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This topic has moved here: Subject: The Reapers>The Covenant.
  • Subject: The Reapers>The Covenant.
Subject: The Reapers>The Covenant.
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I think you've kind of missed the point, then threw blind ignorance in to try and fight a losing battle...

of course sentinels are weak and pathetic, but their shielding is still an example, on a much larger scale obviously it'd take more than 3 shots from a carbine to knock out.
but from what I've seen in both series, both forerunners and the alliance use kinetic shielding, which blocks solid shots, as Surperion93 said: the kinectic shielding will block the mass of the plasma (it IS an entity, it's a gooey superheated gas) so the mass of the plasma shot (which in the plasma torpedos is the explosive part) and only the heat will pass through to the reaper.

covenant shields are a crappy, reverse-engineered, dumbed down version of forerunner kinectic shielding, so is worse than forerunner shields. reaper shielding is CLEARLY superior, made evident through cutscenes, gameplay and the MEwiki

the covenant ships don't exactly have a main weapon, the glassing beam would serve no purpose, the torpedos can be dodged by the reapers unmatched speed, though some will inevitably hit, they will do very little damage, the lasers from covenant ships are not commonly used (lack of being mentioned in books and games) but pose a formidable offence against the reaper shields, as I said, 1 reaper vs a covenant fleet, the reaper would inevitably be destroyed, but a fleet of reapers would prove hard to focus an attack on a single ship.

as for sereph/spirit/phanton attacks, spirits and phantoms are useless without a dock to drop off troops (the shields would need to be down) and seraphs are weak, I have no doubt a reaper could either ignore them and take out the more important targets, or simply bat them out of space (as seen in ME)

you said:
"Your entire argument here is nullified because it's built off:
-Claim that Reaper shields are above Covie level
-Reaper kinetic barriers can somehow suddenly block energy based weapons"

firstly that hardly destroys and falsifies my entire argument,
secondly, I just described about energy based weapons.
thirdly, I don't know what made you think covenant shields are better than reaper shields, that's a pretty blind statement, I based my opinions on facts and references, only for you to say "no" in an attempt to disgruntle me.

the hierarch of shields in VERY simple terms:
reaper>forerunner>alliance>covenant>spartan>UN SC
(forerunner are only above the alliance because of forerunner alloys)

  • 09.07.2011 8:31 AM PDT

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What in the world makes you think that the forerunners are less advanced than the repears? Go to your bed now!
Forerunner shields aren't weak... I don't get what's wrong with you. They're not kinetic shields...

Do you know what it takes to bring down covenant shields? Way more than it took to for reaper.

  • 09.07.2011 8:37 AM PDT
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can you reference your claims of reapers having weak shields?
the best reference I can find for you is sovereign being under CONSTANT fire for ages, whilst being stunned and trying to unlock the citadel.
I'm not a massive ME fan, but I can see when something is damn-near indestructible, sovereign wasn't the biggest nor the best reaper, he was a scout, and he cut through the biggest alliance ship like butter

  • 09.07.2011 8:41 AM PDT

Wake me when the jews are gone.


Posted by: jakemaidment
you are forgeting something both in the games and in the books the covenant shielding tecnology is show stoping energy based weapons

  • 09.07.2011 8:59 AM PDT


Posted by: jakemaidment
can you reference your claims of reapers having weak shields?
the best reference I can find for you is sovereign being under CONSTANT fire for ages, whilst being stunned and trying to unlock the citadel.
I'm not a massive ME fan, but I can see when something is damn-near indestructible, sovereign wasn't the biggest nor the best reaper, he was a scout, and he cut through the biggest alliance ship like butter


I suggest you read through the thread another time. There is many evidence that the Reapers shielding is inferior in comparison to the Covenant. It could even be said that with the assembled information, Covenant weaponry is superior to that of the Reapers. This has been stated with calculated information. Although I don't think it's always as reliable, but maybe look at the HaloWiki. Even better, read Cryptum.

If you ignore all that, you are an ignorant ME-fanboy..

[Edited on 09.07.2011 9:07 AM PDT]

  • 09.07.2011 9:05 AM PDT
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it can take a certain amount of damage from any weaponry before it collapses, plasma does more damage to covenant shields because it is energy based.
kinetic shields (like forerunner and alliance) stop everything apart from heat/toxins/radiation

  • 09.07.2011 9:06 AM PDT

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FORERUNNERS DO NOT USE KINETIC SHIELDS. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT THAT THEN YOU'RE ONLY TROLLING.

