79 replies to this topic

[Zakatak]

The last poll was a little unbalanced. Star Wars has no consistency, Star Trek is overpowered, Warhammer doesn't have any scientific relevance, Gundam takes 2 days to get to the moon. So I thought I would take what I thought were the 3 most comparable franchises and put them into a poll. All 3 universes are mainly set in games and books (that order) which further makes them more comparable. I speak mainly of space combat.

Battletech
Acceleration: 2-8g's
Armor: Ferro-carbide (2m to 10m thick)
Defenses: AMS
Engagement Range: 999km or less
FTL: Hyperdrive (2 day recharge, 5 seconds for 30 light years)
Weapons: Naval PPC, Naval Lasers, Naval Gauss, 50-500kt Nukes
Assets: 2-6 fighters, 1-2 dropships
Gravity: None/Centrifugal/Linear Accel.

Halo
Acceleration: unknown (100g estimated)
Armor: Titanium (1m to 3m thick), Honeycomb bracing
Defenses: None
Engagement Range: ~400km
FTL: Slipspace (1 month for 30 light years)
Weapons: 32-96kt Railguns, 5mt Nukes, 30mt Mines, 1pt bombs
Assets: 16 fighters
Gravity: Yes

Mass Effect
Acceleration: unknown (50g estimated)
Armor: Diamond-nanotube (.25m to .50m thick)
Defenses: GARDIAN Lasers, Kinetic Barriers
Engagement Range: 5000km or less
FTL: Mass Effect Fields (~4 days for 30 light years)
Weapons: 12-48kt Railguns, Space Warping Torpedoes, 20kt Molten Streams
Assets: None
Gravity: Yes

Acceleration Advantage: Halo
Armor Advantage: Battletech
Defense Advantage: ME
Weapon Advantage: Halo
Range Advantage: ME
Assets Advantage: Battletech

Lets say an your average UNSC cruiser, Systems Alliance cruiser, and SLDF cruiser is dropped into deep space with 2000km between them. Who would win? No cyberwarfare. Boarding parties acceptable, if somebody manages to destroy anothers engine and board the enemy ship.

Edited by Zakatak, 24 December 2011 - 01:37 PM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

No cyber warfare? That's a pretty big theme in Halo and Mass Effect. Artificial Intelligence and AI rampancy is an ongoing theme in both of those franchises.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 24 December 2011 - 01:27 PM.

[Zakatak]

Miles Tails Prower, on 24 December 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

No cyber warfare? That's a pretty big theme in Halo and Mass Effect. Artificial Intelligence and AI rampancy is an ongoing theme in both of those franchises.

EDI is based on technology over a billion years old. Cortana and similar AI are sentient, intelligent, and can feel pain/emotion, and can break 128000 bit encryptions in nanoseconds. BTech doesn't even have AI, so why not give them a chance, right?

Also, for sake of fairness, no NOVA Bombs for Halo. I don't think they would need to use a planet-splitting bomb for this sort of engagement.

Edited by Zakatak, 24 December 2011 - 01:32 PM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Zakatak, on 24 December 2011 - 01:29 PM, said:

EDI is based on technology over a billion years old. Cortana and similar AI are sentient, intelligent, and can feel pain/emotion, and can break 128000 bit encryptions in nanoseconds. BTech doesn't even have AI, so why not give them a chance, right?

Fair enough. So just offensive/defensive capabilities and maneuverability. I'll need some time to mull this over.

[MechWarrior4Lover]

I voted Halo because they would nuke like crazy. Also, where's the Covenant point of view?

[CToxin]

I vote mass effect for the Mass Effect Accelerator Cannons. Each round delivers more punch than a nuke, and its concentrated on a single point (well not really, but it's more concentrated than a explosive). The problem with nukes in space warfare is that they only really work if they actually impact the ship. There's no air for an explosion to occur, so the most damage you do is a bit of heating on the armor and some electrical damage. I don't know about battletech, but I'm pretty sure a 25kg round traveling faster than the speed of light will pierce any armor they have.

If ,however, the UNSC ship has SPARTANS on it and they are able to board, then the SA cruiser would loose because they don't have the same infantry strength.

On a side note, a protoss carrier or terran battlecruiser will probably win the fight. Why? outside of game, carriers have powerful ion cannons and probably have CIWS systems. The drones they launch allow them to stay a safe distance away from a fight and they can always build and launch more. A terran battlecruiser (if heavily upgraded to the maximum of terran tech) has bio-steel armor and basically heals itself making it almost impossible for a single ship to take it down. They also have the yamato cannon which is all of the energy in a nuke concentrated in a single pulse. They also have their own small space-craft they can launch. If the enemy ships board the BC then they would loose as the Terrans have massive armor suits and could very easily just block the paths with anyone that happens to be killed. Not enough a SPARTAN could stop them, probably. If its a Protoss carrier, they would find themselves fighting mindreaders and invisible soldiers.

