Talk:Shuttle bay

Visual Guessing

Logistically, I believe the shuttle bay could effectively hold four spirit dropships and eighteen banshees without excessive clutter. Two drop ships at mid-level combat ready and two at the top ready to load. Nine banshees on the floor per bay. Alternatively, two seraphs may replace any dropship or nine banshees. I estimate that battlecruisers have four hangars with a total of eight seraphs, sixteen dropships, and thirty six banshees. If I recall correctly, these numbers would roughly match the complements on UNSC cruisers. Also, such numbers seem to fit the craft density in Halo: CE's campaign. Due to the classification as cruiser and size it is likely the ship does not carry overpowering numbers of fighters but merely supporting strength. Based on the landing pads of Phantoms in High Charity it could be assumed Phantom physiology would not conform well to the current structure of hangar bays seen so far in Halo.

• Would it be safe to assume that Phantoms and Seraphs could be docked in the same way that the Spirits are (as shown in Halo Combat Evolved)?Black kille 22:16, January 16, 2010 (UTC)

Using SparkEdit, I loaded up two Halo CE levels (Truth and Reconciliation and Keyes) to check your estimates on the CCS Battlecruiser shuttle bay. It seems that for logistic purposes alone, yes, you could probably fit four Spirits per hangar. The top level (3rd floor) has two docking consoles and is likely there to store Spirits until the two mid level (2nd floor) Spirits load up and ship out. As for Banshees, you could probably fit 10-12 on the floor of each of the two bays. Seraphs could undoubtedly fill the space that the Spirits are in, but not exactly two per each Spirit slot. They're of similar sizes after all. I also doubt that Seraphs and Spirits would rest on the floor part of the hangar in place of Banshees. It would block small craft from exiting.

To answer our question about the Phantom, I exported the bsp and used 3D Max to wiggle a model of a Phantom into the hangar. Turns out, the Phantom fits within the loading struts of each bay, but it's not really possible to fit two on top of each other and still be alined with the docking levels. This limits each hangar to two Phantoms, one per bay. At any rate, this answers the question that they can still dock as a Sprit does, though not as many can fit into a hangar.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but on the floor of both bays in the hangar there is a section that appears to be a large cargo lift, possibly to bring up more Banshees from a staging area below. This would be like the way modern day aircraft carriers use lifts to bring jets up to the main deck from storage. In fact, the lifts undoubtedly also bring up the storage crates, comm nodes, Ghosts, and Wraiths that need to be carried into battle via the Spirits' anti-gravity field. The way the hull of the battlecruiser is shaped below the hangar suggests that there is room for a storage area 2/3 the height of the hangar above. So other than dropships, we can't really determine the vehicle loadout for this bad boy.

Now as there are four hangars (eight bays), that would mean our battlecruiser can fit 16 Spirits, 16 Seraphs, OR 8 Phantoms plus any number of Banshees, Shades, Ghosts, and Wraiths. Of course these numbers are probably mixed for different mission profiles, but you get the idea. --Nerfherder1428 00:14, January 17, 2010 (UTC)