[BloodFleet]

so yeah I did a thing that just happens to involve giant robotic squids attacking the gtva.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmgwDC5jV0
they seem to really hate the Faustus...(its the ship around 2:56, probably hard to tell if you don't know lol)

also just wondering if anyone else has put ME stuff in FS2

[Luis Dias]

DISCO NIGHT!

[An4ximandros]

This is like inviting your brother who gets bossed around by his kid to the "cool guy" party...

[Colonol Dekker]

Welcome to.tsm-088-7c

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL....

[-Norbert-]

I think the reapers suffer from the same problem as Gundam or Macross mods - static models.

Reapers who's tentacles aren't moving are only half as cool.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Also might not be much fun because Alliance fleets get curbstomped in space battles.

[Phantom Hoover]

Also might not be much fun because FSO is heavily oriented towards fighter combat, and basically the ME team has always been far too dysfunctional to consistently portray any kind of fighter combat paradigm.

[mjn.mixael]

I think the reapers suffer from the same problem as Gundam or Macross mods - static models.

Reapers who's tentacles aren't moving are only half as cool.

I never played ME, so I'm not really interested in such a mod... This, however, is true. I watched the video and was wondering what's so different about what I was seeing from normal FS? Just some different ships firing beams.

Though, I can think of a few ways to try to get those tentacles to move.

[Luis Dias]

The mythos is even preposterously similar.

[Rodo]

slap some red glowing dots on those ships and we're ready to roll.

[BloodFleet]

well of course for this there would have to be some changes from ME canon. Everyone getting 1 shotted by the reapers wouldn't exactly be fun. Same for fighter combat, allowances would have to be made and weapons invented. Not really that much of a problem imo.

and yeah, animation isn't something I've tried to figure out for Freespace so I have no idea if its possible or not to get the reaper's arms/legs/whatever to move like they do in ME cutscenes like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZAZyxm1_Pg

[-Norbert-]

If you stick with the codex entries rather than the crap they shoved into their cut-scenes, you'll be fine (ME2 and 3 scenes anyway).

But that would make most fights incredibly boring, since according to the Codex the majority of them happens beyond the visible range with "knife-fights" being a desperate last ditch manouver for anything bigger than a frigate (the smallest non-fighter ship-class in ME).

I guess you could always make a mod about the first-contact war or the battle with the Geth.

[Shivan Hunter]

Animations for the Reapers' "arms" should be possible. I haven't looked into what kinds of animations are available and what hooks are necessary, but AFAIK the animation code is more robust than it used to be. A simple idle animation with the tentacles swaying back and forth slowly should be enough for immersion purposes, with more pronounced effects when a powerful beam is charging (do Reapers have "main beams"? ME1 and ME3 are inconsistent, ME1 using the tentacles as emitters and ME3 having that center thingy).

As far as battles themselves go, they were never planned and choreographed beyond "two sides firing at each other" because it wasn't necessary for ME, they were just setpieces. I imagine a ME mod for FS would play very much like FS: swarms of fast fighters, slow capships that are mostly backdrops and/or mission objectives, fighters being a deciding factor in engagements but only in large numbers.

-Norbert-: The ME codex entires are good about being realistic and relatively hard SF, but that's because they don't have to be balanced for gameplay, fun, or narrative. Actual missions in a FS mod would have to be modelled after the cutscenes more than the codex entries.

And, of course, the horrible ME3 reaper beam sound would have to go. It's ridiculous. Its existence in ME3 was worse than the original ME3 ending.

[BloodFleet]

well as inconsistent or whatever as they might be, the cutscenes are what I'm looking at. Same for sound effects, I took those from the cutscenes as well.

Don't really see whats wrong with the me3 reaper beam? Unless I can get something else its not going anywhere, I don't know what else I could use from ME for that.

[Shivan Hunter]

it's terribleeeeeeeee

it's about as unfrightening, unintimidating and lacking in substance as they possibly could have made it. Just use one of the Shivan ones, preferably the awesome high-pitched one that I think is for the LRed (or maybe something else! Just not the ME3 beam sound)

[Veers]

ME just isn't a fighter combat centred game. Now if it was only piloting the capital ships and lets just remove the Reapers for the moment. Might seem to work a little better.

Reapers have the problem of roflstomping most of the fleets fairly easily. Lets through down two dozen Sath's in the same mission. We can damage them, maybe even destroy one or two. But not live to tell the tale.

I think there are a lot of issues that would have to be overcome first. Otherwise, I'd still say it is an interesting concept, primarily because of the issues that need to be addressed first.

[-Norbert-]

The Reapers weapon positioning inconsistancy isn't that bad (there are far worse inconsistancies in the games than this small change). While the Sovereign class ships had their firing points moved from the tentacle tips a bit back, the ones that fire from the point between their tentacles are a different class: There are three different types of Reapers in ME3 (four if you count Harbinger, but then he seems to be a one-of-a-kind).

There are the smallest ones that have a single gun in their "forehead" hidden beneath armor plates that only open up right before charging up their beam (like the one you fight on Rannoch).

Then there are the middle sized ones that have a single center beam between their tentacles, like the one in the previously linked cutscene. I think those are called destroyers and they make up the bulk of the Reaper forces. Those two would be possible to animate judging from opening gun-ports we saw in other mods (like Wings of Dawn for example).

The real problem are the big ships like Sovereign and Harbinger that have the weapons on the tentacles. The last time I saw a discussion about the animation system, it was said that it wasn't possible to place weapons on animated subsystems.

[The E]

The thing we would need for this to work "right" is the ability to have turrets with more than one joint.

[starbug]

There is a mod, coming for Sins of Solar Empire Rebellion, Dawn of the Reapers http://www.moddb.com/mods/mass-effect-dawn-of-the-reapers, which is a truly beautiful piece of work, they have invented new ships that fit in very well with the ME universe, as well as cap ships they have come up with fighters and bombers. So that is one way to get round the fighter problem should check out the complete Cerberus fleet. The other is to go the Babylon project route. The Earth Alliance in that only has 2 fighters, the Starfury and Thunderbolt, 1 bomber the badger. Now they got around it buy just coming up with different skins and table entries to create multiply strikecraft for the EA. The same could be done with ME, or just slightly tweak the model. Also the Art of Mass Effect has concepts for different fighter and Cruisers designs to draw and get inspiration from.

[Dragon]

Why does everyone want to fight the Reapers? Can't we have a First Contact War mod for ME? More creative liberty, an unexplored conflict, Humans vs. Turians. There's enough wars in ME universe that Reaper incursion isn't the only option. We don't need the Reapers for the first release, at least. Also, we can have capship command just fine, there are scripts for that. Nothing wrong with a capship oriented mod, not to mention ME frigates are pretty speedy.