Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[UnSub]

Speaking of ship tech (and derailing again) - linear mass accellerators as main guns?  Haven't Bioware heard that circular particle colliders are much more effective and take a smaller area than linear ones?  And again, giving a ship the ability to create singularities and warp fields in space would seem useful - odd that nobody's thought of it.  Sorry, pet peeves that I can't stop mentioning (though I will).

The same game also indicated the Collectors were experimenting on humans due to our "genetic diversity" compared to other races, when there is quite a bit of real genetics information on how narrow the human genetic range actually is, potentially due to our near extinction at some point in early history.

However, maybe every other race is pro-inbreeding.

[cironian]

Speaking of ship tech (and derailing again) - linear mass accellerators as main guns?  Haven't Bioware heard that circular particle colliders are much more effective and take a smaller area than linear ones?  And again, giving a ship the ability to create singularities and warp fields in space would seem useful - odd that nobody's thought of it.  Sorry, pet peeves that I can't stop mentioning (though I will).

<semi-plausible-technobabble>
It's been tried several times, but the synchrotron radiation from a curved accelerator puts a limit on that. In short, people found that bombarding eezo with lots of hard radiation is a really, really bad idea.

[ajax34i]

You could coil them, but wouldn't that reduce your firing time, since you'd have to 'spin them up' for each shot?

It would reduce your firing time, but you'd get the equivalent of a dreadnought-length gun within the hull of a frigate.  And, what they do with the particle accellerators currently is they queue up several batches of particles and keep them spinning in the circle until they need them, at which point they just siphon them off into the "barrel" (the sensor chamber).  Oddly enough, this would be like the ammo mechanic, but for ships (fire the shots you have in the magazine, then pause as you change the clip).

Anyway, tangent, sorry.

[Morat20]

You could coil them, but wouldn't that reduce your firing time, since you'd have to 'spin them up' for each shot?

It would reduce your firing time, but you'd get the equivalent of a dreadnought-length gun within the hull of a frigate.  And, what they do with the particle accellerators currently is they queue up several batches of particles and keep them spinning in the circle until they need them, at which point they just siphon them off into the "barrel" (the sensor chamber).  Oddly enough, this would be like the ammo mechanic, but for ships (fire the shots you have in the magazine, then pause as you change the clip).

Anyway, tangent, sorry.

What you can do with particle accelerators and with slugs of metal is a bit different, but I'd be far more worried about the energy needs of keeping the thing moving in a circle. Newton's laws, remember? It's going to want to go into a straight line, and you're going to have to pay the energy to keep it curving.

[Stormwaltz]

Speaking of ship tech (and derailing again) - linear mass accellerators as main guns?  Haven't Bioware heard that circular particle colliders are much more effective and take a smaller area than linear ones?

They're not particle beams - particle beams are nearly impossible to focus for long ranges (and are easily deflected by low-tech magnetic fields). Mass accelerators are hypervelocity kinetic impactors.

The same game also indicated the Collectors were experimenting on humans due to our "genetic diversity" compared to other races

Which is hoo-hah, but the argument made was that as communications barriers and travel times continue to decrease due to advancing technology, genetic diversity will decrease. Instead of Caucasians, Mongoloids, and Negroids, you get tan-skinned, brown-eyed averages (there's passing mention of this in the first ME novel - blond hair and blue eyes are somewhat less common in the time of ME). The Council races have had a "global" culture/technology for longer, and thus have fewer gene-level differences due to regional variation.

[Sjofn]

The part about that that made me cross my eyes was them saying that made humans a good control group.

[Fordel]

Speaking of ship tech (and derailing again) - linear mass accellerators as main guns?  Haven't Bioware heard that circular particle colliders are much more effective and take a smaller area than linear ones?

They're not particle beams - particle beams are nearly impossible to focus for long ranges (and are easily deflected by low-tech magnetic fields). Mass accelerators are hypervelocity kinetic impactors.

I fucking love these super fast kinetic weapons. The kind of numbers they can toss around is fantastic and awe inspiring.

[Merusk]

Just finished my latest Me1 playthrough.  One day I might actually let the council live, the dicks.

"Oh you humans, nobody really needs you around, you big bullies."
"Wahh, save us human fleet!"

 

[Jeff Kelly]

The experience point progression of ME 1 is 'interesting'. Reached Level 50 on my first playthrough and got 9 levels further (to 59) on my second one. Both times playing all side quests and 'bring down the sky'.

Would have to start another game just to get the achievement for Level 60.

I feel for you, the council is just so useless.

[UnSub]

The experience point progression of ME 1 is 'interesting'. Reached Level 50 on my first playthrough and got 9 levels further (to 59) on my second one. Both times playing all side quests and 'bring down the sky'.

