- ROBERTO jh
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Posted by: Reptilian Rob
Posted by: ROBERTO jh
Posted by: Reptilian Rob
Posted by: ROBERTO jh
Posted by: Reptilian Rob
Mass Effect tech is ridiculous, plain and simple. It's grounded in reality, whereas Halo's is not.
Its the other way around actually, at least Halo is more reality grounded then you think.
The guy who wrote the majority of the Halo books, Eric Nylund, is a chemical physicist, and uses real science to explain the technology in his stories (EG: the MAC is a really expensive and powerful rail/coil gun)
Still, ME's tech is awesome, but a single NOVA on the Citedel (we are talking about the UNSC) could destroy it. Ship to ship however, I don't know; I didn't like ME2, was the only ME I played, so I don't know much about it. (I didn't finish the game before returning it so I know very little about anything in terms of ME)
Mac weaponry in the Haloverse is ludicrous at best. It would take a tremendous amount of energy to accelerate something to 30% light speed, we're talking moon sized generators here. The physics involved in a railgun/coilgun are immense, you have to generate an equal amount of magnetic force to each coil/rail while at the same time feeding terajoules of energy into the rails/coils. The railgun the United States Navy is working on can only accelerate a small tungsten rod to .000004% the speed of light, and it's power source is a warehouse full of generators. Orbital MAC guns that have their power source beamed to them from the ground is preposterous. Remember the cut scene in "Tip of The Spear" where they used MAC rounds in orbit? The shear kinetic energy of a MAC round impacting anything in atmosphere would generate an explosion equivalent to the amount of energy release on impact. Basically it would be a kiloton type nuclear explosion, not a little dust cloud depicted in Reach.
Don't even get me started on plasma weaponry.
Mass Effect has some weird tech itself, but the grounded stuff is VERY well grounded in reality.
MACs shoot at point four tenths the speed of light, no where near what you're talking about
Also, the "little dust cloud" was due more to graphical restraints put on by the game engine; simply put, the game couldn't handle the explosion.
The books depict it more accurately.
As for plasma, scientists today say plasma/laser weaponry is a possibility; there was a show analysing Star Wars tech with real science and they said the way a lightsaber and blasters could work is with "hot" plasma. Even energy shields could work with "cold" plasma.
It IS grounded heavily in reality (the Forerunners/Precursors probably not as much, but we'll see when the forerunner trilogy comes out.)
1) 4/10 is the rough estimation of 30% to 40%, same math, same numbers, different expression.
2) No excuse for failed physic, Bungie could have achieved it within a cutscene. You're telling me their engine can handle all the -blam!- that goes on in the end of the mission "The Pillar Of Autumn" but can't handle a mushroom cloud?
3) The books are much better than the games, very true.
4) Laser weaponry is chemical based, it can be accomplish. Plasma weaponry cannot be accomplished because plasma looses energy at a high rate outside a contained field. Once the plasma leaves that field it looses chemical mass rapidly.
5) A good amount of the Halo stuff is grounded, but no where near the level of Mass Effect.
damn, I read the article wrong; I thought it was talking about . zero tenths...my bad *facepalms self*
2) The graphics engine in Reach is used in cutscenes as well, and I'm pretty sure the Supercarrier you go all "Independance Day" on at the end was actually smaller then it appeared, as was the explosion.
3) I suppose the scientists were talking about "theoretically," but they were still mainstream scientists, so I trust there judgement.
4) Again, I barely know anything about ME other then Reapers=bad, and the Captain's name is Shepard, but I know a lot about Halo's weapons.
Besides, we're talking about fiction.