Armor abilities

Armor Abilities are exclusive gameplay enhancements featured in Halo: Reach.

Overview
Armor Abilities feature is a refined version of Halo 3's Equipment feature where instead of being used once, each ability is reusable, with a cooldown time between uses. These can be accessed through each Loadout before a match is started or during your respawn time. For campaign, the player begins with Sprint at the start of each mission, and is able to swap it out at certain locations. Armor Abilities can be dropped or picked up like weapons in Forge and Campaign.

Most of the abilities are enabled by a small device attached to the user's lower back, with each ability having a different color, most likely for friendly forces or players to tell which ability the person in question is using at the time. When not in use, these devices will project a hologram that displays the icon of the ability, allowing for quick recognition when switching abilities.

All Armor Abilities are rendered useless to players when transporting objects such as Flags and Skulls. If players attempt to use an Ability, the object simply drops out of their hands. In custom games, the cooldown time can be altered and the ability to use armor abilities while holding objectives can be added.

Active Camouflage
The Active Camouflage provides players the ability of Active Camouflage for a period of time, similar to the Arbiter's active camo from Halo 2. Its pick-up color is cyan.

When activated, the player would achieve absolute invisibility with all sound heavily muffled. However, this only applies when the player does not move from his/her location, or that the player is walking slowly. If a player runs with Active Camouflage activated, the invisibility feature would deplete faster. The similar outcome applies when the player moves faster than their walking speed, though the invisibility feature depletes much slower to an extent.

A secondary feature of the active camouflage is its ability to function as a Radar Jammer. The secondary feature has a radial effect up to 25 meters, capable of disrupting the player's radar as well those of their enemies; allies would not be affected though.

Armor Lock
Armor Lock is an ability that provides the player's shield with a massive boost, preventing the user from taking any damage, acting similar to Halo 3's Invincibility. The technology was developed for use on Elite combat harnesses, but was adopted for use by Spartan personnel. In Halo: Reach, the ability is usable by the Spartans, Elites and Brutes and is enabled through a shielding attachment found behind the user's armor. Its pickup color is orange.

The Armor Lock ability varies with how long the ability is used; the longer the player activates the ability, the farther the final EMP blast radius will be. When deactivated, it sends out an EMP blast to nearby enemies, and pushes them away from the player before emerging. Any Plasma Grenades sticking to the user are removed upon activation. The ability is also capable of repelling incoming explosive projectiles to a certain extent, and disabling, damaging or even destroying incoming vehicles.

Drop Shield
The Drop Shield is a spherical energy shield that functions similarly to a Bubble Shield, but it also heals the health (but not the shields) of the players inside it in a manner similar to the Regenerator. In Firefight and Multiplayer mode, the Drop Shield is available on the Medic loadout. Its pickup color is blue.

The Drop Shield expires and deactivates once the Armor Ability meter is at 2/3 full, unless it is prematurely deactivated from damage. While having similar appearance as the Bubble Shield, the Drop Shield is not entirely invincible to all attacks; when the damage reaches a certain threshold, the ability will deactivate and the user will be exposed. The damage is represented in color stages similar to the Deployable Cover. Additionally, unlike the Bubble Shield, plasma grenade will stick to the surface of the shield. The strength of the shield is approximately three times that of a standard energy shielding system.

The Drop Shield does not actually heal players any faster than normal. Rather, it simply enables you to recharge your health to full at a similar rate to the base health recharge rate. The faster the player's base health regeneration is, the faster the Drop Shield regenerates it. If the health recharge rate is set to 0%, then the shield will not heal the player at all.

Evade
The Evade ability allows the player to roll in any direction to avoid danger, breaking enemy lock-ons and tracking in the process. Player can evade two times before having to recharge. Its pickup color is purple.

The ability was exclusive only to Elites in the Multiplayer Beta, but later changed in the final product to be made available to both Spartans and Elites. It should be noted that Elites evade faster and farther than Spartans. Additionally, this ability is not available in the campaign to the player and will remain exclusive for Elite warriors.

The Evasion speed scales with the movement speed of the player; the faster the player moves, the further he/she evades. In any custom game with speed set to high numbers such as 300%, the player will dash forward so quickly that they can traverse Hemorrhage in a matter of seconds. When used against a reasonably flat surface, it is possible to splatter oneself.

