258 réponses à ce sujet

[Applepie_Svk]

The Angry One wrote...

I'm in awe of Cerberus' selective competence.
The Turians can reverse engineer a thanix cannon from bits of Sovereign, yet Cerberus can't replicate WORKING PARTICLE GUNS?
And here I thought tech salvage and reverse-engineering was Cerberus' thing.

Plotholes they are everywhere ... 

[a.m.p]

The Angry One wrote...

The problem is how TIM has a whole fleet of ships with Reaper IFFs he pulled out of his ass ready to jump to the Collector Base the exact moment you return.
In retrospect it should've been a forewarning of all the asspulls TIM would foreshadow in ME3.

Have you seen archengeia's video where he talks about how depending on your actions in ME3, you should've been able to get different home bases? Like renegades who preserved the Collector Base end up having kept it for themselves and use that. Paragons who blew it up get a Spectre command base on the Citadel, renegades who blew the base up get Omega.
I thought those were all decent ideas, making the big choice in ME2 actually matter.

Seen it. I think I even have it on my conventional victory list. I like the concept of different ME2 end choices => different ME3 bases, but I have a small problem with it. My mostly paragon pro-alliance and anti-cerberus Shepard always keeps it, because it's a base stuffed full of proof reapers exist and reaper tech and intel and stuff we can't afford to blow up (and until recently I had no idea blowing it up didn't actually blow it up). That's why I always suffer severe cognitive dissonance whenever I get to the end of ME2. I don't want to blow it up and I don't want to give it to TIM. I want to go to the council, show them all the recordings, yell at them and then start flying research teams in with my awesome stealth drive. And I didn't find out about the fleet of supreme ***-pull ready to occupy the station the moment I was out of it until I went to youtube and watched that specific ending.

I guess I'm just an optimist who can't believe (even after ME3) that there are no competent people in this universe capable of studying reaper tech without getting themselves indoctrinated and making things worse.

So I was even somewhat releived that the game didn't automatically assume I was a renegade and make me cooperate with TIM or something based on that choice. But I'd certainly like to see deicsions like this have some real and sensible impact on the story.

In fact, if the ME2 choice was to give the base either to TIM or to the alliance and  that resulted in working either with TIM or with the alliance in ME3, I'd be ecstatic.

[Noelemahc]

In fact, if the ME2 choice was to give the base either to TIM or to the alliance and that resulted in working either with TIM or with the alliance in ME3, I'd be ecstatic.

Heck yes. I think many of us would be, as it would colour the entire approach to every single plot problem in the game. TIM would argue against involving the krogans, or, at the very least, suggest you sabotage the genophage cure to get them onboard but not strengthen them. We could lobby with him to spare the Grissom students... or hand them over to us as assets. We'd be HELPING with the coup, gleefully cheering as we get to kill that air-quoting Councillor (I'm still pissed we can't even "up yours!" at him, his replacement is more apologetic about him than he is!)...

And yes, the game would then turn into Alpha Protocol in Space, yes. It's one of the few Fallout-legacy morality-driven games where you can actually not only side with the villain, but keep playing after you do (i.e. it's not the Final Ending like some of Planescape's outcomes; it's not a non-standard game over like in Fallout)... maybe backstab the villain and take his place afterwards.

RE: Omega. I've dug around in the TLK file as I promised. The things that are in the game already are:
talking to Aria on the Citadel about her actual plans for the retake, talking to Aria on the Citadel about the rebuilding of Omega after you succeed, talking to Aria on Omega after the retake, e-mails to you from her and her associates proposing the quest, e-mails from her to you after you finish it.

There's also a humongous lot of references to Omega locations which might be bits of the scrapped level OR leftovers from ME2 (of which the ME3 files consist by at least a third), it's hard to tell. In any case, it was definitely planned to be a second hub at some point in the dev cycle.

[Byronic-Knight]

**Another Massive Wall of Text Incoming**

And I’m back. 

[quote]incinerator950 wrote...

I'm going to bite you in the ass, but the Control ending is very similar to hacking the Reapers.  If not else, then dominating them.[/quote]

Not really. 

