Woo-hoo, my first time on top of a covie dropship!

(8:22) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Continuing with the valley heights fun, here's a chunky dose of recreation with the valley dropship at the rockslide entrance, mainly revolving around getting on top of it, which is easy. But also, there's a Grunt down below who's going to get a few nasty shocks!

Released October 31st 2019, gameplay recorded October 27th-31st 2019.

00:02 (Intro) This ship made an appearance in my first valley heights movie BCM381, and earlier in my catapulting set-up demo BCM376. At the start here, I've just had a checkpoint (see my closing remarks), enabling me to repeatedly play around. I jump down onto the ship, clamber around a bit, and eventually trigger the ship's departure by looking a certain way.

01:15 (More departure triggering) Another triggering, but this time from up on the hill, from where the ship's departure makes quite a spectacular sight.

01:35 This clip was the final addition to the movie, added late. I had the idea of standing at the back of the ship, as if riding it. Gives a nice view! I still slide off though, and the Grunt gives an amusing victory cry after I go splat.

02:00 Yet another triggering, this time occurring right after I land on the ship. Instead of eventually sliding off though, I do a hilltop dismount, which is pretty easy.

02:21 (Grunt damage trigger) Another trigger for departure is if the Grunt takes damage. In this first example I kill him with a stealthy tag from the hilltop, then use my last two plasmas on the ship, trying to tag the turret (one hit, one near miss).

02:53 This time I get onto the ship and wing the Grunt, demonstrating that you don't need to kill him to trigger departure. I subsequently run off and get cushioned by a bit of cliff face, and pull off a nice tag on the panicking Grunt.

03:17 (Onto a rear fin) I eventually realised I could drop down onto either of the rear fins to the side of the turret. Notice how the turret oscillates when alerted. I've shown behaviour like that before in my level 5 movies about a detached dropship turret. I trigger departure by hurting the Grunt, but have to work to stay on. The Grunt returns fire and at one point hits the turret, causing him to amusingly protest "Move!" (there was a similar case in BCM312 around 1:31). When I fall off I survive but have to kill the Grunt quick - but he gets a shot in too, resulting in a rare simultaneous death. They'll give him a posthumous medal for that!

04:13 Later I realised I could jump straight onto the left fin. Nifty Grunt tag here, if I do say so myself.

04:41 (Dropping inside) Initially by chance, I found that I could drop through to a compartment as the ship turned. It's not easy though, and once you get inside, you have to work to stay there. These three clips use the left fork, as the right fork didn't seem so amenable. In the third clip I actually end up on the open door - until I fall through that too. Note: in the second clip I run off the hilltop rather than doing a running jump. You can just about make it.

05:36 (Grunt ambush 1) At some point I started having fun doing stealthy tag-based ambushes of the Grunt. This method is how I started off: a vertical drop and tag, and being cushioned by the Grunt (risky). Incidentally, with this and the next four plays, the ship gets triggered to leave by the time I hit the ground. When you're low (e.g. approaching the ship on foot), it departs when you get close enough.

06:09 (Grunt ambush 2) I forget whether I meant to settle on the fin or not, but anyway I bounce off it and land right in front of the Grunt. Amusingly, he's looking upwards and doesn't notice me for a few seconds. Great for comedy. I made more attempts to get that same long delay, but this clip remained my best example.

06:29 (Grunt ambush 3) I get an easy cushion off a bit of cliff face (which also featured in the 2:53 clip), and execute a double tag, but the Grunt unexpectedly runs the wrong way, killing me. Whoops!

06:46 (Grunt ambush 4) This time I'm cushioned by a rock, which bounces me conveniently into position for another go at a double tag. Goes fine this time, and for extras I do a mid-air snipe.

07:09 (Grunt ambush 5) Here's another way of getting onto a fin: dropping down from the rear, which I'd say is easier. I drop to the Grunt and let him run, but he can't escape my tag.

07:32 (Grunt ambush 6) For this final ambush I trigger the ship into departing, and take advantage of it as a handy platform as it reaches my level. After some cushioning I'm soon at the Grunt, and things are nice and peaceful. Not for long though!

Closing remarks To make this movie, I first of all saved a checkpoint from which all the gameplay could be conveniently done. How did I get it? I went around to the relevant hilltop, waited for the music to end, then got a checkpoint associated with the passage below. It's a checkpoint you'd normally get when going through the passage, but the relevant trigger zone actually goes high enough that you can get it on the hilltop. One other thing, rather crucial. During all that time, I carefully avoided looking towards the ship (even when sight of it would've been blocked), otherwise I might've accidentally triggered its departure.

With so much to play around with, this turned into one of my bigger movies. I did consider doing a separate movie for the Grunt ambushing, which I then could've expanded, but decided to keep things as an all-in-one.

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