Mass Effect Vs Halo

[Forum Explorer]

So I heard this was a very close comparison and I wanted this forum's take on the matter. Here are some guidelines. 1. Use Halo tech from the start of Halo 3. 2. Use Mass Effect descriptions from the Codex. 3. Try and use Halo information from the games only (same with Mass Effect). I don't trust the books.


And some scenarios to get things started

Covenant vs the Citadel Races: Assume no Halo installations for this one, or perhaps the Citadel is actually the Halo instead.

Covenant vs the Reapers: If the first is too easy, then how about this?

System's Alliance in place of humanity in Halo: If Mass Effect beats the Covenant too easily then how does just humanity do? How does Shepard do in Master Chief's place?

Humanity from Halo instead of the System's Alliance. How does Master Chief fare in Shepards place?

[Amaril]

You seem to have forgotten to include the Flood in any of these scenarios--they immediately bring to mind Reaper comparisons for me, maybe we should play with that somehow? Something like, say, Forerunners vs. Reapers, or Protheans vs. Flood?

[Tanuki Tales]

I'll need to review the exact offensive and defensive capabilities of Covenant fleet ships, but the Reapers have practically anything in Halo licked in terms of speed if it relies on a slipspace engine.

[Forum Explorer]

You seem to have forgotten to include the Flood in any of these scenarios--they immediately bring to mind Reaper comparisons for me, maybe we should play with that somehow? Something like, say, Forerunners vs. Reapers, or Protheans vs. Flood?

Forerunners I know nothing about, but I got the impression that they would blow anything in the Mass Effect Verse up easily.

Flood seems to be a pretty easy win for the Flood. There's not a lot of anti-infection stuff. And once the Flood starts infecting things it starts gaining their grasp over tech.

[Tavar]

Covenant vs the Citadel Races: Assume no Halo installations for this one, or perhaps the Citadel is actually the Halo instead.
Tricky. The Covenant would likely be a bit diplomatic at first(the reason for the war is, after all, a power play due to humanities nature). I could see quite a bit of trade going on, and while the tech would benefit both it would mostly be a huge boost to ME(their FTL is one of the prime limiting factors on them).

If you just mean how they would do in a fight? Hard to say, given we lack good numbers on either side regarding fleet size, though the Covenant do have a lot. I want to give this to the Covenant, as some of their tech is very, very effective again ME(tracking plasma balls, anyone? Or their upgraded form, plasma beams?). It would be a hard fight, though.

Ground wise, I think the situation would be more even. Maybe similar to Halo, with the ME races taking the place of humanity?


Covenant vs the Reapers: If the first is too easy, then how about this?
This is difficult to say. Reapers aren't all that impressive in terms of combat power on their own. Their claim to fame is that their numbers are so huge, and they start by tearing the heart out of any empire(taking the leadership and removing the ability for much travel). Keep in mind that they are incredibly sensitive to losses, given that they only get one Soverign class reaper per 50,000 years, though the number of Destroyer class isn't as firm.

The capabilities of each side aren't as well known, but I'd say that if they didn't win, the Covenant would do a very large amount of damage. I think they could easily get a 1:1 or better loss ratio, which isn't something the Reapers can withstand.


System's Alliance in place of humanity in Halo: If Mass Effect beats the Covenant too easily then how does just humanity do? How does Shepard do in Master Chief's place?
They die.

No, seriously. Humanity has relatively few colonies in ME, especially large ones. I'm not even sure they have anything over 10 million or so. Compare to Halo humanity, which appears to have a non-negligible amount of colonies in the hundreds of millions.

As for Shepard in MC's place...difficult to say. By lore, he fails hard(Spartans are scary in lore). Especially against the Flood(energy shields provide some protection, but ME shields only block things going fast enough.)

Humanity from Halo instead of the System's Alliance. How does Master Chief fare in Shepards place?
This is the really interesting one. Disregarding the Tech differences, Humanity from Halo does have an interesting set-up, especially pre-Covenant. See, this Humanity only avoided a horrible civil war by exchanging it for a genocidal war. It would be interesting to see how things played out upon meeting the Citadel, especially if it happened in anything approaching the Canon way.

[Sabeki]

In all scenarios, with no Halo arrays, Flood wins. Reapers could maybe compete with it, but I think that with no Halo array eventually all races would be overrun, even the computer ones. The Flood can control anything, anyone, anywhere, it's intellect is unrivalled, the most advanced AI in Halo was MINDRAPED by it, so it could also destroy Reapers, and the spores that travel would spread quickly.
The Flood were barely defeated by a race that could MAKE PLANETS, and it still destroyed them, corrupted their AIs, and razed their temples to the ground.
Flood wins.

[Tavar]

Not quite. A large part of the Flood's power comes through the technology of those they assimilate. Without the power of the Forerunner's tech, they likely would not be able to spread as well, and it's important to remember that while it was able to defeat several AI's, it needed to capture them to an extent first. I don't think Reapers would be as threatened by them.

[Sabeki]

Yes, but if they capture enough Reapers, perhaps it could kill them for good. As for tech, there is plenty of advanced races throughout Mass Effect, so that isn't as much of a problem.
Could the Flood assimilate a Reaper, or vice versa, is the question. Reapers can take over the flesh of anything, but from what we've seen the Flood can assimilate large ships and AIs, even if it has to "capture" them.
The real crux is, could the Reapers actually expunge all traces of the Flood? If it survives anywhere, when the Reaps kick the cycle again, BOOM, more Flood, another epidemic.

[Tavar]

As for tech, there is plenty of advanced races throughout Mass Effect, so that isn't as much of a problem.
Not in the same way. Forerunner Tech allows for stuff like quickly crossing the universe. ME tech confines you to a rather small area. This would greatly enhance the Reaper's goal of containing, then cleansing the Flood.



The real crux is, could the Reapers actually expunge all traces of the Flood? If it survives anywhere, when the Reaps kick the cycle again, BOOM, more Flood, another epidemic.
Well, it's really a moot point: introducing the flood changes everything. The Reapers would not fall back to the same pattern. I imagine they would instead have a stronger observation force, rather than Sovereign giving him maybe another Dreadnought-hull reaper, and some Destroyer class reapers.

[Fan]

Flood isn't a part of this.

Halo auto loses due to not having non slipspace FTL, even without Mass Effect Relays they're able to transverse galactic distance in hours.

Covenant loses the firepower game as well, as they're essentially dealing with races that have already created The Pillar of Autumn's repeating Mac gun but have it standard on all ships in multiple batteries.

Faster tactical speed + roughly equivalent tactical firepower on non superdreadnaughts and non special ships like The Normandy, coupled with Biotics giving them the field edge means that there's literally nowhere the Covenant can win, and this means the same for Humanity as much trouble as Chief could cause he is most definitely not invincible.

This and ground standard shielding, engineers being able to deploy and redploy defenses faster than Covies can build them, and their standard foot soldier being able to stand up to Covenant Elites.. I don't see them having much hope.

[Amaril]

Faster tactical speed + roughly equivalent tactical firepower on non superdreadnaughts and non special ships like The Normandy, coupled with Biotics giving them the field edge means that there's literally nowhere the Covenant can win, and this means the same for Humanity as much trouble as Chief could cause he is most definitely not invincible.

I thought the same about biotics being a huge edge for the ME races. I think the entire Citadel Council and associated hangers-on would have pretty much no trouble fighting off a Covenant invasion. If it was just humanity, though, that would change, since the Covenant would have us massively outnumbered.

[Tavar]

Halo auto loses due to not having non slipspace FTL, even without Mass Effect Relays they're able to transverse galactic distance in hours.
Are you actually familiar with the settings? While ME does have speed, it can't go very long at all, and this is explicitly noted as a factor that hinders exploration.


Covenant loses the firepower game as well, as they're essentially dealing with races that have already created The Pillar of Autumn's repeating Mac gun but have it standard on all ships in multiple batteries.

Faster tactical speed + roughly equivalent tactical firepower on non superdreadnaughts and non special ships like The Normandy, coupled with Biotics giving them the field edge means that there's literally nowhere the Covenant can win, and this means the same for Humanity as much trouble as Chief could cause he is most definitely not invincible.
Only Dreadnoughts have that level of power, though. And not even all Dread, as more advanced ones have more, smaller guns.

As for as Biotics, while those are impressive, they're also rare, and quite possibly not as effective against the Covenant, as biotic fields have trouble with lasers and plasma(IE, standard equipment).

[HamHam]

I feel like comparing fleet capabilities is rather missing the point considering how much effort both games go to to try and make infantry combat the deciding factor of war... somehow.

So that said, I would probably put Master Chief, and my comparison the Elites, Brutes, etc, on the level of a Krogan. Both sides have shields, both have weapons of about the same caliber, the Mass Effect standard being probably ahead of Human weapons in Halo but behind the Covenant's energy weapons. ME has magic powers though.

Overall I think Mass Effect ground forces would be superior to their Halo equivalent, and would be closer to being on even terms with Covenant forces. Mainly because shielded power armor seems to be standard issue.

PS:

To respond to one point, in ME2 humanity apparently has enough colonies that a handful can completely disappear and no one important really cares that much.

[Fan]

Are you actually familiar with the settings? While ME does have speed, it can't go very long at all, and this is explicitly noted as a factor that hinders exploration.


Only Dreadnoughts have that level of power, though. And not even all Dread, as more advanced ones have more, smaller guns.

As for as Biotics, while those are impressive, they're also rare, and quite possibly not as effective against the Covenant, as biotic fields have trouble with lasers and plasma(IE, standard equipment).

I am actually familiar with the settings and you are able to go across galaxies with The Normandy.

The Mass Effect relays take you across Galactic Clusters and into other galaxies.

Humanity by itself has a Mass Effect relay in the Sol System, giving them a huge tactical advantage when it comes to moving in and around the galaxy as it's protected by all of humanity's best tech and industrial base.

Also, the guns as described on the normandy (a light cruiser) carries a few mass accelerators of it's own, and the guns in question in the "Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest in space" discussion are the broadside mass accelerators.

Even frigates have these guns, not just dreadnaughts, just not in the 3 decks 26 broadside accelerators sense.

Please read your friendly neighborhood Codex/ Ships and Vehicles.

If we allow Turians they also have Thanix Cannons, which are almost exactly like Mac Guns but with the added benefit of being molten metal which should function similarly to The Covenant's own Plasma technology.

[Amaril]

The Mass Effect relays take you across Galactic Clusters and into other galaxies.

Umm, no :smallconfused: Mass relays connect distant clusters of star systems within the Milky Way galaxy. There is no extragalactic travel in Mass Effect (except for the Reapers coming from dark space), and the vast majority of our own galaxy remains unexplored, with the exception of the settled systems directly adjacent to the mass relays.

[Fan]

Umm, no :smallconfused: Mass relays connect distant clusters of star systems within the Milky Way galaxy. There is no extragalactic travel in Mass Effect (except for the Reapers coming from dark space), and the vast majority of our own galaxy remains unexplored, with the exception of the settled systems directly adjacent to the mass relays.

You're right, apologies I am a bit tired.

however you can traverse solar systems EASILY in Mass Effect within the span of hours rather than days. The official explanation is that Element Zero is A: Expensive, and B: Depletes quickly on larger ships and the Mass Effect Relays don't require fuel to use.

See: Probing. Hours and Hours of Probin.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I feel like comparing fleet capabilities is rather missing the point considering how much effort both games go to to try and make infantry combat the deciding factor of war... somehow.


Well on Halo end it is sort of loosely there that at least the war isn't being decided by ground combat. Like at all. The Covenant shows up murders the human fleets enmasse, and then its more or less a foregone conclusion. Humanity's greatest defense in the entire war is the Cole Protocol.

The games have the extenuating circumstances of Forerunner crap the Covenant doesn't want to just destroy from orbit. Well least the mainline ones do anyways.

[Tavar]

I feel like comparing fleet capabilities is rather missing the point considering how much effort both games go to to try and make infantry combat the deciding factor of war... somehow.

So that said, I would probably put Master Chief, and my comparison the Elites, Brutes, etc, on the level of a Krogan. Both sides have shields, both have weapons of about the same caliber, the Mass Effect standard being probably ahead of Human weapons in Halo but behind the Covenant's energy weapons. ME has magic powers though.

Overall I think Mass Effect ground forces would be superior to their Halo equivalent, and would be closer to being on even terms with Covenant forces. Mainly because shielded power armor seems to be standard issue.
Actually, that's one thing Halo does well: when you're fighting on the ground, you're usually fighting over some superweapon(which neither side really wants to blow up without cause), defending a critical point for the space fight, or you're fighting an invasion to the point were they don't view it as cost effective. At which point whoever controls the orbitals wins the day. This is a pretty big theme: that despite the Spartan's abilities on the ground, despite every victory they win, the Covenant will win the space battle, and then glass the world.

To respond to one point, in ME2 humanity apparently has enough colonies that a handful can completely disappear and no one important really cares that much.
Those are notably either incredibly small(the ones you see in ME1 seem to be around a few hundred) or colonies that explicitly rejected System Alliance control.



Humanity by itself has a Mass Effect relay in the Sol System, giving them a huge tactical advantage when it comes to moving in and around the galaxy as it's protected by all of humanity's best tech and industrial base.
Note that it only gives access to a few sites. Yes, it's an advantage. But not an unbeatable one.

Also, the guns as described on the normandy (a light cruiser) carries a few mass accelerators of it's own, and the guns in question in the "Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest in space" discussion are the broadside mass accelerators.

Even frigates have these guns, not just dreadnaughts, just not in the 3 decks 26 broadside accelerators sense.
Nope! If you listens to the dialogue, they're talking about the main gun of an Everest Class Dreadnought.


If we allow Turians they also have Thanix Cannons, which are almost exactly like Mac Guns but with the added benefit of being molten metal which should function similarly to The Covenant's own Plasma technology.
Not necessarily. And especially not in some of the more odd applications. Unless I missed the part where they Thanix shots can independently seek out targets.


You're right, apologies I am a bit tired.

however you can traverse solar systems EASILY in Mass Effect within the span of hours rather than days. The official explanation is that Element Zero is A: Expensive, and B: Depletes quickly on larger ships and the Mass Effect Relays don't require fuel to use.

See: Probing. Hours and Hours of Probin.

And? The same seems to hold true for Halo, especially for the Covenant. Hell, in the second game, a sensor device around pluto detects a fleet in slipspace, and maybe a minute or too later, it's near the moon.

[Soras Teva Gee]

And? The same seems to hold true for Halo, especially for the Covenant. Hell, in the second game, a sensor device around pluto detects a fleet in slipspace, and maybe a minute or too later, it's near the moon.

They are also extremely precise, in Halo 3 we twice witness jumps into Earth's atmosphere once by the Covenant and the second time by a Flood infested Covenant ship. For that matter the Gravemind was able to jump In Amber Clad, inside High Charity.

[Sabeki]

I guess the main thing about Halo transportation is: it is very random, timewise. Sometimes, a trip will take a few days, and others a few minutes, due to having an improper control of slipspace. However, the Covenant has far better control, and the ships I speak of are all UNSC, so it's not like the Covenant can't have far faster ships. Also, the slipspace allows both UNSC and Covvies to perform ambushes at least a little easier than in ME.

[Amaril]

They are also extremely precise, in Halo 3 we twice witness jumps into Earth's atmosphere once by the Covenant and the second time by a Flood infested Covenant ship. For that matter the Gravemind was able to jump In Amber Clad, inside High Charity.

Yeah, it's stated in Halo canon that one of the Covenant ships' main advantages over the UNSC ones is that, in addition to being much faster in slipspace, they can slip precisely enough to stay in formation when they exit back into realspace, while human ships emerge scattered and disorganized. This lets the Covenant begin their orbital assaults of human planets seconds after they arrive, often catching the human military off-guard.

[Legato Endless]

The Flood aren't quite the unstoppable juggernaut they're being made out to be. The real question is if the various races can contain and stop their spread.



The Flood were barely defeated by a race that could MAKE PLANETS, and it still destroyed them, corrupted their AIs, and razed their temples to the ground.
Flood wins.

Yes, but while this race possessed unmatched technological genius, they had all the strategic sense of a wet towel.

The Forerunners really didn't have any idea what they were doing in the fight against the Flood. They initially treated the whole situation as an infection, which is sort of understandable, but they failed to even consider any other ramifications and were taken by surprise when things predictably escalated. They were then caught further off guard when the Flood, rather then engage their fleets, continued the same exact pattern of behavior of infection on a grander scale. After this failed, the Forerunners turned to such creative strategies as blowing up their own cities, blowing up planets, and making supernovas. When this didn't work, they realized they might as well try building something, because they weren't good at anything else.



Could the Flood assimilate a Reaper, or vice versa, is the question. Reapers can take over the flesh of anything, but from what we've seen the Flood can assimilate large ships and AIs, even if it has to "capture" them.


While this may be true in extraneous materials, but if we are going by the main trilogy, no they can't.

As the war with the Flood intensified, the Forerunners, being stupid, set up a singular AI to run ALL of their forces. They then decided to send a specialist to interrogate the Flood in the hopes of learning something about them. The Forerunners, being stupid, decided both of these tasks should be fulfilled by the same entity. After 43 years of inhibited contact, said overworked unsupervised AI is finally persuaded to turn against his masters. Of course the Forerunners never imagined this possibility, and had no preparations or counter measures.

As the Flood infection is cellular, the Gravemind can't do anything corruptive to non organic life other than talk to it, and it's manipulations in that regard aren't terribly impressive. For all it's delicate ministrations, Cortana manages to completely resist and outwit it in Halo 3. Furthermore, even Mendicant Bias, after defecting, is held in thrall with nothing more than hatred for his masters, which fades and he eventually betrays the Gravemind.


Yes, but if they capture enough Reapers, perhaps it could kill them for good. As for tech, there is plenty of advanced races throughout Mass Effect, so that isn't as much of a problem.

I don't see how. The Flood is never shown developing anything. When faced with imminent defeat against its own genetically altered kind, the Flood's only strategy was to run away and hope it wasn't followed. During the course of the Forerunner-Flood war, the Flood never bothers creating any Forerunner tech of its own. While this may have been unnecessary in the beginning thanks to its overwhelming victory, things changed as the Halo plan took shape and Mendicant Bias frantically struggled to stop the Forerunners from activating the Halo Array...yet the Gravemind never abandoned its modus operandi.

Some new technological developments from the Gravemind would have been helpful, and possibly averted defeat. Even if it had this supposed intellectual capability, it certainly lacked the wisdom to know when to use it and end the war before its foes managed a surprise upset. Instead it kept using the same old tricks. The Gravemind's supposed hyper intelligence is an informed attribute. The Forerunners are no better in anything not directly related to technology. Their supreme military commander monologues to his enemies rather than kill them.

Ultimately the Gravemind gets completely out maneuvered by one intelligent AI and a gifted space marine. The only technological prowess we ever see is it eventually gains the ability to manipulate things in it's biomass memory. Furthermore, even after devouring vast sums of biomass in the FF war, it still leaves all strategic thinking to its AI. Though this might be understandable, if you were a collective consciousness and all you'd been eating lately was Forerunner, would you trust yourself enough to run a battle?

The biggest issue for the Reapers/Geth/any other non organic life form in this fight is how effective the galactic natives' weapons are, since that's what the Flood would riff off. The Flood's strength is its rapid infection and multiplication. If you can't get past that, you're done. Then again, I'm not sure they'd even notice each other. The Gravemind and Harbinger would be indistinguishable if one of them didn't speak in iambic heptameter.

[Forum Explorer]

In all scenarios, with no Halo arrays, Flood wins. Reapers could maybe compete with it, but I think that with no Halo array eventually all races would be overrun, even the computer ones. The Flood can control anything, anyone, anywhere, it's intellect is unrivalled, the most advanced AI in Halo was MINDRAPED by it, so it could also destroy Reapers, and the spores that travel would spread quickly.
The Flood were barely defeated by a race that could MAKE PLANETS, and it still destroyed them, corrupted their AIs, and razed their temples to the ground.
Flood wins.

I know. It's why I didn't bother to introduce the Flood.



Halo auto loses due to not having non slipspace FTL, even without Mass Effect Relays they're able to transverse galactic distance in hours.

Covenant loses the firepower game as well, as they're essentially dealing with races that have already created The Pillar of Autumn's repeating Mac gun but have it standard on all ships in multiple batteries.

Faster tactical speed + roughly equivalent tactical firepower on non superdreadnaughts and non special ships like The Normandy, coupled with Biotics giving them the field edge means that there's literally nowhere the Covenant can win, and this means the same for Humanity as much trouble as Chief could cause he is most definitely not invincible.

This and ground standard shielding, engineers being able to deploy and redploy defenses faster than Covies can build them, and their standard foot soldier being able to stand up to Covenant Elites.. I don't see them having much hope.

They don't have the range though, that's the biggest advantage the Mass Effect Relays brought in.

[Fan]

Actually, that's one thing Halo does well: when you're fighting on the ground, you're usually fighting over some superweapon(which neither side really wants to blow up without cause), defending a critical point for the space fight, or you're fighting an invasion to the point were they don't view it as cost effective. At which point whoever controls the orbitals wins the day. This is a pretty big theme: that despite the Spartan's abilities on the ground, despite every victory they win, the Covenant will win the space battle, and then glass the world.

Those are notably either incredibly small(the ones you see in ME1 seem to be around a few hundred) or colonies that explicitly rejected System Alliance control.


Note that it only gives access to a few sites. Yes, it's an advantage. But not an unbeatable one.

Nope! If you listens to the dialogue, they're talking about the main gun of an Everest Class Dreadnought.


Not necessarily. And especially not in some of the more odd applications. Unless I missed the part where they Thanix shots can independently seek out targets.



And? The same seems to hold true for Halo, especially for the Covenant. Hell, in the second game, a sensor device around pluto detects a fleet in slipspace, and maybe a minute or too later, it's near the moon.

Hmm, seems staying up for 48 hours to finish all my mid terms at once isn't the best for my memory.

Still, Thanix Cannons fire relatavistic molten metal which gives it projectile speed on the Covenant's plasma weaponry and it is standard issue in M3 for Alliance Frigates and Cruisers. According to Codex/ Ships and Vehicles in M3. This gun was able to down a collector ship in 2 shots. A ship many times the Normandy's own size with firepower capable of downing much larger ships, and which the previously mentioned Mass Accelerator Guns (though in this case, in the form of non mobile Planetary defense guns.) hadn't been able to outdo destruction feat wise, so it's not remiss to assume that Thanix Cannons are just as powerful.

Faster, smaller, ships able to do the same damage with shields able to tank at least 2 or 3 hits.

I still can't see what advantage The Covenant holds here.

Also biotics aren't rare, literally every Asari has them. Every. Single. One.

I was also saying function like Plasma for the sake of being able to down shields better than kinetic rounds, though M3's own use of Laser and Plasma weaponry should make that advantage Covie's had completely nil.

[Forum Explorer]

Hmm, seems staying up for 48 hours to finish all my mid terms at once isn't the best for my memory.

Still, Thanix Cannons fire relatavistic molten metal which gives it projectile speed on the Covenant's plasma weaponry and it is standard issue in M3 for Alliance Frigates and Cruisers. According to Codex/ Ships and Vehicles in M3. This gun was able to down a collector ship in 2 shots. A ship many times the Normandy's own size with firepower capable of downing much larger ships, and which the previously mentioned Mass Accelerator Guns (though in this case, in the form of non mobile Planetary defense guns.) hadn't been able to outdo destruction feat wise, so it's not remiss to assume that Thanix Cannons are just as powerful.

Faster, smaller, ships able to do the same damage with shields able to tank at least 2 or 3 hits.

I still can't see what advantage The Covenant holds here.

Also biotics aren't rare, literally every Asari has them. Every. Single. One.

I was also saying function like Plasma for the sake of being able to down shields better than kinetic rounds, though M3's own use of Laser and Plasma weaponry should make that advantage Covie's had completely nil.

Speaking of shields, don't the Mass Effect shields not work against energy weapons? That would make a huge difference if true.

[thorgrim29]

I don't know why they wouldn't work, the closest we see in ME is the particle beam rifle/collector beam, and that seems to be close enough to plasma.

But yeah... as far as ground forces go I'd say that one on one a ME marine would probably be on par with an elite within 50 meters or so, and would completely destroy the stupid bastards from further away. They're physically weaker, but their armor is way better and their guns have a longer range. In a large scale encounter the marines would destroy the elites because they have brains and aren't burdened with cannon fodder

Marine vs marine would go to the ME marines because they have similar tactics but the ME ones have better tech

The space battles are a bit murkier, I'd give it to the Covenant because of Slipspace making them quicker and less dependant on the relays (and more importantly compeltely unpredictable to the ME fleets). As soon as the Specters of the STG acquire that know-how the ME verse gets the upper hand because element zero makes them more maneuverable. UNSC ships are probably too low tech to stand a chance, even with smart AI. From what I remember the Covenant don't to electronic warfare (because they are stupid) so that's a massive advantage for the MEverse

[Soras Teva Gee]

I don't know why they wouldn't work, the closest we see in ME is the particle beam rifle/collector beam, and that seems to be close enough to plasma.


You mean this thing noted as being especially effective (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Collector_Particle_Beam) against shields?

That would suggest Covenant weaponry would indeed enjoy strong advantages against Mass Effect kinetic barrier shields.

[Forum Explorer]

Also I seem to remember the Codex entry for GUARDIAN lasers saying it goes through the shields around ships. Right, a quick search confirms that their shields are for kinetic attacks, and are dramatically less effective against lasers.

[BRC]

You mean this thing noted as being especially effective (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Collector_Particle_Beam) against shields?

That would suggest Covenant weaponry would indeed enjoy strong advantages against Mass Effect kinetic barrier shields.

IIRC the particle beam is effective because it's a continuous beam, and ME kinetic barriers have trouble against continual rapid attacks.

Which probably applies to Covenant weapons too.

That said I recall there are plasma flamethrowers in Mass Effect which, while effective against armor, are less so against shields.

One thing to consider is engagement ranges. While the space battles we see in Mass Effect tend to be centered around a planet, IIRC ships are designed to have space battles exist at more realistic ranges with ships far outside anything approaching visual contact. It just never comes up because such battles are not as exciting to watch.

If Halo ships are designed around Star Wars style space battles, with ships exchanging attacks less than a ship's length away from each other, then once removed from the constraints of cinematic appeal the ME ships could just blast the Halo ships to pieces from (For the Halo ships) extreme ranges.

Mind you I don't know very much about Halo, but if the Covenant weapons are not designed to hit anything more than a few kilometers away the ME ships could tear them to pieces.

[HamHam]

You mean this thing noted as being especially effective (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Collector_Particle_Beam) against shields?

That would suggest Covenant weaponry would indeed enjoy strong advantages against Mass Effect kinetic barrier shields.

So are submachine guns and IIRC shotguns going by ME's rock-paper-scissors weapon mechanics.

[Forum Explorer]

While the space battles we see in Mass Effect tend to be centered around a planet, IIRC ships are designed to have space battles exist at more realistic ranges with ships far outside anything approaching visual contact. It just never comes up because such battles are not as exciting to watch.

The game actually gives a reason for that. It mentions that they don't actually have a way to stop an enemy from going FTL and escaping a fight. Thus most battles tend to be around objectives that can't go FTL.

[Tavar]

One thing to consider is engagement ranges. While the space battles we see in Mass Effect tend to be centered around a planet, IIRC ships are designed to have space battles exist at more realistic ranges with ships far outside anything approaching visual contact. It just never comes up because such battles are not as exciting to watch.

If Halo ships are designed around Star Wars style space battles, with ships exchanging attacks less than a ship's length away from each other, then once removed from the constraints of cinematic appeal the ME ships could just blast the Halo ships to pieces from (For the Halo ships) extreme ranges.

Mind you I don't know very much about Halo, but if the Covenant weapons are not designed to hit anything more than a few kilometers away the ME ships could tear them to pieces.
Your facts are seriously in error. Yes, they aren't generally shown in long range fights, but that's largely a matter of cinematics, which also hits ME, as well as the specific fights being shown being close in actions. Of course, we are somewhat hampered by the fact that there are little, if any, firm numbers given for the ranges. Energy Projectors are given ranges of "over 100 km".

Additionally, some of the engagement range would be dependent on the acceleration the combatants are able to go at.


Still, Thanix Cannons fire relatavistic molten metal which gives it projectile speed on the Covenant's plasma weaponry and it is standard issue in M3 for Alliance Frigates and Cruisers. According to Codex/ Ships and Vehicles in M3. This gun was able to down a collector ship in 2 shots. A ship many times the Normandy's own size with firepower capable of downing much larger ships, and which the previously mentioned Mass Accelerator Guns (though in this case, in the form of non mobile Planetary defense guns.) hadn't been able to outdo destruction feat wise, so it's not remiss to assume that Thanix Cannons are just as powerful.
Um...yes, yes it is remiss. Especially since the extremely powerful Main gun Dreadnoughts were phased out in favor of ones with many, weaker guns, as those would still be strong enough to break through armor, but were also more effective vs shields(at least of the ME kinds).

Also, if we're going for speed, we'd either want the plasma beam weapons(from the books) or the Energy Projector(from books and games). The latter is known to be near Light speed(thus possibly faster than the Thanix) and can easily kill ships in one hit.

Faster, smaller, ships able to do the same damage with shields able to tank at least 2 or 3 hits.

I still can't see what advantage The Covenant holds here.
Smaller I can give you. Faster would need to be sources, as would being able to take a few hits.

Keep in mind that, given that certain UNSC installations are able to fire shots at 4% of lightspeed, but have a seemingly smaller engagement radius, and that would imply that the other ships are going fast enough to make accuracy difficult.

Also, regarding tanking hits, I wouldn't say it's so clear. Especially since plasma, being a heat based weapon, would be dangerous to ME ships as it could shut them down.


Also biotics aren't rare, literally every Asari has them. Every. Single. One.
And how many Asari Commandos are there? Not. That. Many.

And among other species they are rare.

Also, remember that, unlike the ME races, the Covenant are not unwilling to render worlds uninhabitable for some time.


I was also saying function like Plasma for the sake of being able to down shields better than kinetic rounds, though M3's own use of Laser and Plasma weaponry should make that advantage Covie's had completely nil.
ME doesn't really use Plasma weaponry(at least, not the main races), and their laser weaponry is relatively un-advanced, compared to the Covenant. Which can use it's lasers to destroy ships, seemingly at some distance.

Furthermore, I don't think you can really state that a different kinetic weapon would avoid the traditional weakness kinetic weapons have vs shields in Halo.

[Tiki Snakes]

I always thought, personally, that the shields in mass effect and Halo are pretty comparable in how they work and what they can take, to be quite honest.

To the point where it's a big enough similarity that back when I had the mad idea of hacking together a scifi campaign setting out of several settings mashed together, that was one of the most obvious things to use to stitch their history together.

Which is to say that of course covenant weaponry would be good against ME shields. Thats what it's for, even in it's own game. And weapons good against shields in ME would almost certainly be comparably good against Covenant based shields. Tech Armour and/or Barriers muddy this comparison a little, but not much and aren't quite so widely available amongst ME troops as shields are, far as I can tell anyway. Though this varies by race.
(Didn't bring any weaponry that excels against barriers and you are fighting the Asari? You are going to have a bad time).

I can't help but be amused by considering how the match-ups could work out. I mean, any scenario involving something without prior knowledge bumping into and trying to bully the Krogan about? Popcorn time.

EDIT - Oh, just a point regarding rendering worlds uninhabitable and generally going to necessary extremes;
That varies a little by race. Batarians terrorists are literally attempting this in the first game, it's not a big leap to think they'd do it in an all-out-war situation if it wasn't a world they actually wanted or thought they could hold. I'm sure it also mentions somewhere around there that this is infact exactly the kind of ruthlessness the Turians are prepared to use and one of the reasons they make such a dangerous enemy. They are more than prepared to utilise doomsday devices in order to win. See Genophage for details.

[BRC]

Your facts are seriously in error. Yes, they aren't generally shown in long range fights, but that's largely a matter of cinematics, which also hits ME, as well as the specific fights being shown being close in actions. Of course, we are somewhat hampered by the fact that there are little, if any, firm numbers given for the ranges. Energy Projectors are given ranges of "over 100 km".

Additionally, some of the engagement range would be dependent on the acceleration the combatants are able to go at.
I presented no Facts about the Halo universe to be in error, I merely raised a question (Are Haloverse ships stated to be able to engage effectivly outside "Cinematic" ranges), which you answered (Yes). Plenty of Sci-Fi settings focus on cinematic combat ranges without bothering to address the possibility of more "Realistic" space combat. It appears Halo is not one of them.

So all things considered I think we can assume that ME ships and HALO ships have similar effective combat ranges.

Also, remember that the Citadel races have fewer Dreadnaughts than a civilization of their size and power could, since the Treaty of Faraxen (sp) limited how many dreadnaughts they could build. The Humans got around this (and scared everybody) by building Carriers instead, and the Geth and Battarians never signed the treaty, so they have more ships.

One thing to discuss may be the Quarians. Are we calling them a "Citadel Race". IIRC it was established that the Quarians have one of the most powerful fleets in the galaxy, it just happens to double as their home so they're much less likely to actually use it.

ME3 sees the Quarians millitarizing their Flotilla to try to retake their homeworld but losing to the Geth once their ECW Superweapon is nullified (Implying the Geth Have the stronger fleet).


Of course the Geth have the benefit of not needing to build their ships with anything like Crew Quarters or Life support systems.

[Forum Explorer]

I presented no Facts about the Halo universe to be in error, I merely raised a question (Are Haloverse ships stated to be able to engage effectivly outside "Cinematic" ranges), which you answered (Yes). Plenty of Sci-Fi settings focus on cinematic combat ranges without bothering to address the possibility of more "Realistic" space combat. It appears Halo is not one of them.

So all things considered I think we can assume that ME ships and HALO ships have similar effective combat ranges.

Also, remember that the Citadel races have fewer Dreadnaughts than a civilization of their size and power could, since the Treaty of Faraxen (sp) limited how many dreadnaughts they could build. The Humans got around this (and scared everybody) by building Carriers instead, and the Geth and Battarians never signed the treaty, so they have more ships.

One thing to discuss may be the Quarians. Are we calling them a "Citadel Race". IIRC it was established that the Quarians have one of the most powerful fleets in the galaxy, it just happens to double as their home so they're much less likely to actually use it.

ME3 sees the Quarians millitarizing their Flotilla to try to retake their homeworld but losing to the Geth once their ECW Superweapon is nullified (Implying the Geth Have the stronger fleet).


Of course the Geth have the benefit of not needing to build their ships with anything like Crew Quarters or Life support systems.

I felt that giving the Citadel races the Quarians and the Geth would be stacking the deck too much in the favor of the Citadel. To my understanding that leaves Humans, Asari, Salarians, Turians, Volus, Hanar, Elecor, and Drell.

Of course this being a war scenario and not just a battle, either side allying with either the Geth or the Quarians isn't out of the question if you think it fits their personality.

[Tavar]

I always thought, personally, that the shields in mass effect and Halo are pretty comparable in how they work and what they can take, to be quite honest.

Which is to say that of course covenant weaponry would be good against ME shields. Thats what it's for, even in it's own game. And weapons good against shields in ME would almost certainly be comparably good against Covenant based shields. Tech Armour and/or Barriers muddy this comparison a little, but not much and aren't quite so widely available amongst ME troops as shields are, far as I can tell anyway. Though this varies by race.
(Didn't bring any weaponry that excels against barriers and you are fighting the Asari? You are going to have a bad time).

They're really, really not.


EDIT - Oh, just a point regarding rendering worlds uninhabitable and generally going to necessary extremes;
That varies a little by race. Batarians terrorists are literally attempting this in the first game, it's not a big leap to think they'd do it in an all-out-war situation if it wasn't a world they actually wanted or thought they could hold. I'm sure it also mentions somewhere around there that this is infact exactly the kind of ruthlessness the Turians are prepared to use and one of the reasons they make such a dangerous enemy. They are more than prepared to utilise doomsday devices in order to win. See Genophage for details.
Not really: it's a fact that all the Citadel races don't want to destroy Garden worlds(which was part of the problem with Rachni and Krogan). Yes, Batarian terrorists were willing to do so, but the fact that they're terrorists should be a bit of a clue that they aren't exactly operating within the law.

Now, Turians are willing to go farther, but even they don't like damage to garden planets(keeping in mind here we're talking about acts that damage the planet's eco-system for some time). For Example, ME1.


I presented no Facts about the Halo universe to be in error, I merely raised a question (Are Haloverse ships stated to be able to engage effectivly outside "Cinematic" ranges), which you answered (Yes). Plenty of Sci-Fi settings focus on cinematic combat ranges without bothering to address the possibility of more "Realistic" space combat. It appears Halo is not one of them.

So all things considered I think we can assume that ME ships and HALO ships have similar effective combat ranges.
Ah, sorry. Your presentation seemed to designate that Halo did have lower ranges.


Also, remember that the Citadel races have fewer Dreadnaughts than a civilization of their size and power could, since the Treaty of Faraxen (sp) limited how many dreadnaughts they could build. The Humans got around this (and scared everybody) by building Carriers instead, and the Geth and Battarians never signed the treaty, so they have more ships.
This is actually problematic. The Battarians likely don't, given the way their society works and the fact it was Reaperized. Especially since other groups don't follow the treaty, and the Citadel fleet is still considered the most powerful force.

This is a lack for the Citadel species, especially if we don't give Thanix cannons, as without those their smaller ships are much, much less effective against the Covenant.

Also, the Carrier thing...blarg. Stupid Human-wank is the worst kind of Human wank. Still, the Fighters likely won't be too effective against the Covenant given the latter's point defense system.

The Geth would be something of a powerhouse, though they're extremely isolationist, and likely wouldn't get involved unless someone pushed them. Which would likely be the Quarians, because the Quarians are idiots.

One thing to discuss may be the Quarians. Are we calling them a "Citadel Race". IIRC it was established that the Quarians have one of the most powerful fleets in the galaxy, it just happens to double as their home so they're much less likely to actually use it.

ME3 sees the Quarians millitarizing their Flotilla to try to retake their homeworld but losing to the Geth once their ECW Superweapon is nullified (Implying the Geth Have the stronger fleet).
Quarians having a strong fleet might make a bit of sense, but one issue is that their fleet is very fragile regarding casualties, and worse that they don't have the best relations with the Citadel. Plus, they're almost mono-focused on the Geth. That focus could easily be their doom.

[Tiki Snakes]

They're really, really not.

