Should I do a melee weapon only walkthrough for SS2?

[TheNightTerror]

I've been really bored lately and I was thinking of throwing together a melee weapon only walkthrough, would there be any point in it? Dealing with the enemies is definitely different but pretty much everything else is exactly the same. There's some parts that are royal pains in the ass, like the cursed BOTM brain room, which are way different to deal with when you only have a wrench. I've stopped using guns all together, so I know the drill pretty much off by heart.

So, should I go for it, or shouldn't I?

[Rolander]

I don't think it's practical, assuming that offensive Psi powers are also excluded (Soma Transfer, Restructure, Projected Pyro/Cyro, Localised Pyro).

The last fight is gonna be impossible unless you deactivate the 3 shields and successfully jump across without falling into the pits.

In BOTM, there is a place where you have to go which is guarded by a Psi-Reaver. I don't know how are you gonna kill it, unless you lure it out (which I never tried.

And how are you gonna hit the 3 stars using a melee weapon.

Good luck anyway ...

[TheNightTerror]

It's all possible, a pain in the ass but possible. If you recycle all the ammunition, psi hypos, etc., you get TONS of money for med hypos and med kits, which you use to keep you going during fights. Just hit the hotkeys and shoot up while in the middle of a fight and you'll probably come out alive.

The last fight goes pretty much like you said, once you're under the head you have to jump to get little Shodan's shots to hit it. If you time it right Shodan will think she needs to shoot high, and after a while she died. The psi reaver isn't that hard to deal with, you nail the brain, and beat the crap out of the psi reaver. And in the brain room you use speed hypos to run up the slanted sides leading up to the brain, and use a overhead swing. It's hard as hell but it can be done if you have enough patience.

I've done it many times before, it's possible. Part of the reason I wanted to make a melee only walkthrough is to convince people it is possible to do it, lol.

Edit: I'll probably use a pretty low difficulty setting, just so you know. Melee only on Impossible would give true meaning to the difficulty setting's name.

[Koki]

Do it. FAQ = Fun. At least from this side of the screen.

[TheNightTerror]

I was wondering, what are some things I should throw in to make the walkthrough easier to understand? Maybe screenshots of the maps so I can mark down the routes to take, dangerous area, or something? Can't really think of much else I could do other than that, any ideas?

[kill me2]

Record the whole game with fraps, from start to finish

[TheNightTerror]

It would be at least 6 hours long. Could even end up being 10. I got Fraps, though, and the 3 clips I took are barely 4 minutes long all together, and total up to 1.5 gigabytes. I gotta fix them up, currently the resolution's 640x480, it was recorded at 10 fps, and they're .avi files.

I'm rather proud of myself. I got the 3 clips I wanted, of dodging a protocol droid's explosion, tricking little Shodan into destroying the big head, and of me taking out one of the stars around the brain. The latter I don't know how I pulled off. I basically just went in the room and charged the brain, and it seems I was only recording for 2 minutes before I took out a star.

Anyways, time for me to free up a gigabyte of hard drive space, hopefully anyways.

[Rolander]

IIRC, I remember the Psi Reaver literally explodes with very damaging effects (enough to kill me on Hard at least IIRC, when I once try to kill it with Localised Pyro on a whim) when you kill it for the final time (after destroying the Psi Reaver brain part). Umm, so well, I dunno how will you survive THAT ... since you will be meleeing it, it will be blasting back at you and I'm sure you probably be half-dead already BEFORE it explodes. And there are NO Reconstruction Machines in BOTM of course.

The only thing I can think of is to hightail it outta there without destroying the brain ... perhaps using Invisibility (if you don't ban that ...)

Lemme know how it goes when you get there ...

[TheNightTerror]

I assume you're talking about the Korenchkin psi reaver? I've never had one explode on me, they've only ever vaporized. Maybe he fired off a shot at you just as he died? It's happened to me before. If you keep circling him faster than he can turn, you can take him out, just give him a few overhead swings with your choice melee weapon and he should trouble you no more. Or, if you're allowing yourself hacking, the missle turret can be your best friend. A couple times I did that, it's always interesting hearing Korenchkin say 'Die, puny human!' while taking shots at a turret.

