Holy cow! What did I do?

(8:08) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Something amazing happened when I was applying force with the Scorpion. I wasn't actually recording at the time, but I can show you the spectacular result: my 'snow machine'. Never seen anything quite like it before.

Released October 11th 2024, gameplay recorded October 5th-9th 2024.

00:02 (Intro) If I'd been recording when my snow machine came into being, that likely would've been how I started the movie. Unfortunately though, I'd slipped up. I thought I was recording, but it turned out that I wasn't - which was quite annoying when I realised after twenty-odd minutes of play! So, how to start the movie? As you can see, I've used another example of noisy oddness produced via Scorpion force to lead into the main business. In this example the tree is in the back of the hog.

00:52 (Snow machine viewing) So here's my 'snow machine', and maybe you can see why it wowed me when I got it. Isn't it just stunning to look at? Not to mention the absolute racket it's making. Talking of which, I notice that the noise seems practically identical to the previous much tamer looking situation.

The next 100 seconds or so give you a good look at things from various angles. But in particular, almost a minute is spent at the front of the Scorpion giving coverage of the snow and bark being churned out. I'm rather pleased with how that turned out. Originally my coverage was much simpler, but when some editing cut down the movie's length, it opened up room to add new material, so I looked for new camera angles here and found some good ones. That lead to the sequence of short clips going from around 1:32 to 2:08, following on from the initial long clip. The clips give various dramatic close-up views, somewhat getting you "into the storm" so to speak.

Around 2:08 you can see that the tree is in the hog's front right. That's why I'm able to do some anticlockwise rotation with it later.

There are also three aerial views at the end, starting around 2:20. The last is the best of those, and was tricky to manage in regard to Banshee control. The Banshee was in gentle contact with the big tree behind, and I had to fight the drifting to try and keep the view steady. As I recall, I was having to rapidly oscillate the joystick to stay hovering at the same height (same with the preceding shot).

As you can see, there are two Marines on the Scorpion. Originally they'd been in the hog, but at some point - which I think was after the hog happened to overturn - I let them board the Scorpion instead. Glad I did, as they lend an extra element to the spectacle and to certain proceedings in the movie, and it's amusing how the snow is showering over the guy on the left. If you're wondering why they don't dismount, it's because the skirmish in the crashed Pelican area hasn't been triggered yet (not even the first ground battle has been triggered). Prior to that trigger, there's no such auto-dismount behaviour.

02:34 (Long sound range) Giving you a brief reduction in noise volume, this sequence highlights how far the grinding noise travels. I have to back off a long way before it cuts out. As an incidental thing, notice also how you get the sound of a random hog impact when it does so.

02:48 (Boarding sequence) Back to the basics now, the obvious thing to do is to see if the hog or Scorpion can be driven free of the jam. But no, they remain stuck. Aboard the hog, I also experience strong controller vibration, which isn't nice. That goes also for the other two hog stations, both of which I briefly try out.

03:59 (New situation after a shunt) So if driving won't free things up, how about a shunt with the Banshee? Well, in this particular case it causes the grinding noise to stop, and the churning snow gives the appearance of being heavier! Actually I suspect that the snow hasn't altered; it's just that the Scorpion moved back a bit, which has made the core of the snow churning more visible. Looks and sounds very nice though. Interesting that you can still have all this snow and bark churning out, yet with no grinding noise.

When I dismount from the hog after finding it still stuck, there's a surprise. I get sent a long way! So I do it another two times for fun. This freaky dismounting was only with the driver's seat by the way; not with the chain-gun or the side-seat.

The snow sound has very short range, as demonstrated in a separate clip. Incidentally, that clip wasn't actually recorded with the original situation, as I didn't really notice the short sound range at the time. It was recorded later on with a seemingly identical situation produced with a similar shunt (it was very easy to produce such situations).

Boarding the Scorpion, I find that it's now able to reverse free, which it couldn't do before. Evidently the shunt loosened the jam. Thereafter I do a brief bit of rotation in the hog, which remains anchored by the tree.

06:04 (Some other shunt effects) Banshee shunts can also produce other results, and these five clips give examples, mostly with just one shunt. In the first I end up with much weaker snow and bark, and it's just coming out of the side. The second shows a 2-shunt jam release, and if you're alert you may've noticed the tyre burn near the tree. Therein lies a mystery! In the third (6:37) there's a significant change in the sound. Interesting! You can get many such sound variations, and I expect to go into that further in a follow-up movie. In the fourth clip a shunt stops my snow machine completely. The final clip shows a 1-shunt release. Need to hit the right spot for that.

07:20 (Jam freed by blasting) I was also able to free the jam using blasting. In this case I manage it with two Banshee blasts then a plasma blast (I wanted to switch to a plasma for the final blast so I could be on the ground to witness the dynamics up close). This combination didn't always work, but it worked this time at least. Actually, an earlier draft of the movie instead had a clip using four blasts. But later I realised I could sometimes do it with only three; and by doing that I was able to have a shorter clip, which was good.

07:44 (Comedy ending) I could've ended the movie on that last clip, but it would've been a bit low-key, so I came up with some explosive comedy instead, and you also get the novelty of seeing a plasma grenade up close. Like, just in front of your visor. An extra comedy element is in the frag throw. It's not clear where the frag has gone, and certainly I expected to see it hitting the ground. But then, BOOM!

Had to do a lot of takes to get the occasional good clip like this though, due to a lot of randomness involved. In particular, I needed a good Marine comment at the end, but usually the comment got cut off part way through, which was useless. I've long wished that Halo would avoid cutting off lines like that.

Closing remarks There was so much to cover here, and I've crammed as much as I could into the movie without making it too long. Okay it's around eight minutes long, which is certainly on the long side for me, but the situation merited it, and I'm pleased with the job.

Later I'll see if I can come up with a recipe for producing such a snow machine. I think there may be a good chance of that. There's also some investigation and explaining needed in regard to what on earth is going on! But I wanted to get this movie out first.

Just to mention, when I got this situation I'd been using the save used in the previous movie (in which the first ground battle hadn't yet been triggered). I subsequently checkpointed with a delayed tunnel checkpoint, and that formed the save I was using here.

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