Ping with rapid small-arms fire or specialised stuff that does more damage against them (often glowy and non-bullet based) to drop them? Goes down pretty instantly to a rocket in the face? Comes back up a few moments later if people stop bothering you for a moment or two?

Maybe my memory is faulty, but they feel pretty much indistinguishable to me.

[Tavar]

Ping with rapid small-arms fire or specialised stuff that does more damage against them (often glowy and non-bullet based) to drop them? Goes down pretty instantly to a rocket in the face? Comes back up a few moments later if people stop bothering you for a moment or two?

Maybe my memory is faulty, but they feel pretty much indistinguishable to me.

....
Are you being serious? I honestly can't tell, because you seem to be saying that the only things that matter are appearances. Hell, by your rubric apparently there are no differences between, say, a bicycle and a motorcycle.

[Ulm11]

The Covenant would win a fight against the Citadel races thanks to the glaring Achilles heels that are the Mass Relays. For once that happens this scenario would play out much the same way that the Reaper trap was supposed to, as in the Covenant would wipe out every Mass Relay they can touch and then pick apart the divided races at their leisure as without the Relays the various Citadel fleets would have no way to actually support each other.

[Tiki Snakes]

I'm talking about how they work in the games. About how much shooty and what types of shooty it takes to drop each shield and how the shield responds to being dropped.

I'm saying that in-game, the difference in performance and feel is pretty minimal.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm talking about how they work in the games. About how much shooty and what types of shooty it takes to drop each shield and how the shield responds to being dropped.

I'm saying that in-game, the difference in performance and feel is pretty minimal.

That goes for seriously just about every force field ever there Tiki. They all work more or less the same its just what are the quirks that may apply. Covernants are purely generic ones though, its not technobabbled how they work anywhere.

In Mass Effect's case though they work for a particular reason in the lore of them which is that they use the proverbial mass effect to deflect things and thus are properly called kinetic barriers. While this may not hold up in-game entirely it would mean that in theory the right type of weapon should just ignore them.

Fortunately (for ME) most of the Covenant uses plasma/particle weapons not lasers. Which seems to be more of a grey area.

(Also at a meta-level something in a video resembling Halo, never would have thought of that)

[Tiki Snakes]

Well, I'm ignoring both sides related technobabble for the most part, but the concept of energy weapons doing more to the shields, the way that a number of smaller hits can take a larger toll than you otherwise would expect for reasons, etc, the way the shield actually feels in play and how you deal with getting rid of one, I honestly feel that they work out to be eerily similar, not simply because they are both personal energy shields.

Honestly, they always felt pretty similar even for shields in videogames in so many ways. I honestly don't recall any significant differences in apparent strength or particulars of function at all.

[Tavar]

Well, I'm ignoring both sides related technobabble for the most part,
So, in a debate about their capabilities, you're ignoring things related to their capabilities. Interesting choice.

but the concept of energy weapons doing more to the shields,
That's kinda odd: in the first game, and in the lore, energy weapons should bypass shields almost entirely. Hell, that was the point of one of the ammo types, phasic rounds: it turned part of the ammo into energy/plasma, which bypassed the shield and did damage to health directly.

the way that a number of smaller hits can take a larger toll than you otherwise would expect for reasons
Not sure what you mean. Regarding Halo, a number of smaller hits actually is a somewhat worse idea(at least in SP), as since physical shots do less damage per hit, they end up being much less effective than a similar number of plasma shots.

[Forum Explorer]

The Covenant would win a fight against the Citadel races thanks to the glaring Achilles heels that are the Mass Relays. For once that happens this scenario would play out much the same way that the Reaper trap was supposed to, as in the Covenant would wipe out every Mass Relay they can touch and then pick apart the divided races at their leisure as without the Relays the various Citadel fleets would have no way to actually support each other.

Hmm, that raises an interesting question of how vulnerable the relays actually are. I mean they are Reaper tech, and are designed to exist for billions of years. (unless the Reapers do some repairs every cycle) But they also don't have any weapons or anything as far as I'm aware. I do know that a destroyed one can be repaired though.






This is actually problematic. The Battarians likely don't, given the way their society works and the fact it was Reaperized. Especially since other groups don't follow the treaty, and the Citadel fleet is still considered the most powerful force.

This is a lack for the Citadel species, especially if we don't give Thanix cannons, as without those their smaller ships are much, much less effective against the Covenant.

Also, the Carrier thing...blarg. Stupid Human-wank is the worst kind of Human wank. Still, the Fighters likely won't be too effective against the Covenant given the latter's point defense system.

The Geth would be something of a powerhouse, though they're extremely isolationist, and likely wouldn't get involved unless someone pushed them. Which would likely be the Quarians, because the Quarians are idiots.

Quarians having a strong fleet might make a bit of sense, but one issue is that their fleet is very fragile regarding casualties, and worse that they don't have the best relations with the Citadel. Plus, they're almost mono-focused on the Geth. That focus could easily be their doom.

I believe that I stated we should go with tech as of the beginning of Mass Effect 3. So Thanix Cannons are in, and the Batarians wouldn't have been massacred. (Seriously if we go after the war, the citadel races can't fight back because everyone has been devastated.)

[DaedalusMkV]

The one thing a lot of people haven't seemed to notice thus far, but is extremely important to the outcome of this fight:

Both sides have tactical FTL drives, but only one side (the Covenant) has FTL sensors. This means that the Covenant can, by and large, dictate the opening of any engagement. They need never fight unless they have a numerical advantage and the element of surprise.

Pre-Halo 2 Covenant loses this battle. While their tech is theoretically capable of extremely precise FTL jumps, in practice they just don't have the knowledge to take advantage of it and mostly use conventional, "show up at a random point a decent distance from the objective and slowly fly there", FTL. Between Halo and Halo 2, Cortana accidentally teaches them how to make Slipspace jumps down to an almost absurd level of precision, which puts their FTL actually a bit better than Mass Effect has thanks to its superior speed, which is what gives them the edge in this fight, at least IMO.

OTOH, I actually think post-ME3 (Destroy Ending) Citadel versus post-Halo 3 Covenant Races would be a very interesting match up. Which utterly shattered, technologically neutered former powerhouse manages to get its **** together in time to win the fight?

[Macros]

Well, in a post-apocalyptic grudge match between the two, I think the Citadel at least have the advantage of finaly having the Quarians / Geth (and possibly both of them), and probably the Krogan on their side. And those races did not suffer the same onslaught that hit the Humans, Turians and Asari (come to think of it, the Salarians got out of the war relatively unscathed too, for all we know. And they have a fleet of stealth dreadnoughts). But I'll admit, morale probably wouldn't be too high to go fight yet another war. Heck, even the Krogan would probably ask for a break !

EDIT : on the other hand, they need time to fix the Mass Relays. Which is a problem.

[Tiki Snakes]

So, in a debate about their capabilities, you're ignoring things related to their capabilities. Interesting choice.

That's kinda odd: in the first game, and in the lore, energy weapons should bypass shields almost entirely. Hell, that was the point of one of the ammo types, phasic rounds: it turned part of the ammo into energy/plasma, which bypassed the shield and did damage to health directly.

Not sure what you mean. Regarding Halo, a number of smaller hits actually is a somewhat worse idea(at least in SP), as since physical shots do less damage per hit, they end up being much less effective than a similar number of plasma shots.

Firstly, I'm going by capabilities shown, rather than capabilties written about, because that's simply more immediate to me and my experience.

Secondly; Phasic Rounds never entirely bypassed shields however, only ever percentages even at ludicrously high levels. And anything we see close to energy weapons later on usually damages shields first anyway, especially in later games.

Thirdly, going by memory of how things feel rather than like, looking it up or testing anything, I always got the impression that multiple hits to overload the shield was a thing in Halo. Specifically, it usually takes a certain number of hits from each gun to break the shield and it tended to not matter how direct the hit was, only that it impacted the shield. So bashing it with a couple of innacurate shots to take it down then switching to a carefully aimed headshot was very much the way of things if using regular, non-covenant weaponry (the principle still holds true when it comes to covenant guns, it's just they take it down quicker and tend to do less to health afterwards).

[warty goblin]

Thirdly, going by memory of how things feel rather than like, looking it up or testing anything, I always got the impression that multiple hits to overload the shield was a thing in Halo. Specifically, it usually takes a certain number of hits from each gun to break the shield and it tended to not matter how direct the hit was, only that it impacted the shield. So bashing it with a couple of innacurate shots to take it down then switching to a carefully aimed headshot was very much the way of things if using regular, non-covenant weaponry (the principle still holds true when it comes to covenant guns, it's just they take it down quicker and tend to do less to health afterwards).

Hit location definitely mattered. A sniper rifle headshot is a kill, even against somebody with full shields. A sniper rifle body shot drops shields IIRC, but doesn't kill. The same pattern plays out with all the other guns, albeit with smaller differences in outcome.

[Logic]

I think there is a glaring omission in this thread. Lots of discussion of infantry and space combat, but little to no vehicular combat.

So, we need to compare vehicles!

On the Mass effect side we see four vehicles that I can recall.
Mako
Hammerhead
Atlas Mech
Kodiak Shuttle*

On the Halo side we have:
Covenant Ghost
Covenant Scarab
Covenant Wraith (and the AA variant)
Covenant Banshee*
Covenant Chopper
Covenant Revenant
Covenant Locust (Halo Wars anti-building unit, similar to a smaller Scarab)
UNSC Warthog
UNSC Scorpion
UNSC Mongoose
UNSC Hornet*
UNSC Pelican*

I personally think that by virtue of diversity, Halo wins the ground vehicle war. Mass Effects 4 vehicles don't show all that much capability that something from the other side can't replicate, while the Halo 'verse fills roles that are vacant in the Mass effect 'verse.

*Yes, these ARE air vehicles, but they are featured heavily in ground support roles.

[Tectonic Robot]

So, in a debate about their capabilities, you're ignoring things related to their capabilities. Interesting choice.

There's no need to be snippy, man.

The precision and such of the Covenant fleet's FTL hops seem to give them the win, as far as I can see.

[AttilaTheGeek]

But what if distilled the fight down to a protagonist-to-protagonist, space hero showdown? It would depend on Shepard's class...

Shepard has shields, but the MC has bigger shields. Shepard has guns, but the MC has bigger guns. Shepard has melee that knocks people down, but the MC has melee that breaks cars. The Master Chief outperforms Shepard in pretty much every way.
Victor: Master Chief

Shepard brings mobility to compete against the MC's firepower. Here, it's down to weaponry and terrain; if the MC can shoot them down before they close to melee, then he takes the fight. However, if Shepard can hide, close to melee, and oneshot the MC before he can react, then it's Shepard's game.
Victor: depends on terrain.

Here, the adept's flexibility gives Shepard a huge advantage. All the Master Chief can do is shoot, but Shepard has a variety of powers and combos that can incapacitate the MC. He might be able to steal a win if he can get in a couple lucky shots during a Singularity, but with Lift, Barrier, Throw, and Warp on their side, Adept Shepard would be hard-pressed to lose.
Victor: Shepard

The Master Chief's firepower is impressive, but so is the Sentinel's defensive ability. Tech Armor, Barrier, and Stasis make it difficult to get the damage in, but if he can, the Master Chief would be able to take it home. This is the one I'm least sure about, but I'd say they're evenly matched.
Victor: Draw

The Engineer has flexibility, but it doesn't have the control of the Adept, the defense of the Sentinel, or the burst damage of the Infiltrator. I see Engineer Shepard putting up a good fight, but because they try to do everything at once, I don't think they can stand up. They don't have enough defense to withstand the MC's onslaught or enough damage to take him down quickly.
Victor: Master Chief

If you've ever played a sniper battle, you know the supreme importance of stealth and maneuvering. The relative time-slowdown lets Infiltrator Shepard be a better sniper than the Master Chief, but, more importantly, their Tactical Cloak ensures that they'll always be able to dictate how and when the fight goes down. They'll be able to get the jump on the MC every time, and that's an advantage that can't be negated by any amount of firepower.
Victor: Shepard

[Thrawn183]

If we are counting books at all, the Covenant brought a super-capital class ship to Reach that is definitely Sovereign class. The thing even uses beam weapons to slice stuff up instead of piddly little balls of plasma.

[Tiki Snakes]

I don't know, Attila. Between having as much big-gun as they care to bring, I can't help but feel you're selling the Soldier rather short. I know I always felt pretty damn secure, between Adrenaline Rush and Inferno ammo. I mean, at max ranks anything without a shield is basically already dead and with full Adrenaline Rush, time basically passes if and when Shepherd allows it to, that power is amazing. The fact that it restores shields as well if I recall correctly and haven't gone entirely potty is just icing on the cake at that point.

I'm not entirely sure what Master-Chief is expected to do at that point, really.

[Ronnoc]

One thing that might make a ME races vs Covenant fight interesting is the Geth/quarian interaction. Covenant AI tech is woefully backwards compared to their infrastructure and with a bit of study from Daro'Xen or a decent number of Geth runtimes the ME races might be able to cripple the Covenant without a single shot.

That said I'm not certain if the Geth/Quarians are permitted by the conventions of the original post.

[Tavar]

There's no need to be snippy, man.

The precision and such of the Covenant fleet's FTL hops seem to give them the win, as far as I can see.
Analogy: I see Tiki Snakes saying that, in order to compare the capabilities cars, he's going to look at them, and disregard the actual mechanical qualities. And this is somehow going to be accurate. And despite being told that this is somewhat questionable, he insists that this is a valid method.

Yes, I might be a bit snippy, but when someone insists on being wrong, well, that's going to happen.

Firstly, I'm going by capabilities shown, rather than capabilties written about, because that's simply more immediate to me and my experience.
Right. You're judging the capabilities of a car based on what it looks like, rather than the actual engineering. There should be an obvious problem with this, at least in terms of a vs thread.


Secondly; Phasic Rounds never entirely bypassed shields however, only ever percentages even at ludicrously high levels. And anything we see close to energy weapons later on usually damages shields first anyway, especially in later games.
I wasn't saying that they completely bypassed them. Just that the energy component bypassed them.

Additionally, the energy weapons that deal more damage seem to be ones that are continuous in nature, which is noted as a big weakness to ME shields, but not Halo ones. In Halo, the type of damage is more important.


Thirdly, going by memory of how things feel rather than like, looking it up or testing anything, I always got the impression that multiple hits to overload the shield was a thing in Halo. Specifically, it usually takes a certain number of hits from each gun to break the shield and it tended to not matter how direct the hit was, only that it impacted the shield. So bashing it with a couple of innacurate shots to take it down then switching to a carefully aimed headshot was very much the way of things if using regular, non-covenant weaponry (the principle still holds true when it comes to covenant guns, it's just they take it down quicker and tend to do less to health afterwards).
Not true at all, as mentioned. Both the type of weapons and the location of the shots could and did matter. The rate of fire didn't matter as much, except that it allowed weaker weapons to be better as it raised the amount of shields they could take down in a given unit of time.



One thing that might make a ME races vs Covenant fight interesting is the Geth/quarian interaction. Covenant AI tech is woefully backwards compared to their infrastructure and with a bit of study from Daro'Xen or a decent number of Geth runtimes the ME races might be able to cripple the Covenant without a single shot.

That said I'm not certain if the Geth/Quarians are permitted by the conventions of the original post.

That's...not really a realistic chance. The only time Covenant ships have been hacked is from the inside(ie, direct interfacing with the computer cores). Keep in mind that the Covenant do have AI's. Not the best, no, but I don't think it's going to be easy, even if inside them.

[Forum Explorer]

If we are counting books at all, the Covenant brought a super-capital class ship to Reach that is definitely Sovereign class. The thing even uses beam weapons to slice stuff up instead of piddly little balls of plasma.

We are not counting books at all.



One thing that might make a ME races vs Covenant fight interesting is the Geth/quarian interaction. Covenant AI tech is woefully backwards compared to their infrastructure and with a bit of study from Daro'Xen or a decent number of Geth runtimes the ME races might be able to cripple the Covenant without a single shot.

That said I'm not certain if the Geth/Quarians are permitted by the conventions of the original post.

Geth/Quarians aren't automatically on one side or the other. So their involvement comes down to a mixture of diplomacy and personalities of the factions involved.

[DaedalusMkV]

If we are counting books at all, the Covenant brought a super-capital class ship to Reach that is definitely Sovereign class. The thing even uses beam weapons to slice stuff up instead of piddly little balls of plasma.

That's a Covenant Supercarrier, and those things are nightmares. Forget Sovereign-class, they're 30 kilometers long and pack enough firepower to destroy whole fleets, not to mention shields that can tank a direct hit from a 20-megaton nuke without going down. You could pack more than 30 Reaper Capital Ships into one and still have plenty of room to spare, and one-on-one I'm pretty sure the Reaper couldn't even bring down the Supercarrier's shields before being sliced to shreds by its Energy Projectors.

AFAIK, only two of them were destroyed in the Covenant-UNSC War. One by pulling it into a Slipspace rift and the other by a star going nova. The UNSC in its entirety simply did not have the military strength to take one down by conventional means. Luckily, the Covenant only has access to a handful of them, because I'm pretty sure even the Reapers would be seriously hesitant to take one on.

[Soras Teva Gee]

We are not counting books at all.

Any particular reason why not? Supplemental material is a pretty big part of Halo mythos. And while not all of it is nessecarily to be treated alike (looking at you Legends! Except Spartan 1337 who's hypercanon) it IS pretty well connected to the games. So far anyways.

I'm sure a lot of people that either didn't read certain books or weren't up on wiki diving were probably pretty suprised to find out humanity once was on par with the Forerunners in Halo 4. What the heck is up with the Storm Covernant is also being dealt with there.

For a smaller example the beautiful monstrosity (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/CSO-class_supercarrier) that is the 30 km supercarrier appears in books years before appearing in Halo: Reach.

Probably the biggest though would be John-117 and Cortana's entire origin stories, including just who the heck this Catherine Halsey woman is!

Nevermind the games are less setting pieces about a interstellar war and more big giant fun survival courses. Kinda hard to gauge what is what without going to supplemental stuff. Exhibit A would be the Halo 1 Pistol.

[Forum Explorer]

Any particular reason why not? Supplemental material is a pretty big part of Halo mythos. And while not all of it is nessecarily to be treated alike (looking at you Legends! Except Spartan 1337 who's hypercanon) it IS pretty well connected to the games. So far anyways.

I'm sure a lot of people that either didn't read certain books or weren't up on wiki diving were probably pretty suprised to find out humanity once was on par with the Forerunners in Halo 4. What the heck is up with the Storm Covernant is also being dealt with there.

For a smaller example the beautiful monstrosity (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/CSO-class_supercarrier) that is the 30 km supercarrier appears in books years before appearing in Halo: Reach.

Probably the biggest though would be John-117 and Cortana's entire origin stories, including just who the heck this Catherine Halsey woman is!

Nevermind the games are less setting pieces about a interstellar war and more big giant fun survival courses. Kinda hard to gauge what is what without going to supplemental stuff. Exhibit A would be the Halo 1 Pistol.

I don't trust the books, and I've heard that some very very bad numbers are present. I prefer to stick with one source that will likely be at least relatively consistent.

[Tavar]

Without the books, there are basically no numbers present. Ergo, neither side can win because we don't know what Halo is capable of. Sure, they have FTL, but no notion of how fast or accurate it is. No notion of how strong any weapons are. Little knowledge of the size of any Halo-verse entity. Which kind of eliminates any ability to have a vs fight.

[HamHam]

Without the books, there are basically no numbers present. Ergo, neither side can win because we don't know what Halo is capable of. Sure, they have FTL, but no notion of how fast or accurate it is. No notion of how strong any weapons are. Little knowledge of the size of any Halo-verse entity. Which kind of eliminates any ability to have a vs fight.

Deciding based on one batch of made up numbers over another batch of made of numbers doesn't seem very useful either.

[Tavar]

Deciding based on one batch of made up numbers over another batch of made of numbers doesn't seem very useful either.

Then why participate in a discussion about those numbers? Seriously, why? That's what a vs debate is, after all.

[Callos_DeTerran]

The Covenant would win a fight against the Citadel races thanks to the glaring Achilles heels that are the Mass Relays. For once that happens this scenario would play out much the same way that the Reaper trap was supposed to, as in the Covenant would wipe out every Mass Relay they can touch and then pick apart the divided races at their leisure as without the Relays the various Citadel fleets would have no way to actually support each other.

The Covenant cannot touch a mass relay, for many reasons. First, it takes events on a celestial scale (asteroids, stars exploding, etc.) to affect a mass relay due to how they are built. Keep in mind that the above example of 'star exploding' didn't destroy the relay but rather thrown out of where it was supposed to be.

The relays are made of an unknown but incredibly resilient material, the same material that the Citadel is built from, and are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged.

This is why they can't harm a relay, why they shouldn't is the destruction of a primary relay (as in actual destruction, not...whatever the Crucible does) will result in the destruction of the system that the relay is in. The Covenant would have to bring tremendous resources to bear to destroy a Relay (assuming they could in the first place) and then be prepared to have all those forces destroyed when the relay is destroyed.


Then why participate in a discussion about those numbers? Seriously, why? That's what a vs debate is, after all.

Not particularly, a vs. debate isn't just a discussion of the numbers but also mentality, potential, just which side you like more, examples pulled directly from the fictions in question etc. etc. There have been many a vs. thread with no numbers to speak of, but merely the impression of how they work based on how they are seen to work. This is very important too.

On the matter of plasma vs. ME shields and the example given of directed energy's weapon effectiveness versus Mass Effect shield/barrier, I don't believe that Covenant plasma technology would be particularly effective against ME shields/barrier or rather, they wouldn't be anymore effective against them then anything else. From my own, limited, experience with Covenant plasma weaponry it tends to rely on being plasma to burn it's way through shields and not much else. A case of the weapon being suited and even designed to burn through the shield. ME energy weapons are effective against shields not because they are energy (this actually seems irrelevant) but rather from the fact it is constant, powerful damage directed at a single point which rapidly drains the shield's/barrier's power. This is not something that Covenant plasma weaponry has going for it. What it has going for it is accuracy (semi-homing ammunition) and theoretically creating a more damaging impact then ME's standard issue rail-gun-esque weaponry which would put it at the same effectiveness (barring accuracy) as powerful assault rifles rather then a magic bullet that utterly pwns ME shields and barriers.

Also, do not bring Reapers into this. Nobody wants to see the effects of indoctrination on the Flood.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I don't trust the books, and I've heard that some very very bad numbers are present. I prefer to stick with one source that will likely be at least relatively consistent.

You've heard or you've seen for yourself? I'm also the first to support filing off total BS outlier examples and broad stroking things if need be.

Just here the various supplemental materials pretty much are the meat of the setting. Like I said the main characters whole backgrounds, NOT in game among other things. The games are great to play but are just not terribly informative for this kind of stuff. And focus mostly on a very narrow viewpoint with minimal exposition.

And in general are among the poorest mediums to analyze, because they have to use so many abstractions. From the blatant (can Master Chief really flip tanks?) to say how much damage (HP) a weapon does or the speeds of vechicles. Yet once you get away from literalism of depiction, and you always should, what IS there that can match up to the nominally official lore?

Also to be honest we don't even see much in the way of full fledged battles in games. And effectively no space battles. Unless they were in Reach and ODST when I borrowed them all to play my friend didn't have those two.

[Forum Explorer]

Without the books, there are basically no numbers present. Ergo, neither side can win because we don't know what Halo is capable of. Sure, they have FTL, but no notion of how fast or accurate it is. No notion of how strong any weapons are. Little knowledge of the size of any Halo-verse entity. Which kind of eliminates any ability to have a vs fight.

Why not? I mean lot's of sources don't have hard numbers and we can discuss vs matches with them no problem. We just take feats like normal.


You've heard or you've seen for yourself? I'm also the first to support filing off total BS outlier examples and broad stroking things if need be.

Just here the various supplemental materials pretty much are the meat of the setting. Like I said the main characters whole backgrounds, NOT in game among other things. The games are great to play but are just not terribly informative for this kind of stuff. And focus mostly on a very narrow viewpoint with minimal exposition.

And in general are among the poorest mediums to analyze, because they have to use so many abstractions. From the blatant (can Master Chief really flip tanks?) to say how much damage (HP) a weapon does or the speeds of vechicles. Yet once you get away from literalism of depiction, and you always should, what IS there that can match up to the nominally official lore?

Also to be honest we don't even see much in the way of full fledged battles in games. And effectively no space battles. Unless they were in Reach and ODST when I borrowed them all to play my friend didn't have those two.

I've heard. I haven't read any of the Halo books (Which to be honest is another reason I don't want in, it's not a good or fair reason by any measure which begs the question of why I'm even talking about it) though I have read 1 Mass Effect book and it was...spotty shall we say? I'm not expecting a higher level of quality from the Halo books.

Are the games truly so useless for a source? Because I suppose the books would have to be used then, but where do you draw the line of silliness?

[Tavar]

Why not? I mean lot's of sources don't have hard numbers and we can discuss vs matches with them no problem. We just take feats like normal.
And what feats are those? Without the books, there pretty much aren't many feats, not on ship-to-ship scale at least. Especially not with any meaning. If I say one ship in halo can one-shot another ship, what's pretty much useless. I mean, let's look at this:
The ship Gad can destroy the ship Qad in one shot with it's ManHa beam.

Now how effective is that against Halo or mass effect ships?


I've heard. I haven't read any of the Halo books (Which to be honest is another reason I don't want in, it's not a good or fair reason by any measure which begs the question of why I'm even talking about it) though I have read 1 Mass Effect book and it was...spotty shall we say? I'm not expecting a higher level of quality from the Halo books.

Are the games truly so useless for a source? Because I suppose the books would have to be used then, but where do you draw the line of silliness?
The games provide some information, but generally very little in terms of repeatable information, as seen by my thought exercise above.





The Covenant cannot touch a mass relay, for many reasons. First, it takes events on a celestial scale (asteroids, stars exploding, etc.) to affect a mass relay due to how they are built. Keep in mind that the above example of 'star exploding' didn't destroy the relay but rather thrown out of where it was supposed to be.

The relays are made of an unknown but incredibly resilient material, the same material that the Citadel is built from, and are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged.

This is why they can't harm a relay, why they shouldn't is the destruction of a primary relay (as in actual destruction, not...whatever the Crucible does) will result in the destruction of the system that the relay is in. The Covenant would have to bring tremendous resources to bear to destroy a Relay (assuming they could in the first place) and then be prepared to have all those forces destroyed when the relay is destroyed.
So they need to apply the same force/energy as an asteroid moving...how fast? It was sublight, if I remember, and likely not even moving a significant fraction of the speed of light.

As for needing to deploy lots of stuff, their weapon technology can be extremely destructive(energy projector). Plus, if it's a decent distance away(which can be achieved through a couple means), they can away got to slipspace to evade the blast.




Not particularly, a vs. debate isn't just a discussion of the numbers but also mentality, potential, just which side you like more, examples pulled directly from the fictions in question etc. etc. There have been many a vs. thread with no numbers to speak of, but merely the impression of how they work based on how they are seen to work. This is very important too.
Maybe, though in this case the lack of books/supplemental material is a problem because much of the Naval combat happens there. Especially the more "typical" combat, rather than the occasional glimpses you see in the games(which are usually noted to be atypical).

The fact that several things you mention deal with numbers at least indirectly doesn't, in my opinion, lend too much credence to the position, and I feel that someone arguing purely based on which they like more is, again, missing the point of a vs thread(it's not usually a popularity contest).


On the matter of plasma vs. ME shields and the example given of directed energy's weapon effectiveness versus Mass Effect shield/barrier, I don't believe that Covenant plasma technology would be particularly effective against ME shields/barrier or rather, they wouldn't be anymore effective against them then anything else. From my own, limited, experience with Covenant plasma weaponry it tends to rely on being plasma to burn it's way through shields and not much else. A case of the weapon being suited and even designed to burn through the shield. ME energy weapons are effective against shields not because they are energy (this actually seems irrelevant) but rather from the fact it is constant, powerful damage directed at a single point which rapidly drains the shield's/barrier's power. This is not something that Covenant plasma weaponry has going for it. What it has going for it is accuracy (semi-homing ammunition) and theoretically creating a more damaging impact then ME's standard issue rail-gun-esque weaponry which would put it at the same effectiveness (barring accuracy) as powerful assault rifles rather then a magic bullet that utterly pwns ME shields and barriers.
Pure energy weapons are effective because they ignore shields(codex). Plasma would have some characteristics like this. As would their laser weapons and quite likely the Energy projector.

[Knaight]

Analogy: I see Tiki Snakes saying that, in order to compare the capabilities cars, he's going to look at them, and disregard the actual mechanical qualities. And this is somehow going to be accurate. And despite being told that this is somewhat questionable, he insists that this is a valid method.

Try "drive them". He's talking about information gained from playing the games and observing how the game mechanics work, not looking at the front cover and going from there.

[Tavar]

Try "drive them". He's talking about information gained from playing the games and observing how the game mechanics work, not looking at the front cover and going from there.
Except he's not actually doing that: he's specifically talking only about surface level mechanics. Or, if he is, he's driving one on a flat highway in Iowa during a rainstorm, and the other through winding one-track roads through the Rocky's. You have to set a baseline, which isn't set in this at all. Largely because he's explicitly ignoring any context, because taking things out of context is apparently the most accurate measure possible in his opinion.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I've heard. I haven't read any of the Halo books (Which to be honest is another reason I don't want in, it's not a good or fair reason by any measure which begs the question of why I'm even talking about it) though I have read 1 Mass Effect book and it was...spotty shall we say? I'm not expecting a higher level of quality from the Halo books.

Are the games truly so useless for a source? Because I suppose the books would have to be used then, but where do you draw the line of silliness?

Such considerations really need to be determined by the context of the particular franchise. Halo makes extensive use of supplementals with clear connections to the main games. There thus far seems to be a fairly strong level of consistency being practiced beyond the games.

This is still not to say everything is automatically valid or the things are perfect, but those spots should be identified individually. It would probably be best to take everything in Legends (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Halo_Legends) with a big grain of salt and artistic license until/unless it gets referenced elsewhere. Because it does have certain problems in it. I'd be comfortable writing the whole thing off, but it does reference certain core elements like the Spartan IIs training that isn't really put out in the games but do show up time and again.

(Except for one particular segment (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Odd_One_Out) which is clearly canon!)

[HamHam]

Alright, here's how I see it shaking out:

The Covenant makes a lot of use of cannon fodder, while the Citadel forces are more organized around small special forces units. Even the baseline infantry or marine forces they use are on the level of Elites, and the equivalent of ODST troopers. A Krogan is basically the physical equal of a Spartan. Maybe even superior to.

So all the Grunts and Jackals and what not are going to just get slaughtered.

That forces the Covenant to send in the big guns.

At that point:

1) The Elites have nastier weapons over all.
2) The Citadel races have bionics and tech powers.
3) They both have cloaking technology, although it seems far more wide spread among the Covenant (IIRC one of the ME classes has a cloak but I don't remember any enemies actually using them).
4) The Elite armor is a lot more stupid, often with big bare patches.
5) Hunters are going to be a pain in the ass for ME troops to deal with. Those things can probably go one on one with a Krogan and wipe the floor with them.

So... it really comes down to which side has the biggest badass. If it's generic Covenant troops against Shepard? He/she will cut a swatch through them just as easily as Master Chief did. Arbiter vs some N7 mooks? Gonna be a Predator rip off as they all get impaled by invisible laser swords.

The two face off? I think Shepard has the edge there because ME is a squad game and as we all learned in DnD, action efficiency means that even if the Arbiter is better than any one of them, he's gonna go down in the first round from a Lift+Warp+Ignite combo.

[Xondoure]

One thing that might make a ME races vs Covenant fight interesting is the Geth/quarian interaction. Covenant AI tech is woefully backwards compared to their infrastructure and with a bit of study from Daro'Xen or a decent number of Geth runtimes the ME races might be able to cripple the Covenant without a single shot.

That said I'm not certain if the Geth/Quarians are permitted by the conventions of the original post.

EDI definitely is though. As well as the quarians and the geth being far from the only ones with advanced hacking tech. I'm 95% sure the Turians, Asari, and Salarians all have their own versions of EDI. Why? Because the Citadel races don't trust each other farther than they can biotically throw them (which is admittedly pretty far, but not so much on a galactic scale. :smalltongue:)

Something to keep in mind: it seems to be quite easy to sneak onto Covenant ships. Something which is not so simple in Mass Effect. Once on a covenant ship. Well... Shepard is as much an unstoppable force as MC if not more so. I'm picturing Vanguard Shep with an energy sword and my inner child is cackling gleefully.

[Tavar]

Alright, here's how I see it shaking out:

The Covenant makes a lot of use of cannon fodder, while the Citadel forces are more organized around small special forces units. Even the baseline infantry or marine forces they use are on the level of Elites, and the equivalent of ODST troopers. A Krogan is basically the physical equal of a Spartan. Maybe even superior to.

So all the Grunts and Jackals and what not are going to just get slaughtered.

That forces the Covenant to send in the big guns.
I think you're underselling the Covenant a bit. Basic elites are not on the level of ODST. They're a bit better(remember, the closest thing to the 'real' difficulty is heroic, where human NPC's get absolutely slaughtered).

And Elites are actually pretty terrifying. They can, seeming naturally, reach the same level as Spartans, at least physically. In practice, it would seem more like Spartans are about equivalent to the upper level Elites(more due to training and equipment than raw natural ability). A single Elite major(basically a lieutenant) is considered equal to an entire squad of marines on his own.

Don't forget that, as this is pre-Halo 3, you also have to deal with Brutes(who are stronger than Spartans!). If you're going to draw a comparison, Brutes are probably equal to Krogan.


So... it really comes down to which side has the biggest badass. If it's generic Covenant troops against Shepard? He/she will cut a swatch through them just as easily as Master Chief did. Arbiter vs some N7 mooks? Gonna be a Predator rip off as they all get impaled by invisible laser swords.

The two face off? I think Shepard has the edge there because ME is a squad game and as we all learned in DnD, action efficiency means that even if the Arbiter is better than any one of them, he's gonna go down in the first round from a Lift+Warp+Ignite combo.
Because a fair fight is one named character from one universe verses an entire squad from another :smallsigh:

A fairer fight would be Half-Jaw, the Arbiter, Tatarus, and maybe the two commando's from Halo 3's co-op campaign fighting the sqaud. Or parts of them.

Of course, this is all pretty irrelevant, given Covenant tactics vs worlds.

[Xondoure]

Alright, here's how I see it shaking out:

The Covenant makes a lot of use of cannon fodder, while the Citadel forces are more organized around small special forces units. Even the baseline infantry or marine forces they use are on the level of Elites, and the equivalent of ODST troopers. A Krogan is basically the physical equal of a Spartan. Maybe even superior to.

So all the Grunts and Jackals and what not are going to just get slaughtered.

That forces the Covenant to send in the big guns.

At that point:

1) The Elites have nastier weapons over all.
2) The Citadel races have bionics and tech powers.
3) They both have cloaking technology, although it seems far more wide spread among the Covenant (IIRC one of the ME classes has a cloak but I don't remember any enemies actually using them).
4) The Elite armor is a lot more stupid, often with big bare patches.
5) Hunters are going to be a pain in the ass for ME troops to deal with. Those things can probably go one on one with a Krogan and wipe the floor with them.

So... it really comes down to which side has the biggest badass. If it's generic Covenant troops against Shepard? He/she will cut a swatch through them just as easily as Master Chief did. Arbiter vs some N7 mooks? Gonna be a Predator rip off as they all get impaled by invisible laser swords.

The two face off? I think Shepard has the edge there because ME is a squad game and as we all learned in DnD, action efficiency means that even if the Arbiter is better than any one of them, he's gonna go down in the first round from a Lift+Warp+Ignite combo.

1) The nastier weapons I don't see. Mass effect is using relativistic shots. That's crazy powerful. But maybe someone can fill me in on why Halo weapons are so deadly.
2) Yes
3) in ME2 cloaking technology is in the prototype stages. By 3 it's definitely gotten around. Geth have had it for a long time even in 2.
4) Admittedly, no one wears helmets in Mass Effect.
5) Grunt vs. the Rachni. Nuff said.

@Covenant vs. the Worlds. Without the Relays, I really don't see that happening to anywhere besides earth. (are we going with a two earths theory here? or what?)

[HamHam]

I think you're underselling the Covenant a bit. Basic elites are not on the level of ODST. They're a bit better(remember, the closest thing to the 'real' difficulty is heroic, where human NPC's get absolutely slaughtered).

And Elites are actually pretty terrifying. They can, seeming naturally, reach the same level as Spartans, at least physically. In practice, it would seem more like Spartans are about equivalent to the upper level Elites(more due to training and equipment than raw natural ability). A single Elite major(basically a lieutenant) is considered equal to an entire squad of marines on his own.

Don't forget that, as this is pre-Halo 3, you also have to deal with Brutes(who are stronger than Spartans!). If you're going to draw a comparison, Brutes are probably equal to Krogan.

Is Master Chief the best of the best even by Spartan standards? Or is he an average Spartan? Because he can by himself just wreck entire armies of Elites and Brutes.


Because a fair fight is one named character from one universe verses an entire squad from another :smallsigh:

Yeah, both sides get one player unit. And for the vast majority of any Halo game that is just MC or, in 2, the Arbiter. You do occasionally get NPCs but they mostly just run ahead to trigger pre scripted encounters. But for ME the player unit is Shepard and two other dudes. The only times you have less than that are at the beginning and the end.


1) The nastier weapons I don't see. Mass effect is using relativistic shots. That's crazy powerful. But maybe someone can fill me in on why Halo weapons are so deadly.

The Covenant has a laser sword that can one shot people through full shields. And much more frequent use of heavy weapons like the Fuel Rod Gun.


4) Admittedly, no one wears helmets in Mass Effect.

Speak for yourself, I always changed the settings so Shepard had his helmet on all the time like a smart person.

[Tavar]

4) Admittedly, no one wears helmets in Mass Effect.
5) Grunt vs. the Rachni. Nuff said.
No helmets should probably fall under Gameplay/story segregation. On the other hand, Elite armor is actually pretty tough, as are elites themselves. And the amount it covers seems far from minor in most images.

As for Grunt vs the Rachni, I'm not sure what you're saying unless you mean that Grunt would get killed because he'd engage a hunter in close combat.


@Covenant vs. the Worlds. Without the Relays, I really don't see that happening to anywhere besides earth. (are we going with a two earths theory here? or what?)
Technically, I believe the Covenant can use relays. Also, their FTL is pretty fast. Apparently it can cover ~38 LY per hour(wiki, I believe this is a book value, based on time it took to travel somewhere). ME drives go about 15ly per 24 hours(from wiki: reapers have FTL of 30ly per day, and are about twice as fast as other races).


