Hello...

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

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BlackAeronaut
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Re: Hello...

Post by BlackAeronaut »

Senanthes wrote:Um... Just to clarify... For all those 'UNSC will kick their ass' ideas... The UNSC got obliterated in nearly every single space battle they fought against the Covenant. And even in the ones they won, they lost STAGGERING amounts of ships doing it. This includes the fleet of the legendary Preston Cole... Who often lost three quarters of his ships per engagement. In all reality, they are no more advanced than the Terrans in Outsider... In many ways, less so.
Arrrrggghhh...
And I suppose the fact that the Covenant having greater numbers, energy weaponry, energy shields, advanced metalurgy, better FTL, and better reactors had absolutely nothing to do with how badly the UNSC fared... </sarcasm> Seriously, once the Marines and ODSTs learned their tactics, it never was a question about who would win the ground battles. It is stated, in cannon, that the war was pretty much decided in space, and pretty much all because the the staggering technological superiority the Covenant had over the UNSC. And don't get me started on the NUMBERS. Their supercarriers (which they have a hell ofa lot more than 'just a couple') are so freakishly huge that they shade entire mountains when they deign to enter atmosphere.

So, did the UNSC get pwned like a bunch pathetic noobs? Yeah, and it happened for a really good reason. They were simply overwhelmed and there wasn't a damned thing they could have done about it. (That includes surrendering because the Prophet of Truth knew that Humans were slated to be the successors to the Forerunners, which meant that Humans would soon be taking the Heirarch's place in the Covenant - even the Brutes would have bowed.)

Okay, so Loroi and Umiak both have energy weapons... But I feel that they don't hold a candle to the sheer nastiness that is Covenant ship-scale plasma weaponry. UNSC ships had titanium-alloy armor that measured in the tens-of-meters and they still got cut open like catfish at a cajun fryup. And that's to say nothing about the Covenant's nastier super-weapons, such as their particle beam cannons that may very well be planet-crackers (used to punch completely through a ship - usually aimed right at the reactor so the results were... messy).

I don't think armor of the Loroi or Umiak comes even close.

Now, I'm not saying that the UNSC would be all that more advanced that Outsider-Humans... just that they'd be closer to the Umiak and Loroi... close enough that when the Umiak attack their ships, they'd be like, "AH-hah-hah! Those lights tickle! Come a little bit closer, I wanna show you something cool."

Absalom
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Re: Hello...

Post by Absalom »

The Umiak and Loroi would quickly realize that the UNSC ships were hideously slow, and use the oppourtunity to pick them off at their leisure. The primary defense of the Loroi is their maneuverability, and that's available to the Umiak too. The main reason for range limitations is that very maneuverability, not damage dissipation. Unless all Loroi or Umiak forces in-system made a simultaneous joust and were destroyed before leaving UNSC weapons range, they would quickly switch to long-range dissection. And they would win.

In a fight between the UNSC and either the Loroi or Umiak, effective weapons ranges easily say that the UNSC will lose. Weapons nastiness doesn't matter unless you can hit, and the UNSC are massively easier to hit. Loroi and Umiak armor doesn't matter.

Senanthes
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Re: Hello...

Post by Senanthes »

BlackAeronaut wrote:
Senanthes wrote:Um... Just to clarify... For all those 'UNSC will kick their ass' ideas... The UNSC got obliterated in nearly every single space battle they fought against the Covenant. And even in the ones they won, they lost STAGGERING amounts of ships doing it. This includes the fleet of the legendary Preston Cole... Who often lost three quarters of his ships per engagement. In all reality, they are no more advanced than the Terrans in Outsider... In many ways, less so.
Arrrrggghhh...
And I suppose the fact that the Covenant having greater numbers, energy weaponry, energy shields, advanced metalurgy, better FTL, and better reactors had absolutely nothing to do with how badly the UNSC fared... </sarcasm> Seriously, once the Marines and ODSTs learned their tactics, it never was a question about who would win the ground battles. It is stated, in cannon, that the war was pretty much decided in space, and pretty much all because the the staggering technological superiority the Covenant had over the UNSC. And don't get me started on the NUMBERS. Their supercarriers (which they have a hell ofa lot more than 'just a couple') are so freakishly huge that they shade entire mountains when they deign to enter atmosphere.

