Why are there still wheels and land vehicles?

But the Mako IS an IFV, that said, the original purpose is to be the mobile cover for ground troops, transport them, make fire support and possible, hunting tanks... (you can't support well the troops if you are flying and stuff)






It's a light ass vehicle

I have honestly no idea how the Hammerhead works, but I was thinking a rotor based hover vehicle, yes. Given the blue light under whatever it is that keeps the Hammerhead afloat, it's likely not a rotor, so I think this is where I give you a nod and rest my case.

Now I kinda feel that I wasted your time by overthinking things a bit. It's Mass Effect, after all... where guns shave off stuff from a dense block of matter and micro-fabricate cryo rounds.

Personally I'd take wheels over a hovercraft. Hovercraft are one of those cool sounding things that isn't as practical as you'd want it to be. By there nature they're not the most stable thing. Even using thrusters so the lack of air content not being an issue your still looking at being floaty. Which means you generally can't sit still as easily as you'd like. Stopping becomes a whole new issue which generally requires reverse thrusters or turning around.

Purely land vehicle has it's own issues for sure. But if your talking about something that's coming out of a full on ship like the Tempest? I mean a chasm is gonna stop both vehicles, so you'd get back in the ship and fly somewhere else. Water's the biggest issue but the Mako could easily be amphibious and just go boat on that shit. Add not as garbage thrusters and it's pretty well suited for most things that's ultimately more stable then a hovercraft would be.

That's all mostly just personal preferences though. As much as I like the idea of hovercrafts, they're that whole master of none thing going for em. Wheels are just funner to drive in my opinion.

..so the Andromedans see Ryder arrive in ar Mako thinking " Omg, how quaint"

For the same reason people are still walking around on their feet instead of jetpacking around everywhere.

I can give you one good reason for a wheel vehicle vs a hover vehicle when it comes to ground military troops. Same reason we still make tanks and tank like vehicles in the realsies. Mobile armor. See a big ass tank makes a GREAT wall for people on foot. Large armored vehicles like an APC (like the Mako) also make a great wall.

Imagine being in the military in a ground war (cause blasting from space is a big no no for that planet) and you have this huge vehicle rolling with you providing literal cover. That's great! That's been a thing since WW2 (hell WW1 to some extent) for us and we still use cause it works, works really well. Now take that Tank or APC and make it hover 5 feet off the ground. All of a sudden it sucks at it's job. It's no longer providing actual cover and it's kicking up a hell of a dust storm making it difficult for you, the ground troop, to see wtf is going on.

If it was Star Wars style (which makes no sense) and could float only say, 1 foot off the ground with out creating a felt force (aka, no jet engines for lift) then It'd work just fine but that's fairy land magic sci-fi stuff that likes wildly ignoring physics instead of just playing with them.

Going off that, I could see why the Mako exists in general. I could also see how a maybe more exploratory non-heavy combat oriented expedition might have some Mako's re-worked or re-engineered to be gunless? You know, take an existing vehicle that serves some military purpose and re-purpose some (or at least some of the plans) to make something else similar instead of having to come up with all new plans/vehicles. It's a pretty common concept.

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I expect some canon text in the prequel novel which is written (supposedly) to explain things and answer the fans questions.  Bio would be smart to introduce new and old tech such as the one for flying cars. And, if we have flying cars in the old ME we can have flying tanks or flying exploration vehicles in Andromeda. Imo, the Mako was chosen as fan service.

Expect a load screen cinematic when navigating the tempest down to earth, followed by another one going from 0 to 60mph in 2.0 seconds from the cargo bay.... which will be repetitive enough to become boring. Thank god they decided to remove the silly idea of air dropping the Mako.

Loading screens are here to stay. Larger texture files make load screens inevitable. If Bio is smart they will cleverly hide that fact by preloading the file(s) in the background as you approach a transition point... if the hardware is there (memory).  So, with the proper hardware and some programming ingenuity, the transition time can be either eliminated or reduced.

We will see, what Bio chose to do, when we get the game.

We can always use Ryncol to fuel the Mako (or the Tempest)...

Well, wheeled vehicles are actually extremely complex, too.  For something like the MAKO you need 6 independent suspensions with all its components, 6 shock absorbers and 6 springs, 6 electro engines, 6 wheels. All of that moves, spins and is under a lot of stress. Thats a whole lot of stuff that can break. Next the whole system is highly vulnerable to enemy fire and whats worst for an exploration vehicle - it needs to have contact to the surface in order to move. That greatly limits its range of missions. Crossing lava, quicksand-like surfaces, surfaces with extremely razor sharp rocks etc.  

With something that hovers (Not talking about conventional technology that requires air), pack enough ezo in that thing and make it hover like a dreadnought in the planets atmosphere in ME3. Heck, we had hovering cars in ME3. 
Maybe it is more complex but something that hovers and never touches the surface nor contains a lot of moving parts will be a more durable system. 
 
Besides that, I don't see any reason to explore a planet using a wheeled APC anyway, why don't we just use an armored drop ship that deploys its crew at interesting spots, flies reconnaissance missions and gives you aerial backup in your missions ? I'd love to explore planets in a dropship, especially if I can fly it myself. 



This is the year 21XX, we're high in the air with a super advanced space ship in a galaxy far away. I hope we will have instruments by then that actively scan the area for extremely common things like caves.

I don't agree with some of that. As far as I remember, small-arms in the ME verse actually are much better than current weaponry, it's just that defenses are also much better. Unfortunately, cutscenes are incredibly inconsistent when it comes to showing this; sometimes weapons instantly kill someone who should have shields and armour (most of the time, in fact), and sometimes shields actually work and nothing happens at all.

As for heat, these are railguns, remember. That means that even pistols would produce a lot of heat. I can also see the utility in even 1-round weapons, because it all depends on what you want to use your weapon for. The Executioner is so-named for a reason, and an anti-matériel rifle like the Javelin doesn't need more ammo if your target is destroyed with one shot. As a funny note, the Widow's description also sates that it's used to take out armour... and krogan

As for thermal clips, I do like ME1's lore and use of the overheat mechanic more, and it was also more unique. I don't remember if it was confirmed, but I blame EA's executive meddling for later games introducing thermal clips (to bring it in-line with shooters) I'm glad ME3 at least brought back the overheat mechanic for some weapons. You're right about some of the game mechanics not making sense, but that's gameplay-story segregation at work (not that it makes it a good thing, but it is what it is). Thermal clips should be universal, and that would mean you'd have a global "reload number" instead of a spare ammo counter. Reloading any weapon would lower your total. It would also mean if you reloaded after firing one round, you'd still lose the rest of your "magazine". But I can see how that would get annoying fast, so, meh. Weight also doesn't make much sense, but again, gameplay stuff.

Well, I feel like it would react similarly to a leaf or piece of paper blowing in the wind. Low mass + high surface area would mean huge drag and no momentum, which would cause the vehicle to be nigh-uncontrollable. Quite impractical. So I can see why the ME verse still has distinct vehicles classes such as tanks and aircraft.

Do you remember ME1? We literally crossed lava with the Mako. Its thrusters combined with a short use of ME fields allows it to cross gaps and bypass other hazards.

Good point about the better defenses... I thought about that too. But wouldn't that mean that unarmored targets (like husks, cannibals, any human just wearing a uniform instead of plated carapace armor, or creatures that just have natural armor like collectors) would be ripped to shreds because they aren't wearing a modern armor suit that negates the advances in weaponry? I hope I don't appear like I'm splitting hairs too much, I kinda enjoy trying to make sense of this. Though I suspect in the end we will have to agree on "story/gameplay segregation"...