your claims.

[Sgt Stryker]

Fighting the Destroyer on foot was stupid and damaged my suspension of disbelief. That entire boss fight should have been an interactive vehicle segment. The player should have been able to control the vehicle and do things like hide behind the landscape, while trying to get a lock with the targeting laser from a mile away.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Subject9x wrote...

the reapers were written to be unstoppable because it's easier to write the following scenario:
-unstoppable force must be countered with super one-off weapon/system.

a more difficult scenario but usually better when done is:
-seemingly unstoppable force stopped using tenacity, willpower, and a little luck. The difference between the player winning on their terms, or the plots. Mass Effect has always been about winning on the players terms.

ME3 only makes the reaper unstoppable because fleets forget tactics, reapers must be dumb, key characters forget key plot points from ME1..etc

rofl "if you completely undermine the entire enemy threat up to this point then its fine because at least the player feels all happy inside"

You're saying that we can win with superior tactics, but you're completely disreguarding the fact that the reapers can use those same tactics and surpass us with them.  Remember palaven?  The turians manage to take down some reapers, but then the reapers send forces down onto palaven and it completely ****s up the turian attack plan.  thier strategy doesnt work if the enemy force just continues plowing right through them to thier back lines.

talk about superior tactics, huh?


Remember what javik said?  They had an unbelievable military force, but the reapers were able to circumvent thier military tactics.  The reapers are smart and capable of altering thier plans to make sure they win.  you're discrediting them alot by just saying
"IF SHEPARD MAKES THE RIGHT CHOICE IN THE SUICIDE MISSION THEN HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO BEAT THE REAPERS!"
That would make the reapers totally ineffective if they cant deal with military tactics.

Also check this out:   (most people dont see this version of the scene)

[Subject9x]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

Subject9x wrote...

the reapers were written to be unstoppable because it's easier to write the following scenario:
-unstoppable force must be countered with super one-off weapon/system.

a more difficult scenario but usually better when done is:
-seemingly unstoppable force stopped using tenacity, willpower, and a little luck. The difference between the player winning on their terms, or the plots. Mass Effect has always been about winning on the players terms.

ME3 only makes the reaper unstoppable because fleets forget tactics, reapers must be dumb, key characters forget key plot points from ME1..etc

rofl "if you completely undermine the entire enemy threat up to this point then its fine because at least the player feels all happy inside"

You're saying that we can win with superior tactics, but you're completely disreguarding the fact that the reapers can use those same tactics and surpass us with them.  Remember palaven?  The turians manage to take down some reapers, but then the reapers send forces down onto palaven and it completely ****s up the turian attack plan.  thier strategy doesnt work if the enemy force just continues plowing right through them to thier back lines.

talk about superior tactics, huh?


Remember what javik said?  They had an unbelievable military force, but the reapers were able to circumvent thier military tactics.  The reapers are smart and capable of altering thier plans to make sure they win.  you're discrediting them alot by just saying
"IF SHEPARD MAKES THE RIGHT CHOICE IN THE SUICIDE MISSION THEN HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO BEAT THE REAPERS!"
That would make the reapers totally ineffective if they cant deal with military tactics.

Also check this out:   (most people dont see this version of the scene)

...ok and what about the Geth? unhackable AI that my shepard turned them into individuals; individuals that can hack anything 24/7 so long as they're hooked to a comm buoy. Radio signals can be jammed, Turians can switch tactics (this the codex fails to think about), it discredits my suspension of disbelief to have a perfect enemy, it doesn't make me feel helpless, makes me apathetic - what's the point of fighting an enemy that's written to be unstoppable? there isn't one.

the merits for winning w/o the crucible are legion, but would require some serious thinking outside of the codex of ME3. Mainly due to the fact that the ME3 codex was written to support a macguffin lolz-crucible plot.

[Orumon]

Congratulations. You've provided a better explanation of why the reapers couldn't feasibly be beaten conventionally than anyone else.

However, I still believe it could be done with adjustments to strategy.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Elyiia wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

first and third fleet were in the battle of the citadel and helped defend the destiny ascension.

Prove it, I have proof only the Fifth and the Citadel Defence Fleet fought.

http://masseffect.wi...Assets/Alliance

I know its a pain in the ass to check the war terminal but you should really check the war terminal.