Edited by CToxin, 24 December 2011 - 02:26 PM.

[Zakatak]

Flood > Reapers

The Flood ended a civilization of people so advanced that they could create structures light-seconds across (300,000km+) and build planets. The Forerunners were more advanced then the Imperium/Federation/Asegard could ever hope to be. The parasite could control anything biological, digital, or mechanical, and it only took a few years to bring the Forerunners to their knees.

That isn't what this is about. The bane of Mass Effect ships is energy weapons, and the Normandy SR1 was destroyed in a few hits by a beam similar to a NL/55 or a Heavy NPPC. If the BTech ship in question can get within laser range, it may have a chance. The Pillar of Autumn is ideally suited to take on the SLDF Cruiser, but not the Alliance cruiser.

I see a game of rock-paper-scissors. Mass Effect beats Halo, Halo beats Btech, Btech beats Mass Effect.

Edited by Zakatak, 24 December 2011 - 02:22 PM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

But could the flood even damage the reapers? I know the flood can assimilate people and learn how to use their equipment, but would the assimilation of primitive equipment be of use against the Reapers?

Back on topic.

I remember that, the Normandy got owned by the Collector's beam weapon. And in round 2 without the reflective armor it still gets owned by beam weapons, and even with the reflective armor that "Oculus" cuts right into the ships hull with a laser like a hot knife through butter.

Halo ships don't have shielding like Covenant ships, so what protection would they have against BT weapons other than having extremely hard hulls? Likewise Halo ships are usually only equipped with archer missile pods and their main weapon the MAC, how much damage would that cause to a BT ship?

[SMDMadCow]

I voted Battletech, because of Elemental boarding parties.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Zakatak, on 24 December 2011 - 02:21 PM, said:

I see a game of rock-paper-scissors. Mass Effect beats Halo, Halo beats Btech, Btech beats Mass Effect.

I'm seeing something like this, as well, but I think that ME ships are going to end up trumping all around.

ME ships have significantly greater engagement range (crucial in these battles) - ME ships can hit the other two from 5 to 8.5 times their maximum ranges. ME ships also appear to be more agile than Halo ships, and the big ME ships are considerably bigger than the big Halo ships. Halo warships depend upon a MAC gun as their primary armament, a big, bulky weapon that requires the ship to point at its target. ME ships have similar weapons with similar operational profiles and performance ranges, but they also have a larger array of other weapons that they can employ, especially by ME2 with some of the new equipment developed from pieces of Sovereign's corpse. ME ships also have shields, a crucial advantage.

Halo ships may be able to out-accelerate ME ships, but ME ships can hit them from far beyond their engagement range, and once they closed to range, ME ships would probably be able to out-maneuver Halo ships, and bring other weapons to bear while the Halo ships' struggled to bring their main guns to bear. ME ships would run rings around BT ships and rip them to pieces - if BT ships could get into range they could probably do some damage to ME ships, but BT ships just don't have the acceleration to close to range. Halo ships can hit harder and out-maneuver BT ships, but BT ships have a range advantage on Halo ships that would allow them to inflict damage before the Halo ships got in range, though they would not be able to prevent the Halo ships from closing to range.

[Adridos]

I voted for Mass Effect. They have Shepard aboard - GG.

Fun aside I would still vote for Mass Effect ships. They are made believable, not super/ untargetable/ undestroyable/ superfast/ megaships with millions of hydrogen bombs aboard with power to destroy the whole galaxy just by looking at it like the spaceships in old games do. And Halo ones , on the other hand, are not that powerful, but they never achieved anything. They got owned by every single thing thrown at them.

Edited by Adridos, 26 December 2011 - 03:40 AM.

[Technocide Rex]

How far we have come from the argument when I was a kid: Could Batman beat up Spiderman? And just as relevant, too...

[Ilithi Dragon]

Technocide Rex, on 26 December 2011 - 05:46 AM, said:

How far we have come from the argument when I was a kid: Could Batman beat up Spiderman? And just as relevant, too...

I thought the argument was could Batman beat up Superman...


The relevance factor is just as high, though: Both discussions are VERY relevant to our entertainment and enjoyment. } ; = 8 )

[steelwraith]

Hmm, I'll give it a shot.

Battletech vs. Mass Effect, there's no question, ME wins. BT has lower acceleration and lower engagement range, so ME ships can keep then at range and kill with impunity; and once BT engages, they can't disengage... they're stuck there for two days while their FTL spools up.

