Take a ride across the river at the crashed Pelican, courtesy of Covie Airlines.

Posted July 23rd 2011

• Introduction
• The general situation
• Making the Phantom accessible
• Additional advice
• Crossing the river
• Fun across the river and at the dam
• Taking a longer ride
• Older material discussed
• Grenade jumping onto a cannon
• Other uses of the ship

In the crashed Pelican area of rally point bravo, a Phantom hovers beyond the cliff edge, manned by a couple of gunners and a chieftain hanging out of the side. Normally it flies off when you approach, but by doing something unusual you can cause it to drift to a place where you can board it. When it subsequently departs, you have the opportunity of dropping yourself off on the other side of the river, where you can go exploring, and potentially even make your way around to the dam area, dropping in from behind on enemies already spawned there!

Crossing the river by Phantom is something I saw only recently in the 2008 video Out of Sierra 117 - Across the river from the 'Hold X to Trick' clan, with the trick credited to Boargasm, but I think I've got something to contribute in regard to the method. With the aid of Theater mode I investigated to get an understanding of how the Phantom can become accessible; and as a result of that, my recipe for making it so is a bit different from what's in the video, which in any case wasn't for single-player (my sole concern as ever). I've got a few other things to add too, including a different way of getting through the barrier. So even if you've already been for a ride on this Phantom, the article may be of interest. My investigation was done on Easy by the way, but I expect things work the same on other difficulties.

I'll also cover a more direct method of crossing (again something I saw in a video), namely by grenade jumping onto a cannon, though it's also more difficult. As well as using the Phantom to cross the river, there are some other ways you can take advantage of it and I'll cover those in a short section at the end.

Before I give a specific recipe for making the Phantom accessible, it'll be useful to describe the general situation. This should interest you if you've ever wondered what makes the ship end up somewhere odd, such as being 'beached' inland.

Jackal overhang and two trigger points

Let's suppose you've just dealt with the enemies at rally point alpha. Along the descending jungle path there's a roughly triangular overhanging rock slab on the left where a Jackal is often located, a few metres after a loading point. I'll call that the Jackal overhang. Continuing down towards a depression in the path, there's a spawn point a few metres short of the base. That's when the Phantom and assorted personnel spawn in the crashed Pelican area, and you also trigger a checkpoint there. In the base itself there's a small rock on the right, and slightly before that is what I'll call the Arby-advance point. Reaching that point triggers Arby to advance a little to shoot down on enemies, and it also triggers a checkpoint.

The Phantom's behaviour

The Phantom's normal behaviour is to hold station a short way off the cliff, moving around a little and rolling intermittently. The roll period is about three seconds but sometimes the ship holds a particular roll angle for a while. Its rear fins often stick into the left cliffside but it otherwise keeps fairly clear of things. Crucially however, if you go back past the Jackal overhang and wait, the ship goes 'dead' after about five seconds. It stops trying to hold station and its roll angle freezes. It drifts in some direction depending on what the ship happens to be doing at the time, and can end up well inland, embedded in the scenery to some extent. Its frozen roll angle seems to have a strong effect on drift direction. If one side is down, it'll tend to drift that way. Thus, right-side-down would tend to cause an inward drift.

When you return and find the ship in an accessible place, you potentially have time to reach it to go for a ride or whatever, because of how it's impeded from departing. Aside from the possibility of it being slightly blocked, it doesn't like having parts of itself stuck into scenery, and the tail-ramps at the back often seem to be trouble in that regard, perhaps partly merged into rock. Sometimes it can work itself free but other times it needs a bit of shunting - for example using Brute shot blasts.

Sometimes the ship doesn't drift to a suitable place though. Even if it's drifted to somewhere potentially accessible, it may be able to depart sooner than you'd like. Consequently you may need to retry things a few times until you get a good drift, allowing good access. I've taken account of that uncertainty in the next section, where I give a recipe for how to work.

