Mass Effect: Hired Guns

It is not, Balu. James and I mused about this the other day or so while playing ME3. There's a gun with a suppressor on it, but it's still firing rounds at a percentage of the speed of light. The sonic boom would be obnoxious, no matter how hard you tried.

And now now Balu, I'm sure we can work together. I'm probably spare engineering hands, after all. Though yeah, that'd be more your department.

Oh, I see. That's hilarious. I didn't think about the implications of how the guns are really more electromagnetic related than chemical propellant ones.

I didn't mean anything by it, of course, I just assumed that your character would turn that down with their being another engineer onboard. As you said earlier, he seems like he wants to break the meta of the Quarian Engineer.

I hope my post is okay.

Oh no don't worry, I was more or less joking. You're the more engineeringly capable, after all. I just have unpaid internship experience, and a general unwillingness to actually use it unless I have to. I'm just saying I'm probably your spare set of hands, though yes, he should go to you first.

Also, while I think in universe they usually run communications through the omni-tool, or at least route it through there. We all have one right? They're standard issue to soldiers, Balu almost definitely has one regardless, mine's more of a social everyone-has-one-thing, only Jazz seems like she'd be sans one, and as a pilot maybe not even then. I definitely also have an "ear piece" all the same.

Solace: That's workable.

Balu: Yeah, as Ji said [and here the the posts came in, so don't bother reading this unless you just want to], that's one of the places I'm trying to hold ME guns to some form of logic. A suppressor shouldn't even function at all on one of those, frankly. Suppressors work like car mufflers, more or less, in that they muffle exhaust gases leaving the barrel. Railguns don't make exhaust gases, at least not in sufficient quantity to make an explosion sound, so what you're going to hear is the sonic boom from the bullet itself. Since that boom is continually happening as the bullet travels, there should be absolutely nothing you could do about the sound in the first place, unless you were to form a vacuum betwixt yourself and the target. TL;DR: No Hollywood suppressors.

Jazz: I don't have a definite map myself, but you're basically at the end of a broad boardwalk. Think like Omega, where the main entrance to the bar is. There's some stuff in the middle, some chairs and benches near the walls, etc. They won't hold off a bullet for long, but they'll be enough to duck behind and not get immediately blown to shreds. Whatever you think is reasonable in that department go, for it. I'm not looking for extremely detailed combat in this case.

Y'all probably have comlinks, you've been merc'ing for a bit anyhow.

Looting probably won't happen, no. You're on a Blue Suns base, and if the guys immediately in front of you report trouble, they'll be coming out of every nook and cranny, so let that influence the fight-or-flight decision as it may.

Also, some of us will or will not have military-grade omnitools. If you don't, you probably can't tech-power aside from making a sharp thing to stab the other guy with. Poke, you've probably got yours from the military still, which you could use as the basis for your katana - though I assume you might want to get a replacement for general use before doing that.

Ah, omni-tools, right. Seems strange to wear com gear on one's forearm instead of one's head... but I may be neglecting the existence of cell phones.

Probably a thing that Kla has, yeah. Not even a terrible one, being the main tool of its trade that it actually owns.

Well and yet, people touch their ears during radio conversations, so maybe a bit of both? I'm not actually sure. Video games don't tend to explain a lot.

I'd assume it has to do with implants of some kind.  Considering the simplicity of the operation, it wouldn't be far fetched. The touching of the ears could just be them blocking out the background noise.

The only way to lower the sound of a sonic boom of the projectile, would be the form factor of the projectile, or speeding the projectile up to the point where the air can't get out of the way fast enough turning it into a non compressible medium.  This seems like something Bioware messed up on.  Considering everything else seems so well researched.  (I mean it really isn't, but it seems that way)

Let's see, I think we've got Solace and Ji left to post? I don't want to get too far without people having posted.

I can't really think of anything to write.

Run, duck for cover?

Your captain exploding followed by the impending zerg rush actually leaves you with a handsome (and yet tapered) handful of options.

And I have been intentionally holding off to give everyone else a chance, based entirely on my own hidden reasons. (I rolled initiative!) but I can precede poke if needed.

Loosely what to expect in a given combat:

As in ME1, melee will get mostly through kinetic barriers. They're for stopping bullets more so than slow-moving objects. This doesn't mean hardsuits are easy to get through; your fist won't be stopped by shields, but it probably will be a closed helmet.

If you get someone flat-footed, they'll be much easier to kill, so it is possible to backstab someone or catch them off guard for massive damage. I'll try not to do this to you guys without some sort of opportunity for defense.

Most enemies that aren't using obvious throwaway mooks will probably have shields, with varying degrees of quality.

Okay, so my drell is doing something, but I haven't a clue as to what would be both feasible and within the realms of fun. I was thinking of shutting off their visors, their shields, or powering down their suits... but that seems meh, now. Would inverting their kinetic barriers be overly ambitious? Or override the medi-gel dispensing, too ineffective? I don't want her to be a hero, she just needs to not be a liability, so I am confused on how to balance this...

You're more likely to be able to hack into comms or overheat a couple of guns than hack someone's hardsuit directly.

Have violated initiative, trying to speed the scene along.

I suggest afflicting the Blue Suns with an Aspect that can be tagged for +2 to a teammate's maneuver. That being the difference between narrow failure and success, or enough to do a bit of extra damage. Probably not enough to completely debilitate more than one Sun.

You might be able to get away with doing something unspecified, then letting the player who cashes in the effect narrate it as appropriate.

I've already applied suppressive fire to that effect, myself. But we can always use more help.

This was going to be a grand reveal, and I was going to have it textured and everything, so when you actually made it back to the ship, I'd show it to you, then I got busy doing other things... but anyhow, might as well show this anyhow. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e8f8qbeyol1wi5m/Manowar%20no%20texture.png

Very nice.

Uhhh... two ideas. Hack the station and disable/increase-significantly the main mass effect fields generating gravity in a localized area. Will probably last a whole of 20 seconds if the station has an outdated VI maintaining things like that, a second or less if the VI is state-of-the-art. Second, cause a localized system failure on specific hostile weapon platforms like shotguns, will probably last a minute or however long it takes them to get another weapon from fallen comrades.

Going with the first, because it seems most effective and most fun.

The Man o' War looks pretty sweet, Snowy. I assume it's symmetrical on the far side? And it looks like we get a little turret on top?

I'll wait for someone else to post before trying to reconcile the timeline.

wolfji, perhaps you'd be interested to see a quarian admiral, dancing (src: ninelifed @ tumblr)

I'll see if I can do something later today.