Get seven extra Marines and an extra hog, early in level 5.

Associated movies… BCM8

• The basic idea
• Two versions of the trick
• Why does it work?
• Delaying the upper passage checkpoint
• Some details and tips
• Preserving Marines for later
• Marine management
• New lines from Sarge!
• Pelican Marine discussion
• No Marines trick
• Pelican Marines reprieve trick

Fellow cyborg Boris recently (July 9th 2006) alerted me to how he was sometimes getting four extra Marines in the first snow battle of level 5. Wow! I'd never heard of getting extra Marines before. But it was unreliable (as Boris had noted), so I started investigating. And to cut a long story short, I was amazed to find a quite different and comically simple method that gives you seven extra Marines, plus an extra Warthog if you want it! That's what I'm going to describe here, though I'll also include a section at the end that relates to what Boris originally described.

Four of the extra Marines are the ones that come in on the Pelican. They're normally destined to be dead by the time you enter the battle, but you trick the game into leaving them alive. They're potentially inactive at the start of the battle, but even if so, they can be activated later - though they'll be strangely invisible to the enemy and won't get fired on. If you do the trick fast enough though, it's possible to have all ten Marines active right away, which is great fun and a distinct improvement over the measly three you normally get for the battle. The Pelican Marines will include either a Sergeant Johnson or a Sergeant Stacker, something which gets randomly determined at the loading point just before you reach the bridge.

Having got ten Marines in the first area, you can have thirteen when you link up with the next group, and eighteen with the final group. Quite a sight! You can enjoy fighting through the level with your massively boosted squad, except that you'd be well advised to ditch the snipers to avoid them shooting everyone else in the back! Actually, the best use for a massive squad is to get it into the twin bridges megabattle, where you'll be in for some carnage like you've never seen before.

Related material

I've also posted a separate article on a method for getting Three extra Marines and a hog, which I came up with at about the same time; and it includes a history section which is relevant to the seven-extras trick.

Here's my basic version of the trick, followed by a Banshee version which makes it easier to keep the Marines healthy for later (e.g. maybe you want them for a megabattle).

Basic version

Go across the first bridge and into the passage beyond, far enough to trigger enemies in the second room. You just need to get across the start of the final black stripe in the middle section of passage. Come back out and do a descent trick off the bridge. Now you're down, trigger the battle by going through the door. If you're not interested in an extra hog, just step through. But if you want an extra hog or want to be driving a hog into battle, board the current hog and optionally pick up passengers, get to the door and briefly dismount to make it open, then drive through (preferably backwards so you'll be facing the right way for coming out), triggering the battle. You don't need to get the whole hog through; you just need to get your body across the threshold (while in the hog). Meanwhile the door will be closing again - or about to close - so dismount to stop it, then drive out into battle. Job done!

The four Pelican Marines were intended to run from the Pelican and then become inactive, just standing around motionless. If you trigger the battle before they end their runs, which is easily possible if you're fast across the bridge, you'll prevent that and they'll remain active, which is great. Otherwise they'll start off inactive and will be strangely invisible to the enemy throughout the level, even after you've reactivated them. Some may activate as you near them, others will activate only when you trigger the battle in the next area (the area with the crashed Pelican). You can see me doing the basic version fast in BCM8, getting an extra hog for good measure.

Note: If you triggered the battle in a hog, that hog will have the useful property of being Marine retaining, meaning that passengers will stay aboard even if you dismount. That enables you to get continued chain-gun support when you want it. The usual hog isn't like that, so this is a major bonus, particularly for megabattles.

Banshee version

Do a descent trick off the bridge and bring back a Banshee. The first one available is the 'twin bridges Banshee' from the much later area with twin bridges overhead (but if you're going to want an extra hog, don't use the hog to get there). Land on the bridge, then go and trigger enemies in the second room. Come back out and fly down, and trigger the battle just as in the basic version.

This is essentially the same trick as it uses the same core mechanism. Namely, you trigger enemies in the second room (something essential for being able to trigger the battle), and then you trigger the battle by going in through the doorway on the ground - in the hog if you want an extra one.

