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Subject: The flaw with a cloaked covenant fleet

What a waste....


Posted by: RotaryCookie
I will now address all points.

Burning up in atmosphere - fixed by entering really slowly.
Plasma engines - drift into system, use cold-gas thrusters to manouver into position. Given mass-cancelling technology this isn't too far-fetched.
Heat emmisions - Some supercooled gas blanket, with a heat/radiation absoring "coil" to keep it hidden until such a point where build-up is too great or stealth is no longer required.
The reason things don't burn up is because they enter at an angle, not because they go slow.

You can't just 'drift' into a system. That would take ages! And you couldn't even use slipspace, because they detect it at the edge of the system (That's where ships come in).

Gas blanket? What do you mean?

The whole supercarrier thing made no sense. Why would they send a f****** 30 kilometer ship and 6 corvettes to pick up an artifact? Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a whole fleet, blow the place up, and then take the artifact?

  • 05.28.2011 5:12 PM PDT


Posted by: Nocbl2

Posted by: RotaryCookie
I will now address all points.

Burning up in atmosphere - fixed by entering really slowly.
Plasma engines - drift into system, use cold-gas thrusters to manouver into position. Given mass-cancelling technology this isn't too far-fetched.
Heat emmisions - Some supercooled gas blanket, with a heat/radiation absoring "coil" to keep it hidden until such a point where build-up is too great or stealth is no longer required.
The reason things don't burn up is because they enter at an angle, not because they go slow.

You can't just 'drift' into a system. That would take ages! And you couldn't even use slipspace, because they detect it at the edge of the system (That's where ships come in).

Gas blanket? What do you mean?

The whole supercarrier thing made no sense. Why would they send a f****** 30 kilometer ship and 6 corvettes to pick up an artifact? Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a whole fleet, blow the place up, and then take the artifact?


They were sent there for multiple reasons, part of which was as a scouting force and to sabotage the UNSC via methods such as taking Visegrad Relay offline and attacking SWORD Base (I don't think they knew about the artifact beneath it yet.

  • 05.28.2011 5:15 PM PDT
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Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit

Posted by: tsassi2
Posted by: Snake Archer
But they wouldn't be searching for it. Maybe that's why they didn't find it.

It's hard to not notice something that produces huge amounts heat.


It's hard to notice something that you're not looking for.

The UNSC weren't scanning for a massive Assault Carrier, much less one parked in the upper atmosphere.

  • 05.28.2011 5:17 PM PDT

What a waste....


Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: Nocbl2

Posted by: RotaryCookie
I will now address all points.

Burning up in atmosphere - fixed by entering really slowly.
Plasma engines - drift into system, use cold-gas thrusters to manouver into position. Given mass-cancelling technology this isn't too far-fetched.
Heat emmisions - Some supercooled gas blanket, with a heat/radiation absoring "coil" to keep it hidden until such a point where build-up is too great or stealth is no longer required.
The reason things don't burn up is because they enter at an angle, not because they go slow.

You can't just 'drift' into a system. That would take ages! And you couldn't even use slipspace, because they detect it at the edge of the system (That's where ships come in).

Gas blanket? What do you mean?

The whole supercarrier thing made no sense. Why would they send a f****** 30 kilometer ship and 6 corvettes to pick up an artifact? Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a whole fleet, blow the place up, and then take the artifact?


They were sent there for multiple reasons, part of which was as a scouting force and to sabotage the UNSC via methods such as taking Visegrad Relay offline and attacking SWORD Base (I don't think they knew about the artifact beneath it yet.
Halsey says they were after something in the beginning. Anyways, why sabotage? It really didn't do anything. If they wanted to sabotage, they would have sent a distraction fleet in, then had a few sneak around to take out sensors so more ships would arrive undetected.

  • 05.28.2011 5:19 PM PDT
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Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: hotshot revan II

Posted by: ROBERTO jh
It isn't impossible to think that the Covenant can mask all of their signatures, both thermal and optical as well you know.


Yup,who knows the supercarrier uses some new kind of Cloak tech,i mean the UNSC forces couldn't even detect that ship during the battle on Viery.



So after 21 years of fighting they then decide to make clock for the ships? not to mention that they should have had that already.

I understand that the covenant aren't innovative but if that were true then reach wouldn't even had been a battle.

Posted by: anton1792
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
We aren't sure if the ship was even there, and wasn't somehow teleported/did an ultra-precise slipspace jump using the Spires are homing beacons.

Since I seem to have been ignored...

