Thanas wrote:
They were not overpenetrating, in fact if the looks of the bullets bouncing off are any indication, they did not penetrat at all. Which means that a single Zergling, the scout unit of the Zergs, has a better resistance against kinetic weapons than Skynets main infantry.
In multiple iterations of Starcraft canon, the Marine gauss rifle is extremely effective at penetrating Zergling carapace. Too effective, in fact. The bullets seeming to "bounce off" are likely an artifact of the video quality of the game's cutscenes, which was quite low and in some ways significantly inferior to modern ingame graphics.
Note that in the Starcraft 2 site's trailers, a Marine using a new build gauss rifle demonstrates that it does overpenetrate and massively, punching right through a Hydralisk IIRC.
If Skynet uses plasma weapons, I would like to know whether they have shown the ability to punch through armour suites.
Furthermore, how many terminators can Skynet call on?
The T-X's plasma weapon shows the ability to ablate a significant portion of a Terminator's flesh away, then burn through an armor plate. Plus it also has the side effect of bodily throwing the Termie a fair distance.
On the number of available Terminators: Theoretically, SkyNET's time travel system violates causality. However, we haven't ever seen it work that way. So we have no idea.
Does Skynet have any PD capability? Has it ever faced aerial attack? Also, do Terminators have the capability to be walking AA platforms? Their accuracy in the movie makes me doubt that. Also, if millions of terrors attack...
Given that apparently in at least one iteration of Skynet canon there is an intact nuclear submarine floating around, one would think that Skynet does in fact have point defense weapons. Skynet also at least has control of what automated systems remain in the US military, so until proven not to have CIWS and other systems, one should assume their availability.
A T-800 has enough accuracy with a M134 minigun and M79 grenade launcher to destroy dozens of squad cars... without harming a single person, even when literally firing 20 bullets a second right behind someone's feet. Let's not forget that with the M79 there were no shrapnel casualties or even injuries.
That level of Headshot-On-Demand accuracy is definitely enough to nail something as long as the machine can physically track.
They don't fire accurately against main characters because, well... character shields.
Note that Scourges are a silly weapon to send in swarms due to their damage modality being, IIRC, technobabble hypergolic chemicals-they don't have a fuse, they blow up when they hit something hard enough-or something hits them hard enough. You kill one, and it'll blow up the entire swarm for you.
Furthermore, the Zerg have defeated Terran fleets even when they had fighter screens, valkyries etc. Does Skynet have any space fleet? Otherwise the Zerg can just land on a usuable planet, built up their air units, and rush Skynet.
First, fighters are not a very good point defense solution. Valks are barely adequate. By point defense I mean the proper stuff. Phalanx, Goalkeeper, Rolling Airframe Missiles, the stuff we see on modern naval ships, or even, at least, the laser weapon they want to fit the JSF with eventually.
This is assuming that building massed air units is a good idea against a foe with nuclear capability. Nuclear shockwaves versus large surface area (e.g. wings or most Zerg airborne critters) = bad day.
First, WTF is Ogreverse? Second, you are missing the point. Stay with me, i'll try to break it down for you.
A) Protoss have the firepower to effectively sterilise a planet. They have demonstrated that they can send out fleets to do that job, and that they can effectively curbstomp the Terrans.
B) Zerg, while hundreds of years younger, nevertheless managed to entirely wreck Aiur, despite the aforementioned protoss firepower, and fleet, and orbital defenses. They managed to transport the overmind there. Also, they curbstomped a force sent by the UED.
C) Are you honestly trying to claim that Skynet has defenses up to the level of the Protoss homeworld? Or, that Skynet (in order to win) has way better ones than the Protoss?
Ogreverse is... let's put it this way. Nuclear. Machine. Guns. Every weapon from a infantryman's general purpose smart missile launcher on up to the fully automatic 300+mm guns that their Huge Tanks carry is nuclear.
A. This is irrelevant.
B. This is also irrelevant. Prove Zerg have planetbusting firepower. Wait, it isn't stated or even implied anywhere in canon. And if you think that the Protoss will blow up Aiur, their most valued possession, or even scorch it lightly with one of their death-rays, you're on something pretty strong. The Protoss are ideological and religious fanatics, and Aiur is sacred to them. It's like saying that Al Quaeda would nuke Mecca if someone who wasn't a Muslim was in the vicinity.
The Protoss are (were) also designed around surgical, fast strikes and had a small, mostly ceremonial military, as stated multiple times. This is exactly the wrong way to face a massive horde of expendable enemies. What you need is a large quantity of firepower-and Terminator plasma rifles have a decent rate of fire and good firepower.
Their spaceborne defenses were also likely designed against single high value targets, given their philosophy, instead of fighting ten bazillion incoming Overlords.
C. The ability to blow up a planet is tactically irrelevant unless both sides have way too many planets, and the Protoss only heavily occupied two, Aiur and Shakuras. As soon as the Zerg had a foothold, they would not be able to apply that firepower-which needed a specialist ship anyhow.
The Zerg, in this case, are a *tactical* problem, not a strategic one. All that matters is if Skynet's military capability is sufficient to hold off a very small Zerg force-one much, much smaller than the one that the Protoss had to deal with.
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