How much would it take to fully create a Spartan 2? Spartan 3s?
I’m sure Spartan-IIs were more expensive than Spartan-IIIs as they were more like the guinea pigs. That was probably a billions-of-dollars military project kind of thing with all the research they had. You also have to remember that many potential S-IIs were dropped out of the program due to death or crippling injury during the augmentation process which is money down the drain. Although, many crippled S-IIs and others who couldn’t continue were put to good use elsewhere because of their superior intelligence. For example, Serin Osman was dropped from the program but later led an ONI black ops team and succeeded Admiral Parangosky as CINCONI. Anyway, they had to research armor tech, augmentations, and candidates. This though later paved the road for Spartan IIIs who were supposed to be mass-produced and cheaper. With more advanced technology as time goes on they probably found easier, safer, and cheaper ways to make Spartans and Mjolnir armor which is the reason for the S-III program. The technological advancements may also raise the price for some stuff, but I want to say still in the billions for S-IIIs as hundreds were produced but less expensive than S-IIs? There is also a change in the quality of Spartans as the IIIs were vengeful orphans and not carefully hand-picked best of humanity kids like the IIs. S-IIs were quality at the expense of quantity and the S-IIIs were the opposite. So, as far as bang for your buck I would say Spartan-IIs as Spartan-IIIs were made to be expendable.
Creating a Spartan II including armor cost as much as a small fleet,so I say it lies within the billions to create a spartan.The production of the armor itself cost as much as a frigate.
Production of new Mjolnir armors is propably only fraction of cost of what went to creating the technology. So the comparison to a frigate is probably outdated.