246 réponses à ce sujet

[JShepppp]

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.

Everything is centered around Sovvys in the sense that they're the most powerful and they're the ones that are clustered at Earth. Elsewhere, as others have said in this thread, Reapers use Destroyers to do the job. Destroyers make up the bulk of the fleet, but they are probably matched by cruisers. 

I know it was a flaw. But I still don't think there's a good way to include explanations about 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.

Codex tells us that strategy normally involves dreadnoughts vs dreadnoughts with other ships serving as support for the massive ones. But again, we know that non-dreadnoughts make up the bulk of the Council fleet already. There are more smaller ships.

But the Reapers also have a lot of Destroyers and such. Basically, because the Reapers have similar spaceship classes, we need to match each class we include with its corresponding class. Destroyers would match against cruisers and groups of frigates. 

Yes, the majority of the ships are non-capitals for organics. But the same holds true for the Reapers, and that balances out (Codex says cruiser can kill a destroyer) in a 1v1 fashion. We need to see if any side has decisive numbers bigger than the other in that category. If that's not really the case, then the non-capitals will likely duke it out and balance themselves separately from the dreadnoughts.

Sure, a bunch of cruisers can take on a Sovvy and we can see what happens. But who's saying the Sovvy won't have other destroyers and such around it, especially when destroyers make up the bulk of the Reaper numbers? There needs to be a significant differential to apply different classes of ships against each other.

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.

For the organic number, if you could do that, that'd be much appreciated. We also would need to determine the relative power to destroyers, and if we could somehow then relate "military capability" across all classes, then we could come up with a decisive idea of sorts. 

EMS does that but it's marred by its inclusions of "motivators" like reporters, former squadmates, etc.

For the Reaper destroyers, the number 10 is arbitrary and has popped up on these forums. I'd rather not use arbitrary numbers unless they're somehow grounded in other numbers somewhere.

[JShepppp]

Erield wrote...

[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.

I personally agree. There needs to be a significant difference.

@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.

Well, assuming Reapers aren't morons, they'd just FTL out so we'd just delay them. Yeah, I know Earth has the bulk of the fleet. But we don't know how much are still elsewhere; remember that Palaven and Thessia had full planet-wide attacks by Sovvys. And other systems have some Reaper presences. We'd have our hands full with that.

As for taking out the spread-out Reapers, what's to say the Reapers, if they realize that they're at a disadvantage spread out, won't FTL to relays and jump around until they're together and then move around as a bigger force? Remember, they have instantaneous communication and can communicate while in FTL (e.g. Harbinger controlling the Collectors as he travelled). 

If we take the best numbers (as you acknowledge) at around 295 and give there to be about 200 Reapers at Earth that we'd delay, we still have about 100 Reapers left around with a fighting force that, at best/inflated numbers (at least imo) is about half its strength. If they regroup they'd still be relatively unstoppable. 

It would definitely delay things though because the Reapers would have to shift around to consolidate their fleet strength to steamroll. 

And yeah lol, if there are thousands of Sovvys, we're royally screwed. 

[TookYoCookies]

Crucible is the only way to defeat the reapers because Bioware made it that way. That simple.. Stupid imo. Guerrilla Warfare ftw.

[Taboo]

TookYoCookies wrote...

Crucible is the only way to defeat the reapers because Bioware made it that way. That simple.. Stupid imo. Guerrilla Warfare ftw.

I tried to point that out on the first page.

All that writing........when it could have been dismissed with a simple story-telling device.

Oh well. It's his time.

[TookYoCookies]

Taboo-XX wrote...

TookYoCookies wrote...

Crucible is the only way to defeat the reapers because Bioware made it that way. That simple.. Stupid imo. Guerrilla Warfare ftw.

I tried to point that out on the first page.

All that writing........when it could have been dismissed with a simple story-telling device.

Oh well. It's his time.

 

Ahhh, I see...

Well, i guess Denial is followed closely by excuses.. Probably best to get them all out in one post.

[JShepppp]

TookYoCookies wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

TookYoCookies wrote...

Crucible is the only way to defeat the reapers because Bioware made it that way. That simple.. Stupid imo. Guerrilla Warfare ftw.

I tried to point that out on the first page.

All that writing........when it could have been dismissed with a simple story-telling device.

Oh well. It's his time.

 

Ahhh, I see...

