1098 réponses à ce sujet

[Memnon]

I don't think the millennium challenge is a good example of a possible way to deal with the Reapers. My recollection is that the carrier simply had a difficult time detecting the smaller vessels, a problem the Reapers would not have ... they apparently can detect humanoids for crying out loud.

[legion999]

F4H bandicoot wrote...

They also make destroyers and occuli, We are told, by reaper boy himself, we are outnumbered.
You must also remeber that the not making a reaper every cycle is based off the fact EDI speculatecd there was no prothean reaper due to the collectors.
With the plan of taking the Citadel and shutting off the Relays, Reapers arn't going to be losing all that many ships in an 'average' cycle either. Not nearly as many as we take out in this cycle.

Why not, Armour and shields are all part of the ships defences, you have to get through the shields first, and as we see with Sovereign, thats a ****ing tough thing to do.

Well that's all good then

I wouldn't trust the information an enemy leader gave us, especially if it's in ‘his' best interest to exaggerate.The Prothean's DNA made them incompatible. Even with a massive disadvantage the Protheans still fought the Reapers.
And as shown by the dead 37 million year old Reaper they do lose some ships during a cycle. 

Isn't the point of this OP to show that the Reapers can be overwhelmed even with their shields? In tha case it is a challenge but one that can be overcome.

[BerzerkGene]

tyrvas wrote...

BerzerkGene wrote...

tyrvas wrote...

@ OP, 
forgot to mention in my other post that the Destroyer class Reapers can also carry AA guns if required;

Mass Effect Wiki - Hades Cannon
The Hades Cannon is an anti-aircraft weapon of Reaper design.
It is a massive directed-energy cannon, capable of being mounted on the four-legged chassis of a
Destroyer-class Reaper.
Several Hades Cannons were utilized by the Reapers during their assault and occupation of Earth.
They are highly accurate as well as powerful, as they are capable of shooting down craft as small
and nimble as a UT-47A Kodiak Drop Shuttle. During the final battle for Earth

 

Woah, never bring that up, someone will leap on you for it.
Either "Its not a reaper!"
or "a Cain can one shot a Reaper!"

Edited my original post bro.

Anyway the Hades Cannon is Anti-Air, and Shepard is Shepard,
to get there and take the shot you had to kill loads of enemies.

Yeah, i know, but people argue whether its a Reaper destroyer, or some kind of vehicle which happens to look exactly like a reaper. I'm in the former catagory.

Well i just walk there invisible, i couldn't be stuffed, what with the camera shake from said AA gun firing. If killing every husk in my way improved the ending, i would kill them all then hunt in the general area until i was sure they were all dead.

[legion999]

Stornskar wrote...

I don't think the millennium challenge is a good example of a possible way to deal with the Reapers. My recollection is that the carrier simply had a difficult time detecting the smaller vessels, a problem the Reapers would not have ... they apparently can detect humanoids for crying out loud.

Yet not ships in front of them.<_<

[F4H bandicoot]

BerzerkGene wrote...

20,000 is a total estimate, destroyers are shown to be remarkably easy to beat, which makes sense, since they're about 1/10 the size of their larger brothers. the oculi are just meh, a fighter can shoot them down easily enough, and larger ships kill them with a single shot, not impressive.
Its not really speculation, its due to the quad strand dna structure, it made them unfit for process.
They lost a fair few in the prothean cycle, then there was the cycle that had at least one planet with a gun so large it destroyed a capital ship, then theres the levithan of dis...
The citadel trap is so there would be no chance of survival for the galaxy, and fewer losses for the Reapers.

With sovereign, the fifth fleet by itself had to do that, with 'conventional' weaponry, no javelin missles, no thanix cannons(seeing as they were engineered from sovereign) however, once the shields are down they seem relatively easy to damage. Oddly enough destroyers seem to have stronger armour, but Cap Ships better shields.

I haven't put an estimate down anywhere though..
Yes, destroyers and Occuli are pretty easy to kill, however, they're still a threat, and a pretty big one at that, one got through the Normandys upgraded shields and Hull.
It's still only speculation, because it's never proven or disproven, specualtion that I agree with none the less, however, we still don't know the specifics of how often they are likely to not find a species to turn into a main reaper. Even then, they still turn others into destroyers.
So there are 2 Captiol ships floating around in space, One of which is a billion years old, they must be pretty tough to have only lost that few in a billion years.

