Part 20: Leonardo's Machines: Flying Machine 2.0

Part 20:  Leonardo's Machines: Flying Machine 2.0

Obtaining the plans from the Overseer

-- War Plans 3 --

This time around we need to get another location from a Templar Overseer by using a Smoke Bomb to stun them.  Sounds like a plan! 

Follow the marker on the radar map to the Overseer and have your Smoke Bombs ready, then identify and approach him, drop the bomb near him and kill him for an instant 100% and good on ya!  If you watch the video you will see that one of those pesky bards tried to make this a lot harder for me than it had to be, so I was happy to make sure he got a lung full of smoke in the process, bastard!

Now that we have the location, we head to the marker on the map and we see it is by another gate -- this is a theme with this series isn't it?

-- Flying Machine 2.0 --

The mission opens with us in a new town -- and our objective this time around is to destroy the bomber that the Borgia have made from Leo's redesign of his Flying Machine which is now armed!  In order to get 100% Sync we have to make sure we do not get shot while we are using the bomber -- a worthy goal really, as I prefer not to get shot when doing pretty much everything!

Our first task is to locate the Architect who created the bomber from Leo's plans.  We start out on a roof of what appears to be a church -- it has a bell anyway -- and below us is a group of soldiers.  The thing is, they are going to be a problem for us once we ID the Architect, because they will see us when we move from roof to roof, so it would be an idea to kill them right away, using a ranged weapon.  I chose the crossbow for its stealth, though to be honest people do not react to gunshots in this era, so you could as easily use the gun I suppose.

Whichever you use, after you dispatch the solders below you switch to Eagle Vision and you will spot the Architect on the other side of the area eventually.  Once you do use the roofs to get close to him.  You are following him and so you have to maintain a certain distance -- not too far, not too close -- until the objective changes from follow to beat up.

Once the objective changes make sure that you change your weapon to bare hands, then drop down and grab him.  Tune up on him until he tells you where the plans are located, and then you ask where the machine is.  He tells you -- of course he does, hell *I* would tell me if I grabbed me like that and started head-butting me, I am just saying...

OK so we let this guy live.  I guess that Ezio does not kill civilians, even the ones who work for the Borgia.  Personally I think that is bad policy -- after all this guy knew he was building a war machine for as nasty a group of psychopaths as you ever heard of, so in all fairness he probably should have been executed.  Oh well.

Getting in the Easy Way

- Making it Less Hard -

From this point on this is one of those missions where a lot of players simply make it more difficult for themselves than it really needs to be.  This is one of the times in the game where you want to keep this as simple as you can, because simple works best here!

Despite the fact that there are dozens of soldiers in the area, you only actually need to kill FOUR of them to get to the blueprints and burn them.  If you follow the video, and do exactly as follows you will find this to be one of the easiest memories in the game!

(1) Jump on the roof  of the house we are standing behind after talking to the Architect, and look to the right, where you will see the pair of guards who are on a circular patrol route approached.  In the immediate area they are the biggest and only real threat to you -- if you are going to be detected on this side of the compound they will be who does that.

When the come around the corner of the building on the other side of the path, target them and shoot them with a ranged weapon.  I used the crossbow, but you can use any ranged weapon you have -- none of the other guards here appears to respond to gunfire.  Once they are dead, go to number 2.

(2) Jump down in the direction of the firewood shed behind you, then cross the path to the building past the dead guards, climb to the roof and walk out onto the perch in the corner.

Target the guard in the tower on top of the battlement and kill him with your ranged weapon of choice.  It is absolutely critical that you kill him and he does NOT fall off of the tower, so shoot him when he is not by the edge.  If he sees you he may approach the edge -- as long as it is the edge facing you that is not a problem, since none of the other guards will see him on the ground there, but do not shoot him off any of the other three sides, right?

(3) Now back up, face the perch, and take a good running leap so that you grab the top of the wall across from you!  This is your way in, and the only way in that does not involve a bunch of other guards who will see you and ruin your day!  No ladder, no sneaking, no hiding in the bushes!

Remember what I said about keeping it simple?  This is way simple!  You go over the wall here, drop to the ground, and hide behind the building to the right.  When your heartbeat is under control, make sure that your ranged weapon is still armed, then peak around the nearby corner and kill the guard here who is talking to a civilian.  Do not worry about the civilian, they will not rat you out, and no other guards will come to investigate.

(4) Now that the only guard between you and the blueprints on this side of the wall is dead, move along the back wall to the shed on the far side of the Architect's house, go inside and burn the blueprint.  That should earn you a checkpoint save, so if things go sideways from here, at least the hard part is over!

