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Alien Vs Sc Terran


Adun_Toridas

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Ah, ooh! Ah!

 

Battlecruisers

 

-v- Battleships

A fleet of battlecruisers are no doubt one of the more awesome sights in starcraft (next to hordes of Protoss carriers). However, they are slow and can do moderate damage on their own (and are often sitting ducks for a variety of ground units). Their yamato cannon is their crowning achievement - mainly as a means of destroying long range defence structures.

 

Now, the alien's battleship is far more compact and many times smaller than a battlecruiser (see the Broodwar intro - Battlecruisers are massive!), but they much faster and have an awesome plasma cannon. Whether or not it can match a battlecruiser's ATA lasers and yamato cannon is unknown at this point in time.

 

In terms of mobility and mass production, the battleships have a distinct edge. In terms of sheer firepower, I'd say the battlecruiser sits at the top. However, by its size, I'd say the battlecruiser takes a LOT of time and resources to construct.

 

My vote goes to the battleship though, because they've got a known disco room on board to keep the troops happy (oh, and it doubles as a transport). We don't know what's on board a battlecruiser, so eh. ;)

 

Wraith

 

-v- any UFO

Um, wraiths are mildly fast and can cloak. But that's it, really. Their cloaking is by far their best weapon against unspecting UFOs by sneaking up to them and pummeling them en-masse - assuming the aliens cannot detect the pilots mentally. The UFOs, having superior firepower, can blow wraiths away easily and run away very quickly. Yes, the aliens really can run away very quickly!

 

For scouting, the Wraith is excellent. Slow and can only scout for short periods while the cloak generator's batteries hold out, but adequate. UFO scouts are incredibly fast, and that's about it.

 

Valkyrie

Pretty worthless ship on its own, with good armour but very weak missiles. But you definitely do not want to get caught fighting these in a massive group. The UFOs still have the speed advantage, and the halo rockets aren't particularly good at homing in on anything. The aliens would have to take a more evasive approach to fighting these.

 

Goliaths

 

-v- any UFO

Death to UFOs, if they're stupid enough to hang around. Death to the Goliaths if they're up against the capital ships.

 

-v- Sectopod

Small -v- large mech. I've absolutely no opinion on this one except that the sectopod would have the far superior gun, and takes minor damage from armour piercing rounds, but in terms of size, the Goliath wins.

 

-v- anything else

The terrans have a distinct ground advantage here, unless the pilot gets psid, if there are blaster bombs or if the Goliath gets attacked by multiple targets. Cyberdiscs would be blasted to bit before they get a chance to get close... unless they frisbee into the goliath while they're crashing.

 

Vultures

Um, they're fast and they've got spider mines. What more do you want? Death to slow moving melee units when using hit-and-run tactics (like when used against Zealots). But otherwise they have a tendancy to blow up to most anything.

 

Seige Tanks

Anyone that can creep up close to a Seige tank in seige mode can knock it out before it has a chance to retract its supports and transform its arclite cannon. Short of that, blaster bombs can wipe them out. Flying units like cyberdiscs can also deal with them mercilessly. But as long as the gunner can see any oncoming enemies, the only way to stop this would be to send in flyers or to send several waves of chaff units from several different directions at the same time. Not even sectopods can last after multiple long range attacks. Chryssalids might be able to suvive a shot and get in close enough to nullify the tank's range advantage. Also tanks can shoot far, but they cannot see very far. So if the aliens can attack the tanks from beyond its visibility range, they'll be able to knock it out.

 

Marines, Firebats, Medics, Ghosts

Not too much of an opinion here, as we can imagine any one of these roles (except the Ghost) as being played by X-Com soldiers in the X-com games.

 

The medics would indeed be far superior to your standard alien medic, mostly because of her instant acting spells. You can actually win a few Broodwar games by just using a bunch of marines, medics and a handful of strategy. I can't see those fairly dumb floater medics offering such valuable support as that. ;) (actually it was never built in to the game, so we never know...)

 

The Ghosts cloak. That's about it really, and like the Wraiths are best at scouting, or when using surprise attacks. Apart from that, they're easy pickings in most games. As they are psi units, I'm sure they can defend from psionic attacks a lot better than your average marine and their emotion supressors - but would this make it easier for them to be detected by psionic aliens? Against aliens like snakemen and floaters, even one Ghost could run them over.

 

Ooh, terran buildings can fly. Great way to change your address once the aliens have decided to go on retaliation missions. The aliens just give up a base as soon as their command tables have been blown up. Silly aliens. Just because they can no longer play their equivalent of cards doesn't mean the whole base has to be shut down! ;)

 

Ah, what else. Ah, yes, science vessels. Lovely devices (particularly vs. the Protoss), although by that cutscene where the squad of marines detonate a science vessel, I get the impression that these are giant space-station sized ships. I can't really compare it to any other ships that the aliens might have, as all the aliens have their scanning abilities built into their vessels, and they don't have a shield generator or an irradiate attack (that'd devestate most ground units). I don't see the aliens suffering much from EMP attacks either.

 

As for nukes, I'll just leave that topic alone.

 

Again, hard to say who I'm in favour of.

 

- NKF

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Terrans. Don´t forget that X-COM Terran being less advanced than SC ones, defeated the aliens. And had no fleet....

 

About BC. My god, you are right NKF!!! BC are like cities!!! But let´s compare with something. If an alien battleship with it´s beam makes about 150 of damage (media) to my firestorm, and the fighter´s laser gives about 50 of damage, then we could compare the fighter laser to wraith´s one. so it would be 8*3 as 50*3 the real measure. Then the battleship damage is about 24-6 (of BC armor) = 18. Next, if we think that an alien battleship resist a media of 10 good plama hits (with 140 of damage) the life will be of about 24*10=240.

 

So in an encounter Battlecruiser vs Battleship (in-game) BC would win with 500 of life, 6 of armor and 34 of damage, vs 240 life, 0 of armor and 18 of damage. But not only one but two or even three with yamato cannon. So there is no chance against a BC. Furthermore, the laser weapons reload quicker than plasma ones.

 

About Nukes. If i use dynamite, then atomic bombs... Do we use atomic bombs in such as small quantities to become like a dynamite shell? the same with hydronukes vs atomic ones. Do we use hydrobombs like atomic ones? My god!!! hydronukes are far powerful than atomic and we use them as what they are, and do happen with antimatter ones. When talking about explosives, we replace one with the other IF THE NEW ONE IS MORE POWERFULL AND WE USE IT LIKE THAT, AS MORE POWERFULL. So, anti ones are more powerfull than fusion ones. In adittion to this, an antimatter explosion would be thousands of times stronger than a fusion one.

 

About Tanks. Well tanks power might be put into doubt but RANGE could not. Don´t forget that they are not infatry weapons, they are artillery plataforms with miles of distance.

 

About Wraiths... well, i think wraiths may easily take out even battleships. Remember that what you can´t see you can´t kill :devillaugh: Also to perform invisible and devastating attacks to ground forces.

 

Infantry are like XCOM guys... so it depends on training (or on the toys rescued and investigated).

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Terrans. Don´t forget that X-COM Terran being less advanced than SC ones, defeated the aliens. And had no fleet....

 

About BC. My god, you are right NKF!!! BC are like cities!!! But let´s compare with something. If an alien battleship with it´s beam makes about 150 of damage (media) to my firestorm, and the fighter´s laser gives about 50 of damage, then we could compare the fighter laser to wraith´s one. so it would be 8*3 as 50*3 the real measure. Then the battleship damage is about 24-6 (of BC armor) = 18. Next, if we think that an alien battleship resist a media of 10 good plama hits (with 140 of damage) the life will be of about 24*10=240.

 

So in an encounter Battlecruiser vs Battleship (in-game) BC would win with 500 of life, 6 of armor and 34 of damage, vs 240 life, 0 of armor and 18 of damage. But not only one but two or even three with yamato cannon. So there is no chance against a BC. Furthermore, the laser weapons reload quicker than plasma ones.

 

About Nukes. If i use dynamite, then atomic bombs... Do we use atomic bombs in such as small quantities to become like a dynamite shell? the same with hydronukes vs atomic ones. Do we use hydrobombs like atomic ones? My god!!! hydronukes are far powerful than atomic and we use them as what they are, and do happen with antimatter ones. When talking about explosives, we replace one with the other IF THE NEW ONE IS MORE POWERFULL AND WE USE IT LIKE THAT, AS MORE POWERFULL. So, anti ones are more powerfull than fusion ones. In adittion to this, an antimatter explosion would be thousands of times stronger than a fusion one.

 

About Tanks. Well tanks power might be put into doubt but RANGE could not. Don´t forget that they are not infatry weapons, they are artillery plataforms with miles of distance.

 

About Wraiths... well, i think wraiths may easily take out even battleships. Remember that what you can´t see you can´t kill  :devillaugh: Also to perform invisible and devastating attacks to ground forces.

 

Infantry are like XCOM guys... so it depends on training (or on the toys rescued and investigated).

 

1. More advanced does not mean superior. Look at star trek. Without orbital bombardment, trek loses to modern earth.

 

1.5: In addition, the only way X-Com defeated the aliens was through co-opting their tech. Fortunately, the aliens performed lots of scouting missions before they started swarming Earth with battleships. The aliens probably won't do this, seeing as there's nothing they'd really want that the Terrans have. Further, the Terran scientists are far less able than X-Com scientists. Within a year, X-Com can go from shooting down their first UFO to launching an Avenger to Cydonia. Terran Scientists have most likely been researching captured Protoss equipment for years and we still haven't even heard of any benefits from their research.

 

2. About BC: Not going to fly given that Battleships have a much greater range. In the high kilometers in fact. Combine that with the Aliens' greater speed, and you've got a lot of dead BCs. heck, it'd be like shooting at a medium scout with an avenger/dual plasmas. The Battleship can use its superior speed to stay out of range of everything but the Yamato cannon (which can probably be dodged by the nimble UFO) and pummel it with plasma beams. That's even assuming that your weapons comparison is accurate, which I address below.

