Halo (series)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* Firearms technology hasn't advanced in the last 600 years at the rate you guys seem to think it has. Firearms technology did advance at a relatively steady pace from the 1300s to the late 1800s but since then, things have stagnated quite a bit. The centerfire metallic cartridge has remained unchanged in its fundamentals since the late 1800s...the major improvements have been the introduction of smokeless powder, increasing the efficiency of said smokeless powder, and the invention of primers which don't line the barrel with corrosion-inducing salts after each shot. Pistol design hasn't improved much since the M1911, you can point out a lot of things that "look" improved but the fundamentals are still there. The Glock is really more of an improvement in manufacturing techniques and strengthening cheaper materials; in the realm of steel, heat-treating has gotten a bit better but it's no paradigm-shattering improvement. The Hi-Power still uses the same overall design as the M1911, it's just using a cam instead of a rotating-link to accomplish the same movement. Assault rifle design hasn't made any drastic improvements since the AR-10 and the AR-18. Nearly all bolt-action rifle designs used today, with some notable exceptions, are direct descendants of the Mauser 98, and just about every "improvement" and "alternative" doesn't really make any quantifiable improvement in performance, the main name of the game is just making the manufacturing more efficient. The M2 machinegun was introduced in the 20's and the fundamental design has remained unchanged. The Gatling designs are from the late 1800s. Caseless ammunition flopped due to insurmountable problems with physics. The PDW concept flopped due to lack of lethality. Real improvements in bullet design have been seen but it's limited to the civilian sector where expanding bullets have used; hollowpoints have gotten more reliable and more efficient and the invention of the ballistic-tip rifle bullet was a true improvement in performance for hunting bullets. To sum up, drawing a straight line charting firearms technology improvement from 1900 to 2552 could quite feasibly produce weapons essentially exactly like what we get in Halo.

** No it couldn't because pretty much every gun is less advanced than modern guns.

** Yeah, this is my major problem with the Halo series (well, the first game at least, I haven't played much of the others). The human weaponry is at best on a par with what we have now, and at worst is far inferior. The [[MA 5 B]] assault rifle is accurate to about 10 yards, and you'll be lucky to land a single bullet out of a magazine on a target at anything beyond about 30 yards. Compare this to a standard modern assault rifle, which can accurately hit targets at 500+ yards. I would certainly take an M16 over the [[MA 5 B]]...in fact I would probably take virtually any weapon of the past 100 years over the [[MA 5 B]]! I understand the need for game balance, but I think they really mucked up that weapon; for instance, why say that it fires 7.62mm bullets, and then give it a level of power resembling a BB gun? A 7.62mm bullet carries far more energy than the .50 bullet used by the Halo pistol, yet does far less damage in the game.

** It's better in ''[[Halo: Reach]]''. The MA37 (a derivative of the MA5B) is accurate to a much greater range, as long as you fire in bursts. It also does greater damage. The M6G Pistol, meanwhile, deals much less damage, but is still effective against unshielded targets.

** Actually, if you turn the Marines in the first game into hostiles, they can kill you damned fast. There was also a mod for Halo 2 that replaced the Covenant troops with Marines in each level...and the difficulty spikes dramatically.

*** Yes, but that's because the developers ramped up their accuracy to 100%. During normally gameplay, they have 50% accuracy, but to punish betrayals they get an accuracy boost.

*** One minor nitpick: there is one point in one of the Arbiter missions in Halo 2 where you can fight humans. Admittedly, they are on the other side of a chasm and are already under attack by the Flood, but if you move fast you can kill a couple of them before the Flood do. Not that there's much point in it.