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Smooth Operator achievement in Halo MCC

Smooth Operator

Halo 4: Complete all Spartan Ops chapters solo on Legendary difficulty.

Smooth Operator0
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How to unlock the Smooth Operator achievement

  • i7z IDaRReNxi7z IDaRReNx
    09 Jan 2015 09 Jan 2015 27 Apr 2015
    Looks like this has been patched.
    The only way to do this achievement now is the hard way. Which isn't all that hard just very time consuming.
    If you go on your loadouts from the main menu put the BR as your primary weapon and also use sticky grenades. Those will help kill the bigger enemys with ease.
    And don't worry about dying because there's infinate respawns, good luck!

    Guide not helping? View 3 more guides for this achievement.

    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Mox AmberI have all 5 missions in chapter 1 done on solo legendary but no achievement. Tracker is at 80%. I even checked the tracker site below and it says all done. Any way to unstick this?
    Posted by Mox Amber on 18 Nov 23 at 16:25
    TsGh AMPPPPPPPPI figured out how to unstick this. I’m currently running the solo Legendary and see the tracker not moving on mcc & on the achievement but says I completed it on the mission. Fix: start the mission and quit it, sit at menu for a few seconds & go back into the mission, check it updated & do this everytime it sticks as you go forward. Hope this helps
    Posted by TsGh AMPPPPPPPP on 21 Nov 23 at 06:11
    Darth Hawk CZYou can use Bandana and Acrophobia skulls, making this a walk in a park. You can fly out of harms way or straight to objective and your abilities are infinite aswell.
    Posted by Darth Hawk CZ on 22 Jan at 22:27
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  • CheckyoshelfCheckyoshelf
    26 Apr 2016 30 Apr 2016
    The only Spartan Ops mission that gave me any trouble was 7-1 on Apex. The difference between rock-solid success and overwhelming failure for me was the jetpack. As you make your way down the hill you must neutralize plasma barrier power supplys. When you come to the barrier with some Promethean knights, other enemies and a covenant sniper hover tower behind it (where the mantis is dropped off) do not bring down the barrier. Instead, run back up the hill a little ways, turn around and proceed to jetpack up onto the rocks to your left. From here you can find your ideal sniping position without ever worrying about taking any damage and kill every single enemy by shooting over the barrier! I personally prefer the DMR, and when you run out of ammo you can plasma grenade yourself and respawn with more bullets! If you don't have any grenades then you can run further back up the hill and jump off the cliff. There are no time constraints on this part of the mission so take your time, and kill everything! After all are dead, drop the barrier and wait for the mantis. When you get in the mantis it will trigger the friendly phantom sequence to start and enemies will begin to spawn. Watch for fuel rod grunts as soon as you get in the mantis! Fuel rods on legendary are mantis kryptonite! Head down the hill and murder everything on the way. I actually stayed in the large clearing by the phantom and fired nonstop back and forth between the upper and lower paths. Watch out for fuel rods! They will come from both paths at the same time! Early mantis destruction will most likely result in failure. My mantis was destroyed with 14 enemies left to kill and I still managed to complete the mission with a very comfortable 70% phantom health. There may be a better place to park the mantis, but this method worked very well for me. I did not find solo success until I killed all of the mantis area enemies before dropping the barrier.
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    TarvuThis level is awful. I declare it the worst part of the worst part of the worst part of a mediocre compilation.
    Posted by Tarvu on 24 Nov 20 at 19:33
    Arya JaegerFor anyone still looking at this achievement
    Here are the levels were you defend something:
    5-1, 5-2 (Can get away with deaths), 5-4 and 7-1
    There's a guide for all the S-OPS solo from 'RC Master'
    Posted by Arya Jaeger on 01 Feb 22 at 18:48
    EmagDrolBotCan also confirm that this strategy doesn't seem to work. The mantis and the phantom spawn whether or not you take down the barrier first. You don't have infinite time.