Well, i guess Denial is followed closely by excuses.. Probably best to get them all out in one post.

There are people on these forums who believe that, within the story constraints, it would still be possible to eke out a conventional victory.

OBVIOUSLY Bioware wrote it so the Crucible would be the only option. That's like saying Shepard is the only person who can defeat the Reapers because Bioware made him the main character.

A lot of people don't accept that and think there was some carelessness on their part and that Reapers could or should be killed conventionally. This post was to address those who think that and try to show that really, there are no "holes" in the game's lore that will allow for conventional victory. It's not for me to convince myself. I am already convinced.

I am happy for you guys that you have figured this out and do not need this much discussion, work, or time to talk about this further.  

Modifié par JShepppp, 03 mai 2012 - 12:36 .

[moater boat]

JShepppp wrote...



For the organic number, if you could do that, that'd be much appreciated. We also would need to determine the relative power to destroyers, and if we could somehow then relate "military capability" across all classes, then we could come up with a decisive idea of sorts. 

EMS does that but it's marred by its inclusions of "motivators" like reporters, former squadmates, etc.

For the Reaper destroyers, the number 10 is arbitrary and has popped up on these forums. I'd rather not use arbitrary numbers unless they're somehow grounded in other numbers somewhere.

Here is what I have so far. The battle of the citadel included at a minimum 38 Geth ships, but it never seemed to show the entire force at once, so I think we can use 50 as a nice round number. It could very well be many more, but I don't want to include too much speculation. Now the Heretic Geth were 5% of all the Geth, so using that we can say that the total Force of all the Geth is about 1000 cruiser size ships, minimum.

Now lets look at the TMS, which I agree is not a great resource, but it is the only way we can relate Geth forces to their allies. The Geth Fleet with the Heretics is 450 pts, without the heretics it is 300. Somehow a 5% increase in size results in a 50% increase in TMS. Maybe this is because the heretics better understand Reapers, so they are a much bigger help, or maybe the increase in number of Geth results in an exponential gain in strength due to their connected intelligence. Regardless, it gives us two ratios to work with.

We can say that 1000 Geth cruisers = 450 pts, or we can say 950 Geth cruisers = 300 pts.

Therefor, using this method, we can say that as a rough estimate, a single cruiser is worth about 0.4 points.

Of course there are a lot of things that could drastically change this number. Maybe there were many more Geth in the battle of the citadel. Maybe the Geth have built a lot of ships between ME2 and ME3, maybe TMS is a really really bad way of judging military strength. Regardless, it at least gives us some sort of starting point if we want to look at the total number of "small boys" the Combined Galactic fleet brings to the fight.

[TookYoCookies]

JShepppp wrote...

There are people on these forums who believe that, within the story constraints, it would still be possible to eke out a conventional victory.

OBVIOUSLY Bioware wrote it so the Crucible would be the only option. That's like saying Shepard is the only person who can defeat the Reapers because Bioware made him the main character.

A lot of people don't accept that and think there was some carelessness on their part and that Reapers could or should be killed conventionally. This post was to address those who think that and try to show that really, there are no "holes" in the game's lore that will allow for conventional victory. It's not for me to convince myself. I am already convinced.

I am happy for you guys that you have figured this out and do not need this much discussion, work, or time to talk about this further.  

  


There doesnt have to be "holes" in lore (or statistics) that have to exist to allow for "conventional victory". Guerrila Warfare by design, is constantly evolving your tactics to combat a greater foe. Observing and adapting to your enemies tactics to imporve your effectiveness against them and limit your enemie's effectiveness against you. Sun Tzu's: The Art of War, is so brilliant becuase its teachings can be applied to every conflict, against any enemy, scale is not an issue.

We have been in afghanistan for over 10 years. They dont have an airforce, unmanned drones, infared cameras, bulletproof vests, tanks (better yet any sort of armored vehicles at all), cruise missles, etc. etc. etc. Yet we are still there,still fighting the same f*cking enemy. (not to mention the catastrophe that was the Vietnam war)

Its not that within the constraints of the story its possible to defeat the reapers, Bioware went out of the way to try to convince the player otherwise. Its that within the constaints of warfare the possabilites for fighting your enemies are almost limitless, and constantly evolving. Bioware didnt let us explore those possabilites, they just sent us on fetch quests to piece togeather a space "WunderWaffe".