Elyiia wrote...

reguardless, an entire fleet was unable to damage one actual reaper until shepard sabotaged it and sent it offline.  this is brought up time and time again throughout the series.

Using kinetic based weapons, how are you not getting this? We're the only cycle to turn the Reapers weapons against them.

why do you say the only cycle?  We found a dead reaper in me2, the batarians found a dead reaper in their system, the protheans were able to kill reapers and had superior technology to us.  Why do you think thanix cannons are now the turning point in the reaper invasion cycle?  We cant be the first society to develop thannix cannons.  thannix cannon's dont even compare to whatever destroyed the dead reaper we find in ME2.

You're making a few generous leaps in logic here.  :/

The fact that the crucible has been in development by previous civilizations before the protheans proves that we arent the first society to not be wiped out quickly by the reapers.  we dont even manage to get as far in our technology as the protheans did.  A common prothean weapon, the particle rifle, is leaps and bounds ahead of our best firearms technology, who knows how powerful a prothean dreadnaught was.  And yet they still fell to the reapers, and they fought LONGER than we would have even potentially lasted by Liara's best guess estimates.

Elyiia wrote...

Snip

There's thousands of examples of wars being won despite having a technological weakness by using tactics.

You're confusing battles with wars.
Also guns will beat bows and arrows every time, theres no way arround this.  Actual technological superiority is what i'm talking about here, not percieved superiority.  :/

Elyiia wrote...

okay except that this is a prothean device, and research into prothean technology has been the one thing that has pushed our society forward.  every single prothean technology discovered in the mars archives has worked and evolved our technology.  why is this prothean device suddenly "dumb" and "stupid"?

We're not saying Prothean tech is dumb, we're saying putting your only plan into a device which you have no idea what it does it dumb

Why is that dumb?  Its a prothean device that says "This is our best weapon against the reapers"  You might as well call developing thannix cannons dumb.
also its not our only plan, its just our best plan.  we still amassed a large fleet of every species in the galaxy.  thats a pretty solid plan b, even if it has no chance of succeeding.
making more ships isnt going to beat the reapers because they still have so many reapers.  the time it takes us to build ships versus reapers killing our ships is a staggering curve against our favor.

Elyiia wrote...

Snip

Saying there's thousands of Capital Reapers with no evidence to back it up doesn't help your claims.

man remember when you beat ME2 and you see thousands of soverign looking reapers out in space?  The reapers that are 2km in length are what a capital reaper is, destroyers are much smaller.  reaper you see that is big like soverign is a capital reaper and the result of a successful harvest.

also you're being quite silly and not looking at the entire SPAN of history.  The protheans subjugated every species they came in contact with, which was why a capital reaper wasnt capable in that timespan.  Since the protheans didnt make for a good reaper, there wasnt really enough of the other species left to consider building one.  The protheans was an anomaly as far as we are concerned.  Without knowing it they prevented a capital reaper from being born of their cycle.

If the reapers build a new reaper every 50,000 years one hundred of billion years (Which is still a low estimate of how long the reapers have actually been in power) then that still gives them well upwards of 20,000 capital reapers.  Every hundred billion years upwards of that increases this number to STAGGERING levels.  we dont even have a thousand dreadnaughts at our disposal.  even 10,000 capital reapers would completely steamroll us.

yes destroyers make up the bulk of their forces but if you had one million destroyers and 20,000 reapers that would still be 20,000 ships that you can barely kill one of using DESPERATE SUICIDAL actions.

oh boy i cant wait to win this war by SHOOTING AT EM ABUNCH  

man someone else shoulda tried shooting the reapers, that probably woulda worked.
and thinking tactically.
if they did those two things then they would have DEFENITELY WON.

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 20 avril 2012 - 02:24 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Subject9x wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

Subject9x wrote...

the reapers were written to be unstoppable because it's easier to write the following scenario:
-unstoppable force must be countered with super one-off weapon/system.

a more difficult scenario but usually better when done is:
-seemingly unstoppable force stopped using tenacity, willpower, and a little luck. The difference between the player winning on their terms, or the plots. Mass Effect has always been about winning on the players terms.

