I've already made use of Pelican power, but now it's time for the covies to step up!

(6:50) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. In recent times I've been doing Warthog catapulting with a Pelican, but along the way I realised I could also use a nearby covie dropship. Dead easy and very spectacular! Here's a chunky first movie on that, comprising 25 catapults.

Released November 10th 2019, gameplay recorded September 8th and November 9th 2019.

00:02 Right at the start of the clip, you see me look towards the ship to trigger its departure. The subsequent catapult is relatively unusual insofar as the hog gets hit by a prong, rather than the back of the fork. Also, my passengers don't cry any warnings as we approach.

00:20 Again you see me trigger departure, but this time my approach angle in the hog is quite different. I drive off the high surface rather than ramping off, and we get a long low trajectory.

00:39 Ramping off. Nothing special about this one, but I do take my foot off the gas somewhat, after we're airborne. Usually I keep it down as I like the noise.

00:54 Sort of a semi-ramping approach this time. Good spin!

01:10 Following a high trajectory, we hit the tower and spill out. Fatally, in my case. The hog seems to get bisected by the tower wall.

01:25 (Landings are viable) Strong spin, and a soft landing with no casualties!

01:41 A solid hit from the left prong sends us high in a spin. Nasty landing, with one casualty.

02:00 Occasionally during my play, the hog got catapulted back in the direction of the hill. It once even landed on top! On this occasion it goes along the side and slides down upright.

02:14 (But mostly you go over the cliff) Ok, that's three landings finished; now we're back to going off the cliff for a few clips. Here's a nice spinning trajectory.

02:32 The hog pretty much goes through the ship, and ends up pointing down and spinning fast around a near-vertical axis. Unusual! I make the spin rate 100 rpm (period 0.6 seconds), which is the highest in the movie if you discount the curtailed trajectory in the 4:15 clip. The other fast spinner is in the 1:25 clip.

02:46 (Some long ones) The hog is catapulted almost horizontally, and we speed away from the ship.

03:00 Similar, but closer to horizontal.

03:14 Long again, but with more height.

03:29 Pretty good height this time, and the hog narrowly clears the far cliff edge.

03:43 After the hog hits the tower, I'm ejected and land in the channel. Then just as I'm recovering and about about to peek down to take stock, the beam fires and zaps me. My only zapping so far.

04:01 (Low and fast) The hog gets catapulted at a slight downward angle and is stopped by a tree. I just have time to fire a few shots at the ship as it goes out of sight.

04:15 Stopped by a tree again, but this time nobody's ejected and I drive the hog off the edge to see the ship vanishing.

04:34 This was almost a landing, but I spill out over the cliff.

04:52 An unusual camera angle on this one: you see the catapult from behind the ship as it catches the front wheels. Nice spin.

05:07 (Pinball specials) The hog really gets pinballed around in the fork at the start. This is the only time I got such a striking effect. There's almost a good contact later too, but it doesn't quite come off.

05:23 This time the pinballing comes later on, as if the ship is doing some last-minute juggling.

05:39 (4-clip finish) Starting an assortment of four clips to wind things up, here's a nice landing on the tower's base.

05:55 A fairly long trajectory with good height.

06:11 Quite a slow spin here, with the hog almost level. I included this clip because it's good for letting you see Stacker moving around, which is amusing. It's also nice that the beam fires in the background, something seen in four other clips.

06:25 Crash landing at the far end, and Stacker goes off, providing an amusing ending.

Closing remarks Typically when covering a topic, I'd be inclined to start with a set-up tutorial. But in this case I'd already done some playing around on September 8th, and then did some more yesterday, all of which provided plenty of footage for a spectacular movie. So I decided to go straight into the action with that. Maybe I'll do a tutorial next though. The key ingredients are very simple though. You get the ship spawned by clearing the hillside survivor area (on a difficulty other than Legendary), and then you get a convenient checkpoint up on the hill, for making catapult attempts.

For my gameplay I was using trivial modifications of one of my set-ups for getting catapulted by Pelican, but that's not the easiest way to do things (unless you happen to have such a set-up).

The opening two clips were from my initial playing on September 8th, when I had the idea. Two others are also from that date, but the rest are from yesterday when I decided to do some more play.

Haven't written an article for this topic yet, but that'll be coming shortly.

© 2004-2020 by Rockslider