Project HAYABUSA



The Hayabusa Armor is a variation of United Nations Space Command body armor for Spartan supersoldiers.

Introduction
The Hayabusa is a powered battle armor system similar to the standard Mark VI MJOLNIR except stemming from Project HAYABUSA as opposed to Project MJOLNIR. It was developed by RKD, an Earth-based "think tank" in the year 2536, 16 years before the Mark V entered production. It was presented to the UNSC Ordnance Committee as an answer to the self-contained powered armor problem. Advanced materials are used in the production of the Hayabusa armor reducing the weight of the current generation armor by nearly a third(at that time). It is an armor permutation in Halo 3, and like all permutations, it has no effect on gameplay. The armor is commonly used on Halo 3 due to the fact many people have obtained all 13 skulls needed to gain the whole set. The Katana, however, can only be unlocked by getting all 49 Achievements on Halo 3. It also has been referred as the "Ninja armor" or the "Power Ranger armor".

Helmet Characteristics
The helmet features an upwards trio of 7 angular spikes, or spokes, one to each side and the face plate is fused into a single piece and contour, bearing very little resemblance to the armor of the Elites. The top rear guard of the helmet is pointed, revealing the protruding spike. The bottom rear, around the neck forms a sort of neck guard, like that of a samurai helmet. It has been noted for its uncanny resemblance to the Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden. The main faceplate and helmet spikes are unaffected by the color settings.

Shoulder Characteristics
Its shoulders are replaced by three metal plates arranged in an overlapping fashion similar to a Samurai's.

Chest Characteristics
The Chest armor features a thick round "collar" piece protecting the neck, as well as an angular strip of armor that appears to be "strapped" down over the chest, featuring a small delta in the center.

Katana
As mentioned, the Katana is mostly aesthetic and is only unlocked after all Achievements have been earned and all Gold Skulls have been found. As the Katana has many requests for the Hayabusa armor to unlock it. It will still act as part of your body and if shot, stuck etc. you will take damage/die from it.

Unlock

 * Head: Obtain all of the skulls.
 * Shoulders: Obtain 9 skulls.
 * Body: Obtain 5 skulls.
 * Katana (Same as Body, but with a sheathed katana on the back. The katana cannot be used as a weapon): Unlock all Halo 3 Achievements or get the 1000 gamerscore.

Trivia

 * Hayabusa is the most common of the Spartan armor on Xbox Live.
 * They bear a resemblance to Feudal Era Samurai.
 * The armor is named after Ryu Hayabusa, protagonist of the Ninja Gaiden series and DOA Combatant. The helmet is almost an exact copy of the "ninja of the future" costume in Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. Team Ninja, the developers of Ninja Gaiden are also mentioned in the credits for Halo 3.
 * "Hayabusa" is Japanese for Peregrine Falcon.
 * Hayabusa was in point of fact an actual unmanned space exploration mission designed by the Japanese Space Program to retrieve a simplistic piece of space debris and return it to Earth intact for study.
 * Bungie had originally intended for only the most hardcore and devoted fans to have first access to the Hayabusa helmet. This was to be accomplished by making players search for quite some time throughout the levels of Campaign mode for all the hidden skulls. In particular, the IWHBYD skull was supposed to be next to impossible to find. However the skull was discovered fairly quickly, and its location and how to retrieve it were soon posted on the internet, enabling scores of casual fans to unlock the Hayabusa helmet with minimal effort, much to the chagrin of Bungie's original design. This is speculated to be the reason as to the limited rarity of the Recon armor. Bungie use this instead of Hayabusa as a reward to devoted fans / fan creations.
 * Apparently the designers of the HAYABUSA armor were able to develop energy shields equal to the strength of MJOLNIR Mark VI armor shields.
 * Although there are rumors that a player can be damaged "through" the Katana, these are just rumors and are subject to controversy.
 * The helmet spikes and faceplate are unaffected by color, therefore they are always silver.
 * Often, people who wear this Armor are subject to backlash. They are called "n00bs" or other vulgar words. The reason is because they most likely got the final code from the internet, thus not really "earning" the armor.
 * There are 7 helmet spikes.
 * Complying with the above statement, the Hayabusa armor is an evenhanded love or hate connection and liason for players, either you love the armor or you hate it, creating serious contentions amidst the Xbox LIVE community.