*sets this playlist here for your ears* If anyone wants me to make a playlist for their character I'm totes mcgoats down for it.

@Fallenreaper

I Am Your Worst Nightmare

<Snipped quote by DearTrickster>

Paint me like one of your French girls.

*sets this playlist here for your ears* If anyone wants me to make a playlist for their character I'm totes mcgoats down for it.

@Fallenreaper

I Am Your Worst Nightmare

<Snipped quote by DearTrickster>

Can I have a Khosin playlist? Pretty please?

@Dervish If you insist.

@Hellis I like that Drono's first instinct is to announce where the sniper is before shooting them. Little things like that make it apparent his lack of military training. DETAILS MAN, DETAILS. :D

@DJAtomika ~pokes~ speaking of military, how's your last few days been going?

<Snipped quote by DearTrickster>

Huehue.

Actually, with the whole military thing, in most cases you call out contacts before shooting so everyone knows where the threat is. Even in the middle of an assault, you still call out enemy locations and what they're armed with so the threat can be countered. The case with a sniper also has the added wrinkle where the sniper is concealed and if the only person who sees them just starts shooting, it may complicate things if that person gets shot. Then you're down a man and still no idea where the shooter is.

So, Drono may he an unprofessional jackass, he's not wrong. ;D

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

True but usually they don't call them out loud enough for EVERYONE to hear. Every time I read Drono, I keep seeing him shouting with a smug look. XD

<Snipped quote by Fallenreaper>

You, maddam, have never met my section commander. Dude had lungs for daaaays.

You also totally have to be loud enough to be heard over gunfire. Allow this clip to put it eloquently:

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

Even when they have ear comms and helmets to muffle out sounds? *tilts head* This is sci fi too.

<Snipped quote by Fallenreaper>

Most soldiers don't have radios or anything like that, and most helmets don't cover your ears. They're basically meant to prevent shrapnel, that's about it. Usually every platoon has a radio or two (varies from unit to unit), and in the case of armoured reconnaissance like I did, it was a radio per vehicle, or 3-4 troops. Keep in mind most soldiers are in a formation most of the time, and under the command of their section commander, so lots of shouting.

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

But, Mass Effect is a Sci Fi setting, like Fallen said, wouldn't technology have reached a point where it's easy for each soldier to carry a radio? Plus, if you look at the helmet they do seem to have enough space to include a radio in them

<Snipped quote by Mortarion>

Well, in Mass Effect, you only ever see what Shepard and friends are up to, and all they seem to do is touch their ears and magical Bluetooth Voodoo lets them talk to whoever the hell they want to, up to and including I assume their favorite pizza place.

Otherwise, there's still a lot of examples of soldiers in Mass Effect having to shout things out to each other or physically report in. That Palaven moon mission, for instance, had soldiers physically walk up to report in changing field conditions to their commander before he sends you off to fix the comm array, and even Victus ends up shouting to his troops to cover you instead of using any form of radio. In Mass Effect 2, when the Urdnot scout goes missing, they figure it out because he hasn't returned. If he had communications equipment, they'd probably have been kept up to date with what was going on instead of sending Shepard and friends to look for him while they're in the area.

There's a bunch of little things like that that kind of give me the impression that while communications are a lot more advanced and widespread, they're hardly universal, and I can't imagine any professional army wouldn't practice old skills just in case of equipment failure. A real life example is there's computers that can calculate artillery adjustments automatically, but soldiers still learn how to use charts and maps and do it all manually.

@DearTrickster I'm almost done. On Friday I leave for good.