Alternative set-up method for valley Banshee spawning, using checkpoint delaying…

(6:25) Level 2 ('Halo') on Easy. In this alternative method for repeatedly seeing the valley Banshees spawn from the cliffside hilltop, you get your final checkpoint by carefully delaying the one triggered underground near the survivors, rather than using a rockslide dropship checkpoint. Surprisingly you seem to get different and less varied spawning behaviour, if that's all you do. But if you precede the work by briefly getting an entry checkpoint for one of the other survivor areas, that actually affects things, and the spawning characteristics seem akin to those of my original method demoed in BCM302.

Released August 30th 2018, gameplay recorded August 26th-27th 2018.

00:02 (The method) I won't say much here as the movie does the job fine, but the key ingredient is to delay the meet-up checkpoint triggered near the survivors, to eventually get it as your set-up checkpoint. In particular you rely on enemy threat when going up the hill. Once up however, you should quickly dismount to continue the delay with jumping and one or more grenades. In my example of finishing off, I take a simple and easy approach. To mention a few specific bits:

00:43 The point of killing nearby ground-level covies is just to make the pick-up safe, but especially to make sure no Grunt is there to lob a plasma. It's not strictly necessary though, especially if you were to bring more than one survivor out from underground. However, I thought it was the best strategy.

01:28 I bypassed the two underground Grunts because I was planning to potentially kill a Marine there on the way back (during combat, to hopefully avoid being declared a traitor). But as it turned out, I was only left with one Marine anyway, because one of the final two ran off a bridge!

01:36 The meet-up checkpoint is triggered a short way across whichever bridge you use. Initially you can mostly use enemy threat to keep the checkpoint delayed.

03:12 I throw a frag rather than a plasma, simply because I want to keep all four plasmas for potential tagging fun with the Banshees. Just before pick-up however, I threw a plasma because there was a loose one I could immediately replace it with. That's usually the case.

03:30 (Two spawnings) In my two spawning examples, notice that the Banshees meet with what I'll call a 'wing barge'. That's typical, when you've set things up like this. In fact, I set things up many times and did many spawnings, and perhaps they always did a wing barge. Can't remember for sure, but if it wasn't always, it was at least the case for most set-ups.

04:11 (Refined arrangement) If you take a bit more care, you can end up with an arrangement like the one I favoured with my original set-up method. Here I show an example using an extra grenade throw (although, if you don't want to use up another grenade, you can still end up with something similar, after shifting the hog away from the dismounted Marine using melee, while jumping).

04:52 (Spawning) There's an unsual break-off after this spawning, but it's only brief. The Banshees quickly come together again and resume circling. I hadn't seen such a break-off before. Perhaps it can only be seen with this new set-up method?

05:18 (Optional precursor) I was surprised to find that the new set-up method tended to give different and less varied flight behaviour, post-spawning. However, it turns out that if you precede the main work by getting an entry checkpoint for one of the other survivor areas, that actually affects things, giving spawning characteristics akin to those of my original method. Why should it affect things? Getting the checkpoint is enough to've caused the spawning of covies in the relevant survivor area, and I suspect there's something about their presence which affects the Banshees. But that's all I can say.

05:42 (Spawning) I have some combat fun after this final spawning, and for the first time ever (I think), I destroy two Banshees with a single frag. Nice sight eh? It's rare that you even get a chance for that, as they obviously need to be approaching close together.

Closing remarks Originally, I don't think I'd considered using the meet-up checkpoint. I just focused on using a rockslide dropship checkpoint. But I eventually tested to see if it was delayable; and when I found that it was, I realized it might provide a different way of checkpointing on the hill. However, it was only recently that I finally got around to testing - and found that it was indeed viable.

The delaying work is a little fiddly (it would certainly help to be experienced), but not hard. For me, the main advantage of this alternative set-up method is that when it gets to the actual spawning, the game isn't in danger of dropping frames due to excess strain related to having triggered the rockslide dropships. But one other advantage is simply that it's a bit faster.

You could doubtless do the pick-up at the other opening to the underground area, but I haven't actually tried that out to see how it compares. I chose the opening I did because I thought it would be more convenient and perhaps work better. It's certainly more easy to pick up a Marine, because it's easy to have the hog right nearby, whereas the other opening is within a walled enclosure. If you were using the other opening, note that when you head down to the survivors, the meet-up checkpoint is triggered just after the last ramp.

© 2004-2020 by Rockslider