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The subject of this article appeared in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

For the similar aircraft in Modern Warfare 3, see MQ-9 Reaper.

The Lodestar is a vehicle and Scorestreak featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops II that requires a score of 1500.

Overview[]

It acts similarly to the Reaper from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, though in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the Lodestar can shoot an unlimited number of missiles with a 45 second time limit. The missiles travel faster and have a greater blast radius to compensate. This results in a more effective Scorestreak as it can kill more players in a shorter amount of time. This Scorestreak requires three lock-on launcher shots or Black Hat hits to destroy.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II[]

Campaign[]

The Lodestar is first seen in the campaign in the Strike Force mission, FOB Spectre as part of the background scenery. Later in the campaign, Lodestars are seen in Odysseus, Cordis Die and Judgement Day where they are under the control of Raul Menendez and attack the USS Barack Obama, Los Angeles, Beijing and other numerous cities. After Menendez gives his speech in Judgement Day, he self-destructs the Lodestars and other drones.

Multiplayer[]

The Lodestar is unlocked at level 12.

When summoned, the Lodestar will be ready to fire as soon as it enters the airspace. The Lodestar will circle around the map from a very high aerial point, in a fashion similar to a UAV or Counter UAV. When fired, a single missile gets fired, and will land at the user's point of aim. In-flight, the missile will actively follow the player's current crosshair position, allowing the player to control the missile's flight path, which can be important to navigate it around obstacles, as well as locate it close to enemies. Another missile cannot be fired until the first missile explodes.

Lodestar kills, unless acquired by blowing up a vehicle which kills an enemy, only net fifteen score per kill, making the Lodestar very inefficient at building towards higher scorestreaks. However, the sheer bulk of kills acquired through the Lodestar can offset this.

The missiles themselves are extremely powerful with a very large explosive radius. Flak Jacket users can survive a single missile, but a follow up missile can oftentimes kill the Flak Jacket user.

The player views the map with a green thermal overlay in a manner similar to the Dual Band Scope, with enemies glowing yellow hot, in addition to enemies getting a red overlay. Enemies with Cold-Blooded will not have the red overlay nor glow yellow hot. The aim down sight button can be pressed to toggle a higher zoom setting, allowing for finer adjustments. Pressing the aim down sight button again will return the Lodestar's view back to its lower zoom setting. Like with other scorestreaks that provide red overlays for enemy targets, the enemy has to have been spawned in for a short period of time before they have a red overlay appears for them, although this won't stop the Lodestar from being able to kill them, just making it harder for the user to identify them.

The flight time of the missiles is not uniform, as certain shots can be made shorter or longer based on the user's guidance of the missiles, in addition to the Lodestar's physical location compared to the destination for the missile. The Lodestar is at its deadliest when firing missiles at a distance closest to the Lodestar, as these will detonate the fastest, thus increasing the maximum number of missiles that can be launched before the Lodestar leaves the airspace. The Lodestar's effectiveness is greatly reduced when the missiles take longer periods of time to explode, such as on long range shots, or if the user is constantly and drastically changing the missile's direction mid-flight.

When in use, the Lodestar will make warning beeps to the player when a hostile is in the process of locking onto it. It takes three locked on rockets or three Black Hats to destroy the lodestar. Shooting the Lodestar down with bullets is quite ineffective due to how far away the Lodestar is, how small a target it is, and how much health it has.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • The imaging camera is in infrared, rather than enhanced optics similar to other Scorestreaks.
  • While some briefing slides show that the Lodestar is supersonic, the specification slide on Vertigo states that it's subsonic.
  • A unused Lodestar can be found on the map Carrier.
    • Lodestars can be found around the map Drone.
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