Spectacular sniping beckons, as Stacker gets launched all over the place without the hog!

(7:25) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. In connection with Warthog catapulting, sometimes the gunner gets ejected by the boost. He can go quite a way, which can be amusing, but the real fun occurs if he also gets a kick from the hog after it bounces off the Pelican. Indeed, that's something you can specifically try for. The resulting launches can be tremendous - and the sniping opportunities are glorious! In this movie I cover these topics using the same set-up as in BCM372. So, it'a another bad day for Stacker.

Released August 22nd 2019, gameplay recorded August 10th-21st 2019.

00:02 (Boost ejections) In this first phase I cover simple boost ejections, in which the Pelican actually plays no part. Seven examples, starting with this quite modest one. This ejection was unintentional, and two of the other are as well. The rest are deliberate, all done on August 17th, the day after I released the previous movie.

00:17 He can actually go quite far, and it's not uncommon. This is a typical example.

00:30 I tag a wheel here and he gets boosted onto the adjacent plateau. Nice landing! Another unintentional ejection.

00:42 On this occasion I get trigger-happy and finish him off with a pistol shot before he hits the ground. Bit of a comedy clip.

00:52 An amusing impact on the big rock near the cliff edge. Another unintentional ejection.

01:05 I spent a while trying to get him to land on this mini-tower, wondering if he'd survive. With the right grenading I was able to often get him on a promising trajectory, and he came tantalisingly close many times. Finally I got this landing, but it killed him.

01:18 He gets a cushioning bounce off the rock featured earlier, and survives! But I lob a plasma grenade his way and he's rather slow to dive clear.

01:45 (Getting a kick) Now we get to more substantial launching, courtesy of a kick from the hog after it bounces off the Pelican. Again, seven examples. Quite an amusing and unusual one to start, in which he's hit by the underside of the hog. This launch was unintentional but the rest are deliberate. Indeed, all launches in the remainder of the movie are deliberate (done from 17th August onwards).

02:03 A fairly low trajectory along the hill. But not low enough for Stacker to survive the landing.

02:16 This time he heads for the tower, and bounces off the near side before hitting the platform.

02:30 As you can see from this example in which he passes through the middle of the tower, he could get zapped if the beam were to fire at the right time. This set-up doesn't have the appropriate timing though.

02:45 Kicked left onto the plateau. Fatal landing though.

02:56 You can get tremendous height, and here's a decent example, in which he gets hit by the side of the hog as it spins. If you look at it frame by frame, you'll see that he actually gets at least two knocks from the hog. Not uncommon.

03:13 A monster launch; and again, at least two knocks from the hog. He heads into the hillside survivor area. Notice that he's actually still alive when he goes out of sight. I can't remember whether or not I went to find him. But he probably died.

03:31 (Sniping extravaganza) Finally, a sniping extravaganza featuring some of my favourite examples from many hours of play. These are mainly kick-launches, but two clips just feature a simple boost (which likewise provides good sniping opportunities). I've started with a launch to the left, which is a trajectory type I was getting quite a bit in my earlier days on this topic. You sometimes get quite a bit of glare from the sun, as seen here.

03:44 A fairly standard launch across the survivor area. Big but not giant.

03:57 No kick here; just a boost. Includes a dramatic view of the Pelican swooping overhead, and the hog catapulting away.

04:07 This clip was a late final addition. I mainly included it because of the unusual and amusing kick, in which the hog is vertical and hits Stacker with its rear. But another nice feature is the presence of the ring in the background as he falls.

04:19 Pretty big launch along the hill, and a blue beam fires in the background, which is nice. Stacker was heading into the valley.

04:31 A nice snipe as Stacker crosses my zoomed view then hits the tower.

04:43 A modest low trajectory, but it made for a nice snipe. I just got him in time.

04:53 Late in the development of the movie, I happened to get a launch where Stacker passed across the moon. I think it was the first time he'd headed that way, so I wasn't really ready for it. I took a shot but completely fluffed it, unzooming my rifle in the process. However, I then tried to duplicate the trajectory. Took quite a lot of work, but eventually I got a few successes, and this one was my favourite.

05:07 As with the moon thing, this is a trajectory type which I only obtained late on. In this example I find it amusing how Stacker gets booted by the front of the hog. He sails out pretty far and I take my time with the shot, leading the target slightly.

05:21 A giant launch across the tower, and a nice snipe with the edge of the planet in the background. I've let this clip continue a while to include a good amount of falling against the picturesque cloudy background.

05:35 A huge trajectory, extremely steep. I was like "Whoa!" when this happened. Sniping him at such a steep angle isn't easy. I later had a good few examples where I failed.

05:52 I let Stacker sail into my zoomed view, and then snipe him before he bounces off the tower.

06:03 Another big trajectory, and I nail him just before the Pelican crosses my zoomed view. As with many of the snipes (not all), there's a red blood splatter visible.

06:16 No kick, just a boost - and an easy snipe.

06:27 Finally, a monster launch similar to the one shown at the end of the last phase - except that I gratuitously tag the hog for show. I had a good way of getting such trajectories and had already spend quite a bit of time trying to pull off an excessively long-range snipe, which I knew would make a good ending for the movie. But I kept failing. I think it was around this time that I realised I needed to lead the target by quite a significant amount, rather than aiming directly at him (bear in mind, I'd never sniped fast-moving targets at such distance before). With that realisation I finally obtained this success.

I then went off the find where he went. I checked the hillside survivor area first, because that's where he was usually ending up I think (I'd found him there on a previous occasion). But I couldn't see him, so I tried the waterfall area, and there he was. In retrospect I could've anticipated that from the view after I'd taken the shot. But at the time, I wasn't used to identifying which bit of distant scenery was part of the waterfall area.

Closing remarks That was another massive editing job, with an abundance of nice launches and snipes to choose from. Glad to get it finished at last. Now I can wipe a load of unused stuff off my hard drive and recover some gigabytes!

Incidentally, there was one very unusual kick launch I got, in which Stacker was propelled in the general direction of the Pelican. I only got it once though, and the footage wasn't too good, so I decided not to include it. Later I also got a freaky launch in which he whizzed off so fast (roughly behind me, again) that I actually lost track of him, though I later spotted him when inspecting the footage frame by frame. Later, I may put some work into trying to get such unusual trajectories deliberately, and cover them in a movie.

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