So, did the UNSC get pwned like a bunch pathetic noobs? Yeah, and it happened for a really good reason. They were simply overwhelmed and there wasn't a damned thing they could have done about it. (That includes surrendering because the Prophet of Truth knew that Humans were slated to be the successors to the Forerunners, which meant that Humans would soon be taking the Heirarch's place in the Covenant - even the Brutes would have bowed.)

Okay, so Loroi and Umiak both have energy weapons... But I feel that they don't hold a candle to the sheer nastiness that is Covenant ship-scale plasma weaponry. UNSC ships had titanium-alloy armor that measured in the tens-of-meters and they still got cut open like catfish at a cajun fryup. And that's to say nothing about the Covenant's nastier super-weapons, such as their particle beam cannons that may very well be planet-crackers (used to punch completely through a ship - usually aimed right at the reactor so the results were... messy).

I don't think armor of the Loroi or Umiak comes even close.

Now, I'm not saying that the UNSC would be all that more advanced that Outsider-Humans... just that they'd be closer to the Umiak and Loroi... close enough that when the Umiak attack their ships, they'd be like, "AH-hah-hah! Those lights tickle! Come a little bit closer, I wanna show you something cool."
Aero, thank you for making my points for me. Yes, they were outmatched in every way. And here it is stated, "Okay, so Loroi and Umiak both have energy weapons... But I feel that they don't hold a candle to the sheer nastiness that is Covenant ship-scale plasma weaponry." It's a matter of opinion here, where facts are being ignored. We dont have a completely direct comparison, but we do know that the average vessel in Outsider is more advanced than what the UNSC fields.

So, they were outmatched in every way... Okay, thats what I said. But, they will do far better here being outmatched in every way... Right? Frankly, it feels like we're pushing into 'rule of cool' more than facts, so I take my leave for the moment.

Thanks for the discussion (No, really, not being snide), and see you around. :)

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junk
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Re: Hello...

Post by junk »

But covenant plasma guns on ships are extremely weak if I remember correctly.

Which brings us to ground warfare, where the relatively pathetically weak UNSC (weak compared to today's forces) were able to go toe to toe with the technologically more advanced covenant forces, often even outclassing them.

I certainly hope that humanity in outsider is better off than the UNSC.

Overall they seem to be on a similar technological level actually. The question if outsider humanity has as good targeting computers as the UNSC with their AI's

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uthilian
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Re: Hello...

Post by uthilian »

Covenant plasma weapons are extremely powerful they can adjust trajectory mid flight to compensate for target movement (can still miss and not as fast a projectile as Lori/Umiak energy weapons, cortana even turns some of them into the plasma beam weapons which are far far nastier, same punch in a smaller impact area with greater accuracy, but it wears out the weapon focuses).
1 Plasma shot could destroy or disable UNSC ship while 1-2 Mass accelerator rounds fired from a UNSC ship could take out the shields of a similar sized covenant ship the 2nd or 3rd (depending on the ship firing) round would destroy or disable it. The only advantage the UNSC had in space combat with the covenant was Prowlers(stealth ships) and in the time it took covenant weapons fire to travel the distance between the two fleets the UNSC ships had fired 2-3 volleys of Mass accelerator rounds, ships refited with the more advanced MassAcceleratorCannons(fires 2 rounds one straight after the other with slightly less power per round but better at getting though covenant shields aka the one fitted on the Pillar of Autumn is one of only afew in existence at that point) or more than 1 MAC's (Bigger UNSC ships carry 2 MACs) obviously could damage even kill multiple covenant ships before being killed by 1 plasma round hitting the bridge or reactor.

discord
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Re: Hello...

