419 réponses à ce sujet

[Warrior Craess]

Demon Velsper wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Given that they reigned back the EMS requirements, I'm more inclined to state that the multiplayer requirement was an error.  It's certainly a recognition that the fans were not happy with the situation.

It says clearly in the topic about the lowered EMS that it was intentional that you had to play multiplayer or Infiltrator to get everything, stop trying to sugar coat it. You lied. Again.

first off Allan didn't lie about anything, he doesn't even work on the ME franchise. 

Second it doesn't sound like sugar coating to explain that including MP into the SP results was a mistake (intentional or otherwise).  It's hard enough to get a blue response to anything in this forum, and comments like yours are part of the reason. 

[Biotic Sage]

Oransel wrote...

Biotic Sage wrote...

Oransel wrote...

Biotic Sage wrote...
You are right, but the way they did it does make for more interesting storytelling, so I'm willing to suspend disbelief a bit haha.  As long as the ultimate bottom line remains the same: Reapers = unstoppable machine god force.

Bottom line is: unstoppable can be stopped © Shepard

Rephrase:

Unstoppable via military force.  Stoppable via alternate means, a la Crucible.

Rephrase: Unstoppable with not enough trying. Stoppable with enough.

Seriously, you believe that generic "ancient WMD" card fits lore better than power of friendship, overcoming the impossible odds, heroism, unity and so on? Especially if we have no definitive proofs of conventional victory being impossible just as we have not definitive proofs of it being possible. Both my and your arguments are nothing more than speculations.

As I said in a previous post, I don't see the Crucible as a generic WMD.  I see it as a physical manifestation of overcoming the impossible odds through cosmopolitanism and heroism.  And yes, we have no definitive proof of conventional victory being impossible, just mountains and mountains of evidence (dead prior cycles) that it's maybe not the way to go.  If I were a betting man I would bet on the "something different" than the "more of the same."  Deploying the Crucible still took overcoming longshot odds, heroism, and unity.  Not to mention buildilng on the efforts of previous cycles.  That's damn poetic to me.

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 28 juin 2012 - 10:13 .

[Demon Velsper]

Warrior Craess wrote...

first off Allan didn't lie about anything, he doesn't even work on the ME franchise. 

Second
it doesn't sound like sugar coating to explain that including MP into the SP results was a mistake (intentional or otherwise).  It's hard enough to get a blue response to anything in this forum, and comments like yours are part of the reason. 

1. You = collective you. As in Bioware, the company, which he is clearly part of.

2. He didn't say it was a mistake, he said it was an error. It was clearly not, it was by design. His continued insitance that it wasn't is annoying and dishonest.

Modifié par Demon Velsper, 28 juin 2012 - 10:14 .

[IanPolaris]

JPVS wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

JPVS wrote...

Helios969 wrote...
And btw wars have been won with an inferior fighteing force and capabilities.

In battlefields with tactical advantages, traps, other trumpth cards. In a battlefield where you can always be in the enemy's crossairs, where you cannot hide and can barely run, where your weapons are not nearly as powerful as your enemy's, you either have massive numbers (which you don't have) or awesomely good tactics the enemy can't adapt too (which Reapers can).

It's NOT hard to hide in space.

-Polaris

Dude, stop trolling around. Ships are not cold corpses, they emit tremendous heat ME ships detect easily. You only hide those emissions with Stealth Drives (which can't possible be adapted to all ships and don't allow for a prolongued fire-fight) or by moving far away from the battle (in which case you cannot be targetted nor fire on the enemy).

Yes, yes.  I heard engineer Adam's speech too in ME1.  Now the rest of the story:

Yes a moving ship with active engines, full life support against the backdrop of space (about 4K) is noticable (less so than you think though...almost all objects in a system radiate).  However, if you shut down your engines, go on minimal life-support and suit up, you can DRASTICALLY reduce your emmissions.  This is well known even today.

What makes the Normady unique (but it was quickly copied by the Salarians and Quarians) is the ability to use heat-sinks to make the ship seem cold even when operational.

