UNSC Orbital Elevator (Vanilla)

The Orbital Elevator, also called a space elevator or the tether, is a colossal structure utilized on all major human colonies prior to the Human-Covenant war. It can transport people and goods from planet-side to high orbit (and vice versa).

Once a human colony has become productive and begins to export massive amounts of goods off-world, Orbital Elevators are installed. With tendril rails reaching beyond the major gravitational pull of the planet, the sheer scale of the elevator is an impressive feat of engineering. Harvest had seven such elevators to export food, which also served as vital means for evacuating the planet when the Covenant attacked. However, the elevators are highly vulnerable to attack and, if sufficiently damaged, the tendrils can crash down and cause wide-scale damage.

- - - Earthside Terminal: Roomy center of ground-side operations. Lots of storage and small meeting rooms allowing for commerce and easy movement of goods, as well as being able to shelter a large number of people in an evacuation. Has heavy security doors and shutters on the windows.

- - - - Elevator car: Several cargo containers, oxygen systems, and a large number of seats allow movement of supplies and people. You can either manually pilot the carriage in the flight seat or use the remote control and set it to autopilot once it's set with coordinates. Has two cameras, one on top and one on the bottom, to aid with manual parking.

- - - - - Orbital station: A civilian station that would be used as the basis for the Orbital Defense Platforms. Features storage, connectors for freighters to load/offload supplies, many modifiable rooms and artificial gravity.

The elevator is actually quite smooth and safe, using light armor rails and 4 non-friction wheels with hydrogen thrusters to move the platform. The car can be locked down on Earthside and in Orbit, takes about 2 minutes to make a full trip, and can seat over a dozen people. The model for the Earthside terminal is based on the New Mombasa elevator seen in Halo 3: ODST.

NOTE: This device is fairly easy on FPS, but seems to cause a stuttering (the game will stutter and periodically freeze, depending on whether your computer is having a stroke or sneezing. Also, the remote control will only take the carriage within about 300m of the orbital station. I don't know why this is, but you'll have to manually guide it in.)