Commander Sheperd VS Master Chief

[Cody]

Even with Adrenaline Rush on, Shepard still isn't weaving between bullets that are moving vastly slower that real life bullets. At most, you can say that neither of them is a bullet timer.

With AR on Shepard is faster than the Chief so that is all that really matters here. Bullet timers or no.

Wait wait wait.... Shepard gets access to expanded media, but John doesn't?

We are using books, lore, cutscenes, comics, etc for both characters. Not just the one.

Seriously? Samara's attempt to kill someone with biotics in a cutscene were no great demonstration of lethality.

Except it was? She was interrogating a merc in one scenario and stopping a car in another. She wasn't actively trying to murder anything. Unless you mean Morinth who was just as powerful as she was.

Jack was able to send a Ymir flying with shockwave, I'll give her that, but the Chief takes attacks that send him flying pretty regularly, and keeps on trucking.

Except in this case the biotic can warp his armour, and shoot him while he is flying. But that is Jack and not Shepard.

The second game was where gameplay stopped being tightly connected to the lore.

The only part that was really too much different is the fact that there were still any bodies left after a fire fight as by rights; their should be little more than messes of bloody meat.

It's gameplay outright contradicts both lore and cutscenes in a few places.

Based on??? And who cares? Gameplay isn't being used here.

I think that the Chief can survive Shepard's attacks because he routinely survives those sorts of attacks long enough to fight back, both in gameplay and in cut scenes.

No he doesn't. We don't ever see him survive those types of attacks in cutscenes. At all. In books we see him get overwhelmed by sustained fire as matter of fact.

Bullets can kill him. Eventually. If the Chief just stayed still and let someone shoot him, they'd drop his shield and eventually get through his armor. Same can be said for Shepard, and I'm not convinced that her kinetic barriers would last any longer. We've seen things get through kinetic barriers pretty quickly, along with outright circumventing them. Mass Effect armor is also significantly less impressive in terms of, well, everything.

ME also has vastly superior weapons than the UNSC does. Having explosive, polonium, armour piercing(armour piercing has little problem going through Spartan armour) and rounds that do more vs shields.

Mass Effect character get their powers from their omni-tool, not their armor, and that is freaking fantastic. Seriously, that thing would make a wizard trade in their wand.

Technically the armour also slightly augments their physical abilities and gives them similar healing to what the Spartan armour gives.

Not really. He isn't invulnerable, but it takes a lot of gunfire to get through his armor. The Chief just doesn't want to expose himself to more risk than he absolutely has to.

Lack of evidence =/= evidence. If bullets weren't a threat than he would take care of the threat quickly. Fact is they treat them like a thing to worry about.

Incidentally, when does Chief get shot by a UNSC gun in a cutscene? I don't recall it ever happening. I'd consider his high degree of bullet vulnerability in gameplay as canonical as his gameplay healing factor.

It was during the fall of reach actually when he was hit by some gunfire that took the wind out of him. That wasn't armour piercing rounds either.

Actually, even in the books, they didn't get the Mjollnir armor until they started fighting the Covenant, so he wouldn't have had a lot of chances to get shot by human guns while wearing it. When he first put on the first version, which didn't have a forcefield, he let some bullets bounce off while he was testing it. Sure doesn't seem vulnerable to kinetic impacts.

Again, you're comparing the weaker weapons to the far more powerful ME guns. One is going to be vastly more effective than the other.

Really? When we see people get shot in a cutscene, they aren't any more messed up that a modern pistol would do. They also can't penetrate worth crap by default, but that's normal for video game guns.

Oh yes. If you read the books they treat limbs like paper mache. Even a common pistol would wreck a persons limb.

Most people in cutscenes just wear armour when they are shot.

Do not forget that the ME armour is pretty tough itself. Shepards remains after their bodies own atmospheric reentry is proof of this. Otherwise there would literally be nothing left of the body. Yet there was enough to revive Shepard. Obviously it would not allow someone to survive the ordeal, but the fact that it managed to protect the wearer enough that there is quite a bit of their body still left(even if the gender is unidentifiable)is a decent feat for the armour.