What about this? What if the super-carrier and corvettes arrived by this method? Either a controlled teleport using the spires, or a new method of jumping into the atmosphere using the spires as a homing beacon.

I mean, look at the Spire you visit in Halo Reach, the area it's in is at an impact crater. The pipeline is smashed down, as is the ground it's resting on.

The Covenant cannot perform in-atmosphere slipspace operations. "Intense" gravity caused complications.

I also don't think the Covenant had the capability or understanding to produce tech as advanced and intricate as translocation. They have a poorer understanding of physics than the UNSC.


well they couldn't do that until after first strike since cortana found a way to do it.

[Edited on 05.28.2011 6:50 PM PDT]

  • 05.28.2011 6:47 PM PDT


Posted by: grey101
Posted by: anton1792
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
We aren't sure if the ship was even there, and wasn't somehow teleported/did an ultra-precise slipspace jump using the Spires are homing beacons.

Since I seem to have been ignored...

What about this? What if the super-carrier and corvettes arrived by this method? Either a controlled teleport using the spires, or a new method of jumping into the atmosphere using the spires as a homing beacon.

I mean, look at the Spire you visit in Halo Reach, the area it's in is at an impact crater. The pipeline is smashed down, as is the ground it's resting on.

The Covenant cannot perform in-atmosphere slipspace operations. "Intense" gravity caused complications.

I also don't think the Covenant had the capability or understanding to produce tech as advanced and intricate as translocation. They have a poorer understanding of physics than the UNSC.


well they couldn't do that until after first strike since cortana found a way to do it.


Ah, but wasn't that doing a slipspace jump out of atmosphere? Not into?

  • 05.28.2011 6:58 PM PDT
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Deva Path


Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?



Posted by: grey101
Posted by: anton1792
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
We aren't sure if the ship was even there, and wasn't somehow teleported/did an ultra-precise slipspace jump using the Spires are homing beacons.[/quote]
Since I seem to have been ignored...

What about this? What if the super-carrier and corvettes arrived by this method? Either a controlled teleport using the spires, or a new method of jumping into the atmosphere using the spires as a homing beacon.

I mean, look at the Spire you visit in Halo Reach, the area it's in is at an impact crater. The pipeline is smashed down, as is the ground it's resting on.

The Covenant cannot perform in-atmosphere slipspace operations. "Intense" gravity caused complications.

I also don't think the Covenant had the capability or understanding to produce tech as advanced and intricate as translocation. They have a poorer understanding of physics than the UNSC.


well they couldn't do that until after first strike since cortana found a way to do it.


Ah, but wasn't that doing a slipspace jump out of atmosphere? Not into?


I honestly can't remember other than threshold had something to do with it. But after that event the covenant realized after 4,000 years their ships can jump inside and outside of a planet.

which i why i don't think they could randomly create invis for ships without something provoking it. I think there prowlers have some sort of camo, but that is it.

  • 05.28.2011 7:01 PM PDT

a large fleet being cloaked would give off noticable heat sig's but if the ship went into a "blackout" turning off all unneed systems (lights, engines, etc.) the heat sig's would be much lower especially if there is a good cooling system so the ship could drift in orbit around Reach allowing smaller craft to land and start the invasion while to any UNSC scientist the limited heat sig's could be dismissed as solarwind or meteorshower

  • 05.28.2011 7:06 PM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: agent wash282
a large fleet being cloaked would give off noticable heat sig's but if the ship went into a "blackout" turning off all unneed systems (lights, engines, etc.) the heat sig's would be much lower especially if there is a good cooling system so the ship could drift in orbit around Reach allowing smaller craft to land and start the invasion while to any UNSC scientist the limited heat sig's could be dismissed as solarwind or meteorshower


Covenant aren't smart though and their dogmatic approach to combat wouldn't allow something like this.

  • 05.28.2011 7:09 PM PDT


Posted by: Nocbl2

Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: Nocbl2

Posted by: RotaryCookie
I will now address all points.

Burning up in atmosphere - fixed by entering really slowly.
Plasma engines - drift into system, use cold-gas thrusters to manouver into position. Given mass-cancelling technology this isn't too far-fetched.
Heat emmisions - Some supercooled gas blanket, with a heat/radiation absoring "coil" to keep it hidden until such a point where build-up is too great or stealth is no longer required.
The reason things don't burn up is because they enter at an angle, not because they go slow.

You can't just 'drift' into a system. That would take ages! And you couldn't even use slipspace, because they detect it at the edge of the system (That's where ships come in).

Gas blanket? What do you mean?

