642 réponses à ce sujet

[nukembaby]

During the game I saw several Reapers being destroyed conventionally--and without nukes (Cain at the end doesn't really count since it's so small). Throw a couple megaton bombs in there and they should be toast in no time. Even without nukes, the Reaper ships are kind of a joke. Sure, their main gun is destructive but so slow to fire and so easy to predict, a NASA space shuttle could run circles around one.

I don't buy it.

[Phatose]

A lone swordsman facing a lone pikeman will win - pretty easily. Chop off the head of the pike, and he's done.

A group of swordsman facing a group of pikemen though? It's infinitely harder to chop off that pike head when there are a dozen more waiting to stab you if you try.

Nukes aren't really an improvement - remember Drill Sargeant "Newton's biggest fan" from ME2? The main gun on a dreadnought is already carrying as much energy as a nuke. Plus, it's all contained in a single point - not being dispersed thoughout space, falling off it effectiveness by the cube of the distance. Nukes aren't going to help.

But, you're welcome to test it. Just refuse when the Starkid makes his offer.

[wolfhowwl]

Delivering a nuclear weapon would be difficult.

An ICBM would be easily destroyed from orbit as it lumbers off the ground. A cruise missile (or the MEU equivalent) would have to punch through their swarms of escort fighters (Oculuses?) and the Reapers' own advanced point defense weapons. Legions of husks would make a ground delivery attempt very difficult.

In space, the council races have more efficient weapons than nukes.

Modifié par wolfhowwl, 16 avril 2013 - 08:21 .

[Samtheman63]

reapers can annhilate everyone and everything easily if they want to, they dont

they need **** to harvest

[Argolas]

The codex provides clear answers about the possibility of conventional victory.



Reaper Vulnerabilities


Although clearly technologically superior to the Citadel forces, the Reapers have experienced casualties in the battles across the galaxy. This indicates that, theoretically, with the right intelligence, weapons, and strategy, the Reapers could be defeated.

Unlike the mass effect relays that they created, Reapers do not have quantum shields. Locking itself down at a quantum level would leave a Reaper unaware of its surroundings until the shielding deactivated. Instead, Reapers rely on kinetic barriers.

In the case of a Reaper capital ship, these kinetic barriers can hold off the firepower of two dreadnoughts simultaneously, but three clearly causes strain, and four typically results in destruction. Weapons designed to maximize heat damage, such as the Thanix series, show better results against the Reapers than pure kinetic impacts.

The barriers of a Reaper destroyer are less formidable than those of a capital ship. It is possible for a single cruiser or many fighters to disable or demolish a destroyer if they can get within range before they are themselves destroyed.

The Reapers' energy sources are not infinite. For example, to land on a planet, a Reaper must substantially reduce its mass. This transfer of power to its mass effect generators leaves the Reaper's kinetic barriers at only partial strength.

Sovereign was destroyed while assuming direct control over Saren. The feedback from Saren's death seemed to entirely overload Sovereign's shields. Current Reapers do not seem to suffer from this design flaw.

Reaper capital ships can turn faster than Citadel dreadnoughts, but to do so, they must lower their mass to a level unacceptable in combat situations. Consequently, it is possible for a dreadnought to emerge from FTL travel behind a capital ship, then bring its guns to bear faster than the Reaper can return fire. This is a poor tactic, however, against Reapers flying in proper formation.

Modifié par Argolas, 16 avril 2013 - 07:50 .

[nukembaby]

The numbers thing is just battlefield tactics; just wage guerilla warfare as appropriate depending on how asymmetric the situation is.

I'm talking more about technological limitations. Good point about the main gun on a dreadnought packing as much power as a nuke. However that is a kinetic form of energy which mass effect fields are good at mitigating. A nuke delivers the energy in a form (heat, radiation, EMP) that cannot be as easily defended against. We already saw that on Earth when a tiny handheld nuke (Cain) took down a Reaper in a single shot.

[Astartes Marine]

Phatose wrote...
Nukes aren't really an improvement - remember Drill Sargeant "Newton's biggest fan" from ME2? The main gun on a dreadnought is already carrying as much energy as a nuke. Plus, it's all contained in a single point - not being dispersed thoughout space, falling off it effectiveness by the cube of the distance. Nukes aren't going to help.
But, you're welcome to test it. Just refuse when the Starkid makes his offer.