If you can cut the radiation signature to nearly zero which ships in this cycle can, you can hide extremely effectively in space.

Also remember that most of space is empty which means it's not worth fighting for.   The places that ARE worth fighting for are dirty and usually RADIATE (either directly or by reflection).  That makes hiding very possible especially since space is otherwise so big.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

Warrior Craess wrote...

Demon Velsper wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Given that they reigned back the EMS requirements, I'm more inclined to state that the multiplayer requirement was an error.  It's certainly a recognition that the fans were not happy with the situation.

It says clearly in the topic about the lowered EMS that it was intentional that you had to play multiplayer or Infiltrator to get everything, stop trying to sugar coat it. You lied. Again.

first off Allan didn't lie about anything, he doesn't even work on the ME franchise. 

Second it doesn't sound like sugar coating to explain that including MP into the SP results was a mistake (intentional or otherwise).  It's hard enough to get a blue response to anything in this forum, and comments like yours are part of the reason. 

I'm with Demon.  It might be unpleasent to day, but we were LIED to.  Not an opinion but a provable fact (just go to the EMS former stickied thread) and had been for months.  A day before the EC was released Priestly finally admitted that YES the 4000 EMS was intentional and it was to encourage MP play...after Bioware had specifically DENIED that for months.

Lying doesn't get much clearer than that and it is perfectly fair to say just that to a representative of Bioware.  I thought the comments were mild myself.

-Polaris

[JPVS]

Icinix wrote...
We just need to adapt and keep adapting until we hit their limits. I'm not saying it would be a simple, use this tactic - yay happy galaxy celebrations. I'm saying a brutal war of attrition is winnable.

The Turians were losing on their side, despite several initial effective tactics. Would the Asari leave their space to help them? And the Salarians? And the humans? Because that is what a unified galaxy would have needed to do: sacrifice some piece to save another. Which race was willing to do that?

And as it was said, for a war of attrition you need resources, supply lines. The Reapers were conquering every planet, every station and fuel depot was being destroyed, and they were using massive force to accomplish that. Even if you did stockpile some resources, they'd run out long before you'd run out of Reapers. And then without planets, where would you get more resources?
Even if you concentrated all the ships around a relay and waited for the Reapers to come, their sheer number (in the millions) would have overrun the galaxy's combined force. If indeed the war of attrition started to cause some real damage to the reapers, they would quickly stop the "divide and conquer" tactic that is uneffective against guerrilla fights. They would instead group up again and scorch every single planet and station in existance, one by one, leaving no way for the planets' resources to be used. And they could do so relatively quickly if they focused on a single planet at a time.
Guerrilla wars can only be won if the enemy doesn't outgun you, doesn't outnumber you by a tremendous factor, isn't smarter than you, far more adapted than you at killing, doesn't tire, doesn't need to rest, doesn't need supplies and/or if you can have some supply lines with access to resources. This is simple military knowledge and mathematics.

[Biotic Sage]

IanPolaris wrote...

Warrior Craess wrote...

Demon Velsper wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Given that they reigned back the EMS requirements, I'm more inclined to state that the multiplayer requirement was an error.  It's certainly a recognition that the fans were not happy with the situation.

It says clearly in the topic about the lowered EMS that it was intentional that you had to play multiplayer or Infiltrator to get everything, stop trying to sugar coat it. You lied. Again.

first off Allan didn't lie about anything, he doesn't even work on the ME franchise. 

Second it doesn't sound like sugar coating to explain that including MP into the SP results was a mistake (intentional or otherwise).  It's hard enough to get a blue response to anything in this forum, and comments like yours are part of the reason. 

I'm with Demon.  It might be unpleasent to day, but we were LIED to.  Not an opinion but a provable fact (just go to the EMS former stickied thread) and had been for months.  A day before the EC was released Priestly finally admitted that YES the 4000 EMS was intentional and it was to encourage MP play...after Bioware had specifically DENIED that for months.

Lying doesn't get much clearer than that and it is perfectly fair to say just that to a representative of Bioware.  I thought the comments were mild myself.