- The Bomber -

As you can see on the radar map, the bomber is ahead and up above you.  To get to it unfortunately you are going to have to move through an area filled with hostiles.  OK remember when I said to keep it simple?  Well the problem you are facing is that ahead are two guards, but they are on opposite sides of the road and have enough distance between them so that by the time you take on out and get within range of the other, you are fully compromised.

While Ezio does not kill civilians, we are not Ezio, and the easiest way to draw one of those guards out is to shoot a civilian, because while the guard is not within range of our crossbow at the moment, the civilians ARE. 

Use Eagle Vision to spot the guards and your useful diversion and then pick a civilian and shoot them.   The guard will then come to investigate, and you can shoot HIM.  I do not mean to sound so cold-blooded about this but this tactic works.  If this confuses you, watch the video, it shows it in detail :)

There are two groups of two guard ahead -- and though the hay piles look like great places to hide, the guards think so too, so if you use either of them it has to be temporary.  When the guard approaches to check kill him -- then kill his partner when he comes to check looking for the one you just killed!

Ahead on the hill leading to the upper compound is another pair of guards who are walking back and forth between two hay piles, checking them over and over.  Stay in the middle hay pile and, when the check the next one and turn around to head back up the hill, jump out run ahead and shoot the one in the read, then hide in the nearby hay pile.  When the second guard comes down to check it, ignoring his dead partner, kill him.

Getting to the top of the Tower

-- The Upper Compound --

Handling the upper compound can be tricky.  I like to stash the body of the guard I killed in the road just because I am a neat freak :)  You do not have to though as I do not believe that there are any other patrols here...

As you move into the upper compound you will notice that there is a significant presence along the walls and on the towers of the fort.   Using the same Keep-It-Simple approach, we see that there is a cargo hoist with a pallet in the air by the middle tower.  Using the overhang of the stables we climb up and then Parkour over to the tower wall across from the pallet, then jump to the pallet and, from it, back to the tower wall where we can get hand-holds to make it to the top!

At the top we wait for the lone guard here to approach the edge, and assassinate him.  Now we are on top of the tower, and there are guards below in both directions -- so we want to go to great lengths to not be seen right?  Picking any off, no matter how quiet, is likely to get us caught...

In the corner of the tower is a perch with some birds on it -- take a running leap off of that into the compound below and be nicely hidden in some hay!  Now there are several sets of patrolling guards down here, including a pair that walk right past this hay pile.  Next time they pass snag the guy in the rear, and kill him quietly in the hay!  His partner does not get close enough for you to do that so there is no point in waiting for him to make another trip around -- just jump out and kill him from behind now.

Continue along the wall in the direction they were patrolling to the far corner, then look right -- see those boxes?  Run up them and parkour to the roof of the low building toward the other corner, then climb the ladder, jump to the pallet, and then to the tower here.  Work your way around and then up until you are hanging just off of the scaffolding and wait for the guard up here to move to the other side.  Now shimmy left and wait for him to get close enough to this side to assassinate him by throwing him over the edge.

Now you can get to the top here, and jump across to the other tower - the one with the marker in it!

Sadly until you get to the target tower there are no checkpoint saves between the starting tower and the target – sorry.

-- The Target Tower --

Once you reach the roof of the tower beside the target, and kill the guard, use the beam that sticks out from scaffolding to make the leap over to its mate then turn right and run and jump to the wheel-thing that will swing you around and onto a beam below.  Shoot the guard below you with your crossbow, then drop down to the marker and go inside.

Climb  to the top of the inside of the tower using the beams, ladders, and scaffolding, and then go out the window, around to the side and up.  At the top ninja to the pulley mechanism and trigger it to open the trap door, killing all four of the guards on top of the tower, then climb the ladder and hit the marker there for a checkpoint save -- thank God!

After a brief CS you will find yourself at the controls of the glider -- and remember this is a glider and not a plane -- it needs thermals to stay aloft (hot air).  Your objective is to destroy the workshops - you will do that with the cannon on the glider -- but in the process of doing so make sure you also ignite fires on the ground so you have hot air to use for lift, because you need to stay aloft.  Oh yes, and do not get shot, right?

Was this as tough a mission for you as it was for me?  After all that excruciatingly painful stealth,  finally reaching the glider, and before I can even figure out the controls, I get shot from one of the towers below!  Bam!  A perfect Sync no longer possible because to do that you have to start over again.  Oh man! 

Well at least the mission is done, the memory is in the can.  If you got hit as I did it is just one more mission to replay later, right?  Bonus is that it unlocked the Achievement "Boom!" worth a cool 20 GP, not too shabby!