Primary:
Primary starting loadout weapons are UNSC only and serve as a base to their class of weapon.
DMR - Long range starting option. 4 shot kill. Can hit as far as you can see but no auto-aim/bullet magnetization, or at least the bare minimum to deal with netcode lag, which should be low with servers. Either a slower rate of fire to give it a disadvantage in close combat, or make it a non-hitscan weapon.
BR - Primarily mid-range, but suitable for all. Pretty much how it is already it seems.
AR - Slow rate of bullet spread to be a bit more effective at mid-range combat, similar to the Lancer in Gears of War 3. Firing in burst should allow a player to engage at longer ranges.
Secondary:
Only secondary guns here can be dual-wielded with a matching gun and functions as an upgrade to your secondary instead of a hindrance, similar to old arena shooters such as Unreal and Marathon. A dual-wielded weapon can be an equivalent to a primary. Though there is two weapons, gameplay wise they function as one gun, alternating fire for semi-auto weapons. You can melee, throw grenades, and get in vehicles without risk of losing the second weapon.
Pistol - High precision and long range. Maybe slightly slower fire rate for a bit more power. Slower fire rate is done away with once dual-wielded.
SMG - Full auto back up weapon, still a bullet hose so it reaches its max spread faster than the AR. Damage output increased once dual wielded.
Sawed-off Shotgun (or equivalent) - Close-range back up. About equivalent to a Mauler in power, capable of taking of 2/3 or 3/4 shield or remove it completely. Can only fire one shot before reloading so it is unwise to rush in on groups of people. When dual wielded, the two shots will be lethal, but the following reload time still makes it unwise to run into groups.
Grenade:
Frag Grenade - The only starting grenade. If a weaker grenade, players should start with two. If a stronger version of it, players should start with one, but should be fairly available across the map.
Armor Abilities:
Armor Abilities (or in this case Armor Equipment would be a better term) should function more like a recharging equipment, requiring a varying time to deploy depending on type. This will mean that they will require a bit of forethought when used instead of a panic button like some abilities have allowed before. This function also means that in non-loadout gametypes, that these equipments can be placed on a map like in Halo 3. All equipment can be prematurely destroyed. Here is a previous list I’ve put together.
> Hologram - immediate deployment, short recharge - Functioning almost identical to the current one, you spawn a small floating projector that takes your image to the location you pick when activating it. There is a short activation animation as opposed to it just materializing off your body and running off. To change things up a bit as well, the hologram could release a small EMP effect when it is prematurely destroyed, say like when an enemy mistakenly melees it thinking it is a person. Could also affect vehicles that try to splatter it.
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> Bubble shield - 1 second deployment, medium recharge - I imagine it would be more like the Reach shield than the Halo 3 one, where the shield can be damaged and destroyed. It should also be programmed to where a bubble shield cannot be placed inside another shield, to limit the several overlapping bubbles that were present much of the time in Invasion games.
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> Regenerator - 1 second deployment, medium recharge - Works like the Halo 3 one. So preferably it wouldn’t have the annoying blurry vision, a very visible “bubble”, or the pelvic thrusting animation. So it should be similar to “spiking” the bubble shield when it is deployed. The effect from the regenerator should be bright enough that a sharpshooter could identify and destroy it. They also shouldn’t be able to be deployed within bubble shields.
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> Promethean scanner - 1 second deployment, medium recharge - It might need a better name than what I gave it. If you played Gears of War: Judgement, there is an item called the beacon grenade that emits a field that shows enemies that walk into it, that is pretty much how I imagine this one looking. Preferably being tossed like a grenade, it would stick to surfaces and deploy a field that would reveal enemies that pass through it to you and your allies, in an effect similar to Promethean vision I imagine. Both enemy and ally can see the field, and with a wide radius can even pass through walls to reveal enemies, so it could be a useful tool for blocking off passages from sneaking or timid players. It would also be awesome if you could stick it to players, vehicles, or anything that moves really, and have it be a mobile detection field.
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> Proximity mine - 1-2 second deployment, long recharge - A high explosive that could be tossed and left at a location until an enemy comes into range or another mine is deployed. Only one mine in use at a time, able to stick to surfaces, and should have a flashing light and beep similar to a deployed sticky detonator, with a faster beep when an enemy comes into range right before it explodes.
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> Forerunner sentry - 2-4 second deployment, long recharge - Similar to look and deployment of the Halo 3 sentry. It should be a long range turret, with a sentinel beam-type attack, doing constant but minor damage. Ideal if you place it some place high in a wide open area, it could hit enemies at a fairly good distance away, but with the minor damage it does it is more of a harassment tool used to identify an enemy’s position you might not have seen. It would be neat if it could fire multiple beams and hit multiple target at once, but that would probably make it overpowered.
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> UNSC sentry - 2-4 second deployment, long recharge - The opposite of the Forerunner sentry, a close range turret sentry with much more power using its pair of machine guns, possibly equivalent to a pair of ARs or SMGs being fired on a target. It could be tossed and stuck to a wall or other surface, as it would be more useful in close quarter spaces as opposed to wide open areas. Similar to the proximity mine, it should emit several rapid beeps once it has detected an enemy in its range.