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  • Subject: The Onager, an expensive piece of equipment?
Subject: The Onager, an expensive piece of equipment?

I like to -blam!- -blam!- up. It's what I'm good at.

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  • 04.12.2011 5:21 AM PDT
  • gamertag: tsassi
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The Cruiser destroying ability was just for gameplay reasons. No MAC gun that small could destroy a Cruiser with single shot.

  • 04.12.2011 5:22 AM PDT


Posted by: orphan
Reach

And yes, I'm perfectly aware that it may not be canon.


yep.

Unfortunately for Bungie, most people simply don't consider the game to be real. It -blam!-s all over the established story (the one that's existed technically before the first game came out) and.....well, just ruins it.

So I take everything in Reach with a grain of salt.

  • 04.12.2011 5:25 AM PDT
  • gamertag: tsassi
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Posted by: orphan

Posted by: tsassi2
The Cruiser destroying ability was just for gameplay reasons. No MAC gun that small could destroy a Cruiser with single shot.


Even in the glassing mechanism? You think that'd be a weak point in the ship - if you mess it up enough, you could cause it to go haywire and explode in on itself.

I would think that Covenant are intelligent enough to add some kind of safety feature there. You are right about it being a weak spot because the ship has to bring it's shields down for that part when it starts glassing but the hull is strong enough. The MAC round could maybe penetrate 1-3 floors but definitely wouldn't cause enough damage for the ship to blow up.

It's a strong weapon but can't probably destroy much bigger ships than Phantoms. Why there aren't many of them is because it was probably pretty new invention as the magnetic coils look pretty small and there isn't any visible power source or huge cables coming from the gun. It has a pretty fast rate of fire.

  • 04.12.2011 5:59 AM PDT

i want a gun that launches warp-drives at 70% the speed of light at the cruisers, and, on impact, they activate. did i mention it's full-auto?

  • 04.12.2011 6:00 AM PDT

oh yea,M.A.C

  • 04.12.2011 6:09 AM PDT

I think Onagers come in varying sizes IIRC there's one the UNSC used on Harvest to fire stuff into space before the Tiara was made.

And I don't think they'd be really expensive, it's the same principles as a ships MAC gun, only on a smaller scale.

  • 04.12.2011 8:13 AM PDT

On Waypoint I'm rocketFox;
http://halo.xbox.com/forums/members/rocketfox/default.aspx

Old GTs; RebelRobot, Flamedude

I'm not even sure how an Onager would function.... What do you even do? Shove stuff into the barrel and fire it off? Fire it off to where??

A tiny Mac gun that can decimate a Covie Cruiser..... that a full length UNSC Mac would have trouble taking down. They could have at least put some shields on the Covie ship to show that it has some resistance.

The whole Onager Mass Driver weapon is such a weak spot in the Halo Reach storyline.

  • 04.12.2011 11:37 AM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa
I think Onagers come in varying sizes IIRC there's one the UNSC used on Harvest to fire stuff into space before the Tiara was made.

And I don't think they'd be really expensive, it's the same principles as a ships MAC gun, only on a smaller scale.


I honestly think the onager only refers to the one in the Reach campaign, a military style mass driver. The harvest one was larger from what I remember reading, to shoot supplies into space.

Anyway, the Onager DID NOT DESTROY the CSS class Battlecruiser. It did not gut it. The round impacted the energy projector/gravity lift point of the ship when it lowered shields, allowing the mass driver round to hit that point as energy was pouring into the system and destroy it. As Covenant hulls have seemed kinda weak when shields go down, the round probably caused some damage inside as well as secondary explosions. It may have even disrupted power which caused it to crash.

(Note that the energy projector uses a lot of power, and that the thing was destroyed mid-way/about to power up, that may have caused an energy surge.)

  • 04.12.2011 11:59 AM PDT


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron

Covenant hulls have seemed kinda weak when shields go down...


If I remember correctly, in one of the books (GoO maybe?) a covenant ship's hull crumples from the force of a MAC round while the shields are still up.
I vote that covenant ships are rather fragile compared to ours without shields. Nice touch if you ask me.

  • 04.12.2011 12:43 PM PDT


Posted by: RotaryCookie

Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron

Covenant hulls have seemed kinda weak when shields go down...


