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	Message: : : Last time on Tour of Duty , we saw the end of the world again, from an : exciting carefree, or at least air-free, perspective. I argued that it was : Thoth that imparted to us some words ... of inevitability. The end of the : world, failure, and yet freedom. Freedom from responsibility, and just : moments to enjoy it. We’re not quite at that point ourselves; we’ve still : got things to do, like trying to help Tycho defeat Durandal ... or : something like that. : And so here we are. In terms of the timing, this very much follows Confound : Delivery, but there’s enough to suggest that this is actually yet another : timeline; we are however, still in the Rage chapter. We start falling down : into an octagonal room. I had actually never noted that the freefall start : actually happened until just now, because it only actually happens if you : scratchstart, and you only then notice it if you look up and see space ... : when it really has a lot to answer for in terms of the level’s design, as : per the Story page , which also talks about the level name’s origin, a : scene in Apocalypse Now. Unfortunately I fell asleep during that film the : only time I tried to watch it, and searching for the scene on YouTube lead : only to “not available in your country” results *sigh*. Anyway, we were at : one point going to be blasting stuff while we fell from a great height; a : great loss to us all. And ultimately the level was a work of duality in : terms of two designers, which is why it plays almost like two separate : levels, and why it kind of seems unfinished. : What turns out to be an airlock door commences opening as we arrive, an : airlock on Durandal’s ship!, but the level is not vacuum, at least not : anymore. Slightly random really, but handy, as I totally exhausted my : oxygen in Carroll Street waiting for that Juggernaught that didn’t : respawn. : There’s a pattern buffer, minimal ammo, and two 2x recharge canisters in this : first room. The door’s opening reveals an enemy that was teased in a : terminal “back” on Ne Cede Malis: the “Infivac BoB”. Armed with Fusion : Pistols and apparently able to use the powered up shots more quickly than : we can, these guys pack a punch and can take one or two! Conveniently, it : is not all that hard to dodge fusion shots when required, so this ain’t : such a bad scratchstarter. These BoBs explode when killed with fusion or : the like, and usually drop ammo and/or weapons, just not on this level, : for whatever reason. : There’s a window through to a narrow corridor on either side here, wherein : more BoBs, and an Assault Rifle to the right. The sides both end in doors : that we can -just- open on the right angle, but only to let more of those : BoBs through. The main space ends in another airlock door, the switch for : which is just to the left; an oxygen charger to the right. More BoBs, : including quite a pile-up in the right corridor, to the point that they : start hitting each other while trying to hit us – we’re not complaining! : This time, a 1x recharger accompanies the next switch. About at this : point, two Troopers teleport in back at the start. They are kind of on our : side, but they suck against these new BoBs, and they actually seem quite : ready to turn on us when the BoBs are dead. Unfriendly. : As we enter the next space, another octagonal one, yet another airlock door : opens to our left, with two more BoBs waiting behind it. Sucks to be : them…. The path from the left-hand narrow corridor notably does not : continue through that area, which is odd at this point, and there’s : another locked door on the right wall here. On the other side of the : octagonal room is an almost fully open airlock door that gives us access : to the right-hand corridor from before. It takes a grenade jump to get : over the door, and the only reward is the Assault Rifle we saw from the : start, in a nice scratchstarting irony. I guess if one really wanted it, : one could get some help from the Troopers. There’s one more door in there, : but it don’t open.... It is curious later when we encounter another set of : rooms that are almost exactly the same, and think we’ve looped back, but : alas, close, but no cigar. : Their appearance here seems in line with Tycho’s story in the last timeline : with him, there being no place for Troopers in the new regime. We were : killing them on Poor Yorick, and now they’re being sent in to Durandal’s : ship as cannon-fodder – plus of course they are vacuum-enabled, just like : the vacuum BoBs *ahem*. This is also similar to the case in M2, where they : were the main stars of IIHARL, which also wasn’t vacuum but might once : have been. Aye yie yie. A lot of this info I was reminded of by the Story : page the other day. There isn’t much it doesn’t know :). : The way forward is up a winding staircase. At the top is a terminal, where we : should really read the following, which I apparently didn't send to PS: : : This would give us some much needed background on what is going on here. : Battle Group Seven has arrived and is attacking Durandal’s ship; Tycho’s : ship is working on making Durandal’s compilers rampant and D’s ship is : adrift; not crashed on a moon or anything like that. We would also get an : objective, to open the rest of the airlock doors on the level, presuming : that we would return here afterwards. : Unfortunately this terminal already contains its “completed” message when we : first see it, and that