Is Master Chief the best of the best even by Spartan standards? Or is he an average Spartan? Because he can by himself just wreck entire armies of Elites and Brutes.
Master Chief is considered to be at a level above most Spartans. He's also tied for the "most hyper-lethal" spot with the other playable spartan, Noble-6(Halo Reach).


Yeah, both sides get one player unit. And for the vast majority of any Halo game that is just MC or, in 2, the Arbiter. You do occasionally get NPCs but they mostly just run ahead to trigger pre scripted encounters. But for ME the player unit is Shepard and two other dudes. The only times you have less than that are at the beginning and the end.
If there's a whole party, what are the other members of said party doing?

And if we're talking about gameplay limitations as real, then I don't believe the ME characters can jump. That would be a bit of a negative.

[HamHam]

No helmets should probably fall under Gameplay/story segregation. On the other hand, Elite armor is actually pretty tough, as are elites themselves. And the amount it covers seems far from minor in most images.

I was looking at this (http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/intel/enemies) and it seems like depending on class they often have open face plates and/or little to no armor on their arms. Which seems like it's just begging for someone to shoot their arms off. So if the Covenant ever invades the Dead Space universe they are screwed.


Master Chief is considered to be at a level above most Spartans. He's also tied for the "most hyper-lethal" spot with the other playable spartan, Noble-6(Halo Reach).

So what is the average capability of a Spartan? Because the impression I've always got from things like Forward Onto Dawn and that one short in Legends with the ODST and the Spartan is that they are Space Marine levels of super human.


If there's a whole party, what are the other members of said party doing?

One's hitting him with Lift and the other is using Incinerate to finish of the combo, like I said.


And if we're talking about gameplay limitations as real, then I don't believe the ME characters can jump. That would be a bit of a negative.

Given how heavy their armor looks, I'm not sure that might not actually be a real problem.

[DaedalusMkV]

Actually, I'm going to say that the Covenant wouldn't pursue their standard "Kill the fleet and glass the planet" tactic for dealing with planets when fighting anyone but humanity. The reason that they're using that tactic at all in the main Halo chronology is that they're in the middle of a war of annihilation against the human race because they discovered that humans were Reclaimers, which would have totally upset the balance of power within the Covenant if anyone found out. Against anyone who isn't classed a Reclaimer by Forerunner tech (which is everyone who isn't a human or Forerunner) would not be targeted for genocide.

The usual Covenant MO is to move in, trash any sort of space-based military and infrastructure the race they're fighting happens to have and then force them into the Covenant as a client race, in the hopes of eventually subsuming their culture and using them to strengthen the Covenant as a whole in the future. I don't see why they wouldn't pursue this tactic against Krogans, Quarians, Turians and so forth. Of course, they still don't usually engage in a lot of ground combat in these cases, and you'd have to be pretty crazy to try and organize full-on military resistance when there are dozens of warships ready to rain hot plasma on you from orbit.

[Tavar]

I was looking at this (http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/intel/enemies) and it seems like depending on class they often have open face plates and/or little to no armor on their arms. Which seems like it's just begging for someone to shoot their arms off. So if the Covenant ever invades the Dead Space universe they are screwed.
Try this. You're looking at much later versions of the armor.



So what is the average capability of a Spartan? Because the impression I've always got from things like Forward Onto Dawn and that one short in Legends with the ODST and the Spartan is that they are Space Marine levels of super human.
Like I said, probably around the upper level elites. Probably varying from Zealot at the high range to Special operations being the low end of the scale for most. MC and Noble 6 would, in this case, be major outliers.




One's hitting him with Lift and the other is using Incinerate to finish of the combo, like I said.
So we're back to a named party of ME characters vs a single Halo character because that's the best case for ME characters.



Given how heavy their armor looks, I'm not sure that might not actually be a real problem.
Huh?


Actually, I'm going to say that the Covenant wouldn't pursue their standard "Kill the fleet and glass the planet" tactic for dealing with planets when fighting anyone but humanity. The reason that they're using that tactic at all in the main Halo chronology is that they're in the middle of a war of annihilation against the human race because they discovered that humans were Reclaimers, which would have totally upset the balance of power within the Covenant if anyone found out. Against anyone who isn't classed a Reclaimer by Forerunner tech (which is everyone who isn't a human or Forerunner) would not be targeted for genocide.

The usual Covenant MO is to move in, trash any sort of space-based military and infrastructure the race they're fighting happens to have and then force them into the Covenant as a client race, in the hopes of eventually subsuming their culture and using them to strengthen the Covenant as a whole in the future. I don't see why they wouldn't pursue this tactic against Krogans, Quarians, Turians and so forth. Of course, they still don't usually engage in a lot of ground combat in these cases, and you'd have to be pretty crazy to try and organize full-on military resistance when there are dozens of warships ready to rain hot plasma on you from orbit.
True. Though, given what almost happened to the Hunters, they aren't shy about glassing/threatening to glass worlds.

[HamHam]

Try this. You're looking at much later versions of the armor.

That is not actually a link.


So we're back to a named party of ME characters vs a single Halo character because that's the best case for ME characters.

No because that's what the standard is for each game.


Huh?

ME armor isn't powered, normally. So while Master Chief may be able to leap around like a jack rabbit, Shepard can probably barely hop while armored. Mass Effect fields might be a way round this but it doesn't seem like that's standard equipment.

[Callos_DeTerran]

So they need to apply the same force/energy as an asteroid moving...how fast? It was sublight, if I remember, and likely not even moving a significant fraction of the speed of light.

As for needing to deploy lots of stuff, their weapon technology can be extremely destructive(energy projector). Plus, if it's a decent distance away(which can be achieved through a couple means), they can away got to slipspace to evade the blast.

How fast is a bit unclear, but that's a hella lot of force/energy and, as a tactic, it would be an incredibly stupid one. For one the Relays seem to work better then 'slipspace' from what I've read on here in pure 'distance traveled in amount of time', two it destroys the entire system in question (Best hope you can get away after that!), and three it marks the Covenant as on a war of annihilation/genocide and one which deserves the full brunt of Citadal/Alliance military capabilities in order to stop. As in, they'll bust out the same tactics they did against the Reapers except Covenant ships are an order of a magnitude less durable then a Reaper and they'll prove far more effective (setting aside biological weaponry or orbital bombardment like the sort banned by Citadel treaties like firing asteroids through mass relays at planets).


The fact that several things you mention deal with numbers at least indirectly doesn't, in my opinion, lend too much credence to the position, and I feel that someone arguing purely based on which they like more is, again, missing the point of a vs thread(it's not usually a popularity contest).

Correction, they can deal with numbers but they don't always. And vs. threads are essentially debates on how well you can argue your chosen side's victory then anything else. So...yeah, they sorta are popularity contests in the few instances that a vs. thread is actually 'decided'.


Pure energy weapons are effective because they ignore shields(codex). Plasma would have some characteristics like this. As would their laser weapons and quite likely the Energy projector.

This is said but not shown. The collector particle rifle fires a beam of concentrated radiation and while it is certainly effective against shields it does not ignore them. Plasma is not pure energy either, especially not how it's typically used in sci-fi where it's just a generic term for super-heated material fired from a gun. Even so, my point is that lasers exist (prothean beam rifle, collector particle rifle) and shields still prove to be of use against them. Not as much but they still help. Thus it is an easy jump to see that plasma weaponry would be effective against ME shields but would not ignore them. The Covenant have a weapon edge in that their standard weaponry is effective against ME shields/barriers and that it is standard issue for their troops...but it is not a be-all end-all solution to them and doesn't take into account the fact that ME troops (at least some anyway) wear armor as well as shields/barriers.

The Covenant weapon edge is there, but it is somewhat negated by the fact that ME has a better defensive edge then the UNSC from what I can tell. This is ignoring the fact that a skilled engineer could make a plasma weapon explode in it's holder's hand just by tapping on their omni-tool.

[HamHam]

This is said but not shown. The collector particle rifle fires a beam of concentrated radiation and while it is certainly effective against shields it does not ignore them. Plasma is not pure energy either, especially not how it's typically used in sci-fi where it's just a generic term for super-heated material fired from a gun. Even so, my point is that lasers exist (prothean beam rifle, collector particle rifle) and shields still prove to be of use against them. Not as much but they still help. Thus it is an easy jump to see that plasma weaponry would be effective against ME shields but would not ignore them. The Covenant have a weapon edge in that their standard weaponry is effective against ME shields/barriers and that it is standard issue for their troops...but it is not a be-all end-all solution to them and doesn't take into account the fact that ME troops (at least some anyway) wear armor as well as shields/barriers.

And the armor is by and large ceramics which AFAIK are usually pretty heat resistant, not very good energy conductors, and don't melt easily. So the Covenant weapons pretty much have to vaporize the armor before they can get to anything vital, which is an energy expensive operation.

[Blackdrop]

Another thing that might be worth considering, is if my recollection is correct, UNSC grunts are just that: plain, though physically fit and well trained, human grunts. While even regular System Alliance soldiers have received gene therapy, probably to a lesser, but similar level that the SPARTAN-I's received. That, combined with the above concerning System Alliances defensive technology, the presence of biotics and tech abilities, and I have a hard time believing the Covenant would win any ground engagement that didn't involve mass attacks of brutes or elites.

[Tiki Snakes]

Just going to drive-by-respond to a couple of points raised in the last page or so.

Firstly, Krogan vs Hunters? Oh man, that's some happy Krogan. That's the kind of scrap they're going to love. I'm not honestly sure I reckon the hunters chances once the Krogan figure out they just need to punch them in the squishy orange bits, but you're looking at some awesome Kaiju fighting up to that point.

Seriously though, I personally prefer to kill Hunters by punching them in the back, they have some amazing armour but they also have some of the most hilarious weaknesses and they blow up easily enough.


Secondly, Shepherd and crew can jump in gameplay. Both as in clambering over barriers and context jumping over quite large gaps, as well as probably a few times in cinematics. Nothing compared to a floaty Spartan jump, though.


Thirdly, dealing with brutes. Brutes are like cut price krogan. None of the brutal inventiveness, no regenerating health or redundant systems, just big and tough and dumb. Brutes are easy, because they have big, often unarmoured heads and zero tactics. The only time you worry about a brute is because it has a gravity hammer, because that thing is awe inspiring when it comes to close quarters beat-downs. (It's also a Krogan's wet dream).

The thing about brutes is that they are numerous, seemingly in the mold of pre genophage Krogan. If they are an issue here, its on that logistical side.

However, they really are chumps. Elite's? Elite's are badass's. Quick, strong, cunning and tough. They are much more dangerous foes, and a lot more intimidating.

[Logic]

I don't know, Attila. Between having as much big-gun as they care to bring, I can't help but feel you're selling the Soldier rather short. I know I always felt pretty damn secure, between Adrenaline Rush and Inferno ammo. I mean, at max ranks anything without a shield is basically already dead and with full Adrenaline Rush, time basically passes if and when Shepherd allows it to, that power is amazing. The fact that it restores shields as well if I recall correctly and haven't gone entirely potty is just icing on the cake at that point.

I'm not entirely sure what Master-Chief is expected to do at that point, really.

I have to agree. the Soldier Shepard is my favorite Shepard. Adrenaline rush also refills your magazine, so put a Revenant or Typhoon on a soldier Shepard and the gun just DOESN'T STOP FIRING.

[supermonkeyjoe]

This is a touch one to judge, in theory the mass effect field technology should put the Mass Effect races way ahead of the Halo factions as they have a substance that can literally alter the laws of physics as we know it.

However the halo universe just tends to have really big numbers assigned to it in the books and other supplementary materials, the super Mac cannon apparently fires a "3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at 12,000 kilometers per second" because HELL YEAH BIG NUMBERS!!! But they still equip their soldiers with weapons firing ammunition designed in the 20th century, ummmmmm...

Mass effect definitely wins on the ground, the tech level of the average mass effect soldier is way above the level of the Halo humans and probably higher than most Covenant forces, personal shielding for everyone, Omni-tools, biotic powers for a select few, most covenant ground forces are severely outclassed.

The Mass effect forces also have the ability to innovate and adapt, the covenant forces would be so devoted to their worship of forerunner artefacts they would be at a significant disadvantage, how long do you think it would take a Specter, salarian STG team to capture a covenant ship and reverse engineer everything on board?

[SiuiS]

So I heard this was a very close comparison and I wanted this forum's take on the matter. Here are some guidelines. 1. Use Halo tech from the start of Halo 3. 2. Use Mass Effect descriptions from the Codex. 3. Try and use Halo information from the games only (same with Mass Effect). I don't trust the books.


And some scenarios to get things started

Covenant vs the Citadel Races: Assume no Halo installations for this one, or perhaps the Citadel is actually the Halo instead.

The covenant are united while the council races and such are not. Plus, being able to plow into the citadel basically crippling all galactic civilization is a theme.


Covenant vs the Reapers: If the first is too easy, then how about this?

This depends. There are two different versions of the reapers; the "show" reapers and the "tell" reapers. Even the codex is split. On one hand, terrifying invincible space demons. On the other hand, really sturdy ships with piss poor tactics.



Humanity from Halo instead of the System's Alliance. How does Master Chief fare in Shepards place?

How is MC at lateral thinking, diplomacy and sociopolitical problem solving? Shepard was so awesome because Shepard was a cybernetic ally enhanced high rank spec-ops NCO. Shepard went through Lateral thinking Under Stress boot camp seven times.

If MC can match that, I think MC would so a better job. Although that's for non-biotic shep.


In all scenarios, with no Halo arrays, Flood wins. Reapers could maybe compete with it, but I think that with no Halo array eventually all races would be overrun, even the computer ones. The Flood can control anything, anyone, anywhere, it's intellect is unrivalled, the most advanced AI in Halo was MINDRAPED by it, so it could also destroy Reapers, and the spores that travel would spread quickly.
The Flood were barely defeated by a race that could MAKE PLANETS, and it still destroyed them, corrupted their AIs, and razed their temples to the ground.
Flood wins.

Bo~ring


I thought the same about biotics being a huge edge for the ME races. I think the entire Citadel Council and associated hangers-on would have pretty much no trouble fighting off a Covenant invasion. If it was just humanity, though, that would change, since the Covenant would have us massively outnumbered.

Citadel is actually a fairly easy target. The ME universe has been purposefully lulled into complacency such that a massive alpha strike will cripple them.

Biotics, as of the codex and not gameplay, are actually a very swingy asset. They require maintenance in way of massive calorific intake and minimum rest requirements. They do phenomenally well as groups, but then a bomb costs you valuable soldiers. Putting them with squads of nonbiotics dilutes their potency but keeps losses down. They make certain tasks easier though.

More important than biotics are medical technologies, I think. Mass effect brings broad range manufacture and recycling of ALL MATERIALS, immediate construction and retrofitting, personal shield in which can be calibrated to stop strong winds if necessary, and can replace a EVA suit under emargency scenarios. Their medical system is "here, have some new skin and keep fighting" and can, short term, fix any problem up to cellular degeneration. And their ground force fire arms are literally beyond any modern day antimateriel weaponry. The codex makes it rather clear that the reason people have gun fights is because defensive tech kept pace with offensive tech; you keep peppering ablative defenses until there is an opening, and then you don't wound the target but remove masses of their body so medical aid can't fix it (because it's not damaged, it's not there).



Only Dreadnoughts have that level of power, though. And not even all Dread, as more advanced ones have more, smaller guns.

Only the dreadnought was spoken of in dialogue, but all ships have similar weapons. Their ballistics are all also finely calibrated and de-powered to avoid over penetration. I guess the me universe didn't want to send explosives?



As for as Biotics, while those are impressive, they're also rare, and quite possibly not as effective against the Covenant, as biotic fields have trouble with lasers and plasma(IE, standard equipment).

Biotics aren't really weak against these. Shield technology advanced from ME 1 to 2, and again into 3. They use an additional buffer of 'hardened shields' whatever the hay that means, and biotic fields stop plasma just as well as anything else. Heck, a standing defensive technique is to contain in unstable spatial explosion between two shield layers, so if you breach the shield you get hit with an explosion!


I feel like comparing fleet capabilities is rather missing the point considering how much effort both games go to to try and make infantry combat the deciding factor of war... somehow.

Modern theory is that naval supremacy can only go so far. And let's face it. For anything beyond scorched earth, you probably want the planet you're fighting on. So you have to go in and kill the roaches.

So that said, I would probably put Master Chief, and my comparison the Elites, Brutes, etc, on the level of a Krogan. Both sides have shields, both have weapons of about the same caliber, the Mass Effect standard being probably ahead of Human weapons in Halo but behind the Covenant's energy weapons. ME has magic powers though.

Overall I think Mass Effect ground forces would be superior to their Halo equivalent, and would be closer to being on even terms with Covenant forces. Mainly because shielded power armor seems to be standard issue.

PS:

To respond to one point, in ME2 humanity apparently has enough colonies that a handful can completely disappear and no one important really cares that much.[/QUOTE]

Shields, yes. Power armor, no. ME armor is ablative; it's ballistic fabric and protective plates. That's part of why the system focuses on not getting shot for long periods; shields can handle anything (except grenades sometimes) but your body armor can't.

And earth has ten billion people, Eden prime had 4 billion, can't remember the colonies, but they weren't individual cities. They were planet-wide colonies. Your little river doesn't give you an accurate view of planetary distance.


I am actually familiar with the settings and you are able to go across galaxies with The Normandy.

The Mass Effect relays take you across Galactic Clusters and into other galaxies.

Noooo, as has been covered, ME is all one galaxy. Reapers can cross the galaxy the hard way in about two weeks, but they have Sufficiently Advanced Technology. To the point that 'reaper tech' became a buzzword for "spooky magic better than us thing".


Humanity by itself has a Mass Effect relay in the Sol System, giving them a huge tactical advantage when it comes to moving in and around the galaxy as it's protected by all of humanity's best tech and industrial base.

Maybe. It's an often overlooked point that relays from a network; you can only take a relay to another, different relay.

Also, the guns as described on the normandy (a light cruiser) carries a few mass accelerators of it's own, and the guns in question in the "Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest in space" discussion are the broadside mass accelerators.

Even frigates have these guns, not just dreadnaughts, just not in the 3 decks 26 broadside accelerators sense.

Please read your friendly neighborhood Codex/ Ships and Vehicles.

If we allow Turians they also have Thanix Cannons, which are almost exactly like Mac Guns but with the added benefit of being molten metal which should function similarly to The Covenant's own Plasma technology.[/QUOTE]

Hmm. Thanix was superheated javelins of high velocity liquid metal, causing damage from heat and ballistic deformation, wasn't it? There's the ground troop homing plasma shotgun, but it was never adapted to ship use.



Those are notably either incredibly small(the ones you see in ME1 seem to be around a few hundred) or colonies that explicitly rejected System Alliance control.

No, all the ME human colonies number much more than that. The one colony that didn't was on the ground for a few months and still setting up housing for the colonists who weren't there yet.



Not necessarily. And especially not in some of the more odd applications. Unless I missed the part where they Thanix shots can independently seek out targets.


No, they need to be targeted and follow standard ballistics, presumably.


And? The same seems to hold true for Halo, especially for the Covenant. Hell, in the second game, a sensor device around pluto detects a fleet in slipspace, and maybe a minute or too later, it's near the moon.

ME ships calculate firing distance based on the fact that enemy ships have luminal dodging speeds. If covenant ships do not have this level of agility, then ME weapons will be firing accurately at several AU, which could be one hell of an advantage.


This is a touch one to judge, in theory the mass effect field technology should put the Mass Effect races way ahead of the Halo factions as they have a substance that can literally alter the laws of physics as we know it.

However the halo universe just tends to have really big numbers assigned to it in the books and other supplementary materials, the super Mac cannon apparently fires a "3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at 12,000 kilometers per second" because HELL YEAH BIG NUMBERS!!! But they still equip their soldiers with weapons firing ammunition designed in the 20th century, ummmmmm...

Mass effect definitely wins on the ground, the tech level of the average mass effect soldier is way above the level of the Halo humans and probably higher than most Covenant forces, personal shielding for everyone, Omni-tools, biotic powers for a select few, most covenant ground forces are severely outclassed.

The Mass effect forces also have the ability to innovate and adapt, the covenant forces would be so devoted to their worship of forerunner artefacts they would be at a significant disadvantage, how long do you think it would take a Specter, salarian STG team to capture a covenant ship and reverse engineer everything on board?

Irrelevant; no books, remember? In game lore only.

Reverse engineering takes a matter of months. Weeks for individual applications with little understanding of the underlying principles.

However, once the covenant do the same they've got a much, much bigger advantage because they're better, and now have shores up their one weakness.

[Tiki Snakes]

Reverse engineering takes a matter of months. Weeks for individual applications with little understanding of the underlying principles.

However, once the covenant do the same they've got a much, much bigger advantage because they're better, and now have shores up their one weakness.

I'm not sure the Covenant really do reverse engineering. They love them some forerunner tech, but if it's not forerunner then they generally don't want to know. I mean, when you get later into the series you might find an odd squad of elites using captured UNSC weaponry, but that's at the desperate tail end of it all (and I'm not sure I remember it as such in the single player game, as opposed to the firefighty bits of the game.)

They're almost as concerned about the idea of Tech Heresy as the Warhammer 40k setting, only without the good reason that goes with it in that particular situation.

The Salarians in contrast can't seem to get enough of scientific tinkering, so reverse engineering should definitely be a matter of when not if. Also, if the guns prove effective against ME defences, you can bet several Citadel race factions would be all over them. Krogan, Batarians and probably Humans in particular. And the simple, point and shoot pick-up-and-play nature of covenant weaponry is pretty much a thing, so it's not like there's difficulty adapting to use it, really.

[Forum Explorer]

The covenant are united while the council races and such are not. Plus, being able to plow into the citadel basically crippling all galactic civilization is a theme.



Citadel is actually a fairly easy target. The ME universe has been purposefully lulled into complacency such that a massive alpha strike will cripple them.

Biotics, as of the codex and not gameplay, are actually a very swingy asset. They require maintenance in way of massive calorific intake and minimum rest requirements. They do phenomenally well as groups, but then a bomb costs you valuable soldiers. Putting them with squads of nonbiotics dilutes their potency but keeps losses down. They make certain tasks easier though.

More important than biotics are medical technologies, I think. Mass effect brings broad range manufacture and recycling of ALL MATERIALS, immediate construction and retrofitting, personal shield in which can be calibrated to stop strong winds if necessary, and can replace a EVA suit under emargency scenarios. Their medical system is "here, have some new skin and keep fighting" and can, short term, fix any problem up to cellular degeneration. And their ground force fire arms are literally beyond any modern day antimateriel weaponry. The codex makes it rather clear that the reason people have gun fights is because defensive tech kept pace with offensive tech; you keep peppering ablative defenses until there is an opening, and then you don't wound the target but remove masses of their body so medical aid can't fix it (because it's not damaged, it's not there).




Isn't the Citadel functionally invincible? Like the Relays it's designed to be so tough that the races can't destroy it if they tried. It also has a standing fleet devoted to protecting itself. The Covenant would have to board and take it in a ground battle, which certainly wouldn't be an easy task since the elevators and other modes of quick transport can be shut down. Also while there are often leaders of the Citadel races present in their ambassadors it's hardly their entire government, and almost never their actual leader in charge. So while an alpha strike would hurt, it would be costly and it would hardly win them the war.

Citadel Races do tend to coordinate relatively fine though. As long as there is a clear threat for them to unite against. Like the Krogan or Ranchii

Biotics are still huge, particularly when you look at races like Asari. They could really mess up the Covenant's forces. On demand healing is one of the biggest factors for Mass Effect ground forces. It'll make such a big difference in a long term fight.

As for books some people are arguing that the Halo games don't provide nearly enough information and saying that they should be used.


Alright, here's how I see it shaking out:

The Covenant makes a lot of use of cannon fodder, while the Citadel forces are more organized around small special forces units. Even the baseline infantry or marine forces they use are on the level of Elites, and the equivalent of ODST troopers. A Krogan is basically the physical equal of a Spartan. Maybe even superior to.

So all the Grunts and Jackals and what not are going to just get slaughtered.

That forces the Covenant to send in the big guns.

At that point:

1) The Elites have nastier weapons over all.
2) The Citadel races have bionics and tech powers.
3) They both have cloaking technology, although it seems far more wide spread among the Covenant (IIRC one of the ME classes has a cloak but I don't remember any enemies actually using them).
4) The Elite armor is a lot more stupid, often with big bare patches.
5) Hunters are going to be a pain in the ass for ME troops to deal with. Those things can probably go one on one with a Krogan and wipe the floor with them.

So... it really comes down to which side has the biggest badass. If it's generic Covenant troops against Shepard? He/she will cut a swatch through them just as easily as Master Chief did. Arbiter vs some N7 mooks? Gonna be a Predator rip off as they all get impaled by invisible laser swords.

The two face off? I think Shepard has the edge there because ME is a squad game and as we all learned in DnD, action efficiency means that even if the Arbiter is better than any one of them, he's gonna go down in the first round from a Lift+Warp+Ignite combo.

Hm, I think you are over simplifying how all the races fight. Turians and Humans do have more conventional armies to fight with. And we do get scenes talking about things like Asari air force.

I'd say we'd get:

Turians at Elite level

Humans slightly below Elite level

Salarians below elite level, but they are snipers and specialists. Not front line troops. They'd otherwise destroy the enemy through overheating weapons, and assassinating leaders, and other such sabotage.

Asari are above Elite level, but operate in small numbers.

Mechs are far below Elite level but provide a numerous cannon fodder with zero morale problems.

Krogan and Vorska mercs: Lose a lot of effectiveness due to discipline problems, but make up for it with sheer numbers and toughness. I'd put them at slightly above elite level.

1) I'd disagree on this, yes the Elite do have those energy core weapons (or whatever they are called), but the Citadel Races have their fair share of missile launchers, grenade launchers (now with ice rounds!), the 'Black Hole Gun', and the 'Nuke Launcher'.

2) Yes


3) They do seem to be around the same effectiveness too, not pure invisibility as you leave a blurry outline. I do remember some enemies using them, actually only one type of Geth.

4) Isn't it mostly shield based anyways?

5) Hunters would be a pain for a while. Once they find out their weakpoint they become much less dangerous.

[Kyberwulf]

I don't know if this means anything, but Master Chief is pretty much just an ordinary SPARTAN(if you can call them that). What sets him apart is that he is lucky. There are SPARTANS stronger, faster, and more intelligent.

Also, how does the fact the schism happened affect the covenant in this vs. thread. The Elite no longer fight for the covenant, and have switched sides to the humans.

Also, don't downplay the Grunts and Jackals kill off a lot of soldiers. If you tried to play the HALO(on a normal or harder setting) game without dying once to them, I bet you couldn't do it.

[Xondoure]

I don't know if this means anything, but Master Chief is pretty much just an ordinary SPARTAN(if you can call them that). What sets him apart is that he is lucky. There are SPARTANS stronger, faster, and more intelligent.

Also, how does the fact the schism happened affect the covenant in this vs. thread. The Elite no longer fight for the covenant, and have switched sides to the humans.

Also, don't downplay the Grunts and Jackals kill off a lot of soldiers. If you tried to play the HALO(on a normal or harder setting) game without dying once to them, I bet you couldn't do it.

Honestly, I can't help but think of the damage a four man "N7" team can do. Yes, that's not even a fraction of the ME forces, but still: you get just four adepts together (admittedly very skilled ones) and they could conceivably take out armies.

[shadow_archmagi]

Yeah, Ground is definitely in favor of ME. Space... space battle debates are always horrifying and I skip over them.

EDIT: I also think Reapers have the flood beat. The flood rely heavily on being able to steal corpses, and it'd be trivial for Reapers to make sure their infantry explode (in fact, some of them already do!) Or to just bombard things from orbit.

The Gravemind is canonically super intelligent, but within the context of the story, he is not very bright at all. Reapers are also not that smart, but at least they show basic plan-making capability.

[RagingKrikkit]

How about both? That's what I did.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm not sure the Covenant really do reverse engineering. They love them some forerunner tech, but if it's not forerunner then they generally don't want to know. I mean, when you get later into the series you might find an odd squad of elites using captured UNSC weaponry, but that's at the desperate tail end of it all (and I'm not sure I remember it as such in the single player game, as opposed to the firefighty bits of the game.)

They're almost as concerned about the idea of Tech Heresy as the Warhammer 40k setting, only without the good reason that goes with it in that particular situation.

It would be more precise to say the issue never explicitly comes up. All races except the Covenant have been technologically inferior at first contact with them.

Though there is definite evidence of adaptation to different cultures by the Covenant over time as seen with the Brutes in particular. Its unclear what of their particular gear is their own versus what was upgraded with Covenant tech.

Considering the maddeningly specific communication errors between 032 Mendicant Bias and the Prophets that gave rise to the kill all humans decision... if that particular bugaboo of revealing your religion is based on a miscommunication thus wipe them out to protect it isn't in play, well I suspect the Covenant wouldn't be so opposed to something of simple practicality

A less dogmatically evil set of San'Shyuum or just not having the #Reclaimer tag flag up could easily go "clearly the Sacred Forerunners knew {X Tech}, that it has only been rediscovered by the newest members of our Covenant calls only for full re-sanctification to bring us closer to the Great Journey!" or some such.


Isn't the Citadel functionally invincible? Like the Relays it's designed to be so tough that the races can't destroy it if they tried. It also has a standing fleet devoted to protecting itself. The Covenant would have to board and take it in a ground battle, which certainly wouldn't be an easy task since the elevators and other modes of quick transport can be shut down. Also while there are often leaders of the Citadel races present in their ambassadors it's hardly their entire government, and almost never their actual leader in charge. So while an alpha strike would hurt, it would be costly and it would hardly win them the war.


Invincible is a big step up from being merely hard to damage with current means in ME. Covenant for example has Anti-matter charges, which enough of almost by definition should be able to take out anything with enough of them.

Or given the comparatively small size of the Citadel the Covenant could take a route like getting one of their comparable but more massive1 supercarriers to push the whole thing into the Widow system's star and just shoot anything that tried to leave during the intervening time.

Sieges being successful for the besieged only really work when your logistics are so primitive that the offensive party has to go home and plant sometime. And really unless you want something intact there's really no reason to deploy ground forces once you are a space going civilization.

So winning the naval battle is the only one that really matters.

1:Because they're around 15kms shorter but not an O'Neill Cylinder so should well outmass the Citadel. Thus quite appreciably alter its vectors in a reasonable time frame.

[Tavar]

Post is big enough I'm spoiling my responses. A few key things:


Invincible is a big step up from being merely hard to damage with current means in ME. Covenant for example has Anti-matter charges, which enough of almost by definition should be able to take out.

This is something really important: invincible is largely a prescriptive thing. You're invincible against certain things, or in certain conditions. Against things you've never encountered, well, that's not as clear. Additionally, it's important to realize that the Citadel was forged: things forged by mortal means are usually not completely impossible to destroy.


The thing about brutes is that they are numerous, seemingly in the mold of pre genophage Krogan. If they are an issue here, its on that logistical side.
This actually brings up a good point: why would the Krogan support the Citadel? And why would the Quarians? Neither have good relations with the Council, and the Covenant would appreciate either group.



Modern theory is that naval supremacy can only go so far. And let's face it. For anything beyond scorched earth, you probably want the planet you're fighting on. So you have to go in and kill the roaches.

True regarding supremacy. Of course, if you are willing to scorch the earth, then that's all you need(and that was the case in Halo).

Also, while Air superiority only goes so far, it does render hinder professional, high tech armies to a pretty large degree(See Shanxi). Sure, you need to send troops down, but if you can manage to send a full battalion against 2 squads, well, that's a big help.

What's also important to remember is that Covenant ships of all types can operate within atmosphere without much hindrance. In which case it's less like a plane, and more like a really, really large, really tough helicopter gunship(with troop capacity).


That is not actually a link.
Sorry. Apparently Chrome doesn't quite like some of the forum code(or, at least, has a weird reaction to it).

Here's the link (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Sangheili). If you scroll down, it shows pictures of what the various in game armors look like.

No because that's what the standard is for each game.
False. It's what you want, because it helps ME, but in point of fact most missions in the Halo games do involve allies/support. They usually die, especially because of poor AI, but that's not always the case.


ME armor isn't powered, normally. So while Master Chief may be able to leap around like a jack rabbit, Shepard can probably barely hop while armored. Mass Effect fields might be a way round this but it doesn't seem like that's standard equipment.
Ah, I see.



How fast is a bit unclear, but that's a hella lot of force/energy and, as a tactic, it would be an incredibly stupid one. For one the Relays seem to work better then 'slipspace' from what I've read on here in pure 'distance traveled in amount of time', two it destroys the entire system in question (Best hope you can get away after that!), and three it marks the Covenant as on a war of annihilation/genocide and one which deserves the full brunt of Citadal/Alliance military capabilities in order to stop. As in, they'll bust out the same tactics they did against the Reapers except Covenant ships are an order of a magnitude less durable then a Reaper and they'll prove far more effective (setting aside biological weaponry or orbital bombardment like the sort banned by Citadel treaties like firing asteroids through mass relays at planets).
True, it's a poor general tactic. That doesn't mean it's impossible or undesirable in certain circumstances. I mean, Lure a big fleet to some somewhat isolated area, then blow up a relay. Welp, that fleet's now effectively trapped.




Correction, they can deal with numbers but they don't always. And vs. threads are essentially debates on how well you can argue your chosen side's victory then anything else. So...yeah, they sorta are popularity contests in the few instances that a vs. thread is actually 'decided'.
If that's really true, I find that deeply saddening.

This is said but not shown. The collector particle rifle fires a beam of concentrated radiation and while it is certainly effective against shields it does not ignore them. Plasma is not pure energy either, especially not how it's typically used in sci-fi where it's just a generic term for super-heated material fired from a gun. Even so, my point is that lasers exist (prothean beam rifle, collector particle rifle) and shields still prove to be of use against them. Not as much but they still help. Thus it is an easy jump to see that plasma weaponry would be effective against ME shields but would not ignore them. The Covenant have a weapon edge in that their standard weaponry is effective against ME shields/barriers and that it is standard issue for their troops...but it is not a be-all end-all solution to them and doesn't take into account the fact that ME troops (at least some anyway) wear armor as well as shields/barriers.
If we're going purely by game mechanics, then Halo units are immune to damage if they are named buy not Player controlled, or are falling.

Additionally, my point wasn't that Plasma was going to just go through shields. Just that certain aspects of them would(specifically, the heat). Which was supported by canon.

As for armor, it's notable that their main enemies in Halo do wear armor, and while much of their weaponry is less effective against said armor than shields, it's still pretty damn effective(especially in novels/on Heroic difficulty).


The Covenant weapon edge is there, but it is somewhat negated by the fact that ME has a better defensive edge then the UNSC from what I can tell. This is ignoring the fact that a skilled engineer could make a plasma weapon explode in it's holder's hand just by tapping on their omni-tool.
That would require the designers to make their weapons have Wi-Fi capabilities(which is pretty silly for most of them).




Firstly, Krogan vs Hunters? Oh man, that's some happy Krogan. That's the kind of scrap they're going to love. I'm not honestly sure I reckon the hunters chances once the Krogan figure out they just need to punch them in the squishy orange bits, but you're looking at some awesome Kaiju fighting up to that point.
Like I said to others, why do you say that?

I mean, a hunter along is very vulnerable, but that's pretty much true of any single units. With support...oh god.

Thirdly, dealing with brutes. Brutes are like cut price krogan. None of the brutal inventiveness, no regenerating health or redundant systems, just big and tough and dumb. Brutes are easy, because they have big, often unarmoured heads and zero tactics. The only time you worry about a brute is because it has a gravity hammer, because that thing is awe inspiring when it comes to close quarters beat-downs. (It's also a Krogan's wet dream).
Brutes also are incredibly tough(lots of hp), and I wouldn't say that they lack brutal inventiveness. Especially playing on more difficult levels, or while looking at what they built.



This is a touch one to judge, in theory the mass effect field technology should put the Mass Effect races way ahead of the Halo factions as they have a substance that can literally alter the laws of physics as we know it.
Eh-Halo universes have materials that do that to. They're just not named/as present.


The Mass effect forces also have the ability to innovate and adapt, the covenant forces would be so devoted to their worship of forerunner artefacts they would be at a significant disadvantage, how long do you think it would take a Specter, salarian STG team to capture a covenant ship and reverse engineer everything on board?
That's largely because the covenant forces don't really need to adapt anything. Seriously, in their universe, they have the best technology.



How is MC at lateral thinking, diplomacy and sociopolitical problem solving? Shepard was so awesome because Shepard was a cybernetic ally enhanced high rank spec-ops NCO. Shepard went through Lateral thinking Under Stress boot camp seven times.

If MC can match that, I think MC would so a better job. Although that's for non-biotic shep.
Per novels? Pretty well. Though it's important to realize that he is very focused on the military. At least partially because he's been in a continuous war for... about 25 years or so(complicated due to cryosleep).

Citadel is actually a fairly easy target. The ME universe has been purposefully lulled into complacency such that a massive alpha strike will cripple them.
That alpha strike requires one being able to shut down the relays, which appears not to be possible as of ME1's end, and would require the Reapers in any case.


Biotics, as of the codex and not gameplay, are actually a very swingy asset. They require maintenance in way of massive calorific intake and minimum rest requirements. They do phenomenally well as groups, but then a bomb costs you valuable soldiers. Putting them with squads of nonbiotics dilutes their potency but keeps losses down. They make certain tasks easier though.
Good point. Makes them also less able to continue in guerrilla based situations.


More important than biotics are medical technologies, I think. Mass effect brings broad range manufacture and recycling of ALL MATERIALS, immediate construction and retrofitting, personal shield in which can be calibrated to stop strong winds if necessary, and can replace a EVA suit under emargency scenarios. Their medical system is "here, have some new skin and keep fighting" and can, short term, fix any problem up to cellular degeneration. And their ground force fire arms are literally beyond any modern day antimateriel weaponry. The codex makes it rather clear that the reason people have gun fights is because defensive tech kept pace with offensive tech; you keep peppering ablative defenses until there is an opening, and then you don't wound the target but remove masses of their body so medical aid can't fix it (because it's not damaged, it's not there).
I wouldn't over-sell ME, or Undersell Halo(or, at least humanity from there). They have quite a bit of medical tech(see, ODTS, where someone gets impaled through a lung, and a field dressing keeps him alive and mobile). Never mind Spartans and the like.

Still, Covenant seem to put less emphasis on those aspects. Would possibly be telling on the long term.