Would have to start another game just to get the achievement for Level 60.

I feel for you, the council is just so useless.

The secret is to get out of the Mako and finish off every opponent on foot. ME1's XP mechanics are awful - you lvl up and then get more XP for killing exactly the same opponent (and you can kill them faster thanks to the extra lvl benefits).

I got to lvl 60 at Ilos iirc.

[Tebonas]

Especially the Thresher Maws, they give a shitload of XP on foot.

[Jeff Kelly]

I tried to rack up Renegade points during my second playthrough but it's seriously hard without being a monumental douche. You get Paragon points for accepting quests for crying out loud.

I tried to be sensible and make my Shepard just somebody who's got authority problems. So I was pissing off Udina and the Council, was rude to anybody who tried to boss me around and doled out righteous frontier justice instead of just arresting people. Yet I treated my crew and most normal people with a modicum of respect. The result was 100% Paragon 25% Renegade.

The alternative would be to either treat everybody rudely (even my crew) or:
- kill all Feros settlers except one
- kill Wrex
- let the hostages in 'Bring Down the Sky' die to get to Balak
- don't help the Council.

and I didn't want to play my Shep as a jingoistic alienphobe with non-existing social skills though.

[Rasix]

Finished my look-longingly-at-Ashley's-picture-and-don't-puree-the-crew playthrough. I thought I might have a chance with Kelly (it doesn't mess up your ME1 romance apparently) but landed in some sort of business as usual relationship.  Gah.  This Shep was all work, no-play.

I had to do the final mission twice.  I had Mordin in my baby-killer group, but apparently that caused Tali to die.  I aint letting that shit happen.  So, Tali went back to the crew.  A revamped final team of Samara and Mordin made the entire thing laughable.  Mordin's incinerate basically one shots Harbinger when he gets to armor and two people using Reave gets him there pretty fast.

Now it's time to do a complete ME1 -> ME2 playthrough with a paragon fem-shep.  Maybe get a few of the ME1 achievements I missed.

edit: Heh, ME2 is now my #1 most completed game for achievements.

[Shrike]

The alternative would be to either treat everybody rudely (even my crew) or:
- kill all Feros settlers except one
- kill Wrex
- let the hostages in 'Bring Down the Sky' die to get to Balak
- don't help the Council.

I got the renegade achievement on my renegade soldier playthough but was never maxed. Just to get the achievement you pretty much have to do at least one of the above--and be a borderline sociopath when dealing with others. I flushed the rachni queen, then basically killed everyone who even looked at me funny. Ended up about 80% renegade and 30% paragon.

Everyone bags on the council and not entirely without reason, but they did tell you that they rely pretty heavlily on the spectres to do anything dodgy. It just so happens they regard doing about anything as dodgy and let the spectres just run wild. Sooooo...unleash the hounds! Shepard MK1 mod1 wasn't particularly surprised to see the council unchanged from ME1 and just fobbed them off and went to do what he was going to do anyway. Nod, nod, wink wink. My impression was this is what they actually want, so that's what I did.

[Ingmar]

I tried to rack up Renegade points during my second playthrough but it's seriously hard without being a monumental douche. You get Paragon points for accepting quests for crying out loud.

I tried to be sensible and make my Shepard just somebody who's got authority problems. So I was pissing off Udina and the Council, was rude to anybody who tried to boss me around and doled out righteous frontier justice instead of just arresting people. Yet I treated my crew and most normal people with a modicum of respect. The result was 100% Paragon 25% Renegade.

The alternative would be to either treat everybody rudely (even my crew) or:
- kill all Feros settlers except one
- kill Wrex
- let the hostages in 'Bring Down the Sky' die to get to Balak
- don't help the Council.

and I didn't want to play my Shep as a jingoistic alienphobe with non-existing social skills though.

You definitely don't have to kill Wrex to max your renegade meter, what you want to be doing is talking him down with the red text. Killing the Feros settlers instead of gassing them is fairly important though, that's a huge chunk of points right there.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't do anything particularly bad with my renegade and I had no trouble maxing her.  The worst I think was shooting the Cerberus scientist instead of sending him to trial (Survivor background) and letting the Council die.  I save the Rachnii every time.

There are a lot of places where you can use the Red dialog to get the same result if you focus on whatever the dialog skill is.  (It's been too long, can't remember names.)

[Ingmar]

Charm/Intimidate.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, that!  Keep it maxed and just red dialog your way through most encounters.

[UnSub]

... or use the Charm / Intimidate bug on Noveria (?) to max one (or both) of those meters. (ME1) That Turien who wants something from his office, and then you are approached to make him turn evidence? You can keep talking him through those options by asking him 'something else' then back through the Paragon / Renegage dialogue path.

