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  • Subject: So 100 ships couldn't defeat a Supercarrier?
Subject: So 100 ships couldn't defeat a Supercarrier?
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Posted by: grey101

Reach had 1 hundred ships when the covenant attack and there were about 1 hundred other ships in the system that could be called for support; which they were and the UNSC got 50 additional ships.


I've seen this number being used before, could you give a source for it please? As far as I know the fleet strength is never mentioned in-game and there are a number of differences between the novel's description of the battle for Reach and the game's depiction. I'd hesitate to use the book numbers as absolute given the game has shown it to be inaccurate in some respects.


But in this case some how 1 hundred ships (which normally have some type of nukes) were bi***** out by a single covenant ship. there are dozens of way i alone can think of to take that thing out so i don't understand why they foolishly only sent 40 ships to attack it.


The vast majority of those ships were probably frigates, the Long Night Of Solace is so far above their weight class it isn't funny.


During any fight you are to deploy your fighters first and in this case i would like to think they sent out pelicans also as they did in the official battle. so you have about 1 thousand fighters.


It's clear from the space missions in Reach that the Covenant have a very large fighter contingient deployed from the Solace. They appear to have almost complete strike craft superiority by the time Noble Six is flying a Sabre. It's very likely the UNSC strikecraft were overwhelmed in short order. (Seraphs have the advantage of shields and tactical slipspace maneuvers, apart from the Sabers, all UNSC spacecraft are unshielded. This gives a massive combat advantage to the Covenant, even before we consider how many strikecraft a 27km carrier could field.)

The number of nukes is iffy seeing how we don;t know the exact types of ships in the fleet. but it is pretty normal to see several nuclear missiles and several nukes of various yields.

From the way Carter says they "went down with the ships that carried them" I got the impression the UNSC ships were destroyed before they could deploy many (if any) heavy nukes.

So i don't understand why they didn't just go all out and atleast try to defend their home when you already have reinforcements on the way.

I'm sure they did try, but it seems they just didn't manage a victory.

now the statement with 60 percent of the UNSC fleet arriving is horrible also because reach only got 50 additional ships. so the overall UNSC fleet must be extremely low (not surprising) but i wouldn't expect it to be THAT low, especially with the number of ships at earth.

Where is the fifty additional ships number from? Also once the rest of the Covenant fleet showed up, and it became apparrent how much of a lost cause the battle was, a prudent Admiral wouldn't send further ships in to die to no gain.

But what i don't understand is that if the ships is "sooo damn strong" why didn't the covenant win the war?

Umm, with respect Grey, They *Did* win. At least untill the great schizm there was very little the UNSC could do to stop the Covenant's advance in space.

seriously if people assume they have unstoppable shields (which the math isn't looking good for that)

Surface area calculation?

Bear in mind a larger ship can mount a larger reactor, which may not scale linerly power wise, it might even scale with reactor volume. *IF* that was the case, and the shield only scales with area, while the reactor scales to volume... Well, a larger ship would be able to field a much more powerful reactor compared to it's shield needs than those of a smaller vessel. This would fit with the observed fact that larger Covenant ships have more powerful shields and more free power to mount extra weapons.

then why didn't 20 of these ships FROM THE HUNDREDS THAT WHERE AT HIGH CHARITY just fleet up and just go on a rampage?

If you are referring to the carriers mentioned in First Strike(I think) then I'm fairly confident those are actually Assault Carriers. We see High Charity's fleet in Halo 2 and no ships on the scale of a supercarrier are present, there are some Assault Carriers though.

Out of universe explaination: The book was written before Halo 2 Identified that type of vessel as an Assuault Carrier, and well before Halo Reach came out.

There has to be a massive drawback for these things not to be used. because there are hundreds of them so we should have lost the damn war. and if the covenant can cloak a 16 mile ship; why the hell don't they make that military standard?

