Elite fireworks
Posted April 23rd 2005, expanded December 7th 2010
Associated movies
Would you like to send an Elite shooting up high, leaving behind a spectacular pink trace as body-shaking needle explosions go off one after another, over a flight that can last almost half a minute? With a bit of work you can get a pair of strangely frozen Elites ready to be turned into such fireworks, and you can have fun launching them in various ways, either individually or both at once. Much more satisfying than Warthog launching surely. After all, Warthogs don't scream.
You get your Elites by moving a pair of Ghosts deeper into the level in advance - across a loading point - causing their future pilots to end up frozen near them yet still alive. You can use rockets to blast the ground beneath an Elite, and you can send lots of needles into him and maybe tag him with plasma grenades. When you back off across a special 'release line' he suddenly becomes unfrozen and everything you did to him starts to take effect. With a scream guaranteed to warm your cyborg heart, he shoots off at high speed and needle explosions start to go off one after another. You'll get bangs from any plasma grenades, and you even have some control over their timings. When your firework is really high you can watch through a sniper scope; and you'll need it because these guys will go way up into the mist, maybe even leaving blood splatter on the ceiling!
Originally this was a longish one-page article, but on revisiting the topic for some movie-making and to add some pictures, I ended up finding a lot more to talk about, including new discoveries (notably tag launching) and improved set-up work (notably the option for pre-frozen Elites), so it's now a multi-page affair. I cover the core set-up work on one page and there's also a page of further advice. The subsequent fun you can have is covered on three pages, and finally there's a page on alternative launch locations and the wider picture.