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[A0170]

a.m.p wrote...

A0170 wrote...
I would've loved to see the game work out how you mentioned. But again, with the way they wrote the story, not using a magical Reaper killing device is impossible.

I am pretty certain the causality here is such: We want to use a magical off button => we need to write the story this way.
Not the other way around.
And that is the saddest thing of all.

I know I'm totally with you on this. It's a such shame too.

[daecath]

The problem is it's too inconsistent to know for sure. One thing says that it takes 4 dreadnaught class ships to take down one reaper, yet you see another reaper go down after being hit with a hand-held heavy weapon (I think it was a Cain). So either it's completely impossible, or it's so simple a small troop with heavy weapons could take down the entire reaper army with a few shots.

[JShepppp]

A0170 wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

I feel like I have to defend my favorite FTL torpedoes.

We don't have formulas for how ME FTL works, do we? It's not like we can sceintifically prove whether an imaginary projectile traveling faster than light using imaginary technology will do enough damage to an imaginary kinetic barrier.

My original idea was based on this codex entry, that basically says this: "If we could do that, it would kill them. But we can't do it, because safeguards." The Taetrus story shows that we can remove the safeguards. It does not require an advanced AI, a guy at home did it.
That could give us weapons that can potentially one-hit reapers, that would contradict no previously established lore (I'm looking at you, synthesis). Ane we would be looking at a very different kind of war.

The inconsistency of what the game tells us really comes into play here. The codex entry about it in ME3 is almost certainly a retcon to keep the idea of kamikaze weapons off the table and make the Reapers seem more unbeatable. And because the Taetrus story was done mostly through the blog, I feel like the ingame ME3 codex takes precedent lorewise which really is a shame.

I would've loved to see kamikaze weapons come into play though. Maybe not with ships, considering how valuable they are. But I could've definitely see them building FTL capable drones, slaving them to a VI program, and then launching them wave after wave at a Sovvy class. But again, the codex seemingly throws this idea out the window.

a.m.p., I was not intending to attack your idea in any way. I was drawing mainly upon your mention of the retcon. I agree with both you and A0170 here. If we did - somehow, FTL or otherwise - have a weapon that could one-shot Reapers then things may have been different. I say "may" because it'd depend on the weapon's size and stuff for example (Derelict Reaper - the race that fired the cannon still got harvested) but yes, if there is a mass-applicable one-shot-kill Reaper thing, that would definitely change things entirely. At the very least, it would make 1v1 battles equal. 

Some other interesting questions. We all know that 4 dreadnaughts=1 dead reaper.
Okay. What is the energy output of 4 dreadnaughts? How many cruisers do four dreadnaughts equal in energy output? Because we have a lot of cruisers, and reaper beams can only shoot them down one by one - that's why it makes sense to spread firepower into as many separate ships as possible.

Well if I remember correctly, the codex states that cruisers oftentimes lead a "wolf-pack flotilla" of around 4-5 frigates. Maybe that means that in terms of firepower, 4-5 frigates are the equivalent of 1 cruiser. So by that logic, 4-5 cruisers could serve as the equivalent of 1 dreadnought. It's a heavily flawed assumption I know but, we really don't have anything else to go by.

Cruisers or a small fleet may be able to overwhelm one Sovvy, but remember Cruisers are mainly there to fight Destroyers as well. We only know that there are more of each than capital ships overall, but if we include cruisers, we should include destroyers too in the analysis. 

While I took some liberties with numbers, I thought looking at cruisers and destroyers was too much of a wild card, so to speak. We do know though that they're equal because there's a Codex entry that says a cruiser can destroy a destroyer.

But do feel free to speculate, of course. I really wish we had been given more concrete information about non-capital ships in terms of numbers (besides the Quarian Fleet).

And one other thing that is never taken into account and talked about, because it would really change the situation.
What about the citadel being the relay control center? Why aren't we allowed to use it against the reapers same way they use it against organics every cycle? The council did not bother to study that control panel that was in their own big meeting hall?

It is rather moronic. But even if we were to shut down the relay network, that wouldn't bother the Reapers at all because its what they would've done regardless. The Reapers have the time and the FTL technology to just travel from system to system. We on the other hand need the relay network to maintain our allied war effort. Without it, we'd be just as doomed as the other cycles. So why didn't the Reapers just bumrush the Citadel in the first place? Oh right, plothole.[/quqote]

In addition, the  Reapers can travel faster than us. Even if we were resource-less and could travel in FTL indefinitely like them, we wouldn't be fast enough and would still have difficulty in fights.

And yeah, the entire thing reeks of the moron premise. It's disappointing to have such a powerful villain that can only be defeated by stupidity by the villains, but I suppose I can respect that (grudgingly) someone wrote themselves into a corner here, so to speak.

The fact that we have the freedom to maneuver already gives us a crazy advantage compared to other cycles, that could be utilized if the whole galactic leadersip wasn't forced to be morons. But if we could turn this againt the reapers themselves and deprive them of the freedom to maneuver - and ME1 set up everything we needed for that - we would be looking at a very different kind of war too.
Raynulf here elaborates.

Yes it does give us that advantage over the previous cycles. But don't forget that the Citadel is under Reaper control by Priority: Earth. Why they can't just shut down the relays then is another major plothole. I mean they know about the Crucible. What better way to stop us from using it than to deny us relay access to Earth?

Regardless, it implies that sooner or later, the relay network will be shutdown.

