LANDER by PSYGNOSIS
FAQ/Walk-Thru by Tundro Walker
COPYRIGHT WHATEVER
My interest in this faq is not to get a bunch of pats on the back from folks
who use it. It's to distribute information to others in regards to a highly
entertaining, yet obscure and underrated game. So, I could really care less
about copyright bullshit. If someone gets a hold of this faq and expands upon
it, I'd appreciate it if you gave me some credit. I don't consider it
'plagiarizing' if you give someone kudo's for their work that you're citing,
borrowing, using, whatever.
On that note, in making this faq, I should definitely thank the folks who
posted at the Game Talks Lander forum. While the forum was a ghost town by the
time I chanced upon it, there was some good information. In fact, it was the
best I found on the net for Lander when I checked. One person in particular,
'Jace', always seemed to have an answer to peoples' questions with the more
tricky/confusing parts of the game. So kudos go out to 'Jace', whomever that
masked stranger is.
FAQ PURPOSE
When I downloaded Lander from Underdogs.com as abandonware and found no faq's
for it and virtually no information resources other than a small (old) forum at
Game Talks on the net, I was woefully disappointed. So, I thought it'd be
interesting to put some tips together to help other folks enjoy this highly
overlooked, much underrated game. So let's cut the crap and get down to some
useful information.
CHEAT CODES
I'll start by saying I'm no longer a 'serious' gamer that plays games for the
rage-inducing, hair-pulling challenge. I get enough frustration from my job, so
I'm now the type of gamer that likes to play a game for some light entertainment
and interesting story. (The 'Thief' games are perhaps the only games I never
cheat at because I love them too damn much). So I usually use cheat codes when
things get too difficult (as in, I die more then twice during a level, and I'd
like to think I have some skill with FPS as well).
With that said, I don't know if Psygnosis built cheat codes into the game
or not. It would be nice if they did (and if I had a list of them), since
learning how to fly your lander can get very frustrating and some folks will
likely want to cheat to ease their sorrows.
I certainly did, but without cheat codes I had to dig up two 'Trainers' off the
net, one for the Glide and the other for D3D. While they both got me salivating
over promises of unlimited money, shields, weapon cooling, missiles, etc, they
both don't seem to work with the abandonware version I got from Underdogs. So,
I was stuck playing the game the old fashioned way (ie: without cheating...er,
uh, 'play enhancement', yeah, that's the ticket). While I would usually give up
on a game that's difficult to master, Lander proved too compelling. After
getting to be a good pilot, I'm actually thankful I didn't cheat.
A FLYING 'THIEF' GAME...
This game revolves around realistically controlling a lander craft in space
environments that use unforgiving physics. Unlike other games (*cough* Descent
*cough*), the computer doesn't help you auto-pilot or anything. The control is
complex and completely up to you to maintain. This will quickly piss off
players of fast-paced, 'frag-boy' games, as they'll slam around and blow up
before they know it. The end result is them blaming the game for their sloppy
piloting instead of accepting the fact that other games are simply more
forgiving (and less realistic) when it comes to controlling your 'character' due
to their cushioned game physics.
With that in mind, I can see why this game didn't do too well with FPS
crowds since the control requires a lot more effort, patience and finesse to
learn when compared to other FPS games (*cough* Quake *cough* Descent *cough*).
Unlike those games, the goal here isn't fast-paced killing sprees; it's careful
navigation through cramped tunnels and tactful engagement of enemies as you try
to keep your lander's momentum from plowing you into something you'd probably
regret (namely a wall or the ground).
So, for starters, don't treat your craft like an indestructible
juggernaut, slamming it around the environment trying to get the most frags as
fast as possible. Not only will that get you killed fast, but that's not even
the objective of the missions or the point of the game as whole. Instead, think
of your lander as a surgical instrument, with you being the highly skilled
surgeon performing tactical insertions. This mind set will prepare you for
Lander and you'll get far more enjoyment out of it as such. Just like the
'Thief' FPS games introduced less confrontation and more thinking/patience when
compared to the run-n-gun mentality of 'Quake' FPS games, this game is the same
way. If 'Descent' is the 'Quake' equivalent of flying games, then 'Lander' is
the 'Thief' equivalent of this genre. And since I'm a fan of the 'Thief'
series, I can think of no higher compliment then that.
PILOTING
Piloting is key to this game. No matter how bad-ass your lander or load-out is,
it isn't worth squat without solid flying. You don't have to be stunt pilot
material, you just have to learn to keep your craft steady and under control.
After you learn that, then you can add some speed and attempt to keep it steady
and under control.
Of the two things that can kill you, one being enemy fire and the other
being the scenery, slamming into the scenery is probably the bigger threat to a
beginner pilot. And this is mainly due to 1) holding down the thrusters instead
of tapping them, 2) going too fast too soon, 3) over-compensating the thruster
tilt during maneuvers. The end result is usually loss of control and a lot of
slams into the scenery. Hopefully these tips will help.
* IT'S ALL PHYSICS - This game uses a realistic physics model in that you can
gain momentum, drift, fall, etc. Unlike games like Descent, where the computer
subtly helps pilot your craft by drifting it to swift stops, auto-leveling it
when you let go of the controls, or hovering it in place while you think what to
do, in Lander, the controls are all you, so stay on them. If you burn the
thruster to go forward, you're going to have to tilt back and burn an equal
amount in order to stop. Equal and opposite actions counter-balance each other.
Beginners should focus on subtle changes in craft direction and momentum rather
then radical changes, which easily leads to over-compensation and loss of
control. Sure, some computer assistance in piloting would have been helpful in
the start, but when you get good at piloting you'll actually enjoy the realism,
the freedom, and the genuine sense of accomplishment when you pull off some
spectacular stuff (which some missions call for).
* THERE'S NO 'MERCY' CLIPPING - Unlike other games that allow a bit of
forgiveness in the clipping department, this game has a 'no mercy' policy. If
your lander rubs/hits a wall or gets a leg/wing hooked on something, you're
going to know it quick because you'll lose control and flip around. Even cargo
you've latched on to can snag on scenery, and causes the majority of scenery
slamming to a good pilot. Responding to such instances with radical movement or
full-blast thrusters will usually get you slammed hard. But taking it slow,
tapping the thruster and gently maneuvering your way free, even if you're
getting shot at, will prove far more successful.
* DEADLY SCENERY - The scenery can be more dangerous then the enemy. Beginning
pilots will likely kill themselves by slamming into scenery rather then getting
shot down. Rubbing or touching scenery to only produce a few sparks doesn't
seem to actually damage your lander. For instance, landing your craft gently or
slightly touching a shaft while going up or down will produce a few sparks, but
there usually isn't any shield loss as long as you're delicate. But major
rubbing that creates lots of sparks (and noise) will wear down your shields
steadily. Slamming into the scenery will eat large chunks off your shield.
* FASTER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER - For beginners, move slow & be patient. Hitting
moderate to high speeds while learning to fly usually ends with slamming into
the environment because you'll lose control or misjudge how much room you need
to stop. Do it enough and you'll have blown yourself to bits all over the
scenery and save the enemy the trouble of shooting you down. Even after you
gained some skill, when you switch to a different lander and load-out, you'll
find there's a variation in control again, which may take some getting used to.
* CONTROL YOUR THRUSTER BURNS - Pulse the thruster to do tight maneuvers and
control your craft steadily; use a constant thruster to gain speed/momentum and
stop after gaining that speed/momentum. Again, you're piloting a surgical
instrument, not a chainsaw; use some finesse. Of course, both techniques
require fuel, so just like coasting in a car, knowing when to let momentum &
gravity take you where you're going can save some fuel. While more advanced
pilots can implement free-falls, knowing how much thrust will be needed to stop
or maneuver out of it safely (which is dependant upon your lander, load-out,
gravity, etc), I'd recommend new pilots stick with controlled movements with a
pulsed thruster.
* USE GRAVITY TO YOUR ADVANTAGE - Some missions have lower gravity then others.
You'll need to take this into account by burning your thruster less to lift off,
and remember that you won't dive as fast when laying off the thruster.
Alternatively, higher gravity missions require more thruster burn to gain lift,
causing slow lift off's, but your craft can dive faster. Experienced pilots can
take advantage of mission-specific gravity to alter their evasive maneuvering.
Inexperienced pilots can find themselves slamming into the ground as they
misjudge how much thrust will be needed to pull out of a fall in high-g
environments. Or, they'll try to dive to avoid gunfire, but find a low-g
environment leaves them floating up in the air like a clay pigeon.
* TILT YOUR CRAFT EFFECTIVELY - Tilting your thruster on it's pivotal axis is
your primary mode of maneuvering. Unlike other games, you don't have to rely so
much on turning. Turning helps you line up a general direction you'd like to go
(or aim your weapon), but you don't have to be dead-on straight. Just pointing
in the general direction and using a tilting thruster can get you around most
places. Plus, flying/strafing cock-eyed through some tunnels sometimes helps
position the camera in a better angle to keep from hitting scenery or to shoot
at enemies.
* LEARN TO CORNER - Cornering is a fundamental technique to learn if you want to
handle your craft at ball-breaker speeds. When going forward, if you just turn
your nose, you'll still go in the direction your built-up momentum is taking you
(and slam into a wall). So, in cornering, you not only turn the nose of your
lander in the direction you want to go, but lean your lander into the turn as
well and fire the thruster so it shifts your momentum to the direction you're
turning. With a bit of skill, you can smoothly swing around a turn in a tunnel
without having to slow down much and without rubbing the walls too seriously.
* USE YOUR 'STABILIZER' KEY - It's the key that right's your lander if you've
flipped over. If you flip over, or hit a wall and lose control, or get shot and
lose control, or if your tractor-beamed payload starts swinging wildly (like
after it's been shot), hold down the stabilizer to maintain control instead of
nose-diving to doom. The stabilizer key is also useful when going straight up
or down shafts since it can help avoid the walls (unless you've got some
momentum going toward the wall, that is). It's also useful to keep you steady
and level while making a slow, controlled turn in tight spaces. The stabilizer
key can also be used when landing on top of a fuel pod for refueling. Since
toggling the key doesn't seem to consume fuel, I usually perch on a fuel pod
with my stabilizers on since a perfect landing next to a fuel pod with the
tractor beam still going can get hectic sometimes.
* IT'S A PAIN, BUT LEARN TO ADJUST YOUR CAMERA ON-THE-FLY - When going up sloped
shafts or tunnels, adjust your camera to look up at the bottom of your craft.
This gives you a good view of the tunnel. When going down sloped surfaces,
adjust to look down at your craft. Again, helps view more of the tunnel. I've
found when going up or down vertical shafts, I like to look down at my craft at
a 45 degree angle to let the camera hang outside the shaft wall to provide a
green outline of walls. This helps me avoid rubbing walls. You'll have to
experiment with the camera to see what works best with your flying. In
beginning, it's hard enough learning to fly, much less trying to remember to
adjust camera angles. But better camera control gives you the edge to pilot
better. Adjusting the camera angle can help you avoid otherwise costly mistakes
(IE: slamming into a wall you were close to which you could have seen if you
used a different camera angle). Given time, you'll eventually become a good
judge of how close your lander is to scenery, and camera control will become
second nature.
* USE YOUR CAMARA AS 'SONAR' - After learning how to maneuver your lander, you
can exploit the camera by positioning it above tunnel ceilings while flying
forward, or outside tunnel walls while strafing the tunnel so you get the green
outlines. This is useful in all areas to see where the next turn is. This is
especially useful in dark areas. It's also useful when you're stuck somewhere
and can't quite figure out where to go. Just position your camera outside the
walls and see if a tunnel or shaft runs along somewhere.
* DON'T ABUSE YOUR TRACTOR BEAM; IT'S A FUEL HOG - If you leave the tractor beam
on and it's not latched on to anything, it sucks your fuel down fast. A quick
toggle here and there when trying to pick up cargo is good enough to see if
you're on target. Just use a semi-pulsing method like the thrusters to gauge
how close you are to your cargo (or fuel pod) with your reddish-orange beam.
When it locks on with a blue beam, then hold it on and either increase altitude
enough to lock the cargo in tow, or stabilize and land on the fuel pod while
refueling. Oddly enough, when the tractor beam is locked on cargo (IE: you're
carrying your payload around), apparently the beam's obscene fuel sucking
ability stops.
* IF POSSIBLE, CLEAR THE WAY BEFORE HAULING CARGO - During cargo hauling
missions, try to take care of other objectives first before committing yourself
to a tractor-beam lock on of cargo. Once you're hooked to cargo, you're
apparently hooked; I haven't found a way to disengage tractor beam after
latching on unless the mission has some pre-determined drop off for your cargo,
so you're stuck with it. With cargo in tow, not only does your lander become
less maneuverable, unresponsive and suck up more fuel because of the ballast,
but you can't tractor in power-ups or refuel at fuel pods. As such, try to
clear intended flight paths of enemies, open up doors, snag power-ups, etc
before latching to the cargo. In some missions, your cargo is presented first,
and it's crucial to leave it be while you do everything first without it.
Otherwise, you're stuck lugging it around and you have so much to do and so
little fuel to do it with, you're screwed.
* CARGO LIKES TO GET STUCK ON SHIT - Part of the 'no mercy' clipping rules, but
important to emphasize. The cargo you lug around has a tendency to snag on
corners or scenery. For instance, if you drag it too close to the ground, it
can snag on a wall corner, or a light post or (worse) an enemy that's shooting
you. In such cases, your lander gets snapped to a halt and if you keep on the
thrusters you usually wind up kissing scenery. So, pay attention to cargo
movement. If you have a narrow space to fly forward through, remember that the
physics involved makes your cargo swing back and drag in tow. So, pick up some
speed and let it drift behind you. Your overall profile will be smaller and you
usually squeak through smaller openings.
* USE MULTIPLAYER MAPS AS PRACTICE RUNS - Load up a multiplayer game on your
computer and fly around solo to get the feel of different landers and load-outs.
Aside from the training mission, the basic multiplayer map is great for learning
how to fly. Plus, you can choose 'specific configuration', then go build a
lander of your choice to test drive any new lander or load-out changes before
you lay down the cash and commit to it. Since you start the beginning missions
with the Hopper, I recommend a lot of basic flight training with the Hopper.
Nothing more annoying then learning to fly the super-responsive Roche, and later
trying to compensate for the less responsive Hopper. For that matter, if you
want a challenge, try learning to fly Big Red with standard load-out. If you
can master flying that toad, everything else handles like a sports car.
* PAUSING THE GAME DOESN'T EFFECT THE MOUSE - You hit the 'Esc' or 'P' key to
pause the game. 'Escape' brings up a menu asking if you want to quit. It's
referring to quitting the game entirely, so if you just wanted to go back to the
start menu, click 'No'. This takes you to a second menu (or the first menu if
you hit 'P'), that gives you the option to Continue with your current mission,
Abort Mission or Exit Lander. Why they have that first menu with Yes/No to quit
lander when you hit 'Esc' when it gives you the option in the second menu, I'll
never know. Anyways, the point is that your lander is registering all the mouse
movement you're doing to make your selections. So, if you continue your game,
you'll see your lander-leveling display is twisted all sorts of directions. You
should immediately hit the stabilizer key, which will level off your lander and
negate any mouse movements from the menu selections. As a side note, if you're
going to pause your game, it's a good idea to find a flat, non-hostile area to
park. It sucks pausing in mid-flight just to unpause and have your lander do a
nosedive into the pavement.
ATTACKING
Using your lander to attack is really a secondary function, since, again, good
piloting is most important. The cross-hair can get a bit disorienting because
the squares line up funky sometimes. Not to mention the third square is faded
so much it's hard to tell if it's over your target or not, until it toggles the
aiming lines, which means it's on target. Here's some of the more subtle
details of combat.
* EVADE WHEN YOU CAN - Killing enemies is not the objective of this game.
Enemies just happen to be encountered on the way to your objectives. So, while
laying the smack down on them is usually the instinctive response of every FPS
gamer, it's sometimes faster and less damaging to your ship if you just avoid
confrontation when you can. There will naturally be times when you need to
clear out enemies in order to achieve an objective, for instance, to make a
pick-up zone less 'hot' so you can tractor in some cargo. But if you round a
corner and suddenly find a butt-load of enemies waiting to gun you down, just
fly over or past them and proceed on your way. This is especially true when
hauling cargo, since it makes it that much more difficult to take on opponents
(especially when they shoot your cargo which makes it swing out of control).
* IF YOU NEED TO ATTACK, DO SO ON YOUR OWN TERMS - When you do need to confront
enemies (again, like clearing an area to make the pick-up zone or travel route
less hostile), do so tactfully. Beginning pilots should skirt around firing
perimeters picking off single enemies, thereby reducing the hostile perimeter so
you can move in and pick off another enemy. Wash, rinse & repeat until you've
neutralized the area you need to work in. Beginning pilots should also avoid
going into a firing perimeter where more than one enemy can pelt you in
crossfire. Nothing is worse then dodging one enemy's fire just to get shot in
the ass by another. More skilled pilots can do moderate speed strafing runs
over hostile areas, avoiding incoming fire while taking out either easy targets
first (like gun turrets) or more difficult targets (like SAM sites that fire
homing missiles). Then, swing back and mop up. Other occasions call for hiding
behind cover (like ravines, hills or walls, then popping out or up to pick off
enemies and moving back before the others can get a bead on you.
* SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA SUCK IT UP - There will be times when you're forced
to confront enemies in tight places. If you try to evade the gunfire of 2 or 3
enemies at once in a tight room, you'll likely get shot anyway, but also slam
into a wall and damage yourself even further. So, in these situations, since
you're going to get damaged anyways, if you stay calm and in control, you can
minimize how much you take. Usually, it's best just to pick a target to close
in on and suck up it's fire while picking it off in controlled, steady fashion.
If you slowly close in on it while getting shot by it, the other enemy gun fire
will usually miss you.
* YOUR MISSILES ARE AUTO-TARGETING - Missiles have a long range and paint a
potential target with a red circle so you know who you're about to nail.
They're easy to use, but come in limited quantities, so are also easy to use up.
I personally never used missiles since I found the unlimited ammo of the main
weapon was more then sufficient when applied with a little skilled targeting and
piloting. Plus, my flare launcher was far too functional to give up. However,
if you're going to use missiles, I wouldn't waste them on paltry enemies like
gun turrets or the small, non-homing missile turrets. I'd save them for really
nasty stuff, like SAM sites that fire homing missiles, or beam laser turrets
that can pound you from a distance with multiple shots.
* YOUR PRIMARY WEAPON IS SOMEWHAT AUTO-TARGETING - Your lander's primary weapon
has unlimited ammo, but it can overheat. If it does, just let it cool down then
fire some more. It's somewhat auto-targeting if you're in range and your cross
hair (the faded third square) is fairly close to the target (not necessarily
dead on). Then again, there's been times when I've had my cross-hair's dead on,
but I'm not hitting anything. In those cases, it's usually because the target
is out of range, so close in. 9 times out 10 (when using cheaper weapons, like
the RASL or low-powered Pulse/Beam weapons), the minute the target becomes
"live" and starts shooting at you, your weapon is finally within range as well
and can take it out. Sniping at an enemy before it becomes 'live' is usually
difficult unless you have a weapon with long range, like the DPU cannon, the
Explosive Flechette cannon or the higher powered Pulse/Beam weapons.
* BAD PILOTING CAN ACTUALLY HELP IN THE BEGINNING - Being a bad pilot at the
start can actually work to your advantage when getting attacked since most guns
and non-homing missiles don't lead their targets. IE: they try to shoot where
you *were* not where you're going. So the constant drifting beginners will
inevitably do as they work to control their craft acts as a sort of auto-evasive
maneuvering as well. In my opinion, a beginner will have more trouble with
running into scenery then from enemy gunfire. I noticed that as I got better at
piloting (my craft getting steadier in the air), I got hit more. So, I used
constant movement again, except, as a more experienced pilot, in a more
controlled, lethal fashion.
* GOOD PILOTING HELPS MORE AS THE MISSIONS GET TOUGHER - Since some missions
need low-flying maneuvers to stay under the radar of missile-locking towers,
solid piloting is still where it's at. While better landers can sport better
weapons, you're still toast without some fancy flying to get into position and
put that bad boy to good use. Even the Hopper is a deadly weapon when piloted
well, because even with the puny standard pulse weapon, you can hit-n-run while
chipping away at the enemy, eventually decimating them. As a beginner learning
to fly, my Hopper was a clay pigeon, so I avoided groups of enemies and picked
off stragglers while working my way through missions. But as I got better at
flying, my little Hopper impressed the hell out of me as I stuck with it during
later, more complex missions, kicking the crap out of most things with my RASL.
* SLOW STRAFE AS A BEGINNER - Strafing targets, even just slowly & slightly can
prove useful and is fairly easy for beginners as well. Just tilt your thruster
to move to one side or the other, turn slightly to keep your cross-hairs on the
target, and doing a bit of altitude adjustment, either up or down, can help
throw off incoming fire.
* FLY-OVERS ARE GOOD IF YOU KEEP ENOUGH SPEED - Gun emplacements, tanks and non-
homing missile sights are easy pickings by flying straight towards them at semi-
quick speed since their slow tracking speed puts their weapons fire underneath
you. After closing, dip the nose and plug a few rounds in them as you fly over.
* LET'S NOT FORGET CIRCLE-STRAFING - Experienced pilots can employ the circle-
strafe (aka: "circle of death") technique which is standard procedure in every
first person shooter game. Simply start strafing to one side of your target,
then turn your nose to keep your cross-hairs on them like a normal side strafe.
But tap your thruster periodically and tilt your craft a bit to start circling.
Pretty soon, when you're good enough, you can swing around to the back side of a
target while hosing away. Meanwhile, it can't get a lock on for the next
volley.
* GET THE ENEMY TO DESTROY EACH OTHER - Really daring pilots can try getting
enemies to take each other out. In areas of heavy fire, you can circle-strafe
really low and close to one enemy, which makes it difficult for them to get a
bead on you. Meanwhile, other enemies are trying to shoot you and sometimes
accidentally nail their friend. Fortunately, weapons don't discriminate in
Lander. So an enemy will be pushing up daisies if it gets nailed with enough
friendly fire.
* GETTING HIT CAN THROW YOU OUT OF CONTROL - Beginning pilots may find the
slightest hit from weapons fire sends their lander careening out of control,
usually into a nose-dive straight to the ground. If so, then immediately lay
off the thrusters, toggle your stabilization key to steady yourself, then tilt &
pulse your thrusters to keep from slamming into anything. As you get better at
flying, you'll find you naturally compensate for hits and remain steady even
while getting shot up. Basic turret fire will eventually nail you, but won't
unsteady your flight. Even direct missile hits will hammer you, send you off
course a bit, but can be easily recovered from. Getting nailed by homing
missiles and bigger things tends to throw you off good, though, so use the
stabilizer key and make a few tilt corrections. Of course, really good pilots
will stay on the move and won't get hit in the first place.
POWER-UPS
There's not very many, but they serve they're purpose. Each of these, save for
the fuel pod, disappears after you tractor it, so you're not stuck lugging it
around. Unfortunately, if you're locked on to cargo, you can't pick up power-
ups or re-fuel, which can suck out loud real fast sometimes.
* FUEL PODS - Small, squarish structures that glow red and have a panel of green
lights going up the front. Lock your tractor beam on them to extract fuel.
This can pose a bit of a problem, since your fuel hogging tractor beam can suck
down your fuel while you're trying to lock on to the damn fuel pod. So, your
best bet is to jockey over the pod a bit, and tap your tractor beam occasionally
to see how close you are. When you have lock-on, my suggestion is to hit your
stabilizer button and gently land on top of the pod while your tractor beam is
still siphoning gas. Keep your stabilizer held, and when you're full or it's
empty, you can make a steady take off straight up instead of sliding along and
plowing into a wall. Of course, to do all that, it's generally a good idea to
have swept the area and neutralized all potential hostiles. You're pretty much
a sitting duck when refueling, and, for obvious reasons, you don't want the fuel
pod getting shot while you're sitting on top of it; the fuel will explode
wastefully, the pod will then be empty, but more importantly, you'll have taken
a major slamming to your shields.
* SHIELD RECHARGE - The small, circular icons with bright green attachments
around the edges. Tag them with your tractor beam and they'll disappear while
recharging your shields. Each green attachment gives +25% recharge, and as far
as I can tell, there's a single (+25%), double (+50%) and quadruple (+100%)
recharge. If you shoot them, one green token is removed from the power-reducing
it's effectiveness. So, don't shoot them.
* CASH - The slats of gold bricks you find occasionally. Tag them with your
tractor beam to make them disappear while boosting your bank account. They
start small, with a single layer of gold bricks, which gives a small monetary
boost, and increase in size and value as more gold is stacked on top. I don't
think you can destroy cash, but I've never shot at it, so I'm not sure.
LANDERS
I won't bore you with crap that's clearly shown in-game, like weapon costs and
such. So I'll focus my attention on basic performance reviews and tips for each
lander.
HOPPER Grade - B
Your starting ride, with the least amount of upgrade options and no missile
carrying capability (save for a flare launcher, which I've found proves more
useful than missile systems anyways). Beginners to Lander may feel this is the
'little dog' lander, but in capable hands, it's one bad-ass little machine that
can carry you through some tough missions. Again, it's all in the piloting and
knowing when to engage and when to evade, since exploiting its compact size &
maneuverability is necessary to make up for its lack of armament. It's fairly
unresponsive with standard load-out, but just upgrading from Standard to Light
armor makes a world of difference in handling since you've decreased your
overall weight. While the Attitude engine is supposed to increase response and
thruster power, I found that wasn't the case. I'm not sure what the deal was,
but when I ran with the normal engine then switched to the Attitude, my
performance declined and I had a noticeably harder time hauling cargo. I
believe the Damage engine increases shield ratings, but I'm not sure. Every
time I tried the Damage engine, my Hopper got sluggish and I slammed into more
things. So if it does increase damage-capacity, I ended up wasting it on
scenery crashing. So, I went with the Lean engine for standard engine
performance but extra mileage. Upgrade the weapon to anything but default (RASL
preferably, since bullets hit almost instantaneously), and you'll be set for
many of the beginning missions (even on through the tougher ones if you're like
me and bypass the Sky Diver & Big Red, waiting to save up for the Destria).
SKY DIVER Grade - C
It's the first lander you're likely to upgrade to, but I wouldn't. After
piloting the Hopper for many missions, you'll find the downgrade in thrust to be
a real pain in the ass. Sure, it turns a little faster and you get more upgrade
options (you can finally mount missiles), but seriously, even with upgraded
engines and Light Armor, the Sky Diver handles like a toad. After some
extensive free fall to avoid gun-fire, it takes several slow seconds to halt
descent, let alone gain enough thrust to climb out of a dive. This gets you
dinged pretty fast when moving through caverns or hallways. If you do take it,
you'll need to compensate by hitting the thruster a bit more often then you did
with the Hopper. The reason it ties with Big Red is because while Sky Diver has
less upgrade options, it turns faster and is generally more responsive then Red.
BIG RED Grade - C
If the Sky Diver handles like a toad, this thing handles like a pregnant cow.
More upgrade options, but damn if this thing isn't slow to turn AND thrust.
Again, even if decked out with bad-ass engine and armor upgrades, it's still
very unresponsive. It's only saving grace is increased shields, which are
necessary because you'll be banging your ass all over since your thruster can
barely keep it afloat. If you're a slow, patient pilot, Red may be for you, but
when you've got gun-fire coming in at all angles, you don't need a sloth. You
need something responsive, maneuverable and fast. I'd much rather have a Hopper
or even a Sky Diver when under fire then get frustrated at flying this slow
moving clay pigeon. While there's no difficulty setting in the game, per se, if
you're so damn good you require more of a challenge, pilot the Sky Diver or Big
Red as soon as you can, with no engine or armor upgrades. See how bad-ass you
are then...
DESTRIA Grade - A
By far, my favorite ride. First, it can mount the DPU cannon, which I feel is
the best primary weapon you can buy, even for the Roche. Upgrading to Attitude
engines finally seems to make a positive improvement to thruster power, unlike
the Hopper. And since it turns fast, too, this makes it very responsive, which
is necessary since it's larger then the Hopper, and you'll need more response to
maneuver in cramped spaces. And while the increased shields & upgraded Light-B
armor can take a pounding, meaning scenery touch-n-goes prove less lethal, I
honestly found it handled so smooth and gave me so much steady control I hardly
ever scraped the scenery. With a nice range of upgrades, you should try to keep
your Hopper around as your first workhorse until you can upgrade to this as your
second. I rank the Destria equal to the Roche because, while it has less
upgrade options and the thruster has less acceleration, I found the smoother
control helped me surgically perform my missions far better. As a side note,
while you can mount the Rapid Fire or Flechette cannons, both essentially
machine guns instead of single shot weapons, they aren't as powerful as the DPU
cannon. Plus, they're harder to aim, which means they overheat easier since
you'll tend to let more stray gun-fire loose trying to get a bead on enemies.
ROCHE Grade - A
At around $10 mil (during the single-player missions), it's a pretty kick-ass
ride. Even with standard load-out, it handles fairly sharp and the lift is
reasonable, which is good because the weight of this craft makes it free fall
faster then the others. It has the most upgrade options, being able to mount
the best of everything. So decked out with a Military Super engine, it's
obscenely responsive and the lift is very powerful making it accelerate fast.
In fact, it's so responsive I found it a bit too 'twitchy' after the smooth ride
my Destria offered. I was slamming my Roche all over the place due to its over-
responsive controls and acceleration. I learned to tap the thruster more
instead of leaning on it like I did with the Destria, and while this helped
some, I kept my Destria until the final mission, when I switched to the Roche
for thruster speed and fuel economy. The 'Super Lean' engine hybrids keep the
Roche afloat for lengthy periods of time and the shields can take a major
pounding, too (which means it's very forgiving with scenery hugging as well, and
you'll likely need it). However, while you would think the Explosive Flechette
cannon would kick major ass, I found it had the same problems as the other auto-
cannons when compared to my single-shot DPU cannon (ie: it was hard to aim and
overheated too easily). So I kept my DPU cannon, which works like a precision
instrument in eliminating enemies. As another side note, the Super Damage
engine is more expensive then the Super Military engine, but I found it lacked
the response and lifting power of the Super Military. (While the game
description is vague, actual test performance is even vaguer so I'm still not
sure what makes the 'Damage' engines so special to warrant such a high price
tag.) I rank the Roche on the same level as the Destria because, while the
Roche can mount more upgrades, has more shield and is quicker to
respond/accelerate, it was so responsive that I lost control and got my ass into
more trouble then it was worth. It's really a matter of taste and you'll have
to experiment with the two to see which you prefer.
CD MUSIC
Before we get to the missions, Lander plays music tracks from any music CD you
have in the drive during missions. Well, at least the version of Lander I'm
playing (which is an abandonware CD-rip). If you actually have the Lander game,
you can use the Lander CD and listen to it's music. Otherwise, you can pop in
Enigma and enjoy the ambience it adds to drifting through space. Well, you
don't have to listen to Enigma, but I do. Missions don't seem to have a pre-
determined track. Instead, they start with a random one and cycle to the next
tracks the longer the mission takes. Since I don't know how to bring up any
kind of 'console' in the game, I have no clue how to change the track in-game.
Oh, well, better then no music at all. Although, I've played without music and
it can help increase your concentration and you can hear the sound effects of
enemies better to detect them. So, to music or not to music? Take your pick.
MISSIONS
Depending on how you do in some missions, you may get different missions each go
around then you had before. The factors involved in your current mission that
help make your next mission the 'Experienced Pilot' one versus the 'Beginner
Pilot' one are sometimes presented to you in the briefings. For instance,
during a Carva Cartel raid mission, they clearly state they need you to complete
the mission in under 15 minutes. If you do, your next mission is an
'Experienced Pilot' one. If you don't, your next mission is the 'Beginner
Pilot' branch of the game. However, sometimes 'Experienced Pilot' objectives
are unclear. For instance, in playing the very first mission, the satellite
retrieval, if you do it quickly, and get a high hit % (ie: shots fired vs shots
that actually hit targets), then it seems to qualify you for an 'Experienced
Pilot' second mission on Venus instead of the 'Beginner Pilot' mission. You'll
just have to experiment.
My advice is to play the game through once to get good at piloting, since
all the missions will be new to you. Then, you can go through a second time and
try to improve your performance and play the 'Experienced Pilot' missions. In
doing so, when in doubt, don't waste shots just shooting randomly at the scenery
(since it gives you a low % hit ratio), and try to pace yourself so your time is
good. Get in, do your business and move on.
In detailing the missions, since they can differ, I'll try to provide them
in order of accomplishment, but also give the planet & employer so you can
figure out which one you're on.
MERCURY SATELLITE PICKUP (MCGA)
You'll notice that missions you run have political undertones. Some are
obvious, but others are scant on information because the employing party would
rather not say what kind of embarrassing or incriminating faux-pa (fuck-up)
you're fixing for them. MCGA, the acting military, police & governmental body
of the solar system, is the biggest hush-hush employers of all. And you'll also
find that MCGA is not really in control, since the two largest corporations
(Cairn Vance & Celestia, who's air space you're about to enter), and the largest
Crime Organization (Carva Cartel) walk all over the rules and politics laid out
by MCGA. And MCGA usually just let's them walk all over because while they have
the strength to take on one of these groups, they can't take them all on. So
MCGA is really just trying to make the best of a bad situation. But since they
cause some of their own bad situations, it's hard to feel sorry for them. (Kind
of reminds me of the United Nations in our time...)
Ok, here we have your first, basic cargo run. You get to do a little live
fire target practice, get some tractor beam practice, and some cargo hauling
practice. Goody. The briefing states that MCGA needs you to fly down and grab
the, hmmm, observational satellite that seems to have crashed in Celestia
territory. Funny, if I didn't know better, I'd say MCGA was spying on Celestia
and Celestia didn't like 'big brother' watching so they shot down the satellite.
