Starcraft vs Halo

[Imperial528]

Now if only we had an exact estimate on the size of those bays/windows.

[Ford Prefect]

all from a population 40,000...

This always amuses me. Logically speaking, the entirety of the Koprulu Sector would have a population much smaller than Australia.

[hongi]

Genetic engineering for higher fecundity? Frozen embryos? Cloning? *gives up*

I'm waiting for a retcon Blizzard!

[Ford Prefect]

They just ignored it, much like how they ignored the Zerg numbers given in the manual.

[Sapper007]

I always thought the Yamato would closer to double digit megatons... but when i sat down and did the calculations i was more than suprised to see the petaton/second come out...

[Imperial528]

all from a population 40,000...

This always amuses me. Logically speaking, the entirety of the Koprulu Sector would have a population much smaller than Australia.

I once did a calculation for an RPG race of mine that reached 20-40 billion per planet after one hundred years, totaling to 80-160 billion. Although, it did start out with 13-39 million per planet (grand total of 104 million) rather than a total of thirty thousand. The colonies also didn't try to kill each other except for one war which lasted for a long time but was other wise just skirmishes. Using modified conditions for the Terrans I got a result of 3,237,408,000 after two hundred years. The conditions I used were as follows:
One starts reproducing at 18, and continues until one dies, bearing three new children per every eighteen years, and then one dies at sixty. No wars are included, nor infertility rates.

So with a very generous calculation, in two hundred years they managed to get to 3.2 billion. Seems impressive, but that means that if they took hundreds of millions, or billions of casualties in the war with the Zerg, then they could be very well near extinction now.

[Azron_Stoma]

I always thought the Yamato would closer to double digit megatons... but when i sat down and did the calculations i was more than suprised to see the petaton/second come out...

I don't buy it, Ships are not inert objects and those explosions could easily have been internal, the result of the engine itself exploding.

The Mining Laser in the SC2 level "The Dig" being 174 Gigawatts and worth only 33 points of damage in game per second is interesting, if we want to in any way try to equate points of damage to gigawatts (though if we did that the Terran Gauss Rifles would be worth over 30 gigawatts of kinetic power!) but yeah, Game Mechanic.

I think it's more important that they made a big deal over the 174 Gigawatts and the sheer size of the thing, not terribly impressive.

Another Nail in the coffin against Protoss Cleansing being anywhere on the order of the Covenant Glassing or Imperial Base Delta Zero is the fact that Mar Sara is capable of supporting human life and colonies only 4 years after the events of Broodwar which itself doesn't take place all that long after the events of SC1

The Fact that it's possible to recolonize without any terraforming within Raynor's lifetime at all is pretty damning evidence against Teraton level firepower from the Protoss let alone the Terrans.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

all from a population 40,000...

This always amuses me. Logically speaking, the entirety of the Koprulu Sector would have a population much smaller than Australia.

I once did a calculation for an RPG race of mine that reached 20-40 billion per planet after one hundred years, totaling to 80-160 billion. Although, it did start out with 13-39 million per planet (grand total of 104 million) rather than a total of thirty thousand. The colonies also didn't try to kill each other except for one war which lasted for a long time but was other wise just skirmishes. Using modified conditions for the Terrans I got a result of 3,237,408,000 after two hundred years. The conditions I used were as follows:
One starts reproducing at 18, and continues until one dies, bearing three new children per every eighteen years, and then one dies at sixty. No wars are included, nor infertility rates.

So with a very generous calculation, in two hundred years they managed to get to 3.2 billion. Seems impressive, but that means that if they took hundreds of millions, or billions of casualties in the war with the Zerg, then they could be very well near extinction now.

Naw. According to fluff on Blizzard's SC2 website - which is about as canon as we're going to get - Korhal alone has a population of over 6.3 Billion. And this is a planet that was nuked into a radioactive wasteland under the Confederacy, underwent Mengsk's revolution, was conquered and occupied by the UED, and then was finally re-conquered by a multi-species alliance, all within living memory and everything but the nuking being in the last 5 or 6 years.

