Andromeda Initiative briefings (6/6 Golden Worlds and Settlements)

There's a synopsis for that, and that's a totally weak comparison, role-playing certainly fits as in knowing what a movie is about, right? Tell me more.

Also, if you really paid attention, you would know the personality dialogues from Dragon Age made their way into Mass Effect as seen in the VGA trailer and other comments that mentioned the sarcastic/aggressive/peaceful and whatnot icons. This will probably turn out the game with most Mass Effect game with RP in it since two.

You don't know what to whine about, it's not even funny anymore.

While I agree, that game can turn out to be worse then expected even if they market it right.
There's also the option to wait until release to see players' reactions.

Thanks! I find pouring through videos for screenshots and good .gif opportunities quite relaxing - at least, most of the time - so, well, it was a pleasure! Just bummed that awesome take-off sequence at the end was too long/colourful to .gif effectively--this is the best quality I could manage, and it's still too big (file-size-wise):



Yup, I meant to mention that I was a big fan of the Tempest's science-focus as well--I've been wanting to roleplay a bold explorer in the Star Trek mould since they announced Andromeda's basic premise, more or less, and I'm glad we'll be commanding a ship of exploration instead of a warship like the Normandy. (Starfleet vessels have traditionally been pretty well-armed as well, of course, but if I have to pick one or the other, well... I'll take the labs and the cozy wood panelling, thanks!  )

I'm honestly not too fussed about the exterior/interior dimensions matching perfectly--though I'd prefer they did, obviously. The only ships in sci-fi I can think of that pull that off even somewhat consistently are the single-seat fighters. And, needless to say, I'm far more excited by the possibilities presented by such large/luxurious quarters - both in terms of squadmate interaction, as you say, and decoration/memento collection - than I'm bothered by the potential impracticalities.

I believe they are indeed actual books! I, too, hope we can establish Ryder as a fan of classic literature. (And old-timey sci-fi shows about ships named Enterprise, but that'll have to be headcanon I fear.  ) It's pretty key to the whole, 'this is just blatantly Captain Picard, isn't it?' RP plan I'm working on. And yeah, I hope that screen has something interesting going on--it'd be a bummer if it was just the equivalent of our terminal from ME2/3.

As for the windows... Well, I certainly don't disagree that having the option to 'close' them would be nice - sometimes you don't want to stare out into the infinite cosmos, and feel it staring back at you - but I don't think privacy or safety are particular concerns either way--or, at least, I don't think either'd be improved by disabling the window displays. 

good thing reapers(aka. the evil crazy dumb robots) wont be in ME:A. the tempest doesnt even hav guns to defend itself only its speed and maneuverability...plus time will tell...

So far it's confirmed it doesn't have a main gun. It can still have some weapons. I do agree it doesn't look like a military vessel, which now good given it's not. 
I'm going to fire a tweet about the weapons to see if we can get an answer.

I honestly don't care much about the narrative avoiding the issue, I find not very logical to not have any kind of weapons, if it's true. I understand having lighter armours and weaponry, but nothing at all in regards of the latter is stupid. However, the fact that they explicitly mentioned only the main gun gives me some hope.
On the Nomad though, we do know that we face large enemies and that it can actually be damaged, it was mentioned in some articles I think.
Athe cabin is indeed too large, especially considering how the crew is actually smaller then the Normandy, so there's supposed to be more familiarity between the team (plus the fact that it's not a military operation or organization).

From an interview with Mac Walters: "Andromeda is not about planet-hopping from one combat zone to the next, but real and meaningful exploration. We want to wake up this little scientist and diplomat in you that is interested in getting to know these races, how their societies operate and how their tech works."

The AI is absolutely not a paramilitary organization and diplomacy is definitely one of the pathfinder's roles.

Indeed. I don't have a problem with it being big, it's that it's needlessly big. As you said, with half the size would've been still luxurious and big.
Maybe it's an influence from Dragon Age, since in the last two games we had a big mansion and a quite big bedroom, compared to the Normandy. 

A reset to lighter/no-weaons and less/un-armored also addresses Power Creep.

It's fun to be the destroyer of worlds, but where do you go with it?

After the Death Star you need Starkiller base - what's in Episode IX? Galaxy-Nuker base?

More like a 'king-size' bed to me, lol. I've tried some rough calculations here to measure the room using it as a reference. Let's say it's something like 165*200cm. That would make the entire room ~10x8 meters. To compare it with ME2 cabin - assuming the typical 'captain-sized bed' is about the same, it would only make  ~5x7m, with 'office' taking 1\2 of the space. Remember, that SR2 is twice as big as the Tempest. Hell, our ship is 2\3 of SR1, where people had to sleep in the pods, and Capitain had a 'luxury' of a ~3x4m.


Ryder's cabin is a total waste of space, I'm not against some comfort for the person in charge, but this? It makes no sense. Zero. That would make a relaxation zone for the entire crew.

I'm viewing this as all part of the story set-up.

This 'come to Andromeda and explore for pretty plants' line, and 'who needs weapons' is all too nice and safe and convenient.

May be, for the officers, but we never see those + there are pods by the med bay.

From the ME1 codex entry:
Cabins give each individual ten cubic meters of space. On larger vessels private rooms are common. As ships get smaller, the number of crew packed into a single wardroom increases. Asari prefer shared spaces even on large vessels while krogan territorial instincts make it impossible for them to cohabitate even on the largest ships.

On smaller vessels, "hot bunking" is the norm. Crew members are assigned different watches share the same bunk. When one gets off-duty, he wakes up the person in the bunk.

The 10 m^3 figure is not clear. I assume it referrs to the total amount of space, not only personal\living space. Either way, we're talking about a ~2.1m per side qube here. 4m^2. 12m^2 for the capitan - makes some sense. 35m^2 - kinda stretch...but hey - that's oversized SR2, which is not even designed to fly the atmosphere (and - it's Cerberus). 80m^2?..