Mark, are you telepathic or something. I just read the forum about a half hour ago and there was nothing. Now that I'm ready to upload my post, you beat me to it again! This is getting a bit weird! Anyway, here's my somewhat more lengthy analysis:
I have a love-hate relationship with this level. In many ways, it is one of my favorites, but it is devilishly hard to get to the room with the pattern buffer and shield recharger. There are some nice ammo stashes and just enough power-ups along the way to survive, but you definitely need that secret 3X power-up from Magrathea if you play this one on TC. And whereas the primary enemies were enforcers and fighters, with some drones thrown in for good measure on Magrathea, the major enemies here are troopers and compilers, ratcheting the difficulty up a notch to say the least. The level is also fairly nonlinear and there are definite advantages to heading first in one direction than the other. There are also many sudden encounters with troopers, such as the one waiting right at the top of an elevator we must take. The bottom line is that the player needs to be ready to take out troopers (and exploding drones) at any time.
This is the second part of a 2-level set. As you'll recall, our mission is to flood the power core with lava, burying the Pfhor and our technology (including the last remaining copy of Tycho). All we have to do is to disable some safeties and we're all set. My own take on this is that there is much more important information here than we are being told about. Tycho? - perhaps, but why would there be so many compilers here unless the Pfhor are doing some pretty heavy data mining. There are also some interesting terminals, but I'm not clear as to whether these represent our interactions with the facility's computer network or they represent remote access by our UESC colleagues. A couple of these have to do with overriding the safeties so that we can flood the facility with lava. Either scenario works for me. A third, however, involves changing the programming of drones to target humans. I'm not sure if this is referring to the standard Pfhor drones we have been encountering, or the new Mystic drones that will still be fighting on our side into the next level. In either case, I don't think that this would be something we would do. I would like to think that the S'pht compilers have done this on behalf of the Pfhor, but the terminal log-on makes mention of using the homo sapiens interface. Could there be another simulcrum that has infiltrated the UESC?
One important point is that there are four circuit panels that must be destroyed within the core that are reached from a series of "patios" within the core. Once the player has lowered these panels, all but one of them can be reached by firing from one of the windows overlooking the core, potentially saving a dangerous encounter with a lot of enemies. There is still that one panel, though, and there's really no way around having to take out some troopers and drones to reach it. One interesting thing, however - it's possible to grenade hop and leap from one patio to the next, making it possible to bypass a significant part of the level. I'm not sure that there's much of an advantage in this as it delays access to the room with the pattern buffer and 2X recharger until near the end, but it's an option for the more daring among us (how do you think I figured this out?).
At the end of the level, the player must deal with a MOAT (mother of all troopers, an entity unique to Evil). The strange thing is that I found the MOAT to be surprisingly easy to defeat - easier in some respects to regular troopers IMO due to a physic model defect that makes it easier to outrun it's bullets than those of a standard trooper. I found that I could handily circle the MOAT and fist him (no comments please) without taking damage. It takes a while, but there is no damage from his death explosion if you're running fast enough. This makes it vastly easier (though not necessarily faster) to take him down with your fists than using any other weapon you have, and there's plenty of room to do so. Do remember to go back and recharge your shields (none of us is perfect, except maybe Dr. John) and save your game before heading off to We Be Ground Pounders.
