I'm totally gonna try this in real life when I get my own personal Banshee!

(7:21) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Recently I learnt of 'Banshee teleporting', a remarkable business which speed runners have been using but which could have other uses too. Here's my version of Burnt Scythe's amazingly long 'tunnel teleport'. His recent tutorial outlined a range of melee options to try, but ultimately I've gone with a different first aim which I prefer, and which allows a fairly nice second aim. How well does it work? Measured from a post-dismount checkpoint and not trying to do it fast, I get around 90% success rate whether aiming with a pistol or sniper rifle. Maybe you can do even better on PC. Burnt Scythe reckoned the teleport could save a few seconds. My own interest wasn't in speed running though. It's just such an amusing and spectacular thing to do, which I'd hitherto been unaware of. It's not hard either. Give it a go!

Released March 12th 2019, gameplay recorded March 8th-12th 2019.

00:02 (Introduction) Getting straight to it, here's an example of the teleport with a freshly grabbed Banshee. At the far end, Rolling Thunder is triggered but the next section isn't loaded yet. Originally I thought I was looking at a dark wall there, but I now think it's an invisible wall, through which you're seeing the dark void. I know there's a dark void because I've sometimes fallen into it when teleporting (see 6:32). You can get the next section loaded by crossing a line on the hump.

00:57 (Practice set-up) Here's my set-up for practicing (and experimenting) with pistol and sniper rifle. After grabbing the Banshee I've triggered the first ground battle (e.g. see BCM241). However, you could always set up with a stolen platform Banshee if you're no good at grabbing.

Get the rifle then fly to the tunnel (go high if you want to skip some covie triggers). At this point you could position the Banshee and finish off with a delayed tunnel checkpoint as I eventually do, but there's a drawback with that. When you teleport, a checkpoint will trigger for Rolling Thunder; and if you get it, you won't be able to revert. You could keep it delayed by jumping, but that soon gets to be annoying; and anyway, you might forget. So I prefer to trigger Rolling Thunder in advance, to get rid of its checkpoint. Doesn't take long. For safety I snipe a few cavern troops before flying to the next door.

01:44 In regard to final Banshee position, there's plenty of leeway but I'm using what I think is fairly optimal. Keep a bit of distance from the wall, and preferably be a fair way back from the light metal strip, to minimize the danger of fatally teleporting into a hump (see later). As for angle, get pretty square on. I do that by minimizing jaggies on the strip (specifically on the darker line, furthest away). For me they're quite prominent. If you have a higher resolution display they may be less obvious, but hopefully still usable. Be sure the Banshee is angled fully down and settled before you bail.

02:04 A tunnel checkpoint got triggered on the way back, and the game won't let you trigger a new one for a while (about 73 seconds on PAL Xbox). So after settling the Banshee, you'll probably need to wait a bit before you can trigger one to finish off. A minute should be more than enough, even if you settled fast.

02:21 (Using the sniper rifle) With the sniper rifle's high magnification I can demonstrate the aiming most clearly. It also gives you the most precision of course (for those of us with interests outside speed running). From here, teleporting is a 3-step process.

(1) Move into the central left niche and aim centrally between the two diagonal white marks shown, then unzoom and melee.

(2) Move around into the left wing niche for the next melee. Notice a white curve and two black lines (which Burnt Scythe referred to as a "scratch and dot"). Aim at the tip of the left line. Unzoom, hold forward (I use the D-pad here for exactness), then melee. As you continue to hold forward, you automatically drift into another niche. When you arrive, release.

(3) Aim for the near-vertical crack shown (the join line between wing and hull). I normally raise my aim fairly minimally as shown, but you could aim a bit higher if you want. Only your lateral angle matters. Then run left to trigger the teleport (again I use the D-pad for exactness).

On arrival you'll find some frozen covies (you wouldn't get them on a speed run of course) and can have a bit of fun with them as shown. Maybe I'll elaborate on that in another movie.

Incidentally, step 1 increases the angle of the Banshee slightly, and step 2 brings it back down a bit, trapping you in a small area (e.g. try moving back and you'll get an unpleasant oscillation effect). Step 3 brings you to a place where the game's bumping operation is triggered; an operation for moving you clear of something (or that's how I see it anyway).

03:38 (Once more) Here it is again but at a more normal speed, now the instructions are over.

03:55 (Using the pistol) Now the pistol. With the first aim I don't actually bother zooming. I prefer it unzoomed, as the two marks sit nicely in the reticle.

