"Halo 4: I Get a Woman!" - Sgt. Mjr. A.J. Johnson, RIP

[Warsaw]

@Hotrod: Fak. fakfkafakfakfakf-*hurk*

@DarkHalo: Doesn't make sense even still. There would be back-ups on Earth, and between the glassing of Reach and the assault on Earth, they had time to retrofit shields onto the home guard, and the Pillar of Autumn herself should have at least had them. Same goes for the lasers. It just doesn't make sense that they went straight to a [large] man-sized form-factor but they didn't even test it out first on a larger platform...one more immediately in need to boot.

@nuttyyayap: the whole Halo-verse needs a rewrite.

E: The more I look at the Halo 4 renders, the more I conclude that the new BR just doesn't stylistically match the rest of the human arsenal. Also, the Carbine and Storm Rifle look way too similar.

[ODX]

E: The more I look at the Halo 4 renders, the more I conclude that the new BR just doesn't stylistically match the rest of the human arsenal. Also, the Carbine and Storm Rifle look way too similar.

Not to mention it fucks with the entire origin system by placing it so got-damn-fucking-why-shit close to the screen without showing the back of the gun more.

But yes I agree that it doesn't fit in aesthetically as compared to something like the DMR though I feel it matches decently with the AR.

[Warsaw]

Halo's FoVs have always been bad except in split-screen H1X...where it was amazing. Then they fucked it up again in HA10.

The pistol sort-of matches the new BR...because it also has a stripe (lol yellow stripe on the BR...343i is trolling). The AR, too, seems out of place; compared to the rest of the set, it's too smooth and featureless. And almost all of the weapons are the size of a medium machine gun...what gives?

[DarkHalo003]

@DarkHalo: Doesn't make sense even still. There would be back-ups on Earth, and between the glassing of Reach and the assault on Earth, they had time to retrofit shields onto the home guard, and the Pillar of Autumn herself should have at least had them. Same goes for the lasers. It just doesn't make sense that they went straight to a [large] man-sized form-factor but they didn't even test it out first on a larger platform...one more immediately in need to boot.

It makes sense only when put in context with Reach being suddenly attacked. There was no warning and a lot of that tech (because Reach was the planet where most of the military tech was developed) was buried since most of the human ships were destroyed before they could leave, not to mention Human ships travel significantly slower than Covenant ships in Slipspace. The Cole Protocol prevented any of those ships returning to Earth any time soon too. In reality, though, Human ships hadn't even changed that much since the new technological developments from Reach and it's been said numerous times through Halo fiction that Humanity could wipe the floor with the Covenant on the ground, but the Space battles simply were too much. As far as ground technology was concerned, Earth had a lot of that tech (think Spartan Laser) and since there were no SIIIs on Earth, well, you couldn't exactly use all of that tech anyways.

But yeah, I agree that the Super Mac Guns not being able to systematically destroy the Covenant ships was kind of bullshit. However, I did read that the ships needed to cool down/recharge after each shot and that there were just too many Covenant ships (given that it was the second largest Covenant Fleet). There were also those Covenant Sniper ships that took down those platforms from beyond the effective striking distance. All of this from reading Fall of Reach and First Strike, but Reach truly fell when the generators died.

[Mr Buckshot]

Yeah The Fall of Reach established that humans could stand up to Covenant on the ground but space battles were in the covenant's favour 99% of the time, and if the humans ever won a space battle it would be with significant losses.

What I didn't understand, was why the generators for the orbital MAC guns were on the ground?! (or did I not read it right)

Also, given that trees did an excellent job of deflecting plasma fire in the games, I believe the UNSC should start armor-plating its ships with good old fashioned wood.

[DarkHalo003]

Yeah The Fall of Reach established that humans could stand up to Covenant on the ground but space battles were in the covenant's favour 99% of the time, and if the humans ever won a space battle it would be with significant losses.

What I didn't understand, was why the generators for the orbital MAC guns were on the ground?! (or did I not read it right)

Also, given that trees did an excellent job of deflecting plasma fire in the games, I believe the UNSC should start armor-plating its ships with good old fashioned wood.

LOL.

Anywho, the Generators were on the ground and, yes, they did transmit power/energy/junk to the Orbital Platforms. I believe that technology is in the making today as well, so it's not entirely FUBAR.

[=sw=warlord]

It's entirely possible that the laser tech used in the Spartan laser was simply not suitable for use on starships.
The spartan laser requires a cool down after each shot, in space there is only the coolant stored on the ship.
As for shields, the larger the surface to shield, the more powerful the emitters would need to be and the power powerful the power generators would need to be.
Just because something is feasible in small scale doesn't mean it's suitable for large scale.

[DarkHalo003]

It's entirely possible that the laser tech used in the Spartan laser was simply not suitable for use on starships.
The spartan laser requires a cool down after each shot, in space there is only the coolant stored on the ship.
As for shields, the larger the surface to shield, the more powerful the emitters would need to be and the power powerful the power generators would need to be.
Just because something is feasible in small scale doesn't mean it's suitable for large scale.

This. Human starships were relatively low-tech as their greatest achievement at the time of Halo Reach, Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo 3 was the fusion reactor, which only reached a small fraction of the ships. Humanity could easily conquer Covenant forces on the ground, but they couldn't compete in the space race.