I can think of at least two offhand: Logistics of supplying and moving a vessel that large, and political reliability of the officers in charge (a major concern when the vessel is so powerful), what if they find something out there that makes them question the Prophets?

As to the cloak, it likely has some downside as the Carrier reveals itself to fight and doesn't recloak, perhaps it interferes with shielding, or something.

more importantly, why are they improving their ships when they always when in space?

Why not? The Royal Navy's HMS Astute is the quietest 'stealthiest' submarine in the world, that hasn't stopped people from trying to think up ways to make it's sister vessels quieter. Research doesn't need to follow an RTS-like research tree.

why don't they give wraiths shielding and phantoms cloak? why in the forerunners name would you waste time improving something that is already top notch?

Well, no improvement is a waste of time. Halo Wars has shielded Wraiths as an upgrade, and in one of the books (I think First Strike) the Spartans destroy inactive Wraiths while commenting that the amount of damage they had done wouldn't have stopped an active Wraith.

The phantoms the Elites use in Halo 3 have a working cloak, it's very good, see the assault on the shield control tower for the best example.



I still think people are underestimating the Long Night Of Solace here, that "single ship" likely outmasses the entire UNSC defence force, and can deploy a very large number of strikecraft to augment it's already impressive capabilities.

  • 07.16.2011 9:22 AM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

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


Posted by: Fin5434p

Posted by: grey101

Reach had 1 hundred ships when the covenant attack and there were about 1 hundred other ships in the system that could be called for support; which they were and the UNSC got 50 additional ships.


I've seen this number being used before, could you give a source for it please? As far as I know the fleet strength is never mentioned in-game and there are a number of differences between the novel's description of the battle for Reach and the game's depiction. I'd hesitate to use the book numbers as absolute given the game has shown it to be inaccurate in some respects.


But in this case some how 1 hundred ships (which normally have some type of nukes) were bi***** out by a single covenant ship. there are dozens of way i alone can think of to take that thing out so i don't understand why they foolishly only sent 40 ships to attack it.


The vast majority of those ships were probably frigates, the Long Night Of Solace is so far above their weight class it isn't funny.


During any fight you are to deploy your fighters first and in this case i would like to think they sent out pelicans also as they did in the official battle. so you have about 1 thousand fighters.


It's clear from the space missions in Reach that the Covenant have a very large fighter contingient deployed from the Solace. They appear to have almost complete strike craft superiority by the time Noble Six is flying a Sabre. It's very likely the UNSC strikecraft were overwhelmed in short order. (Seraphs have the advantage of shields and tactical slipspace maneuvers, apart from the Sabers, all UNSC spacecraft are unshielded. This gives a massive combat advantage to the Covenant, even before we consider how many strikecraft a 27km carrier could field.)

The number of nukes is iffy seeing how we don;t know the exact types of ships in the fleet. but it is pretty normal to see several nuclear missiles and several nukes of various yields.

From the way Carter says they "went down with the ships that carried them" I got the impression the UNSC ships were destroyed before they could deploy many (if any) heavy nukes.

So i don't understand why they didn't just go all out and atleast try to defend their home when you already have reinforcements on the way.

I'm sure they did try, but it seems they just didn't manage a victory.

now the statement with 60 percent of the UNSC fleet arriving is horrible also because reach only got 50 additional ships. so the overall UNSC fleet must be extremely low (not surprising) but i wouldn't expect it to be THAT low, especially with the number of ships at earth.

Where is the fifty additional ships number from? Also once the rest of the Covenant fleet showed up, and it became apparrent how much of a lost cause the battle was, a prudent Admiral wouldn't send further ships in to die to no gain.

But what i don't understand is that if the ships is "sooo damn strong" why didn't the covenant win the war?

Umm, with respect Grey, They *Did* win. At least untill the great schizm there was very little the UNSC could do to stop the Covenant's advance in space.

seriously if people assume they have unstoppable shields (which the math isn't looking good for that)

Surface area calculation?

