We've seen the cmt brutes v2 released on this site. They of course had blow-up armor. But you'll notice that they have separate armor for their 1. head 2. arms 3. torso and 4. legs.

Would it be possible to make their armor exactly like that seen in Halo 3 or ODST? Perhaps by linking it to the biped's shields?

If this could work, that would be awesome.

Yes and no - Masterz and I played around a *lot* with gameplay styles for the Brutes for SPV2 but we never really go anywhere satisfactory. For SPV3 we do have a new system but it's not like what you're describing.

Indeed you can link the armor to the biped's shields. Checking off the "disappears when shield is off" (or something to that effect - I don't remember the exact name) flag in the regions of the collision model, followed by renaming the ~damaged permutations to ~shield_off, can get the effect you're looking for. However, there are two main flaws with this...

1) What happens when the shield recharges? You can make the shield never recharge, but then shields become no different from health and gameplay-wise you're back to square 1. (If that's an acceptable outcome though I guess you could go for it... but it may not be the most fun).

2) Due to the sheer volume of permutations in the CMT Brutes you cannot have any sort of damage alter the way that the collision geometry behaves outside of the normal shield vs. health stuff; this is a result of how HCE matches model permutations to collision permutations. Currently the Brutes use a "one-size-fits-all" collision model, where one permutation in collision represents everything else for the model. If you want to have any distinction between permutations in collision however, you need to have a one-to-one matching of permutations... and with ~10-12 different armor permutations for the Brutes that would have been prohibitively tedious and consumed a gigantic amount of space.

What does #1 mean? It means that the shields effectively become cosmetic-only.

What does #2 mean? It reenforces the effects of #1 though I think for the exact gameplay that you describe it's not the most horrible thing, since even standard shield + health gameplay means that taking down shields allows headshots or increased vulnerability, which would be in keeping with the H3 style.
Edited by teh lag on Aug 9, 2011 at 09:42 PM

But Brute Power Armor doesn't recharge in Halo 3, so number one would work.

It does, but just slowly.

Edited by Echo77 on Aug 9, 2011 at 10:41 PM

you mean something like this? http://www.xfire.com/video/3c2249/

YEah. that was pretty cool :)

ya thats a extraction error you get if you put the brutes teh lag had me fix up. in a map then extract all of them they will come out like that

I thought it was pretty cool

Reach's chieftain's were so annoying on legendary...
Edited by d4rfnader on Aug 9, 2011 at 11:24 PM

oh my god are you kidding?i thought they were PERFECT gamelpay wise.. in reach i didnt feel lie fighting the brutes was like fighting beefed up elites; they actually felt like their own individual enemy

Well, I thought the Reach brutes were lame. They're pathetic. At least in Halo 2 they felt like legitimate opponents. ODST was the best though. Perfect balance, it felt challenging, but was the brutes were still really fun to fight.

I thought that the REACH brutes where the best gameplay wise as they felt diferent from elites, but wernt dammage sponges like in halo 2.

I think ALL brute power armour recharges, as long as it still has some power. In other words, if you shoot a brute a bit, he'll regenerate. If you shoot him to the point that his armour falls off, THEN it doesn't regenerate.

Too bad reach brutes were easy to kill.

Am I the only one who keeps thinking that the brutes actually had visible shields in Halo 3: ODST?

Legendary Reach with all skulls. You ready?

ONE Elite, an Ultra.

I used EVERY single DMR bullet to the head.

2x Frags
2x Plasmas

and 2 Rockets pure body shots...

I was out of ammo, and it kept killing me...

WHAT THE HELL. How do they expect us to play?
Grunts were also indestructible, only way you can kill them is Grunt Birthday Party, because it makes their headshots instant kill.
Edited by iHalo on Aug 10, 2011 at 03:16 PM

That's an over exaggerated comment. I kill elite ultra's easily in legendary with dmr's and pistols. Takes me around 1 and a half mag of a dmr though, no grenades needed, just cover.

Derp, thats because he was talking about LASO, all skulls on, which increases their health and shield strength by 3 times. And at that strength the only real way to kill them is to either beat them down, or assassinate them :\

On the other hand, on Legendary only, with no skulls, they are relatively easy to defeat as long as you have cover, and a headshot weapon.
Edited by Bobblehob on Aug 10, 2011 at 05:06 PM

Oh, my bad, I misread the post without LASO.

Oh, yeah, my bad. That's why I was confused, I was assuming the shields were fully drain in the attack, without thinking of partial damage.

They were great gameplay-wise, those ones I faced on exodus got really annoying at times though, mainly on the beach.