The whole supercarrier thing made no sense. Why would they send a f****** 30 kilometer ship and 6 corvettes to pick up an artifact? Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a whole fleet, blow the place up, and then take the artifact?


They were sent there for multiple reasons, part of which was as a scouting force and to sabotage the UNSC via methods such as taking Visegrad Relay offline and attacking SWORD Base (I don't think they knew about the artifact beneath it yet.
Halsey says they were after something in the beginning. Anyways, why sabotage? It really didn't do anything. If they wanted to sabotage, they would have sent a distraction fleet in, then had a few sneak around to take out sensors so more ships would arrive undetected.


It knocked out communications for a good long while, part of the reason why the UNSC waited so long to attack the encampment in the Viery Territory I'm sure. And I forgot to mention in my other post that they were also there to set up shop for the rest of the forces that came in on the 14th.

  • 05.28.2011 8:12 PM PDT


Posted by: A Puzzled Mind

Posted by: RotaryCookie

Posted by: Makko Mace
Okay... so either they cloaked and let inertia carry them into reach and then used their massive heat producing engines to slow down... or they kept their systems off line so that they rocketed through the atmosphere like a giant meteorite...


Both creating huge amounts of heat.




[quote]
Burning up in atmosphere - fixed by entering really slowly.
Plasma engines - drift into system, use cold-gas thrusters to manouver into position. Given mass-cancelling technology this isn't too far-fetched.
Heat emmisions - Some supercooled gas blanket, with a heat/radiation absoring "coil" to keep it hidden until such a point where build-up is too great or stealth is no longer required.

For which reasons you still would come across as an idiot.

Erm yeah, a 27 km object passing through thick layers of particles(aka atmosphere) will still cause a large amount of friction and heat. And considering its surface area and size, a Supercarrier will create significant heat signatures regardless of how slow the speed it travels, which will still be high because you need to maintain a certain amount of velocity for reentry.

Point2, you're still creating atmospheric distortions. Even with mass displacing tech, you still have significant weight that requires heavy engine use, which of course will be burning brightly on UNSC scanners.
Point3. What part of the fact that its a 27km carrier do you not get. The amount of energy it requires is gargantuan. Even your stupid coil will be releasing too far of heat signature, which makes it even easier to detect as heat release will outline the carrier.


And oh BTW, the UNSC have monitoring stations that constantly watches every inch of Slipspace of the Eridanus system. How in the world that the thousands of probes watching Reach's system totally missed a huge Covenant ship is a testament to how flawed this story was.


1) So a Boeing 747 traveling at say 20mph creates a s**tload of friction eh? No where near as much as if it is traveling at say 500mph.
No, you do not need velocity for re-entry. You only need velocity for de-orbiting if you don't have enough thrust/lift/mass-canceling to let gravity do it stuff.
You realise that at 400km up gravity is 98% of sea level? The only reason the Shuttle/ISS/whatever feel weightlessness is because they are in perpetual free-fall.

If the SC drifted into orbit and then used it's mass-canceling/reactionless drive to slow to 0 and let it's self drop at say 50mph it would never be seen. Why? Because nobody expects a 27km long ship to get that close without being spotted.

2) If I make my 27km ship weigh 1 ton, my thrust/energy requirements become next to nothing. Easily lifted by a reactionless drive that releases no thermal emissions. OR a series of small not-so-noticeable thrusters.

3) Fill the outer hull with a super-cooled liquid, next have a layer of aerogel or something similar but more advanced. Then have a Mass Effect-esque coil/radiator/whatever that traps and stores heat/radiation emissions and stores/converts them to something useful.

Theoretically possible in a perfect world, nothing to say the covenant CANNOT do this. Factoring in the UNSC sensors not being perfect/not able to watch the entire sky at once/ not expecting something this big to try and sneak in it's not exactly impossible to imagine it being possible.

  • 05.29.2011 9:02 AM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Posted by: RotaryCookie
How are the Covenant meant to know how to do any of this? We are talking about a civilisation who for 3000 years never knew that their own ships could operate in-atmosphere slipspace jumps and who cannot manually pilot their own ships themselves for slipspace jumps, rather needing primitive AIs to do it for them. I'm not sure what you are describing but it is not the Covenant.

Posted by: RotaryCookie
3) Fill the outer hull with a super-cooled liquid, next have a layer of aerogel or something similar but more advanced. Then have a Mass Effect-esque coil/radiator/whatever that traps and stores heat/radiation emissions and stores/converts them to something useful.