[hunter5]

I always thought the Yamato would closer to double digit megatons... but when i sat down and did the calculations i was more than suprised to see the petaton/second come out...

I don't buy it, Ships are not inert objects and those explosions could easily have been internal, the result of the engine itself exploding.

The Mining Laser in the SC2 level "The Dig" being 174 Gigawatts and worth only 33 points of damage in game per second is interesting, if we want to in any way try to equate points of damage to gigawatts (though if we did that the Terran Gauss Rifles would be worth over 30 gigawatts of kinetic power!) but yeah, Game Mechanic.

I think it's more important that they made a big deal over the 174 Gigawatts and the sheer size of the thing, not terribly impressive.

Another Nail in the coffin against Protoss Cleansing being anywhere on the order of the Covenant Glassing or Imperial Base Delta Zero is the fact that Mar Sara is capable of supporting human life and colonies only 4 years after the events of Broodwar which itself doesn't take place all that long after the events of SC1

The Fact that it's possible to recolonize without any terraforming within Raynor's lifetime at all is pretty damning evidence against Teraton level firepower from the Protoss let alone the Terrans.

I was under the impression Tassidar held back on Mar Sara to "save the humans from the flames" and only kill the sure by using a less powerful strike in a more precise manner. Which leaves us back to square one unless we have some more information about the first Terran colony the Protoss hit.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Of further note, the initial population of the Koprulu Terrans was not 40,000, but 32,000, since one of the colony ships apparently crash-landed, killing 8,000 of the 40,000 prisoners.

So yeah. In about 240 years (2260 to 2500, the year the colony ships ended their FTL journey to the year of the founding of the Dominion) the population went from just over 30,000 to the billions, more than likely tens of billions. I have a decent handle on the rule of 72 but even starting from a population of 40,000 and ending at a population of a little over 5 Billion requires a growth rate of around 4.5% - about double what our planet's was at its breediest (2.2% in the early 60s). Going from 32,000 to a little over 8 billion - not impossible, Korhal seems by far the most-populated world at current, but this is still an extremely minimal estimate since Umoja alone is another 2 billion - requires a growth rate closer to 6%. I guess Koprulu's outrageously broad-shouldered men must have equivalently broad-hipped women stashed somewhere safe knocking out souls like... Something... You make quickly and often.

However, even higher-end estimates of the Terran population wouldn't exceed a ceiling, I expect, of a growth rate of 7% or so. Considering the amount of warfare in both the past and present, this is pretty extraordinary, but that's what you get out of a setting like Starcraft, I guess.

[adam_grif]

I guess Koprulu's outrageously broad-shouldered men must have equivalently broad-hipped women stashed somewhere safe knocking out souls like... Something... You make quickly and often.

The Sims expansion packs circa 2001?

I guess there must be something in the water in the Koprulu sector. Or some sort of mandatory breeding program?

[Imperial528]

Another Nail in the coffin against Protoss Cleansing being anywhere on the order of the Covenant Glassing or Imperial Base Delta Zero is the fact that Mar Sara is capable of supporting human life and colonies only 4 years after the events of Broodwar which itself doesn't take place all that long after the events of SC1

The Fact that it's possible to recolonize without any terraforming within Raynor's lifetime at all is pretty damning evidence against Teraton level firepower from the Protoss let alone the Terrans.

Well, according to the fluff (IIRC) Mar Sara was able to support a terran colony post-cleansing because it retained an atmosphere, unlike its sister world Chau Sara, which had its atmosphere burned off in the bombardment. Also, the community site fluff claims that Mar Sara was terraformed after bombardment, and that both Mar Sara and Chau Sara had Kel-Morian strip mining operations on them at least two years after the bombardment.

[Sapper007]

I don't buy it, Ships are not inert objects and those explosions could easily have been internal, the result of the engine itself exploding.

fair assumption, ships are not inert... thats why i calculated for just the armor... not the actual ship...