Also, instead of that, MyChemicalBromance's thread about the Omega 4 relay hints that the Reapers could tweak the relays to send organics to a random place in the galaxy devoid of nearby relays. Basically, once they control the relays, not only could they turn on/off as they travel and stop organics from doing so, but they could even split up organics completely by tricking them and directing their relay jumps into the middle of nowhere. Over the centuries of harvesting, the Reapers could pick up the random pieces of organics lying around anyways. 

So I stand by my statement that a nonsensical reaper off button was never needed in this story. They had everything they needed to write a (semi)conventional war of epic proportions. But they chose the crucible plot and did their best to convince us it was the only option. The fact that we are even having this discussion shows how well that worked.

Edit: One last note. I will gladly accept the war assets values as an indicator of how strong a fleet or a ship is, if somebody explains to me what one unit of war assets is. And why a reporter is worth 1/9 of a fleet.
This is comparing oranges to pictures of apples. These numbers make zero sense.

Edit 2: one more note: I am obviously dragging this into my list as yet another counterpoint.

I would've loved to see the game work out how you mentioned. But again, with the way they wrote the story, not using a magical Reaper killing device is impossible.

Agree with you both here. 

As for the edits to a.m.p.'s post:

Edit 1: I didn't know how else to measure the Quarians' ability. I specifically used war assets that ONLY detailed fleets to ensure no random reporter crap was in there. But yeah, I do believe that - and EMS in general - is a flawed concept. 

Edit 2: Feel free to

[JShepppp]

daecath wrote...

The problem is it's too inconsistent to know for sure. One thing says that it takes 4 dreadnaught class ships to take down one reaper, yet you see another reaper go down after being hit with a hand-held heavy weapon (I think it was a Cain). So either it's completely impossible, or it's so simple a small troop with heavy weapons could take down the entire reaper army with a few shots.

I'd suggest here that that was for gameplay reasons. But I also think the Cain killed a destroyer, not a Sovvy, though I may be mistaken about that. 

[JShepppp]

A0170 wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

A0170 wrote...
I would've loved to see the game work out how you mentioned. But again, with the way they wrote the story, not using a magical Reaper killing device is impossible.

I am pretty certain the causality here is such: We want to use a magical off button => we need to write the story this way.
Not the other way around.
And that is the saddest thing of all.

I know I'm totally with you on this. It's a such shame too.

Yeah. They did write themselves into a corner, imo.

[Versidious]

daecath wrote...

The problem is it's too inconsistent to know for sure. One thing says that it takes 4 dreadnaught class ships to take down one reaper, yet you see another reaper go down after being hit with a hand-held heavy weapon (I think it was a Cain). So either it's completely impossible, or it's so simple a small troop with heavy weapons could take down the entire reaper army with a few shots.

They're different kinds of Reaper. I'm not sure that the 'Hades cannon' Reaper is even a Reaper destroyer, but rather one of the 'nonsentient' Reaper types.

This is a really common debate, and each time I say pretty much the same thing: The Reapers are not individually invincible, but there are thousands of them, and each individual Reaper is several times more powerful than its galactic equivalent, eg the 1 Sovereign class Reaper to 4 Dreadnoughts ratio. The Reapers also have major strategic advantages - they have superior scanners, FTL drives, and do not have to defend assets. Likewise, they can infiltrate us, but we cannot infiltrate their ranks. Every Reaper Shepard kills has been one of the itty-bitty destroyers, and it takes a mile-long acid-spewing sandworm to get one of them, the combined firepower of one of the largest fleets in the galaxy against the single weak spot of the second, and specially designed missiles, again at the one weak spot, followed by a huge bombardment from everyone else who's suddenly magically appeared, for the other. The Reapers have both technological and numerical advantages, and every time they defeat our ground forces, they get new material to replenish their losses.

That being said, I would've preferred a game which followed a military campaign, and raids against the Reapers and scavenged sites of ancient races that fought them before, to find ways to overcome their advantages etc.

[Noelemahc]

Wait a second. We have reapers in other galaxies now? How exactly does our kill-through-relays plot device take care of those?

That's my greatest outstanding issue with the Crucible, actually. We know the Reapers didn't build intergalactic relays, or at least not in places easily accessible by organics at tech levels below the "It' Culling Time!" range (at least they did not exhibit the same stupidity we see everywhere in ME3 in terms of organizing tech handouts). Therefore, no organics can leave their galaxies, barring spatial anomalies a-la Farscape.

If we assume there's organic life beyond the Milky Way (which, looking at the widespreadity of lifeforms in the MEverse, is more than likely), shouldn't the Reapers Reap everywhere? Is it the same team of Reapers working according to schedule, with vacations, holidays to Reaper Space Spas and all that? Or are there separate crews that handle each galaxy on their own? Then take the number of Reapers we see around Urth at the very least and multiply it by the number of known galaxies. Cosmic Horror is back in full swing, and not in a good way.

They're different kinds of Reaper. I'm not sure that the 'Hades cannon' Reaper is even a Reaper destroyer, but rather one of the 'nonsentient' Reaper types.

Good point. It seemed a different shape and size from the Destroyers we destroy on Rannoch and Tuchanka, too. Unless it was a kiddie Reaper, it probably was a lesser breed.

That being said, I would've preferred a game which followed a military campaign, and raids against the Reapers and scavenged sites of ancient races that fought them before, to find ways to overcome their advantages etc.

You and me both. Sadly, I think that a sci-fi version of Freedom Fighters is an impossible hope, however awesome it may have been to see and play.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 02 mai 2012 - 07:28 .

[a.m.p]

JShepppp wrote...

Yeah. They did write themselves into a corner, imo.

But they didn't have to, that's the problem. Everything was there that they needed to not write themselves into the corner. But they still did their best to do so.

