Time to get back to the real business of the forum.
Skinner Box has to be one of the most convoluted, contrived levels I've ever played. I'm not saying it's not fun, but it seems like several different levels that have been joined together into a tortuous whole. The bottom line is that the "pirates" have damaged the geothermal power station and flooded the area with lava and the only way we'll get of the planetoid is to fix it. There's basically only one terminal with any information and it packs a lot into a single read. You'll probably want to visit it often. Just wait until we do the same thing in vacuum!
The first room is exited via a corridor with a crushing platform. Unless you're incredibly fast (you'll need to strafe run), you'll exit it with almost no shields and a major fight before you can access the first shield recharger. At least there's a pattern buffer right away, but I wouldn't use it until you have safely reached it with some shields left. Next comes a series of rooms filled with projectile fighters. The rooms are relatively large, so circling the enemy and taking them out without incurring damage or using weapons is straight forward. If you look in map mode, this area is labled the esophagus - throughout this level, many of the rooms are named after body parts. Before you get to the aforementioned terminal, you may notice a small side corridor that leads to the lungs, a large open area with a lava pool protecting a switch. Oh, and there are a few friends to keep you company. Once you engage them, bobs will start teleporting in and they'll help out a little bit, with the emphasis on little. The switch, as we'll learn, opens the primary bulkhead, giving you access to the rest of the level. Hidden at the other end of the room from where you enter it is a small corridor that leads to a badly needed 2X recharger.
After reading the terminal, you next encounter the brain. Not sure why it's called that, as it's a rather dumb area consisting of a rectangular room, some funky stairs and number of corridors. The stairs are the reversing kind (think M2). They are triggered by trigger poly as you enter the room and by a switch high up on a wall. The trick is to get on the stairs in their down position, climb up half way, fire a grenade or fusion bolt at the switch and then climb up the rest of the way. This leads to a series of long corridors and a spiral staircase that are fairly well guarded. Half way up the spiral staircase is a trooper guarding a well-concealded switch - they're easy to miss and he won't come after you unless you see him first. That switch opens the first corridor off the brain - you can jump down to it from the top of the stairs. But before you can access it, you'll have to jump down to the bottom and go down another corridor that will have opened, ride an elevator up and flip another switch (see what I mean by convoluted?). Now go back up the two sets of stairs and head down the corridor you have to jump to. This takes you to an hellasious (sp?) area with a MOAH, a MOAC and a bunch of troopers. There's a 1X recharger at the entrance, but you really don't have enough ammo to take out the MOA's without hurting your chances later on (remember to hoard fusion batteries), and if one of them gets in your way, you may just be out of luck. The safest tack is to run down either of the inner passageways, head down the south corridor (not the teleporter to the north), flip the switch, now head for that teleporter, head around one of the outer passageways, head down the corridor to the north, flip the switch, head to the teleporter to the south, head back around either inner passageway, head south again and drop down into the left ventricle. Phew! After saving your game and dealing with some hunters, you can exit the area via either transporter.
A new corridor will now be open off the brain. This leads to the cow's stomach. There are some rising platforms to navigate to get to a teleporter that takes you to an overlooking ledge. You can also drop down into a conveniently placed 2X recharger room. Oh, don't forget to visit the appendix. The overlooking ledge contains a PB and a transporter that takes you back to the entry to the stomach, should you wish to go back and read that stupid terminal or something. Off the ledge are a series of weird rooms with a major puzzle that can be exasperating. Basically, find the room with the crushing platform. On either side of the platfrom are corridors, one of them filled with bobs. The problem is that in trying to enter either, the platform will rise, so you need to be quick. Enter the corridor that isn't filled with bobs and go to the end. A second crushing platform will have lowered, but this one is controlled by a switch back by all the bobs. You need to stand on the second platform and fire a grenade or fusion bolt back at the switch. You may need to kill some of the bobs to do this, at which point they'll start shooting at you, and some assimilated bobs will escape from behind them, so watch out! Turn around quickly as the platform rises and jump off before you get crushed. You'll now be able to reach the sphincter, where you'll find a ton of enemies. Behind them are the two switches you need to flip to fix the lava flow problem. Go back and you'll now have access to the exit teleporter.
Fun, wasn't it? And this one's easy compared to the next level!