 

2.5: Further, comparing the X-Com laser cannon to the wraith one is folley. They are totally different weapons. X-Com lasers can down a fighter sized target in a few hits (Small Scout.) Wraith lasers, if they could shoot at aerial targets, would take dozens of hits to destroy a fighter (wraith.) Also remember that the Small Scout is made of alien alloys, which have proven to be stronger than Terran armor.

 

3. There are other concerns relating to deploying anti-matter in your strategic or tactical weapons. Like safety for one. If your containment system fails for even an instant, your nuke or what have you will explode inside your base. But I digress. Anti-matter is far more compact than plutonium. Therefore, you can make a nuke smaller, faster, and harder to intercept if it's got a small anti-matter payload compared to a plutonium one. And since Terran nukes can't even demolish a command center in a single blast, well, I think it's obvious that they went for the smaller and harder to intercept mindset when designing their nukes.

 

3.5: Once again, you don't understand. Anti-matter is not automatically more powerful than a fusion bomb or a fission bomb. What matters is how much anti-matter is in the warhead. Probably not much given safety concerns and the relatively small amount of damage the missiles cause compared to a real tactical nuke.

 

4. Tanks are direct fire weapons for the most part, not artillery pieces. Further, if you want to say that Siege tanks in real life have miles of range, I can say the same thing about sectopods. Game balance arguements don't work. At any rate, The aliens rely more upon infantry than tanks. And since properly eqiupped infantry are usually the counter to tanks in anything but a great open field...

 

5. Wraiths can also only cloak for a limited time. In addition, they may be detected even when they do cloak by the aliens' psionic detection sensors (referenced in the Mind Shield UFOpedia entry.) Further, the Wraiths are far slower than even the slowest UFO and their aren't anywhere near as manouverable. I'd say that Wraiths get owned in the air and space. On the ground, their cloaking may be useful, but you've got to remember how weak their lasers are. They'll be able to kill a few sectoids before they have to decloak, but I wouldn't count on them being particularly valuable in the overall strategy.

 

6. Infantry are like X-Com troopers. Fact. The only problem is that X-Com troopers were relatively impotent against the more lethal alien races without laser rifles or plasmas. In addition, Terran infantry weapons are incapable of killing an unarmored civilian in a single hit, where as even an X-Com rifle can do that usually. So either Terran civilians have become bulletproof in the future, or Terran (and Zerg, and Protoss) weapons are extremely weak.

 

Oh, and NKF, the medics won't be as helpful as you think. You're dealing with weapons that will pretty much be one hit kills against any marines or firebats they hit.

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1. You say i do assertions but you are doing that also with sectopods, wraiths (dont jugde in-game power and range as it´s balanced) and civilians. Now, prove that sectopods have miles of distance. At last siege tanks have siege mode and that suggest artillery. :Coffee:

 

2. Think that warhead only takes a little space on the bomb. Most size comes from proplusion systems so... it´s not the case to say that beacuse antimatter is more compact, it´ll be harder to intercept. At last, the bomb will reduce it´s size a little but not enough, so it´s the explosive power that counts.

 

Read this article. http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/ANTIMATTER.htm so you´ll get info about the REAL power of antimatter toys. :devillaugh:

 

3. Wraith´s cloack is an unknown factor. But to be effective, it MUST be longer than a few moments as you said. If Wraith´s laser are so weak... i recomend you to review SC cinematic sequences, specially the one in wich they destroy a large ship with only a few hits.

 

4. About BC... you are comparing with unknown factors. First, you don´t know the BC real speed, if i said it was about 250000 km/h was because i read it in a book (soon i´ll get you the tittle so don´t worry) Second, you don´t know BC range and ATA´s battery firepower. The comparison i did was based in game, and was an aproximately one based in-game units. But not a real one, then don´t forget that BC can resist and antimatter bomb (about 100 times the power of a fusion ball, only if the fusion ball were as powerfull as a nuke) then, if you think on the battleship, he´s dead with only a few... And as i remember, to resist such as great bomb, conventional steel would not be enough so...here you got the point for NEOSTEEL :rock: . But with real comparisons, you can´t say anything about range. Perhaps the BC ATA´S has more and... but is something that we both don´t know (i´m not including yamato gun´s)

 

5. If you play the sickel addon (good check by blizzard) you will see that hercules battle station has shields. So terran scientist are not so stupid, it´s the man all in all, and that can not be measured.

 

6. Noone goes to war without investigating the enemy. That´s stupid, so aliens will send scouts that will be intercepted and... you know what´s next.

 

7. And the final factor. Adaptability. Humans adapt themselves to different enviroments, and so they can supere their enemies. They did it in XCOM with limited resources. Would´nt SC units have more resources than XCOM ones? Remember that they are in a totalitary goverment and as that, they do not have taxes or congress or whatever politics obstacle that XCOM units had.

 

P.S. too many people is voting without argumenting... that´s strange.

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P.S. too many people is voting without argumenting... that´s strange.

 

Facehugger is doing all the argumenting needed.

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I think it's rather simple: Assuming that armour is more or less equal across the board, we're left with the conclusion that Terran guns are dramatically underpowered and Alien guns are dramatically overpowered.

On nukes, the assumption that more advanced mean more powerful is totally bunk and can be knocked out just by compairing the raw yield of ICBM warheads in 1965 and today.

In 1965, the Minute Man II was introduced, packing a single warhead with a raw yield of one megaton. The Peacekeeper missile (introduced 1986) has ten warheads yielding 350 kilotons a pop originally but currently pack just 300. The most common ICBM/Warhead in America's arsenal today is the Minute Man III/W-78, which yields 335 ktons. The most common warhead in the US arsenal sits atop the... Anyways, long story short, yields were big, now they're small.

 

Also, if the aliens are getting their asses handed to them by Terran supernukes, whats to prevent them from building a blaster bomb the size of the Empire State Building and just blowing up the whole freaken planet?

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1. You say i do assertions but you are doing that also with sectopods, wraiths (dont jugde in-game power and range as it´s balanced) and civilians. Now, prove that sectopods have miles of distance. At last siege tanks have siege mode and that suggest artillery.  :Coffee:

 

2. Think that warhead only takes a little space on the bomb. Most size comes from proplusion systems so... it´s not the case to say that beacuse antimatter is more compact, it´ll be harder to intercept. At last, the bomb will reduce it´s size a little but not enough, so it´s the explosive power that counts.

 

Read this article. http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/ANTIMATTER.htm so you´ll get info about the REAL power of antimatter toys.  :devillaugh:

 

3. Wraith´s cloack is an unknown factor. But to be effective, it MUST be longer than a few moments as you said. If Wraith´s laser are so weak... i recomend you to review SC cinematic sequences, specially the one in wich they destroy a large ship with only a few hits.

 

4. About BC... you are comparing with unknown factors. First, you don´t know the BC real speed, if i said it was about 250000 km/h was because i read it in a book (soon i´ll get you the tittle so don´t worry) Second, you don´t know BC range and ATA´s battery firepower. The comparison i did was based in game, and was an aproximately one based in-game units. But not a real one, then don´t forget that BC can resist and antimatter bomb (about 100 times the power of a fusion ball, only if the fusion ball were as powerfull as a nuke) then, if you think on the battleship, he´s dead with only a few... And as i remember, to resist such as great bomb, conventional steel would not be enough so...here you got the point for NEOSTEEL  :rock: . But with real comparisons, you can´t say anything about range. Perhaps the BC ATA´S has more and... but is something that we both don´t know (i´m not including yamato gun´s)

 

5. If you play the sickel addon (good check by blizzard) you will see that hercules battle station has shields. So terran scientist are not so stupid, it´s the man all in all, and that can not be measured.

 

6. Noone goes to war without investigating the enemy. That´s stupid, so aliens will send scouts that will be intercepted and... you know what´s next.

 

7. And the final factor. Adaptability. Humans adapt themselves to different enviroments, and so they can supere their enemies. They did it in XCOM with limited resources. Would´nt SC units have more resources than XCOM ones? Remember that they are in a totalitary goverment and as that, they do not have taxes or congress or whatever politics obstacle that XCOM units had.

 

P.S. too many people is voting without argumenting... that´s strange.

 

1. As I implied earlier, I don't believe that Sectopods can fire miles of distance. That's just another arguement to show you that "Unit X can only do this ingame, but in real life they are so much better because the game's balanced" is not a viable tactic when you're debating two games.

 

Conceeded about the Siege Artillery though. The ingame model looks like the turret raises at an angle, as opposed to a normal tank cannon or field gun.

 

2. That is true, missiles are mostly engine and tracking device. But if you went with anti-matter, you'd have to work out a good containment system, which takes up space and adds cost. So to have an anti-matter bomb equal to a nuke, you can use a smaller warhead, but the space you saved will be taken up by containment measures, less the nuke explode inside your base. So, in essence, you've got something equivelent to a normal nuke at a much greater cost with a far greater margin for error.

 

Okay, that site you posted has only bare bones information. First off, anti-matter is theoretically one hundred percent efficient. The problem is that the 100% efficiency figure refers to the absolute upper limit, assuming that each and every atom and subatomic particle reacts with the anti-matter at once. Not too likely, given that most of an atom is just empty space, with a small nucleus in the center and even smaller electrons circling around it. That 100% efficiency figure assumes that each and every particle will react, that none will get tossed away by other particles reacting with the anti-matter. It also assumes that the particles will get close enough to hit at all, not at all a given since these matter and anti-matter atoms will be repelling each other as much as they attract each other.

 

3. I said that a Wraith's cloak doesn't last too long. It certainly lasts more than a few seconds, but I doubt that it lasts for more than a few hours.