ME3 only makes the reaper unstoppable because fleets forget tactics, reapers must be dumb, key characters forget key plot points from ME1..etc

rofl "if you completely undermine the entire enemy threat up to this point then its fine because at least the player feels all happy inside"

You're saying that we can win with superior tactics, but you're completely disreguarding the fact that the reapers can use those same tactics and surpass us with them.  Remember palaven?  The turians manage to take down some reapers, but then the reapers send forces down onto palaven and it completely ****s up the turian attack plan.  thier strategy doesnt work if the enemy force just continues plowing right through them to thier back lines.

talk about superior tactics, huh?


Remember what javik said?  They had an unbelievable military force, but the reapers were able to circumvent thier military tactics.  The reapers are smart and capable of altering thier plans to make sure they win.  you're discrediting them alot by just saying
"IF SHEPARD MAKES THE RIGHT CHOICE IN THE SUICIDE MISSION THEN HE SHOULD BE ABLE TO BEAT THE REAPERS!"
That would make the reapers totally ineffective if they cant deal with military tactics.

Also check this out:   (most people dont see this version of the scene)

...ok and what about the Geth? unhackable AI that my shepard turned them into individuals; individuals that can hack anything 24/7 so long as they're hooked to a comm buoy. Radio signals can be jammed, Turians can switch tactics (this the codex fails to think about), it discredits my suspension of disbelief to have a perfect enemy, it doesn't make me feel helpless, makes me apathetic - what's the point of fighting an enemy that's written to be unstoppable? there isn't one.

the merits for winning w/o the crucible are legion, but would require some serious thinking outside of the codex of ME3. Mainly due to the fact that the ME3 codex was written to support a macguffin lolz-crucible plot.

Turians can change tactics but so can the reapers.  adapting to situations is how they beat the protheans.  they adapted to a tactic that completely owned the protheans, javik tells you this whole story.

The geth can output soldiers and ships and dont have to stop, but also the reapers still have an advantage in terms of numbers, especially as they convert shock troops into reapers.  if the other species fell the geth's best option without subjugating to the reapers would be to retreat to a system outside of reaper control and produce ships on their own for the next 50,000 years.  Except that since this is a synthetic enemies the reapers would probably continue scouring the galaxy until they found them.  with the protheans there was reasoning behind "Well they are probably all dead after a thousand years of looking for holdouds" with synthetics they'd probably just keep going until they wiped them out.  (Also remember how geth have in all 3 games at different times tried to work with the reapers to varying degrees?)  If all organic life fell, would the geth still want to fight the reapers or would they seek comprise and subjugation?  In the next cycle the geth would fullfill the roles of the collectors.

Remember, you're fighitng the reapers that are on earth.  when you head to the final battle you see that the reapers have scattered throughout the entire galaxy.  Even if your entire force combats the reapers at earth, through desperate battles that cost them dearly, theres still the rest of the galaxy.  can they really do that even a second time?  third, fourth, tenth, hundredth?

see how this sort of breaks down easily when you apply a little math to it?

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 20 avril 2012 - 02:30 .

[Orthodox Infidel]

humes spork wrote...

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

And, as I've pointed out in my own thread, Thanix cannons are already widely used and didn't amount to anything. It's time for people to Shut up about Thanix Cannons.

I wouldn't necessarily say they amounted to nothing...for the lack of context during those ending sequences, those thanix cannons could have meant the difference between complete, utter ruination and the successful landing of Hammer and the Crucible's very deployment.

Actually, this is likely true. I overstate how worthless thanix canons are because I find the way people want to use them to solve everything they don't like about the plot annoying. So that post should really say "Thanix cannons are already widely used and didn't lead to a conventional, Mahar-esque victory over the Reapers."

[Subject9x]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

If the reapers build a new reaper every 50,000 years one hundred of billion years (Which is still a low estimate of how long the reapers have actually been in power) then that still gives them well upwards of 20,000 capital reapers.  Every hundred billion years upwards of that increases this number to STAGGERING levels.  we dont even have a thousand dreadnaughts at our disposal.  even 10,000 capital reapers would completely steamroll us.

yes destroyers make up the bulk of their forces but if you had one million destroyers and 20,000 reapers that would still be 20,000 ships that you can barely kill one of using DESPERATE SUICIDAL actions.

oh boy i cant wait to win this war by SHOOTING AT EM ABUNCH  

Reapers can't build new reapers every 50,000; life evolution just doesn't work like that. Reapers obliterate the bioshperes of most planets when they harvest (remember that one planet with massive craters?), no biosphere = no chance for new life inside of 50k years. 50k years for evolution is less than the blink of an eye. I'd say there actually aren't that many reapers to begin with. 