Hope that doesn't sound like a double standard by me using that as a feat while I was arguing against Spartans armour surviving it. As I am saying that no one wearing ME armour is going to survive atmospheric reentry. They are going to die. But there is just going to be enough left of them to revive them. While say, with ODST soldiers for example, there would be nothing left of them afterwards.

I haven't actually seen any numbers for the Mass Effect guns anywhere. You find some?

Not allowed to post links to other websites. Otherwise I would. That and it was an older calc made back when ME2 shortly came out.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Except there isn't? You explained the heat factor. But then there is the impact force itself which is far greater than anything that hit the Chief before. Yet a Brute with a Hammer, and a Hunter are more than capable of going right through his armour in both gameplay and in story. Yet they shouldn't be able to if that armour protects the wearer from atmo.

Wrong.

Game-play, yes. Story, the Brute only ever dropped his shields low. That was also the Mark IV.

So no problem whatsoever because again; Chief doesn't have that impressive speed whatsoever and his shield aren't going to offer much protection whatsoever as every class that Shep can use has a way to remove his shields and ignore his armour. And Shep is fast enough to do just that. And that is not even including an AR or Vanguard charge, etc.

Guy is a bullet timer, regardless of whatever downplaying you want to do at this point, you can't get around that fact.

At this point though, we're getting into another one of those "what really is star busting arguments" you're so fond of, so I'm going to wash my hands of this. We can run through the same exact thing time and again and you'll still put the pieces where you want them to fit your argument. Which is your right, one suppose.

[Cody]

Wrong.

Game-play, yes. Story, the Brute only ever dropped his shields low. That was also the Mark IV.

Wrong. Story wise the Hunters and Brutes do not have any problems getting through Spartan shields. I already presented an example of this went a Hunter outright manhandled a Spartan. Said Spartan was wearing their armour.

This is a consistency in the story. They are still effected and threatened by physical blows from beings like the Brute and Hunter.

Guy is a bullet timer, regardless of whatever downplaying you want to do at this point, you can't get around that fact.

Except he isn't and feats prove this. You have yet to offer one example of him ever performing anything anywhere near bullet timing while there are a slew of showings that prove he is nowhere near bullet timing. You're constant exaggerating his armour abilities while not even providing any sort of evidence to prove that he is somehow a bullet timer won't change that fact.

At this point though, we're getting into another one of those "what really is star busting arguments" you're so fond of, so I'm going to wash my hands of this. We can run through the same exact thing time and again and you'll still put the pieces where you want them to fit your argument. Which is your right, one suppose.

Yea, no. You're inability to provide any sort of feats to prove your side only illustrates your bias view over the Halo series and your inability to properly defend the series due to not using any feats whatsoever.

Lack of feats =/= proving your point. Consistent feats(that this board follows) outright contradicts your claims and with your inability to provide any sort of actual feats to support your argument only shows that you aren't even basing any of your claims on any sort of actual feats whatsoever.

[Guy1]

SO, what are the bullet timing feats mentioned for Chief? Present them.

[Sharpandpointies]

I'm actually curious about that. I've heard them mentioned on numerous occasions, but never had anyone actually post them. ^_^ And I love me some good Bullet-Time feats!

[Cody]

SO, what are the bullet timing feats mentioned for Chief? Present them.

There may not be any bullet timing feats whatsoever. But there is a slue of showings that prove he isn't:

The Fall of Reach, p.2:
She hefted one launcher and ran along the ridge- she was the fastest Spartan on the Chief's team. He was confident those Grunts wouldn't be able to track her for the three seconds she'd be exposed.

As you can see, even the fastest of Spartan's level of speed actually has more to do with just running really fast and only exposing yourself for a few seconds at a time than literally being able to dodge bullets.

The Fall of Reach, p.3:
Explosive needles bounced off the Chief's armor, detonating as they hit the ground. He saw the flash of a plasma bolt- side stepped- and heard the air crackle where he had stood a split second before.