Its not fallacy for people to think  that we could beat the reapers conventionaly(i wouldnt call guerrila warfare conventional), maybe we can, maybe we cant. But assuming that we cant win without a super weapon from the outset is fallacy for sure, and would be the stupidest f*cking move a commanding officer could make.

Its not that the game makes us think we can win  , its that hundreds of years of military history have proved otherwise. in the first 2 games the ability to fight against overwhelming odds wasnt taken away from us, but In ME 3 it was.

[razor150]

Versidious wrote...

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.

Any kinectic weapon is dependant on the accuracy of the user. I can have the biggest and most powerful sniper rifle in the world but if I can't hit the broad side of a barn it's usefullness is limited. Going by the accuracy of the ships targetting computers aiming a ship and firing it at another at light speed probably isn't something they can do with a whole lot of accuracy without getting in close. The closer you get the more likely Reapers will destroy your kamikaze ships before they are launched. Accuracy is an easy way to explain away this not being a an instant win tactic, saying that this tactic is impossibe because of the safety protocols was idiotic on Bioware's part. They are software developers they know better, the claim is like saying Javik couldn't be removed from the game because they already had him in the game.

We also have to keep in mind kamikaze tactics are a losing tactic, it isn't used to win wars but to slow down an enemies advance. It is an effective weapon, it just isn't a winning one. It is also a tactic that weakens the user. What will you use for this tactic? You need a ship of sufficient size, so many civilian ships can probably be ruled out. If you are using cruisers and destroyers you are losing military strength. Building ships to be guided missiles is possibe, even though it takes resources that are probably getting shorter and shorter in supply away from building military vessels. It works as long as the Reapers don't come and destroy the facility you are building them at.

[TookYoCookies]

Bump for possible rebuttal? ( im pretty sure i /thread'd this b*tch earlier but im willing to be entertained..)

[my Aim is True]

TookYoCookies wrote...
There doesnt have to be "holes" in lore (or statistics) that have to exist to allow for "conventional victory". Guerrila Warfare by design, is constantly evolving your tactics to combat a greater foe. Observing and adapting to your enemies tactics to imporve your effectiveness against them and limit your enemie's effectiveness against you. Sun Tzu's: The Art of War, is so brilliant becuase its teachings can be applied to every conflict, against any enemy, scale is not an issue.

We have been in afghanistan for over 10 years. They dont have an airforce, unmanned drones, infared cameras, bulletproof vests, tanks (better yet any sort of armored vehicles at all), cruise missles, etc. etc. etc. Yet we are still there,still fighting the same f*cking enemy. (not to mention the catastrophe that was the Vietnam war)

Sun Tzu is all about knowing your enemy and exploiting their weakness.  The Reapers are unknowable, and appear to have no weakness.

Insurgents Afganistan and Vietnam aren't good examples because the Reapers have not will to break, no supply lines to disrupt, and then they're not trying to win over or rebuild those countries.  The Reapers just destroy/assimilate everything.  If our goal was to kill every sentient creature in Vietnam, we could have accomplished that.

[TookYoCookies]

my Aim is True wrote...


Sun Tzu is all about knowing your enemy and exploiting their weakness.  The Reapers are unknowable, and appear to have no weakness.

 

Actually they appear to be quite knowable, given the codex entries of them; their unit types, their capabilties, their tactics, and their vulnerabilities.

In atmo, and while turning they have to lower their mass effect fields to be able to move at a faster rate, thus they are quite vulnerable while on a planet's surface, and while turning. Not to mention Sheperd has fought against 2 prior to mass effect 3, though not soverign directly, and the human reaper was not complete, still we have an idea.
The Reapers are vulnerable to the thanix weapons series, and the M92-Cain from ground soldiers. 

The afghan/vietnam refernces arent an EXACT metaphor (f*cking duh, non fiction =/= fiction) more so just 2 examples out of hundreds of possible canidates, that fighting a far superior enemy is not/never has been a helpless cause. Instantly abandoning all hope of victory save for the completion of a super weapon, is a helpless/idiotic pursuit (Hey, just like what the ending gave us!) and would be the f*cking stupidest order you could give to your soldiers. Now their morale hinges on a hail-mary plot device, instead of focusing on the task at hand: Fighting the Reapers. 


