Combat Capsule
Like the Prophet’s Gravity Throne, the Combat Capsule appears as a floating platform upon which the operator sits. Unlike the Gravity Throne, the Combat Capsule’s operator is protected by a hemi-ellipsoidal bubble of hardlight that covers the top side of the floating saucer. The egg shaped hardlight bubble can be temporarily disabled, through damage or an EMP attack, leaving the operator exposed and vulnerable to direct fire. The Combat Capsule can only be boarded once the protective hardlight 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 the ground, allowing players and vehicles to pass underneath unhindered. Jump gives the capsule a momentary increase 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.
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 of the Combat Capsule’s weapons, the Sentinel Beam and the Particle Beam, share one battery.
Tapping the melee button fires a short duration, large radius, red beam straight down from the underside of the floating discus. It deals no splash damage but a direct hit disintegrates infantry and destroys vehicles. A melee attack overheats all the weapons’ single shared battery regardless of heat level at the time of firing, briefly disabling all attacks.
Portal Projector
Like the Spartan Laser, the Promethean Portal Projector must be charged before it can be fired. Upon firing, this turret temporarily creates a pit-like portal on the ground. Any infantry or vehicles that fall into the pit are immediately killed or destroyed.
While manning this turret, the user’s traditional fixed depth HUD reticle is replaced by a variable depth Targeting Reticle that stays stuck to the ground at all times while always remaining centered in the middle of his screen (unless otherwise instructed by the user). The user can slide this turret’s flat targeting reticle away from the center of his screen using the movement thumbstick but the user cannot slide the targeting reticle beyond the edges of his screen.
The portal’s size, duration, and cooldown are all proportional to the charge time before firing. The minimum charge time yields a small radius, short duration portal with a short cooldown period after firing. The maximum charge time yields a large radius, long duration portal with a long cooldown period after firing. The weapon automatically fires upon reaching its maximum charge level.
Once the minimum charge time is achieved, the circular targeting reticle will begin expanding, from small enough to only fit a single Spartan in to large enough to fit an entire Warthog in, indicating the size of the portal that will be created when the trigger is released.
Like traditional turrets, the aiming thumbstick turns the player’s view while the reticle remains centered in the middle of his screen. Unlike traditional turrets, the user can manually slide the flat, grounded, variable depth, circular targeting reticle away from the center of his screen by engaging the movement thumbstick.