86 replies to this topic

[Lord Stark]

Well the other assault carrier wasn't transporting a hierarch but it was with his fleet, so it could still make sense for it to be somewhat more powerful than average since it indirectly was still protecting him.

No evidence to really support this claim.

Ok the reason that Regret's ship got through is because all of the other ships covered it. Not to mention that Covenant boarding parties has destroyed two out of the three ODP's on top of that Harper's fleet was focused on the other CAS. The fleet was further reduced in firepower do to the CAS's bypassing the remaining ODP. The fleet could not use nukes without running the risk of disabling their last ODP. And remember it to destroy the Covenant Super-destroyer it to 27 ships concentrating their fire. 27+ MAC rounds (some ships may have had double MACs), all of the fleet's Archers timed to hit 0.1 seconds after the MACs impacted, and all of the fleet's nukes timed to hit 0.2 seconds after the MACs impacted. That is a lot of firepower and before that salvo the Super Destroyer was shrugging off hits from MACs and nukes alike. It took everything that those ships had to destroy the Covenant vessel. 

It still shrugged off SMAC rounds which deal out roughly the equivalent of 51.6 gigatons of TNT upon impact a UNSC frigate has a standard yield of 64 kilotons.  Also the Assault Carrier shrugged off even more firepower from an even larger fleet AND an SMAC and was still whooping the Home Fleet as showed in the cutscene posted.  Even once its shields were down they couldn't destroy it until the Chief had a plan.

[SPECTRE]

The other ships sacrificed themselves.

the second carrier got royally screwed By TWO, longswords making a way for the chief to give the covenant back their bomb.

[Centurian128]

We can't say for certain what the other ships in Regret's fleet were doing either.  Logically they would have put up a defensivee screen of their own around the two carriers.  And as you say there were a significant number of human ships in the engagment, probably enough that Cortana had to worry about freindly fire while trying to keep the enemy at bay.  Admiral Harper didn't stike me as the smartest fleet officer there.

 

But we could sit here all week and come up with different reasons why these ships are or aren't the strongest and still get no where.  There are too many unknowns to say the actual strength of the Assault Carriers as compared to the Super Destroyer.  The only actual combat envidence we can go by is that it took a combined fleet of 40 UNSC ships using everything they had with coordinated fire orders from the preeminent tactical genius of the time [losing 13 ships in the process], to take down one Super Destroyer that had no back up of its own.

[m468]

Stark double check your math there buddy.

[sloosecannon]

How many assault carriers have we seen in canon?

How many Super Destroyers have we seen in canon?

Which one should be the titan?

I rest my case...

[Lord Stark]

The other ships sacrificed themselves.

the second carrier got royally screwed By TWO, longswords making a way for the chief to give the covenant back their bomb.

No proof of that at all.  Especially considering we know the Pious Inquisitor survived the battle.  So either the cruisers stayed back and engaged some of the Home Fleet, or they fell back (more likely considering we know hours later reinforcements arrived).

 

We can't say for certain what the other ships in Regret's fleet were doing either.  Logically they would have put up a defensivee screen of their own around the two carriers.  And as you say there were a significant number of human ships in the engagment, probably enough that Cortana had to worry about freindly fire while trying to keep the enemy at bay.  Admiral Harper didn't stike me as the smartest fleet officer there.

 

But we could sit here all week and come up with different reasons why these ships are or aren't the strongest and still get no where.  There are too many unknowns to say the actual strength of the Assault Carriers as compared to the Super Destroyer.  The only actual combat envidence we can go by is that it took a combined fleet of 40 UNSC ships using everything they had with coordinated fire orders from the preeminent tactical genius of the time [losing 13 ships in the process], to take down one Super Destroyer that had no back up of its own.

We know they'd get one-shotted by the SMAC or get downed very quickly by the fleet.  There aren't really that many unknowns.  The Assault Carrier is way bigger, has a far larger power supply, and was able to man handle its way through Earth's most heavily defended world 25 years after the Super Destroyer was encountered.

 

Stark double check your math there buddy.

On the Gigatons and Kilotons.  I'm right on that score.

 

How many assault carriers have we seen in canon?

How many Super Destroyers have we seen in canon?

Which one should be the titan?

I rest my case...

 

 

That's true, but when you think about the context we've seen the Assault Carriers they were always in high profile environments.  

Also there is this.

 

"There were Covenant cruisers and larger carriers; there were

even bigger vessels with five bulbous sections that were two

kilometers stem to stern and had a dozen deadly energy projectors.