Only the dreadnought was spoken of in dialogue, but all ships have similar weapons. Their ballistics are all also finely calibrated and de-powered to avoid over penetration. I guess the me universe didn't want to send explosives?
Similar weapons in that they're Mass Effect based guns shooting pellets? Yeah.

Similar in terms of power? I don't think so. Because if it was, then the Dreadnought wouldn't be special in terms of it's power, and other ships would be just as useful.

So that said, I would probably put Master Chief, and my comparison the Elites, Brutes, etc, on the level of a Krogan. Both sides have shields, both have weapons of about the same caliber, the Mass Effect standard being probably ahead of Human weapons in Halo but behind the Covenant's energy weapons. ME has magic powers though.

Overall I think Mass Effect ground forces would be superior to their Halo equivalent, and would be closer to being on even terms with Covenant forces. Mainly because shielded power armor seems to be standard issue.
Probably fair.


And earth has ten billion people, Eden prime had 4 billion, can't remember the colonies, but they weren't individual cities. They were planet-wide colonies. Your little river doesn't give you an accurate view of planetary distance.
False. Eden Prime had either 3.7 million(3,700,000) or 4.2 million(4,200,000). The largest colonies did have 188mil and over 200mil, though the latter of those was a Batarian world as well. Interstingly, the 188mil was not a garden planet, but one where they were restricted to the poles due to heat.


Maybe. It's an often overlooked point that relays from a network; you can only take a relay to another, different relay.
In addition to and in support of this, not every relay connects to another. Some connect to multiple, and others connect to one.



Also, the guns as described on the normandy (a light cruiser) carries a few mass accelerators of it's own, and the guns in question in the "Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest in space" discussion are the broadside mass accelerators.

Even frigates have these guns, not just dreadnaughts, just not in the 3 decks 26 broadside accelerators sense.
False. The quote is about the main gun of an Everest Dreadnought, which is an 880meter long gun(by the codex). That occupies most of the hull length of the dreadnought, which is quite a bit longer than other ships, and the ships aren't nearly wide enough.


Please read your friendly neighborhood Codex/ Ships and Vehicles.
Considering my values are backed by the codex and yours are countered by them, why me?



Hmm. Thanix was superheated javelins of high velocity liquid metal, causing damage from heat and ballistic deformation, wasn't it? There's the ground troop homing plasma shotgun, but it was never adapted to ship use.
Yep. Which is why I didn't think it would be too much like Plasma.



No, all the ME human colonies number much more than that. The one colony that didn't was on the ground for a few months and still setting up housing for the colonists who weren't there yet.

You did notice the part where we're explicitly talking about the colonies seem


ME ships calculate firing distance based on the fact that enemy ships have luminal dodging speeds. If covenant ships do not have this level of agility, then ME weapons will be firing accurately at several AU, which could be one hell of an advantage.
Source for this?


Irrelevant; no books, remember? In game lore only.

Of course, without the books, then we don't have any means for comparison...

[Forum Explorer]

Invincible is a big step up from being merely hard to damage with current means in ME. Covenant for example has Anti-matter charges, which enough of almost by definition should be able to take out anything with enough of them.

Or given the comparatively small size of the Citadel the Covenant could take a route like getting one of their comparable but more massive1 supercarriers to push the whole thing into the Widow system's star and just shoot anything that tried to leave during the intervening time.

Sieges being successful for the besieged only really work when your logistics are so primitive that the offensive party has to go home and plant sometime. And really unless you want something intact there's really no reason to deploy ground forces once you are a space going civilization.

So winning the naval battle is the only one that really matters.

1:Because they're around 15kms shorter but not an O'Neill Cylinder so should well outmass the Citadel. Thus quite appreciably alter its vectors in a reasonable time frame.

Yeah I imagine pushing it into the sun would at least render it trapped if not destroyed. However they'd have plenty of time to receive reinforcements and I'm not convinced that the Covenant have an advantage in space.

Of course if we are going with the scenario where the Citadel is actually a Halo installation, well then they certainly wouldn't try and destroy it. :smallwink:

As for sieges, well that's not true. As long as you require a supply line of some sort then a defending force can win if your supply line cannot resupply the attackers fast enough/get's cut off. I don't think that applies to the Covenant though as I believe their space ships are fully self sustaining.



This actually brings up a good point: why would the Krogan support the Citadel? And why would the Quarians? Neither have good relations with the Council, and the Covenant would appreciate either group.


If it came down to it, the Council could cure the Genophage. That'd get the Krogans on board. Though they could also just hire Krogan merc companies like the Blood Pack. The Covenant would be at a disadvantage there since they don't possess a money recognized by the Krogans.

The Quarians/Geth would likely only get involved if the Covenant start glassing planets. That would get a similar response that the Reapers did, IE Shepard unites the galaxy.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Yeah I imagine pushing it into the sun would at least render it trapped if not destroyed. However they'd have plenty of time to receive reinforcements and I'm not convinced that the Covenant have an advantage in space.


Well the shooting at one another bits might be resolvable for once. I only looked briefly but there are figures on the wikis for ME Dreadnaught's main guns and UNSC orbital platform MACs. X pound slug at Y velocity, so in other words directly comparable because they are the same basic idea. However the UNSC shipboard MACs need several shots to take Covenant shields, so where they precisely mesh can be quite important.

The final consideration needs to add how does the rest of the ME fleets compare to Dreadnaughts too. Because IIRC there are only several dozen Dreadnaughts per faction and not two hundred total in 'verse.

And on the other side well the Covenant has numerous fleets cited as being measured in the hundreds of ships.

And their small ships are often bigger to Dreadnaught scale so even if Dreadnaughts can match a fair fight... well I'm going to guess something called a Dreadnaught doesn't exactly turn on a dime so they can simply be outmaneuvered at a sacrifice of some ships and destroyed through weight of numbers.

Unless we can establish qualitative parity between the Dreadnaughts and other ME ships and then quantitative parity for ME with the Covenant...or very very high qualitative superiority for ME ships in general ...that would suggest ME can't in the end win.

Outnumbered even if not completely outgunned.


Of course if we are going with the scenario where the Citadel is actually a Halo installation, well then they certainly wouldn't try and destroy it. :smallwink:

Fair enough if its on the level with the Sacred Rings they most certainly would not.

Still though without winning in space its just a matter of time. ME would need total and complete superiority to absurd force ratios to hold the Citadel once the Prophets just moved High Charity there and made it the goal of the entire Covenant. And that's presuming the Citadel is totally self-sufficient.


As for sieges, well that's not true. As long as you require a supply line of some sort then a defending force can win if your supply line cannot resupply the attackers fast enough/get's cut off. I don't think that applies to the Covenant though as I believe their space ships are fully self sustaining.

That would mean strategically you aren't besieged at all, just individual locations are tactically.

Now we do know that the Covenant has some facilities for logistical support, because there's stories where UNSC has blown them up. I tend to think that like most sci-fi though you aren't going to find the more basic sort of concerns you would today. Like food.

Boring to talk about needing to pull into port every couple of weeks because the crew hates the UHT milk, the Blue Hawaii and Fruit Punch ran out, and the only condiment left is 57 sauce. *shudder*

Even then though that's an area where free-roaming FTL is going to be even more important.

[Tiki Snakes]

The problem posed by the Covenant trying to besiege the Citadel, especially by putting their bigger ships in the system and trying to muscle the situation, is that they are pretty impressively rubbish when it comes to dealing with fighters and infiltrators.

When you put a high value target like a big ship or high charity in fighter-range of something like the citadel, your chance of losing it because someone kicked down the airlock door and left you a high yield explosive device inside your shields next to all your explosive barrels stores goes up rapidly.

Especially considering the Citadel is Spectre HQ, you know?

Also, I've talked to the Council Members before. If the rest of the Galaxy becomes cut off from the council, all that will happen is that things might get taken seriously for once and something may even get done! :smallwink:
That's the difference made when there's no-one around to dismiss all these wild claims about chinless hunchbacked aliens and their gorilla buddies coming to kill everyone.

Oh, and just to say, lots of talk about elite and brutes, but seriously I'd say that pound for pound it is the Jackals that have the more meaningful effect and the better tactics in quite a number of encounters. Those little guys deserve more credit than they get.

[HamHam]

When is this supposed to be set exactly? Because post ME3 you are probably looking at united Krogan with cured genophage, Geth on the side of the Citadel races, etc.

[Forum Explorer]

When is this supposed to be set exactly? Because post ME3 you are probably looking at united Krogan with cured genophage, Geth on the side of the Citadel races, etc.

At the start of Mass Effect 3, so no devastation from the war and they do have tech developments like the Thanix cannons and improved Normandy.

[Logic]

I'm inclined to say that the Covenant would not want to destroy the Citadel, at least not until they discovered it was not THEIR Forerunner technology. However, I'd bet that once they saw humanity among the Council, they would not sit by while the filthy humans and their allies desecrated holy Forerunner sites.

[SiuiS]

Honestly, I can't help but think of the damage a four man "N7" team can do. Yes, that's not even a fraction of the ME forces, but still: you get just four adepts together (admittedly very skilled ones) and they could conceivably take out armies.

Yeah. But that's too swingy; for every fury/adept/sentinel/justicar murdersquad keeping entire galactic regions clear you've got three salarian engineers with shotguns who brought sniper rail amps and use medigel within ten feet of a medkit.


Post is big enough I'm spoiling my responses. A few key things:


This is something really important: invincible is largely a prescriptive thing. You're invincible against certain things, or in certain conditions. Against things you've never encountered, well, that's not as clear. Additionally, it's important to realize that the Citadel was forged: things forged by mortal means are usually not completely impossible to destroy.


Especially because no one in universe wants to really destroy the thing. It's always about control. Fly a really fast contingent of ships in and glass the place, cripple enemy governmental function. The council, on the citadel, is galactic civilization.


This actually brings up a good point: why would the Krogan support the Citadel?

They wouldn't. They would fight. Probably wouldn't matter who for after a while.

[auote]Per novels? Pretty well. Though it's important to realize that he is very focused on the military. At least partially because he's been in a continuous war for... about 25 years or so(complicated due to cryosleep).[/quote]

Neat.


That alpha strike requires one being able to shut down the relays, which appears not to be possible as of ME1's end, and would require the Reapers in any case.

No, seriously, I don't mean take command of it. I mean obliterate billions of lives in thirty seconds of coordinated hellfire. Send three fleets at it. It's worth it, logistically; the citadel IS mass effect.



Good point. Makes them also less able to continue in guerrilla based situations.


Variable. They can't handle sustained action, but if they control their own deployment – like rebels, rather than under siege – they've got the edge.


I wouldn't over-sell ME, or Undersell Halo(or, at least humanity from there). They have quite a bit of medical tech(see, ODTS, where someone gets impaled through a lung, and a field dressing keeps him alive and mobile). Never mind Spartans and the like.

That's true, but that lung filling spike came from a hard to get med kit and was bulky. Every ME soldier wears six of those as long johns and can too off with a vial.



Similar weapons in that they're Mass Effect based guns shooting pellets? Yeah.

Similar in terms of power? I don't think so. Because if it was, then the Dreadnought wouldn't be special in terms of it's power, and other ships would be just as useful.

No, they're similar in more than just abstract. The deciding factors are
Eezo core size, slug size, and barrel length. The core affects % of mass reduced or increased, which directly affects what size slug you can fire, but I think it works out as close enough to zero sum for our quick and dirty math. The longer barrel allows longer period of acceleration for greater energy when the mass returns. That's how one overloads a shield; over trine you hit it with enough force that the battery gets exhausted and can't put out the energy to repel a slug of equal size anymore. But many smaller slugs are more efficient at punching through barriers than a single big one. Barrel, core size, slug weight (seemingly standardized, but likely with different caliber), but all on a variable scale. So the top end of a dreadnought putting as much into firing one slug as possible may exceed a cruisers guns – will, in fact – but the dreadnought will likely not do so all the time.

I don't know where I'm going with this anymore though. Whatever XD


Eden Prime had either 3.7 million(3,700,000) or 4.2 million(4,200,000). The largest colonies did have 188mil and over 200mil, though the latter of those was a Batarian world as well. Interstingly, the 188mil was not a garden planet, but one where they were restricted to the poles due to heat.


Ah, could have sworn that was a B, not an M. Okay, my mistake.



False. The quote is about the main gun of an Everest Dreadnought, which is an 880meter long gun(by the codex). That occupies most of the hull length of the dreadnought, which is quite a bit longer than other ships, and the ships aren't nearly wide enough.


Considering my values are backed by the codex and yours are countered by them, why me?

These two aren't me. At best, I quoted someone else and didn't delete them properly.



Source for this?


Codex. All ME ships fly by reducing mass for fuel economy. Every single one. No exceptions. The ranges fired at are listed (wanna say 1-2 km) and are said to be the best combination of far away and yet close enough the other guy won't dodge.


Of course, without the books, then we don't have any means for comparison...

Easy win, then!


When is this supposed to be set exactly? Because post ME3 you are probably looking at united Krogan with cured genophage, Geth on the side of the Citadel races, etc.

Yeah. God reaper Shepard could probably turn the tides a bit.

[Big Fau]

I keep seeing mention of the ME weaponry, but very little outside of Plasma tech for the Covenant. Are we forgetting the Needler, Plasma Launcher, Concusion Rifle, Fuel Rod Cannon, and Carbine? From what I understand of ME's shields the Needler would be downright lethal even in the hands of a grunt, and a FRG is going to outright end anything caught in the splash radius. Based on the gameplay I've seen, footsoldiers in ME wouldn't be able to outmaneuver the Needler's firepower without sprinting head-first towards the closest cover (whereas ODSTs and Spartans can do so, albeit with difficulty).

A FRG takes out a Warthog in 3-4 shots, and a Scorpion in 5-6. The Plasma Launcher can take out a Scorpion-sized target in a mere 3 hits (or just kill the driver in 2). ME vehicles (outside of ships of course) wouldn't fare very well against Covenant heavy weapons. And let's not get started on Hunters, Wraiths, Scarabs, and Liches.

Ship-to-ship, barring the Covenant abusing Slipspace jumps to teleport themselves inside the enemy's vessel, I'd hand the combat to the ME tech though. First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx gave us good insight to how the Covenant's plasma batteries work, and they aren't that good. The Pillar of Autumn was able to shoot down several ships prior to slipspacing away from Reach (and ending up on Instillation 04); the only reason it ran was sheer numbers, which the Covenant have. That's pretty much how the Covenant fight ship-to-ship battles anyway: Overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, and keep trying to punch a hole in the line.

The Covenant do have a serious stealth advantage though. Reach showed they were able to hide an entire fleet on the planet they were about to glass, waiting until they found the Forerunner artifact that Halsey's archaeology team uncovered. We also know that Covenant active camouflage is fairly advanced, able to run for several hours (Halo 2, save for the Arbiter's armor).

Summary: Ship to ship, the Covenant are Lemmings. Infantry and non-space vehicular battles, the Covenant are downright terrifying. Stealth, no contest whatsoever.

[BRC]

I wouldn't say the Needler would be any more effective against shields than, say, a get plasma SMG. Which is to say still terrifyingly effective, but nothing ME footsoldiers wouldn't know how to deal with.

The stealth tech is an issue though. ME camoflage lasts a few seconds and ends when you shoot. If the Covenant are able to use it early to it's full effect, then they could win early.

If not, then it won't be long before the STG gets their hands on it, reverse-engineers it, and uses it. And then you have invisible spacefrogs blowing up your stuff.

ME has it's fair share of hand-held superweapons. If we're giving the Covenant their superweapons, then the citdael forces get Cain launchers.

[Tiki Snakes]

Thing is, a rocket launcher takes out most of those vehicles in a single hit, give or take the full on tanks. Fuel rod guns and so on are actually a lot weaker, compensating by having larger ammo reserves. Simply put, most of the time halo vehicles simply arent that tough.

Compare that to what little we see of mass effect vehicles, where if you've got omni gel and someone with engineering training on board, anything that doesn't doesnt outright destroy your vehicle is just a setback, easily repaired and your shields will be up again shortly.

Halo vehicles rarely if ever have shields, and field repairs are basically slang for steal another vehicle, for the most part.

Needlers might be pretty dangerous. Of course, they need to pierce shields to do anything meaningful, but once that's done there isn't much else going that I'd trust to stop a charging krogan.

Most Covenant weaponry is really pretty straight-forward. Needlers and that grenade launcher with the sticky orbs are very much outliers, but very useful ones.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Thing is, a rocket launcher takes out most of those vehicles in a single hit, give or take the full on tanks. Fuel rod guns and so on are actually a lot weaker, compensating by having larger ammo reserves. Simply put, most of the time halo vehicles simply arent that tough.


I can't remember how many hits it takes playing on real mode (Heroic) but I think vehicles are a good example of why judging by in-game is a probably nonsense.

Does anyone think that a Scorpion tank is that really that slow?

Though most sci-fi settings sort of quietly engage in the conceit that somehow vehicles retrograde in the future. Can't replace have those glorious mobs of manly men on the battlefield gunned down by a single converted cargo plane gunship. Among numerous other things. You can tell because they keep using infantry forces that aren't in power armor or something.

[Forum Explorer]

I keep seeing mention of the ME weaponry, but very little outside of Plasma tech for the Covenant. Are we forgetting the Needler, Plasma Launcher, Concusion Rifle, Fuel Rod Cannon, and Carbine? From what I understand of ME's shields the Needler would be downright lethal even in the hands of a grunt, and a FRG is going to outright end anything caught in the splash radius. Based on the gameplay I've seen, footsoldiers in ME wouldn't be able to outmaneuver the Needler's firepower without sprinting head-first towards the closest cover (whereas ODSTs and Spartans can do so, albeit with difficulty).

A FRG takes out a Warthog in 3-4 shots, and a Scorpion in 5-6. The Plasma Launcher can take out a Scorpion-sized target in a mere 3 hits (or just kill the driver in 2). ME vehicles (outside of ships of course) wouldn't fare very well against Covenant heavy weapons. And let's not get started on Hunters, Wraiths, Scarabs, and Liches.

Ship-to-ship, barring the Covenant abusing Slipspace jumps to teleport themselves inside the enemy's vessel, I'd hand the combat to the ME tech though. First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx gave us good insight to how the Covenant's plasma batteries work, and they aren't that good. The Pillar of Autumn was able to shoot down several ships prior to slipspacing away from Reach (and ending up on Instillation 04); the only reason it ran was sheer numbers, which the Covenant have. That's pretty much how the Covenant fight ship-to-ship battles anyway: Overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, and keep trying to punch a hole in the line.

The Covenant do have a serious stealth advantage though. Reach showed they were able to hide an entire fleet on the planet they were about to glass, waiting until they found the Forerunner artifact that Halsey's archaeology team uncovered. We also know that Covenant active camouflage is fairly advanced, able to run for several hours (Halo 2, save for the Arbiter's armor).

Summary: Ship to ship, the Covenant are Lemmings. Infantry and non-space vehicular battles, the Covenant are downright terrifying. Stealth, no contest whatsoever.

I don't think the Needler would be that effective actually. It's homing sure, but it's also a weak physical shot, easily deflected by shields. (unless I'm misremembering that the Needler does physical shots)

Concusion Rifle I can't remember.

Fuel Rod Gun and the Plasma Launcher are both effective sure, but the ME guys also have the 'Nuke Launcher' and the "Black Hole Generator' and while the names are both a bit more impressive then the gun itself, they are still scary impressive.

To my understanding ME vehicles favour mobility over armor. Likely because combat tends to be closely packed areas like cities where being a slow lumbering tank makes you an easy target.

[shadow_archmagi]

The stealth tech is an issue though. ME camoflage lasts a few seconds and ends when you shoot. If the Covenant are able to use it early to it's full effect, then they could win early.



Well, ME stealth lasts much longer for NPCs. Kasumi manages to be stealthed for weeks at a time, apparently, and Kirrahe has a stealth mode that lets him just hang around between Jerk Face and Nameless Salarian Bigwig and thus intercept the Weird Space Bullet.

The Geth also seem to have much better stealth than Shepard.

[Tiki Snakes]

I can't remember how many hits it takes playing on real mode (Heroic) but I think vehicles are a good example of why judging by in-game is a probably nonsense.

Does anyone think that a Scorpion tank is that really that slow?

Though most sci-fi settings sort of quietly engage in the conceit that somehow vehicles retrograde in the future. Can't replace have those glorious mobs of manly men on the battlefield gunned down by a single converted cargo plane gunship. Among numerous other things. You can tell because they keep using infantry forces that aren't in power armor or something.

Personally speaking, I take the games as much as possible as the primary source. Which means yes, they are that slow and some models leave the driver entirely exposed. They are also somewhere between one and two seater, with room for a few grunts to hang roughly on the sides, safely outside the protective armour.

Halo vehicles are frequently hilarious in that sense, and few more-so than the Scorpion.

Regarding the needler; Yes, easily deflected by shields (does minimal damage to them, iirc), as the main damage payload comes from the crystals bursting, which only happens after a delay. If they don't get chance to dig into the armour and flesh, they only do the minimal impact damage.

But if you do manage to get enough of them on one target (most of a clip usually), the resulting explosion is like a small rocket launcher, it's utterly devastating.

EDIT - The UNSC is a military that regularly goes into battle on the back of quad-bikes and beach-buggies. Covenant Vehicles are also pretty hilarious at times, though they at least tend to directly cover the driver most of the time. Still, their best vehicle is probably the Ghost. Their Tanks are mid-range artillery at best, easily defeated as long as you keep moving and don't let it ram you and Banshees are slow and go down pretty easily to regular assault rifle fire.

And to make things even more hilarious, their most disposable infantry carry large numbers of guns capable of shutting down their own vehicles in a single shot. Whether this would work on Mass Effect Vehicles I have no idea, but it always cracked me up. All hail the mighty Stapler! Helping supersoldiers punch tanks to death since 2001.

[Tavar]

No, seriously, I don't mean take command of it. I mean obliterate billions of lives in thirty seconds of coordinated hellfire. Send three fleets at it. It's worth it, logistically; the citadel IS mass effect.
It's really, really, not. All of the groups have actual goverments: the Citadel is basically the Space-UN meeting place. If you take all that out, you haven't really gained anything beyond killing ambassador.

Well, ok, you've also hit them in the moral, but that can by tricky. I imagine it would backfire more than it would actually break them.


Variable. They can't handle sustained action, but if they control their own deployment – like rebels, rather than under siege – they've got the edge.
I meant more in the terms of that, given higher nutrient costs, they're more vulnerable to supply disruptions.


That's true, but that lung filling spike came from a hard to get med kit and was bulky. Every ME soldier wears six of those as long johns and can too off with a vial.
Pretty sure we never see anything too similar for ME. Hell, the closest thing I can think of, Garrus's recruitment mission, involves a much more minor wound being taken much more seriously.




No, they're similar in more than just abstract. The deciding factors are
Eezo core size, slug size, and barrel length. The core affects % of mass reduced or increased, which directly affects what size slug you can fire, but I think it works out as close enough to zero sum for our quick and dirty math.
Those factors are the abstract.


So the top end of a dreadnought putting as much into firing one slug as possible may exceed a cruisers guns – will, in fact – but the dreadnought will likely not do so all the time.

I don't know where I'm going with this anymore though. Whatever XD
Going off on a tangent to try and cover up a mistake(saying that something that applies to the main gun of a dreadnought instead applies to all guns).

Unless you'd like to argue that a 16 kt nuclear device and a 50 megaton nuclear device have the same power potential.



These two aren't me. At best, I quoted someone else and didn't delete them properly.
Looking at your post right now, and it's there in white. So, the best case is what actually happened.

Oh course, I wounder why I need to tell you this.


Codex. All ME ships fly by reducing mass for fuel economy. Every single one. No exceptions. The ranges fired at are listed (wanna say 1-2 km) and are said to be the best combination of far away and yet close enough the other guy won't dodge.
Reduced Mass=/= either Faster than Light or Lightspeed(this is really obvious, as otherwise lift would be a one hit kill). Let's go back to that Main dreadnought gun: it goes at about 1.3% the speed of light. By your logic, the enemy would be perfectly safe from these as long as they're moving away to any real degree.

Also, you're leaving out a few 0's on those ranges.



Easy win, then!
No, it's impossible to win. Unless You'd say that the Gad ship is totally stronger than ME.

[Soras Teva Gee]

To my understanding ME vehicles favour mobility over armor. Likely because combat tends to be closely packed areas like cities where being a slow lumbering tank makes you an easy target.

Why do we have the notion that tanks are slow again? They're slow compared to light vehicles and such maybe but certainly faster then puny humans.

And I tend to think urban combat period is probably something of an artifact in thought when you're really looking to take a whole planet.

City is troublesome? Orbital bombardment. No city, problem solved.

What the planet has plenty of them!

[Tiki Snakes]

Why do we have the notion that tanks are slow again? They're slow compared to light vehicles and such maybe but certainly faster then puny humans.

And I tend to think urban combat period is probably something of an artifact in thought when you're really looking to take a whole planet.

City is troublesome? Orbital bombardment. No city, problem solved.

What the planet has plenty of them!

Hmm. Well, you're right of course, Scorpion straight-line speed is faster than spartan running speed. Easy to under-estimate. It can also strafe relatively well, enough to make hitting it using another scorpion non-trivial, and hitting it with a (Phantom, was it? I lose track. The Covenant tank) quite tricky. It's an absolute slug compared to anything Shepherd drives though, and the main gun is close enough in apparent power.

Two thoughts though; Firstly, Urban Combat is very much a thing. Because if you have any ground combat at all, it's because there is something important there, otherwise as you say, glass it from orbit or just...ignore it. Which means if you're putting boots on the ground at all, most of the time it's going to be an urban or urban-like environment because that's simply where the stuff is.

However, Secondly, it's important not to focus too much on the Tanks. Because simply, UNSC and Covenant tanks are both a little bit awful anyway, whatever the situation. Where both sides really excel is in the amount of light vehicles they bring to the battle. I may think the completely unarmoured design of the Warthog is hilarious, but it's a nippy little thing with a big gun on the back, in an urban environment it's actually quite useful. You get a guy with a rocket launcher on the back of your Mongoose/Quad-Bike and you've got a rapid, tank-killing infantry dispersing strike unit. And both of those things pale in comparison to the utility of the Covenant Ghost. It's the fastest thing going, twin plasma guns, it shields the rider and it can pretty much go anywhere. And if all else fails, it's fast enough to make ramming speed a pretty handy way of dealing with anything that isn't also a vehicle.

I'd say this, like the Jackals, is one of the main strengths of the covenant force and like the Jackals seems to be quite under-rated.

[Forum Explorer]

Why do we have the notion that tanks are slow again? They're slow compared to light vehicles and such maybe but certainly faster then puny humans.

And I tend to think urban combat period is probably something of an artifact in thought when you're really looking to take a whole planet.

City is troublesome? Orbital bombardment. No city, problem solved.

What the planet has plenty of them!

Mobility refers to more then just speed. It's the ability to get around in tight corridors and over broken terrain as well. Large tanks lack mobility in that they have to stick to certain routes, and they struggle to get over broken terrain more. It makes them vulnerable to ambushes, and just less effective in general. They also can turn around as well as a lighter/smaller vehicle.

While orbital bombardment should be the response, both games tend to tell us that it isn't the response. It always seems to come down to ground combat anyways. :smalltongue:

[Tiki Snakes]

To be fair, broken terrain isn't such a major issue for the Scorpion but especially the covenant tank, (The Wraith, I think), what with it being all floaty and stuff. They really do lack manoeuvrability when it comes to tight corners and so on, though again, turning speed is more a problem for the Wraith than the Scorpion due to their different designs.

[BRC]

To be fair, broken terrain isn't such a major issue for the Scorpion but especially the covenant tank, (The Wraith, I think), what with it being all floaty and stuff. They really do lack manoeuvrability when it comes to tight corners and so on, though again, turning speed is more a problem for the Wraith than the Scorpion due to their different designs.

Broken Terrain isn't a problem for the Mako either. That thing is like Spiderman meets Moonbounce.


...I really hated the Mako

[Logic]

Broken Terrain isn't a problem for the Mako either. That thing is like Spiderman meets Moonbounce.
Yeah! :smalltongue:


...I really hated the Mako
Wait, what!?

The Mako sections were some of my favorite things about ME1.

Back on topic:

Mako is shown capable of taking a not insubstantial number of hits. The Scorpion and Wraith tanks are also shown taking a not insubstantial number of hits. The Hammerhead is flimsy, but like a Ghost on steroids.

[Tavar]

While orbital bombardment should be the response, both games tend to tell us that it isn't the response. It always seems to come down to ground combat anyways. :smalltongue:
In Halo, this is actually justified: the places you're fighting on are valuable for some reason, or the Space battle isn't over. ME largely falls into this as well, though it does have a few notable exceptions.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Mobility refers to more then just speed. It's the ability to get around in tight corridors and over broken terrain as well. Large tanks lack mobility in that they have to stick to certain routes, and they struggle to get over broken terrain more. It makes them vulnerable to ambushes, and just less effective in general. They also can turn around as well as a lighter/smaller vehicle.

While orbital bombardment should be the response, both games tend to tell us that it isn't the response. It always seems to come down to ground combat anyways. :smalltongue:

You know that scene in Goldeneye where Bond just drives through buildings in the tank?

Certainly vehicles are more vulnerable in an urban enviroment in the sense that they can be fought at all by a light force, but take that same rocket ambush and direct it at a foot patrol?

And the games to put it bluntly have little to do with generalized warfare for the verse.

Halo 1 your sole ship is shot down, you only win by blowing said ship up. Strategic impact is nothing but the chance to keep on loosing to the Covenant. Halo 2, rare mutual surprise situation, since Regret didn't know he was attacking Earth, with ambiguous results you ask me since he withdrew is something like good order. Then its a just a chase across space. Oh yeah and the Covenant knows where Earth is so total strategic defeat of the worst order. Halo 3, maybe successful guerrilla ops but indecisive because the Truth completed his objective and left. Oh yeah and a civil war you had nothing to do with broke out while the Flood invaded the enemy capital. Halo 4, you start off shot down alone and only work up to one ship trying to survive without backup, least you don't have to blow up the boat this time.

The games are about stopping superweapons from going off mixed with one man survival courses.

Maybe Reach did some more (I didn't play that one) but we know how that ended for the planet....

[Tiki Snakes]

Reach does in fact deal with Halo warfare pretty head on, with recon, infiltration, starship and mass ground assault sections amongst others.

It was really rather a good game, to be honest. Love the atmosphere of Reach and ODST, really feel like you are digging in to things.

[Tavar]

Halo 2, rare mutual surprise situation, since Regret didn't know he was attacking Earth, with ambiguous results you ask me since he withdrew is something like good order.Then its a just a chase across space. Oh yeah and the Covenant knows where Earth is so total strategic defeat of the worst order.
Considering that he only has that one ship with him, while he come in with an entire fleet, and seemed to be fleeing for his life...definitely a tactical defeat. Ends up being a bit of a strategic mixed bag, though, as the Covenant sunders(which allows humans to survive).

Maybe Reach did some more (I didn't play that one) but we know how that ended for the planet....
Reach is a bit of a mixed bag. Largely, though, it says that if space is lost, then the land battle is pointless.

The land battles, in Reach's case, were about keeping control of strategic points on the planet(because in Halo, the power for the space guns is generated on planet or something).

[McDouggal]

I'm going to do this as a comparison between the Covenant/Halo humans on one side and the Citadel races on the other. The Flood and the Reapers kind of screw over any comparison on power level otherwise.

First thing: Mass Effect wins a straight space battle on even numbers. Because of Element Zero, every one of their ships has better speed, acceleration, and turning than a Halo ship; the only advantage that the Halo ships have are better armor.

Ground battles depend on troop composition. The Mass Effect universe has nothing analogous to a Spartan, but ME mooks are indisputably stronger than Halo mooks. Halo ground vehicles have the edge, but not enough of one to tip the battle in their favor (Freaking Scorpion and Scarab tanks...). Air support goes to Mass Effect; the Pelicans, Covenant equialent of the Pelican, Hornets, and Banshees are going to get WRECKED by the superior speed, manuverability, and firepower of the Citadel gunships. However, Mass Effect universe doesn't have the ability to drop game changing numbers of soldiers quickly; the advantage from their air superiority is going to have to come from strike missions and ground support.

Due to the air superiority and the superiority of the average ME soldier, the ground war on average goes to Mass Effect.

However, numbers are still an unknown quantity in both theaters. I am unsure how many ships are in the total Covenant fleet, although the Human fleet is much smaller. Likewise, the number of Covenant soldiers is an unknown.

Strategic stuff!

Mass Effect tech allows faster transport to more limited locations (I actually read it as closer to like hours to cross the GALAXY using the relays.), however, getting far from those locations is time and resource consuming, to the point that moving an entire fleet will take, well, days at least.

Halo tech allows a linear transport time at FTL speeds, as opposed to ME's... thing. This means that they can set up bases that are a pain in time and resources for ME forces to assault, while not sacrificing much, if any, of their manuverability.

A ME soldier can be kept in the fight for longer (or returned to it after treatment) thanks to Medi-Gel. Halo has Biofilm (Forward unto Dawn), but it isn't kept in large quantities, and it is unknown if it's effective on Covenant soldiers.

In the end, I suspect it would eventually fall into a stalemate; ME universe won't have the ability to force Halo universe to fight when they want to once Halo universe retreats from the Mass Relays. Halo universe can't do hit and runs, since their mobility is hampered by a predictably linear travel time.

[Tavar]

First thing: Mass Effect wins a straight space battle on even numbers. Because of Element Zero, every one of their ships has better speed, acceleration, and turning than a Halo ship; the only advantage that the Halo ships have are better armor.
Citation Needed for the comparison stuff. Especially since that doesn't necessarily seem supported by Canon.



Air support goes to Mass Effect; the Pelicans, Covenant equialent of the Pelican, Hornets, and Banshees are going to get WRECKED by the superior speed, manuverability, and firepower of the Citadel gunships.
Those would be trashed by using the starships proper, though.

[Xondoure]

I'd give the space battle to Mass Effect simply because of hacking. It's totally foreign programming. So I'll give the Quarians/Geth/Salarians/EDI a few days to figure it out. :smalltongue:

Edit: really though, any sci fi match up in which only one side seems to take cyber warfare that seriously is going to be pretty one sided.

[Tavar]

I'd give the space battle to Mass Effect simply because of hacking. It's totally foreign programming. So I'll give the Quarians/Geth/Salarians/EDI a few days to figure it out. :smalltongue:

Hacking really doesn't work like that in either universe from what I remember.

[Xondoure]

Really? Because EDI's entire function is to hack the other ship, while defending the Normandy. There's a whole level where you survive because EDI disarms the trap the Collectors set for you inside their ship.

There are also three factions (as mentioned above) who are all about finding sneaky ways to win without direct combat.

Heck, a huge chunk of ME3's plot is the Illusive Man trying to hack the Reapers.

And you don't need anything that advanced. A simple shutdown is more than enough.

[BRC]

Hacking really doesn't work like that in either universe from what I remember.

It kind of does in ME, you are able to hack synthetics and overload your enemy's shields and weapons.
The Quarians also used an ECM superweapon against the Geth, but it makes sense for the geth to be constantly transmitting to each other, and for the Quarians to be familiar with their programming.

[HamHam]

Cortana seems able to wreck havoc on Covenant computer systems. And ME can make as many Cortana-equivalent AIs as needed.

[McDouggal]

Citation Needed for the comparison stuff. Especially since that doesn't necessarily seem supported by Canon.

...This one seemed like simple physics to me. It requires much less force to accelerate a less massive craft at the same speed as a more massive craft.

I *think* it was in the ME2 codex where it was stated how eezo works.

The armor comes from me talking out my <redacted>.


Those would be trashed by using the starships proper, though.

... Clarification? I have no idea what you're trying to say.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Considering that he only has that one ship with him, while he come in with an entire fleet, and seemed to be fleeing for his life...definitely a tactical defeat. Ends up being a bit of a strategic mixed bag, though, as the Covenant sunders(which allows humans to survive).

Well I'm considering that even with a presumably completely unprepared fleet he was able to cut through Earth's defenses (presumably the strongest in the galaxy) so it can be read to say a lot about the disparity of force in general. And I don't think Halo 2, on its own gives, a clear enough picture about what's going on because you up and leave to follow Regret. Who admittedly if he was more sensible should probably have retreated as soon as his slipspace engines allowed it to come back with more forces

I can't recall what the delay involved was before Truth's forces showed up if anything states it. Short enough and then even with Regret's hideous blunders...


Reach is a bit of a mixed bag. Largely, though, it says that if space is lost, then the land battle is pointless.

The land battles, in Reach's case, were about keeping control of strategic points on the planet(because in Halo, the power for the space guns is generated on planet or something).

Yeah the orbital defense platforms AKA the "Big Stick" MACs that can actually kill Covenant ships are powered on the ground via tethers. Which probably doesn't make sense... but that really is just my old yarn that colonizing planets period doesn't make sense.

But basically sounds like if anything it underlines that the ground game is just a side show.

In the end Reach was glassed so once the space battle is lost the Covenant is Not going to waste time cracking tough nuts it can just obliterate from orbit.

[Tavar]

Cortana seems able to wreck havoc on Covenant computer systems. And ME can make as many Cortana-equivalent AIs as needed.
When she's inside them. Note that the Citadel species lack such efficient AI units(theirs are stationary computers).

It kind of does in ME, you are able to hack synthetics and overload your enemy's shields and weapons.
The Quarians also used an ECM superweapon against the Geth, but it makes sense for the geth to be constantly transmitting to each other, and for the Quarians to be familiar with their programming.
You're generally able to hack individual units, not ships.

And, as I noted before, Halo stuff seems generally to not be designed by complete idiots in this regard.

Really? Because EDI's entire function is to hack the other ship, while defending the Normandy. There's a whole level where you survive because EDI disarms the trap the Collectors set for you inside their ship.

There are also three factions (as mentioned above) who are all about finding sneaky ways to win without direct combat.

Heck, a huge chunk of ME3's plot is the Illusive Man trying to hack the Reapers.

And you don't need anything that advanced. A simple shutdown is more than enough.
Ah, ok. Then let me rephrase that: Halo appears not to have computers designed by morons, so that's not really an option.

As for hacking the Reapers: that's a vulnerability specific to them, not stuff in general. Hack a ship in Halo requires hard access, something the ME species aren't likely to get, at least in the manner necessary to bring their own AI's in.

...This one seemed like simple physics to me. It requires much less force to accelerate a less massive craft at the same speed as a more massive craft.