-Polaris

You are correct, it was bad form on EA/Bioware's end.  While I was on board with the original ending, I was never on board with the forced multiplayer play or any of the other-Mass Effect-products-affect-my-ME3 thing.  They have since corrected the error, but you would have to be very blind to not see it was an intentional thing the company did.  I think they have learned their lesson, and that the goodwill of fans is an important thing, both ethically and financially.

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 28 juin 2012 - 10:19 .

[Coachdongwiffle]

i'll say it again. would conventional war and losing billions of lives actually be better than the Crucible....no

[IanPolaris]

Biotic Sage wrote...

You are correct, it was bad form on EA/Bioware's end.  While I was on board with the original ending, I was never on board with the forced multiplayer play or any of the other-Mass Effect-products-affect-my-ME3 thing.  They have since corrected the error, but you would have to be very blind to not see it was an intentional thing the company did.  I think they have learned their lesson, and that the goodwill of fans is an important thing, both ethically and financially.

Thank you.  NIce we can agree on something

Now let's argue debate once again how invicible the reapers are

-Polaris

[Warrior Craess]

Icinix wrote...

JPVS wrote...

Icinix wrote...

JPVS wrote...

LPKerberos wrote...

Helios969 wrote...

What are the known weaknesses of the Reapers?   Firing chamber (ala Independence Day) is one.  Two were destroyed this way.  Was the one on Tuchunka a Soveriegn-class, anyone?  Any others known?

No, it was a smaller one. But as shown in the last mission on earth, those things can be killed with a nuclear launcher. I don't think ship weapons wouldn't be able to kill it.

That we can assume to be an extremely weak Reaper. The others always took a lot more than a simple Cain heavy weapon. And required pin-point firing.


Oh, and before anyone tries to apply military knowledge and tactics to what I said (with the number of Reapers being dozens of times larger than the number of ships), I remind you that fighting in space is completely different than fighting in a planet. You don't have landscape and other features to provide tactical advantages. You can only relly on speed (which Reapers don't have) and the accuracy of guns (which the Reapers have). MAybe you can take cover in the other side of a planet, but that's just about as much cover as you will ever get. The number of tactics available if thus greatly reduced in a space battle. In the end, it always comes down to numbers of a trumph card.

From within the game -

When Taetrus fell, the turians knew little about the Reapers except that they wanted to enrage the turians. Staying calm, the turians massed force around Palaven, their homeworld. Fleet Admiral Irix Coronati, in what became known as the "Fifteen-Minute Plan," stationed only two carriers, Undaunted and Resolute, near the system's relay. When the Reaper fleet emerged, the carriers launched swarms of unmanned fighters and spy drones. These were quickly destroyed, but the drones transmitted vital data on the Reapers' effective range, fleet composition, and exact location. The turians' other ships then deployed to defend the system in earnest.Knowing that the Reapers' weapons had a longer effective range than any of his own, Coronati made a short, daring FTL jump--landing his dreadnoughts in the middle of the Reaper fleet. The dreadnoughts then turned to line up their main guns on the Reapers, which also needed to turn to fire on the turians. This ploy used the Reapers' size against them--because they could turn faster, and their concentrated firepower downed several Reaper capital ships.The Reapers countered instantly. Their destroyers performed a jump of their own to the skies above Palaven, beginning orbital strikes of turian cities. The turians, forced to defend the planet, found themselves in a pitched battle far from the relay, from which emerged a seemingly endless line of Reaper ships. After massive casualties, Coronati ordered retreat.
The second paragraph is of note. You may not have environmental advantages - but there is different tactics available. Downed several capital ships. In the Reapers first launch against Palaven. With no time and bugger all information.

You throw in jettisoned Mass Effect cores that are yet to be discharged, overridden FTL systems, multiple smaller fleets in open space jumping in on different sides of the Reapers forcing them to keep having to move to line up shots and all sorts of things open up. 

It wouldn't be easy, but against a united galaxy it should not have been made out as the total white wash it was made out to be. Considering an unadapting, uncreative Prothean empire that lost its Citadel unknowingly in the first strike seemed to still be putting up a hell of a fight a hundred or more years later - we should have been doing / done a hell of a lot better than what the game made it out to be.