About EMS - it's almost good enough for a gameplay mechanic, but definitely not good enough to base any kind of analysis on it. I have a horrible feeling I might have to write another wall of text on everything we do know about allied forces. My poor free time.

About the Hades Cannon. I'm pretty sure it was a destroyer with a cannon slapped on it. Which might weaken him. Or not. We never get to shoot a regular destroyer with a Cain to compare.

Edit: The 'reapers in other galaxies' idea makes my inner Shepard very, very umcomfortable.

Modifié par a.m.p, 02 mai 2012 - 07:46 .

[moater boat]

JShepppp wrote...


IV. Non-Capital Ships: Cruisers/destroyers and figheters/occuli will be considered negligible.

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

[Noelemahc]

Edit: The 'reapers in other galaxies' idea makes my inner Shepard very, very umcomfortable.

Welcome to the theory of Cosmic Horror. In order to work, your enemy should not only be incomprehensible -- it actually CAN be comprehensible, if necessary (f.e. Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep is very comprehensible, as he relies on human fallibility and greed and so on, using them to further his purposes) -- its goals unfathomable, but it should also be unquantifiable. Inevitable. Unwavering. Unstoppable. And the most important -- compared to it, you, the singular you, should be utterly irrelevant, as a grain of sand thrown into a star.

BioWare ruined that with most of the things that happen in ME3 after Sovereign and Harbinger worked so hard to set it all up in the previous games. Granted, real Cosmic Horror also cannot be defeated, only repelled for a time. In that regard, Synthesis is actually the worst ending, as it turns US into a part of that horror by making us not just unopposed to the Reapers, but the same as them, in a way. They do not harvest us any more because they are apparently repulsed by the idea of cannibalism. (or, if you want to get technical, because techno-organic creatures are harder to reduce to organic grey goo)

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

Sad but true. If the thanix cannons are scaleable to fighter or at least frigate size, then you really shouldn't discount everything smaller than a Sovereign class. I know they're impossible to count, but they should not be ignored. As we've discussed in several of a.m.p,'s threads, depending on their coordination, they can probably take down more than one Sovereign-class Reaper with acceptable losses.

The Oculi are generally inferior to Alliance ships -- the Normandy only gets banged up because it's attacked by a lot of them on their home turf -- and even then, its maneuverability is still not a fighter's. They are essentially unmanned probes with no palpable armour, and probably weak kinetic barriers. Their only upside, other than not wasting resources on pilots whose training gets invalidated the moment they are fragged, is that they probably outnumber the fighter fleets of the United Fleet regardless of your plot decisions.

[A0170]

Noelemahc wrote...

Edit: The 'reapers in other galaxies' idea makes my inner Shepard very, very umcomfortable.

Welcome to the theory of Cosmic Horror. In order to work, your enemy should not only be incomprehensible -- it actually CAN be comprehensible, if necessary (f.e. Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep is very comprehensible, as he relies on human fallibility and greed and so on, using them to further his purposes) -- its goals unfathomable, but it should also be unquantifiable. Inevitable. Unwavering. Unstoppable. And the most important -- compared to it, you, the singular you, should be utterly irrelevant, as a grain of sand thrown into a star.

BioWare ruined that with most of the things that happen in ME3 after Sovereign and Harbinger worked so hard to set it all up in the previous games. Granted, real Cosmic Horror also cannot be defeated, only repelled for a time. In that regard, Synthesis is actually the worst ending, as it turns US into a part of that horror by making us not just unopposed to the Reapers, but the same as them, in a way. They do not harvest us any more because they are apparently repulsed by the idea of cannibalism. (or, if you want to get technical, because techno-organic creatures are harder to reduce to organic grey goo)

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

Sad but true. If the thanix cannons are scaleable to fighter or at least frigate size, then you really shouldn't discount everything smaller than a Sovereign class. I know they're impossible to count, but they should not be ignored. As we've discussed in several of a.m.p,'s threads, depending on their coordination, they can probably take down more than one Sovereign-class Reaper with acceptable losses.

The Oculi are generally inferior to Alliance ships -- the Normandy only gets banged up because it's attacked by a lot of them on their home turf -- and even then, its maneuverability is still not a fighter's. They are essentially unmanned probes with no palpable armour, and probably weak kinetic barriers. Their only upside, other than not wasting resources on pilots whose training gets invalidated the moment they are fragged, is that they probably outnumber the fighter fleets of the United Fleet regardless of your plot decisions.

Do we really know that Oculi are inferior to Alliance fighters? The only time we really see Alliance fighters actually dogfighting with Oculi is in the intro mission, and that Alliance fighter didn't do so well.

Also we really don't know how effective sending waves of fighters at a Reaper capital ship would be. Sure they'd be able to do some damage, and IMO they could take out a Reaper capital ship or two. But in no way would the amount of fighters lost be acceptable. We can asssume that Reaper capital ships have powerful versions of the GARDIAN system, much more advanced than ours. Also, they'll be escorted by several destroyers and hundreds of Oculi. No way would our fighter squadrons make it out of a battle like that without some pretty severe casualties. Then add up what those losses of trained pilots and usable fighter craft mean over time and the effectiveness of this tactic becomes lower and lower.

Don't forget that the Reapers can do the same thing with our ships as well. They have hundreds, if not thousands of Oculi at their disposal. We know from ME2 that the laser of each Oculi has the power to rip through the Normandy's shields and armor. Now imagine what kind of damage thousands of those will due to an Allied fleet. Sure, we could send our own fighters to engage them, but then that also means less fighters would be able to attack the main Sovvy classes.

Modifié par A0170, 02 mai 2012 - 09:04 .