Motes of dust swirled between the numerous ships: Seraph

fighters, dropships, and tentacled Engineer pods."

 

There's also this.

"Current intel indicates that there are only three in existence and that they reside in the mobile dome-ship structure the Covenant refer to as "HIGH CHARITY" or, on occasion, a flagship carrier [CLASS-FIVE plot device/CAS], neither of which we’ve had real access to before. Not permanent access, at least [RL-54]."

 

Seems highly unlikely given the Prophet's religious significance that the Covenant would place them on anything but their best ships.  

[SPECTRE]

Paste as plain text when quoting.

[Zero]

Regret's carrier didn't man handle its way to Earth, two of the three SMACs defending Africa were destroyed. Now given how easily two Longswords were capable of bombing a hole for the Chief, its safe to assume that most, if not all of the Covenant fleet's were destroyed. Otherwise, Seraphs in general are better than Longswords and the pulse lasers on the Assault Carrier should have easily tore them up. Because this isn't the case, its easy to assume the Assault Carrier was already disabled enough that it couldn't fire its pulse lasers after it fired its energy projector and they were dealing the final blow.

 

You have to also keep in mind that Halo 2 came out at a time where Eric Nylund novels were the definitive source of information and Halo had yet to be tainted by other EU sources such as Halo Wars graphic novel. Also during this time, before Halo 3, Bungie was just making a game for fun. All the information and calculations that have been generated has come from a post-Halo 2 era from novels like First Strike, which had made small retcons to FoR. I mostly blame Microsoft for their cheap marketing schemes and acquisition of the Halo IP because there was a huge shift in the way the games were developed after Bungie's last Halo game (Halo 3) in comparison to Microsoft's Halo games (ODST/Reach+).

 

Regardless of everything and going back to canon, one ship taking sustained fire from about 30 UNSC cruisers led by Admiral Cole of all people > 2 assault carriers and a handful of cruisers taking out a small portion of Earth's defense fleet.

 

Also the CSO didn't destroy Reach's defense fleet, it was cloaked by the spires. How it got there undetected in the first place remains a mystery, but the only ship the CSO destroyed was the UNSC Grafton.

[Death]

Is there anything to be said about UNSC technological advancements between these two times here?  Since Cole's fleet could have been using far inferior weaponry and armour and such in comparison to the ships being used by the time the Covenant stumbled upon Terra?  Meaning the battleship might have been dealt with easier had it been encountered again during the later stages of the war?

 

EDIT:  I mean I vaguely remember reading something about UNSC improving their ships' armour to be more resistance against plasma projectors and the like, but I don't actually know if there was much else per say.

[m468]

Nothing has been said in canon the only thing that might have been improved was armor. And even then how does that stand up to 12 energy projectors plasma turrets and pulse lasers. This type of Covenant ship was very deadly and rarely seen by the UNSC as compared to the CAS.

[CanadaMan7]

Finally wandered into this thread. I saw it and really didn't want to.

The Infinity is roughly the size of a CAS and it's a titan. I'm not really that sold on the idea of upscaling a ship just to make it look intimidating (though we did do that to the Marathon). Either way, can we all just give it a rest until we actually have the model for the Super Destroyer done? Right now it's just useless arguing and posturing over nothingness. 

[Lord Stark]

Regret's carrier didn't man handle its way to Earth, two of the three SMACs defending Africa were destroyed. Now given how easily two Longswords were capable of bombing a hole for the Chief, its safe to assume that most, if not all of the Covenant fleet's were destroyed. Otherwise, Seraphs in general are better than Longswords and the pulse lasers on the Assault Carrier should have easily tore them up. Because this isn't the case, its easy to assume the Assault Carrier was already disabled enough that it couldn't fire its pulse lasers after it fired its energy projector and they were dealing the final blow.

 

You have to also keep in mind that Halo 2 came out at a time where Eric Nylund novels were the definitive source of information and Halo had yet to be tainted by other EU sources such as Halo Wars graphic novel. Also during this time, before Halo 3, Bungie was just making a game for fun. All the information and calculations that have been generated has come from a post-Halo 2 era from novels like First Strike, which had made small retcons to FoR. I mostly blame Microsoft for their cheap marketing schemes and acquisition of the Halo IP because there was a huge shift in the way the games were developed after Bungie's last Halo game (Halo 3) in comparison to Microsoft's Halo games (ODST/Reach+).