is far less useful as an introduction to a new : timeline. But the story is well underway in this one, so I guess we : weren’t expecting tea and biscuits. It also refers to the second half of : the level, so I’ll just ignore it for the moment and pretend that we saw : the first message. : For one thing, it would have prepared us for what is just around the corner, : a slightly crazed compiler in front of a locked airlock door with no : switch in sight. These guys fire a lot faster than their saner colleagues, : and seemingly in a rhythm, three shots in quick succession then a short : break. At least they are visible! : At this point we can start to explore a bit more openly, and we’ll have a : look at the map: : We can see the octagonal rooms clearly, and there are more of them to come. : The maps always manage to look like full levels even when there are : clearly different designs at work, but the top-left parts with their : sprawling narrow corridors and dead-ends for no particular reason to be on : Durandal’s ship ... smack a bit of being a hurried attempt to just end the : level in whatever way, and the way they chose is well worthy of the story : in terms of its confusing nature. More on that later, we’re a long way : off! : Next we find some green vac BoBs, which are quite keen to follow us back down : the stairs if we go down to recharge after they hit us – oww! They came : from the first of three quite open spaces that I never quite realised were : so aesthetically pleasing on the map – if only the first one had slime in : it, and a random square hole in it.... There are sets of stairs down to : the low area, ledges around the outside, and more of those super compilers : dropping down around the place – it can be hard to work out where they are : coming from, and that all stems from what seems to be another slight : stuff-up with the map: compilers, and later, vac BoBs, drop on us from the : ceiling, which apparently was a default option in the design tools? Seems : very odd, but it does help with the spooky atmosphere, as does the Jjarro : station groaning sound in the background in parts of the level. It’s not : the first time we’ve seen behaviour like that from compilers anyway, and : for the BoBs it could be written off as Durandal having a bit of a hard : time with his coordinates as his ship is being disabled and compilers : turned rampant. : If we follow the ledge all the way around, there are a couple of paths back : to earlier in the level, starting from point A on the map. That one leads : to a drop-off, with some ammo lying around and then a lift up to a SPNKR, : and what appears to be a tiny room on the map, but doesn’t seem to be : visible or accessible. The wall textures go out of alignment slightly, but : yeah ... a bit of a mystery. Here we can also fall off to what was the : left-hand corridor back where we started. It turns out there is some AR : ammo here, making the idea of having bothered to get it, a bit more : appealing, damn. And then we can actually access the other dropoff area we : could have hit from the ledge before. A door reveals a staircase going : down, explaining why the corridor didn’t continue through the nearby wall. : It then goes back up around a corner, to a switch, which opens the other : locked door we met before, and takes us back out to the early part of the : level – this switch is another that can be toggled to keep the door open : (Narcogen take notes :), although you’ve probably done this already). : Oh! Something in all of that also actually lowered the other door the rest of : the way, so the AR is now mine! Some of those doors don’t even get the : usual red colouring on the map, hmmm. : Dodging super compiler bolts is fun; I just had a couple of very close : encounters with death :), which I guess is the sign of a good : scratchstart. In trips back to recharge at the start, I have come across a : map design issue that I remember from what little I did with Pfhorte back : in the day. If you come back via the ledge, hugging the left, and try to : go through the first opening, by the staircases, you can end up with stuck : record syndrome, where you appear to keep trying to get through the gap : but somehow not managing it, and it just keeps looping. Odd. Well, on to : the next open area. : More super compilers falling, three bright yellow holes in the ground but : otherwise darkness, a locked door, and an opening, to an area very similar : to the one we were just in, but with very shallow slime in the lower area. : More super compilers, which are a bit odd: they take a bit of waking up : then drop down with lots of shots suddenly en route, and then they don’t : seem to want to come out of this area, but very curiously, they do seem to : be quite willing to wipe each other out - I ran away just now and came : back to find them all gone! Again, not complaining. : An easy jump across and up the stairs, to a switch that opens two more : airlock doors just through a window, and a pattern buffer. The switch also : opens the next area like this, so back we go. This time there are vac BoBs : again: “They killed BoB!”; “oh crap!” is how our conversation went, as I : ran away yet again with minimal health left. By comparison these BoBs are : serious travellers. I took the dropoff and ran to recharge, and using the : handy dandy BoB dots on the automap, watched this guy run most of the way : back with me - not via the dropoff but still, impressive, and still, dead. : Again some odd behaviour