It's time to bring Choppy the gold down to join in the fun!

(6:50) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Various extra covies can be added to a mob battle set-up (on PAL Xbox at least), but the easiest to add is a gold Elite. Here's a demo, along with two plays of the resulting save. If you have NTSC/PC, I think you can still get him down but you'll need to slow his fall with Banshee cushioning, so he doesn't die.

Released May 27th 2019, gameplay recorded May 25th-27th 2019.

00:02 (Getting the gold) Having just saved a delayed tunnel checkpoint for safety, I trigger the final bridge covies and delay the checkpoint. After killing the minors I draw the gold to the lower deck. I fire occasionally in case it helps. It's not for delaying the checkpoint. That gets delayed by my proximity to the gold, despite the intervening deck. Pretty soon I catch sight of him approaching and I sink far enough to get the checkpoint, for making tries at getting him down.

01:11 My first try doesn't go well, as he destroys the Banshee. Actually, for the sake of the tutorial that's exactly what I wanted, to the illustrate the danger. Plus it's amusing.

01:24 On this try he stops on the ledge and I soon tempt him into a second attack to get him the rest of the way down. You could instead fly at him to make him dive off, but I prefer the former method. With PAL Xbox he can survive all this falling. Once he's down, I draw him a bit further away from the door then climb to around bridge height to get distant enough that he'll stop chasing.

01:58 (Continuing as normal) I sink back down near the door, and the set-up work now continues as normal, like in BCM350. As you can see, I've already set up two Marines in the passage so they'll become extras, giving me a squad of five. Near the end of my work I draw the gold a bit closer to the Marines, to make it more easy to get him to chase me all the way there. His final position is one which I'd used before and found to work pretty well.

02:59 (Sample play) This sample play illustrates how you can get the gold to join in with an attack by going near to get him raging. The battle is pretty fierce and there's a bit of a cataclysm when I take out the final Elite around 3:45. I'm a bit slow mopping up the minors towards the end when I get sidetracked trying to smite a fleeing Grunt, but victory is eventually achieved with three Marines still breathing.

04:30 (More descent outcomes) Going back to the business of getting the gold down, here are a few more outcomes. Sometimes he'll slide off the ledge rather than stop on it. Often he'll die, but he can survive if the ledge impact doesn't wipe his shield - as shown in two examples. The second example is unusual as he just barely slides off, and ends up falling vertically. Incidentally, if he stops on the ledge but you saw his shield get wiped, you should let him recharge before getting him the rest of the way down, else he's liable to die.

05:25 (Using the other side) I was using the left side of the bridge because it works fine and he ends up in a good area, but the other side can be used too, and actually the ledge seems friendlier there. Typically he'll slide off and survive. He might clash with active Marines (he can't see inactive ones) but it might not matter. Here he kills my single active Marine, but that guy was due to get removed by the game anyway, so it didn't matter. Marines could potentially lower his health or kill him though, which obviously would matter.

05:53 (Solo finale) A solo play to finish off. I also use this to illustrate that the gold can pilot a Ghost. Mind you, if he gets ejected from it, he won't have his sword anymore, and he'll be glitchy.

Closing remarks This is a movie I essentially remade. In my original version I was getting him down on the right hand side of the bridge, knowing the ledge on that side to be quite friendly. But later I realised that he could get down fine on the left too, and using that side made more sense because (a) he ends up nearer where you want him and (b) there's no potential issue with active Marines. So I started over and used the left side instead. I also made another improvement though, realizing that when waiting for the gold to come down to the lower deck, I didn't need to use Banshee fire to keep the checkpoint delayed. It seems to delay automatically from his proximity.

© 2004-2020 by Rockslider