Prong-based adventuring par excellence!

(6:33) Level 4 ('The Silent Cartographer') on Heroic. It's been a long time coming, but finally I'm giving this Silent Cartographer topic the movie treatment. Namely, here's how you can descend into the main shaft. A spectacular business. I'm using PAL Xbox as ever. If you have NTSC/PC, I don't think you'll be able to manage drops on foot but you can still get down by sticking to the Warthog, something I give a first taste of at the end. More coverage coming later.

Released December 5th 2024, gameplay recorded December 3rd-4th 2024.

00:02 (Setting up) The set-up procedure is detailed in my newly expanded article, so I won't do much explaining here. I'll mention a few things though.

At the start of the movie, I'd already visited the main facility to do some slaying, and then I went to the substation to unlock the security door. I briefly dawdle to kill the Hunters, but that was really just for a spot of opening entertainment. If I'd taken damage, I would've had to revert.

After the cutscene, I delay the checkpoint with four jumps as I get back to my seat, but it would've been safer to only do three. My extra jump (unplanned) could've led to the delay being slightly too long, and the checkpoint being cancelled. It worked out okay though.

I deliberately let my flashlight recharge during the cutscene phase. Had I not done so, it would've become more depleted than desirable, for my descents. I did use it for a few seconds when returning to the hog, just to let you see things clearly, but that didn't matter. The bottom line is, by the time I switch it back on for descent work, it'll be fully charged, giving me maximum usage as desired.

01:37 (Some failed bail jumps) It can take a few tries before you manage to land on the prong stack, so I've included some example failures here. In the first I bounce off a prong, and in the second I go wide to the right.

02:00 (Descent to the bottom) This time I get a successful landing on the third prong down on the left. That's the easiest to aim for. And thanks to a spot of luck, the Marines join me for company! After a short bit of fun with some covies I continue the descent. A couple of times I lose health due to substandard crouch landings. Apparently I was a bit rusty!

Around 4:07 I'm on the final prong level. I drop to a holed surface with a handy slope to land on, and pause to look back up at the prong stack, and fire a rocket at it. Meanwhile my flashlight recharges; I'm going to need it! Three further drops take me as far as I can go (albeit with a health scare near the end), and I find a small reward waiting. A plasma pistol and needler, from two of the Grunts I rocketed.

Note: at 4:16 there's a cut of about 14 seconds to speed things along. All I did was fire another rocket upwards. Not too interesting.

05:52 (Staying aboard the hog) I wanted to also mention the option of staying aboard the hog, rather than bailing from it, so here's a brief sample play (I expect to be going into more depth later). Nice landing on the fourth-level shelf, but my attempt at continuing the hog descent goes badly wrong!

Closing remarks It's been quite a while since I was working on Silent Cartographer stuff, but I'm definitely glad I sat down to revisit this topic. As part of that, I've considerably expanded my article on it, and made two new developments. One was the new direct way of squeezing the hog through the security door, and the other was getting a better handle on the potential 'arrival checkpoint', and consequently getting a way to avoid it. Anyway, more on this topic coming soon. Another three movies at least, I think. Lots to cover!

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