There are two other things which I've taken on board for the recipe. Firstly, when waiting past the Jackal overhang, the conflict area freezes after about 20 to 24 seconds (it varies, and things will unfreeze when you go back past the overhang). Hence there's never going to be any point waiting longer, because at that point nothing about the ship would be changing. Secondly, soon after you head back past the overhang the ship seems to regain its stationing ability. So if it hasn't become significantly impeded by then, you're likely to find it in its usual inaccessible position. Hence you'll want to give it long enough to hopefully drift into trouble.

Having given the general picture, here's my recipe for making the ship accessible and potentially ending up with a convenient checkpoint for subsequent fun.

Basic recipe

Start at rally point alpha or earlier. Starting at rally point bravo would be no good as the path would be sealed off behind you. You may like to use Easy to minimize hardship with enemies. I strongly recommend having Cowbell on, else it can be much harder to free the ship.

After clearing the rally point alpha area, preferably be armed with a well stocked Brute shot for Phantom shunting, plus either a battle rifle or carbine for doing most of your killing. I also recommend having no Marines (you could give the covies a hand to get rid of them). Head down the jungle path killing all the Jackals. As you near the depression in the path, hop a few times to avoid getting a checkpoint until at the small rock on the right (by which time you've passed the Arby-advance point). Preferably save the resulting checkpoint, to make sure you'll be able to restart from there if needed. It's now your start checkpoint for attempts at making the ship accessible.

Run back past the Jackal overhang and stay past for at least 24 seconds. Eight complete pulses of your motion tracker will do. Instead of standing around you could continue up the path to the overhead pipe and back again if you like, as that takes about the right amount of time and may be less boring for you, but the trip itself would be irrelevant. Me, I'd just watch my tracker. The wait gives the Phantom time to drift, and there's no point waiting longer because the conflict area will likely have frozen by then, so now head for the area.

Before you drop down, you may see that the ship is in a favourable position. If so, you might like to let yourself get a checkpoint when you drop down. If you prefer not to get a checkpoint yet (to retain the possibility of reverting to your start checkpoint), do some jumping to avoid getting it, and likewise one triggered as you pass under the bridge, though by then you'll probably be under enemy threat which will take care of the delaying and cancelling. If the ship turns out to be accessible enough for you, you're done, and maybe you've got a handy checkpoint too - useful for taking repeated rides.

If things are no good however, revert (or if necessary reload) to the start checkpoint at the rock to try again, except this time wait a while before springing into action with the above routine. Let's say you wait two seconds. If you again have no luck, try again and use a new delay; e.g. four seconds. And so on. The point of using a different pre-action delay each time is that when the ship goes dead and drifts, it'll potentially drift in a significantly new direction from what you've had before, and maybe this time it'll be good. Keep trying different delays and you should get lucky eventually. If you want to be systematic, I'd suggest steadily increasing your delay with increments of one or two seconds - but not three because that matches the ship's approximate roll period. If you prefer to pick random delays in the hope of getting lucky sooner, that's fine.

I'll mention here that the ship's on-station meandering seems deterministic, which means that if you re-use an earlier pre-action delay, you'll likely get a similar outcome to before. That could be useful if you ever want to duplicate a good outcome later (from the same start checkpoint). It also means that if you get an outcome which you think is getting close to what you want, you could try a slightly greater or lesser delay to try and vary the ship's drift a fraction (e.g. add or subtract a second or less).

Getting a later checkpoint

If the ship is sufficiently impeded, you can clear the area of most or all enemies and then get a checkpoint before playing about with it, free of trouble or distraction. Nice! In particular there's one triggered at the end of the bridge, and one triggered a few metres past the loading point at the exit tunnel, just past a big plant in the ground. In fact the tunnel checkpoint is the best one to use, for reasons I'll get to later. Regardless of which one you use, I suggest delaying it with three or four jumps while heading for your favoured position from which to board the ship, so you're close when you get it.