Bear in mind a larger ship can mount a larger reactor, which may not scale linerly power wise, it might even scale with reactor volume. *IF* that was the case, and the shield only scales with area, while the reactor scales to volume... Well, a larger ship would be able to field a much more powerful reactor compared to it's shield needs than those of a smaller vessel. This would fit with the observed fact that larger Covenant ships have more powerful shields and more free power to mount extra weapons.

then why didn't 20 of these ships FROM THE HUNDREDS THAT WHERE AT HIGH CHARITY just fleet up and just go on a rampage?

If you are referring to the carriers mentioned in First Strike(I think) then I'm fairly confident those are actually Assault Carriers. We see High Charity's fleet in Halo 2 and no ships on the scale of a supercarrier are present, there are some Assault Carriers though.

Out of universe explaination: The book was written before Halo 2 Identified that type of vessel as an Assuault Carrier, and well before Halo Reach came out.

There has to be a massive drawback for these things not to be used. because there are hundreds of them so we should have lost the damn war. and if the covenant can cloak a 16 mile ship; why the hell don't they make that military standard?

I can think of at least two offhand: Logistics of supplying and moving a vessel that large, and political reliability of the officers in charge (a major concern when the vessel is so powerful), what if they find something out there that makes them question the Prophets?

As to the cloak, it likely has some downside as the Carrier reveals itself to fight and doesn't recloak, perhaps it interferes with shielding, or something.

more importantly, why are they improving their ships when they always when in space?

Why not? The Royal Navy's HMS Astute is the quietest 'stealthiest' submarine in the world, that hasn't stopped people from trying to think up ways to make it's sister vessels quieter. Research doesn't need to follow an RTS-like research tree.

why don't they give wraiths shielding and phantoms cloak? why in the forerunners name would you waste time improving something that is already top notch?

Well, no improvement is a waste of time. Halo Wars has shielded Wraiths as an upgrade, and in one of the books (I think First Strike) the Spartans destroy inactive Wraiths while commenting that the amount of damage they had done wouldn't have stopped an active Wraith.

The phantoms the Elites use in Halo 3 have a working cloak, it's very good, see the assault on the shield control tower for the best example.



I still think people are underestimating the Long Night Of Solace here, that "single ship" likely outmasses the entire UNSC defence force, and can deploy a very large number of strikecraft to augment it's already impressive capabilities.



1.The fall of reach page 295

2.it is pretty standard for any UNSC ships to have some type of nuclear ordinance. i am not saying EVERY ships has nukes, but out of 100 a good amount of them would, especially at reach.

3.Longswords never had issues taking out seraph's before and the UNSC is better in space when it comes to tactics, it is just the tech that gets them.

4.i understood that.

5. If 60 percent is being called back i would like to think they only sent 40 ships, that isn't going all out.


6. but they didn't. had these ships been used from the start the war would have been finished before the schism was even thought of.

7. same page on TFoR where it was said 50 additional ships arrived

8. Yes but the space station that was roughly half the SC size was almost completely filled with generators. The SC would need more than that just to cover itself then we talk about strength.


9. the game also shows hundreds of marathon class cruisers and halcyon class when we know that isn't the case, that is merely coding. The books says hundreds of supercarriers and cruisers and if the re-print didn't change it then it is fact.


10. those aren't really drawbacks.


11.because that doesn't make sense. "lets improve something that works more than well but lets not improve our ground forces that are sub par." does not compute


12.page number for that? because shields would still be useful on banshee's and ghost would be more useful if they had camo or shields.

  • 07.16.2011 9:46 AM PDT
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"but you already knew that, I mean, how couldn't you?

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Posted by: grey101

1.The fall of reach page 295


This is during the battle against the Arbiter's fleet though, not against the Solace, much of that battle (awesome though it was) has been retcon'd by Reach.

2.it is pretty standard for any UNSC ships to have some type of nuclear ordinance. i am not saying EVERY ships has nukes, but out of 100 a good amount of them would, especially at reach.