 

As for the wraith laser, why did they fire more than once at the tiny confederate sattelite in that scene if one laser was enough to do the job? Surely they wouldn't want to waste power and by extension fuel...? I don't remember the orbital platform they shot at, so I'm not even going to try and argue about that one. Ingame though, the lasers are really weak, and that's what I was basing them on.

 

4. As for the anti-matter, as I said above, the only advantage of anti-matter is that it is more efficient than fusion. We don't know that it's more powerful because as I said earlier, what you get is dependent on how much anti-matter you put in. You're assuming that the Terrans use the same amount of anti-matter in their nukes as they would plutonium or deuterium. This is probably not the case due to two things: Cost (anti-matter takes an incredible amount of energy and therefore money to produce) and Safety (You need really good containment systems or your anti-matter bomb will explode on your base before you get a chance to use it.

 

I'm waiting with bated breath for the battlecruiser quote.

 

Finally, for the neosteel: Until you can give me a quantifiable yield for the anti-matter bombs (or even just how much anti-matter they use, which I can use to calculate yield) we don't know how effective it is. That it can resist anti-matter bombs when we don't know how much anti-matter the bombs contain is useless. For the Battleships vs fusion bomb scenario, we can assume that for the absolute lower limit, they can resist 1 kiloton of energy, which IIRC is the minimum yield for a fusion device. Not like lower limits mean very much in this situation though.

 

5. Where can I find this addon? I've never even heard of it.

 

6. True. But remember that most of the alien recon missions in X-Com were based around harvesting people and animals, as well as finding X-Com bases and terror site locales. If the aliens were just going to annhilate the Terrans, there certainly wouldn't be as many scouting missions.

 

7. X-Com scientists are in a class of their own. They can go from barely understanding alien alloys to manufacturing fully functional assault troop transports that are better than anything the aliens have produced within a year. To contrast, the Terrans have probably been studying protoss technology since the first time they fought the protoss and recovered destroyed protoss materials and equipment. We see no advances as a result of this research. No improved marine armor or similar inventions. What we do get, Valkeries and Medics, come from Earth, not from the Colonies.

 

Now, I don't know the timeframe of Starcraft, but I'd wager that it's more than a year. In that year, X-Com went from a group of cannon fodder with weak rifles to plasma toting, powered armored assault troops that are psionically capable. X-Com humans advance hideously fast. heck, even the *official* timeline says that the first alien war lasted only five years, and much of that time was trying to find where the alien's main base was while holding the line against the aliens' superior numbers. Five years is not a long time to research and reproduce (and even improve upon!) completely alien technology.

 

SC humans don't advance so fast. If they did, we'd be seeing new equipment that uses protoss technology, materials, or designs. X-Com humans are masters of reverse engineering, but the Terrans aren't.

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger
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Infantry Comparison:

 

It seems as though most alien equipment is designed to be resistant to armour piercing projectiles. Terran tech does not seem so resistant to plasma weapons.

Plasma weapons seem to have less volume of fire, but cause way more damage. Proper tactics and efforts to limit engagment corridors would put the aliens at an advantage.

Chryssalids would be slightly more threatening than Zerglings.

 

Infantry Support:

 

The siege tanks have an advantage, considering the aliens do not have a heavy artillery option. BBs help the aliens in terms of support. When comparing production time and deployment, Goliath and Sectopod assessts even out. One on one the Goliath wins.

 

Air Battles:

 

Battleships and smaller ships could peck the BC to death. BC would need adequate small-ship cover in order to bring theri guns on the infantry.

Science vessels would be a bane to ground forces with the irradiation gun.

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One on one the Goliath wins. 

 

Now that I disagree with. Goliaths are larger, but they've got light, most likely 12.7 mm autocannons. Sectopods take 40mm shells (from the Heavy Cannon) like candy. Plus, Sectopods also have a plasma cannon that is far more powerful than a 40mm cannon. Unless the Goliath has a laser hidden away, it loses by virtue of not being able to effectively harm a sectopod before the sectopod blasts it away with a plasma blast.

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1. Even if the eficiency were not be about 100 percent, it´ll be more than 1 percen of Hidronukes, I mean, if i find something that is MORE EFICIENT THAN MINE TOYS, and that has more potential destructive power... i use it. And if i find it difficult to use, i research a way to use it easily.

 

2. If Terran use antimatter bombs, that means that Terrans has the tecnology to contain the antimatter. for example, Have you ever thought about the imposibility of using plama weapons?. Look this article (AND READ IT) and you´ll know how so hard is to use plama guns http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays...smaWeapons.html

 

But still aliens use them. So they have the tecnology to use this guns so they use it. Therefore, the terran has also the tecnology to use Antimatter efficiently and with cost reduced, or they would´nt use them.

 

3. Here my friend, you have some info about sickel addon http://members.fortunecity.com/sickel77/html/faq.html

 

hope you to purchase and install it, i know you´ll like it as i did. Here you´ll also find the Hercules, the last step in human-protoss tecnology.

 

4. Aliens know the XCOM world. But they don´t know the SC world, so in order to investigate the strenght of the enemy they WILL send scouts. (One always has to know the foe before attacking them) f.e, the UED did not attacked the Protoss and Zerg in a fight against unknown. They investigated first, and so did the aliens, not in XCOM time (1999) but much before in that history.

 

5. Another important point is that Alien´s Ufos use Ufo Navigation Systems. And those systems that manages UFO´s another systems are based on COMPUTERS (read UFOPEDIA). Worse, those computers are similar to human ones, and can be produced with allien alloy. So those systems are vulnerable to EMP (Human systems are, and as they are alike...) then, imagine what a single vessel could do to a group of UFO´s...

 

6. It´s the man, right. If you play the Sickel you will see the advances of terran tecnology. Furthermore, don´t forget that Protoss Tecnology is superior to Aliens one. Why? Because:

 

a. Protoss use Shields and psi blades: What does it mean? That protoss dominate psi tecnology better than aliens. Aliens at last know how to MC, but Protoss are able to get that energy out of mind. In Real enviroment. In adition to hhis, they are able even to give shields to their machines.

 

b. Protoss dominate Dimensional Travel: Dont forget the arbiter, Which is not only able to seperate units from reality making them invisible, but also to freeze into dimensional spaces and to teleport units, so they go even faster than hyperspace jumping.

 

c. Protoss don´t use single laser. They have advanced more in this field, so they use photon cannon and phase guns. Therefore, it´s highly concentrated ball of light that even the aliens would´nt be able to produce (Aliens still use lasers, like in alien surgery) Moreover, they use psi shokwaves, pulse cannons and lots more weaponary.

 

d. Protoss don´t use e115, a material able to be understood by terran´s science point of view (phisics) but they use pylongs that brings psi energy. And the aliens have not developed yet such as method to give energy, only by being near of something.

 

Then, it´s MUCH HARDER to investigate a more advanced tecnology. Think that, alien fusion bombs f.e. are mini hidronukes, and we use them today. So the XCOM investigators does´nt have to give a so gigantic step to get them. Moreover, plasma guns are being investigated today. So, it´s not that SC scientist are stupid. But had to change completely their minds to get the new ideas (of psi shields and photon cannon f.e as you will se in sickel´s hercules). On the other hand, XCOM guys only got a little step to use allien toys.

 

7. About Tanks, don´t forget that they transform and has 2 functions. Like tanks and like Artillery sites.

 

8. I know that this article gives barely info, but it´s to give an IDEA of the power. O.K. the power also depends on the antimatter you put into the bomb. So there are 2 class of nuclear warheads.

 

a. Tactical. Less Powerful.

b. Strategical. More Powerful.

 

But i have both. And if i need power i WILL use Strategical ones (with LOTS of antimatter) so there will be no guy running over there. Remember, POWER is what really cares, and if i can reach it i will not try to reduce it.

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1. Even if the eficiency were not be about 100 percent, it´ll be more than 1 percen of Hidronukes, I mean, if i find something that is MORE EFICIENT THAN MINE TOYS, and that has more potential destructive power... i use it. And if i find it difficult to use, i research a way to use it easily.

 

2. If Terran use antimatter bombs, that means that Terrans has the tecnology to contain the antimatter. for example, Have you ever thought about the imposibility of using plama weapons?. Look this article (AND READ IT) and you´ll know how so hard is to use plama guns http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays...smaWeapons.html

 

But still aliens use them. So they have the tecnology to use this guns so they use it. Therefore, the terran has also the tecnology to use Antimatter efficiently and with cost reduced, or they would´nt use them.

 

3. Here my friend, you have some info about sickel addon http://members.fortunecity.com/sickel77/html/faq.html

 

hope you to purchase and install it, i know you´ll like it as i did. Here you´ll also find the Hercules, the last step in human-protoss tecnology.

 

4. Aliens know the XCOM world. But they don´t know the SC world, so in order to investigate the strenght of the enemy they WILL send scouts. (One always has to know the foe before attacking them) f.e, the UED did not attacked the Protoss and Zerg in a fight against unknown. They investigated first, and so did the aliens, not in XCOM time (1999) but much before in that history.

 

5. Another important point is that Alien´s Ufos use Ufo Navigation Systems. And those systems that manages UFO´s another systems are based on COMPUTERS (read UFOPEDIA). Worse, those computers are similar to human ones, and can be produced with allien alloy. So those systems are vulnerable to EMP (Human systems are, and as they are alike...) then, imagine what a single vessel could do to a group of UFO´s...

 

6. It´s the man, right. If you play the Sickel you will see the advances of terran tecnology. Furthermore, don´t forget that Protoss Tecnology is superior to Aliens one. Why? Because:

 

a. Protoss use Shields and psi blades: What does it mean? That protoss dominate psi tecnology better than aliens. Aliens at last know how to MC, but Protoss are able to get that energy out of mind. In Real enviroment. In adition to hhis, they are able even to give shields to their machines.

