Will I'm back! Been watching an HvsST debate over at Spacebattles.com and reading through my Halo books; been a couple years since I last read one. Oh, and psychoak, I saw a quote about your little "destroy 30 percent of a planet's surface in on volley". I don't have it on hand but somewhere it mention that they wouls destroy the surface in an HOUR... so you lied, you used the more powerful but wrong readings from the sensor officer.

And even then there was a quote that had megajoule shields being brought up! So mind telling me just what else you lied about?

And after reading my books again it seems that PT are far beyond the double digit MT you gave them... since  they are used to glass the planets in the books. So for PT try something more like double digit to triple digit Gigatons.

Apples to nuclear reactors would be right if you were saying ST was the apple! After reading through the books again I came across another fact I forgot: Covenant ships use FUSION for power! Lets look the Human-Covenant War over again since I've read most of the books again. A: The war was seen as a minor one by the Covenant until we get to Reach. The MC wasn't really as big a help at winning the war until we get to the last year of the war, up until then the UNSC got its ass handed to it if it didn't outnumber the Covenant more then 3 to 1. And Halo ships for the last are NOT SLOW!! What part of ships doing 80 million km an hour ( UNSC ) and twice that do you not get?! Why are you bring up that super nova thing again? 2500+ Covenant ships can wipe you the Feds out since they easily out run the in Slipstreamspace. From what I've seen at SB.com Voy early on made about 1000 light years a year... a Covenant AC can do what Voy can in a day.  
The fact is that I forgot how inconsisten The Fall of Reach is. The Feds will need to outnumber the Covie more then 1000 to 1 since I've seen the TOS era Ent threaten by a low level KT weapon! So why don't you give me the most consistent ST yields, ok?

It is late, so correct me on any mistakes I made, good night.  

I would, but there's no point in telling you everything you said was wrong.  What with it already having been done, repeatedly, for the last 11 pages...

This one for instance:

80 million kmh or 900 billion kmh, which would you prefer to travel at?  Spout nonsense about how godlike Covenant ships are all you want, but they fall to UNSC ships in vastly inadequate ratios to validate the claim.  The way you talk about them, a single Covenant AC should just pop in and out of existence, blowing away an entire fleet of hundreds of UNSC ships, because that's what the UNSC would need just to take out the TOS Enterprise, if they could manage to kill it after it ran out of torpedoes, and depleted the phaser arrays.

You have plenty of stated numbers for the UNSC, and mostly guesswork for the Covenant, the guesswork conflicts itself for the same reason the guesswork conflicts itself in Star Trek, the people writing it aren't very bright.

I like how the Covenant AC can travel at 330,000c, nice for it.  We'll just ignore that this one ship has a velocity hundreds of times faster than all the other Covenant ships and pretend it's consistent.  I can do one better, the TOS Enterprise traveled 990.7 light years in less than half a day, more than double the speed of your Covenant AC.  This is the episode that comes from.  Don't blast someone else for using inconsistent numbers while using the mother of all inconsistencies yourself.  Especially when you haven't actually looked to see how nice they were being with those really low numbers.

Warp 9.9 is at least 21,000c, and Voyager can travel at 9.975 for a duration between a few days and a few months.  Warp 10 is infinite velocity.  It's an exponential scale, shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  As I said, the people writing it aren't very bright.  For some reason, they decided the fastest ship in the fleet was only going to travel at warp 9.  It's probably got something to do with the milky way galaxy not being large enough for them to get lost on the other side and not just have a few years to get home...

Now you can you get off the whole speed thing.  Halo has abused the shit out of it for plot purposes, Star Trek has abused the shit out of it for plot purposes.  The end result?  Halo ships are still slower, and still restricted to sublight combat.  The rest of your errors, I leave to self education.  The shows are fun to watch.

Quote. I would, but there's no point in telling you everything you said was wrong.  What with it already having been done, repeatedly, for the last 11 pages... unquote

EVERYTHING I just said was wrong? I shall haven't found that quote again yet but it is the ship computer that said it, which was the crust would be destroyed in ONE HOUR, and the mantle stripped away in six hours. See, the sensors Officer was wrong, and even it did not fit what limited visuals we have of the planet.   

Quote. This one for instance:


And Halo ships for the last are NOT SLOW!! What part of ships doing 80 million km an hour ( UNSC ) and twice that do you not get?!  