    Bizarrely the strategy that worked for me was getting the mantis blown up. I cleared out the landing area on foot after that and nothing seemed to shoot at the phantom except the other phantom. Once the area was clear I shot the gun off the phantom with my DMR and then (very very) slowly shot it to death with the DMR. Eventually it blew up and the mission finished. No waves of other stuff even spawned.
    Posted by EmagDrolBot on 17 Jan 23 at 05:23
  • SkunkStripedSkunkStriped
    23 Apr 2023 24 Apr 2023 09 Aug 2023
    First, a lot of people (myself included) have run into issues where one mission didn't track as completed properly. If this happens to you and you're not sure which mission needs to be redone, check your progress on this site, it actually shows you which missions you've done (that link shows you Heroic progress, but as Legendary completion gives you credit for Heroic completion as well, it should still work unless for some reason you've already run through the game on Heroic)

    This achievement is more tedious than it is difficult because most missions can't be failed and you’re allowed to use Acrophobia/Bandanna. However, there are three failable missions (and another mission with a major bug), so I'll share tips for those.

    Ep.5 Ch.1 ("Spartan Miller")
    After fighting a few waves of Crawlers and Watchers at the start, you'll have to defend two research stations against waves of Prometheans. Losing both stations will fail the mission.
    • TIP: this section is time-based, not wave/kill-based, and a new wave won't spawn if there are at least two enemies alive. All you have to do is leave two Crawlers alive and wait for about 5-6 minutes (you’ll know it’s progressing based on the dialogue). Even on Legendary, the Crawlers shouldn't be able to destroy both stations before the section ends
    • There’s a separate achievement tied to this section called “No Easy Way Out” (10G). You have to keep at least one station alive, avoid pressing the third button after the defense section ends, and then clear out every wave of Prometheans that spawns. The 2-Crawler strategy can help you get that achievement too.
    Ep.5 Ch.4 ("The Cauldron Base")
    Similar to 5-1, this mission features a generator defense section near the start that results in mission failure if you lose both.
    • TIP: There’s no way to cheese or skip this part, but it’s pretty easy because you’ll have a Mantis, automated turrets, and Marines. If you're having trouble here, try using a loadout with the Wheelman perk
    • You’ll get an extra achievement, “What Power Outage?”, if you manage to keep both generators alive (10G)
    Ep.7 Ch.1 ("Backup")
    In the middle of the mission, you'll have to pilot a Mantis to defend Murphy's Phantom from an enemy Phantom. You fail if Murphy's ship drops to around 1% health.
    • TIP: You don’t have to destroy the enemy Phantom to successfully protect Murphy, you can win by simply disabling all of its weapons. If you kill the Elites manning the plasma turrets on the sides and destroy the chin-mounted heavy turret attached to the bottom of the ship, it will immediately fly away and you’ll clear that part. A single well-placed Plasma Grenade is enough to do the trick
    There's also one more mission that's supposed to be impossible to fail but has a game-breaking bug dating back to OG Halo 4 that can make it unwinnable:

    Ep.3 Ch.5 ("Hunting Trip")
    Near the end of the mission, Covenant drop pods will start dropping onto the cliffs surrounding the map. It's possible for one of the drop pods to glitch out and spawn an Elite inside of a cliff. This can make it impossible to win as the mission won't finish until every enemy is dead.
    • TIP: I've seen people online say that it's possible to kill the glitched Elite with grenades or a perfectly angled Beam Rifle shot, but I didn't have any luck with that. If this happens, you will probably have to restart. I'm not sure what triggers this bug either.
    • Warning: The first time the cliff bug happened to me, the Elite eventually fell out of the map which allowed the mission to end. However, the completion didn’t register in Xbox's tracker. MCC's menu claimed that I beat the level on Legendary, but the Smooth Operator progress tracker was 2% below what it should've been. My progress wasn't fixed until I beat this mission without the cliff bug happening. If this happens to you, make sure you check the achievement progress afterwards
    On that topic—I strongly recommend using Xbox’s achievement tracker overlay (or whatever Steam’s equivalent is) to monitor your progress. Spartan Ops is notorious for sometimes failing to track completion properly. If you don’t check your progress after each level, you won’t know which mission to redo if one of them doesn’t track properly
    Showing only comment.
    My Toxic Frog 2I've only ever done Legendary when playing by myself. I checked the link provided to confirm my completion. Everything says 1 of 1 yet I show 92% complete :/ Also, 7-1 "Backup" actually has me at 2 of 1 oddly enough. So damn annoying.
    Posted by My Toxic Frog 2 on 10 Sep 23 at 04:33
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