I'll have to see whether destroying the psi reaver brain makes any difference to whether the umbilical is opened or not. I don't think it does, I think only the reaver needs to be killed once, least that's how I remember it from my cheater days. I'm not anywhere near there in the walkthrough, though. Considering I'm being a good friend, which involves forcing myself to stay awake 56 hours straight, (on hour 21 now) I'll have plenty of time to work on it.

Trust me, this is all possible. I've beaten the game several times melee weapon only, and I've done wrench only at least once. On Easy, since I'm a wimp, but it's probably possible on higher difficulty settings. If you recycle everything you find, you'll be absolutely loaded with cash for med kits and med hypos. If you buy all the stuff you can before you head into the BOTM, wear some good armor, have some speed hypos, etc., you should be in business. You just need hot keys to use med kits and med hypos, and a shitload of patience.

That being said I'm going to pump myself full of more coffee and finish off this story I'm writing.

[Sah]

I've been really bored lately and I was thinking of throwing together a melee weapon only walkthrough, would there be any point in it? Dealing with the enemies is definitely different but pretty much everything else is exactly the same. There's some parts that are royal pains in the ass, like the cursed BOTM brain room, which are way different to deal with when you only have a wrench. I've stopped using guns all together, so I know the drill pretty much off by heart.

So, should I go for it, or shouldn't I?

Yes you should. Not that I would want to play the game using it, but it could be an interesting read.

[TheNightTerror]

Parts of it could be interesting all right, I hope my "writing skills" come in handy when it comes to describing some of the trickier spots in the game. I've already attempted rough drafts on wrenching techniques that you need to work on to survive, but they probably need work. I'll try to take as many notes as I can when I play SS2 later tonight, but, due to lack of sleep I might very well forget. Although, if I just *gasp* write it down on paper instead of on the computer I might last longer.

So far I've finished off a fairly in-depth (I think) walkthrough for getting power to the bulkhead to get into the second sector of Deck 2. I've been listing where hypos, nanites, ammo, magazines, etc., are, so that you can store it all for the blessed recycler, advising what canisters of chemicals to keep handy, crap like that. Hell I don't even get some of the stuff I'm listing, like I never store the magazines anywhere to recycle them later, even though I could probably get a fair bit of nanites doing it. I'm guessing a newcomer to the wrenching business would want as many med hypos as humanly possible for their first rumbler attack, though.

But, if I'm going to get any shocking done tonight I need to deal with the crisis going on here, there's 5 coffee mugs in this room but not one of them has coffee in them.

[Rolander]

I'll have to see whether destroying the psi reaver brain makes any difference to whether the umbilical is opened or not. I don't think it does, I think only the reaver needs to be killed once, least that's how I remember it from my cheater days.

Ya, I mean the Umbilical Part ... there IS a Recon station on Command, remember, but not in BOTM.

[TheNightTerror]

*thinks a moment*

Isn't the station on the command deck guarded by a security camera? I seem to remember it being impossible to take out by melee methods, the ways it's placed you can't reach it, even though it kinda looks a bit possible. And I don't seem to remember one being in the section with the tram stop and shuttle bays in it. Guess that means Command deck not only gives you a missle turret, rumbler, and psi reaver to play with, but there's not going to be any regenerations. It'll be a warm-up for the BOTM I guess. . . . Won't be so good for the hacker phobics though.

[Sah]

So why don't you post a piece of your work here, so you could later feel obliged to finish the rest?

[TheNightTerror]

Sounds like a plan. I'll finish up my Deck 2 walkthrough and post it once I've had some sleep and read it over again. I would've done it sooner but during my little 60 hour without sleeping incident I thought I lost my SS2 CD. Typical me, I went into a blind panic, tearing through everything in my room, freaking out . . . but I never thought to check the CD drive to see if the CD was in there.

[TheNightTerror]

Okay, here's the first bit of the walkthrough, it covers the first part of the game, straight through until Engineering, you should be able to get there in one piece.


Section 1, Training

When you start off, you’ll be in the good old tram stop. Probably the place I know better than anywhere else in the game, since the voice that greets you crashed my first copy of the game. Head to the grav shaft, and if you want to activate an Easter egg later on in the game, grab the basketball. It’s on top of the arch to the right of the lift you come up. If you want, go through the training missions, but if you’re still learning the game and want to try it without ranged weapons, you’re even more psychotic than I am. When you enlist, join the Navy. It’s the only career where you can outright avoid wasting a year receiving ranged weapon skills. You do get a point in standard weapon skills, though, so if you break down half way through the game you can use a pistol.

