Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

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Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by User1652 » Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:38 pm

I woke up this morning to check out factpile to see what is going on there and I found the biggest curbstomp since Downstreamers vs Stargate: the fight was Reapers vs Imperium of Man. I know I'm not a expert on both of these powers or universes but that is the biggest stomp I've seen in history and I just feel sorry for the poor Reapers. Why do people keep thinking now that Mass Effect is uber powerful?

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Picard » Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:20 pm

Actually, from what I know about Warhammer 40k, I'd put them at about same per-gun firepower as Citadel races. Thing is, IoM has much more guns per ships, and even more ships.

Of course, Wh40k wankage is even stronger than Star Wars one.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:25 pm

Civ001 wrote:I woke up this morning to check out factpile to see what is going on there and I found the biggest curbstomp since Downstreamers vs Stargate: the fight was Reapers vs Imperium of Man. I know I'm not a expert on both of these powers or universes but that is the biggest stomp I've seen in history and I just feel sorry for the poor Reapers. Why do people keep thinking now that Mass Effect is uber powerful?
Mainly because some bit of fluff and a giant scar on the surface of a planet one could see like thousands of km away, attributed to a glancing hit from one über force, either the Reapers or some thing they fought against and which did curbstomp them.
Plus the fact that it took some cheating to defeat that Reaper in the citadel back in ME1 I think. Oh and some claims about the Tanix gun which had to be gauged from bits of fluff while the canon explicitly said that visuals were inferior or some thing of that vein.
I don't know. The rest of the species are generally recognized as weak, but it was the Reapers who were mass powafoool.
I didn't care enough about ME, having largely avoided that universe and the hype (can't care much about it), but in ME3 the Reapers come to Urf and they do steamrolll the place... nah?

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by User1401 » Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:35 pm

Because people don't think about how balanced fights are, just "Der, this would be a cool fight!"?

Anyways Oragahn, with ME3 we have a solid idea about what it takes to kill a Reaper. As per ME3's codex, a Reaper can withstand concentrated fire from two dreadnoughts indefinitely without showing strain. Concentrated fire from three dreadnoughts causes it to show strain, and concentrated fire from four dreadnoughts can destroy one. Reaper main guns, on the other hand, can pop dreadnoughts in a single shot.

So basically, Reapers have hundreds if not thousands of these ships, and the Citadel races have about 86 dreadnoughts.. The Citadel needs a four-to-one advantage with these ships to even hope of bringing one down, and that's assuming the Reaper doesn't just fry them first. That's how screwed the ME races were against the Reapers.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by General Donner » Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:59 am

Picard wrote:Actually, from what I know about Warhammer 40k, I'd put them at about same per-gun firepower as Citadel races. Thing is, IoM has much more guns per ships, and even more ships.

Of course, Wh40k wankage is even stronger than Star Wars one.
Using reasonable figures that actually take into account the universe's fluff, rather than Connor MacLeod's wank-fantasies, typical 40k firepower should be in the kilotons to maybe low megatons for the conventional weapons of a cruiser-sized warship. What with numerous references to broadside bombardments able to destroy an entire city, plasma torpedoes that can melt a city block, lance batteries vaporizing hundreds of tons of rock or blasting through three meters of armor in a single shot, etcetera. (Nowadays we even have explicitly stated yields in the terawatt/kiloton range from the RPG. Not that the 40k wankers care, of course.)

I'd say, a Reaper with yields in the hundreds of kilotons to low megatons is probably quite equal to a typical IoM ship in firepower. Fire control and maneuverability would go to the Reaper in most cases. As well, it's obviously a smaller target, and has a tactically useful FTL drive.

A sizeable force of Reapers, numbering in the hundreds, should be able to destroy any Imperium-held system but the most heavily defended if they fight intelligently. 40k space combat is on a vastly smaller scale for the most part:
[i]Shadow Point[/i] p. 274 wrote:In carefully manoeuvred formation, in wide, serried rows, the Imperial ships advanced into battle. Seventeen capital-class ships, including two battle cruisers and also two battleships, the fleet flagship, the mighty Divine Right, amongst them. Twenty smaller vessels, frigates and destroyers mostly, swept out across either flank of the formation or formed a rearguard, following in the wake of the lumbering but majestic cruiser squadrons.

It was a line of giant leviathans, the greatest ever force assembled in Gothic sector history, the cream of Battlefleet Gothic, under the direct command of Lord Admiral Ravensburg himself. It was an awesome sight, possibly the largest single naval force gathered together for battle since the long ago and almost forgotten days of the titanic struggles of Warmaster Horus’s treacherous rebellion against the Emperor.
Still, given the sheer vast scale of a million-world empire, they'll have their work cut out for them. On the other hand, in ME 3 there's talk of past Reaper wars lasting for hundreds of years ...