But I digress. As long as you're getting paid, MCGA could have you retrieving a
bag of shit for all you care (of course, that mission would really stink, but
enough humor). The target objective is on a flatbed within the dug-out site.
You should probably take out the two turrets guarding the satellite site
if you're new to flying the lander. Nothing worse then trying to get a tractor-
lock on cargo while guns are shooting you in the ass. Retrieval is simple.
Just hover above target cargo and activate your tractor-beam. It will be red
until it targets cargo to pick up, whereby it will turn blue. When it's blue,
keep your tractor-beam key held down and fly up until the beam turns red
signifying it has a lock on the cargo. After that, you can release the tractor-
beam key and the cargo will remain latched with you in tow. Gain altitude for
extraction and you're done.
Sight-seers can hold off on snagging the satellite and follow the road to
another site that has a few vans driving around. Use them for target practice
and also snag the shield power-up and the small slat of Cash while there. Other
than that, I didn't notice much else of interest. It's a good idea to practice
filling up at the fuel pod (the small red, glowing structure with the green bars
on the front of it). Top off your tank after taking out the turrets and
cruising around so you'll have less fuel to buy back on Drake's Exception.
VENUS WASTE RECOVERY (Cairn Vance)
If you take a long time to retrieve the downed satellite, the game will assume
you're a beginner pilot and put you at this mission; another basic cargo run.
Hmmm, seems Cairn Vance has accidentally left behind some nasty waste byproducts
at an old base, and they need you to retrieve the incriminating evidence.
Venus' surface is covered in water, and you can splash down in it without
getting hurt. So, if you've wanted to fly real high and free-fall into the
ground, now's the time to get it out of your system.
Your objective is located on the larger island. There's a large, square
entrance on the surface. Make a controlled descent into it and the doors will
auto-open, letting you drift further down into the large cavern. There are 2
gun turrets, which have pretty bad aim, so jockey around and take them out.
Your cargo is the barrel located by 2 tent-looking buildings. There's also a
fuel pod to play with and I believe a small slat of gold stashed somewhere on
the ground as well. When done, go up through the entrance and gain altitude to
evac.
Even after successfully completing this mission, feel free to load it
several times for practice. First, since Venus is mostly made of water, it's a
fairly beginner-friendly environment to try speedy surface skimming/rotating,
side flying, cornering and other aerial maneuvers since slamming into the
'ground' here just means splashing into the water safely. The large cavern is
also a good place to better your steady, controlled flying skills in enclosed
environments, which you better get used to since most successive missions
revolve around cruising through cramped corridors. It's also a good time to
learn camera control, since you need to do a bit of it in order to kill the
turrets and go up and down through the cavern entrance. Just like learning to
control your lander, good camera control is necessary to become a better pilot.
VENUS CAIRN VANCE CARGO HEIST (Carva Cartel)
If it took you all of two seconds to get the downed satellite and evac on the
first mission, and your % hit ratio was pretty good, then the game assumes you
know what you're doing and offers a more challenging second mission.
The term 'Cartel' used to mean a group of industrialists trying to
monopolize a market. These days, Cartel usually refers to Organized Crime
Syndicates (eg: Drug Cartel). Carva Cartel is no different, being the largest
Organized Crime Syndicate in the solar system. Since most of your missions
involve you pimping yourself out to conflicting employers that want you to
perform illegal operations anyways, you shouldn't feel so bad about whoring
yourself out to the mafia. On the contrary, all legalities aside, working for
the mafia means two things. First, they pay well, and second, the missions are
never boring. You know, the term 'Freelance Operative' is so much more
dignified then 'Back-Stabbing Whore'...
In your introduction to working for the mob, Carva Cartel has a little
package they'd like you to swipe from a Cairn Vance installation on Venus. This
is a pretty straight forward mission, just heading to the base, heading down in
it, and snagging the engine pod located at the back of the scrapped aircraft.
If you do the Cairn Vance Waste Recovery mission or this mission well, then you
get another alternate mission on Earth instead of the passive 'Operation
Renessaince' for MCGA.
EARTH 'OPERATION RENESSAINCE' (MCGA)
This is another 'beginner' mission if the second took too long, you got a little
too banged up, and/or your hit ratio sucked. This one has little enemy
activity, and is mostly designed to teach you tunnel flying. You start out in a
ravined area, having to fly over an MCGA base with a green beacon light until
you get to an old hydro-electric dam (just follow your way-point). There are
actually two MCGA bases located in this mission, and the one with the red beacon
light has two slats of Cash lying about. This just goes to show a little
snooping around can pay off. Not to mention some sight-seeing really shows the
work Psygnosis put into the game. Oddly enough, even though you're working for
MCGA during this mission, their base turrets fire at you if you close in! Talk
about not cutting you any slack (the bastards!) Feel free to use them as target
practice to make up for this ungrateful slight.
You can putt around over and in the ravine some, which can give you some
practice cornering at faster speeds in semi-enclosed environments. However,
there's not much of interest in the ravine aside from the dam. At the dam, you
can hop over it and plop into the water on the other side, or follow the river
out to sea and scoot around for some more safety skimming ala Venus. When
you've had enough sight-seeing, head to the base of the dam in the ravine and
shoot the doors off. (You should note that when in doubt, shoot stuff; you
never know when something you shoot will blow up, toggle a switch or otherwise
do something interesting to let you go further or make your life easier.)
After scooting through the cavern entrance you've just blown open, it's
time for a little tunnel flying. You'll head down a well-lit, deep shaft into
the lower tunnels, and there will be two routes to take. One takes you to a
fuel pod while the other takes you to the cargo. Before snagging the cargo, fly
up to air duct close to the ceiling and snag the Cash & Shield power up. Next,
make a grab for the gold chest. (Is it just me or does the gold chest slightly
resemble the Arc of the Covenant from 'Indian Jones & the Raiders of the Lost
Arc'? I mention this because the wooden boxes appear to have Nazi falcons on
them and the small things sitting near the boxes appear to be TV cameras. Maybe
I'm looking a little too much into this...)
After snagging your cargo, it's time to haul it back through the tunnels.
Remember that when you gain momentum, even if you tilt back to stop, your cargo
will keep swinging in the direction the momentum was built. So apply a little
extra brakes as it tries to keep you going forward. Work your tilt carefully to
keep it from swinging out of control, and lay on the Stabilizer key to maintain
your craft's control even if the cargo goes swinging wildly. By alternating
between your Stabilizer to level out, then letting off it to fix your momentum
with some Tilt/Thruster work, you should be able to keep the cargo under steady
control or at least maintain a steady position while it comes under control
before you proceed out.
Be careful not to snag the cargo on the bases of the huge bars you
blasted, and try not to snag it on the remains of the door on your way out. If
you're having trouble, pick up some speed to let the cargo drift behind you,
making your profile smaller. Then, slip out the door and make a few alterations
to speed so you can keep from slamming into anything and just jet on up for
evac. If you do snag, then lay on the Stabilizer key and gently work your way
back to free your cargo. Again, even after playing this mission through, it's
fun to load up and practice tunnel flying a bit more. The tunnels are great
because they're large enough to catch yourself before slamming into things, yet
still cramped enough to get some good practice in. Practice tunnel flying both
loaded with cargo and unloaded until you feel comfortable. You're going to need
both those skills since they're critical in later missions.
EARTH EVIDENCE RETRIEVAL (Citizen's Democratic Party)
</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
If you showed some expertise in the second mission (regardless of which one you
had), then you get this entertaining little 'Experienced Pilot' mission. A
public interest group suspects MCGA of doing more then just collecting ancient
art while on Earth during 'Operation Renessaince'. They need you to collect
some evidence to prove such.
You start near the top of a ridgeline, and can work your way towards the
waypoint. The entrance to the mines is pretty obvious, and heading down in
reveals the occasional gun turret. A little tunnel flying will take you to a
large chamber and your first encounter with beam turrets. These things burst
fire several fast-moving energy beams and can really pack a punch if they hit
you. Your best bet is to side strafe them just fast enough to avoid the fire
while picking them off with your own.
You'll need to go in the huge air shaft hanging low from the ceiling and
head up. A little more tunnel flying will put you in several chambers, one of
which has a shield recharge, and the one through a huge door containing a fuel
pod. The grating on the wall of the fuel pod room is blastable (when in doubt,
shoot something), so just keep chipping away at it until you've opened a large
enough hole to fly both you and the cargo through without getting snagged.
Through the grating you'll find a room with all the evidence the CDP
needs. However, you just need to snag the red warhead. You can blast
everything in here, but use caution as some of it makes a big boom that can
knock down your shields. (hmmm, seeing as how they're nuclear warheads, I'm
surprised the whole base doesn't go up when you shoot them). Blasting open one
of the MCGA boxes, you can find a full shield recharge. After screwing around,
grab your cargo and make your exodus to the surface.
EARTH ANTIQUITIES 'ACQUISITION' (Carva Cartel)
This is the second Earth mission you get simultaneously with your other one. If
you're a beginner, go with the other mission first, which will likely be the
MCGA 'Operation Renessaince' mission, and then do this one. If you're a more
advanced pilot, then you'll probably have gotten the Evidence Retrieval mission
offered by The CDP, and can do this one or that one first, so take your pick.
When you first land, you're over an MCGA base (you'll notice in later
missions that the Carva Cartel is always sending you in to make MCGA's life
miserable; typical cops & robbers fare). A quick glance around shows a fuel
pod, several gun turrets on a building, some missle turrets in a ravine, and
your comm getting blasted with chatter from some dumbass trying to fend off some
MCGA tanks. For beginner pilots, this will all seem bad enough. However, it
quickly turns into 'Operation Goat-Fuck' as you suddenly realize an MCGA
dropship is coming in for a landing, and the tanks it's dropping off as
reinforcement won't take kindly to your presence. Regardless, this mission
helps you build up good tactical sense when facing overwhelming odds.
By now, you should hopefully have a better weapon then your standard pea-
shooter pulse weapon, preferably the RASL, but anything other then standard
weapon will do just fine. Also, Light Armor upgrade will prove useful not only
for the protection, but it will lighten up your craft so you're more
maneuverable.
If you'd like some help, you can start by freeing the captured dumbass in
the hovertank. Make a broad circle or high-elevation fly-over to avoid the
firing perimeter of enemies and locate him up on a plateau surrounded by 3
tanks. Help him pick off the tanks, and he'll go down and mop up some of the
missile turrets in the ravine, which you need to pacify if you want to get to
your objective and still live.
Whether you free him early or not, the tanks unloading from the dropship take
position up on a ridge overlooking the ravine, and within the ravine itself.
Instead of flying right into the ravine and getting your ass shot off (unless
you're 'just that good'), it's a smarter idea to carefully evade and pick off
one enemy at a time until you've neutralized all hostiles in the ravine.
As a beginner pilot, I found it easiest to let the tanks unload, take
position, and then start taking them out. After doing one side (and freeing the
hovertank to help out with the missile turrets in the ravine), I circled the
ravine to the other side and went to work on the gun turrets on top of the
tower. After clearing them, I could come down for fuel or start taking out more
tanks parked by that ravine entrance. With the tanks cleared at the ravine
entrances, I could work my way into the ravine, taking out the tanks first since
most missile turrets were stuck inside 'garages'. After their demise, I could
work on the missile turrets and finish pacifying the ravine. As a side note,
while the missiles the tanks/turrets fire are somewhat easy to avoid, it you get
hit by one, you'll likely go spinning out of control. So, be ready to hit the
stabilizer key and work the thruster to minimize the risk of crashing.
After clearing out the ravine, the cargo is within one garage, so it's
time to do a little steady flying to recover it. After lock-on, pull it out,
trying to avoid snagging it on the cargo vehicle parked in the garage entrance
(or a missile turret, or anything else), since it will be a pain in the ass
trying to un-hook it. Gain some altitude for evac and you're all set. Really
ambitious (or bloodthirsty) pilots can also take on the dropship's defensive
weapons, and try taking out everything before freeing the hovertank helper.
Just as Venus is fun to use for flying practice, this mission is pretty
good for beginners to use as tactical engagement practice. I remember about
shitting my pants the first time I played this mission and saw the dropship
coming down. I thought there was no way my little Hopper could take everything
on. And that's the point. If you try to take everything on at once, by flying
right into the ravine while it's massively 'hot' due to overlapping fields of
enemy fire, you're going to grab your ankles fast. The goal of this mission is
to make you choose your targets wisely, engage them on your own terms, and
surgically annihilate them like a wolf picking off prey from a herd, one at a
time. As you get better at flying, you'll find this mission is a cake walk and
simply chuckle to yourself as your little Hopper easily out-maneuvers enemy fire
and mops the field with everyone.
EARTH DR. MISHIMA EXTRACTION (Cairn Vance)
A rather annoying mission when I first played it (over and over again until I
got it right). If you haven't practiced your tunnel flying, your in for an ass-
banging since the tunnels are tighter in some areas. But let's not get ahead of
ourselves.
Starting on the surface, there are various gun turrets, mines, tanks and
missile launchers. There's a slat of Cash by one tank in a ravine dead-end, and
there's a small cave in the middle of the ravine system that has more Cash and
some missile power ups (why they give you missile power-ups when they know
you'll just be flying the Hopper, I don't know..unless of course it hints at
their being built in cheat codes in the game, to which you'd have a better ride
by the time you got here?). The large SAM site near the front 'entrance' is
also a bugger as it fires homing missiles which spank down your little Hopper
bad. So I'd recommend avoiding it unless you want some practice taking them
down. (Hint, come in quick, straight and blaze away fast and perhaps you can
kill it before it goes 'live' and fires off a missile).
Speaking of entrances, while they elude to several in the mission
briefing, there's only one you can take, the face with the open mouth that leads
down. Once in the tunnels, it's pretty obvious which way to go. As I said,
some are tighter, so be careful, and watch out for more gun turrets, tanks and
floating mines. While you can avoid all mines in this mission, you can get some
target practice with them if you'd like since later missions require a bit of
mine clearing.
In coming up to the main cavern, you'll round a corner and notice two
large doors closing. While I at first thought this was the front entrance of
the base, leading back to the ravine, I was baffled because I didn't remember
seeing such a large set of doors out in the ravine. So, after hauling ass
through the doors before they closed one time, I found out they just lead into
the main cavern. If you're feeling dare-devilish, you can gun it through the
doors as well, but beginners should just let them close and take the other
route.
The main cavern where Mishima's pod is is crawling with tanks and gun
turrets, and there's 3 tunnels out of it. I recommend beginning pilots scope out
the place before lugging around the pod in tow. The first tunnel is the way you
came in, and after snagging the pod, you'll run out of time and die trying to
escape back that way since it's so long. So there's no point in returning
there. Another tunnel with large chunks of debris next to it leads down to a
dead-end with some power-ups (again, a missile power-up, what gives?). The
third tunnel which is flanked by two columns works its way quickly up to the
surface, and it's your escape route. As a side note, you don't have to be
completely out of the escape tunnel when the base goes. I think you just have
to be past the dark cavern with the stone 'beams' going across, as a huge
boulder blocks up any chance of going back to the main cavern. So, if you're
close to making it out and the screen shakes but you're still alive, you have as
much time as you need to finish wandering out. After exiting, you can either
gain altitude for evac, or wander back to the ravines (follow your way point)
for more target practice.
This mission really blows for beginners. You'll likely get banged up a
lot on the way to the pod, so fending off the tanks in the main cavern can be a
chore. Plus, fuel can become an issue for beginners, so I again recommend the
Lean burn engine. If you have enough fuel when you enter the main cavern, try
retrieving the Cash in the dead-end tunnel, otherwise, just grab the pod and get
out. Also, you can try accomplishing the secondary objective, which was to
minimize third party survival. This provides another fork in the road for your
next mission. Flying around the main cavern, you'll notice a train parked in
the building Mishima's pod is on. If you snag the pod, the train leaves via
it's own tunnel. However, if you blast the stone column sitting by the train
tracks, it blocks the train's exit and it can't leave.
Regardless of whether you let the train leave or not, this mission wraps
up with MCGA Special Investigations chewing you out for fucking up a Brotherhood
investigation they had going on Dr. Mishima. To make up for it, they
'voulenteer' you for a job.
MARS BROTHERHOOD DATA HEIST (MCGA Special Investigations)
If you let the train leave while rescuing Dr. Mishima, then this is the mission
you end up at. It starts over the red planet and you fly over a large base with
a semi-sunken perimeter that posts gun turrets & tanks. You don't have to do
anything here, but if you'd like some target practice and can spare the fuel,
feel free to light some things up. Beginners should probably pass this base
over since they'll need all the shields and fuel they can spare for the cargo
extraction.
The entrance to the Brotherhood data vault storage center is a little ways
past the base, in what looks like a terraced strip mining canyon. There's
little in the way of defenses, so fly down and you'll come to the round door
that automatically opens as you approach. The inside tunnels are sloped rather
then flat, so they can be a bit disorienting. Now's a time to get some good
camera work going so you can tell where the hell you are and avoid some nasty
bang-ups. If you're going up a sloped tunnel, position your camera to look up
the tunnel. If you're going down a slope, position the camera to look down the
tunnel. Practice a little and before you know it, camera control will be second
nature.