He got hammered with needler rounds. And there is no shred of evidence that proves those rounds move as fast as bullets do. And their bouncing low-penetration behaviour further supports that they aren't that fast as well.

The Fall of Reach, p.4:
The Chief and his team sprinted up the half-kilometer sandstone slope in thirty-two seconds flat.

On a flat-out run, we're talking about 60 km/h or so. Very very impressive for a man on foot, but not so impressive that you can't shoot him. Cars travel that quickly on city streets.

The Fall of Reach, p.5:
The Banshees were one hundred meters away, then fifty meters. Their plasma weapons might recycle fast enough to get another shot ... and at this range, the Chief wouldn't be dodging.

The Fall of Reach, p.90:
John kicked the door in.

...

There were three men standing behind the armored crate, and one man crouched between them. Colonel Robert Watts- their "package".

John didn't have a clear shot. If he missed, he could hit the Colonel.

The three men, however, didn't have that problem. They fired.

John dove to his left. He caught three rounds in his side- knocking the breath from his body.

The Fall of Reach, p.126-127:
John and Kelly fired. Bullets filled the air and pinged off a silver shimmering barrier in front of the creature.

A bolt of blue heat blasted from the claw. The blast was similar to the plasma that had hit Commonwealth ... and boiled a third of it away.

Sam dove forward and knocked John out of the blast's path; the energy burst caught Sam in the side.

The Fall of Reach, p.206-207:
The alien raised its arm slightly and pointed at Kelly and James.

A flash of light blinded the Master Chief. There was a deafening explosion and a wave of heat. He blinked for a full three seconds before he recovered his vision.

Where Kelly and James had been there was a burning crater that fanned backward ... nothing but charcoal and ash remained of the Science Chamber behind them.

Kelly had moved in time; she crouched five meters deeper into the room, still firing. James was nowhere to be seen.

We learn later that James lost his arm to the blast, so he obviously didn't dodge it.

The Fall of Reach, p.203,207:
The Master Chief policed their plasma pistols and retrieved the shield generators clamped on their forearms. He had standing orders to collect intact specimens of Covenant technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence had not been able to replicate the Covenant's sheld technology. But they were getting close.

In the meantime, the Spartans would use these.

...

The other massive creature turned to face the Master Chief.

He hit the button on the shield generator on his arm and brought it up just in time- the nearest alien's weapon flashed again.

The air in front of the Master Chief shimmered and exploded- he flew backward, crashing through the wall, and skidded for ten meters before slamming into the wall of the next room.

The Jackal shield generator was white-hot. The Master Chief ripped the melted alien device off and threw it away.

He takes the full force of a Hunter blast to his stolen Jackal shield, despite the slow movements of Hunters. A bullet timer would be able to easily dodge it.

I honestly have never seen any Spartan ever perform any bullet timing level of speed in canon.

[Fallman]

With AR on Shepard is faster than the Chief so that is all that really matters here. Bullet timers or no.

Hang on a second...

We are using books, lore, cutscenes, comics, etc for both characters. Not just the one.

You've been ignoring John's enhanced reflexes every time that you say that Shepard is faster. John's reaction speed has been boosted by a heck of a lot more than seventy or forty-five percent.

I'm not going to argue that he's a bullet timer, but he's got feats of downing multiple guys before they can fight back, something Shepard can't do even with adrenaline rush up.

There's about one spot that can be construed as bullet timing, and it's pretty weak even in context. Page 117 of Fall of Reach, he's letting bullets bounce off of his armor, and actually manages to dodge a couple. Which surprised even him, so not really something that he does on a regular basis.

Except it was? She was interrogating a merc in one scenario and stopping a car in another. She wasn't actively trying to murder anything. Unless you mean Morinth who was just as powerful as she was.

She caught Morinth by surprise and her first attack still didn't manage to injure her. The best feat is probably Jack's escape, and it's unclear how much of that was Jack and how much was the riot that she set off.

Cutscene biotics also have a nasty habit of being slower than just shooting them, but that's not important here.

I'm drawing a blank of Samara stopping a car in any scenario. Some help?