Were Archer missiles not calced in at around a Megaton (hence nuclear)? Or has that been retconned too? Been a while since I participated in these discussions.

Either way, the bigger nukes like Shivas seem rarer, and it seems few ships were able to deploy them.

3.Longswords never had issues taking out seraph's before and the UNSC is better in space when it comes to tactics, it is just the tech that gets them.

You see Longswords being shot down in halo 2 and 3, I would argue that Seraphs have little issue taking down Longswords either, the Seraph as a vehicle has distinct design advantages: Smaller profile, shielding, more maneuverable, possibly faster but that's debatable.

There is only so much superior tactics can do when you are outnumbered and outgunned, and the skill difference between UNSC Officers not named Keyes and Covenant Officers doesn't seem that great to be honest. We are told the Humans are better at tactics, Keyes and Cole are the only demonstrations though, and both are considered exceptional.


5. If 60 percent is being called back i would like to think they only sent 40 ships, that isn't going all out.


I always assumed that was referring to fleets elsewhere coming to reinforce the Reach System, whether they infact turned up is not clear.

6. but they didn't. had these ships been used from the start the war would have been finished before the schism was even thought of.

They did not lose due to any UNSC naval action though. They lost due to internal politics, it doesn't matter how badass your fleet is if your admirals chose not to follow you anymore.

8. Yes but the space station that was roughly half the SC size was almost completely filled with generators. The SC would need more than that just to cover itself then we talk about strength.

The Unyeilding Heriophant?

If so it was a resupply station, it needed many reactors for that function, to resupply the fleet, not for it's own use.

Either way, if it dedicates the same volume to it's reactor(s) as the similarly structured Assault Carrier then it still has masses of reactor space, and my point about volumetric scaling still stands.

9. the game also shows hundreds of marathon class cruisers and halcyon class when we know that isn't the case, that is merely coding. The books says hundreds of supercarriers and cruisers and if the re-print didn't change it then it is fact.

We know there was a large fleet around Earth, it showed that.

So it was missed, did the reprint change anything or was it just to get more books sold?

To be honest, I'm inclined to go with what the game presents unless there is a pressing reason not to do so, it makes more sense that way anyway (as you have noted, if they *do* have hundreds why do we not see them?). One line in a book is not a compelling reason in my opinion, for all we know "supercarrier" could be being used as a colloquiallism for any large carrier.

10. those aren't really drawbacks.
I beg to differ, those are massive drawbacks, particularly the political one given the Covenant is a Theocracy, and not that politically stable.

11.because that doesn't make sense. "lets improve something that works more than well but lets not improve our ground forces that are sub par." does not compute

Why not, we've been doing it for years :)

In all seriousness, all major battles of consequence in the war happened in space, whoever holds orbit can wipe out the enemy's ground forces at will. Covenant standard combat doctrine actually, and tip of the spear shows us the UNSC uses frigates in ground combat suppression roles as well.

12.page number for that? because shields would still be useful on banshee's and ghost would be more useful if they had camo or shields.

I'll get back to you on that, need to find my copy of First Strike.

EDIT: It is page 114:

In unison the Spartans turned and fired at the far corner of the formation of tanks. Two blue-white blobs of liquid sun spat from the wraiths and detonated. There was a dazzling light, an expansion of superheated white fire, and then there was glass-smooth ground and the smouldering skeletons of seven wraith tanks.
More luck. If the tanks had been active, with hatches secured, they might have survived the first volly.


[Edited on 07.16.2011 12:16 PM PDT]

  • 07.16.2011 10:36 AM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

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

I don't have time to answer everything. but the shields were for the station, they were using the using the oort cloud to refuel Deuterium and other fuels for the ship

  • 07.16.2011 10:58 AM PDT
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"but you already knew that, I mean, how couldn't you?

Only when no Human brick is left atop another, shall we be satisfied with your destruction.