 

b. Protoss dominate Dimensional Travel: Dont forget the arbiter, Which is not only able to seperate units from reality making them invisible, but also to freeze into dimensional spaces and to teleport units, so they go even faster than hyperspace jumping.

 

c. Protoss don´t use single laser. They have advanced more in this field, so they use photon cannon and phase guns. Therefore, it´s  highly concentrated ball of light that even the aliens would´nt be able to produce (Aliens still use lasers, like in alien surgery) Moreover, they use psi shokwaves, pulse cannons and lots more weaponary.

 

d. Protoss don´t use e115, a material able to be understood by terran´s science point of view (phisics) but they use pylongs that brings psi energy. And the aliens have not developed yet such as method to give energy, only by being near of something.

 

Then, it´s MUCH HARDER to investigate a more advanced tecnology. Think that, alien fusion bombs f.e. are mini hidronukes, and we use them today. So the XCOM investigators does´nt have to give a so gigantic step to get them. Moreover, plasma guns are being investigated today. So, it´s not that SC scientist are stupid. But had to change completely their minds to get the new ideas (of psi shields and photon cannon f.e as you will se in sickel´s hercules). On the other hand, XCOM guys only got a little step to use allien toys.

 

7. About Tanks, don´t forget that they transform and has 2 functions. Like tanks and like Artillery sites.

 

8. I know that this article gives barely info, but it´s to give an IDEA of the power. O.K. the power also depends on the antimatter you put into the bomb. So there are 2 class of nuclear warheads.

 

a. Tactical. Less Powerful.

b. Strategical. More Powerful.

 

But i have both. And if i need power i WILL use Strategical ones (with LOTS of antimatter) so there will be no guy running over there. Remember, POWER is what really cares, and if i can reach it i will not try to reduce it.

 

1. Yes of course. I do not dispute that Anti-Matter is more efficient in causing destruction than deuterium fusion, or plutonium fission. What I dispute is your claim that Terran Anti-Matter nukes are hundreds of times more powerful than modern nukes, because you haven't told me how much anti-matter terran nukes have. Anti-matter isn't like plutonium, it doesn't have a critical mass that is required for an explosion. For all we know, there are only a few milliigrams of anti-matter in a terran nuke. Given its use as a tactica nuclear weapon, it probably doesn't have much more anyway, but I digress.

 

If you used an equivelent amout of anti-matter in an AM bomb as you do plutonium in a fission bomb, you'd get a much more massive and powerful explosion. The problem is that Terran nukes don't demonstrate anywhere near that kind of yield, so we are forced to conclude that they use less anti-matter than they would plutonium in a fission bomb. Because, let's face it. If terran nukes used several pounds of anti-matter (the critical mass for a fission bomb), the whole planet would be contaminated for thousands of years. As well as having a huge chunk blown out of it. Anything Hit with a nuke would be vaporized instantly, and there would be a massive crater where the target was.

 

2. Of course the Terrans have the technology to contain the anti-matter. My point is that the containment systems (not to mention the redundancies that would be necessary to prevent the thing from blowing up on the launch pad) will take up a lot of space. Conventional Nukes are finely tuned devices, if just one step fails, the nuke won't explode. Anti-matter bombs are the opposite. If just one thing fails they will explode, completely destroying the area they exploded at. Therefore, the Terrans, unless they are totally incompetent, must use a lot of redundancy in their anti-matter containment systems. And that redundancy takes space. Space that you wouldn't need for a fission/fusion device.

 

Quoting Mike Wong's site eh? Good for you. Perhaps you should reread the photon torpedo section, it details just what the difficulties are in producing a workable anti-matter weapon far better than I could. Here But I digress;

 

Terran anti-matter weaponry is not a particularly widespread technology. They use it in their nukes, and possibly the reactors for large ships and that's it. If they solved the problems that anti-matter has as easily as you suggest, Most of the Terran units would have anti-matter generators, anti-matter powered guns, et cetera.

 

Compare the rarity of terran anti-matter tech to the aliens' plasma tech. Practically every alien weapon uses plasma in some form, with the exception of the blaster bomb and alien grenade. The aliens have clearly beaten the problems with plasma technology. Probably by accelerating it to extremely high velocities, as Wong suggested.

 

The point is that the aliens plasma technology is more mature and widespread. Terran anti-matter technology, on the other hand, is incredibly rare.

 

3. Err...That Sickel addon is just a fanmod. It has no bearing on the official Starcraft Story. It'd be like me using a X-Comutil stats to prove that human tanks can take blaster bombs. Or like me using the Starcraft-Robotech addon to prove that Goliaths can really transform into fighter jets.

 

4. Of course the aliens will send scouts. But they'll send far less scouts than they did against Earth, because there is less they want. And because there is less of a population on the major terran worlds.

 

5. Incorrect. The UFOpedia entry says that it can be easily used by humans and reproduced with alien alloys. In addition, it says that it's an optical processor. Optical as in, light. At worst, it's some sort of crystal based rig and at best it's a quantum computer. Both are functionally immune to EMP. But even if they weren't, Remember that alien craft can stay flying after a nuclear explosion at point blank range. That's a huge amount of EMP being released, far more than a terran science vessel's EMP shell. (otherwise, marine armor would cease working, goliaths would stop moving, dragoons would fry their occupants, et cetera.)

 

EMP isn't going to help the Terrans against the Aliens.

 

6. Sickle is a fan addon, not produced by blizzard. It is not part of the Starcraft story, therefore it's contents are inadmissable. Just like how I'm not trying to introduce Xcomutil's improved stats, or Xenocide's more indepth plasma explanations. :)

 

Further, Protoss technology is weaker than X-Com alien technology for the following reasons:

 

A. Protoss plasma shields are just that, plasma. Further, they can't be very powerful because they don't burn their user, or the Zerg that killed Fenix in the cutscene. Plus, the Protoss psionic tech is pathetic. It takes a Dark Archon, a rediculously high cost unit to mind control something. And even then, it loses its shields and most of its energy. Compared to an expendable Sectoid leader...The aliens are better at mind control. Sure they can't use psi-weapons to the same extend as the Protoss, but they don't have to. Their plasma weapons are far more efficient.

 

B. Of course. But once again, that is related to a mental ability of the Arbiters inside the ship, and it cannot be used frequently, certainly not as frequently as alien mind control. The aliens don't need such special abilities to make them a formiddable fighting force. Their weapons speak for them.

 

C. Allow me to refer you to Mike Wong's style over substance essay from SD.net. Here. It basically says that it doesn't matter how advanced your weapon is, if it's less powerful than my rifle, it's still less powerful. So essientially, your Protoss can have their phaser disruptors and whatnot, but since they don't do the damage of an alien plasma rifle, they are inferior weapons.

 

D. Elerium 115 is an element that, before the alien invasion, was never seen on Earth, and probaly never even theorized to exist, much less have the properties it does. Futhermore, there is no need for the Aliens to use psionic power as the protoss do. It is inefficient compared to Elerium reactor, which can, in sufficient quantities, generate enough power to keep a plasma cannon firing forever. The aliens don't need to rely upon pylons to provide power for their ships or weapons or anything else. (For that matter, today we have wireless power transmitters that work like pylons. They're noisy and inefficient, so that's why we don't use them. I'm actually kind of surprised that the Protoss are so backwards. :P)

 

The X-Com scientists can go from not understanding alien alloys to designing and producing a superior combat craft within a year. That dwarfs anything the terrans have ever done in the R&D field.

 

Actually, the Terrans have had more experience with psionics than the X-Com humans, so they should have understood Protoss technology more than they do.

 

Ghosts are said to be selected at birth because of their psionic abilities, something that X-Com never had the ability to do until the construction of a psi-lab. Therefore, the Terrans should have been able to reverse engineer protoss psi technology if they were as skilled as X-Com scientists precisely because they have had experience with psionic events before, whereas X-Com had none.

 

Heck, X-Com went from having next to no knowledge of psionics to being able to mind control psionic entities like Etherials, which are so powerful as to void the laws of physics. Terran scientists aren't dumb, it's just that X-Com scientists are obscenely smart.

 

7. Most tanks can't function as artillery, and most artillery can't function as tanks. The Siege tank can, but that just means that it's a jack of all trades but a master of none.

 

8. Explosive power depends on the amount of anti-matter you place into the bomb. That means to have a tactical weapon, you'll have to have a tiny amount of anti-matter, while a strategic one can have more.

 

If you put too much anti-matter into your strategic weapons, you'll end up with a planet that nobody can live on. That means that your nukes are limited by evironmental effects just as conventional nukes are. Unless you want to live on an irradiated planet that has nothing alive on it but cockroaches...

 

So your nukes that are hundreds of times more powerful than a fusion warhead are completely unusable because they'd screw you just as well as they screwed the aliens. :) And that's even assuming that you can get enough anti-matter to put in one of those nukes.

 

On an aside, I was just reading the Elerium 115 UFOpedia entry. It can generate anti-matter in quantity. So if the aliens wanted to, they could just load up a battleship with Elerium and crash it into your bases, vaporizing half the planet. :)

 

Strategic weapons are never used precisely because they incite your enemy to bring out their own strategic weapons.

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1. Well, Terran antimatter bombs are powerful since, if you review what happend to khorhal after being quite a litlle unrespectfull with the confederacy... Antimatter bombs are really used when you want do disapear a planer (like mars or khorhal). It´s feasible of course to use less powered antibombs on the battlefield, but the other option also exist.

