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	Message: : : Alright, so I meant to get this write-up done a week or two after the last : one, but I've had a really busy month, and it's been hard to find time to : write, so this dragged out way longer than I meant for it to... again . : My sincere apologies. : Last time on Tour of Duty, we wandered around a dark engineering facility : full of pirates, malfunctioning platforms, and some humans – including a : few who weren't actually humans! We got crushed to death by the first : door, lightly toasted by a dip into lava to pick up shotgun shells, : partially ventilated by Troopers, and chased around by bouncing bombs from : not one, but two MOACs! : Thankfully, we managed to survive that hell hole, and now, presumably, we're : at what Merlin called "the main power level for the facility." : Merlin also warned us that this area "has been badly flooded with : lava," thus the name of the level. To start with, we begin in a : small, dark room with a Terminal, a Pattern Buffer, and some Shotgun : Shells. Let's read: : : : : Some useful information to remember here: 1) At the end of the level, there : will be two teleporters, as shown on the map that Merlin provided. The : teleporter on the left will take us to some local ducts, while the one on : the right will take us to the next level. : 2) Our objective is to kill all the intruders. If we fail to kill all of : them, then we'll need to use the duct access teleporter to go back through : the level on a second sweep. : 3) There's a weapons cache somewhere in the ducts. : 4) There's a Shield Charger and a Pattern Buffer on the east side of the : map. : Now we have an idea what our objective is, time to stuff a fresh clip in our : AR and get moving. The eastern wall of this small starting room turns out : to be a door, which opens up to reveal we're on a ledge above a room full : of shallow lava. There are three glowing platforms raised just above the : lava level, and a door on the far side – this is the only safe place to : go. If you move forward from the ledge, a whole pile of Pfhor , I mean, : pirates , teleport in below us – these are much easier dealt with from the : safety of the starting ledge, so its better to stand up there and trigger : them all by firing a weapon. The first priority here is to wipe out the : Drones and then the Compilers so we just have Fighters and a Hunter to : deal with. The Fusion Pistol deals with the flying enemies quite nicely, : and Grenades are good for mopping up the enemies on the low platforms. The : door out of this room closes on its own after a few seconds and can be : manually closed, creating a nice barrier which the aliens cannot open and : which makes this encounter fairly safe as long as you're careful to keep : ducking back behind cover as soon as you get off a few shots. : Once the area is clear, you can drop down to the platforms below, being : careful to stay out of the lava. It was possible to see this from higher : up, but it's more obvious from here: the door on the far side of this lava : chamber leads to a corridor, which is flanked on either side by two : windows, both of which open into areas packed full of Assimilated BOBs. : These won't blow up on their own, because they can't get close enough to : you, but they are close enough and the corridor is narrow enough that you : certainly wouldn't want to shoot them while standing in the hallway – : better to stand back on the platforms, set them off from a safe distance, : and enjoy the fireworks. : Fun fact: it's worth noting that you might hear a death scream from a BOB : when the pirates first teleport in – this is because one lonely : Assimilated BOB teleports in with them, but he teleports directly into : lava with no way out, so he inevitably gets burnt to a crisp within : seconds. : To the casual eye, it would seem that there is nothing more in the lava : chamber to do, but in fact, there's a surprising and devilishly : well-concealed secret hiding in plain sight here. Along the eastern and : northern walls of this room is a narrow ledge just above the lava – it's : hard to see, because its surface is textured to look just like the lava : next to it. If you follow this ledge to the northwestern corner of the : chamber, you'll find a secret door revealing a room with two Assault : Rifles and some ammo for them and your Pistol(s). Very handy for : Vidmasters! This is the first secret, but not the last, in this level – : funnily enough, I didn't know that any of them even existed until I : started this write-up and noticed odd rooms while looking at the map in : Weland. : If you look back at where the starting ledge is, you'll notice that just to : the left of the door (which blends in with the wall) is a gaping, dark : hole. This is the exit from the ducts that Merlin mentioned earlier. If : you know it's there, you can actually jump to this ledge directly from the : starting point; just run at top speed along the right-hand wall and turn : sharply right as soon as you step off the starting ledge. More about that : later. : Before we continue, let's have a look at the map: : We're currently in the lava chamber just west of the hallway marked : "Don't Shoot Bob!!!". : The 'CHEATER' text is a little odd, and really seems targeted at those using : map editors (I don't believe the map designers could possibly have : expected that I'd be seeing that text via the use of a lua script that : reveals the entire map - this scenario was made back in 1996, after all). : Considering