Project HAYABUSA



The Hayabusa Armor is a type of United Nations Space Command body armor.

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, 6 years before the Mark V entered production. It was presented to the UNSC Ordinance 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, at the time, current generation armor by nearly a third. It is an armor permutation in Halo 3, and like all permutations, it has no effect on gameplay.

Helmet Characteristics
The helmet features an upwards trio of spikes then one to each side and the face plate is fused into a single piece, bearing some resemblance to the armor of the Elites. The top rear of the helmet is pointed. 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 helmets 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 sode.

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 only aesthetic and is only unlocked after all Achievements have been earned and all 13 skulls have been found.

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 earn 1000 gamerscore points.

Trivia

 * Hayabusa is among 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.
 * 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 armour. 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 are unaffected by color, so they are always bright white, which may attract alot of attention from snipers and other long distance fighters. Much like the EVA's bright orange "dome" that also may attract more attention from snipers.