Except in this case the biotic can warp his armour, and shoot him while he is flying. But that is Jack and not Shepard.

Warp's painful, but not an instant kill. Pull would be a lot of trouble, as would something like stasis, but they're blue homing energy balls. He has experience with those.

This seems as good a time to ask as any... Does anyone know why people being lifted become unable to shoot their guns? It's certainly convenient, but very strange. We can see them move, so we know that they're not being held motionless.

Based on??? And who cares? Gameplay isn't being used here.

I thought that we were using gameplay when it didn't contradict the other sources. For example, most of Shep's abilities never make an appearance outside of gameplay, so their performance has to be extrapolated from that. You also claimed that kinetic barriers stopped energy attacks, which is a gameplay thing that is contradicted by the lore.

No he doesn't. We don't ever see him survive those types of attacks in cutscenes. At all. In books we see him get overwhelmed by sustained fire as matter of fact.

Really? So the Covenant never uses homing attacks or energy blasts? He's never fought people shooting at him with loads of guns? He's never been thrown across the room by any kind of violent impact? He's never had an invisible guy with a sword that can kill him instantly charge him from behind?

He doesn't have to take it on the chin, he just has to survive long enough to fight back.

ME also has vastly superior weapons than the UNSC does. Having explosive, polonium, armour piercing(armour piercing has little problem going through Spartan armour) and rounds that do more vs shields.

You keep saying this, but you haven't offered any proof. Prove that bullets have an easy time getting through Mjollnir armor.

Technically the armour also slightly augments their physical abilities and gives them similar healing to what the Spartan armour gives.

Slightly augments their physical abilities, but the gameplay healing remains regardless of armor, and medigel is applied through the omnitool. The codex mentions that some armors have a layer of medigel inside, but that's not the only way to use it, and I'm not sure how common it actually is. The omnitool also seems to be able to project their kinetic barriers, with the armor only assisting.

Damn, but omnitools are awesome.

It was during the fall of reach actually when he was hit by some gunfire that took the wind out of him. That wasn't armour piercing rounds either.

The only incident that sounds like getting the wind knocked out of him by bullets happened when he wasn't wearing armor.

Again, when he first put his armor on, he actually stood up and let bullets deflect off of him(p.117). Later, during a run through an obstacle course with the model with a forcefield, he doesn't let people shoot him if he can avoid it because he doesn't like to expose himself to more danger than absolutely necessary. He considers letting his shields drop at all to be sloppy.

Oh, by the way, getting hit with a burst of 50mm gunfire from a jump jet only stripped his shields by about half. A near impact from a missile fired by the same jet did take out his shields, but he got right back up and kept trucking.

Again, you're comparing the weaker weapons to the far more powerful ME guns. One is going to be vastly more effective than the other.

The games sure hell don't make the ME guns look stronger.

Oh yes. If you read the books they treat limbs like paper mache. Even a common pistol would wreck a persons limb.

Most people in cutscenes just wear armour when they are shot.

Actually, I remember more people without armor getting shot than people with armor getting shot.

Off of the top of my head, we've seen three people get shot in the head, and all of them, including the human, had a fairly intact skull afterward. A guy in the beginning of the second game gets shot in the leg, most likely with a pistol, and he's up and running after a quick shot of medigel. A guy from the end of the third game gets shot in the gut, and it doesn't hurt him any worse than being shot with a modern pistol.

Honest question, and I'm not meaning to insult you, are you sure that it was pistols that were described as doing that? Because I've heard that it was assault rifles that were described like that, which would be a better fit with the games.

Do not forget that the ME armour is pretty tough itself. Shepards remains after their bodies own atmospheric reentry is proof of this. Otherwise there would literally be nothing left of the body. Yet there was enough to revive Shepard. Obviously it would not allow someone to survive the ordeal, but the fact that it managed to protect the wearer enough that there is quite a bit of their body still left(even if the gender is unidentifiable)is a decent feat for the armour.

