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	Message: : : Hello again, everyone! Sorry for the delay, I got a bit distracted for a : while there. : Last time on Tour of Duty, Martin tried to guide us through a terribly, : terribly complicated level that was intentionally designed to be : nigh-impossible to navigate properly. Relying on our new friend, Fr'kna - : who seems to have developed the unique ability to print out text in two : columns instead of just one - we managed to successfully hunt down a : series of switches. The apparent purpose of this insane drudgery was to : reconfigure several sensor arrays so that Fr'kna could identify a safe : place to teleport us in close to his ship's damaged reactor. : That mission accomplished, our goal now is (presumably) to stop the reactor : from exploding. : We arrive in a fairly large, open room, raised at the south end, with a : scattering of Assault Rifle ammo and grenades available (very handy). The : textures are still in the old Pfhor set, which in this scenario works as : the texture set for the Galaxan/Ygn'oml ship. If you move straight : forwards from your starting position, you'll trigger a set of Fighters to : beam in all around the room - they are all melee Fighters, however, so : Fists will suffice to bring these chaps down. Alternatively, if you don't : walk directly forward from your starting position, you'll likely avoid : stepping on the first trigger polygon, and instead you'll probably trigger : them as you walk towards the Terminal located in the center of the south : wall. : The Fighters being dispatched, let's read: : : : : : : Sure enough, we are here to prevent the reactor from exploding. You might : fear that the hull breaches would mean yet more vacuum, but fortunately : for us, there is no vacuum whatsoever on this level - which is a little : bit odd, because you can actually get to the hull breaches and stand next : to them, as you will see. Last level it seemed like there wasn't even a : window to look out of, and yet that was the vacuum level, not this? I : get that the vacuum on the last level was a conscious choice (and a : sadistic one at that), but the logic here is a bit strange. : Oh well, back to gameplay. To the east and west are doors, which take us into : side rooms. The west one contains a blue Fighter, and the east one : contains a major Enforcer. At the north end of each is a door, which : reveals a closet with two blue Fighters and a switch - each switch opens : another door at the south end of its corresponding room. : Heading south from either side room takes us into a set of three pitch-black : chambers. In the center of them is a protrusion in the wall that contains : a 1x Shield Charger (as indicated by Fr'kna earlier), but between us and : it are a whole host of blue Fighters - turns out, these are the main enemy : type on this level. In fact, a number of them here teleport in, and : they're actually meant to teleport in behind us! So, be careful not to : get surrounded here - keep moving and keep firing, and don't let yourself : get pinned, or you're in for a world of hurt. : Now with the Charger secure (along with some fusion batteries near it), we : can head south through a door-- YIPES!! As it turns out, there's : actually two blue Fighters standing directly behind this door, so if : you're standing too close to it when you open it, you're in for a serious : shock... possibly literally. The room they are guarding contains a Fusion : Pistol and three doors. The west and east ones are locked, but the : southern one opens up to reveal another small room, with an electrical : panel. Naturally, we punch the panel, and-- oh not again! Punching the : panel opens a door on either side of it - both have blue Fighters standing : just behind them, waiting for you as soon they open. What's worse, these : fellows have company - four major Hunters right behind them, as well as : some other blue Fighters likely to teleport in as soon as they hear : gunfire. I guess that Fusion Pistol we found a moment ago was a hint; be : ready to use it! : The path now splits again - you can go through the west door or the east : door. I would recommend going west here, simply because this leads to the : switch that will give you access to the Pattern Buffer. If we didn't : trigger them already (though we very likely did), there are some blue : Fighters that teleport in here when you advance far enough, and just : beyond them, a hull breach and a switch. This opens a door in the room : with the Fusion Pistol - head back there, go west, and you'll see the : Pattern Buffer. When you go for it, though, you'll likely trigger an : invisible Compiler, who is very, very difficult to see in these dark : hallways (this level is very dark all throughout, by the way, which can be : a real problem at moments). : Now that we know how to get to the Pattern Buffer and the Shield Charger, we : can take a little breather and have a look at the map: : As you can see, this is a relatively straight-forward level (particularly : compared to the last one, though that isn't really saying much). : Heading south from the pattern buffer, we go out a door and down a staircase : to find another switch next to a hull breach, guarded by an invisible : Compiler. If