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Subject: Question about MAC yield

I was skimming through Halopedia, clicking random page over and over to see what I got (yes, I am EXCEPTIONALLY bored) and came across the MAC page.

As expected, I came across the calculation of a standard MAC's yield being about 64 kilotons.

But then, after a while, I typed in Halo weapon yields on google and came across a rather older discussion (1 year old give or take) on the Halopedian "talk" forums, discussing the yield of the MAC.

But they were talking about 1.17 terratons of force per shot.

Now I've heard people throw this number around before, with some people still believing it to this day. My question is: where did this original estimation come from anyway? I had always assumed this yield was shot down by the newer, more sensible calculation that resulted in 64 kilos.

I really never have seen anything to suggest a standard Frigate MAC to be any where close to that powerful, but some people still think its true.

I was just wondering because I want clarification. Every time I ask in someone else's thread where this came from, nobody can give me an answer, so I figured I'd make my own thread about it.

Thanks, and keep it clean.

  • 06.01.2011 11:40 AM PDT
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1.17 teratons is from the Encyclopedia, which said that a MAC fired a 600 ton round at 40% of c. It also said that a SMAC fired a 3000 ton round somewhere between .4 and .5 c.

64 Kilotons is from The Fall of Reach.

  • 06.01.2011 11:46 AM PDT

Never say you're bored. Never say you're satisfied with the world. Never stop doubting or questioning things. Always wonder. Always think. But always take time to drop your guard, you don't have to be smart all the time.

If a standard MAC yeild was 1.17 teratons then humanity would've had no problem with the war

  • 06.01.2011 2:30 PM PDT

Whatever. It's gonna hurt like holy heck when it smashes you and everything you believe in.

  • 06.01.2011 2:41 PM PDT

Never say you're bored. Never say you're satisfied with the world. Never stop doubting or questioning things. Always wonder. Always think. But always take time to drop your guard, you don't have to be smart all the time.


Posted by: Dustin 6047
How strong is 1.17 terratons anyway? How big of a crater would it make on Earth? Or would it destroy Earth?
1,000,000,000,000 joules (estimation) = all life gone with a crater taking up much of the earth

  • 06.01.2011 2:46 PM PDT


Posted by: Dustin 6047

Posted by: opogjijijp
1.17 teratons is from the Encyclopedia, which said that a MAC fired a 600 ton round at 40% of c. It also said that a SMAC fired a 3000 ton round somewhere between .4 and .5 c.

64 Kilotons is from The Fall of Reach.


It actually gets fired at 4% of the speed of light, not 40%. "point-4-tenths" means 4%, not 40%. A common mistake I made too.


four tenths is 40%.

.4= 40%

.04=4%

  • 06.01.2011 2:49 PM PDT

wouldn't take it from the Encyclopedia which is a load of balls. take it from the books and what we have seen of them, there is no way on Earth the MAC on a ship puts out 1.17 Teratons (that is like 1,000,000 Megatons!) of force on impact, that is just a 'star wars' number. since that level of energy would put a considerable hole in planet or planetoid and possibly alter the worldwide climate of said planet.

another thing, SHIVA nuclear weapons wouldn't be such powerful weapons if MAC rounds put out that amount of energy, it is magnitudes more powerful than a 50 Megaton nuclear explosion...!

another thing worth noting to put this rubbish to bed, the Tsar Bomb tested by the Soviets during the cold war was only around 50 Megatons and apparently about ten times as powerful as ALL the explosives used in the second world war! 1.4% of solar output as well, the explosion apparently shattered windows hundreds of miles away, would have destroyed more or less all of Greater London! all this and the Tsar Bomb is less than 0.1% of the 'mythical' 1.17 Teraton MAC. so see, its total tosh!

  • 06.01.2011 3:06 PM PDT


Posted by: PLUT0NIUM 235
wouldn't take it from the Encyclopedia which is a load of balls. take it from the books and what we have seen of them, there is no way on Earth the MAC on a ship puts out 1.17 Teratons (that is like 1,000,000 Megatons!) of force on impact, that is just a 'star wars' number. since that level of energy would put a considerable hole in planet or planetoid and possibly alter the worldwide climate of said planet.

another thing, SHIVA nuclear weapons wouldn't be such powerful weapons if MAC rounds put out that amount of energy, it is magnitudes more powerful than a 50 Megaton nuclear explosion...!

another thing worth noting to put this rubbish to bed, the Tsar Bomb tested by the Soviets during the cold war was only around 50 Megatons and apparently about ten times as powerful as ALL the explosives used in the second world war! 1.4% of solar output as well, the explosion apparently shattered windows hundreds of miles away, would have destroyed more or less all of Greater London! all this and the Tsar Bomb is less than 0.1% of the 'mythical' 1.17 Teraton MAC. so see, its total tosh!