Hope that doesn't sound like a double standard by me using that as a feat while I was arguing against Spartans armour surviving it. As I am saying that no one wearing ME armour is going to survive atmospheric reentry. They are going to die. But there is just going to be enough left of them to revive them. While say, with ODST soldiers for example, there would be nothing left of them afterwards.

It kinda is, yeah. Sorry. Mass Effect armor doesn't protect against falls or being punched by normal humans, and heat based attacks work just fine. Shep's armor still having any identifiable pieces was kinda crazy.

Mind you, while I consider surviving the fall something that Mjollnir armor could do, I also consider it worthless for fights as Chief was incapacitated for a significant period of time, and both falls had potentially mitigating factors, and seemed to require some kind of non-combat survival mode on top of that. I think that the amount of force survived is being overestimated by most people.

Not allowed to post links to other websites. Otherwise I would. That and it was an older calc made back when ME2 shortly came out.

Actually, I was hoping that you meant a statement by Bioware. Doing calculation based on the description in the codec quickly shows that the guns can't really work as described. A projectile the size of a grain of sand moving at the speeds needed to hit like a bullet would basically disintegrate or even explode on contact with the atmosphere.

The fact that the guns couldn't work in real life isn't really an issue on this site, but does mean that any actual math is unrelated to how effective they are.

[Cody]

Hang on a second...

You've been ignoring John's enhanced reflexes every time that you say that Shepard is faster. John's reaction speed has been boosted by a heck of a lot more than seventy or forty-five percent.

And Shepard obviously moves a whole lot faster than 70 or 45%. ME soldiers go under gene therapy to get a boost to their physical abilities and their armour further enhances this.

I'm not going to argue that he's a bullet timer, but he's got feats of downing multiple guys before they can fight back, something Shepard can't do even with adrenaline rush up.

Except he does? He can easily destroy enemies before they can react with AR on. Or while they are still turning towards him.

She caught Morinth by surprise and her first attack still didn't manage to injure her.

Again; Mornith is protecting herself. She uses biotics too and uses biotic barriers instead of kinetic shields. She is going to be on the defence pretty quickly.

The best feat is probably Jack's escape, and it's unclear how much of that was Jack and how much was the riot that she set off.

We know she tore apart several ymir mechs on her own when she was first freed and we know she tore a big whole in the metal wall. So she is pretty damn powerful.

I'm drawing a blank of Samara stopping a car in any scenario. Some help?

Shadow Broker recordings:

Warp's painful, but not an instant kill.

I know. But the point is that it makes armour weaker due to it's basically eating of it. Combined that with a biotic push and you have biotic explosions going off as well.

Pull would be a lot of trouble, as would something like stasis, but they're blue homing energy balls. He has experience with those.

Coming at speeds faster than covenant fire, has an aoe at times, and by people who can lift Geth Armatures.

This seems as good a time to ask as any... Does anyone know why people being lifted become unable to shoot their guns? It's certainly convenient, but very strange. We can see them move, so we know that they're not being held motionless.

It works as a form of stasis it seems. Miranda picking up the Asari merc in ME2 is a bit of an example of this as the merc looked like her arms looked to be restricted.

I thought that we were using gameplay when it didn't contradict the other sources. For example, most of Shep's abilities never make an appearance outside of gameplay, so their performance has to be extrapolated from that. You also claimed that kinetic barriers stopped energy attacks, which is a gameplay thing that is contradicted by the lore.

Mass Effect actually tries to put some of the gameplay into the lore by giving a bit of fluff for virtually every ability you use and for the weapons that you can use. It states the force behind the Biotic Push for example. And Kinetic shields standing up against an energy attack for a split second doesn't contradict anything. Sharp actually was the one who convinced me of the showings validity into proving that the kinetic shields do offer some sort of protection against energy attacks, if only minor. It isn't exactly too contradicting really.

Really? So the Covenant never uses homing attacks or energy blasts? He's never fought people shooting at him with loads of guns? He's never been thrown across the room by any kind of violent impact? He's never had an invisible guy with a sword that can kill him instantly charge him from behind?

