Combat Capsule

[RandyROFLSTOMP]

The Mantis is replaced by the Promethean Combat Capsule.  Similar to the Prophet’s Gravity Throne, the Combat Capsule appears as a floating platform, upon which the operator sits surrounded by a protective bubble of hard light.  The egg-shaped hard light bubble can be temporarily disabled, through damage or an EMP attack, leaving the exposed operator vulnerable to attack.  The Combat Capsule can only be boarded once the protective hard light bubble is disabled but it can be boarded from any direction.

Similar to Covenant hover tech, the Combat Capsule can quickly accelerate in any horizontal direction but its top speed is fairly slow.  Unlike Covenant hover tech, the Combat Capsule hovers much higher, at approximately 1.5 Spartan heights off of the ground, allowing players and vehicles to pass underneath unhindered.  Jump gives the capsule a momentary boost in altitude before coming back down to rest at the standard hover height.  Crouch toggles between hovering at the standard hover height or at a low, close to the ground, hover height.  Melee attack is disabled while crouching.

Tapping melee causes a miniature Incineration Cannon style projectile to be fired straight down from the bottom of the floating platform.  The splash damage radius is smaller than Halo 4′s Incineration Cannon but it still disintegrates infantry and destroys vehicles on contact.

The vehicle operator is capable of simultaneously firing both an automatic, non headshot capable Sentinel Beam, by holding the left trigger, and a semi automatic, headshot capable Particle Beam by tapping the right trigger.  The "overheat threshold", the point at which the weapons overheat, is higher than on standard infantry weapons but both the Combat Capsule's weapons, the Sentinel Beam and the Particle Beam, share one battery.

[BeckoningZebra1]

I actually really, really like the way this design would work. I felt like the Mantis was a bit dull, but this would be a great vehicle! It could be the UNSC's attempt at using Forerunner tech (such as particle beams, incineration cannons, hardlight) in a vehicle.

 

I would also like to add that I think it should have variants, similar to how the wharthog has variants. There could be one that replaces the incineration cannon with a small boost similar to that of the wraith, and the other would have the incineration cannon but not the boost.

 

Great post!