Starcraft vs Halo

[Srelex]

How would the world of Starcraft fare against that of Halo? Let's explore some scenarios.

Terrans vs UNSC: Both sides are evenly equipped and evenly numbered with their various combined arms in a generic battlefield. The UNSC forces includes its vanilla arsenal from Halo Wars, but has no air support apart from Sparrowhawks and Hornets. The Terrans possess their new units from Starcraft 2, including Banshees and Vikings. The UNSC has no SPARTANs, and the Terrans have no Ghosts or Battlecruisers. How does it go? If the barred units are introduced, would they make a difference?

Terrans vs Covenant: The same as above--both sides are allowed all their arms to equal degree, with no 'super units', such as Scarabs and Battlecruisers.

UNSC vs Zerg: Ditto.

UNSC vs Protoss. Whether you think the Protoss should be allowed to deploy their Colossi is up to you.

Covenant vs Zerg. Less holds barred here--the Covenant are allowed Scarabs while the Zerg are allowed Ultralisks.

Covenant vs Protoss. Likewise, full arsenal.

What are the outcomes of these battles? Orbital support is irrelevant in each.

[Lord Revan]

I think the first problem here is that we won't know that much about the Starcraft-verse that doesn't come from game mechanics.

I'm a fan of Blizzard's games and looking forward to SC2 but still the lack of objective and relible data seems to make imho very poor candidates for VS debates.

[Srelex]

I think the first problem here is that we won't know that much about the Starcraft-verse that doesn't come from game mechanics.

I'm a fan of Blizzard's games and looking forward to SC2 but still the lack of objective and relible data seems to make imho very poor candidates for VS debates.

The recent Starcraft comics and novels I think provide some insights.

[adam_grif]

I haven't read any of those, but anything other than space ships is completely unimpressive for Haloverse. Their cruisers apparently carry megatonne to gigatonne level firepower, but their ground forces are on par with contemporary militaries.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

You might want to look up the other various Starcraft threads that have popped up from time to time. Every time this happens we run into the same two problems: The gameplay is not a valid representation of power levels because balance and fun factor trumps accurate representation of capabilities in game, and there is no documentation from Blizzard on what is canon and what isn't, which means when there are contradictory claims between novels, comic books, cinematics and game manuals, we have no means to determine which takes precedence.

It's better just to accept that until Blizzard actually makes a statement (probably never since it doesn't seem to be something they consider worth addressing), you simply cannot debate/compare Starcraft the same way you can with better documented 'verses like Wars, 40K and Trek.

[Balrog]

Truth be told they have said they consider the novels to tell the 'official' story of how the games played out and such, though again it still leaves many questions unanswered, especially concerning the new SC2 units which still haven't been finalized yet.

[Balrog]

Ah, found it, it's the second half 'Blizzard comments on lore'

Anyway, of these fights the Zerg are at the disadvantage. They are far more susceptible to Halo weapons than the other two factions, and they're not going to be able to simply swarm over their opponent given equal numbers and presumably no way to grow more, unless you've given them a Hive?

[Oskuro]

I don't know about actual weapon output, but as for size, I made some scaling of the Terran Battlecruiser for a 3d model I made, using the Starcraft cinematics as reference, and the thing is about 800m in length and 750m wingspan.

I could of course be awfully wrong on the scale. Here's a wip render, by the way. Not sure why, but I love this ship design:

[verlieren]

And Starcraft verse would murder Halo with as much emphasis as I can put.

[d'Artagnan]

sniped picture

And Starcraft verse would murder Halo with as much emphasis as I can put.

All you've done is post an impressive looking but otherwise completely meaningless picture and phrase that doesn't make much sense. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate?

[Formless]

Although I have no numbers, I would tend to suspect that the Terrans would be on par with the UNSC tactics wise. They clearly understand combined arms and their mainline troops seem to be well equipped compared to the standard UNSC marine. The Terran Dominion covers several star systems at least, so we might be able to estimate the size of their industrial base.

[Darksider]

As of the beginning of the Covenant war, the UNSC controls 900 star systems to the Dominion's Dozen plus, so they've got a massive size advantage. In space the two sides seem roughly comparable, with the Terran's warships and nukes possessing megaton level firepower on par with warship MAC guns and Shiva tac nukes. The Protoss were able to burn the surface of Terran planets in a manner similar to the Covenant's attacks on Human worlds, but we've never actually seen their warships use any weaponry in the books or cutscenes. As others have said, the main problem is that while we have definitive calculations on firepower and shielding for Halo, everything on Starcraft is just ball-park guesswork. At first glance they seem to have rough parity in warship firepower and shielding, but there could be differences that upon deeper observation could give one side a definitive edge.

[Formless]

By "control" are we talking about colonies with significant populations and infrastructure? Or are we talking about "control" the way someone from Trek might, where a colony has maybe one significant city on the whole damn thing and its more determined by some kind of territorial border who "controls" what?

