Who Loves the Tempest?

Tempst is indeed a cool little ship and is absolutely gorgeous to look at. However it is missing one crucial element.

GUNS!!!! It's a frontline exploratory vessel and yet is has no means to defend itself save for a stealth system. I know its technically a civilian ship but it seems extremely naive to go into a new galaxy without any weaponry.

I really really like the Tempest.

I felt like a scout ship, with the small crew quarters and the sleek design. The big innovation the ship added that I really liked was the ladders. I loved I could walk out of the bridge and take a ladder down to my quarters. Made the whole ship feel more free flowing. Loved the crew moving about the ship. And I loved the Navigation system, standing on that platform with the view.

Tempest to me was an excellent improvement to the series.

Ok, I disagree, especially since I'd rather have a loading screen than damned ladder (sure you can hop down the gallery in the hangar, but then you have to backtrack if you only want to go to your cabin a cabin that's not nearly used enough - damned it's a beautiful cabin, more than Picard's Ready-Room in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the only thing we do in there is bang (don't get me wrong, I love the romances, it's one of the things that make me stick with Bioware games (!), but that cabin could be used for so much more!))

There is also the fact that an unarmed ship is kind of stupid (really! In a universe with space-pirates, mercs, enemy factions etc. this is damned lunacy!), especially since such a ship can't be used to threaten poorly armed outlaw factions (Orbital bombardment! - "What you don't want to help me? Ok, I'll bombard your base from orbit!" - "No, please! We will help you!" - ) or to shell enemies with superior numbers (again: Orbital bombardment...I would have loved a return of that targeting laser from the mission to Rannoch in ME3!)

The ship has no room for a shuttle (so you couldn't even deploy a secondary team if you wanted to or extract the main team while the ship provides either cover or a distraction!) - hell even if you dump the Nomad I doubt you can launch a shuttle from that hangar!), so even if there was no orbital-bombardment we could at least have had air-support (there's armed Kodiak-Shuttles after all!)

Then there is that glass-walkway to the bridge (savety hazard (!) - even Star Trek has learned that (the hard way...in one episode a Klingon used a fucking corps to break such a walkway, he lifted it overhead and dropped it to break through!))

Those large windows (structural weakness!)

It has to few bunks (there's 4 bunks in the crew area (I recently counted, but I will do so again just to be sure!), even if they do hot-bunking you get 8 crew (and we don't even have that many ship's crew!) in there and not more...hell, the galley is too small as well (I woundered why Drak didn't throw out the table etc. to have more room ^^)), I mean people sleep all over the ship for that reason (the doc probably uses her med-bay beds to sleep...not a nice thought when there's patients in there! Peebee uses an escape-pod (sure, she also wants to keep some distance to the others, but it's not only that IMHO), Cora sleeps in the bio-lab, Jaal occupies the techlab, Liam sleeps in a cargo-area, Vetra does the same! So the only ones really using the crew bunks are Suvi, Kallo and Gill? So yeah there would be room for one more, but how can a crew on a scouting mission work like that? They have to sleep, too (and someone has to stay at the helm, there has to be an engineer awake, a science and com officer etc.)...not to mention that true science needs a team (can't always call the Nexus IMHO))

A lot of wasted space (that large meeting area that use what? 3-4 times in the game? )

All in all the Tempest is not the worst ship, but she reminds me more of a rich person's luxury yacht (just needs a Yakuzzi and it really is!) than a true scout-ship (even STG probably arms their ships!)

greetings LAX
ps: I don't hate the ship, but I think it's as inadequate as all the other equipment the A.I. uses (unless you spring for your own stuff on your own dime!)

pps: Yeah, an armament conversion kit (even if it's an on the fly thing (I mean isn't Gill fucking tampering with the ship anyway, so can't he add say two docking hatches (I want two damned shuttles that I can call for air-support etc.) and some weapons? (same for the Nomad...come on with an omni-tool and a S.A.M.-AI even the dumbest shit on Earth could probably figure out a way to arm that thing!))

ppps: (sorry ^^) I'd have loved to exchange the Tempest for that broken down Kett ship from Liam's loyalty mission (it's beat up, but if they didn't screw around with its reactor it could have easily been repaired etc.)

I got a cute pet rodent from it so yeah, I like it.

This bugs me actually. Once it's known there're enemies to contend with, there should be a conversation on the possibility of adding an offensive system to the ship. That is what anyone would think of, right? We're going out there alone, we have no military backup or whatever.  We're toothless. No one did. 

There is also no conversation with the brass heads on Nexus; the Kett might come knocking. What should be done? Nothing. All they did was cry about the lacks, the Kett out there, the Exiles, the hundred and one donkeys to contend with. There're many more instances and it just makes me real fedup with the writing. 

That could have easily been circumvented:

Just install "only" frigate size guns on them (!) - with Thannix-Cannons that's enough to deterr pirates and even fend off a military attack (as long as you don't stay to duke it out, you keep them at a distance while you prepare to jump out of there ASAP!) - especially if you say install 4 (or more!) of them (so you still have good firepower, but nobody can accuse you of building an actual dreadnought! I mean otherwise everybody building a fucking freighter (a large bulk-freighter) would be accused of secretly building a dreadnought!) and have secondary armaments, like those disruptor-torpedos humanity uses on fighters and frigates and of course a good (Salarian or Geth style) GARDIAN-Laser-System!

So yeah, I agree: If you have that many civilians on board than it's quite reckless to NOT arm those ships! You don't go looking for trouble with them, but if trouble finds you? "FIRE! ALL WEAPONS!" (and later you send shuttles to bring back their bodies ^^)...and you can use them as real capital ships once in Andromeda (once all colonists have been pulled from cryo), those Arks could have been the first line of the defense for the A.I. till something better has been created (real military ships - even dreadnoughts, because in Andromeda the Treaty of Farixen isn't a concern anymore, hell the new council would have to decide what ships to allow etc. (the Turians wouldn't be the largest military by default anymore!), hell they might only have a JOINT MILITARY and not a military for every species! So you would have huntress units (joined by the biotics from the other species if they can keep up), Krogan scouts and heavy units, Salarians would be fleet intelligence (STG 2.0) etc. etc. )

greetings LAX
ps: Same for the Nexus...it's unarmed (otherwise the damned Archon couldn't have just walzed in like he fucking OWNS THE PLACE!) and it doesn't even fucking work without the Arks powering it (note: Arks...is there a way to get all 4 arks to dock with the Nexus? I only ever managed to get 3 (I did the mission for the fourth one, but it never docked and it wasn't damaged enough to abandon it IMHO, at least it didn't look ready to fall apart!)), which is kind of strange, because once you've reached the rallying point you could in theory use the power of the drive-core to power the Nexus (note: Can that thing still move once it's finished? I mean with those Kett knowing were it is, wouldn't moving it be a clever precaution against another invasion?)

I like how lived in it feels. Every character has their personal space with various objects, and crew members walk around and talk to each other. They don't stand around in their room waiting for sempai Shepard to grace them with his presence like in ME1/2.

But I do agree the thing needs a gun. Maybe not a Thanix Cannon or anything too fancy, but when we saw that the Kett meant business and they had ships we should have made plans to strap some firepower on the damn thing.