Prior to triggering your checkpoint, you could take the time to get equipped however you like. In particular I recommend a sniper rifle. If you get across the river, you might want its zooming ability to check out bits of distant scenery, plus there's some other fun you can have with it.

If you want to set things up with a checkpoint like this, bear in mind that the higher the difficulty level you're using, the longer it takes to clear away enemies, hence the longer the ship gets to work itself free, hence the more likely it is to fly off before you're done. When I tried using Heroic (having previously focused on Easy) that turned out to be quite a frustration and I had to really persevere, so be warned.

I've covered the basics, but here's a bit more talk on aspects of making the ship accessible.

Using Theater mode to decide on a pre-action delay

My recipe involved trying different pre-action delays until you got one which gave a good outcome, a rather hit and miss affair even if it probably would give you something acceptable before long. However, you can get more scientific if you like. By inspecting the ship's movements in Theater mode, it's possible to instead calculate a potentially good pre-action delay, as follows.

Starting from your checkpoint at the rock, just wait there 30 seconds or more, then save and quit. Go into Theater mode to watch the Phantom's movements, and look for a time t at which you'd like the ship to go dead, no earlier than 13 seconds into the film. You'd namely want a time when its right side is down (especially if down for an extended duration), as that should give an inwards drift. Now, from the rock it takes about 8 seconds to run back past the overhang, and the ship will go dead about 5 seconds later, i.e. 13 seconds after you start running. If you therefore use a pre-action delay of t - 13 seconds, the ship should go dead around time t. If that doesn't work however, which could happen due to timing inaccuracies, try adjusting your delay slightly - maybe by a second or less.

Bear in mind that if the ship is rolling, it generally does so with an approximate period of about 3 seconds, which means that the right side is typically only down for about 1.5 seconds (and then the left side would be down for about 1.5). That makes quite a narrow window to aim for, timing wise. If there's a time when the right side stays down for longer than usual, that would give you a longer window to aim for, making any timing inaccuracies less critical.

Avoiding blasts near the ship

When you're still dealing with covies, you don't want a Brute firing his Brute shot your way when you're near the ship, else his blasts could free it. There could likewise be trouble with plasma grenades going off nearby. So try to take a route which will minimize those risks. If the ship is right across the path, I suggest hopping onto a rock near the base of the Jackal tree, then up to the bridge area to tackle enemies from there. The blast risk is also the main reason why I recommended having no Marines along - namely so they won't be around to cause or receive blasts near the ship. You've got better control without them.

Shipboard enemies

In regard to the covies on the ship, I generally leave the left gunner alive because he's usually no threat and can be amusing. The right gunner I usually kill, though on Easy it's quite viable to leave him alive if you want. As for the chieftain, he's no threat at all but maybe you want his invincibility gizmo or gravity hammer. Getting shots to register on him seems a bit fickle - probably to do with invisible surfaces of the ship - but if you stand well back (outside the ship) you should be ok with headshots. He can also be killed with melee (e.g. standing beneath him), though you might run the risk of knocking the ship free. I'd usually do any such killing before getting a final checkpoint.

Here's a curiosity. After I'd killed the right gunner, Arby was firing at the vacated cannon for like thirty seconds! I later realized that he'll even fire at it as you're flying off. Blinkin' squid-faced idiot.

Eliminating the music

When you reach the loading point along the descending path, some fairly repetitious music starts up. If you care to wait for it to end, which it does within six minutes, you can continue your set-up work without it. This way, you can have your eventual Phantom fun without the music possibly driving you nuts if you're doing a lot of replaying. I wish I'd thought of this before doing all my investigation work. I've heard enough of that music to last a lifetime!

Now you've got your Phantom ready, let's get to the key payoff. Getting across the river!