In order to cool something you need to generate energy, which is only creating more heat to dispose of. Your coil is going heat up very quickly and only start contributing to the problem. Your not getting rid of the problem, just moving it about. Your ship is still getting hotter, and because you are trying to cool it down, it is going to hotter quicker than normally.

Unless you use a radiator, in which case stealth goes bye-bye.

The thermocouple effect does not work. It does not convert heat directly to electricity, it converts a temperature gradient. Gradients require a difference between 2 values. In terms of temperature, this difference will be between hot and cold. You are going to need to refrigerate your cold end or radiate its heat away (In which case kiss stealth goodbye...). Refrigeration generates heat, which solves nothing.

It was also stated that Covenant active camouflage generates heat itself, which makes it worse.

Posted by: RotaryCookie
Factoring in the UNSC sensors not being perfect/not able to watch the entire sky at once/ not expecting something this big to try and sneak in it's not exactly impossible to imagine it being possible.

SETI's Project Phoenix is sensitive enough to be able to detect an airport radar from 200 light years away. The technological advances in detection methods that would come from 500 years of advancement on top of that makes Reach utterly nonsensical.

  • 05.29.2011 10:09 AM PDT

you basically all need to read the article that was posted on page two, i believe.

for anyone saying that you can just "cool your ship" or "turn off your engines". any cooling mechanism produces heat, because it is impossible to be 100% efficient. and keeping the inside of a 15 -blam!- MILE LONG SHIP at a habitable temperature would create a huge amount of heat.

literally the only possible way this would be possible is if the covenant developed a super stealthy jump system that could place them within reach's atmosphere. This is bull-blam!- though, as it is said they can't jump into atmosphere, and in other instances it mentions the unsc being able to detect slipspace ruptures.

  • 05.29.2011 11:43 AM PDT

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstien

The only way to completely cloak a ship is by creating a protective shell around the ship that bends not only visible light but every other wavelength of energy around its surface. And even then that isn't perfect (seeing as looking for the distortions themselves would reveal its location, the same principle used to find the stealth fighter by the turbulents it created as it flew).

  • 05.29.2011 2:41 PM PDT


Posted by: UL7IM4 G33K
The only way to completely cloak a ship is by creating a protective shell around the ship that bends not only visible light but every other wavelength of energy around its surface. And even then that isn't perfect (seeing as looking for the distortions themselves would reveal its location, the same principle used to find the stealth fighter by the turbulents it created as it flew).


I think Star Wars large ship cloaking works like that. Nobody else can see/detect the ship, but at the same time the ship in the cloaking field is completely blind. (Least, that's what I remember hearing).

Course, any cloak would leave some sort of trace, especially a Covenant one. You can spot Elite's in active camo moving around by the distortions. Have to be looking for them granted, but it still can be noticed by an alert person.

[Edited on 05.29.2011 3:41 PM PDT]

  • 05.29.2011 3:40 PM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

An in-atmosphere jump seems the most likely option to me. Are we really going to go through the whole ordeal of limiting the games based on what a single line in a book says?

Isn't it possible that the Long Night of Solace is one of the few classes of Covenant ships that they were able to perform in-atmosphere jumps? Then Cortana would have simply figured out how to do the same with other classes of Covenant ships. We've already seen a CCS Battlecruiser and High Charity arrive via an in-atmosphere slip, is it so hard to see the Solace doing the same?

The way I see it, the Solace jumps in-atmosphere, arriving on Reach and any damage done by the slipspace jump is largely ignored in the desert environment. Then, several cloaking devices were deployed and quickly constructed, and the Solace has - as we've seen - plenty of room for the invasion fleet that we encountered in Reach.

I see no reason why this explanation doesn't fit.

[Edited on 05.29.2011 4:25 PM PDT]

  • 05.29.2011 4:24 PM PDT

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Yeah true. They probably could have hid the bulk of the ships heat, but the huge burners on the back would be easy to spot.

  • 05.29.2011 4:32 PM PDT


Posted by: jack0fhearts
An in-atmosphere jump seems the most likely option to me. Are we really going to go through the whole ordeal of limiting the games based on what a single line in a book says?

Isn't it possible that the Long Night of Solace is one of the few classes of Covenant ships that they were able to perform in-atmosphere jumps? Then Cortana would have simply figured out how to do the same with other classes of Covenant ships. We've already seen a CCS Battlecruiser and High Charity arrive via an in-atmosphere slip, is it so hard to see the Solace doing the same?

The way I see it, the Solace jumps in-atmosphere, arriving on Reach and any damage done by the slipspace jump is largely ignored in the desert environment. Then, several cloaking devices were deployed and quickly constructed, and the Solace has - as we've seen - plenty of room for the invasion fleet that we encountered in Reach.

