[NGTM-1R]

I'm having a giant hole in my brain right now, since I don't recall one single reaper dropship, unless you are pulling my leg with some english semantical joke...

Put it this way: they would be rather stupid not to.

[General Battuta]

Pretty sure you don't have to hover in orbit home slice

But it's rule of cool, I am cool with it.

I assumed it had to do with their ability to indoc the populace.  Reapers are after all looking to to reap and enslave rather then annihilate.  Otherwise they could just orbitally bombard planets into glass.  I figure getting a bunch of them together dirt side allows them to start mass indocing the populace.

Plus if your a sentient nation/ship stepping on organics like insignificant bugs is probably a way too get your jollies off.

I like this explanation a fair bit. But I would still not put all my Reaper bros on the ground, so I hope they don't do that.

[PsychoLandlord]

I like this explanation a fair bit. But I would still not put all my Reaper bros on the ground, so I hope they don't do that.

Also this. If they dont at the very least have an orbital vanguard then I'll also call stupid on that. But the mass indoc thing is a good point, StarSlayer.

Don't the Reapers burn Palaven from orbit, now that I think about it? They obviously have no qualms about doing so if they don't want the populace, then.

[StarSlayer]

Pretty sure you don't have to hover in orbit home slice

But it's rule of cool, I am cool with it.

I assumed it had to do with their ability to indoc the populace.  Reapers are after all looking to to reap and enslave rather then annihilate.  Otherwise they could just orbitally bombard planets into glass.  I figure getting a bunch of them together dirt side allows them to start mass indocing the populace.

Plus if your a sentient nation/ship stepping on organics like insignificant bugs is probably a way too get your jollies off.

I like this explanation a fair bit. But I would still not put all my Reaper bros on the ground, so I hope they don't do that.

I assume they would still need to maintain sector dominance from any interloping relief forces so keeping a force in space seems logical.

[Luis Dias]

Specially in the nodes, I mean in the Mass Relays.

[StarSlayer]

Specially in the nodes, I mean in the Mass Relays.

Actually thats an interesting point, since their usual plan would have been to seize the Citadel and thus gain control over the Mass Relay Network.  I assume without the Citadel they can't put the kibosh on inter system travel.

[NGTM-1R]

Destroy Earth's relay for ultimate renegade maneuver, wipe out Reapers, eat Carnifex.

EDIT: If they happen to forget that's possible I'm going to be vaguely pissed off.

[Luis Dias]

Actually we could see Shepard trying to stop the Batarians of doing just that.

[StarSlayer]

Destroy Earth's relay for ultimate renegade maneuver, wipe out Reapers, eat Carnifex.

EDIT: If they happen to forget that's possible I'm going to be vaguely pissed off.

I actually liked the idea of using the dark energy stuff to pop the Sol System while the majority of the Reaper fleet was tied up on Earth.

[Kosh]

Destroy Earth's relay for ultimate renegade maneuver, wipe out Reapers, eat Carnifex.

EDIT: If they happen to forget that's possible I'm going to be vaguely pissed off.

Yes, we're going to use the GTD Bastion to suicide bomb the relay.


The Reapers would be incredibly stupid to leave it with anything less than half a fleets worth of their uber awesome selves for just this reason.

[Luis Dias]

Also, there's the issue that it is incredibly hard to destroy mass relays. In arrival, it took a mighty asteroid to do it. How can you transport an asteroid of that size with the Reaper's fleet guarding the relay?

[NGTM-1R]

Also, there's the issue that it is incredibly hard to destroy mass relays. In arrival, it took a mighty asteroid to do it. How can you transport an asteroid of that size with the Reaper's fleet guarding the relay?

I'm not saying they'll do it, but I want somebody to at least mention the option.

[General Battuta]

The yield of an asteroid hitting a mass relay should be a lot smaller than the yield of a good mass accelerator, yeah? c/d with physics please

[Luis Dias]

I'm not saying that isn't the case, but if it was that simple, wouldn't they have done it that way instead in Arrival?

[NGTM-1R]

The yield of an asteroid hitting a mass relay should be a lot smaller than the yield of a good mass accelerator, yeah? c/d with physics please

We know so little about the construction of the arrays and their behavior that appeals to simple yield are useless. This is space. The arrays don't appear to be entirely connected with solid bits. Blast effect for catastrophic, total destruction of them? Surrre.

[Grizzly]

newman, the eternal overheating stuff was actually a feature in ME1 (seriously, that bug bugged me a lot!)

NG, no you are not the only person, though I'd classify myself more as "worried" than "annoyed". Jack Wall and his team were awesome, and it's hard to outdo them. Clint has the talent, so let's not be too pessimistic about it.

