Halo Reach Commendations

Commendations are cool little recognitions that the game pops up to recognize stylistic things that you do.  They are designed to showcase what "type" a player is, since folks will tend to gravitate towards one type of commendation over another.  It's not explicitly clear what does what on same of the commendations, but here is some info I've found on the ones that pop for using specific weapons:

[Updated 10/19/10]

• Crack Shot: DMR, Needle Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Focus Rifle
• Sidearm: Magnum, Plasma Pistol
• Trigger Man: Assault Rifle, Spiker, Plasma Repeater, Plasma Rifle, Needler
• Heavy Weapon: Rocket Launcher, Spartan Laser, Fuel Rod Cannon, Plasma Launcher, Grenade Launcher, Concussion Rifle, Target Locator
• Close Quarters: Melee, Shotgun, Energy Sword, Gravity Hammer.
• EMP (not a commendation): Plasma Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Armor Lock
• Supercombine: Needler, Needle Rifle

I think that the Needler is an automatic weapon and counts towards Trigger Man but haven't confirmed it yet.  Jack of All Trades is mysterious because it counts "incredible feats", but this is the one I've progressed the furthest, so it must count lots of stuff.

There is an achievement to advance a commendation to silver, but I'm fairly confident that everyone will eventually get this just with playtime.

Campaign by the Numbers

So I've now finished the campaign on Normal Co-op (4 players), Legendary Co-op (2-4 players) and Legendary Solo.  Here's some tidbits that the data suggests:

• Level 2 "Winter Contingency" (this is first "real" level, level 1 is just cutscenes), as would be expected, is the easiest campaign level.  It has the fewest enemies, takes the shortest time to finish, and is the easiest to survive without dying.  Would be a good level to work on the Campaign commendations, especially "Flawless Cowboy."
• Level 10 [Title redacted for spoilers] is overall the hardest campaign level.  I won't say much more here to avoid spoilers in case anybody hasn't played it yet.
• The game does not appear to adjust anything for co-op play.  Enemies, weapons, ammo, available points are all essentially the same whether you are playing solo or co-op.
• Pro: This means there are fewer enemies each player needs to kill in co-op.
• Pro: Co-op brings with it significant advantages in that you can respawn in place when you die instead of returning to a check-point.
• Con: Because the game also does not generate more ammo and vehicles for co-op, so that can be a restriction on occasion.
• Con: The total number of points stays the same, so you will generate score more points per person playing on solo.
• Level 5 "Tip of the Spear" has the best opportunity to generate kills on co-op.  On my two co-op playthroughs (Normal and Legendary), this level ranked #1 in kills per minute.
• Level 10 had the highest rank in points per minute per person on co-op.  On Legendary Solo, Level 8 had the highest rank in points per minute.
• Level 4 "Night Fall" and Level 10 both start out with good opportunities to work on the "If They Came to Hear Me Beg" achievement.  I got it on level 4, OD got it on level 10.

There's still a handful of Campaign commendations that I'm working on, so I'm happy to join folks in playing some Campaign if people are interested.  I'm consistently on-line every night from 10pm-1am.