As for shooting at them, you're going to tell me that a crappy macguffin plot is preferable to just firin' yo lazers? that horrible railroaded crucible junk is preferable to massive epic battles? you have no flair

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

Turians can change tactics but so can the reapers.  adapting to situations is how they beat the protheans.  they adapted to a tactic that completely owned the protheans, javik tells you this whole story.

The geth can output soldiers and ships and dont have to stop, but also the reapers still have an advantage in terms of numbers.  if the other species fell the geth's best option without subjugating to the reapers would be to retreat to a system outside of reaper control and produce ships on their own for the next 50,000 years.  Remember, you're fighitng the reapers that are on earth.  when you head to the final battle you see that the reapers have scattered throughout the entire galaxy.  Even if your entire force combats the reapers at earth, through desperate battles that cost them dearly, theres still the rest of the galaxy.  can they really do that even a second time?  third, fourth, tenth, hundredth?

see how this sort of breaks down easily when you apply a little math to it?

 

tactically what do reapers have? we never see them actually switch up tactics, produce new or different units, they are strong yes but also stagnated.

do you know what software is? what a server is? geth are software, their physical number is meaningless. just nest their massive servers somewhere quiet and heavily defended. See this is where I said look outside the ME3 codex. Geth are software, more importantly AI. AI's like EDI who was able to almost lockdown a whole Collector ship (something about fighting 4,000 firewalls simultaneously) and that was ONE AI. Reapers are part sofware, we know this esp due to the fact you can hand a 'reaper code fragment' (w/e the F that means) to some Asari. All you need is the geth to subvert that code, and you have a way of disrupting them. 

Modifié par Subject9x, 20 avril 2012 - 02:30 .

[Elyiia]

I know its a pain in the ass to check the war terminal but you should really check the war terminal.

http://masseffect.wi..._of_the_Citadel
Or maybe you should. Or go replay ME1. It is the fifth fleet and the citadel defence fleet. No one else.

why do you say the only cycle?  We found a dead reaper in me2, the batarians found a dead reaper in their system, the protheans were able to kill reapers and had superior technology to us.  Why do you think thanix cannons are now the turning point in the reaper invasion cycle?  We cant be the first society to develop thannix cannons.  thannix cannon's dont even compare to whatever destroyed the dead reaper we find in ME2.

You're making a few generous leaps in logic here.  :/

The fact that the crucible has been in development by previous civilizations before the protheans proves that we arent the first society to not be wiped out quickly by the reapers.  we dont even manage to get as far in our technology as the protheans did.  A common prothean weapon, the particle rifle, is leaps and bounds ahead of our best firearms technology, who knows how powerful a prothean dreadnaught was.  And yet they still fell to the reapers, and they fought LONGER than we would have even potentially lasted by Liara's best guess estimates.

They destroyed Reapers, but they were losing ground. Logic suggests that they were unable to study Reaper corpses in Reaper territory.

You're confusing battles with wars.
Also guns will beat bows and arrows every time, theres no way arround this.  Actual technological superiority is what i'm talking about here, not percieved superiority.  :/

No, I'm not. Besides, this isn't even guns vs bows and arrows. It's gun vs smaller gun.

Why is that dumb?  Its a prothean device that says "This is our best weapon against the reapers"  You might as well call developing thannix cannons dumb.
also its not our only plan, its just our best plan.  we still amassed a large fleet of every species in the galaxy.  thats a pretty solid plan b, even if it has no chance of succeeding.
making more ships isnt going to beat the reapers because they still have so many reapers.  the time it takes us to build ships versus reapers killing our ships is a staggering curve against our favor.

It's a Prothean device. It doesn't say what it does.
And yes, we amassed the fleet because we weren't dealing with the Crucible.

Snip

There's at max of 300 odd Reapers in the cinematic, it's impossible to claim whether they're destroyers or Capital ships with nothing to reference their size.