I am quite sure that was just the effect of 'Sabotage' being applied to you. It should... eventually... go away.

But I always reloaded when it happened during my first playtrough. Can't recall it ever hapening again...

Pretty sure you don't have to hover in orbit home slice

But it's rule of cool, I am cool with it.

I assumed it had to do with their ability to indoc the populace.  Reapers are after all looking to to reap and enslave rather then annihilate.  Otherwise they could just orbitally bombard planets into glass.  I figure getting a bunch of them together dirt side allows them to start mass indocing the populace.

Plus if your a sentient nation/ship stepping on organics like insignificant bugs is probably a way too get your jollies off.

I like this explanation a fair bit. But I would still not put all my Reaper bros on the ground, so I hope they don't do that.

But you are a reasonably intelligent tactical commander. The reapers unjustified confidence in their own abilities affects everything they do. Bit like the clans from Battletech. Only Clan Wolf actually managed to atually achieve significant stuff because they actually took the time to know what they were up against.

[Ransom]

But you are a reasonably intelligent tactical commander. The reapers unjustified confidence in their own abilities affects everything they do. Bit like the clans from Battletech. Only Clan Wolf actually managed to atually achieve significant stuff because they actually took the time to know what they were up against.

That explanation is actually kind of why this is a problem. 'No, they really are that stupid' just undermines their weight as an antagonist.

[General Battuta]

But you are a reasonably intelligent tactical commander. The reapers unjustified confidence in their own abilities affects everything they do. Bit like the clans from Battletech. Only Clan Wolf actually managed to atually achieve significant stuff because they actually took the time to know what they were up against.

This would be the most terrible, awful, stupid writing, for the reasons Ransom said.

Also because they are superintelligent machines with the intellects of entire species, they should be able to plot out a tactical situation like you can tie your shoes.

[Herra Tohtori]

The yield of an asteroid hitting a mass relay should be a lot smaller than the yield of a good mass accelerator, yeah? c/d with physics please

Kinetic energy isn't the same as momentum; if you compare two objects with same kinetic energy, the one with bigger mass will have more momentum. *

Of course, considering a mass relay can survive being physically knocked away by a supernova shockwave (Mu Relay), so it does present somewhat of a problem how the asteroid could possibly destroy the Alpha Relay.



* Physics in small font

Assuming non-relativistic speeds:

E_k = ½ m₁ v₁² = ½ m₂ v₂²

m₁ v₁² = m₂ v₂²

So, if we assume that mass one (projectile) is one ten billionth of mass two (asteroid), that gives us

m₂ = m₁ * 10^10

m₁ v₁² = 10^10 * m₁ v₂²

v₁² = 10^10 * v₂²

v₁ = 10^5 * v₂

Now if the asteroid's velocity is, let's say 200 m/s, the projectile's velocity would need to be 20000000 m/s, or 20,000 km/s which is about 6.7% of light speed in vacuum.

Now the two objects have the same kinetic energy (or approximately, relativistic effects will be minimal below 0.1c so it's sufficient accuracy).

If we now compare the momentums of the objects:

p₁ = m₁v₁

p₂ = m₂v₂


m₂ = m₁ * 10^10
v₂ = v₁ * 10^-5

p₂ = m₁ * 10^10 * v₁ * 10^-5 = m₁ v₁ * 10^5[/font]

Follows:


p₁ = m₁v₁

p₂ = p₁ * 10^5

...which means the asteroid with ten billion times the mass of the small projectile, at the velocity that gives them approximately same kinetic energy, has ten thousand times the momentum of the projectile.

Which means, in plaintext, that although both objects have same kinetic energy yield, it is ten thousand times easier to stop the projectile due to its much smaller momentum. QED

[PsychoLandlord]

I don't think the Reapers behave like the clans, necessarily, but I'm sure they're confident enough of their own superiority to come off as aloof in regards to tactical matters. Now granted, if they don't keep an orbital vanguard of any type or camp the Relays of systems they happen to be invading, then thats just stupid. But in regards to the way they act in combat or their seeming willingness, from our perspective, to throw themselves into unnecessary danger, keep in mind that as far as we know, in the entire history if this happening, TWO Reapers have gone down. One was Sovereign, who went stupid at a critical moment, and the other got hit with what was likely a Death Star sized Mass Accelerator, something that I'm fairly confident no one is packing this cycle. I'd say Reaper confidence is justified.

We should also keep in mind that the Reapers kinda had their plan screwed up this time, and likely didn't have an "Uber Awesome Space Baddie" follow up gambit just in case the organics had slightly better defenses and foresight than they intended.  Still kinda lame, but IMO plausible.