There's a side-tunnel that you'll find to your immediate right after
entering the complex. It dead-ends with a switch at the end of it, and if you
go down the tunnel, a ceiling trap will crush you. So, keep your distance and
shoot the switch. I believe the switch just opens up a pod somewhere that has a
shield power-up in it, so you can skip it if you'd like.
Further into the tunnels you'll find a long shaft down. If you take the
first side tunnel after a short drop, you can short-cut your way to the cargo a
bit faster. You'll need to shoot some switches to open the doors and take out
the turrets, since you'll probably use this as a quick means to leave after
cargo extraction. However, if you'd like, drop all the way to the bottom of the
shaft to find a fuel pod and then go through the tunnel down there to a sloped
area that goes up. It leads back to the path the short-cut takes you to, so
either way is fine.
Beginners will have an interesting time with revolving wall room. You
have to time your flight past the revolving wall to toggle a switch in one room,
then work your way to the room on the opposite side of the revolving wall room
in order to go get the cargo. After pick-up, work your way out of the tunnel
complex for evac.
MARS MCGA DATA HEIST (MCGA Special Investigations)
If you kept the train from leaving while rescuing Dr. Mishima, then this is the
mission you end up at. I first flew this mission after stumbling upon it during
another run through Lander. While I believe it's probably far tougher then the
other Mars mission for a beginner, my piloting skills were already honed pretty
sharp, so I didn't have a problem with it. In fact, I found it far more
enjoyable then the other Mars mission, but that may just be because I got
slammed a few times as a beginner on the other mission, so my memories of it
probably aren't as fond as this one.
In this mission MCGA Special Investigations has you covertly extracting a
data vault from one of their own MCGA facilities. You start high over Mars, so
fly down towards the way point. You see a small outpost perched over a canyon,
and a large, grated awning covering one end of a canyon. There's various guns
and non-homing missile turrets, but nothing too major. Down under the grated
awning, you'll find a large structure that requires some necessary ventilation
with your weapons. After blowing it up, the sealed entrance will open and a
couple of tanks will come out to greet you.
Working your way down into the tunnel complex with the elevator, you'll
immediately come across another one that's unresponsive. Head through the large
door and go get the Security Pass 1, then come back and take the second elevator
further down into the complex. This elevator's shaft has two exits, sub-
corridor 1 mid-way down and sub-corridor 2 at the bottom. These two corridors
have doors that are interlinked, meaning if a door is closed in one corridor
it's open in the other and vice-versa.
Start by heading to the bottom corridor, blasting the grating at the end
of the corridor and nailing the red switch (all switches on this mission have a
'+' shape to them). Then, work your way out of sub-corridor 2 and toggle the
door switch on the side of the tunnel closed after exiting so the door in sub-
corridor 1 above will be open. Up in sub-corridor 1, toggle the door switch
and wander through. You'll see various large structures obscuring your flight
path (get used to it since later missions have them in droves), but the first
thing you run across is a sunken area with a small platform lowering into the
ground. On top of the platform is Security Pass 2. If the platform goes all
the way down, it seals over and you can't get it. While it seems important to
get, I really have no clue what it does. The first two times I played through
this mission, I never noticed it, much less got it, and I didn't have a problem
finishing the mission successfully. So I'm not sure what it does (set
decoration, I guess).
Further down the corridor, you'll find gun turrets that help spice things
up in case dodging large crushing objects wasn't challenging enough for you.
The turrets mounted on the ceilings are especially tricky, as you have to tilt
far back in tight quarters to destroy them while not banging your ass into the
scenery.
The sloping, curved tunnel with the proximity mines is also a delight. If
you fly close by proximity mines, they'll chirp for two seconds and go off
regardless of whether you're still near or not. So, daredevil pilots can try a
little moderate speed, close flying to help clear the way if shooting them seems
a little too boring. After some sightseeing, you'll be at the bottom where
switches actigate a revolving wall, which leads to two rooms, one with powerups
and the with you cargo objective. Smash & grab, then haul it back out of the
facility. Make sure the cargo doesn't spin you into anything you'll regret
(which is everything), and try not to snag it on the large crushing arms on the
way out. As a side note, you'll notice tank reinforcements have arrived by the
time you make it back outside. They're rather ineffective at stopping your
egress now, but cocky pilots can stick around for some target practice before
evac.
MARS AI DATA BOMB DROP-OFF (Cairn Vance)
Mars is a popular place. Before starting this mission, you may want to invest
in a Flare Launcher, since it helps light up darkened areas and is fairly
mandatory in later missions. Like your primary weapon, it has unlimited ammo,
but overheats. You can get used to it now by firing off a flare to shed a bit
more light on the tunnels, which keeps you from inadvertently slamming your ass
into a wall when you thought there was more room to maneuver then there actually
was. The choice is yours.
This mission has CV with a rogue AI on their hands and they want you to
dump a data bomb into it's core so it will reboot. After my descriptions of
various enemies, tactics, flying procedures & what-not from previous missions,
there shouldn't be any major surprises or difficulty with this one. The only
difference is you're going in to drop off cargo instead of extracting it.
As CV shows in the briefing, there's 2 entry points to the AI facility:
suicidal and boring, depending on your piloting skills. From your starting
point, if you go forward and follow the red beacon lights, you'll come to a
ridge you can go over to find the suicidal entry (suicidal for beginners at
least), which is obviously the main, heavily guarded entrance. The SAM sites
are especially annoying since they fire homing missiles. If you're a fair
pilot, you may want to give it a shot. Just remember, don't go diving straight
towards the entrance, and fly-overs probably aren't a good idea due to the SAM
sites. If you disregard this advice, you'll end up within overlapping fields of
fire from several enemies (SAM's included), and you can kiss your ass good-bye
from the cross-fire. If you make a more calculated approach, circling around
the overall firing perimeter, picking off single enemies one at a time to reduce
the firing perimeter, then you can work your way in towards the entrance and
either deal with or quickly go past the SAM sites. Lugging around the cargo at
the same time makes for a nice challenge as well. As a side note, this entrance
does cut off some fly time through the lower tunnels, but there's nothing
important along it. It just drops down and meets up with the other tunnel from
the Service entrance, and proceeds to the AI core.
The boring way in (for good pilots, but the entrance of choice for
beginners) is the Service entrance. At your starting point, just turn around
and follow the red beacon lights the other way. You'll come to a ledge that
drops off. Dip down the ledge and look for the lit service entrance. Expect no
enemies but more tunnel flying up until the service tunnel intersects with the
main entrance tunnel, both joining up and leading to the AI core from there.
The tunnels are standard, and quite spacious, too, so some caution will
keep you from banging your ass too bad. You'll notice various fuel pods while
working your way to the AI core, but you can't use them now since you have cargo
in tow. Take advantage of them on the way out though. When going through the
service tunnels, there's some Cash next to a vent hood on the floor of the windy
air handler room. Getting to it is up to you.
After hitting the main entrance/service tunnel intersection, the trip to
the AI core gets a little more entertaining. Expect gun turrets and proximity
mines. There's also squarish-looking doors that come down to seal things off in
a few areas. There's no switches for them, so shoot them and they'll blow up.
Note the 100% shield recharge in between two of these doors. Like the fuel
pods, you can't do anything with cargo in tow, but it's easy to miss on the way
out after you've dropped off your cargo, so remember where it is and snag it
coming back.
At the AI core, simply fly up and into it, shoot the 'X' switch, and then
lower down until the data bomb disengages. There's no explosion or anything, so
take your time getting out. The AI simply re-boots...which activates the large
wall crushers you saw on your way in. They're easy to avoid with good camera
work and steady flying. When you hit the main entrance/service tunnel
intersection again, which route out you take is up to you. The service tunnels
take more time but also has 2 fuel pods. Heading out the main entrance is
faster, but dicey if you didn't clear the enemies. Take your pick.
MARS PROCESSING PLANT SABOTAGE (D4 Housing Assoc)
The MCGA judicial system seems biased, swayed by corporate 'lobbying' to have a
hypocritical double-standard and clear line of prejudice. They expect the
common person to abide by MCGA laws, but when a corporation is clearly violating
them, they'll disregard it and rule in the corporation's favor. You know, the
term 'Lobbying' is so much more dignified then the term 'Bribery. So, what are
honest, hard-working folks supposed to do after they played by the rules and
lost while others didn't play by the rules and won? Why, learn from their
mistake and stop playing by the rules. So, they hire a rogue pilot with a
proven track record to take care of their problem in a more permanant, illegal
fashion. That pilot is, of course, you.
You have to carry a localized explosive into the plant, drop it off at the
power core, then fly out. The mission is relatively easy, except 1) your cargo
is heavier then most and swings around wildly, and 2) this mission introduces
auto-turrets (turrets that fire multiple, fast shots in succession). When
facing them, either take them out before they get a lock on you, or keep moving
at a relatively moderate speed while you fire upon and they return the favor.
Once they get a lock on you, they usually end up hitting with multiple shots
since they're fast firing.
You start at a pretty high-altitude, and if you thrust forward towards the
way-point, you can usually dive right towards the underground opening. There's
nothing of value on the surface of the entire complex (amazing, I know, for as
large as the damn thing is). But if you feel the need to go site-seeing, beware
of auto-turrets posted up here and there.
Heading down the main shaft into the base, you'll need to first contend
with more auto-turrets. You can unlock the first door you come to by blasting
the 4 wall panels in the tunnel at the bottom of the shaft. Going through the
formerly locked door, you'll pass a short tunnel and come out into a large
chamber. The door across the bridge leads to a room with some Cash, which you
can't get right now, so pick it up on the way out. Surprisingly, this cash
seems to be bonus stash, since the mission stats list 2 pick-ups to find, but
you can get 4 if you snag the 2 Cash slats & the 2 25% shield recharges.
The route you'll need to go is down, past the slow-spinning fan, past the
2 crushing wheels, and into the generator's chamber. It's fairly easy to time
your descent, just try not to snag your cargo on anything big, dangerous and
moving (namely the fan, the crushing wheels or the spinning generator). Once
down in the generator room, head to the very bottom and there's 2 doors that
lead to more doors that lead to red targets to destroy. With those taken out,
head to the top of the spinning generator (not the shaft, just the top of the
spinning generator), and drop the explosive in the square hole that's opened up.
As the mission briefing said, the explosive is a localized one, so just scoot
out of the way and watch it smoke the generator.
Afterwards, you can make your way back up the shaft, destroying the two
gratings to get the 25% shield recharges and some fuel from the pods. If you're
good, you can time a straight flight up in between the two crushing wheels. If
you're not so good, you can nestle in between the 'teeth' of one wheel and
follow it's rotation into it's niche. Do a little steady piloting to follow the
gap up then back out, and you can head up the rest of the shaft. Watch out for
the fan blade, then snag your Cash. Afterwards, head out of the base, and, if
you'd like, fly around a bit taking out other things that strike you as needing
a good beating (which there isn't much), before heading up for evac.
MARS DRY-DOCKED ASSAULT CRAFT DESTRUCTION (Celestia)
Ah yes, just as Carva Cartel (the mafia) has it in for MCGA (the police) and
vice-versa, Celestia has it in for Cairn Vance since they're rival corporations.
In times of such crisis, it's good to be a freelance contactor, pimping your
services out to each side as you read about your exploits in the morning paper.
You're hired to do something against one group, and they want to retaliate, so
they hire you to do something back. Either way you look at it, it's a win/win
situation for you! And the good part is, since both of the companies play
dirty, they usually deserve what they get, so looking at yourself in the mirror
in the morning isn't as hard as you might suspect.
Here we have another Mars-based mission, this time blowing up a dry-docked
assault fighter as it's refueling. Making it this far, you're a fairly seasoned
pilot by now, and the missions get longer here on out, so I'll spare detailing
every little tunnel turn and cut to major points of interest and potential
sticking points.
For starters, there's a base outside next to a volcano, but no bonus items
laying about. Assault the base if you like, but I'll warn you that there's SAM
sites. Beginner's should avoid it and head to the volcano at a reasonable
altitude. The back way into the volcano through the old mines is sealed shut.
Blow it open and go in (remember, when in doubt, shoot first and look for a
switch later!).
The shaft at the very start has two side tunnels with similar grates over them.
One goes to some power-ups (Cash, fuel, 75% shields), while the other heads
further into the mines. If you descend further down the shaft, you'll lay
yourself on a floating mine at a dead-end, so don't go straight down. Also,
don't waste the fuel and shield power-ups at the start. Save them for your
return trip out.
Navigating the old mine tunnels is entertaining, the Flare Launcher coming
in handy to keep from getting banged up too bad. Expect mines and laser trip-
wires. The trip-wires don't kill you if you cross them. Instead, they release
gun turrets that protest to your trespassing. After a bit, you'll come to a
dead-end with large fuel barrels stacked behind some grating. Obviously, blow
it up and head into the inner base.
The tunnel you end up in has two directions. One leads into a strong
head-wind, and is actually a useful short-cut to the strike craft. But it's
intended as an exit, so go the other way. Navigating the inner-base is pretty
straight-forward. Inside, you'll find a fuel pod, some Cash in a room full of
tanks, and a lower room used for storage. There's also a shaft that goes up,
which is currently blocked off by an elevator. Going down to the lower storage
and checking things out triggers the elevator, thereby opening up that shaft you
couldn't go up.
With the elevator down, you have route-access to the strike craft's
hangar. Head in and neutralize enemies to make it less hot, because you'll need
some quiet time to operate. After sniping the fuel lines, your comp will tell
you your primary weapon is insufficient to take them out. So, switch to
missil...oh, that's right, you don't have missiles by now (unless you're
cheating, to which I'm a bit envious because I couldn't get the damn trainers to
work on my system). If you think about the math, even if you saved up all the
money from all of your missions (sans fuel & shield expenses) it's still highly
unlikely you could have afforded the Sky Diver and a missile system. So there
must be some other work around. And, there is.
Back in the lower storage, you may have noticed the 3 carts, one
containing missile reloads, one with smooth-looking metal objects, and the last
with mines. What you're wanting is one of the smooth-looking metal objects from
the middle cart. There's one sitting a little further away from the rest of the
group that you can lock with your tractor-beam. Get it, get out, get cracking
back to the hangar. The reason I point this solution out after you cleared the
hangar is because beginner pilots would have had a harder time if they grabbed
the bomb first and then tried clearing out defenses while lugging it up to the
hangar.
With the bomb up in the hangar, you'll notice a platform underneath the
fuel lines with red striping on it. Gee, I wonder what that's for? This
explosion is going to be a little less localized then the generator sabotage, so
you should plan your escape first. You can either go around the far side of the
craft and drop off the bomb on the platform, then make a quick escape down the
elevator shaft you came up. Or, you can take out the grating on the far wall in
front of the craft first (which leads down to the windy tunnel you first arrived
in from the mines), and head out that way. Either way, the bomb counts down
after drop-off, and generally you need to be in one shaft or the other in order
to be safe; if you're still in the hangar when the bomb goes off, you're
screwed.
From here, it's time to leave. If you went down the elevator shaft, you
can come back up and through the grating to short-cut back to the mines. Or, if
you have unfinished business, you can take the elevator shaft back the long way
to the mines. Snag your power-ups by the mine entrance on the way out, play
around with any outside defenses if you're feeling cocky, then lift off for
evac.
MARS ARTIFACT RETRIEVAL (Cairn Vance)
You'd think a mission with no enemies would be rather boring. But as missions
go, this has got to be one of the more interesting ones. I'll spare any great
detail because there's some interesting surprises I'd rather you witness
yourself. What I will do is provide a few hints to help on your path.
You start on the surface of Mars (again), and as far as I can tell,
there's no power ups save for a fuel pod by the cave entrance you go in. With a
bit of surface site-seeing, you'll spot another cave, but it's blocked up with
boulders. No amount of aggression or foul language seems to open up the
passage, so the cave entrance at the way-point is it. If you've done any flying
around, I recommend topping off your fuel tank at the fuel pod before entry,
because you're going to need all the fuel you can carry.
The tunnel system is very large and spacious, but also long. If you
haven't brought a Flare Launcher yet, you're in for some difficulty trying to
spot where to go as some caverns are so large, they go outside your viewing
distance. So thruster burn alone won't sufficiently light up your way, and if
you own the RASL, it won't light up surroundings either. While not mandatory by
any means, the flare launcher can help immensely here, and thus trim down the
amount of fuel you waste flying around aimlessly. You'll have to do some
dexterous camera work, and if you have trouble seeing above you, lay off the
thruster, then lean way back to flash your light on it, and if you'd like,
launch a flare upwards. Just flashing your high-beams usually works, but a nice
flare will keep it lit longer, plus fall down and light other things up as well.
While it's fun to scope things out, in getting back to the fuel topic,
don't dawdle around site-seeing too much. While the caves are pretty cool the
wander in, you'll waste just as much fuel sight-seeing with the flare launcher
as you would wandering aimlessly without it. The trip's pretty long and you'll
likely be seeing your needle pretty close to 'E' before it's over. This doesn't
imply the need to rush, just the need to be cautious by checking your fuel gauge
and hurrying up if need be.
