I've just finished Halo Reach and there's one thing that annoyed me, more than the repetitive mission templates, more than the lack of autosave, more than that last horrible mission: The checkpointing system. From what I can gather, the game's checkpointing system seems to consist of 'whenever we damn well fee like it'; there was no logic to the checkpointing. Sometimes I would be checkpointed no less than three times down some hallway, others I would go for five minutes without being checkpointed. There's no consistency, no logic, no common sense whatsoever to Halo's checkpointing system, and it's something which has plagued the franchise since the very first Halo.  
 
Can someone explain how Halo's checkpoining system is supposed to work?

I'm pretty sure it tries to give you a checkpoint after each major fight or after defeating a major enemy like a Wraith vehicle.

" I'm pretty sure it tries to give you a checkpoint after each major fight or after defeating a major enemy like a Wraith vehicle. "

I had no problem with the checkpointing, so yeah...

You get a checkpoint for several things. Defeating so many enemies/certain enemies, place on the map and several other things. I never had a problem with it...

I didn't have a problem with it either. Nor with any of your other complaints...

It basically checkpoints you whenever you fight something big, like a hunter or a wraith. Or whenever you defeat a wave of enemies. And whenever you go from one setpiece to another. It's actually pretty ingenious. 

....or whenever a new wave of enemies is about to attack you in the "firefight-like stages.

Yup, ot's a very dynamic system but that can also cause a few problems. If you happen to complete an objective at the moment of your death you could wind up reverting to a dead state over and over. I do believe that if this happens the game will eventually revert you to the checkpoint before that one. But I digress.

I found if you want a check point and have a vehicle, change which position of the vehicle you are in. It's been helping a lot on my legendary run.

Never had a problem, you just suck.

No problems yet.

I did notice that sometimes I would complete an objective, fight through a wave of enemies,  start on an on rails vehicle sequence only to die and end up having to fight through the wave of enemies again. Then after that it would checkpoint at the vehicle sequence. Why did it not just checkpoint me there the first time? (just one example)

I've definitely noticed how weird the checkpoint system works. I'm fighting through tons of bad guys only to get a little breather. No checkpoint. Okay, whatever. I move on, only to get stuck by some ass wipe covenant in the next room. Sweet so now I have to star that push all over again, however this time, when I get a breather in the SAME DAMN SPOT I was before, now the game decides to checkpoint.
 
Also there were a few times the game would go checkpoint happy and I would get about 5 of them seconds apart from each other.
 
It hasn't been that big of a deal, it's just the lack of consistency and reliability that kinda ruins the whole point of checkpoints.

Its been a source of frustration, probably my only real one so far (other than the questionable friendly AI, but no one's ever got that right). There was a section, the third chapter I think, where I had to fight through the same wave of enemies 4 or 5 times because I died at the heavily armored enemies each time with absolutely no reasonable check point in between, and then later, be checkpointed twice while fighting one enemy in a ghost. I can understand what they're trying to do, but its completely stupid sometimes.