There is much, much more to the Art of War than just: knowing enemy - exploiting weaknesses a perfect example here:

"
Sun Tzu thought that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through an established list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. "

Modifié par TookYoCookies, 03 mai 2012 - 03:57 .

[Thiagobsbr]

Let me tell you my humblest opinion...

I kinda agree with the OP... As it is, there's no way we could beat the Reapers... As much as you can crunch numbers, there's aways the unknown.. Especially if you think that there may be alot of stuff going on out of screen.

Getting out of "space combat" and into "writing" a bit, it was, at least for me, obvious that they would use the "ultimate weapon" line...
In a lot of books/games/movies, whenever there is a massive conflict between "the good side" and "the bad side", the good side would be pursuing an ultimate weapon of sorts, a table turner...
It was easy to see it coming, and I would be surprised if it didn't.
So, in the end, I am ok with the Crucible thing... I'm not ok, however, with HOW the Crucible works (and that disregarding the space-ghostly-god-kid-thingie).

I would be much more confortable if the Crucible somehow weakened the Reapers, which then could be fought with more conventional ways.. An EPIC battle. Sort of how defeating the Sovereing controlled Saren worked on Sovereign itself...
Even if the final push would be shown in cutscenes instead of actual gameplay...

Imagine that... Crucible ready, Shepard fires it (maybe dying in the process), Reapers get weakened, the good guys start to pound the Reapers massively...
THEN, it could take into account the EMS thingie.. If you amass an impressive force, the Reapers are beaten... Medium force, the Reapers are beaten but with extreme casualties... Lackluster force, you get your a.s.s. handed to you anyway...

I know it would be kinda cheap and overdone, but we would get to see a massive battle, with all the nice ships firing and blowing up, with Krogan charging, riding Kakliosaurs, STGs doing their thing, Mercs, Elcor tanks, a Volus rolling around here and there and Blasto kicking some a**...


Ok, I'm ranting about the ending instead of keeping on topic, sorry, just wanted to point out that it's pointless to argue whether we could defeat them in direct combat or not, because we have a limited view of what's going on, and BW could aways pull a "there was a billion reapers in the worlds you couldn't see"...

[Noelemahc]

'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.

Because hitting a moving target at the distance required to get your projectile UP to FTL speed requires predicting where it's going to be a few second from now if from where you're standing you're seeing where it was a few seconds ago. Sure, chances are pretty high that at this time-distortion level you will probably hit them because they did not probably change course all that much, but... what if they did? Whatever was behind them will get perforated, and good luck to you if it's another Reaper.
It's fast, yes, but it's still not an instant-shot, your projectile doesn't depart the firing chamber at FTL, unless you're into building one-shot weaponry.

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.

Alright, you got me there. My issue is more along the lines of "why does everyone expect the Crucible to be an "I WIN" button when it's finished? The fact that it turns out to be one, sorta-kinda, is a separate issue, nobody but the Reapers knew what it does when Liara dug it out of the Archives.

Now the Heretic Geth were 5% of all the Geth, so using that we can say that the total Force of all the Geth is about 1000 cruiser size ships, minimum.

That was in processes, aka total population, which includes military and civilian just as with us (they have dedicated pilots, for example, as we learn in the server mission). Their actual amount of ships need not be proportional to the total Geth fleet size, it could as easily be bigger... or smaller. Not to curb your point, just to add context.

[a.m.p]

Earlier in this thread the “Conventional victory is not Shepard’s story” argument came up again. This is something I will never understand. How would conventional victory not be Shepard’s story when Shepard is crucial to creating the thing necessary for conventional victory – the united fleet?

To not make unsubstantiated statements, two examples:

If the whole game was about it: Reapers start their conquest from batarian space and head for the citadel. What military forces are in their way do their best to slow them down because after ME1 everyone is aware that should they take the citadel – they shut down relays and everyone is screwed. Shepard uses the time bought to run around the galaxy, yell at people of various importance and unite everyone. Meanwhile Cerberus, being indoctrinated idiots, try to sabotage the war effort. Shepard goes to take them down, but TIM uses that moment to get onto the citadel and sabotages its defenses, reapers finally take it and drag it to Sol, because it’s the relay control hub, not because it powers a superweapon. The allied fleet has a narrow time window before reapers manage to fix the mechanism to get into Sol and take the citadel back (or everyone is screwed). The fleet is big and takes time to assemble. In the end just part of it makes in to Sol in time, the rest being locked away, say in Arcturus. So somedoby (Shepard) needs to get onto the citadel as soon as possible, to unlock the relays and allow the reinforcements to arrive (or everyone is screwed). They fight their way to the citadel, take out TIM, push a button. Relays open, rest of the fleet comes through, kicks reapers out of Sol, gets a functioning relay control system, can use it against reapers.

