Orbital

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Orbital, also known by its former names, Moonbase Alpha and Space Camp, is one of three maps in the Mythic Map Pack designed for Halo 3. Orbital, along with Assembly and Sandbox, ships with the Limited Edition of Halo Wars. It will be on the Xbox Live Marketplace with the two other Mythic maps on April 9, 2009.

Design

Orbital takes place inside the docking-station for Quito Space Tether, a Space Elevator that transports cargo and people in and out of the Earths atmosphere easily.

It is said to be best for asymmetrical objective games, like CTF and Assault, but also has some natural deadlocks that makes Slayer interesting and Infection "terrifying". It's essentially two overlapping hallways in horseshoe shaped levels, so each team can see the other one's spawn through a window above or below them, but they are separated. Both bases of the map have operable doors that are important for objective games. It's a multi-level map, so there are many stairways. The middle of the connecting horseshoes features a chasm which separates both sides, effectively forming a choke point that is crucial to being held. Orbital may be confusing at first with its long hallways all connected together by intersections and junctions, but this all adds to the strategic importance of map control. The map is located on an "empty UNSC space platform", more specifically, the station atop the Quito Space Tether. The map contains plaques dedicated to Doctors Tobias Fleming Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa, the creators of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine.. It was reported in a Bungie Weekly Update that one part of the map has a deadly chasm, which can be easily traversed once it is "unlocked". However, this seems to have changed since that information was released, long before the map was ever shown. Orbital has several such locks and "switches to disable and enable access to various parts of the map". Orbital has been described as cleanly beautiful, yet haunting and having signs of abrupt abandonment. The map has 2 exits out of either base, plus a small maintenance hallway leading to the upper level. This makes defending on CTF interesting.

Weapon Placement

Battle Rifles are common throughout the level, along with numerous Plasma Pistols, Maulers, Plasma Grenades, Spikers, and Plasma Rifles, both of which spawn in pairs. The two main power weapons on this map are the Sniper Rifle (on the lower side of the pit) and a Rocket Launcher (on the higher side), it should be noted though that both weapons have had their ammo decreased for balance.

Equipment is also found around, a Bubble Shield, a Regenerator and a Power Drainer are put in strategic locations.

There are two Mongooses on each base, and a Ghost spawns at the attacking base during asymetrical gametypes.

Skull

Main article: Orbital Skull

The skull can be found near the Sniper Rifle spawn point high above the map. It can easily be found, and reached in Forge. The logo of the hidden skull on this level appears to have a symbol that looks like a giant fan. This symbol can be seen on the walls and other areas such as the computer monitors. It has also been interpreted as the general shape of the station itself, which resembles other orbital stations in Halo canon, such as the Tiara Space Elevator or the Orbital Defense Platforms seen in Halo: Contact Harvest and Halo 2, respectively.

Speaker Lines

While playing on Orbital, a female and male voice can be heard every once in a while announcing things over a speaker (much like The Pit and Terminal). Some of these lines are:

• "Welcome to the Quito Orbital Elevator. Please refer to video moniters for current information."
• "Posession of firearms is strictly prohibited."
• "If you see any suspicious activity or any unattended packaging, please call the Quito Orbital Elevator Hotline."
• "Do not leave children unattended. Children should be monitered at all times."

Trivia

A battle on Orbital.

• This map's codename was originally "Moonbase Alpha", then later changed to "Space Camp". The map's official name was then changed to be "Orbital".
• There is an achievement called Post Mortem, which is to score two Death from the Grave Medals in a single match online.
• This map was first shown in Game Informers story on Halo 3: ODST.
• This is the first map in the Halo franchise to contain escalators.
• Bungie released a number of Orbital screen shots on 12/23/08.
• Orbital is the first map in Halo 3 to be set in space. Also, through use of glitches, Orbital offers the first, and currently only, opportunity for players to experience direct exposure to space in Halo 3, except for the Valhalla Banshee glitch found only in the Halo 3 Beta. In Halo: Combat Evolved, Boarding Action is the only map open to space, and in Halo 2, the initial campaign level, Cairo Station is the only area of the game which allows access to space. However, as in previous installments, players behave no differently than in atmospheric environments, i.e., exposed Elites can still breathe and Spartans and enclosed Elites do not run out of air, and there is also no microgravity effect.
• Some of the computer monitors across the map make reference to Cairo Station.
• The view of Earth on some of the monitors is actually a screenshot from one of the Halo 2 trailers.
• Recently the cast of Red vs. Blue was given permission by Bungie to play on the map and post videos of it on their website. As it turns out it is extremely similar in shape to the Halo:CE map Longest and the Halo 2 multiplayer level Elongation. It is believed these two maps were inspiration for Orbital.

Gallery

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  An escalator leading towards another chamber, and on the wall is the tribute to Tobias Fleming Shaw.

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  A loading dock with Sniper Rifle in sight.

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  Another hallway with 2 Mongooses in sight.

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  A hallway with vegetation on the wall, as well as two information tubes displaying "Welcome" in several languages.

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  The main control station.

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  Orbital Heatmap.