Talk:Covenant destroyer

How can a Covenant Destroyer be 1500 meters long if it says in Halo fall of reach on page 146 chapter 17 a covenant destroyer is a third as massive as a UNSC destroyer.

Perhaps the destroyer from Fall or Reach and the Destroyers from Ghost of Onyx are different classes of destroyer, like CAR or CPV. It mentions in Ghost of Onyx that the destroyer have shuttle bays and Spirit Dropships.

I deleted the picture of the so-called Covenant destroyer - as far as i can recall, it was from someone's CGI video clip with completely original equipment. So its not canon, and never was. Honour Light Your Way -   Kora ‘Morhek   The Battle-Net  My Conquests.  00:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The aforementioned image is clearly not canon, but despite multiple deletions, it is always re-posted. Some action against this would be welcome. Spartan 144 "Nicholas" 22:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC-8)

I think you are right about being 2 different destroyers because on page 290 in halo ghosts of onyx it talks about 2 covenant heavy destroyers so I think the 1500 meter destroyer is really a heavy destroyer. So this page about the covenant destroyer should be change to heavy covenant destroyer and not covenant destroyer.

correction
FoR actually says that the covenant destroyer was a third Italic textagainItalic text as large as the Iroquois. so if the Iroquois was 1000m long, the destroyer would have been 333m long.

No, no, no. A UNSC destroyer is only seven meters longer then a UNSC frigate, which at 483 meters, this means that the Iroquois comes in at only 492 meters, and this would put a destroyer at about 175 meters. And in the trivia how is it known that that ship was a Destroyer? All Serina says is Covenant ship straight ahead or something like that All Under Heaven

Curious
Despite all the previous measurements mentioned above, that still doesn't explain why this destroyer in the Halo Wars game cut-scene is slightly bigger than the 2500+ Spirit of Fire. That's things almost twice as big as a Cruiser yet classified a Destroyer. I thought it might even be a Reverence Class Ship cause it looks to be over 2500 meters and the Reverence is about 3000. But to call it a destroyer, Im sorry Ensemble, you guys dropped the ball, probably as you ran out the closing doors and tried to finish the game before you got nothing at all.

It really is sad too that all this because someone didn't get facts straight when trying to wrap the game up. If they had typed Cruiser instead we wouldn't be having this conversation cause the game video clips never call it a Destroyer, only some guy who typed it in on the menus and timeline stuff.

The terms for military ships are not lost on Bungie, your ships usually range smallest to biggest with these names, Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, Battle-cruiser, Battleship, Carrier, Supercarrier. If the Assault Carrier is the biggest and is larger than the Spirit of Fire, and the Covenant Cruiser (their battles-cruiser) is smaller than Spirit of FIre, that means the one in the Cut-Scene is in between there, too big for the other smaller classes. The measurements just don't match what I saw in the game. Maybe its a Super Duper Destroyer? Or a SuperCruiser.I still think a Reverence Class matches that in game ship.


 * Either Ensemble have given it the wrong classification, or we've got the size of the Spirit of Fire wrong. Since the SoF's length comes from an interview with Graeme Devine, and accuracy can be difficult under fire from reporters, my guess would be the latter. Or it may be a Covenant Heavy Destroyer, briefly mentioned in First Strike I believe. I do note, however, that the books claim that Destroyers bear more than a passing resemblence to Carriers, the only noticable difference being size - so if it does eventuate to be a Carrier instead of a Destroyer, we may end up retaining the picture.


 * And as far as I know, the actual meanings of Hull Classification Symbol refer to roles rather than sizes. A Destroyer is meant as an escort. A frigate is a light picket, cruiser is a fast warship, etc. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure some modern Cruisers are as large as Frigates. Its the use to which they are put that defines their class.--  Administrator  Specops306  -  Qur'a 'Morhek   Honour Light Your Way!  09:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that would be right. It doesn't matter how large a ship is; it only matters what they're built for and what they're used for. Of course frigates can be bigger than carriers - it's just not usually done because with our current technology, it would be impractical. The 888th Avatar  (Talk) 09:14, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This still doesn't explain why the Spirit of Fire is 2500 meters and the Destroyer is 1500 yet look very close in size in the cutscene. Or why it is only One and a half times the mass of a frigate but still so big in those scenes.

Ensemble
I would imagine its the description that's wrong. While they clearly had the Spirit Size and designation down for the story, and all the cut-scenes, it was probably a typo in the description of the vessel that caused all this. If only they visited here and reviewed the classes of Covenant ships they could of found a dozen with not pics to work on if they really wanted on original looking ship.

