Halo Universe VS Star Wars Universe

[STUDZ]

Have we even brought up The Clone Wars?

You know, the ONE reason why Star Wars will fail against Halo?

[noghiri]

We brought it up to the point of saying I don't really think it should be part of Star Wars... All the things there are really good for cannon fodder to keep your guys busy so we can hammer you with the good forces.

[Drill Master]

We brought it up to the point of saying I don't really think it should be part of Star Wars... All the things there are really good for cannon fodder to keep your guys busy so we can hammer you with the good forces.

Knowing the covenant, they would probably ignore the clones and attack a higher group of enemy.

[Antillies]

After extensive analysis and consideration, I have drawn up the following in an attempt to compare the military power of two standard ships from both universes. I think all would agree, including Halopedia, that the Covenant ship-of-the-line, the mainstay warship most commonly utilized and present within the Covneant navy, is the CSS-class Battlecruiser. The counter part for the Impeial Navy (and I choose the Empire here over the Rebel Alliance et al because the presented hypothetical dealt with Coruscant and it is also the government with the most capable military) would be the Imperial-class Star Destroyer. The pairing is appropriate because each is approximately the same size; the Star Destroyer exactly a mile long and the Battlecruiser only slightly longer.

I would first note that the complement of a Covenant CSS-class Battlecruiser (referred hereafter as Covenant battlecruiser) is listed as having "several" pulse laser turrets and plasma torpedo launchers. I take the usage of several to be less than many but more than a handful so probably no more than 10 but certainly no more than 15 or 20. A decent armament, especially where the UNSC is concerned. An Imperial I-class Star Destroyer (henceforward, Star Destroyer) has a more varied complement, but a number of 60 heavy turbolaser cannons and 6 heavy turbolaser turrets (it's heaviest weaponry). It certainly seems to out-gun a battlecruiser in terms of numbers but that's without consideration of the power of each weapon.

While there is quite a bit of literature on the power of Star Wars lasers, the same cannot be said for the Halo universe so I am forced here to use admittedly less than perfect means to compare. However, I think once we've delved in you will see that an extensive analysis of Covenant weaponry is unneeded. Let us begin.

If you visit the page dedicated to MAC cannons and their rounds, there are footnotes relating to the power of the rounds themselves, 1.17 Teratons for the standard MAC defense platform. This is a huge amount of power which I'm going to dismiss because it is extremely unrealistic even given the context of the canon. I will quote a point given by user Quakeomaniac to demonstrate this:

"Here's why 1.17 teratons is completely...unrealistic: the covenant supercruiser of FoR took 3 MAC hits to its shield, and it didn't fail. That would be equal to 1.17*3=3.51 teratons of kinetic energy dissipated. The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba in 1961, at 50 megatons. Thus, the supercruiser's shield should have absorbed over 70000 times the energy of the world's most powerful nuclear weapon, which itself had a power output of 1.4% of the sun."

Point being, it seems unlikely that the realistic technological capacity of the Covenant allows them to produce shields that could withstand even 1% of a star's output. Please read the discussion if you would so choose. Because of this, I will not be able to use MAC rounds as a comparative tool, which is unfortunate given that one round from a Super MAC canon can drop the shields of a battlecruiser.

Let us then analyze another source, specifically the Deliver Hope trailer for Halo: Reach. In it, a Spartan throws a Fury tactical nuclear weapon into the primary hanger bay via the gravity lift. When the bomb detonates, the battlecruiser's shields collapse and the ship is destroyed. From what I can see in the trailer (as I haven't played the game), the ship appears to intact and its shields not damaged. There is no ground or orbital fire directed toward it and its shields are not shimmering (prior to the explosion). I would conclude from this that the ship was generally in good shape. When the device explodes, the primary explosion can be seen emitting directly above the hanger bay. I would suspect tha the shield generator was not located in that region and thus the shields collapsing was in a large part due to the energy output at that specific location. Notice that the shields covering other areas of the ship do not collapse. Some nearby do shimmer and wave but they hold. It seems that the blast from the bomb "punched a hole" through the shields directly above the hanger. I am assuming that Covenant shields prevent matter and energy from passing through from both sides though, so that the shields operated as they normally would from outside fire in this instance.