[Darksider]

For the UNSC, the 900 colonies are at least up to the standards of Harvest, which is a small agricultural settelment, but still has space elevators that can shoot escape pods into slipspace. As for the Terran Dominion, it probably only has a half-dozen industrialized worlds under it's control. Remember, as of Starcraft 2, the Zerg have only been gone for two years, and they decimated most of the heavily populated Terran worlds, including the capital of Tarsonis. There can't have been much rebuilding with that kind of devastation and political upheaval. Hell even the Dominion's capital is a radioactive wasteland.

[adam_grif]

Keep in mind that the Terrans are just the faction of humanity that happens to be in the systems that Starcraft took place in. The UED would probably be a much more even fight in terms of scale and available resources.

[Darksider]

Keep in mind that the Terrans are just the faction of humanity that happens to be in the systems that Starcraft took place in. The UED would probably be a much more even fight in terms of scale and available resources.

That's true. If a bunch of convicts and undesirables from a crashed colony ship can create an interstellar civilization within a century or two, then the UED is probably much more well-established. Their expeditionary forces were able to steam-roll the Dominion, and go toe to toe with the Protoss and Zerg, and that was with mostly scavenged equipment or replicas of Korpulu Terran tech. God knows what they've got back on earth.

[DrStrangelove]

A battlecruiser would be blown to hell by a MAC gun, all the newer fluff puts their velocity as c fractional or relativistic, with multi-ton slugs

[Formless]

But on the other hand, the UED for whatever reason does not seem to be much more militarily apt than the Dominion considering the fact they needed to steal equipment (esp. Battlecrusers) during their invasion-- in fact, I think it was suggested in one thread that the little space Australia setup that they have going may have sparked more warfare among Terran groups there and be the reason their military hardware was so great that the UED would need to steal it to stay competitive. So the size of the UED may not say that much about their actual military readiness.

[adam_grif]

That's true. If a bunch of convicts and undesirables from a crashed colony ship can create an interstellar civilization within a century or two, then the UED is probably much more well-established. Their expeditionary forces were able to steam-roll the Dominion, and go toe to toe with the Protoss and Zerg, and that was with mostly scavenged equipment or replicas of Korpulu Terran tech. God knows what they've got back on earth.

I agree, but unfortunately "God knows" is a nominal classification, which makes it somewhat undesirable for versus debates.

[Samuel]

But on the other hand, the UED for whatever reason does not seem to be much more militarily apt than the Dominion considering the fact they needed to steal equipment (esp. Battlecrusers) during their invasion-- in fact, I think it was suggested in one thread that the little space Australia setup that they have going may have sparked more warfare among Terran groups there and be the reason their military hardware was so great that the UED would need to steal it to stay competitive. So the size of the UED may not say that much about their actual military readiness.

Or the UED invasion was on a budget and had extremely tenuous supply lines.

It is worth noting that the Terran's possess an insane industrial production capacity- they go from a colony of hundreds of thousands to an instellar civilization in a couple hundred years.

[Teleros]

At first glance they seem to have rough parity in warship firepower and shielding, but there could be differences that upon deeper observation could give one side a definitive edge.

Pretty sure the Terrans haven't figured out how to use shields, at least for regular stuff. They're using physical armour to take the hits.

[Darksider]

Pretty sure the Terrans haven't figured out how to use shields, at least for regular stuff. They're using physical armour to take the hits.

I'm just generalizing about the two universes in general. The Protoss and Covenant both have shields. At first glance, the two universes appear to be in the same "ball park" as it were, but Starcraft lacks the amount of hard evidence that Halo has, so analyzing it in depth is difficult.

[Oskuro]

Can't point out exactly where, but I remember the fluff mentioned Terrans do have shields, only not as powerful as the Protoss' (Besides, shields are showcased as a game mechanic for the Protoss).

That's actually the sucky part of Starcraft being an RTS, when trying to make a reasonable depiction of their ships (as I was for a BF1942 mod) you always hit a snag with how they are portrayed. For example, the Battlecruiser should have turrets all around, yet it is always depicted as having a single turret and the Yamato Gun.

[Teleros]

Can't point out exactly where, but I remember the fluff mentioned Terrans do have shields, only not as powerful as the Protoss' (Besides, shields are showcased as a game mechanic for the Protoss).

Fair enough. And I forgot, the old Science Vessels did have that temporary one they could use on units.

That's actually the sucky part of Starcraft being an RTS, when trying to make a reasonable depiction of their ships (as I was for a BF1942 mod) you always hit a snag with how they are portrayed. For example, the Battlecruiser should have turrets all around, yet it is always depicted as having a single turret and the Yamato Gun.

I saw for SC2 a bit of cinematic involving mutalisks (I think) flying over a Battlecruiser, with it spitting fire every which way in response. But yeah, that's always going to be a problem with game balance - hence why the Protoss will never have their BDZ ships as a controllable unit and all that.


Anyway, do we have any decent numbers for Starcraft? Because ATM I'm not sure this thread is going to go anywhere without them.

[Srelex]

Anyway, do we have any decent numbers for Starcraft? Because ATM I'm not sure this thread is going to go anywhere without them.

Would frames from a comic book count as valid visual evidence?