Holographic Decoy
Holographic Decoy is an armor ability that produces an identical holographic copy of the user. Its pickup color is yellow.

The Holographic Decoy ability is designed to confuse or distract the enemies' attention. To allies, the holographic copy would appear as a white dot on their radar. The ability functions by pointing the targeting reticule at a destination and deploying it like other armor abilities. When activated, the hologram will run in a straight line to the destination and stop once it reaches its designated location. The hologram will flicker away if it is either damaged enough or if it reaches its lifespan limit (10 seconds).

Jet Pack
The Jet Pack ability allows players to maneuver in mid-air, with the use of portable jump-jet (UNSC) or an Antigravity Pack (Covenant). Its pickup color is white.

The Jet Pack ability varies with how long the ability is used. The longer the player activates the ability, the longer the player would be able to remain in the air but at the consequence of having the ability depleting faster. Thus, it is recommended that the player use the ability in bursts, which would deplete the ability less than a sustained flight. Additionally, fall damage still applies to Jet Pack users should they fall from the air. The Jet Pack ability is a useful tool for evading vehicles, grenades, and navigating maps.

The Jet Pack scales with the player's gravity, so the less gravity the player has, the higher the jet pack lifts him/her.

Sprint
The Sprint ability allows the player to lower their weapon and move at an increased speed for approximately seven seconds. It is the default Armor Ability in the campaign and its pickup color is green. When activated, the player's character model will pant heavily. Canonically, the "Sprint" function operates by bypassing the safety limiters of the MJOLNIR actuators and "muscles", allowing better performance at the expense of heat regulation, overheating the user if used for prolonged periods. Though used at times by most of Noble Team, it was developed by Catherine-B320.

The Sprinting scales with the player's movement speed, so the faster he/she moves, the faster he/she sprints.

Tips

 * Hologram is a great ability to use during Infection gametypes as it will confuse the zombies.
 * It is often advantageous to have a teammate using the Drop Shield ability in both Firefight and standard Multiplayer modes. This is due to the fact that this ability will heal wounded teammates without wasting health packs.
 * When using Active Camo, try "crouch walking." This will allow the invisibility to last longer and make it harder for the opponents to see the player while you are still moving.
 * When your Energy Shields are low or completely depleted, use Armor Lock until your Energy Shields recharge as much as they can before you exit Armor Lock. This will ensure that a sudden ambush after a battle that left your shields depleted will not overwhelm you.

Miscellaneous

 * There are a total of seven Armor Abilities in Halo: Reach, another reference to Bungie's favorite number.
 * Before, it was previously thought that each species can only use certain armor abilities (Elites were thought to be the only ones able to use Evade, and Spartans were the only ones thought to be able to use Armor Lock and Sprint). In the final product, this is not the case as both species can use all seven Armor Abilities to some extent. Elite character models are only allowed to access the Sprint ability in custom games, but not in matchmaking.
 * In the early stages of the game development, Elites using the Armor Lock ability were shown with a red aura instead of blue, while Spartans had a large and bulky attachment to their backs. However, these changes were erased before the game was released, so now both Elites and Spartans use the same blue armor lock.
 * Skirmishers have the ability to use the Hologram armor ability.
 * Evade seems to be the only Covenant made armor ability as it is made of purple metal, the Covenants staple metal, and it also as a Forerunner glyph. But it seems that a lot of Covenant can use their own version of UNSC armor abilities, such as the Jetpack becoming an Anti-Gravity Pack if an Elite picks it up.
 * In canon terms, the Armor Abilities have only been seen in use during the Fall of Reach, due to the fact they were introduced in Halo: Reach as a gameplay element. As Reach was the UNSC's primary military complex, prototype technologies such as Armor Abilities may have been developed and tested exclusively on the planet, thus explaining their absence in the other games. In addition, other Halo games occur in the time period after Reach falls, having John-117 as the only Spartan working alongside regular UNSC forces with limited military assets due to the Fall of Reach. Halo: Reach is centered around a Spartan team on a UNSC fortress world, with support and equipment more readily available.

Glitches

 * Armor Abilities are often used to produce glitches. A few examples of Armor Abilities-related glitches are Armor Permutation Glitch and Infinite Armor Lock glitch

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach