285 réponses à ce sujet

[teh DRUMPf!!]

xlegionx wrote...

But still, as soon as the Citadel was moved to Earth the Crucible should have either A) been scrapped so the resources would not be completely wasted,

Without a decent alternative? Sounds like a waste to me.

or hidden away somewhere with a skeleton crew in cryo-stasis to wait out the Reapers and then go to the Citadel.

(1) You're playing with fire here, seeing as the cryo-stasis plans have proven anything but reliable. Only a dozen survived on Ilos, as power ran out over time. On Eden Prime, the project was sabotaged by indoc'd forces. Very risky.
(2) With victory conceivably in their grasp (Crucible finished, many a fleet united) how do you ask everyone you've recruited to leave behind everything they're fighting to save? At that point, destroying the Reapers isn't worth a damn.

Like you just said, they outnumber and outgun us. As soon as they saw (read: detected. they likely knew of it's presence long before it reached Earth and the Citadel) something being escorted, they should have known something was up and attack the thing being escorted. If they could spare the forces to have destroyers and capital ships fight infantry forces, then they could easily overwhelm Shield fleet.

It's not a question of "if" but "when" with the Crucible. The Reapers know it's coming, just not when. With the fleet Shepard brought to Earth, though, they can't simply assume a defensive position around the Citadel either. That just makes them easy targets for us. They may be strong, but they're not invincible. If/when they start playing "prevent defense," they are going to take heavy losses, which will just ensure the Crucible will get there more easily. Instead, they are better off trying to go after the galactic fleet and wipe them all out before it arrives.

They're forced to stay on the offensive, which presents a small window of opportunity for us to sneak the Crucible in.

In Low-EMS, the fleet is not enough of a challenge to the Reapers and they can turn around and attack the Crucible. In High-EMS, though, it's just enough to successfully slip the Crucible past them and dock on the Citadel.

Yes, it's dicey, but saving all galactic civilization is well worth any risk (when has that ever stopped Shepard?).

At least, that is my understanding of the strategy involved with the Crucible.

[o Ventus]

David7204 wrote...

Why don't you explain to me how the Mass Relays prevent galactic civilization from developing Thanix-like technology? 

Presumably for the same reason why we don't just go back to using "normal" guns instead of handheld mass accelerators, even though "normal" guns probably wouldn't activate kinetic barriers. The story has consistently shown (and explicitly told) that once a species finds the mass relays and the Citadel, they derive the rest of their technology from it. I have no idea why that would kill all innovation, but in the context of the narrative, it does.

[xlegionx]

That makes absolutely no sense. So just because the technology a more advanced ship uses hasn't been used to fight an even more advanced ship, that it wouldn't help less advanced ships against the original ship?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

David7204 wrote...

It would be possible to have a conventional victory with hard science and tactics, meaningful heroism, and choices that matter without significantly altering the Reapers or the preparations made prior to ME 3. (As long as the player has a perfect or near-perfect playthough, of course.) But you're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than this. You're not going to come up with anything if all you can see is thanix cannons and dreadnoughts.

I said something substantial. This is the same crap you regurgitate on a regular basis, and I never said anything about dreadnoughts. Thanix cannons are just part of the equation.

[David7204]

xlegionx wrote...

That makes absolutely no sense. So just because the technology a more advanced ship uses hasn't been used to fight an even more advanced ship, that it wouldn't help less advanced ships against the original ship?

No.

A magic technology like the super-duper Thanix guns suggested here is neither justified nor excused just because the Reapers use them. If anything, it's somewhat of the opposite.

That's the point.

Modifié par David7204, 12 juillet 2013 - 07:40 .

[David7204]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

David7204 wrote...

It would be possible to have a conventional victory with hard science and tactics, meaningful heroism, and choices that matter without significantly altering the Reapers or the preparations made prior to ME 3. (As long as the player has a perfect or near-perfect playthough, of course.) But you're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than this. You're not going to come up with anything if all you can see is thanix cannons and dreadnoughts.

I said something substantial. This is the same crap you regurgitate on a regular basis, and I never said anything about dreadnoughts. Thanix cannons are just part of the equation.