 

2. What really happen is that SC terran world and allien XCOM world are dominated by rules of imagination (antimatter bombs, plasma guns, e115). But unfortunatelly here we are dominated by the rules of nature. (And the rules of Mr. BUSH about Irak and such as things :b :P) So, following that laws, we can not compare (as i said on the beggining) Allien firepower vs Protoss or terran one. Because all of the are based on a world that has been created in human minds!!! f.e. the plasma weapons, the psi reactors (not necesarily weaker that e115 ones as we do not have a measure of them). Moreover. How do you know that protoss plasma weapons are weaker or stronger than photon cannons?

 

Well, there is a way to compare them. I know it´s not absolute but just to give us an idea. If and XCOM laser gun makes a damage of 50 and a plama one is about 70 then the relation should be 5/7 right? (17/23 in the worst of all cases, dont´forget that this is the relation between plasma and laser power) Then, if you compare Wraith´s laser, not with XCOM ones but with dragoons one or photo cannon, the relation is 2/5.

 

Finally, the relation between plama ans photon should be about... 14/25, so the photon cannon should be more powerful. But that´s only a way, and as we did not create those games we only can get here and argument and get joy :).

 

3. Protoss DA´s are the only one who mind control. Why? Because they came from the Dk´s i mean, the rouge tribe. If you review the history of Protoss, that tribe was fired from aiur because they wanted to free the Protoss real psi power, forbidden by their religion Khala.

 

Furthermore, Protoss know lots of species (like aliens they visit their worlds) but they try not to interfere, so for normal protoss is a terrible sin to MC a unit, but not for DA´s. In adition to this, both sectoids and etherials should have several tries to MC a guy (human) with a good psi defense. But protoss Da´s are so powerfull that they even can MC the unit they want (no matter it´s psi defense) IN ONE TRY!!! so you can not compare ethereals-sectoid´s power vs DA´s one. And i´m not including the feedback (against ufos) and maelstorm (becoming living creatures defenseless) feature, because it´s a Terran and not a Protoss Topic.

 

Yes, i know they are plasma shields, but they are not produced phisicaly (e115, if aliens were able to produce them). Remember the eon conflict and you´ll know what i´m talking about. Again, protoss plama shields are dominated by rules of imagination because, it does´nt matter how weak it would be, it WOULD BURN the zealot.

 

4. Well, it´s true sickel is a fanmod but one that blizzard has rated very well... :)

 

5. You are right, EMP would not help terran a lot :).

 

6. If strategic weapons are not used... why do we still have it?

 

7. About Tanks, well let´s see that being jack of all trades but a master of none as you said, doesn´t mean that they are bad. Remember that today we have aircraft like F16 that are both fighter and ground attack plane, and do it very well.

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1. Well, Terran antimatter bombs are powerful since, if you review what happend to khorhal after being quite a litlle unrespectfull with the confederacy... Antimatter bombs are really used when you want do disapear a planer (like mars or khorhal). It´s feasible of course to use less powered antibombs on the battlefield, but the other option also exist.

 

2. What really happen is that SC terran world and allien XCOM world are dominated by rules of imagination (antimatter bombs, plasma guns, e115). But unfortunatelly here we are dominated by the rules of nature. (And the rules of Mr. BUSH about Irak and such as things :b :P) So, following that laws, we can not compare (as i said on the beggining) Allien firepower vs Protoss or terran one. Because all of the are based on a world that has been created in human minds!!! f.e. the plasma weapons, the psi reactors (not necesarily weaker that e115 ones as we do not have a measure of them). Moreover. How do you know that protoss plasma weapons are weaker or stronger than photon cannons?

 

Well, there is a way to compare them. I know it´s not absolute but just to give us an idea. If and XCOM laser gun makes a damage of 50 and a plama one is about 70 then the relation should be 5/7 right? (17/23 in the worst of all cases, dont´forget that this is the relation between plasma and laser power) Then, if you compare Wraith´s laser, not with XCOM ones but with dragoons one or photo cannon, the relation is 2/5.

 

Finally, the relation between plama ans photon should be about... 14/25, so the photon cannon should be more powerful. But that´s only a way, and as we did not create those games we only can get here and argument and get joy :).

 

3. Protoss DA´s are the only one who mind control. Why? Because they came from the Dk´s i mean, the rouge tribe. If you review the history of Protoss, that tribe was fired from aiur because they wanted to free the Protoss real psi power, forbidden by their religion Khala.

 

Furthermore, Protoss know lots of species (like aliens they visit their worlds) but they try not to interfere, so for normal protoss is a terrible sin to MC a unit, but not for DA´s. In adition to this, both sectoids and etherials should have several tries to MC a guy (human) with a good psi defense. But protoss Da´s are so powerfull that they even can MC the unit they want (no matter it´s psi defense) IN ONE TRY!!! so you can not compare ethereals-sectoid´s power vs DA´s one. And i´m not including the feedback (against ufos) and maelstorm (becoming living creatures defenseless) feature, because it´s a Terran and not a Protoss Topic.

 

Yes, i know they are plasma shields, but they are not produced phisicaly (e115, if aliens were able to produce them). Remember the eon conflict and you´ll know what i´m talking about. Again, protoss plama shields are dominated by rules of imagination because, it does´nt matter how weak it would be, it WOULD BURN the zealot.

 

4. Well, it´s true sickel is a fanmod but one that blizzard has rated very well... :)

 

5. You are right, EMP would not help terran a lot :).

 

6. If strategic weapons are not used... why do we still have it?

 

7. About Tanks, well let´s see that being jack of all trades but a master of none as you said, doesn´t mean that they are bad. Remember that today we have aircraft like F16 that are both fighter and ground attack plane, and do it very well.

 

1. All we know is that Korhal was turned into a desert. We do not know how many missiles that the Confederacy used. It could have been millions for all we know. Nor do we know what kind of missiles they were.

 

2. We can compare numbers using a common base. For instance, I know that alien plasma weapons are more powerful than Protoss photon cannons because the alien plasma weapons can kill an unarmored civilian in a single hit. Photon cannons cannot.

 

2a. You're assuming that X-Com laser cannons are the same power as Wraith lasers, which certainly isn't the case. X-Com laser cannons are as overpowered as the rest of the X-Com arsenal. Tank mounted laser cannons can kill civilians almost as well as a heavy plasma, something which your wraith laser certainly can't do.

 

3. Okay. But why can't normal Dark Templar mind control enemies then? Or high templar after the Protoss exodus to Shakuras?

 

3a. Furthermore, I was contesting that there are a lot more MC capable Etherials and Sectoids than there were dark archons. (And then there's the nasty fact that Sectoids and Etherials can MC multiple enemy units, something that the Dark Archon can't do, and it even loses its shields when it does...)

 

3b. Plasma shields...Well, the Protoss probably have some method of keeping it away from the skin, probably by using weak magnetic fields or similar. The fact remains that if the plasma was truely high energy, any zerg attacking the protoss would take damage, and the protoss would probably take damage too.

 

4. Blizzard can rate it as well as they want, but unless they've made it official, its story isn't part of the canon starcraft.

 

5. Thank you. Concession accepted.

 

6. Strategic weapons are a deterrent. If both sides have strategic weapons (as they do in this scenario) then you can't use strategic weapons because the other guy will use their strategic weapons, and that would result in your terrans being glassed completely and totally while the aliens still have other colonies.

 

Strategic nuclear weapons have never been used in a war for precisely this reason.

 

7. Aircraft are not tanks. Further, the transforming aspect of the siege tank makes it more complicated, expensive, and prone to damage than a regular tank. To add onto that, Fighter/bomber aircraft are less effective at either role than a dedicated fighter or bomber.

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1. In Liberty´s Crusade book, it says they used about 1000. With Hydronukes we would require more to COMPLETELY wipe a planet in order to became it a desert. (Hydronukes devastate 20 square miles only as a final result of the explosion, but we should consider that´s the maximun range so not the REAL range of total devastation. And as we remember, Korhal was TOTALLY devastated).

 

2. Balance again. In SC game a BC does not kill a marine in shot. But we all know that would be stupid. So is the balance who makes this strange things.

 

3. Protoss Dk´s have forgotten how lo use their psi powers. But Da´s remember it, or at last discover it again.

 

You can MC more than one unit with a Da... play again.

 

4. Again, the rules of imagination have no limits. In NO part of SC history nor documentation says that protoss use those system. We can not assume that.

 

5. Even if aliens were able to glass planets (something i have´nt seen they were able to), In order to glass one they MUST defeat the fleet wich is surrounding it. And that´s the point, not to defeat the BC´s (unknown result) but to defeat the Wraiths that will come invisible and in lots of numbers. Look some info about http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/uw.shtml

 

6. About tanks. Again the rules of imagination, at last as we see, the tank suffers no damage in the process. Here you have some info about http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/ut.shtml tanks (they also use plama weapons...)

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1. In Liberty´s Crusade book, it says they used about 1000. With Hydronukes we would require more to COMPLETELY wipe a planet in order to became it a desert. (Hydronukes devastate 20 square miles only as a final result of the explosion, but we should consider that´s the maximun range so not the REAL range of total devastation. And as we remember, Korhal was TOTALLY devastated).

 

2. Balance again. In SC game a BC does not kill a marine in shot. But we all know that would be stupid. So is the balance who makes this strange things.

 

3. Protoss Dk´s have forgotten how lo use their psi powers. But Da´s remember it, or at last discover it again.

 

You can MC more than one unit with a Da... play again.

 

4. Again, the rules of imagination have no limits. In NO part of SC history nor documentation says that protoss use those system. We can not assume that.

 

5. Even if aliens were able to glass planets (something i have´nt seen they were able to), In order to glass one they MUST defeat the fleet wich is surrounding it. And that´s the point, not to defeat the BC´s (unknown result) but to defeat the Wraiths that will come invisible and in lots of numbers. Look some info about http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/uw.shtml

 

6. About tanks. Again the rules of imagination, at last as we see, the tank suffers no damage in the process. Here you have some info about http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/ut.shtml tanks (they also use plama weapons...)