  • 09.07.2011 9:08 AM PDT
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I've read through the halo books and cryptum, and I've read about forerunner shielding examples from there.
as I've said, I'm not a massive ME fan, so I don't know the minor details of alliance or reaper shielding, but from what I've seen in-game alliance shielding is ALOT like forerunner shielding (albeit weaker) and I saw sovereign plow through fully shielded alliance ships, I'm sure in a 1v1 between a reaper and a CSO class covie ship, the reaper would make quick work of the covenant.
I'll have another read through the rest of this topic, just in case I've missed any important references, but the way I see it, reapers are "the pinnacle of existence" I'm pretty sure over an eternity they've developed better shields than the covenant's crappy version

  • 09.07.2011 9:10 AM PDT


Posted by: jakemaidment
it can take a certain amount of damage from any weaponry before it collapses, plasma does more damage to covenant shields because it is energy based.
kinetic shields (like forerunner and alliance) stop everything apart from heat/toxins/radiation


If you can't read all the gathered information in the thread, then i suggest you stop trolling, as there is no way the Reapers could even win against the covenant, let alone a faction being maybe 20x as advanced.

  • 09.07.2011 9:11 AM PDT
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forerunners DO use kinectic shields, as shown in "ghosts of onyx" where bullets could not do any damage against the sentinels, the Spartan 3's resorted to throwing rocks as they weren't moving fast enough to trigger the kinetic barrier.

  • 09.07.2011 9:13 AM PDT


Posted by: jakemaidment
forerunners DO use kinectic shields, as shown in "ghosts of onyx" where bullets could not do any damage against the sentinels, the Spartan 3's resorted to throwing rocks as they weren't moving fast enough to trigger the kinetic barrier.


Assumptions. State the source where it is said, or assumed that the shielding the Forerunners use are kinetic barriers. And how do you know that Forerunner ships have the same shielding as sentinals?

  • 09.07.2011 9:19 AM PDT
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it only seems logical, who's going to throw rocks at their fortress class ship???
I based what I said on the fact that the covenant reverse-engineer everything from forerunner tech, so it's safe to presume (as their are no actual examples) that all forerunner tech is better than covenant tech by a long way, the only reference of shielding I have is sentinels, the majority of which use kinetic shielding, the ONLY exception is the sentinel enforcer, but from what I've seen it is a one-off, being called an "enforcer" most likely for controlling riots/outbreaks using the solid barriers as a form of riot shield.

even so with solid shielding, it makes little difference to a reapers ship-destroying central cannon, if anything may take 2 shots per ship as oppose to 1.

as for me being repeatedly called "ignorant" and a "ME fanboy"
I have referenced EVERYTHING and haven't taken a side to this, nothing I have wrote is bias, and what seems bias is based on facts that I have listed, IGNORING my references and examples is ignorant

  • 09.07.2011 9:27 AM PDT
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Member of Bungie.net for nearly three years, still continuing!

Enjoy what you have and live on.

My gamertag is Elder Bias


Posted by: jakemaidment
it only seems logical, who's going to throw rocks at their fortress class ship???
I based what I said on the fact that the covenant reverse-engineer everything from forerunner tech, so it's safe to presume (as their are no actual examples) that all forerunner tech is better than covenant tech by a long way, the only reference of shielding I have is sentinels, the majority of which use kinetic shielding, the ONLY exception is the sentinel enforcer, but from what I've seen it is a one-off, being called an "enforcer" most likely for controlling riots/outbreaks using the solid barriers as a form of riot shield.

even so with solid shielding, it makes little difference to a reapers ship-destroying central cannon, if anything may take 2 shots per ship as oppose to 1.

as for me being repeatedly called "ignorant" and a "ME fanboy"
I have referenced EVERYTHING and haven't taken a side to this, nothing I have wrote is bias, and what seems bias is based on facts that I have listed, IGNORING my references and examples is ignorant


Do you realize that Covenant is vastly superior to Reapers, right? We calculated that Covenant's firepower is based on megatons to gigatons range. AND the heat from the plasma based weapons will melt through ship as it passes through the shield.

I doubt Reapers can destroy Covenant in one shot. Do you realize that Covenant's destroyer or carrier or super carrier is much larger than Reapers, right? Yes, they do use glassing beam as weapon, it's called energy projector. It can melt through ships like butter.