 

80 million kmh or 900 billion kmh, which would you prefer to travel at?  Spout nonsense about how godlike Covenant ships are all you want, but they fall to UNSC ships in vastly inadequate ratios to validate the claim.  The way you talk about them, a single Covenant AC should just pop in and out of existence, blowing away an entire fleet of hundreds of UNSC ships, because that's what the UNSC would need just to take out the TOS Enterprise, if they could manage to kill it after it ran out of torpedoes, and depleted the phaser arrays. unquote.

900 billion kmh in normal space??   The 80 million kmh for UNSC is normal space, not slipspace. And no, I do not expect an AC to blow away hundreds of ships because its rate of fire is not high enough for one. "They fall to UNSC ships in vastly inadequate ratios to validate the claim", yep, I'm sure the fact that the Covenant can just shoot Plasma Torpedos by the thousands and in any direction at will really tells us why the stated speeds in the books are wrong. *rolls eyes* 

Quote. You have plenty of stated numbers for the UNSC, and mostly guesswork for the Covenant, the guesswork conflicts itself for the same reason the guesswork conflicts itself in Star Trek, the people writing it aren't very bright. Unquote.

Yes, stated numbers for the UNSC such as the 30 kilometer per-second quote which does not fit in with the other books and other parts of TFoR. The fact is that a UNSC ship takes 3000 kilometers as reason to rise collasion alarms.       And lets look at your claim that PT will never be able to hit an ST ship: you say because they missed small fighters and dropships outside the atmosphere in TFoR and you claim that it means they are not accurate since they can't hit them. But it is never stated if they are even shooting at the small fighters and dropships instead of the huge UNSC ships firing off MACs and Archer missiles by the hundreds at the Covie ships. Lets look at with Occam's Razor: 1. PT Fire is at smaller ships. 2. Letting larger, and more powerful targets like Cruisers and SMAC platforms survive to fire another volloy. Or: 1. Fire is at larger ships. Occam's Razor favors the simplest answer which is that those shots are at UNSC ships like Destroyers and Cruisers. Those smaller ships are just in the cross fire between the two fleets. And also, when the Covie fleet one of the volloy fired during the battle they took out 50 UNSC ships.

And guesswork for Covenant weapons is very good since it nicely fits in the mid triple digit GT range to low TT range from what we see at the start of TFoR and during the glassing of part of Reach in FS, which then goes nicely along with the 5.8 TT SMAC platforms. The Covenant empire is also stated to control a large part of the Orion Arm, which goes along nicely with say, 50,000+ starships to guard it. Which then goes along with the fact the Covenant did not give a shit when 500+ ships and a 30km station were destroyed along. We know the lost of 311 ships to the Federation was seen as a large blow, so they most likely don't have much more then 10,000-25,000 ships.


From what I've seen at SB.com Voy early on made about 1000 light years a year... a Covenant AC can do what Voy can in a day.


 

Quote. I like how the Covenant AC can travel at 330,000c, nice for it.  We'll just ignore that this one ship has a velocity hundreds of times faster than all the other Covenant ships and pretend it's consistent.  I can do one better, the TOS Enterprise traveled 990.7 light years in less than half a day, more than double the speed of your Covenant AC.  This is the episode that comes from.  Don't blast someone else for using inconsistent numbers while using the mother of all inconsistencies yourself.  Especially when you haven't actually looked to see how nice they were being with those really low numbers. Unquote.

EDIT: Back up a minute, did you just say I am using the mother of all inconsistensies??!! Hello! Knock knock!

Here's part of another quote from that same HvsST debate ( may not rememeber it correctly but close enough). Quote. Worf: The station is armed with four lasers, 39 Colbalt-Fusion missiles... and a 4.7 kilojoule shield. Unqoute.

Yeah, even TFoR is more consisten then ST. How do you go from 4.7 KJ shields being used for defense to planet destroying power? Your the one with the goddamn mother of all inconsistencies!

Are you using Halopedia data for the speed of the rest of the Covenant ships? I should have read throuh it a lot more, that place needs to be cleaned up. Lets look at the speed and then size of the Covenant empire: CE controls large chunk of the Orion Arm, CE ships can get across that in a few days to weeks at the low end. And also, whats wrong with an AC going at 330,000c? Its far larger and has more power to draw on so it can move faster, power more weapons, more powerful shields etc. And I am not blasting you over all the numbers, just the ones about TDiC since you gave incorrect data from the sensors Officer.   