Once you’ve enlisted, it’s time for training. In year 1, your choices in skills you can get are: +1 strength and +1 hack, +1 strength and +1 repair, and +1 strength and +1 modify. If you want to try to go without hacking, go for repair, but if you’re weak like me go for hacking. Of course, if you can think of a way to use modify skills that doesn’t involve guns, then go for it.

In year 2, your choices are: +2 cyber affinity, +1 maintenance, and +2 standard weapons. Obviously +2 standard weapons is out. So, cyber affinity or maintenance? I stick with maintenance, it’s more expensive to get once in game than cyber affinity, plus maintenance skills let you store more power in your implants, such as BrawnBoost and EnduraBoost. But, if having to restart hacks over and over again drives you out of your mind cyber affinity might be a better choice for you.

In year 3, your choices are: +1 research, +2 endurance, and +2 agility. I go for research, since, again, it’s the most expensive to get once in game. Then you can research the guts of your enemies and kill them faster. But, if you like slowly murdering your enemies, and want more hit-points, or to be able to move faster, by all means go for the others. It’s really your pick here.

Interlude I, Useful Stuff

Circle strafing

When you’re only going to wrench people to death, you need to be able to take them out without getting hurt too badly, and circle strafing is the best way to take out melee attack enemies. You need a bit of room to move, if you’re in a narrow hall or something similar, it couldn’t hurt to lead your intended victim into a place with a bit of room. Then, once you’re there, it’s time for him to die. Basically, what you want to do is try to run behind them, and when they start turning to face you, keep moving so you stay behind them. Then, you swing like a deranged psychopath. If you keep moving and stay behind them, you should be able to hit them without getting a scratch. You can do almost the same thing with turrets, if you circle them so they can’t shoot you, you can destroy them.

Taking out enemies with ranged attacks

When you find someone with a ranged attack, get behind the nearest wall, and wait for them. If they didn’t see you and aren’t coming up to greet you, then bang on the wall. If the ground you’re on is fairly noisy to walk on, then jump up and down while banging on the wall. That should hopefully be enough to lure them towards you. Once they appear, charge them, and start swinging as fast as you possibly can. With robots, they take a long time to destroy. They back up to try to get a better shot at you, so you need to keep walking into them, but don’t run. If you run you might end up running right past them, and they’ll be able to get a better shot at you. When they’re about to die, back up slightly so that you won’t get hurt too badly in the explosion.

Collect Everything

When you reach Deck 4, you’ll get your hands on a recycler. It can recycle everything that’s non-organic, or not plot related, magazines, mugs, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. Although, since you’re not going to be using psychic powers, you might as well drink up. Plants can’t be recycled, if you pull the information on the recycler you find out it’s because the recyclers were being used to destroy corpses. You don’t get a lot of nanites for the stuff you recycle, but it’ll add up after a while. That, along with all the nanites you find in game, should get you enough money to get more than enough med hypos and med kits to survive the BOTM.

When you’re collecting stuff, there’s some stuff that you find a lot of, like standard bullets, which just aren’t worth the hike to your storage facility. You might as well keep them on you, you’ll be focusing on getting a lot of strength fast, so you’ll have a lot of storage space soon enough. Just don’t throw too much stuff in one area or you’ll crash the game.

Preparing for hell

When you get into the later stages of the game, you'll be needing lots of med hypos, and possibly speed hypos. When you get your hands on them, don't use them unless absolutely necessary. Once you get the resurrection stations in each sector activated, rely on them. Using med hypos when you don't have to worry about dying is a bit pointless. Also, make sure you've got keys bound so you can run, and have some bound so you can use med hypos, and maybe med kits, while you're running for it. It's no good when you're trying to kill a rumbler, and have to open up the inventory to use a med kit or med hypo.

Now, on with the show!

