For a Sentinel, having a cyborg land on you definitely wasn't in the script!

(6:51) Level 10 ('The Maw') on Heroic. Continuing with the backstop Sentinels introduced in the last movie, and using the same set-up, I arrive at a tricky challenge: balancing on top! A sequence of clips illustrates my progress. But before that, I also show what led up to the idea.

Released May 13th 2020, gameplay recorded May 8th-9th 2020.

00:02 (High ground via Sentinel?) This first section illustrates my trying to land on the high ground via Sentinel, having been unable to get there with a simple fall (see the start of BCM425). However, even when you get nicely slowed up, the remaining fall seems to be still too much. I never made it, despite a lot of trying.

00:59 (Bouncing elsewhere) Now here are four clips of bouncing to a landing elsewhere. However, it's only something I'd do for a challenge, and my success rate would be low. If you just want to get down, a simple fall is far easier.

01:47 (Balancing on top) Now to the main business. I won't talk much about the technique as that's detailed in my new article, but I'll comment on almost all the clips. They're in chronological order by the way, representing my progression. In the first three clips I only stay on for a few seconds. I was really struggling like that for quite a while, but I didn't want to bore you with too many clips of that. Let's get to the more interesting phase.

02:18 (8-seconds) Here's when I had my key breakthrough, balancing for about 8 seconds. I think this was the first time I noticed the Sentinel going vertical, briefly giving me some stability. And when he started twitching, I was like "Whoa!", because it was just like covies and Flood can do when you get on top. Looking back, I see that the Sentinel did also go vertical in the 1:47 clip, but that was only brief and I don't think I registered it at the time.

02:34 The other thing that helped me progress was boarding early. In this example I end up surviving to the ground, but I'm unable to arrest my slide.

02:55 A few hours later I got this new record of about 12 seconds, and made a good landing too!

03:18 (20-seconds) A bit later I broke through to 20 seconds. The Sentinel had a good long time of being relatively stable, in vertical attitude.

03:47 The main reason I included this clip was to show the unusual angle held by the Sentinel for a while. Steep, but not vertical.

04:05 Another 20-second balance, but I get a bit flustered and fall off after being shot at by the Sentinel's buddy, which is the first time that happened. The shooter was firing from within the ship, having completed his scripted journey.

04:39 On account of that incident, I sometimes destroyed the first Sentinel and boarded the second as seen here, so there would be no danger of being zapped. Other times I didn't bother though, as it slowed up my rate of tries.

05:03 The Sentinel does a good long spell of twitching here, which is the main reason I've included the clip. But also I rotate to face a different way while balancing (just for variation really), and I achieve a marginal new high of about 21 seconds.

05:31 (43-seconds) An hour later my record stood at 23 seconds, but I blew that away with this approximately 43-second monster. The key thing here was, when the Sentinel moved out of vertical around 5:57, I managed to stay on and get things relatively stable again - before making a clumsy movement and falling off. With this new record I called an end to my attempts, as by then I had more than enough for a good movie (which I'd been building up along the way).

06:23 However, I did do a spot more play just to make an amusing end for the movie - as seen here. A descent off the Sentinel, after tagging it.

Closing remarks I may well return to this topic in a little while, to show some footage involving boarding with a running jump, for show. I've already got some footage of that, but decided not to use it here as the movie was already getting plenty long enough without introducing a side-theme. I figured I could leave it for another movie. But also I want to have a go using the other opening. Maybe I'll be able to boost my record too - we'll see!

This movie is coming hot on the heels of the last movie about the backstop Sentinels, but I already had it near completion, and that actually goes for a third movie too. I was working on the three almost concurrently. So I figured I'd put out the two sequels without much delay.

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