You're making the same assumption everyone who claims 20,000 Reaper Capital ships does and ignore variables like Reaper losses and the fact not every cycle can produce a capital ship.

Claiming 30 Capital ships is just as valid as claiming 20,000 Capital ships.

[Orthodox Infidel]

Elyiia wrote...

humes spork wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

The Codex is incredibly inconsistant.

Like what, for example? I'm interested to hear this.

Not being able to use FTL drives for suicide ships being one when we have examples of it happening.
Alliance military being fitted with thanix canons despite them never actually being used is another.

There's more in the thread, if you read the whole thing.

We do see the Alliance use thanix cannons.

[Archereon]

I don't understand why anyone thinks that Thanix cannons are anywhere close to reaper guns in terms of destructive power. Like normal mass drivers, the power of the gun is directly proportional the ME core size.

Reaper ME cores are orders of magnitude larger than those of Council and Alliance ships, and that means, even if our guns are AS good as theirs in terms of engineering (doubtful, they've had BILLIONS of years to perfect the concept of their weapons, we've been working with it for 3 years), they still have raw power.

This also applies to reaper shielding technology. Assuming that it's no better than ours in terms of engineering and doesn't have any groundbreaking new principles like Reaper weapons, they still have vastly superior shields.


In addition, the 4 dreadnought estimate assumes 4 dreadnoughts can get into good firing positions against a Reaper, despite reaper ships having superior range to our best ships, being substantially faster and more maneuverable than our ships, to the point where a Reaper dreadnought can completely reverse its velocity on a dime, a feat that would tear most FIGHTERS in two.


We also aren't quite sure how powerful reaper guns are compared to ours; the codex entry on their vulnerabilities indicates that a reaper capital ship's main gun has a yield of 500 kilotons of TNT, but another entry states that Reaper destroyers were unleashing "Megaton Level" firepower on some of Earth's major cities, obliterating them instantly.

[Elyiia]

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

humes spork wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

The Codex is incredibly inconsistant.

Like what, for example? I'm interested to hear this.

Not being able to use FTL drives for suicide ships being one when we have examples of it happening.
Alliance military being fitted with thanix canons despite them never actually being used is another.

There's more in the thread, if you read the whole thing.

We do see the Alliance use thanix cannons.

Fair enough, doesn't stop them from being retconned between ME2 and ME3.

[humes spork]

Elyiia wrote...

Not being able to use FTL drives for suicide ships being one when we have examples of it happening.
Alliance military being fitted with thanix canons despite them never actually being used is another.

The "desperate measures" codex entry does not state using FTL-equipped ships for suicide attacks is impossible. "Prohibitively costly in terms of raw materials and engineering-hours, and therefore counterproductive to the extreme and unfeasible" does not equal "impossible".

Second, I'll refer you to Orthodox Infidel's thanix cannon thread.

Fair enough, doesn't stop them from being retconned between ME2 and ME3. 

You're aware the thanix installed on the Normandy was a prototype, right?

Seriously, going on about this is like saying the Defiant's main weapons aren't really phasers because they're not beams.

Modifié par humes spork, 20 avril 2012 - 02:40 .

[Jarys]

Just one thing I would like to point out - 1500k in space is minuscule. The problem with viewing space battles as shown in ME is that they do not show true scale; everything moves blindingly fast (in the videos), since they move past landmarks/stars so quickly. Generally speaking, any true 'battle' in space would probably take place thousands of kilometers apart. Especially given how vacuum would allow lasers and other weapons to travel significantly further (forever, for non-laser weapons at least), and how radar can be boosted to such long ranges. The 'knife range' fighting shown in the video is unrealistic at best (lol at unrealistic sci fi, incoming flames), and suicidal at worst. Nothing in the series states that reapers are invisible to radar, and I have yet to see any sort of kinetic or non energy weapon used by them. Basically, the sound strategy would be to use the significant range advantage offered by projectile weapons (railguns, missles, etc.). But everything they do is to the reapers advantage, getting into laser range (lasers have significant range in space, but the dust particles cause it to still have significantly less range than physical weapons).

TLDR: You may be right in most cases, but the entire 'strategy' used by every fleet we see in ME is flawed beyond belief, and mostly suicidal, as opposed to one that stands a chance.

