Project: HEPHAESTUS

[ONIKS]

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Introduction

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The morning sun never lasts a day. The weapons can't be "new" forever. I'll try to keep it brief.

Currently, Covenant primarily uses civilian-grade weaponry and Core technology. Despite being effective in its main purpose - destruction and ruination, those types of armaments are aging very quickly. Civilian market can be easily compromised and tracked, AP Manufacturing technology is complicated and hard-to-maintain. Moreover, it heavily depends on APM tools and instructions. And this reliance on foreign technology is counterproductive and can be even dangerous if we are going to be in difficult and challenging situation.

But no one can forbid us improving everything we want to improve. Guns included. Core is using good weapons and good ships but we can make them better, stronger and deadlier than ever. Project HEPHAESTUS is going to be a huge step for Covenant. It can also involve the application of cutting-edge technology Covenant has. Project is quite massive so it's going to be split in two so-named "parts" - AETNAEUS and STYMPHALIA. AETNAUES is main part of Project HEPHAESTUS - developing and improving all kinds of main weapons. STYMPHALIA is part of Project HEPHAESTUS that is aimed at production and development of missile armaments. Currently, we have no need to rush auxiliary weapons as we still have out-dated arms. And we are going to replace them.

Project lead is Warden Onyx Wing.
Project consists of three stages:

Stage I: AETNAEUS-Alpha.
Research and development of snubcraft weaponry. Modifying existing assets.

Stage II: AETNAEUS-Beta
Research and development of warship weaponry. Modifying existing assets.

Stage III: STYMPHALIA
Research and development of missile weaponry. Modifying existing assets.

List of affected weaponry:

• PT90 "Enforcer MK II"
  
• LB42 "Reaver Mk II"
  
• PB91 "Warden"
  
• APAC-X44 ".44"
  
• AR-23B "Firstlight"
  
• AR-23HF "Harpoon"
  
• AR-51 "Lastlight"
  
• AR-101"Arclight"
  
• AR-102 "Lastlight Mk II"
  

List of affected missile weaponry:

• "BGM-GEN" Basic Gunboat Missile
  
• "Silencer" Gunboat Missile
  

...To be added

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Initial Preparations

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Currently, we have access to all types of Core technology, starting with regular small arms and finishing with battleships. Despite being in good shape, in-depth examination of main snubcraft armaments, such as LB42 "Reaver Mk II" and PB91 "Warden" , showed some flaws in construction, such as:

• Tendency to overheat in high pressure areas.
  
• Not high enough quality of magnetic coils. Probably, deteriorated.
  
• Low quality of Halbach arrays in particle accelerators.
  ...and other minor complaints.
  

At current date, 05.22.825 AS, most of Core equipment is undergoing physical verification. Stage I will begin shortly.

Reverse-engineering of LB42 "Reaver Mk II"; SV Erinyes; 5.21.825 AS, 11:53

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On hiatus for unspecified amount of time