[Sjofn]

I found in ME2 I had some success with picking the "nice" thing to do, and then doing it in the douchiest way possible. I'd be all "blah blah puppies are good!" and then the follow up thing would have a red text option and I'd pick that and then Shepard would say, "I said puppies are good, and I will SHOOT ANY MOTHERFUCKER THAT DISAGREES."

Still didn't max renegade, I was at about 85% renegade and 50% paragon. Because I suck at renegade. 

ME1 you get renegade points for a couple of random things, I specifically remember getting renegade points just for accepting the quest to kill two crime bosses for a third crime boss. Never did finish a renegade ME1 run through though, I just ... I'm just not good at it.

[Jeff Kelly]

Yeah, ME 2 is better at that in a 'you'll help those poor orphans or I'll shoot this puppy' kind of way. 

I'm a wuss though when it comes to being not nice in video games. I can't even hurt someone's feelings when they are just NPCs in a game.

[Lantyssa]

If I'm nice or not really depends whom I'm dealing with.  I have no problems telling the scum of the universe or Cerberus what's what in the meanest way possible.  Most of the crew gets the nice treatment, but some of them do get smacked down.  Like Zaeed, whom I did his mission my way, and when the guy got away I tore into him because he didn't follow my orders.  Still got loyalty out of it.

[Fordel]

What they really did a better job of though, is making Paragon choices in ME2 be less puppies and rainbows.

[Azuredream]

I liked the paragon/renegade right-click/left-click actions. I don't know why, it was just so much more satisfying to right click to stop Garrus from killing that guy, or left click to throw some stooge out a window.

[Rasix]

What they really did a better job of though, is making Paragon choices in ME2 be less puppies and rainbows.

Yah, I like my paragon option of sticking a gun under someone's chin.  I ended the play through maxed paragon while still doing every renegade interupt I could.  They weren't gunning down some scientist that's giving you lip like in ME1, but I have no problem killing an Eclipse merc that's trying to draw on me.  In fact, I didn't feel too bad about doing anything to the various merc companies, they're all pretty scummy.

[Koyasha]

I kind of felt the other way about the merc companies, except when they were involved in their own personal shit.  Like on Omega, the Blue Suns?  I didn't really see anything they were doing particularly bad.  The Eclipse I could agree with getting rid of because as Garrus said, they were shipping tainted eezo (whatever that means) and the Blood Pack seemed a little psycho, but the Blue Suns, hell, they seemed to be the closest thing to the law there was on Omega.  Like some of the residents in the plague district said, their rates are reasonable and they keep the area reasonably safe.

[Merusk]

Eezo is Element Zero, what you use for biotics and amps. 

Blue Suns were the guys running protection racket in the plague district. Their rates were 'reasonable' only if you consider the Mafioso rates reasonable for not breaking kneecaps and using your money to pay cops to stay away.  They also decided the best course of action was killing everyone in the area when the plague hit.  Blue suns also ran the prison ship, Purgatory and tried to sell you to the highest bidder. 

No, they were plenty scummy.

[LK]

I theorize a more well-rounded, believable Paragon Shepard would take every Renegade Interrupt opportunity.

[Rasix]

I theorize a more well-rounded, believable Paragon Shepard would take every Renegade Interrupt opportunity.

Well, I only punched the lawyer twice. 

[Ingmar]

  Like on Omega, the Blue Suns?  I didn't really see anything they were doing particularly bad. 

Locking uninfected people into their houses to starve to death and looting their shit wasn't particularly bad?

[Fordel]

We like to call it aggressive containment!

[Lantyssa]

Those people were bads.  They probably deserved it.

[tmp]

Well, I only punched the lawyer twice.  

I was playing the good cop in that one so only moved onto subject of testicle extraction when we started to run out of time. Worked beautifully, too.

With Thane's friend though it made more sense to be the bad cop and let Thane be the reasonable one, so that did involve stepping on some throats.

[Sjofn]

I didn't kick the merc out the window. I think it's because he isn't, in fact, talking shit about you when you come up on him, he's talking shit about Thane. So I didn't feel like he was begging for a shove. Plus the renegade thing you can say when you don't shove him out the window is funny. Garrus telling me I'm the only one in the world who didn't kill that guy was also a big bonus, because it's totally true.

Most of the time, though, I just take any interupt they throw at me. One of these days I'll sit through that krogan guy's entire speech. Maybe.

[Sir T]

Trust me, its not worth the effort. They could have just had the guy sitting there saying "Just press the renegade impulse while I monologue ffs, bitch."