Post by discord »

halo tech is pretty silly....the fighting method and thinking is just....WAY outdated.

basically it's written by people that don't understand warfare at all, i'm no master but i got a decent grasp on the basics.

what it boils down to is range and speed, vessels in halo-verse are slow as hell and have little effective range since knife range fighting is much more visually dramatic, for the same reasons as star wars, rule of cool.

fredgiblet
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Re: Hello...

Post by fredgiblet »

Yeah, their idea of assault rifles is hilarious, more like an oversized, underpowered SMG.

fredgiblet
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Re: Hello...

Post by fredgiblet »

Of course on the other hand a realistic take on war would involve lots of boredom. Anyone seen the Onion video on Modern Warfare 3 that as released a few years back?

discord
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Re: Hello...

Post by discord »

fred: yeah, hurry up and wait and without the spiffy special effectsy splosions they would have to put the focus on characters and their interactions and you cant make a decent story out of that!

can you?

javcs
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Re: Hello...

Post by javcs »

UNSC weapons are, for the most part, utter crap compared to modern weapons. They mass more, have weaker rounds, shorter effective range, etc. than their modern equivalents.

For example ... the UNSC turreted weapons ... IIRC, they're a .30 caliber chain gun. With an effective range of 30m, according to their canon specs.
The UNSC MA5-series is weaker than today's 5.56mm NATO from an M16, with significantly inferior effective range.

About the only 'decent' weapons that the UNSC had were the Halo 1 pistol (.50cal explosive rounds are good at ruining somebody's day), their sniper rifle, and the battle rifle.

Most Covenant weapons are pretty crap too. The Spiker, for example, fires its rounds at some ridiculously low velocity.
Covenant "plasma" weapons aren't really plasma, they're globs of 'something else' something 'superscience/spacemagic-y'. Also, IIRC, canon specs put the temperature of the globs at 470 degrees. Think it was in Fahrenheit, but I suppose it could have been Celsius. Doesn't really matter, since it's nowhere near what it ought to be.

Halo politics are stupid too - apparently the UNSC/ONI gave weapons to the anti-human faction of Elites during one of the post-Halo 3 Elite civil wars. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that just seems a tad unwise.


At any rate, possibly something closer to general parity with the Outsider-verse might be Mass Effect, but Outsider is in an interesting place, where there aren't really that many other sci-fi entities on their level, people are generally higher or lower on the tech tree and most of them are going to be softer science as well.
I'll agree with B5 being (or seeming) mostly on par, though too. At least, earlier on, ie, without the superraces and whatnot.

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Arioch
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Re: Hello...

Post by Arioch »

First-person shooters almost universally have weapons with extremely short ranges and poor damage that require multiple hits for a kill. This is a gameplay requirement, and has nothing to do with realism. They also almost universally have medical kits that can bring a soldier back from the edge of death to perfect health within a few seconds (and technology level doesn't matter; they have these things as early as WWII). Again, everything to do with gameplay, and nothing to do with realism.

First-person shooters also generally require that tactical ground combat be decisive to the conflict in question, which is very hard to justify in a science fiction setting without the fleet capabilities being a joke, if you're talking about a conventional war. In the Pacific theater in WWII (which is our best analogy for a planet-hopping campaign), the infantry combat was important, but it was by no means decisive. It was the naval battles that decided that conflict. Once naval superiority was gained around an island, the infantry defenders were doomed (cut off from supply and reinforcements); the aftermath was only in question in terms of how many casualties the defenders could inflict before they were overwhelmed.

So expecting realistic statistics out of an FPS setting is asking a bit much. Taking the stats from a FPS game and the (often flimsy) universe cobbled around it, and comparing it to a more conventionally developed science fiction setting is generally not going to be a very fair fight. Especially when you're talking about the capabilities of the starships in an FPS shooter setting, which are nearly always an afterthought, if dealt with at all, and often hobbled to make infantry combat more important. I haven't played Halo, though, beyond about an hour of the first installment on a friend's Xbox.

fredgiblet
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Re: Hello...