This scenario is absolutely identical to current ME3 events, except without the stupid off-button.

Now if conventional victory was written into the existing ending.
Shepard learns what the crucible does. Makes the choice of turn it on or not. Watches the fleet they assembled kick reapers out of Sol. (or dies, self-destructing the citadel to help the fleet fight reapers, or any other reasonable scenario).

It would still be Shepard’s story. It would simply be not just Shepard’s but everyone else’s story too. Or do we really think the player is so childish that they would not be happy unless they get to personally kill all big evil space squids?

Modifié par a.m.p, 03 mai 2012 - 09:06 .

[EnvyTB075]

Can i just ask how are you judging the abilities of the crucible? Are using hindsight since you know what it does after completing the game, or are you being realistic and assuming you know as much about it as Liara and Hackett?

See heres the logical disconnect for me (i admit, thread is tl;dr, i'm sick and not keen on reading absolutely everything). How can you (and everyone else in the game for that matter) steadfastly claim without a single doubt that the Crucible is the only way to win when you don't even know what it actually does? I'm sorry but to put all your hopes down to a new and utterly complete unknown quantity is not only ludicrous, but absolutely mental.

Its like if Lockeed Martin "found" the plans for the F-22, built it without even testing the plane, and gave it to the USAF without any instructions on how to use it other than "this is the joystick, this is the throttle, figure the rest out", and then deploy it in a front line role in some hypothetical war.

It just makes absolutely no sense.

Modifié par EnvyTB075, 03 mai 2012 - 09:25 .

[SaleemRa]

TookYoCookies wrote...

In atmo, and while turning they have to lower their mass effect fields to be able to move at a faster rate, thus they are quite vulnerable while on a planet's surface, and while turning. Not to mention Sheperd has fought against 2 prior to mass effect 3, though not soverign directly, and the human reaper was not complete, still we have an idea.
The Reapers are vulnerable to the thanix weapons series, and the M92-Cain from ground soldiers. 

The afghan/vietnam refernces arent an EXACT metaphor (f*cking duh, non fiction =/= fiction) more so just 2 examples out of hundreds of possible canidates, that fighting a far superior enemy is not/never has been a helpless cause. Instantly abandoning all hope of victory save for the completion of a super weapon, is a helpless/idiotic pursuit (Hey, just like what the ending gave us!) and would be the f*cking stupidest order you could give to your soldiers. Now their morale hinges on a hail-mary plot device, instead of focusing on the task at hand: Fighting the Reapers. 

I am LOLing so hard here, yeah the reapers are sooo vulnereable in atmo that they can be taken out by simply using a FLEET to target it. Yeah ok good one. Yes their kinetic barriers are weaker in atmo but that does not mean you can easily punch through it, On Rannoch it took a concentrated pin point barrage by the entire Quarian fleet to take down 1 itty bitty destroyer. On Earth the destroyer had to have its shields knocked out by the thanix missle targetting its weak spot again before it could be taken out. If that is what you call vulnereable then what chance do we really have.

As for your Guerilla tactics, hmmm yeah that would work, right up to the point were your guys start getting indoctrinated and turning against you. Oh and just how do you plan to fight a guerilla war using a fleet? Thats kind of at odds with the whole concept isnt it. Additionally gueriila wars are extended conflicts where are you going to resupply, repair and rearm? And finally how are you going to firght this guerilla was with Cerberus nipping at your heels or the unmentioned indoctrinated batarian forces, oops did we forget about them? 

To be able to fight a Guerilla war you have to be able to hurt and demoralize your opponent, its as much psychological as it is physical. Ok so your guns can blow up a few destroyers and knock some legs off a sovvy class but the reapers are not going to give a damn. You CANT disrupt their supply lines, You CANT assasinate their leaders, You CANT demoralize them. Your like a rioter throwing rocks at a police cruiser, except in this case the police are the chinese army from tianemen (SIC) square and their police crusers are tanks. Good luck with that!