Considering that the shields of the battlecruiser were most likely at or near full, an energy output of 63 terajoules (TJ), the yield of the nuclear device used, is sufficient to collapse the shields of a Covenant battlecruiser at the impact site.

As mentioned before, extensive analysis of Star Wars weapons have been done and it has been concluded that a light turbolaser cannon commonly deployed by a Star Destroyer has a lower energy yield of 250 TJ. I had Addict run the same calculations done on the site and his results concurred with the original findings. Therefore, I am confident in this representation of turbolaser power. Given that this value is for light turbolaser cannons, one would be safe to assume that the power outputted by heavy turbolaser cannons is far greater than 250 TJ.

The point is this: because 63 TJ is sufficient to temporarily collapse the shields of a Covenant battlecruiser, a light turbolaser cannon would therefore be able to do comparable if not significantly more damage to the battlecruiser's shields.

From this analysis we can see that an Imperial Star Destroyer is far more than a match for a Covenat battlecruiser. Extrapolating these results we could postulate that the higher class Imperial warships (Super-class and above) would have no problem dealing with even Covenant carriers and supercarriers. It stands to reason then that the Imperial military would win quite handedly in any military engagement or war.

(This is all I can do for tonight. I mean to go back to the discussion MAC thread and use the findings there to see if I can use MAC round yields as an even better comparison tool, as I think it is more useful than a bomb inside a cruiser, not that it should be discounted.)

[Drill Master]

I am actually glad I created this topic. It is turning into a very informative place for Halo fans to learn more about Star Wars, and Star Wars fans to learn more about Halo. As for Antillies' comment... I thank this.

[noghiri]

I really liked Antillies' comment.

Using his sources, an X-wing starfighter would be able to take out the shields of the same CSS-class Battlecruiser in two hits. The X-wing's not even the most up-to-date Star Wars fighter, either.

[Antillies]

Using his sources, an X-wing starfighter would be able to take out the shields of the same CSS-class Battlecruiser in two hits. The X-wing's not even the most up-to-date Star Wars fighter, either.

Er, how? The same stardestroyer.net analysis states that the laser cannon (seperate class of weapon from turbolaser) only outputs 60 GJ of energy, far less than 1 TJ (and he assumed that the Death Star was made of iron, which seems debatable because I'm not sure what kind of alloy durasteel is). Certainly a squadron pummeling a battlecruiser would get the job done over time but I don't see where you're getting your "two shot" theory. Let's give the Covneant at least somewhat of a chance. :P

[noghiri]

durr, i missread.

For the record, 60GJ = 6/100 of 1TJ. It would take approximately 1050 individual X-wing power cannon hits to disable the shields. The X-wing fires in bursts of 4 shots, so it would take 262.5 bursts to take down the shields.

Does anyone know how powerful a Proton Torpedo would be? I know a salvo of about 6 will take down the shields and destroy a Star Destroyer. This ordinance would probably be more likely used if an X-wing is attacking a capital ship.

[Addictgamer]

100/6 ~ 16.7

Where did you pull 1050 from?

Edit: I derped. I forgot to multiply that by 63 for the full power of the shields.

[Drill Master]

And what would become of a Star Destroyer if a Cruiser could get above it and activate the Cleansing Beam?

[Antillies]

And what would become of a Star Destroyer if a Cruiser could get above it and activate the Cleansing Beam?

Considering that the Cleansing Beam is designed to "glass," as it is referred to popularly, planets, it seems that the power of the beam is still within the same limits as the battlecruiser's other weapons, but perhaps stronger and/or more intensified. It "glasses" planets, meaning that when it contacts earth/rock it is able to melt it. Quite a tremendous feat, one which certainly requires much power and heat. But it melts rock, not vaporizes it. The distinction here is key. To slowly (slowly being relative in terms of seconds/hundredths of seconds) melt rock is far different than instantaneously vaporizing it, which even the Star Destroyer's light guns can accomplish (as seen in The Empire Strikes Back). So yes, the tactic you describe would probably be the best approach that Covenant battlecruisers could take against Star Destroyers and given enough time one or a few might even be able to succeed in bringing down its shields and destroying it. Considering though that the Star Destroyer's shields are meant to repel heavy fire, the time it would take to do such a thing would be quite long and I don't think the vessel would be sitting idly by while it was going on.