The second aim is trickier. I zoom, but on my fuzzy TV I can't even see the black lines, so what I do is move the reticle so the very top is at the bottom end of the white curve (and specifically I favour moving it upwards into position). That gets me close on target if I do it just right. You can't see it very clearly in the movie but it's clear enough in the game. If you have better image quality, such as the high resolution I see in Burnt Scythe's tutorial (a big advantage), maybe you'll prefer aiming for the black tip directly, but that's up to you. Just get on target whichever way you find easiest.

The third aim is easy and there's more tolerance there, so it's nothing much to worry about.

04:20 (Checking accuracy) It's worth gauging your pistol aiming performance by checking with a sniper rifle, to see if you're doing a good job; and if not, modify your aiming habits accordingly. When you get reliably good, you can teleport with high success rate. I managed 90% with a set-up like this, measured over 50 tries. That's with no time pressure though.

04:43 (Alternative triggering) Just to mention, an alternative way of triggering the teleport is to rotate to align with the left wing tip (and I do mean the very tip; the leftmost part) then run forward. I don't see any advantage, but in my early days of experimenting I found it useful because whenever you teleport into the white void, you can instantly see the Banshee and thus get a sense of approximately where you ended up.

04:57 (Error effects from poor second aim) This section shows typical error effects arising from a poor second aim (given a good first aim). It may give you some sense of how sensitive the aiming is. On the positive side though, erring left or right is quite forgiving (assuming good first aim). You potentially just teleport a bit longer or shorter.

06:00 (First aim is sensitive too) The first aim is pretty sensitive too though. You can check in detail for yourself, but here I've just given one example which was also a chance to show something amusing with a plasma grenade. Teleportation is at first refused. I'm still able to trigger a teleport by aiming right a bit, but I go into the white void. I knew that was going to happen, so I left a plasma fizzing on the Banshee, to see it go off from out yonder.

Incidentally, when you get a refusal such as this (due to insufficiently accurate melees most likely), moving back to the niche and adjusting your angle slightly is worth a try, but most likely you'll just go into the void I find. I thought of including a clip which would say "If you get a teleport refusal try altering your aim", but I couldn't even get an example where it worked, so I decided it wasn't worth covering. There's usually no compensating for poor melee aiming.

06:26 (Don't be angled left much) Going back to the issue of Banshee placement, don't be angled left much, or your could get teleported into the hump, resulting in a fall! It looks like the the game only teleports you in a level fashion. So if you arrive at ground which is a bit higher than where you were, your feet will be below the ground and you consequently fall (unless perhaps you were only marginally below the ground, in which case you might feel a little bobble and come up onto the surface, something I think I sometimes experienced with the sloping sides of the passage when experimenting).

06:45 (Angling right) Angling right is more forgiving. In this example I'm angled strongly right to show the possibility of arriving at a Ghost. On a speed run I think you could save about a second if you were to board it instantly and manoeuvre optimally in getting the scenery loaded. Pretty risky though. One risk being, the Ghost can actually splatter you, because when you arrive, it has yet to settle! Another risk is, you might teleport into the sloping edge of the passage and fall. Or you might miss the passage entirely of course. Nevertheless, it's quite viable to target the Ghost. You could judge the appropriate Banshee angle by the length of the jaggies on the strip. I did that quite a bit, in connection with getting the splatter clip.

Closing remarks In terms of the teleport you get, I suspect my version is safer than what Burnt Scythe was doing in his tutorial. He was arriving very close to the side of the passage, which is risky (you could fall if you're a bit short), whereas my normal arrival place is near the middle of the passage. It's also a bit further from the hump, which again seems good for safety (allowing a bit more error tolerance in the Banshee angle).

Whatever melee aims you're using, obviously the key thing is your actual success rate. I already mentioned my pistol success rate of 90% on PAL Xbox (across 50 tries with a practice set-up like this, with no time pressure), so that's something for you to measure against. Actually I got a near identical rate with a sniper rifle. I'm not sure why it wasn't closer to 100%, in view of the rifle's precision. Slight mystery there. Of course, my 90% doesn't include the Banshee positioning aspect of the overall operation. But I consider good Banshee positioning to be relatively easy - at least when there's no time pressure!

Last I heard from Burnt Scythe, speed runners haven't yet been incorporating the tunnel teleport. But if it indeed saves time (he estimated 3 seconds originally), surely they'll start using it soon. Perhaps my version will help. I don't know how optimal it is though. For all I know, there may be a melee combo with significantly greater tolerance to aiming errors. That might might be arrived at through careful exploration and analysis (using a sniper rifle), but it would take a fair bit of work.

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