I did write a thread not too long ago about a conventional victory push on Rannoch. Perhaps you should go take a look at that to whet your appetite.

But why don't you explain to me what the other 'parts' of this equation are?

Modifié par David7204, 12 juillet 2013 - 07:39 .

[xlegionx]

David, you're the only one calling the Thanix cannons "super-duper magic weapons"

[David7204]

If the Thanix cannons are a game changing technology that turns the invasion around, that's what they are.

I have to distinguish between the Thanix weapons suggested here and the ones in the actual game. Saying 'super-duper' makes clear that I'm talking about the hypothetical Thanix weapons suggested here.

Modifié par David7204, 12 juillet 2013 - 07:50 .

[AlexMBrennan]

It would be possible to have a conventional victory with hard science and tactics

Nope. FTL 101 is that fleets can outrun fleets and sensor detection, and that the losing side can always escape unless you have some way of forcing an engagement (e.g. By moving your fleets to Earth and shelling the planet - the Alliance can either stand and fight and die, or admit defeat).

We have no way of forcing the Reapers to fight us - so any such plan crucially hinges on the Reapers fighting to the death when they know that they are losing and are able to escape.

[xlegionx]

And yet you ignore the fact that several people have stated that they realize the Thanix would not change the direction the war is taking, just give the galaxy a bit more of a fighting chance against the Reapers

[David7204]

So maybe a codex entry gets slightly tweaked? If we're going to complain about that, it's going to apply to all space combat. Which, if taken too harshly, would just make almost any kind of space combat impossible. Which is incredibly boring and thus not really acceptable.

It's not incredibly clear how that all applies, anyway. How long it takes to jump to FTL. If the engines need to be powered or not. How much damage a ship can take and still jump.

Modifié par David7204, 12 juillet 2013 - 08:19 .

[David7204]

xlegionx wrote...

And yet you ignore the fact that several people have stated that they realize the Thanix would not change the direction the war is taking, just give the galaxy a bit more of a fighting chance against the Reapers

No, I think it's you who's ignoring that fact that plenty of posters on this thread are very clearly whining that the Thanix guns weren't used as basically the entire turning point for the war effort. 

Are you sure you understand what a "bit more of a fighting chance against the Reapers" is? Because a "bit more of a fighting chance" is not going to very significantly change things.

Modifié par David7204, 12 juillet 2013 - 08:01 .

[Kataphrut94]

It all comes down to the fact that the Thanix cannon's use in Mass Effect 2 was a trademark 'Cool Moment', which stuck with people and made us naturally want to see more of it. That's why there are some who are irrationally against the Thanix missiles used in the final London battle. There's no real reason to hate it, it's just different and therefore wrong.

I don't know why it isn't shown being used (earlier I thought it might be just some cutscene issue and was shouted down by the unusual suspects), but I do know that even if they had explicitly shown allied ships firing what were unmistakably Thanix cannon bursts at the Reapers, it would have had the exact same effect. The point of those scenes are to say 'the Reapers are obliterating us, they cannot be stopped'.

[katamuro]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

It all comes down to the fact that the Thanix cannon's use in Mass Effect 2 was a trademark 'Cool Moment', which stuck with people and made us naturally want to see more of it. That's why there are some who are irrationally against the Thanix missiles used in the final London battle. There's no real reason to hate it, it's just different and therefore wrong.

I don't know why it isn't shown being used (earlier I thought it might be just some cutscene issue and was shouted down by the unusual suspects), but I do know that even if they had explicitly shown allied ships firing what were unmistakably Thanix cannon bursts at the Reapers, it would have had the exact same effect. The point of those scenes are to say 'the Reapers are obliterating us, they cannot be stopped'.

I think you are partially right, the cutscene where we see Normandy firing and destroying a collector cruiser in like 2 shots was a powerful one. Considering the technology of the cruiser and its size destroying it in two shots done by Normandy shows just how powerful the Thanix was. Volus even built a dreadnaught equipped only with Thanix cannons, that thing is supposed to be crazy powerful. Asari ships even without Thanix cannons were considered the most advanced ships in the galaxy so why would the lose as badly? 