The main gun of an Everest dread fires a shot that hits with the force of a 38 kiloton bomb, 3 times the power of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima.  TODAY there are known nuclear weapons with yields of several megatons, thousands of kilotons.  The Russian Tsar Bomba "King of the Bombs" for example had a yield of 57 megatons, or 57,000 kilotons and that was in 1961.  Originally it was supposed to be a 100 megaton yield but was reduced due to fear of the after effects.

That's not even taking into account the massive amounts of heat, the electromagnetic pulses that screw with electronics and the radiation produced. 


I would imagine that in the time that Mass Effect takes place the development/design of WMDs has been refined and improved on...unless that was another thing the Council neutered like our fleet.
 
Even if nukes were out of the question, ships alone could be used as weapons.  A ship of sufficient size and mass, accelerating to FTL and ramming into a Reaper?  A mass effect shot on a massive scale...but there is I believe a "convenient" Codex entry that says there's some kind of non-bypassable safety system in FTL drives that prevents that.

Also laser weapons are not protected against by kinetic barriers, even Reaper ones. 

Modifié par Astartes Marine, 16 avril 2013 - 07:53 .

[nukembaby]

I think the whole nuke warefare possibility has been downplayed intentionally by Bioware for several reasons:

1) They have the potential to be a deus ex machina, able to solve all problems magically at the end. So Bioware had to intentionally remove them from the equation--or else advance the technological state of everything to such a level that there exists an easy defense against nukes. Here's where I think they made a mistake. They should have completely removed the concept of nukes entirely and pretended that they just did not exist in the Mass Effect universe.
2) Political. This is pretty obvious. Glorification of nukes is not something they want to instill in impressionable minds playing the game.

[robertthebard]

Argolas wrote...

The codex provides clear answers about the possibility of conventional victory.



Reaper Vulnerabilities


Although clearly technologically superior to the Citadel forces, the Reapers have experienced casualties in the battles across the galaxy. This indicates that, theoretically, with the right intelligence, weapons, and strategy, the Reapers could be defeated.

Unlike the mass effect relays that they created, Reapers do not have quantum shields. Locking itself down at a quantum level would leave a Reaper unaware of its surroundings until the shielding deactivated. Instead, Reapers rely on kinetic barriers.

In the case of a Reaper capital ship, these kinetic barriers can hold off the firepower of two dreadnoughts simultaneously, but three clearly causes strain, and four typically results in destruction. Weapons designed to maximize heat damage, such as the Thanix series, show better results against the Reapers than pure kinetic impacts.

The barriers of a Reaper destroyer are less formidable than those of a capital ship. It is possible for a single cruiser or many fighters to disable or demolish a destroyer if they can get within range before they are themselves destroyed.

The Reapers' energy sources are not infinite. For example, to land on a planet, a Reaper must substantially reduce its mass. This transfer of power to its mass effect generators leaves the Reaper's kinetic barriers at only partial strength.

Sovereign was destroyed while assuming direct control over Saren. The feedback from Saren's death seemed to entirely overload Sovereign's shields. Current Reapers do not seem to suffer from this design flaw.

Reaper capital ships can turn faster than Citadel dreadnoughts, but to do so, they must lower their mass to a level unacceptable in combat situations. Consequently, it is possible for a dreadnought to emerge from FTL travel behind a capital ship, then bring its guns to bear faster than the Reaper can return fire. This is a poor tactic, however, against Reapers flying in proper formation.

There's the problem with this codex entry.  While you're getting your 4 dreadnaughts in position, 3 capital ships are shooting at them.  Not to mention any destroyers and the occuli(?).  So unless you're going to catch the estimated 20,000 capital ships 4 on 1 every time, you don't have enough ships, and you can't rebuild them fast enough to keep up.  According to a report on the Spectre terminal, it's estimated that the galaxy can only hold out for about another year, and they are out of resources.  This is, of course, compounded by the fact that the Reapers are taking out manufacturing hubs anywhere they find them.  I linked an article earlier that shows it takes 7 years to build a modern aircraft carrier, which are the largest ships in our Navy.  How long does it take to build a dreadnaught?  It won't be very long until that's not an issue, since you won't have the resources to build them anyway.

If you get into a war of attrition with the Reapers, you're going to lose because they can and will cut your supply lines, but they can replenish their ground troops on every planet, with the people they harvest.  They're not running out of troops until you run out of people.  Beginning to see the problem here?

[KainD]

Need a lot of Cains and fleets.