 

1. Okay, that's more like it. But remember that Korhal wasn't glassed. It was just reduced to a desert and it's even inhabitable within a lifetime. The fallout from those nukes obviously wasn't very long lasting, certainly not as long lasting as the fallout from modern nukes that lasts for centuries.

 

2. Balance again. Blaster Bombs can level entire cities, Etherials can destroy planets with their minds. Balance arguements do not work when debating two games because BOTH sides can pull the same arguement.

 

3. Forgotten how to use low level psi abilities? My god, they must really poor memories, and they obviously couldn't write it down... I'd be willing to accept the explanation that they aren't trained to do it.

 

Yes, you can MC more than one unit with a Dark Archon, but you have to wait for it to recharge its energy. Etherials and Sectoids...don't. They can mind control two people right after the other.

 

4. What system are we talking about here? The weak field to protect the user from the plasma shields? Because, that's common sense, they'd have to have it otherwise they'd be burning themselves to death their own shields. It's like Marines, we're never told that their armor is powered, but given its size it would have to be, otherwise the person inside couldn't move with it on.

 

5. There are two things that the aliens can do about the wraiths: 1: Find them with their mental detection systems (Referenced in the UFOpedia entry for the Mind Shield) or simply fire at where the lasers/missiles are coming from.

 

Or they could just use Fusion balls and randomly detonate them near suspected Wraith squadrons.

 

6. Of course the tank suffers no damage in the process. What I'm saying is that, by the laws of common sense, the siege tank is easier to damage than one that doesn't transform. Further, the fact that it uses 'plasma shells' doesn't mean anything. We don't know the yield of these shells, and there is no reason to assume them equivelent to alien plasma beams, which may not even be plasma at all. (TFTD's gauss weapon branch is supposedly an 'outgrowth' of plasma technology, and it shoots anti-protons...)

 

Now, I've finally dug around and found where I read about the Hydralisk vs glass and Hydralisk vs Battlecruiser that I mentioned in the Zerg thread.

 

Specifically, in Starcraft Book #2, Shadow of the Xel'Naga, we see Hydralisk spines are unable to penetrate normal glass. Later in that same book, we see Hydralisks fire at a Terran Battlecruiser, and actually shoot it down, with their very spines that couldn't pierce glass. What's this mean? That Terran 'Neosteel' is weaker than glass.

 

Now, that book is crap IMO, but it's still just as canon as Liberty's Crusade, so... Terrans may go 250,000 miles per hour, but they still can't take a plasma hit and survive. Therefore, they still get just as pasted by the aliens, but the aliens take more casualties than I originally thought. :)

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger
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1. Perhaps, but you´d require more hydronukes to clean the same area. Furthermore, in a normal nuclear strike we don´t send 1 or 2 nukes to do the job, we send hundreds to overwhelm the enemy, so if only one (or a few in this case) get to the target... well everyone knows what happen.

 

2. The balance i´m giving is also based on common sense. A rifle is suposed to kill anyone in one shot!!! specially terran, worse if they are civilians. Then, a wraith´s gun should be much powerful, by the way it will destroy bases BECAUSE IT WAS DESIGNED TO GROUND ATTACK (read again the purpose of wraith´s laser).

 

Marine´s armor is powered not because you say so, but because it says here : http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/um.shtml Moreover, that´s more than XCOM one because... it´s intelligent!!! i mean, if i wanna aim something and fire, the suit "helps me" doing that (on the book). So marine´s gauss rifle will not fail as XCOM ones.

 

3. About psi. Sectoids and ethereals, can MC a creature ONLY with low psi defense. DA´s can MC a creature in one try NO MATTER it´s psi defense so DA´s psi are more powerful. Even thought i´ve just talked about it in protoss topic.

 

4. If what is said with the shields are right, then the protoss could give much more power, by the way they will also be protected by those systems.

 

5. Yes of course, but mind detectors... late a "little" to detect something (more than 5 minutes) and with 250000 km/h AS MINIMUM (taking BC´s velocity wich is inferior to wraith´s one) vs 5000 mph... well it seems that the aliens will not have a lot of time. Furthermore, wraiths can get close and separated, or in front of the battleships... so if they fire fussion balls they will easily evade it (velocity) and the battleships will never know what hit them. Moreover, to fire the plasma beams (that are really particle beams) they must know where they are firing from, and wraith captains are not stupid. They will mix into the battle bringin´ confusion and death, and they can do that with impunity because their cloacking. So it´s much easier for wraiths to blow up the alien fleet.

 

Then, with the fleet defeated i can see no way the aliens were able to land... (or to defend their own worlds... Terran may also attack the aliens homeworld or nuke them from space like korhal).

 

7. Finally the range. Again, if we use the common sense, it should be fool to BC to have a range of only a few kilometters with that speed (250000 km/h) therefore, they MUST have more range, proportional to their speed. Then if we calculate the plasma range, vs the laser range the relation is about 3/1. But with the speed, BC´s laser hit should have about 20*250000/10000=500 km of distance (Taking a mile as 2 km).

 

8. Terran NeoSteel is´nt weaker than glass. Glass is chemicaly strong and suitable to maintain acids. And remember that the acid is who do the job. I mean, if a piece of iron is melt down by acid and a piece of cristal not... is the iron stronger than crystal? I don´t think so.

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1. Perhaps, but you´d require more hydronukes to clean the same area. Furthermore, in a normal nuclear strike we don´t send 1 or 2 nukes to do the job, we send hundreds to overwhelm the enemy, so if only one (or a few in this case) get to the target... well everyone knows what happen.

 

2. The balance i´m giving is also based on common sense. A rifle is suposed to kill anyone in one shot!!! specially terran, worse if they are civilians. Then, a wraith´s gun should be much powerful, by the way it will destroy bases BECAUSE IT WAS DESIGNED TO GROUND ATTACK (read again the purpose of wraith´s laser).

 

Marine´s armor is powered not because you say so, but because it says here : http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/um.shtml Moreover, that´s more than XCOM one because... it´s intelligent!!! i mean, if i wanna aim something and fire, the suit "helps me" doing that (on the book). So marine´s gauss rifle will not fail as XCOM ones.

 

3. About psi. Sectoids and ethereals, can MC a creature ONLY with low psi defense. DA´s can MC a creature in one try NO MATTER it´s psi defense so DA´s psi are more powerful. Even thought i´ve just talked about it in protoss topic.

 

4. If what is said with the shields are right, then the protoss could give much more power, by the way they will also be protected by those systems.

 

5. Yes of course, but mind detectors... late a "little" to detect something (more than 5 minutes) and with 250000 km/h AS MINIMUM (taking BC´s velocity wich is inferior to wraith´s one) vs 5000 mph... well it seems that the aliens will not have a lot of time. Furthermore, wraiths can get close and separated, or in front of the battleships... so if they fire fussion balls they will easily evade it (velocity) and the battleships will never know what hit them. Moreover, to fire the plasma beams (that are really particle beams) they must know where they are firing from, and wraith captains are not stupid. They will mix into the battle bringin´ confusion and death, and they can do that with impunity because their cloacking. So it´s much easier for wraiths to blow up the alien fleet.

 

Then, with the fleet defeated i can see no way the aliens were able to land... (or to defend their own worlds... Terran may also attack the aliens homeworld or nuke them from space like korhal).

 

7. Finally the range. Again, if we use the common sense, it should be fool to BC to have a range of only a few kilometters with that speed (250000 km/h) therefore, they MUST have more range, proportional to their speed. Then if we calculate the plasma range, vs the laser range the relation is about 3/1. But with the speed, BC´s laser hit should have about 20*250000/10000=500 km of distance (Taking a mile as 2 km).

 

8. Terran NeoSteel is´nt weaker than glass. Glass is chemicaly strong and suitable to maintain acids. And remember that the acid is who do the job. I mean, if a piece of iron is melt down by acid and a piece of cristal not... is the iron stronger than crystal? I don´t think so.

 

1. Not necessarily. You'd actually need only a few well placed nukes to totally alter the planet's ecosystem, and ta da, turn it into a desert. But the fallout is the main threat from a nuclear, or anti-matter explosion, and the fact that it was safe to live on Korhal within a lifetime indicates that there wasn't much fallout, meaning that the nukes were probably low yield. It's not like Korhal was glassed, it was just contaminated with nuclear weapons, not had its entire surface turned to a glittering ball of molten glass.

 

2. The balance I'm talking about is also common sense. Specifically, If the blaster bomb is a fusion explosive, it should have a minimum yield, and that minimum yield, IIRC is around one kiloton, or 1/40th the bombs that were detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or, in other words, enough to wipe out anything in the Terran arsenal in one hit. Similarly, from the UFOpedia, we know that Etherials are so powerful mentally that they can violate the laws of physics at will. And if they're powerful enough to do that, there isn't really a *limit* to what they can do. Perhaps disrupt the strong nuclear force of all the terran units they can see? Do the same to the planet perhaps?

 

3. There is nothing that indicates that anything in starcraft, with the possible exception of the overmind, has the necessary psi-strength to resist mind control.

 

4. That statement makes no sense. The protoss obviously have a way to protect themselves from their own shields, but the shields can't be *too* powerful, or the protoss will need a big battery or small reactor to power them and their containment systems, which we don't see on the Templar, Zealots, or most other shielded protoss units.

 

5. And yet, we don't see wraiths move that fast in cutscenes, why? Come to think of it, we don't see battlecruisers more that fast in cutscenes. Why?

 

As for the fusion balls, I was refering to proximity detonations. If something gets too close, blammo.

 

As for the wraiths, their lasers and missiles are still too weak to do any appreciable damage to the alien fleet. Unless they've got nukes hidden in those tiny missiles that nobody ever mentions...

