Instant launching of a newly spawned Wraith! Pilot not too happy.

Posted January 5th 2026

Sometime in 2025 I had the idea of putting the Scorpion where the first Wraith would be spawning (in the first ground battle), to see what would happen. Setting things up so I'd have a view of the area, the results turned out to be quite spectacular and amusing. The Wraith gets propelled away from the tank, in effect being launched. 'Spawn-launched' as I now call it. The effect presumably arises via the way in which colliding vehicles bounce off each other.

The exact launch dynamic can vary considerably according to the Scorpion's configuration, but the Wraith can certainly go quite high, potentially up to about half the height of the first ledge. Other things that can happen are that the Wraith may get some spin, doing a somersault or suchlike, and the pilot may end up getting ejected, which can lead to some fun if you care to close in on the scene.

Incidentally, the pilot is initially not aboard the Wraith, but he does start boarding right away. You can see him clambering in even as the Wraith is flying through the air!

Setting up

My tutorial BCM621 shows the set-up work but I'll outline things here also, giving more detail.

When you reach the first bridge, either grab the bridge Banshee (present only on Heroic or Legendary) or perform a descent trick and fetch a Banshee. The first accessible one is the twin bridges Banshee, deep into the level (have a nice trip in a Ghost or the Warthog).

Bring the Scorpion to the battlefield. There's a technique for getting it up over the step, which I described in New toys in the first ground battle. Position it roughly where the Wraith spawns. As a guide, see the next picture or my tutorial. It doesn't matter if you're some way off though; you'll be able to adjust it later.

Fly up to the end of the bridge, disembark and enter the passage leading to the next room. A checkpoint is triggered in the short second section, namely the post-bridge checkpoint. Keep it delayed, initially with jumping. Continue on to the end of the long middle section in order to trigger the room (covies spawn). This will enable you to trigger the ground battle shortly. You're incidentally also on your way to getting seven extra Marines.

Return to the Banshee. At this point you can continue the checkpoint delay either with a grenade or using Banshee fire. Get the checkpoint near the tank, so you'll be able to try out adjustments conveniently. Preferably also save the checkpoint, in case you ever inadvertently get the 'upfield checkpoint' (see later warning).

Launching, consolidating, honing

When you now trigger the ground battle by crossing a certain line just through the ground-level door, you can see what happens to the Wraith, i.e. the nature of the launch (assuming the Scorpion was in a sufficiently good position to cause a 'launch' at all). A pistol can provide a zoomed view if you want.

If the launch effect isn't very good, or if you simply want to get some new effect, you can revert, adjust the Scorpion's position (typically by using your Banshee, though melee is another option), then see what happens. Even quite a minor tweak can result in a significant difference to the launch.

If you like the result of an adjustment, what you can then do is repeat the adjustment as best you can, then consolidate with a new delayed checkpoint; potentially the bridge checkpoint if not yet used up, otherwise a tunnel checkpoint. Hopefully this gets you closer to the sort of launch you wanted. A succession of further tweaks and consolidations could follow, in a process of honing a particular type of launch, such as one achieving great height (an obvious goal).

NB: for a given Scorpion configuration, the spawn-launch will be the same every time. There seems to be no randomness at all. Things are deterministic.

Ultimately, if you feel like you've honed a good launch dynamic, you could of course get a delayed checkpoint at the door, ready to spawn the Wraith, enabling you to repeatedly launch with maximum ease.

Flight option

When triggering the Wraith, you may be interested in quickly closing in on the scene, either for a closer look or to potentially have some aggressive fun (especially if the pilot gets ejected). In this case you'll probably want to have your Banshee ready for near-instant boarding. My tutorial shows a technique for positioning it quite easily and fairly safely. Thanks to angling the tail up, there's not much risk of getting splattered between the Banshee and the door when you dismount.

If you don't mind a bit of fuss, you can actually take things a step further by whacking the Banshee so the tail ends up sticking into the passage, enabling you to board a fraction of a second sooner. It's even possible to have things so that when you spawn the Wraith, you don't need to step forward to get the boarding prompt; you've already got it. That would hardly make any difference though.

With quick boarding you can enjoy trying to score an early long-range fuel rod hit on the Wraith. I'm not sure there's time to hit it while it's still in the air, but you can certainly land a hit very soon after it's come down.

Using an extra Banshee

If you're always going to want to board a Banshee pronto, it could be worth getting a second machine, to have one carefully pre-positioned at the door (see pic). This way, each time you fly back to the door after tweaking the tank, you can just bail and hop around behind the waiting ride. You won't have to spend time Banshee positioning.

For such an extra Banshee, just blast down the platform Banshee with the one you've got.

Note on the upfield checkpoint

Bear in mind that if after spawning the Wraith you head over to the scene to have fun, you'll very likely trigger the upfield checkpoint. It'll initially be delayed by enemy threat and likely also by active ordnance flying about, but if at some point the game judges you to be out of enemy threat, you'd be in danger of getting the checkpoint in the next few seconds. It would be inconvenient to get it, because then you wouldn't be able to revert to your pre-spawn checkpoint. So, keep that in mind.

However, as long as you saved your pre-spawn checkpoint, at least you'd always be able to get back to it by ejecting the disc and reloading, if you did happen to get the upfield checkpoint.

Trigger details

In regard to triggering the ground battle, notice that after the plane of the door there's a patterned silvered strip on the floor, then a relatively plain dark grey strip. The trigger line is almost at the end of the dark grey (see pic, which also indicates where the line is on the wall). Note also that when you trigger the battle, it's possible to have a direct line of sight towards where the Wraith will spawn.

Further remarks

I mentioned the option of quickly boarding a Banshee to close in on the launch scene, but equally you could set things up for closing in quickly in a Ghost, giving you different potential for combat fun.

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