With this version, obviously you won't be triggering the battle fast enough to stop the Pelican Marines going inactive, and they'll hence be invisible to the enemy throughout the level, even after reactivation. But if you don't mind that and you're only interested in preserving Marines for later, it's the best version to use because you'll have the Banshee ready for action.

Why does the trick work? After various experiments, I think I've now got a fair picture of what's going on. Here goes.

Normal play

First, here's what I think happens in normal play, which is really all the game is planning for. When you trigger enemies in the third room (as the lift comes down to a stop), the game also removes the Marines outside. After the loading point in the passage leading outside, the game triggers the battle. It creates three new Marines - nice and healthy to try to give you a fair chance of keeping them alive (even though the originals may have been damaged or even killed in the Banshee attack). It scatters bodies around to simulate the loss of four Marines so far, and it also moves the hog into its overturned position.

Trick play

Now let's consider what happens during your trick. When you move through the door on the ground, the game does what it normally does in the section of passage after the loading point. It says to itself "If enemies have been triggered in the second room before now, and the outdoor battle hasn't been triggered yet, trigger it." Well, enemies were triggered in the second room, so the game triggers the battle. That includes creating three healthy new Marines. The game doesn't remove the seven existing Marines, because it's expecting that this would have have been done earlier, at a certain place indoors. Crucially though, you never got that far indoors! As for the business of an extra hog, well, if you're driving it when the game wants to move it to its overturned position, that's apparently enough for the game to have a hands-off policy (probably some sort of safeguard, even though it really wasn't expecting you to be driving it here), and it creates a new one instead.

When heading along the passage to trigger enemies in the second room, a checkpoint is triggered halfway along the second short section, i.e. just after you turn right. Delaying this checkpoint can be useful, as follows.

Delaying to get a convenient battle start checkpoint

If you're interested in playing and replaying the immediate battle, preferably delay the checkpoint until ready to trigger the battle, so it then forms a convenient battle start checkpoint to revert to. Otherwise, each time you revert, you'll be back in the upper passage or on the bridge, and will have to spend a while getting down again - which will be particularly laborious if you're using the basic version of the trick.

Initially you can delay it by jumping as you run along. In the basic version of the trick, you can continue the delay during your descent by throwing a plasma grenade beforehand (ideally with a high trajectory so it takes longer to go off) or by firing a Covenant weapon on the way down. In the Banshee version, you'd instead continue the delay with Banshee firing. Once down, you can use jumping again until ready for the checkpoint, which you'll probably want to then save (see Replaying the battle).

If you want to be triggering the battle in a manned hog, you can use grenade throwing to continue the checkpoint delay while picking up any passengers and reaching the door. An active grenade will keep the delay going for several seconds while you're in the hog. It'll probably take a few throws; be prepared to get out momentarily to lob another grenade. Lob high to give yourself as long as possible.

Delaying to ease the descent work in the basic version

If using the basic version and you're not interested in a convenient battle start checkpoint, you can instead use checkpoint delaying to delay it until in position for your descent attempts, so you'll be able to make repeat attempts quickly. However, if you're using the method of bouncing off a ledge then a tree and a rock, you'll be stuck with the current rock, which could be unfavourable. So here's another way of working, which you can see being used in BCM8. Delay the checkpoint (e.g. by jumping) until just before the loading point on your way back out (it'll be on the last black stripe in the long middle section of passage as you go). Each time you fail a descent and revert, you'll get a newly randomized rock as you go through the loading point; and hopefully you'll get a nice one soon!

Here are some additional details and tips.

Second room

To trigger enemies in the second room, it suffices to go just past the loading point at the start of third black stripe in the third section of the passage. You'll see red dots on your tracker if you hang around, but there's no need to. You can just run onto the stripe then head back out. These enemies seem to get removed by the game when you trigger the battle shortly. That said, it's ok to go into the room if you want; it won't stop the subsequent trick working. You could take advantage of the supplies if you wish.