Example: Fall of Reach, a supercruiser appears and fires energy projector and destroyed five UNSC ships on whim.

Um, what? Facts? Do you realize that "facts" were still inferior to Halo. For a example: 38 kiloton of TNT is weaker than UNSC's MAC.

I am sorry but anybody with half brain would know that it is obvious that Covenant will win against Reapers.

  • 09.07.2011 9:41 AM PDT

Jakemaidment, just because in another universe a race has wiped out all life a few times does not make them a super-power in every universe.

  • 09.07.2011 9:48 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Posted by: jakemaidment
who's going to throw rocks at their fortress class ship???


Rock throwing has proved to be lethal in the Halo universe. :P

  • 09.07.2011 9:51 AM PDT


Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Jakemaidment, just because in another universe a race has wiped out all life a few times does not make them a super-power in every universe.


It's hardly been a few times. It's heavily suggested it's been going on for a very long time. I would say possibly a few dozen times.

  • 09.07.2011 9:51 AM PDT

@jakemaidment
Actually, you are being ignorant. You ignore all calculated information in the thread, information that state that even the Covenant are above the Reapers.

-ME-shielding, or armour, collapses when it by so and so kiloton (the strongest ship of the Citadel forces even hitting in the low kilotons. That, while the Covenant hit with several megaton, and their shielding collapses under even more megaton.

-You assume Forerunner ships use the same shielding as sentinals, one of the weakest forms of 'infantry' they have. As you just said, you don't have any source that sentinals use the same shielding as ships. So what you're trying to say is?..



[Edited on 09.07.2011 9:53 AM PDT]

  • 09.07.2011 9:52 AM PDT
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FINALLY someone gives me a decent response without resorting to calling me a fanboy!
a reaper scout (sovereign) is est. 2km long with enough firepower to destroy the kinetic shield and alliance ship in one shot from the spinal cannon.
keeping in mind sovereign is a scout, eg: not the strongest reaper ship.

A covenant CSO class supercarrier, the largest covenant ship going is 28.9km long, this is considerably larger than a reaper scout, the energy shielding can take hundreds of archer missiles, a handfull of SHIVA nukes, a few MAC shots from a frigate or one single superMAC shot.
the downside to covenant shielding is that it goes down to fire the weapons.

the reaper ship being faster and more intelligent would (in my opinion) be able to dodge the glassing beam if it were to be used for ship-to-ship combat.
covenant plasma torpedos would be able to follow and track the reaper ship, I have no references to use that say a reaper could outrun a torpdeo.
the plasma turrets scattered on the ship are slow to fire and incredibly inaccurate, so would be useless (in my opinion)
the plasma lasers would however be accurate enough to hit the reaper and can do damage to the shields.

with all of this weaponry firing, It'd be safe to assume that a large portion of the ships shielding would be down.
as much as I hate to use halo: reach as an example, the mass driver at the end of the campaign fired at the unshielded glassing beam caused the ship to be destroyed, presuming a reaper cannon is as strong (iI have no doubt it's stronger) than a standard MAC, and with reaper intelligence and speed, a well placed shot could bypass the covenant shields altogether and destroy a CSO.

in my opinion the only effective weaponry for use against a reaper are the plasma lasers and torpedos, from what I have seen, I have no doubt a reaper ship could take out a CSO

  • 09.07.2011 9:56 AM PDT
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I LOL'D when I saw that, I completely forgot about that!
Henry Gibson's head =/= a fortress class ship though XD

  • 09.07.2011 9:59 AM PDT

By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.

Nazara wasn't a scout, he was the Reaper vanguard (classified as a dreadnaught by Benezia) tasked with making sure the relay to Dark Space was opened. Reapers range in size between 500m/2km.

Covenant ships are much bigger than that, they could plow through the Reapers with relative ease.

  • 09.07.2011 10:01 AM 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

of course sentinels are weak and pathetic, but their shielding is still an example, on a much larger scale obviously it'd take more than 3 shots from a carbine to knock out.
but from what I've seen in both series, both forerunners and the alliance use kinetic shielding, which blocks solid shots, as Surperion93 said: the kinectic shielding will block the mass of the plasma (it IS an entity, it's a gooey superheated gas) so the mass of the plasma shot (which in the plasma torpedos is the explosive part) and only the heat will pass through to the reaper.