Warp 9.9 is at least 21,000c, and Voyager can travel at 9.975 for a duration between a few days and a few months.  Warp 10 is infinite velocity.  It's an exponential scale, shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  As I said, the people writing it aren't very bright.  For some reason, they decided the fastest ship in the fleet was only going to travel at warp 9.  It's probably got something to do with the milky way galaxy not being large enough for them to get lost on the other side and not just have a few years to get home...

Didn't someone post a link that said the Warp Scale changed between TOS and TNG? Since we know ships that have gone at Warp 10 and above ( the Warp 14 TOS thing for one ) have never seemed to be going at an infinite velocity.  

Now you can you get off the whole speed thing.  Halo has abused the shit out of it for plot purposes, Star Trek has abused the shit out of it for plot purposes.  The end result?  Halo ships are still slower, and still restricted to sublight combat.  The rest of your errors, I leave to self education.  The shows are fun to watch.

Halo ships are slower at sub-light, that I and sub-light combat I will agree on. But FTL under normal operations goes to the Covenant and it can fit if you look at the TNG Warp Scale which used the amount of power to get to each level as it said in that link. So we can look at as the same for Covenant ships, more power=faster FTL.   

Now it is 11:20 here, good night.

well, hell, tanks in halo can't even do jack shit to a jeep. source:halo 3. the thing just gets topped in its tracks then takes off again.

on the other hand, im sure the enterprise is quite capable of destroying a tank...or a ship

oh yeah and either the halo books or games have to be thrown out...in books plasma pistols /rifles were uber strong, like a 2 hit kill, in the games they don't do jack.

Have you ever played it on Legendary or consider game balance? What fun is it to have a tac nuke drop on your head, because in the books the Wrath's blast destroys everything in a 20 meter radius. So neither the books or games have to be thrown out, because they can be used to gather.

Also, can the Enterprise survive the PoA reactors overloading? You, know the ship from the first game that is worthless next to ST ships. I calc that blast with Star Destroyer.Net nuclear blast radius calculator and the blast is around 60-200 Teratons; lets see the Enterpirse pull that sort of power out its reactors when it blows.

oic lets use whichever number is more convenient at the time, as a matter of fact on the tank bit i was refferring to multiplayer. i hit a warthog dead on, didn't kill the occupants and the damn thing still had an engine block. second shot finished it of course, but that's still effin ridiculous. human weapons are complete shit in halo, like maybe our time ish equivalent, and if they can kill covvies i'm sure the federation and/or borg and/or klingons and/or romulans and/or vulcans can kick the covies' asses to hell and back. not even a damn bit of continuity between the 3 halo games. i mean how the hell do you manage to forget how to make tracking rocket launchers.

and fed ships are quite capable of strafing- they just never do it on screen because it would be too easy and not very flashy. would be a spec of light flying back & forth for a few minutes. they'd pull it off though.

and since we're talking about planet destroying weapons, if i remember right federation had tricobalt torpedoes, hellabig boom.

It has nothing to do with continuity or them forgetting, the rocket launcher models between Halo 2 and 3 are different. They changed it for balance reasons, having a one or two hit kill that homes in on players is a little ridiculous.

The homing feature was taken away from the rocket launcher in Halo 3 and given to the Missile Pod, which takes several shots to kill most things.

so they still are making shittier weaons as time passes? iirc the rocket launcher homed in on only vehicles...which is perfectly frieken sensible. the missile pod, being a shaped charge, should be able to one hit most small vehicles. it certainly isn't doing much exploding in any direction other than where it hit. it can't, though. unsc deserve to get their asses kicked.

the federation doesn't eff its self over just because the other side whines about getting their asses kicked.

The H1 Sinper rifle is an anti-material rifle for one, so it is better; and then the God Weapon: the H:CE Pistol. And also, on that multiplayer thing, once again game balance; though I do agree the occupants surviving is stuipded. And also I would guess since the UNSC was pulling out all the stops those were old rocket launchers; but then you have the new turret one that locks on to. And even if ground weapons are no good, their space weapons would make ISDs shudder. 5.8 TT SMAC, multi-GT Plasma Torpedos and Energy Projectors that will easily one-shot Fed ships.