And you are considering the Reapers are just as unadaptable as the Protheans. Wrong. There are codex entries where Turian tactics are presente as working initially but then being countered soon after by the adapting Reapers.
Not to mention they have IFF that can calibrate where they exit in the Mass Relays (ME2 lore)

Wrong. Thats not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying keep adapting, milk something until they adapt, then milk that and so on and so fourth. Keep adapting and changing and make the Reapers HAVE to adapt to you. A united galaxy with many different philosophies and ideas and concepts opens up a whole galaxy of out of the box thinking - and since the Reapers are supposedly designed to prevent a singularity from occuring - then they must have limitations to prevent them from becoming the singularity. Otherwise they would simply wait for the singularity then come in and purge it.

We just need to adapt and keep adapting until we hit their limits. I'm not saying it would be a simple, use this tactic - yay happy galaxy celebrations. I'm saying a brutal war of attrition is winnable.

umm you should read the battle of Palaven again. yes the tactic worked intitially, but was countered almost immediately by the reapers, and the turians in turn had a desperate battle to save their planet, suffering massive casualities. So um how well was that going?  Ohh right, Palaven is in just a bad a condition as earth, so not very freakin well. Even allowing for the miracle of prelaven it was in bad bad shape.  Now lets look at the consequences of the battle of Palaven.  Several reapers destroyed for massive casualties to the turians. Umm where did the turians go to patch themselves up?  Where did they go to repair their ships?  Can we afford to lose ship for ship to the reapers? 

When are you people going to give logistics it's due?  you simply can not wage a war with out it, and logistics require infrastructure - which we don't have due to the reapers continually destroying it. 

[JPVS]

IanPolaris wrote...

JPVS wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

JPVS wrote...

Helios969 wrote...
And btw wars have been won with an inferior fighteing force and capabilities.

In battlefields with tactical advantages, traps, other trumpth cards. In a battlefield where you can always be in the enemy's crossairs, where you cannot hide and can barely run, where your weapons are not nearly as powerful as your enemy's, you either have massive numbers (which you don't have) or awesomely good tactics the enemy can't adapt too (which Reapers can).

It's NOT hard to hide in space.

-Polaris

Dude, stop trolling around. Ships are not cold corpses, they emit tremendous heat ME ships detect easily. You only hide those emissions with Stealth Drives (which can't possible be adapted to all ships and don't allow for a prolongued fire-fight) or by moving far away from the battle (in which case you cannot be targetted nor fire on the enemy).

Yes, yes.  I heard engineer Adam's speech too in ME1.  Now the rest of the story:

Yes a moving ship with active engines, full life support against the backdrop of space (about 4K) is noticable (less so than you think though...almost all objects in a system radiate).  However, if you shut down your engines, go on minimal life-support and suit up, you can DRASTICALLY reduce your emmissions.  This is well known even today.

What makes the Normady unique (but it was quickly copied by the Salarians and Quarians) is the ability to use heat-sinks to make the ship seem cold even when operational.

If you can cut the radiation signature to nearly zero which ships in this cycle can, you can hide extremely effectively in space.

Also remember that most of space is empty which means it's not worth fighting for.   The places that ARE worth fighting for are dirty and usually RADIATE (either directly or by reflection).  That makes hiding very possible especially since space is otherwise so big.

-Polaris

With the current technology you are able to detect small cold corpses like screws that spin around in the Earth's atmosphere. Detecting a ship in the vicinity of a planet is much easier, especially with future tech.
And cutting systems to reduce heat signature is all well and good but once powered up you are once again detected. Without engines and with the weapons still to be warmed up, shutting down systems to hide would be only good (and not as effective as you thing, see first paragraph) if you wanted to survive and make repairs. Of course, the repairs needed after a reaper shot usually implied an entire new ship.