Next, as with any pilot flying in a cavern under high seismic activity
warnings, watch for falling rocks. Physical things, like scenery, falling
boulders/rocks & lava are the only things that can harm you in this mission.
Everythings pretty avoidable, and the boulders/rocks fall slowly. But you don't
want to get banged or squished by them. BTW, did they say seismic activity was
registered around '70' on the Richter Scale?! I thought the RS topped out at
10? Wouldn't '70' be equivalent of an entire planet splitting in two? But I
digress.
In some locations, falling rocks will appear to block your path, but you
can blast your way through or squeak by the cramped rubble. Like other FPS
games, sometimes things look small and impassable, but as you close in, you
realize just how big that 'small and impassable' place is. In this case, it's
enough room to squeak by (the Hopper at least), but you should plan on getting a
new paint job when the mission's over. In another location, you'll find a large
boulder resting in a hole. Shooting doesn't seem to work, and neither does
foul-language, much to my chagrin (why can't they for once make a game where
swearing at the problem solves it, huh?) However, landing on it seems to apply
enough weight to gently dislodge it so you can pass.
In flying the caverns, things can get disoriented, what with the camera at
all angles, your ship tilting around and the tunnels sloping ever which way. If
you find yourself losing your bearings, just relax and hit the stabilization
key. You'll level out, which then let's you stabilize your camera angle, and/or
figure out just how sharp a tunnel slopes.
You'll find your cargo target located in a lower shaft with lava. It's
somewhat easy to over-shoot, so be on the look out (the bright lava's not too
hard to miss, it's just way down at the bottom of the shaft). After snagging
your cargo, don't bother going back the way you came. If you try, you'll be out
of gas before you can reach the entrance again. So, keep going through the
tunnel system and you'll find a convenient exit. This concludes a mission,
which, by far, raises more questions then answers.
CALLISTO (Jupiter) BASE DESTRUCTION (Cairn Vance)
Callisto is a moon of Jupiter. On planets with an uninhabitable environment,
your missions will take place on their moon(s) instead. Jupiter is an obvious
candidate since it doesn't have a 'real' surface, just layers and layers of very
dense gas. So no habitation or terra-forming's occurred there, and thus, no
missions will either. It's moons, however, are solid, with Callisto basically a
floating ball of ice in space.
This mission has you doing a little base busting for CV. Tensions
escalate between them and Celestia, so expect more hostile missions from each in
the future. (Ah, yes, the days when citizenry is no longer a matter of what
country you live in or what planet you live on, but more a matter of what
corporation you work for. Cyberpunk RPG's would be proud!)
You'll start over a large canyon, which is well-defended. There's a 25%
shield recharge next to one missle turret overlooking the canyon. The base
entrance can be popped by destroying the 2 guns mounted in the shelf over the
door. Going inside, you'll come to some sealed doors. These lead to an
elevator shaft, and, with no switch around, need to be blasted open with your
weapons. The elevator heads down after the breach, but stops and seals off the
lower regions of the base. So, flying to the top of the shaft, you'll need to
destroy the spinning elevator control reel. This sends the elevator plunging
down further, opening up the rest of the base.
While you're up at the top of the shaft, blast open the top floor doors
and poke around. You'll find fuel and shield recharge, plus a cargo pod. This
is the 'radiation shielding' you need to grab. Take it, drop all the way down
the shaft to the bottom, and blast the doors open there. There's a pad to drop
the cargo off on, and you have to get it pretty dead-center on the red-painted
square, so take it slow and keep trying until the cargo releases.
In the hall beyond, to the left are tanks and a door with a switch. On
the ceiling, there's a grating you can blast. To the right, there's a door that
leads into a large shaft. Going right or through the ceiling grate will circle
you back around to the other, as they're connected. Plus, that route has
another grating further over that you can dump out on. As entertaining as it is
to cruise through, it's pretty much a waste of fuel if you do the mission well.
So why's it there? Well, going through the switch door on the left (where the
tanks were posted), the door seals up behind you. With the switch on the other
side, it's impossible to open the door. But, you can use the ceiling grating to
head back through the vents to the hall if you have to. Like I said, if you do
the mission right, you won't need to bother with this.
Continuing on past the switch door, you'll end up in a large chamber with
2 bridges. If you keep going forward across the lower bridge you start out on,
the opposite door is a dead end. However, underneath the lower bridge is a
small slat of Cash. Heading to the upper bridge leads to two rooms with
switches. The dark room has you land on a pad in order to open a wall panel to
shoot the switch. This opens the wall panel in the other room so you can shoot
its switch. This in turn opens up a sealed pod you'll later find, which
contains a large stash of Cash. You can spend a lot of time and fuel trying to
toggle the annoying first switch in the dark room where you have to land on the
pad. So if it becomes bothersome, since it's not mandatory, just skip it and
move on.
At one of the ends of the chamber, there's a sealed door, but on the other
end, you'll find a tank guarding a switch door. Unlike the first switch door,
this one is a toggle door. Shoot it first to open up the first door. Then,
enter the hall, shoot it again to open the second door (but seal the first one),
and go on your way. Coming back, just toggle the switch again to open the first
door while sealing the second.
This passage takes you to a large, circular shaft with 'catwalks' running
across it. At the bottom, the exit leads to the large pile loot you unsealed,
and a nice shield recharge. In here, several doors lead down into a circular
vent system with odd 'fan/cutters' you have to fly through to avoid. The wind
is a bit strong, and you're looking for a tunnel that goes in flat, not up
(since up will take you back to the Cash room). After a bit of fancy flying to
get in the flat tunnel, it takes you into a room with a huge red beam
discharging intermitantly. The beam has a pattern, discharging short, then
immediately discharging longer, and then going quiet for several seconds. You'll
need to time it to go down the hole and the shaft below.
At the bottom room, shoot the four switches. Each uncovers a control rod,
and with all four uncovered, the power plant goes critical. Since it's not a
good idea to stick around to see what your handy work does, you need to beat
feet to the exit. In going back to the windy circular vent system, just go slow
and take the first tunnel you come to, which goes up and spits you back into the
Cash room from the sealed floor-panel door. Working your way back, you'll end
up at the toggle switch door, so shoot it to open the first door again and
proceed.
Back in the chamber with 2 bridges, the door on the lower bridge you used
on your way into the base is now sealed. So, take the other door on the lower
bridge that was sealed earlier. It leads to a room where escape pods are
evac'ing from, so wait for one to prep, then follow it through the doors when
they open. Going up the tunnel, try to stay towards its ceiling so you can
avoid having an escape pod shoved up your ass at high velocity on your way out.
IO (Jupiter) DATA CORE HEIST AIR SUPPORT (Carva Cartel)
Another Carva Cartel mission, and more enjoyable mayhem. This one has a 15
minute time frame, which dictates what your next mission will be if successfully
completing this one. Completion within 15 minutes puts you in one mission,
while taking longer leads to a different next mission. So, just to ease your
worries, even if you go over 15 minutes, you won't die or anything. Also,
you'll need to find some heat shielding, which you will eventually, so don't
panic about that either. (Seems a bit lacking in fore-sight that the Carva
Cartel didn't make certain you have heat shielding before going in. I mean,
they assume they'll be some inside, but what if there wasn't any? They'd be
screwed since this whole operation is hinged upon your vehicle's performance.
But since it's only a game, such critical details aren't of concern when
planning a major operation. The Cartel knows the game developers will take care
of such things in the level design... At least, they'd better, [cracking
knuckles] if they know what's good for them...)
You're escorting a group of vehicles in the beginning, then breaking off
to provide air support for a sole tank within the complex. At the start, knock
out various defenses, and the door they need you to blast is the small vehicle
entrance that's at the bottom of the ramp. If you don't know which one, two of
your tank-buddies will eventually be waiting behind it for you to blast it open.
After they head in, the main door opens, and you and your friend can wander in
for some fun.
This whole mission is basically one long, entertaining goat-fuck scenario,
each section putting you in more and more annoying situations with enemies. As
drab and dark as the place is, it's a bit difficult to recognize a turret before
it shoots. However, it gets down-right annoying since most turrets will be
located in cramp spaces (for you to maneuver), or perched up top on a column in
rooms where you won't know they're there until they fire upon you. In most
instances, since the turrets are slow, single shot shooters, just do your
business and press forward without bothering to destroy them.
Without detailing every turn, each situation has some insight provided by
your tank buddy, so be sure to keep an eye on your communication's text at the
top of the screen. He (she?) will let you know when there's a switch to blast,
or to keep an eye open for enemies (which means there's a trap around the
corner). There will be switches that you have to shoot so the tank can proceed,
and there will be switches the tank has to hot-wire. So just keep up and guard
your buddy. You'll eventually find the heat shielding, which looks like a red
shield recharge. There's also normal shield recharge and fuel pods in various
locations. I recommend snagging them whenever you can, even if it seems
wasteful, just to be on the safe side. Between all the gun turrets and
potentially banging your ass while trying to follow your companion, you'll
likely need all the shield recharge you can get.
Most situations you can figure out, but you'll come to a stopping point
where the tank tells you to take care of the switch in the next room. The next
'room' turns out to be a huge cavern with a bridge going across it. While you
can fly around and sight-see, the switch the tank was referring to is at the
opposite end of the bridge. Shoot it and your tank can cross to join up with
you. While it's coming, feel free to go forward so you're waiting for the tank
instead of the other way around.
Further on in, you'll come to a separation point in some lava caves, where
your tank goes one way and you go the other. Obviously, the route you have to
go is where all the lava is. You don't have to actually go in the lava at any
point, just stay above it and go through the connecting passages. You'll find a
nice little rest stop with a shield recharge locked behind a switch door, so
take advantage of it while you can. After getting the shield recharge, if you
do a 180, you'll see a very small opening at the far end of the lava-filled
cavern. Head that way and you'll eventually come to the room with the cargo.
Not much to this, just shoot the four red beam emmiters on the ceiling to
disable the force field. Snag the shield recharge before taking the cargo, then
haul ass out of there. Again, your tank buddy goes an alternate path, and
you'll have to go through the large silver door to proceed. You'll head through
various areas, taking the cargo over more lava-filled chambers as well (don't
worry about accidentally dragging the cargo in the lava...it's safe). You'll
come to a large elevator shaft, and while you can park-n-ride it to the top,
saving some gas, I recommend just a straight flight upwards. Not only will you
have an easier time avoiding gun fire, but you'll save time on your 15 minute
goal, too.
The sphincter pucker factor rises when you end up trapped in a room with
two grinding wheels slowly coming out of the wall ready to shred your ass.
Fortunately, your tank buddy comes along to blast open an exit, so don't panic.
Just don't go slamming into the grinders while waiting.
Press on, and you'll come to a small elevator shaft up, which leads to an
exit bay to the surface. There will be hostiles within the bay, but they're
more interested in shooting at a dropship parked outside then at you. While it
says to climb to 10,000 for evac, if you've built up a lot of forward momentum
while heading out of the bay, it's easier to just go right into the open cargo
hold of the dropship and park next to the rest of your tank buddies. It will
take off and since you're inside, the mission will end successfully as well.
CALLISTO (Jupiter) RECOVER CARGO FROM DOWNED SHIP (Carva Cartel)
If you took longer than 15 minutes to retrieve the cargo from MCGA's Io base,
then the dropship transporting it gets shot down. However, Carva Cartel is
understanding, and they don't blame you for this. In fact, they're hiring you
to head in and re-take the cargo before incoming MCGA forces can converge upon
it. While this seems like a good thing, this mission is in fact the most ball-
breaking experience I have played in this game. Perhaps Carva Cartel knows this
and is actually sending you on this mission as punishment for taking too long on
the last one. Either way, I found this mission harder then the alternate
'Experienced Pilot' mission detailed after this one. So, as Mr. T says 'I pity
the fool who gets this mission'. My advice would be to reload the previous
mission (you have been saving in different slots, right?), and try to beat the
15 minute mark so you can get the other mission. Otherwise, go ahead and do
this mission and I'll notify your next of kin after you blow your brains out due
to frustration. Good luck...you'll need it.
Ok, I'll start with a general run down and then add some detail from
there. Here's the game plan. You start at the downed dropship site. From
there, you have to take the cargo over to a city, which is crawling with bad
guys. Then, find the switches to open up the entrance to the lower city. Then,
cruise through the maze-like lower city until you find bay 3, where another
dropship is waiting for you. Sounds easy enough (or at least adventurous), but
it's easier said then done.
For starters, leave the cargo where it is. You have to do so much flying
in this mission that one tank of gas won't cover it. Not to mention hauling
cargo makes your job that much harder and takes even more gas. Plus, you can't
refuel at fuel pods when latched to cargo. So, if you take the cargo now,
you're screwed. You've been warned.
After knocking out initial scavengers, follow the beacon lights towards
the city. Here, you'll have to do some hot-dog flying to both neutralize enemy
forces and toggle several switches to open the underground entrance. The
switches are located in the large dug-out areas connected by trenches. The
entrance is easy to spot since it has two switches, one flanking each side of
it. As you toggle switches, the entrance slowly comes up until it finally
opens. If you think you hit all the switches but the entrance still isn't
exposed, circle around the dug-out pits again and look for a switch, and/or
follow the long trench that runs along the back side of the pyramid until you
come to a dug-out there. I don't know why, but for some reason the entrance
wouldn't open sometimes after I nailed all the switches. However, when I went </pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
to that dug-out and came back (even though there's no switch to toggle at it),
the entrance would open. Go fig.
Flying low is recommended while piloting the surface since the large
towers fire huge, dual homing missiles. If you stay below the firing level of
the mounted missiles, the towers will track you, but won't fire. You can take
them out, but with a puny weapon it will take forever. While you don't have to
kill everything, and you certainly don't have to fly down in the trenches, it's
a good idea to clear the surface around the fuel pods, and also a path from the
entrance back to your cargo. This will make refueling easier, and hauling the
cargo to the city easier. In regards to refueling, save the fuel pod that's on
the route between the entrance and your cargo for your final cargo run. Use the
other fuel pod that's out of your way to tank up on gas for now instead.
After the entrance to the underground city is open, maneuver in and prep
your flare launcher. The underground city isn't very enemy infested, but it is
long, so gas up when you can. You'll need to head to the lower areas first,
crossing a large pool of water, then on to some tunnels beyond. You'll see a
floor-door which doesn't open, so head beyond and find a room with a fuel pod, a
shield recharge and a switch which opens the floor-door (at least they give
graphics which hint at what the switch does). Heading back and going down the
floor-door leads to a switch that drains the pool.
Heading back to the pool will provide you with a decision. You can go
back towards the entrance of the underground city, and in the mid-tunnel you'll
find that a previously locked door is now open. Going in, you can work your way
to a room that has a spinning wheel on one wall with switches behind it. This
wheel signifies that the fans in tunnels are currently active, so shooting all
the switches green will stop the wheel spinning and thus turn off the fans.
However, it's not necessary to do in order to proceed down the drained pool's
lower tunnel. The fans in the tunnels you must go down are not moving that fast
and can be flown through. But there will be an area where you can go down and
the fan blades are spinning wicked-fast. With those shut off, you can go down
and find a nice bonus stash of goodies. The choice is up to you, but again, you
don't have to shut off the fans.
Heading in the tunnel at the bottom of the drained pool will lead to a
shaft that goes down (and up, even though it's dark and hard to tell). Take it
down, and toggle the switch, then ride the water up as it rises. When the water
stops, fly up the dark shaft to the top and you'll cross over an upper tunnel
that then drops down into a shaft that you drained some water from.
Going forward from here, you come to a very large chamber with some flying
craft that try to shoot you, which are easy to avoid (so don't waste the gas
trying to fire at them). In this chamber, you're looking for a floor grating at
the far end to blast open. This leads down to transit trains that go to the
docking bays, and you'll want to head to 3.
The trains are both tricky and annoying, and if you've cleared things out
from here, you should go back, gas up, get your cargo, and haul it back to this
point. Reason being, the doors to the train tunnels are so damn tricky to open
that if you head in without the cargo, you likely won't be able to get back out
and will have to start the mission over. However, for argument's sake, let's
assume you've already gotten your cargo and are finishing the mission.
You'll need to toggle a switch in a room with a tank in order to open one
train tunnel and then go in. Be sure to fly high in the train tunnels or else
you may find a train suddenly and forcibly shove up your ass (which is certain
death at the speed the trains are moving). In the train tunnels, you'll find
blastable grating that let's you pass into another train tunnel, and you'll have
to time it to get a train to come along and open the door in the other tunnel
(since the door keeps closing afterwards). When it does, follow through the
exit door, then it's an easy matter of cruising on to bay 3 and into the back of
the waiting drophip.
In playing this mission, I thought there would be an easy short cut to
open and head back to the surface entrance, but I found no such thing. So, use
some good judgement and try to avoid conflicts that slow you down and suck up
your gas & shields when you can. I recommend keeping that fuel pod on the city
surface that's on the way to the dropship unused for now since you can stop at
it before going to the cargo and top off your tank. You're going to need all
the gas you can spare.
