The Official Lord Friendship's BOB Video Guide Thread

[Lord Friendship]

It's here!  Click the link to watch Part 3 of my guide, on ONI: Sword Base and its 16 BOBs.

BOB Video Guide Part 3: ONI

Let me know what you think!

[Lord Friendship]

Another BOB Video Guide already?  I wanted to get this one out before HCEA dropped, so here it is!

BOB Video Guide Part 4: Nightfall

If anyone has any questions/comments/concerns, I'd like to hear them!  I'm always looking for ways to improve the guides, as I want them to be the definitive one-stop source for BOB info.

Of course, the next BOB guide won't be out until we figure out this TotS BOB thing.  When I can, I'm going to beat the level on Legendary, with zero deaths, while killing all possible enemies.  I figure that with a resource like that, it'll only be a matter of time until we find our missing BOB!

[Lord Friendship]

The Video Guide will be going into suspended animation until mid-December at the earliest.  IRL priorities, etc.  I'll still try to squeeze in a TotS run here and there, but the Fuel Rod BOBs are proving to be quite a challenge.

[ColdGlider]

No worries, LF.  We all have lives, and most of us (especially me!) have had long bouts of absence to deal with the real world.  No expectations here.

IRL Priorities have kept me from getting my New Alexandria BOB video up, although I have been sneaking in some game play here and there.

Your video guides are great- and I hope you do come back to them!  Thanks for letting us know what's going on!

[Insane Monx]

but the Fuel Rod BOBs are proving to be quite a challenge.

How so?

[Lord Friendship]

but the Fuel Rod BOBs are proving to be quite a challenge.

How so?

You spawn at the Spire with an Assault Rifle and DMR, so my trusty noob combo is just about out of the question.  For the BOB that spawns closest to you, you can grab a Plasma Pistol provided Jorge doesn't scare him off.  For the BOB that spawns far to the left, a direct assault is impractical, as he'll run one of three directions, and you can't catch up to him unless you happen to choose the right path.  For the BOB that spawns by one of the Invasion generators, you basically need to Sprint up to him and pray he doesn't nail you with a Fuel Rod.

I think that for the far-left one you can come back and get him later when you've got a Banshee, I've done that before.  The other two are likely to get spooked before you have a chance at that, so it's a lucky noob combo for the first one you see, and a desperate attempt at a Beat Down on the Invasion generator BOB.  If you could push Jorge off the edge, it would be easier, but no luck.

On a related note, don't try to pull the fancy Assassination animation on these guys.  They despawn 25 seconds from when they notice you; by the time you've caught up with them, you don't have time for the fancy stuff.  I did a full no-death Legendary run, assassinated one of the BOBs, and THOUGHT that I got him.  Watching the video, I saw that he despawned one or two frames from the end of the animation, and thus no kill.  It's not the slow, gradual despawn of the Winter Contingency BOBs either, it's MUCH more rapid, which is an interesting difference.

If anyone has a reliable method, let me know.  Running them over seems too risky; they just shoot you like mad as you slowly approach them.

[Scatcycle]

If you're jetpacking in the air and moving, shouldn't the fuel rods not be able to hit you?

[Insane Monx]

@LF: It sounds like your attempting this on Legendary. I could try this on my own time, but I need to know the requirements or if you could even use any help at all.

Also, since I'm only assuming the requirements, could you do it on Co-op with others? AR spam seems to work quite well as long as Tilt's off, but that's only because I slaughter Bobs on Easy.

[Lord Friendship]

I'm trying to get all the BOBs on Legendary, and my video guides provide strategy for the same.  AR spam is essentially useless on this difficulty.

Scatcycle: The jetpack is too slow to catch up to the BOBs here; I keep Sprint, which is what you have when you land.

[ColdGlider]

@LF:

Check out the ToTS clips in my file share, especially "FC:BOB 5-B-1.3 Standoff".  This shows you where the script trigger is.  For both BOB spawns over on the left, you can always get in a fully charged plasma bolt- at least on Heroic.  You will have plenty of time to pick off the grunts, skirmishers, etc so that you can walk up and take your pick of a plasma pistol - so long as you do not venture too far forward toward the Spire.

Furthermore, I found that I was able to get pretty reliable checkpoints as I approached the BOBs on the left side- so that reverting to checkpoints always gave me another chance if I messed up.  I know you're attempting to do this without dying, but I wasn't sure what your policy was on reverting.

[Lord Friendship]

Yeah, I don't want to revert either, but your point about the script triggers is a good one.  Long, long, ago I had battled a BOB after I made it to the Spire and grabbed a Banshee, which made me think that proximity is a big factor.  For the BOB that spawns closest, you've got to worry about Jorge alerting him, but the other two you can more or less ignore until you're more properly equipped, which is nice.  That FRG is still pretty fierce.

