That Elite needs to spawn late, in fact. Didn't realize before!

(3:30) Level 8 ('Two Betrayals') on Normal. In regard to setting up for Elite fun in the control room, there's a critical point I've only just realized. I explain in this brief tutorial, which also serves as a correction to something misleading in the set-up demo at the start of BCM551.

Released March 3rd 2025, gameplay recorded February 20th and March 2nd 2025.

00:02 (Misleading BCM551 footage) As I mentioned in my written comments for BCM551, this footage (at the start of that movie) was actually a patched-in reshoot to show the relevant Elite, which my true set-up footage hadn't done. But in fact this footage is misleading, because as I've now realized, that guy needs to spawn later. If you were to meet up with him like I did here, that's no good because he'll vanish soon.

00:30 (Reinforcement spawning) Fresh footage now. Firstly I explain that the reinforcements spawn if the initial covie group drops below two in number, and I give a demo of that, letting you see them actually spawn after I kill a Grunt. Then by making the Elite rage after me, I give a close-up view of him vanishing after I trigger the "Destroy Pulse Generator #1" prompt. You can see the distant Jackal vanish too. Unfortunately I also take a lethal dose of needles, I was so focused on giving you a nice view of the Elite. Whoops!

Incidentally, if you're wondering why Cortana wasn't doing her usual yammering at the start, it's because I let her get it out of her system before opening the first door (two long phases of talk). Moreover I delayed the first checkpoint until she'd finished, and saved it prior to using the switch. That way I'd be able to repeatedly make tries at a suitable take for this clip, without hearing her going on and on, every time. Same deal with the next clip too (I used the same save). Cortana has a gorgeous voice, but the early part of this level is the one place I can think of where she gets significantly annoying, particularly as she yammers on while you're busy fighting!

01:53 (How to do things) Finally here's a demo of how you should do things at the start, the critical thing being that the Elite spawns only when you hit the aforementioned trigger for the generator prompt. That way he'll actually be present when you return in a Banshee to have fun with him. Which definitely helps. In my play here, I also go to check that the Elite is blue (my usual preference), plus I eliminate the Jackal, who isn't needed and could damage my Banshee when I return later.

As for why the reinforcements spawn when you hit that trigger (2:47), perhaps it's a consequence of the group 1 survivors being removed, which happens at the trigger. The removal drops their count below 2 after all, so maybe that's causing group 2 to spawn, via the same conditional code which was monitoring the situation earlier. It could be that Bungie just didn't bother ending that code when the trigger was hit (even though the reinforcements would by now be somewhat redundant, as you're long gone).

Closing remarks The reason I missed this is basically that in the set-ups I'd done, I'd largely bypassed the initial covies, and it just happened that enough of them survived the fight with the Sentinels to avoid the reinforcements getting triggered, until that occurred when I reached the generator prompt trigger. With things having always turned out okay, my false picture of the set-up workings never got challenged.

That only happened when I tried setting up on on Legendary. Due to the severe enemy fire at the start, I wiped out the initial covie group, rather than mostly running past them. Consequently the reinforcements spawned early. When I returned with the Banshee later, I was taken aback to find no Elite, and it made me think there was something different about setting up on Legendary. But then I thought, maybe his disappearance was due to how I'd tackled the start, wiping out the first group. When I tried that on Easy, I again found that he vanished. So it looked like the trouble wasn't with Legendary, and instead there was something fundamental I was missing.

On investigation, I realized that he needed to spawn late, when the generator prompt is triggered, otherwise he'd vanish along with any other early covies. This also meant that the start of BCM551 was outright misleading, not only visually (you shouldn't be encountering him early), but also in regard to some captioning. A shocking state of affairs, by Bad Cyborg standards. Well, at least now I've got things straight… I hope!

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