And so what if they are capable of starfing? They rarely use space in the way you should since it is a 3-D battle field and not 2-D, Covenant know how to do that. Covenant also make pin-point jumps through Silpspace. In the end they can just slowly glass the Federation planet by planet since Fed ships would be spread to thin.

And also, is this "tricobalt torpedo" a common weapon they are willing to use? From what I see they would die long before they used one.

And know good night.

well you know in the face of innumerable odds, why not just try firing one at a covie fleet?

surely if a high speed balistic projectile can kill a covie ship...a poorly designed projectile i might add...seriously their QA teams aren't doing their jobs right...

Gameplay balance > Logic

The human weapons in Halo 3 are hardly shitty just because you need homing weapons to kill things. The missile pod doesn't launch high explosives because it would be the same as the rocket launcher, only more powerfull because you can spam missile pod shots. And it only takes 2 shots to kill a Ghost or Mongoose if you hit the right spot.

Finally, using the fact that the rocket launcher in Halo 2 is better than it is in Halo 3 as an excuse to say that the UNSC deserve to get their asses kicked is fail logic. It's a video game, as if Bungie(or any game developer) is going to care about such a small discontinuity error between weapons when they have to worry about game balance.

"poorly designed projectile"? Since when was a 600 ton Depleted-Uranium projectile prooly designed? It takes 3+ rounds from a normal MAC to take down CCS-Battlecruisers and then even more t0 kill it once shields are down. Since Covenant weapons are multi-Gigaton weapons the logical way to go is that ship MAC guns fire them fast enough to have Gigaton level power. And then once again: Super MAC platform fires 3000 ton rounds at 40percent c for an impact of 5.8 TT and fires every five seconds.

And this time I do mean good night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ijDlbvAxw

lol i thought this was a funny "vs" video.

but on this halo vs star trek thing, i really dont see why you picked such a pair, i mean its like ninjas vs pony's or ants vs hammers. i just dont get it, there not even on the same level. i mean look at some of the real "vs" movies like AVP / Freddy vs Jason, kinda thing.

Ship to ship wise, nothing anyone says here is going to make me think Star Trek is going to lose there. But ground troops i can see halo winning, but like i said: i just dont think they are a good pair to debate what would happen if they went to war with one another. It just seems like such an unfair fight if you ask me.

but on this halo vs star trek thing, i really dont see why you picked such a pair, i mean its like ninjas vs pony's or ants vs hammers. i just dont get it, there not even on the same level. i mean look at some of the real "vs" movies like AVP / Freddy vs Jason, kinda thing.

Ship to ship wise, nothing anyone says here is going to make me think Star Trek is going to lose there. But ground troops i can see halo winning, but like i said: i just dont think they are a good pair to debate what would happen if they went to war with one another. It just seems like such an unfair fight if you ask me.
[/quote]

I just picked this since it is one of the few intreasing Sci-Fi I know a bit about.

Nothing anyone says? I think I can do that, Covie ships win for these reasons: Outnumber Feds. Have consistent planet glassing firepower. Faster, more accurate at pin-point jumps FTL drive that can also be used as a weapon (see Halo2). Have giant mobile space capital that drawfs anything in Federation in space with a 2500+ fleet guarding it. Have Forerunnner Dreadnought/Keyship.                                                                                                           And how is it an unfair fight? I am more then willing to take that TDiC as Fed weapons when shooting at planets since other times their ship-to-ship firepower is nowhere near that.

star trek fire power is not shown much but i have to think its better, i mean with ST:Enterpise alone there was a weapon that could destroy plants, sense Star Trek was not really ment to be about such things i dont think there fire power was really displayed but seeing how its based around such levels of technology, like transporters / anti matter weapons / star destoying missles / cloaking tech / faze cloaking / warp / holo-decks / and so on.. i would have to think they would win there, i mean if you ever watch some of say the TNG episodes you can see they can "technobabble" there way out of just about anything.

Oh there is also a lot of time travel in star trek, gotta think that would be a game ender in it self.

Yes, I remember seeing it, like the DS in a way. But that is yet another one time doomsday weapon never recreated.