Vigils tells us the Protheans got decimated by the reapers. I doubt they killed a lot of Captiol ships as they were caught by the Citadel trap.

And how does that matter if the 5th fleet had to do it by itself?? Thats 1 fleet against 1 reaper and a few geth cronies. The Reapers are stronger, tougher, faster and have potentially over a billion years of knowledge and, the way the cycle works, each cycle is around the same point technologically when Harby and his crew rock up to preserve us.

[BerzerkGene]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

Jamie9 wrote...

Costin_Razvan wrote...

You want a conventional victory?

Take around half of your entire fleets to Earth, or even more then that, defeat the Reapers fleets in Orbit and thus draw the vast majority of the Reapers forces in the Galaxy to Earth.

Then send an asteroid towards the Charon Relay, blow it up, blow the Reapers up. Everyone there dies but the Reapers are left with insufficient strength to win against the remainder of your forces.

They'd FTL away.

Wrong. The Reapers aren't smart enough to FTL away.

Well, you'd think... But then again if i were them, as soon as that fleet came within range of their sensors or whatever i'd send for backup, sandwich them between 2 forces. Its not a matter of how powerful the Reapers are, they knew they were up to something, finishing the battle quickly would be in their best interests.
But yeah, Reapers are dumb in ME3. I miss genre savvy Harbinger.
However, his plan has merit, the only problem would be getting that asteroid unnoticed. Theres also the fact that with the Citadel gone, Starbrat would be dead, which could only mean good things.

[tyrvas]

BerzerkGene wrote...

tyrvas wrote...

BerzerkGene wrote...

tyrvas wrote...

@ OP, 
forgot to mention in my other post about the Hades Cannon;

Mass Effect Wiki - Hades Cannon
The Hades Cannon is an anti-aircraft weapon of Reaper design.
It is a massive directed-energy cannon, capable of being mounted on the four-legged chassis of a
Destroyer-class Reaper.
Several Hades Cannons were utilized by the Reapers during their assault and occupation of Earth.
They are highly accurate as well as powerful, as they are capable of shooting down craft as small
and nimble as a UT-47A Kodiak Drop Shuttle. During the final battle for Earth

 

Woah, never bring that up, someone will leap on you for it.
Either "Its not a reaper!"
or "a Cain can one shot a Reaper!"

Edited my original post bro.

Anyway the Hades Cannon is Anti-Air, and Shepard is Shepard,
to get there and take the shot you had to kill loads of enemies.

Yeah, i know, but people argue whether its a Reaper destroyer, or some kind of vehicle which happens to look exactly like a reaper. I'm in the former catagory.

Well i just walk there invisible, i couldn't be stuffed, what with the camera shake from said AA gun firing. If killing every husk in my way improved the ending, i would kill them all then hunt in the general area until i was sure they were all dead.

I did the infiltrator stunt on insane, very useful .
and yes I agree with about the Hades Cannon, still remember the first time I saw it, WTF is that???

Modifié par tyrvas, 31 juillet 2012 - 02:53 .

[shodiswe]

Skirata129 wrote...

...you didn't even read my OP did you? come up with an informed argument.

An informed response would probably be that the reapers likely has more dreadnaughts than you got frigates, to beat them you have to clear them out of the whole galaxy not just earth orbit.

Not to mention all those destroyers and occuli they got. they got a fighter equivalent aswell. "shrug" what more needs to be said?

What did dissapoint me was they they never showed any of those disruptor torpedoes or whatever they were called... the masseffect projectile torpedoes.

The perfect spot to show that woudl have been that cruiser or dreadnaught that got attacked by a reaper on close range, the torpedoes soudned like closerange weaponry that was temporarily magnitically attached to the ships hull until given a target. It woudl have made a nice defensive weapon against reapers on a ramming trajectory. Even if it doesn't stop them it might hurt them or show them down.

But really I don't belive in that conventional victory simply because there are so many more reapers, it doessn't matter if you can swarm a handfull of them if they can send a thousand more dreadnaughts and wipe you out and you got nothing else to send in. You loose the war, even if you can win a battle.