Battletech vs. Halo: Hard to say. I'm assuming Halo will have superior targeting/ECCM via A.I., but BT has superior weapon range to soften the Halo ship up as it closes. Guided nukes will be probably useless against the maneuverability of the Halo ship. Since I don't know the relative output of BT weapons, I'll have to give the edge to Halo, for superior maneuverability and electronics. Lets face it, a BT ship moving at 8gs is effectively dead in the water, it would be difficult NOT to hit them; while we can assume a good number of misses vs. Halo due to 100g maneuvering (I'm assuming gravity also includes inertia dampening).

Halo vs. Mass Effect: It can go either way. ME can keep Halo at range longer, and can warp away when Halo gets within range (and warp back to re-engage). Targeting/electronics will be similar. Lack of point defense may make Halo vulnerable to torpedoes, or at least slow them down while they evade. If Halo does get within engagement range though, they will have a definite advantage. Overall I'd say it would depend on each captain's skill.

Note that I'm going solely by the data given in the OP.

Edit: Whoops, didn't see MEs kinetic barriers. That tips the battle in MEs favor vs. Halo, as Halo seems to depend on kinetic weapons.

Edited by steelwraith, 26 December 2011 - 10:28 AM.

[Zakatak]

steelwraith, on 26 December 2011 - 10:17 AM, said:

Note that I'm going solely by the data given in the OP.

...which may not be very accurate.

I couldn't find an official source regarding Halo engagement ranges, but around 500km was agreed upon, since Halo MAC rounds clock at a mere 64km/s (although the slugs are extremely heavy) while Mass Effect is up to around 4000km/s (though the slugs are no more then 20kg).

[dal10]

mass effect. the nukes for halo would be completely useless. one round from the ME ship would kill it. the mac rounds could do significant damage provided they could get a hit. however if the mac round misses it is game over. the halo ship would get shredded by multiple 34 kiloton explosions. ME vs battle tech would by no comparison. i don't think even a fortress class could handle an explosion of that magnitude. even if it could it definitively could not take more than one or 2.

[dal10]

the only real debate on this topic would be whose ground force would win. that could go anyway. btw i am doing infantry only no mechs

[Ilithi Dragon]

Zakatak, where did you get that 64km/s velocity for Halo MAC rounds? I've heard varying figures, some of them completely absurd, but have never been able to nail down a solid figure. 64km/s sounds about right, though... Is it stated somewhere, or does that figure come from some frame-by-frame measurement?

[Catamount]

The velocity of MAC rounds is going to play heavily into this. For instance, the highest canonical figure I've heard for the ODP Super MAC rounds is ~6% of c, or 18,000,000 m/s (the wiki quotes 120,000,000, but no canon source I'm aware of backs that figure, and since they get the basic math of kinetic energy wrong, I'm not apt to trust it). They also claim that the rounds are 3,000 tons "ferric-tungsten" rounds, but the canon gets the basic density of elements entirely wrong, because I recall Ilithi and I, in an earlier discussion, got a volume figure based on some images of the round, figured out how heavy it should be, based even on solid tungsten (which is heavier than what they're claiming MAC rounds are made of), and found that it was something on the order of ten times less than they were claiming a less dense round was.


So we have a difficult question to resolve: when real science directly and unavoidable contradicts a canon statement (as opposed to something like, say, FTL, which could exist in physics we haven't yet considered), which takes precedence?


I'm of the opinion that real science takes precedence, and that when you can't get around a conflict, that's what you go with, because if you're not operating under the assumption of real-world scientific laws, then any analysis becomes meaningless. If something as basic as the density of tungsten can't be assumed, then how can you even assume kinetic energy would be calculated the same way once you start tossing laws out?


This is not, however, the only school of thought, as canon purists I know have very much disagreed, and it's an argument I've had more than once.



Even if you could somehow get around this for normal MAC rounds, and I don't see how since S-MAC rounds having just shy of 500 exajoules of energy output would mean ship-based rounds should have AT LEAST high petajoule outputs (so at least tens of megatons), if not far more, but even if you could get around that, it would mean Halo static installations would be unapproachable by anyone else's ships pretty much, because an ODP could one-hit KO anything thousands of times over.

Hell, even a huge Trek or Star Wars should wouldn't have an icecube's chance in hell of standing up to a shot like that, let alone ships from these franchises

So do we go with the canonical figure for mass on Halo weapons (if it's wrong for the ODP rounds, it's probably wrong for ship-based MAC rounds), or do we try to hand-figure what they'd really be, with real-world science?

Edited by Catamount, 26 December 2011 - 01:28 PM.

[dal10]

according to the wiki a ship board mac cannon fires at 64 kilotons. about twice what mass effect uses.