yep. That worked. Thanks eatntea. I let most of them go red the first time, so it was a matter of triggering the one or two that I didn't. Unfortunately out of the 7 terminals I didn't trigger the achievement until the 5th one.

That one put me at a cool 27,000 even.

< Hasn't seen Skulls or these Terminals.

Don't feel too bad. I've only found one terminal and haven't seen a single skull. I'm too busy shooting bad guys and driving Warthogs to care about this "meta-game" shit.

Silver Skulls - a couple are easy to find, and one is impossible to get without a guide. It involves, literally, jumping through hoops in a particular number order.

Gold Skulls - there is one super easy to find, all the others I needed help on.

Terminals - once you find the first one and know what you are looking for they are fairly easy to find.

I tried a couple of times to find these skulls using a guide and they do not seem to be where they are supposed to be. I've tried on normal and legendary and still no luck. I've found 4 terminals I think.

To find skulls you have to start at the beginning of the level with the difficulty set at Normal, Heroic or Legendary. The only one I had a problem with was on "Crow's Nest," the area with your first Scarab encounter. There are some Wraiths you need to take out, but if you do the skull will disappear.

As for a guide, Halo 3 Planet has everything covered.

When my cousin was helping us get all the skulls and terminals, I kept thinking to myself "how/why the hell would anybody be looking in this area?!" I know he used a guide when he first found them, but some of these skulls are ridiculous. There was one skull that we needed a flying vehicle to get to, but it was destroyed in battle. We wound up having to stand on each other's heads to get onto some ledges.

I was trying to get the skull on the Ark last night, but couldn't even get to it, because I was also trying to get the 10 headshots on the level, and had no ammo for either weapon...so all the Prowlers & Ghosts kept picking me off.

I was starting at a checkpoint, not at the beginning. That's probably the problem.

You can use the prowler to get to the gold skull on the Ark. Ride up the rocks and boost over to the ledge. You can also park it near the skull to jump off of to get it.

Grenade jumping is the other option. Not too hard with a little practice.

The problem was that I couldn't even get the Prowler. I had a Mongoose and had no ammo, so the various Prowlers/Ghosts were just laying waste to me.

What do I need to do to get fancier armor? Is there a good list somewhere of what gets you what?

There's probably a list out somewhere, I'll just type it out below from the guide. Also, I don't think you can get skulls the first time through, right?

Spartan sets:

EVA:
Body: Complete Tsavo Highway on Normal or above
Shoulders: Complete the Ark on Nromal or above
Head: Complete Campaign on Normal

EOD:
Body: Complete Tsavo Highway on Legendary
Shoulders: Complete the Ark on Legendary
Head: Complete Campaign mode on Legendary

Security:
Shoulders: Earn 750 Gamerscore points
Head: Earn 1000 Gamerscore points

Scout:
Body: Unlock "Too Close to the Sun" Achievement
Shoulders: Unlock "We're in for some Chop" Achievement
Head: Unlock "Used Car Salesman Achievement

Mark V:
Head: Unlock "UNSC Spartan" Achievement

ODST:
Head: Unlock "Spartan Graduate" Achievement

Rogue:
Head: Unlock "Spartan Officer" Achievement

Elite sets:
Flight:
Body: Complete Tsavo Highway on Heroic or above
Shoulders: Complete the Ark on Heroic or above
Head: Complete Campaign mode on Heroic

Ascetic:
Body: Unlock "Up Close and Personal" Achievement
Shoulders: Unlock "Overkill" Achievement
Head: Unlock "Steppin' Razor" Achievement

Commando:
Body: Unlock "Triple Kill" Achievement
Shoulders: Unlock "Killing Frenzy" Achievement
Head: Complete "Overkill" Achievement

Just noticed the guide says that these aren't all, and that Bungie asked them not to list all of them. They said the same thing about the skulls... so there should be an FAQ out there with a more comprehensive list.

Sure you can. Like I mentioned a few posts up, I played on Legendary up to The Ark and lowered the difficulty so I could focus on finding them.

You're right, I just read that they're available from the first time you go through campaign mode.

ha ha same happened to me the first time, except I was able to resume from the halfway point. didn't give me an error the second time luckily.

Well I finished the game last night and maybe it's just me but it either felt short or I just went thru it too quickly (Normal). I've spent more time with Bioshock and I'm only 2/3 thru it. The ending was a mixed bag and the way you had to finish was not what I was hoping for. Something like a mega war zone to get thru. Dealing with you-know-what (F-word) was more challenging than the last part. I'd like to give coop a go if anyone is interested.


Kenny J - Buzz Starhopper

You need to play it on at least Heroic to get any challenge out of it. One difference I know of is the Brutes carry spikers on Heroic and Legendary as opposed to SMGs on Easy and Normal.

The deployable shield is what I used. Just set it by the wall and jump off of it onto the wall.

From 1up.com

Bungie Updates Halo 3 Matchmaking
No more Shotty Snipers obsession.
By Patrick Klepek, 10/09/2007
Bungie Studios has announced a shake up to their matchmaking service in Halo 3, bringing about a number of fan-demanded changes to the way the sci-fi shooter picks upcoming matches. The biggest news: severely reduced appearance of Shotty Snipers. You can hear the collective groan of 12-year-olds everywhere.

The rest of the changes, which are playable over Xbox Live right now, are:

# Big Team Battle matches are now 16-player affairs.
# In the Team Slayer playlist, the appearance of Shotty Snipers has been greatly reduced.
# Now, when players veto Shotty Snipers, the game that results from the veto will not be Shotty Snipers.
# In one-sided VIP matches, the attacking team will now see a waypoint for the VIP they are hunting.
# In Lone Wolves, Slayer gametypes will appear more frequently.



See you guys tonight...

Has anyone noticed bungie.net not keeping an accurate count of ranked matches? I've had some awesome games that don't show up in my stats (Triple Kill achievment in particular). I also have some games listed from way back (year 1753). No biggie, just wierd.

Their stat system went down between the 5-7 and a little bit around those dates too.

Having an achievement or something listed as 1753 means your console wasn't online (or logged into to Live) when you got it.

Yes they do.

It's amazing how I had no time to play this on vacation. Now that I am back to work I finally beat the game and have moved on to playing online. I also restarted the campaign and the new difficulty really has me rethinking every move I made the first time I played.