there are not one, not two, but three secret areas on this : map, I can understand the map designer's concern about someone cheating to : discover their locations. : Heading east through the corridor that had previously been flanked by A-Bobs : (and now is flanked by their corpses), we come to a dark room with several : Cyborgs, a Hunter, and some Drones. This is a surprisingly dangerous : encounter, especially as these enemies usually take a while to notice you : and become active, creating a potential ambush. You can take advantage of : this, however, by running directly through the room to the hallway on the : far side - the enemies will be slow to react, allowing to get through : unscathed. Once you're in the hallway, the enemies will not follow you, : allowing you to step out of cover, fire some fusion bolts, and then duck : behind cover. This is much safer than trying to run circles around the : Cyborgs and avoid their tracking bouncy-grenades. : In the southwest corner of this room is a ledge that's open to the night sky : and has a visible Shield Charger. It's quite high, but it is definitely : possible to grenade jump up to this ledge; this is absolutely worth doing : if you already have health to spare, because this particular Charger turns : out to be a 3x – not something you want to miss! : At the north-center of this room is a door that leads to a later part of the : level, but I've never figured out how to open this, so it's not really : helpful. : Heading east leads us through some corridors, past a window, through a 5D : space turnaround, and to a flight of stairs with a bunch of Fighters on : it. Interestingly, these Fighters have been intentionally restricted by : the map designer to stay put – the step in front of and behind each one of : them has been made a 'Monster & Item Impassable' polygon, so they have : nowhere to go and just stand in place on their steps and take pot-shots at : you. Eventually, after mowing this lot down, we come to a 1x Charger (now : rendered basically irrelevant by the 3x Charger we encountered earlier) : and a Pattern Buffer (much more useful). : Following the corridor northwest leads us to a well-lighted room with a : dead-end, boxy ledges above us, and a number of Compilers that teleport : in. We're forced to instead go through a door on the west side of the : hallway, which leads us to a hexagonal section with a pillar in the : middle. The right-hand side is blocked with a couple of large cylinders : and so we head around the left side of the pillar, coming around to find : some ammo behind the cylinders. As soon as you go west of the hexagonal : section, a Major Trooper teleports in behind you – a nasty ambush! A quick : trigger finger, and maybe a Shotgun at the ready, should allow you to : emerge unscathed. : Moving further along takes us past a window that exposes some strange and : inaccessible area vaguely reminiscent of the exposed machinery way back on : Shake Before Using , and then we loop around to the opposite side of that : room with the boxy ledges and Compilers. It's very bright in here, as : almost every surface is a light panel. Climbing some stairs and grenading : a few Troopers above us, we jump a few gaps and come to the easternmost : ledge of the room. There's two places here that you can drop down into and : become stuck in; the one in the center of the room will teleport you back : to the lava chamber at the beginning of the level (ouch), and the other in : the northeast puts you back on the eastern ledge (right where you need : be). : A recessed area on the easternmost ledge turns out to be a teleporter, which : drops us off in a chamber in the center of the map with a large staircase. : As soon as we arrive, a whole swarm of enemies teleport in, including : Cyborgs, Fighters, Compilers and Hunters – a real nasty group, especially : since we have little room to maneuver and are surrounded on all sides. : There's really no option here other than to run around really fast, guns : blazing, dodging the shots until the baddies are all dead. This is easily : the most difficult part of the level, but it's made a lot easier by the : fact that we charged up to 3x Shields earlier. : Heading up the stairs takes us north, to a ledge with not one, but two : oddities: a low square pillar with a lava texture on top, and a wall : that's infinitely thin (it's literally a line between two polygons that : was made solid instead of transparent). These are both clearly : intentional, but don't make much sense – maybe the lava texture is : supposed to represent a display panel that's showing us the view from some : imagined 'camera' on the level, but the super-thin wall makes no sense no : matter how you look at it. Interestingly enough, we already encountered : one of these, back at the start of the level – the wall separating the : starting room from the engineering ducts is also just a line. Very strange : design choices, all things considered. : Going north takes us to another 3x Charger (yay) and an area of the level I : will call "the Lava Channels" – a part highly reminiscent of the : lava tubes situated above A Converted Church in Venice, Italy . Like : those tubes, these Lava Channels are a gauntlet of lava at various depths : and heights that you must run through at top speed to reach a couple of : safe spots along the path. Unlike the tubes on Converted Church , : however, this path is open from the start – no need to hit 20 switches : just to clear the way – and there are a couple of enemies (mostly : Compilers) sitting on the first safe spot, so you'll need to kill them : before making your run. : From here it should be a straight shot to the end of the level, but first we : need to uncover some secrets – two of them, to be specific, both very : similar. : The first is fairly straight-forward: at the very northeast corner of the : lava channels is a platform under the lava. Stepping on this will cause it : to descend. If you dive under, swim northeast, and go back up, you'll come : to a secret room. On the left-hand side is an Invincibility power-up : (which you will want to avoid picking up at first, so just make sure you : walk to the right as soon as you enter the room) and a switch. The switch : might not appear to do anything at first, but after a few seconds it will : open a large door, revealing two Shotguns and a massive pile of Shotgun : Shells. But wait, that's not all! If you hit action on the left-hand wall : of this large ammo closet, you'll reveal a hidden terminal: : : Very neat. Now you can pick up the Invincibility powerup to let you make the : swim back down to the platform to continue your journey through the Lava : Channels. : But wait again, that's still not all! That was the easier secret of this : area, but there's a much tougher one. See, there's a rest stop (i.e. a : square polygon raised out of the lava) a little over halfway through the : Lava Channels, and next to this rest stop is a switch. In normal play you : would probably hit this switch and never figure out what it does. A bit of : investigating on my part, however, revealed that it actually opens a : secret door behind the main teleporter in the well-lighted chamber in the : northeast of the map (and right about now is when I really start wishing I : had annotated our maps with letters so I could just point to them instead : of doing all these rambling descriptions of things, but I digress). The : problem is that this secret door stays open for only eight seconds, so : it's not like you can just backtrack through the level and go through it. : The thing that makes this tricky is that in order to get to this secret door : in time, you have to run back a short ways through the part of the Lava : Channels you already went through, and hit action to open another secret : door on the east side of the sunken part of the Channel. You then have to : quickly swim up into this raised area – this will teleport you back to the : easternmost ledge of the well-lighted chamber. If you did this fast : enough, you should see the door that you opened with the switch still open : – run through this, and you'll be teleported to a secret room floating in : the empty space on the east side of the map. In here is another terminal, : this time immediately visible: : : : Personally, I can say I cheated to find this secret. You, on the other : hand, can simply say you heard it from me, and that you were neither good : nor a cheater , but rather that you were merely spoiled . ;) : You can tab open another secret door in here to reveal a couple Fusion : Batteries; standing behind this door will teleport you back to the : starting room. : So, with all of the level's secrets out of the way, we can now proceed : through the rest of the Lava Channels to arrive at the final room. There's : really not much to say here. You go through a door, and inside is a : medium-sized room with two teleporters and a bunch of enemies, : specifically 4 Fighters and 3 Enforcers in the middle of the room, and 2 : Hunters on a ledge directly to your left as you enter; interestingly : enough, the 3 Enforcers here are the very first Enforcers we've met in : this scenario. : If you'll recall, Merlin did say that the teleporter on the left will take us : through the ducts so we could go back through the level to deal with any : enemies we missed along the way, while the one on the right will send us : to the next level. Since I haven't talked much about what's actually in : the ducts, I'll take us through the teleporter on the left. : This drops us off just a few meters away, on the other side of a window on : the west side of the transporter room. There's a F'lickta and some Drones : here (almost all of which could be taken out from the safety of the : transporter room), as well as one random Pistol clip. A little further on : is a Fusion Pistol in the middle of a small pile of Fusion Batteries, and : then eventually a door leads to a ledge overlooking the initial lava : chamber. There's an Assault Rifle and some ammo for it here, as well. As I : said before, you can jump to this ledge from the starting room, and : presumably vice versa, so a knowing Vidmaster will probably want to do : that, grab the AR and Fusion Pistol, and then come back to deal with the : initial enemies. : Going back through the level won't reveal anything new or interesting (though : it will allow to find the secrets if you missed them the first time : around), so eventually we must take go back to the transporter room and : take the right teleporter. : And with that, this chapter of the Tour of Duty comes to an end – as does my : (obviously cursed) three-level run in Devil in a Blue Dress. Seriously, I : am really sorry these last three write-ups have taken me so unnecessarily : long to finish. : Next time on Tour of Duty, Martin will take down masses of Hunters and : Troopers, get help from some infinitely-respawning humans, and examine a : bizarre money-making scheme – no joke. : Until then, : : Vale, : Perseus
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