**Spartan Assault: the five Flood co-op missions**

**Spartan Assault: the five Flood co-op missions** Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions; not the Steam solo campaign. These missions aren't Palmer's campaign with another player added. They are their own Flood training scenarios, and they need two players online. You cannot simply select them as solo missions when a partner isn't available. The first rule is to keep one person alive. When a Spartan dies, the surviving player can keep the attempt going until the respawn countdown finishes. If both of you go down together, the mission fails. Don't rush into a losing fight merely because your partner is already dead. **1. Checkpoint** **Gold target: 140,000.** Survive the attack on the construction platform. Split the initial left and right approaches, but keep checking each other's side. A lane assignment isn't a reason to ignore a partner getting overrun. Coordinate resupplies so both players aren't away from the fight at the same time. An Assault Rifle gives you a dependable general-purpose weapon; save heavier ammunition for crowds or armed combat forms. If one player is working on a long multikill chain, the other can handle threats approaching from behind rather than competing for every target. Treat the displayed survival timer as the objective, not the score target. A gold score doesn't replace surviving the mission. **2. Holding the Fort** **Gold target: 135,000.** The Flood can use the teleportation system to reach the platform, so don't assume a clear approach stays clear. Use the central area and barriers to manage incoming groups. Firebombs are useful when a wave is crowded at an entrance. Keep a second player watching for golden infection forms while the first concentrates on a streak; a single one reaching your back can undo an otherwise comfortable defense. This is also a practical place to work on the **Kill it with fire** medal: kill 50 enemies with fire without being hit. Reserve that attempt for fire kills, with your partner protecting you. This is one of the medals, not a separate achievement. For an ordinary clear, use whatever keeps you alive. For a score run, be aware that environmental defenses and your own kills are not interchangeable sources of personal credit. **3. Structural Integrity** **Gold target: 145,000.** Activate the transportation grid and escape the collapsing cave system. This one is a moving objective, not another stationary survival arena. Keep advancing together toward the activation point, then be ready to return. At the light-bridge hold, one player must maintain the required position while the other protects the area. Don't both abandon it to chase the same Flood group. Check your combined progress before the final exit on a gold attempt, but don't linger until the collapse defeats you. Learn the route on a completion run first. Knowing which stretch is the return journey is more useful than trying to improvise a high score while the level is falling apart. **4. Transmission Interrupted** **Gold target: 185,000.** Keep the transmitter network functioning through the transmission. There are three defensive positions. Hold each for as long as you can, then move together when you have to fall back. The final position is the one you cannot afford to lose. Don't leave one player protecting an earlier, lost objective while the other is already defending the last point. Call the retreat, clear the path and establish both players at the next defense. Keep an eye on the objective's condition as well as your Spartan's health; surviving beside a destroyed transmitter still loses the purpose of the mission. Use your defensive abilities before the Flood have already filled your escape route. Repel can create breathing room for a reload or a reposition, rather than being saved until there is nowhere to move. **5. Power Net** **Gold target: 150,000.** Destroy the power cores before additional defenses come online. Prioritize the marked cores on your first completion attempt. Delaying their destruction adds danger rather than making the objective easier. Agree whether you are going for a clear or deliberately extending the fight for score before one person destroys a target the other wanted to keep active. The Hardlight Shield pickup is inside the shielded area in the northeast. Your partner needs to operate the floor switches to open access. For the Long Distance attempt, take Loadout B and split along the bottom edge toward opposite corners before using Teleport. Those are useful landmarks for the medal detours, not the order in which to destroy every core. Keep enough distance to cover different angles without becoming unable to help each other. The larger arena also makes this a useful place for the **Long Distance** medal: separate far enough to meet its 75-meter requirement, then use the teleport ability to return to your partner. **Achievements to organize before playing** - **Flooded:** finish all five missions. - **Dynamic Duo:** earn gold on all five. - **Overachiever:** earn all fourteen co-op medals. These are not the campaign's medal checklist. - **Extermination:** accumulate 10,000 co-op enemy kills. - **The Company of Strangers:** finish a co-op mission with five different partners across separate sessions. This is a two-player mode, not a six-player lobby. Xbox One adds **The Enemy of my Friend**, for outscoring your partner individually on every co-op mission, and **Immune**, for completing a mission without becoming infected. Those two are not part of the Xbox 360 list. For Immune, prioritize the golden infection forms. Once one latches onto you, your partner needs to remove it; merely surviving that rescue doesn't mean you avoided infection. Repel helps prevent the contact in the first place. For Overachiever, check the actual medal list after each session. It includes teamwork actions such as healing your partner, sheltering them with Repel and using the teleport ability, not just enormous kill streaks. Finish the mission after earning a troublesome medal rather than assuming an immediate abort will preserve it.