I've seen a few threads here and there suggesting "space battles" being implemented in Halo: Reach. Ideas ranging from simple dogfights between players to full-scale battles complete with UNSC and Covenant cruisers and objectives, and everything in between. I'd like to take all of these ideas and forge from them a general concept that I believe would be the best way to implement space battles into Reach as a playable game mode. Even if this doesn't make it into Reach, which as this point may seem likely as the game is only some six or so months away, maybe this could be included in a future IP of Bungie's. Some of my ideas may seem akin to Star Wars: Battlefront II's space battle system, so for those of you who have played this, try to use that as a springboard for imagining this. Two cruisers, UNSC and Covenant, have encountered each other over the surface of Reach, and are circling through a space sector, preparing for combat. The crews of either ship must now work together to keep their ship intact and destroy the other, either through outside confrontation or infiltration by boarding. Both cruisers have a complex shield array that must be worn down before the outer hull of the ship can be damaged, so that the entire cruiser can be destroyed. Along with this, the cruisers are armed with varying defense mechanisms, from internal security turrets in the many corridors and rooms capable of eliminating intruders to the external manually controlled cannons able to shoot down incoming vessels. Both cruisers have an arrangement of space vessels in their respective hangars, ranging from transport ships to quickly moving and deadly attack vehicles. Players can choose to either stay in their respective cruisers, running about in the hallways and corridors, defending against boarding parties by fighting them in defensive positions and repairing damaged structures, or pilot one of the ships in their hangar and delve into the dogfights of deep space, or even risk boarding the enemy cruiser and destroying it from the inside. A number of objectives are available to be completed by both teams to help stem the tide of battle, but only one task must be completed to provide victory: Destruction of the opposing team's primary battleship. Though in an aesthetic feel both UNSC and Covenant cruisers will greatly differ, they will have the same layout (more or less) so as to retain balance. I hope to sometime soon create some basic schematics of what each cruiser would be laid out like, using Google Sketchup or some similar program, but if any of you would like to do this on your own, feel free to use your imagination and create something similar to what I'll try to describe here. Both cruisers, internally, will comprise of a hangar, four or five hallways that lead to: a medical bay, an engine room, a bridge, and shield generator room. (More rooms to come, depending on future ideas.) The medical bay would consist of medical packages (medkits) (about five) to allow for players to heal themselves if they're damaged in battle. However, a package would only respawn sixty seconds after it is used, to avoid players camping in there (little good that would do their team anyway, though) and always having a health source. The engine room would be where the primary engine of the ship is located. Without this engine, a cruiser becomes stationary and is no longer able to move, thus crippling the ship and allowing for enemy vessels to board even faster. This engine can be destroyed through substantial damage from the interior, or from the exterior after the shields have been worn down. Along with losing movement, power would also be lost, causing the ship to run on backup power generators, and crippling many functions of the ship (i.e. medical bay spawns medkits slower, some security turrets and defense cannons disabled, and other mechanical features are disabled or slowed). The shield generator room would be where the, obviously, shield generator is located. Without this, a cruiser's defense shield falls, and is able to be damaged from the outside. The bridge would double as a defense platform, allowing players to manually control one of the defense cannons that would be capable of shooting down enemy vessels attempting to board their cruiser. The bridge would also be where the primary security system would be located, There would be a few rooms scattered about the interior of the cruisers that would act as weapons caches, containing a few weapons and some supplies (i.e. grenades) each. The hallways would be capable of supporting small firefights, due to obstacles to be used as cover, and security turrets would be mounted to help deal with enemies attempting to compromise the ship. Along with defending your respective cruiser, players also have the challenge of fighting other players in dogfights with their vessels in the space between the two battleships. From dodging around in quickly moving attack vehicles to heavy yet powerful juggernauts, dogfights would become an important part of the battle, as getting to the opposing cruiser becomes more difficult as others are firing hot lead or burning plasma at you. Note: I don't have much information on canon vessels of space battles, so if anyone would like to provide me with any information concerning smaller-than-cruiser space ships in the Halo universe that appear around the era of Reach, feel free to help me expand on this section! It'll be much appreciated! Players