When I finally completed this mission (after about 5 tries and several
sticking points), I finished with 5% fuel and 1% shields (my shields were
basically gone, which is how I discovered you could rub on walls a little and
not take damage as long as you're careful).
Even though I finished, I feel I did something wrong in this mission because I
consider it far harder than the other missions in the game, and very
lethal/frustrating for an early mission. Since this is the mission you get if
you 'fail' the 15 minute time limit of the previous Carva Cartel Io operation,
basically saying you need more experience, I am even more perplexed why you'd
end up with such a difficult mission thrust upon you. This is the type of
mission experienced pilots would find challenging, but the kind that could put
beginners off of the game out of frustration.
IO (Jupiter) DUPLICATE CARGO COPY RETRIEVAL (Carva Cartel)
If you finished the previous Io mission in under 15 minutes, then this is your
next mission. Carva Cartel has gotten wind of MCGA holding a duplicate copy of
the cargo you swiped at the other base. They want this copy as well, so are
willing to pay some big bucks to the best damn pilot around (around Jupiter, at
least). That bad-ass pilot, of course, is you. You know, it's almost as if
you're one of the 'family' now...
You start out on Io's surface, and you're given the options of heading in
through a service tunnel or the main entrance. Problems arise when attempting
both. SAM sites guard the service tunnel, so you can get raped trying to get
in, but it's relatively safe and easy after that. Meanwhile the main entrance
doesn't open unless a large craft is coming. So you have to wait for one to
show up. Since the main entrance opens up like an oven door (ie: it flips
down), don't come in low and wait for it to open near the bottom. It will
likely smack you're little lander to the ground, possibly destroying you.
Instead, come in and wait towards the top or side of the door. Eventually it
opens to let you in. Of course, this means a dropship is following you in, but
if you stay low, you won't have to fend off it's gun turrets. Either way you
take in, they both lead to some common tunnels. In going through the main
entrance, you'll find a sealed door up a tunnel from a power generator. That's
the door coming in from the service entrance, which can only be opened from the
service entrance. In coming in from the service entrance, you'll find a door
sealed up after heading down an elevator shaft. That comes from the main
entrance's dropship dock.
Inside the common tunnels, you'll come across the power generator
mentioned above, which activates the elevator switches. It will have a four-
square switch on the wall to shoot. You'll also come into a room where a large
door seals up quickly. I've tried hauling ass across real fast, but the door
seals too quickly. It's actually your exit route, so, whether coming from the
service entrance or the main entrance, you'll want to head to the elevator
shaft. At the bottom of the elevator shaft, get off the elevator and shoot the
elevator switch to activate it. It will go up and reveal a lower elevator shaft
that leads to a room. Be very careful in the room you end up in because it's
loaded with auto-turrets and is a gang bang waiting to happen. You can ride
the rail cart, which is a good idea, since it protects you from a lot of gun
fire. If it leaves without you, just hang back for a bit until it shows up
again.
The rail cart takes you to a shaft. Below is lava, and without a heat
shield, it will fry your normal shield down quick. Instead, head up and dodge
more auto-turret gun fire. You'll find a heat shield, and can then head down
either on the other side where the mines are to a room with a fuel pod, or back
to where the rail cart left you. Either way, you need to head down towards the
lava and skim across it to a mid chamber where a shield recharge and a wall
switch are. The lava raises and lowers, and can get pretty high, so you'll need
to time it to skim when it's on the fall.
The switch opens up a large ceiling door in the room with the fuel pod.
Inside, you'll find a large weight. This thing is a bitch to lug around, so
take it slow and steady. You'll need to drop it off in the arm-mounted
receptacle below. Doing so opens a passage to some natural caverns. If you
head up in the large cavern, you'll take a tunnel that dead-ends at some Cash.
Heading down in the cavern towards the lava will come across a shield recharge,
and the direction you need to go. The tunnel goes on for a bit, with a grating
to blast. You'll finally come to a constructed tunnel, which leads into a
mining area, and more auto-turrets.
If you fly over the partial barricade towards the ceiling of the room,
you're easy pickings for all the auto-turrets. So stay low behind the partial
barricade and take on the first row of turrets, then swing to the other side and
take on the others if you'd like. The way you need to go is down towards the
gravel conveyor belt, through the tunnel. Why anyone would install crushing
ceilings in a service tunnel, I'll never know, but fly under them and you'll
come to a dark room with two tanks. Exit by going up, past a slow ceiling fan,
and eventually you'll come to a huge chamber with a spinning wheel. If you go
down in the chamber, you'll come to an opening that leads to fuel, shields &
Cash. I'm not sure where the side exit goes because it was littered with mines
and it was difficult to destroy them with the huge wheel getting in the way.
The upper exit leads to the cargo, though.
You should fill up on fuel and shield before snagging the cargo since
tanks will be crawling in a door that opens to protest your intrusion. From
here, just follow the tunnels out, which leads back to the door that earlier
sealed up quickly towards the beginning of your mission. Head through to the
common tunnels, and then out through the service entrance. Even while out, you
can still run into trouble if you don't have enough fuel to climb to 10,000 (the
cloud line) for evac.
TITAN (Saturn) PRISON BREAK (Anonymous/Rhea Rebels)
This run is offered by an 'anonymous' source, but you'll later find out it the
Free Rhea Republic Rebels asking you to break a friend out. It seems like a
routine cargo run, but obviously, if it were routine, you wouldn't be getting
paid the big bucks for it. You start outside at a train depot, and you should
take note of the transit train going inside to the prison. You can't follow the
train in through the tunnel, so just fly to the prison entrance way-point.
After entering the prison, a security droid pauses you for a few seconds
to get scanned. Feel free to land on the pad to save some fuel while getting
scanned for 'contraband'. The more intuitive pilots getting scanned will
probably mumble a few swear words as they suddenly realize the 'catch' that's
going to make this cargo run anything but routine. To warn you ahead of time,
the droid is packing a nasty zapper weapon. So if you get any bright ideas,
like trying to take him out so you can scope the rest of the place on your own
terms, he'll cook you up in short order.
Follow the droid through the prison, and note in the main lobby after
exiting the scanning tunnel that you can go down through the floor to a lower
level. Keep with the droid for now and you'll end up at another scanning tunnel
that leads to the cargo areas. The droid let's you proceed solo, so go in, get
scanned, and mumble a few more swear words as it also checks you over for
'contraband'. As a side note, sometimes the droid asks you to go get scanned,
but the scanner never activates. This seems to be a glitch in the game, and
while you'll have to restart the mission, you can freely leave the droid and fly
around the rest of the base as long as you don't fire off a shot (which sets the
base on red alert and activates defenses). If the scanning procedure does work
without glitching, then obviously getting scanned doesn't bode well for you're
'cargo', since after snagging it, you proceed to get scanned again and it
notices a prisoner is being smuggled in the parts container. Now things get
interesting, and it's time to earn your pay.
The door out of the scanning tunnel back to the droid won't open,
thankfully, since the droid would zap your ass hard. So, it's back into the
storage area. Take a shaft up and over to the second storage area, where some
non-homing missile cruisers are waiting to teach you why this place is called
the 'slammer'. Destroy or evade, but work you way out the door. You'll find
these missile-toting suckers crawling all over the place, and expect ceiling
mounted guns as well. Whatever you do, try to avoid going back to the cargo
area entrance you left the droid at. He'll be waiting for you and will toast
your ass quick. On the bright side, at least he's not cruising around the
prison looking for you...
Proceed to the front entrance/lobby area. The front door is locked, so go
down the holes in the floor of the lobby and into the mining area below.
Navigate through the tunnels and you'll end up in an enormous shaft. Cruise up
to another opening, navigate through it, and eventually you'll reach the inner
transit train area. Drop your cargo off on one flatbed, and then land on the
other. Once you've done that, the train speeds off to the outside train depot
you saw at the start of the mission. After stopping, snag your cargo and lift-
off for evac.
EUROPA (Saturn) ARTIFACT SEEK & DESTROY (Cairn Vance)
Remember that freaky mission on Mars where you extracted that odd artifact?
Well, things are about to get freakier. In this mission CV wants you to
infiltrate a rival corporation's instillation and knock out 10 of those
artifacts. And, since you value some paltry money more than the invaluable
study of unknown artifacts that could possibly hold the secrets of the universe,
you're quick to take the job. Heck, who are we kidding. When some large
corporation is undertaking the 'study' of lost or alien culture, it never bodes
well, so even though Cairn Vance plays dirty, you're probably doing humanity a
greater service obliterating these artifacts. Mankind is just not ready to
learn the secrets of the universe... ('Harold, I've finished translating the
alien artifact! It says 'Wash, Rinse, Repeat'. What the...?!')
You start on the surface, naturally, and are escorted by fighters that do
nothing more then clay pigeon themselves to draw enemy fire away from you. (If
that doesn't make you feel special, what will?) Since they're going to take an
ass beating for you, you better not let it go to waste. There's SAM sites and
other nasty things up top, and it can get a little harrowing when you're in a
Hopper (yes, I'm still flying my Hopper on this mission because I don't like
flying the Sky Diver and I despise Big Red).
You're looking to fly low and sneak into the huge, depressed area with the
rail tracks running through it. On one side is a sealed up door, but on the
other is an open one. Use a little caution approaching it as there's normally
some gun fire coming out of it trying to take you down. You should act fairly
quickly because if you dawdle around up top taking out enemies, the doors will
seal eventually. So it's better to just slip in and go about your business.
Once inside, you'll find a pretty cool spiraling train tunnel, which has the
occasional service tunnel exiting off to the side. While it's fun to get some
cornering practice in here, you can save fuel by taking the first service
tunnel, which leads to a central shaft. The shaft drops to a mid and lower
service tunnel, the lower exiting closest to the core of the excavation.
Inside the excavation, make your way through the ice tunnel network,
picking off target artifacts interspersed along the way. You'll eventually dip
below an electronic looking wall guarded by two annoying auto-turrets. You'll
end up in a room with a huge silver ring on one wall (hmmm...), and passages
going left and right. Head right first as it takes you to a dead end with
another artifact. While you may be thinking all the artifacts in the dead-end
are viable targets for liquidation, only the one with the gem in the center
counts towards your kill factor. But feel free to liquidate all enemy assets if
you wish.
Heading back the other way, you'll come across another room with another
ring ('stargate'), artifacts, and a pedestal with an odd tear-drop gem floating
above it. Just as a note, if you proceed further left down the other snow
tunnel, it dead ends, so stick around, do your business with the artifacts, then
head in to the active 'stargate' as things take a turn for the freaky.
Inside of, well, whatever it is you're inside of, you'll first notice that
it has the odd effect of refueling your lander periodically. It seems when you
go through certain 'stargates', your fuel is restored, so really your shields
are probably the only limiting factor to this mission. You'll also notice a
pattern to the tunnels. You're basically flying around a sphere with 3 rings
forming the tunnels. One ring circles flat like an equator, while the other two
circle at 45 or 50 degree angles to make an 'X' shape. If my description's
confusing, don't worry. You'll see a 'map' of the alien installation shortly.
From your starting point, you need to head down your starting tunnel, then
when you reach an intersection, just keep along the ring your in into it's lower
part. You'll come across an opening that leads to another 'stargate'. Fly
through it, and you end up in a room with what I can only assume is an alien
power generator or engine. Regardless of what the hell it is, there's another
pedestal with another tear-drop gem floating on it. Snag it with your tractor-
beam, then head back out the 'stargate'. As a word of caution, these gems are
annoying to lug around as they seem to be even more weighty then other cargo
you've hauled.
With gem in tow, go up the tunnel either way, and when you reach the main
intersection, go into the side tunnel that leads to the center of the 'sphere'.
There you'll find another 'stargate' and a pedestal. Mount the gem on the
pedestal to activate the 'stargate' (note the ring turns from silver to
'electronic' patterned when it's active). Head in the 'stargate' and you'll end
up in a room with the 'map' of the sphere you're in, and several pedestals with
2 tear-drop gems mounted.
The objective in this room is to re-mount the gems so the central map
shows 2 blue dots and one pink. If you lug the gems over one pedestal clock-
wise, it should reconfigure the map appropriately. (IE: if you sit in the
middle and face a gem, you'll want to move it to the pedestal to the
right...that's clock-wise.)
Once done, exit through the 'stargate' and head to one of the main
intersections. You need to fly down one of the lower tunnels to get back to the
'stargate' that first led to the 'engine' room. If you can't figure out which
tunnel it is, just wait for a bit and you'll hear some eerie sounds followed by
a strange orb flying in one of the rings. The ring he patterns through is the
ring you need to head down. He's easily avoidable, but you can kill him if you
wish. As a side note, the other tunnels lead to chambers with large pink gems
on the walls. You can shoot the gems, and they flare open after a few shots,
but I'm not sure what that accomplishes.
By exiting the top 'stargate' you end up coming out from the silvery
inactive one stuck in the ice. From here, it was confusing to figure out what
to do, because there are still 2 artifacts to destroy and you've scoured the
place and haven't found them. Well, 'Jace' on the Game Talks forum answered
this question. After exiting the 'stargate' proceed back to the spiraling train
tunnel. You'll see a train taking off, trying to escape with the last 2
artifacts. (It came out of the sealed train door you found when you first came
here).
Cocky pilots can chase after the train up the spiral and blast the cars from
behind, eventually destroying the train and getting credit for the other two
artifacts. Beginner pilots should take the first service tunnel to the shaft,
fly up, then come out to head off the train. You can post up at the train
tunnel entrance, along the long, straight stretch. This gives you a good
vantage point to see when the train's coming, plus you can land flat and aim
down the tunnel to snipe the engine as it rounds the spiral. With the engine
knocked out, the other cars stop, so you can pick them off easily. Either way,
the train needs to be knocked out.
Afterwards, make your way top-side, and try not to get a SAM missile
shoved up your rear while evac'ing. The best route I found to leave is to exit
the train tunnel then 180 back towards it and fly up over the ledges. SAM's are
posted on the corners of the square depression, so aim for the middle of the
square and fly low until out of range.
TITAN (Saturn) PLANT CORE PATCH-UP (Celestia)
This mission involves heading down to Titan to fix an atmospheric processing
plant that's about to critical. It's a fairly linear mission, and there's no
enemy activity, so it's pretty easy.
Starting on the surface, head to the way-point. Around the base camp, you
can find fuel, shields & Cash (hmm, they were probably just going to give me
this money as a bonus upon completing this mission anyways, so I'll just save
Celestia the trouble and pick it up now for safe keeping). When done
sightseeing, enter the base by going down into the largest vent pylon.
As I said, the path is pretty linear, and the only bugger part is the
occasional rotating fan wheel or air current which can slam your little lander
around. You'll pass over the rotating fan blade on your way in, then circle
down and the tunnel will take you to a room where you have to fly in amongst the
blades. Just use caution and there's an exit on the other side of the room.
However, after exiting, watch out for a huge drill-like object that moving in
and out of the tunnel you just entered. Try to stay towards the ceiling so you
won't get squished, then follow it in as it retreats. There will be a floor-
door you can go down. Then just work your way to the processing core.
The core has one fuel 'chunk' that's been dismounted, so tractor-beam it
back to it's mounting. You'll have to hang around a bit while the reactor does
it's thing since the door you came in is sealed for the time being. My
suggestion is to just park next to the door and wait it out so you won't get
smacked around by the twirling reactor. Once it parks its arms on the fuel
chunks, the door will be open and you can exit. Oddly enough, while this is a
Celestia funded mission, supposedly at a Celestia facility, the power core you
fix has 'MCGA' stamped all over it. Go fig.
On coming in, you may have noticed a sealed floor-door. This door is now
open, and the way you came in is sealed shut. So head down (you should end up
next to some missile reloads), and you'll come to another rotating cog room.
This time, facing the room from the tunnel you're at, there's a door that exits
to the left and one that exits to the right. It's obviously easy to follow the
blades and go out the left door, but that only loops you back around. So, you
have to follow the blades around until you can make it to the door on the right.
Follow the tunnel and you'll eventually go up and out one of the smaller
vent pylons on the surface. You can go down the other small vent pylon now if
you'd like, but it seems to lead back to the rotating cog room.
RHEA (Saturn) MCGA DATA CORE EXTRACTION (MCGA)
MCGA's gone and pissed off the locals at Rhea, and the locals have gotten tired
of their oppression. So, the locals banded together to fight back and
(surprisingly) ended up evicting the bullying military government of the solar
system from Rhea. But, MCGA can't just leave incriminating information about
black ops and other top secret, not-so-legal stuff lying around. So, they need
to you head to Rhea and liberate some sensitive material from an old base of
theirs. A rather entertaining mission, probably because I finally have enough
money to buy the Destria. Don't get me wrong, the Hopper is a very capable
craft, but the Destria is better. After you've 'paid your dues' with the
'economy-size' Hopper, it's nice to upgrade to the Destria and see see what the
'luxury' model can do in capable hands.