I'm guessing it would have been easier for the first few cycles to fight them conventionaly when there wern't thousands of reaper dreadnaughts.
Im also guessing they used indoctrinated agents even mroe agressively during the first few cycles to weaken the defenders.

[BerzerkGene]

F4H bandicoot wrote...

BerzerkGene wrote...

20,000 is a total estimate, destroyers are shown to be remarkably easy to beat, which makes sense, since they're about 1/10 the size of their larger brothers. the oculi are just meh, a fighter can shoot them down easily enough, and larger ships kill them with a single shot, not impressive.
Its not really speculation, its due to the quad strand dna structure, it made them unfit for process.
They lost a fair few in the prothean cycle, then there was the cycle that had at least one planet with a gun so large it destroyed a capital ship, then theres the levithan of dis...
The citadel trap is so there would be no chance of survival for the galaxy, and fewer losses for the Reapers.

With sovereign, the fifth fleet by itself had to do that, with 'conventional' weaponry, no javelin missles, no thanix cannons(seeing as they were engineered from sovereign) however, once the shields are down they seem relatively easy to damage. Oddly enough destroyers seem to have stronger armour, but Cap Ships better shields.

I haven't put an estimate down anywhere though..
Yes, destroyers and Occuli are pretty easy to kill, however, they're still a threat, and a pretty big one at that, one got through the Normandys upgraded shields and Hull.
It's still only speculation, because it's never proven or disproven, specualtion that I agree with none the less, however, we still don't know the specifics of how often they are likely to not find a species to turn into a main reaper. Even then, they still turn others into destroyers.
So there are 2 Captiol ships floating around in space, One of which is a billion years old, they must be pretty tough to have only lost that few in a billion years.

Vigils tells us the Protheans got decimated by the reapers. I doubt they killed a lot of Captiol ships as they were caught by the Citadel trap.

And how does that matter if the 5th fleet had to do it by itself?? Thats 1 fleet against 1 reaper and a few geth cronies. The Reapers are stronger, tougher, faster and have potentially over a billion years of knowledge and, the way the cycle works, each cycle is around the same point technologically when Harby and his crew rock up to preserve us.

Yeah, it got through the first time by attacking from behind and accelerating far more than its comrades. Which makes me wonder why they didn't all just do that. However, barriers only seem to keep certain things out, so shuttles and crap can dock. It did punch right through the armour though, but the lazer did not(at least with that fancy armour, otherwise it does a little bit).
Destroyers however have one large weakness. They expose themselves when firing. Setting dedicated 'sniper' ships to target these would make it simple to keep them at bay, or inflict heavy losses on them.
Its not really speculation, they choose the strongest race. Shepard basically makes Harbinger consider humans the best, the genetic stuff just seemed to be a bonus. They only make one reaper to store the knowledge and 'soul' of that species.
Destroyers are like the leftover junk, basically no one gives a crap about them.

Yeah, they're drifting in space, one being barely functioning enough to not drop into a sun. Maybe a previous race set their sun to supernova when the reapers showed up, literally vaporizing everything. While not the best plan, it would work. If one race can make a giant cannon, there no reason the several thousand races before it couldn't. Theres no reason some of them invented a weapon so powerful that it actually obliterated a reaper, but because of its massive power, it wore out, or overheated, or something. We're sitll unsure about how many reapers there are, there are meant to be around 20,000 if Harbinger is about 1 billion years old.

Vigil was on an isolated planet with no communications, with scientists. I wouldn't call him an expert on what happened, he knew generally what happened.

Alright, well. Sovereign and the geth ftl in, the Geth fleet literally shielding Sovereign. After Saren does his thing, Sovereign breaks away and barges through the few defenders directly in his way, still not firing a shot. At this point damage to him would be minimal. He closes the citadel, shepard comes, does his/her thing, citadel opens, Fifth fleet flies to the rescue(i always have them save the council) loses a few ships and surrounds sovereign. They open fire using their normal weaponry(mass drivers and such, i'm unsure if any dreadnoughts were even in the fifth fleet) This is ineffective(duh) after some time though, sovereign begins to fre back,1 shotting frigates and cruisers. Sovereign loses his shields to...feedback or something. then they begin blowing him up, Joker does his flip and punches a hole straight through Sovvie.
The citadel defence force were combatting the geth the entire time, those few cronies outnumbered the council ships by a fair margin.
Ah yes, well, Sovereign was delayed by some time, he used the Rachni, and later the Geth. Why his boss could not do his job for him...i don't know. Anyway, this cycle is much later than normal. With the Reapers hitting their snooze button or something.