Getting down fast in the basic version

As mentioned for the basic version, you can end up with ten active Marines in the battle if you trigger it before the Pelican Marines have ended their runs. That's good fun, and you may also have a Banshee to contend with down there. You'll need to get across that bridge fast though, and you'll need to be able to descend on that far side of the bridge (you wouldn't have time to return to the near side). It'll need to be a no-messin' case of "Cyborg coming though!", blitzing enemies on the move while retaining perfect health in the interest of surviving the descent. You can see me doing this in BCM8 using a pistol and plasma pistol, which I think is a good blitzing combo. Here's some specific advice.

You can simply bypass early enemies (dozing Grunts and a pacing Elite below); just run. If there's a Banshee, it's likely to zero in on you. However, I find that momentarily stopping behind one of the stanchions often prevents an attack run - presumably because the pilot lost his target and decided to veer off. So you may like to try that.

When the far door opens, you can send a grenade or two sailing over to plop down in the vicinity of the door and passage, hopefully removing much of the threat there. Specifically, on Heroic I like to land a plasma in the passage, then a frag as I get closer, as seen in the movie. If you encounter the gold Elite in your way, which is often the case, a good tactic is to just tag him and jump over him or go past while he's busy growling.

When you come back out of the passage there may still be some enemies around, but they'll often either be panicking or heading off to watch the Pelican. Resist the temptation to open fire needlessly on such enemies. As long as they're not in your way, it's better if you can instead get to your descent spot without attracting enemy fire, though you can certainly survive falls even if your shield is damaged. If you're using the method of bouncing off a ledge then a tree and a rock, the quickest way to the run-off spot is to drop through a glass panel hole, so it's good if you shattered the panel before you went indoors. You can see me doing that in the movie, though I fail to follow my own advice about not attracting attention needlessly!

It's also possible to get an extra hog with your ten active Marines, but you'll want to get down fast enough to hop in as soon as the Pelican releases it (and incidentally, you'll hear either Johnson or Stacker yell some encouragement to the Marines as they dismount). You can't afford to be more than about two seconds late. You'll then need to drive straight for the door and go through in the hog quick. It's just possible to trigger the battle in time to stop the Pelican Marines going inactive.

Incidentally, if you trigger the battle even before the Pelican has touched down, you'll see its hog suddenly ripped away and moved to its overturned position. Yoink!

Moving Marines before battle

If you like, you can move the original three active Marines to other places before triggering the battle. For example you could drive some up to the Shade plateau to give the forthcoming grunty gunner a nasty surprise, or put them in the crashed Pelican area, or even beyond. They mustn't be in the hog though, else they'll vanish when the game magics the hog into its overturned position.

If you drop Marines in the battle area, they'll start running back to base unless prevented (e.g. by being on that Shade plateau). However, that makes a novelty in itself, to have Marines running across the battlefield at the start. How about dropping a couple right at the far end so they have to come through enemy ranks? I wouldn't give much for their chances on anything above Normal though!

Enemy materialization

When you trigger the battle, you can see the enemy materialize, which is quite a novelty. See what you can spot.

An explosion effect is visible near the Wraith, and you can see parts of something getting scattered; actually it looks like a Wraith explosion effect. It's presumably just to give a loud bang that Bungie was expecting you to hear as you come through the passage leading outdoors. What caused the bang though? I suppose you could imagine that a Marine got lucky with a rocket launcher; but when you get to the launcher it's full, so that doesn't quite fit. It could have been the Banshee taking a last bit of damage from the Marines; except, you may've blown it up already. Maybe the Wraith pilot just didn't like the look of a Ghost, and fancied blowing something up? They do seem a bit tetchy these Covenant.

Replaying the battle

If you're interested in playing and replaying the battle, bear in mind that about halfway up the battlefield, you trigger a mid-battle checkpoint (if on foot, or low down in a Banshee). However, it'll be delayed while the game considers you under threat; so preferably try to stay engaged with the enemy, and revert quickly when you've wiped everyone out (or jump to delay the checkpoint further, until ready to revert). If you do get the midway checkpoint, you'll annoyingly have to eject the disc and reload if you want to get back to the battle start checkpoint - assuming you had the good sense to save it of course!

