35 replies to this topic

[DEMONTHESE2211]

The cradle can service 6 ships at once. It's passive does 5 at a time and then one can be targeted with the active ability. It has a huge amount of health, and once the sacrifice ability is finished that 5K health will be invaluable. It is not equiv imho.

I may just be missing the text but I haven't seen a passive mentioned in game for the cradle.

[Unikraken]

It's there.

[sloosecannon]

I may just be missing the text but I haven't seen a passive mentioned in game for the cradle.

It's there.

There's no icon for it, but it is there. Look at the abilities lol

[Defender0]

There's no icon for it, but it is there. Look at the abilities lol

there is an icon, it just has LITERALLY nothing in it. Hover over the spot next to the active repair ability, you'll see the passive one

[sloosecannon]

there is an icon, it just has LITERALLY nothing in it. Hover over the spot next to the active repair ability, you'll see the passive one

...
That is what I meant. Lol

[Veni_Vidi_Vici]

I saw a placeholder ability for the cradle, but never saw it get implemented on any ship. I assumed it was a WIP.
That would be enough to boost it if it works as you say.

On the nukes. I do not see them as being that horrifying. Useful and annoying, yes. Op no. Then again I haven't really seen their blast range. It seems to be stepped for a high power central area and low damage outside of that. These things mostly depend on the scale.

A thermonuclear bomb (which the shiva would be) would have a fireball diameter of about 25 km, so 5 infinities, on the ground. In space this diameter would be closer to 1200km, but the damage would be more minor. Much of a nukes damage comes from the massive amount of material it can displace. In outer space you would have a slightly damaging EMP and the issue of handling a huge EM radiation burst, which would largely get reflected too. Any ships in an area of 15 KM would probably be destroyed or crippled, 25 km damaged severely, 25-100 damged, and 100-500 lightly damaged. In space that is not that far away from each other. The ISS travels arround 400km a minute in orbit. I don'r know the particulars of the weapon, but it seems that keeping my fleets spaced widely has well reduced nuke problems.

[Emberblaque]

I saw a placeholder ability for the cradle, but never saw it get implemented on any ship. I assumed it was a WIP.
That would be enough to boost it if it works as you say.

On the nukes. I do not see them as being that horrifying. Useful and annoying, yes. Op no. Then again I haven't really seen their blast range. It seems to be stepped for a high power central area and low damage outside of that. These things mostly depend on the scale.

A thermonuclear bomb (which the shiva would be) would have a fireball diameter of about 25 km, so 5 infinities, on the ground. In space this diameter would be closer to 1200km, but the damage would be more minor. Much of a nukes damage comes from the massive amount of material it can displace. In outer space you would have a slightly damaging EMP and the issue of handling a huge EM radiation burst, which would largely get reflected too. Any ships in an area of 15 KM would probably be destroyed or crippled, 25 km damaged severely, 25-100 damged, and 100-500 lightly damaged. In space that is not that far away from each other. The ISS travels arround 400km a minute in orbit. I don'r know the particulars of the weapon, but it seems that keeping my fleets spaced widely has well reduced nuke problems.

This is wise and is exactly what Unikraken took into account when revamping the nukes. The Shiva ability has four different buffs to specify effects for different blast radii.

[DEMONTHESE2211]

A thermonuclear bomb (which the shiva would be) would have a fireball diameter of about 25 km, so 5 infinities, on the ground. In space this diameter would be closer to 1200km, but the damage would be more minor. Much of a nukes damage comes from the massive amount of material it can displace. In outer space you would have a slightly damaging EMP and the issue of handling a huge EM radiation burst, which would largely get reflected too. Any ships in an area of 15 KM would probably be destroyed or crippled, 25 km damaged severely, 25-100 damged, and 100-500 lightly damaged. In space that is not that far away from each other. The ISS travels arround 400km a minute in orbit. I don'r know the particulars of the weapon, but it seems that keeping my fleets spaced widely has well reduced nuke problems.

