In-game quantification of Covenant 'glassing' from reach.

[Marko Dash]

was reading through the datapad transcripts when i came upon this. if we take this to be correct it should lower the speculated firepower of the covenant fleet dramatically.

transcript is found under its location. http://www.haloreachplanet.com/halo-rea ... ocation-2/

the most interesting part however is this

"Importantly, the Covenant does not possess the capacity to accomplish ‘glassing’ on a global scale and wage a multisystem war simultaneously. This is reinforced by hard data regarding their capabilities revealed during fleet engagements with the UNSC. A single Covenant capital ship (CCS-class) is capable of ‘glassing’ approximately one acre of a planet’s sruface after an average of fifteen seconds of sustained fire. Understandably this action takes considerably less time when applied to open desert, and considerably longer when applied to deep ocean (> 1.8 km)"

[SAMAS]

That doesn't seem right. An acre is like the size of my backyard. I think the beam is bigger than that.

[Lord Relvenous]

Yeah, if it was hectare that description would make much more sense.

[Stark]

In the game Halo : Reach the Covenant ships demonstrate very low firepower, even when firing bombardment from orbit. Much of Reach is seen from orbit to be on fire, but not 'glassed'. Areas heavily attacked can later be returned to without difficulty and structures still exist.

[Arachnidus]

In the game Halo : Reach the Covenant ships demonstrate very low firepower, even when firing bombardment from orbit. Much of Reach is seen from orbit to be on fire, but not 'glassed'. Areas heavily attacked can later be returned to without difficulty and structures still exist.

Presumably, the Covies were using low yield weaponry to preserve Reach as much as possible while looking for artifacts.

*a Halo fan's speculation*

[Stark]

Due to plot they already know where the artefact is (and later attack it right after you arrive). The attack on the other 99% of the planet - and especially cities - is very low-yield. I'm pretty sure the US military could knock down skyscrapers more effectively.

[kouchpotato]

When they attacked New Alexandria with their plasma beams it seemed to effect a hell of a lot more then just an acre.

[Stark]

But none of it was 'glassed'. NA is remarkably untouched for a city that should have been utterly destroyed. Not only are the buildings still up, but the power still works to all of them and the Cov are reduced to clearing house to house!

[Srelex]

What sort of power would be needed for the conflagrations we see from orbit? I mean, maybe they were doing it on a tactical level or something?

[Stark]

It's possible, although I think only the smaller ships go to low altitude. Much of it just appears to be standard 'plasma bolts' starting fires. They sure could have won the war if they just shot the totally stationary Pillar of Autumn with a 15s glassing shot.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Its been pretty obvious for a while now that glassing just means "extensive nuclear level bombardment"

[Chris OFarrell]

Well clear to everyone except some of the more fanatic Halo fans at any rate.

It is interesting that they put such a detailed chunk of information into the game though, going to that much trouble to dismiss glassing as being a non-event...

[Ford Prefect]

That doesn't seem right. An acre is like the size of my backyard. I think the beam is bigger than that.

Well, too bad? A bunch of AI specialists would have more authority in this area than you. Hilariously the datapads reveal that the term 'glassing' was actually selected because it is largely meaningless but scary sounding, and thus an effective propaganda tool for galvanising a population that doesn't know any better.

[Stark]

Maybe their warships have serious power problems and that's why they spend 90% of their time looming doing nothing? The corvette in the finale is too stupid to blow up the ground-based MAC gun shooting it, which would have taken less than a second.

[Darksider]

Actually, the ship in the finale is a cruiser, so it would have a larger power plant AND more weapons to use. Is any reason ever given in the supplemental materials like the shit in the legendary edition that might explain why it just sat there and cruised towards the Autumn at like four miles an hour?

And how the fuck did a piddly little mass driver like the one used (which was IIRC converted from something used for ship-building) when the larger, ship mounted guns need at least three shots to penetrate the shields of Covenant warships?

And speaking of shields, why the fuck didn't the Covenant corvettes seem to have shields at all? they can put shields on fighters, phantoms (the ones in the space level are shielded) and even infantry, but their support warships are SOL?

[Stark]

I don't clearly understand what happened; the MAC gun couldn't penetrate the shields at all and something happened (and created a red mark on the shit) which you then shot to destroy it. Amusingly a burst of speed at that point would STILL have destroyed the Autumn by dropping wreckage on it. Hell, if they'd landed their troopships anyway but RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE MAC GUN they'd have been fine; I had Sherry watching my back and nobody even made it into the building.