He's never dealt with the likes of warp, biotic explosions, singularity,people who can shut off his shields, send drones that can stun and wreck his shields, and with guns that can shoot explosive, armour piercing, cryo, incendiary, polonium, explosive, etc and change on the fly.

You keep saying this, but you haven't offered any proof. Prove that bullets have an easy time getting through Mjollnir armor.

Does his armour have any feats of resisting armour piercing rounds?

Slightly augments their physical abilities, but the gameplay healing remains regardless of armor, and medigel is applied through the omnitool. The codex mentions that some armors have a layer of medigel inside, but that's not the only way to use it, and I'm not sure how common it actually is. The omnitool also seems to be able to project their kinetic barriers, with the armor only assisting.

Armour would likely just feed the wound directly with the medigel. Either way, they have similar healing.

Damn, but omnitools are awesome.

Yea...

The only incident that sounds like getting the wind knocked out of him by bullets happened when he wasn't wearing armor.

Again, when he first put his armor on, he actually stood up and let bullets deflect off of him(p.117). Later, during a run through an obstacle course with the model with a forcefield, he doesn't let people shoot him if he can avoid it because he doesn't like to expose himself to more danger than absolutely necessary. He considers letting his shields drop at all to be sloppy.

Were they armour piercing?

Oh, by the way, getting hit with a burst of 50mm gunfire from a jump jet only stripped his shields by about half. A near impact from a missile fired by the same jet did take out his shields, but he got right back up and kept trucking.

That is because the shields protected him from the impact. Not his armour.

The games sure hell don't make the ME guns look stronger.

That's because there would be a ton of gore. And it is a game engine limitation. As it is you could outright disintegrate people with incenderary, explosive, or polonium rounds. It can also disintergrate stone.

ME:Revelation, pg 39
The enemy forces, close to a dozen armed and armoured mercenaries, were coming toward them from the far side of the chamber...

...his team had been poised and ready as the elevator doors opened and they reacted almost instantaneously to his command, charging forward from the elevator with a barrage of gunfire. The first wave of their attack ripped into the pack of unsuspecting mercs...

...three of the enemy combatants dropped to the floor, but enough of the deadly projectiles were deflected or absorbed so that the rest of them were able to fall back and dive for cover behind the boulders and stalagmites that littered the cavern's floor.


pg 40
He hit the ground and rolled as a line of bullets struck the floor in front of him, disintegrating the stone and sending tiny showers of water and dust up under his visor and into his face. He came to his feet spitting out the foul grit.


pg 53
She ran full full speed into the room...and right into a spray of gunfire...

...the force of the bullets picked up Dah off her feet and sent her crashing to the ground in a heap. Forward momentum caused her body to somersault across the floor until she stopped, crumpled and motionless in the corner...

...a few stray bullets had penetrated the kinetic barriers protecting her torso only to ricochet off the heavy plates of her body armour, inflicting no damage beyond small dents and discolorations. But her right leg, where the armour was thinner and the highest concentration of fire had drained the shields, had been reduced to pulp and hamburger

Actually, I remember more people without armor getting shot than people with armor getting shot.

They usually died too or were only grazed. Again; Bioware doesn't seem to do the type of gore that would be required to simulate what happens when you're hit by a kinetic slug. That and it is also probably a game engine limitation. In the pre-rendered cinematics, they are not limited by the game engine. Grunt's gun blows up a giant thresher maw with a single shot and sends collectors flying against walls even through shields and armor for example. It might have been only a trailer. But Bioware made that trailer. And combined with what it spoken about in the novels and codex? It's pretty accurate.

Honest question, and I'm not meaning to insult you, are you sure that it was pistols that were described as doing that? Because I've heard that it was assault rifles that were described like that, which would be a better fit with the games.

I honestly thought it was pistols. But rereading that bit there seems to imply otherwise. However; in Paragon Lost(which is canon as it is a part of Vega's back story)a collector get's it's head taken off by a single shot from a pistol. So there is that. But nevertheless, we also have:



The weak Scimitar Shotun firing at range, blast apart huge pieces of Stone with ease.