[Versidious]

A few more points. Firstly, the Thanix debate.

The origin of Thanix weapons is that they are cheap knock-offs of Sovereign's main gun. So, using the principle of 'Let's assume that they are as capable of bypassing the shields of Sovvies, as the main guns on actual Reapers are of piercing allied shields' and hence 'Let's further assume that this results in Dreadnoughts now being 1:1 equivalent to Sovereign class ships (in terms of magnitude of firepower only)'. The Reapers still would have superiority of accuracy/range and numbers, as well as the huge strategic and tactical advantages they still possess.
However, the 1:1 is not appropriate. Not only are Thanix weapons clearly not exact duplicates of Reaper weapons (They aren't big red beams), but all main guns, Reaper or otherwise, still rely on their length (As rail/coil-type weapons, they continuously accelerate their projectiles along their length, so the longer the gun, the more powerful the shot), which is another one of the reasons why the 2 kilometre-long Reapers are so powerful, and also why Dreadnoughts are referred to as weapons of mass destruction.


To address the Lasers issue...  it's mentioned that Reapers also make use of laser defences, the way we do. If lasers could be used to mess up Reapers, the Reapers would also be able to use lasers in the same way to mess US up. It's most likely that the ME3 writers simply wanted to leave lasers out of the equations, as they always have in the previous games, or even that they don't really understand optics. The series, let's not forget, has never liked lasers, and always left them as relegated to an anti-missile/point-defence role, favouring instead the big badass railguns. This is even though lasers always would have had the same advantages in conventional battles as they do against the Reapers, and I'm sure the militaristic Turians would've loved to have such an advantage against, say the Krogan in the Krogan rebellions, or the Asari would've loved against the Rachni... You get the idea. If highly advanced 15000 year old civilisations haven't been able to figure out how to do lasers over the last few millennia, it's safe to say that we can discard the possibility. In a realistic world view... I'm not a space scientist, and it's a couple of years since I graduated and hence last did any Physics, but I'm fairly certain that you could say that on large ships the protection from gamma rays, x-rays, and other EM radiation that would be a hazard to ship and crew, could also protect against lower energy UV and Infrared lasers (the two types mentioned in game).

On that note, the OP was right about FTL missiles. Although any significant mass accelerated to sub-light relativistic speeds would contain an immense amount of kinetic energy (The principle upon which existing weapons work), tachyons n'such are a different kettle of fish, according to what we know. Of course, any FTL system would have to ignore relativity anyway, because otherwise they'd perceive themselves as travelling back in time. But I digress.

Noelemahc wrote...

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

Sad but true. If the thanix cannons are scaleable to fighter or at least frigate size, then you really shouldn't discount everything smaller than a Sovereign class. I know they're impossible to count, but they should not be ignored. As we've discussed in several of a.m.p,'s threads, depending on their coordination, they can probably take down more than one Sovereign-class Reaper with acceptable losses.

Not true. Remember, he discarded Cruisers, but also Reaper Destroyers, who make up the bulk of the Reaper fleet. Also note the methods he used to calculate the number of Dreadnoughts in the Geth fleet was to divide the entire Geth fleet strength by 39, when we know that the Geth fleet is numerically at least, mostly cruisers and fighters, the same as any other fleet. If you assume the same ratio for both sides, the Reapers still have significantly greater strength.

Honestly, guys, the technology in the ME universe is not in line with current physics anyway. They've defined limits to it beforehand - all the potential weapons you suggest would have been incredibly useful in previous wars. Assuming an FTL missile would be a one-shot ship-killer, hell yes someone would've done it already. And, again, remember that the other Council races have been spacefaring and fighting huge galactic wars for as long as we've had the wheel. Against the Rachni, or the Krogan, that stuff would've been *useful*. Even a near-c missile would've been fabulously handy. But it's not been invented. So we can assume that, for whatever reason, it won't work in the ME universe. Why? Because the same people who thought up the cool imaginary technology in the first place did not want this cool imaginary technology to give us omnipotence. Would you really have wanted a game which went something along the lines of: "OK, so Shepard, we've developed these one-shot FTL drones that will basically wipe out all the Reaper capital ships in every engagement we have with them." "OK, so, what do you need me to do?" "Nothing really, stand around, maybe make some inspiring speeches. We may need you to clear up some Husks once we've finished killing all the Reapers, or something? I don't know. Hack it out."  Yes, it's kind of a form of 'plot armour' (Though not really, plot armour is circumstancial, not fundamental, no matter how odd it sounds), because they needed to ensure that the solution centred around Shepard. Having it so that Alliance R&D could just come up with convenient Sovereign-killers and give allied navies an enormous game-winning advantage just wouldn't work, and needed to be prevented.

So yes, a.m.p., you would have been a great Admiral/weapons designer in a different space-future universe. But in this one, your genius is sadly wasted...   

Modifié par Versidious, 02 mai 2012 - 09:28 .

[Noelemahc]

Don't forget that the Reapers can do the same thing with our ships as well. They have hundreds, if not thousands of Oculi at their disposal. We know from ME2 that the laser of each Oculi has the power to rip through the Normandy's shields and armor. Now imagine what kind of damage thousands of those will due to an Allied fleet. Sure, we could send our own fighters to engage them, but then that also means less fighters would be able to attack the main Sovvy classes. 

Which brings us back to square one. The opening salvo of the United Fleet (which, incidentally, is the most single stupid tactic imaginable for a setting that has long ago established the "what has been fired in the wrong direction cannot be un-fired" when shooting willly-nilly at a loose-formation enemy fleet hovering right in front of your own frelling homeworld) should have decimated a significant portion of the Reaper support forces, Destroyers and all. Even the disruptor missiles we see manage to tear some random Sov-class up. Imagine if that fleet was Codex-adequately equipped with antimatter and Thanix weaponry. If we had nukes and EMPs designed by Daro'Xen?

