JrH_154

Oh man, I've got a TON of ideas, more than I could ever fit into a single comment. One idea I came up with a while ago is a monstrocity known as: The XM-154 Trebuchet Anti-Materiel Rifle (Prepare yourself, cause I'm about to pull some backstory out of my ass) The XM-154 Trebuchet Anti-Materiel Rifle (often shortened to "XM-154 AMR") was designed from the ground up to be used by Spartans, and Spartans only . The Trebuchet is a single-shot, bullpup, scoped rifle. It weighs in at nearly 40 kilograms (90-ish lbs), and is over 7 feet in length. It fires absurdly large High Explosive Incindiary Armor Piercing (HEIAP) rounds at equally absurd velocities. The weapon was designed to take out large Covenant vehicles such as Locusts and Wraiths from a distance. It is by no means a weapon of subtlety. It's combersome at best, and once you fire everything will know. The Trebuchet found little use due to its impracticality, but still found its place in the UNSC arsenal. Its massive recoil was enough to shatter and occasionally dislocate shoulders, and even the mighty Spartans were forced to fire from a stable stance of either crouching behind cover or prone. Production was discontinued after the increased use of the far more practical Gauss cannon. Nevertheless, the Trebuchet still found action as a powerful means of psychological warfare, as well as a last-ditch effort when conventional anti-armor weapons were depleted. In-game, the Trebuchet functions sort of like the detatchable turrets. You need to pick it up and carry it around, moving slightly slower than usual. You can't fire, but can do a slow but reasonably powerful melee. In order to actually fire the thing, you need to crouch, which will cause your avatar to deploy the weapon. Once deployed, you're stationary; your aiming is restricted, and you can't move. Pressing crouch while deployed will cause you to get back up, letting you continue on your merry way. The gun does not fire imemdiately after pulling the trigger, but rather has a brief "charge" sequence, in which a targetting laser appears. This lasts for a tad over half a second, and then your shot will fire. The laser is not visible, unlike say the Spartan Laser's is, though the point where the beam makes contact with a surface will still be visible, possibly giving away your position. The Trebuchet is a weapon of extremely accuracy and firepower. Against common soldiers (ie. other spartans) the weapon is a one-hit-kill to the head and upper chest, but anywhere else requires two successful lands. Against light vehicles like the Mongoose or Ghost, one hit is all that is needed. Medium-sized vehicles like the Warthog will take two, unless you strike the engine block, which will result in a one-hit-kill. Large vehicles such as the Scorpion and Wraith are a bit more interesting. If you strike just the front of the vehicle, it will take three shots, striking the side and rear armor will take two. However, if you manage to hit the cockpit of the scorpion or the vent on the back of the wraith, you will land a successful OHK. Flying vehicles will require two hits regardless of where you aim. In every instance, landing a successful hit on the driver/pilot will kill said driver/pilot. The vehicle may remain intact, depending on factors such as how damaged it was before-hand, and from what angle you took the shot. The bullets fired carry a lot of power, and can penetrate through multiple targets as well as through thin cover. Rounds can pass straight through seven warthogs... with enough power to destroy them all. The weapon is single-shot, meaning you need to reload after every round fired. The process takes approx. 3 secods to complete, which is painless enough but still quite slow. By default, you're given just 5 rounds to use, but this can be replenished like most other weapons. Be warned that once you fire, everyone on the map will know. The muzzle flash is enormous, on the level of a grenade explosion, and the sound of the fired round is extremely loud and extremely distinct, resembling a high-pitched "pop" (closest thing I can compare it to is the PTRS-41 from CoD: World at War). Bullets leave a clear vapor trail that can be traced back to the operator. The weapon can be zoomed in a total of two times, the first time giving you a x2 zoom, and the second time giving you a x4 zoom. The XM-154 Trebuchet is not suited to taking out infantry, despite its large OHK area. Its low ammo capacity, slow rate of fire, and the fact that you have to be stationary to use it, all make it far better suited as an anti-vehicle weapon. last but not least. I've gone and actually created the weapon. Yeah, yeah, it's made using PimpMyGun, hardy-har-har, I like it!

CoD jokes aside (honestly, just shut up if your only critisism is "THIS ISN'T COD GET OUT OF HERE COD NOOB!"), this really wouldn't work in Halo, both gameplay-wise and canonically. Halo has always been known for its fast-paced, frantic gameplay. You're constantly strafing around your target, jumping to make you harder to hit, etc. In most games, ADS comes at the cost of movement; your look speed is slowed and movement is brought down to a snail's pace. Even if 343i made it so movement wasn't hindered, the weapons function in such a way that ADS is still unnecessary. Ever since Combat Evolved, the weapons of Halo have been simple to use: you point and shoot. Variables such as accuracy have been built around this foundation as well. If you want to go one step beyond, most UNSC weapons, and virtually all Covenant weapons have no iron sights. This is because of actual HUDs that are used by soldiers in either faction. The Heads Up Display that you see when playing? That's not just there for convinence, that's actually what Master Chief sees. Now, ADS would still have benefits, as long as the concept itself is handled correctly. Bioshock is a perfect example of Halo-like gameplay that features ADS, albeit not prominently. In those instances where you would rather trust your own aim than the reticule, it does actually work quite well. For those not in the know, Bioshock & its sequel work clicking the right stick (in Halo this zooms in) to toggle between ADS & normal view. It actually fits the gameplay very well. To be perfectly honest, I would not mind seeing something similar included in a Halo game. Actually, I'd prefer to aim down my gun's "sights" than enter that stupid binocular zoom mode. There are pros and cons to this. Really, it's hit-or-miss at best. For the time being it would make for a nice experiment. The Halo community is unforgiving when it comes to keeping the series distinct and separate from its competitors. Is ADS crossing the line? Maybe. Would it fit with Halo's gameplay? Probably not. Would I welcome the change? Absolutely.

Personally, I like the idea, but I also think that it would be incredibly difficult to fit into Halo's gameplay. No, I'm not going to be comparing Halo to CoD. Whether this is too similar to another franchise is entirely beyond the point, and to be perfectly honest I couldn't care less if it were done well. Perhaps instead of having say 10 different guns in one category, there could be 3-4. This way you still get to choose from personal prefrence, but you also keep the number of variables low. This would be closer to Gears of War than anything else. Gears 3 has three different assault rifles: one ideal for close range, one for middle range, and one for long range. This is how it should be in my mind. I like your sniper rifle example, though in the case of Halo it may not work as you planned, but because your example was just for the sake of argument I won't really criticize. One thing I can't stand from the Halo community is a fear of change. Everyone seems to want 343i to step BACK: Remake Halo 2, give it a different story and fancy new graphics, call it "Halo 4" and ship it out to an overly-nostalgic fanbase. I'm sorry, but that's not going to be a reality.