[AlanC9]

nukembaby wrote...
Here's where I think they made a mistake. They should have completely removed the concept of nukes entirely and pretended that they just did not exist in the Mass Effect universe.

You really think that would have worked? I figure we would have just ended up with even more posts whining about how come Bio forgot about nukes?

[nukembaby]

Yes it would have worked. It's an alternate universe based on the fictional "mass effect" technology. That requires as much or more suspension of belief as a reality without nukes, don't you think? For example, if humans had discovered the magical "mass effect" before WWII, nukes may not have ever happened.

[Auintus]

[Seival]

nukembaby wrote...

Can't destroy the Reapers conventionally. Really?

Really.

Grow up, kid.

Modifié par Seival, 16 avril 2013 - 08:23 .

[Argolas]

robertthebard wrote...

There's the problem with this codex entry.  While you're getting your 4 dreadnaughts in position, 3 capital ships are shooting at them.  Not to mention any destroyers and the occuli(?).  So unless you're going to catch the estimated 20,000 capital ships 4 on 1 every time, you don't have enough ships, and you can't rebuild them fast enough to keep up.  According to a report on the Spectre terminal, it's estimated that the galaxy can only hold out for about another year, and they are out of resources.  This is, of course, compounded by the fact that the Reapers are taking out manufacturing hubs anywhere they find them.  I linked an article earlier that shows it takes 7 years to build a modern aircraft carrier, which are the largest ships in our Navy.  How long does it take to build a dreadnaught?  It won't be very long until that's not an issue, since you won't have the resources to build them anyway.

If you get into a war of attrition with the Reapers, you're going to lose because they can and will cut your supply lines, but they can replenish their ground troops on every planet, with the people they harvest.  They're not running out of troops until you run out of people.  Beginning to see the problem here?

I didn't say conventional victory is possible for this cycle. I disagree with the number of 20k capital ships, that is an insane number that makes absolutely no sense. With that kind of force, the galaxy would be taken before you know it. There are less than 100 dreadnoughts in total, that matches the firepower of, let's be generous, 25 capital ships (ignoring that the superior defensive capabilities of reapers makes even that unrealistic). They could just send, say, 50 capital ships to every significant world in the galaxy and have already won. I ignore smaller ships here, I doubt the balance gets better with cruisers vs. destroyers etc. inbound.

I estimate there are about 150-200 capital ships. That number still matches the firepower of at least 600 dreadnoughts, so conventional victory is still impossible, but it would justify the fact that the reaper forces were stretched thin, especially by the Turians. Why aren't there 20k capital ships? Two simple reasons: Not every cycle produces a capital ship, and more importantly, casualties. If every cycle was able to destroy a single capital ship, the number of reapers would even be decreasing.

Conventional victory is possible- theoretically. It may have worked if the prothean plan that Javik was in charge of succeeded and the galaxy had spent the whole cycle preparing, awaiting the Reapers with hundreds of dreadnoughts and ready for anything the reapers would do. But it didn't happen.

[AlanC9]

nukembaby wrote...

Yes it would have worked. It's an alternate universe based on the fictional "mass effect" technology. That requires as much or more suspension of belief as a reality without nukes, don't you think? For example, if humans had discovered the magical "mass effect" before WWII, nukes may not have ever happened.

So it isn't just our world with nukes magically erased, it's a world where all sorts of things happened differently, including things before the present day.

OK, that would have "worked." Nobody would have liked it but it would have "worked."

Modifié par AlanC9, 16 avril 2013 - 08:28 .

[nukembaby]

AlanC9 wrote...

 Nobody would have liked it but it would have "worked."

True about so much of the game already, why not this?

[Tilarta]

That was what I expected to happen.

That now that Thanix cannons had been tested against the Collectors in a live fire exercise, they'd ramp up production and install them on as many ships as they could.

I doubt a single Reaper could endure the firepower of several ships firing Thanix beams at once.

Mutliply that by every ship in the armada and you basically have a fleet of death.

But instead, only the Quarian liveships and a few Salarian dreadnaughts installed Thanix cannons.


Also, the Reapers have an achilles heel of sorts.

When their own Thanix cannons fire, this is a weak spot that can be targeted.

As witnessed what happened when the entire Quarian armada fired into the Thanix cannon port of the Reaper on Rannoch.

They tore it apart!

I figure at range, frigates are more maneuverable, so the Reapers would find it hard to target them.

And meanwhile, the Dreadnaught hanging back could fire the Thanix beam at the Reaper Thanix port when it attempts to shoot at the frigates.