It kinda is, yeah. Sorry. Mass Effect armor doesn't protect against falls or being punched by normal humans, and heat based attacks work just fine. Shep's armor still having any identifiable pieces was kinda crazy.

The armour obviously protects against getting hit by physical blows. And falls, as shown in ME2 during the suicide mission. It is made to withstand far harder hits. If you are referring to that one time Shepard knocked out a couple of mercs who were wearing helmets when he one punched them out; do note that Shepard is outright Superhuman in terms of physical abilities thanks to the Lazarus protect. He can hit a lot harder than any normal human. And their armour protects them from severe temperatures that would normally kill people not wearing that type of gear. This is most notably shown in ME1 when on environmentally hazardous planets.

[Cody]

Mind you, while I consider surviving the fall something that Mjollnir armor could do, I also consider it worthless for fights as Chief was incapacitated for a significant period of time, and both falls had potentially mitigating factors, and seemed to require some kind of non-combat survival mode on top of that. I think that the amount of force survived is being overestimated by most people.

I love you. <3

Actually, I was hoping that you meant a statement by Bioware. Doing calculation based on the description in the codec quickly shows that the guns can't really work as described. A projectile the size of a grain of sand moving at the speeds needed to hit like a bullet would basically disintegrate or even explode on contact with the atmosphere.

As you can see from both the quote and the pic I provided; they do indeed have that effect. They move at supersonic speeds. That much is stated in canon. And they have significant recoil. Illustrating that they have a lot of kinetic force behind them.

The fact that the guns couldn't work in real life isn't really an issue on this site, but does mean that any actual math is unrelated to how effective they are.

Actually the math was done based the recoil as that is basically a way to tell how powerful the weapon is in the series. As described in the codex describing mass accelerators and small arms:

"A mass accelerator propels a solid metal slug using precisely-controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. The slug is designed to squash or shatter on impact, increasing the energy it transfers to the target. If this were not the case, it would simply punch a hole right through, doing minimal damage.

Accelerator design was revolutionized by element zero. A slug lightened by a mass effect field can be accelerated to greater speeds, permitting projectile velocities that were previously unattainable. If accelerated to a high enough velocity, a simple paint chip can impact with the same destructive force as a nuclear weapon. However, mass accelerators produce recoil equal to their impact energy. This is mitigated somewhat by the mass effect fields that rounds are suspended within, but weapon recoil is still the prime limiting factor on slug velocity."

It's obvious the passage meant momentum. You can call momentum impact energy without being incorrect. And No, I am not saying that infantry weaponry hits like a nuke. Their ship weapons do, but not the infantry weaponry. But the point is still the same.

The advantages ME firearms have over the chiefs are a vastly greater amount of ammunition, much greater penetration, precision, and the ability to generate lots of esoteric effects with the ammunition, like electrical disruption, incendiary effects, weird mass-effect spatial warping, etc. So the Chief isn't taking these rounds that well whatsoever. All the while his own infantry, not energy based weapons, would basically do nothing at all to Shepards shields or armour since Shepards gear protects him/her well enough from the far more powerful ME weapons.

Some more examples from the power behind the weapons:

Revelation:

His eyes still adjusting to the darkness, he put one foot across the threshold. The shotgun blast took him square in the chest.

There was a blue flash as the reflexive system of kinetic barrier fields reacted to the impact, deflecting most of the rounds harmlessly away. A few tore through the kinetic barriers only to ricochet off the ablative plates of his body armor, or bury themselves into the thick padding underlay. A handful penetrated every layer of protection and tore into the flesh beneath.

The force of the blast lifted the krogan off his feet, knocking the pistol from his grip and hurling him back out the door to land heavily on the ground.

Only part of a single shotgun blast sent a friggin Krogan wearing heavy armour flying.



Quality sucks. Sorry about that, but it's the best I could find on youtube.

