101 réponses à ce sujet

[adam_grif]

Arijharn wrote...

adam_grif wrote...

Better question is why didn't Cerberus just blockade the O4 Relay with a couple of frigates. The guns on the SR2 can kill a collector ship even without any upgrades.

Because Cerberus is supposed to be a covert organisation remember? It isn't supposed to exist at the best of times, it's just one of those 'open secrets.'

They built the SR2, which is twice the size of the SR1, which itself was incredibly expensive. Suppose that instead of building it and resurrecting Commander Shepard, they instead just built a pair of cruiser guns to orbit the O4 relay.

They aren't alliance, they can apparently come and go in the terminus systems as they please. Nobody goes near the O4 relay so presumably nobody is going to care whether somebody sets up a gun around it.

You'd think this would be the obvious solution instead of "bring a dead guy back to live and build an expensive starship". O4 is the only relay that connects too and fro the collector base, and everybody knows this.

[Sabre120]

We know too little about how relays work just to destroy one, for all we know we could cause some sort of cataclysm by blowing one up, also Mass relays are supposedly indestructible as the Mu Relay was caught in a supernova and blown away into space rather than being destroyed

[Aisynia]

Sorry if this has been said.. even if you DID destroy it, which would be exceedingly difficult, there's no guarantee that the Collectors couldn't connect their end to another relay, and then you would have no idea where to go to find them.

[Arijharn]

But to the majority of the galaxy the Omega 4 relay is a non issue because the general consensus is that the Collector's don't exist and chances are you'd need a lot of ships to make an effective blockade because mass jump outs aren't precise.



So, lets assume you would need a lot of ships to make an effective blockade, then wouldn't it be also safe to assume that it would be noticeable? Afterall, the Galactic News makes mention after you finish the main quest that the Alliance has noticed that the Omega 4 relay was recently used, which means some monitoring must take place (especially since it's a known Bermuda's Triangle)

[adam_grif]

Arijharn wrote...

So, lets assume you would need a lot of ships to make an effective blockade,

That there's your problem. You don't. Weapons have a large effective range, and the "drift" on a mass relay is measured in thousands of kilometers (less for collector ships with IFF), which is well within the range of a single Frigate's combat radius.

Mass relays are large, but they have to get within a certain distance of it, and a single or small number of guns should easily be able to have overlapping fields of fire across the entire range of possible arrival points.

Modifié par adam_grif, 18 février 2010 - 12:25 .

[Arijharn]

But you'd need a large effective blockade anyway because you'd want to cover the gamut of options to what could emerge from the other side. There's no real point guarding it with 3 frigates if there's a chance that 5 cruisers could emerge.

Sure, you don't guard with Dreadnaughts, but either way it'd be a visible presence to any one near (especially if Omega4 was a popular place to hang out for criminal elements who want to try and get something from the Collector's)

[It IS Lupus]

Rykn wrote...

who knows what powers the relays? destroying one could make it's core go off and maybe the explosion is so big it hits the sun in that area and in turn make the sun go supernova. or not. that's just it though they don't know anything about them so until they can make their own it's way too dangerous.

or maybe they are linked in some way such as the stargates could translate an explosion thru an open wormhole destroying one could destroy any within range.

[It IS Lupus]

adam_grif wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

So, lets assume you would need a lot of ships to make an effective blockade,

That there's your problem. You don't. Weapons have a large effective range, and the "drift" on a mass relay is measured in thousands of kilometers (less for collector ships with IFF), which is well within the range of a single Frigate's combat radius.

Mass relays are large, but they have to get within a certain distance of it, and a single or small number of guns should easily be able to have overlapping fields of fire across the entire range of possible arrival points.

Look at the end of ME1 that is a LARGE Area to cover

[atheelogos]

Kileyan wrote...

Supposedly they cannot be destroyed.

Anything can be destroyed with enough energy. We just lack the technology to it.

[Monochrome Wench]

With the amount of energy and eezo in a mass relay I'd imagine that destroying one would probably destroy the entire system it is in, if not the entire star cluster.

[Vaenier]

They are virtually indestructible. we could launch every weapon we had and not dent it. but we could just push it into the sun so the collectors get a nice surprise when they come back out

[marshalleck]

adam_grif wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

So, lets assume you would need a lot of ships to make an effective blockade,

That there's your problem. You don't. Weapons have a large effective range, and the "drift" on a mass relay is measured in thousands of kilometers (less for collector ships with IFF), which is well within the range of a single Frigate's combat radius.

Mass relays are large, but they have to get within a certain distance of it, and a single or small number of guns should easily be able to have overlapping fields of fire across the entire range of possible arrival points.

That's still not much of a solution because at the time the decision was made to convene work on the Lazarus Project, nobody knew how many Collectors there were. For all TIM knew, the Collectors could have been amassing a fleet of millions of Reaper warships. Plopping a few frigates at the relay suddenly doesn't make as much sense, does it?

Also, the drift coming out of relay, as I said earlier, can vary from a hundred kilometers to a million (source: the codex) depending on the amount of mass being transferred. So, now not only do you not know what sort of ships to anticipate or their numbers, you don't really have any way to predict where they'll come out of the relay.

The questions about setting up a blockade on the relay are answered by the codex, for the most part. People just need to read it.

Modifié par marshalleck, 18 février 2010 - 02:07 .

[didymos1120]

Ulicus wrote...

Though, reading further along, you don't seem to think it's an issue either... so I'm not sure why you brought the above up at all.