Also, if Reapers had GARDIANs, I'm sure they wouldn't have been using their main cannons only when deploying on planet surfaces. A point-defense system is dead weight if it cannot be switched into an offensive mode. Even Star Trek relied on using point-defense systems to whittle down enemy shields every once in a while, and Star Trek's grip on what sensible space combat should be has always been tenuous at best.

Because the same people who thought up the cool imaginary technology did not want this cool imaginary technology to give us omnipotence. Would you really have wanted a game which went something along the lines of: "OK, so Shepard, we've developed these one-shot FTL drones that will basically wipe out all the Reaper capital ships in every engagement we have with them."

Isn't that what the Crucible does anyway? And there's still a boatload of limitations to all of the weapon ideas people have managed to invent along the way. In fact, outside of Daro'Xen's (cut-from-the-game) suicide AI Virus bombs, none had any chance of reaching a palpable, reliable kill rate. FTL weapons are hard to aim and devastatingly dangerous if you miss. Remember, that's Urth right behind the Reaper fleet. If you really wanna take it back, you don't wanna shoot it up.
Unless you LIKED that one scene in System Shock. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

Modifié par Noelemahc, 02 mai 2012 - 09:31 .

[Flextt]

oxy-moronic. hehe

[Versidious]

Noelemahc wrote...

Don't forget that the Reapers can do the same thing with our ships as well. They have hundreds, if not thousands of Oculi at their disposal. We know from ME2 that the laser of each Oculi has the power to rip through the Normandy's shields and armor. Now imagine what kind of damage thousands of those will due to an Allied fleet. Sure, we could send our own fighters to engage them, but then that also means less fighters would be able to attack the main Sovvy classes. 

Which brings us back to square one. The opening salvo of the United Fleet (which, incidentally, is the most single stupid tactic imaginable for a setting that has long ago established the "what has been fired in the wrong direction cannot be un-fired" when shooting willly-nilly at a loose-formation enemy fleet hovering right in front of your own frelling homeworld) should have decimated a significant portion of the Reaper support forces, Destroyers and all. Even the disruptor missiles we see manage to tear some random Sov-class up. Imagine if that fleet was Codex-adequately equipped with antimatter and Thanix weaponry. If we had nukes and EMPs designed by Daro'Xen?

EMPs are unlikely to work against starships or Reapers. Any vessel operating outside of a habitable planet's magnetic field for any length of time will have to be well protected against such things. As for nukes...  For whatever reason, noone in the universe uses them. I can only assume that Kinetic barriers are effective against them. Of course, a present-day fusion warhead is capable of an energy output at least ten times that of the impact from the main gun of a Reaper, so I really do wonder why not.

Noelemahc wrote...
Also, if Reapers had GARDIANs, I'm sure they wouldn't have been using their main cannons only when deploying on planet surfaces. A point-defense system is dead weight if it cannot be switched into an offensive mode. Even Star Trek relied on using point-defense systems to whittle down enemy shields every once in a while, and Star Trek's grip on what sensible space combat should be has always been tenuous at best.

They did. Remember Harbinger at the Citadel beam? Point defence weapons. In fact, any Reaper beams used on the ground will be those. The main gun is simply too powerful to use there, and would only be able to fire at the Reaper's feet anyway!

[Noelemahc]

For whatever reason, noone in the universe uses them.

The Miracle of Palaven relied on them, IIRC. Then there was that human colony that preferred extinction to submission the nukular way. At the very least, hoo-mans, krogans and batarians still have nukes, we're primitive like that compared to the rest of them.

They did. Remember Harbinger at the Citadel beam? Point defence weapons.

(>_<)

[JShepppp]

moater boat wrote...

JShepppp wrote...


IV. Non-Capital Ships: Cruisers/destroyers and figheters/occuli will be considered negligible.

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

You took that from the TLDR section so I guess you didn't read further as to why I made that decision. 

We know that cruisers and destroyers make up the bulk of either fleets. The Codex also tells us that they can pretty much 1v1 each other fine. Fighters and occuli are things we are not given a conversion rate for. 

Either way, there is not a SINGLE mention ANYWHERE of numbers for those. I left those out because I could not bring them into the discussion in what I felt was a valuable way. By all means, I gladly invite you and anyone else to provide me with numbers for all of those fighting classes and I will gladly update my OP with your well-supported views. Seriously, if you have a good way to do it, I'm very interested to see it. I don't think anyone has come up with a way to determine cruiser/destroyer numbers without being arbitrary yet. 

[Versidious]

Noelemahc wrote...

Because the same people who thought up the cool imaginary technology did not want this cool imaginary technology to give us omnipotence. Would you really have wanted a game which went something along the lines of: "OK, so Shepard, we've developed these one-shot FTL drones that will basically wipe out all the Reaper capital ships in every engagement we have with them."

Isn't that what the Crucible does anyway? And there's still a boatload of limitations to all of the weapon ideas people have managed to invent along the way. In fact, outside of Daro'Xen's (cut-from-the-game) suicide AI Virus bombs, none had any chance of reaching a palpable, reliable kill rate. FTL weapons are hard to aim and devastatingly dangerous if you miss. Remember, that's Urth right behind the Reaper fleet. If you really wanna take it back, you don't wanna shoot it up.
Unless you LIKED that one scene in System Shock. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

"Isn't that what the Crucible does anyway?" The Crucible, narratively, must be protected conventionally, and hence requires Shepard to gather support. It also, as it turns out, requires him to disocver what the final piece is. The notion of an ancient superweapon allows the game to keep Shepard central to the plot - there is no point at which Shepard is told to just sit back and let his buddies do all the work now.