[Warsaw]

It makes sense only when put in context with Reach being suddenly attacked. There was no warning and a lot of that tech (because Reach was the planet where most of the military tech was developed) was buried since most of the human ships were destroyed before they could leave, not to mention Human ships travel significantly slower than Covenant ships in Slipspace. The Cole Protocol prevented any of those ships returning to Earth any time soon too. In reality, though, Human ships hadn't even changed that much since the new technological developments from Reach and it's been said numerous times through Halo fiction that Humanity could wipe the floor with the Covenant on the ground, but the Space battles simply were too much. As far as ground technology was concerned, Earth had a lot of that tech (think Spartan Laser) and since there were no SIIIs on Earth, well, you couldn't exactly use all of that tech anyways.

But yeah, I agree that the Super Mac Guns not being able to systematically destroy the Covenant ships was kind of bullshit. However, I did read that the ships needed to cool down/recharge after each shot and that there were just too many Covenant ships (given that it was the second largest Covenant Fleet). There were also those Covenant Sniper ships that took down those platforms from beyond the effective striking distance. All of this from reading Fall of Reach and First Strike, but Reach truly fell when the generators died.

You are thinking inside of the canon a bit too much. I'm not. If they aren't going to honour the validity of their own fiction, I see no reason why I should either. So instead, I'm going to bust holes into their logic, call them out on it, and apply more realistic physics. Before the Covenant invaded Reach, ships came and went all the time. They wouldn't have had to rush all those developments out at the last minute, because any sensible military would have copies of plans, redundancies for everything.

Also, if the Sabre could have shields, the big ships could have had shields. Sabre is proof of concept as far as I am concerned. And humans have more efficient fusion reactor designs than the Covenant, so they could have sustained power output even better with appropriately scaled up designs. The Covenant's brutish form of fusion is why they had a small window where their ships went dark after exiting slipspace that the UNSC could take advantage of.


And Cobby, if we're going to talk about heat in space with Halo, then shields will only be briefly sustainable if at all and you would get around heat in a laser by dumping that heat into a disposable sink that gets ejected after firing. Hell, maybe cold launch them with compressed gas at the enemy. And if we REALLY want to get uber real, then the ships either need to all de-armour, or become nothing more than gun barges that can teleport from point A to B through slipspace, with engines only there for finer positioning. Oh, and no artificial gravity without rotating sections, which according to the Halo Encyclopedia, most 26th century ships are supposed to have due to the inefficiencies of human gravity generators. And the military ships are supposed to turn the grav fields OFF during combat...which none of them seem to in the games or the books.

[DarkHalo003]

You are thinking inside of the canon a bit too much. I'm not. If they aren't going to honour the validity of their own fiction, I see no reason why I should either. So instead, I'm going to bust holes into their logic, call them out on it, and apply more realistic physics. Before the Covenant invaded Reach, ships came and went all the time. They wouldn't have had to rush all those developments out at the last minute, because any sensible military would have copies of plans, redundancies for everything.

Also, if the Sabre could have shields, the big ships could have had shields. Sabre is proof of concept as far as I am concerned. And humans have more efficient fusion reactor designs than the Covenant, so they could have sustained power output even better with appropriately scaled up designs. The Covenant's brutish form of fusion is why they had a small window where their ships went dark after exiting slipspace that the UNSC could take advantage of.


And Cobby, if we're going to talk about heat in space with Halo, then shields will only be briefly sustainable if at all and you would get around heat in a laser by dumping that heat into a disposable sink that gets ejected after firing. Hell, maybe cold launch them with compressed gas at the enemy. And if we REALLY want to get uber real, then the ships either need to all de-armour, or become nothing more than gun barges that can teleport from point A to B through slipspace, with engines only there for finer positioning. Oh, and no artificial gravity without rotating sections, which according to the Halo Encyclopedia, most 26th century ships are supposed to have due to the inefficiencies of human gravity generators. And the military ships are supposed to turn the grav fields OFF during combat...which none of them seem to in the games or the books.

What else am I supposed to go by? Other Science Fiction or theories based on something humans know so very little about? We don't have ships in space Warsaw. We don't know how long it takes to accomplish those modifications or apply them. Hell, everything you just said aside from military organization could be complete shit. But let me break your logic and explanations regarding canon:

1.) Sabre's are SMALL ships. They're SMALLER than Longswords. They are also experimental vehicles and only a handful existed. This leads to the belief that those WERE the military experimenting with ship energy shielding.
2.) Tell me how many ships had fusion reactors, how long humanity even had those reactors, and if humanity could develop energy shielding to effectively protect an entire ship in the several months they had between Halo Reach and Halo 2. It's been repeated constantly throughout the novels and throughout theories of science that TIME IS IMPORTANT. I can't even remember how many times I read someone saying "If only we had more time" or some manifestation throughout this series.
3.) The Covenant Ships also exited slipspace days before human ships could. They only went "dark" in the sense that they're shields/weapons were coming back online after reentering normal space. They could still maneuver and plot accordingly.

The point Warlord and I are making (not to mention the point that the Fall of Reach/First Strike mad) is that Humanity could have won or had the superior technology to win if they just had more time. That's one of the biggest parts of the Halo series. Time.