In any case, I've got videos for the BOB at the first Tyrant gun (#27), the closest BOB in the Spire area (#28), and the BOB that spawns by where the Invasion generator is (#30).  Once I get the far-left BOB (probably with a noob combo), and maybe re-do the video for #28 as it's ridiculously long, I'm going to do a run of the level on Legendary, with as few deaths as possible, killing everything, where no BOB spawns.  Then I'll try to re-ignite the TotS BOB search, both here and maybe in a few other forums, if I can get people interested.

I've noticed that there are a few "doomed" Falcons on the level, in addition to the one at the very beginning, that will be taken out by the Tyrant guns unless you move very quickly.  Not sure if that's part of this, but I'll try to save them in my run-through.

[Lord Friendship]

BOB Video Guide Part 5 is up, for Tip of the Spear!  There's also a link in the OP.

BOB Video Guide Part 5: Tip of the Spear

Let me know what you think!  It's a shame about BOB 28, but I figure it's time to move on.

[Lord Friendship]

I had some correspondence with Dan Miller this past week.  I thought I'd dump the Q&A here in case anyone is interested:

1. How many Banshee BOB spawn points are there on New Alexandria?  A French Halo site has identified four: http://www.halocreation.org/t9455-ee-bobs-de-nouvelle-alexandrie
 
There are four, one in each sector of the map- they appear below the city horizon and are scripted to fly to another point on constant boost. If you miss one, you must wait until the next one. The script will loop infinitely until you kill one.

2. What triggers the Banshee BOBs to spawn?  It seems to be relative to your location, but perhaps based on number of checkpoints, or number of Banshees destroyed?
 
I have a timer hooked up to the map that gives a random variance. Here is the script:
 
(sleep (* 30 60 (random_range 5 7)))
 
This basically waits a random range of anywhere from 5-7 multiplied by 30 ticks (30 ticks = one second) times 60 seconds, so 5, 6 or 7 minutes.
 
There is no relative location. It just randomly picks a point and spawns a banshee.

1. Is there anything that could reset or otherwise affect the BOB spawn timer on New Alexandria?
No.

2. Did you have a method in mind for the player to wipe out the BOB in the atrium on The Package?  I show my own, highly unreliable, method here: http://youtu.be/MysOomVmvZo
Nope. That BOB was designed to be incredibly hard to kill. I do recall that you could jump off of the wrecked artwork and in through the window. I’ve found that this community can make the impossible, possible. For that BOB, I just put in obstacle, not the means to solve the problem.

3. Why was the Banshee BOB chosen for New Alexandria?  I had a theory that they were used on Exodus as the Elite model wasn't included in the level, but there are Rangers in the hospital, leaving me to wonder.
The way the game loads stuff in memory influenced Banshee BOB. We normally don’t have the Elite Character loaded when the player is flying around save for one mini-mission objective (kill the elites and the engineer). Normally, the elite is not loaded when the player is flying around the world.

4. Why don't Banshee BOBs award the Seek and Destroy medal, or grant an Elite Light Vehicle kill?
I am unaware of what all of that stuff means. Mission design doesn’t pay much attention to medals or kill types- sorry.

5. What's going on in this video taken during the underground sequence of The Package?  http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=18238142 It was believed initially that this was another Banshee BOB, but of course you clarified that this was not the case in a post on HBO.
At the end of that mission, we want to remove the Banshee as an enemy, so we call a script that gets them to bug out and remove themselves from play.

6. Was it intentional for there to be 49 (=7^2) BOB spawn points in the Campaign on Legendary?
Sure!

7. Any undiscovered secrets in either New Alexandria or The Package?
I believe everything has been found- but I’ve been surprised before.

8. Were the switches that spawn four Banshees on The Package influenced at all by the Annual achievement from Halo 3?
No. They were there to support what I called the AJMode easter egg. AJMode basically kicks in when you hit either of the switches in New Alexandria (on the side of the building) or The Package. What AJMode does is remove soft ceilings so players can explore beyond the world. AJMode refers to Ascendant Justice, the Halo fansite- I was a big fan of their work and thought I’d give them props. There were complaints that Soft Ceilings hurt people’s exploration of levels- so I put in an easter egg that allows players to turn them off. The Package had no way of exploiting this since it was an Island, so I thought giving each player a Banshee would be a fun way to see the world.

9. Were the BOBs implemented as planned, or was something about them cut from the final game?
I don’t recall- that was Luke Smith’s baby. I’m sure we wanted to do more with it, we always do- but you gotta ship sometime.

Do you mind if I quote you directly in the video guide?  I like to make my information as credible as possible, and being able to say that this information came directly from the mission designer himself (especially in regards to the script timer for the New Alexandria BOB spawn) would be a great help.
I have no problem with you quoting me. Feel free to post this wherever you wish.

Sorry for the bad formatting, not much time right now.  In any case, I thought this was a very enlightening conversation!

[Insane Monx]

Nice. I'm glad you got to ask all that, and he answered. Thanks, Dan! (I know you're probably reading this eventually)

[nightcrafter27]

Wow. Great job, LF! Thanks, Dan!