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| Bentllama, I stole your idea! | |
| Posted By: LietLives | Date: 2/11/04 2:45 p.m. |
In Response To: Covenant Assault Boat Update *IMGS* (Wraith) Okay, first off I like very much the idea of boats and nautical combat for Halo. Although it does seem a little strange to bring boats when you're attacking from space, it makes as much sense as land-based transport craft, if you think about it. Being on the water would require less energy for the hover systems, I would think, and allow you to make a vehicle that can take more punishment than an aircraft. Using boats would also allow for quicker transport of really large artillery than you get on land. Even though the Wraith uses a hover field, it still moves really slow. A boat of similar size and purpose would probably be much faster. Having said that, I'm gonna use bentllama's post as an excuse to argue that your boat design, while I like it, doesn't fit the basic idea of a Covenant vehicle. The design of the "cockpit" has a two-Elite, side-by-side seating arrangement. This is different than any of the Covie vehicles in Halo, which are opperated by a single individual. The cutscene at the end of T&R even suggests that the dropships have only a single pilot. If I remember correctly, both the Shadow and the new ground transport in Halo 2 look like they have a single pilot. If you raised the windshield on the pilot side of the boat to protect him a bit, though, I think it could work well on a UNSC craft. The gun looks good to me. I think a Shade gun's floating seat makes more sense for a vehicle that could be used by both Grunts and Elite, but I keep reading in posts that the Shadow isn't going to use the Shade seat, and since the boat would only be used by Spartans in multiplayer, the gun you have is fine. The only thing that troubles me is how someone would get to the gun from outside the vehicle. The sides and back of the craft look too high, althought that is probably just because your model isn't sitting in water, and going over the front doesn't look viable, especially if you're in a hurry. The fact that your boat sits fully in the water is okay, but doesn't feel like a Covenant craft to me. Covie vehicles hover, and it seems to me that any boat they make would incorporate that into the suspension and propulsion. Well, now that I have been so brutally honest about what I think of you're boat, I have three ideas of my own about what would help make a good Covie boat. Of course, bentllama gets some of the credit along with Wraith, but mostly I do, since I'm just so great. This isn't a total description of a boat, just some elements which I think could be part of a really cool vehicle. I'll start with the pilot. All Covie vehicles provide some cover from the front for the driver, and I think total protection from the front and sides would be a good idea. Whether the pilot would be vulnerable from above and behind would have to be carefully considered and balanced, but seems like the best bet to me. So sitting in the cockpit would probably resemble sitting in a Ghost, with sides high enough to shield the pilot, but open to the back and probably the top for easy access. For carrying capacity, I think either two or four people would be the way to go. Obviouly you need a pilot and a gunner. I think two passengers facing sideways would be better than one facing forward. If you went with just the two crew members, no passengers, giving the pilot a pair of plasma cannons like those on the Ghost could be neat, especially if the gun on the back has a slow rate of fire like the Shade, or the gun is replaced with a mounted FRG. Now, when I first started imagining what a Covie boat would look like, I though of a catamaran design. The cockpit would be in the front, the gun near the back, the passengers, if any, could sit on either side, and the hoverfield generators could be underneath the cockpit and gunners station, but out of the water. It would look cool, have a low profile, but still ride high out of the water for speed. I figure this idea would be really cool for a transport ship or a boat version of a Wraith, with a big plasma mortar on the back. After thinking for a while, I wondered if pontoons might be cooler. The cockpit would be right in front of the gun, the hoverfield generators would still be right underneath both, but two pontoons would be connected to the rest of the ship be angled struts, somewhat like a Banshee on the water. Passengers could sit on the pontoons if you wanted to make it that way, or they might be too thin for that. I was getting anamored of the idea of pontoons on angled struts when I read bentllama's post about hydroplanes, and lightning struck. What if, instead of pontoons off to the sides, or hydrofoils beneath a normal, single hull, you put two or four hydrofoils on angled struts off to the sides!! With a cockpit and gun as the main part of the boat, the hoverfield generators would sit underneath and provide forward propulsion and boyancy. The boat would sit low in the water when there was no pilot in it, just like a Ghost, with the hydrofoil support struts and hoverfield generators actually under the water! When a pilot got into the cockpit, the boat would rise just enough to bring the generators above the water, and as you built up forward speed, the hydrofoils would lift the boat higher and higher, until they were the only part of the boat submerged. I couldn't get over what I cool idea it was, whether from its own merit or the fact that some pancake-obsessed Canadian inspired it, I can hardly say. Okay, so those are my critiques of Wraith's boat and my own ideas for one, or indeed more than one. I welcome questions and comments, of course, and if anyone out there uses any of my ideas as inspiration for a boat design of their own, I would love to see it. LietLives: indescribably disturbed that bentllama could influence his thought process in any way. | |
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