[Subject9x]

Jarys wrote...

Just one thing I would like to point out - 1500k in space is minuscule. The problem with viewing space battles as shown in ME is that they do not show true scale; everything moves blindingly fast (in the videos), since they move past landmarks/stars so quickly. Generally speaking, any true 'battle' in space would probably take place thousands of kilometers apart. Especially given how vacuum would allow lasers and other weapons to travel significantly further (forever, for non-laser weapons at least), and how radar can be boosted to such long ranges. The 'knife range' fighting shown in the video is unrealistic at best (lol at unrealistic sci fi, incoming flames), and suicidal at worst. Nothing in the series states that reapers are invisible to radar, and I have yet to see any sort of kinetic or non energy weapon used by them. Basically, the sound strategy would be to use the significant range advantage offered by projectile weapons (railguns, missles, etc.). But everything they do is to the reapers advantage, getting into laser range (lasers have significant range in space, but the dust particles cause it to still have significantly less range than physical weapons).

TLDR: You may be right in most cases, but the entire 'strategy' used by every fleet we see in ME is flawed beyond belief, and mostly suicidal, as opposed to one that stands a chance.

exactly, reapers don't seem to care about scouting...ever, so why can't I take those oribtal defense guns on tuchanka, plant a few Europa / ships, and bombard the earth reapers...according to cinematics they were all just hanging out..

[CasbynessPC]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I've never understood the counterpoint of "Plot armor" as a reason why the Reapers cannot be defeated with conventional weapons.

If they could, couldn't one simply state that it's "Plot weakness?" It would seem that "Plot Armor" could be used for any defense of a story playing through in a way a person doesn't want since ultimately it's up to the writers to lay out the narrative?

Plot armour is loosely defined as present when an antagonist (or something that works for or has been built by the antagonist/s), or supporting character, is able to make very unlikely saving throws solely for the purpose of them being saved for a later death that advances or has a more significant impact on the plot.

Example: Darth Maul wore plot armour. Not so he could survive long enough to kill Qui-Gon (there are lots of other options for killing Qui-Gon in the story), but rather so he could be killed by Obi-Wan as part of Obi-Wan's transition from Padawan to full Jedi. His most useful moment to die was when fighting Obi-Wan, so he wore plot armour in order to get him to that moment.

I don't think the Reapers qualify for plot armour. There were clearly explained reasons for their survival up to the end of ME3, with no unlikely saving throws required to keep them alive. It's Anderson and Kai Leng who wear plot armour in the Mass Effect trilogy.

Plot armour makes more coherent sense if you just think of it as a subset of the Rule of Cool, in answer to the question "why did that guy die then, but not then?".

[Elyiia]

humes spork wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

Not being able to use FTL drives for suicide ships being one when we have examples of it happening.
Alliance military being fitted with thanix canons despite them never actually being used is another.

The "desperate measures" codex entry does not state using FTL-equipped ships for suicide attacks is impossible. "Prohibitively costly in terms of raw materials and engineering-hours, and therefore counterproductive to the extreme and unfeasible" does not equal "impossible".

Second, I'll refer you to Orthodox Infidel's thanix cannon thread.

Fair enough, doesn't stop them from being retconned between ME2 and ME3. 

You're aware the thanix installed on the Normandy was a prototype, right?

Seriously, going on about this is like saying the Defiant's main weapons aren't really phasers because they're not beams.

If a ship's FTL plotter finds a significant object in the path of a
planned jump, the FTL drive refuses to fire in the first place. This is
not a perfect safety feature--the sensors can only scan for objects
within a reasonable distance at light speed, and a navigator must plot
he rest of the course--but it is so inherent to the FTL warm-up process
that removing it is nigh impossible.

It's not about the cost, it's about the safety mechanism.