Correction: Basic Sentinels

Other sentinels would annihilate everything in ME

What makes you think they use kinetic barriers?Forerunner shields block both kinetic damage and energy based weapons .

Civilians alone have something called N-barriers,Forerunner use different forms of shields but i have never even saw anything of kinetic barriers in Halo .


covenant shields are a crappy, reverse-engineered, dumbed down version of forerunner kinectic shielding, so is worse than forerunner shields. reaper shielding is CLEARLY superior, made evident through cutscenes, gameplay and the MEwiki

We are aware of the fact that Forerunner shields are superior to Covenant,but that's not relevant here as it's Covenant vs Reapers and not Forerunners vs Covenant.

inb4IJustUsedItForExample

Please explain why Covenant shields are "crappy" if those same shields protected Covie vessels against MAC shots,nukes and other energy based weapons .

WTF makes you think that Reaper shields are superior.Those shields only offer protection against projectiles and not energy based weapons,while Covie shields protect the vessel against nearly anything.And you call the Reaper shield superior?hahaha

the covenant ships don't exactly have a main weapon, the glassing beam would serve no purpose, the torpedos can be dodged by the reapers unmatched speed, though some will inevitably hit, they will do very little damage, the lasers from covenant ships are not commonly used (lack of being mentioned in books and games) but pose a formidable offence against the reaper shields, as I said, 1 reaper vs a covenant fleet, the reaper would inevitably be destroyed, but a fleet of reapers would prove hard to focus an attack on a single ship.

You claimed you read Halo books,yet you have no idea what you're saying.

-I suggest you watch the Halo 2 cutscene where Chief jumps into space with a covie bomb,then you see an energy projector gutting a Marathon Class Cruiser with ease.That's what will happen with a poor Reaper that would face that weapon,shields offer no protection,the projector will simply cut that Reaper in half.Don't you dare to say that again.

-Torpedos can accelerate up to a velocity off 130000 km/s(fall of reach),not to mention that it can follow the target.You will have to prove that a Reaper could outrun it or dodge it.

Torpedos are +30 megaton(Halo Reach),in First Strike a supercarrier had gigaton range torpedos...Reaper = boned

-Pulse lasers were shown alot in books(shows again that you never opened a Halo book).They were also seen in Halo legends the package episode.

We know it's a fleet vs fleet engagement but what your brain just doesn't get's is that most covie ships can kill a Reaper in a few shots (remember barriers offer no protection against most of the covie weapons),i shouldn't even mention that a single ccs class battlecruiser could fire large volley's of plasma torpedos which would overwhelm any defenses the Reaper would posses.

as for sereph/spirit/phanton attacks, spirits and phantoms are useless without a dock to drop off troops (the shields would need to be down) and seraphs are weak, I have no doubt a reaper could either ignore them and take out the more important targets, or simply bat them out of space (as seen in ME)

When did i even mentioned any dropship deployment against the Reapers?There is no point for the coviess to deploy troopers inside a Reaper unless it has Forerunner artifacts in it.Covie commanders wouldn't even think doing that.

You can always ignore starfighters that are a threat to a ship with bombing runs.



firstly that hardly destroys and falsifies my entire argument,
secondly, I just described about energy based weapons.
thirdly, I don't know what made you think covenant shields are better than reaper shields, that's a pretty blind statement, I based my opinions on facts and references, only for you to say "no" in an attempt to disgruntle me


Yes it does,you keep ignoring the fact that your Reaper shield is useless against energy based weapons unlike Covie shields.You have yet to present valid evidence that covie shields are inferior to Reaper shield,the only thing you did so far was suddenly throwing non existant Forerunner kinetic barriers in the fights and you magically conclude that Reaper shields pwnz all.

the hierarch of shields in VERY simple terms:
reaper>forerunner>alliance>covenant>spartan>UN SC
(forerunner are only above the alliance because of forerunner alloys)


No it's like this:

Forerunners>>>>>>Covenant>>>>&g t;>Reapers>>>>Alliance

The UNSC haven't any energy shields on their starships so why put them there,comparing Spartan shields to starship shields isn't fair either.But i bet Halo 4 will come with new UNSC ships with updated Forerunner tech and then the UNSC will be worth to mention inside that hierarch of shields.





  • 09.07.2011 10:10 AM PDT

Actually... we don't really have any information on Reaper shields. We can assume they act as kinetic barriers, but we don't know for sure. Their shielding methods can be completely different.