Freeing the ship

The ship needs to get sufficiently freed up first. In some cases it can depart of its own accord after a while, maybe putting you under pressure to board in time. Other times it needs a bit of help, but that's usually quite easy with Cowbell. It can be done with Brute shot blasts, grenades, hammer whacks, melee, and even running against it to apply pressure. But the first four options can work even if applied to the ship when you're on deck, which is handy because it removes the danger of getting left behind. So, I recommend boarding and doing something from within. From the back of the deck, I'd usually try a Brute shot round to the dark front panel of the left exit (which tends to hurt the gunner, an added bonus), but the ideal recipe will depend on how the ship is impeded. When you've found a good way of freeing your ship, you'll be able to repeat it for subsequent rides. By the way, if you throw a grenade from inside, use a low trajectory else it's liable to stick to an invisible surface and explode close to you. Likewise, a Brute shot should be fired low.

If you're having trouble, look around the outside of the ship to see what looks like the biggest impedance, then do something specifically to try and get that part of the ship shunted clear. One example I've seen is where the ship's left top side is merged into a tree, but I was able to free it up from within by applying a good blast towards the front of the right exit.

Note: A crouch jump can get you onto the deck from the ground if the ship hasn't become raised by going into some rocks. Or maybe you'll be able to jump off a rock. Boosting yourself up from the ground with a Brute shot while doing a backwards jump is another possibility. Parts of the side of the ship are insubstantial, so when it comes to getting aboard, there's more of an opening that it seems.

One other thing. If the ship is blocking Arby's path, he can easily end up running into it non-stop, idiot that he is, exerting pressure and maybe freeing it up before you're ready. If you think he's causing trouble this way, all I can suggest is that you kill him. He may stay down, but don't bank on it.

Riding across on the deck

When you see that the ship is drifting out (if only very slowly), you can get ready for the ride. All you need to do now is manage to stay aboard as you get pushed around a bit, then jump out of the exit on the right at an appropriate time. That can be easier said than done however, especially the matter of staying aboard. So here's some advice, based on my favoured technique.

Stand at middle back and face forwards. As the ship gets free it surges away but you can simply leave your controls alone to begin with. Shortly past the Pelican, the ship reaches an invisible elastic barrier which the game wants to keep you within, and it tends to slant right before starting to curve more sharply. The net result is that you'd tend to slide out of right exit (sometimes getting pulled back into bounds by the barrier, other times continuing on down having broken through). Watch for this slant which you'll soon get to recognize, and be facing right for it. Just before the potential slide begins, pull back on the movement joystick to try to counter it. You may still slide towards the exit, but hopefully you'll stop in time. The steeper the slant, the more countering you should use. Sometimes there's hardly any slant and you don't need to counter at all, but that seems rare.

If you remain aboard you'll suddenly feel a lot more in control again. Around now you'll see rocks and greenery as the ship banks sharply left. Take an early running jump and you're likely to land on a large expanse of fairly flat rock which I'd consider the standard landing area, and hey presto, you're across the river. The ship continues on a while but then vanishes.

After a little practice the crossing can become quite routine, but the difficulty of getting through the barrier varies according to set-up. In one situation my success rate was 92% measured over 25 tries, but with another I could only manage 36% despite the ship being in a fairly similar position. Something about the flight dynamics made the slide towards the right exit much harder to counter, on average.

Riding across using a cannon

Originally I thought it was no good being on a cannon as the ship leaves, because the ship won't get past the barrier. It stops and strains against it, and if you release or detach the cannon, you fall to the water even if you simultaneously try to move back and mash the jump button (a suggestion I'd seen in a forum). However, just as I was getting this article finished, I found an exception. Merging is the key!

If you're on the right cannon and you let the ship merge into the cliff as far as it'll go, which it soon does while straining against the barrier, simply releasing the cannon causes you to be instantaneously bumped out of the cliff and onto the deck! From there you can continue on to reach the other side of the river just like normal. Woo-hoo! How about detaching the cannon instead? If that's all you do, you fall. But if you simultaneously try to move back and then mash the jump button, you can stay aboard (and you've got the cannon for good measure). I suspect that's due to the ship being slower than usual to accelerate away, on account of being merged into the cliff.