I see no reason why this explanation doesn't fit.


My theory is they couldn't normally, however the spires (Which were deployed at range and impacted the planet like a meteor would, then activate teleporters for ground forces...) act as homing beacons, basically allowing them to do a jump into atmosphere (Which we've seen happen in ODST, it doesn't really have an effect, however starting a jump while in atmosphere causes a shockwave.). Of course, the LNOS would be easily detected should it do so. So it deploys it's small group of 2-4 Corvettes which arrive into the sensor blocking zone, and deploy forces.

However, when a spire was destroyed the ship-master of the Long Night of Solace decided it was time to arrive, as they were losing a possible foothold. Also the fact that the UNSC would have advanced and destroyed the other two spires you see in the game, which would prevent such a precise jump behind the defensive line.

[Edited on 05.29.2011 4:40 PM PDT]

  • 05.29.2011 4:38 PM PDT

"Where ere thou hast been, here or in yon world manifest? Canst thou tell what is, or what was, or what is to come? No thing shall last. Yet there are some things that will never change. History is written in blood, yet are battles really lost on the battlefield? Canst thou tell me where thou comest, and where thou goest, and what is, or what was, or what will be? For everything remains, AS IT NEVER WAS."

Yes, but then that begs the question; How did the Spires get there?

  • 05.29.2011 4:39 PM PDT

"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum

Posted by: jack0fhearts
Isn't it possible that the Long Night of Solace is one of the few classes of Covenant ships that they were able to perform in-atmosphere jumps?

Perhaps, but there is no evidence for it. In addition, it goes against common sense a bit. Why would the Covenant not bother installing such a drive on the rest of their ships? Such a massive tactical advantage it would be, why limit themselves?

It has nothing to do with the mechanics of the drives themselves anyway, but rather the mathematics of slipspace under which they operate (Their software essentially), which the Covenant don't understand. If they had that capability, I don't see why they would not employ it on their other vessels, after all it is essentially just a software patch.

Posted by: jack0fhearts
Then Cortana would have simply figured out how to do the same with other classes of Covenant ships. We've already seen a CCS Battlecruiser and High Charity arrive via an in-atmosphere slip, is it so hard to see the Solace doing the same?

After the algorithms that Cortana developed were leaked by that Covenant AI. High Charity was also piloted by the Gravemind, who's technical knowledge eclipses anyone else's.

  • 05.29.2011 4:41 PM PDT


Posted by: jack0fhearts
Yes, but then that begs the question; How did the Spires get there?


The impact thing. If you look at the spire you visit, the ground is depressed like the spire had landed, hard. You can see bits of the pipeline there crushed into the ground as well.

  • 05.29.2011 4:41 PM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: jack0fhearts
An in-atmosphere jump seems the most likely option to me. Are we really going to go through the whole ordeal of limiting the games based on what a single line in a book says?

Isn't it possible that the Long Night of Solace is one of the few classes of Covenant ships that they were able to perform in-atmosphere jumps? Then Cortana would have simply figured out how to do the same with other classes of Covenant ships. We've already seen a CCS Battlecruiser and High Charity arrive via an in-atmosphere slip, is it so hard to see the Solace doing the same?

The way I see it, the Solace jumps in-atmosphere, arriving on Reach and any damage done by the slipspace jump is largely ignored in the desert environment. Then, several cloaking devices were deployed and quickly constructed, and the Solace has - as we've seen - plenty of room for the invasion fleet that we encountered in Reach.

I see no reason why this explanation doesn't fit.


It doesn't fit because the covenant didn't realize that after 4,000 years of space faring they had the tech to do this AFTER cortana did it on threshold.


This idea would still fail because the station above reach would detect the slipspace signature, which is how they knew reach was being invaded to begin with.

So this alone disproves the entire campaign for the game becuase there is no way the covenant could have even gotten in the system without being noticed. IF we had stealth corvette that actually used camo then it would be more understandable for them to slip in, but we don;t have that.

  • 05.29.2011 4:44 PM PDT

Hm, how do we know the corvettes aren't built for stealth in the first place? They don't appear to have much, if any shielding...

  • 05.29.2011 4:48 PM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

We are all going to get banned aren't we?


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Hm, how do we know the corvettes aren't built for stealth in the first place? They don't appear to have much, if any shielding...


Because of how they are deployed and act.

They are nothing more than dropships for spreading troops, the stealth one was no more than a covenant prowler that didn't fight.

  • 05.29.2011 4:51 PM PDT

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