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This topic has moved here: Subject: Question about plasma torpedo guidance...
  • Subject: Question about plasma torpedo guidance...
Subject: Question about plasma torpedo guidance...

Do plasma torpedoes guide to their target after their launching ship is destroyed or not? In the books sometimes they do and some times they don't.

Personnally I can't see how they would, as they are steered from the launch ship to their target, without which they sould simply fly off into space. And on a similar note, could a second ship co-opt a plasma torpedo from another ship?

  • 06.02.2011 6:14 PM PDT

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

In Ghosts of Onyx they dissipated after the guiding ship was destroyed. It was in older books, TFoR specifically I think, that had them continue on after the original ship was destroyed.

Would this not mean that they have been retconned to dissipate?

  • 06.02.2011 6:32 PM PDT

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Posted by: anton1792
In Ghosts of Onyx they dissipated after the guiding ship was destroyed. It was in older books, TFoR specifically I think, that had them continue on after the original ship was destroyed.

Would this not mean that they have been retconned to dissipate?

I would imagine so.

  • 06.02.2011 6:58 PM PDT

If I remember correctly from First Strike plasma torpedo's are contained in a magnetic field. Modern day plasma is too. Plasma Window for example.

So if you can manipulate the magnetic field, you're manipulating the plasma too.

No idea how it's guided after a ship is destroyed though.

  • 06.02.2011 7:32 PM PDT

The way I saw it was the one in TFoR that kept flying was still being guided by a somewhat intact magnet that guides the shots; the ship, if I recall, wasn't completely destroyed, just blown to hell.

In First Strike (which was another case where it dissipated), the ship that was destroyed got obliterated by an Assault Carrier's plasma torpedo round, a hiliariously powerful missile known to vaporize kilometer-length+ asteroids. The ship was nothing but debris, so the guiding mechanism, maybe an otherwise heavily armored component, was destroyed.

  • 06.02.2011 7:55 PM PDT

Bungie Pentathlon - who actually cares ?

Are they guided by magnetism of some kind ? As in the books they tracked UNSC vessels (Keyes Loop) so some sort of advanced guiding mechanism must exist

  • 06.03.2011 12:50 AM PDT
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

I am...whimsical today.

Is it possible that the two instances were two different types of torpedo, one self-guiding, the other requiring a remote controller?

The self guiding idea would explain how the Keyes' Loop occurred.

  • 06.03.2011 2:22 AM PDT

Bungie Pentathlon - who actually cares ?


Posted by: Guscon
Is it possible that the two instances were two different types of torpedo, one self-guiding, the other requiring a remote controller?

The self guiding idea would explain how the Keyes' Loop occurred.


Maybe so, the Covie's also had the "sniper" plasma laser (as seen on Reach)

But for something to be self guiding surely there would have to be some sort of phyiscal mechanism contained within the plasma bolt that would track its target ? Surely if there were such a thing theoretically contained within the plasma bolt it would melt due to the sheer heat of the plasma its guiding.

So in theory any guiding must be done from the ship or the turret itself ?

  • 06.03.2011 2:27 AM PDT

Posted by: Richomack360

So in theory any guiding must be done from the ship or the turret itself ?


From the turret is how I understand it. In First Strike the turrets contained a magnetic field generator. Cortana actually manipulated these so that instead of a blob of plasma, she formed a needle of plasma that would literally carve ships. She even used the magnetic accelerator off a MAC cannon when those turrets burned out.

  • 06.03.2011 6:58 AM PDT