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idiot's summary
Posted By: gspawnDate: 1/28/05 12:27 a.m.

In Response To: UNSC MAC round velocity (Vanguard21)

: In The Fall of Reach, the Super Macs fired rounds at "point four
: tenths" the speed of light. Is this a redundancy? Does it mean .4c or
: .04c?

: The lights on the bridge dimmed and the Commonwealth shuddered. The MAC bolt
: launched through space--a red-hot metal slug moving at thirty thousand
: meters per second.

1)speed of light ~300,000,000m/s
2)SuperMac is going either .4=120,000,000m/s, or .04=12,000,000m/s
3)The second round you're referring to was doing 30,000m/s
-Notice that that's now just slower, that's MUCH slower... you're talking about two entirely different weapon systems, so you're not helped there.

And Nylund is a kick-ass writer, but he's known for making some little errors here and there (improper pronouns, switching lefts and rights...) so I think that ".4" was likely read as ".4" and "4 tenths" at the same time, and he fudged them together as he wrote.

So I'd imagine it's safe to say:
SuperMAC: 120,000,000m/s (1/4 speed of light)
Commonwealth: 30,000m/s (1/10,000 speed of light)
(And this makes a better comparison of how much faster the Super round is)

[total opinion here, since I imagine you're writing / using the numbers]
I think this comes from the fact that MAC guns on human ships were built for standard, human, vessell-to-vessell combat, while SuperMACs were built to kock the **** out of anything in range. Remember the talk in FoR about how the Pillar of Autumn couldn't mount any anti-fighter guns anywhere near the MAC because they'd get magnetized? MAC guns on human ships seem so underpowered because building them big enough to do the "big" jobs would magnetize the whole ship (and be a huge waste since most larger ships' MACs can punch a hole straight through unshielded vessels). Of course, comparitively, modern bullets only need to do upwards of ~1,000m/s to take care of anything in their path. Also, the rounds fired from all MAC guns are superdense mofo materials, so hefting something so massive to that speed is already enough force that it probably factors into steering the ship...

And Nylund is harder... Eric Trautmann (Art of Halo, etc) is a mildly reachable person. That or hope Frankie pops in...

Message Index



Replies:

UNSC MAC round velocityVanguard21 1/27/05 11:18 p.m.
     Re: UNSC MAC round velocityAlex Cross 1/28/05 12:09 a.m.
           whoa, careless error ;)gspawn 1/28/05 12:31 a.m.
                 *sigh* GoddamnitAlex Cross 1/28/05 6:14 a.m.
                 Re: whoa, careless error ;)Son of Ral 1/28/05 3:51 p.m.
           "Boo"Son of Ral 1/28/05 3:47 p.m.
     To sum it up, .4c :) *NM*Alex Cross 1/28/05 12:11 a.m.
     idiot's summarygspawn 1/28/05 12:27 a.m.
           Re: idiot's summaryPvt. Jenkins 1/28/05 12:44 a.m.
                 Re: idiot's summarygspawn 1/28/05 1:00 a.m.
                 hear hear *NM*Corgana 1/28/05 1:02 a.m.
           iMac? :) *NM*Michael M. 1/28/05 1:06 a.m.
           Re: idiot's summarydevolver 1/28/05 1:47 a.m.
           Re: idiot's summaryreplay 1/28/05 2:21 a.m.
           Re: idiot's summarymrbananas 1/28/05 9:38 a.m.
                 Re: idiot's summaryBonekin 1/28/05 10:36 a.m.
                       Re: idiot's summarymrbananas 1/28/05 11:18 a.m.
                 Re: idiot's summaryGrady 1/28/05 11:32 a.m.
                       the possible cause of confusion and doubt.mrbananas 1/28/05 1:07 p.m.
                             Re: the possible cause of confusion and doubt.Louis Wu 1/28/05 1:42 p.m.
                                   Re: the possible cause of confusion and doubt.Vanguard21 1/28/05 2:49 p.m.
           Re: idiot's summaryGre'Thor 1/28/05 12:10 p.m.
           Re: idiot's summaryE.T. the Extremely Tired 1/28/05 12:54 p.m.
           Re: idiot's summaryEric Trautmann 1/28/05 3:23 p.m.
           To put it in very simple terms...Calvin Chaos 1/28/05 4:25 p.m.
     Re: UNSC MAC round velocityVanguard21 1/28/05 1:11 p.m.
           Re: UNSC MAC round velocityCalvin Chaos 1/28/05 4:37 p.m.
                 Re: UNSC MAC round velocityVanguard21 1/28/05 5:12 p.m.



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