And now, Elite armour made in silver and gold! Top of the line combat bling!

(6:33) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Easy. My last movie merged various Elites into exotic 'harlequins', but I was unable to get a silver-gold harlequin because my silver and gold had such different armour detail. That was disappointing but I've now sorted things out by using a different type of silver Elite, namely a bluish silver camo guy. They seem to have the same armour detail as golds. In this movie you'll see various mergings plus a novel colour-changing trick. For a tutorial on how I set things up (it took a bit of working out), see the companion movie BCM287.

Released May 27th 2018, gameplay recorded May 23rd 2018.

00:02 (The Elites) I thought I'd open with a short clip showing the two Elites, letting you see that they have the same armour detail. The gold was from the room preceding the first of the bridges above. The other was a cloaked guard triggered on the second. Now dead, he's bluish silver. The silver guy in my previous two movies was much less blue (though still with a tint) and had different armour detail.

Talking of details, have you ever noticed the hand area on these types of Elite? It's remarkably blocky and crude looking, almost as if it's some temporary modelling which Bungie forgot to finish off. There's also no finger separation - just a faint soft line in between. Even if these guys are meant to be wearing mittens, they're incredibly blocky mittens!

00:23 (Super-merging) Having created a save in which the Elites have been moved into a door frame corner ready for merging, here's a full play in which I super-merge them. This save always super-merges to silver, and can do so quite quickly because the Elites happen to be starting off with a fair degree of alignment. On blast 4 you can see a silver appearance take hold, which indicates that they're either super-merged or very nearly so (it's not a guarantee). I do one more blast, and by now they're very likely super-merged I think, so I blast the resulting multi-Elite away from the corner and start moving him around - and eventually separate with a tag for fun. As with the Elite combinations seen in BCM284 though, you can expect a bit of flickering. Some is seen towards the end of the play.

01:46 (Getting a harlequin) Now here's the real payoff I was going for: getting a silver-gold harlequin. On blast 4 a mostly silver appearance takes hold, but with some flickering in evidence. We're on the edge of super-merging so I get the multi-Elite away from the wall, hoping to see a nice harlequin. Turns out well!

03:02 (Another example) This footage shows another harlequin. Actually a bit better than the last one I think, because the balance between silver and gold is more even.

03:30 (New set-up, super-merging) Now I'm using a different set-up, but it's the same guys. This one always super-merges to gold; I think it's random what colour your set-up gives. It also tends to require more blasts than the earlier one did - presumably because the Elites happen to be starting off less well aligned. The clip picks up the action on blast 4. On blast 5 a mostly gold appearance takes hold, so I do one more blast which is probably enough. Notice that when I blast him around and he settles, there's a bit of a dance between the two colours before gold wins out. A curious difference from the earlier set-up.

04:36 Here's a demo of something I noticed. If I cross a loading point then return, he's changed to silver! Interesting. A blast will restore the gold though.

05:07 (Colour change seen) Eventually I had a thought. Maybe you can see the colour change occur? And sure enough you can, as seen in this demo. Fun huh? I show the change twice, giving an extra close view the second time - which is more dramatic with all the blood that suddenly gets restored.

Two other things to note, which you may've spotted. (1) After he changes to silver the first time and I rocket him back up the passage, that blast doesn't restore gold. Seems like the "blast restores gold" rule only applies in the original loading zone. (2) When I then cross to the original loading zone, there's no colour change. He remains basically silver.

Closing remarks It was pleasing to get a silver-gold harlequin after all. I hadn't paid much attention to Elite armour details before, but that was the critical issue here. If you want to see how I created the saves used here, see BCM287.

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