Tip of the Spear BOB Hunt (MAJOR UPDATE)(Solved)

[Insane Monx]

FINALLY, Christmas Break has arrived, and with it, more time to hunt Bobs! 


I will try to search for this Bob and also work on getting footage of the Fuel Rod Bob on TotS.

[Lord Friendship]

I'm sorry, I don't have time to put the appropriate links into the OP, but if you're looking for Fuel Rod BOB footage, check out the post on HBO:

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=1117043

Above the images, there are links to the rendered clips I've made for each BOB on this level.  Not sure if that's what you're looking for, but wanted to save you time if it was.

[Insane Monx]

I was referring to this post of yours.

You still need help capturing kill footage of those Bobs, right?

[Lord Friendship]

Actually, no!  I'll update the OP (along with the BOB Video Guide thread) with links soon, but I have full-run, no-death Legendary runs of this level for each known BOB!  Feel free to take a look at the videos (I'll have rendered clips) or wait until the Video Guide comes out, but I managed to figure out a strategy for each one.

[Insane Monx]

Sweet! That's good to hear 

[Scatcycle]

So at this point, I believe the BOB is an invisible elite just like the data pad elite on Winter Contingency. We've checked everywhere. I've check random rooms protected by glass. He just isn't anywhere. Why? Most likely because we can't seem him. He's invisible. Now, Monx is taking pictures of the enemies spawning on both films (bob and non bob), and I'll use a difference filter to detect changes in the picture, revealing the Bob.

Now if this doesn't work, there is also a chance that you require something else for the Bob to spawn. All waypoint commendations, I don't know. Just something. So think, people. The Bob clearly isn't findable by anyone. At least not what we think the bob is, a gold elite. Start looking for shimmers. Start thinking different. We won't find him with our standard thinking. Put on your lab coat. Let's find this Bob.

[Insane Monx]

I'm thinking what Scat's thinking. But after a thorough scan of the entire campaign mission, I had no luck finding that which you cannot see. That's the one thing that sucks about looking for an invisible enemy.

Another idea that I'm thinking is what Niles said at the end of his message. The Bob may be bugged, and something similar to the drop pod Bobs on the beach of LNoS, spawn and then almost instantly despawn. I'm still going to look for him, though.

[ColdGlider]

So basically, Niles confirmed what I theorized earlier in this thread in this post where I called it the "1.4 Condition"... except that he's claiming that it should still work (and the fourth condition is a completely different spawn.)

A quick refresher:

At the top of the script I noticed the random value assigned to the spawn variable was set to a value ranging between 1-4. The script was then evaluating this variable but there was were only three values it was checking for: 1-3. This confused me at first but then someone (thanks Dom!) pointed out that the last function checks for a value greater than or equal to 3. So basically the likelihood that Bob will spawn in the final area is 50% and the other two are 25% each.

So value 4 correlates to the missing BOB spawn.  Of the three remaining values (1-3), two must correlate to the "BOB squad" at the end of the level (5-B-01) and one to the BOB spawn at mission start (5-S-01).  This would give 5-B-01 the 50% spawn probability.

As mentioned in that crazy post of mine, perhaps they think they are generating a random number from 1-4 and instead they are getting a number from 0-3.  This would cause their evaluation code to work for values 1-3 (as we see it does) but the code in their "final function" which conditions on the value being greater than 3 would always evaluate to FALSE; thus, the fourth spawn would never occur.

Any way we can politely ask them to double-check their random number generation in this script?
I emailed Urk.  We'll see.

[Insane Monx]

Well. Seems Urk doesn't want to respond. But I think I may have found a really good way to see if the Bob does spawn.

I may try and mod.

In the video, he shows that you can edit the size of enemies. I sent him a PM on B.net and he said you can change the size of anything, Bobs included. So I might mess around with it until I find the Bob and make it really huge, large enough to easily notice him even if he is invisible.

If I don't find him, either he doesn't spawn correctly or I could try something else. And it would most likely be the former.

[Scatcycle]

The BOB likely spawns under terrain.

[Insane Monx]

The BOB likely spawns under terrain.

Which with this, I can make him large enough to be seen above ground. Then, I could also move his spawn so he does spawn above ground.

If it's possible to figure out my own coordinates, I could manage to put the Bob directly in front of me.

[Lord Friendship]

Well, the TotS BOB search is over, and not in the way I wanted it to be.  If you haven't yet, please check out part 5 of the BOB Video Guide, where I pretty much call it as a glitch... but maybe someone will see it, be motivated to figure it out, and crack the case.  Here's hoping!

BOB Video Guide Part 5 - Tip of the Spear

[ColdGlider]

Well, one way of trying to find a "bright side" to this issue is to consider that the community has a whole wealth of knowledge about this issue that they would not have had otherwise if we didn't persist in looking, and in questioning.

It is definitely a downer that the spawn appears to be bugged in some way.  It also means we can "move on" from this particular search, and simply report the facts (as LF has already done via another quality installment to his BOB video series.)

I'm currently of the mind that the BOBs ended up being relegated to daily challenge fodder, whether or not there were grander aspirations for them originally.

Maybe someday we'll get to hear a little more about Bungie's decision to include them, and what was truly intended. 

[Insane Monx]

Maybe someday we'll get to hear a little more about Bungie's decision to include them, and what was truly intended. 

A great way to find that out would be to ask the Bungie Mail Sack. It pops up on Mondays in a thread in the Community Forum and gets answered every Friday. I've been asking my own questions, but if anyone else had a question they could also ask.

[Scatcycle]

Ah, closure at last: https://youtu.be/230EDs0Y7sk . Spawn triggers at BXR. Issue is... spawn location is within an area that hasn't been loaded yet. If it's any consolation, each time you failed to find ToTS's Bob, you were still indirectly effecting his demise.