I *think* it was in the ME2 codex where it was stated how eezo works.
Right. But, that assumes equally strong engines. We don't have anything talking about that. And we have a few things that would seem to counter that(engagement ranges for Super-Macs don't appear to be too long, despite 4% light speed). Nor do we have a clear reference for how light the ships can be.

Not saying that ME isn't going to have an advantage(the matter's completely unclear), but it might not be as large of a difference.

... Clarification? I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Most covenant starships are capable of atmospheric operation. In this use, they're a giant, large, extremely capable gunship(lots and lots of laser weaponry, for example).


Well I'm considering that even with a presumably completely unprepared fleet he was able to cut through Earth's defenses (presumably the strongest in the galaxy) so it can be read to say a lot about the disparity of force in general. And I don't think Halo 2, on its own gives, a clear enough picture about what's going on because you up and leave to follow Regret. Who admittedly if he was more sensible should probably have retreated as soon as his slipspace engines allowed it to come back with more forces

Eh, he was able to punch through them, but in the process he didn't seem to do too much damage, and they were getting ready to destroy him when he left.

As for the revolt, I think it did a pretty good job. Especially if you pay attention to what's going on outside(lots of explosions and pretty lights).

[McDouggal]

Right. But, that assumes equally strong engines. We don't have anything talking about that. And we have a few things that would seem to counter that(engagement ranges for Super-Macs don't appear to be too long, despite 4% light speed). Nor do we have a clear reference for how light the ships can be.

Not saying that ME isn't going to have an advantage(the matter's completely unclear), but it might not be as large of a difference.

Right. Forgot about that bit. Well, that's gonna throw all my estimations off.


Most covenant starships are capable of atmospheric operation. In this use, they're a giant, large, extremely capable gunship(lots and lots of laser weaponry, for example).

All that really does is... wait. A 20 kilo shell hitting at 1.5% lightspeed (ME2 sergeant talking to troops) into atmo will do... *mathmathmath* well, it'll either reduce the ship to nothingness, along with anything within about 200 miles of the target, plus the shockwave... um. Basically, I *think* it'll destroy a good amount of the planet? Maybe not something the ME fleets want to do.

Or it'll disintigrate on atmo and do nothing.

Ouch either way.

[Tavar]

All that really does is... wait. A 20 kilo shell hitting at 1.5% lightspeed (ME2 sergeant talking to troops) into atmo will do... *mathmathmath* well, it'll either reduce the ship to nothingness, along with anything within about 200 miles of the target, plus the shockwave... um. Basically, I *think* it'll destroy a good amount of the planet? Maybe not something the ME fleets want to do.

Or it'll disintigrate on atmo and do nothing.

Ouch either way.

Huh? That should only be the amount of energy in a moderately sized nuclear bomb, right? Hell, haven't we detonated stronger nuclear weapons throughout history?

[BRC]

Right. Forgot about that bit. Well, that's gonna throw all my estimations off.



All that really does is... wait. A 20 kilo shell hitting at 1.5% lightspeed (ME2 sergeant talking to troops) into atmo will do... *mathmathmath* well, it'll either reduce the ship to nothingness, along with anything within about 200 miles of the target, plus the shockwave... um. Basically, I *think* it'll destroy a good amount of the planet? Maybe not something the ME fleets want to do.

Or it'll disintigrate on atmo and do nothing.

Ouch either way.

Hence the badassery of Sir Issac Newton and the importance of checking your targeting solutions.

[HamHam]

When she's inside them. Note that the Citadel species lack such efficient AI units(theirs are stationary computers).

The Geth are not. And EDI might be running on the AI core in the ship primarily, she can download herself into her body as well.

[Tiki Snakes]

The covenant are many things. Secure on the Cyber-Warfare front? They are not.

Half the time, they don't even encrypt their communications channels. Cortana is good, probably a match for EDI, but the ability to hack a hilarious range of things is a standard skill-set of basically anyone with engineer training, and if there's one thing the mass effect universe excels at, it's infiltration teams.

[SiuiS]

I keep seeing mention of the ME weaponry, but very little outside of Plasma tech for the Covenant. Are we forgetting the Needler, Plasma Launcher, Concusion Rifle, Fuel Rod Cannon, and Carbine? From what I understand of ME's shields the Needler would be downright lethal even in the hands of a grunt, and a FRG is going to outright end anything caught in the splash radius. Based on the gameplay I've seen, footsoldiers in ME wouldn't be able to outmaneuver the Needler's firepower without sprinting head-first towards the closest cover (whereas ODSTs and Spartans can do so, albeit with difficulty).

The needles would be rather effective, aye. The thing though, is that by numerical comparison weapons in ME given to soldiers to deal with standard personal defenses (shields, armor, repair) are antimateriel in modern standards. This should mean that if a halo!pistol is not a good gun to destroy an Abrams tank with, it is not as good as a ME!pistol.

Whether that is acceptable is debatable. I've always found it sloppy that these weapons that are much stronger than conventional fire arms are still just leaving vidja game bullet holes because "precise computer calibrations".



Ship-to-ship, barring the Covenant abusing Slipspace jumps to teleport themselves inside the enemy's vessel, I'd hand the combat to the ME tech though. First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx gave us good insight to how the Covenant's plasma batteries work, and they aren't that good. The Pillar of Autumn was able to shoot down several ships prior to slipspacing away from Reach (and ending up on Instillation 04); the only reason it ran was sheer numbers, which the Covenant have. That's pretty much how the Covenant fight ship-to-ship battles anyway: Overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, and keep trying to punch a hole in the line.

The Covenant do have a serious stealth advantage though. Reach showed they were able to hide an entire fleet on the planet they were about to glass, waiting until they found the Forerunner artifact that Halsey's archaeology team uncovered. We also know that Covenant active camouflage is fairly advanced, able to run for several hours (Halo 2, save for the Arbiter's armor).

Summary: Ship to ship, the Covenant are Lemmings. Infantry and non-space vehicular battles, the Covenant are downright terrifying. Stealth, no contest whatsoever.

I believe the consensus is that they do not actually glass planets, and the term was used to add gravitas to an in game situation. They didn't have the capacity to really do that except in the same way a man with an ice pick is technically capable of leveling a building. I could be wrong though.



Needlers might be pretty dangerous. Of course, they need to pierce shields to do anything meaningful, but once that's done there isn't much else going that I'd trust to stop a charging krogan.

Most Covenant weaponry is really pretty straight-forward. Needlers and that grenade launcher with the sticky orbs are very much outliers, but very useful ones.

Man. Krogan. It's a damn good thing krogan aren't as strong in game as in codex.

Needless would indeed get through shields with ease, simply because the syncopated spread would play havoc on its battery. But then you've got the ballistic cloth and ballistic ceramic armor, backed up by immediate emergency medical treatment.

Again though, a series of embedded needles does seem like the best answer to these defenses.


I can't remember how many hits it takes playing on real mode (Heroic) but I think vehicles are a good example of why judging by in-game is a probably nonsense.

Does anyone think that a Scorpion tank is that really that slow?

That's a relic of human reflexes related to the game needing to be playable, and the fact that you aren't getting a good game experience out of an authentic tank experience. Civilians just aren't going to do well there, and they're the audience.


It's really, really, not. All of the groups have actual goverments: the Citadel is basically the Space-UN meeting place. If you take all that out, you haven't really gained anything beyond killing ambassador.

Well, ok, you've also hit them in the moral, but that can by tricky. I imagine it would backfire more than it would actually break them.

I dunno. Salarians are pretty freeform. Turians could go either way; you get lucky in 3, before that they follow a hierarchical chain of command which extends to the citadel. Asari would be screwed completely. Humans would be variable, since this exact scenario is what the games are about but they had warning.

The citadel is central to the council races. Physically, morally, governmentally, almost spiritually. It's a big target.



Pretty sure we never see anything too similar for ME. Hell, the closest thing I can think of, Garrus's recruitment mission, involves a much more minor wound being taken much more seriously.

On the contrary, you see it all the time and it's ignored. Every health wound is a round that broke armor, entered flesh and deformed on soft tissue and bone to cause maximum energy dispersal, which was solved by micro transmitters pumping a constant squish of medical gel into the wound and sealing both the flesh and the armor. Garrus took repeated ME!antivehicle rounds (assuming the obvious 'that much better than ground troop weaponry' which is already that much better than our expectations) and a rocket, before going down for twenty minutes and making a full, if sore, recovery from having half his mandible mangled.

The difference is scale. In halo ODST, that guy is a trooper. It's a grittier medical situation. In mass effect, that's just sort of a given their wounds stopped being realistic a long time ago.



Those factors are the abstract.


They are. That was going somewhere, but I find just moving figures around in my head more fun than explaining the idea. The wages of sleep dep, I suppose.



Reduced Mass=/= either Faster than Light or Lightspeed(this is really obvious, as otherwise lift would be a one hit kill). Let's go back to that Main dreadnought gun: it goes at about 1.3% the speed of light. By your logic, the enemy would be perfectly safe from these as long as they're moving away to any real degree.

Not comparable. Lift provides no impetus and was never used for FTL. The mass effect drive systems of an FTL ship are indeed used for FTL and do indeed provide impetus. I'm sayin the ships can do luminal speeds because they're designed for luminal speeds. Lift is designed to incapacitate ground targets if you target it well. There's a world of difference.


Also, you're leaving out a few 0's on those ranges.


And? The point of that being an aside was to have someone verify and correct. Pointing out I'm wrong in such a fashion is just a cheap shot with little benefit – I know I'm wrong. Hence the reticence of "I want to say", whereby I'm admitting I shouldn't.



No, it's impossible to win. Unless You'd say that the Gad ship is totally stronger than ME.

It's a joke hon. "The side with numbers wins because the side without is disqualified".

[Tiki Snakes]

Siuis? I'm not sure the needles would get through the shield. That's kind of their trade-off, they are really bad at piercing shields. It's their thing. Shields? You're fine. No Shields? Already dead, all it takes is putting enough pink crystals in the air around you, they do the rest and then boom.

[Forum Explorer]

Broken Terrain isn't a problem for the Mako either. That thing is like Spiderman meets Moonbounce.


...I really hated the Mako

The vehicle sections were the best part of ME1. I still mourn the fact that they were replaced with mineral scanning.


I'm going to do this as a comparison between the Covenant/Halo humans on one side and the Citadel races on the other. The Flood and the Reapers kind of screw over any comparison on power level otherwise.

First thing: Mass Effect wins a straight space battle on even numbers. Because of Element Zero, every one of their ships has better speed, acceleration, and turning than a Halo ship; the only advantage that the Halo ships have are better armor.

Ground battles depend on troop composition. The Mass Effect universe has nothing analogous to a Spartan, but ME mooks are indisputably stronger than Halo mooks. Halo ground vehicles have the edge, but not enough of one to tip the battle in their favor (Freaking Scorpion and Scarab tanks...). Air support goes to Mass Effect; the Pelicans, Covenant equialent of the Pelican, Hornets, and Banshees are going to get WRECKED by the superior speed, manuverability, and firepower of the Citadel gunships. However, Mass Effect universe doesn't have the ability to drop game changing numbers of soldiers quickly; the advantage from their air superiority is going to have to come from strike missions and ground support.

Due to the air superiority and the superiority of the average ME soldier, the ground war on average goes to Mass Effect.

However, numbers are still an unknown quantity in both theaters. I am unsure how many ships are in the total Covenant fleet, although the Human fleet is much smaller. Likewise, the number of Covenant soldiers is an unknown.

Strategic stuff!

Mass Effect tech allows faster transport to more limited locations (I actually read it as closer to like hours to cross the GALAXY using the relays.), however, getting far from those locations is time and resource consuming, to the point that moving an entire fleet will take, well, days at least.

Halo tech allows a linear transport time at FTL speeds, as opposed to ME's... thing. This means that they can set up bases that are a pain in time and resources for ME forces to assault, while not sacrificing much, if any, of their manuverability.

A ME soldier can be kept in the fight for longer (or returned to it after treatment) thanks to Medi-Gel. Halo has Biofilm (Forward unto Dawn), but it isn't kept in large quantities, and it is unknown if it's effective on Covenant soldiers.

In the end, I suspect it would eventually fall into a stalemate; ME universe won't have the ability to force Halo universe to fight when they want to once Halo universe retreats from the Mass Relays. Halo universe can't do hit and runs, since their mobility is hampered by a predictably linear travel time.

If it comes down to a prolonged combat I'm more inclined to give it to ME. The Salarians get much more effective the more they know about their opponent, and the Citadel races have very good research and reverse tech capabilities. Down to creating a bio weapon to wipe out entire species of the Covenant.

Besides that the Citadel races seem to have a more stable alliance and better diplomacy. Okay they can be jerks, but they've held together peacefully for a very long time. The Covenant is doomed to break apart in a civil war, and to my understanding has lots of racial tension in it already.

The Citadel also already have stealth specialists and the tech for unfrettered AI's. Getting aboard to upload them seems to be a typical job for a Specter.

[McDouggal]

Huh? That should only be the amount of energy in a moderately sized nuclear bomb, right? Hell, haven't we detonated stronger nuclear weapons throughout history?

There's a reason why atmospheric reentry has to take place at specific angles.

What I was referring to was the potential to create a... Mushroom cloud seems to be the best descriptor... of super compressed air that would, um, destroy anything it hit. And anything on the ground gets hit with some massive earthquakes.

The best comparison I have for it is something similar to a meteor. Or something. It made sense in my head.

Things get weird, physics wise, when you reach speeds that high. It's hurting my head to think about. Especially since I have only passing knowledge.

[Xondoure]

@Tavar: If by "specific Reaper thing" you mean that it's an order of magnitude more difficult than hacking a normal OS then yes, I agree. On the one hand you're dealing with the most advanced AI in the galaxy. On the other you're dealing with a targeting computer.

And I don't think that "Mass Effect programming sucks" is a valid argument when they have superior AI.

[BRC]

@Tavar: If by "specific Reaper thing" you mean that it's an order of magnitude more difficult than hacking a normal OS then yes, I agree. On the one hand you're dealing with the most advanced AI in the galaxy. On the other you're dealing with a targeting computer.

And I don't think that "Mass Effect programming sucks" is a valid argument when they have superior AI.
It should also be noted that TIM was indoctrinated and crazier than a bag of hammers. He was TRYING to hack Reapers, and had managed to disrupt/hijack the command signal to some Husks, but we have nothing to indicate they were anywhere near being able to hack a Reaper itself.

The Control ending DOES have shep kind of "Hacking" the reapers, but at that point the catalyst is basically magic and has nothing to do with hacking anything.

Also remember that making True AI's is very, very illegal in Citadel Space. The Humans managed to make one by accident, Cerberus made one but "Crazy, shady, illegal science" is their thing, but nobody else would even think of using a true AI.

Which means that the Salarians probably have four or five running in some STG base somewhere.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The covenant are many things. Secure on the Cyber-Warfare front? They are not.

Half the time, they don't even encrypt their communications channels. Cortana is good, probably a match for EDI, but the ability to hack a hilarious range of things is a standard skill-set of basically anyone with engineer training, and if there's one thing the mass effect universe excels at, it's infiltration teams.

True enough on hacking though that Cortana can only read transmissions without being plugged in physically suggests Haloverse networks are simply not structurally vulnerable to hacking from the outside.

Which makes a fare bit of sense, cyber-warfare is never going to be more then a side-line sort of thing because the measures against it are fairly simple and obvious.

And its always an interesting question whether two universes could interact with the each other's computer systems at all. I personally am never inclined to extend a translation convention to programming languages. So pretty late in a conflict.



I believe the consensus is that they do not actually glass planets, and the term was used to add gravitas to an in game situation. They didn't have the capacity to really do that except in the same way a man with an ice pick is technically capable of leveling a building. I could be wrong though.

As in literally melt everything into molten rock leaving only glassy shiny stuff behind... yeah probably some dramatic license.

However the glassing half of Africa (iirc) wiped out a Flood infection in Halo 3, so its plenty comprehensive and fairly quick.

Just in general every space based civilization can easily wipe out planetary civilizations by chucking stuff out the window (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment). And we previously (if not still haven't counted warheads in years) had the much less efficient but completely there capablity to do with merely modern tech.


That's a relic of human reflexes related to the game needing to be playable, and the fact that you aren't getting a good game experience out of an authentic tank experience. Civilians just aren't going to do well there, and they're the audience.

Well yeah exactly, ergo we shouldn't conclude the "actual" in universe performance solely from the games especially were certain specs are concerned. Speed, damage, etc all result from abstractions made in game by the engine.

(Though vehicles still suck pretty bad in Halo dudes just climb on the tank c'mon!)


Siuis? I'm not sure the needles would get through the shield. That's kind of their trade-off, they are really bad at piercing shields. It's their thing. Shields? You're fine. No Shields? Already dead, all it takes is putting enough pink crystals in the air around you, they do the rest and then boom.

I'm getting the sense most of your play was on normal difficulty? Just because I distinctly remember some times when a Grunt I didn't notice pumped me full of needles and **** my shield runrunrunrun. I definitely did that to Elites too.

They suck at range or with any kind of cover. More out of game Wiki (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Needler) suggests armor is more their achilles. They are however solid needles so ostensibly ME shields will work.

Though this poses the interesting question of if the needles are potentially too slow for ME shield or if their self propulsion would help them push through.

Now I want to take a Needler to Dune.

[Forum Explorer]

True enough on hacking though that Cortana can only read transmissions without being plugged in physically suggests Haloverse networks are simply not structurally vulnerable to hacking from the outside.

Which makes a fare bit of sense, cyber-warfare is never going to be more then a side-line sort of thing because the measures against it are fairly simple and obvious.

And its always an interesting question whether two universes could interact with the each other's computer systems at all. I personally am never inclined to extend a translation convention to programming languages. So pretty late in a conflict.



As in literally melt everything into molten rock leaving only glassy shiny stuff behind... yeah probably some dramatic license.

However the glassing half of Africa (iirc) wiped out a Flood infection in Halo 3, so its plenty comprehensive and fairly quick.

Just in general every space based civilization can easily wipe out planetary civilizations by chucking stuff out the window (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment). And we previously (if not still haven't counted warheads in years) had the much less efficient but completely there capablity to do with merely modern tech.



Well yeah exactly, ergo we shouldn't conclude the "actual" in universe performance solely from the games especially were certain specs are concerned. Speed, damage, etc all result from abstractions made in game by the engine.

(Though vehicles still suck pretty bad in Halo dudes just climb on the tank c'mon!)



I'm getting the sense most of your play was on normal difficulty? Just because I distinctly remember some times when a Grunt I didn't notice pumped me full of needles and **** my shield runrunrunrun. I definitely did that to Elites too.

They suck at range or with any kind of cover. More out of game Wiki (http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Needler) suggests armor is more their achilles. They are however solid needles so ostensibly ME shields will work.

Though this poses the interesting question of if the needles are potentially too slow for ME shield or if their self propulsion would help them push through.

Now I want to take a Needler to Dune.

Well it's hard to say since we only have human computer programming to go off of. Though it's kinda based in math so once you understand the symbols of the language the rest should be kinda universal.


Mass Effect does have orbital bombardment as well, it's just illegal to use anything that would damage the ecosystem of a garden world. It's one of the reasons they take such care in assuring that they would miss their target and hit the planet.


The needler speed is pretty fast. I think it's only stuff going at close combat speed (so punches and the like) that are slow enough to get through the shields. Though if armor is their bane then they aren't going to be very effective at all against ME troops. Sure they'll get the occasional kill here or there, but their plasma weaponry will be much more effective.

[Tiki Snakes]

I'm getting the sense most of your play was on normal difficulty? Just because I distinctly remember some times when a Grunt I didn't notice pumped me full of needles and **** my shield runrunrunrun. I definitely did that to Elites too.

Actually, I've completed several of the franchise on legendary or whatever the top one was. I just have a really spotty memory and it's been a while since I played anything other than 4 (which I've only done a single simple coop playthrough with a mate, nothing compared to our repeated playthroughs of previous ones on multiple difficulties, just don't have the time these days. :smallsmile: I usually play co-op, done one or two of the games solo as well though, including a solo legendary on reach.)

Admittedly, Legendary (or whatever) basically translates into "Don't get shot! Even then!" and cowering behind rocks, using dirty tricks and so on quite a lot. (Or having your co-op partner suicide rush everything when the game gets too annoying if you're cooping and feeling cheeky.

[An Enemy Spy]

I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but do the Mass Relays exist in this scenario? Without them, the MAss Effect ships don't seem to have the same ability to jump across interstellar space like the Halo ships do. The ME forces would be isolated and destroyed by the Halo forces without any ability for timely reinforcements that the Halo side would have.

[Forum Explorer]

I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but do the Mass Relays exist in this scenario? Without them, the MAss Effect ships don't seem to have the same ability to jump across interstellar space like the Halo ships do. The ME forces would be isolated and destroyed by the Halo forces without any ability for timely reinforcements that the Halo side would have.

The Mass Relays do exist.

[Tavar]

The Geth are not. And EDI might be running on the AI core in the ship primarily, she can download herself into her body as well.
And the Geth aren't partically noted as hacking the big stuff. Hell, most of the time, you're hacking them, not the other way around.

The covenant are many things. Secure on the Cyber-Warfare front? They are not.

Half the time, they don't even encrypt their communications channels. Cortana is good, probably a match for EDI, but the ability to hack a hilarious range of things is a standard skill-set of basically anyone with engineer training, and if there's one thing the mass effect universe excels at, it's infiltration teams.
So the ability to do something in one universe vs one type of tech is proof that it works against all others? Even when that's not how things work in the other?

In that case, I think we should recognize that Halo units are largely immune to falling damage, for starters.


@Tavar: If by "specific Reaper thing" you mean that it's an order of magnitude more difficult than hacking a normal OS then yes, I agree. On the one hand you're dealing with the most advanced AI in the galaxy. On the other you're dealing with a targeting computer.

And I don't think that "Mass Effect programming sucks" is a valid argument when they have superior AI.
No. I mean that the Reapers could be hacked because of a connection to the Citadel, which the Citadel+Catalyst could then exploit.

And I'm not saying that the programming specifically sucks. I'm saying that hacking something like a piloted ship is, well, really stupid unless you're inside the thing/Have open communication with it(eg, have the ability to transfer programs freely between your ship and the other ship, though this doesn't work with most ME AI).






I believe the consensus is that they do not actually glass planets, and the term was used to add gravitas to an in game situation. They didn't have the capacity to really do that except in the same way a man with an ice pick is technically capable of leveling a building. I could be wrong though.
They might not completely glass them, but they do quite a lot of damage. I think 200 years was the average time to render 'glassed' planets fit for habitation.





I dunno. Salarians are pretty freeform. Turians could go either way; you get lucky in 3, before that they follow a hierarchical chain of command which extends to the citadel. Asari would be screwed completely. Humans would be variable, since this exact scenario is what the games are about but they had warning.

The citadel is central to the council races. Physically, morally, governmentally, almost spiritually. It's a big target.
The Turian Head of state is actually the Primarch, who is not the councilor. Plus, the Turians have a very well developed chain of succession. If you really want to hit them, you need to hit the homeworld and try and take out as many of those leaders as possible(similar to what the Reapers did).

The Asari are actually the most free-form.

The Salarians also send a diplomat to the Citadel. Hell, before ME2(possibly), they had never sent any of their politically powerful members there(Females hold political power, yet none are sent).

Yes, the Citadel would be a bit hit, but it would be like taking out Brussels(Nato headquarters). Or maybe Brussels and New York(while the UN was in session). That would be huge. But it wouldn't exactly cripple NATO, or the UN countries. Especially militarily.




Not comparable. Lift provides no impetus and was never used for FTL. The mass effect drive systems of an FTL ship are indeed used for FTL and do indeed provide impetus. I'm sayin the ships can do luminal speeds because they're designed for luminal speeds. Lift is designed to incapacitate ground targets if you target it well. There's a world of difference.
And yet their combat doctrine and facts about their combat system make that statement ludicrous. ME fields can be used, with the engines, to go FTL. To say that, therefore, any application of the ME fields and the engines is FTL or even near light speed is laughable.

It's like saying that, because B52's are designed to drop atomic bombs, they are therefore designed to withstand them. After all, they'd be nearby said bombs.


And? The point of that being an aside was to have someone verify and correct. Pointing out I'm wrong in such a fashion is just a cheap shot with little benefit – I know I'm wrong. Hence the reticence of "I want to say", whereby I'm admitting I shouldn't.
At this point, I'm annoyed that you continually seem to post facts that are at best false, and often misleading. Especially since this information isn't exactly hidden on the ME wiki. When I read that, well, I didn't read it as a "I shouldn't, but I will"(which isn't much of a defense: what, is admitting it's a bad idea somehow making criticism wrong), but a more "I'm going to throw out some numbers and see if they stick".


It's a joke hon. "The side with numbers wins because the side without is disqualified".
Considering people don't seem to use it as a joke....

How was I supposed to know?



On the contrary, you see it all the time and it's ignored. Every health wound is a round that broke armor, entered flesh and deformed on soft tissue and bone to cause maximum energy dispersal, which was solved by micro transmitters pumping a constant squish of medical gel into the wound and sealing both the flesh and the armor. Garrus took repeated ME!antivehicle rounds (assuming the obvious 'that much better than ground troop weaponry' which is already that much better than our expectations) and a rocket, before going down for twenty minutes and making a full, if sore, recovery from having half his mandible mangled.

The difference is scale. In halo ODST, that guy is a trooper. It's a grittier medical situation. In mass effect, that's just sort of a given their wounds stopped being realistic a long time ago.
My mistake.



There's a reason why atmospheric reentry has to take place at specific angles.

What I was referring to was the potential to create a... Mushroom cloud seems to be the best descriptor... of super compressed air that would, um, destroy anything it hit. And anything on the ground gets hit with some massive earthquakes.

The best comparison I have for it is something similar to a meteor. Or something. It made sense in my head.

Things get weird, physics wise, when you reach speeds that high. It's hurting my head to think about. Especially since I have only passing knowledge.

Can you provide the equations you're using to get that value? I'm somewhat familiar with physics, and I've never seen figures like that. And neither have some other people I asked, though obviously it's people on the internet so results may vary.

[russdm]

I think you are rolling to much in favor of the covenant. Remember that they are only united by their faith in the Forerunners. I can't see the Reapers not seriously exploiting that fact or another race pointing out similiarities between the Protheans and the Forerunners.

Also, the grunts serve the Covenant through fear mostly and are completely treated as cannon fodder. The Elites were totally up for asking the humans if they want to join. So you have problems with those races. Also, the jackals are mercenaries and are only loyal to the Covenant because of what they are getting paid.

It has been quite clearly established that the Covenant doesn't reverse engineer or improve on the forerunner tech that pick up. So, they are going to be boned on that.

The Covenant is comprised of races that have a loose relationship with each other and its all run by the Prophets. While the Elites and Jackals can function without the prophets, the grunts have to be pointed in a direction and encouraged(forced) to act. The brutes seriously lack any cohesive leadership that could deal with losing the prophets. On their own, the brutes will just attack whatever they feel like. The hunters also have to be directed.

All the Citadel races have to do is strike the Covenant leadership and then make some deals with the grunts, jackals, and elites. After that, its steamrolling on the remaining covenant. The Turians are notorious for their fighting abilities as an army, the krogan are notorious for being fighters anyway and are clearly tougher than any brute, and the salarians are notorious for having special forces units and intelligence gathering units. The Asari have a lot of biotics and biotics cannot be duplicated by anything the covenant has nor can they defend against it. Plus the system alliance has its forces essentially as being Spartan 1s or 4s while the UNSC is made up of ordinary humans plus Spartans.

That all said, I would put in favor against the Covenant, since they are too breakable and they lack anything keeping them together beyond their faith and the prophets' willingness to destroy planets.

The citadel races win hands down against the Covenant because they work together and are simply better than the Covenant races.

As for tech, it pretty much doesn't matter at this point because the citadel races have shown considerable skill at co-opting old prothean tech. The covenant has never done the same with forerunner tech nor do they possess any of the technological expertise to do anything about the genophage. In fact it appears that the Covenant doesn't have any kind of medical system for their troops and none has appeared in games anywhere. Covenant troops rely solely on shields.

[Tavar]

I think you are rolling to much in favor of the covenant. Remember that they are only united by their faith in the Forerunners. I can't see the Reapers not seriously exploiting that fact or another race pointing out similiarities between the Protheans and the Forerunners.
Not really. The Faith is a central element, but it's as much political as anything else.


Also, the grunts serve the Covenant through fear mostly and are completely treated as cannon fodder. The Elites were totally up for asking the humans if they want to join. So you have problems with those races. Also, the jackals are mercenaries and are only loyal to the Covenant because of what they are getting paid.
True about the Grunts, though I'd point out that despite the war, no decent sized groups ever switched sides until the end, and that was due to political movements by the Prophets(which were at least somewhat related to the Rings/Great Journey). Also, while the Elites were all for it, they didn't exactly shy from pursuing the war.


It has been quite clearly established that the Covenant doesn't reverse engineer or improve on the forerunner tech that pick up. So, they are going to be boned on that.
I'd note that the only one who does do so in the books has the literal keys to most Forerunner Knowledge.

Plus, there is actual mention of developments(Arbiter armor is noted as being older). Given everything else, including showing research projects, it's more likely to assume that they are doing research, it's just not as fast as other groups.

Of course, the Citadel isn't exactly stellar in the Tech field, either.

All the Citadel races have to do is strike the Covenant leadership
This is something that the Covenant seem to realize, given that despite a 28 year long war, the Humans don't even know about the Covenant until Year 27. If things start off more diplomatic the Citadel races might learn of them earlier, but it still wouldn't be easy to take them out.


and then make some deals with the grunts, jackals, and elites. After that, its steamrolling on the remaining covenant.
Because assassinating religious figures makes the members of that religion think that the assassins are totally nice people who they should just get along with.

Oh, wait, it usually does the opposite.


The Turians are notorious for their fighting abilities as an army, the krogan are notorious for being fighters anyway and are clearly tougher than any brute, and the salarians are notorious for having special forces units and intelligence gathering units. The Asari have a lot of biotics and biotics cannot be duplicated by anything the covenant has nor can they defend against it. Plus the system alliance has its forces essentially as being Spartan 1s or 4s while the UNSC is made up of ordinary humans plus Spartans.
Source as to the SA being better?

That all said, I would put in favor against the Covenant, since they are too breakable and they lack anything keeping them together beyond their faith and the prophets' willingness to destroy planets.

The citadel races win hands down against the Covenant because they work together and are simply better than the Covenant races.
Which is why it took not only a 25 year long grindhouse of a war, but also a political double cross by the leadership in order to solidify their own power to break the Covenant.

Meanwhile, the Citadel races broke after....what, a few weeks into the Reaper Invasion? Oh, sure, they didn't fall into Civil war, but no one was exactly jumping in order to fulfill defense treaties, even if they weren't heavily attacked at the moment.


As for tech, it pretty much doesn't matter at this point because the citadel races have shown considerable skill at co-opting old prothean tech. The covenant has never done the same with forerunner tech.
Actually, they haven't. They use the Tech stuff that the Reapers left behind in order to get everyone on the same page technologically, but the Citadel races are actually somewhat bad at reverse engineering(they can't even fully control their engines).

[BRC]

Actually, they haven't. They use the Tech stuff that the Reapers left behind in order to get everyone on the same page technologically, but the Citadel races are actually somewhat bad at reverse engineering(they can't even fully control their engines).
They were also able to build a superweapon by decoding patchwork blueprints cobbled together by countless different civilizations over countless billions of years.

and I'm not sure what you mean by being unable to fully control their engines.

Personally I see no indication that the Citadel couldn't give the Covenant the full XCOM treatment.

[Tavar]

They were also able to build a superweapon by decoding patchwork blueprints cobbled together by countless different civilizations over countless billions of years.

and I'm not sure what you mean by being unable to fully control their engines.

Personally I see no indication that the Citadel couldn't give the Covenant the full XCOM treatment.

There are computers that control their FTL. They do not understand the coding completely, as noted in talk about the war with the Reapers. Part of this code prevents FTL collisions, which are forbidden by the computer. There are isolated cases of it being turned off, but the knowledge isn't widespread.

The superweapon is somewhat notable, but they don't even know what it's supposed to do. Not a great achievement over the Covenant.

As for giving the Covenant the full XCOM, well, they might and the might not. Humanity seemed to really try to do so, but didn't succeed until a few giant windfalls(for example, Onyx engineers).

[russdm]

I'd note that the only one who does do so in the books has the literal keys to most Forerunner Knowledge.

Plus, there is actual mention of developments(Arbiter armor is noted as being older). Given everything else, including showing research projects, it's more likely to assume that they are doing research, it's just not as fast as other groups.


Wrong, there is no in-game evidence of the Covenant engaging in research projects nor do they do anything more than use Forerunner Tech. There is also no evidence in the books about the Covenant doing anything more with Forerunner Tech. Only the Engineers did anything with the tech, like keeping it intact.



Meanwhile, the Citadel races broke after....what, a few weeks into the Reaper Invasion? Oh, sure, they didn't fall into Civil war, but no one was exactly jumping in order to fulfill defense treaties, even if they weren't heavily attacked at the moment.


We aren't talking about the reaction towards the reapers, but the citadel races' towards the Covenant. I don't see the Covenant doing any better against the reapers than the citadel races.



Actually, they haven't. They use the Tech stuff that the Reapers left behind in order to get everyone on the same page technologically, but the Citadel races are actually somewhat bad at reverse engineering(they can't even fully control their engines).

This completely sums up the Covenant, just replace "reapers" with "forerunners" in your comments and it fits.

The reason that the Covenant won so many battles was because they were using better tech in space. On the ground they lost a bit more and usually would just end glassing the planet instead of seizing it. Did you forget about that in regards to the series?

The Covenant was completely reliant on the engineers to maintain their technology. Without the Engineers, after the war, the surviving covenant races can't maintain anything. The Elites can barely keep their ships functioning.

Also, a key tenet of the Covenant faith was revealed that they shouldn't do anything with the forerunner tech except use it. Its against their religion to reverse engineer or modify/tamper with the forerunner tech. The Arbiter armor was found or developed earlier, and little improvement has occurred between when it was made and the current armor suits that elites wore.

About the Systems Alliance from the Mass Effect Wiki:

The Hahne-Kedar company and Aldrin Labs are key suppliers of the military. All soldiers receive gene therapy for improved strength and stamina. The Alliance also recruits biotics, who are trained using techniques developed at BAaT. The new L3 biotic implants are considered a significant step forward in biotic amplification.

Link: Systems Alliance (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance)

[Tavar]

Wrong, there is no in-game evidence of the Covenant engaging in research projects nor do they do anything more than use Forerunner Tech. There is also no evidence in the books about the Covenant doing anything more with Forerunner Tech. Only the Engineers did anything with the tech, like keeping it intact.
In game, there's no evidence for the opposite either, so that's not really saying much at all.

Out of game, the start of Truth, Mercy, and Regret's rule was when the Forerunner Keyship at the heart of high Charity attempted to lift off, though this was stopped when the Lekgolo tasked with exploring and analysing the ship short circuited the entire thing, killing themselves in the process.

So, one case of research being conducted(and sanctioned in one of the holiest places no less), and no cases of it not being conducted.


We aren't talking about the reaction towards the reapers, but the citadel races' towards the Covenant. I don't see the Covenant doing any better against the reapers the citadel races.
So, just to be clear, you hold that nothing that happens in one universe's canon is relevant to the discussion of that universe? If this is case, how are you making any arguments regarding this? Since there's nothing you consider relevant, after all.

If it's not the case, why are you dismissing what happens in Mass Effect?

This completely sums up the Covenant, just replace "reapers" with "forerunners" in your comments and it fits.
Right. It also fits the Mass Effect Races. You'll notice that I didn't say it didn't fit the Covenant. Just that it was applicable to both.

The reason that the Covenant won so many battles was because they were using better tech in space. On the ground they lost a bit more and usually would just end glassing the planet instead of seizing it. Did you forget about that in regards to the series?
No, in fact that's been brought up multiple times. Of course, there are a couple reasons for those losses, including the fact that those are generally invasions against entrenched positions. You are correct though in that the Covenant was not at it's best on the ground.

Still, I wouldn't discount their abilities in space combat and ascribe them completely to Tech. Also, it's important to realize that some of those advantages still carry over: Covenant forces are not limited to the Relay network. That's a huge strategic advantage.

The Covenant was completely reliant on the engineers to maintain their technology. Without the Engineers, after the war, the surviving covenant races can't maintain anything. The Elites can barely keep their ships functioning.
And? You say this as if having specialized roles within a solid political body means that the body as a whole is incapable. What, does this meant the Citadel is incapable of waging conventional war? After all, only the Turians are good at that(possibly humans, but I don't know if they're involved).

Also, a key tenet of the Covenant faith was revealed that they shouldn't do anything with the forerunner tech except use it. Its against their religion to reverse engineer or modify/tamper with the forerunner tech. The Arbiter armor was found or developed earlier, and little improvement has occurred between when it was made and the current armor suits that elites wore.
Note that several other groups, including Forerunner factions, don't seem to have much more advanced equipment, at least regarding ground forces.

Also, where was this tenet revealed? It seems to contradict the fact that the Prophets did look into tech.



About the Systems Alliance from the Mass Effect Wiki:

The Hahne-Kedar company and Aldrin Labs are key suppliers of the military. All soldiers receive gene therapy for improved strength and stamina. The Alliance also recruits biotics, who are trained using techniques developed at BAaT. The new L3 biotic implants are considered a significant step forward in biotic amplification.

Link: Systems Alliance (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance)
Getting Gene therapy=/= being at the same level as a Spartan. Anymore than playing football means you're a NFL player.

[russdm]

Out of game, the start of Truth, Mercy, and Regret's rule was when the Forerunner Keyship at the heart of high Charity attempted to lift off, though this was stopped when the Lekgolo tasked with exploring and analysing the ship short circuited the entire thing, killing themselves in the process.

So, one case of research being conducted(and sanctioned in one of the holiest places no less), and no cases of it not being conducted.


They were asking questions of the Forerunner AI onboard the ship which set off the engines which the Lekgolo then disabled. None of the Prophets there made the ship move, nor were they asking about technology but were asking about the forerunner symbols picked up at the human colony of Harvest. Plus its been shown that Humans, not the Covenant were intended to receive the tech from the forerunners and the whole war was because the three guys found out that something that completely destroyed their entire religion if it was told to everyone else. They had to deliberately lie to get the war to happen.

Also, this is the only actual recorded instance, no other instance appears in the other books or in any of the games as far as I am unaware.