  • 09.07.2011 10:21 AM PDT

I don't get this discussion? How can a single canon on the surface of Reach destroy a ship with ease but in space a huge MAC canon down the spine of Sovereign couldn't do anything? I'm sure you guys are making refrences and using numbers but just tell me how you took out a ship with ease in Halo:Reach but for some reason it's impossible when a Reaper attempts it?
Plus we're all talking Ship V Ship combat?

Reapers are far superior to the UNSC so how the UNSC won against the Covenant? Because they got Spartans helping? What makes the UNSC better against the Covenant then a Reaper? The UNSC got pounded almost all the time...one Covie civil war later the UNSC are on their way to winning?

You guys do know Sovereign could probably start a civil war if he wanted to, he can convince organics to do anything given they spend enough time around him.

[Edited on 09.07.2011 10:34 AM PDT]

  • 09.07.2011 10:29 AM PDT
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first of all I NEED to state that halo: reach (the game) and the new trilogy shouldn't be used as an example, the storyline has become too bastardised, there are many threads proving this...

I did some research as you recommended, and found that the core of a reaper ship is made of 'element zero' in mass effect terms this means that a reaper ship is capable of increasing and decreasing it's weight at will, and able to deflect any mass in the vicinity of the ship, this means that plasma torpedos can be dissipated before getting anywhere near the shields.

it also means that anyone near the reaper for too long will naturally become indoctrinated (just throwing that out there)

AND means that reaper ships basically have in-built mass relays.
in halo terms, it can make ultra-accurate, long/short distance slipspace jumps without losing power (as covie ships do).
in short, this means that "outrunning" plasma torpedos/lasers is no matter, if you are so confident the reaper ship will be outgunned, it can simply jump to a safe location...maybe under the ship? the small size of the reaper ship (as you said 500m to 2km) means it could likely fit inside a CSO's hangar, I'm sure you can guess what it can do in there.

ontop of that, I found out that reapers have a "magnetohydrodynamic" weapon which ejects a stream of molten metal at a fraction of the speed of light that can cut and burn through any alliance ship (including it's kinetic shield)
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Reaper

when you mentioned about the halo 2 cutscene (return to sender) you forgot to mention that UNSC ships don't have ANY shielding, and ANY plasma damage will burn through the layers of hull, your comparison was blind at best, as reaper ships have kinetic shielding, a reaper-alloy hull and can dissipate mass coming towards them.
no covenant weaponry would be able to cut a reaper in half, the hull strength (from what I've seen) is comparable to forerunner alloy, and the shields able to take ALOT of punishment (ME cutscenes)
whether you think a covenant ship can slice through one or not, the facts are there, 2 UNSC frigates can take on a CCS with well-timed MAC shots, they couldn't do that to a reaper.
(for the record alliance>UNSC clearly, there is no way you can argue that)

as I've said numerous times, I'm not a mega ME fanboy or anything, so I don't know anything about precise shield strengths or anything, some of this info I'm using now has come from a friend who knows a lot about ME
my point I'm trying to put across is that, with bias opinions aside for both sides, sovereign was ONLY taken out because his long range weaponry was down, he was stunned, he was trying to unlock the citadel and because you can't end a game on mass extinction.

  • 09.07.2011 10:39 AM 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


Posted by: Surperion93
I don't get this discussion? How can a single canon on the surface of Reach destroy a ship with ease but in space a huge MAC canon down the spine of Sovereign couldn't do anything? I'm sure you guys are making refrences and using numbers but just tell me how you took out a ship with ease in Halo:Reach but for some reason it's impossible when a Reaper attempts it?
Plus we're all talking Ship V Ship combat?

Reapers are far superior to the UNSC so how the UNSC won against the Covenant? Because they got Spartans helping? What makes the UNSC better against the Covenant then a Reaper? The UNSC got pounded almost all the time...one Covie civil war later the UNSC are on their way to winning?

You guys do know Sovereign could probably start a civil war if he wanted to, he can convince organics to do anything given they spend enough time around him.


The portion around the charging glassing beam was unshieled for that moment,that's why.

In space it will be nigh impossible because sections around weapons will only stay unshielded for a sec.

The UNSC weren't even winning during the civil war.Earths defenses were wiped out during the civil war.The separtist fleets were the ones that defeated Truths fleets.

That last sentence is a despair attempt to give the Reapers an advantage because you know they are outmatched in this fight.

  • 09.07.2011 10:43 AM PDT