Project Reach-Around -- added content

This is a list and description of content I'd like to add -- or remove -- from Ghosts of Reach. Three section -- vehicles, weapons, an ships. the section titles are in all caps and bracketed ie <<TITLE>> so use control F to jump around.

Obviously there's a lot of not just additions, but little tweeks as well. The philosophy is simple: If you build it, they will come. Yes it's a lot, and some might be cut for the same reason it was originally cut; but here we are attempting to build an ultimate platonic ideal, rather than a completely realistic overview (realistically this page would be blank, 'cause I don't know how to mod for shit).


<<VEHICLES>>

>>TRANSPORT HOG

This is the flatbed hog from Halo 3 that carried passengers in the back. Reach is a big place and it's a big military operating. Even if there's not much point in you driving it, a squad of marines pulling up to you and dismounting to assist makes a nice touch.


>>COUGAR

This was one of vehicles that was intended for Halo Wars but got scrapped. The cougar is a light and wheeled IFV. It mounts a twin Auto-canon (lets assume 30mm) and a separate remotely operated machine-gun nest on top. judging by the looks of it, it can hold 4-6 soldiers in the rear.
As far as game-play goes, this should be a two person vehicle. The driver has access to the machine gun on the roof, in the same way that the the driver controls the turret on the scorpion. The Main cannon however is perpetrated by a second person. It would also be a good Idea to give the driver two more buttons to use: one to order all nearby infantry into the vehicle, and one to order them to dismount.


>>M808A TARANTULA

This is a vehicle I've always imagined as far back as Halo 2 but never got the chance to really visualize until Halo Wars. In the game there is an upgraded Scorpion with two barrels called the 'Grizzly.' this ins't the same vehicle, but as far as design goes, I'm looking at the concept art...

On the Scorpion
When looking at the Scorpion, it actually looks very similar to a later variant of the Israeli Merkeva (no, not the one with the millennium falcon for a turret; I'm talking about the one with the turret in the rear.) The big difference between the two is the track pods and the remote turret.
While unconventional, the M808B's layout makes a lot of sense. Bungie took the direction of the military in Halo to a logical conclusion -- fast, light, and highly mobile, with an emphasis on communication. The infantry units are much more independent, fighting in fire-teams rather than larger squads and platoons. All the soldiers have integrated radios and helmet mounted displays. The Scorpion is a good example of this. The remote turret cuts down on weight, making it Air lift-able. The scorpion is also highly mobile. The remote turret can be elevated and depressed to extreme angles, and is mounted to the very rear. The turret is very tall, too. while this makes it a vulnerable target it is still smaller than a conventional turret and if it is hit, it will not result in any casualties to the crew. These three things combine to give the Scorpion a unique advantage. When firing from the hull down position, the Scorpion can reverse up the back of the slope, leaving nothing but it's very tiny turret exposed. couple this with the huge amount of depression, especially in the rear, and it can hit just about anything from a hull down position. If things go for the worst, it's already in the perfect position to drive away. It struck me as odd, however, that the gun was so small. And given the fact that it was a 'B' model with a remote turret...

Thus, the M808A. This is a the original MBT, featuring a traditional manned turret. This would make it too heavy/large to be carried by a pelican. However, this is the variant used by the ARMY, not the marines. The Army doesn't have to worry about the mobility and air-liftable materiel as much as the Marines would, so this makes perfect sense (especially considering that in a universe of interplanetary combat, the Army would be primarily relegated to a defensive role). The Tarrantuala would be slower than the Scorpion, but much more heavily armored. it would have a 140mm main canon and a coaxial 20mm dual cannon. in addition, it would also have a cupola mounted GPMG for the commander on the top of the turret.

most likely, the only level that this would appear in would be 'The Big Comedown'


>>FOX

A self-propelled Artillery vehicle. It was scrapped from Halo Wars, but the concept remains. This would in all likelyhood be a background vehicle that is not player controllable, but it would be nice to have just to show the 'scale' of a full sized military operation. ...will probably change the name to something more fitting, like 'Rhino'


>>EAGLE

a non controllable vehicle. This one is again form halo wars and was supposed to be called the 'falcon.' My best guess why it was scrapped is that they didn't want to give the UNSC an equivalent to the Vampire when the Covies didn't have a wolverine equivalent. either that, or it got replaced by the Hawk. Basically, it's VTOL capable air-superiority fighter, not capable of space-flight.