Also, where was this tenet revealed? It seems to contradict the fact that the Prophets did look into tech.


Its in one of the books, either Contact Harvest or one of the others. Its established pretty quickly plus mention is made in short stories/novels that the Covenant view humans modifying forerunner tech as being blasphemy.



So, just to be clear, you hold that nothing that happens in one universe's canon is relevant to the discussion of that universe? If this is case, how are you making any arguments regarding this? Since there's nothing you consider relevant, after all.

If it's not the case, why are you dismissing what happens in Mass Effect?


Because the Reapers would crush the Covenant? And the Flood is pretty much screwed against the Reapers? The Covenant may make a bigger fight but they still will lose against the Reapers.



No, in fact that's been brought up multiple times. Of course, there are a couple reasons for those losses, including the fact that those are generally invasions against entrenched positions. You are correct though in that the Covenant was not at it's best on the ground.

Still, I wouldn't discount their abilities in space combat and ascribe them completely to Tech. Also, it's important to realize that some of those advantages still carry over: Covenant forces are not limited to the Relay network. That's a huge strategic advantage.


The Covenant may have nice ships, but they still lose some, plus its the tactic of glassing worlds and frying ships that give the Covenant its victories. On the ground, the Covenant are about equal with humans and their plasma weapons don't give them much of an advantage. Plus humans can wield covenant weapons with only limited trouble. The Covenant is clearly not that superior as some people try to make out. Plus, without the engineers, the Covenant can't keep its ships running. That is clearly established by the books. Also, only engineers are shown maintaining the ships/other tech.



And? You say this as if having specialized roles within a solid political body means that the body as a whole is incapable. What, does this meant the Citadel is incapable of waging conventional war? After all, only the Turians are good at that(possibly humans, but I don't know if they're involved).


That is not what I was saying. I was saying that the races within the covenant were only loosely allied together and most had personal reasons of one sort or another to dislike each other, and that they were staying together mainly because of the San-shyuum, the Prophets.



Getting Gene therapy=/= being at the same level as a Spartan. Anymore than playing football means you're a NFL player.

All System Alliance soldiers get it, while only a few were actually turned into Spartans. And a lot of the Spartans have died. The Spartans only represented a small percentage of human forces in Halo, while the soldiers of the System Alliance represent 100% of humanity's fighting force. The UNSC had a few Spartans while the rest were ordinary humans.

[Xondoure]

I admit it's an entire programming language that doesn't share the same roots (well, the humans do share the same roots so that's a point against them.)

Like I said, that probably extends the amount of time it takes to hack in by a few days. Maybe the first week. Hacking is a super power in ME.

And just because HALO hacking can't operate at a range doesn't mean ME hacking is incapable of doing so to HALO ships. It's worth noting that for the big ships, sending an infiltration team on board would be trivial, and once inside I wouldn't put it past the Turians to be able to shut the thing down. Let alone Salarians, Quarians, humans (project overlord... yeah,) and Geth.

[Soras Teva Gee]

They were asking questions of the Forerunner AI onboard the ship which set off the engines which the Lekgolo then disabled. None of the Prophets there made the ship move, nor were they asking about technology but were asking about the forerunner symbols picked up at the human colony of Harvest. Plus its been shown that Humans, not the Covenant were intended to receive the tech from the forerunners and the whole war was because the three guys found out that something that completely destroyed their entire religion if it was told to everyone else. They had to deliberately lie to get the war to happen.

Also, this is the only actual recorded instance, no other instance appears in the other books or in any of the games as far as I am unaware.

Pretty sure Tavar knew all that first paragraph, what you missed was the point. Namely that the Prophets let a bunch of worms explore the interior spaces of their Holy of Holies. And not on some sacred pilgrimage by what's been reported.

That is not the actions of a group that is sooo dogmatically and systematically stupid and they are not interested in advancements.

Nor is it the only indication. Our handwave for the Arbiter not having lengthy active camo? His armor is "not as advanced" as the current stuff. The Brutes have only been in the Covenant a relatively short time, and things like Gravity Hammers are adaptations of their own ancient weapons. The Fist of Rukt is ancient by all indications and heavily modified. Either the Covenant had to cook that stuff up, or were flexible enough to let the Brutes bring it in.

Either way supports they are more flexible then they may appear. Which of course is largely the point of the Covenant. They may be a giant Cargo Cult but they aren't completely stupid about it. They do not have a full measure of what we call good scientific practice, but they are still clearly more then capable of modifying and adapting intelligently not simply looting boxes of Forerunner stuff.

Heck look no farther then Promethean and Sentinel weapons vs Covenant ones. I don't know what the Covenant cooked their weapons out of but it sure wasn't Forerunner weapon caches.


The Covenant may have nice ships, but they still lose some, plus its the tactic of glassing worlds and frying ships that give the Covenant its victories. On the ground, the Covenant are about equal with humans and their plasma weapons don't give them much of an advantage.

Almost equal when there are Spartans around might be more apt. Which there are generously a couple thousand of counting the IIIs?

Even the ground game like the has a sense of inevitability too. Humanity always seems to be on the defense, and maybe holds the line. And a Spartan team pulls off a counterattack that might be tactically stunning but strategically just buys more time.

Look no further then "Spartans never die" you ask me.


Plus humans can wield covenant weapons with only limited trouble.

This is rather silly.

A good weapon is inherently easy to wield, otherwise its not a good weapon. Scratch that doesn't even have to be a good weapon, just usable by the people intended to use it. Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Brutes all have a basically human thumb and index finger configuration, that's the crucial bit.

Everybody would probably get blisters and be uncomfortable but so what?



And just because HALO hacking can't operate at a range doesn't mean ME hacking is incapable of doing so to HALO ships. It's worth noting that for the big ships, sending an infiltration team on board would be trivial, and once inside I wouldn't put it past the Turians to be able to shut the thing down. Let alone Salarians, Quarians, humans (project overlord... yeah,) and Geth.


Umm yes it does.

You see "Hacking" is a myth and always will be.

All there is to it actions in a computer deemed negative by an outside observer. Computers don't care that that shut down order will cause something to blow up, its what their code is telling them to do so they do it. Heck even that last sentence is way too heavy on anthropomorphizing. To be hacked period you have to have a structure that allows it. Generally because you want some other capacity for some reason.

Don't have a wi-fi transmitter or can just y'know turn it off? You can't be hacked that way, end of story. Heck you can still even communicate, just don't intergrate your voice comms to anything (radio) and/or only allow a narrow and specific type of data to be passed. If you can make computers anything like we do period this sort of thing is basically there to be done. (IRL its just not convenient for commerical systems to do this.)

Wireless cyber warfare is the sort of thing that only works once. Ever. And then everybody knows better.

Physical connections can be much harder with the right knowledge... but infiltration for that is never trivial.

[Forum Explorer]

Physical connections can be much harder with the right knowledge... but infiltration for that is never trivial.

Don't you do that in Halo though in pretty much every game? It's a pretty big plot point at times I think. And I'd argue that Mass Effect has more stealth specialists that are on par or better then Spartans are.

[BRC]

You see "Hacking" is a myth and always will be.

All there is to it actions in a computer deemed negative by an outside observer. Computers don't care that that shut down order will cause something to blow up, its what their code is telling them to do so they do it. Heck even that last sentence is way too heavy on anthropomorphizing. To be hacked period you have to have a structure that allows it. Generally because you want some other capacity for some reason.

Don't have a wi-fi transmitter or can just y'know turn it off? You can't be hacked that way, end of story. Heck you can still even communicate, just don't intergrate your voice comms to anything (radio) and/or only allow a narrow and specific type of data to be passed. If you can make computers anything like we do period this sort of thing is basically there to be done. (IRL its just not convenient for commerical systems to do this.)

Wireless cyber warfare is the sort of thing that only works once. Ever. And then everybody knows better.

Physical connections can be much harder with the right knowledge... but infiltration for that is never trivial.

Looking at ME abilities, the only stuff that is explicitly "hacking" is Sabotage and AI hacking, both abilities which only work on synthetic enemies, all of which have a good reason to be accepting input signals (The Geth are a hivemind, so cutting off all input signals would turn a single geth platform into a useless idiot, and the Drones you want some way to give them orders. Even if they're running autonomously you would still want to be able to turn them off/give them commands with the proper access code, so they too will be accepting inputs).

All other tech abilities could theoretically be explained away in ways besides "Everything has wifi signal ports open constantly". Engineers can shoot fireballs (Incinerate), why can't they use some sort of EM blast designed to disrupt shields (Overload), ect. Sure it's silly physics, but it can at least be internally consistent without assuming everybody in the MEverse is a collossal moron who builds their shield generators to accept remote signals. Meanwhile while you do a lot of hacking in-game it's always from a control console (or from your omni-tool interfacing with a control console of some variety). You know, somthing designed to accept input instructions, allowing you to send instructions that trick the system into doing somthing its creators did not want it to do, like open without the proper password.


Come to think of it, I can't think of any time where remote hacking explicitly for the Quarian superweapon against the Geth on Rannoch. And the nature of the Geth means that they must be vulnerable to remote hacking, because they only function if they're always talking to one other.

That said the Citadel races DO have more experience fighting synthetic enemies (Geth, those combat drones that everybody seems to have access to for some reason, turrets). So they're probably more likely to have better Hackers. If they were able to figure out Covenant programming languages and get access to a covenant system I imagine they would be more likely to get somthing done than a group of Covenant with access to a Citadel alliance system.

As for politics. The Citadel is the center of galactic politics, but nobody actually bases their governments there. The councillors are powerful political figures on their homeworlds, but they are not the leaders. I'm not sure how the Asari work, but the Turians have a Primarch on palavan, and the Salarians have the Dalatrass on Sur'Kesh. Presumably the Councillors are appointed by their home governments.

An Alpha strike against the Citadel would probably deal more damage economically than anything. The Citadel is a major Social and Economic hub. If the Covenant captured the Citadel then they would take all the experienced personell and resources that are kept there out of the picture.

Remember, the reason Shepard had so much trouble getting the Council to band together against the Reapers is that the Reapers had the raw numbers and firepower to simultenously threaten the two most millitarily powerful council homeworlds. They were able to capture Earth with barely a fight and threaten Palavan. When they did attack Thessia they were able to capture it without too much trouble. The simultenous capture of Earth and attack on Palavan put the council members in Survival Mode, with nobody wanting to expose their own homeworld to attack any more than neccessary. Also the Reapers had a serious element of surprise on their side.

If the Reapers attacked Earth and were winning, but bogged down by it's defensese, then the Council races would have committed troops readily.

So if you are asking about cohesion, is the Covenant powerful enough to take a citadel race's homeworld without much of a fight, thus causing the other races to panic?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Don't you do that in Halo though in pretty much every game? It's a pretty big plot point at times I think. And I'd argue that Mass Effect has more stealth specialists that are on par or better then Spartans are.

I simply never confuse heroic performances for something generally replicable enmasse. Which is what wins in general warfare, where you can basically predict results by economics and statistics.

Let me put it like this perhaps... How many people do you think can clear a Halo campaign on Heroic (the "real" difficulty) on their first run through, without guides except maybe some general enemy profiles, and without dying once?
(And this still is easier then 'really' doing because of limited AI allowing pattern recognition without your enemies tactics adapting.)

Now sure maybe some real FPS pros out there have done it once or twice, especially later on in the series... but I personally doubt its enough to measure even 1/100 considering the millions of players the series has had.

The "real" war of the setting works more like that, just matter of statistics. And you don't have enough of the super elite spec ops hero dudes to go around. That's why they are the super elite spec ops hero dudes in the first place. It doesn't matter how good they are, just how many of them there are.

Conversely "real" militaries just don't have plot centric weakpoints that let you win the whole game. You blew up the flagship ship and only lost two men... excellent now that the initial confusion is sorted out the chain of command has put the next guy in charge. Go do it again. Fifty times minimum. Loose one man every two raids on average, it takes a year to replace him with a less experienced one.

Do you have enough dudes king of spec ops?

We don't think about it much because we haven't had a full on war by major powers since WWII and a lot of modern depiction of military affairs hasn't been tested for that sort of meat grinding.

[HamHam]

We're pairing off two action game franchises. I don't see where reality has anything to do with it.

[Forum Explorer]

I simply never confuse heroic performances for something generally replicable enmasse. Which is what wins in general warfare, where you can basically predict results by economics and statistics.

Let me put it like this perhaps... How many people do you think can clear a Halo campaign on Heroic (the "real" difficulty) on their first run through, without guides except maybe some general enemy profiles, and without dying once?
(And this still is easier then 'really' doing because of limited AI allowing pattern recognition without your enemies tactics adapting.)

Now sure maybe some real FPS pros out there have done it once or twice, especially later on in the series... but I personally doubt its enough to measure even 1/100 considering the millions of players the series has had.

The "real" war of the setting works more like that, just matter of statistics. And you don't have enough of the super elite spec ops hero dudes to go around. That's why they are the super elite spec ops hero dudes in the first place. It doesn't matter how good they are, just how many of them there are.

Conversely "real" militaries just don't have plot centric weakpoints that let you win the whole game. You blew up the flagship ship and only lost two men... excellent now that the initial confusion is sorted out the chain of command has put the next guy in charge. Go do it again. Fifty times minimum. Loose one man every two raids on average, it takes a year to replace him with a less experienced one.

Do you have enough dudes king of spec ops?

We don't think about it much because we haven't had a full on war by major powers since WWII and a lot of modern depiction of military affairs hasn't been tested for that sort of meat grinding.

Mass Effect has an entire species of super stealthy guys. They are called the Salarians. They also have an organization of super spec ops guys called Specters.

What's more they don't need to survive the mission, just get in upload the program and watch the ship fall apart. And they don't even need to do it some 50 times. They'd only need to do it to knock out those Supercarrierrs for an hour or so.

[BRC]

We're pairing off two action game franchises. I don't see where reality has anything to do with it.

Well the debate is "Citadel Races vs Halo" (or that's what it's become anyway). Master Chief and Commander Shepard are supposed to be the absolute best at what they do who ALSO have a good amount of protagonist Powered Luck behind them. The stuff that Shepard and Chief do is supposed to be extraordinary and nigh-impossible, not expected.
We expect it because they are action game protagonists, but in-universe it's supposed to be extraordinary.


It would be like talking about Star Wars and assuming that every X-Wing Pilot was just as skilled and just as lucky as Luke Skywalker, so if there was some situation comparable to the Trench Run/hitting the exhaust port, you assume that every X-Wing pilot could reliably pull it off.

We can acknowledge that Spectres and STG are very good at what they do, but we can't assume that they are all Commander Shepard.

That said, if Master Chief can infiltrate a covenant ship and hack it, then infiltration+hacking is a potential method of taking one down. Mass Effect has people good at those things, so it can't be disregarded as a tactic.

I don't know the circumstances of MC's Infiltration+Hacking, but I have a feeling an STG team or some Spectres could do somthign similar.

[SiuiS]

The covenant are many things. Secure on the Cyber-Warfare front? They are not.

Half the time, they don't even encrypt their communications channels. Cortana is good, probably a match for EDI, but the ability to hack a hilarious range of things is a standard skill-set of basically anyone with engineer training, and if there's one thing the mass effect universe excels at, it's infiltration teams.

That's actually a point in the covenant's favor. Their systems aren't advanced enough for hacking to do anything.


Siuis? I'm not sure the needles would get through the shield. That's kind of their trade-off, they are really bad at piercing shields. It's their thing. Shields? You're fine. No Shields? Already dead, all it takes is putting enough pink crystals in the air around you, they do the rest and then boom.

Covenant shields, sure. Those don't work like ME shields.

ME shields block anything. That is coming at you which is deemed a threat, and at threatening velocity. The sensors pick up incoming missiles, and spray a small area repulsion field for a brief moment. Multiple areas, wide areas and sustained fire all drain the shields very quickly because the device responds to all of then full-force; shotguns are effective against ME shields because the pellet spread taxes the system. Rapid fire weapons also tax the system.

The needler is a rapid fire explosive homing shotgun (alternately, a spread SMG). That's the ME shield weakness.



And its always an interesting question whether two universes could interact with the each other's computer systems at all. I personally am never inclined to extend a translation convention to programming languages. So pretty late in a conflict.

This wouldn't be a problem, the languages I mean. That's the one thing ME systems are good at and designed for.



As in literally melt everything into molten rock leaving only glassy shiny stuff behind... yeah probably some dramatic license.

However the glassing half of Africa (iirc) wiped out a Flood infection in Halo 3, so its plenty comprehensive and fairly quick.

Aye. I just want to be clear that when we say "glass a planet" we don't mean flash-fry the whole thing.



The needler speed is pretty fast. I think it's only stuff going at close combat speed (so punches and the like) that are slow enough to get through the shields. Though if armor is their bane then they aren't going to be very effective at all against ME troops. Sure they'll get the occasional kill here or there, but their plasma weaponry will be much more effective.

ME shields will block melee. They altered that after the first contact with the Geth and reapers.


I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but do the Mass Relays exist in this scenario? Without them, the MAss Effect ships don't seem to have the same ability to jump across interstellar space like the Halo ships do. The ME forces would be isolated and destroyed by the Halo forces without any ability for timely reinforcements that the Halo side would have.

Good point.



And the Geth aren't partically noted as hacking the big stuff. Hell, most of the time, you're hacking them, not the other way around.

So the ability to do something in one universe vs one type of tech is proof that it works against all others? Even when that's not how things work in the other?

In that case, I think we should recognize that Halo units are largely immune to falling damage, for starters.

So are ME units, unless they're thrown first!

Mass effect base tech involves virtual intelligence. A program advanced enough that it can seem to act autonomously, if stupid in most situations. Hacking involves several programs which all activate upon command to autonomously screw up enemy tech. This involves actively rewriting and brute-force updating enemy programs, as well as just general stereotypical virus activity.

If covenant tech relies on programs in a written language or code, and use anything even vaguely akin to an operating system, where multiple programs run and interact with each other, then "hacking" is entirely possible and, due to being novel and using massively more advanced techniques, almost entirely uncounterable. Saved by grace of just not having constantly opened high bandwidth wifi ports.



And I'm not saying that the programming specifically sucks. I'm saying that hacking something like a piloted ship is, well, really stupid unless you're inside the thing/Have open communication with it(eg, have the ability to transfer programs freely between your ship and the other ship, though this doesn't work with most ME AI).


Yeah.





The Turian Head of state is actually the Primarch, who is not the councilor. Plus, the Turians have a very well developed chain of succession. If you really want to hit them, you need to hit the homeworld and try and take out as many of those leaders as possible(similar to what the Reapers did).

The Asari are actually the most free-form.

The Salarians also send a diplomat to the Citadel. Hell, before ME2(possibly), they had never sent any of their politically powerful members there(Females hold political power, yet none are sent).

Yes, the Citadel would be a bit hit, but it would be like taking out Brussels(Nato headquarters). Or maybe Brussels and New York(while the UN was in session). That would be huge. But it wouldn't exactly cripple NATO, or the UN countries. Especially militarily.


Mm. Alright, you've got me there.



And yet their combat doctrine and facts about their combat system make that statement ludicrous. ME fields can be used, with the engines, to go FTL. To say that, therefore, any application of the ME fields and the engines is FTL or even near light speed is laughable.

It's like saying that, because B52's are designed to drop atomic bombs, they are therefore designed to withstand them. After all, they'd be nearby said bombs.


Uh? No, no that's a failure of logic. I said that ships designed for ridiculously easy FTL and whose combat strategies are shaped by their in-flight maneuverability and weapon ranges, use that maneuverability and weapon range, and can be mathematically demonstrated to have superior maneuverability.

To throw your paragraph back at you, I'm saying B52s are designed to drop bombs in combat, so they will drop bombs in combat with their bomb dropping systems.


At this point, I'm annoyed that you continually seem to post facts that are at best false, and often misleading. Especially since this information isn't exactly hidden on the ME wiki. When I read that, well, I didn't read it as a "I shouldn't, but I will"(which isn't much of a defense: what, is admitting it's a bad idea somehow making criticism wrong), but a more "I'm going to throw out some numbers and see if they stick".

I'm very clear when I'm not giving a fact, and if I'm wrong, correct me. Simple. In the meantime, buy a smartphone, and parallel surf a forum and a wiki, and then get back to me on indignation over my process. Because as fun as this is, it's a lark; that's why I'm mostly correcting erroneous statements like stuff on shields not affecting melee.



Considering people don't seem to use it as a joke....

How was I supposed to know?


"One side doesn't have any numbers at all"
"Well then that side would lose!"
Although I suppose I should have added a smile. I was thinking ":P" when I typed it.



Actually, they haven't. They use the Tech stuff that the Reapers left behind in order to get everyone on the same page technologically, but the Citadel races are actually somewhat bad at reverse engineering(they can't even fully control their engines).

This cycle has actually made progress towards advancement despite this. It's only in implication, but the background details paint the picture that the council is sedentary, and actively opposes certain attempts at advancing science on the grounds that it rocks the boat too much. The asari are able to begin building prototype mass relays, but it's a political albatross to bring it up, for example.


They were also able to build a superweapon by decoding patchwork blueprints cobbled together by countless different civilizations over countless billions of years.

I wouldn't count that in the ME's favor. For one, it's barely a super-weapon; more of a game hack writ large put into a colossal USB. two, it's one of the... Sillier, less well thought out parts of the game series, and obviously runs on "it's in the script" instead of logic or reason.



Getting Gene therapy=/= being at the same level as a Spartan. Anymore than playing football means you're a NFL player.

The extent of the gene therapy is far reaching though. It's implied to be at gataca levels, with every human modified for general wellness. Every soldier is guaranteed to be superior to the average civilian, not through training, but augmentation (not that they skimp on training). It was a longstanding joke that this is why every human model was the same.

So playing football means doesn't mean anything, but being in the league at all means you're given nfl quality health and fitness.



This is rather silly.

A good weapon is inherently easy to wield, otherwise its not a good weapon. Scratch that doesn't even have to be a good weapon, just usable by the people intended to use it. Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Brutes all have a basically human thumb and index finger configuration, that's the crucial bit.

Everybody would probably get blisters and be uncomfortable but so what?


Yeah. Reminds me of Bleakbane and the TK rifle debates.



Umm yes it does.

You see "Hacking" is a myth and always will be.

All there is to it actions in a computer deemed negative by an outside observer. Computers don't care that that shut down order will cause something to blow up, its what their code is telling them to do so they do it. Heck even that last sentence is way too heavy on anthropomorphizing. To be hacked period you have to have a structure that allows it. Generally because you want some other capacity for some reason.

Don't have a wi-fi transmitter or can just y'know turn it off? You can't be hacked that way, end of story. Heck you can still even communicate, just don't intergrate your voice comms to anything (radio) and/or only allow a narrow and specific type of data to be passed. If you can make computers anything like we do period this sort of thing is basically there to be done. (IRL its just not convenient for commerical systems to do this.)

Wireless cyber warfare is the sort of thing that only works once. Ever. And then everybody knows better.

Physical connections can be much harder with the right knowledge... but infiltration for that is never trivial.

Yeah. This is all true. You are dismissing the value of a virtual programmer who can recode the computer for you, however, and depending on data requirements, how easy that virtual programmer is to get into any system.

I'm inclined to say the covenant systems are too stupid for synthetic mind control to be valuable though. ME guns all have targeting and calibration computers. Covenant guns have magazines and triggers.

[HamHam]

It would be like talking about Star Wars and assuming that every X-Wing Pilot was just as skilled and just as lucky as Luke Skywalker, so if there was some situation comparable to the Trench Run/hitting the exhaust port, you assume that every X-Wing pilot could reliably pull it off.

The mission planners certainly thought anyone could pull it off. Just using the actual high tech targeting computer instead of the Force.


We can acknowledge that Spectres and STG are very good at what they do, but we can't assume that they are all Commander Shepard.

That just means they probably can't Rambo the entire Covenant by themselves. We see the STG and other forces in action in ME and they are pretty much always just as competent as you, if not quite the one man army Shepard is. Whenever the NPCs have some objective off screen, they actually get it done most of the time.

[Tiki Snakes]

Two things, Siuis - It may be my faulty memory again, but I recall "Stand Here while X hacks Y to do Z is one of the cornerstone objectives of Halo gaming. Opening doors, overloading generators, you name it. Of course, a lot of the time if something needs to stop working Chief handles it instead, on account of you know. Explosions and punching are excellent? But I certainly recall plenty of hacking-to-do-stuff.

In a vague, might be wrong kind of way.

Secondly, as for weapon-hacking, Covenant guns often work surprisingly similarly to ME guns, which is to say cooling rate and capacity is totally their main concern most of the time. And several of the guns literally vent hot steam or something when they get too hot.

Given magic space hacking, I'd say the standard sabotage trick does not feel particularly out of the question.

[russdm]

In Halo, only the San-Shyuum (The prophets) were allowed to work with the forerunner tech in making use of them or modifying them. The other races weren't allowed.

Covenant stuff has been shown to be easily hacked by humans once the forerunner operating systems' details were known to them. The Covenant doesn't employ different systems, they employ the ones that come with the ships.

The Citadel races each use different kinds of coding languages. So it would be easy once the Salarians or whoever cracked the covenant stuff. In the first halo game, Cortana is able to hack into the covenant comm net and then can hack into the terminal in the central room where you are supposed to put the index in.

None of the armor or weapons can be modded like how the ME stuff can be. They are really only standard stuff, unless special like the brute stuff. Plus, the biotic abilities are completely unavailable to the covenant and they have no way of duplicating or defending against those abilities. Nor are any race other than the elites even trustworthy enough to be given the abilities. The grunts would rebel, the jackals are guns for hire, the brutes are brutish and more like to use them to seize power, and the prophets(san-shyuum) don't fight if they can help it.

As for the Spartans:

We know only about Sergeant Johnson being a Spartan 1 that was still alive. There were less than 100 Spartan 2s and some of those never actually entered service, dying or being reassigned before getting the power armor. There were companies of Spartan 3s, but Spartan 3s were designed as suicide troops that would be sent to complete objectives that would result in the death of everyone involved in the battle. Only two members of the third company of Spartan 3s are still alive, not thousands nor did the companies have more than 300 or so in them. Plus the 3s are regular kids who lost their colonies thanks to the covenant and were willing to engage in suicide missions. The Spartan 4s are combined out of surviving other Spartans plus adults. Of these groups, only 2s were actually designed as real super soldiers, the others were modified up but most either died or have not been seen.

So, that leaves all the other soldiers as being ODSTs or marines. All of them are ordinary humans with no genetic modification being specially trained. Meanwhile the systems alliance gives all of its soldiers no matter how they serve genetic modification to make them better. Shepherd was a soldier/whatever class, that completed the Alliance's special forces N7 program, plus got armors/weapons that could be modified up. This makes Shepherd better than master chief, and makes all of the System Alliance marines as Spartan 1s or 4s. Plus the Alliance uses weapons developed from prothean tech that is pretty equal towards the weapons used by the other races. In halo, the UNSC has weapons that are 5-6 generations advanced beyond our own weapons of today unless they can get access to captured Covenant weaponary.

Reapers vs Flood: Reapers win hands down because they are just simply better in every way. The Flood is basically zombies, while Reapers are more like vampires or tanks in comparison. Plus the reapers have no way for them to become infected and neither do the geth. Also, a quasi-flood infection happens on Therum(the place with the Thorian) where it is solved pretty easily employing special gas grenades before shooting up the thorian, who can clone people! the flood just don't have it working for them except numbers.

Before anyone says it, yes I know how reapers are made, but that still doesn't make them easily affected by the flood, and the reapers have been shown to be easily able to manipulate organics. And the flood is just more organics.

The citadel was designed to be a trap by the reapers so it functions like that. There is no chance that the covenant could take that place without significant loses. Saren was able to pull his thing off because he had access to a back door which he send forces through the first lines of defense, and the covenant won't have that.

The Turians are a militant race and have the biggest fleet plus they have shipyards to build more. The covenant are never shown nor depicted in the expanded universe as having shipyards to build ships. They just use what they find until they run out. That has been shown quite clearly in the books.

[Xondoure]

There would be a point on the no hacking front if it wasn't magical space hacking. I'm aware hacking in Mass Effect makes about as much sense as element zero. It's a futuristic fantasy setting, ignoring the powers because they don't make sense rather defeats the purpose.

That said, Shepard is not the only badass in Citadel Space. There are in fact numerous other Spectres who are all very good at their job. Add to that Spectre being mostly a political position, meaning every race has their equivalent of the N7s running around. And in 3, we see those groups come together under the honorary human banner (for some reason) and kick reapers up and down the field all day long.

The big difference between Master Chief soloing a covenant ship because he's a boss and an STG team doing it, is that the STG team can bring their team mates back from near death. And comparing players running through the game to Halo players level of success has obvious flaws.
1) as a game, on harder difficulties it is sometimes necessary to be precognitive or you won't survive. You have to know when that particular wave of reinforcements show up or you will get slaughtered. It's so challenging because they know you can restart. Calling Master Chief insanely lucky wouldn't be cutting it; it would make him practically a Jedi. To be fair, Shepard has time stop even if you aren't playing as a soldier. :smalltongue:
2) You are not MC. You are playing as MC. MC has had years of training, genetic augmentation, and just in general is the best at what he does. You are a person with a controller/mouse trying to aim shots with your fingers. Master Chief doesn't die all the damn time because he's better than you are. And a Jedi.

TL;DR: Game difficulty can only ever be an approximation to simulate you being a badass. N7 teams heal each other and are proven action hero destroyer of worlds on their own.

An elite team is not to be messed with in Mass Effect. The majority of ME tactics work best in tandem with a small group of specialists. And I assure you that planting a nuke, or shutting down the ship, or what have you might even happen without firing a single shot. In universe stealth lasts much longer. Heck, Kasumi could do this on her own.

[Tavar]

@HamHam:
Actually, just went through the missions in the first 3 halo games regarding having teams:
Halo1

Allies generally follow you, and you meet some potential allies right at the start
Start off a sole survivor, meet up with allies, and if you keep them alive they follow you.
Start off leading a team of allies, and once you rescue Keyes you get more.
Start off leading a team.
No team at immediate start, but you get some very soon.
No team at start, you meet a few towards the end of the level.
No team, but you were teleported away by a non-aligned force. There are allied sentinels at some points.
No Team, but you were being teleported around some more.
No Team, but you were teleported to a hostile controlled area alone.
No Team

Halo2(minus cutscenes/non-combat)

Allies all around.
Moving with a definite team.
Moving with a team.
Dropped with definite team.
Still with a team.
Dropped with a Team
Still with a Team
Team
Team
No Team, but teleported by separate force. You can get some team members in the level, though.
No Team at start, but teleported by a seperate force, and soon you do have a team.
No Team.
Start with a Team.


Halo 3: Canonically I believe at least the Arbiter was present throughout every battle(Co-op), and this could progress to the other 2 characters as well. In any case, the only missions where you don't have allies by default would be the last 2 missions.

Halo Reach: You're part of a team in every mission. The only missions that don't start with allies would be the mission right after blowing up the super-carrier, and the very last mission(which is where you die).

Halo 4: Actually shows the proper deployment of Spartans: in Teams.

So, at this point, only one game has a large amount of time spent teamless, and that one is notable for being extremely non-normal. This becomes more apparent in the Books, where Spartans are almost always deployed in teams.

Thus, I feel your statements that Teams are not standard for Halo is, in fact, completely groundless.




That said, if Master Chief can infiltrate a covenant ship and hack it, then infiltration+hacking is a potential method of taking one down. Mass Effect has people good at those things, so it can't be disregarded as a tactic.

I don't know the circumstances of MC's Infiltration+Hacking, but I have a feeling an STG team or some Spectres could do somthign similar.
Actually...most of the Hacking Cortana does is only for a specific section(like, say, hacking a door or something). The only time this changes is after she gains the Forerunner code/Data, which massively boosts her capabilities and allows her to improve on some aspects of the Covenant material.


Saved by grace of just not having constantly opened high bandwidth wifi ports.
This is generally what we're saying, though. Halo stuff generally doesn't have stuff like that open. Thus, not normally hackable at range(the only exception I can think of is when Cortana has already taken over a fleet flagship, and initiates such a signal between it and another ship, but that's a rather specifc example).

Moreover, even inside the ships, it's generally not easy to hack. You seem to need to get to certain areas to do so.


Uh? No, no that's a failure of logic. I said that ships designed for ridiculously easy FTL and whose combat strategies are shaped by their in-flight maneuverability and weapon ranges, use that maneuverability and weapon range, and can be mathematically demonstrated to have superior maneuverability.

To throw your paragraph back at you, I'm saying B52s are designed to drop bombs in combat, so they will drop bombs in combat with their bomb dropping systems.
Except the ranges used don't support the idea that they are that maneuverable. As I have repeatedly said, but you have denied because, I don't know, you don't want to actually look at the facts.


I'm very clear when I'm not giving a fact, and if I'm wrong, correct me. Simple. In the meantime, buy a smartphone, and parallel surf a forum and a wiki, and then get back to me on indignation over my process. Because as fun as this is, it's a lark; that's why I'm mostly correcting erroneous statements like stuff on shields not affecting melee.
You think you were clear. I disagree, as I have said.

And I have been trying to correct you, but you seem to not take any correction, so while your idea would work in theory, the application seems to be off.


This cycle has actually made progress towards advancement despite this. It's only in implication, but the background details paint the picture that the council is sedentary, and actively opposes certain attempts at advancing science on the grounds that it rocks the boat too much. The asari are able to begin building prototype mass relays, but it's a political albatross to bring it up, for example.
I wouldn't say that they are able to. They might be able to start looking in that direction, but saying that they would be able to do it seems like it would be overstating things a bit, especially given that they were at least somewhat reliant on the beacon, which would not have contained information on that.


The extent of the gene therapy is far reaching though. It's implied to be at gataca levels, with every human modified for general wellness. Every soldier is guaranteed to be superior to the average civilian, not through training, but augmentation (not that they skimp on training). It was a longstanding joke that this is why every human model was the same.

So playing football means doesn't mean anything, but being in the league at all means you're given nfl quality health and fitness.
Cool, but Spartans aren't really modified for general wellness. Especially not with the more invasive modifications or their suits.

I mean, hell, look at a canonical comparison:
Shepard went through re-entry, and both died and suffered severe bodily trauma in the process.

MC went through re-entry, and needed his armor reset. After that, he was basically fine.

Bit difference in capabilities there.

Two things, Siuis - It may be my faulty memory again, but I recall "Stand Here while X hacks Y to do Z is one of the cornerstone objectives of Halo gaming. Opening doors, overloading generators, you name it. Of course, a lot of the time if something needs to stop working Chief handles it instead, on account of you know. Explosions and punching are excellent? But I certainly recall plenty of hacking-to-do-stuff.

In a vague, might be wrong kind of way.
Hacking is a big part of Halo, but the key is that you need to physically access the system in some way, and it's usually pretty small. People are saying you'd be able to hack anything when inside a cruiser. In Halo, you're in a cruiser in the third level. And despite having a Master Hacker, you are only able to hack the doors you are physically near(and then only after some time, generally).

Secondly, as for weapon-hacking, Covenant guns often work surprisingly similarly to ME guns, which is to say cooling rate and capacity is totally their main concern most of the time. And several of the guns literally vent hot steam or something when they get too hot.

Given magic space hacking, I'd say the standard sabotage trick does not feel particularly out of the question.
It's not magic space hacking, though. It's forcing yourself into an open wi-fi port, and messing with the computer. The issue would be that Halo weapons seem to lack a key feature, namely said wi-fi port.

@russdm:
They were asking questions of the Forerunner AI onboard the ship which set off the engines which the Lekgolo then disabled. None of the Prophets there made the ship move, nor were they asking about technology but were asking about the forerunner symbols picked up at the human colony of Harvest. Plus its been shown that Humans, not the Covenant were intended to receive the tech from the forerunners and the whole war was because the three guys found out that something that completely destroyed their entire religion if it was told to everyone else. They had to deliberately lie to get the war to happen.

Also, this is the only actual recorded instance, no other instance appears in the other books or in any of the games as far as I am unaware.
And why were the lekgolo in position to disable it? Oh, right, what I said, which you ignored because it would directly contradict your argument: they were studying the dreadnought.

Also, I'd point out that the absence of evidence does not prove that something didn't happen, especially since we have, what, all of 1 look into Covenant civilian culture? Everything else is about stuff happening in a Warzone, ie not the place you want to be doing R&D. Especially not on an offensive warzone.

As for your talk about humanity being the designated successors, so what? I literally can't make anything out of that statement that relates to the given argument, except maybe "people can only use and improve on technology if they are intended to do so", which would fly into the face of any discussion about ME.


Its in one of the books, either Contact Harvest or one of the others. Its established pretty quickly plus mention is made in short stories/novels that the Covenant view humans modifying forerunner tech as being blasphemy.
I believe that would tie into the fact that the Covenant believe humans to destroy Forerunner artifacts(per Contact Harvest).

Because the Reapers would crush the Covenant? And the Flood is pretty much screwed against the Reapers? The Covenant may make a bigger fight but they still will lose against the Reapers.
It's not so clear, especially if the Covenant resort to more desperate tactics. Given their overall mobility advantage, they can keep their forces away from Citadel forces, and strike at undefended worlds, destroy the population, and leave.

And given the Citadel's cohesion when faced with a strong threat that can strike pretty much anywhere(ie, none) I believe it's relevant.


The Covenant may have nice ships, but they still lose some, plus its the tactic of glassing worlds and frying ships that give the Covenant its victories. On the ground, the Covenant are about equal with humans and their plasma weapons don't give them much of an advantage. Plus humans can wield covenant weapons with only limited trouble. The Covenant is clearly not that superior as some people try to make out. Plus, without the engineers, the Covenant can't keep its ships running. That is clearly established by the books. Also, only engineers are shown maintaining the ships/other tech.
Actually, things aren't as even on the ground as you imply. The Covenant do generally lose a lot of land battles, but again they're invading(which makes it harder), and would seem to be at a numerical disadvantage. Additionally, plasma weapons are generally seen as superior to Human weapons in the fluff.

As for wielding the weapons, yes they can. A barbarian from Gaul could also wield an M-16. Are you therefore implying that the Gaulic barbarians are equal to, say, the modern US army? Keep in mind that, even if they can wield them, they cannot create or service them.


That is not what I was saying. I was saying that the races within the covenant were only loosely allied together and most had personal reasons of one sort or another to dislike each other, and that they were staying together mainly because of the San-shyuum, the Prophets.
And here you continue to be wrong.



All System Alliance soldiers get it, while only a few were actually turned into Spartans.
Quantity of a resource given out doesn't mean that it's equivalent at all.