Let's make this an official verb

To get "Star Warsed"

Verb: Getting "Star Warsed" equates to a science fiction universe's weapon or weapons becoming over powered by fanwank or gross typos. Must be directly contradicted by in universe material to be considered "Star Warsed."

I agree, makes no sense at all.

  • 06.01.2011 3:13 PM PDT

the mad thing is, I do really enjoy Star Wars games, movies and the Clone Wars series, just wish some more effort would be made with regards to the numbers side of things since nothing makes any sense.

another thing, can't vouch for S-MAC since we never see them in action, and most certainly don't see them fired at the ground, so they might very well be on that level of energy.

  • 06.01.2011 3:17 PM PDT

Welcome to bungie, you have no rights. play nice!
CLICK!

I don't see in the encyclopedia where it states 1.17 terratons but ship macs fire 600-ton slugs at nearly fourt percent the speed of light and SMACs can fire 3000 tons slugs at half the speed of light.

  • 06.01.2011 3:34 PM PDT
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"Time was your ally human. But now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners....have returned. And this tomb... is now yours". - The Didact

They will rerelease the encyclopedia with Reach info and updated(hopefully).

That should clear up everything,or not...

  • 06.01.2011 3:36 PM PDT

question everything...truth has no pedigree


Posted by: ROBERTO jh
But they were talking about 1.17 terratons of force per shot.


That sounds like they didn't know what they were talking about, or they were using the terminology incorrectly.

It doesn't really make sense to talk about how much force there is in one shot. The reason is that the actual force exerted depends on the object that is hit by the projectile. More specificlally, the force depends on the impact momentum of the projectile and the amount of time it takes for the target to bring the projectile to rest (which depends on the properties of the object being hit).

It makes more sense to talk about the kinetic energy or momentum of the projectile in flight. That's where the kiloton, megaton, teraton, etc. terminology comes from. Yes, the ton is a unit of force, but in the context of explosive yield it is a reference to the energy released by TNT. A 64 kiloton bomb yields the same energy as an explosion of 64,000 tons of TNT.

1.17 teratons is an awful lot of TNT. I think if you added up the yield of all the nuclear weapons on Earth today, it wouldn't be as much as 1.17 teratons.

My guess is that an exploding MAC round delivers energy equivalent to 64 kilotons of TNT.

  • 06.01.2011 3:36 PM PDT

question everything...truth has no pedigree

Wait, wasn't there a scene in Reach where they fired off a MAC round "in atmosphere", in the vicnity of military personnel? Isn't that kind of dangerous? I mean, 64 kilotons is a huge explosion. That's like 5 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

  • 06.01.2011 3:41 PM PDT

the 64 Kilotons of TNT makes sense as well, judging on the effect we know they have, 1.17 Teratons of TNT is probably more energy than every explosive device ever made, in our entire history. also the sort of energy given off when something like an asteroid (maybe mile or more wide) hits the ground at 25,000 metres/second, not enough to wipe out all life but getting there, would cause serious environmental effects and an enormous impact crater.

also equates to around 28,000% of solar output, or 280 times the output of our sun! which is stupid to be honest...so lets stick with the Kiloton one, which I think is based on a 600 metric ton projectile travelling at 35,000 metres/second.

  • 06.01.2011 3:49 PM PDT


Posted by: wu haoxuan
Wait, wasn't there a scene in Reach where they fired off a MAC round "in atmosphere", in the vicnity of military personnel? Isn't that kind of dangerous? I mean, 64 kilotons is a huge explosion. That's like 5 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.


Both of the MAC shots seen in the game were fired on low power. If the Frigate Grafton fired at full power, it would have likely damaged or destroyed itsef by the back blast, and the UNSC personel near by.

The SMAC, had that fired at full power, would have vaporized Sword Base and probably melted almost the entire glacier. (SMACs have been calculated at 51.6 gigatons, which makes more sense given their history and ammunition).

@Plutonium

It is a shame for me as well. It was only until I learned of the canon levels of the series that I could take the series seriously. In that mid-point when I thought those numbers were officially official, I couldn't help but go "wat" everytime a shot was fired in the movies or games or books.

Its at least good to know that the series still has some validity thanks to the canon levels.

[Edited on 06.01.2011 3:53 PM PDT]

  • 06.01.2011 3:53 PM PDT


Posted by: wu haoxuan

Posted by: ROBERTO jh
But they were talking about 1.17 terratons of force per shot.


That sounds like they didn't know what they were talking about, or they were using the terminology incorrectly.

