I'm hereby promoting sergeant Stacker to the stunt team!

(6:51) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Illustrating a new way of setting up for light-bridge area descent by exploiting the second part of the level, I bring Stacker along to join in the fun. And specifically, some stunting! Both my guys are armoured, so they can survive the grenade blasts.

Released January 12th 2025, gameplay recorded January 8th-11th 2025.

00:02 (Setting up) I think I captured my set-up procedure pretty well here, so I won't add much. But bear in mind, it's random whether Stacker spawns with armour or not. He did have armour when I turned up, which is good because I specifically wanted a set-up with armoured passengers, so they could both survive grenade stunts.

After getting lined up as perfectly as I could, I had a little over 20 seconds to wait before getting the dropship 2 checkpoint.

02:24 (Warm-up) Three standard descents here. With the third one I cut the power once the hog was airborne (or almost airborne) and merely watched, letting nature take its course. Nice free-slide to the bottom.

03:14 (Stunting begins) In this minor modification of my set-up I used the dropship 3 checkpoint, getting it after dismounting and taking aim for a suitable high throw. This way I could make stunt attempts fast. Here's a nice double flip to start.

03:38 I'd call this stunt a 'lift'. That's the term I used for a similar dynamic back in BCM66. The hog doesn't rotate to any significant degree; the blast just gives the hog lift.

03:58 After bouncing on the glass, the grenade goes off under the front of the hog, resulting in a back flip. This took a lot of tries. The blast timing needed to be spot on.

04:21 This clip was a late final addition to the movie, after deciding to try for a double back flip. As with the single back flip, I settled on having the grenade bounce on the glass, which I thought was giving promising dynamics. I also got into the habit of backing up the hog a bit for a slightly longer run-up in case that gave me fractionally more speed by the time I hit the ramp. It seemed like I'd need every bit of speed I could get.

Ultimately I managed three successes, but that was out of hundreds of tries. Success was only just possible. Even when the hog went into a promsising-looking double back flip, which needed rather precise blast timing, usually we died just before reaching the wall, due to the fall speed we'd reached. Also, even if we survived to the wall with a promising looking nose-hit such as seen here, usually we died soon after because the hog didn't settle into enough grip (in fact it often went nose-over-tail again).

I eventually got a success though (quite a relief), but the ending was a bit messy so I kept on and got two more. This clip shows the final one, which I liked best.

Incidentally, to try and get the blast timing right, I was hitting the gas when the grenade reached a certain point in its descent, as seen against the background. This method was better than counting after throwing, the method I'd been using for grenade stunts previously. The error margin was less - and it just plain saved me the bother of counting, and of trying to do so at a consistent pace from try to try.

04:41 I'll classify this as a 'skewed double flip'. Looked nice I thought. Also, check out the shattered class behind the hog!

05:02 (Some set-up variations) In this modification of my set-up, I'd moved away from the ramp and adopted a high grenade aim then checkpointed with the dropship 3 checkpoint. Here's a flip for starters.

05:27 Another modification now, namely for doing a short run-up at the ramp. The stunt is a double flip, but you can also enjoy the shattering glass. The glass doesn't always shatter in that visually spectacular upwards manner, but it's very nice when it does. Here and in the movie's final clip, I specifically chose examples with good shattering.

05:41 This was my first triple flip descent, and took quite a bit of perseverance. I'd wondered if it was possible. As I recall, I'd tried for a triple when making the previous movie.

06:01 Back at 4:41 we had a skewed double flip, but here we've got a skewed triple.

06:16 A triple flip, seen from the side.

06:33 Another nice bit of glass shattering, and then a comedy ending to the double flip. I die, but Stacker survives!

Closing remarks Looks like this will be my last movie on the topic for now, but I may do another one sometime if I can come up with new stunts. And bear in mind, I haven't made any use of frag grenades yet.

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