Its just in ME universe was more grounded in reality it was more or less old school SciFi. So suddenly making the people on top stupid and nerfing every species is just wierd.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

David wrote:

It would be possible to have a conventional victory with hard science and tactics

Nope. FTL 101 is that fleets can outrun fleets and sensor detection, and that the losing side can always escape unless you have some way of forcing an engagement (e.g. By moving your fleets to Earth and shelling the planet - the Alliance can either stand and fight and die, or admit defeat).

We have no way of forcing the Reapers to fight us - so any such plan crucially hinges on the Reapers fighting to the death when they know that they are losing and are able to escape.

Alex is right.

See this is the thing right here. The example in point is the Asari. They did exactly this. They engaged the reapers in space with unconventional tactics to which the reapers were not accustomed to fighting against and were actually doing very well. The reapers were taking considerable losses against the Asari fleets, but because of this the reapers changed tactics and landed on the Asari worlds directly where the fleets couldn't get to them.

The Asari, like most all other races were ill equipped to fight a ground war against 160 m tall reapers let alone 2 km tall reapers. This left the reapers to do what they do best -- reap. Just like they were doing on Earth and Palaven.

So, David, you need to come up with something novel.... The writers needed to give the reapers some sort of weakness that could have been figured out and exploited only because they could not use the Citadel Relay Lockout this time like they did in all the previous cycles. But the writers didn't do this. Instead they gave us the "good is dumb" trope: a derped Council, a derped bunch of defense boards, a derped protagonist, and an invincible enemy, and this required a MacGuffin and a Deus Ex Machina for us to win.

But you insist the reapers need to steam roll the galaxy which requires exactly the good is dumb trope. If the manufacturing base for the galaxy is gone, where are we going to make stuff? In the large Magellanic Cloud?  You know the nearest satellite galaxy. No. They get to steamroll in the beginning. Then they get stalemated because we discovered a weakness. Then we turn the tide. Then we win, but it's a slog.

[CrutchCricket]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
 See if you can conquer Mirror Match at Armax Arsenal Arena solo, on Insanity, with all modifiers (minus Player Dmg+) enabled, and with only 1 life (no do-over after your first try). That's what conventional-warfare looks like against the Reapers: AI vs. human, outnumbered, out-gunned, scarcity of needed supplies, and only one shot to get it right.

Yeah, no. It's more like:

Uniting the galaxy= getting squadmates for that match

Thanix canons= negating the minus dmg modifier.

Result: You'll probably still lose but you'll do better than before and inflict more casualties.

Now the interesting hypothetical is what could it have been like if we had began preparing three years ago? It comes down to speculation but one possibility is more than two squadmates and more modifiers in our favor. Would it be enough? Maybe.

[Ledgend1221]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

 See if you can conquer Mirror Match at Armax Arsenal Arena solo, on Insanity, with all modifiers (minus Player Dmg+) enabled, and with only 1 life (no do-over after your first try). That's what conventional-warfare looks like against the Reapers: AI vs. human, outnumbered, out-gunned, scarcity of needed supplies, and only one shot to get it right.

Your Thanix Cannon equivalent would probably be the Prothean Particle Rifle. It does some sweet damage when it gets hot, especially with an ammo power applied. Thing is, you also have to be able to sustain that fire, and that requires slipping out of cover (soft or hard) a bit and thus leaving you vulnerable to the Shepards' power spam.

That's what CV proponents don't get. They lay out these elaborate plans for taking the Reapers straight-up and it sounds as though the enemy is just going to sit back in the defensive and just let you shoot them down. They won't. Once they see you they'll go on the offensive and the tables are turned completely (notice that's exactly what happens when the fleets arrive at Earth).

Try this tactic against the Shepards at AAA. Actually, don't: it doesn't work. While your ass is hanging out of cover, either the power-spam will stagger you and force you out -- at which point, you get shot-down and die -- or at least one of them will bull-rush you and force a close-combat encounter -- at which point, you get shot/beaten-down and die.