If I remember correctly, in one of the books (GoO maybe?) a covenant ship's hull crumples from the force of a MAC round while the shields are still up.
I vote that covenant ships are rather fragile compared to ours without shields. Nice touch if you ask me.


Well, my point was that from everything I've heard, once the shields go down on a Covenant ship they can't take as much pounding on the hull. Heck, didn't a frigate MAC go completely through a Covenant frigate when the Spartans first went to get Mark IV armor?

Edit: Oh and in Contact Harvest, the mass driver on the planet punched through the brute's ship(If memory is right) heavily damaging and disabling it.

[Edited on 04.12.2011 12:56 PM PDT]

  • 04.12.2011 12:51 PM PDT


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron

Posted by: OrderedComa
I think Onagers come in varying sizes IIRC there's one the UNSC used on Harvest to fire stuff into space before the Tiara was made.

And I don't think they'd be really expensive, it's the same principles as a ships MAC gun, only on a smaller scale.


I honestly think the onager only refers to the one in the Reach campaign, a military style mass driver. The harvest one was larger from what I remember reading, to shoot supplies into space.


That may be, I've never heard it used extensively before, I don't think I've even heard it used in any of the books before. Yeah, I said they're probably of varying sizes, so yeah, the one on Harvest would definitely have to be much bigger to shoot stuff into orbit.

  • 04.12.2011 1:44 PM PDT
  • gamertag: X Wing
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The problem with the Onager is that it claims it's a MAC gun, but a real (not counting TotS) MAC in atmosphere would be insanely more devastating than an over-sized Gauss canon.

And yeah, I would imagine that if the UNSC had such an effective weapon at their disposal (that is coincidentally a waste disposal device) there'd be one on every military base on Reach.

On a side note, according to Halo: Reach, a blast from the Onager is about 1.1 gigajoules. For reference that is the same as burning 7 gallons of oil.

  • 04.12.2011 2:52 PM PDT

If we were to look at Reach as cannon at all, the gun itself wouldn't have caused the explosion. Perhaps the idea was that it caused some kind of critical damage to the cruiser's weapon systems as it was preparing to glass the planet, resulting in an inability to halt or redirect the energy surge. The Covenant seem as if they are so trusting in their technology that they rely on very few fail-safes.

  • 04.12.2011 3:00 PM PDT
  • gamertag: X Wing
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Posted by: Pocket Syndrome
If we were to look at Reach as cannon at all, the gun itself wouldn't have caused the explosion. Perhaps the idea was that it caused some kind of critical damage to the cruiser's weapon systems as it was preparing to glass the planet, resulting in an inability to halt or redirect the energy surge. The Covenant seem as if they are so trusting in their technology that they rely on very few fail-safes.


Doesn't really explain all the Phantoms though. Repeated lucky hits on plasma lines?

  • 04.12.2011 3:05 PM PDT

Posted by: MMO
Doesn't really explain all the Phantoms though. Repeated lucky hits on plasma lines?

A gigajoule of energy released at a single point, all at once could be enough to bring down a phantom. Although, I guess it would be highly dependent on where it got hit.

  • 04.12.2011 3:10 PM PDT

On Waypoint I'm rocketFox;
http://halo.xbox.com/forums/members/rocketfox/default.aspx

Old GTs; RebelRobot, Flamedude

Its just a weak point in the story.

"Hitting the activating glassing beam will destroy the ship? Gosh we never thought of that, he might be onto something!"

The Onager doesn't have the length of the ship based Mac, let alone something like a Super MAC, but instead it can rapidly fire and a single hit managed to critically damage a Covie Cruiser. Hitting a Phantom at close range does no splash damage to the immediate vicinity. Its just a bizarre element in the game.

Hardly a Hog Run is it?

  • 04.12.2011 3:17 PM PDT

Posted by:ScubaToaster
Posted by: HipiO7
This man, this man right here put it so eloquently that I actually cancelled my own 2000+ word long post.
/slow clap for respect


:)
The person who said participating is important, not winning, obviously never won anything.

I highly doubt something like that could take out a CCS Battle Cruiser in a sigle shot.

  • 04.12.2011 3:19 PM PDT

I'm not sure what you're looking for.