'FTL weapons are hard to aim' Why? There is no reason for that in game or out. Well, OK, there's possible time flow issues in real life that would have to be compensated for, but A: That's ignored in Mass Effect anyway, and B: Even if it were, it would require you to calculate where Reapers were a few seconds ago. Oh look, you don't have to, you were scanning them then, and can just aim at where they were then.

And if none of these weapons had any chance of reaching a palapable, reliable kill rate, then they do not allow you to fight the Reapers conventionally. Please remember, the Reapers have numerical superiority, tactical superiority, and strategic superiority, in addition to their blunt-force firepower superiorities, and they are not a turn-based game, where you get to shoot at them first, and if your firepower was enough then they die without shooting back and you win.

Modifié par Versidious, 02 mai 2012 - 09:58 .

[Versidious]

Noelemahc wrote...

For whatever reason, noone in the universe uses them.

The Miracle of Palaven relied on them, IIRC. Then there was that human colony that preferred extinction to submission the nukular way. At the very least, hoo-mans, krogans and batarians still have nukes, we're primitive like that compared to the rest of them.

The Salarians also jury-rig one in Mass Effect 1. But, for some reason, they're not significant in ship-to-ship. I can only assume that GARDIAN systems are too effective to make them useful, and would assume that there'd be a similar problem with using them against Reaper defenses.

[A0170]

Noelemahc wrote...

Don't forget that the Reapers can do the same thing with our ships as well. They have hundreds, if not thousands of Oculi at their disposal. We know from ME2 that the laser of each Oculi has the power to rip through the Normandy's shields and armor. Now imagine what kind of damage thousands of those will due to an Allied fleet. Sure, we could send our own fighters to engage them, but then that also means less fighters would be able to attack the main Sovvy classes. 

Which brings us back to square one. The opening salvo of the United Fleet (which, incidentally, is the most single stupid tactic imaginable for a setting that has long ago established the "what has been fired in the wrong direction cannot be un-fired" when shooting willly-nilly at a loose-formation enemy fleet hovering right in front of your own frelling homeworld) should have decimated a significant portion of the Reaper support forces, Destroyers and all. Even the disruptor missiles we see manage to tear some random Sov-class up. Imagine if that fleet was Codex-adequately equipped with antimatter and Thanix weaponry. If we had nukes and EMPs designed by Daro'Xen?

Also, if Reapers had GARDIANs, I'm sure they wouldn't have been using their main cannons only when deploying on planet surfaces. A point-defense system is dead weight if it cannot be switched into an offensive mode. Even Star Trek relied on using point-defense systems to whittle down enemy shields every once in a while, and Star Trek's grip on what sensible space combat should be has always been tenuous at best.

I agree that the opening salvo was pretty stupid. The collateral damage on Earth from all those missed shots must've been devastating. But if you look at the actual cinematic, all (except for one) of the Reaper ships seem to just shrug off whatever's fired from our fleet. Sure, it probably did some real damage, maybe even a destroyer or two was lost, but we don't see it on screen.

We do however see that one Reaper ship lose a few tentacles at @ 2:45ish-3:00. Clearly, this ship took some real damage, but notice how it was still able to take out that Alliance cruiser? Plus, it's still flying after taking all that punishment. No way do our ships have that kind of durability.

Also at 3:05, we do see an Alliance fighter shoot down an Oculus. So my bad on claiming that the intro mission was the only scene where we see Alliance fighters dogfighting Oculi. But if we do take the intro dogfight into account along with this one, I'd still argue that Alliance fighters are still not overtly superior to Oculi, rather they're just about the same in effectiveness, with the x-factor depending on how good the pilot is. The pilot from the Sword fleet cinematic is clearly some sort of CAG or squadron leader, implying that his skill is higher than most of the pilots under his command, and the pilot from the intro.

As for your point about GARDIANs, let's look at the cutscene from Priority: Tuchanka for a minute. Go to 11:40 and see how effective those fighters are against a destroyer. Yes they were supposed to serve as a distraction. But still all of those fighters were shot down rather easily, with little to no damage done to the destroyer. So while you're right in that Reapers don't have a GARDIAN-like system like ours, from the looks of it they don't even need one due to how powerful their main gun, armor, and shield technology is. Furthermore, if thats how our fighters will fare against a destroyer than I can imagine the losses will be incredibly high. With that kind of attrition rate, the number of quality pilots and usable craft we have will diminish.

Again, bear in mind that if we wanted to use fighters to attack Reaper ships, then our fighters would still have to get past their destroyer and Oculi defenses while simultaneously defending our ships from Oculi attacks. How long can we sustain effective fighter based attacks when considering how spread out our fighter forces would be and the inevitable casualties that will arise?

Modifié par A0170, 02 mai 2012 - 10:22 .

[moater boat]

JShepppp wrote...

moater boat wrote...

JShepppp wrote...


IV. Non-Capital Ships: Cruisers/destroyers and figheters/occuli will be considered negligible.

Congratulations. you managed to invalidate your entire wall of text right off the bat with this little gem here.

You took that from the TLDR section so I guess you didn't read further as to why I made that decision. 

We know that cruisers and destroyers make up the bulk of either fleets. The Codex also tells us that they can pretty much 1v1 each other fine. Fighters and occuli are things we are not given a conversion rate for. 