we go back, we'll find that that switch opened a door : opposite the one to the Pattern Buffer - this new door takes us east, : through some more Fighters, down south to another staircase. We go down : the staircase, and notice what appear to be Mothers of all Hunters up in : dark, raised recesses looking over a long, tall chamber. Instinctively you : might want to pull out your Rocket Launcher and take a shot at one of them : while they're still inactive, but if you do, you'll discover that they are : actually just decorative - they're stuck behind an invisible wall (glass, : I guess) and unable to do anything. I'm not sure what they're even : supposed to be doing there. After all, as Martin pointed out to me, this : is the Ygn'oml ship, so why are there Hunter suits (which belong to the : pirates) being stored on board? : There are, however, some more Fighters in here, but you're given plenty of : room to run around in, so they're not much of a threat. What's more of a : threat are four Drones down at the south end, which come in via a high : hole in the wall next to a window into space - if it were just the four : that start there, they wouldn't be a threat either, but the problem is : that if you kill more than two of them, they'll continue to respawn so : that there will always be two of them still alive to harass you in this : room; fortunately, they won't follow you up the stairs. Best not to waste : too much fusion ammo on them, therefore. At the north end of this repair : hall, if I can call it that, is another switch; this opens a door that : you'll need to go through a little while later. : We go back to stop by the Shield Charger and Pattern Buffer before continuing : on. The next place to go is through a door in the southeast - this leads : down another pitch-black hallway, with some more Fighters and a Hunter. At : the south end of this is another switch, but this one, oddly enough, does : nothing useful - it merely closes two glowing recesses in some earlier : rooms. A door on the west side of the hallway, which we opened from the : repair hall a moment ago, leads to a small, light room with some more : enemies and three doors. The west door opens a window into space - not : particularly useful. The north door is locked, and the south door leads us : to the reactor room and a final big set-piece battle with yet more : Fighters and Hunters. Be careful here, because as you enter the reactor : room, you'll trigger the locked door just to your north to open up, : revealing a monster closet which dumps some more Fighters right behind : you. I like to use the Assault Rifle here, as the enemies tend to bunch up : a bit and the Grenades cut through their numbers nicely. Once the Fighters : are gone, if there are some Hunters left, the Fusion Pistol makes short : work of them. : With that, we are now in the reactor room. Head south and you'll find a : switch and a platform moving up and down that appears to have an : invincibility powerup on it. Hitting the switch turns the platform off - : this is, presumably, the mission objective that Fr'kna gave us. We go back : to the Terminal at the start of the level, and... : Wait, there's no new message. Why isn't Fr'kna teleporting us out yet? We did : turn off the reactor, right? : Yes, but the exit to this level is rather unusual. See, when entering the : reactor room for the first time, you may notice a light panel in the : north-west side of the room. Walk into it, and you'll find it's actually a : teleporter. This takes you into a tiny closet floating by itself in the : southeast area of the map, with contains several polygons, that just keep : teleporting you along horizontally through the closet over and over, : looping you through the room. If you check the map, you'll notice there's : a recess in the top of this little floating closet, and if you step : backwards at the right time, you'll go into it. : This recess teleports us back to the reactor room, this time onto the edge of : the reactor itself. If we timed the switch right earlier, we can get to : the invincibility powerup inside. Once we get down from the reactor, we : find that a large hole has opened up in the middle of the room - this was : actually opened as you stepped into the closet's northern recess. We drop : down into it, and find a hallway heading west with some Fighters and an : invisible Compiler that lead to another hull breach and a 2x Shield : Charger. : It's not immediately apparent at first how to exit from here, as there's no : way to go back from here to the rest of the level, and stepping out from : the hull breach doesn't do anything (it's amazing how you can just stand : in empty space like that). A bit of wandering around, and eventually we : find that the left-most part of the hull breach, with an alien skeleton on : it, is actually the exit teleporter! : So that's it - a short, simple level, very much the opposite of the last one. : I think this is a decent level, though it could use some polishing, and it : makes for a nice break from the challenge of Sensori OverLord. : Next time, VikingBoyBilly will guide us through a superficially chaotic, but : deceptively simple spiral of run-and-gun fun. : Vale, : Perseus
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