This is not quite correct. Firstly there will be no fireball or pressure wave, as there is no atmosphere to transfer traditional heat or thermal energy. Likewise no atmosphere means noting to propogate a pressure wave. Any thermal damage would likely be local to a single ship with a direct contact detonation. There is still a fairly significant emp. Because the bomb cannot give off energy in the form of heat and pressure it emits a large amount of high frequency (and thus energy) radiation. With the lack of anything to dissipate this radiation and more being given off a multimegaton warhead can emit lethal doses of radiation up to hundreds of miles. However as we have no way of knowing how effective UNSC/Covenant/Forerunner emp and radiation shielding is the devs can really balance however they want and stay within the realm of realism.
source: http://history.nasa....and/nuclear.htm

[sloosecannon]

It can give off heat via radiation... just like the sun

[DEMONTHESE2211]

It can give off heat via radiation... just like the sun

The vast majority of the sun's radiation is Infrared and visible light. High frequency radiation does not really cause an objects temperature to rise which is what I meat (the hull wouldn't melt). In fact the ships themselves, electronics aside, would be mostly unharmed. It's the damage that high frequency radiation does to your DNA that makes it lethal.

[Veni_Vidi_Vici]

Yes. I stated no pressure wave of significance, but poorly. But the xray radiation alone of the W88 emits 6500 TERAPASCALS of pressure. This is a half megaton warhead. A shiva nuke would probably consist of at least five of theses warheads at a higher strength. A nuke this far in the future could do better. This is 65 billion times atmospheric pressure. In space this would be the same as getting hit by a very powerful laser. Your armor would be vaporized as if a covenant ship had hit its entire side with plasma weapons. Systems would be shielded from an EM pulse at this point, but considering that starfish prime (1.2 MT) messed with the electrical grid in Hawaii 1400 km away.

Another test in space "The worst effects of a Soviet high-altitude test occurred on 22 October 1962, in ‘Operation K’ (ABM System A proof tests) when a 300 kt missile-warhead detonated near Dzhezkazgan at 290-km altitude. The EMP fused 570 km of overhead telephone line with a measured current of 2,500 A, started a fire that burned down the Karaganda power plant, and shut down 1,000-km of shallow-buried power cables between Aqmola and Almaty."

http://en.wikipedia....ltitude_EMP.gif

http://en.wikipedia....P_mechanism.GIF

[Veni_Vidi_Vici]

High frequency radiation is high energy and will do physical damage in these quantities.

[sloosecannon]

The vast majority of the sun's radiation is Infrared and visible light. High frequency radiation does not really cause an objects temperature to rise which is what I meat (the hull wouldn't melt). In fact the ships themselves, electronics aside, would be mostly unharmed. It's the damage that high frequency radiation does to your DNA that makes it lethal.

Erm... HF radiation isn't what's bad for your DNA... That's like UHF/SHF levels... Take it from a HAM

[Emberblaque]

Erm... HF radiation isn't what's bad for your DNA... That's like UHF/SHF levels... Take it from a HAM

I don't see where you're coming from sloose. These terms are ambiguous and arbitrary. Just say ionizing electromagnetic radiation or non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation. "High-frequency" is relative it seems. The kind of radiation he's speaking of is of the ionizing sort, he's right. You're probably just thinking within the radio-frequency part of the spectrum, what with your background. High-frequency radio waves are still relatively low frequency electromagnetic radiation. The guideline for ionizing vs. non-ionizing is usually the (ambiguous) boundary between visible and ultraviolet light. Radio waves are lower frequency than visible light.

[DEMONTHESE2211]

I don't see where you're coming from sloose. These terms are ambiguous and arbitrary. Just say ionizing electromagnetic radiation or non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation. "High-frequency" is relative it seems. The kind of radiation he's speaking of is of the ionizing sort, he's right. You're probably just thinking within the radio-frequency part of the spectrum, what with your background. High-frequency radio waves are still relatively low frequency electromagnetic radiation. The guideline for ionizing vs. non-ionizing is usually the (ambiguous) boundary between visible and ultraviolet light.

I apologize for bad terminology, I was indeed talking about x-ray/gamma ray level radiation.

I was also not very clear when speaking about no direct damage to hulls. Direct or close hits woul indeed be catastrophic but I believe that the effective area for this to occur dies off much faster than in atmosphere.

[Unikraken]

I apologize for bad terminology, I was indeed talking about x-ray/gamma ray level radiation.

I was also not very clear when speaking about no direct damage to hulls. Direct or close hits woul indeed be catastrophic but I believe that the effective area for this to occur dies off much faster than in atmosphere.

That's true. Nukes range for effective damage in space is very limited. I did a lot looking around before we came up with these stats for the Shiva. We try hard for realism in places that the canon allows.