[Uncle Jo]

Han Shot First wrote...

History disagrees.

There has never been a time even during war, when complete overhauls of armies or navies was carried out in anything less than years.

Case in point: The panther tank.

It was designed by the Germans to combat the venerable Soviet T34s that they had encountered in 1941. It did not see widespread service until mid 1944.

History disagrees again.

The Panther came July 1943 (Battle of Kursk was its first real combat deployment), only two years after the T-34 encounter. Meanwhile the Panzer IV was overhauled with a more powerful cannon (KwK 40 L/43, 75mm), which took one year, and had added armor. It still wasn't a match for enemy heavy tanks like JS-type or M-26 (which came also late in the war), because of weak armor, but could destroy them at close range and take on the T-34 at lesser risk.

In 1942 the Germans produced more Panzer IV (1887 exemplars) than in the past 4 years (total 1937-1941: 1107).
In 1944 they tripled this number (5532), in a time where Germany was overwhelmed and about to lose the war. Same goes for the production of other tanks models, planes, cannons, etc.. which were incredibly increased as well.

So a whole Galaxy couldn't achieve what a single country succeeded to? Even if the Reapers are not the same enemy, we're aren't in a RTS game or real life.

I don't think people would have any problem with a conventional victory, if Hackett never stated that we can't win this way to begin with.

Garrus said it, it boiled down to big guns, a lot of them. That's what it takes to defeat the Reapers.

IMO It'd have been enough to say at the begininng of the game, that every race prepared prepared itself against the Reapers invasion, built warships en masse, and got whatever cannon or armor upgrades.

It's still less unrealistic than a giant super weapon which devices are found on Mars, out of all the places in the galaxy and built in a few months by people who don't have a single clue of what it actually does.

And don't make the Council, the Alliance or every one in the Galaxy but Shep so retarded. It'd have been better if the writers took care of it ME2 even when just mentionned in the background, though.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 31 juillet 2012 - 03:49 .

[BerzerkGene]

shodiswe wrote...

Skirata129 wrote...

...you didn't even read my OP did you? come up with an informed argument.

An informed response would probably be that the reapers likely has more dreadnaughts than you got frigates, to beat them you have to clear them out of the whole galaxy not just earth orbit.

Not to mention all those destroyers and occuli they got. they got a fighter equivalent aswell. "shrug" what more needs to be said?

What did dissapoint me was they they never showed any of those disruptor torpedoes or whatever they were called... the masseffect projectile torpedoes.

The perfect spot to show that woudl have been that cruiser or dreadnaught that got attacked by a reaper on close range, the torpedoes soudned like closerange weaponry that was temporarily magnitically attached to the ships hull until given a target. It woudl have made a nice defensive weapon against reapers on a ramming trajectory. Even if it doesn't stop them it might hurt them or show them down.

But really I don't belive in that conventional victory simply because there are so many more reapers, it doessn't matter if you can swarm a handfull of them if they can send a thousand more dreadnaughts and wipe you out and you got nothing else to send in. You loose the war, even if you can win a battle.

I'm guessing it would have been easier for the first few cycles to fight them conventionaly when there wern't thousands of reaper dreadnaughts.
Im also guessing they used indoctrinated agents even mroe agressively during the first few cycles to weaken the defenders.

More dreadnoughts than dreadnoughts, sure.
More dreadnoughts than cruisers, unlikely.
More dreadnoughts than frigates, No.

The Reapers around earth are meant to be the bulk of their fleet.
Destroyers are easily killed and oculi are hopeless as fighters, able to be taken down with a few shots from an opposing fighter or one shotted by anything bigger.

The torpedos are called Javelins. They're easy to spam, as you can see during ME2. Considering they warp the fabric of space and time i should say they would hurt, yes."The torpedoes are fired on converging trajectories, and detonate in a
precisely timed sequence that allows the dark energy emitted by their
warheads to resonate. This magnifies the resulting space-time warp
effects."

