Hey, let's smash our way out of this crazy joint!

(6:51) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. This shows another spectacular thing you can do with force-launching from the bottom of the entry chamber. Breaking out into the void! There's an impressive external view to enjoy (for which a light-amplified sniper scope is great), and you can travel so far that the chamber starts to vanish. I broke out lots in making this movie, mostly using precise launching (see BCM253), which in one case was giving over 20% success rate. Update: I now have an article on this topic.

Released July 31st 2017, gameplay recorded July 15th-31st 2017.

00:02 (Original break-out) This was my first shunt into the void, back on July 15th when working on BCM251. I got a few more examples the same day, and some more the day after, but most of the movie's clips were obtained after I got down to serious work on the topic, after releasing BCM253.

00:17 Here's another early break-out (July 21st), and I get a good view of the door area. You can see a dead Elite, not far from a Shade.

00:31 A steeper exit this time. You eventually 'die', and there's some bleeping before the game reverts you. It's the same kind of dying you experience if you ever get pushed out of the map somehow. I think your body gets removed, which may be why the camera starts drifting.

00:51 Sadly, weaponry seems to be nullified in the void, as demonstrated in these two clips (plus I fire a sniper rifle in later clips, and even a rocket launcher). You can fire but nothing comes out, and you can throw but no grenade flies out. Curiously though, on my first throw there's a brief graphic of plasma glow (no actual grenade is visible).

01:16 (Break-out areas) From checking lots of footage, it looks like there are two break-out areas: the ceiling ring and the sloping panels (more specifically the upper sections of the panels, each panel being a three-section affair).

01:28 Precise aim-based launching (see BCM253) can help you target the break-out areas, making break-outs more frequent. It's used for all the movie's clips except the first. I used various bail delays, depending on the situation. Success rates still tended to be low though, especially in cases where a long bail delay was needed. With a long delay you tend to get more variation of outcome, which tends to mean more failures. Sometimes I got as high as around 20% success rate, but usually things felt harder.

02:05 I get some pretty good distance here, in an excursion of about 16 seconds. Also, for the first time in the movie you get to see an overall external view of the chamber, right down to the base of the column.

02:28 (Monster 1) Now we step things up, with the movie's first monster break-out. There's an excellent thunderous exit noise, and the excursion lasts about 26 seconds. The chamber starts to vanish from the bottom up, but there's still some left when I die.

03:00 (Monster 2) This second monster has a significantly different exit noise, and an excursion time of almost 28 seconds. There's a good view of the LZ vanishing.

03:35 This may've been the steepest exit I got. I didn't get many this extreme. Surprisingly, when I fire the sniper rifle there's a trail and impact effect - so it looks like a round actually flew out of the barrel. I quickly followed up with a throw to see if a grenade would materialize, but it didn't. I only had one other case where the sniper rifle appeared to work, and again it involved a steep exit. I don't know what the explanation is.

03:56 Earlier in the movie there were some shallow exits but I didn't get very far away. Here I get a fast shallow exit, which enables me to get a decent side-view though it doesn't last long. I worked at getting big shallow exits quite a bit (there's another later), but they were hard to get.

04:13 (Monster 3) Here I'm using the same launch plan as for monster 2 (same save, same aiming area). There's some nice crackling in the exit noise and I get an excursion of almost 22 seconds. When switching to high zoom I briefly catch sight of the Banshee as it heads towards the LZ.

04:41 (Monster 4) Now I'm using the same launch plan as for monster 1. This time I get an excursion of almost 28 seconds and the chamber almost totally vanishes. The exit noise is quite subdued.

05:16 Here's another big shallow exit, and I get a good side-view out of it. This clip was recorded and added last. The unusual thing about the launch is that as I bail, I rotate the Banshee a bit. That's something I'd started trying in a bid to alter the usual outcomes I was getting. It helped me get a few exits such as this (I wanted one more for the movie).

05:36 (Vanishing Banshee) A couple of times I saw the Banshee vanish when it arrived at the annular plain. This clip provides a good example. However, other times it didn't vanish at the plain. One other thing I can mention: I haven't noticed the Banshee vanishing anywhere else.

05:55 (Monster 5) Monsters 1 and 4 used a particular launch plan, and now here's a third example with that plan. Based on an examination of footage, it gives the fastest exit (highest exit speed) of the movie. It's the only break-out I ever got which was silent - and I suspect the silence was because of the speed. The excursion lasts about 30.5 seconds, and the chamber has totally vanished after about 20. In the remaining time I fire a few dud rockets. Well, there wasn't much else to do!

06:33 I had the idea of ending with a string of break-outs, with various noises and angles - and this is the result. A nice 15-second ending I think.

Closing remarks I used five saves for this movie; ones created for my earlier deep force-launching movies.

The five monster break-outs came from two of the saves. Monsters 1, 3 and 5 used a certain launching plan with one of the saves, while monsters 2 and 4 used another save and plan. Contrary to what you might think, monster break-outs actually weren't very hard to achieve. In one good session I was getting a success rate of about 23%, but it was very dependent on my bail timing (I was bailing late to make it work, but it's hard to time well). When I started feeling taxed, my timing became less precise and my success rate fell.

I once had an excursion time of almost 32 seconds - my longest so far. But the footage wasn't ideal, so I decided not to include it in the movie. At some later date I may return to this break-out business, to see if I can come up with a worthwhile sequel movie. And who knows, if I could get a super-freaky shunt, perhaps I could get an exit speed significantly higher than seen so far!

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