would all be equipped with a side tool capable of repairing structures, such as turrets and vessels that are damaged in the hangar, and even some vital structures. However, many of the important structures such as the engine and shield generator would not be able to be repaired after they are completely destroyed, though they can be repaired if they are not demolished entirely. Players would be capable of defending their cruiser by controlling one of the cannons in the bridge, or by patrolling the halls and eliminating intruders. Players would have to attack the enemy cruiser and take an offensive approach to win, even if defense is key. Other than attempting to rain fiery hell onto the ship, which would more likely result in death and wasted time, players would have to come up with strategies to both pin down forces leaving the ship in vessels and board the enemy cruiser and take out as many vital parts of the ship as possible. There would be several small places that ships would be capable to board in, along with the primary hangar that players could risk boarding. The primary hangar would be the only place that a transport vessel could land in, thus making it riskier to attempt a full-on boarding party. From there, players would have to use their weapons and wits to fight through the enemy crew and do as much damage as possible before escaping, or being totally obliterated. To finally destroy the ship, the players would either have to devastate the ship's outer hull so much so that the ship is completely destroyed, or setup an explosive device on the bridge, which would require every single vital structure to be destroyed and a minute of defending to allow a player to arm the device. And even then, the bomb could be disarmed, thus preventing the destruction of the ship. This idea still has much more improvement to be made, and I'll be updating as the other portions of this thread I'd like to include come to me. In the mean time, feel free to expand on this idea, and I'll be sure to flesh out and provide more details on the game mechanics and all of that soon! Thanks for the reading, and I'll be looking forward to the feedback. - Ghost
this would be extremely difficult to implement...EXTREMELY. But there's some potential for some badass gameplay in here. Would we all be Spartans/Elites or just regular soldiers? And would the rooms be huge? Because Covenant and UNSC Cruisers are really ****in' big...it'd be such a waste of room if all there was were like 7 or 8 enter-able rooms =/
this sounds like a nice idea i've though the same thing before there are some problems though like unsc ships having shields and the fact that one on one covenant always win space battles maybe if it was a fleet vs one ship or if the orbital defense stations take down the covenant shields. here is a link to the only unsc attack craft I know of: longsword I would like to see this thread improved it needs work but it can get there.
Well, the Covenant do have an equivalent. The Covenant Seraph heavy fighter. Anyway, I had an idea for space battles, too. I thought bigger, though, as in players having the ability to control entire capital ships, such as Cruisers, Destroyers, Carriers, Frigates, Corvettes, Prowlers, and small single ships. Destroyers would be slower but would have heavy armament, Cruisers would be in the middle, Carriers would be slow and weak, but would have heavy armor and lots of single ship escorts. Frigates would be slightly faster and less heavily armed than Cruisers, and Corvettes would be lightly armed but very fast. Prowlers would have very light armament and light armor, but be fast, stealthy, and be able to drop mines. Like in Halo Wars, Covenant ships could have shields, but weaker armor, and UNSC ships could have heavier armor and regenerating health over time. Covenant weapons would do more damage, but UNSC weapons could fire faster. Each ship could have several light AI turrets and players could take command of heavy turrets. Players could go into the hangar and grab a UNSC Longsword or a Covenant Seraph. Players could get around the ships quickly due to grav lifts/elevators and high-speed moving walkways. That was my basic idea.
The covenant easily outnumber, outgun, and out-size the UNSC Navy. If it was 1 covvy' ship per 3 UNSC ships, then it'd be balanced.
I doubt we could have any large space battles with controllable capital ships, single ships and large numbers of players on a console. But on a PC? Possible.
Playing dogfight, a map I made is skybubble, lead to some quite interesting gameplay. It was absolutely epic despite the limit in number of aircraft on sandbox. Could come out like those in battlefront or just normal maps with a greater emphasis on aircraft. Edit: Aircraft battles and base based battles require large numbers of people, solved by the AI in battlefront. The reason for rumors about larger games may be for the increased number of people needed for an aircraft battle.
As far as space battles are concerned, doing a high ground style map on an orbital MAC gun would be fine. Alternatively, a boarding action remake would be nice too
I made a Space Battle map back in March last year after Halo Wars came out. It has been the base of my custom game nights. Everybody loves it. It's Hornets vs Banshees. Everybody has Sniper Rifles and Energy Swords for close quarters. The armories have rockets, missle pods, etc. Very very fun. I'll put it up sometime soon.