It took a lot of trying, but I eventually managed it (cue trumpets)…

(6:34) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Comprising footage from my second day of trying to get a detached dropship turret, this shows multiple failures and my eventual first success. My technique wasn't too good here - I was often approaching the dropship at a poor angle and a bit late I think - so don't treat this as a tutorial. That's coming later, but meanwhile you can see my article for advice.

Released December 31st 2013, gameplay recorded December 18th.

00:02 (Killed on the first bridge) At least I landed on the bridge here, but that's not much good if you're killed on impact! I don't think I flipped the dropship anyway.

00:19 (Long fall) This time I don't even head for the bridge; a fairly common occurrence in my early attempts (and in plenty of my later ones too, come to think of it). Nice view of the dropship though.

00:34 (Ambushed by a cloaked Elite) Still no sign of any flipping, but at least here I get the satisfaction of landing intact on the second bridge. I get taken by surprise when a cloaked Elite emerges, but I manage to kill him quick. Not that ther was any point, except for the fun of it. Nowadays I'd revert as soon as I know that the turret hasn't detached.

00:59 (Nice landing on the first bridge) Very nice landing on the first bridge, but again I don't think I flipped the dropship. At any rate, the turret's still attached. I think flipping the ship was still quite troublesome for me in these early tries, as I hadn't got my timing good enough.

01:16 (High bounce, dropship tagged) High bounce and no chance of surviving, but I can still have a bit of fun tagging the dropship!

01:31 (Bridge support) Here I end up on the second bridge's support. There may've been a chance to reboard the Banshee, but I doubt it. BigGruntyThirst did something similar to this involving the first bridge's support, and he reboarded and got a detached turret, as seen in his movie (see the links in my article).

01:46 (Detached turret sighted) The dropship clearly gets flipped, briefly levelling out a bit, and I subsequently see the detached turret. Not that it does me any good.

02:00 (Dropship impeded by cliff) After an unusual bounce I land quite a way along the first bridge, and see the dropship somewhat impeded by the cliff, which my late flip has evidently made it wander too far into.

02:15 (Squashed) A fine example of getting squashed against the cliff by one's own Banshee. Did that plenty of times.

02:26 (Freaky launch) I got a seriously freaky and comical bounce here, shooting up at high speed, well away from the cliff. Nothing quite like that has happened since. Looking at the footage, the Banshee gets bounced vertically up from the dropship, and although I'm actually to the rear of the Banshee, I seem to get a shunt from it.

02:40 (Up the battlefield) Another bad bounce. I end up coming off an inner side of the dropship, to speed towards the end of the battlefield. If you were observant, you may've noticed that the turret detached (a dark dot which can be seen just before I die).

02:52 (Passing encounter) Here I end up overtaking the detached turret on my way to the ground. I'd like to think that I at least tagged it, but I doubt that I was on target.

03:07 (Ledge death) I landed on the ledge alive a few times, but here's an example where I ended up dead. As a matter of fact, ending up dead in the twin bridges area was really in fashion that day.

03:17 (Major overshoot) This time I get a big bounce straight back the way I came, ending up well above the height of the high ledge. A slight case of overshoot methinks! My late attempted tag fell slightly short.

03:34 (First success) When the Banshee hits slightly below the centre of the ship, I get bounced off almost horizontally, taking a cliff-skimming trip around the battlefield and ending up on the ground with not even a damaged shield. Nice! But the covies are not best pleased about me dropping in like that, and I have to quickly take care of the warm welcome. I wasn't sure if I'd even flipped the ship, but as I approach the door area, I see that I've finally got a detached turret. Yay!

04:25 In my excitement I forget about the door Elites, and when I hear an Elite voice I quickly back off to take care of them. If I seem a little jumpy here, it's not just because of those Elites, but also because I remembered that there might be a cloaked Elite guard somewhere around, from the underpass. I'd forgotten whether I'd killed him or not, but I certainly didn't want to get sliced up after having just got my first detached turret! With this in mind I decide to leave the turret to get rid of any covies. In the process I absent-mindedly shoot a Marine and he then gets killed by a plasma grenade. Oops! I get the door checkpoint after that (delayed by enemy threat). I got it in a rather inconvenient place, far from the turret and without any nearby transport, but this was only my first success after all, so a few rough edges aren't too surprising.

05:13 So, finally I've got a turret to play with. After a bit of a look, I move in close and it starts waving about. I start doing a bit of melee too, then give him a couple of plasma grenades. Not a dent! For some reason I didn't try shooting him yet, but I knew I had the checkpoint so I could keep playing with him. I hop on top instead, which makes him swing around. Melee continues to do nothing obvious, but then a whack makes him point a certain way and freeze. I'd heard about melee 'killing' him like this, but I later realized that you need to hit the sphere, not the barrel.

One other thing. Unfortunately my flashlight went off near the start of my playing, so the footage is a bit dark for a while. I'd forgotten to switch it off earlier after my landing.

Closing remarks In regard to the set-up I was using, I had a Banshee on each bridge, and I eliminated the dropship music because I preferred not to be hearing it for a long time. You'll find the relevant set-up details in my article. But at this early time I hadn't refined the set-up work yet, so there are a few rough edges. The positioning of my bridge transport wasn't ideal (I didn't think about it much) and I didn't eliminate the cloaked Elite on the second bridge (you can do it in advance). I was also a bit low on sniper ammo, though that wasn't very important.

However, it wasn't the rough edges on the set-up work that was the trouble; it was my early technique at the detachment operation. I later got a lot better, to the point where getting a detached turret was pretty routine. In one particularly good spell measured over half an hour, I found I was able to get one every 11 tries on average. Whereas, getting that first one must've taken me hundreds!

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