[Biotic Sage]

Coachdongwiffle wrote...

i'll say it again. would conventional war and losing billions of lives actually be better than the Crucible....no

Pre-extended cut, you would have people responding that using the Crucible kills almost everybody anyway so it's the same thing.  I still facepalm at that extrapolation, but it would be a double facepalm if someone said that post-extended cut with everything spelled out very clearly for the player.

[IanPolaris]

Coachdongwiffle wrote...

i'll say it again. would conventional war and losing billions of lives actually be better than the Crucible....no

That's an interesting question actually.  I can see both sides of it.

-Polaris

[TheBlackBaron]

Anybody who believes it is possible to defeat the Reapers in a conventional war, or claims that this was the case until ME3, has not been paying attention to anything that's happened since, oh, the last hour or so of ME1.

Apologies if that steps on some toes, but it's the truth.

Now, I'll grant you that if you throw all the resources put into the Crucible into attempting to wage a straight up war against the Reapers, sure, you could probably buy us another century. Maybe a century and a half, if we're lucky.

But for all that clever tactics and local superiority that can used - such as the Turian counterattack at the start of the Battle of Palaven - there remains the simple fact that we are outnumbered and outgunned, facing an enemy that does not rest, does not fear, does not have to answer to an angry public back home or maintain supply lines or suffer any of the weaknesses that make it a remote possibility for an inferior force to come out on top of a war. Not even the Miracle at Palaven could do anything more than delay the inevitable. I mean, if you go down the list ticking off boxes for what we've got to our advantage, "plot" and "plucky humans" is about all there is. 

I mean, I honestly can't see how anybody can watch the Battle of the Citadel, where it took multiple fleets possessing the most powerful dreadnought in the galaxy and an extremely lucky break to take down a single Reaper capital ship, and decide that we can beat these things in an us vs them fight. Are you telling me that it's "not certain" that the number of those things revealed at the end of ME2, plus all their assorted escort ships and special purpose ships and "instant ground force just add dead enemies", would inevitably grind all opposition to a thin red/blue/green/whatever paste?

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 28 juin 2012 - 10:29 .

[Biotic Sage]

IanPolaris wrote...

Biotic Sage wrote...

You are correct, it was bad form on EA/Bioware's end.  While I was on board with the original ending, I was never on board with the forced multiplayer play or any of the other-Mass Effect-products-affect-my-ME3 thing.  They have since corrected the error, but you would have to be very blind to not see it was an intentional thing the company did.  I think they have learned their lesson, and that the goodwill of fans is an important thing, both ethically and financially.

Thank you.  NIce we can agree on something

Now let's argue debate once again how invicible the reapers are

-Polaris

I would be quite pleased to do so. haha

[richard_rider]

Why would you want to win conventionally, when you can just space magic everything, come on people.

Sure, EMS, decisions, and people you saved don't matter, and don't do anything, but you have the "space magic off button" right under your fingertips, why would you want a choice in the matter.

[IanPolaris]

JPVS wrote...

With the current technology you are able to detect small cold corpses like screws that spin around in the Earth's atmosphere. Detecting a ship in the vicinity of a planet is much easier, especially with future tech.
And cutting systems to reduce heat signature is all well and good but once powered up you are once again detected. Without engines and with the weapons still to be warmed up, shutting down systems to hide would be only good (and not as effective as you thing, see first paragraph) if you wanted to survive and make repairs. Of course, the repairs needed after a reaper shot usually implied an entire new ship.

Sure you can using ACTIVE sensors.  Using an ACTIVE sensor is like screaming "here I am" at the top of your lungs, and even then you have to be able to interpret correctly what you see....and ACTIVE sensors have very limited range.  That's fine for planetary orbit.  For in-system combat?  Not so much.

-Polaris

[Warrior Craess]

Biotic Sage wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...

Warrior Craess wrote...

Demon Velsper wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Given that they reigned back the EMS requirements, I'm more inclined to state that the multiplayer requirement was an error.  It's certainly a recognition that the fans were not happy with the situation.

It says clearly in the topic about the lowered EMS that it was intentional that you had to play multiplayer or Infiltrator to get everything, stop trying to sugar coat it. You lied. Again.

first off Allan didn't lie about anything, he doesn't even work on the ME franchise. 