And a lot of the Spartans have died.
Most British soldiers to have ever served have died. This clearly means that British soldiers are equal to Spartans.


The Spartans only represented a small percentage of human forces in Halo, while the soldiers of the System Alliance represent 100% of humanity's fighting force. The UNSC had a few Spartans while the rest were ordinary humans.
So? You're saying that because their are more SA soldiers, that 1 SA soldier is equal to one Spartan?

Well, ok. But then, because their are many, many more grunts than SA soldiers, then obviously each grunt is equal to a Spartan.


In Halo, only the San-Shyuum (The prophets) were allowed to work with the forerunner tech in making use of them or modifying them. The other races weren't allowed.
Modifying them, maybe. But it's explicitly mentioned that they have spread Forerunner stuff around.


Covenant stuff has been shown to be easily hacked by humans once the forerunner operating systems' details were known to them. The Covenant doesn't employ different systems, they employ the ones that come with the ships.
The ship thing is false.

As for hacking, yes, once Cortana got a data dump regarding much of the forerunner database, she was able to easily hack them. But that's a pretty big achievement. And, it's notable that she was still limited in her hacking.


The Citadel races each use different kinds of coding languages. So it would be easy once the Salarians or whoever cracked the covenant stuff. In the first halo game, Cortana is able to hack into the covenant comm net and then can hack into the terminal in the central room where you are supposed to put the index in.
Given that the doors were at least on some level meant to be opened, this isn't exactly the strongest feat.

Also, using different coding languages doesn't really mean that you'd be able to hack into another one.


None of the armor or weapons can be modded like how the ME stuff can be. They are really only standard stuff, unless special like the brute stuff. Plus, the biotic abilities are completely unavailable to the covenant and they have no way of duplicating or defending against those abilities. Nor are any race other than the elites even trustworthy enough to be given the abilities. The grunts would rebel, the jackals are guns for hire, the brutes are brutish and more like to use them to seize power, and the prophets(san-shyuum) don't fight if they can help it.
You forgot Drones and Hunters. And being brutish isn't a reason not to give someone abilities. Grunts likely wouldn't get the abilities, but it's possible. Especially since their unreliability doesn't seem to expressed in the games. Yes, they might run away. They will also suicide on you with plasma grenades.

Also, there is some degree of modding, for instance what's seen in Halo 3/reach, but also more basic stuff. Like the cloaking stuff, which grunts can have.

The Spartan 4s are combined out of surviving other Spartans plus adults. Of these groups, only 2s were actually designed as real super soldiers, the others were modified up but most either died or have not been seen.
Having Died does not mean that you were not a super soldier. I would say that both 3's and 4's were/are super soldiers, it's just that the 3's were sent on suicide missions(because they had to). Spartan 2's were certainly a level above most 3's, though most of that was due to equipment(see Halo Reach for an example).


Reapers vs Flood: Reapers win hands down because they are just simply better in every way. The Flood is basically zombies, while Reapers are more like vampires or tanks in comparison. Plus the reapers have no way for them to become infected and neither do the geth. Also, a quasi-flood infection happens on Therum(the place with the Thorian) where it is solved pretty easily employing special gas grenades before shooting up the thorian, who can clone people! the flood just don't have it working for them except numbers.
Therum was in no way a quasi Flood, any more than the Flood are simply Zombies. The Reapers would likely be able to defeat the Flood, but you are massively underestimating the cost involved: to defeat them requires the partial glassing of continents, and that's for very minor infestations.


Before anyone says it, yes I know how reapers are made, but that still doesn't make them easily affected by the flood, and the reapers have been shown to be easily able to manipulate organics. And the flood is just more organics.
True on the easily effected part, but I'd point out that their manipulations are hardly universally effective. Hell, there is at least one case of being being impossible/difficult to control.

The citadel was designed to be a trap by the reapers so it functions like that. There is no chance that the covenant could take that place without significant loses. Saren was able to pull his thing off because he had access to a back door which he send forces through the first lines of defense, and the covenant won't have that.
If only they had some way to Teleport ships or large objects long distances. Oh, wait, they do. Please, be familiar with what you talk about.

The Turians are a militant race and have the biggest fleet plus they have shipyards to build more. The covenant are never shown nor depicted in the expanded universe as having shipyards to build ships. They just use what they find until they run out. That has been shown quite clearly in the books.
Explicitly false. There's one forerunner ship used in the books/game: the Keyship dreadnought, which is massively better than pretty much anything else fielded(though not through lack of trying). The ships the Covenant have are built by them, and they do have shipyards. Hell, one instance of Spartan 3 deployment was against a shipyard.

[russdm]

I have never said that they couldn't study it. I have only said that according to the covenant's own faith/religion, That only the prophets were allowed to do so and they had to supervise any other races doing any study. The Lekgolo are there but they are working under the supervision of at least 1 prophet and there were 3 there.

Only really activiting the arc needed a human. Its why truth picked up miranda keyes and Johnson. Also, the didact was supposed to hand over forerunner tech to humans, but simply didn't. There has been nothing said so far that if you are the intended recipients that you can't use the tech. Its equally usable by everyone.

Truth, Regret, and Mercy found out that the artifact tags for "Reclamation" were actually humans marked as "Reclaimers". This implies that the "oracle" believed humans to be helped out by the covenant. The 3 realizied how devastating to the covenant the truth would be and so came up with the "humans destroying forerunner artifacts" to justify their war without the others learning the same truths that they did.

Striking at undefended worlds means attacking mostly in the traverse where the citadel council won't go. They won't really catch alot of other worlds undefended as frequently as you seem to assume.

The Cohesion agasint the reapers is not the same as that against the covenant. The citadel itself and the mass relays were all designed to be part of the reaper trap.

Numbers mean nothing unless you have pretty decent tech and tactics. The covenant lose usually when they put down alot of troops, but they are pretty good at taking out marines. The marines lack armor or shields to stop taking serious damage from covenant weapons. Only the spartans are able to handle getting shot by the covenant weapons. No, gauls are not equal to the us army, because the us army has developed effective tactics for using the tech they have. The gauls would not have done so.

What races in the Covenant actually like each other or trust each other enough not to start fighting once the prophets leave the picture? Where do you get the idea that the covenant races are all happy friendly with each other? It doesn't show up anywhere as far as i know.

I said it before and will say it again: Only a small portion of Human forces in Halo were made into Spartans. SA Marines/soldiers can be considered to be like Spartan 1s, and 3s plus 4s to some extent. They are not like spartan 2s because of the selection process used for spartan 2s.

The Spartan 3s were designed to complete missions that would have resulted in the entire force sent in dying. Its practially stated outright thats what they were made for.

1 SA soldier is closer to a Spartan than UNSC Marines in halo are. They aren't exactly equal, the spartans have cyropods and can get way better armor. Grunts aren't exactly the equal to spartans either, nor does alot of them make up for their shortcomings. More specialized types of grunts are alot closer in ability.

I never said that the prophets couldn't spread them around. After they got the stuff working, they almost always spread the stuff to the other races who then used them. But the other races aren't supposed to use them without getting the stuff from the prophets first. Its part of the religion.

The covenant is making use of and building on the forerunner stuff. They don't really deviate from that unless the prophets do. Plus, they tend to employ what systems came with the forerunner ships.

Cortana should not be able to hack into the ships at all. The standard should have been something completely different. The fact she can hack in means that other human AIs can do the same if given the same stuff that she was.

I would agree that "using different coding languages doesn't really mean that you would be able to hack into another one.", but the covenant don't use different coding languages, instead they use the forerunner stuff they found and developed from there thanks to the prophets.

Until they got EEZO for making Biotics, its unclear how the covenant would react and i am throwing out ideas based on my intrepretions of the racial relations within the covenant. I assumed that they wouldn't give anything to hunters and i forgot about drones, but its all an assumption.

Cloaking is only one kind of modding. We see others availabe in ME such as more shields or health, plus the weapons can modded to do various things. Halo weapons are not shown to be capable of being modded.

When you fail the Spartan 2 project, you aren't as much as a supersoldier as the Spartan 2s were. And I didn't say that dying meant not being a supersoldier. I said that some of those were given modifications through the spartan projects died or washed out. If that happens to someone, you can't really consider them supersoldiers since they aren't their to fight(if they died) or the they perform other functions in the military (if they washed out).

The Flood is a parasitic infection at its core. It produces essentially zombies with a single hivemind that gets created by how much biomass gets accumulated. Non-organics have been shown to quite skilled and an efficient way of killing flood. The collectors were able to create creatures that could paraylizee people that required an antidote from Mordin to avoid getting frozen. Also, Mordin was able to make the genophage or was working with the genophage(it was made by salarians after all). Also, the collectors were able to release a plague on omega that humans and vochra were immune to despite the fact it should not have been that easy to make and work perfectly as it does.

The Reapers still win, but then the reapers have been shown not really concerned about collateral organic damage, so they would probably not have any problems about gassing worlds to get rid of flood infections.

Its implied that Saren couldn't have gone in the front way and needed to have a way to avoid fighting through the citadel's defenses hence his use of a back door. Also we have not been shown that the covenant can jump places that they don't have coordinates for. Otherwise, why bother to have the Cole protocal unless the covenant needed them to jump to human worlds? Otherwise they have to go there and hope nothing bad happens.

Also, the covenant has to open a slipstream hole/whatever it is, every time they want to go places. And it would appear that they use coordinates as part of the jumping. The forerunner teleportation system can't teleport objects across space. The halos had to be put into position using slipstreams. The Teleportation is limited to short range areas.

The shipyards are implied to have been based on forerunner designs and they apparently don't have many. Otherwise, why in the books after Halo 3 in the EU have the elites need to take better care of their ships and how those with ships have turned into seriously powerful figures? If you can make one shipyard or a few, then why not stick some around every major covenant world? They had every thing they needed to do so, unless the shipyards were only manned by engineers. Even still, was the only shipyard(s) attacked by the spartan 3s the only one(s) the covenant had? That is a really bad way to do things.

From what i can recall that is practically the only time covenant shipyards are really mentioned. Unless, the elites and surviving covenant races are incrediably stupid or the prophets never bothered to tell anybody where they were.

I know quite a bit about the Halo universe frankly.

[Forum Explorer]

Regarding Covenant mobility:

From what I'm seeing the Mass Effect relays are far faster then slipspace travel. That means that other then the occasional isolated outpost (and thus hardly a huge win to destroy anyways), Mass Effect fleets would likely be able to arrive in time to defend their planet.

[Macha]

This may have been brought up already, but only two or three Covenant Supercarriers (30km long, almost invulnerable to conventional UNSC space weaponry, can hit out of the range out of their super MAC cannons) could likely outright destroy the entire set of fleets guarding the Citadel, based on firepower and armor alone. At a stated range of over 100,000 km, they've been noted to slice entire destroyers, frigates and supercarriers in HALF with a single shot of their energy projectors, of which they have SEVEN of them. They're stated to be very much energy-consuming, but considering they have that many, they're designed to fire them in sequence, or at least I should guess. Needless to say, it takes a 20-megaton Shiva warhead just to damage them, or you'd have to rupture space in the middle of the ship to tear it in half, as was done to the Long Night of Solace supercarrier.

Combine that with thousands of point-defense pulse laser systems, plasma torpedoes and plasma turrets (On each ship, mind you), plus an estimated 300 to 500 Seraph-class fighters on each ship (Hundreds of squadrons, going off a low estimate)... and you have a nigh-impenetrable wall of sheer force. Even if they can't destroy the Citadel due to its plot armor, they have tens of thousands of troops on each of them with various cloaking, shielding, breaching and IW devices.

And that's just a single class of ship in a fleet, of which there are hundreds of.

Yeeeeah... good luck, Citadel Alliance.

[Tavar]

Regarding Covenant mobility:

From what I'm seeing the Mass Effect relays are far faster then slipspace travel. That means that other then the occasional isolated outpost (and thus hardly a huge win to destroy anyways), Mass Effect fleets would likely be able to arrive in time to defend their planet.
A)Not every planet has a Relay.
B)Not every relay is connected to another.
C) Covenant travel is much Faster than Citadel non relay travel.
C2)the Covenant might be able to use the Mass Relays as well.
D)Thus, the Covenant can concentrate larger fleets against the Citadel forces.


@ russdm: Could you please read your own posts before denying what you said? I'm counting between 3-4 times where you deny something that you quite literally said. It's rather annoying.


I have never said that they couldn't study it. I have only said that according to the covenant's own faith/religion, That only the prophets were allowed to do so and they had to supervise any other races doing any study. The Lekgolo are there but they are working under the supervision of at least 1 prophet and there were 3 there.
Really? Then what about this:

Wrong, there is no in-game evidence of the Covenant engaging in research projects nor do they do anything more than use Forerunner Tech. There is also no evidence in the books about the Covenant doing anything more with Forerunner Tech. Only the Engineers did anything with the tech, like keeping it intact.
Unless someone else hacked your account, I'm pretty sure you actually did say that they aren't studying the tech.


Only really activiting the arc needed a human. Its why truth picked up miranda keyes and Johnson. Also, the didact was supposed to hand over forerunner tech to humans, but simply didn't. There has been nothing said so far that if you are the intended recipients that you can't use the tech. Its equally usable by everyone.
Then why bring up this:

Only really activiting the arc needed a human. Its why truth picked up miranda keyes and Johnson. Also, the didact was supposed to hand over forerunner tech to humans, but simply didn't. There has been nothing said so far that if you are the intended recipients that you can't use the tech. Its equally usable by everyone.
What I was saying is the only way that this argument relates to the whole "Covenant don't/can't research" is if you assume that because something isn't intended for their use, they can't research it at all. Otherwise, it's a completely meaningless statement, as I said in my post.


Truth, Regret, and Mercy found out that the artifact tags for "Reclamation" were actually humans marked as "Reclaimers". This implies that the "oracle" believed humans to be helped out by the covenant. The 3 realizied how devastating to the covenant the truth would be and so came up with the "humans destroying forerunner artifacts" to justify their war without the others learning the same truths that they did.
Yes....but again you're leaving things out in order to discount my argument(this seems something of a habit). The issue in the first place is that the rune was interpreted as a rune for Forerunner artifacts, and thus they were assuming that the Humans destroyed said artifacts(because the signal vanished if the humans died). While the leaders knew otherwise, they didn't spread that fact around(because, as you said, it would destroy their religion).


Striking at undefended worlds means attacking mostly in the traverse where the citadel council won't go. They won't really catch alot of other worlds undefended as frequently as you seem to assume.
You're right. Perhaps it's better to say lightly defended worlds. Which would be quite a bit, given the way their fleets are made up.


The Cohesion agasint the reapers is not the same as that against the covenant. The citadel itself and the mass relays were all designed to be part of the reaper trap.
And? Neither of the aspects of the trap worked against the modern ME civilizations.

Numbers mean nothing unless you have pretty decent tech and tactics. The covenant lose usually when they put down alot of troops, but they are pretty good at taking out marines. The marines lack armor or shields to stop taking serious damage from covenant weapons. Only the spartans are able to handle getting shot by the covenant weapons.
Would you care to address my arguments on why they lose? Also, while they lose tactically, they certainly win strategically. Moreover, given that the Covenant would not have to land forces as much against the ME universe(no orbital defense, or at least not in the same manner as in HALO), their troop losses would conceivable be much lower.

No, gauls are not equal to the us army, because the us army has developed effective tactics for using the tech they have. The gauls would not have done so.
Nice way of ignoring the argument. You're premise is that a weapon that is able to be used by a different force is a bad weapon. Ergo, guns are all bad weapons, because they can be used by a Gaul(specifically, let's say a gaul from around 200BC). Hell, by your argument a M16 is inferior to, say, a musket from 1700, as they would likely have more trouble with that than using an M16.


What races in the Covenant actually like each other or trust each other enough not to start fighting once the prophets leave the picture? Where do you get the idea that the covenant races are all happy friendly with each other? It doesn't show up anywhere as far as i know.
Without the Prophets the Covenant would not stand, because the Prophets are a large part of the glue that hold it together. That said, you haven't exactly explained how the Prophets would be lost, or why they would shatter without their loss.

As for what races would hold together?
The Big splits would be Engineers(who seemed to disappear), Brutes, and Elites. The minor races seemed to split between them.

I said it before and will say it again: Only a small portion of Human forces in Halo were made into Spartans. SA Marines/soldiers can be considered to be like Spartan 1s, and 3s plus 4s to some extent. They are not like spartan 2s because of the selection process used for spartan 2s.
Again, you're saying purely based on the numbers involved, that SA marines are equal to Spartans one on one, which is an argument so fallacious that I am actually astonished that you would make it. If you view that your argument is valid, then you should also view my argument as valid, as the only thing changed is the names involved. The actual premises of the argument do not change.


The Spartan 3s were designed to complete missions that would have resulted in the entire force sent in dying. Its practially stated outright thats what they were made for.
So? That in no way diminishes their enhancements or their status as supersoldiers. Especially given that we see that they can fill the supersoldier role(seem in Halo Reach).


1 SA soldier is closer to a Spartan than UNSC Marines in halo are. They aren't exactly equal, the spartans have cyropods and can get way better armor. Grunts aren't exactly the equal to spartans either, nor does alot of them make up for their shortcomings. More specialized types of grunts are alot closer in ability.
Based on what? The fact that there are lots of SA soldiers, and that Spartans died seems to be the main premises of your arguements.

Granted, SA are closer to Spartans than UNSC marines, but they're also closer to UNSC marines than Spartans. That's not a comparison that gives much detail.


I never said that the prophets couldn't spread them around. After they got the stuff working, they almost always spread the stuff to the other races who then used them. But the other races aren't supposed to use them without getting the stuff from the prophets first. Its part of the religion.
What you quite literally said:

In Halo, only the San-Shyuum (The prophets) were allowed to work with the forerunner tech in making use of them or modifying them. The other races weren't allowed.


The covenant is making use of and building on the forerunner stuff. They don't really deviate from that unless the prophets do. Plus, they tend to employ what systems came with the forerunner ships.
They actually don't use Forerunner ships


Cortana should not be able to hack into the ships at all. The standard should have been something completely different. The fact she can hack in means that other human AIs can do the same if given the same stuff that she was.
Not sure what you mean by the standard.

Still, the hacking wasn't ridiculous. First off, she was built for hacking, and much of it was small scale(ie, a door). That's not out of line for someone who knows the language(and yes, Humanity didn't know it, but over the course of the long war they figured it out). Later on she gets a bit better, but by that point she has access to Forerunner files, and also direct access to the computer cores.

And this later power-up is something that's not easy to get. You would need access to a Halo or shield world to really get it.


I would agree that "using different coding languages doesn't really mean that you would be able to hack into another one.", but the covenant don't use different coding languages, instead they use the forerunner stuff they found and developed from there thanks to the prophets.
What. You....

Oh my god. You're actually saying that the Forerunner computer language is some universal langauge that everyone in every universe automatically knows?

Because otherwise? Yes, yes they are using a different langauge. They're not using one they constructed them selves from scratch, perhaps, but they are using a different language.


Until they got EEZO for making Biotics, its unclear how the covenant would react and i am throwing out ideas based on my intrepretions of the racial relations within the covenant. I assumed that they wouldn't give anything to hunters and i forgot about drones, but its all an assumption.
An assumption based on what? Saying you're making assumptions is good in that it's honest, but it's not a defense of your argument. Rather the opposite.

Cloaking is only one kind of modding. We see others availabe in ME such as more shields or health, plus the weapons can modded to do various things. Halo weapons are not shown to be capable of being modded.
Oh, look at what I wrote:

Also, there is some degree of modding, for instance what's seen in Halo 3/reach, but also more basic stuff. Like the cloaking stuff, which grunts can have.

Yes, cloaking is only one modification. But there are other ones, available.

Also, I'd point out that some of the ME modifications aren't necessarily needed/are kinda already part of the basic suit. For example, Spartans have massive strength enhancements present all the time.

And while Halo Weapons can't be modded, that's generally because they seem to prefer to have a different weapon for each task. Advantage to ME, but I'm not sure that's a huge game changer.

When you fail the Spartan 2 project, you aren't as much as a supersoldier as the Spartan 2s were. And I didn't say that dying meant not being a supersoldier. I said that some of those were given modifications through the spartan projects died or washed out. If that happens to someone, you can't really consider them supersoldiers since they aren't their to fight(if they died) or the they perform other functions in the military (if they washed out).
Not really what you said, though it could be a miss-communication:

Of these groups, only 2s were actually designed as real super soldiers, the others were modified up but most either died or have not been seen.
Still, it's not entirely true, as the Spartan 4's are modified to about the same level as Spartan 2's. The difference is that their modifications are more advanced in terms of safety and reliability, same as the 3's.

The Flood is a parasitic infection at its core. It produces essentially zombies with a single hivemind that gets created by how much biomass gets accumulated. Non-organics have been shown to quite skilled and an efficient way of killing flood. The collectors were able to create creatures that could paraylizee people that required an antidote from Mordin to avoid getting frozen. Also, Mordin was able to make the genophage or was working with the genophage(it was made by salarians after all). Also, the collectors were able to release a plague on omega that humans and vochra were immune to despite the fact it should not have been that easy to make and work perfectly as it does.
If by quite skilled you mean: constantly overrun by even starting level infestations, and have explicitly failed in the past(Forerunners lost the war, remember), then yes. That's a different definition of skilled, though: most would call that failing.

As for being zombies as their core, well, yes, that's true. But to say that, therefore, any method that beats zombies work against the flood would be to say that, since Humans are, at their core, primates, that they are no more threatening than Chimpanzee's. Which is patently absurd.

And while those are impressive actions taken by ME, they don't really have any relevance here, as none of those actions are relevant to the flood at all.

The Reapers still win, but then the reapers have been shown not really concerned about collateral organic damage, so they would probably not have any problems about gassing worlds to get rid of flood infections.
They aren't all that capable of doing so, though. Their weapons are destructive, but they're not something suited to rendering a world completely devoid of life(which is different than uninhabitable). They could certainly make some, and I do think they would win eventually, but their arrogance would make it much harder(for example, destroyers land on planets, and we know that on planets things can get inside reapers, which would be possible vector for the Flood).

Mostly, it's not that the Flood would be dangerous to the Reapers themselves, but that they would be dangerous to the galaxy as a whole, and the Reapers aren't quite designed to be good against them.


Its implied that Saren couldn't have gone in the front way and needed to have a way to avoid fighting through the citadel's defenses hence his use of a back door. Also we have not been shown that the covenant can jump places that they don't have coordinates for. Otherwise, why bother to have the Cole protocal unless the covenant needed them to jump to human worlds? Otherwise they have to go there and hope nothing bad happens.
Saren needed to go in the back because once the citadel doors close, nothing can get inside them, preventing Sovereign from doing his thing.

The Covenant, once on site, can simply use slipstream to get ships inside the Citadel, even while closed. This negates much of it's defensive utility.

As for coordinates, true, though the Citadel lacks something like the Cole Protocal, and in this case the Covenant are helped by the very system of the government, with FTL buoys leading to systems, and most systems eventually leading to the Citadel(because the Reapers want everyone to find it).


Also, the covenant has to open a slipstream hole/whatever it is, every time they want to go places. And it would appear that they use coordinates as part of the jumping. The forerunner teleportation system can't teleport objects across space. The halos had to be put into position using slipstreams. The Teleportation is limited to short range areas.
Ah, sorry, I used the wrong terminology: I mean using their slipstream drive.


The shipyards are implied to have been based on forerunner designs and they apparently don't have many. Otherwise, why in the books after Halo 3 in the EU have the elites need to take better care of their ships and how those with ships have turned into seriously powerful figures? If you can make one shipyard or a few, then why not stick some around every major covenant world? They had every thing they needed to do so, unless the shipyards were only manned by engineers. Even still, was the only shipyard(s) attacked by the spartan 3s the only one(s) the covenant had? That is a really bad way to do things.
Because things cost money and resources. Yes, strange concept, I know. But it's true. Look at the US: Our military vehicles(Air, Land and Sea) are really powerful. But the places where those are manufactured are not spread out, too much, because each site requires skilled labor, money, time, and resources, which are not infinite. The same applies to the Covenant.

As for why they need to take better care, well, they went from a huge, interstellar empire, to disunited groups. The level of money, resources, and skill that they have access to is much lower now.


From what i can recall that is practically the only time covenant shipyards are really mentioned. Unless, the elites and surviving covenant races are incrediably stupid or the prophets never bothered to tell anybody where they were.
Having shipyards does not mean you have the ability to maintain those shipyards, nor build ships. The Covenant empire collapsed, which means that the resources they used to have are no longer applicable in the same manner. Especially since the group specifically involved in the examples of the Covenant is a bit of a fringe group, which likely have less resources than other, more mainstream groups.

And, again, the absence of evidence(especially with a very small sample size) should not be taken as the evidence of absence.

I know quite a bit about the Halo universe frankly.Then you don't show it.

[Forum Explorer]

This may have been brought up already, but only two or three Covenant Supercarriers (30km long, almost invulnerable to conventional UNSC space weaponry, can hit out of the range out of their super MAC cannons) could likely outright destroy the entire set of fleets guarding the Citadel, based on firepower and armor alone. At a stated range of over 100,000 km, they've been noted to slice entire destroyers, frigates and supercarriers in HALF with a single shot of their energy projectors, of which they have SEVEN of them. They're stated to be very much energy-consuming, but considering they have that many, they're designed to fire them in sequence, or at least I should guess. Needless to say, it takes a 20-megaton Shiva warhead just to damage them, or you'd have to rupture space in the middle of the ship to tear it in half, as was done to the Long Night of Solace supercarrier.

Combine that with thousands of point-defense pulse laser systems, plasma torpedoes and plasma turrets (On each ship, mind you), plus an estimated 300 to 500 Seraph-class fighters on each ship (Hundreds of squadrons, going off a low estimate)... and you have a nigh-impenetrable wall of sheer force. Even if they can't destroy the Citadel due to its plot armor, they have tens of thousands of troops on each of them with various cloaking, shielding, breaching and IW devices.

And that's just a single class of ship in a fleet, of which there are hundreds of.

Yeeeeah... good luck, Citadel Alliance.

Those are pointed out to be insanely rare, and they don't seem that impressive really. Particularly since sending a stealth team in to sabotage them seems to be a legit strategy.


A)Not every planet has a Relay.
B)Not every relay is connected to another.
C) Covenant travel is much Faster than Citadel non relay travel.
C2)the Covenant might be able to use the Mass Relays as well.
D)Thus, the Covenant can concentrate larger fleets against the Citadel forces.


A) the most important planets do
B) Which lowers the time from instant to hours
C) I can't remember what we came to, but the Covenant weren't described as being orders of magnitude faster. Just faster, and more importantly not needing large amounts of fuel. The Mass Effect ships can go at a speed of around a dozen lightyears in a day. (With some variance depending on ship classification)
C2) They'd need to figure out how to use them first. And while that's hardly guarded information the Covenant don't seem to be the types to take prisoners to learn technical information from. (Humanity learned from a Prothean database. We didn't figure it out on our own)
D) I'm arguing that that advantage is a lot less important then stated since the Relays mostly negate it and that the Mass Effect FTL is fast enough once the Relays eat up most of the distance.

[Tavar]

Those are pointed out to be insanely rare, and they don't seem that impressive really. Particularly since sending a stealth team in to sabotage them seems to be a legit strategy.


They're very rare, not insanely rare. Plus, even more normal ships are pretty dangerous: while the Supercarriers have more Energy projectors, they are not the only ships that do so. In fact, many ships seem to carry at least one.

As for stealth stabatoge, I don't think that's ever been the case. The closest I can think of is when another ship in the fleet is sabotaged. But those instances also involve tech the Citadel doesn't have.



A) the most important planets do
The most important, but not the only important. Especially since many worlds have a relay in their sector, but not in their system.

B) Which lowers the time from instant to hours
Hours after the message gets out. Which, given that in the same amount of time a Covenant fleet can reach a system, destroy civilization centers, and retreat, isn't a huge comfort. Hell, even without creating huge civilian casualties, it would be enough to destroy any space-infrastructure. Which would damage the Council species a great deal. Keep in mind that the response fleets have to concentrate, and then leave, which also adds time.

Also, I'd note that hours is a bit imprecise. You're easily looking at anything up to ~50 hours(limit for most engines), and it could be more(there are exploration ships, after all, and if they do find discharge points you can increase the normal FTL radius).

Moreover, at this point you're carrying quite a bit of excess heat. Which means that the response ships would be less capable than the defending ships.

C) I can't remember what we came to, but the Covenant weren't described as being orders of magnitude faster. Just faster, and more importantly not needing large amounts of fuel. The Mass Effect ships can go at a speed of around a dozen lightyears in a day. (With some variance depending on ship classification)
And covenant are able to apparently go 912.12 lightyears per day. So, much faster than the Reapers(infact, they go more in one hour than reapers do in a day). And the fact that the Reapers can do this is seen as a big advantage for them.

C2) They'd need to figure out how to use them first. And while that's hardly guarded information the Covenant don't seem to be the types to take prisoners to learn technical information from. (Humanity learned from a Prothean database. We didn't figure it out on our own)
Um, the Cole protocol was enacted because they didn't want the Covenant to access their navigational data which would lead them to other world. Hell, the Covenant take prisoners several times, including in the First Halo game.

Moreover, while the Covenant don't innovate as much as some(that is certainly true), they are perfectly willing to copy things that work.

D) I'm arguing that that advantage is a lot less important then stated since the Relays mostly negate it and that the Mass Effect FTL is fast enough once the Relays eat up most of the distance.
And I'm saying that, given the limitations of ME, plus what we already know(reapers able to go 30ly per day is considered a big advantage), I don't feel that's a strong argument.

[russdm]

I did say that before and I stand by it. "The Covenant are not studying the tech, only the prophets are." So, what I said is true when not applied to the Prophets but the other races.

I didn't say that. I said that only the prophets engaged in research and that the other covenant didn't. I also said there was no evidence that any race other than the prophets were engaged in research on forerunner tech.

There are more ships in the ME than in Halo. Plus the Covenant aren't the only power with a lot of ships. The Turians have a lot, the asari have some, the salarians have some, and the systems alliance has some too. Also the geth, batarians, krogan, quarians all have ships. The Covenant is not going to have overwhelming force, plus a lot of those ships have shields whereas the UNSC ships didn't while the covenant ships did.

I didn't say that, your gaul from 200bc could use the weapon, but wouldn't know the best ways of using the weapon because it unfamiliar to them. Suddenly giving a 200bc gaul an M-16 doesn't turn them into the equilvant of a US marine or Army soldier. The Gaul lacks the knowhow to make best use of the weapon in the most efficiently tactical/strategic matter. M-16s are superior to muskets. I never said they weren't.

Simple, the citadel council sends its spectres out because they are trained for assasinations or sends out salarian commando teams. As to why it would shatter or how, Halo 2 and Halo 3 already showed what would happen if the Hierarchs did certain things or were killed.

I did not say "Equal to Spartans one on one." I said that they were like some of the Spartans, I never said they were equal. The SA marines are better than the ordinary human soldiers of the UNSC.

I never said the Spartan 3s weren't supersoldiers. I only said that they weren't as straight designed supersoldiers as Spartan 2s.

If they don't use forerunner ships then how do they have ships? All the ships are originally forerunner in origin whether through blueprints or parts. Who builds the ships? The elites? the brutes? no, just the prophets or the engineers.

The Covenant is using a central system based of the forerunner system in all their technology. We are shown only one set of controls/symbols for each covenant ship that we encounter in gameplay through the Halo games. We don't see any instances of other symbols been used.

What mods besides cloaking are available? what other suit modifications have we seen? The only ones I have seen are pickups that you can get. Which are mods that exactly plug into the suit like the cloaking.

How are actions taken against infections in ME not relevant against the flood? The Flood is essentially an Infection or did you miss that whole part?

The reapers not good against flood? When the reapers have a habit of showing up every so often and wiping out all sentient organic life in the galaxy? The Flood has, what, two times, no wait one time that it has nearly duplicated that feat, while the reapers have been busy doing business since they got created. So how exactly are the reapers unable to handle the flood an organic enemy?

Also, even a dead reaper is dangerous. In ME 2, a team sent to explore a dead reaper goes insane while doing so. How is the flood going to be able to handle that sort of thing?

So the Covenant can slip ships in past the citadel defenses. That great, but its still does not mean victory. You still have to defeat the defenders.

According to the books, when the covenant breaks, the elites only have the ships that individual elites are controlling. Otherwise they have no ships. What kinds of resources from full covenant to just the elites would produce something like that? Plus the Elites are stated as being unable to make more ships, in the books following 3: Thursday war, and the other one featuring halsey being before the Thursday war book.

If you can't maintain your shipyards then you can't maintain your ships, then you can't maintain your forces or your ships don't work. Also, when you lose ships, you are not able to replace them meaning the number of ships you can deploy drop. Also, without shipyards you can't repair any battle damage sustained by ships beyond what the crew can fix. This is all before the covenant collapses, because the 3s showed up between reach and halo 2 happening. A time during which the covenant still aligned together and not broken apart yet.

The FTL relays provide instanteous transport or have been shown to do. The Normandy goes from the sol relay to the one around eden prime in nearly a few minutes after getting launched. Also, using the relay at the citadel to go anywhere else appears to take in game something like a minute tops. Slipstream from delta halo to earth took 13 hours, hardly instanteous.

The Covenant supercarriers are rare, and one gets blown up by a semi-activated human slipstream drive. That's not really impressive considering how many other human ships have the same drive and can offer to sacrifice one to blow up a supercarrier. All it took was taking another covenant cruiser over, loading up the drive and then getting to activate partially. So, despite all their greatness and awe, covenant supercarriers look to be easily killable if you know how. Also, the system alliance and some other races have nukes they can use.

The covenant ships use slipstream drives that take a few hours, the Mass relay work in a few minutes to transport ships around. So, I don't think that the covenant's overrun policy is going to keep working beyond the few times they try it.

So, what the covenant win? Congrats, your covenant dudes really don't have a policy of using captured material at all, or we have not been shown them using anything that is not military from the humans. So, the covenant have only the resources they started with.

[Forum Explorer]

They're very rare, not insanely rare. Plus, even more normal ships are pretty dangerous: while the Supercarriers have more Energy projectors, they are not the only ships that do so. In fact, many ships seem to carry at least one.

As for stealth stabatoge, I don't think that's ever been the case. The closest I can think of is when another ship in the fleet is sabotaged. But those instances also involve tech the Citadel doesn't have.


The most important, but not the only important. Especially since many worlds have a relay in their sector, but not in their system.

Hours after the message gets out. Which, given that in the same amount of time a Covenant fleet can reach a system, destroy civilization centers, and retreat, isn't a huge comfort. Hell, even without creating huge civilian casualties, it would be enough to destroy any space-infrastructure. Which would damage the Council species a great deal. Keep in mind that the response fleets have to concentrate, and then leave, which also adds time.

Also, I'd note that hours is a bit imprecise. You're easily looking at anything up to ~50 hours(limit for most engines), and it could be more(there are exploration ships, after all, and if they do find discharge points you can increase the normal FTL radius).

Moreover, at this point you're carrying quite a bit of excess heat. Which means that the response ships would be less capable than the defending ships.

And covenant are able to apparently go 912.12 lightyears per day. So, much faster than the Reapers(infact, they go more in one hour than reapers do in a day). And the fact that the Reapers can do this is seen as a big advantage for them.

Um, the Cole protocol was enacted because they didn't want the Covenant to access their navigational data which would lead them to other world. Hell, the Covenant take prisoners several times, including in the First Halo game.

Moreover, while the Covenant don't innovate as much as some(that is certainly true), they are perfectly willing to copy things that work.

And I'm saying that, given the limitations of ME, plus what we already know(reapers able to go 30ly per day is considered a big advantage), I don't feel that's a strong argument.

....Very rare and insanely rare aren't exactly, what's the word, measurements? I mean saying something is very rare to me, could me the exact same thing as it being insanely rare, while to you they are evidently different measurements. As for how powerful they actually are, well, we don't really know. I don't think anyone has claimed that an energy projector will one shot any Mass Effect ship (fighters not included) and vice versa. I've gotten the impression that they are around the same effectiveness as the main guns on a dreadnaught? But no numbers have really been given there.

Really? Because to my understanding that's how all the Supercarriers that were destroyed in Halo, got destroyed. (To be fair I think that's two) One by planting a slipspace bomb on it (or something along those lines) and the other I think you get the Flood on board (my memory is really bad on that one). Anyways using a bomb like you did for the Collector base would work fine. So even if it isn't the same stealth method, it's still one that works


Fair enough.


I disagree with that though. It's not around 50 hours (it certainly did not take you that long to respond to the Collectors attack on that colony) and I don't think the Covenant have ever managed to prosecute one of their wars in a matter of hours.

Even the heat thing evidently isn't a problem considering you go straight from the Charon Relay to fighting Reapers. I think the heat build up and discharge is for non relay travel. That or the discharge is so quick to not matter.


Yeah that's a lot faster then I thought. I'll concede that point then.


Navigation data is one thing, though you are right about the prisoners. Still I guess what I'm saying is that it'll take valuable time, not just instantly figuring it out from the first colony they hit. (Using them requires mass effect, and I don't think the average person knows how to start that up from scratch) And I maintain that the longer the conflict goes on the more the advantage swings in Mass Effect's favor.


I don't think the Reaper's speed was really that big of an advantage. I mean they had numbers, better armor, better tech, better weapons, and the ability to brainwash/create troops out of your own men. It was hardly their speed that was making it so hard to fight against them. (Though as you pointed out, they were also faster)

Anyways I suppose you are right (as I have grossly underestimated the Covenant's speed) but I will argue that for the most important battles (like the Citadel, Earth, other species capital planets) the Relays will pretty much cancel out the speed advantage since those systems have Relays directly inside them.

[russdm]

Hours after the message gets out. Which, given that in the same amount of time a Covenant fleet can reach a system, destroy civilization centers, and retreat, isn't a huge comfort. Hell, even without creating huge civilian casualties, it would be enough to destroy any space-infrastructure. Which would damage the Council species a great deal. Keep in mind that the response fleets have to concentrate, and then leave, which also adds time.

This is simply wrong. Citadel space uses the Mass Relays to deliver extremely important information that's Citadel Council, Military, Governmental, Business, then Personal. So it would be more like an hour at most before the closest military forces are aware of the attack, not hours. Destroying civilization centers takes time and unless you want to deploy all your troops on building destruction, your ships are going to have to stay put to bombard the cities. So, the conflict is going to take a while. Also, it took 25 years of war for the Covenant-Human conflict before it ended. So, I don't understand how the covenant are supposed to win the war in hours.

