Wow...much discussion I see!
Wolfy: There will be multiple versions of a lot of the UNSC ships. Since I'm making missions before, during, and after the events of the novels/games, I have to include the old and the new.
Now as for the
Pillar of Autumn and the triple-fire MAC gun...yes and no. I'm not aware of any simple way to give a 'cooldown' to a primary that allows for more than one shot at a time. I could change the refire rate, but that would be one slug at a time. As of now, I have the special "light MAC rounds" require a third of the Halcyon's max energy, so you could fire three shots before running out of weapon energy. However, the player would then not be limited to firing three at a time, but could simply fire one or two at a time at their disgretion. While this may not seem like a problem, it adds a tactical error to the balance of the MAC gun in general. Someone piloting the PoA could exploit this and shoot at all the smaller vessels, especially unshielded dropships and clusters of fighters, with an insane refire rate when compared to the normal MAC gun. This would make the PoA dramatically more effective in combat, vaporizing 'soft targets' before the fighters could even take a shot at them. It may not be a problem in the end, but I think everyone will favor the light MAC weapon even if it means less damage per hit.
Cobra: Generally speaking, the Covenant have a 3 to 1 edge in space, and that is with good tactics. 4 to 1 may be closer to the truth, but even this is because the Covenant didn't really focus on destroying humanity as Goal #1 until later on in the war. They were busy seeking relics while swatting the humans away at first. Now the UNSC was making great progress towards the end, and given enough time the humans would eventually equal or outmatch the Covenant. Alas, the Covies have more resources and a whole mess of ships to throw at us.
But there is always Chapter 3...
Mobius, Shiv & Graham (and everyone else): I will be opening the doors to some help soon. Really what I need are people to "beautify" the ships models and textures. I have a lot of models that need to be detailed. And, honestly, my attempts at texturing them with cube maps and wrap textures have been total disasters
So far FREDing is coming along fine, and I've overcome most of the major obstacles. I've also got music covered, as well as storyline and mission design.
REITERATORS WANTED SOON!
There are about 70 models, and what I'd like to do is get a list of people who want to work on them and make them look less like flying bricks with weapons
I'm gonna start a thread in a few days here where people can "sign-up" to work on a model. I'll be listing the different ship classes, and throw some pictures of each on there. If you like the way it looks, and feel that you can make it uber, then ask to be that model's "Reiterator." I'd also ask that anyone who 'applies' show an example of what they can do with models. My hope is to get a good number of people involved, ranging from the "HLP heavyweight modellers" to the new crowd of upcoming model makers.
I've made this project my own personal hobby for a long time, but it is time to reach out and let the community make this mod the best it can be.
After all, a Halo-based game deserves nothing less.
I'll make the Reiterator thread in the next few days, so stay tuned! And as always, thanks for the support!