Some of the troops on this covie dropship are going to have a pretty short flight!

(6:50) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. This fourth dose of valley heights fun concerns the spawning of dropship 4. Basically, you can set up a handy checkpoint for seeing it spawn and for trying to kill occupants. Had quite a bit of fun there!

Released October 21st 2019, gameplay recorded October 18th-21st 2019.

00:02 (Setting up) I want to use the dropship 3 checkpoint, so I thin out the covies to hurry the ship along. When their number gets low enough, the ship is triggered, which saves you having to wait so long for it. I throw a frag to make sure the checkpoint is delayed while I finish my shooting (I could've made do with jumping instead), and then use jumping as I head for the ship 4 spawning area.

00:57 I go to a good place for killing Jackals on the ship's right side (judging it from the light and dark patches on the grass), and opt for the sniper rifle. From experience I know when the ship is due to spawn, relative to the music, and I stop jumping when the ominous low tone comes. That gives me the checkpoint several seconds before the spawning (enough time to take up a careful aim). I save it so it won't get permanently lost. Bear in mind that when the ship spawns it'll trigger another checkpoint (though if you're standing as close as this, it gets delayed a while by enemy threat).

01:15 (Watching and killing) I can watch the spawning now, but I'm mainly interested in slaying Jackals. My second clip gives an example of that, and I nab his plasma pistol (after which the ship 4 checkpoint comes).

Note: in both of these clips, if you go through frame by frame, you'll see that the turret appears one frame after the ship and the Jackals. Notice also that three of the Jackals do a bit of falling.

01:40 (Plasma pistol sniping) This is one of my better and shorter plays from the previous checkpoint. After demonstrating my new acquisition to Stacker, who's none too pleased, I do some plasma pistol sniping, killing the distant Jackal with my second barrage. The sniper rounds were just to make him turn a bit, so the shield didn't cover as much. Just after that, ship 4 cruises overhead on its way to vanishing.

Incidentally, notice how the Jackal kept trying to look up and to the right? That comes from when I catapulted over in the hog. He must've caught sight of it heading over, and that changed his behaviour. He became somewhat fixated on that last enemy sighting.

02:38 (Pistol headshot) A pistol headshot will do the job too of course. In this example with 'Jackal 3' - meaning third from the left - I use zoom, but that was mainly to get a clearer view for the movie. Needless to say, I'd learnt a good aim in advance.

02:48 (Tagging) The fun steps up a notch as I do some tagging, with some gratuitous mid-air sniping for good measure. My first tag is on Jackal 3, then I fix on Jackal 2. In the final clip I zoom in for a better view of the tag.

03:33 (Invisible ground revealed) I had an idea for what to do with a dead Jackal. Use his blood to reveal invisible ground! I did quite a few plays for this, but this one was my favourite. At the start, my two-grenade boost is ideal, taking the Jackal all the way to the ground I wanted to deal with; an area featured in BCM382.

04:48 (Setting up for the other side) On the other side of the ship you get an Elite and another Jackal, but you can't get such a good angle for killing them. You're going to be down low, and there's only a very short window of opportunity before the door covers the target. Here's me finishing my set-up. As it turned out, my initial aim was pretty close to where I needed to aim to kill the Elite. That was partly luck, as I hadn't been sure of where best to stand and aim. I was making a guess based on (I think) one previous attempted set-up which hadn't been good enough.

05:04 (Sniping the Elite) For sniping, you need quite precise aim and timing. I was aiming near a particular star, and shooting on beat 10 of the music (from when it starts after I revert to the checkpoint). In the first clip I get a red, then in the second I get a blue who has a needler (things are randomized).

You might've noticed that afer I shoot, I do a jump. That was to briefly delay the checkpoint while seeing if I'd killed the Elite. If I didn't jump, I was liable to get the checkpoint almost instantly. This is different than when I was on the other side, and I assume it's to do with my distance from the ship. On the left I was much closer.

05:51 (Tagging the Elite) Tagging needs quite precise aim and timing too of course. I was throwing on beat 7 of the music, and getting a success rate of maybe over 50%; so actually it wasn't super hard, despite what it might look like. These three examples all involve secondary blasts from dropped plasmas.

Closing remarks I really need to do a whole movie on plasma pistol sniping. But just in case I never get around to it, at least I've shown a bit here.

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