I stand corrected with regards to the reactors being used for the shield:

"I have schematics for the station," she told him. "The good
news is, each lobe has a central reactor complex with five hundred
twelve-terawatt units similar in design to the pinch fusion
reactors on their ships. Apparently this energy is used to power a
shield generator that can repel the collision of a small moon.


That said, these reactors do not take up a vast amount of space inside the station at all, it has plenty room for ornamental parks and grand buildings.



Posted by: Dustin 6047
Not sure if this whole shielding dispute is solved, but I think that the more surface area of a ship equals the more energy needed and consumed. Although, when there is more surface area, there tends to be more space to put the reactors in. So, I say that the Super Carrier does have more shield strength than an average capital ship.


The problem is we don't really know how Covenant shields or reactors work.

The shield seems to be a two-dimensional "layer" rather than a volume effect, so I'm going to *assume* it's power requirements scale with area (that is to say it's increasing to the square of some function "SHLD^2" if you will).

Now the Covenant reactors are stated to be pinch-fusion reactors (many problems with this but ignoring that for now) then the power they will yield would scale with the interior volume of the reactor. (Or more precisely, with the volume of fusing material in the magnetic bottle.) This is a function of the fusion system described.

Therefore as reactor size increases reactor output increases to the cube of some function "RCTR^3" if you will.

As you can see, if we scale up the supercarrier exactly from the Assault carrier, the reactor ends up producing much more power than the shield will consume (square function of power being consumed vs a cubic function generating power). A larger fusion reactor is more efficient.

Therefore we can say that if the supercarrier has the same percentage volume of it's structure dedicated to reactor space as the assault carrier, it would have proportionally much greater power generation and therefore greater shield capacity.

That's the theory anyway, the fact that the Long Night Of Solace seems to have battled the Reach fleet unscathed lends support to it though.

[Edited on 07.16.2011 1:27 PM PDT]

  • 07.16.2011 1:00 PM PDT


Posted by: grey101
Huh? the ship YOU are talking about was when the commonwealth was fighting a small ship.

I am talking about when the PoA fought the sniper ship during reach.
Well there is the problem, because someone in their stupidity said that the ship I was talking about was a supercruiser. Which it was not.

I aggree that the sniper ship was probably a supercruiser. But thats not the scenario that I brought up. I don't see how someone confused the two scenario's, because john never boarded the sniper ship, when i specified that he boarded this one.

you have been getting involved in something you didn't even understand.No, someone boldly claimed that the ship I was referring to was a supercruiser, and I flatly said it wasn't. Scroll up if you wish. It's you and whoever made the confusion that is talking about things they know nothing about.

Now that thats clarified, lets move on.

  • 07.16.2011 1:31 PM PDT
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Astronomy FTW

Tubas Represent!

Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.

  • 07.16.2011 2:33 PM PDT
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SC = Supreme Commander/Supreme Canadian.

De Facto leader of the military of the APE (Allied Planets Empire).

Coup = Admiral Asskicker, ZPM hive ship


Posted by: ansac11
Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.


Wasn't the number of Covenant ships at Reach retconned into 700 ships?

  • 07.16.2011 3:25 PM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

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


Posted by: Kalawaki

Posted by: grey101
Huh? the ship YOU are talking about was when the commonwealth was fighting a small ship.

I am talking about when the PoA fought the sniper ship during reach.
Well there is the problem, because someone in their stupidity said that the ship I was talking about was a supercruiser. Which it was not.

I aggree that the sniper ship was probably a supercruiser. But thats not the scenario that I brought up. I don't see how someone confused the two scenario's, because john never boarded the sniper ship, when i specified that he boarded this one.

you have been getting involved in something you didn't even understand.No, someone boldly claimed that the ship I was referring to was a supercruiser, and I flatly said it wasn't. Scroll up if you wish. It's you and whoever made the confusion that is talking about things they know nothing about.

Now that thats clarified, lets move on.


