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	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers: Mt. Vesuvius 1 and 2
	Posted By: Steve Levinson	Date: 12/17/03 9:51 a.m.
	In Response To: Tempus Irae Volunteers: Mt. Vesuvius 1 and 2 (Mark Levin) Damn - I was just about to post this when Mark's post showed up. Of course, mine is much better ;^) We start this discussion where we left off - on KMG 365, where you have been in stasis for the past 18 days recovering from severe radiation exposure: Apparently the command mecha of the K'alima sent a complete auxiliary reactor dump-pulse into the antenna complex. The sunspot cycle of your sun has been slightly altered by the burst; such was its power. Hmm . . . With all the S'pht have done to avoid tampering with the timeline and Earth's history, the sunspot cycle has been altered. This seemingly trivial change could actually have far reaching effects on Earth's future. The sunspot cycle is about 11 years and at its peak, radio transmissions are significantly affected. Additionally, intense sunspot activity can be fatal to spacebound astronauts. A change in the sunspot cycle could have ramifications in terms of communications at times of war, or on the timing of space missions. Not trivial at all. I guess we'll just have to assume that the alteration was minor - on the order of minutes rather than years. In any case, the S'pht have more bad news: While you were destroying the failsafes of the K'alima, the Pfhor mecha was teleporting many individuals to a large semi-active volcano on the surface; while you have been receiving medical treatment, they have been building an encampment. They are trying to sabotage your world's development in any way they can. The Pfhor have sewn their own shroud by building their last refuge in a volcano. Turn the molten rock upon them, and destroy them all. Now why did they make their encampment in a volcano? Well, we know that advanced ships seem to use molten lava in their power systems - witness the Marathon. With the loss of the K'alima, the Pfhor need an alternative power source - one that's available in Earth's 16th century. Vesuvius would seem to fit the bill. Vesuvius Part 1 is, as the name would suggest, the first of a 2-level story. The start of the first level is one of the most difficult parts in the entire scenario. In fact, this is the only part of the TI scenario that I could never seem to complete on TC, until last week when I finally managed to reach that first pattern buffer without resorting to playing on MD. The problem is that KMG 365 is a rebellion level, so you enter Vesuvius with very little in the way of weapons. You do pick some up right away, but the supply is still quite limited and low-yield for the monsters you must take out in the opening sequence. There is a 2X powerup at the start of the level but, unfortunately, there is no way of avoiding picking it up (I succeeded in bypassing it before it materialized about 1 time in 20 at best), so you can't save it for later. There are a number of ambushes and many rear-guard attacks to survive before you reach the fist pattern buffer - your ticket to salvation for completion of the rest of the level. Speaking of powerups, there are a lot of powerups on this level - 1, 2 and even 3X powerups, but they are all spaced well before you actually need them. A word to the wise - save them until you absolutely need them, which in all probability you will. One of the most controversial aspects of Vesuvius Pt 1 is the major secret of the level - a complex set of switches that, if activated in the right sequence will grant access to a very large ammo stash and a secret terminal at the end of the level. The problem is that you have to hit the switches in exactly the right sequence or the secret will be unobtainable. I personally have a big problem with destructible secrets. We would consider a similar situation in normal gameplay to be a major bug. Why should it be any different with a secret. The bigger issue, however, is the shear probability of getting the switch sequence right. There is a pattern here (not exactly correctly described in the Spoiler Guide, either), but the shear difficulty in succeeding makes it improbably that someone could figure this out on their own. My advice for anyone wanting to solve the puzzle without using the Spoiler Guide is to complete the level in its entirety first without activating any of the secret-activating switches. Be careful, as it's quite easy to accidentally activate a switch in fighting the Pfhor - you need to take them out without either your weapon-fire or theirs striking a switch. If you notice that a switch was inadvertently activated during a fight - suicide yourself and redo the fight. Once you have reached the end, go back to the initial set of switches and then in succession activate each set, one switch at a time. Theoretically there are 256 different switch combinations but, because something happens for each incorrect selection, you should be able to narrow this down much more quickly. Once you have succeeded, you'll gain access to all the ammo and to a secret terminal that tells a rather interesting story. It's very long, so I won't post it here unless there is a major clamor to do so. There are a number of other very interesting terminals to read along the way, some of which tell their own interesting stories. Some of the terminals seem to contain gibberish - it doesn't look like there's anything interesting encoded in these, but I'd be curious if anyone else has tried to find hidden messages here. In any case, we pick up such tidbits as: Our attempts to utilize mammalian building materials may have been misguided. The construction masers have become clogged with pulverized carbonate and semicarbonate porous rock dust. Further construction of footpaths will be very difficult unless spare parts for the masers are replicated/procured. G'rm'ikn: we have attempted to carry on the legacy of Ha'rar, despite our lack of understanding. We have utilized the lighting devices of these mammals. Y'dask was severly injured when the burning fluid leaked out of one of the devices and ran beneath his exoskeleton; we have returned to using standard lighting units in the barracks common areas. If you receive this message, please pass proxy verification upon previously encoded construction and integration projects. So Ha'rar lives on in a sense and there are others trying to prevent the Pfhor from altering history. Too bad we don't see any actual evidence of their sabotage in the game. Vesuvius Pt 2 - Electric Boogaloo is really just a continuation of Part 1 and so I'm taking the liberty of discussing it here. Essentially "all" the player has to do is to grab the manuscript, survive an ambush and escape via a teleporter and an elevator before getting killed by the Pfhor or by the rising lava. One interesting thing I noticed is that the trigger for the lava is much more specific than that for the monsters - by treading carefully, one can postpone triggering the lava until after fighting the monsters, buying a lot of time for one's escape. But why did the Pfhor build this elaborate facility and place the manuscript here? I think that their primary objective may be more than to alter earth's history. You are their worst nemesis - killing you is their primary objective and what better bait to use than the manuscript you have been searching for.

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Replies:

	Tempus Irae Volunteers: Mt. Vesuvius 1 and 2	Mark Levin	12/17/03 9:08 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers: Mt. Vesuvius 1 and 2	Steve Levinson	12/17/03 9:51 a.m.
	Re: Tempus Irae Volunteers: Mt. Vesuvius 1 and 2	Keith Palmer	12/17/03 2:40 p.m.

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