Section 2, Deck 2, Med/Sci Deck

Friendly Lands/Science Sector Part I

When you step into the game, you’ll be greeted with an exploding radar dish, falling debris, and then be in danger of dying when the sector decompresses. Least that’s what the game wants you to think. In all actuality, you’re in no danger. When my cousins and I first played the game we were stuck in that same room trying to run up the piece of debris over the ladder for nearly an hour. Only when I played it again did I realize you were able destroy it. You just need the wrench on the corpse nearby.

Once you knock out the debris, head up the ladder. The whole escape is fairly easy, but I’ll go through it anyways. You press the button to open the first door, and then you pick up the Cryogenics access card on the floor. Once you have it, go through the next door, and search the body. When you listen to the log, you know the code’s 45100. Feels like home already, the code to the first code-locked door in SS1 is 451. Once you go through there, you see a woman being gunned down by a shotgun hybrid. Ouch! Go through the maintenance shaft, and drop into the next room. Charge the power cell you find in there, and get out. Now, things are much quieter.

Search the crate in the room you ran into, and get 20 nanites. Head left into the next room, with the dead body that has 10 nanites on it. If you look up, you’ll see 2 metal bars sticking out from the walls and a doorway with no door up there. There are a few supplies on the metal bar farthest from the doorway, and the computer nearby has a secret. The top part of it you can walk right through. If you mantle onto the computer, you can lift the stuff off the bar. If you’re close enough you only need to jump to be within reach of the speed booster, and if you run forward and jump you can get at the 6 standard bullets up there.

Once down, go into the next room, which has the upgrade units in it. Now, let’s lay down some ground rules. If you’re going melee weapon only, you can only use the stats and tech upgrade units. Don’t bother getting modify skills, I honestly can’t think of a reason why you’d need them when you don’t have weapons. At the stats unit, getting more psi points is pointless, since a melee only player doesn’t need them. Anything else is fair game. But, 4 cyber modules won’t get you very much at the upgrade units, swipe 4 more off a corpse nearby. I upgraded my hack stats once, so I can get into the security crates.

Go into the next door, and lift a log off a crate. Sounds like they’re talking about you. Polito was the one who gave the orders to put you in the recovery freezer after your surgery. Hmmm. Inside the crate is 5 nanites. Yippee! Go through the hole in the wall and pick up a med hypo off the corpse. There’s a door that needs a code to be opened. Sure, you can hack it and have Xerxes announce that security access has been compromised, but why not just punch in 00000? It’s one of the few doors that has a code which isn’t mentioned in a log anywhere. There’s a BrawnBoost implant, and 2 speed hypos.

Leave the room, then go up the elevator, and go in the doors on your left. Go up the ramp, and go to get the Science card in front of the corpse. Search the corpse, too, he has 20 nanites. There’s some rifled slugs and a psi hypo behind some glass, shatter it and take them for yourself. Leave the room, and go left to where the red card slot is. Yikes, a ghost! Grassi, according to DromEd. Lift the 20 nanites off the floor, and frob the card slot to open the door.

Not so friendly lands/Science Sector Part II

There’s a hybrid in the room with the glass windows to your left, and another one down the hall. If you go far enough through the door to get the cyber modules the nearest one should come to greet you. Did you equip that BrawnBoost implant? Either way, now’s a good time to practice that circle strafing attack I mentioned earlier. Once they’re dealt with, and you’ve searched their bodies, go into the room where the one hybrid came from. Inside the security crate is 21 nanites and 6 standard bullets. In the room next to the crate, there are chips on the floor, a bottle of liquor beside a crate, and a log in the desk.

Go back in the hall, and go left, and into the room with the resurrection station in it. There’s a hybrid just begging to have a wrench imbedded in his skull. Go ahead, he won’t mind. Once you’ve dropped him, pick up the log off the floor, get a psi hypo from the body bag about to be cremated, and go up the ladder to check the other body bag up there, there’s a med hypo in there. Activate the resurrection station, wave at the swinging corpse, and head into the hall, and hang a right. Time for your first awkward moment where you wish you had a gun.

You need the power cell on the floor, and it’s easy enough to run and grab it and run away before the alarm goes off. But why not take it out? Let’s. You want to run in there, mantle onto the table under the camera, and thwack it before the alarm sounds. If you time it right, the camera might not even alert. Or, you might not mantle the table in time and it’ll sound the alarm.