I've only ever seen anyone beat Mirror Match on those settings with a the help of a broken-overpowered weapon (like the Venom shotgun). That's why Hackett doesn't entertain convetional tactics against the Reapers for a second, and relies on the Crucible instead -- because he's not a moron!! The enemy has every advantage imaginable here. We only have one shot. If that's what you're up against, you better have an ace-in-the-hole. Like, a really, damn good weapon.

I'm about to tell you the most secret secret in all of secret....landplace.
Five words.
A code that will make the entire game a joke.
It's mere mention makes the computer cheat to no end trying to defeat it.

Clever use of game mechanics.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Ledgend, we're discussing plot, not game mechanics.

[Reorte]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

So, David, you need to come up with something novel.... The writers needed to give the reapers some sort of weakness that could have been figured out and exploited only because they could not use the Citadel Relay Lockout this time like they did in all the previous cycles. But the writers didn't do this. Instead they gave us the "good is dumb" trope: a derped Council, a derped bunch of defense boards, a derped protagonist, and an invincible enemy, and this required a MacGuffin and a Deus Ex Machina for us to win.

Even that's pushing it too far - the only loophole they had at all was Sovereign, the detailed knowledge about the Reapers that could've been discovered from him and the large amount of time that the events of ME1 should've bought the galaxy but they wanted the big Reapers vs Shepard climax so it had to happen no matter how much it destroyed sense and consistency.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Yeah, no. It's more like:

Uniting the galaxy= getting squadmates for that match

There is no frickin way the galaxy -- even at the highest possible EMS -- will outnumber or even match Reaper #s.

PERIOD!

Thanix canons= negating the minus dmg modifier.

Thanix Cannon = PPR. Go back and read why.

Now the interesting hypothetical is what could it have been like if we had began preparing three years ago? It comes down to speculation but one possibility is more than two squadmates and more modifiers in our favor. Would it be enough? Maybe.

You're outnumbered and outgunned. You need to change one of those things to have any chance of winning.

The enemy has been arming up for millennia. Next to that, three years of preperation does not even register.

[katamuro]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Yeah, no. It's more like:

Uniting the galaxy= getting squadmates for that match

There is no frickin way the galaxy -- even at the highest possible EMS -- will outnumber or even match Reaper #s.

PERIOD!

Thanix canons= negating the minus dmg modifier.

Thanix Cannon = PPR. Go back and read why.

Now the interesting hypothetical is what could it have been like if we had began preparing three years ago? It comes down to speculation but one possibility is more than two squadmates and more modifiers in our favor. Would it be enough? Maybe.

You're outnumbered and outgunned. You need to change one of those things to have any chance of winning.

The enemy has been arming up for millennia. Next to that, three years of preperation does not even register.

They have not been "arming up" for millenia. They have been in hibernation conserving their energy. That is why they required a Sovereign and that is why they create reaper groundtroopers out of the people not just land on a planet and release their own. That is why they have indoctriantion so they can make troops right there and then. 
Reapers are fallible as it states in ME3 that a few got taken out by backpack nukes. In fact if everyone asari, salarians and other races banded together in the first place then there would have been far less damage. Its because everyone was trying to do it on their own is why they were failing. 

[Ledgend1221]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Ledgend, we're discussing plot, not game mechanics.

I thought it was an analogy for the Reaper war and Thainx weapons?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Reorte wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

So, David, you need to come up with something novel.... The writers needed to give the reapers some sort of weakness that could have been figured out and exploited only because they could not use the Citadel Relay Lockout this time like they did in all the previous cycles. But the writers didn't do this. Instead they gave us the "good is dumb" trope: a derped Council, a derped bunch of defense boards, a derped protagonist, and an invincible enemy, and this required a MacGuffin and a Deus Ex Machina for us to win.

Even that's pushing it too far - the only loophole they had at all was Sovereign, the detailed knowledge about the Reapers that could've been discovered from him and the large amount of time that the events of ME1 should've bought the galaxy but they wanted the big Reapers vs Shepard climax so it had to happen no matter how much it destroyed sense and consistency.

