I'm handing you a bottle of secret sauce.
On the label of the bottle is an image of a Golden Elite Ranger below a curved old-timey font reading "BOB Sauce". In cryptic writing running along the bottom it says something like
::o:-:-:o:-:o:o:o:o:oooooo:o:ooooo:o:ooo:ooo:-:ooo:oo:oo:ooo:-:ooooooo:-:oooo:ooo:oo:-:ooooo:-:-:-:oo:oo:ooo:oo:oo::
(Before you waste your time, this isn't the beginning of an ARG.)
The sauce bottle is actually empty except for a piece of paper on which is written a recipe:
"BOB SAUCE"
A delightful and exciting complement to any Halo dish, enjoyed best with friends. This seven-step recipe can be completed in three simple stages.
Stage One: Preparation
1) Play through any campaign mission completely- on any difficulty- from mission start to mission end. (Easy difficulty will be the fastest, and has always worked for me.) Do this by reselecting "Mission Start" from the Mission selection option in the campaign lobby and answering "yes" if a confirmation box appears. (Naturally, make sure you have first completed any crucial campaigning you had previously saved.) When you restart a mission in this way, the BOB spawning point in that mission will be randomized.
2) As you play the mission, check EVERY known BOB spawning point to see if a BOB has been selected to spawn there. At each spawning location, you may want to revert to your previous save a few times to make sure you didn't miss him. Don't worry- a BOB always respawns at the same location (or at least the same general area, in some possibly rare exceptions) when you "Revert to Save". In other words, the spawning location doesn't get randomized again when you choose to revert. Of course if your current checkpoint is after the BOB appeared, this won't help! In that case you may have to restart the mission, or continue on if you're pretty sure you didn't miss anything.
3) When you have gone through the entire level and not found ANY known BOBs, save the film; otherwise return to Step 1.
4) Load your saved film in Theater Mode, and once again return to each spawning point to confirm that no existing BOBs had spawned that you somehow missed. If you find a known BOB, return to Step 1.
Stage Two: Cooking
5) You now possess a precious saved film. All of the ingredients for your BOB Sauce are in the pot, and now it's time to get cooking! Your film contains an undiscovered BOB spawning point- so restart that film in Theater Mode and find it! It's a good practice to check areas as soon as they load, and once again as soon as you see enemies moving about and attacking. Sometimes BOBs spawn with the level geometry, sometimes they spawn with normal enemies, sometimes they are specially scripted drop pod appearances- you have to be on your toes! Check for constantly boosting banshees that appear, fly a path for a few seconds, then disappear or crash. If a "Sierra" and a "Bravo" BOB has been found, but not an "Alpha" BOB, then you might want to make a special effort to check the Rally Point Alpha area. Finally, you should feel free to enlist the help of your fellow SGP members by putting the saved film in your file share. Cooking with friends is even more fun!
Stage Three: Test and Serve
6) That sauce is hot! It needs to sit a bit to "set up". When you have found the new BOB spawn, it's time to confirm it. Document it in a film clip and get it to the SGP. Check your B.Net game history to see if you received a "seek and destroy" medal and an "Elite Light Vehicle" kill (in the case of Elite Ranger BOBs). Do you know what causes the BOB to load? What causes it to "trigger" and begin running/flying around? Are you able to get its coordinates? Can you make it happen again? Does the BOB appear differently and/or have different weapons on Legendary? People are hungry for a delicious, full-bodied sauce- not some cheap ketchup brand. They will have questions, and its nice to come to the table with answers.
7) As soon as the next "Golden Opportunity" challenge appears, this BOB needs to be killed again to provide positive confirmation that it is indeed a bona-fide BOB, not some "imitation vanilla" knock off. Like a collective "Mmmmmmm!" from your dinner guests, the "Golden Opportunity Challenge Complete" pop-up when you kill your BOB will fill you with satisfaction. Isn't this sauce delicious?
Enjoy!
I have used this recipe several times since May of this year. I didn't always follow Step 7, but I'm much better about that now. Using this recipe is what enabled me to find the missing spawns on Winter Contingency, catalog all eight variants of the two ONI: Sword Base spawns, independently "rediscover" the Nightfall spawns, and most recently the third Banshee spawn on Exodus. Scatters and I have used it to begin figuring out the LNoS drop pod spawns (which are a bit challenging to pin down!) and I feel pretty confident that more spawns are out there, especially on New Alexandria.
The misinformation on the subject of BOBs is overwhelming. Follow this recipe closely, and I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised every time!