Here's some advice on how best to preserve the Marines for later battling, such as if you just want them for a megabattle you're going to set up.

Banshee version

If you're using the Banshee version of the trick, which would be an advantage, you should blast over the Shade in advance to prevent its grunty operator from using it, and you should leave the Banshee right outside the door, pointing at where the Wraith will be. As soon as you trigger the battle, board the Banshee and head for the Wraith low down, giving it a quick first salvo to grab its attention. With any luck it won't fire a single shot at the Marines. Veer off to the right and fly a bit further towards the back of the area while staying below treetop height or thereabouts, then climb to relative safety.

By advancing deep enough into enemy territory while being sufficiently low down, you've triggered enemies into new behaviour, namely to chase you. The ones that were attacking the Marines will have started backing off to come after you. Except, if an Elite got into his Ghost, he may have gone for the Marines and failed to withdraw yet. If that's the case, you could go and get his attention to draw him away; or just blast him directly. But hopefully he spotted you earlier and never bothered the Marines at all. You may have already caught the attention of the high Shade too; but if not, you can quickly blast it.

Now you've speedily removed all immediate threats to the Marines, who've remained where they are because you haven't linked up with them yet, you can wipe out the enemy at leisure (starting with that noisy Wraith perhaps).

Fast basic version

If you instead needed to use the basic version of the trick, performed fast to stop the Pelican Marines going inactive, the thing to do is to also be in the Pelican's hog as you trigger the battle. You can then head up the battlefield just like with the Banshee, to take the enemy's attention off the Marines. Aside from doing a bit of squashing, perhaps your best bet after that would be to switch to a Ghost to eliminate enemy vehicles and the Shade gunners. A Banshee can be a bit of a problem and may continue attacking Marines, so it's good if you managed to bring it down with pistol fire while running to the Pelican. After the vehicles are destroyed, you shouldn't have much trouble.

If you're not so keen on the idea of driving away from the Marines at the start, you could start by driving over to the Ghosts. The Wraith will switch its attention to you, giving the Marines a reprieve. At this point you can dismount and use a pistol to take down the Grunts or Jackals attacking them. You'll also have a few covies to take care of nearby of course. A frag or two is handy for the minor enemies (throw and forget), and the Elite is easily tagged as he goes for his Ghost or boards it. If there's an enemy Banshee, bring it down with pistol fire. You could also use pistol fire on the Shades. After that, go and tackle the Wraith with a Ghost or even on foot (plasma pistol fire is pretty good for destroying it), leaving the Marines completely safe.

Here's some advice about managing your Marines, particularly in regard to activating inactive Pelican Marines and getting everyone into the next area.

Marine behaviour

If you didn't trigger the battle before the Pelican Marines ended their runs to the defence area, they'll be inactive to begin with. If you approach, one or two may activate, either acknowledging your arrival or saying something like "Whoa!" as if having a delayed reaction to having spotted the enemy. If you link up with the Marines (not that you have to), the active ones will follow you around, at least until you trigger the battle in the next area. When that happens, you generally find that four Marines run towards and over the step, and that those four will include any Pelican Marines that had remained inactive. Any Marines that don't head over the step will just stop where they are; but you can get them over later. Once in the next area, all Marines seem to behave as normal. Watch out covies, here we come!

Making sure the Pelican Marines activate

If any inactive Pelican Marines fail to activate after you've triggered the battle in the next area, it's usually no problem because you can just revert to a checkpoint you probably got near the end of the first battle, and try again. However, you could avoid linking up with the Marines, so everyone remains back at base. In that case I find that when the next battle is triggered, inactives always activate and come running over the step. On the minus side though, the other Marines will remain back at base, so it'll take longer to get them over the step.

Getting active Marines over the step

As for any active Marines that don't run over the step, you can later pick them up in a hog and get them over, either by ferrying them over or by repeatedly letting gunners dismount over the edge so they fall down. With this operation in mind, it obviously helps if you've given Marines time to follow you to the step before you trigger the next battle. That's what I usually do.