In the room there, there’s a log, a rad hypo on the other side of the computer, and another rad hypo on a ledge beside the hanging plant in the corner of the room. Lift them all. Get the battery off the floor. Now, where to go next? Let’s go straight down the hall to the room with the big sliding door. Once it opens you have a nice view of ‘Remember Citadel’ written in blood on the wall, and a big tube in the middle of the room. Interesting. Keep the wall on your left, and go to the body. He has a pistol with 8 bullets in it, although I’m pretty sure that’s only on very low difficulty settings. Unload it, and throw the gun away. Keep the wall on your left, and pick up a log on the bench and the booze off the floor. Run around the corner and thwack the camera.

There’s a few supplies down the dip in the hall, but there’s a turret who will shoot you to death if it gets the chance. If you disable the security, which isn’t necessary at all to complete the level, then you can go get the 6 armor piercing bullets and the strength hypo down there. But, sometimes the strength hypo isn’t on the ground, sometimes it’s on a high ledge. If it’s not there, don’t bother disabling security to get there. Even if you destroy the turret and get bullets out of it, that combined won’t even get you enough nanites to buy a med hypo on Easy.

Anyways, head back into the hall going out the door by the body under the ‘Remember Citadel’ writing, and hang a left and go into the door there. Oh dear! There’s a hybrid finishing someone off. Show him what it feels like to die, then swipe the other dead guy’s 6 armor piercing bullets. There are some catwalks nearby, and a recharge station! How convenient! Looks rather suspicious, though. If you’re a hacker now wouldn’t be a bad time to take out the security systems. If you like to run for your life then leave everything as is. Go down, and lift the psi hypo off the top of the boxes in the corner of the room by the catwalks.

Head for the recharge station, and when the doors slide open to reveal two turrets, run for the safety of the recharge station while Xerxes informs you that the unauthorized usage of firearms aboard the Von Braun is a class 3 infraction. So there! You won’t get in trouble for that. Inch forward and swipe the 10 nanites off the ground and the 2 cyber modules and 1 med hypo off the corpse. If you’re patient, you can wait until you hear the turrets close, but I never do, I just run for the ladder. Might take a few tries but you can make it in one piece.

Once you’re done there, head into the chemical store room. There’s another loaded gun on a corpse, there’s 7 bullets. In the bottom crate are 12 bullets. Polito advises you not to carry all the chemicals at once, but why not bring, say, the Fm chemical with you? And put, say, the chemical Os, and 2 containers of Sb somewhere easy to get to? Once you’re done storing your chemicals, head to the bulkhead and open it up. If you have enough modules to get something, go for it, then head into the bulkhead.

[TheNightTerror]

Medical Sector

Once here, you can either raid the place and lift everything you can possibly get, or just take a nice, quick, easy route to get what you need. Me, I always raid the place, so when you first end up on the other side of the bulkhead, you want to go down the hallway where the hybrid is. Hide behind the wall and listen to his footsteps, once he’s walked up the ramp and is going down the higher hallway, run around the corner, and imbed your wrench into his back. Then, go into the room he was heading for, and listen to Xerxes chatting away. In the room, there's a surgical bed key on the floor underneath the desk, and in the desk, there’s version 1 research software, and a log. There’s an incomplete surgical bed nearby, but there’s a complete one not far away, so just keep it for a better occasion.

When you leave the room, there’s a ledge in front of you with 10 nanites on it. Hop across, pick it up, then crouch, and inch forward towards the drop until you fall. You shouldn’t take any damage, and the monkeys in those glass tubes should stay calm. They always break the glass when they know you’re there, just so you know. Lift the log off the desk, and the psi hypo inside it. One of the corpses has 2 cyber modules on him. Next, it’s time to show the monkeys who’s boss.

Go along the wall the farthest from the door, and run towards the wall that juts out slightly and will hide you from the monkeys. This will probably freak at least one of the monkeys out, and he’ll break the glass. Normally I would say just bang on the walls and jump around until the monkeys came around the corner looking for you, but these fellos are lazy and won’t come out. Run around the wall, and run to the glass tube farthest to the left. Crouch, then step sideways and beat down the first monkey, and then sidestep and take out the other one. Hopefully you’ll be able to lift one of their brains and research them. In the two crates in the room, there are 2 med hypos. Don’t go out through the doors, you’ll upset the turret. Shatter the glass window in the room and hop through there.

