Covenant spacecraft design

The Covenant have access to a large number of technologies not available to the UNSC. The most obvious of these are energy shields and faster Slipspace drives, but the Covenant enjoy numerous advantages that laymen observers easily overlook.

Gravitics and paragravity
It goes without saying that the Covenant have a much finer understanding of gravity, and their control of it outstrips what UNSC scientists have ever considered possible. Far beyond simulating gravity in space habitats and starships, the Covenant can move massive objects with gravity lifts and lock them in place with tow fields. Paragravity technology may be used for the most mundane of applications, but the Covenant's byzantine logistics systems would grind to a halt without them.

The Covenant possess gravitic weapons such as Brute hammers and gravity cannons, but the largest of these are mounted on small ground vehicles. Power and control requirements scale exponentially with size, and the Covenant simply do not possess the technology to build starship grade weapons. Gravitic starship weapons have been a holy grail of warship designers for thousands of years. Such weapons bypass shield and armor, and the Covenant have encountered Forerunner defense drones armed with such weapons. Usually fatally.