 

To fire the plasma beams, they don't *need* a target. They can just fire randomly where the enemy fire is coming from. Since they essientially have infinite ammo, they can do that for as long as need.

 

6. The aliens fleet won't be defeated. How many times do I have to mention 'it takes multiple fusion bombs to destroy a battleship' before you understand that Terran weaponry isn't up to the task?

 

7. Incorrect. There is no reason to assume that they have range proportional to their speed. That we see wraiths firing within visual range means that they don't have that kind of range, and since we never see evidence of BCs with that kind of range either...

 

8. Remember that we're not talking about acid here, we're talking about hydralisk spines that couldn't penetrate a glass windshield. These very same spines that then went on to shoot down a battlecruiser. Thusly, BC armor is weaker than glass. Conclusion? BCs get stomped utterly by superior alien weaponry.

 

In addition, BCs in that book never fire at targets beyond visual range, and then there's the fact that BCs never move as fast as they do in Liberty's Crusade...

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1. Not necessarily. You'd actually need only a few well placed nukes to totally alter the planet's ecosystem, and ta da, turn it into a desert. But the fallout is the main threat from a nuclear, or anti-matter explosion, and the fact that it was safe to live on Korhal within a lifetime indicates that there wasn't much fallout, meaning that the nukes were probably low yield. It's not like Korhal was glassed, it was just contaminated with nuclear weapons, not had its entire surface turned to a glittering ball of molten glass.

 

Fallout is not as big an issue as one would first think. In the case of fission weapons, the radioactive material in high-yield devices would be at most several kilograms. Consider that a large percentage of the particles go into the high atmosphere or space from the heat of the mushroom cloud. Also, the remaining particles decay to non-radioactive status in well less than a life-time.

 

Following a nuclear war, humans could safely be exposed outdoors for a few hours at a time within three months. This is still not to say that a WWIII scenario would not be the greatest catastrophe ever n human history. The disruption, death, and breakdown it would cause would be unprecedented and take decades to recover from.

 

Then consider the fact that fusion weapons run clean, no significant radiation. That is one of the big draws of a commercial Fusion reactor. Nuclear waste handling and disposal is very expensive. Also nuclear plants always have the problem of a core melting and exposing itself to the atmosphere. An errant fusion reactor would simply break its containment field and expand rapidly, burning the facility but not radiating the area.

 

However you are right that a few critical hits could completely screw a planet's ecosystem.

 

To fire the plasma beams, they don't *need* a target. They can just fire randomly where the enemy fire is coming from. Since they essientially have infinite ammo, they can do that for as long as need.

 

Whenever I flew my Avengers with Plasma Beams they had 100 rounds each. Of course I never used them all, but it is not infinite ammo.

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1. Using the common sense, if fusion bombs were so powerful mutons would never use them even in their bases, but they use it.

 

Again, it etherials psi were so strong they only would go and MC all the planet, or make my soldiers to explode. But they don´t do it, so they fight. Why? Because their psi is not so strong. :Coffee:

 

2. Don´t forget why Zelg Naga chose protoss... :Deal:

 

3. Protoss energy is STORE in a battery, but that energy does not comes from it. It´s the protoss psi what they use to produce them. And that demostrates the power of protoss psi, by the way that they not only can MC (like DA´s) but also can transform the enviroment (Arbiter) or make powerful shields, even to the machines. Read again the eon conflict history :Deal:

 

4. We have´nt seen any cutscene with the BC fighting. Moreover, in the cutscene of wraiths attacking the ship, the ship is almost quiet so... Why do they need more speed? One has to accelerate when one needs to accelerate. And, please purchase the book and READ IT.

 

5. Again, the laws of imagination aplies to the authors. Liberty´s Crusade is BLIZZARD´s page, so BC´s can move at that speed, because the BLIZZARD GUYS SAYS SO!!! http://www.blizzard.com/books/novels.shtml and also sells it :P

 

6. Man, even 10 primitive interceptors with avalanches can take a battleship down. Then wraith´s misiles, at least must be as good as actual ones. So there is no point to discuss over here. (Remember what you said,

It basically says that it doesn't matter how advanced your weapon is, if it's less powerful than my rifle, it's still less powerful
)

 

7. To fire a plasma you must at least suspect where they are comming from. And plasma weapons are precise weapons, so until the wraith´s captain first shoot (that will be made in all possible directions, even mixed with batteships) the BS won´t know where to hit or to suspect. That´s surprise and is the lethal element of wraits that bring terror and panic to the fleets.

 

To fire a FB... well, i wonder how would you fire them without getting the BS´s unaffected by the explosion... with a single wraith on their very nose or between them!!! That´s a palestine behaviour... :P . Moreover, at the velocity in wich a wraith goes, it can easily change it´s position by 70 km is a second. So you fussion ball will be overun and also it´s explosive area (taking the fussion explosion area as 30 miles, if the wraith/s go/es away in the last second.).

 

8. Well, if you analize it here http://www.battle.net/scc/zerg/units/hydralisk.shtml you will se that the needles can perforate 2cm of neosteel. But they are covered with acid that will corrode the metal. Moreover, how much thick was that glass? Perhaps that glass is about 2 metters thick and that would be and interesting point. I know BC neosteel armor is even thicker, but the acid covering the spines thorough those 2cm helps a LOT.

Edited by Adun_Toridas
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1. Using the common sense, if fusion bombs were so powerful mutons would never use them even in their bases, but they use it.

 

Again, it etherials psi were so strong they only would go and MC all the planet, or make my soldiers to explode. But they don´t do it, so they fight. Why? Because their psi is not so strong.  :Coffee:

 

2. Don´t forget why Zelg Naga chose protoss...  :Deal:

 

3. Protoss energy is STORE in a battery, but that energy does not comes from it. It´s the protoss psi what they use to produce them. And that demostrates the power of protoss psi, by the way that they not only can MC (like DA´s) but also can transform the enviroment (Arbiter) or make powerful shields, even to the machines. Read again the eon conflict history  :Deal:

 

4. We have´nt seen any cutscene with the BC fighting. Moreover, in the cutscene of wraiths attacking the ship, the ship is almost quiet so... Why do they need more speed? One has to accelerate when one needs to accelerate. And, please purchase the book and READ IT.

 

5. Again, the laws of imagination aplies to the authors. Liberty´s Crusade is BLIZZARD´s page, so BC´s can move at that speed, because the BLIZZARD GUYS SAYS SO!!! http://www.blizzard.com/books/novels.shtml and also sells it :P

 

6. Man, even 10 primitive interceptors with avalanches can take a battleship down. Then wraith´s misiles, at least must be as good as actual ones. So there is no point to discuss over here. (Remember what you said,

It basically says that it doesn't matter how advanced your weapon is, if it's less powerful than my rifle, it's still less powerful
)

 

7. To fire a plasma you must at least suspect where they are comming from. And plasma weapons are precise weapons, so until the wraith´s captain first shoot (that will be made in all possible directions, even mixed with batteships) the BS won´t know where to hit or to suspect. That´s surprise and is the lethal element of wraits that bring terror and panic to the fleets.

 

To fire a FB... well, i wonder how would you fire them without getting the BS´s unaffected by the explosion... with a single wraith on their very nose or between them!!! That´s a palestine behaviour... :P . Moreover, at the velocity in wich a wraith goes, it can easily change it´s position by 70 km is a second. So you fussion ball will be overun and also it´s explosive area (taking the fussion explosion area as 30 miles, if the wraith/s go/es away in the last second.).

 

8. Well, if you analize it here http://www.battle.net/scc/zerg/units/hydralisk.shtml you will se that the needles can perforate 2cm of neosteel. But they are covered with acid that will corrode the metal. Moreover, how much thick was that glass? Perhaps that glass is about 2 metters thick and that would be and interesting point. I know BC neosteel armor is even thicker, but the acid covering the spines thorough those 2cm helps a LOT.

 

1. Using common sense, alien bases are strong enough to take point blank nuclear impacts. Just like UFOs. Further, I wasn't serious about the city destroying blaster bombs. As I have said repeatedly, I am just using that as an example to prove why game balance arguements when you're talking about two games are foolish at best.

 

1a. Same situation as above. However, we do know that Etherials can void the laws of physics with their minds, which is far more than anything the Protoss have demonstrated.

 

2. The Xel'naga were idiots who got themselves eradicated by the Zerg, and that was before the Zerg got any of their nastier units. Their choices are suspect. After all, they 'chose' the Zerg too, and look where that got them.

 

3. So the Protoss power things psionically? That makes them even weaker than I suspected, because there is no way a sentient being can power say...a plasma shield system with its mind alone, unless we're talking about godlike psi entities here. (And by godlike, I mean truely godlike, killing whole planets with just a thought, et cetera.)

 

4. I'm afraid that I don't have the money to purchase the book. I spent all my money on a shiny new computer. Anyway, more speed in space is a good thing, usually. It means that the enemy has less time to intercept you with point defenses. Further, the mission the Wraiths were doing (a quick hit and run by the looks of it) means that they would want all the acceleration that they could muster to get in and get out.

 

5. And Shadows of the Xel'Naga is also sold by blizzard, and that is the novel that has Zerglings killed by pitchforks, and the battlecruisers with armor less effective than glass. Point?

 

6. Ten primitive interceptors that can move at mach 2.3 in atmosphere, firing missiles that have ranges in excess of sixty kilometers. It's pretty safe to say that those missiles are a lot more advanced than normal AAMs. In the X-Com novel, it's stated that an X-Com cannon can penetrate 16 inches of steel. That's 333mm RHA. X-Com interceptors can resist said cannon fire 'easily.' They're so overpowered that the USAF would kill to get their hands on just a squadron of them.

 

Further, we have no reason to assume that Wraith missiles are equivelent to Avalanches. Avalanches have a longer range, and *probably* do more damage. After all, they can shoot down alien battleships, which can resist elerium boosted nuclear ordinance.

