Before I can enjoy some high-altitude riding, there's some tricky Ghost launching required!

(5:25) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Easy. So hey, how about driving a Ghost on the upper ledge near the first bridge? Could be fun! But first I need to launch a Ghost up there. Let's see what I can do.

Released July 4th 2017, gameplay recorded mainly June 30th 2017.

00:02 (Idea) In doing gameplay for BCM248, a lot of Ghost launching was involved, such as this example which features a bit of grunty amusement. One time a Ghost went particularly high, approaching the upper ledge, and that gave me the idea of getting a Ghost up there and driving about. Could be fun!

00:34 (Launching) For my launching I adapted one of the saves I'd created in making BCM248. Namely, the save seen being used in the opening clip. It already featured sixteen frags harvested from nine Marines, and I knew the tenth Marine had two frags. So I added those, then triggered the crashed Pelican area and got five out of the Marines there. That made a pile of 23, which I reckoned would be plenty.

At the start of this clip you see me getting a delayed tunnel checkpoint, for launch attempts. My first launch was pretty weak, but I quickly got some decent height and started getting some aiming control from my blast placement. I was in a Banshee partly because I thought I might need to help the Ghost stay on the ledge. As it turns out, I had a lot of trouble with the Ghost sliding or bouncing off, as seen in the ensuing clips taken from a period of a few hours. They're in chronological order. One time I almost succeeded (see the launch at 2:42), but didn't quite ram the Ghost well enough, and it slid back off. Arrgh!

04:02 (Success, and checkpointing) Finally, after about two and a half hours, the Ghost launched in an unexpected direction and settled on the ledge, beyond the bridge. Yay! After that I wanted a checkpoint. I could've used a tunnel checkpoint but instead I triggered the bridge checkpoint (I hadn't been in that part of the bridge yet). Enemy threat delayed it longer than expected, and the delay continued even after I briefly returned to eliminate the manned Shade (not shown), but eventually I flew a bit higher and that ended the delay. Next movie - the Ghost riding!

Closing remarks In retrospect I probably would've been better off starting from scratch so I could launch from a better place, close to where the ledge is widest and flattest. That's what I'd do another time if I want to set things up again. However, adapting an existing save was appealing at the time, even if the launch spot turned out to be less than ideal.

Also relating to the launch arrangement, I wish I'd remembered to move the hogs clear, so it was only the Ghost which went flying when the frags detonated. Probably didn't matter though - unless there was some kind of processing strain caused by the game having to also process hogs getting blasted. The hog closest to the Ghost is the one I was getting Marines into before killing them. Specifically, I killed each Marine by getting him on the chain-gun and headshooting him. The other hog was used for transporting Marines to the vicinity, two at a time.

If you're wondering about the arc of Marine bodies in the opening clip, that was the result of blasting a pile of bodies away from the frags, to clear things up a bit.

By the way, this topic is kind of an intermission to the entry chamber theme. Ever since BCM242 on reaching the bottom, I've been looking forward to doing a movie on force-launching. That's what I was going to do after the previous movie (dead Grunts at the bottom), but I couldn't resist exploring this ledge theme. But after I'm done with that, I expect then I'll get to the force-launching.

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