And I agree with you, they have a lot of doomsday weapons but nearly all of them are one time weapons never seen again. And even then I doubt they can "technobabble" there way out of a fleet engagment with the enemy firing dozens of GT range weapons at them without some huge loss. When we look at ST firepower we get weapons that can blow this thing up one week, but can't blow up a hollowed out asteroid the next. I should have found out more about ST weapons, since their firepower levels seem driven more by plot then anything.  

Time travel is a factor, but it is rare. It puts huge amounts stress on the ship, takes massive amounts of power etc.etc.

And then you look at the Covenant don't have a reason to land on nearly any ST world, just glass from orbit. Because when the Covenant really don't like you, they start throwing around fleets ranging fron 500 ships to the 750+ fleet at Reach (Hood said the fleet that destroyed Reach was fifty times the size).

in the numbers war its hard to say, im guessing cov have a lot more ships but the feds cant be small eather with hundreds of plants allied together and have shipyards that i know of, but sense your basicly pulling out the big bad guys here and i dont want to just pull some lame super weapon out in too the mix, il put up the big bads of Star Trek. Like the borg.

Which in that case i think theres really no chance, borg span well beyond the galaxy and can move to any area they like with great speed not only with transwarp but with there gate network as well. To add to that they adapt to all kinds of weapons not only ship wise but individually as well, and instead of destroying a world wasting all the resorces of that world they can just drop a large load of nanites to assimalte the whole world to make use of it better, and making the huge cov fleet numbers also work against them as well.

this can go on all day though, so lets ask who has better fleet battles? and cooler ships? really though how can you not love fleet battles more with ships that are as beautifully desiged as these?

if there is one thing i really do love about star trek, its the ships.

in the numbers war its hard to say, im guessing cov have a lot more ships but the feds cant be small eather with hundreds of plants allied together and have shipyards that i know of, but sense your basicly pulling out the big bad guys here and i dont want to just pull some lame super weapon out in too the mix, il put up the big bads of Star Trek. Like the borg.

Didn't Voy destroy the Borg? I thought it had. And I have given the Fed a good fleet number based on the fact they have about 8000 light years of territory, Covenant have about the same. We know the UFP takes the lost of about 311 ships as large, so I have given them the fair numbers of about 10,000-25,000 ships. Now, we know the Covenant can afford to lose a large number of ships in a 2 week period: Nearly 250 ships out of around 750 at Reach plus about 2 weeks later the UH and 500+ ships. So 50,000-100,000 at a low end to high end in the very low millions for Covenant would't be to bad for the Covenant.  

Which in that case i think theres really no chance, borg span well beyond the galaxy and can move to any area they like with great speed not only with transwarp but with there gate network as well. To add to that they adapt to all kinds of weapons not only ship wise but individually as well, and instead of destroying a world wasting all the resorces of that world they can just drop a large load of nanites to assimalte the whole world to make use of it better, and making the huge cov fleet numbers also work against them as well.

The Borg can leave the galaxy? How do they get around the Great Galactic Barrier or whatever it was called that kept Federation and others from getting out? I believe it was from TOS, I found it at MA.

And dosn't Transwarp need some sort of path/tunnel through sub-space/whatever to get to targets where their is no gate? Or am I getting the gate network and Transwarp confused? Will Transwarp from what I know can allow travel across the galaxy in months, so that will give them a better chance against the Covenant. But they shall won't see the Covenant coming-but then that will go both ways until one of them has what they need of the othersides tech.

this can go on all day though, so lets ask who has better fleet battles? and cooler ships? really though how can you not love fleet battles more with ships that are as beautifully desiged as these?

Will the ships look nice, but they don't make sense as war ships. 1. The bridge is setting a worse spot then on most UNSC ships-right on top of the saucer section were it is an easy shot to take out. 2. The neck section between the saucer section and engineering section is another weak-spot. 3. The Warp Drives (correct me if I'm wrong) are out on little pylons making their engines an easy target once shields are down. The Borg are more like the Covenant when it comes to ships, such as placing command centers at the heart of the ship, engines are hard to shoot and such.

And also, I'll raise you an "epic space battle". Edit: the link is not going to the video, just look up Halo space battles and go to the one with the same as title the link.






if there is one thing i really do love about star trek, its the ships.