It doesn't really make sense to talk about how much force there is in one shot. The reason is that the actual force exerted depends on the object that is hit by the projectile. More specificlally, the force depends on the impact momentum of the projectile and the amount of time it takes for the target to bring the projectile to rest (which depends on the properties of the object being hit).

It makes more sense to talk about the kinetic energy or momentum of the projectile in flight. That's where the kiloton, megaton, teraton, etc. terminology comes from. Yes, the ton is a unit of force, but in the context of explosive yield it is a reference to the energy released by TNT. A 64 kiloton bomb yields the same energy as an explosion of 64,000 tons of TNT.

1.17 teratons is an awful lot of TNT. I think if you added up the yield of all the nuclear weapons on Earth today, it wouldn't be as much as 1.17 teratons.

My guess is that an exploding MAC round delivers energy equivalent to 64 kilotons of TNT.


What about inertia? MAC rounds move so fast that the opposing object generally has no ability to move (due to inertia) until after the round has passed through it.

  • 06.01.2011 3:56 PM PDT
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Yes I'm fairly young. No, that doesn't mean I'm automatically dumber than you or have less life experience, thats just generally the case. I am not your general case.

Wait wait wait. A terraton is a measurement of weight. Nuclear yield is measured in tons, kilotons, megatons and gigatons, not terratons.
Terratons, petatons and all the other forms of measurement I've seen mentioned here are measurements of weight, not explosive force.

  • 06.01.2011 3:57 PM PDT


Posted by: Dustin 6047

Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: Dustin 6047

Posted by: opogjijijp
1.17 teratons is from the Encyclopedia, which said that a MAC fired a 600 ton round at 40% of c. It also said that a SMAC fired a 3000 ton round somewhere between .4 and .5 c.

64 Kilotons is from The Fall of Reach.


It actually gets fired at 4% of the speed of light, not 40%. "point-4-tenths" means 4%, not 40%. A common mistake I made too.


four tenths is 40%.

.4= 40%

.04=4%


Exactly, and we're talking about "point-4-tenths" = .04



If you mean to say like point point four, then yeah, though I've never heard said that way to be honest...

  • 06.01.2011 3:57 PM PDT


Posted by: That Atheist
Wait wait wait. A terraton is a measurement of weight. Nuclear yield is measured in tons, kilotons, megatons and gigatons, not terratons.
Terratons, petatons and all the other forms of measurement I've seen mentioned here are measurements of weight, not explosive force.


The scale is this

1,000 tons=1 kiloton

1,000,000 tons= 1 megaton

1,000 megatons=1 gigaton

1,000 gigaton=1 terraton

1,000 terratons= 1 petaton

1,000 petatons= 1 exaton

1,000 exatons= 1 zettaton

and 1,000 zettatons=1 yottaton.

The higher up tons usually involve cataclysmic cosmic disasters (supervova, planets colliding, Neutron Stars colliding with another planet-sized object, etc.) But they are all valid meassurments of yield.

  • 06.01.2011 4:01 PM PDT
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Yes I'm fairly young. No, that doesn't mean I'm automatically dumber than you or have less life experience, thats just generally the case. I am not your general case.

Posted by: ROBERTO jh

Posted by: That Atheist
Wait wait wait. A terraton is a measurement of weight. Nuclear yield is measured in tons, kilotons, megatons and gigatons, not terratons.
Terratons, petatons and all the other forms of measurement I've seen mentioned here are measurements of weight, not explosive force.


The scale is this

1,000 tons=1 kiloton

1,000,000 tons= 1 megaton

1,000 megatons=1 gigaton

1,000 gigaton=1 terraton

1,000 terratons= 1 petaton

1,000 petatons= 1 exaton

1,000 exatons= 1 zettaton

and 1,000 zettatons=1 yottaton.

The higher up tons usually involve cataclysmic cosmic disasters (supervova, planets colliding, Neutron Stars colliding with another planet-sized object, etc.) But they are all valid meassurments of yield.

I believe you may be mistaken. The ton scale for explosive force has only ever gone up to gigaton, then stopped.
I believe you may have this confused with joules, a measurement of energy, which go up to yottajoules and include every thing you listed in that order, just instead of saying "ton" it says "joule"

Joule

Kilojoule

Megajoule

Gigajoule

Terrajoule

Petajoule

Exajoule

Zettajoule

Yottajoule.


See any similarity's?

  • 06.01.2011 4:06 PM PDT

read

I seriously have always heard the Terra+ messurements be used for high explosive yields, be them articles about cosmic events, books, dictionaries, videogames, encyclopedia, etc..

They have two different meanings.

  • 06.01.2011 4:11 PM PDT

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