Post by fredgiblet »

On the one hand I understand the needs of the game. On the other hand, standard issue pistols with longer range and higher per-shot damage than rifles make me twitch.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tRNs2X5Q4

Karst45
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Re: Hello...

Post by Karst45 »

fredgiblet wrote:On the one hand I understand the needs of the game. On the other hand, standard issue pistols with longer range and higher per-shot damage than rifles make me twitch.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tRNs2X5Q4

It always fun to see that again. when realism is too much.

discord
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Re: Hello...

Post by discord »

fred: yeah, that bloody handgun bothered me too, the best...or okey the SECOND best sniper rifle is the standard issue handgun? the handgun was pretty great up close and personal too....basically it rocked.

Halo 1, give me a handgun and triple ammo load out and i could have just not cared about the rest of the guns.

javcs
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Re: Hello...

Post by javcs »

The game mechanics don't really need to match up with reality well, especially since a lot of the time, there's things like energy shields and superadvanced armors.

The internal game mechanics are one thing ... it's when they start issuing 'real world' specifications for things that it gets really stupid. Or when they start writing books. Some of the Halo books have Mjolnir armor ignoring .30 cal chaingun fire in places, and you turn around and it's threatened by their assault rifles/smgs or the shotgun (seriously? a shotgun smashes through the armor?).

As for the whole 'ground combat being vital to the conflict in question', that's true, fleet combat often winds up being a joke, or at least an afterthought, relative to ground combat capabilities, but there are ways around that - either because you're on the ground for specific reasons, doing/looking for things that ships and orbital bombardment capability doesn't help you with, but that's building a story reason to have ground troops running around and not have things be settled in orbit.

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junk
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Re: Hello...

Post by junk »

Arioch wrote:First-person shooters almost universally have weapons with extremely short ranges and poor damage that require multiple hits for a kill. This is a gameplay requirement, and has nothing to do with realism. They also almost universally have medical kits that can bring a soldier back from the edge of death to perfect health within a few seconds (and technology level doesn't matter; they have these things as early as WWII). Again, everything to do with gameplay, and nothing to do with realism.

First-person shooters also generally require that tactical ground combat be decisive to the conflict in question, which is very hard to justify in a science fiction setting without the fleet capabilities being a joke, if you're talking about a conventional war. In the Pacific theater in WWII (which is our best analogy for a planet-hopping campaign), the infantry combat was important, but it was by no means decisive. It was the naval battles that decided that conflict. Once naval superiority was gained around an island, the infantry defenders were doomed (cut off from supply and reinforcements); the aftermath was only in question in terms of how many casualties the defenders could inflict before they were overwhelmed.

So expecting realistic statistics out of an FPS setting is asking a bit much. Taking the stats from a FPS game and the (often flimsy) universe cobbled around it, and comparing it to a more conventionally developed science fiction setting is generally not going to be a very fair fight. Especially when you're talking about the capabilities of the starships in an FPS shooter setting, which are nearly always an afterthought, if dealt with at all, and often hobbled to make infantry combat more important. I haven't played Halo, though, beyond about an hour of the first installment on a friend's Xbox.
Keep in mind those specs aren't from inside of the game. They are essentially from an official publications which counts in a lot of of ways as an official fluff bible of sorts.

Most people do understand that for the sake of gameplay effective range is lower than it should be.


That said, as far is funny broken stuff goes, the starcraft book - shadows of xelnaga wins that round by far.

You have hydralisks who are unable to pierce the windows on a tractor, who then turn around and are able to bring down Battlecruisers with the very same attack.

For the record a battlecruiser is essentially the staple capital ship of the terrans and servers as both a carrier and troop transport as well (in universe, not in the games)

Just a Crazy-Man
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Re: Hello...

Post by Just a Crazy-Man »

yeah and what of the books?

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