The Mining Laser in the SC2 level "The Dig" being 174 Gigawatts and worth only 33 points of damage in game per second is interesting, if we want to in any way try to equate points of damage to gigawatts (though if we did that the Terran Gauss Rifles would be worth over 30 gigawatts of kinetic power!) but yeah, Game Mechanic.
I think it's more important that they made a big deal over the 174 Gigawatts and the sheer size of the thing, not terribly impressive.

Except that size in-game isnt really a good indicator of actual size... otherwise we would be forced to believe that all marines have either:
A. Shrinking capabilities...
B. can walk through matter...
just so they can fit into a bunker...

and precision cutting tools and a forward facing directional nuclear weapon are not exactly designed to do the same thing... just saying...

Another Nail in the coffin against Protoss Cleansing being anywhere on the order of the Covenant Glassing or Imperial Base Delta Zero is the fact that Mar Sara is capable of supporting human life and colonies only 4 years after the events of Broodwar which itself doesn't take place all that long after the events of SC1

The Fact that it's possible to recolonize without any terraforming within Raynor's lifetime at all is pretty damning evidence against Teraton level firepower from the Protoss let alone the Terrans.

Hardly a nail when they did terraform the planet...

"Metzen, Chris (w), Hector Sevilla (p, i). "Homecoming." In StarCraft: Frontline: Volume 4 (paperback binding), pp. 6-27. Tokyopop, October 1, 2009. ISBN 978-1427-81698-6."

so does it speak volumes on weapon power? no...
It does speak volumes on industrial capabilities of the Terrans

[Thanas]

However, even higher-end estimates of the Terran population wouldn't exceed a ceiling, I expect, of a growth rate of 7% or so. Considering the amount of warfare in both the past and present, this is pretty extraordinary, but that's what you get out of a setting like Starcraft, I guess.

Keep in mind that they use a lot of biotech and cloning, in which case population rates soaring like that are more possible.

[Samuel]

However, even higher-end estimates of the Terran population wouldn't exceed a ceiling, I expect, of a growth rate of 7% or so. Considering the amount of warfare in both the past and present, this is pretty extraordinary, but that's what you get out of a setting like Starcraft, I guess.

Keep in mind that they use a lot of biotech and cloning, in which case population rates soaring like that are more possible.

They still have to raise the resulting individuals and be able to produce enough infrastructure to match the constantly expanding population. I'm not sure that is possible.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Yeah, their population doubles every 15 years or so. And my minimal estimates were not only smaller than the truly minimal normal figures - Moria has a population over 4 Billion, as well, bringing only the 3 still-inhabited original colonies' population to 12 Billion - but they did not include the fact that up until the Zerg invasion, there was an even more heavily-populated world than Korhal - Tarsonis, now barren. By any measure, the Terran population is doubling every dozen years or so. And they don't seem to be having any problems directly related to this enormous population growth.

Well, at any rate, it means that Terran game mechanics may be a lot closer to canon than we otherwise have imagined.

[Lord Revan]

Well it might explain the near suicidal tactics the confederacy or the dominion seemed to use in the cutscenes, if the they had a large poor lower class, criminal rates could be rather high thus making a large pool of potential "recruits" to replace the losses on field (manpower wise at least).

[Sapper007]

the bad thing about starcraft is its hard to estimate and quantify a lot of their capabilities, because of lack of canon, alot of what we know comes from a game manual or gritty cutscenes. Fortunately this whole Starcraft 2 thing came out and painted a clearer picture of what we actually can quantify.

The lore injection the universe received from one game was excellent...

[Sapper007]

I found a few screen shots we can accurately size from...
and discovered that the wing-span of a BC is just over 900meters, and the armor on the wings is 7.5 meters thick...
and using modern-day carbon steel to replace neo-steel,
the yamato cannon does 642 teratons a second...
low-end...
unless, of course, starcraft armor is hollow... then its closer to 500 gigatons...

http://factpile.wikispaces.com/file/vie ... _width.jpg
http://factpile.wikispaces.com/file/vie ... eam2o3.jpg
http://factpile.wikispaces.com/file/vie ... Hit3o3.jpg

[Thanas]

I don't buy teraton figures for Starcraft, simply because if they had that kind of firepower, a Zerg swarm would not be a threat to them. Also, they probably would not need tactical nukes anymore.