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by General Donner » Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:06 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I didn't care enough about ME, having largely avoided that universe and the hype (can't care much about it), but in ME3 the Reapers come to Urf and they do steamrolll the place... nah?
They need to be careful and take the humans alive so they can grind them to paste and feed on them because an evil child told them to. Hence the lack of demonstrated megatonnage and the presence of billions of free humans on the planets months into the occupation.

And if you think that sounds stupid, well, you probably did the right thing in avoiding the universe in question.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Trinoya » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:21 pm

It's just the normal wave of fans, it will pass. Back when the Babylon Five DvDs came out there was a resurgence in B5 debates across several major debate boards... Hell I remember the Defiant Vs the White Star, where telepath wank was ultimately touted for 'TOTAL VICTORY.'

It will pass.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Mith » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:45 am

Trinoya wrote:It's just the normal wave of fans, it will pass. Back when the Babylon Five DvDs came out there was a resurgence in B5 debates across several major debate boards... Hell I remember the Defiant Vs the White Star, where telepath wank was ultimately touted for 'TOTAL VICTORY.'

It will pass.
What.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Picard » Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:32 am

Nowadays we even have explicitly stated yields in the terawatt/kiloton range from the RPG. Not that the 40k wankers care, of course.
Care to share some?

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by User1390 » Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:43 am

if that is the case then i have made a reapers vs 40k thread to bring the new information out.

reaper main guns are 100-500 kiloton so a reaper should be able to cut a 40k battleship in half just like a mass effect cruiser

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by General Donner » Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:28 pm

Picard wrote:
Nowadays we even have explicitly stated yields in the terawatt/kiloton range from the RPG. Not that the 40k wankers care, of course.
Care to share some?
Sure. Mith provided the quote in Oragahn's "General 40k" thread some time ago. Specifically, it's on page 8. (Scroll down.)

More generally, as I said, 40k generally isn't nearly as awesome as you'll often get the impression from the second-hand, often exaggerated descriptions of online fanboys. For every piece of hyperbole like weapons that can "devastate continents" or are "capable of boiling off oceans" you can find in the fluff, you can usually find other ones where they're hard pressed to destroy a city or blow apart an asteroid. It's just that the 40k fanboys on SBC and SDN never mention those quotes, so you have to work a bit to dig them out yourself.

On that subject matter, I'd particularly praise Mr. Oragahn's contribution, which has provided us here at SFJ with something of a medicine box against the most obnoxious wankery. His work is a much-welcome counterweight to the distorted view of the setting a small but loud clique of posters on the two boards mentioned above have been and are still pouring out.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Picard » Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:52 pm

rebelzarek wrote:if that is the case then i have made a reapers vs 40k thread to bring the new information out.

reaper main guns are 100-500 kiloton so a reaper should be able to cut a 40k battleship in half just like a mass effect cruiser
I'll put up exact figures if I remember when I get home, but I beleive that Mass Effect dreadnought's mass accelerator fires 38-42 kt slug every 5 seconds. What do we know about Imperial RoF and firepower?

EDIT:

@rebelzarek You can link directly to post. Just click on icon left of "Posted: time" part, and put a link.

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Trinoya » Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:14 pm

Mith wrote: What.

When it was explained that the defiant had cloaking systems, people began espousing that telepaths would magically find it, relay it perfectly to the gunners, and shoot it down.


One even linked to a mock 'battle' that some website had done in which that exact scenario happened... it was done up with commentators and I was dumbfounded that it had been used as evidence...

Stupidity occurs everywhere...

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Re: Why is Mass Effect Put Up Against Other Powerful Races?

Post by Picard » Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:24 pm

weapons yields
mass driver
one shot every 5 seconds for 800 m dreadnought
mass driver 90% of ship's length
1000-meter-dreadnought (900 m): 60,5 kt
20 kg slug
5031,25 km/s
800-meter dreadnought (720 m): 38 kt
20 kg slug
4025 km/s
500-meter cruiser (450 m): 15,13 kt
20 kg slug
2515,625 km/s
400-meter cruiser (360 m): 9,68 kt
20 kg slug
2012,5 km/s
100-meter frigate (90 m): 0,605 kt
20 kg slug
503,125 km/s
THANIX
Reaper, spinal: 132 – 454 kt (242 most likely)
one shot every 15 seconds

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