[nukembaby]

Argolas wrote...

I estimate there are about 150-200 capital ships. That number still matches the firepower of at least 600 dreadnoughts, so conventional victory is still impossible, but it would justify the fact that the reaper forces were stretched thin, especially by the Turians. 

Now imagine if every one of those dreadnoughts had 50 nukes on board. The Reapers would be dead as soon as they jumped into a system.

And let's not forget one key advantage we would have: the Reapers don't have any nukes...none. Because they require a lot of mining and purification to fabricate and the Reapers spend all their time between cycles in dark space snoozing.

[AlanC9]

nukembaby wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

 Nobody would have liked it but it would have "worked."

True about so much of the game already, why not this?

We spend so much time on this board talking about suggestions that would make the game worse, one more wouldn't matter.

[essarr71]

Love the nuke foot-stomping.

They're laughable in space.. and just about every vessel carries far superior alternatives, anyway.  Why not the bow and arrow since were talking about using outdated technology?

[AlanC9]

nukembaby wrote...

And let's not forget one key advantage we would have: the Reapers don't have any nukes...none. Because they require a lot of mining and purification to fabricate and the Reapers spend all their time between cycles in dark space snoozing.

This is stupid. IF the Reapers needed nukes, you think they coudn't have stored them up?

[essarr71]

AlanC9 wrote...

nukembaby wrote...

And let's not forget one key advantage we would have: the Reapers don't have any nukes...none. Because they require a lot of mining and purification to fabricate and the Reapers spend all their time between cycles in dark space snoozing.

This is stupid. IF the Reapers needed nukes, you think they coudn't have stored them up?

Reapers hate mining.  It's in the codex.  They also hate sewing.  Threading a needle is very frustrating for a Reaper.

[nukembaby]

The more I think about it, the Reapers would be the ones facing extinction from a nuke-enabled civilization. Hence for story reasons, nukes had to be written out.

Modifié par nukembaby, 16 avril 2013 - 08:44 .

[Phatose]

Astartes Marine wrote...

Phatose wrote...
Nukes aren't really an improvement - remember Drill Sargeant "Newton's biggest fan" from ME2? The main gun on a dreadnought is already carrying as much energy as a nuke. Plus, it's all contained in a single point - not being dispersed thoughout space, falling off it effectiveness by the cube of the distance. Nukes aren't going to help.
But, you're welcome to test it. Just refuse when the Starkid makes his offer.

The main gun of an Everest dread fires a shot that hits with the force of a 38 kiloton bomb, 3 times the power of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima.  TODAY there are known nuclear weapons with yields of several megatons, thousands of kilotons.  The Russian Tsar Bomba "King of the Bombs" for example had a yield of 57 megatons, or 57,000 kilotons and that was in 1961.  Originally it was supposed to be a 100 megaton yield but was reduced due to fear of the after effects.

That's not even taking into account the massive amounts of heat, the electromagnetic pulses that screw with electronics and the radiation produced. 


I would imagine that in the time that Mass Effect takes place the development/design of WMDs has been refined and improved on...unless that was another thing the Council neutered like our fleet.
 
Even if nukes were out of the question, ships alone could be used as weapons.  A ship of sufficient size and mass, accelerating to FTL and ramming into a Reaper?  A mass effect shot on a massive scale...but there is I believe a "convenient" Codex entry that says there's some kind of non-bypassable safety system in FTL drives that prevents that.

Also laser weapons are not protected against by kinetic barriers, even Reaper ones. 

Well, again, it's not quite that simple.  It's 38kiltons per shot.  You need 4 dreadnoughts all together firing to take down a reaper, presumably firing constantly.   That's roughly a megaton every 6 salvoes.

The nuke has some additional problems.  First off, it's not directed like the slug is - it detonates spherically.  Which means if you detonate a nuke on the surface of a reaper, fully 50% of the energy is lost because it's going away from the reaper.  If it's not on the surface, it drops off real fast - cube of the distance from detonation. 

Which means you need to get your missile pretty close to the Reaper to have it work.  Then you have a real problem with getting it in there - the first time it might work, but after that they're going to aggressively shoot down missiles.  Or worse, hack them.


Ramming, I believe, is actually covered in the Codex.  It doesn't work.  Mass effect drives shut down if you try to ram them into a solid object.  Nobody can figure out how to stop them from doing it - another little reminder that the technology is actually Reaper tech, and we only mostly understand it.