Assembly forge

An Assembly forge is the primary type of industrial manufacturing facilities operated by the Covenant, and are still used by its many successor-states.

Specifications
While modern assembly forges are far more capable than the devices used by the Sangheili before the War of Beginnings, their basic construction is still largely similar. They consist of an open space which can be flooded with a liquid catalyst that speeds up any production processes within. This also has the raw materials suspended within it. The walls are lined with various instruments, such as load-bearing armatures, mobile platforms for specialized machinery, and pores that release various models of nanomachines. The entire facility is usually directed by a sophisticated (by Covenant standards) swarm intelligence, that diligently follows the plans for whatever design patterns are loaded up. A mental link is also established to the forge operator via a neurohelmet.

Although they are extremely flexible pieces of technology, they have their limits. Not all assembly forges can produce items with the same level of precision, and many critical components have to be built by hand or imported from niche suppliers. This is why Covenant technology has such a stark contrast between the crude internals and the elegant exterior, as the forge builds around existing parts. Another problem lies in the AI. While now far less capable than those used before the advent of the Covenant, they still have the capacity for learning. This means that they can develop quirks and even personalities, where design patterns are mutated in subtle ways. Most of these changes are easily replaced, but in extreme scenarios it can result in its products having vastly-different proportions and design to the master copy, and some AIs have been known to go feral or cease up entirely. The only way to fix this is to reset or recondition the forge, partially because the Covenant's engineers no longer understood their archaic programming structure by the time of the Human-Covenant War.

Strangely, the original pre-Covenant models have one critical advantage over their later descendants, and that is they have much finer control and tighter tolerance. Part of the reason Covenant architecture is so curved is because this mitigates any flaws during the construction process. This is partially why Sangheili pre-Covenant structures and ships can be both far more stylistic, and in some cases, less organic.

Classifications

 * Primary assembly forges: The most well-equipped of all assembly forges available, these gigantic machines are specialized for the production of large-scale structures and starships, usually those that exceed kilometers in size. Most are reserved for Ministry orders, although a handful of commercial shipyards do accept orders from wealthy civilians. Many worldships have some form of this, with High Charity boasting the largest, most capable, and best-equipped forges in the Holy Ecumene.
 * Secondary assembly forges: Far more common, these are used for the production of lighter escort vessels and planetside structures. They are usually found alongside the larger assembly forges.
 * Tertiary assembly forges: These are compact devices that produce a wide range of smaller equipment, including clothing, infantry weapons, and military vehicles such as tanks and strikecraft. They are small enough to be massed on starships, with procurators often having substantial numbers of them.

A related piece of technology are fabricators, which use the same technology as assembly forges but on a much smaller scale. They direct a beam towards the prospective building site, which is contained by a gravitic emitter and magnetism. Most are small enough to be hand-held, and generally only have a handful of pre-programmed options. Larger options with substantially more flexibility do exist, and these are usually mounted on a vehicle or starship. Care should be exercised, however, as they have been known to maim personnel that stand in their way.