And yes, thanix canons were retconned between ME2 and 3. The reason being, as it was the thanix canons would have given us a huge advantage and suspended belief during the game. It's the same reason anti-matter weapons have been retconned, because with them we'd win easily.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

[quote]Elyiia wrote...
[quote]
I know its a pain in the ass to check the war terminal but you should really check the war terminal.
[/quote]
http://masseffect.wi..._of_the_Citadel
Or maybe you should. Or go replay ME1. It is the fifth fleet and the citadel defence fleet. No one else.
[/quote]




[quote]Elyiia wrote...
[quote]
why do you say the only cycle?  We found a dead reaper in me2, the batarians found a dead reaper in their system, the protheans were able to kill reapers and had superior technology to us.  Why do you think thanix cannons are now the turning point in the reaper invasion cycle?  We cant be the first society to develop thannix cannons.  thannix cannon's dont even compare to whatever destroyed the dead reaper we find in ME2.

You're making a few generous leaps in logic here.  :/

The fact that the crucible has been in development by previous civilizations before the protheans proves that we arent the first society to not be wiped out quickly by the reapers.  we dont even manage to get as far in our technology as the protheans did.  A common prothean weapon, the particle rifle, is leaps and bounds ahead of our best firearms technology, who knows how powerful a prothean dreadnaught was.  And yet they still fell to the reapers, and they fought LONGER than we would have even potentially lasted by Liara's best guess estimates.
[/quote]

They destroyed Reapers, but they were losing ground. Logic suggests that they were unable to study Reaper corpses in Reaper territory.[/quote]
the protheans fought for centuries before being wiped out.  Logic suggests that they would be able to study Reaper corpses and develop thannnnnix cannnnnnons.

[quote]Elyiia wrote...
[quote]
You're confusing battles with wars.
Also guns will beat bows and arrows every time, theres no way arround this.  Actual technological superiority is what i'm talking about here, not percieved superiority.  :/
[/quote][/quote]
No, I'm not. Besides, this isn't even guns vs bows and arrows. It's gun vs smaller gun.
You're right.  its a gun vs a smaller gun.  and shields vs smaller shields.  and numbers vs smaller numbers.
if i step on a bug its gonna go squish because my weight is a bigger number than its weight.  it might have more legs but my leg is bigger.

[quote]Elyiia wrote...
[quote]
Why is that dumb?  Its a prothean device that says "This is our best weapon against the reapers"  You might as well call developing thannix cannons dumb.
also its not our only plan, its just our best plan.  we still amassed a large fleet of every species in the galaxy.  thats a pretty solid plan b, even if it has no chance of succeeding.
making more ships isnt going to beat the reapers because they still have so many reapers.  the time it takes us to build ships versus reapers killing our ships is a staggering curve against our favor.
[/quote][/quote]
It's a Prothean device. It doesn't say what it does.
And yes, we amassed the fleet because we weren't dealing with the Crucible.
It says it can defeat the reapers.  Why else would liara be all "Its a prothean device that can destroy the reapers" and then go into detail about targeting just the reapers specificaly.
that suggests that there is at least some prothean writing on what the thing is used for.  "weapon that can defeat the reapers" yeah it doesnt explicitly dictate how it destroys them but thats just semantics.  Why would she think that a blueprint on some big ball on a tube would be able to destroy the reapers if the protheans didnt leave anything on "this was our weapon to destroy the reapers"?  You know how a story can say something without showing you where it says something and still say that thing?  this is one of those situations where just by following logic backwards you can divulge information.

[quote]Elyiia wrote...
[quote]
Snip
[/quote]

There's at max of 300 odd Reapers in the cinematic, it's impossible to claim whether they're destroyers or Capital ships with nothing to reference their size.

You're making the same assumption everyone who claims 20,000 Reaper Capital ships does and ignore variables like Reaper losses and the fact not every cycle can produce a capital ship.

Claiming 30 Capital ships is just as valid as claiming 20,000 Capital ships.

[/quote][/quote]
no its not as valid, destroyers are no where near the size of a capital ship.  you can compare the size of one reaper to the size of another reaper.  harbinger is a good size reference in this situation.
also the average civilization wasnt able to kill a single reaper, thats why its so rare to find reaper corpses out in space.  you find one thats 37 million years old, and then you find out that the batarians had one that was supposedly at least a billion years old.

that implies that the reapers were able to harvest without losing ships in most cycles.
Do you know how big a number "a billion" is?  Lets even just look at 37 million.  how many times does 50,000 years go into one million?  20.  so 37 * 20 = 740.  This is 740 opportunities to harvest a species.  in a billion years that is 20000 opportunities.  It is possible the reapers have been arround longer than a billion years.  Are you really willing to suggest that less than 0.001% of harvests produce fruit?  You might as well put a a bib on the reapers so they dont spill juice on thier daiper while you're at it.