Simply hacking the Reaper network independent of the Crucible/Catalyst granting you victory avoids the destruction of the Relay Network, it avoids Shepard dying and "losing everything (s)he has" for no real reason other than the mentaliy of "the Hero has to die at the end of an Epic" and/or "death is deep and artistic," and it avoids the potentiality of enslaving the Geth, who I spent the previous couple hours helping achieve individuality---it is not explicitly stated that this would happen, but if ‘Destroy’ destroys all synthetic life, there is nothing to suggest picking ‘Control’ would do the same in regard to their enslavement. 

Besides, hacking doesn’t necessarily entail Shepard "Assuming Direct Control" of the Reapers. It could just as well mean hacking their systems to disable shields, or (as I have suggested) disrupting targeting identifiers or other systems vital for combat. 

It doesn’t involve domination, only disruption or disorientation. 

[quote]incinerator950 wrote... 

I've been in agreement for a while the game is missing some bones.  Doesn't help that every week more crap is discovered.  I just found out all of the Promo gear is already on the disc, well the ones that mattered anyway.[/quote]

Indeed. 

[quote]Noelemahc wrote...

As for the cut stuff... ME3 also for some reason contains all of ME2's debriefings (you know, those write-ups of TIM's about the ME2 missions? yeah) and lots of other leftovers. Makes trawling for cut stuff more unfun =(

Oh, and did I mention that portions of the Retake Omega questline are already on-disc? 'Cos they are.[/quote]

This hurts me. . . 

[quote]Flextt wrote...

*snip*

- The Collector Cruiser
is a cruiser. They are somewhere in between. Actually, the Codex seems 
to suggest they have a somewhat problematic role in the war against 
Reapers.

[quote]Cruisers cannot land on medium or high-gravity worlds, but do possess
the ability to land on low-gravity planets. Cruisers are ideal in any
planetary assault.[/quote]
So
Reapers are best fought when they are in a planet's atmosphere, because
they have to significantly lower their mass which in return reduces the
stopping power of their armor, but we cannot really fight them on the 
surface on a planet, because we end up scorching our homes. So as you 
can see, while cruisers pack a punch and are probably more numerous than
dreadnoughts, their role is somewhat problematic.

*snip*[/quote]

That is even better, since the Collector Ship landed on Horizon (and I’d imagine Freedom’s Progress). 

Does everyone remember what happened on Horizon? That’s right, the Collector ship---which reduced its mass to land, therefore making its armour less-effective---was pelted by cannon fire that seemed to not put much of a dent into its hull, which the Normandy’s Thanix Cannon decimated at the end game---in space, when the Collector ship’s armour is supposed to be functioning optimally---destroying the entire ship in two shots. 

It only reinforces the idea that Thanix Cannons are severely underestimated. 

[quote]Raynulf wrote...
The Thanix Cannon fires a stream of relativistic molten heavy-metal alloy at the target, the impact of which causes both enormous kinetic damage and radiation ("heat"), the latter bypassing kinetic barriers completely, making the weapon far more effective against heavily shielded ships (e.g. Reapers).[/quote]
So does this. 

And, I might add, this: 

[quote]Raynulf wrote...

Honestly, if you want funky beam weapons of doom:

"The reaper's primary weapon system is both efficient and deadly. Rather than firing solid slugs at speeds up to 1.3% of the speed of light, the reapers use extremely advanced mass effect field generators to compress hydrogen into a superheated plasma, which is then accelerated by a mass-effect coil in the form of a continuous stream at velocities between 0.5% and 11% of the speed of light, depending on the desired amount of destruction.

When impacting on solid objects or kinetic barriers, the hydrogen plasma stream experiences extreme compression, comparible to that found within the heart of a star, and the resulting nuclear fusion produces unparalleled localised destruction. In addition to the effectiveness of the weapon, it also alleviates many logistic concerns as reapers are capable of harvesting intersteller hydrogen to fuel their destructive arsenal while traversing steller clusters.