[Drill Master]

As I read back to your earlier post I followed the link of the cruiser and read that the CCS-Class Battle Cruiser is armed with 2 energy projectors (cleansing beams). Provided they have the power to fire both projecters simultaneously, they could cut though the shields faster, but the cruiser would be more vulnerable as it would have to redirect power to the projectors. But, from what I've read, there is nothing about duel firing in the Halopedia.

[noghiri]

I wouldn't think that they'd really have to dual-fire them. If one is sufficient to glass a planet, then the extra power drain of firing a second beam probably wouldn't be justifiable. The glassing beam appears to be the most powerful weapon they have access to, other than the Rings, which can probably be disregarded due to the fact that it would also have galaxy-wide friendly-fire problems.

Such a weapon as the glassing ray would probably have a major drain on the ship's resources. It would also most likely require them to shut off their lower shields, because their shield systems appear to block energy and matter from both sides.

[Drill Master]

It says that they can fire the cleansing beams as a continuous beam that could slowly burn through the Star Destroyer's shields and hull, or charge up the CB to full power and release a powerful plasma shot that could easily break the shields. The same Power Shot can be seen on Halo Reach after the UNSC Grafton destroyed the Covenant Spire. The Spire was cloaking the SuperCarrier Long Night of Solstice above them, and using a Power Shot, the Solstice instanty destroys the UNSC Grafton. So, technically, A full charge would be the best bet for a CCS-Class to bring down a Star Destroyer.

[Addictgamer]

How much energy is a full charge though? It'd be t*e.

Where t = time it charges and e = energy for every unit of time the beam would output if it were running continuously. Use that formula if an explicit amount of energy for the fully charged beam is not specified.

[Drill Master]

Well...

CCS-Class Full Charge: 20 seconds EDIT: A CCS-Class can be seen charging its CB for 2 seconds over New Alexandria, as the one at the end of Reach charges for 20 seconds when trying to take out the Pillar of Autumn

Range: over 100,000 kilometers

Firing Speed: Near Light Speed

Power Output: N/A

I can't find anything so far on the power output of the CB.

[Addictgamer]

Ah. Well, the fact that we can use either the fully charged beam's power output or a steady beam's power output should make it easier...if the designers bothered to think of such things...

[noghiri]

The math is officially past what I know how to do. Please teach me?

[Addictgamer]

It's all logic really.

You find out how much energy the beam outputs during one unit of time and then multiply/divide accordingly to find how much energy there is in a full charge, which is equivalent to the energy output by a steady beam over 20 seconds.

Let's take a look at the following example.

A laser outputs 100 Joules over one second of steady fire.

If one were to charge it ten seconds, how many Joules would it output?

The answer is:

e = e1 * t

e = final energy. That is, the energy output by the charged beam.

Where e1 = energy per one unit of time (which is energy over one second in this case)

t = time spend charging

Thus, firing the laser after ten seconds of charging would output 1000 joules.

And for some reason, subscript refuses to work. e1 looks so very ugly and means something. That 1 should be subscript. You'll just have to make the correction in your mind, seeing that the forum is being silly.

[Antillies]

Here are my calculations using this statement: "A single Covenant capital ship can glass approximately one acre of a planet's surface in fifteen seconds of sustained fire." Source. I am operating on the premise that the swath of "land" is made completely out of iron not only to make this analysis applicable to UNSC ships but to also provide an accurate lower limit because soil and rock near the surface is often composed of many elements (and rock requires more energy to melt than iron). I am also using 1 meter as the total depth of the chunk of land because that would destroy all of the top soil (the deepest top soil on Earth ~ 2 feet), vegetation, and a portion of the rock below, making the planet unfarmable and thus uninhabitable.