Helping Marines in the next battle

The next battle is triggered by nearing the step down to it, or more generally by being sufficiently low down in the vicinity of the step. Probably the best way of helping the three new Marines there is to use a Banshee. You can fly low over the step and blast the enemy a moment later. Actually there's an even sneakier method. Flying high enough to avoid triggering the battle yet, go around the corner a short way and let your Banshee sink down near the tree. When it gets low enough, the enemy materialize and you can send a Banshee bolt into their midst before they even know what day it is.

If your Pelican Sergeant is Johnson, there's a great little bonus to enjoy from this business, namely the following 16-second all-clear speech you can hear from him when you polish off the enemy (as long as you're within several metres of him when the last covie bites the dust):

"That's the last of 'em - area secure. Stand down team! (pause) They did their damnedest that's for sure. This is all that's left of my platoon. The Covenant are down here in force, and they brought plenty of toys. I wouldn't have given us a snowball's chance until you showed up Chief."

It was a complete surprise when I suddenly heard Johnson launch into that speech! You can hear it at the end of BCM8. Because this line exists, it suggests that maybe Bungie originally hadn't planned for the Pelican guys to automatically be dead, and that Johnson would potentially be the one to announce the all-clear. Somewhere along the line though, the Pelican guys became doomed (maybe Bungie didn't want the Xbox to strain itself), and hence you normally only get something from a standard Marine. That's my theory anyway.

Note: In my game there was also a Johnson in the next area, with a sniper rifle. That gave me two Johnsons at once! But it's not the only situation in the campaign where you can end up with duplicate Johnsons. In level 2, if you get one from the first group of Marines, you can drive him into the second part of the level and potentially meet up with another in the rockslide survivor area.

Controlled method

Here's a nice controlled method of finishing off the enemy to hear his all-clear speech, even if he's inactive. Actually, inactive is best if you want to hear it as clearly as possible, because he won't be running around while talking. Possibly using a Ghost (or even better, a Banshee if you placed one handy by the door), take out the Wraith as quickly as you can, and briefly go up near the far end to trigger the distant enemies into coming after you. Except, there's an Elite who stays near the far end, so kill him separately. Let the rest chase you back to where the Marines were, and use the sniper rifle to wipe them out as they come (good fun). When the last one dies, Johnson should start up.

But nothing from Stacker?

Sometimes you'll get southern-talkin' Stacker instead of Johnson, but sadly I haven't heard any all-clear lines from him. Therefore I've decided to imagine my own, heh heh:

"Nice job men - all clear! Whew, those guys just never give up! These are all the men I got left Chief. This place is crawling with Covenant and they brought all kinds o' nasty to play with. I thought we were in for a real whuppin' till you showed up."

No trouble Sergeant.

Here's some discussion about the inactivity (or otherwise) of the Pelican Marines. What's going on with that?

With normal gameplay, they run from the Pelican and then become inactive, which doesn't really matter because the game is expecting to remove them before you get near enough to experience them in this unrealistic state. Now let's consider trick play.

If you trigger the battle before they've stopped running, they seem to remain active. Presumably this is some technical consequence of getting interrupted at a time when they were still active; the preprogrammed routine is abandoned and they simply continue in their current active modes.

If you trigger the battle later however, they're initially inactive, having done their runs. Sometimes one or two may activate when you approach, so your presence seems to have a certain triggering power. Having entered the relevant reaction mode, I guess these Marines naturally then enter the default active mode. The inactive mode is probably only something that can be initiated in special circumstances where you're not expected to be able to notice it.

As for the Marines that remain inactive during battle, they usually (though not always) seem to activate when you trigger the battle in the next area. You tend to get four Marines that go running over the step. These usually include any Pelican Marines that had remained inactive; but if some were killed, other Marines help make up the four (as noticed by Boris). Why four? I could take a wild guess. Maybe the programmer coded things with just three in mind, expecting this to be the maximum number of Marines that could be in the area; but for technical convenience the code actually copes for four, perhaps because four is the lowest power of two that is at least as large as three.