I also doubt the validity of your armor calculations, as a single terror was able to take down Norad II. Unless you want to argue that too was a teraton-blast, but I really doubt that.

[Srelex]

Well, in fairness, tactical nukes are rather more practical on, well, a tactical scale than teraton blasts. Similar principle as to why the US doesn't deploy MOABs on machinegun nests in the middle east.

[Agent Sorchus]

You also shouldn't use BC's from SC1 and assume that it is the same as SC2, ideally you would use the exact same ship for a size comparison. What is better is to take the Launch bay that is visible in the second screen cap and from later in the same clip @ the 5 minute mark we see that each of those bays is large enough to fit a Wraith, which we should have a pretty good idea of the size based on it's cockpit.

I have no dogs in this fight, but at the same 5:14 we see the neck plating is no where near 7 meters thick, and it would seem to be odd for the wing to be so much thicker than the neck. Besides we do not see vaporization so much as fragmentation. Doing a half ass job I find that to completely vaporize a Nickle Iron asteroid of diameter 160m requires only 30.7 megatons. The fact that the person who did this calculation does not use significant figures throughout, and that his numbers differ so greatly with mine leads me to call bullshit. And looking at the math I found the error, he used 10^14J for Mega-Joules when it is only 10^6J.

So no this calculation can be thrown out as complete bullshit. Using the same logic, but with the correct calculation it is shown to have less power than the Tsar Bomb.

[Sapper007]

The fact that the person who did this calculation does not use significant figures throughout, and that his numbers differ so greatly with mine leads me to call bullshit. And looking at the math I found the error, he used 10^14J for Mega-Joules when it is only 10^6J.

I thought the fact that i covered the exact same calculation spelled out in a previous post would work... but apparently i have to explain it all...

I did use signifigant figures...(See my previous post in a similar manner)
where the hell didnt i? saying its wrong and proving its wrong is different, my friend...
and with your post maybe its your reading skills and not my math that should be called into question...
just because your knee jerk is to say its way to high...(even though it does seem really high)
and it doesnt make sense...
doesnt contradict the fact that given the pictures... its canon...
and besides if I had used the yamato barrel from SC2(where the whole nose section slides in seperate directions) the figure would have been higher...

[Stark]

I guess you can prove all your assumptions (ie dimensions, state changes, composition, etc) too, right? You're not just saying 'omg vaporizs HUEG NUMBAR' or anything.

[Agent Sorchus]

Then you are still wrong because you misused megajoules. Look again the screen caps that you produced use a value of ten to the fourteenth for the heat of vaporization of an Iron based metal, when I look up the heat of vaporization of Iron it is ten to the sixth power, Eight orders of magnitude less. Whoever did this absolutely messed that figure up and that is the entire difference when I do the exact same calculations.

I am not even argue the pictures you nimbwit, I first do not agree with your assumption that the Starcraft 2 battlecruiser can be used at the same time as the SC1 battlecruiser cut scene, and secondly running a pair of calculations that do not agree with your numbers. The first calculation is the energy of vaporization of a 160m sphere of iron, that masses far greater than the disk of armor that a BC uses. That came out to be only 30.7megtons, using Wong's asteroid Destruction calculator. That discrepancy lead to me repeating your own calcs looking for error's. Guess what? I found only one significant error. The proper heat of vaporization for already molten iron is 7.63 MJ/kg, whereas you used .751PJ (7.63*10^6 versus 7.51*10^14). My density of iron also differed in that it was 40kg/m^3 higher, but it was so little I chalked it up to the carbon in your carbon steel.

Your pictures are canon, your math is wrong.