 

Starcraft Wraiths have shown nowhere near the range, velocity, or armor as an X-Com interceptor. Therefore, my quote runs true. Your wraith may be more *advanced* than my interceptor, but it's still inferior when it comes to capabilities.

 

7. Meh. Conceeded. I don't feel like argueing on that.

 

8. The glass was a thin, unarmored, unreinforced windshield on a jeep (or a jeep like vehicle.) Further, a small projectile like a Hydralisk's shot shouldn't do appreciable damage to anything the size of a battlecruiser, unless the battlecruiser's armor is really weak (which the spines vs glass and spines vs battlecruiser armor scenarios show.)

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1. Oh man, long time i don´t see you... how are your doings? :) !!! You bought a new pc right? that´s good.

 

2. But returning to the topic, Protoss can also avoid phisic laws (arbiter) by teleporting troop even faster than hyperspace f.e. Or by making a living creature (with energy) to return it back to itself. Or by producing LOTS of ilusions or creating being made up with pure rage (Archons).

 

3. Read the history and you´ll se that protoss creat the plasma shield with their minds. Of course i know that´s stupid but blizzard guys said so... so we should ask them.

 

4. Again.

 

a. Blizzard also says that hydralisk needles can penetrate 2cm of neosteel.

 

b. BC has more than 2cm of armour.

 

Conclusion: There is something else that "helps" the needles to penetrate more. And that does not go against book´s statemen, by the way that is acid that can help needles to penetrate more the neosteel but can not help the glass.

 

5. Don´t forget phoenix missiles. They have 160 km of range so... we can not assume that all missiles will have less range than avalanches. Even actual missiles have more range. But well, using the common sense, wraiths could load their missiles with:

 

a. Normal explosives.

b. Fision explosives.

b. Antimatter explosives (mini anti-bombs)

 

So if a wraith were loaded as an actual a-a missile, perhaps it would´nt penetrate the armor, but as a fision or worse as an antimatter (MINI-apocalypse) one... well the things go to the wraith.

 

But, let´s imagine that UED guys don´t want to use their nuclear toys. Then, they may load their missiles with high explosives (like AGM-65 or AGM-109 if i don´t mistake...) and a depleted Uranium head. Therefore, those toys can penetrate even bunkers with metters of concrete and steel armour so...

 

Finally, don´t forget that there is always the nuclear solution.

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4. Again.

 

a. Blizzard also says that hydralisk needles can penetrate 2cm of neosteel.

 

b. BC has more than 2cm of armour.

 

Conclusion: There is something else that "helps" the needles to penetrate more. And that does not go against book´s statemen, by the way that is acid that can help needles to penetrate more the neosteel but can not help the glass.

 

So, in effect, hydralisks can get through this "superarmour" but cant do something I can do with an object as crude as say... a baseball bat, my (shoed)foot, or a thrown cellphone?

 

 

Also, in case this hasnt been pointed out, 5000 mph is a battleship top speed in earth's atmosphere. The 250,000 kph of a battlecruisers is in space, right?

So anyways, a battleship can make the earth to mars trip in a few hours(we know this because there is no alien food aboard) Assuming the aliens can go 24hours without food and still fight with 100% effectiveness and they always make the transfer when mars is closest to earth(36 million miles), something that only happens every couple years, the minimium speed of a battleship still works out to be 1.5 million mph. Even with a 96 hours transit time it still figures out to 375,000 mph. These are all assuming a minimum distance from earth to mars.

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1. Blizzard does not indicate if it´s an atmosphere or an space velocity. However, don´t forget that BC´s can travel thorough galaxy. And also wraiths. But also remember that they can move from system to system in a few days. (Tarsonics, Korhal, the laws of imagination) So BC and wraith´s real velocity is something to be seen.

 

2. I recommend just to get to the data in-game. I mean, we all know that there are things that are no logic, (f.e 5000 mph??? and 250000???, plasma weapons, antimatter missiles...) but that´s something reserved to the creators of those games.

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2. But returning to the topic, Protoss can also avoid phisic laws (arbiter) by teleporting troop even faster than hyperspace f.e. Or by making a living creature (with energy) to return it back to itself. Or by producing LOTS of ilusions or creating being made up with pure rage (Archons).

 

3. Read the history and you´ll se that protoss creat the plasma shield with their minds. Of course i know that´s stupid but blizzard guys said so... so we should ask them.

 

4. Again.

 

a. Blizzard also says that hydralisk needles can penetrate 2cm of neosteel.

 

b. BC has more than 2cm of armour.

 

Conclusion: There is something else that "helps" the needles to penetrate more. And that does not go against book´s statemen, by the way that is acid that can help needles to penetrate more the neosteel but can not help the glass.

 

5. Don´t forget phoenix missiles. They have 160 km of range so... we can not assume that all missiles will have less range than avalanches. Even actual missiles have more range. But well, using the common sense, wraiths could load their missiles with:

 

a. Normal explosives.

b. Fision explosives.

b. Antimatter explosives (mini anti-bombs)

 

So if a wraith were loaded as an actual a-a missile, perhaps it would´nt penetrate the armor, but as a fision or worse as an antimatter (MINI-apocalypse) one... well the things go to the wraith.

 

But, let´s imagine that UED guys don´t want to use their nuclear toys. Then, they may load their missiles with high explosives (like AGM-65 or AGM-109 if i don´t mistake...) and a depleted Uranium head. Therefore, those toys can penetrate even bunkers with metters of concrete and steel armour so...

 

Finally, don´t forget that there is always the nuclear solution.

 

2. Okay. I suppose that works. Conceeded.

 

3. Ditto the above.

 

4. Hydralisks can penetrate 2cm of neosteel, but they can't penetrate 2cm of glass windshield? If Hydralisks can penetrate 2cm of Neosteel and can't penetrate a glass windshield, then wouldn't that, logically, make Neosteel weaker than glass?

 

4b. The book I mentioned earlier also has a small group of hydralisks shooting down a battlecruiser with relative ease. The BC wasn't destroyed in one hit, but it didn't take thousands either.

 

5. Pheonix missiles have a range of 160 kilometers. Hmmph. My sources say 184. Guess I made a mistake. But anyway, the Pheonix isn't exactly the most maneouverable missile out there. Certainly not enough to take a fast-moving, dodging UFO which, by most accounts are extremely quick and maneouverable. It also doesn't carry the big warhead necessary to damage a UFO that can take fusion weapons. Avalanches do.

 

5a. Of course the Wraiths can load their missiles with regular explosives. But unless they load their missiles with enough explosive to deal kilotons of damage, they aren't going to be shooting down alien battleships with any semblance of speed.

 

Further, we've never seen Wraiths deal out the kind of damage that even a very small fusion weapon would by necessity deal out. So unless they suddenly redesign all their missiles to use fusion warheads (something that isn't particularly likely, especially given that fusion warheads aren't the easiest things in the make right) the wraith is going to be no match for an armed alien ship.

 

As for the anti-matter, it's not very widespread amongst the Terrans in SC. The nukes have it, and the battlecruisers/science vessels *may* use it in their reactors, but that's it. We've never heard of it being used for anything else. heck, the containment systems probably take up more mass than the rest of the missile combined!

 

1. Blizzard does not indicate if it´s an atmosphere or an space velocity. However, don´t forget that BC´s can travel thorough galaxy. And also wraiths. But also remember that they can move from system to system in a few days. (Tarsonics, Korhal, the laws of imagination) So BC and wraith´s real velocity is something to be seen.

 

2. I recommend just to get to the data in-game. I mean, we all know that there are things that are no logic, (f.e 5000 mph??? and 250000???, plasma weapons, antimatter missiles...) but that´s something reserved to the creators of those games.

 

1. It's most likely space velocity. If something as big as a BC moved that fast in an atmosphere, it would be ripped apart by windshear. Further, as for the 'travel throughout the galaxy' part, they *must* have used a FTL drive of some sort, otherwise, even going at .9c, it would have taken years to get from planet to planet.

 

Finally, for the Wraiths, we don't know how they get inbetween systems. They're probably carried on battlecruisers or some carrier we haven't seen since a craft that small couldn't carry enough fuel to go interplanetary in a reasonable amount of time.

 

2. Of course there are things that don't make sense. But that doesn't change the fact that they are the only hard numbers that we have for the X-Com side. Going by ingame only means that SC is even more doomed than they already are. Since, ingame its weapons are weak.

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1. I was only using common sense... i mean, How thick can you suposse the glass was? only 2 cm? remenber that hydralisk also have claws and they use it. So the most probably for the glass is to be about a couple of metters thick. And as i said, acid can be wonderful...

 

2. Warhead?... well as i said, phoenix missiles are actual missiles. I was only supposing wraiths to use tactical nukes, but only to show where does the common sense lead us. But, see that in order to shoot down BC´s (and they do it) the geminy missile MUST be very strong. Why? Because BC´s are flying fortress, and have not inches, but metters of neosteel (well, let´s supose steel) and geminy missiles are so powerful that they can even penetrate that coracee (Or they would never shoot it down). All in all, i guess that a couple or more metters are far thicker than 16 inches so...

 

3. We can not suposse anything here. In no part of the game sais that BC´s can transport wraiths. Moreover, if that were true, they would use them like carrier´s interceptors. And that does not happen.

 

About velocity, If the velocity of the UFO is so great, they should go to space and fall directly to the city (terror missions)... and that would take less time (and save them from interceptors) than going through the world trying to catch it. So even in space aliens ships are not so fast...

 

About BC´s speed. Well, BC´s use cryo system in HSpace travel. And if you review the book, (Liberty´s Crusade) you´ll see that raynol and the rest do not sleep in travels throught systems. But the UED guys do, in earth-Tarsonics one by the way it´s a very long distance (they took about 6 months to get it).

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