Following the Battle of the Citadel, the eezo core and primary weapon of the construct known as 'Sovereign' was recovered and studied. Turian engineers have since managed to produce a replica of the weapon, calling their revolutionary weapon the 'Thanix Cannon'. Seeing the potential of this weapon, the Council ordered the technology be made available to all council races and the majority of the Citadel fleet has been retrofited with Thanix technology."[/quote] 

Is fantastic. 

[quote]Noelemahc wrote...

Also, on an unrelated note concerning stupidity and Citadel consoles -- anyone else felt that Cerberus was mighty stupid when they're just STANDING THERE, listening to Joker contact Alliance Control Tower during the coup? Nobody had the inkling to bend down, thumb "transmit" and say "This is Alliance Control, SSV Normandy, please turn back, we have a breakout of the Plokovoid Purple Plague on the station, the Citadel is under quarantine until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience."

And no, "there would be no story" don't cut it, at this point you get to pick "Joker, land anyway", GET SHOT AT, have to fix Normandy in a later sidequest, or "Damn those Plokovoids, they never wash their hands after excreting!" and the story changes depending on whether the Citadel is under Cerberus control or continues as before. And have to join a three-way battle for the station as now Cerberus has less forces on Cronos, meaning you complete it faster, and by the time you arrive to the Citadel to claim the Catalyst, you see the Reapers fight Cerberus for control.[/quote]

So is this. 

[quote]a.m.p wrote...

[quote]Noelemahc wrote...

Nonono, I wrote, see, I wrote above - they did. Make one. Just one. THE ONE. And Randall Ezno, bless his glowy face (that's him on my avatar, see the glowy face?), he walks out with it. And defects. To the Alliance. To never appear in ME3, so we never learn the gun's fate.[/quote]
Goddamit, Noelemahc. The more I know the worse it gets.
[/quote]

Indeed. 

[quote]The Angry One wrote...

Have you seen archengeia's video where he talks about how depending on your actions in ME3, you should've been able to get different home bases? Like renegades who preserved the Collector Base end up having kept it for themselves and use that. Paragons who blew it up get a Spectre command base on the Citadel, renegades who blew the base up get Omega. 
I thought those were all decent ideas, making the big choice in ME2 actually matter.[/quote]

I thought for sure that your base of operations in ME3 was going to be the Shadow Broker’s ship. No matter if you kept the base or destroyed it, you basically tell TIM off, and the SB’s base already had the re-spec and armour locker consoles, not to mention the benefits of having complete and immediate access to all of the resources being friends---or even romantically involved---with the Shadow Broker entails (dossiers, mining speculator, that cool "put funds into this endeavour and affect things from a distance" console). 

But noooooo; turns out the moment Liara gets comfortable Cerberus swoops in and takes the base, causing her to destroy it before making a break for it---though, conveniently, managing to swipe all the necessary hardware (including the security drone) to keep her connections. 

That was one of the early (somewhat forgivable) disappointments I had with the story. 

[quote]a.m.p wrote...

My mostly paragon pro-alliance and anti-cerberus Shepard always keeps it, because it's a base stuffed full of proof reapers exist and reaper tech and intel and stuff we can't afford to blow up (and until recently I had no idea blowing it up didn't actually blow it up). That's why I always suffer severe cognitive dissonance whenever I get to the end of ME2. I don't want to blow it up and I don't want to give it to TIM. I want to go to the council, show them all the recordings, yell at them and then start flying research teams in with my awesome stealth drive.[/quote]

Holy sh!t. . . that is exactly what I thought. 

The base is way too valuable for the amount of tech it contains that could be studied, reversed engineered, and repurposed (not to mention proof of the Reapers---god, I wanted to take that Turian Councilor and rub his nose in it "Ah, yes. Reapers!!"), but TIM is way too shifty to be trusted with its salvage. Still, I can never bring myself to destroy it.  

[quote] a.m.p. wrote...

So I was even somewhat releived that the game didn't automatically assume I was a renegade and make me cooperate with TIM or something based on that choice. But I'd certainly like to see deicsions like this have some real and sensible impact on the story.

In fact, if the ME2 choice was to give the base either to TIM or to the alliance and  that resulted in working either with TIM or with the alliance in ME3, I'd be ecstatic.
[/quote]

That would have been interesting, primarily because there would be the potential, even probability, for you to betray him part way through and give it to the Alliance after the fact. 