Because a bunch of people seem to take it as settled fact that you can't wreck a mass relay, and tend to base that assumption more or less entirely on what happened with the Mu relay.  Sure, they might be right, but there's quite a lot of reasons to think they're not.   So no, I don't think blowing the Omega-4 up was feasible, but basing the argument for that on the Mu relay is just making a bad argument.  And I simply dislike bad arguments. 

[didymos1120]

adam_grif wrote...

They built the SR2, which is twice the size of the SR1, which itself was incredibly expensive. Suppose that instead of building it and resurrecting Commander Shepard, they instead just built a pair of cruiser guns to orbit the O4 relay.

They were working on the SR2 before the whole Saren thing even happened.  In fact, Cerberus pulled strings to get the SR1 project going in part so they could have a look at Turian military tech.  Talk to EDI after Joker activates her other systems and ask her about building the SR2.  It was quite far along before Shepard ever ran into the Collectors.  In other words: we're talking a huge sunk cost.  Plus, you know, people in the Terminus probably wouldn't be too comfortable with Cerberus setting up a couple giant guns in the Omega system:

Cerberus: "No really.  I mean, yeah, we could just point them somewhere else at any time and kill you and stuff, but we're not going to.  Honest!"

Everyone else: "Uh-huh.  Open fire." 

[didymos1120]

[double post terminated]

Modifié par didymos1120, 19 février 2010 - 01:39 .

[Lightice_av]

You can't just destroy Mass Relays. They're practically indestructible. Remember that the Mu Relay got blasted by a friggin supernova, and was just knocked out of orbit.

[didymos1120]

Lightice_av wrote...

You can't just destroy Mass Relays. They're practically indestructible. Remember that the Mu Relay got blasted by a friggin supernova, and was just knocked out of orbit.

Grrr. OK, repost time:

didymos1120 wrote...

Ok, as far as this 'indestructible' business goes: we have no reason to believe that's the case.  No, not even when taking the Mu Relay into account.  All we do know about that is that a supernova knocked it out of its previous position.  This is  not even remotely the same thing as 'survived the full force of a
supernova explosion'.  Given how powerful they can be, it's entirely possible the Mu Relay was quite some distance away, yet still close enough to snag enough momentum to go haring off to parts unknown.  Plus, recall that a point was made in ME1 of saying that it wasn't damaged, just relocated.  Not 'couldn't be damaged'.  Wasn't.  Implication being, it could have been. 

didymos1120 wrote...
Oh, no doubt they'd be damn hard to break, but nothing really is unbreakable.  Also, we don't know how quickly the Mu Relay was traveling.  It need not have been moving all that fast.  I mean,
we don't even know how far it actually went.  Just that between its change in momentum and the general 'shock and awe' of the supernova, they lost track of it and weren't able to figure out which way it went.  Orbital and Stellar mechanics can be absurdly complicated and the problems extremely hard to solve, and that's without throwing an exploding star messing with orbits in any number of nearby star systems into the mix. And it was lost 4,000 years ago, and found by the Rachni
roughly 2,000 years ago.  That's a decent amount of travel time,  especially when you don't know where it was headed.  Shorter version: it could have been going (relatively) slow and have still been lost rather easily and very impractical to track down.

Modifié par didymos1120, 19 février 2010 - 01:49 .

[Naltair]

Even if it rode the shock wave that implies a seriously tough piece of hardware, it may not be indestructible but it might as well be if it can ride the shock wave of a supernova. I don't think too many Mass Effect era ships can make that claim.

Even the dreadnoughts.

Modifié par Naltair, 19 février 2010 - 01:51 .

[Northern Sun]

I think it was Mass Effect Revelations that said attempts to destroy mass relays didn't leave a scratch. I mean, a mass relay survived a star going supernova, so they gotta be tough.

[KainrycKarr]

I view it like stonehenge. It's been around for like...ever. long enough that it's probably a bad idea to f*ck with it. you just dont know what kinda crazy stuff will happen.

[Lmaoboat]

HAGA NAGA wrote...

too many fans want the Omega 4 relay as a LI in ME3.

OMEGA 4 RELAY LI FOR ME3
When you're near me, we're both red.

[77boy84]

I'm not sure if the galaxy races have the firepower to blow up a relay.

Also, the council (and the rest of the galaxy) doesn't know about the reapers controlling the collectors. I'm sure they'd be pretty pissed if Shepard and Cerberus just blew up a relay for giggles.

[Lightice_av]

Grrr. OK, repost time:

Considering simply that they survive for 50,000 years at a time without slightest maintenance shows that they are tougher than anything that humans have built, ever. And they have to be. Otherwise isolationist races like the rachni would simply destroy them, instead of just mapping and guarding them.



My current theory is that they are made out of artificially collapsed stars.

[Vaenier]

Push it into star = collector ship go big bada boom.

[didymos1120]

Naltair wrote...

Even if it rode the shock wave that implies a seriously tough piece of hardware, it may not be indestructible but it might as well be if it can ride the shock wave of a supernova. I don;t think too many Mass Effect era ships can make that claim.

Even the dreadnoughts.

Umm, yeah.  I've already said they're obviously tough.  They've clearly lasted a hell of a long time. But this 'can survive the full force of a supernova' business is nonsense.  Realistically, nothing would survive a supernova at the astronomical equivalent of point blank range.  Even a "little" one.  I don't care what miracle material it's made of.  Also: supernova shockwaves have very large ranges and lifetimes.  Like, they can travel for years and still have plenty of velocity.  So, it's quite possible the Mu Relay got flung out of orbit due to indirect effects resulting from the shockwave flinging other stuff around and disturbing who knows how many other star systems.  We simply don't know.  We don't even know how long after the blast it was knocked out of its orbit.  It could have been a couple of years.