Featuring death-defying cyborg trajectories and mid-air Banshee reboarding!

(6:25) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. This shows various ways of getting a detached dropship turret without needing to bounce onto a bridge and fly down. Most of these examples are from my earlier turret work around the time of BCM88 and BCM99, and some were unintentional, such as my first mid-air reboarding near the end. But the other mid-air reboardings were intentional and done specially for the movie.

Released August 3rd 2014, gameplay recorded December 20th 2013 plus March 27th-29th and July 28th 2014.

00:02 (Ground via far ledge) Starting from the lower ledge, I flip the dropship relatively early in its trajectory, before it's heading up steeply. I hit slightly below the centre and get bounced around along the ledge, then down to the ground, getting some important cushioning on a sloping part of the cliff base. It's reminiscent of how I got my first detached turret as seen in BCM88 around 3:34, but here I'm flipping the ship earlier and getting a lower bounce, which is much better if you wish to try and use the far ledge. Looks intentional. This was a few days after releasing BCM88.

00:34 (Ground via far ledge 2) This time I get a higher trajectory and clip the ledge on my way down, again getting some cushioning off the cliff base. This was while working on BCM99 in late March 2014, and was probably unintentional.

01:02 (Ground via pipes) Here I get cushioned by the pipes. This is a nice example in which I get an excellent view of the turret descending and landing. It's intentional I think, as I seem to be trying for an early bounce off the bottom part of the ship - which is what you want to do. This was a few days after releasing BCM88.

01:26 (Pipes death) I threw in this failure clip for a spot of humour, as MC's death cry makes it sound like that impact really hurt. This was from around the time I was working on BCM99, and I suspect I was indeed going for the pipes here, or at least a low trajectory.

01:35 (Ground via far cliff base) Here I get a low trajectory, bouncing off the cliff then getting cushioned by the far cliff base. The turret is then seen bouncing off the ledge, a common deflection. This was while working on BCM99. It looks like I was going for a low trajectory here, bearing in mind my initial steep dive.

02:00 (Ground via tree and rock) In this rather freaky landing I end up alive on the ground after getting cushioned by a tree and a rock - which was blind luck and certainly not something you'd stand much chance of pulling off intentionally. The turret has a freaky landing too, settling on a pipe. I think that's the only time I've seen that happen. I thought it was going to hit the pipe block, which is why I briefly lost track of it, before spotting it resting up high. I subsequently landed on the pipe and dismounted to see it close up (not shown), then decided to knock it down to the ground. This was while working on BCM99. I don't think I was even going for a low trajectory here; it was probably just a mistake.

03:04 (Far ledge) This example is similar to the opening one except that I come to a stop on the far ledge. I subsequently zoom in on the ship to check if the turret came off; and it had. When I subsequently look at the ground, you can just catch sight of it descending. At the time, I failed to notice that and spent several seconds panning around at full zoom before seeing it; but I've cut that footage as it wasn't very interesting. This was a few days after releasing BCM88, and I was clearly going for a low trajectory. It's also the earliest footage here, which is reflected by the fact that I was checking the ship. As I got more detachments, I changed my habit, and instead of checking the ship for a missing turret, I usually just tried to spot the turret descending.

03:26 (Descent from far ledge) Here's how I got down after that last clip. The cliff base offers pretty good cushioning, though I lose a bit of health here.

03:35 (Near ledge) I hit the ship quite low in a corner and get bounced straight onto the near ledge without the slightest damage. The turret lands high, on the join between two pipes. When I get its attention with a shot, it tries to shoot at me but fails to angle upwards. Seems like it can't angle up much - but is dumb enough to fire regardless. This was while working on BCM99, and may well have been intentional.

04:01 (Descent from near ledge) This clip, which wasn't actually from after the previous one, shows the best way down from the near ledge. As demonstrated, it can be done without even taking any shield damage.

04:10 (Near ledge 2) This time I get a higher trajectory and take damage when hitting the ledge. The turret comes down right overhead and I believe it bounces off me. It freakily comes to a stop on the ledge, which was a considerable surprise. My attempted whack may have been fractionally late, thus may've had nothing to do with the turret stopping on the ledge. This was a few days after releasing BCM99. I suspect it was unintentional, as it doesn't look like I'm trying to bounce off the lower part of the ship.

04:44 (Mid-air reboarding) After flipping the ship I end up reboarding the Banshee in mid-air, courtesy of mashing the X button. It was unintentional and was the first time it happened while trying to get a detached turret. I remember thinking something like "Whoa!" - and then I concentrated on getting a good view of the turret. This was while working on BCM99.

05:01 (Further mid-air reboardings) To bolster the mid-air reboarding theme, I did some new playing to get some intentional examples, drawing on the experience I got when making BCM100, in which I was trying to get the dropship trapped by the bridge. These four examples (featuring the save used for BCM99) are similar to some of the reboardings seen in that movie, except that I'm flipping the ship a bit later along its trajectory. In the final one, I finally manage to score a fuel rod hit on the turret. You can see green residue coming off as it continues to fall.

Closing remarks As I mentioned in the description, some of the examples were unintentional. I'm not completely sure which ones, but with all the methods except for the freakily lucky 'tree and rock' landing, you could stand a decent chance of success by intent. I think mid-air reboarding may be especially worth trying. Later on I may revisit mid-air reboarding and try to gauge the difficulty, relative to the traditional method of bouncing onto a bridge.

The examples in this movie don't represent all possible survival types not using the bridges - you could for example get lucky hitting a rock which gives you enough cushioning - but I think they cover the more viable ones. Several times I survived in quite freaky fashion but failed to get a detached turret, despite the flip prompt having shown itself. I probably could've got the turret in such cases, if I'd been luckier with my button pressing. Most of those cases involved bouncing towards the near cliff and getting enough cushioning at the base. But one case involved bouncing off the bottom of one of the ship's prongs and getting cushioned by the start of the trough walling on the left.

In making this movie I was glad to finally use up some of the turret footage which has been sitting around on my hard-drive for ages. I've still got quite a bit more though, some of which may get used at some point.

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