The corvette not having shields and being able to have all its guns shot off was pretty funny; I totally disarmed it except the waist guns (which obviously can't be destroyed before the Savannah demonstrates its stupidity).

[DrStrangelove]

Reach, ODST, and Halo3 pretty much put the nail in the coffin for rationally arguing for high yields for Halo.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Maybe the corvette in space and final ship should be chocked up to gameplay? It'd certainly help explain those rather odd events. That said, some of what we see may be tactical level bombardment, they are afterall landing a full invasion army and setting up some kind of teleporters (one of which we destroy), presumably to bring in more troops and materials.

Regarding "glassing". In the version that came Halsey's journal, written by Eric Nylund I believe, Halsey mentions that glassing isn't an accurate term. It's also mentioned in one entry from 2549 that they didn't know if the Covenant completely glassed the surface of a planet or only went after vital points of resistance. Mind you this is a fair while after the war started. There also seems to be an issue with power generation on covenant ships as suspected. She comments that she was able to watch most of the destruction of Arcadia via a repurposed weather satelite and that if the Covenant ships could keep up the level of power used indefinitely, that there would be no space battles at all. Its also noted that this was a larger than normal fleet and the second time the planet was attacked*. I wander if it could be a fuel limitation.

Due to plot they already know where the artefact is (and later attack it right after you arrive). The attack on the other 99% of the planet - and especially cities - is very low-yield. I'm pretty sure the US military could knock down skyscrapers more effectively.

Specifically which level are you referring to, because the dig site where Halsey was got demoed after you left. Keep in mind there is also the artifact that is discovered later under Castle Base in First Strike which takes place after Halo: Combat evolved. Also the Covenant apparently weren't glassing the whole planet as they are still after relics and fighting survivors several weeks after the game ends according to Halo: First Strike.

*: Apparently the Covenant either "destroyed" the planet outright initially or disengaged and ignored it. There were few exceptions when they made a second attack (known instances being Harvest,Arcadia,Meridian, and Reach) a few other unnamed instances were implied. Reach is definitely an atypical scenario.

[Stark]

Since I was talking about skyscrapers and cities, I'm not sure how you could have imagined I was talking about an underground cave. The Covenant don't even bombard it! We however see that buildings that ARE bombarded (like in NA) are largely intact and functional. I don't think a single fallen skyscraper is seen onscreen.

And corvettes are seen blasting UNSC ships at longer range than they do nothing on the ground. Perhaps they're too stupid to roll the ship to use the waist guns and thus only fire their downward-facing weapon.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Well the majority of the Covenant, barring a few individuals like the Arbiter and the Spec. Ops Leader/Shipmaster seem to leave alot to be desired when it comes to tactical decision making. Those two at least come off as more competant and intelligent than the rest, whether they are could be another matter entirely.


I don't remember any talk of artifacts in NA, time for a replay I think.

[Stark]

There aren't any artefacts in NA, that's the point; there's no reason not to just blow it up (and they nuke it later anyway). It seems that on the surface ships only use limited guns - the cov seem limited to the down-firing guns in the circular bit and UNSC seem limited to their forward-firing guns.

Either that or every single event involving spaceships in Reach is fucking stupid, like the frigate not noticing the supercarrier gun directly above it.

[kouchpotato]

Most of the ship-related things in Reach are completely, utterly stupid. Like, for example, a world described as a "fortress world" and the UNSC military center has about four ships. Not to mention lacking nukes ANYWHERE on the planet save for ships. The Savannah doesn't use it's Archer missiles to take out the corvette's engines, which apparently didn't matter cause it was able to dock with the bigger ship anyways. The MAC gun you use at the shipyard is only effective to a kilometer and has to hit a banshee directly to even damage it at all.

tl,dr the game was fun but full of stupidity.

[Stark]

I forgot about the space fighters - they had to wank to top secret test facilities to get you into space because fuck knows there are no airfields on Reach.

[Connor MacLeod]

Check me on this, but the quote says that a Covvie warship should be able to 'glass' an acre of ocean, up to a depth of ~1.8 km, within 15 seconds. If we assume "glassing" means boiling (as hinted at in some of the novels, though we could guess vaporization - that won't change the actual calc by an OoM ignoring inefficiencies though) I'd guess that the sustained firepower is hundreds of terawatts, perhaps a few petawatts (allowing for some fudge factor.)

[Stark]

It actually explicitly says they CAN'T do that. It takes 15s to 'glass' an acre, 'considerably longer' for deep ocean.

We see in the games that they can barely glass a desert, so...