1 Acre = 4046 m²

Volume = 4046 m³ (~ 63 m * 63 m * 1 m)

Density of Iron = 7874 kg/m³

Total mass = 31,858,204 kg (4046 m³ * 7874 kg/m³)

Heat capacity of Iron = 447 J/kg (energy required to change the temperature of iron 1 degree C)

Melting temperature of iron = 1538 degrees C

Energy needed to change temperature to melting point: 6400 J (adjusted for mean planetary temperature of Reach)

Total energy needed to melt total mass of iron: 91,139,950,003,200 Joules (6400 J * 447 J/kg * 3,858,204 kg) ~ 91 TJ

Energy needed to melt a second's-worth of total mass (as the beam takes 15 seconds to melt the entire mass): 6.1 TJ

So the Covenant Cleansing Beam outputs approximately 6.1 TJ of energy per second that it is firing.

Conclusion: although potentially more damaging than a small-yield nuclear device or MAC round, it is still inferior to light military-grade turbolasers of the Empire.

Also, DM, where did you find the information that the beam has two firing modes? From the "glassing" article on Halopedia, it seems to be quite well-stated that the CBs cannot be fired until they have charged to full-capacity.

[Drill Master]

Also, DM, where did you find the information that the beam has two firing modes? From the "glassing" article on Halopedia, it seems to be quite well-stated that the CBs cannot be fired until they have charged to full-capacity.

Under the Halopedia "Energy Projector" Article under the "Effects" section:

"It is also speculated that the beam can be focused to varying degrees. In space, the beam can be focused to a smaller, more concentrated, and thus more powerful beam generally used to decimate enemy fleets from afar."

And the "Trivia" section:

"The time an energy projector takes to charge is also often quite different. The CCS-class battlecruiser fought at the end of Halo: Reach takes 20 seconds to charge its energy projector, while ships of the same class in New Alexandria are shown charging theirs in only two, then sustaining fire for seven seconds. This could be explained by a difference in operation, such as the cruisers at New Alexandria needing to expend less energy to destroy some buildings at New Alexandria while needing more to cut through the heavily armored Pillar of Autumn."

Thus stating that they have control over the beams output. I never said they could instantly fire the CB. I knew they had to charge up first. It just depends on what their mission requires. Maybe I had a bad way of wording it in my previous post about it.

[Addictgamer]

You did have a bad way of wording. You made the beam actually sound realistic.

[Antillies]

Ah, alright. Clearly though the beam needs to be fully-charged before it can fire, regardless of how it's focused or what the charge time is.

[Drill Master]

Seeing as they can focus the beam in space to a more concentrated beam, that would give them even more power to attack with, thus making them stronger in ship-to-ship space combat.

[Addictgamer]

That only applies to unshielded ships. And even then, the more concentrated it is, the more like a drill it is. That's fine and all, but all a drilling attack does is penetrate. Concentrating the beam like that would only be effective in targeting something like the ship's engines or a computer system or some other specific target. Randomly blasting it with a concentrated beam would only make random holes.

On a shielded ship, it doesn't matter if the energy is delivered over a wide area or at a specific point. The shields still absorb the same amount of energy. So that 100 MJ of power will have the same effect on the shield regardless of how it's distributed along the shield. Unless they were to concentrate the beam so as to target only the shield provided by a specific shield generator. In which case instead of distributing the 100 MJ across two shields, it's putting it all into one. Those are the practical uses of concentrating the beam. They're not bad, but in the former case, it's probably better to widen the beam so as to to melt the entire hull and not just cause damage to certain devices and depressurize certain rooms.

Then again, as I've said in skype, the halo designers did what most game designers do and grabbed the first thing that flew out of their asses and made that the physics and mechanics of their universe. It's just a game, and thus it has inconsistencies and nonsensical mechanics and physics. Most games don't really have a reason to not do the same, as being logical and realistic is not their purpose. Coincidentally, for me, most of those games stop at being played as the result of an impulse, for nostalgia, to simply blow stuff up or build stuff, or other such things.