Sick. Think about playing pirate ships on the elephants on Sandtrap, except in the freaking air on Pelicans. Awesome.
Operating Pelicans and Phantoms in the Campagin? Yes. Operating Pelicans and Phantoms in Multiplayer? Absolutly not! Using a drop ship in multiplayer seems a bit unfair, bu then again, I don't know what the multiplayer will be like in Reach.
If the pilot of a phantom dies, the phantom merely stays floating. Also I believe the hijacking could be replaced with someone jumping into that tractor beam thing, and then it would be a close-quarter fight inside the phantom. Also, the phantom would be flew much like the hornet, as it focuses on hovering forwards rather then exactly flying forwards, the pelican would be flown much more like the banshee, because it's not the type of hovering forward vehicle. I believe that to take down the pelican, you'd need to destroy each 4 of the distributors which push it along, after losing one you lose slight control, after losing 2, the vehicle starts dragging around the back and needs more power to fly (assuming you shot the two backwards ones), after losing 3, it starts to fall slowly, after losing 4 it falls down extremely quickly, when it crashes it causes a large explosion. If it loses. If you lose 2 that are not the front, back or side ones (e.g. topleft/bottomright) then the vehicle would start spinning wildly. Also, I think that fall damage should be given to players inside these vehicles, and upon crashing, you would die inside the vehicle, however you would either float to the surface from a phantom (slower then falling, no damage until the phantom crashes on top of you), jump out the sides near the crash, just about halving the fall damage depending on how far up you were, and the same with the pelican except you jump out the back. Also, I believe we should get an option to disable/enable heavy weapons, this would be things like a phantom's cloaking ability, and the pelican's heavy missile barrage. Also for Reach they need a space-battle-based campaign mission.
Well, if you think about it, the Hornet is a Mini-Pelican. It flies, hovers, carries troops, and fires rockets and shoots machine guns.
No, they're COMPLETELY different. The hornet is a light assault vehicle. It carries 3 people, not to transport them, but to help kill other people. The hornet's missiles are incredibly weak, as are it's machine gun turrets and general armour. The Pelican is a heavy transport ship, heavy assault ship, heavily armed dropship, and designed to survive a crash much better then any other vehicle. The hornet uses 2 engines for propulsion, it is not designed to fly to a destination, more like hover too it. The Pelican has 4 cleverly placed engines, isn't designed to hover, but can when it needs to, is VERY fast, is streamlined on purpose, and generally flies like an aeroplane.
Actually, maybe the Phantom should fly kind of like the Hornet, in the way that it hovers and can fly side-to-side. Aerial battles between two Phantoms (And Pelicans to a lesser degree, because you can't have a broadsides attack) would be epic, as per zeppelinboy777. I had an idea for a Pelican hijack: When the Spartan is in range, he jumps up, grabs a hold of the Pelican's hull, and proceeds to crawl around back into the troop bay thing, then runs into the cockpit, then rips the pilot out of his seat and toss him out the back of the Pelican. As for the passengers, I have no idea.
Passengers would have the disadvantage of not being able to fire upon anyone except opposite Passengers, however, lets say a Spartan does rip across the hull and get to the back, and pulls the door open, 6 Spartans all attacking him from the safety of their seats.
I think that pelicans and phantoms could be integrated into multiplayer if a good system was made. My ideas: idea 1: Vehicles have stamina which cannot be repaired (maybe by a regenerator) when the vehicle looses stamina it crashes and explodes, killing all that are inside. idea 2: The more you shoot the vehicle, the more armor you break off, as the vehicle looses armor, it becomes incredibly weak (much like the plating on a Scorpion) and can be destroyed by a single laser shot, a rocket or a good amount of bullets. Other things that effect the phantom/pelican: ` Power Drains could shut down systems and disable piloting. The damage to the vehicle would depend on the altitude of the vehicle- an increase in altitude = increase in damage on impact. OR Disable missile launchers on the vehicle. `Hijacking: Leaving the vehicle without a pilot would cause the vehicle to fall and crash. Hijacking the vehicle would kill the pilot and create an entrance to the pilot's quarters (smashing a hole into the front) Note: If you think that Spartans/Elites do not possess the strength to break open a Pelican/Phantom- They punch their way through Scorpions/Wraith metal, why not glass or the metal on Phantoms? I understand that it may be a little thicker, but if you can make a tank explode by punching it, you could probably tear through metal. Hijacking a vehicle would lead a player to the pilots quarters which is a seat that is separated from the passengers. Also note that the passengers must be seated in order to stay in the pelican: If they do not, they fall out. Passengers are at a slight disadvantage because they must be motionless which leaves them open to be killed.