Like I said above, I keep the base every time I play as my ‘cannon’ Shep simply because of the wealth of information a cache of that scale provides, and I really just wanted to get Mordin or Liara or Tali in there to pick it apart and glean some weaknesses and/or provide us with new weapons or defenses. 

[a.m.p]

Byronic-Knight wrote...
I thought for sure that your base of operations in ME3 was going to be the Shadow Broker’s ship. No matter if you kept the base or destroyed it, you basically tell TIM off, and the SB’s base already had the re-spec and armour locker consoles, not to mention the benefits of having complete and immediate access to all of the resources being friends---or even romantically involved---with the Shadow Broker entails (dossiers, mining speculator, that cool "put funds into this endeavour and affect things from a distance" console).

That is a very good point. And all those dudes that we had to fight through to get to the Shadow Broker, they all work for us now, right?

So if you do the DLC before going to the collector base at the time of the decision you're the person with a private army, the biggest galactic information network and the awesome stealth ship who controls the one thing in the galaxy TIM wants, yet somehow you still can't decide whom to give the base.

a.m.p. wrote...
In fact, if the ME2 choice was to give the base either to TIM or to the alliance and  that resulted in working either with TIM or with the alliance in ME3, I'd be ecstatic.

That would have been interesting, primarily because there would be the potential, even probability, for you to betray him part way through and give it to the Alliance after the fact. 

Would double if not triple the work though. I'm not sure that would even be plausible to do in any reasonable time. Still, that choice had to have some reasonable consequences. At least the terminator reaper should not have been there if it was blown up.

[feriwan]

OK, I know I'm late to the party, but who cares.

a.m.p wrote...
In either case why can’t we fight them without the crucible again

You make a lot of estimates of the Reapers, going from 840 to 48000...

Even if it is the lowest (840), that's still a lot.

Let's look at the organics best ship class, the dreadnought:
 

The Treaty of Farixen stipulates the amount of dreadnoughts a navy may own, with the turian peacekeeping fleet being allowed the most. As of 2183, the turians had 37 dreadnoughts, the asari had 21, the salarians
had 16, and the Alliance had 6 with another under construction. As of
2185, the dreadnought count was 39 turian, 20 asari, 16 salarian, and 8
human. By 2186, humans construct a ninth dreadnought, and the volus have
built a single dreadnought of their own.

(from the ME wiki)

So at the beginning of the war, the turians, asari, salarian, humans and volus have 75 dreadnaughts in total.
add the other races and you'll get maybe 80-85 dreadnoughts in the whole galaxy.

Reaper sov-class ships are twice as long and have better shields and weapons than dreadnoughts, thus better shields and weapons than any kind of ship in the galaxy.
Even if there are 840 reapers total (and even if that isn't 100% sov-class), that's 10 times the amount of dreadnoughts. I'm pretty sure there are more than 85 sov-class ships, so they have more bigger ships.


So, back to that first quote:

a.m.p wrote...
In either case why can’t we fight them without the crucible again?

Well, they might not completely outnumber us (maybe they do...), but their best ships outnumber, outgun and 'outshield' our best ships, so of course we need the crucible.

And where would the other Reapers be?
Well, they can go to dark space, so who says they can't go to other galaxies?
Who says we're the only galaxy that gets reaped?
(cue dramatic music)




But anyway, to a.m.p: Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be a hater. I love your posts, it's fun to think about some of the details in the ME universe.

[Blacklash93]

The Reapers are all over the place. And the galactic war in general has little sense and consistency.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 19 juin 2012 - 09:27 .

[xLeth]

we had to spend the time and resources of building the crucible to refitting ships with thanix cannons and other upgrades

[feriwan]

Wait, I have a quick question for whoever would still be reading this.
So we know Reapers harvest organics. Some are used for DNA for a new Reaper, some are 'upgraded' and turned into husks as ground troops.
Would they also do the same to ships: upgrade them with Reaper tech and use them against organics?
That would also give them more firepower in the galaxy...