[SaleemRa]

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Can i just ask how are you judging the abilities of the crucible? Are using hindsight since you know what it does after completing the game, or are you being realistic and assuming you know as much about it as Liara and Hackett?

See heres the logical disconnect for me (i admit, thread is tl;dr, i'm sick and not keen on reading absolutely everything). How can you (and everyone else in the game for that matter) steadfastly claim without a single doubt that the Crucible is the only way to win when you don't even know what it actually does? I'm sorry but to put all your hopes down to a new and utterly complete unknown quantity is not only ludicrous, but absolutely mental.

Its like if Lockeed Martin "found" the plans for the F-22, built it without even testing the plane, and gave it to the USAF without any instructions on how to use it other than "this is the joystick, this is the throttle, figure the rest out", and then deploy it in a front line role in some hypothetical war.

It just makes absolutely no sense.

Good point there, my 2 cents is that Hackett, Liara and everyone else are probably making this assumption based of the data from the mars archives. It seemed to come with a note saying USE THIS TO DEFEAT REAPERS, since the Protheans were the ideal of this cycles technological achievements they probably believed it wholeheartedly especially after seeing how badly they were getting their posteriors handed to them through the use of conventional tactics. Ironically the ONLY one who doesnt seem to think it will work is Shep, figures he knew better then everyone else.

[TookYoCookies]

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Can i just ask how are you judging the abilities of the crucible? Are using hindsight since you know what it does after completing the game, or are you being realistic and assuming you know as much about it as Liara and Hackett?

See heres the logical disconnect for me (i admit, thread is tl;dr, i'm sick and not keen on reading absolutely everything). How can you (and everyone else in the game for that matter) steadfastly claim without a single doubt that the Crucible is the only way to win when you don't even know what it actually does? I'm sorry but to put all your hopes down to a new and utterly complete unknown quantity is not only ludicrous, but absolutely mental.

Its like if Lockeed Martin "found" the plans for the F-22, built it without even testing the plane, and gave it to the USAF without any instructions on how to use it other than "this is the joystick, this is the throttle, figure the rest out", and then deploy it in a front line role in some hypothetical war.

It just makes absolutely no sense.

 

^this..  

TookYoCookies wrote...

Crucible is the only way to defeat the reapers because Bioware made it that way. That simple.. Stupid imo. Guerrilla Warfare ftw.

   

@SaleemRa - oh yea your right, cause theres only 1 way to fight a war guerrilla style.. Adapt - evolve- survie, applies to every conflict... The only thing that can stop it is... plot armored wonder weapons 

[a.m.p]

SaleemRa wrote...

On Rannoch it took a concentrated pin point barrage by the entire Quarian fleet to take down 1 itty bitty destroyer.

It did not take the whole fleet. It took 3-4 Alarei-type ships.

As for assasinating their leaders, there have been lots and lots of speculations, what would happen if we were to blow up starchild, who claims to be the entity that controls them and makes them do what they do.

[SaleemRa]

TookYoCookies wrote...

@SaleemRa - oh yea your right, cause theres only 1 way to fight a war guerrilla style.. Adapt - evolve- survie, applies to every conflict... The only thing that can stop it is... plot armored wonder weapons 

Matter of fact that the Protheans tried it and failed miserably, at most it only delayed their extinction by a few centuries and suffered from the exact problems I mentioned.

They:

• Suffered betrayal from within due to indoctrination
• Had to fight their own indoctrinated forces
• Had no where to resupply due to dwindling resources

SunTzu is great and all when it comes to conflicts in the real world, he never faced demonic entities that could brainwash entire population against their will. So unless the allied forces can adapt and evolve to resist indoctrination they are not going to survive.

[Gen Petitt]

Alright here is a way to kill the reapers without the crucible ready PLASMA and real plasma rounds not pulse stuff the geth use

[SaleemRa]

a.m.p wrote...

SaleemRa wrote...

On Rannoch it took a concentrated pin point barrage by the entire Quarian fleet to take down 1 itty bitty destroyer.

It did not take the whole fleet. It took 3-4 Alarei-type ships.

As for assasinating their leaders, there have been lots and lots of speculations, what would happen if we were to blow up starchild, who claims to be the entity that controls them and makes them do what they do.

