E540 Halberd

The E540 Halberd is a gunner weapon available to, among other vehicles. It is unlocked through purchase with Certification Points or Daybreak Cash.

The E540 Halberd is a single-shot rocket launcher, firing a potent rocket at a relatively high speed. Designed as an anti-vehicle weapon, the Halberd deals considerable damage-per-shot compared to other gunner weapons, however this comes at the expense of overall damage-per-second, with a lengthy reload between each shot hampering the weapon's effectiveness in raw damage competition.

The Halberd's single-shot firing mode, while presenting clear weaknesses in one regard, can also be played as a strength. The Halberd is the only gunner weapon capable of killing standard infantry classes in a single hit, where Flak Armor is not in use.

In addition, important when considering most main battle tank cannons only fire one to two shots, the Halberd is capable of outputting a considerable amount of damage while minimizing the amount of time the vehicle must stay exposed, whereas other weapons such as the M20 Basilisk must stay exposed for extended periods of time to maximize their damage output.

Unlike most similar equipment, gunner weapons produced by Nanite Systems used atop are empire-specific,  thus purchases made with Daybreak Cash only allow the item to be used on other characters of the same faction.

Ribbons and Medals
With any vehicle weapon, it is possible to get both Ribbons and Medals. Each Ribbon is a standard reward for achieving a set amount of kills with a vehicle weapon. Medals relate to how many overall kills you have with the vehicle weapon.

History

 * Game Update Number 2 (2013-02-02)
 * Increased projectile speed.
 * Reduced projectile drop.
 * Increased time to reload by .25 seconds
 * Game Update Number 4 (2013-03-13)
 * Outer radius blast reduced from 4 to 3 meters.
 * Game Update Number 8 (2013-05-02)
 * Increased upward elevation range from 25 to 30 degrees
 * Increased downward elevation range from 7 to 14 degrees
 * Game Update Number 9 (2013-05-23)
 * Lowered several infantry weapon prices and adjusted some MBT, Sunderer, and Harasser weapon prices.
 * E540 Halberd - increased from / to /
 * Game Update Number 10 (2013-06-05)
 * The Halberd maximum ammo capacity tooltip has been corrected to match the cert functionality
 * Game Update Number 14 (2013-08-12)
 * The E540 Halberd no longer states that it is single faction use only.
 * Performance Update Number 2 (2013-12-17)
 * Direct hit damage reduced from 1500 to 1000
 * Blast damage inner radius reduced from 1 meter to 0.5 meters
 * Inner Blast damage reduced from 750 to 450
 * Launch speed set to 200 meters per second
 * Within 1 second, the projectile will accelerate to max speed of 275 meters per second
 * September 26, 2017 Update (Critical Mass) / (Undocumented Changes)
 * Now has a 2x headshot multiplier on direct hits.
 * Dev Note: Adjusting this multiplier means that this weapon now one-shot kills on a headshot on targets with 1000 health or less, even through Flak Armor. Heavies with an active Resist Shield, full health, and Flak Armor will survive a direct headshot.
 * Reload certification now scales from 5% to 10%, instead of 0.1sec. to 0.5sec.
 * Direct damage reduced from 1000 to 600.
 * Maximum indirect damage reduced from 450 to 150.
 * Minimum indirect damage increased from 1 to 50.
 * The 'Light Anti-Vehicle' and 'Explosive Splash' resist types received major changes in this update.
 * Bullet kick arc angle from 0 to 0.15
 * Ammo capacity from from 30 to 36
 * Fully certed ammo capacity from 60 to 72
 * October 19, 2017 Update (Nanite of the Living Dead 2017)
 * NC Vanguard E540 Halberd crosshair reticle now uses the correct color.
 * December 13, 2017 Hotfix
 * Indirect damage from 150 to 500.
 * Outer blast radius from 3m to 2m.
 * Headshot multiplier has been removed.
 * Dev Note: These changes give Halberd back its one-hit kill for bodyshots against non-Flak Armored infantry targets with 1100hp or less, as well as one-shot capabilities against non-Composite Armored Flash ATVs.
 * May 30, 2019 Update (Combat Intensifies)
 * Halberd SE and Halberd-H SE no longer require the ownership of the original Halberd.
 * November 20, 2020 Update (Eight Years of War)
 * Halberd SE has a received a visual upgrade.
 * May 5, 2021 Hotfix (Chapter 03 Begins)
 * The Halberd SE should no longer create a "grinding" sound while rotating.
 * March 30, 2022 Update (The Arsenal Update)
 * Weapons with no magazine size option are an exception to the above, and remain at the 10% reload speed cap (Halberd and Gatekeeper, as examples.)
 * Standardized at 5/7/8.5/9.5/10% reload speed.