Once the previously inactive Pelican Marines achieve their goal of getting over the step, it's natural that they then enter the default active mode, rather than returning to the special inactive mode.

Strange invisibility to the enemy

Unless you're quick enough to trigger the first battle before the Pelican Marines end their runs and go inactive, they'll be strangely invisible to the enemy throughout the level. The enemy won't target them, even when fired on. You'll be able to see the Marines running around firing off their assault rifles, and the enemy just takes it. A bit unfair on the Covenant, and distinctly unrealistic, but maybe you don't mind. Heck, maybe you'll enjoy watching!

Here's a little novelty you can arrange after triggering the battle by running through the door. Instead of heading out, go inside to the lift (the battle meanwhile got frozen at the load point, I think). At this point, the third room gets populated. Come back through it and out to the battle, and you'll find that the Marines have gone, and you've effectively got a battle with no Marines. If the Elite didn't get into his Ghost earlier, you can watch him pacing around peacefully. He walks a long way over towards the door before turning back; something you'd normally never see. There's scope here for a nice spot of plasma pistol sniping.

Instead of coming back when you get to the lift, you could instead ride up in the lift. At the top you get a checkpoint, and you'll find that normal checkpoint structure has now been resumed. This means that if you now come back down, you can get a checkpoint just before entering your no-Marines battle.

Alternatively you can head on up to the bridge, from where you can lob grenades and use the tremendous range of the plasma pistol to destroy the Wraith and kill some ground troops; just for a bit of mischief. Retreating up to the bridge is something you can do also with a normal battle incidentally, in which case it'll still be raging below. But you'd have more fun up here with a sniper rifle and rocket launcher of course.

What happened?

Why did the Marines disappear? Here's my understanding. When you triggered enemies in the third room, the game also did what it usually does along with that, namely remove any Marines from outside. The game is expecting that you're on your way down and out, and that three new Marines will be created later as you trigger the battle. However, the battle has already been triggered, so no such creation gets done.

As mentioned earlier, this all started after Boris alerted me to how he was sometimes managing to get four extra Marines in the first snow battle, namely the Pelican Marines that were intended to be dead by the time you arrive. So, let me talk a bit about that.

The unusual presence of the Pelican Marines in the battle was something Boris had noticed after rearranging things (overturning Ghosts, putting Banshees within reach, and so on), having done a descent trick off the bridge and later flown back up to resume normal play. But it was unreliable (and didn't work on Halo PC at all, apparently). Sometimes he got the extras, sometimes he didn't. I did some investigation and later started to understand what might be going on. Here's the refined version I ended up with.

The method, refined

Do a descent trick off the first bridge and bring back a Banshee. Briefly fly past the Pelican Marines while firing your plasma cannons, before promptly heading up to the bridge and inside, to resume normal play. When you get out into battle, hopefully the four Pelican Marines will still be there.

It's still not completely reliable though. In practice, you should save the tunnel checkpoint you get after the underground bridge when flying back (preferably delay it for a while too, with Banshee firing). If you fail to get the Pelican Marines, eject the disc and reload to try again.

What's going on?

Why does it potentially work? My theory is that by firing near the Pelican Marines, they gain some sort of link with MC, most likely being officially 'aware' of his presence, even though they're currently inactive. Consequently, the game avoids removing them, which I think it would normally do at the bottom of the lift when you activate enemies in the third room. The game may be thinking something like "I want to remove these guys; but they seem to be aware of MC, so he must be close, so I'd better not remove them else the player may notice it, which would be bad". Of course, MC is actually a long way off; but possibly the inactivity of these Marines has frozen their awareness of MC to some extent.

The game has no objection to removing the original three active Marines (later to be replaced by three fresh ones), because they've lost track of MC. Sometimes the Pelican Marines may lose track too, perhaps due to some degree of randomness in Marine awareness behaviour; and so, sometimes Pelican Marines get removed and the method fails.

Ok, that's the best I can do. If anyone can shed any light on any of this, I'll be glad to hear about it.

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