They can't send a thousand more. They're stretched thin as is, with the bulk of them being at Earth. If they could have, they should have, what with the boss being there and possibly in danger and all. If they had, they would have squashed sword fleet on two fronts and crushed them like a walnut. That would have been what i would do. But then again, i'm not starbrat.
The first few cycles would have been...actually thats a good point. He managed to kill his creators...somehow, howd he fare with the next few cycles? hmm. Weakening is one thing, but i don't think it would be as widespread as what happened to the batarians, whose entire government was indoctrinated.

[The Heretic of Time]

The problem is OP, that the reapers both outnumber and outgun us. There is no way you can apply the same tactic against the Reapers as you suggest in your OP.

Modifié par Heretic_Hanar, 31 juillet 2012 - 03:31 .

[V-rcingetorix]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

The problem is OP, that the reapers both outnumber and outgun us. There is no way you can apply the same tactic against the Reapers as you suggest in your OP.

Have to admit, you have a point. Reapers have onboard weaponry designed for that kind of thing. The probes from the Omega Relay in ME2 seem to target fighters as well (also the Marine 1 scene from the space battle in ME3). But...

Remember in ME1, the Alliance fleet vs Sovereign? Occasionally, Sovereign would fire a beam that connected with nothing. This tells me that the aiming software for a Reaper is not 100% infallible.

Maybe swarming isolated Reapers with the Mass Relay/Reaper detector that is the Crucible?

[The Heretic of Time]

V-rcingetorix wrote...

Remember in ME1, the Alliance fleet vs Sovereign? Occasionally, Sovereign would fire a beam that connected with nothing. This tells me that the aiming software for a Reaper is not 100% infallible.

Maybe swarming isolated Reapers with the Mass Relay/Reaper detector that is the Crucible?

And how big is the chance that you find an isolated Reaper in an open war?

Sure, Shepard found 2 isolated Reapers (Tuchanka and Rannoch), which didn't made much sense in my opinion, but that aside, there are still countless of other reapers out there and you're NOT simply going to catch them all off guard in isolation (like we caught Sovereign).

And again, the reapers outnumber and outgun is. We'll have gone through all our resources and ships longgg before we've taken out all reapers with guerillia warfare, considering that it will cost us at least a dozen of ships every single time to take down one, JUST ONE reaper dreadnought.

Modifié par Heretic_Hanar, 31 juillet 2012 - 03:42 .

[DecCylonus]

A conventional victory may not be impossible, but it is very, very unlikely. The Reaper war is a war of attrition, and the Reapers hold a distinct advantage there. Even if it "only" takes four dreadnoughts or sixteen fighters to take down a Reaper dreadnought, there is no gaurantee that your forces will come through that battle intact. It is already stated that the Reapers have superior numbers. Therefore, they can afford losses more than the Citadel races. When you combine that with their superior weaponry and ability to one-shot Citadel capital ships, winning a war of attrition becomes very unlikely.

It is established in the codex that the Reaper ships have powerful point defense systems to deal with smaller ships that attack at close range. They also have the Occuli fighters. Since they have effective defenses against a fighter attack, the outcome of the battles is not gauranteed. The Reapers might win and kill all the fighters. They might lose. Or they might lose but still do a lot of damage to Citadel forces. Again, they can better absorb the losses.

The codex entries on the space battles fought with the Reapers make it clear that they do use tactics. Therefore, we can expect them to adapt to fighter swarms. The easiest way to defeat fighters is to target the carriers. Fighters aren't FTL capable, so if the carriers are destroyed the fighters can longer be used as offensive weapons. The carriers are capital ships and not easily replaced, so a concentrated effort to wipe them out would pretty much end the fighter threat. Also, in order for Citadel forces to win, that four-to-one ratio has to be maintained. Because the Reapers have superior numbers, they can concentrate their forces and deny the Citadel forces a chance to fight with the numbers in their favor. The Reapers can then force a decisive battle by attacking vital resources like major production centers with their massed fleet. The Citadel fleets must then either fight or lose the resources that allow them to keep fighting. The Reapers could also attempt to ambush Citadel forces with a massed fleet. The Citadel forces can always flee, but ships cannot instantly go to FTL when the Reapers appear. Any losses they take as they try to disengage still turn the war more in the Reapers' favor.