>>HAWK

One of the super-units for the UNSC from Halo Wars (is there a pattern here?). It would serve as a ground attack vehicle armed with missiles, rocket pods, and a chin-mounted spartan laser. essentially the UNSC analog to an american Apache attack helicopter.


>>ANTI-AIR WARTHOG AKA ROCKET HOG

I'm sorry, but is it to hard to make a version where you don't fire EVERY missile when you pull the trigger. I can't tell you how many times I've blown myself off a cliff trying to kill one little covie because after the first rocket my idiot driver marine (or worse, Kat) decides pull up right in front of a boulder, making the other five or so explode in my face. that needs to stop.

>>VULTURE

The last proposed vehicle for the UNSC, this was first seen as an 'uber-unit' for the UNSC faction in Halo Wars. It is a massive gunship, very similar to the gunship in James Cameron's Avatar (what DIDN'T they plagiarize?). She's armed with two pairs of high-caliber auto canons. Two anti-air missile pods near her stern, and lines of dorsal-mounted missile tubes. Obviously not a player controlled vehicle, but it'd be really cool to see this monster give you air-support on The Big Comedown -- until she gets blasted out of the air, that is.


>>SCORPION

lets get rid of that silly little mg turret and return to the coaxial machine gun. if balance is an issue, it could be a two person vehicle like the warthog


>>WRAITH

get rid of that stupid turret and go back to Halo 2's version with the turrets on the side. I want it to stay a two man vehicle, but seriously, the gunner should be vaporized every time it fires. the wraith is weak enough as it is, too. doesn't need a snipe-able gunner on top of it.


>>SPECTRE

This is the Covenant mop up/spec-ops vehicle from Halo 2. Personally i'd like to see it with a mounted shade turret as originally seen in the original 3rd person proto Halo, instead of that weird ricocheting plasma cannon.


>>SHADOW

this was the covenant bus from halo 2 that wasn't drive-able. made one single appearance in the entire halo canon. might be neat to have some more. is it the most useless of all the vehicles? well, we can drive a forklift and a tractor trailer, for God knows why, so i don't see why not.


>>SHORTSWORD

The UNSC's sub-orbital precision bomber. not something w'ed get to fly, but something we'd get to see droping bombs on covies


>>LONGSWORD

UNSC multi-role fighter. in space it's used as an interceptor, while in atmosphere it acts as a combination of an A-10 and an AC-130. can you flight it? no. Will it fly in to assist you and seriously fuck shit up? you betcha!


>>SERAPH
now these *were* in the game, but only during the dog fights. having them swoop around and shoot at you during certain parts in campaign would be neato, too.



<<WEAPONS>>

>> MA5B

I'd like to use the Anniversary model rather than whatever the hell that tapco'd looking gun was. And if it had Halo 4 levels of accuracy that would be great, too. It's a rifle, after all. You should be at least able to plink at grunts with it.


>> M45D

This is the name of Halo 4 shotgun that shares the name of the shotgun in Halo: Reach. Since the soldiers of Halo Reach are in the army and probably fielded differently than the Marines, the M45D would serve as their shotgun and be the analogue of the Benelli M1014. So it's a twelve gauge-er and capable of semi-auto fire.


>>M90

The shotgun in all other Halo games except 4 (and reach) with the Halo CE look and the Halo CE levels of overpowered. A weapon of the Marines, rather than the Army. This is Emile's gun. Compared to the M45, it's a beast. It's major disadvantage are that you can hold less ammo, it reloads slower, and it has a much slower rate of fire. Just like in Halo CE, this a a third act weapon, not something you get right at the beginning of the game.