Second it doesn't sound like sugar coating to explain that including MP into the SP results was a mistake (intentional or otherwise).  It's hard enough to get a blue response to anything in this forum, and comments like yours are part of the reason. 

I'm with Demon.  It might be unpleasent to day, but we were LIED to.  Not an opinion but a provable fact (just go to the EMS former stickied thread) and had been for months.  A day before the EC was released Priestly finally admitted that YES the 4000 EMS was intentional and it was to encourage MP play...after Bioware had specifically DENIED that for months.

Lying doesn't get much clearer than that and it is perfectly fair to say just that to a representative of Bioware.  I thought the comments were mild myself.

-Polaris

You are correct, it was bad form on EA/Bioware's end.  While I was on board with the original ending, I was never on board with the forced multiplayer play or any of the other-Mass Effect-products-affect-my-ME3 thing.  They have since corrected the error, but you would have to be very blind to not see it was an intentional thing the company did.  I think they have learned their lesson, and that the goodwill of fans is an important thing, both ethically and financially.

umm yeah it sucked that MP affected SP, but it wasn't Allan that said it, and it's not sugar coating it for Allan to admit it was a mistake/error to do so.  As for taking your ire out on someone who isn't involed in the issue you had.. thats just as bad a form as bioware trying to eak out a bit of extra cash. It's like yelling at someone in the AT&T store for apple removing an app from their store. 

[Arcadian Legend]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Anybody who believes it is possible to defeat the Reapers in a conventional war, or claims that this was the case until ME3, has not been paying attention to anything that's happened since, oh, the last hour or so of ME1.

Apologies if that steps on some toes, but it's the truth.

Now, I'll grant you that if you throw all the resources put into the Crucible into attempting to wage a straight up war against the Reapers, sure, you could probably buy us another century. Maybe a century and a half, if we're lucky.

But for all that clever tactics and local superiority that can used - such as the Turian counterattack at the start of the Battle of Palaven - there remains the simple fact that we are outnumbered and outgunned, facing an enemy that does not rest, does not fear, does not have to answer to an angry public back home or maintain supply lines or suffer any of the weaknesses that make it a remote possibility for an inferior force to come out on top of a war. Not even the Miracle at Palaven could do anything more than delay the inevitable.

I mean, I honestly can't see how anybody can watch the Battle of the Citadel - where it took multiple fleets possessing the most powerful dreadnought in the galaxy and an extremely lucky break - to take down a single Reaper capital ship. And you're telling me that it's "not certain" that the number of those revealed at the end of ME2, plus all their assorted escort ships and special purpose ships and "instant ground force just add dead enemies", would inevitably grind all opposition to a thin red/blue/green/whatever paste?

Not just that, if it were actually possible to win conventionally it would render the whole Crucible plotline pointless.

[Icinix]

JPVS wrote...

Icinix wrote...
We just need to adapt and keep adapting until we hit their limits. I'm not saying it would be a simple, use this tactic - yay happy galaxy celebrations. I'm saying a brutal war of attrition is winnable.

The Turians were losing on their side, despite several initial effective tactics. Would the Asari leave their space to help them? And the Salarians? And the humans? Because that is what a unified galaxy would have needed to do: sacrifice some piece to save another. Which race was willing to do that?

And as it was said, for a war of attrition you need resources, supply lines. The Reapers were conquering every planet, every station and fuel depot was being destroyed, and they were using massive force to accomplish that. Even if you did stockpile some resources, they'd run out long before you'd run out of Reapers. And then without planets, where would you get more resources?
Even if you concentrated all the ships around a relay and waited for the Reapers to come, their sheer number (in the millions) would have overrun the galaxy's combined force. If indeed the war of attrition started to cause some real damage to the reapers, they would quickly stop the "divide and conquer" tactic that is uneffective against guerrilla fights. They would instead group up again and scorch every single planet and station in existance, one by one, leaving no way for the planets' resources to be used. And they could do so relatively quickly if they focused on a single planet at a time.
Guerrilla wars can only be won if the enemy doesn't outgun you, doesn't outnumber you by a tremendous factor, isn't smarter than you, far more adapted than you at killing, doesn't tire, doesn't need to rest, doesn't need supplies and/or if you can have some supply lines with access to resources. This is simple military knowledge and mathematics.

