Like the character designs, Covenant technology, architecture, and appearance continually changed throughout development, occasionally for practical reasons as well as for aesthetics. According to Eric Arroyo, the Covenant cruiser "Truth and Reconciliation", which plays a major role in "Halo: Combat Evolved", was to be boarded by the player by a long ramp. However, due to technical considerations of having a fully textured ship so close to the player, the designers came up with a "gravity lift", which allowed the ship to be farther away (thus not requiring as much processing power for detail) as well as adding a "visually interesting" component of Covenant technology.