In Response To: Re: On the subject of the Gauss Cannon... (Sage Scorpion)
: True, but no one really knows the exact speed of a Super-MAC gun. Well, maybe
: I'm wrong, but I don't have my copy of TFoR handy. But assuming that they
: do fire at your given speed, it would be near impossible to hit anything.
: It would be like a .50 cal. bullet being shot with a 9mm cartridge. Less,
: actually. Firing at that speed would give the Covies enough time to dodge
: if at any kind of range. That is to say anywhere beyond the asteroid belt.
the SuperMAC round travels at .4 the speed of light according to eric nylund, which isn't slow at all dude. It took Apollo 11 a few days to reach the moon without friction and that was using the most powerful rocket every built. the covenant couldn't dodge it at any distance either because human reaction time is .7 seconds. MAC round will travel 8.4E7 m in that time. That's 84,000 kilometers before the enemy ship can even know something is coming. reaction time is probably even lower in grunts. because the covenant ship already has velocity as it is moving towards earth, it is going to have to overcome its applied force in order to change its trajectory. not an easy task for a massive ship. im sure the human ships also use advanced targeting computers and whatnot in order to increase their odds of making a hit. when youre aiming at a fleet of 300-500 ships, you're likely to score a hit no matter what, anyways... Besides, in the books all the ship to ship fighting appears to occur within visual range, so i doubt theres even any attempt to attack ships beyond asteroid belt range. thats VERY far away. The reason for this is because in our universe nothing can accelerate past the speed of light, that is why fighting is so close quarters in the Halo universe.. If you can see a wave of plasma rolling towards you ship, it obviously cant being going past the speed of light (just the way you cant hear something going the speed of sound... until its gone) so covenant weapons are no better than human ones.
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