from compilers, another easy wade, another switch, : this time a 2x recharger (not marked by PS) and an oxygen charger; two : more airlock doors opening through a window, and a lift at the end of this : area. Heading up, we hear the BoBs before we see them - come on, subtlety, : guys! This is an open area with another window to that last airlock room, : a random recessed platform in the wall, some bright yellow columns against : the walls, and otherwise darkness. Here begins a winding descent in : similar darkness with yellowy bits, wherein the monster drops from the : ceiling start to have more of an effect. Vac BoBs just appear in front of : us with little warning; lucky we just got 2x health. There’s a lookout / : quick way down at one point, but that would just mean having to kill more : on the way back up to recharge. : At the bottom of the stairs there’s another locked door to nowhere, and then : a cross-shaped room with a couple more, and a great monster drop with both : compilers and vac BoBs. Then one door actually takes us further. Into an : area very similar to the right-hand corridor from the start. We get to : snipe some BoBs, which is always nice, and then we get a nice gift in the : form of a Tozt ... or is it only a canister ... dammit! We have to operate : in reverse here compared to at the start, shooting the switches to open : the airlock doors from within the corridor, nice touch. No health : recharger down here though, just two oxygen ones, and an inaccessible : left-hand corridor. : There are stairs at the end here, which again look very similar to the : starting ones, except that we can see the terminal from the bottom of : them. Hey! It’s actually the same terminal, and this, the path from behind : the door where we killed our first super compiler. Really cool and : unexpected map loop the first time around :). Now let’s read up on our : “success”. : : Nothing congratulatory, aww. Tycho says “this location” but gives us no map : ... typical! He actually tells us to go kill the humans and then find a : terminal, which is exactly what we do now. There are stairs to a new : opening right next to us, so up we go, and into ... the tunnel! More like : a series of very narrow corridors, with random dead-end offshoots. The : first might almost have connected to that inaccessible left-hand corridor! : But alas. : Around the first corner we find ourselves under fire by vac BoBs at really : long range. I remember finding this really hard the first time through, : not being so willing to just run towards them as I tend to now :). It is : hard to hit them from quite so far away. There’s even a 1x recharger just : off to the side, in case we should find this difficult. Did I mention it : is really dark here? Except for this weird pulsating passage off to the : side a bit further on, which gives us a bit of cover from the BoB fire, at : least. Around the next corner things are very similar, but one of the BoBs : is hiding out in the equivalent pulsating passage, and my attempts to : grenade the one that isn’t, just for old-times’ sake, results in me : getting killed instead ... ahh nuts. And I wanted to check the nearby : phenomenon in those pulsating corridors – is it 5D space there in what : should be the meeting of the two? Or did I dream it.... Whatever. It turns : out *ahem* I had forgotten this wasn’t actually a Naw Man scratchstart, : but a Whatever You Please one, so I had a Fusion Pistol, which made things : a lot easier, yeah :). Also, on respawning, I couldn’t get the Troopers at : the start to fire grenades at me to try for the AR. Never mind! : The last part of the level is a series of dark, narrow corridors (the hell : you say!?) with scary vac BoBs, ending in an almost Arrival-like maze : area, with only one way out. A wide corridor off to the side with a : pattern buffer and terminal, ending with an airlock door, which opens as : we approach it, but then closes again, and because all of these doors open : from the top, going through it is suicide. There is a lone BoB up to one : side, and we can kill him, but otherwise are best to leave that room well : enough alone! : The terminal is our only way off the level; we have no choice. We have done : what Tycho asked of us, killed a lot of BoBs, and assume this is the : terminal he meant us to find. : : : However, it kind of isn’t. This is one of Durandal’s terminals, and displays : a message from Robert Blake - oh him! - to a Lieutenant Kent. It reports : on the Pfhor’s progress, and talks about an attempt to set up a : transporter - Tycho mentioned a jump pad! - to get onto Tycho’s ship and : try to release Durandal’s from its grasp. We might think that we’ve just : had the benefit of seeing what they’re up to, given that we came here : working for Tycho, but this is apparently supposed to be the SO wilfully : switching sides, and going with the humans on that jump pad – they’re kind : of forgiving! : Again, we have no choice here; there is no other terminal to leave by and the : only other one on the level still reads the same as it did. If we actually : wanted to keep working for Tycho, we would find ourselves frustrated! We : may be destiny, but at this point, we don’t have a choice in what we’re : doing when the story kind of requires that we must have done. One has to : wonder how the level was originally planned to go, but one must also get : on with the story as it was written, and that leads us to Tycho’s ship.
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