[Tavar]

....Very rare and insanely rare aren't exactly, what's the word, measurements? I mean saying something is very rare to me, could me the exact same thing as it being insanely rare, while to you they are evidently different measurements.
Fair Enough. Still, there are noted as being multiple ones in at least one fleet(though certainly the most important fleet), and are noted in several other instances.


As for how powerful they actually are, well, we don't really know. I don't think anyone has claimed that an energy projector will one shot any Mass Effect ship (fighters not included) and vice versa. I've gotten the impression that they are around the same effectiveness as the main guns on a dreadnaught? But no numbers have really been given there.
Actually...I would argue that there's a decent chance that they could do so to smaller ships(frigates, perhaps), as the beam is noted as going through an entire ship(one that was ~485 meters long). Shields would likely reduce the damage, but it's not clear on how much(or how extensive the shield advancements the Normandy II used are).

Still, I should point out that the SuperCarrier had 7 of these things, and many other ships carried them.


Really? Because to my understanding that's how all the Supercarriers that were destroyed in Halo, got destroyed. (To be fair I think that's two) One by planting a slipspace bomb on it (or something along those lines) and the other I think you get the Flood on board (my memory is really bad on that one). Anyways using a bomb like you did for the Collector base would work fine. So even if it isn't the same stealth method, it's still one that works.
I don't think any supercarrier got the flood aboard(and the flood being on a ship is something both outside of ME ability to replicate and essentially an auto win against the vessel). The one you destroy in Reach was operating without support, and what you do is take control of one of the other ships in the fleet, and use that to get the bomb close enough. And even then, it's important to remember that the bomb is a Slipspace bomb, not an explosive.

As for explosives, the only bomb that seemed to directly work against the ship while outside of it was a NOVA bomb, which has no firm yeild(conjecture puts it at about a Petaton, but that's obviously not canon). It was able to destroy a moon and severely damage a planet in it's only use.


Fair enough.What exactly is this in reference to?



I disagree with that though. It's not around 50 hours (it certainly did not take you that long to respond to the Collectors attack on that colony) and I don't think the Covenant have ever managed to prosecute one of their wars in a matter of hours.
Note the words "anything up to". In any case, this is based on the fact that ME drives can normally only go 50 hours of FTL before needing to discharge, and that it's canon that colonies are spread in spheres around relay accessible worlds.

Also, note that the message about the comm-blackout seems to have happened before the attack took place.


Even the heat thing evidently isn't a problem considering you go straight from the Charon Relay to fighting Reapers. I think the heat build up and discharge is for non relay travel. That or the discharge is so quick to not matter.
Explicitly false by canon in the Codex. It's noted as a problem.


Navigation data is one thing, though you are right about the prisoners. Still I guess what I'm saying is that it'll take valuable time, not just instantly figuring it out from the first colony they hit. (Using them requires mass effect, and I don't think the average person knows how to start that up from scratch) And I maintain that the longer the conflict goes on the more the advantage swings in Mass Effect's favor.
They don't need to start them up. Only use the ones that are already activated. And they can get that information from any shipboard computer at the very least.


Also, the Relays don't seem to require mass effect to use them. To build them, yes, but their entire function is external to the ships.

I don't think the Reaper's speed was really that big of an advantage. I mean they had numbers, better armor, better tech, better weapons, and the ability to brainwash/create troops out of your own men. It was hardly their speed that was making it so hard to fight against them. (Though as you pointed out, they were also faster)
It allowed them to avoid heavily defended choke points and outrun defensive fleets unless they wanted to fight. Being able to pick and chose your battles is a huge advantage. To dismiss it as meaningless is ludicrous.

Anyways I suppose you are right (as I have grossly underestimated the Covenant's speed) but I will argue that for the most important battles (like the Citadel, Earth, other species capital planets) the Relays will pretty much cancel out the speed advantage since those systems have Relays directly inside them.
But, if you follow that logic, then the various fleets cannot support one another. Which leads to the Cov dividing and conquering them, much like the Reapers did.

Again, despite the Relay network being very large, it does not interconnect even every star with a relay, and not all stars have relays. And even for those that do, you might have to do normal FTL travel between relays. This is something done in ME(hence discharge stations.)




Someone else might want to talk to russDM. I can't be bothered, since he now seems to be trying to argue that the Prophets are not part of the Covenant, so his statements about the Covenant were right. That level of dishonesty is making me a bit to angry to debate him.

[russdm]

Only one race was allowed according to the faith to work with the forerunner artifacts and conduct research, so saying that the covenant does not do research is true, which I have said. However, that one race is conducting research so the Covenant is doing research so that is true as well and I have acknowledged this. However, the fact that the Covenant is conducting research is both true and false, because there are conditions which meet both results. The results are not mutually exclusive.

So I am both right and wrong about the Covenant as a result and I acknowledge and accept that.

[Tavar]

Only one race was allowed according to the faith to work with the forerunner artifacts and conduct research, so saying that the covenant does not do research is true, which I have said. However, that one race is conducting research so the Covenant is doing research so that is true as well and I have acknowledged this. However, the fact that the Covenant is conducting research is both true and false, because there are conditions which meet both results. The results are not mutually exclusive.

So I am both right and wrong about the Covenant as a result and I acknowledge and accept that.
Would you also say that there are no female humans? Because the logic you just used would tell us that.

Which is why your attempts at defending your argument are laughable.

[russdm]

Would you also say that there are no female humans? Because the logic you just used would tell us that.

Which is why your attempts at defending your argument are laughable.

So? I wouldn't say that there aren't female humans because that is impossible because you need them to have any humans.

Here, I will admit this "You are right and I am wrong." Happy?

[Tavar]

So? I wouldn't say that there aren't female humans because that is impossible because you need them to have any humans.

Here, I will admit this "You are right and I am wrong." Happy?
Not really, because you don't seem to see why I'm being so strident. Let me rephrase this.

Your argument is as follows:
A)One section of a group does an act.
B) Another section of a group does not do an act.
C) Since the act is not universal within the group, the group does not commit the act.

This is your defense of your statement that the Covenant do not do research.

Well, the USA is made up of humans.
A)Some people in the USA vote.
B)Some people in the USA do not vote.
C)Therefore, no one in the USA votes.

Also, putting the phrase in quotes doesn't make it all that believable.

[Forum Explorer]

Actually...I would argue that there's a decent chance that they could do so to smaller ships(frigates, perhaps), as the beam is noted as going through an entire ship(one that was ~485 meters long). Shields would likely reduce the damage, but it's not clear on how much(or how extensive the shield advancements the Normandy II used are).

Still, I should point out that the SuperCarrier had 7 of these things, and many other ships carried them.


I don't think any supercarrier got the flood aboard(and the flood being on a ship is something both outside of ME ability to replicate and essentially an auto win against the vessel). The one you destroy in Reach was operating without support, and what you do is take control of one of the other ships in the fleet, and use that to get the bomb close enough. And even then, it's important to remember that the bomb is a Slipspace bomb, not an explosive.

As for explosives, the only bomb that seemed to directly work against the ship while outside of it was a NOVA bomb, which has no firm yeild(conjecture puts it at about a Petaton, but that's obviously not canon). It was able to destroy a moon and severely damage a planet in it's only use.

What exactly is this in reference to?



Note the words "anything up to". In any case, this is based on the fact that ME drives can normally only go 50 hours of FTL before needing to discharge, and that it's canon that colonies are spread in spheres around relay accessible worlds.

Also, note that the message about the comm-blackout seems to have happened before the attack took place.


Explicitly false by canon in the Codex. It's noted as a problem.


They don't need to start them up. Only use the ones that are already activated. And they can get that information from any shipboard computer at the very least.


Also, the Relays don't seem to require mass effect to use them. To build them, yes, but their entire function is external to the ships.

It allowed them to avoid heavily defended choke points and outrun defensive fleets unless they wanted to fight. Being able to pick and chose your battles is a huge advantage. To dismiss it as meaningless is ludicrous.

But, if you follow that logic, then the various fleets cannot support one another. Which leads to the Cov dividing and conquering them, much like the Reapers did.

Again, despite the Relay network being very large, it does not interconnect even every star with a relay, and not all stars have relays. And even for those that do, you might have to do normal FTL travel between relays. This is something done in ME(hence discharge stations.)




Someone else might want to talk to russDM. I can't be bothered, since he now seems to be trying to argue that the Prophets are not part of the Covenant, so his statements about the Covenant were right. That level of dishonesty is making me a bit to angry to debate him.

True, but


The humans in Halo are pretty much inferior to System's Alliance in every aspect except the Spartans. (And only the type of Spartan that MC was). Their ships getting shredded by energy projectors isn't a surprise. Anyways the shields and armor of the Citadel Fleets is pretty strong, and it doesn't suffer going to a lower sized ship (though of course a lower sized ship can't take as much damage simply because it has less redundant space).


Must be misremembering that then. Anyways, Mass Effect has some very powerful bombs. The one used to destroy the Collector Base for example. Or the last resort bomb on Tuchanka. Also blowing a bomb up on the inside of a ship is much more effective then having to go through the shields and armor first.


That was in reference to your point that not all important worlds have Mass Effect Relays


Oh alright. And yeah colonies are spread around, just a lot of colonies aren't valuable on a strategic level. Seriously humanity loses a series of colonies to the Collectors and no one is particularly worried about it.

I'm not sure what you are talking about for the comm-black out. Are you talking about the save the colony mission in Mass Effect 2?


I'll have to check that later since I don't remember that part of the Codex. But later. I'm tired, and don't feel like it right now.


The Codex says something about 'using mass' in order to use the Relays. It's very vague so I have no idea what it's actually saying, but that implies that you need to be able to use the whole mass effect thing to actually use the Relays.


See I don't remember the Reapers avoiding any chokepoints. They just sorta destroyed everything in the way most brutally calculated to cause massive harm not only on a physical level, but on a psychological one as well. I guess what I'm saying is that the speed advantage existed, it just made an already one sided fight even more one-sided.


I don't entirely follow. I might just be tired. Also I don't remember ever having to leave the system in order to get to a different Relay. Though that could simply be gameplay segregation.

[Tavar]

True, but

The humans in Halo are pretty much inferior to System's Alliance in every aspect except the Spartans. (And only the type of Spartan that MC was). Their ships getting shredded by energy projectors isn't a surprise. Anyways the shields and armor of the Citadel Fleets is pretty strong, and it doesn't suffer going to a lower sized ship (though of course a lower sized ship can't take as much damage simply because it has less redundant space).
Source on shields/armor being equally strong? That would seem somewhat ridiculous, given the profiles of the ships.

Oh, and the Codex talk about shields just mentions that ship based shielding is generally ineffective against particle beams and energy fields. ME2 certainly holds this to be true, given the fight near the Collector base.

As to the meat of the argument, well, saying that they're more powerful and better equipped is true. But they aren't so far advanced that no comparison is accurate. The UNSC have pretty powerful weapon systems, ones that can on the up-most ends even exceed those used by some ME races(4% lightspeed on a thousand ton object >1.3% on a 20kg). This weapon isn't on that level, bi-secting a half-kilometer vessel isn't exactly small potatoes.

Must be misremembering that then. Anyways, Mass Effect has some very powerful bombs. The one used to destroy the Collector Base for example. Or the last resort bomb on Tuchanka. Also blowing a bomb up on the inside of a ship is much more effective then having to go through the shields and armor first.
The Collector base was an internal detonation of their reactor. And the Bomb on Tuchanka wasn't on the level of a Nova.

And, yes, doing it inside a ship is much more powerful, but infiltration into those ships has never been achieved. If you're detonating something inside the shields, you don't need nearly as much power.


Oh alright. And yeah colonies are spread around, just a lot of colonies aren't valuable on a strategic level. Seriously humanity loses a series of colonies to the Collectors and no one is particularly worried about it.
Those are not part of the Alliance, though, and thus aren't as big of a concern initially. You'll note that the Alliance is spending more attention by the time you get on the scene(the Horizen mission is an example).

Also, note stuff like, say, the Talk about Alliance Naval deployments(nodal reaction forces, which are noted as not being effective against raids).


I'm not sure what you are talking about for the comm-black out. Are you talking about the save the colony mission in Mass Effect 2?
I'm talking about the Horizen mission. Watched the intro-cutscenes/first bit of gameplay.


I'll have to check that later since I don't remember that part of the Codex. But later. I'm tired, and don't feel like it right now.
It's in regard to combat, as well as FTL travel.



The Codex says something about 'using mass' in order to use the Relays. It's very vague so I have no idea what it's actually saying, but that implies that you need to be able to use the whole mass effect thing to actually use the Relays.
From my read on the wiki, the Relays only need to be told how much mass they're transporting.


See I don't remember the Reapers avoiding any chokepoints. They just sorta destroyed everything in the way most brutally calculated to cause massive harm not only on a physical level, but on a psychological one as well. I guess what I'm saying is that the speed advantage existed, it just made an already one sided fight even more one-sided.
They avoided the Human fleets guarding the approaches to the Arcturus relay, if my memory is correct. Yes, they smashed through that relay, but avoiding the rest of the defenses was a huge blow, enabled by their speed.


I don't entirely follow. I might just be tired. Also I don't remember ever having to leave the system in order to get to a different Relay. Though that could simply be gameplay segregation.
You generally have multiple core worlds. Each Cluster/important world requires it's own defensive forces. These forces are thus unable to perfectly support one another, as each is separate(though for how long depends on several factors). Thus, defeat in detail. Especially if you also use raids against worlds in a cluster that are more isolated(no relays). Granted, that might be less likely from the Elites, though brutes might be used for that.

As for the Relay travel, check the listings. There's groups of 3 or more important worlds with one or 2 relays(maybe not including in-active ones).


Of course, there's a possible counter: are the Relays only in citadel space? Or do they exist in Covenant space? If the latter, then the Citadel, while still facing some mobility problems, can effectively take the fight to the enemy. Otherwise, they would seem to lack the means to do so.

[SiuiS]

Moreover, even inside the ships, it's generally not easy to hack. You seem to need to get to certain areas to do so.

Would this be because the covenant ships are super hard to hack, or because no one in Halo has even a tenth of the tech to do it? Cortana is unique, isn't she? Or unique enough, compared to everyone in ME being able to carry dozens of pseudosapient programs around in their cell phones?



Except the ranges used don't support the idea that they are that maneuverable. As I have repeatedly said, but you have denied because, I don't know, you don't want to actually look at the facts.

You'll have to break out the math for me, then. I fail to see how space combat involving not firing until within X distance because the other ship can dodge your significantly close to lightspeed bullets means somehow that they cannot dodge. You have to state a fact for it to be avoided. So far you've said "Nuh-uh" and "I already said nuh-uh".


You think you were clear. I disagree, as I have said.

And I have been trying to correct you, but you seem to not take any correction, so while your idea would work in theory, the application seems to be off.

What, I should just roll over because you say "you're wrong"? I'm not that easy a date. Keep going, refute via proof, and if you're right, I'll agree, and if I don't think you're right I'll point out why. Eventually, we achieve consensus.


I wouldn't say that they are able to. They might be able to start looking in that direction, but saying that they would be able to do it seems like it would be overstating things a bit, especially given that they were at least somewhat reliant on the beacon, which would not have contained information on that.

It's a plot point mentioned several times. The asari were already making headway but their society considered it a waste of time and shamed the workers until they stopped, and the protheans managed to make a pseudo-relay before being destroyed.



Cool, but Spartans aren't really modified for general wellness. Especially not with the more invasive modifications or their suits.

I mean, hell, look at a canonical comparison:
Shepard went through re-entry, and both died and suffered severe bodily trauma in the process.

MC went through re-entry, and needed his armor reset. After that, he was basically fine.

Bit difference in capabilities there.

Seems like MC gets the win, there.


Hacking is a big part of Halo, but the key is that you need to physically access the system in some way, and it's usually pretty small. People are saying you'd be able to hack anything when inside a cruiser. In Halo, you're in a cruiser in the third level. And despite having a Master Hacker, you are only able to hack the doors you are physically near(and then only after some time, generally).

While architecture does influence this, having a force field which is also a remote-controlled AI unit go do things for you could probably get past that proximity issue. As could the mass effect group just being that good at tech; All the hard work is front loaded into programs, which do the end'-user stuff when activated. Send a drone which connects to a port, suddenly, wifi, deploy hacking capability.

[Tavar]

Would this be because the covenant ships are super hard to hack, or because no one in Halo has even a tenth of the tech to do it? Cortana is unique, isn't she? Or unique enough, compared to everyone in ME being able to carry dozens of pseudosapient programs around in their cell phones?
Actually, AI's are more prevalent in Halo than in Mass Effect. Most colonies seem to have at least one smart AI(for example, Harvest, a new backwater colony, had 2). They are rare compared to the number of computers out there. They also have a limited lifespan, but the length of that lifespan is unclear.

Dumb AI's are more common, and seem somewhat comparable to VI's.


You'll have to break out the math for me, then. I fail to see how space combat involving not firing until within X distance because the other ship can dodge your significantly close to lightspeed bullets means somehow that they cannot dodge. You have to state a fact for it to be avoided. So far you've said "Nuh-uh" and "I already said nuh-uh".
Sure, but first, let's correct some things.

A)the shots aren't going at a significant percentage of lightspeed.
B)I didn't say they couldn't dodge. I said that they weren't going near the speed of light to do so.
C)I like how you imply I'm not bringing facts, when in fact i have done so, and you have a total of nothing.

Now, let's go on to your arguement, namely that they can easily go at the speed of light. Well, as said before, if they go at light speed, that means their weapons go slower than them, which means dodging involves turning around. More importantly, it means that their weapons are launched at slower speeds. Thus, those dreadnoughts would run into their own bullets. Well, either that or the codex is wrong about their flight speeds. And given that they have nothing to say about the flight speeds, and do mention the velocity of the shots, I think anyone could figure this out. But let me spell it out for you: your numbers are unsited, and actually have no support. My numbers do. This would seem to imply that your numbers are flawed.

Of course, I've already said this, and you discarded it, for reasons only known to yourself.

Now, you are bringing up that the ships would need to move faster than the object to doge. But that isn't true. You only need to be able to accelerate(which is different than the speed you move at) to a degree that where they aimed the shot will not be occupied by a ship when the shot gets there. This is, actually, really easy in space, because you have a large range of motion. Think of it like flak, or other dumbfire anti-air. Those shells were moving much, much faster than the aircraft. But the issue was that you need to be close enough that the time between your shot and when it hits, the craft cannot substantially change it's heading.

Now, in ME, Dreadnoughts are considered viable targets for one another at distances of tens of thousands of meters(as said). It would take shots, therefore, anywhere from 22.5 seconds to 4 seconds to reach(90k or 20k), but lets stick with a decent middle ground: 30k(7.5). The light would reach effectively instantaneously, and assuming they're intelligent they would have VI's to handle the data(thus negating the time for much interpretation). And while Dreadnoughts are about 1km in length, they are not as long in the other direction. So, they need to simply duck or doge a few hundred meters in those seconds at most(assuming the shot would hit the direct center of the ship in a few seconds if nothing changed). That level of thrust is manifestly possible without needing to go near lightspeed. Moreover, if you were going at such speeds, well, dodging would be harder(as you have less reaction time), but if you acceleration was great enough, with the weapons you had, you would need a much smaller engagement zone, as you would be much less likely to hit.




What, I should just roll over because you say "you're wrong"? I'm not that easy a date. Keep going, refute via proof, and if you're right, I'll agree, and if I don't think you're right I'll point out why. Eventually, we achieve consensus.
Personally, I'd accept basic fact checking before a post.

And, you know, actually accepting proof, rather than discounting it because it would counter what you want to be true(as in the above discussion).


It's a plot point mentioned several times. The asari were already making headway but their society considered it a waste of time and shamed the workers until they stopped, and the protheans managed to make a pseudo-relay before being destroyed.
Yes to the Protheans. The only mention of the Asari project I know of simply says that the idea was proposed, and the rest of the Asari rejected it. That doesn't mean that there was any work done, nor that they


While architecture does influence this, having a force field which is also a remote-controlled AI unit go do things for you could probably get past that proximity issue. As could the mass effect group just being that good at tech; All the hard work is front loaded into programs, which do the end'-user stuff when activated. Send a drone which connects to a port, suddenly, wifi, deploy hacking capability.
Because obviously unidentified drones are perfectly acceptable in military installations.

Though, you are right that if you could get it in, that would allow such hackings to take place. I think it would require an entire team to get it there, though, which negates much of the utility of WI-FI, unless your signal is strong enough from a mobile emitter to reach a specialty installation.

[Forum Explorer]

Source on shields/armor being equally strong? That would seem somewhat ridiculous, given the profiles of the ships.

Oh, and the Codex talk about shields just mentions that ship based shielding is generally ineffective against particle beams and energy fields. ME2 certainly holds this to be true, given the fight near the Collector base.

As to the meat of the argument, well, saying that they're more powerful and better equipped is true. But they aren't so far advanced that no comparison is accurate. The UNSC have pretty powerful weapon systems, ones that can on the up-most ends even exceed those used by some ME races(4% lightspeed on a thousand ton object >1.3% on a 20kg). This weapon isn't on that level, bi-secting a half-kilometer vessel isn't exactly small potatoes.

The Collector base was an internal detonation of their reactor. And the Bomb on Tuchanka wasn't on the level of a Nova.

And, yes, doing it inside a ship is much more powerful, but infiltration into those ships has never been achieved. If you're detonating something inside the shields, you don't need nearly as much power.


Those are not part of the Alliance, though, and thus aren't as big of a concern initially. You'll note that the Alliance is spending more attention by the time you get on the scene(the Horizen mission is an example).

Also, note stuff like, say, the Talk about Alliance Naval deployments(nodal reaction forces, which are noted as not being effective against raids).


I'm talking about the Horizen mission. Watched the intro-cutscenes/first bit of gameplay.


It's in regard to combat, as well as FTL travel.



From my read on the wiki, the Relays only need to be told how much mass they're transporting.


They avoided the Human fleets guarding the approaches to the Arcturus relay, if my memory is correct. Yes, they smashed through that relay, but avoiding the rest of the defenses was a huge blow, enabled by their speed.


You generally have multiple core worlds. Each Cluster/important world requires it's own defensive forces. These forces are thus unable to perfectly support one another, as each is separate(though for how long depends on several factors). Thus, defeat in detail. Especially if you also use raids against worlds in a cluster that are more isolated(no relays). Granted, that might be less likely from the Elites, though brutes might be used for that.

As for the Relay travel, check the listings. There's groups of 3 or more important worlds with one or 2 relays(maybe not including in-active ones).


Of course, there's a possible counter: are the Relays only in citadel space? Or do they exist in Covenant space? If the latter, then the Citadel, while still facing some mobility problems, can effectively take the fight to the enemy. Otherwise, they would seem to lack the means to do so.

Actually I was wrong (and right) at the same time. Ablative armor is weaker on smaller ships because they can have less layers of it. Shields are the same. However the stronger Silaris Armor is restricted to smaller ships due to it's cost, but it's very resistant to heat and energy weapons. Similarly the Cyclonic Barrier Technology can only be fitted on smaller ships due to maintenance problems on the large ships.

You are refering to the Super Mac Gun right? The ones on the orbital platforms around Earth? Some (admittedly rough) calculations on my part put a Systems Alliance Dreadnought releasing 58 gigatons more energy 1 second faster. And the wiki says the Super Mac can shoot holes in the Supercarriers. Yes the Dreadnought's main gun does less damage per individual shot, but the Dreadnought has a lot of those guns (the human one has 78 per side) and they fire faster. They are also mobile and can take evasive maneuvers.

The energy projector is a nasty weapon though, that does ignore Mass Effect shields. However it is also slow to fire and easy to dodge. It's hard to say how effective it'd be against Mass Effect Armor as we have no idea what it's made of (well it'd be less effective against the Silaris) but we do know it's in layers.


I literally cannot find details on how the Collector base blew up. I have no idea how powerful a Nova bomb is but the bomb on Tuchanka was strong enough to wipe out all life on the planet (or at least most of it)

The supercarriers showed up once in the games, and was destroyed due to a clever ploy that involved infiltration of a much smaller ship. So while you are correct that they didn't die to infiltration, it was because they didn't need to.


Yeah, but the Alliance was hardly suffering from losing those colonies. It sucked and was tragic, but it was of very little strategic importance.


Checked out the dischaging thing and you are kinda right. You're right in that it needs to be done within ~50 hours. However not doing it before a battle has no stated effect. ~50 hours is a lot of time for a fight, so the fleet could easily show up, fight, and then the survivors go dischage in the nearest atmosphere/discharge station.


Do you have a link for the deployment thing? I don't think it's on the wiki.


Well it's vague. That certainly is a valid interpretation, though I think there is still another step or principle involved. Regardless I won't put it outside the Covenant's ability to figure out.


A quick check tells me that they simply rushed through the human defenses, leaving them intact behind them before fighting through the Arcturus relays and utterly destroying the human fleet defending the Charon relay. If they didn't have their absurd fighting ability they would have been trapped between Earth's defense fleets and the rest of the armada. The whole invasion took minutes.


It's hard to say, but I think between the defensive fleets in the system, and the speed of the Relays, raids by the Covenant could be fended off.


Also something to note, how good is the Covenant's point defense? Because Disruptor Torpedoes would be extremely lethal to their ships. I ask because the wiki doesn't specify. It just says it exists. I'm thinking it's less effective then the Mass Effect point defense considering that starts at 100% interception rate and has to be worn down by use.

Overall I don't think the Covenant actually have an advantage in space battles. They have mobility, but lose out on armor, strength of weapons, and as far as I can tell tactics.


As for the Relays well they are a pretty big factor. Also does the Covenant even have planets? Regardless would you say it's fair to state that this war started when a Relay was activated into Covenant space? So it's part of the network, but unexplored, with every Relay needing to be activated.

The Relays are obviously a big advantage for the Mass Effect side

[BRC]

I literally cannot find details on how the Collector base blew up. I have no idea how powerful a Nova bomb is but the bomb on Tuchanka was strong enough to wipe out all life on the planet (or at least most of it)


IIRC not true. Apparently if the bomb goes off (You ignore the mission that disarms it and cerberus sets it off) it wipes out the valley, killing a large number of krogan, but not wiping out life on Tuchanka.

Mind you Tuchanka was a post-nuclear armageddon wasteland when the citadel races found it.

[Forum Explorer]

IIRC not true. Apparently if the bomb goes off (You ignore the mission that disarms it and cerberus sets it off) it wipes out the valley, killing a large number of krogan, but not wiping out life on Tuchanka.

Mind you Tuchanka was a post-nuclear armageddon wasteland when the citadel races found it.

That briefing lied to me! :smallfurious::smalltongue:

[russdm]

Your supposed conduct of the war is wrong simply: Any place not worth defending doesn't really impact the enemy's ability to wage war. Wars are won in the will, not by repeatedly hitting worthless sites, which you claim are the preferred targets for the covenant against the citadel races. You win wars by: Destroying the enemy's armies/forces, destroy the enemy's ability to fight, and destroy their will to fight. Countless wars in our own history have proven this out, so the covenant are doing nothing significant unless they act military targets that contain: A) Military forces, B) Supply facilities, C)Actually important civilian targets that the military will make the effort to defend.

Also, the Covenant was only fighting the UNSC beside the flood, so that means only two races' methods of fighting. Against the Citadel races, its all of the races who each possess their own methods of fighting. So, they can't use rinse and repeat tactics beyond overwhelming force.

Cortana was inside the armor and states in game that she can only use the armor's systems while inside. Once you dump in the core on the covenant capital place, she can actually affect things everywhere. plus in halo, after you place in her that terminal in the halo ring she can affect things and watch you following guilty spark doing stuff. She has been shown to be limited by the armor when its the only thing holding her. She was able to use the various big guns when the platforms systems in the start of halo 2.

Infilterating a covenant ship is not impossible or even hard, you need to get to the gravity lift or steal one of their crafts and fly it in, or just fly a pelican in or other craft. This methods other than stealing a craft and flying it in have all been attempted in the games/novels/comics/animations and have been shown to fully work. You manage in Halo 1 to use the gravity lift to get in and then escape using a pelican, then you do it again in a later mission to another/or same cruiser. So doing this is completely legitimate.

Remember Vader's command from Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, and how it died despite being so powerful? Well, your so-called super-powerful supercarrier dies in a similar weaky fashion: The humans steal a covenant cruiser and detonate one of their slipstream drives in a way that destroys nearly 85% of that supercarrier. And they didn't have to infilterate the supercarrier either. That doesn't say much in favor for them, since the smaller ships can taken over far more easily.

[russdm]

As for the Relays well they are a pretty big factor. Also does the Covenant even have planets? Regardless would you say it's fair to state that this war started when a Relay was activated into Covenant space? So it's part of the network, but unexplored, with every Relay needing to be activated.

The Relays are obviously a big advantage for the Mass Effect side

The Covenant have High Charity, the covenant capital city, and the planets of each race, plus a very small number of others. Otherwise, its mostly ships or stations.

[Tavar]

Actually I was wrong (and right) at the same time. Ablative armor is weaker on smaller ships because they can have less layers of it. Shields are the same. However the stronger Silaris Armor is restricted to smaller ships due to it's cost, but it's very resistant to heat and energy weapons. Similarly the Cyclonic Barrier Technology can only be fitted on smaller ships due to maintenance problems on the large ships.
That is interesting. That just might make things more equivalent, though it's not quite clear how common Silaris armor is.

You are refering to the Super Mac Gun right? The ones on the orbital platforms around Earth? Some (admittedly rough) calculations on my part put a Systems Alliance Dreadnought releasing 58 gigatons more energy 1 second faster. And the wiki says the Super Mac can shoot holes in the Supercarriers. Yes the Dreadnought's main gun does less damage per individual shot, but the Dreadnought has a lot of those guns (the human one has 78 per side) and they fire faster. They are also mobile and can take evasive maneuvers.
What numbers are you using? The numbers given for the cannon have it firing a 3000 ton slug(either 2.72155e6 kg or 3e6) at 4% of lightspeed, and do so as fast as 1/5 seconds. For comparison, while the SA dreadnought slugs would have 38 kt of TNT, the SuperMac's would have 5870 gigatons of TNT. That's actually almost 3 orders of magnitude higher(as that reaches terratons).


The energy projector is a nasty weapon though, that does ignore Mass Effect shields. However it is also slow to fire and easy to dodge. It's hard to say how effective it'd be against Mass Effect Armor as we have no idea what it's made of (well it'd be less effective against the Silaris) but we do know it's in layers.
Source on the easy to dodge?



I literally cannot find details on how the Collector base blew up. I have no idea how powerful a Nova bomb is but the bomb on Tuchanka was strong enough to wipe out all life on the planet (or at least most of it)
Per the wiki, it was the Base's core set to overload. As for the other one, it wasn't that strong, as said.


The supercarriers showed up once in the games, and was destroyed due to a clever ploy that involved infiltration of a much smaller ship. So while you are correct that they didn't die to infiltration, it was because they didn't need to.
Are you even reading my posts? Yes, they infiltrated a smaller ship. In order to bring a slipspace drive on board and use the somewhat unique properties of said device against the other ship. And the infiltration of said smaller ship was accomplished because it was operating alone(which would mean that solo-covenant deployments are vulnerable).

Unfortunately, ME lacks Slipspace drives.


Yeah, but the Alliance was hardly suffering from losing those colonies. It sucked and was tragic, but it was of very little strategic importance.
Because, if you would actually read my posts, THOSE WERE NOT ALLIANCE COLONIES.


Checked out the dischaging thing and you are kinda right. You're right in that it needs to be done within ~50 hours. However not doing it before a battle has no stated effect. ~50 hours is a lot of time for a fight, so the fleet could easily show up, fight, and then the survivors go dischage in the nearest atmosphere/discharge station.
.....
I'd suggest you go back and read the data about heat aboard starships.



Do you have a link for the deployment thing? I don't think it's on the wiki.
It's located on the page for the Alliance, as well as the Alliance navy in particular. Pretty sure it's in the Codex as well.



A quick check tells me that they simply rushed through the human defenses, leaving them intact behind them before fighting through the Arcturus relays and utterly destroying the human fleet defending the Charon relay. If they didn't have their absurd fighting ability they would have been trapped between Earth's defense fleets and the rest of the armada. The whole invasion took minutes.
Ah, my mistake. I thought they had circumvented some of them.


It's hard to say, but I think between the defensive fleets in the system, and the speed of the Relays, raids by the Covenant could be fended off.
Then you don't understand what I'm talking about, or what a strong Covenant raid could be. A raid in this case could be a hundred or so ships, something that I doubt the Citadel forces would be able to match. Especially as these raids would not face Dreads.


Also something to note, how good is the Covenant's point defense? Because Disruptor Torpedoes would be extremely lethal to their ships. I ask because the wiki doesn't specify. It just says it exists. I'm thinking it's less effective then the Mass Effect point defense considering that starts at 100% interception rate and has to be worn down by use.
It's laser based, and doesn't seem to suffer from use. I don't think we have very clear ideas about how effective it is, though. I think UNSC relied mainly on saturation to get past it. The system was also useful against capital ships, though I think that largely comes from it not suffering from overuse.


Overall I don't think the Covenant actually have an advantage in space battles. They have mobility, but lose out on armor, strength of weapons, and as far as I can tell tactics.
It would be nice to know where you're getting the data on weapons(especially since it seems somewhat flawed).

Tactically, I don't know. The Covenant navy had several very effective tricks up it's sleeves.

As for the Relays well they are a pretty big factor. Also does the Covenant even have planets? Regardless would you say it's fair to state that this war started when a Relay was activated into Covenant space? So it's part of the network, but unexplored, with every Relay needing to be activated.
Wait what? So, the covenant have just been ignoring these huge, ancient items throughout their territory? That's...somewhat ridiculous.


The Relays are obviously a big advantage for the Mass Effect side
Just as long as the Covenant have no knowledge of them.


Regarding fighting a war:

Striking "non-critical places" is indeed not going to win a war. On the other hand, if you can force an opponent to deploy his offensive fleets in defensive roles(in order to protect the civilians) that can be a massive boost in your ability to win the war. Especially if you are able to effectively isolate the ships to some degree(longer travel times do this). Also, while the absolutely critical places might not be open to strikes, absolutely critical places are usually not the only places of importance. If they are, however, you can concentrate and defeat them by cutting off the head.

Largely, the raids are not to win the war. They are to prevent the enemy from acting offensively on you, and to wear down his infrastructure. Fuel, repair, ammo, and replacement personnel all have to come from somewhere. The first three in particular usually require somewhat specific things to create them, and are store in somewhat centralized locations. Those are what you want to take.

[russdm]

I thought I would also through this out for thought and furious debate:

The Citadel Council makes peaceful contact and offers races within the Covenant representation on the Council. Which Covenant races agree to this or are interested in this? Why would they be interested or say yes? Also, what about if the Council offers membership on the council to the covenant, does it say yes? Why?

I think that needs debate more than stuff about weapons and transportation. How do the governments relate to each other.

[Tiki Snakes]

Most races in the Covenant are at least officially fully signed up to the whole Great Journey/Covenant religion.

The notable exception (if I recall correctly) are the Jackals, who gave in and joined up because they were just going to get their asses kicked by the rest of the Covenant if they didn't, really. They're in it for more mercenary reasons, etc.

I think.

[Forum Explorer]

I see my mistake. Misread one letter on the wiki and calculated the Mass Effect shots at gigatons instead of kilotons (or vice versa) A closer look shows that the guns are more equivalent to the standard MAC, except for the much faster firing rate and damage. So dreadnoughts could shred smaller ships very easily, but the Supercarriers remain a problem.


All information I got was from the wiki.


And yes I am reading your posts. You've provided exactly zero reasons why a Supercarrier should be any harder to infiltrate then any other Covenant ship, considering you infiltrate a Covenant ship in every single Halo game I've played. And MC is hardly a stealthy individual.


That's my point! Nobody cares if the isolated colonies are wiped out beyond moral outrage. They aren't even considered part of the nation.


Do you have a suggestion on how Relays should be treated then?

[russdm]

And yes I am reading your posts. You've provided exactly zero reasons why a Supercarrier should be any harder to infiltrate then any other Covenant ship, considering you infiltrate a Covenant ship in every single Halo game I've played. And MC is hardly a stealthy individual.

SarcasmI would think that Tavar ignores anything that Tavar can't prove because it may make Tavar look bad. But, seriously, claiming proof/facts then not showing it, then pointing a finger at others is not really a great way to debate.

[Tiki Snakes]

How about, there are several in Covenant space, but they were de-activated ones. The Covenant obviously believe them to be forerunner relics and seek to activate them so they can begin The Great Journey!

They finally do this, only to find out that The Great Journey seems to have been more literal than they were expecting?

Covenant relay(s?) are now linked to the grid.

Potentially the Prophets forbid actually using the Relays, at least until they can figure out a way to use them as giant suicide machines properly use them to begin the real Great Journey.

[Tavar]

I see my mistake. Misread one letter on the wiki and calculated the Mass Effect shots at gigatons instead of kilotons (or vice versa) A closer look shows that the guns are more equivalent to the standard MAC, except for the much faster firing rate and damage. So dreadnoughts could shred smaller ships very easily, but the Supercarriers remain a problem.
One on one, to be sure. Even a few vs a Dreadnought. The biggest issue for the ME races is that Covenant ship-board weapons seem pretty one-size fits all.


And yes I am reading your posts. You've provided exactly zero reasons why a Supercarrier should be any harder to infiltrate then any other Covenant ship, considering you infiltrate a Covenant ship in every single Halo game I've played. And MC is hardly a stealthy individual.
A: MC infiltrates all of 2 ships(one in Halo:CE, one in Halo:First Strike). So saying that you've only played one Halo game isn't exactly a strong statement of support.
B:Inference is a useful quality in a debate, one which you seem to use often, so I direct you to this:

Yes, they infiltrated a smaller ship. In order to bring a slipspace drive on board and use the somewhat unique properties of said device against the other ship. And the infiltration of said smaller ship was accomplished because it was operating alone(which would mean that solo-covenant deployments are vulnerable).

Unfortunately, ME lacks Slipspace drives.

C: As for the infiltration in the games(HaloCE and Reach), both were against lone ships, one a pretty small one, and the other being largely disabled.

That's my point! Nobody cares if the isolated colonies are wiped out beyond moral outrage. They aren't even considered part of the nation.
Those Isolated colonies were set up to be separate from the Alliance, though. It's like claiming that because the US doesn't care if a village in Africa is attacked, it won't care if a very small town in rural Colorado is attacked.

So if that is your point, it once more proves that you aren't actually reading the arguments.