Ok, the mission starts you in an absolutely huge cavern, which is an
underground, vertical city. You'll need to head to the bottom to enter the
base, then work your way through. You'll notice that the base exits back to the
city periodically, as you cross to the other side and enter the other side of
the base again at certain spots. This is somewhat interesting, since it not
only seems to be entertaining level design, but it gives you a quick reprieve to
go replenish on fuel and other power-ups scattered throughout the city. Of
course, you need to remember which cavern you have to go back in to the base at,
which can be a real bitch having to 'house hunt' if you forgot which one (trust
me). Also, remember where you start at because you have to return there for
evac. At least if you forgot where you started at, you can fly to the ceiling
of the cavern and just find the platform that has the fuel pod on it. That's
your insertion/egress point.
In starting out, there's tons of fuel provided on this mission, so feel
free to do ample amounts of sightseeing and window-shopping. Scope out the city
for a few power-ups --cash, fuel, shields & missiles-- which you'll find in
various, large entryways. Down on the bottom of the cavern, you'll see a
landing pad next to a control tower, and two fuel pods are located there as
well. There's also a couple slats of cash on the bottom of the cavern, a large
one near the landing pad and a small one near the MCGA base entrance.
Heading in the base, the first thing you find is...more fucking fuel!
It's littered throughout the base as well, and my only complaint is they didn't
provide so much fuel in other missions for sightseeing. Progress through the
base is pretty linear, but here's some points of interest.
First, you'll shoot a switch, which opens up a room. In the room, you'll
see several sets of gray control boxes on the walls. If you blast the central
one, all the rest will self-destruct and the door where you shot the switch will
open up. Remember those Rhea rebels MCGA warned you about? Well, sure enough,
they're using the captured MCGA equipment...against you. They probably don't
appreciate you working for MCGA, but then again, they don't seem to remember who
the bad-ass pilot was that freed their beloved leader from jail. Show the
ungrateful twats that (as Carva Cartel says) 'business is business', and right
now, you mean Business (with a capital 'B').
You'll come across another 'cog' room with rotating blades you'll have to
fly between. This time, though, you need to nail a switch to open your exit
door. From there, you'll come across a long air shaft. Note the guns and the
red rimmed sections. If you hang around too long or get too close to the red-
rimmed sections, it apparently triggers and alarm. This alarm, of course,
activates the guns, but they aren't too much of a problem. The real problem is
that the shaft has doors that seal up, stopping your progress upwards. I
triggered the doors once, and they seem to remain sealed indefinitely; I didn't
know how to bypass them other than to restart the mission. My suggestion and
habit is to just slow my craft and even it out, hit my stabilizer key, and gun
the thrusters straight up the shaft as quick as I can. The only tunnel you can
take out of there (aside from the one you came in) is all the way at the top, so
the sooner you get there the less likely you'll trigger any hindrance to your
progress.
After the wind shaft, you'll come to another 'cog' room, except this time
you have to fly up into it as it rotates vertically instead of horizontally.
The camera view can get blocked if you point your craft in the cog direction, so
rotate 90 degrees in the room so you can side-strafe it. Not only will it be
easier, but your camera will be outside the walls giving you a good view of the
room and cog rotation. From this cog room, you'll need to squeak into a second
one, this time the cog rotating horizontally. Make sure you don't get caught in
doorway as either cog's blade swoops by or you'll get instantly scrapped (as you
may have experienced in previous missions). The exit to this room is pretty
easy to find, so get out and get moving.
You'll come to a cross-over to the other side of the base, which provides
a good time to gather any supplies in the surrounding city as needed. Do so now
since you'll be snagging your cargo here shortly, and with it locked in you
won't be able to snag any power-ups. Jagged, torn bridging surrounds the
exit/entrance points here, so remember where you need to come back to. Unless
you're really low, you don't need to bother scrounging fuel since there's a fuel
pod in the other second entrance you're crossing over to. As you enter back
into the base, you'll need to take out several turrets, and this is where the
Destria's steady dexterity really pays off, keeping you from kissing wall while
popping enemies. You'll also come across a beam turret that pops out of a
concealed ceiling mount. My recommendation is to gun it into the beam turret's
area and quickly take it out after it conceals and before it can fire.
Two more cog rooms await, so use caution. You'll also come across another
concealed beam turret which, if you're not careful, will blast you right into
the lamp post in the room corner of the room and your Destria will get stuck on
it. This, of course, means the beam turret can beat you viciously and without
mercy as you struggle to free yourself but find your thruster isn't powerful
enough to unlock you from the damn lamp post. (Not that this happened to me or
anything...cheap-shotting, piece-of-shit beam turrret. What the fuck is up with
the clipping? There have been more times that my lander's tail gets stuck
inside objects and I end up immobilized. It sucks when it happens normally, but
when some damn enemy is raping you at the same time, it gets very aggravating.)
Regardless, if you've made it this far, disable the damn beam turret and
then tag the two switches on the wall. This does several things. First, it
opens the door for you to proceed through. Second, it opens a floor panel in
the beam turret room which has some shields in it. Third, it blows the energy
barrier guarding your target cargo in the next room. In the next room, the
target cargo I'm referring to is the white square on the ground. It's easy to
overlook, so scope it out and snag it.
From that room, with cargo in tow, you enter some natural caverns. The
caverns aren't that difficult to scoot through, but they're covered in floating
mines. The mines used are smaller, so you can either bypass them with some
fancy, steady flying or shoot them with some good aim. After you exit the
caverns, it's on to the starting point for evac.
TITAN (Saturn) FUEL ROD EXTRACTION (Celestia)
Heavy seismic activity has caused an 'incident' at one of Celestia's power
plants on Titan. In this case 'incident' is a bit of an understatement as the
plant's going to be a 3 mile mushroom cloud in about 3 hours regardless of what
anybody does. So, they need you to get in, get some loose fuel rods, and get
out. Why these fuel rods are so important they just can't write them off as a
loss, I'll never know (seems kind of fishy if you ask me). But, in case the
mission seems too boring, they report high (read as 'definite') probability of
more seismic activity, on the margin of 17-20 (!) on the Richter Scale (again, I
thought the Richter Scale only went from 1-10...what gives?)
If this were a movie, it would be one of those scenes where after the
briefing, your brother, Charlie, would start by saying 'let me get this
straight, you have to...' and end with a resolute 'are you out of your fucking
mind?!' Of course, being an action/machismo film, you'd have to end the scene
by looking him square in the face while gathering your things and say 'I'm going
in'. So, it's time to prove, once again, just how bad your ass really is.
That's why you get paid the big bucks, and Charlie's left sitting at home
keeping hackers from sniffing out your lander's ID.
Starting the mission you'll see what kind of seismic activity can cause an
'incident' at a power plant. Look at the size of that crack! As famed business
analyst W. Edwards Demming would say 'what kind of dumb-ass building contractor
would build a nuclear power plant on a fault line? Some dumb-ass did. Worse
yet, what kind of dumb-ass company would pay that contractor to build that
nuclear power plant on a fault line? Some dumb-ass company did.' Well, being
the professional that he was, Demming probably wouldn't have used the word
'dumb-ass'. Then again, he never came across a situation like this. How
Celestia became one of the two largest corporations in the solar system with
screw-ups like this, I'll never know. Future MBA's should take note of such
stupidity. But enough sardonic commentary.
You'll enter the facility via an underground duct. Titan's gravity, as
you may have noticed in other Titan missions is a bit higher then normal, so
take care with your thruster on free falls. The path in is fairly linear, and
after entry, you'll start with an elevator ride down. Even though you find
doors on your way down, the elevator's ceiling objects to you wanting to fly
back up and check them out, so you're in for the full ride. Again, what's up
with corporations constructing huge, dangerous obstacles in confined working
spaces? Apparently OSHA doesn't exist in the future... Fly past the large
crushing device, and, look, another cog room (you'll get damn good at these by
the time the game is over).
Heading past the cog room, follow the arrows down the corridors. You'll
end up in a room that has a large metal partition and metal crates. In here,
there's an opening in the ceiling, which leads to a ventilation shaft. The vent
shaft is actually your exit, so proceed along the room for now and follow the
arrows again.
You'll come to a room with two fuel pods and a large crane. You'll need
to activate the two arrow buttons by shooting them. Start with the horizontal
control (<->), and when the crane is just before the floor covering with the
white circle, shoot the vertical control. When done correctly, the crane lowers
and removes the floor covering, exposing the fuel rods below. If you have
trouble with it, the crane returns to its original position and you can try
again. I probably don't need to remind you to grab some fuel as necessary, but
I'll do so anyways. And I'll also remind you to grab some fuel right before you
go down to snag the rods, as it's good insurance to have a full tank of gas
before trying to leave.
After fuel rod extraction, things really get interesting. When they say
'seismic activity' they aren't shitting. Make your way out, and watch out for
moving objects. Since your surroundings can go every which way, it's easy to
get disoriented. If this happens, hit your stabilizer key, readjust your
camera, and wait for things to stop moving. The path out is linear, since doors
will be sealed or blocked and force you in certain directions. Some doors have
switches, so be on the lookout for the red, glowing buttons.
When you come back to your entry point (the underground duct), you'll
notice it's covered over with a large door. Here, you'll need to go into the
circular tunnel that the door came off of. As the scenery shifts, the inner
doors on this tunnel open and close. Don't get your cargo snagged on stuff or
you may get mushed as a door closes on you. Head through another cog room and
then up through a shaft. Blast the grating that impedes your path and it's on
to the surface for evac. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?
MIMAS (Saturn) BLACK-BOX RETRIEVAL (MCGA Special Investigations)
Your pal at MCGA Special Investigations is under the mis-guided impression that
1) you give a shit about Brotherhood activities, 2) you 'owe' her for some
stupid reason, and 3) you're interested in thwarting the Brotherhood as much as
her and her MCGA cronies are. Well, the third part is debatable, depending on
how much money they offer you. For the right price, you'll act as interested as
they want you to be. So, time to clean up another MCGA mess; retrieving a
'black-box' flight recorder from a craft that was downed over a suspected
Brotherhood facility on Mimas.
Mimas has lower gravity then most locales, especially Titan, so you'll
find you have extended hang-time in the air after letting off the thrusters.
Higher-g environments get you in the habit of tilting your lander slightly so
you always use some thruster for maintaining altitude while maneuvering. Here,
however, since maintaining altitude isn't a problem, you can actually gain too
much altitude with this habit. So, compensate by tilting drastically and
tapping the thruster, so more of your thrust is used to push you in your desired
direction rather then pushing you up with more altitude (and smacking your head
into ceilings). If you're in the Destria (like me), this involves tilting your
nose almost 90 degrees downward all the time, then tapping the thrust to get
some forward momentum going. Seems drastic, but in low-g's, it's very
effective.
The outer defenses are heavy, with turrets, tanks and SAMs. But with the
DPU cannon, you can pick off everything before it becomes 'live'. So, keep your
distance and knock out the SAMs, and everything else folds easy. Take either
one of the side tunnels in and scour the defenses. You'll come across two side
doors that open with gun fire going off. These are just side chambers that hold
tanks and nothing else, so don't bother going inside.
You need to blast the two red panels on the wall flanking the security
door. Oops, unfortunately, the damn door won't open while the base is on
lockdown. So, you're next objective is to find the alarm and shut it down. Tag
the switch opposite the security door, and follow the main elevator down.
You'll wind up in a cavernous chamber, and the doors are sealed. So, find the
grating on the wall by the ceiling towards the elevator, blast it and wander in.
You'll cruise through some tunnels and come across the occasional mine. If you
left your flare launcher at home and are sporting a projectile weapon that
doesn't light things up much, then your best bet is to maintain your camera
outside of the darkened tunnels so you can 'sonar' the green outline of them.
The tunnels have several paths, but they all come out to a common cavern.
One door along the bridge heads back out to the main elevator room you came from
(where you shot the grating). The other side of the bridge has two sealed
doors. So, pass over the bridge and blast the other grating. There's a stash
of fuel, shields & missiles located in a side room here. Continuing on, you'll
find a room with a large door at the end. After approaching the door, an alarm
sounds, and barricades start coming down. Get out of the trap, and take out
enemies as you see fit. If you get stuck behind the barricades, they should
rise shortly and allow you to proceed (you may need to snipe the enemies from
inside there first).
The path you're looking for is a blastable grating in the tunnel the
larger missile van enemy came out of. Inside, you'll find an annoying
ventilation system (which killed me several times). You'll need to head down,
and there's cyan-colored electrical fields that fire intermittently (these
didn't kill me). Time your descent accordingly, and you'll find some Cash in a
side tunnel, and all the way at the bottom, you'll find some shields. However,
the route you're looking for is to cross-over to the other vent shaft, and then
work up to the next cyan-colored force field. Go up when it turns off, but be
careful as the fan above will start sucking you upward (this is what killed
me...five times in a row). Aim for the side tunnel, and gun your thrusters to
go in it before the fan sucks you up into certain doom.
The tunnel exits to a room with a fuel pod and 2 doors. One door leads to
the alarm system, which consists of 2 switches. I'm not sure what the 4 red
blastable panels do, but when you switch the alarm off, the 4 panels seal over
so you can't shoot them. So, if you want to shoot them, do so before switching
off the alarm. With the alarm switched off, head back to the fuel pod room and
take the other door.
You'll hear a rather ominous noise as you realize a large transport train
is coming out from a tunnel just down the way. Duck back into the corridor you
popped out of in order to keep from getting flattened. The train thinks it's
pretty smart, trying to run you down and then shooting at you. Follow it along
until it stops, then take things out. A little care should be used since you
can accidentally position yourself next to the flatbed car, getting shot by
enemies while your primary weapon can't hit squat. So hover up over the flat-
bad car to get a good sniping angle of the enemies and to let your primary
weapon target properly. Afterward, guess what, you're back at the main elevator
(where you shot the grating at which started this whole escapade to disable the
alarm).
After heading up to the formerly sealed security door, you'll note that
when it opens as you approach, it provides a rather small entrance. So, a
little tilted trick flying is needed to squeak by (with the Destria anyways).
Nothing you can't handle. Down in the lander bay it takes you to, feel free to
blow up anything you see sitting around. (Hey, is that a Roche? Seeing as how
they're worth $10mil, why don't I just land my Destria, get out and go high-jack
that Roche? Oh yeah, probably some bullshit about custom security id's and what
not. More like the game just doesn't allow it. Oh well. If I can't have it,
no one can! BLAM-BLAM!)
Toggle the switch on the wall, and head down to find your objective.
Before you snag the black-box flight recorder, someone left their Cash just
lying around on one of the upper shelves in there. You better take it for
safekeeping before some shady character comes along and steals it. Snag your
cargo and head back up to the lander bay, which conveniently has an exit to the
surface. Next stop, Drake's Exception.
TITAN (Saturn) ARTIFACT HEIST (Unknown)
First, Dr. Mishima wanted you to retrieve an artifact from some caverns on Mars.
Then Cairn Vanced wanted you to blow them up on Europa. Now someone sends you a
short transmission asking you to steal one from a heavily guarded installation.
Kind of gives you the impression these artifact things are important.
You start over the road to a massive base. Heading towards your way-
point, you'll skirt over a wall that hosts a perimeter of periodic gun turrets.
Inside, you'll find an assortment of huge SAM towers & beam turrets, but nothing
your DPU cannon can't pick off at a distance. This place is huge, so do a
little sightseeing, but use caution. There isn't too much in the way of power-
ups surface-side, save for a fuel pod located next to the radar tower by domed
structure your way-point wants you to enter (it's in the trench surrounding the
radar tower). So, when you're done snapping pictures for your scrapbook, gas up
and head inside. The entrance to the domed structure is in the trench, and
watch out for beam turrets.
Inside, you'll circle around a bit, then ride an elevator down. The hall
it takes you to ends with a switch, a grid field, and a door. You'll notice
that shooting the switch opens the door (duh), but it closes as you pass through
the grid field (Hmm). So, what's a sneaky lander pilot to do? Well, there's
the side tunnel next to the door, which leads into an adjacent room past the
blastable grid. In here, you see a switch, some fuel and a graphics panel that
shows what happens when you shoot the switch. Apparently it toggles some white
'thing' on the graphics panel. There's also a shaft with a huge laser beam
blocking your way just around the corner. If you put two and two together
you'll figure out that you need to a) head out of this room and past the grid
field, b) toggle the door switch to open the door, then c) find some back way in
to that switch room you were in so you can sneak past the grid and into the
door.
So, before you head out of the room, make sure you tag the graphics
panel's switch to toggle the white 'thing'. Next exit the room and go past the
grid, shooting the switch once past so the door will be open. Now, work your
way back to the elevator and shoot it's switch to send it back up to reveal a
lower shaft. Heading down, you'll swing around and descend into another shaft.
Down this shaft, you'll find two side tunnels mid-way down that end at laser
conduits. At the bottom, you'll find some fuel, switches and another graphics
panel on the wall.
Since the graphics panel depicts laser conduit activity, you need to
bypass the laser from the longest shaft on the right of the graphics panel. To
do so, shoot one of the switches. You're looking to make the graphics panel
show a blue laser routed through the bottom conduit. If you shot a switch and
the panel still shows a red laser, then you shot the wrong switch. Just shoot
the other switch and the blue laser will toggle. If the blue laser you see is
going vertically up the right shaft, then you didn't shoot the switch back at
the grid-tripped door. Go back there and tag that switch then come back here
and try again.