In the searching I've done, I haven't seen these merge-related methods turning up, so perhaps they're new. But in particular, the bump-assisted release method removes all difficulty of staying on deck during the passage through the barrier, so that's handy for newcomers especially. As long as you make sure to man the cannon before the ship has picked up too much speed, you shouldn't have any trouble getting across. That said, it's much slower and doesn't have the aesthetic appeal of deck riding, so I'd still recommend getting proficient with the latter if you're going to be doing much riding at all.

Riding across on the roof

Yes, you can even get across on the roof! You'll have considerable trouble staying on at the barrier, and at first I thought it was impossible, but then I saw DEEP NNN managing to avoid getting swept off in his video Phantom Surfing in Sierra 117 (footage from June 2008), though he subsequently continued on down the river to a hilarious watery death rather than trying to jump off onto the hillside. So I tried again… but failed again. Apparently I just didn't have the surfing gene! A few days later I gave things one more shot however, and finally managed to get through to easily jump off at the standard landing area. Yay!

To break through the barrier, get far forward and try to get sufficiently braced by the ship's hump. When you nevertheless get swept back, try to run forwards to compensate, and with any luck it'll be enough. You can get a good sense of this in DEEP NNN's video, but things may not be quite the same for you. His Phantom was way over on the right near the crashed Pelican, which I think was a bit of a help because of the relatively non-swervy way the ship departed. Mine was in a more standard 'beached' position, low down over land. The flight started with a bit of a swerve that required me to start at the front left of the hump else I'd get swept off as it surged away. Moreover, I remained to the left of centre until through the barrier, which swept me around the left of the hump rather than over the top. So it didn't look as neat as DEEP NNN's surfing, but it was perhaps more typical of what you might expect.

Stealing a cannon

Once you're through the barrier, you have the option of manning a cannon by moving forth from the deck with RB down. If you man the one on the right and detach it at a suitable time, you can end up across the river with it! A very nice bit of last-minute vandalism I think.

Now you're across there's quite a bit to do, including the tantalizing prospect of reaching the dam area and finding it populated with enemies and Marines! But I'll get to that highlight at the end. Let's take things in a more chronological order.

Shooting gunners quick

After you land, quickly line up a sniper rifle - you did bring a sniper rifle didn't you? - and snipe any remaining gunners before the ship vanishes. You could get them with a battle rifle or carbine too. Nice challenge. There's a chance you could finish off the chieftain also, if you've already knocked his hat off, but you don't have a great view of him.

Shooting any remaining covies

You can also shoot enemies you left behind, who'll probably be pestering Arby. Aside from the sniper rifle, the battle rifle has sufficient range. Carbine too, though it's not as good. With the latter two weapons you'd probably want the Grunt Birthday Party skull on to help see the effects of your shooting, but hey, who wouldn't have that skull on? POP! - "Yaaaaaay!"

Exploring the hillside

You're on a massive hillside and there's lots to explore. Off to the right as you land, the ground stretches a long way and in the distance there's a thunderstorm with lightning strikes. Check it out with a zoomed view. Nice! I've been all through the level but can't see that feature in normal play, so that's kind of odd. I mean, somebody must've worked on those lightning strikes, yet you can only see them from up here outside normal bounds? We did hear thunder though.

Much of your view comprises unrendered area which is uncomfortable to look at, but when you get near the far end and stand in a suitable position, you can get a pretty nice view filled with proper scenery, though some of the features are noticeably two-dimensional. Here I made a little discovery. There's actually an invisible surface extending up from the far edge. You can go up it - apparently in mid-air - and from the highest point you get the best view of the thunderstorm, a worthwhile trip. Also, try firing a Brute shot off into the distance there. You can get yourself killed and there are weird graphics associated with it.