We see 3 -4 ships firing but the dialogue in game implies otherwise. Sorry but a couple seconds of video do not give enough information to make that determination. Even if it you only needed 4 ships to take down a destroyer on the ground it was only possible due to the fact that shepard was standing at ground zero pointing a laser designator right up the reapers maw, it is already established that orbital targeting without it is ineffectual.

My point still stands.

Edit about blowing up the starchild - just how would that happen when only shepard knows about it? You cannot use the gamers omniscient perpective when discussing in game settings.

Modifié par SaleemRa, 03 mai 2012 - 11:03 .

[EnvyTB075]

SaleemRa wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

SaleemRa wrote...

On Rannoch it took a concentrated pin point barrage by the entire Quarian fleet to take down 1 itty bitty destroyer.

It did not take the whole fleet. It took 3-4 Alarei-type ships.

As for assasinating their leaders, there have been lots and lots of speculations, what would happen if we were to blow up starchild, who claims to be the entity that controls them and makes them do what they do.

We see 3 -4 ships firing but the dialogue in game implies otherwise. Sorry but a couple seconds of video do not give enough information to make that determination. Even if it you only needed 4 ships to take down a destroyer on the ground it was only possible due to the fact that shepard was standing at ground zero pointing a laser designator right up the reapers maw, it is already established that orbital targeting without it is ineffectual.

I think the more disturbing thing about that scene, is that Shepard was standing right there, and the entire Quarian fleet is raining hell on that position....you'd think he/she would have some inclination to, i dunno, find cover (ignoring the gameplay mechanic of that area you can't get out of), or worse, be blasted into smitherines by the power of thousands of giant guns that shoot giant slugs?

[Versidious]

razor150 wrote...

Versidious wrote...

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.

Any kinectic weapon is dependant on the accuracy of the user. I can have the biggest and most powerful sniper rifle in the world but if I can't hit the broad side of a barn it's usefullness is limited. Going by the accuracy of the ships targetting computers aiming a ship and firing it at another at light speed probably isn't something they can do with a whole lot of accuracy without getting in close. The closer you get the more likely Reapers will destroy your kamikaze ships before they are launched. Accuracy is an easy way to explain away this not being a an instant win tactic, saying that this tactic is impossibe because of the safety protocols was idiotic on Bioware's part. They are software developers they know better, the claim is like saying Javik couldn't be removed from the game because they already had him in the game.

So, it's a losing weapon, you say? Well, that would certainly imply that the Reapers would not be defeated conventionally by it. If it were actually a kamikaze weapon, which it isn't. Nor is it a ballistic weapon. It's more akin to a cruise missile.
Either way, saying an FTL weapon is innacurate is just wrong. A sniper rifle is a simple ballistic weapon which has to deal with air currents, possibly with moving targets, and other unpredictable factors (Though they can kill someone from over 2km away). The main guns on a starship will have to deal with scanner resolution and enemy maneuvering at long range Ie, you will be seeing the enemy where they were a few seconds ago, not where they are, and firing solutions will have to be reached with that in mind. However, you could design an FTL cruise missile which is designed to make a series of short jumps, making short pings into normal metric space to scan for their target and adjust their targeting accordingly, whilst still preventing Reapers from intercepting it, just as we can do with cameras and redirection orders with our current cruise missiles. You wouldn't have to be anywhere near the Reapers to fire these highly accurate weapons. Furthermore, even if we said that the missiles couldonly be launched at close range, the allied ships (probably cruisers) could use FTL to position themselves closely behind the Reapers, as at Palaven, and launch thos missiles, then jump away again before the Reapers can respond. In short, developing this one-shot-kill weapon *would* make the Allied Navies too powerful. Any 'It's actually a bit ****' rationale would A: Be just as contrived and unconvincing as the safety protocol, and B: Defeat the point of it, which is allowing us to defeat the Reapers conventionally.

I grant you that saying that there are deeply imbedded hardware safety systems to prevent collisions is not the best way of stopping this, and instead saying that, for example, 'When at FTL speeds, the ship does not technically exist in real space and cannot collide with objects, or enter real space in the same location as high concentrations of matter, because the science of FTL does not allow for that. Occuring' (Invent some clever sounding bollocks about 'Quantum Spacial Density, or something else that has no real meaning in actual science, but sounds cool, and fits with the notion that FTL-ing too far inside a star system is incredibly dangerous and difficult. In fact, I think I'm going to headcanon that over the top of the 'collision hardware' issue, because it works quite well).