I have been talking about the PoA fighting the sniper ship the entire thread. honestly, this is the first time i have ever talked about the common wealth on this forum, you can even search for that using the search bar.

  • 07.16.2011 7:38 PM PDT


Posted by: SC Matt Klassen

Posted by: ansac11
Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.


Wasn't the number of Covenant ships at Reach retconned into 700 ships?


No, I think that was confirmed to be an error, as to my knowledge it's only mentioned once and the rest of the time the Covenant fleet is still listed as being at 314+ ships.

  • 07.16.2011 7:45 PM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: SC Matt Klassen

Posted by: ansac11
Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.


Wasn't the number of Covenant ships at Reach retconned into 700 ships?


No, I think that was confirmed to be an error, as to my knowledge it's only mentioned once and the rest of the time the Covenant fleet is still listed as being at 314+ ships.
341 not 314, I see this mistake all the time.

  • 07.16.2011 7:49 PM PDT

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Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: SC Matt Klassen

Posted by: ansac11
Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.


Wasn't the number of Covenant ships at Reach retconned into 700 ships?


No, I think that was confirmed to be an error, as to my knowledge it's only mentioned once and the rest of the time the Covenant fleet is still listed as being at 314+ ships.


It's consistently referenced as 700 whenever the numbers themselves are involved in the reissue.

However, any estimations relating to the Covenant fleet weren't change. So for example when Cortana says how one-third of the Covenant fleet was wiped out in the volley of MACs, Nukes, and what not in the original. She still says it in the reissue. The same goes for Keyes when he states how the Covenant outnumber the UNSC 3-1 in the original, he still does so in the reissue despite it being more like 7-1.

As a result it has led to fans, myself included, speculating that the 700 number is a typo, but thus far there has been no confirmation from 343i (least that I am aware of) that it is a typo like the 2542 issue.

  • 07.16.2011 7:50 PM PDT
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Posted by: DecepticonCobra

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


Posted by: OrderedComa

Posted by: SC Matt Klassen

Posted by: ansac11
Covenant ships were strong and they had the ability to destroy targets from a long range(something human vessels had trouble with).

Now on the topic of the Super MAC-Cannons, if you've read The Fall of Reach then you know that they were the main threat at the time, and the Covenant were willing to sacrifice one out of their 300 ships to destroy it. I don't think they could have lasted lone, especially considering the fact that human ships were being destroyed or disabled all over the place. The humans had a strong defense but the Covenant was simply to much to bear(5 UNSC ships=1 Covenant Vessel on most cases).

It was over for the humans and everybody on Reach knew it.


Wasn't the number of Covenant ships at Reach retconned into 700 ships?


No, I think that was confirmed to be an error, as to my knowledge it's only mentioned once and the rest of the time the Covenant fleet is still listed as being at 314+ ships.


Yea 343 did address this as an error after caboose went on a killing spree about it. I think it was on twitter

  • 07.16.2011 7:58 PM PDT


Posted by: grey101
I have been talking about the PoA fighting the sniper ship the entire thread. honestly, this is the first time i have ever talked about the common wealth on this forum, you can even search for that using the search bar.
Oh? Then what is this?

Posted by: grey101

Posted by: TBENinjaTiger
Update: I quote a user on this Forum in this post aswell. "In Fall of Reach just a normal cruiser (not a battlecruiser, a normal cruiser, which is about a third the size and strength of a battlecruiser) withstood two nukes without its shields faltering. It also took two direct MAC rounds, which punched through it, but it still was fully functional. They had to detonate a nuke inside its own shields (amplifying the nuke 100x) to finally destroy it."

well you and whoever you are quoting are just trying to make up facts to support your side because it was asupercruiser. and it is standard for several MAC rounds needed for the shields to pop the same as bullets to shields so i don't know why you are saying that like it is suppose to have merit.


I was the person he was quoting.