As for going in the other direction, you'll find a remarkable feature that way, namely a big hole in the ground with rocks around the perimeter. If you jump down into it, it looks like you can't get back out. A cyborg trap! You might imagine that Bungie thought we'd be able to get up here, otherwise what would be the point of the feature? It's not as if you can see it in normal play. But actually we do see it in the closing cutscene, namely depicting the Crow's Nest opening which the Pelican sinks down into. I read that somewhere and I guess it was recognized soon after players got up here. Crow's Nest itself isn't really this close though. At the start of the cutscene, the Pelican heads off up the river and is ultimately flying away from the hole. That's why I only say the hole 'depicts' the opening. You can actually verify that the game is using the hole for the cutscene by leaving a stolen plasma cannon there so it'll be in shot, then continuing to the dam to resume normal play (see below). I tried this, and sure enough, the plasma cannon was visible on the rock where I'd left it, as the Pelican arrived and descended into the hole. Nice!

Incidentally, after getting across the river you'll find that the free-cam in Theater mode can roam far and wide, now it's outside the normal boundaries. It can go way up high and suchlike (and get a good view of that thunderstorm). The camera described in Escaped free-cam in the dam area can roam this territory too.

And maybe onwards to the dam!

Now for the big surprise. Or at least, that's what it was to me when I encountered it. Under the right circumstances the dam area is present in the distance, potentially including enemies and a hovering Phantom, and the hillside extends all the way around enabling you to get over there and enter from behind! Not only that, you can even trigger the cutscene to get things back on track - maybe after doing some novel mischief.

How does all this happen? Well, if you crossed the loading point near the exit tunnel before you took your ride on the Phantom, the dam area will be present. If you also triggered the checkpoint just beyond the loading point, personnel will be present, including Marines and a passive chieftain, and there's also a Phantom hovering over the dam. If you want to trigger the cutscene once you've dropped down into the dam area, just boost yourself up towards where you should be for the cutscene, and it'll start when you're close enough.

Quite apart from the opportunity of exploring yet more novel territory, there's a lot of fun to be had with this, including the possibility of messing about with Johnson and the chieftain. There's way too much to list here so I've covered it in a separate article, Back route to the dam area.

In the video mentioned in my introduction, a second player was used to make an earlier part of the level load for exploration - which I think was the main aim. Unfortunately it seems impossible to arrange that in single-player, because that earlier part gets unloaded a short distance after you drop down (before you pass under the bridge). The ability to get the dam area loaded seems ample consolation though, with enemies and all.

If you delay leaving the ship somewhat, you can land considerably further along the river than the standard landing area, though you'll need to be careful not to end up in the drink, and there's also the possibility of dying from a heavy impact (invincibility would obviously help there, but for most places it seems redundant). Have some fun seeing how far you can get! You might like to explore that for yourself before reading further, where I'll report on what I've managed.

Early progress

Not far back from where the ship vanishes, there's a massive rock which extends low over the water (check things out in Theater mode). Just before that place, there's a large rock whose upper slopes are well lit by sunlight, and that's where I managed to land a few times when starting to explore how far I could get. You shouldn't have much trouble doing that.

Landing on a strip of rock

For a while I thought that might be as far as you can land. However, by leaving the ship with a grenade jump you can go way past that, ending up on a narrow strip of rock just short of the nearest dam superstructure; namely the strip on which you can find an Easter egg caveman. Ok I haven't actually done it, but I got within a metre of doing it, which was enough to tell me it's possible. Agonizingly, I bobbled on the edge of the rock for a moment and couldn't get quite enough traction to stay up, so I ended up getting wet.

My grenade blast was from a plasma thrown at the deck but the grenade actually went through the deck to stick on an invisible surface below the ship. The ship vanished at the very instant the grenade went off. For the grenade jump I switched on invincibility by the way.

The grenade jump might well be easier on the roof, not least because you'd have a better view of the upcoming scenery, but I haven't tried that because it's way harder to get through the barrier on the roof. I'd want to improve my success rate for that first.