In short, Shepard's cycle isn't prepared to fight the Reapers in a conventional war. Unconventional tactics or superweapons are the best options.

[CronoDragoon]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

The problem is OP, that the reapers both outnumber and outgun us. There is no way you can apply the same tactic against the Reapers as you suggest in your OP.

[tyrvas]

The Angry One wrote...

The Geth could also help with automation or remote piloting (as they do with their fighter squadrons), so we could run ships with less/no crew in order to reduce casualties.
In fact why the hell fighters are being piloted by people and not VIs is never explained.

maybe the fear that Reapers can easily hack the autopiloted fighters or VI fighters.

[The Angry One]

tyrvas wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

The Geth could also help with automation or remote piloting (as they do with their fighter squadrons), so we could run ships with less/no crew in order to reduce casualties.
In fact why the hell fighters are being piloted by people and not VIs is never explained.

maybe the fear that Reapers can easily hack the autopiloted fighters or VI fighters.

Can they? I've never seen an example of this.
Reapers have only been shown to hack systems they already have top-level access to, such as the Geth.

If they could just hack machines with impunity they wouldn't have to manipulate the Geth into willingly joining them in the first place.

[tyrvas]

The Angry One wrote...

tyrvas wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

The Geth could also help with automation or remote piloting (as they do with their fighter squadrons), so we could run ships with less/no crew in order to reduce casualties.
In fact why the hell fighters are being piloted by people and not VIs is never explained.

maybe the fear that Reapers can easily hack the autopiloted fighters or VI fighters.

Can they? I've never seen an example of this.
Reapers have only been shown to hack systems they already have top-level access to, such as the Geth.

If they could just hack machines with impunity they wouldn't have to manipulate the Geth into willingly joining them in the first place.

I do not know if they can,but just the thought the Reapers 'can do it' may cause fear.
imagine you make a whole fleet of automated figthers and then 30s into the battle they all turn on you.

[DirtyPhoenix]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

The problem is OP, that the reapers both outnumber and outgun us. There is no way you can apply the same tactic against the Reapers as you suggest in your OP.

QFT

[DirtyPhoenix]

DecCylonus wrote...

A conventional victory may not be impossible, but it is very, very unlikely. The Reaper war is a war of attrition, and the Reapers hold a distinct advantage there. Even if it "only" takes four dreadnoughts or sixteen fighters to take down a Reaper dreadnought, there is no gaurantee that your forces will come through that battle intact. It is already stated that the Reapers have superior numbers. Therefore, they can afford losses more than the Citadel races. When you combine that with their superior weaponry and ability to one-shot Citadel capital ships, winning a war of attrition becomes very unlikely.

Also QFT

[AlanC9]

Heretic_Hanar wrote...

Sure, Shepard found 2 isolated Reapers (Tuchanka and Rannoch), which didn't made much sense in my opinion, but that aside, there are still countless of other reapers out there and you're NOT simply going to catch them all off guard in isolation (like we caught Sovereign).

I thought those made strategic sense, myself. Tuchanka isn't a high-value target since the krogan don't control a space fleet, and Reaper interests are best served at Rannoch by keeping the stalemate going.

[Hakuthehedgehog]

Occuli.

I thought of the same strategy, but the reapers have swarmers of their own and should you try to focus on a reaper with the fighters. they would be destroyed before they could do significant danger

[Han Shot First]

BleedingUranium wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

If a nation lost a war because they "ran out of money", that nation is an idiot.

In order to fight an army needs to eat and it needs equipment to fight with. Both of those things cost money. You can't feed, equip, and supply armies on charity and hope.

You also can't keep that army in the field if the homefront is starving.

You can't name a single instance where a nation was able to wage war without a war chest because there isn't one. And there never will be.

No, they don't "cost money", that's the problem you can't get past.

Yes, they do.

Armies and fleets can't be supported by an economic system based on primitive bartering. And they can't be fielded on charity.

Please explain how the civilizations of the galaxy could continue to wage an effective war against the Reapers after the total collapse of the galactic economy.

Modifié par Han Shot First, 31 juillet 2012 - 04:54 .

[iamweaver]

I think that the real problem here for many is that they don't understand that money isn't some completely arbitrary thing. It is a (vague) representation of the time, effort and resources required to complete a task.

Simply making something "free" doesn't reduce those three factors.