With the laser turned blue and routed along the bottom conduit, you're
ready to go. It's re-routed for a limited amount of time, so don't screw around
too much. Facing the graphics panel, left and right on it are the same as the
directions you'll want to be going, so go up the shaft you're in to the mid-way
tunnels. Turn right and head down that tunnel to the now deactivated laser
conduit. Fly down the conduit shaft, under the partition to the other conduit
shaft then haul ass up to the top. Pop out of the laser conduit before it
reactivates and you'll end up back in the side room adjacent to the trigger door
(sneaky devil!).
Through the door, the route is pretty linear up to the artifact. You can
feel free to set off the red 'searchlights' which only cause the turrets to
activate. With your cargo swiped, you'll need to head back to the entry hall
from the grid door. Swing down the direction where you blasted the two missile
launchers, and you'll find the door that was formerly closed is now open.
Destroy the missile launcher inside and take out the grating as well.
Past the grating you'll enter some wind tunnels. The fans don't blow too
hard, but enough to make things inconvenient as you may bang up a little.
You'll head up a sloped area, then around a bend and into another fanned hall.
There's a tunnel that leads to a dead end where a door will close and some tanks
will block you off. That being a trap, you'll need to circle back and work your
way towards one of the fans in this second fan hall. Next to either one is a
grating you can blast, and carefully slip in.
Either fan's tunnel meets eventually with a series of tunnels that take
you to a swarm of tanks trying to prevent you from reaching the cargo pod
launching bay. Take them out or fly past them, and inside the bay you'll need
to drop you and your cargo into one of the open cargo pods being prepped for
launch. After that, you get a one way ticket out of there. It's interesting to
note that there's gold sitting around this room. I find it interesting because
you couldn't have made it here without snagging the artifact (the artifact
triggering the sealed doors that got you here). I've tried entering this bay
from the outside, but either a cargo pod destroys me or the door closes so fast
in my face I get slammed to a stop. So, I'm wondering if there is a way to
unlatch cargo from your tractor beam. Why else would they have Cash sitting
around, knowing you'd have cargo by the time you had a chance to get it and
wouldn't be able to grab it? Oh well.
NEPTUNE SKY BASE AI 'EVICTION' (Durandal)
Up to the late 1990's, Bungie Software created a series of FPS games on the
Macintosh: Marathon, Marathon 2, Marathon-Durandal. I think only the latter two
were carried to the PC, and I was only able to get a hold of Marathon 2.
Anyways, compared to some PC FPS games of the same time, they were lacking in </pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
graphical style, so they didn't do so well. But they were really entertaining
as they featured troops that worked with you against enemies, ingenious level
design, and, most of all, a good plot (being able to attack with dual, double-
barreled shotguns helped score in my book, too). The best part of those games
was that you were the tool of a rogue AI called 'Durandal'. Durandal had his
own agenda, you being his instrument to carry out his wishes, much like SHODAN
in the 'System Shock' games. But his will followed more along the lines of
saving cultures & alien races from decimation at the hands of another, nastier
alien race. These games probably later gave inspiration to Bungie's more well-
known 'Halo' FPS, where you fight in an encounter suit that contains an AI
'navigator'. Anyways, your new found artifact 'friend' reminds me a lot of
Durandal, so I'm going to call him that for lack of a better name (SHODAN
doesn't seem appropriate because he's not belittling you at the same time).
Durandal's trying to get to Pluto, and between 'You Are Here' and Pluto,
there's a stop at Neptune, and a nasty little AI that doesn't want to allow your
passing. Durandal won't allow it to impede, so, like Marathon, you are
requested to be the instrument of his wishes. He wants you to go down to
Neptune and provide eviction papers to the AI, which will require some necessary
ventilation as Mr. AI won't go quietly.
First, Neptune has a higher gravity then even Titan (Saturn). If you've
got the Destria (like me), you'll find you sink a tad faster and need to lean on
the thruster more to keep from banging around. However, the Destria seems
'lighter', which perhaps is why it's still easier to control for me. Meanwhile,
if you went for the Roche, with a more capable Attitude or Military engine
upgrade, you'll find it's responsive, but you'll need to do a lot of thruster
tapping to counter it's increased weight, which makes it plummet like a rock in
this gravity. Don't over-thrust the Roche (since it has a powerful thruster
with the Military upgrade) or you'll bang your head on ceilings.
You start out on the top of Sky Base, which is aptly nick-named because
it's up in the clouds. You need to swing under and look for the long shaft
heading down to the surface. Don't dive too far down or you'll meet an
unfortunate doom. A little ways down the shaft, you'll encounter some beam
turrets and an entrance. With a distinct impression that you're not welcome
here, take out the turrets to open the door and proceed to let yourself on in
(Hmm, the butler must be out for the evening).
Sky Base is very linear, and loaded with huge machinery you have to
navigate. It's pretty straight forward, but here are a few potential sticking
points. After initial dealings with the shaft going down in order to shoot the
switch, the other shaft going up leads to a huge cog-like wheel. You don't need
to pilot through it. Just keep heading up and there will be a turret waiting to
nail you some. Take it out, take the shield recharge, then crossover the
partition and head up the shaft on the other side. You'll come a large circular
shaft with large, rotating ring-like stuctures. Fly up and you'll see an exit
to another shaft. This takes you to another circular shaft, and you'll need to
fly inside the rotating 'sheath' to proceed. There's shields on the ground, and
up top there's a room with two fuel pods. Gas up then take either shaft on the
side of the room up.
The shafts lead out to a room with a large cog working a door covering,
and you'll need to be careful you don't get whacked by the floor-mounted gear as
you exit the shafts. Working past here, you'll end up in a shaft up, and the
grating auto-opens to a large room. You'll need to take out a grating up around
the ceiling to proceed. Following the path it takes you on, you'll come up
another shaft with green security beams. I'm not sure what they activate as
they didn't seem to trigger anything when I went through them.
Regardless, you're faced with two tunnels, and two large crushing pillars
that come down/up in each. Watch the pattern, and take the direction without
the red button first. While you can slowly go in and pause between pillars in
the vacancy, I don't recommend it. Trying to come to a stop before the pillars
slam up or down is a good way to get a leg of your lander caught and crushed,
which will kill you (even though it's just a leg). Instead, as the pillars
retreat, gun it to the second pillar's shaft and fall down to the room below.
Here, you're able to cross over to another shaft with another pillar that slams
down. Don't worry about them coming all the way down, as they only come down to
about ceiling level in this room.
Time this third pillar's movements, and fly up it's shaft to the inlet,
where a switch and shields await. Do your thing and be careful not to
accidentally get tagged by the pillar as it goes up and down. When finished,
let it retreat back up and have gravity take you down the shaft. Cross over,
then work back up the second pillar's shaft as it retreats and gun it across the
first pillar's shaft so you're safely hovering over the circular shaft with the
green lights again.
The other tunnel works the same way, except this time you just have to gun
it across to the open door and button on the other side. Tag your switch and
head up the shaft. The route proceeds to double doors that are sealed. To open
them, simply hover over the lit floor at the opposite end of the room. Going
on, you'll come to a room with turrets and tanks. Behind the odd covering on
the floor, there's a switch. Come to find out, the odd covering is actually an
elevator. Head down it, tag another switch, come up and you'll have opened an
exit route at the opposite side of the room.
Your path crosses with a two-legged, mobile missile platform, which backs
up to guard the door with the beams crossing it (Gee, I wonder which way the AI
is? It wouldn't perhaps be the way he's guarding, is it?) There's fuel, so gas
up, and there's also 2 switches on the barrier you flew over while entering the
room. One switch opens a side door to an elevator while the other opens to door
covered by beams.
If you go up the side way on the elevator, you'll circle around to rooms
with lots of tanks that mercilessly pick your shields off. You'll also find
some vent shafts, that all circle around to the same rooms. Long and short,
it's a big waste of time. There's some shields and fuel, up there, but it's
enough to replenish what you'll waste going up this way anyways.
So, if you're careful, you can rub your lander on the ceiling above the
green beams on the other door going to the AI without tripping any of the beams.
Just keep nudging forward and scoot over them. The shaft down leads to a hall
of death, and you should just gun it on through to avoid as much gun fire as
possible. The door around the corner at the end leads to the AI.
Now then, the room beyond contains the physical AI construct, and there's
a cheap way to do it, which is wrong and forces you to abort mission and start
over, and there's the hard way to do it, which correctly triggers sequences for
you to complete the mission.
The cheap & wrong method is to park in the door way out of range of the AI's
defenses, picking everything off with Mr. DPU ('Say hello to my little
friend!'). This is bad because the game has a trigger that lowers metal
shielding around the AI when you fully enter the room. Destroying the beam
turrets triggers the metal shielding to retract back into the ceiling, thereby
exposing the AI and it's nasty little electro-zapper weapon. So, if you knock
out the beam turrets before fully entering the room, the moment you do enter the
room, the shielding drops and you have no way of knocking out the AI.
Smart asses will then try to simply snipe the AI from a distance as well,
leaving one beam turret left. Problem with that is, while leaving one beam
turret enables you to retract the metal barriers, if you destroy the AI before
fully entering the room, the game glitches and makes it's electro-zapper part
invincible. Reason being, it was supposed to blow up when the AI computer banks
blew up. But because the metal shielding was never dropped, the scripting
didn't enable it to 'die'.
Ok, so you're going to have to enter the room to engage (both to fight and
activate the game scripting properly) the AI whether you like it or not. You
can still be a cheap git if you'd like, by sniping both tanks & one beam turret
from the door way. Then, fly in, activate the AI so the shielding drops. Next,
blast the last beam turret, which retracts the shielding. Finally, destroy the
AI computer banks, which blows up the electro-zapper as well.
If you've done it all but the electro-zapper just won't blow up, you
didn't do it right. Abort mission and try again. However, if you did it
correctly, you'll definitely know since the base reels from auto-destruct and is
sent free-falling to Neptune's surface. Definitely a fate you'd rather avoid,
so fly your way out to an exit as best you can by using the opening in the side
room to the right. And you're home free.
CHARON (Pluto) ARTIFACT DROP-OFF (Durandal)
Charon is a tiny little ice ball floating around a bigger ice ball on the
desolate fringes of the solar system. At this distance, the sun resembles a
very bright star in the sky, not the glowing orb we all know and love here on
Earth. Durandal needs you to carry him into a secret alien hide-away, park him
on a 'socket', and then retrieve others of his kind to fix in the other
'sockets'. Interesting...
Before we start, I'll admit that even though I love the Destria, I went
with the Roche on this mission for several reasons. First, the Light-A armor
makes it more durable, since I ended up getting pounded by the rotating scenery
on a few areas. Second, while the Roche was really twitchy to pilot in
Neptune's gravity at Sky Base, it's very manageable and responsive here, enough
to get you out of trouble rather then in it. Third, the Super Lean Military
engine gives added gas mileage which comes in handy. Fourth, the Military
engine gives the thrusters some serious kick, so you can speed up fast and stop
on a dime. However, there are some gravity shifts in this mission, so while the
Roche handled nicely out of the gate, there were a few times I wished I could
switch back to my Destria (only a few, though).
You'll start on Charon's surface, and the way-point refers to a cave
opening you'll have to ferret out. Since everything kind of blends in, you'll
likely fly over the entrance the first time or two, so watch your radar and head
down when you're over the way-point. Inside, you'll find a dead end with the
same electronic wall pattern you saw in the Artifact Seek & Destroy mission.
Problem is, how do you get in? Hmm, wonder what blasting that large, jagged
stalactite hanging from the ceiling above it will do?
After knocking a hole in the tunnel, fly in and wander around. Durandal
tells you to take transport 'Torus' to get to various places. The transport he
refers to is a series of 'stargates' connected via a central hub. However,
before you can take it, you need to activate the power core of the base. So, no
matter which direction you go, you're looking for tunnels that head down.
At the third ring tunnel down, the tunnels further down will lead to red
squares (one of them is already green). These are buttons, so shoot them if you
come across one, then use the horizontal tunnel to fly inward to the power core.
From here, you have easy access to the other 3 tunnels leading to the other
switches. If lightning is not arcing across the sub-contacts below the tunnel
entrance, then the switch needs to be toggled. After you nail the 3 red
switches, the power core in the central chamber will have lightning arcing in
the main, middle contact. You don't have to check, but you can if you want.
From one of the power switch rooms, go up the ceiling tunnel to the main
transit ring. You'll encounter floating orbs that try to shoot you, but they're
easy to avoid. Circle around and head up a tunnel/shaft to the next ring tunnel
above. The tunnel you head up continues on past the outer ring intersection and
inwards to a central chamber. Follow it in to the central shaft that goes up to
a stargate. Head on through, and you'll notice your fuel & shields are
replenished. (Every time you go through a stargate in this mission, your fuel
and shields seem to recharge, thankfully.)
Past the stargate, you'll dump out of the inner orb you're in into a huge
outer orb chamber that spins and rotates. Keep your bearings by hitting the
stabilizer key periodically to figure out which way is up. Around the edges of
this huge sphere, you'll see dancing red objects and occasionally a light green
square. You need to shoot the green squares. After shooting 1, a second should
expose, and then you have to head back in the central orb.
This part was a little annoying as when I went back in the central orb the
first several times, I took the tunnel and it dead-ended without a stargate.
So, in trying to go back to the rotating outer orb chamber, the game would crash
on me between transitions. Finally, I got it to go through. I think that
because I got a leg of my lander stuck the first 2 times sliding down the hole
the game crashed since the transition wasn't smooth. The third time, I dropped
straight through the hole quickly instead of slowly. I shot two more green
buttons, then when I went back into the central chamber, the tunnel exposed led
to a stargate.
The stargate puts you in the middle of no where, with 4 stargates ringing
another central orb. This central orb contains 4 'sockets', which you need to
park gems in to. It can get tricky since the entire place rotates around your
craft's movement. The best solution I had was to gently land on the orb near an
empty socket, then scoot my lander in the direction of the socket while dragging
the gem behind. I'd line the gem up with it so when I scooted over the socket,
the gem would park. Rather annoying, but whatever works....
With the first gem fixed in place, a new gate activates. Head on through
and you'll recognize being back on Europa where your Artifact Seek & Destroy
mission took place. They've remodeled a bit, and by the number of enemies,
don't want a second incident happening. In scouring the place, you'll find a
side tunnel that dead ends with a fuel pod and a bank of 3 switches. Blast
those switches to open various doors. Scour the place some more, and you'll
come across the door you opened, and inside is a tunnel with a nasty little
laser barrier and another tunnel with a power generator. It's obvious what to
do, and after killing the generator, retrieve your gem. Make your way back to
the stargate and fix the gem into the central orb.
The new stargate that the second gem opens leads to some underground
tunnels. The gravity's heavier then Charon & Europa, so if you're banging your
ass around don't blame yourself too much. Moving along, you'll find a gray
keystone holding a large stone in place at the top of a steep sloping tunnel, so
blast it and get out of the way. Once it's done sliding down, head up.and
you'll realize you're back on Earth at the former dig site of Dr. Mishima. You
may remember from reading the news that after kidnapping, uh, re-allocating Dr.
Mishima from the dig, his former employers closed up shop. Then, the other
company (Cairn Vance or Celestia, I forget which), came in and re-opened the dig
site. Well, looks like they've been busy. Work your way into the tunnel system
at the far side of the main cavern, and try to take out or avoid the annoying
little flying orbs. You'll find a switch to shoot which opens a sealed door,
and you need to be quick because the door only stays open for a short amount of
time. Tile your lander a bit to get the tractor beam on the gem. With it in
tow, the door opens up and you can work your way back to the stargate and fix
the third gem in place.
The stargate the third gem opens up leads to a low-g, rotating cavern.
Again, it's somewhat difficult to keep your bearings, so hit the stabilizer key
every now and then. I found myself hitting the thrusters to move forwards
several times only to wind up watching the scenery shift and bang me into a wall
or ceiling. So take it slow and steady. Head out of the cavern you start in
and you'll see that you're on some asteroid in the middle of nowhere, apparently
near Saturn (but there's no stars in the sky). The cavern you exited from has a
rock next to it, and you're looking for another cavern entrance that doesn't
have a rock. You'll know you found the right one when you enter and see 3 metal
columns with green lights on them. The gem is stuck in the back of the cavern,
and some crafty tilting of your lander is needed to get the tractor beam to
engage. Nothing a top-gun pilot like yourself can't handle if you've made it
this far. With gem in tow, head back to the stargate cavern that had the
boulder at the entrance while avoiding the speed-demon orb circling the
asteroid.
GAME OVER (I feel robbed)
With the last gem through the gate and fixed in place, the game is over. If you
have the full version of lander (or a CD-rip that has the FMV's), then you get
to watch the ending. Otherwise, if your stuck with a CD-rip that didn't contain
the FMV's (like the one I d/l'ed from underdogs.com abandonware), you get kicked
back to the main menu. All that hard work and suffering for a boot back to
intro. I feel robbed, but then again, I didn't pay any money to play this
exceptional game. Oh well.