 

Regardless of everything and going back to canon, one ship taking sustained fire from about 30 UNSC cruisers led by Admiral Cole of all people > 2 assault carriers and a handful of cruisers taking out a small portion of Earth's defense fleet.

 

Also the plot device didn't destroy Reach's defense fleet, it was cloaked by the spires. How it got there undetected in the first place remains a mystery, but the only ship the plot device destroyed was the UNSC Grafton.

SMACs have roughly the yield of 51,600,000 kilotons...or the firepower of about 806,250 UNSC frigates MACs at the start of the war (with each frigate having a yield of about 64 kilotons.  None of these figures are retcons, both of them come from FOR.  Now I'm all for the idea that UNSC ship mounted weapons became more and more deadly as the years went on.  But even if Regret's carrier shrugged off 1 SMAC round it would have taken the equivalent of...well more than the entire UNSC Fleet combined a thousand times over.

 

And yes the plot device did destroy Reach's defense fleet.

 

Auntie Dot (COM): "Our foe is more devious than we imagined. That spire was indeed a teleporter linked to a cloaked, Covenant supercarrier... A grave threat."

 

Auntie Dot (COM): "Thankfully, help is imminent. Sixty percent of the UNSC fleet is en route to Reach from existing deployments. The first battle group should arrive within forty-eight hours."

Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320: "That thing's crushing us, and we're waiting for backup? They'll be backing up a graveyard."

 

Commander Carter-A259: "All our nukes are either out-system or went down with the ships that carried them. You're preaching to the converted."

 

Unless you think that the entire Reach Defense Fleet was nukeless the plot device did indeed crush the entire Reach defense fleet.  Thus the "they'll be backing up a graveyard" comment.

[theblitz6794]

Cam we just ban lord stark already for still arguing about the unmentionable? How old are you? You're completely off topic arguing about Regrets incursion. We're not going to prove this guy wrong guys (I'm annoyed with you in general on this forum to be frank).

Anyways, genesis is irrelevant. The battleship isn't a flagship. It's a heavy combat ship. Think naval fleet. Carrier leads it but other ships do the fighting. CAS is still the flag of the fleet, regardless of which ship is the most powerful. In fact, it'd be bad to have your most powerful ship as your flag because all your eggs are in one basket.

I've already explained why the practicality argument fails. It's because with the forerunners, necessity is involved. There is no necessity to upscale the battleship. You chose to ignore what I said (which ties to the first paragraph).

[Death]

If there is still an argument for the Covenant faction not even having a titan due to the size (too small) and status (not flagship material) of the battleship in question then maybe that should be done.  Considering the very name "titan" would imply size and power, likely makes whatever the titan ship is, a flagship.  That is what you would generally think when it comes right down to it, I know I do when I think of SoaSE titans.  The infinity-class and Mantle's Approach both fit that description (relative to the factions at least), but there are no Covenant ships that will be in this mod that really do.

 

So unless a new Covenant ship is introduced that fits the bill in an upcoming game or book or whatever else, then perhaps it would be best not to bother until then.  After all, I can image the battleship was not the only one of its kind, and multiple of them being fielded makes sense to me since they don't really seem all that "special" compared to the other faction's titans.

 

To clarify the idea of the Covenant having no "true titan" should, in my opinion, just be done away with because that would still imply a titan in some form.  Just make it a more expensive (including fleet supply) capital ship.

 

EDIT: I just have this feeling that I don't know either the purpose of this topic or what anyone here is really arguing about...

[theblitz6794]

Indeed but that's the point actually. The covenant aren't supposed to have a true titan. No disrespect meant but that's already well established (I'm just sick of repeating the same thing over and over).

[Fleet Admiral agigabyte]

1. Trust me, you are not sick of repeating something over and over until you have spent almost a year telling people "There is no concrete release date" and "There will be no plot device"

2. I believe it is still up in the air.

[CanadaMan7]

Well, since this is now a CSO thread, Stark's going to jail for a day or two.

Book 'em, Danno!

[theblitz6794]

Well you got me there admiral. Stark can't be the first stark around here

[Fleet Admiral agigabyte]

Well you got me there admiral. Stark can't be the first stark around here

Which Admiral? Jk, I won't rank bomb often.

EDIT: did you get my pm, Canada?

[SPECTRE]

So Stark is banned? O.o

Agig Don't make anyone change you rank to "Minor Junior Private Negative First Class", your name to Gigadork and get them locked.