And you are the one that made the mistake of thinking I was talking about the sniper ship. Never did I even mention it. It doesn't matter what you've been talking about.

[Edited on 07.16.2011 8:36 PM PDT]

  • 07.16.2011 8:34 PM PDT

Yes, a Super Carrier has thousands of weaponry systems but that isn't a great excuse, if one Super Carrier could destroy a fleet of 100 Ships, Truth would have halted the construction of all CCS ships and made strictly Supercarriers, no matter the cost. But we only have seen one, why wasn't it a flagship for Truth or Regret?

[Edited on 07.17.2011 11:59 PM PDT]

  • 07.17.2011 11:58 PM PDT

I don't think it really would make a difference.

[Edited on 07.18.2011 12:50 AM PDT]

  • 07.18.2011 12:49 AM PDT
  • gamertag: Fin
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"but you already knew that, I mean, how couldn't you?

Only when no Human brick is left atop another, shall we be satisfied with your destruction.


Posted by: mojeda101
Yes, a Super Carrier has thousands of weaponry systems but that isn't a great excuse, if one Super Carrier could destroy a fleet of 100 Ships, Truth would have halted the construction of all CCS ships and made strictly Supercarriers, no matter the cost. But we only have seen one, why wasn't it a flagship for Truth or Regret?


Nonsense, Truth is smarter than that.

How much resources did that one ship consume? How many personnell?

I have no doubt that for the same resource input and man-(well, likely grunt)hours put into building it you could have built hundreds of CCS-class Battlecruisers.

What is more useful:
One ship that can utterly doiminate the battlefield wherever it is currently stationed, or two hundred battlecruisers that can patrol your space, assist your civilian population, enforce your laws, quell heritic uprisings, and act as symbols of your power in two hundred different locations around your vast empire at any one time?

Also building a supercarrier's cost in smaller vessels has the advantage that you don't lose it all to one human with a modified slipstream drive.

The Long Night Of Solace was almost certainly a vanity project for some Prophet, it is pretty unstoppable but not a very efficient use of resources, more a statement of power.

[Edited on 07.18.2011 6:13 AM PDT]

  • 07.18.2011 6:11 AM PDT

"I may not be perfect, but always been true."

Why would you have several Supercarriers that could potentially rebel and turn against you, instead of hundreds of ships that can't even hope to scratch the outer paint layer of the Forerunner Dreadnaught?

  • 07.18.2011 6:17 AM PDT

To be honest, when I first saw all this in the weekly update I thought 2 things.
#1- there is an actual legendary ending but,
#2- No matter what anyone does,(kill all the bobs, hit all switches etc) that until the "time" mentioned in "There'll be another time..." is reached there won't be a legendary ending.

The weekly update by bungie has slowed my hardcore search for what unlocks the legendary ending.


Posted by: ImmortalJoshua

Posted by: grey101
There is no excuse whatsoever for a single ship to wipe out 100, none in the covenants category.

1 salvo of MACs would be enough to take that thing, i am working out it the thousands of archer missiles would work also and this is at range.

There would be a few hundred if not atleast 1,000 fighters to take that thing down


the Super Carrier is the largest Covenant ship we've seen. It's shielding system must be extremely high. I doubt that a MAC round would go through the shields.
Also the Fall of Reach book has had several retcons before Reach's release. So get over these retcons
Imagine an assult carrier...


WITH 5X OVERSHIELDS!

  • 07.18.2011 6:35 AM PDT

To be honest, when I first saw all this in the weekly update I thought 2 things.
#1- there is an actual legendary ending but,
#2- No matter what anyone does,(kill all the bobs, hit all switches etc) that until the "time" mentioned in "There'll be another time..." is reached there won't be a legendary ending.

The weekly update by bungie has slowed my hardcore search for what unlocks the legendary ending.


Posted by: mojeda101
What about the Supercarrier the Pillar of Autumn destroyed above Reach?
that was a Super cruiser

  • 07.18.2011 6:40 AM PDT