Either way, there is not a SINGLE mention ANYWHERE of numbers for those. I left those out because I could not bring them into the discussion in what I felt was a valuable way. By all means, I gladly invite you and anyone else to provide me with numbers for all of those fighting classes and I will gladly update my OP with your well-supported views. Seriously, if you have a good way to do it, I'm very interested to see it. I don't think anyone has come up with a way to determine cruiser/destroyer numbers without being arbitrary yet. 

Actually I read/skimmed the rest of it.

I don't think you realize how big of a flaw it was to only look at the capital ships. Reaper capital ships are the backbone of the reaper fleet. While they don't make up the majority of the Reaper fleet, everything is centered around them.

The combined organic fleet is another matter altogether. We have every reason to assume that the combined organic fleets are not based around a their dreadnaughts, but rather the smaller ships like the cruisers, the carriers, and the frigates.

How do we know this? Well first of all there is a treaty that all the council races abide by which limits the number of dreadnaughts available. This is very much like what happened in Europe after WW1 with their seagoing fleets. In response to limits on their battleships, Germany produced "pocket battleships" or ships that still packed a punch but fell within the treaty guidelines. It would be perfectly logical to assume that the council races acted in a similar matter and and have plenty of cruisers, frigates, and carriers.

Even if you disregard the treaty, there is no reason to assume that the organic fleets would be based around dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts, for all their firepower, armor, and sheer impressiveness, would not be very useful when it comes to dealing with the threats that the council races must deal with. Sending a dreadnaught to destroy a small raider vessel is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. Given the main threat that they council races must deal with, (pirates, terrorists, occasional rebellions, etc) It would be absolutely foolish of them to have an excess of dreadnaughts when those resources could have been spent on smaller, cheaper craft that can respond to many more situations than a single large ship.

Because of these reasons, the ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION is that the major bulk of the council fleet is made up of smaller craft, and their strategies are centered around cruisers, frigates, and carriers. In fact, they probably only have dreadnaughts specifically for intimidation purposes, and as a safeguard against massive alien invasions like the Rachni, or the Reapers.

As for how you could possibly turn all this into a numerical analysis? Well that is a sticking point. The best idea I can come up with is rather convoluted, but it may work.

First, one must look at the battle of the citadel in ME1 and get an estimate of the number of Geth ships. Then using the numbers provided by Legion when he talks about the Heratics (was it about 5% of all the Geth? I'm not sure) But that will at least give us an idea of the amount of smaller craft in the Geth fleet.

We can then extrapolate that using TMS to determine about how many smaller craft there are per TMS point

Then finally use that information to get a number of smaller craft for the council races.

It is by no means perfect, but at least it gives us SOME sort of number to work with.

As for the number of Reaper destroyers, for some reason I think it is about 10 destroyers to every capital ship. I'm not sure why that is stuck in my head, but something made me come to that conclusion.

[Erield]

moater boat wrote...
I don't think you realize how big of a flaw it was to only look at the capital ships. Reaper capital ships are the backbone of the reaper fleet. While they don't make up the majority of the Reaper fleet, everything is centered around them.

The combined organic fleet is another matter altogether. We have every reason to assume that the combined organic fleets are not based around a their dreadnaughts, but rather the smaller ships like the cruisers, the carriers, and the frigates.

You are still ignoring the fact that the Codex tells us that Reaper forces match Galactic forces on ratios of approximately 1:1 in regards to smaller craft.  In order to be statistically significant in battle, the Galactic forces would have to have a clear advantage.

Let's play out a scenario.  A group of Cruisers are using wolf-pack tactics to destroy Sovvy's.  They are not being used to attack enemy Destroyers, which means enemy Destroyers are free to decimate friendly Fighters.  This means that enemy Fighters can freely wreak havoc on friendly Cruisers--which were attempting to kill Sovvy's, but now are dead instead.  So, instead of using appropriate tactics to the ship's weight, you wasted a significant number of forces in order to take out a Sovvy or three--completely discounting what the Sovvy's would do to the Cruisers.

@OP: If we follow the ME3 storyline and Crucible build-up all the way to just before the final battle, the Crucible is still not necessary.  The bulk of the Reaper forces are on Earth.  We are specifically told this.  We can clearly see that the rest of the Reaper forces are spread around the galaxy.  Based on the number of Reapers in Sol system, it would make destroying the Sol Relay strategically viable.  The massed fleets could then focus on taking on the spread-out Reaper fleets one at a time.  Galactic forces would retain a sizable numerical advantage for as long as the Reapers remained spread out.  Given proper timing, there is a possibility for this continuing until the Reaper threat was largely mitigated or eliminated.  This is, of course, assuming the best-case scenario of Reaper numbers; if there are thousands of Soverign class ships, well, we're super-boned.

[moater boat]

Erield wrote...

moater boat wrote...
I don't think you realize how big of a flaw it was to only look at the capital ships. Reaper capital ships are the backbone of the reaper fleet. While they don't make up the majority of the Reaper fleet, everything is centered around them.

The combined organic fleet is another matter altogether. We have every reason to assume that the combined organic fleets are not based around a their dreadnaughts, but rather the smaller ships like the cruisers, the carriers, and the frigates.

You are still ignoring the fact that the Codex tells us that Reaper forces match Galactic forces on ratios of approximately 1:1 in regards to smaller craft.  In order to be statistically significant in battle, the Galactic forces would have to have a clear advantage.

Does it say that? Interesting. But how can the codex entry say that, when the size of the galactic force can vary so much based on how you play the game?