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 20 avril 2012 - 02:58 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Elyiia wrote...

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

We do see the Alliance use thanix cannons.

Fair enough, doesn't stop them from being retconned between ME2 and ME3.

how is that a retcon between me2 and 3?  The screenshots he posted are FROM 3

[FS3D]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

If the reapers build a new reaper every 50,000 years one hundred of billion years (Which is still a low estimate of how long the reapers have actually been in power) then that still gives them well upwards of 20,000 capital reapers.  Every hundred billion years upwards of that increases this number to STAGGERING levels.  we dont even have a thousand dreadnaughts at our disposal.  even 10,000 capital reapers would completely steamroll us.

Problem...

The universe has been measured at about 13.7 billion years old. It's not possible for the Reapers to have been operating before the zero-space singularity that resulted in the creation of our universe, and matter didn't form until some time after the universe began its' expansion (when the heat within space-time had sufficiently cooled to allow matter to form).

Even if you take suspension of disbelief into space magic realms, the Reapers could not have existed for hundreds of billions of years. That would mean they existed outside of the space-time reality of the universe itself.

You're going up against real honest science.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Subject9x wrote...

Jarys wrote...

Just one thing I would like to point out - 1500k in space is minuscule. The problem with viewing space battles as shown in ME is that they do not show true scale; everything moves blindingly fast (in the videos), since they move past landmarks/stars so quickly. Generally speaking, any true 'battle' in space would probably take place thousands of kilometers apart. Especially given how vacuum would allow lasers and other weapons to travel significantly further (forever, for non-laser weapons at least), and how radar can be boosted to such long ranges. The 'knife range' fighting shown in the video is unrealistic at best (lol at unrealistic sci fi, incoming flames), and suicidal at worst. Nothing in the series states that reapers are invisible to radar, and I have yet to see any sort of kinetic or non energy weapon used by them. Basically, the sound strategy would be to use the significant range advantage offered by projectile weapons (railguns, missles, etc.). But everything they do is to the reapers advantage, getting into laser range (lasers have significant range in space, but the dust particles cause it to still have significantly less range than physical weapons).

TLDR: You may be right in most cases, but the entire 'strategy' used by every fleet we see in ME is flawed beyond belief, and mostly suicidal, as opposed to one that stands a chance.

exactly, reapers don't seem to care about scouting...ever, so why can't I take those oribtal defense guns on tuchanka, plant a few Europa / ships, and bombard the earth reapers...according to cinematics they were all just hanging out..

The occulus you fight in ME2 is scouting the debree field.

The harvesters you fight on tuchunka are scouting for the turian crash site.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

FS3D wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

If the reapers build a new reaper every 50,000 years one hundred of billion years (Which is still a low estimate of how long the reapers have actually been in power) then that still gives them well upwards of 20,000 capital reapers.  Every hundred billion years upwards of that increases this number to STAGGERING levels.  we dont even have a thousand dreadnaughts at our disposal.  even 10,000 capital reapers would completely steamroll us.

Problem...

The universe has been measured at about 13.7 billion years old. It's not possible for the Reapers to have been operating before the zero-space singularity that resulted in the creation of our universe, and matter didn't form until some time after the universe began its' expansion (when the heat within space-time had sufficiently cooled to allow matter to form).

Even if you take suspension of disbelief into space magic realms, the Reapers could not have existed for hundreds of billions of years. That would mean they existed outside of the space-time reality of the universe itself.

You're going up against real honest science.

oh man we might as well start talking about how its impossible to travel faster than the speed of light then too or how biotics dont actually make any sense at all 

[Tleining]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

the protheans fought for centuries before being wiped out.  Logic suggests that they would be able to study Reaper corpses and develop thannnnnix cannnnnnons.

Logic suggests that that even if they were able to study a Reaper corpse in the middle of their fight for Survival, they would end up being indoctrinated.
Plus there is the Protheans aversion to anything AI. Javik wants you to space Legion and EDI. Not destroy and study, but get rid off it.