The galaxy is huge, the Reapers were not everywhere, all the time. Hell they missed collecting a dead Reaper floating in space for a million years that could have been a warning thousands of years earlier giving the galaxy time to prepare. If the new DLC is accurate, they also missed a rogue Reaper. So huge that they missed the beacons left by the Protheans intended to warn future races - so large that in the refuse ending the next cycle defeats them because they missed the information left by this cycle.

Yes it would take races and worlds to be sacrificed, which as I wrote before was exactly the kind of game I was expecting Mass Effect 3 to shape up as.

Its not simple millitary knowledge and mathematics, because history is littered with events that defy simple millitary knowledge and mathematics. In an entire galaxy filled with an amazing amount of races that think different to each other - the possibilities for 'conventional' warfare are so vast and massive that anything is possible - and victories do occur and can keep occuring.

But I think this conversation will probably just go around in circles and we'll go on for days, so I think I'll go play Alpha Centauri now. So happy to agree to disagree.

[JPVS]

IanPolaris wrote...

JPVS wrote...

With the current technology you are able to detect small cold corpses like screws that spin around in the Earth's atmosphere. Detecting a ship in the vicinity of a planet is much easier, especially with future tech.
And cutting systems to reduce heat signature is all well and good but once powered up you are once again detected. Without engines and with the weapons still to be warmed up, shutting down systems to hide would be only good (and not as effective as you thing, see first paragraph) if you wanted to survive and make repairs. Of course, the repairs needed after a reaper shot usually implied an entire new ship.

Sure you can using ACTIVE sensors.  Using an ACTIVE sensor is like screaming "here I am" at the top of your lungs, and even then you have to be able to interpret correctly what you see....and ACTIVE sensors have very limited range.  That's fine for planetary orbit.  For in-system combat?  Not so much.

-Polaris

Not so much why? It is future tech. And future tech of a race that has existed for millions of years. They have adapted to countless cycles prior to that of humanity. They don't need fuel to travel in FTL, they can "hibernate" for 50k years and suffer no system collapse, bug or freeze. What stops them from having extremely powerful, easy to run active sensors? What stops humanity from having them with the technology level of ME? Nothing. It is said that only the Normandy can effectively hide thanks to its extremely expensive Stealth Drive, that other ships couldn't possible come close to that. That has been the canon from ME1. Ignore it if you want, it doesn't change that.

[Oransel]

Biotic Sage wrote...

And yes, we have no definitive proof of conventional victory being impossible, just mountains and mountains of evidence (dead prior cycles) that it's maybe not the way to go.  If I were a betting man I would bet on the "something different" than the "more of the same."

This cycle is unique.

[JPVS]

richard_rider wrote...

Why would you want to win conventionally, when you can just space magic everything, come on people.

Sure, EMS, decisions, and people you saved don't matter, and don't do anything, but you have the "space magic off button" right under your fingertips, why would you want a choice in the matter.

Agreed! Green-colored space magic for the win!

[JPVS]

Oransel wrote...

Biotic Sage wrote...

And yes, we have no definitive proof of conventional victory being impossible, just mountains and mountains of evidence (dead prior cycles) that it's maybe not the way to go.  If I were a betting man I would bet on the "something different" than the "more of the same."

This cycle is unique.

No proof of that, only that it is unique compared to the last two or three cycles

[Oransel]

Arcadian Legend wrote...

Not just that, if it were actually possible to win conventionally it would render the whole Crucible plotline pointless.

It was pointless to begin with and should never appeared in the game. However, I do not mind it being easy-go option for those who do not want to collect high EMS. Still, it should have never been introduced.

I like this thread, though. Now I see what they meant by "Speculations from everyone!" 

Modifié par Oransel, 28 juin 2012 - 10:34 .