Multi-Role, Specialized, or Obsolete Ship Model?
I have seen the cutscenes a number of times, and the ship in question is actually a third-length shorter than the SoF. There seems to be an inconsistency in its size, for when it scrapes the SoF, it clearly shown to be shorter, but the bridge display makes it look just as big. In overall dimensions, I'd imagine that the vessel is roughly 1,500 meters or more in length, but still below the 2,500 meter length of the SoF.

As for the ship itself, we see a total of 5 ships like this; 4 in the opening cinematics, and the one that fights the SoF. In fact, it is the only Covenant warship that we see in-game, despite the presence of CCS-Class Battlecruisers at Arcadia, and in the Halo Wars: Genesis comic, Assault Carriers and other miscellaneous ships as well.

Judging from the ship's performance characteristics, it seems to be a multi-purpose design; it is capable of glassing planetary surfaces with a large, primary plasma weapon, it can deploy troops, equipment, vehicles, and field facilities, and has uncertain ship-to-ship prowess, given that it is only seen fighting a ship at point-blank range with its lesser plasma batteries.

If anything, it seems to be a type of destroyer or planetary operations vessels; perhaps it could be called a "planetary operations destroyer" or something like that. Another possibility is that it is a design that will eventually be rendered obsolete by the more familiar 1.5 km destroyer that we know of later on, for that model is well-suited to fleet and planetary engagements, given that it can fight superbly against ships, has troops and material, and even Seraph fighters. The Halo Wars ships seem to be primarily planetary warfare-oriented, as it functions in a similar manner to the SoF.

Given that this is early in the war, and Regret notes that it will take time to muster the ships, equipment, and troops to wipe out the Humans, it is a definite possibility that these ships are a soon to be obsolete design or a more specialized vessel.

Another clue to perhaps not being a dedicated destroyer is that it doesn't have the 3-lobed design that the later destroyers are meant to have. Rather, this model has a bulbous bow on a long extension, which is similar to the Assault Carrier. That, combined with its observed capabilities, suggests that it is primarily a planetary assault vessel rather than a more generalized ship than the later destroyers are.

After all, with the Covenant being denied those Forerunner vessels, they could very well have designed better ships and phased out older designs as the war dragged on. With the inconsistent naming of this vessel, perhaps it should have its own article rather to distinguish it from the destroyers seen in the books.

--Exalted Obliteration 21:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The only real problem I have is how the Destroyer glasses a planet; the opening cut scene is way off on that point. From a design standpoint I don't really have a problem with it, it seems to fit within the general realm of Covenant ship design.

The size, seems to match what the novels have stated about destroyers:

Fall of Reach Chapter 16 Page 145 "He had been wrong. There weren’t four Covenant frigates. A pair of enemy frigates emerged from Slipspace . . . escorting a destroyer and a carrier. His blood ran cold. He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC ships. Its plasma torpedoes could boil through the Iroquois’ two meters of titanium-A battleplate in seconds. Their weapons were light-years ahead of the UNSC’s."

Page 146 "The alien destroyer was a third again as massive as the Iroquois. She bristled with pulse laser turrets, insect like antennae, and chitinous pods. The carrier and destroyer moved together . . . but not toward Iroquois."

If my math isn't off that would put a destroyer around 1,455 meters long.

Which would match the following:

Page 151 "The view screen turned and centered on the enormous Covenant destroyer."

However does that mean the destroyer in Halo Wars is the only class of Covenant destroyer, probably not. This new piece of concept art describes the Destroyer as a "Capital Class Ship"

Sybex Halo PC Strategy Guide Page 73 "Covenant Battleships are long vaguely manta-shape spacecraft capable of launching dozens of fighters. They are typically armed with several dozen energy weapons. Covenant capital ships come in varying classes and sizes, though military observers note that there is a great deal of variance-weaponry, length, estimated tonnage, fighter complements, speed, and so on-within a particular class."

My conclusion, based on all this information, is that the Halo Wars version is a variation of typically seen Destroyers, and is counted as being part of their Capital Class Ships. Durandal-217 23:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Slipspace speed
There's no way that 24 Light years per hour is realistic. 01:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * True, but the main goal of this site is to document the Haloverse as it's shown in canon, regardless of how removed from reality it is. At the moment I can't verify that GoO actually gives that figure, though. --Andrew Nagy 04:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)