[Versidious]

moater boat wrote...
I don't think you realize how big of a flaw it was to only look at the capital ships. Reaper capital ships are the backbone of the reaper fleet. While they don't make up the majority of the Reaper fleet, everything is centered around them.

The combined organic fleet is another matter altogether. We have every reason to assume that the combined organic fleets are not based around a their dreadnaughts, but rather the smaller ships like the cruisers, the carriers, and the frigates.

How do we know this? Well first of all there is a treaty that all the council races abide by which limits the number of dreadnaughts available. This is very much like what happened in Europe after WW1 with their seagoing fleets. In response to limits on their battleships, Germany produced "pocket battleships" or ships that still packed a punch but fell within the treaty guidelines. It would be perfectly logical to assume that the council races acted in a similar matter and and have plenty of cruisers, frigates, and carriers.

Even if you disregard the treaty, there is no reason to assume that the organic fleets would be based around dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts, for all their firepower, armor, and sheer impressiveness, would not be very useful when it comes to dealing with the threats that the council races must deal with. Sending a dreadnaught to destroy a small raider vessel is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. Given the main threat that they council races must deal with, (pirates, terrorists, occasional rebellions, etc) It would be absolutely foolish of them to have an excess of dreadnaughts when those resources could have been spent on smaller, cheaper craft that can respond to many more situations than a single large ship.

Because of these reasons, the ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION is that the major bulk of the council fleet is made up of smaller craft, and their strategies are centered around cruisers, frigates, and carriers. In fact, they probably only have dreadnaughts specifically for intimidation purposes, and as a safeguard against massive alien invasions like the Rachni, or the Reapers.

As for how you could possibly turn all this into a numerical analysis? Well that is a sticking point. The best idea I can come up with is rather convoluted, but it may work.

First, one must look at the battle of the citadel in ME1 and get an estimate of the number of Geth ships. Then using the numbers provided by Legion when he talks about the Heratics (was it about 5% of all the Geth? I'm not sure) But that will at least give us an idea of the amount of smaller craft in the Geth fleet.

We can then extrapolate that using TMS to determine about how many smaller craft there are per TMS point

Then finally use that information to get a number of smaller craft for the council races.

It is by no means perfect, but at least it gives us SOME sort of number to work with.

As for the number of Reaper destroyers, for some reason I think it is about 10 destroyers to every capital ship. I'm not sure why that is stuck in my head, but something made me come to that conclusion.

The Reaper fleet number is exceedingly difficult to estimate. We can get a rough minimum count of Reaper capital ships, but not Destroyers. All we know is that they 'make up the bulk of the Reaper fleet'. As for the Sovvies making the backbone...  You use a lot of reasoning to back up your assertion about council tactics relying primarily on other ships, but then make wild guesses about the Reapers. So, let's dicuss Reaper tactics.

Now, a Reaper Destroyer is roughly equivalent to a Council Cruiser. It is superior to frigates. We see one on Tuchanka tear apart a squadron of fighters, and apparently the one on Rannoch manages to still do some damage to ships in orbit. Destroyers are not weaklings, not by a long shot, and as we've seen, they are sufficiently powerful that the Reapers consider them capable of carrying out important tasks without Sovereign class support. Which counters your assertion that Reaper tactics rely on Sovereign-class vessels. Indeed, as these Reapers are immortal monuments which preserve dead civilisations, I doubt the Reapers would want to risk them any more than they had to. So Destroyers would, in fact, be the backbone of Reaper military power, and no Sovereign class reapers would go anywhere without a lot of Destroyers at their back (Except for Sovereign itself, obviously, but I get the feeling he wasn't that popular amongst Reapers anyway and probably wasn't invited to any of their parties. Maybe he didn't even need to stay behind, the Reapers just wanted rid of him, so that he'd stop bringing them down with his 'edgy' red glowing, and muttering about how all life was just a pointless accident anyway, and how organics were worthless, even though the whole point of Reapers was to save organics from themselves, apparently. Seriously, what a Debbie Downer Sovereign was. All the others probably warned him thatt cross-wiring his Indoctrination Transmission Gazors so that things would be red when he Assumed Direct Control would make his shields vulnerable, and he was all like 'You don't undestand the futility of existence, and you just don't get how awesome red is', and they just rolled their eyes and were all like 'Yeah, sure Sovereign, do whatever you want, just don't come crying to us when it ****s you up.' And the Reapers actually wanted Shepard alive so that they could throw him a party for *finally* getting rid of that goddamned dick.).

But yeah, another issue with claiming that cruisers and frigates are a big deal, is remember how Sovereign ignored all those cruisers at the battle of the Citadel? How all their firepower wasn't enough to bring down even *one* Reaper capital ship, until Shepard broke his shields? There were three Alliance fleets and the Citadel's guard fleet there. Even if you assume that the Geth were still keeping most of those guys busy, that's still a lot of frigates, cruisers, and a couple of dreadnoughts, shooting Sovereign at once. From this we can deduce that the combined firepower of a lot of cruisers and frigates is not that significant to a Sovereign class Reaper.

Modifié par Versidious, 02 mai 2012 - 11:40 .

[Versidious]

moater boat wrote...

Erield wrote...

You are still ignoring the fact that the Codex tells us that Reaper forces match Galactic forces on ratios of approximately 1:1 in regards to smaller craft.  In order to be statistically significant in battle, the Galactic forces would have to have a clear advantage.

Does it say that? Interesting. But how can the codex entry say that, when the size of the galactic force can vary so much based on how you play the game?

Not that much, perhaps. If the number refers to how many ships there are in the galaxy at the onset of Reaper invasion, there's really not that much difference. The TMS is how many ships you take to Earth, not the total galactic military strength!