The Tempest thread (confirmed 100% weaponry free)

There are definitely nice arguments to the "no weapons" side. As, absolutely, if someone sees a tank rolling up on their home with armaments galore... they will be less likely to think you want peace. 

I (and I assume others) would rather take that chance than to show up defenseless and get blown away at the first contact by an aggressive, warrior species. 

Better to be safe than sorry.

Does anyone here is even arguing that the Tempest should be a heavily amored warship?

Most people that I've seen here are only noticing something very obvious. Having no way at all to defend a ship is just plain stupid. Not to mention, the Tempest is based on the Normandy, which is a warship. It doesn't look any less (or more) threatening than the Alliance ship.

so your theory is he is saying "I am seeing a fallacy/a hole in the coherence of the setting but...eh, I did not write this so I'm gonna ignore it"?

Read again... how Mac FEELS about it is irrelevant.  The choice to put it in there probably wasn't his to start with.

I am fairly sure that IF he felt NEGATIVELY about it when he came into it he would have done something to rectify it

That depends on how it was being used in the story and how far along development was regarding that part of the story when Schlerf left.  I remember that many people speculated when Schlerf left and Mac was assigned to the position of Lead Writer that it wouldn't matter much because it was happening so late in the development cycle.  That is, Mac would be unable to materially affect the story line anyways.  Your particular question might have more relevance if Schlerf was available to answer it.  Even so, without knowing how this is being used in the story, the "fallacy" you think it nails down is based purely on your speculation.  Your wording tells me you know this (i.e. I"m fairly sure").

it is not speculation at all. Even if we were to be given an iron clad explanation as per why the tempest had no weapons (which I doubt immensely...possibly something regarding pr when encountering new races) the NOMAD not having weapons is just daft given its purpose really.

I agree that the argument of whether the plot has them needing weapons or not is not a good one but I would be surprised if the AI itself (i.e. the Nexus or Arks) were completely defenseless. However, I disagree that there is any need to give an exploration vessel weapons. When you're too small to win a fight you're better off avoiding it.




You can't really be surrounded in space. Space combat happens miles apart and if they had enough ships to block every means of escape from a sphere of engagement several miles in diameter even a Dreadnought wouldn't have enough fire power to do anything about it!

The thing about running away in space is that all you have to do is avoid the incoming fire long enough to get to FTL speed. End of combat.

The way I see it, the calculus is more a case of:

Armed Tempest
1/10 times shot at only because appeared hostile and is destroyed
1/10 times shot at only because appeared hostile by a foe small enough to be beaten in combat and win the fight (compromise future chance of peace)
1/10 times face aggressive foe small enough to be beaten in combat and destroy it
2/10 times face aggressive foe that destroys you before you can escape
5/10 times face aggressive foe and escape

Unarmed Tempest
2/10 times avoid combat by appearing non-hostile. Start diplomatic relations
1/10 times destroyed before being able to escape
710 times face aggressive foe and escape due to greater mobility

Even if you argue that there's no difference in mobility for small arms you're still no worse off and you're potentially better off than the armed scenario.



You wouldn't but the choice isn't take it on on foot vs. take it on with a rail gun. The choice is take it on on foot, take it on in a tank with a rail gun, or don't take it on at all and escape in a vehicle far too fast for the thresher maw to follow. Unles you were particulary fond of Thresher Maw steak and needed to restock your larder I see no reason not to prefer the latter option!

For your second point... I wasn't actually talking about the tempest there. Sorry if I worded it as such that it was misleading. That was more a nomad situation.


As for the last portion, I suppose running away could always be a choice. But what if whatever you're trying to get to is blocked by the hostiles and is absolutely critical to the success of the AI? What if... turns out some species in Andromeda have technology that allows faster vehicles than the nomad. Aka, you can't escape. Now what? Fight vehicles on foot?

EDIT: And if the reasoning will be, well other species won't attack if they perceive you to be peaceful. Then that's great. Why not keep their perception of peace by installing your armaments within the armor of the nomad iron man style. (how his armor opens open and the armaments then deploy and fire.) They can't see your weapons until you intend to use them, keeping the peaceful front, but also protecting yourself if needed. 

It just isn't logical to have zero weapons on the nomad. The tempest... makes more sense at least. 

Oh damn, I just realized that this almost certainly means no space combat. That's disappointing. Good thing I have SWTOR's Starfighter to give me my fix of space combat.

"You can always run away" is not a suicidal and nonsensical belief if it's true. After all, you're relying on "it's ok...we can always kill it with our big guns" to be true. Who's to say that belief is not more suicidal?

With respect to the Thresher Maw, the Mako can get killed by a thresher pretty easily just by having it erupt from under it. In that case, however, the gun wouldn't have helped one way or the other. The only way to kill the Thresher Maw was to run around in circles risking instant death at any moment until you finally wore it down. Personally I could never do it without running out of range and saving the game every time I scored a hit!

If survival is the aim then engaging it was never a good idea!

Even the Mako couldn't handle a Harvester, the gun doesn't point up enough!