Graphic at the end of the Suicide Mission = about 200,000 LY from the Milky Way. I know people say not to take the graphics seriously. Sorry. Then make them realistic, BW. That's where all the reapers were. They travel at 30 LY/day at FTL. That would take around 18 years to get to the Alpha Relay from the end of the Suicide Mission. So unless the purpose of ME2 was to build another reaper to try again at the Citadel considering the Heretics were infiltrating the main geth with their runtimes, ME2 was meaningless. And it was made meaningless by Arrival since Walters decided to make the invasion happen immediately after the Suicide Mission because they'd started traveling right after the Battle of the Citadel three years earlier.

18 years should have bought the galaxy sufficient time to develop and deploy Sovereign's technology. They couldn't have any of that. Where do you think the Quarians got that tech in ME3? Do you think that Tali was the only Quarian on the Citadel on her pilgrimage? There were 13.2 million people on the Citadel. She just happened to have a shield upgrade for the SR-2 in ME2. lolz. Shepard would have been 50 yrs old. Still able to do the job, but definitely not a "Commander" anymore. Captain more likely. SR-3 Normandy. The reapers would have still steamrolled, but the galaxy would have been more at the level of the Protheans. The game would have been about uniting the galaxy to turn the tide. It's an older theme of hope more consistent with the original story by Drew.

But, that didn't happen. Now this meant that they travel at around 1100 LY/day. Throw out all consistency and anything that remotely made any sense. We needed to find the "One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." We needed a miracle. Instead we get a post-modern theme of despair where we have to destroy our own allies and leave the galaxy a wasteland to defeat the enemy at the push of a button; or we have to keep our enemy around in one form or another either as a tool or as something we interface with.  And thus I hate all of the endings equally.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

katamuro wrote...

They have not been "arming up" for millenia. They have been in hibernation conserving their energy. That is why they required a Sovereign and that is why they create reaper groundtroopers out of the people not just land on a planet and release their own. That is why they have indoctriantion so they can make troops right there and then.

(1) The Reapers were not immediately designed to perfection. We know this because Leviathan states that indoctrination was improved over time to become what it has. The Catalyst could have very conceivably spent centuries upon centuries in the first cycle (and perhaps beyond) continually improving upon its prototype's design.

(2) Each harvest can counted as "arming up" since they gain numbers in doing so, and each harvest lasts for centuries to complete. The result are single ships that are worth more than entire fleets (look at what Sovereign did in ME1).

So YES, one can correctly claim that they've been militarizing for thousands of years.

Reapers are fallible as it states in ME3 that a few got taken out by backpack nukes.

That was a cannon, not a Reaper. And no, it was not mounted to a Destroyer. The wiki is wrong on this.

In fact if everyone asari, salarians and other races banded together in the first place then there would have been far less damage. Its because everyone was trying to do it on their own is why they were failing. 

It seems EC Refuse would prove that wrong.

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 12 juillet 2013 - 06:48 .

[Reorte]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

18 years should have bought the galaxy sufficient time to develop and deploy Sovereign's technology. They couldn't have any of that. Where do you think the Quarians got that tech in ME3? Do you think that Tali was the only Quarian on the Citadel on her pilgrimage? There were 13.2 million people on the Citadel. She just happened to have a shield upgrade for the SR-2 in ME2. lolz. Shepard would have been 50 yrs old. Still able to do the job, but definitely not a "Commander" anymore. Captain more likely. SR-3 Normandy. The reapers would have still steamrolled, but the galaxy would have been more at the level of the Protheans. The game would have been about uniting the galaxy to turn the tide. It's an older theme of hope more consistent with the original story by Drew.

Agree with that. But IMO it would be better still to say it's a lot more than 80 years (let's say that they can't keep up that pace non-stop with precious little resources betweent them and the Milky Way - they're out there trying to conserve power after all) and make that someone else's problem to deal with in the future. Then Shepard and Co. can have a series of unrelated adventures in the mean time.

Anyway, too late for that now.