I wasn't aware that had a front window. Anyways, for hijacking I personally think it would make more sense (for the phantom) to go inside the passenger area, and you'd have to kill the people inside (if there are any) and then kill the pilot from there. Or maybe there'll be some kind of new hatch underneath the driver's seat so you could hijack from there?
This would be probably the most likely thing to see in Reach. Phantoms didnt exist in the covenant at that time. And there werent alot of pelicans there.
I said the glass on a pelican/ metal on a phantom... I just thought of a different idea to replace smashing metal. You could get through a hole by ripping the turret (which shoots purple beams) and get in from there. Killing everyone inside a phantom would be too hard to do because of the 2 turrets on each side and whatever guns the passengers are using. Hijacking does nothing besides killing the pilot (and maybe allowing the hijacker to access the pilot's quarters). If the pilot dies, another passenger has to replace that pilot or the entire ship crashes from falling (killing or injuring everyone inside). As for Shades- Shades are turrets, completely off topic: Im pretty sure that the "Spirit" is what was trying to be mentioned: correct? If it were in Halo Reach, then yes they would probably be Spirits, but I was targeting more of a Halo 3 system in the title which says "Halo 3 (update)/ Halo Reach" instead of a Halo Reach system. Im not sure how spirits would work though, there is only 1 main turret and no plasma cannons which seems pretty weak. The passengers would be protected more from the door flaps on the side, but the entire ship would seem pretty defenseless. Perhaps a slit could be in each door flap and then it would be the same as a phantom.
Well just because we've only seen the Spirit in Halo 1 doesn't mean that was the only transport in use, it just means it was the only type of dropship the fleet that chased the PoA had (and even then there could of have been phantoms). The only problem I have is balancing the two transports. One has missiles, the other turrets. One uses anti-gravity, the other propulsion. Not to mention the different weak spots each transport has.
Pelicans would maybe have to be downsized. and spirits would probably work. But Mechs... They Need Mechs
Well the Pelican would have very slow missiles which are devastating, but the Phantom would have a much faster turret which does about the same amount of damage as a missile would do. Ex 4 shots of a Phantom would be about as much damage as 1 missile from a Pelican, a Pelican can then shoot a missile in the time that it takes a Phantom to shoot 4 or 5 shots. Other balancing (my opinion): `Phantoms can open a gravity lift which players can enter through- The pelican would have to land on the ground (so you would need to find an landing zone). I would probably say that the Phantom would have the ability to open and close the anti gravity lift (pilot controls). `I would probably say that the weak spots are about the same. Pilots quarters are both equally vulnerable. The Phantom/Shade has weak points on parts of the sides, but the Pelican has weak points on most of the back. Mechs? the robots from Halo Wars? Not sure about that...
Just as a quick answer, I believe these would only work if you left these large vehicles without guns or with very weak or inneffective guns such as the elephants on Sandtrap. possibly the single turet in the back of the pelican and the shide turrets on a phantom. The turrets are not effective enough to hold down a large area and leave the spartans on the turrets very vulnerable.
ya id have to go with pelicans would have a pilot controlled front mounted mini gun/ lagg but its rotation is limited to oh say not even a 180 in front of it and then a player controlled lagg in back. Phantom would be the best choice for a counter vehicle because you could have 2 mounted plasma cannons on each side just have to edit the physics so only the little slot is open on the side of the phantom not the whole wing thing. A spirit would be only countered by a transport pelican with 1 mounted turret because the spirit only has 1 turret on it. Also on the note of shades, the halo ce shad will probably be used not the halo 3 version. Of course you know they could do pelicans phantom/spirit like they did the hornet. one on certain maps with missiles one on another map without. I mean who says there arn't phantoms with plasma cannons like the banshee's on board them?
The pelican should have a limited amount of rockets imo, and at least the machine guns on the front but have them only as effective as the hornet turrets.
limited ammo for a vehicle weapon would be a nightmare to any halo player... heres an idea: make the pelican missiles like missile pod missiles (it shoots four, so have each one 1/2 strength as missile pod missiles) but even more limited tracking (giant turning radius) so that you can hit a moving target but only if you're aiming directly at it and it's moving slowly in left-right motion. have the missiles fire all together, but can only fire about every 5 seconds. phantom: pilot shoots no guns, but there is a gunner position. the main plasma turret has 180 degree FOV, and turret fires about every second for continuous fire. turret turns very slowly, like normal turret speed after shot with overcharged PP. each shot does about 1/2 of damage a gauss shot fires, and overheats after 30 seconds.