Landing on some dam superstructure

Some while later, I managed to land on some dam superstructure (for which you'll need to've made sure the dam area has been loaded, as described elsewhere). To describe where I mean, imagine you're crossing the dam in normal play. At the 'A2' hydro facility hop onto the wide siding on the right, with rusty red grating running along it. Go to the end and there's a very thin ledge along the superstructure sticking out into the river. That's what you can land on, but probably it would be the section around the corner. Came as a complete surprise when it happened the first time, as I wasn't really aware of that ledge at all. I was like "Huh? How come I'm not drowning? Oh, there's a ledge here. Woo-hoo!"

As for the technique I was using, make a diagonal run across the ship's deck from back right to front left, timing things so the ship vanishes just after you do a jump at the end. You won't hit the roof because it won't be there any more! You should end up on course for the superstructure and will probably fall to the ledge it after hitting the wall.

Landing on the dam?

Could it be possible to actually land on the dam itself, by doing a grenade jump towards the left? I've given it a try (in fact that's what I was doing when I accidentally ended up on the aforementioned narrow ledge) and it doesn't look entirely out of the question if you were to get everything pretty much perfect, departing at the last possible moment and getting maximum boost from the blast. You might just be able to make it to the rusty grating area I mentioned. Have to admit though, getting the assistance of a blast is darned awkward. Hard to control where the grenade goes off.

As mentioned in the introduction, it was the 2008 video Out of Sierra 117 - Across the river from the Hold X to Trick clan which got me started on this stuff. The gameplay wasn't in single-player but I think that was just so the earlier section of the level could get loaded for exploration. The part dealing with making the Phantom accessible translates fine to single-player, and that's what I began with. Trouble is, it didn't always work. In light of my investigation, I now know why. Getting the ship drifted to a good spot depends on what it's doing when it goes 'dead', and as such, success depends on your timing. The timing in the video worked fine for that Phantom, but wouldn't necessarily work for yours, because maybe yours didn't spawn with the same movement pattern. Phantom dynamics vary from spawn to spawn.

In the video, the active player continues on until close to the drop before turning back. That's one of the bits I ended up deciding wasn't actually necessary. For that particular Phantom, making the trip to the drop happened to use up a suitable amount of time so that when the ship eventually went dead, it drifted favourably. But if my understanding is correct, the same outcome would've occurred if the player had merely waited past the Arby-advance point for the right amount of time (approximately the time it took to progress to near the drop and back again). No need to approach the drop.

The player subsequently goes all the way back to the vertical pipe, and that's the other bit I ended up discarding. The key thing is simply to be past the Jackal overhang for long enough to let the ship drift as much as possible; and 24 seconds is sufficient because things are frozen by then. Going to the pipe uses up more than enough time, but is an unnecessary journey.

Unbound tutorial

There was also a slightly earlier version of the method shown in a tutorial which accompanied the video Unbound advertised in April 2008 (see part 2 of the Unbound video at 2:31 and 3:33 for relevant snippets of action). This time the active player goes to the edge of drop and the video says to wait until you hear Johnson's breakfast line before heading back. Again however, it's down to luck as to whether you'd subsequently get an accessible Phantom. Hanging around for Johnson's line happened to cause a suitable time delay for that Phantom, given the movement pattern it spawned with, but it might not for yours.

Anything earlier?

I'm not sure if that tutorial was the first place a method was offered for making the ship accessible, but it's the earliest I know of. People had mentioned displaced Phantoms at least as far back as January 2008 (e.g. one mentioned here), but that's not the same as giving an actual method for getting one of course.

Several days into investigating this Phantom, I came across the 2008 video Halo 3: Phantom Plasma Cannon Hitching by DanInPhilly, in which he grabs a ride without even bothering with the preamble of making the ship nicely accessible. With the ship hovering in its usual location some way past the cliff edge, he just grenade jumps straight onto the cannon, having killed the gunner during his approach. Nifty stuff! I thought I'd mention it here as a further possibility for getting your ride.

