In Response To: Shield and Sword - Armor Augmentations (Leviathan)
:
: The Menus of Halo 4
: Mission 1: The Howling Dark
: Mission 2: Shield World
: Mission 3: The Broken Chord
: --------------
: I was always going to speculate and design some ideas for the armor
: augmentations (abilities) I've mentioned in Shield and Sword but it kept
: falling through the cracks, so I thought I'd get in here and present some
: of those ideas, before E3 smashes down on the speculation wheel. :)
: Halo 4 seems to be having something similar to Reach already in regards to
: armor abilities, but Shield and Sword continues to be more of a 'what if?'
: than a 'what's going to be'. So if not in H4, maybe the next? Or maybe
: just in my head - which is fun too.
: Armor Augmentations
: As John slept, Cortana hibernated as well. She shut down much of her brain to
: reduce rampancy risks in such an isolated system, and conserve energy from
: the slowly-failing power plant onboard Forward Unto Dawn .
: But another solution to rampancy is to keep oneself busy. And so Cortana left
: the remaining active threads of her brain a very important job.
: Besides optimizing weapons and upgrading vehicles (including adding
: AI-controlled modules on some of them to assist weapon-firing and driving
: when the Master Chief required it), Cortana set about bringing the Chief’s
: armor up to speed. Besides reinforcing the armor-plating and upping
: efficiency in all of its various internal systems, she also wanted to
: augment the armor with additional functionality.
:
: I'd really love to strut my stuff in a beat-up, nuts-and-bolts MJOLNIR
: someday...
: Much of her work was based on UNSC prototypes, some of which were used on
: Reach and Earth in the last year of the war. But the resources of the
: Forward Unto Dawn were scarce and much of her designs had to be
: repurposed or built from scratch. It took time, even for an A.I. such as
: herself, and much trial and error to create such useful and powerful toys
: out of the seemingly empty frigate ruins.
:
: As she worked, Cortana would awaken Johns at regular intervals throughout the
: years of drifting to begin testing and implementing these designs, at
: least that is until the Forward Unto Dawn arrived at the anomaly – the
: Forerunner Planet – and the last of her designs had to be hastily
: integrated or abandoned entirely.
: These are the tools at the Master Chief’s disposal, arranged in a logical
: order stemming outwards from the default augmentation.
:
: HUD concept
: Pressing the D-Pad up once would bring you to the Boost ability, for example,
: and pressing it twice would bring you to the Jetpack augment. Once primed,
: you activate the augment with the right bumper just like in Reach.
: Most of the augmentations are evolutions of the equipment and armor abilities
: found in the past and so are somewhat self-explanatory, the exceptions
: being Boost, Overshield, and Jamming.
: Boost is a short but powerful burst from your jetpack thrusters – but
: instead of directing you upwards, they direct you forwards upon the ground
: at a high speed, wherever direction you are currently walking towards -
: not facing. Effectively, it does much the same as Reach’s Evade ability by
: either taking you out of harm’s way or into it. But this time it’s much
: faster and far more intense, and timed right with the melee button, you
: can reenact a ‘sword lunge’ with any weapon (which will be a little more
: remarkable as automatic lunges would not be found in this game). Also it
: leaves a small trail of fire behind you!
: Overshield is now a sort of synthesis of the various Bubble Shields and
: Overshields of the past, as well as a hint of Armor Lock. When activated,
: Chief locks into a standing position (seen below) and outwardly projects
: his armor’s energy shield for a ten foot radius around him (like a Bubble
: Shield). The Chief cannot move and is extremely vulnerable within the
: bubble-shield. But besides looking cool, the shield now has triple the
: strength and can protect friendly A.I. or other players.
:
: Jamming now jams radar and VISR, as well as slightly distorting your
: normal HUD for a brief moment, giving you a cue that the augmentation is
: being used.
: John begins the campaign with ALL armor augmentations at his disposal. One of
: the reasons this won’t be overpowering at first is because the different
: powers are just simply not that helpful until the sandbox opens up around
: him throughout the game.
: For example, Overshield isn’t much help until you have an AI fireteam you’d
: like to protect, and Active Camo isn’t much help early on against
: synthetics who do not rely completely on visual data for searching and
: targeting.
: As well, the abilities and the environments you are using them within are
: designed in such a way to ensure that no one augment is too amazing.
: Jetpack doesn’t do much good indoors, VISR is terrible in the sunlight,
: Jamming confuses the enemy but also let’s them know you’re nearby, Boost
: can break into the enemy ranks but then you’re stranded there, etc.
: The only times the augmentations are locked off are in zero-g segments, where
: your whole suit is in an enhanced Jetpack mode (and in that type of
: gameplay, the other abilities wouldn’t do much good anyway).
: -------
: Shield and Sword will continue its regularly scheduled programming later
: this month!
I am absolutely baffled why 343i has not hired you yet, Levi.
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