>> M7

I played Halo CE the other day and had an epiphany. Yaw, the halo reach and halo 4 rifles are amazing, but at short-range there's a sort of lack of fire-power. playing on the Pillar of Autumn, I found that with the huge mag and large spread, I was able to gun down multiple grunts at the same time when they were standing next to each other. It's a really useful tool this way.


>> M6

The Halo 1 version did return to reach, But i'd like to also maybe see a return of the standard version seen in Halo 2 and Halo 3: ODST. The chrome covered, scoped, automatic version firing HE rounds seems like a PDW version for officers and general military non-combatants...


>>M247

This was the GPMG we saw in Halo 2. it would be cool to see soldiers carrying around and setting up GPMGs


>> SAM

This was originally in the 3rd person proto-Halo but got cut from the rest of the game. it would be more of an ammo type than a weapon, as both the AT and AA munitions share the same launcher (the rocket launcher is designed similarly to the Javelin, with disposable pre-loaded barrels being fired from a CLU-like device).


>> SNIPER RIFLE

someone suggested a lower damage, but higher shot sniper for the unsc. I guess it would make sense to bring back the halo2/3 model for the AM rifle, maybe even the halo CE model as a spec-ops version, but the reach model with it's ergonomic look and smaller size could be some high-cap Lapua magnum version specifically for killing infantry, with more shots to take down the shields, but less to kill against flesh, and no over penetration.

>>PLASMA WEAPONS

this goes for all plasma weapons. they get nerfed hard for the sake of gameplay, but they're fucking scary in the books. and with good reason. Consider this: there's an inherent difficult of making plasma weapons IRL because of how energetic plasma is. Halo gets it's shit right and understands that the plasma must be constantly contained in a magnetic bottle projected and carried to target by the weapon firing it. What Halo fails to account for (unless of course the covenant weapons based on forerunner tech are *staggeringly* advanced beyond our understanding) is exactly how energetic plasma is. Plasma is not trying to fly apart because of it's charge. because of physics that I don't pretend to be smart enough to understand, plasma is relatively stable in spite of being ionized. the real forces of repulsion are from the intense heat. How intense? an uncontained ball of plasma would fly apart at a rate of five thousand kilometers per second. that's right. Kilometers.

Understanding that, even a very tiny amount of plasma -- only a few grams of ionized gas -- would far more devastating than bullets. not pew pew pew. we're talking huge bangs every time it goes off. On top of the explosion and the heat, exploding plasma has horrific effects on the nervous system due to the mini-EMP it creates. These effects (that we know of -- there hasn't been much long term study) include paralysis and the sensation of extreme pain. (google the Pulsed Energy Projectile if you'd like to know more, citizen). plasma should be traveling fast and should be really deadly. for balance it can do less to you, but it ought to fucking devestate marines and soldiers. I want them being knocked onto the ground, and maybe even a random % chance of them being lit on fire.


>> PLASMA PISTOL

All I have to say is that while it is a pistol by OUR standards, it's a service weapon by the covenant. Plasma doesn't need barrels or stocks. It's also technologically superior to any sort of DEW we could make. the Plasma Pistol is merely a very, very compact equivalent of an assault rifle (Semi-only makes sense, since grunts are worse than conscripts. they'd overhead their weapons and run out of energy in a heart beat) so it shouldn't be some dinky piece of crap you only pick up so that you can 'noob combo'


>> PLASMA RIFLE

In Halo CE, the Plasma Rifle was the most accurate automatic in the game. it was just as accurate as the Halo: Reach AR, while the Halo Ce AR was LESS accurate than the M7. What i'm saying, is that the Plasma Rifle shouldn't be relegated to shitty little alien smg that shoots slow ass soap bubbles that look more like pretty christmass tree lights than face-melting energy blasts


<<SHIPS>>

This is a very open section right now. Obviously there's the Pillar of Autumn. You get to see the inside of it. But I also want to show a variety of ships both covenant and UNSC fighting for Reach. More covie ships than just the corvette, cruiser, and carrier. And I'd like to Add some Destroyers and Marathon class cruisers to the UNSC, including the Iroqouis.