 

 
[/quote]

I will agree though other then for the things I point out their ships look cool, but I take Covie ships over the Cubes and Covie ships just seem like they won't fall apart. But I do give to Trek for being a good show and cool stuff. Though we should just end it know indeed, I just came back to this thread because of that crust destroyed in one hour quote thing really. I shall think it could go either way against the Borg, but on the area of consistent firepower the Covenant win against the UFP.

well as for the borg leaving the galaxy i dont know, a lot about the borg seems to remain unknown the only reason i know they did infact leave the galaxy is due to species 8472.

For the ships? i think they are designed around warp travel or something, mostly they just looked cool but as for the bridge till DS9 i think, it was basicly game over when shields where lost ( i think ).

Transwarp? its basicly like warp, but a lot faster. They also have transwarp hubs, sounds the same but was basicly like teleporting across the galaxy. ( just watch last voy episode ). i think it has some limits though im not 100% sure.

As for the borg getting beaten i dont think so, maybe beaten back but i dont remeber the fed's ever going across the galaxy to wage war on the borg.

all and all though alot remained unknown, like i always wondered where the borg queen came from and all that.

Will I seem to remember that Voy used some sort of virus to kill the Borg, computer virus that started from the queen or a Cube. I'm sure I read something that said Voy at least leveled the playing field by crippling the Borg with a virus of some sort.

Also, the only reason the Covenant glassed Human worlds was because of Humans being "Reclaimers", the High Prophets found this out from the AI at the heart of the Dreadnought before they became Hierarchs. Even so it was a minor war for the Covenant until Reach/Alpha Halo.

And depending on how the Covenant look at the Borg they may only glass the parts that the Borg live-unless they live on city worlds, which may mean the Covenant would see it as safer to just glass them. But I shall don't see the Borg as a big threat unless they come with dozens or hundreds of Cubes, one ship is good but they just don't seem to know how to use the ships they habe sometimes; such as ST:FC, once again sending only one Cube of hundreds of thousands to attack Earth.

now...borg would kick the shit out of covies, remember covies all use energy weapons, so borg will take over covvie ships easy....covvie's don't have tricks like the feds.

now...borg would kick the shit out of covies, remember covies all use energy weapons, so borg will take over covvie ships easy....covvie's don't have tricks like the feds.

now...borg would kick the shit out of covies, remember covies all use energy weapons, so borg will take over covvie ships easy....covvie's don't have tricks like the feds.
[/quote]

The Borg send ONE Cube a time at the Federation and lose each time, if they send say a dozen out of the hundreds of thousands they have then they would most likely win. Lets look at the Borg on the ground: shambles slowly along toward enemy that has weapon and doesn't even use the weapon it has to force the enemy to stay down, so after it takes enough fire it dies even once it adapts.  

And even if the Covie use energy weapons, so what? The Borg never send enough forces at time against an enemy, and even then they shall have to pin down the Covenant. You see, most of the Covenant live in space in mobile stations like the UH and HC, so the Covenant can stay a step or two ahead since the Borg won't knowhere they are. And even if they broad a Covenant ship and somehow after shambling along at shield Elires take it, the Covie are more then willing to destroy their own ship, as mentioned in FS where they take over a Covie ship and kill most of the crew by sucking out the atmosphere in the rest of the ship.

And if it came down to it, the Covenant would be just use hit and run tactics against the Borg. And we know that most in ST planets don't have shields, some do but not many, and the Covenant can just jump pass those. And even if the Borg adapt to the ship weapons of the Covenant, we all know they can shall only take so much before they blow up.

Though now that I'm thinking about it again, who do you think would win, the Flood or the Borg? As a Prophet taken over by the Flood once said: " The Forerunner not defeat us! What chance you." I think that is correct, saw it posted somewhere on another site, talking about the graphic novel.  

flood are invalid. once the flood come into the picture, everyone dies (including the flood. tehy consuming everything alive and then die out). so no one wins

the only way to bypass borg shield modulation was to use frequency modulated weaponry, something the covenant has in no way been proven capable of.

1. I was just wondering if just Flood vs Borg which you think would win. I go with the Flood, we all know that outside a few races ST has nothing on the Forerunner.

2. And the Covenant can just brute force their way easily through Borg shields. Even once adapted they can still be taken out through sheer firepower, which the Covenant hace more then enough of. Also it is possible that when the Covenant glass a planet it can go down to 3+ kilometers. I will get the quote from page 100 of Halo: First Strike in the morning.