Dropship Ghost teleport trick
Posted November 26th 2024, updated later
Associated movies
One of the many fun things you can do using rearranging is get yourself teleported in a Ghost. I briefly described this in a March 2005 article titled 'Teleporting in a Ghost', but I've now replaced that with this much fuller piece, prompted by my finally making a movie on the topic.
The trick, and setting up
Skip at the first bridge (do a descent trick or grab the bridge Banshee if any), and head through the level. At the exit of the rising tunnel after the cavern, you'll find the two Ghosts which are destined to be brought in by the dropship. The game will move them into their carry positions when you trigger the ship later, a short way past the last of the paving. The Ghost on the right as you exit the tunnel gets moved to the front of the dropship, while the Ghost on the left goes to the rear.
Now here's the thing. If you've repositioned such a Ghost so you can be aboard it when the ship is triggered, you'll 'teleport' along with it! All of a sudden you'll be coming down with the ship, sitting in the Ghost, and often a Grunt will raise the alarm (despite not actually being able to see you, and not even facing the right way). The Ghost won't be able to move or fire until it's dropped, but you're able to bail at least.
To set things up appropriately then, move the Ghosts to some place before the dropship trigger line. In my tutorial BCM528 I put them on the paving (see pic), but you could have them closer to the trigger line if you want (it's approximately level with the end of the central rock just past the paving). Or indeed, further away. After resuming normal play, return to the vicinity to start having teleporting fun.
You'll want a convenient checkpoint though, so you can repeatedly teleport. It's a good idea to also save it (see below). There's one triggered at the preceding loading point (fractionally after, to be more precise). You could either pause there to get it, or you could delay it until you've wiped out the corner covies, if that's what you want. In my movie I left them alive, mainly so they'd add some action, but if you'd rather be unpressured you can kill them. I'd suggest leaving them alive initially though. You can always modify your save later, getting a new checkpoint.
Random short delay
When you hit the trigger, teleporting isn't actually immediate. There's a short delay which seems to be random but less than a second. The random delay means you can't fully control when teleporting occurs, and that's something relevant to certain activities involving careful timing.
Teleporting happens at the same instant that you get the message "Reach the transition to the third chasm". I assume this is also when the ship and its passengers materialize.
Dropship checkpoint warning
Bear in mind that a checkpoint gets triggered along with the dropship. It'll initially be delayed by enemy threat, but if that threat ends, you might inadvertently get the checkpoint, leaving you unable to revert for another teleport. That's why it's a good idea to save a checkpoint beforehand. You'll always be able to get back to that by ejecting the disc and reloading.
Seeing the passengers
While descending aboard your Ghost, you can pan the camera around to see some of the covie passengers (see pic), which is amusing. Two Elites ride at the back of the compartments, and to see them you'll need to be in the rear Ghost. As for the minor covies, on Heroic you get four Grunts and two Jackals, and you'll need the front Ghost to see the Jackals, who ride at the front. On Legendary you get two Grunts and four Jackals, and you can get excellent close-ups of the Jackals riding second from front (as seen BCM529). On Easy and Normal it's just six Grunts (the Jackals stayed home).
When you teleport, the camera direction is maintained. You can use this to get a desired arrival view, such as a view of the dropship from in front. But in particular, if you're facing the right way, which is something you can learn, you can even see a covie spawning! They drop into position, and Jackals initially have their arms out. Unlike Elites and Grunts, Jackals don't settle with their feet on the floor. They're oddly suspended. As a consequence though, you get better views of them than the Grunts.
Teleported tags
If a Ghost has a plasma grenade fizzing on it when it's moved to the dropship, the grenade moves with it and thus explodes at the ship. But the blast won't damage the Ghost, nor you if you're aboard. And here's a curiosity: if it happens to go off at the instant of arrival, the blast sound seems to be delayed and has an unusually loud and deep sound.
If there's a plasma fizzing on you when you teleport, you don't get immunity. You'll either be hurt or killed. I did some testing on Heroic in which I started in perfect condition. When the plasma detonated on arrival (explosion visible in the very first frame there) or 1 frame later, I was almost always killed (see pic). But there were rare cases when I survived detonation on arrival, albeit with health reduced to five bars. When the detonation was later than 1 frame after arrival, I was merely hurt.
Two details I'll mention. (1) With detonation 1 frame after arrival, death wasn't immediate. My health was initially visible as five bars, but then on the next frame I was dead. (2) When killed by detonation on arrival, I often got an anomalous checkpoint after being reverted.
As I mentioned, that testing was when I was in perfect condition on Heroic. If you're in a sufficiently weak condition though, the blast will kill you regardless of the detonation timing, something you can see multiple spectacular examples of at the end of BCM528.
Needle death after teleporting
If you're being needled and take a critical amount, but happen to teleport before the slightly delayed explosion, it happens at the ship. BLAM! That can be quite amusing. But it does takes good timing to teleport at just the right moment.
Of course, you also need to have enough needles coming your way. You'll probably want one of the Elites to have a needler (sometimes they both have plasma rifles). If you can cope with Legendary, you may find that best to use as the covies are much more vigorous with their needle firing. Heroic is certainly viable though.
In doing this activity, I think it's a good idea to quickly kill any Grunts who don't have needlers, so that when presenting yourself as a target, you mainly (or even solely) have needles coming your way. The point is to reduce your chance of dying from anything other than needles.
Camera catch-up phenomenon
If you bail at the right time when teleportation is imminent, something interesting occurs (shown in BCM529). When you teleport, the camera gets left behind but then plays catch-up with you, whizzing through the air over the course of about a second (the picture here shows the last video frame before getting a first-person view). Then you'll be falling to your death. When I say "the right time", here's what I think the situation is: teleportation must occur during the dismount animation.
If you bail too early you don't teleport at all (the dismount animation completed before you teleported, so you're no longer connected with the Ghost). On the other hand if you bail too late, namely after you teleport, there's again no camera anomaly. You'll simply be bailing from the Ghost's carry position. Getting the timing right is partly down to luck, bearing in mind that there's a random short delay after crossing the trigger line.
Incidentally, you can also get a strange 'bounce' dynamic where the camera has initially travelled with you but then whizzes back along the direction you came, then bounces back to rejoin you. The accompanying picture here shows an unusual close-up view of MC and Ghost, obtained during one such dynamic. It was frame 4 after teleporting, and the camera was now whizzing away from MC.
Modifying to a new checkpoint
If you ever want to modify your set-up, bear in mind that you can always get a delayed tunnel checkpoint to finish that off. Modifying can for example be useful when trying to do specific things that might take many tries, such as getting a good view of a covie spawning, having a plasma grenade explode on you the instant you arrive at the ship. You can set things up to make the work relatively efficient.
Battling fun
Needless to say, you can always enjoy some fighting after teleporting (although, you can equally do that without teleporting). I showed a bit of this in BCM528, and you can probably see why I took the trouble to equip myself with a rocket launcher. It's great for destroying Ghosts!