"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing" -- Proverbs 12:18

Slap it on a scorpion, and spam them.

Nova bombs wouldn't even be that strong if them.

Elite commander: Hey, we sent over 30 Phantoms to kill that guy.
Elite: Well, we were winning, but some Human tanks came and blew everything up.
Elite Commader: Damn it.

  • 04.12.2011 3:19 PM PDT

I'm not sure what you're looking for.

"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing" -- Proverbs 12:18

Posted by: MMO

Posted by: Pocket Syndrome
If we were to look at Reach as cannon at all, the gun itself wouldn't have caused the explosion. Perhaps the idea was that it caused some kind of critical damage to the cruiser's weapon systems as it was preparing to glass the planet, resulting in an inability to halt or redirect the energy surge. The Covenant seem as if they are so trusting in their technology that they rely on very few fail-safes.


If you ever see phantoms, they have little safe measures. A Pelican crashes, perhaps a few crew members survive. A phantom explodes with huge plasma explosion.

Doesn't really explain all the Phantoms though. Repeated lucky hits on plasma lines?

  • 04.12.2011 3:21 PM PDT


Posted by: Pocket Syndrome
If we were to look at Reach as cannon at all, the gun itself wouldn't have caused the explosion. Perhaps the idea was that it caused some kind of critical damage to the cruiser's weapon systems as it was preparing to glass the planet, resulting in an inability to halt or redirect the energy surge. The Covenant seem as if they are so trusting in their technology that they rely on very few fail-safes.


Reach is completely canon, nothing non-canon about it, aside from some bits that are obviously just gameplay. Like marines taking as much plasma or needles from Needlers/Needle Rifles as they do.

OT:
I think that's probably what the Onager did. And the Covenant definitely seem like they have very few safety features on their technology. They're very overconfident, and it shows.

For the people questioning why the Onager would completely destroy the Phantoms attacking, think about it. The Onager is nearly as big as the Phantoms themselves, whatever it is it fires would destroy a Phantom easily.

  • 04.13.2011 8:58 AM PDT
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The onager did not blow up the cruiser. It simply vaporized the ship enough to make a crash land on the surface. Were it not for the glassing attempt, the mass driver would have caused no effect on the cruiser due to shielding.

[Edited on 04.13.2011 9:15 AM PDT]

  • 04.13.2011 9:07 AM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: Pocket Syndrome
If we were to look at Reach as cannon at all, the gun itself wouldn't have caused the explosion. Perhaps the idea was that it caused some kind of critical damage to the cruiser's weapon systems as it was preparing to glass the planet, resulting in an inability to halt or redirect the energy surge. The Covenant seem as if they are so trusting in their technology that they rely on very few fail-safes.


Reach is completely canon, nothing non-canon about it, aside from some bits that are obviously just gameplay. Like marines taking as much plasma or needles from Needlers/Needle Rifles as they do.

OT:
I think that's probably what the Onager did. And the Covenant definitely seem like they have very few safety features on their technology. They're very overconfident, and it shows.

For the people questioning why the Onager would completely destroy the Phantoms attacking, think about it. The Onager is nearly as big as the Phantoms themselves, whatever it is it fires would destroy a Phantom easily.


If it didn't cause the phantom to explode, there would be a massive hole going through it, which would force a crash that could end with an explosion.

As we said earlier in the topic though, Covenant ship hulls seem rather weak, noting my example in contact harvest. The Harvest Mass Driver was able to, in a single shot, nearly completely disable the Brute ship.

  • 04.13.2011 9:26 AM PDT

Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
If it didn't cause the phantom to explode, there would be a massive hole going through it, which would force a crash that could end with an explosion.


Mhm, and Phantoms seem to explode in some sort of plasma explosion no matter what you do to them, that might just be gameplay, but idk, if it dies that way then it doesn't seem likely to be just gameplay.

As we said earlier in the topic though, Covenant ship hulls seem rather weak, noting my example in contact harvest. The Harvest Mass Driver was able to, in a single shot, nearly completely disable the Brute ship.

Exactly, and I can't remember which book it was in, but also a Covenant ship had its nose completely dented and crumpled inward by a MAC blast even though its shields were up.

  • 04.13.2011 9:36 AM PDT