Tips and suchlike

However, he does mention that it's rather hard. After a bit of practice I seemed to be getting a success rate of about 10% on Easy with Cowbell (boarding 3 times in 30 tries), but since it was only taking about 20 seconds per try from a checkpoint just before the bridge, that meant I could typically expect to board within four minutes. I did add a couple of tactics though. A few seconds before running in, I threw a grenade from cover to distract enemies. With heads turned, I took less damage on my way to the ship. I'd also killed a few enemies even before dropping down and getting the checkpoint, so that helped too. Actually you can kill all enemies in that wide open area before dropping down, but I didn't bother with that, and there was still a gaggle of Grunts on the cliff edge to the left of the ship. During my few seconds pause while the grenade was in flight, the ship tended to drift slightly closer, so that was good. But I think the most important thing is to leave killing the gunner until just before throwing your grenade, because killing him causes the ship to leave within a few seconds. I was using a battle rifle for a late headshot, but Dan used a carbine.

Your success rate is obviously going to depend quite strongly on how far out the ship happens to be as you enter the area. It does wander around somewhat remember. Maybe my Phantom was a bit closer than Dan's, as it sounds like he was having a considerably harder time of things - but he was using Normal rather than Easy. There may also be some variability in how promptly the ship tends to leave. I haven't investigated that, but sometimes the ship leaves earlier than others.

Landing on the deck?

A few times I sailed close enough to the ship that I might've landed on the deck with just a little more distance. So I think landing on the deck could be viable if your ship happens to be relatively close. It might even be easier than trying to grab a cannon (for which you have to turn as you reach it, to get the prompt).

Continuing to the other side

Unfortunately Dan didn't make it across the river after boarding. Stopped at the barrier and with the ship merged into the cliff, he detached the cannon in resignation of his fate and went for an underwater excursion, poor fella. Yet unbeknownst to him, he'd been just a button-tap away from success! If only he'd released the cannon instead of detaching it, he would've been bumped out of the cliff and onto the deck, and could've continued on to make the crossing! Geez, he's gonna kick himself…

First time shown?

The video was advertised at High Impact Halo in November 2008. A few people commented that the Phantom had been ridden before, which is certainly true for doing it in co-op at least, but I'm not sure whether anyone had grenade jumped onto it like this before. All the other boarding material I've seen has been in situations where the ship had drifted somewhere more convenient. So maybe this was a first.

In this final section I'll run through some other things you can do with the Phantom once you've made it accessible.

Stealing goodies

You can steal one or both plasma cannons to take into the dam area, and likewise the chieftain's invincibility and hammer. Actually, even in normal play you can potentially get a cannon by tagging it or the ship, and maybe it'll get blasted onto land - but it's a bit random.

Riding to the end of the river

The ship arcs along the river towards the dam area (an area which may or may not be present for you, depending on whether you crossed the loading point at the tunnel before departing), and is scheduled to vanish when it nears the dam. If you're on the deck or roof at that point, you'll suddenly find yourself flying through the air with no support, and you plunge into the water, which is kind of amusing (I refer you to the end of DEEP NNN's video mentioned earlier). If you're instead manning a cannon, the ship ends up sinking in the river. And taking you with with it, obviously.

Note: If you're going for a long ride it's nice to've made the dam area load, because the scenery will look much nicer. Get the checkpoint at the tunnel beforehand.

Shunting for fun

The ship will likely already be partly embedded in scenery, but if you do some shunting you can probably get it a lot more embedded if you like - just to see how odd you can get things to look. Might give you a little fun. Also, with the ship moved to the right place, maybe you can jump off the roof to reach somewhere high you've not been before. E.g. I got up in the Jackal tree. The ship seems to be indestructible (despite having cannons you can blow off), so you can do as much shunting as you like.

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