Amazing what you can do with a few needles…

(8:15) Level 6 ('Guilty Spark 343') on Easy. Normally the game quickly kills off any yeti Flood that spawn (see BCM261), but a couple of weeks ago I got a great surprise, finding a way of keeping cliff guy alive. He's also flipped to enemy status, making him good to play with (he starred in the teaser, BCM263). I had to make a few other movies first, but here at last is a tutorial. As far as I know, keeping a yeti Flood alive is new; and it's kind of like the holy grail of the topic, given how elusive they are. More on this theme coming later, as I explore the wider situation and see about keeping some of the other guys alive.

Released December 13th 2017, gameplay recorded November 24th and December 9th-12th 2017.

00:02 (Drop to the entrance) Take a ride to the top of the map. Here I bail early so the Pelican vanishes, but you could bail later to keep the Pelican around if you like. Drop down to the structure entrance, keeping out of the covie trigger zone which featured in BCM259.

00:29 (Ride the lift to flip the Flood) Take the lift down. Unlike usual, it doesn't come up automatically (or at least, not usually, though one time it did, which is quirky). Two presses bring it up. After the loading point near the bottom, start jumping to delay the checkpoint triggered shortly after. Ride back up and let yourself get the checkpoint sometime before re-crossing the loading point, which is near the top. This whole lift segment was purely to cross the loading point to flip yeti Flood to enemy status. Red dots instead of yellow! Enemy status is what will make your later needle fire home in on cliff guy.

01:08 (Get a good hop rock) The hop rock got randomized when you came back over the loading point, and it may no longer be easily climbable. There are five versions, which I briefly show compared; and only two are good. When you get back to the entrance, look at the rock's profile to check if the rock is ok (it's pretty easy to recognize the two profiles, which I show). If not, revert to re-randomize; and keep doing that until it's good. Actually the low version is slightly better than the original, so you may like to keep going until you get that one - which is actually what I did. Incidentally, the reason you delayed the last checkpoint was simply for efficiency. The closer you get it to the loading point, the less time each re-randomization will take.

02:01 (Get a needler and delay a checkpoint) Trigger the covies, get a needler, and keep the spawning checkpoint delayed. For a while it'll be delayed automatically by enemy threat, but later you can use jumping. The needler doesn't need to be full, nor do you need to kill all the covies; but in this play I kill them all as I prefer not to have them around. They'd attack my Flood later if I bring him down.

02:25 (Get positioned for triggering cliff guy) You're going to trigger cliff guy by entering his trigger zone on the log. If you want to be right near the edge, so triggering is just a matter of moving a short distance further, look perpendicularly to the right, and move along carefully (don't overshoot|) until level with the first ground light. Afterwards you might want to recharge your flashlight, as I do here. Then take rough aim at where he's going to appear, and get the checkpoint, ready for making attempts at saving him. You don't have to be this precise with the preparation phase though. You could simply run along the log until a few metres from the bright patch, well clear of the edge, then get the checkpoint. I preferred to make my set-up optimal though.

03:04 (Needle to try and save him) When he's triggered, needle him to try and get a bang on the left, where he runs before being teleported to his death spot. You want exactly one bang on the left (but there could also be a bang at the death spot, and that's fine). In this case, there's a good chance that you saved him from death (could be like 40%, based on some testing I did). So, get up to have a look. Here I'm successful on my very first play, but it could take multiple tries, which is why you wanted a nice checkpoint of course. I spot him as soon as the death spot comes into view; you never need to go over there for a closer look.

03:40 (Playing around) After that I have a bit of fun needling and grenading him, to demonstrate his blast resistance. He attacks, on account of being flipped to enemy status. I've never yet been able to drop cliff guy after saving him, so maybe he's always going to be undroppable. But I'm not sure yet. Further experience will likely clear this up.

04:15 (Death spot bang) Here's an example of getting just a death spot bang (which is no good). Notice how the needles change course when he teleports. Fun huh?

04:26 (Both types of bang) Now an example of getting a left bang and a death spot bang. In this case he doesn't survive, but there was a good chance.

04:48 (Multiple left bangs) Getting multiple left bangs is no good. I never got a survival with this. In this example you might notice that I do a jump when starting to fire. That can help you get a bit more elevation so the needles reach him, if you're having trouble getting a bang at all.

05:00 (Success again, and drawing him down) In this last example my caption mentions that you should fire early, so the needles catch up to him in time. I'm initially looking at my tracker for the red dot, and I'm firing before I even see him. He's saved once more, and I show how easy it is to draw him down if you want.

05:42 (Checkpointing) Having saved him, there are a couple of checkpoints available if you want one. One is triggered near the bottom of the entrance ramp, and there's also one for triggering the Jackal group back past the log (they haven't spawned yet). Both are delayable, making them useful for setting up situations with your Flood. In this example I get the ramp checkpoint, after topping up my needler and recharging my flashlight a bit.

06:22 (Example play) Here's a quick example play from my checkpoint, partly to show that although he's blast resistant, you can always shoot his arms and head off. It's nice how those AR rounds cause glowing green after-effects on him eh?

07:05 (Getting him back up) If you've got him down, you can still get him back up if you want, as seen here. He's quite a jumpy fellow!

07:33 (Marine visit) I thought I'd end the movie with a bit of fun involving the Marine (I did a load of takes to get a suitably explosive ending). In this clip the Flood is prioritizing me for attack and doesn't give any sign of recognizing the Marine as an enemy, but he can attack the Marine if you get him to lose interest in you.

Closing remarks The tutorial says that you want a bang to the left, but actually you can also get success with no needle bang. I can't say there's a good chance though, which is why I didn't cover it in the movie. Earlier I'd done some testing with another save and I was never getting success when there was no bang. I checked more than fifty times. But when I came to making this movie, I did some checking with the pre-trigger checkpoint seen here, and did get some no-bang survivals. What this seems to indicate is that the no-bang success rate may be save-dependent. Maybe it relates to how cliff guy spawns or moves, which could vary from save to save. But still, it's quite easy to get a single bang on the left, so I don't think it's worth checking when you get no bang at all.

If you're wondering why cliff guy is escaping death, I have a theory for that, in light also of later findings. It may be that he just has to be unconscious (dropped) when teleported - which may apply equally to the other guys. Now that I've got this tutorial done, I'm going to pursue this to try and confirm what's going on. One thing I can already say though, is that cliff guy isn't the only guy I can keep alive. So keep watching!

In making the movie, I saved the delayed checkpoint I got for triggering cliff guy, and later used that save to obtain the guy seen in my teaser BCM263. I got him down, took him to the swamp, evaded him (leaving him in a concealed position from which he could ambush me), moved a spare needler into position, triggered and delayed the ramp checkpoint, and got it in a suitable starting spot for the movie.

The main footage is from December 9th-12th, but the footage showing versions of the hop rock is from November 24th when I was starting to explore the method and needed to establish which versions were easily climbable.

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