Note the damage done to the terrain. And yes; this is canon. It's part of Vega's back story. And considering what happens in the novels, and how the weapons are described in the codex? That is a very accurate portrayal of the power behind the ME guns. As well as to show how tough their armour and kinetic shields are. And to also show how well the armour protects against physical blows as well considering the fact that Vega and the biotic weren't turned into mashed potatoes from the Krogan's strikes. The latter of which was being stomped on repeatedly by one Krogan(that bit wasn't in the video). And Krogan btw? Especially the one beating on Vega? Are capable of ripping apart metal. Which that Krogan did during the movie.

So you have the novels, the anime, and the codex all describing and showing how powerful the ME guns are supposed to be. All of which are canon. The only contradicting piece is what you see in cutscenes and that can be chalked up to game engine limitations. Seriously, watch Paragon Lost. It's pretty good imo and shows off exactly what happens in the novels when their weapons are used. You have a guy with the Carnifex taking down a part of the roof to block Collectors from getting to them. And loads of other feats showcasing how tough the grunt Alliance armour is, how tough their shields are, and how powerful their other weapons and biotics are as well.

All that you see in Paragon Lost is pretty much what is described in the ME books.

[The Transient Guest]

Is there anytime in a HALO c/s that Chief or any of his friends get hurt?

[Cody]

Is there anytime in a HALO c/s that Chief or any of his friends get hurt?

Most of the Spartan II's and III's are dead. Most of which wore armour when they were killed. What does that tell you?

[Anarchist]

I'm rather iffy on arguing with paragon lost (aside from me perosnally seeing it as absolutely dreadful).
It has several continuity issues

[Cody]

I'm rather iffy on arguing with paragon lost (aside from me perosnally seeing it as absolutely dreadful).
It has several continuity issues

Except it doesn't? It's pretty fair. If you mean the fact they were using thermal clips before the 2 year timeskip then that happened in the game too. It's why Shepard knew what thermal clips were. After ME1 they were in the process of switching to the newer stuff. It's been dubbed canon, and what is seen in combat is pretty much what is described in the books as I pointed out above(though the books mentioned above took place before they started using thermal clips, so the guns were all around weaker than the ones using the thermal clip system because the guns using the thermal clip system also shoot faster and have more power behind them according to the codex and in-game conversations. It was one of the reasons why the new Lancer in the Citadel ME3 dlc was so special because despite having the same system that the older guns used, it was just as powerful, and the slugs just as fast, as the current weapons had).

[Anarchist]

Yes it does.

Just on top off my head:

- Citadel orbiting Earth
- James Vega's training as a N7 operative at the end of the movie ( He's still a candidate for the program and hasn't started training yet before the Reapers invaded Earth and Shepard has the option to encourage to join the program during the game)
- Vega apparently knew Liara before ME3, but that was never mentioned in the game
- Vega was completely unaware that Liara was a part of Shepard's crew despite being a fan of the Commander
- Someone created a seeker swarm antidote before Mordin Solus did. What?

etc

[Cody]

Yes it does.

Just on top off my head:

- Citadel orbiting Earth

This was never shown or stated so I don't know where you got this from.

- James Vega's training as a N7 operative at the end of the movie ( He's still a candidate for the program and hasn't started training yet before the Reapers invaded Earth and Shepard has the option to encourage to join the program during the game)

That was an unknown incident. It could have been just one of their trial fake missions to test the candidates. We just know that he had the offer and that he was now going on a mission. Hell, could have even taken place after ME3 for all we know. It takes place in an unknown time, just after Paragon Lost. Considering the fact that he wasn't wearing the typical N7(red stripes)armour, it goes to show that he isn't an N7 yet.

- Vega apparently knew Liara before ME3, but that was never mentioned in the game

He didn't know her. He saw her, but that was it. All Asari look alike and he had more important things to worry about. Like the collectors and the Reapers being named dropped.

- Vega was completely unaware that Liara was a part of Shepard's crew despite being a fan of the Commander

Why would he? Not many people knew who Shepards comrades were, just who Shepard was.

- Someone created a seeker swarm antidote before Mordin Solus did. What?

And found out who the Collectors were. It wasn't that well known obviously and Shepard was already alive and kicking during that time. ME2 was literally taking place during Paragon Lost. For all we know it could have taken place after Shepards encounter with the collectors on the colony.