How tough is Ghost armour?

[Malyg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...R3doYRick&t=47

After watching this scene and seeing Kerrigan's suit deflect a Hydralisk spike I have to ask, now tough is Ghost armour in the EU? Is it normally that tough or is the scene in the cinematic an exception?

[Turalyon]

I think that was a glancing blow. If you look at the cinematic, Card to Play, we see marines in their full armour taking hydralisk spikes full on and getting easily penetrated by them. Given that Kerrigan's "armour" amounts to nothing more than a skin tight suit in the cinematic, had she taken one full on I'd reckon she'd be in much worse shape than those Marines.

[LestersPetZergling]

aaaaa

[Turalyon]

Plot-armor.

Yeah, I figured this to be the answer too, but I thought that was too much of an obvious/a cop-out answer (which it truly is anyway).

Terran armor is quite bizzare. If a few bullets can kill someone protected by a CMC, what's the point of spending so much on a CMC, when you could spend the money on other things, plus have your infantry more mobile?

Kinda like Stormtrooper armour huh?

At it's most basic level, it's a suit that enables NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) shielding which is quite important when traveling and moving about in hostile environments, like, you know, alien planets and space. The fact that it's quite ubiquitous suggests that CMC armour is not really that expensive at all to make - it's probably considered standard armament. If we look at modern day soldiers now, they cost thousands to equip as well when they could just as easily still get felled by a single bullet anytime and yet the reasoning for all this expense doesn't seem to apply there does it?

However, in original StarCraft cinematics (like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc9-2rb8TxU), the Zerg never seems to use ranged-attacks. The only time anyone seems to die from the Zerg is melee. So maybe Terran armor is actually effective against spines, in StarCraft 1 at least?

Nah, Zergling spikes and melee attacks can penetrate tank armour in the lore because of they're hyper-evolved nature and all those minerals you harvest going into strengthening them. You can probably chalk the lack of Zerg ranged attacks in Sc1 cinematics as an example of the "Cutscene Incompetence" trope - which is often related to its opposite, the "Cutscene Power to the Max" trope, which is displayed in WoL.

[LestersPetZergling]

aaaaa

[Turalyon]

The U.S. military's main rifles often jam in Afghanistan, and so on. It's quite ironic.

That maybe so, but, you're reasoning goes down to the logical conclusion of only equipping soldiers with the absolute bare minimum of equipment because the "expensive stuff is really just useless anyway". Glad you're not in charge of the military...

ETC. Never once does the CMC help the marines in the cinematics. Without the CMC, they could probably outrun the Zerg if they were on stims.

You're forgetting the basics - the CMC armour protects them from exposure to hostile environments like lack of or toxic atmospheres, effects of abnormal gravity and pressure, solar radiation, biological contaminants and pathogens.

Without the armour, there would be no army at all to even face the Zerg...

[LestersPetZergling]

aaaaa

[Turalyon]

In all the cinematics, they have their visors up.

On Char, people are walking around in shirts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L93N09dSUAs

Yeah the contradiction gets worse than that: Warfield explains Char's environment to be so hostile that it could "burn a man alive" and yet we see Raynor bring a de-zerged and naked Kerrigan out into this atmosphere.

It's safe to say the cinematics are worth less than a grain of salt when it comes to consistency or reliability.

As for the occupant still surviving after the visor's up, you have to consider that the whole body is still encapsulated in the armour and that there's probably some life support systems chugging away to compensate. Besides, it's science fiction - shit kinda happens that way.

[LestersPetZergling]

aaaaa

[TSCR]

Pretty sure that was an exxageration even in SC2 because Stockman was just wearing his regular labcoat in a cinematic and he wasn't burnt alive. Then again its SC2's writers so you never know.