Once you walk up the ramp, head right down the hall and go into the first room on your right. Activate the resurrection station, get 17 nanites from the desk, and heal yourself if the monkeys were particularly nasty to you. This room’s a fairly good place to run to if you need to be healed; I usually come here in the earlier parts of the game. Go back into the hall, and continue going the way you were going, then go in the first door on your left and take out a hybrid. This will probably upset all the monkeys within hearing range. Lift the med hypo off the corpse, and if you’re hacking, get 6 standard bullets from the security crate.

Go back into the hallway, then charge it and destroy the camera. I usually practice my run-jump-kill technique on this camera, if you run towards it, then leapt just before you get to it and swing your wrench, you should be able to take it out. Taking it out while airborne does the job faster than if you run under it and swing, and sometimes it can mean the different between the alarm going off or not. Once the camera’s out, then crouch, stay hidden behind the wall, and listen carefully for the monkeys.

There are two monkeys down the left hall, and one down the hall to your right. Worry about the ones on your left first, but listen to the other one carefully. Normally he stays in a radiated room, but he may come up behind you and fire a cryokinesis blast up your ass, so be cautious. Ever since I installed SS2 on my new computer he’s left his radiated room, the first time he did it I was in for one hell of a surprise. I didn’t pay any attention to him and didn’t realize his screeching was getting louder. If you hear him coming closer, run back there and kill him, then go back and deal with the other two.

Taking out the camera will have really upset the two monkeys down the hall, so if you just wait and listen to their footsteps while standing around the corner, you should be safe. It’s always charming standing there and listening to their footsteps slowly getting closer while having to be ready to run in case another monkey sneaks up behind you, especially at 4 in the morning wearing headphones. Once the two monkeys down the hall are gone, take out the other one, if you haven’t already. Once you have, there are two different routes you can take to get to the crew sector card. From the hallway you were in, with the resurrection station in it, you can either go left, and down the hallway and under the destroyed camera, or you can go right, towards where the lone monkey was. I normally go right, but if you’re not hacking and would like a suit of combat armor heading into Engineering, going left will get you one. Either way, I’ll write separate sections for each.

Left

There’s a radiated room to your right, the one that one of the monkeys was in. If you choose to go in there, there’s a log on a desk, and a psi hypo, a rad hypo, and 23 nanites in a security crate. If you’re not hacking there’s not really any point in going in there.

Down the hall, after it turns right, are two shotgun hybrids who’ll pay you a visit once you get close enough. There’s also a turret down the hall, so if you’re not fast you could get shot by it. Take out the hybrids, and then go into the first room on your right, where one of the hybrids came out of. There’s a suit of light combat armor on a corpse, and a psi hypo in a crate.

When you leave the room, things get tricky. You need to hang a right, run down the hall, and get into the door on your right before the turret blasts you to pieces, and then leap onto a desk to take out the camera, and then take out the monkey before he kills you. Or, of course, you could always backtrack and follow the walkthrough down the right hallway…

Right

Head down the hallway, until you reach a spot with ‘run’ written in blood on the wall, and a door to your left. If the lone monkey never showed up, ignore both and keep going down the hallway, past the ghost, and go into the room with the decontamination shower. He’ll be in the radiated room, wait by the door, and bang on the wall until he comes out to greet you. Inside the first radiated room are a rad hypo, and a log. In the second one, there are 2 cyber modules on a corpse, 26 nanites in a crate, and a rad hypo in another crate. Once you have that, high tail it out of there and take a shower. Go back to the door that you ignored, and inside it you’ll find 7 nanites, a log, a bottle of booze, and a plant.

Next, shatter the glass window across from the radiated room, then hop through it and stay away from the door. The breaking glass should be enough to upset the monkey into coming into the room, when he does kill him quickly. Next, run into the room and quickly take out the camera. Do a running jump towards it and swing with your wrench, it should be fairly effective. Once it’s down, search the desk in the room with the broken window and lift a med hypo.

Hop onto the ladder, which should trigger the Many speech, then climb up the ladder, and get some supplies. In the unlocked crates you’ll find 20 nanites and a psi hypo, and in the locked one there’s 26 nanites, and a pistol with 5 bullets in it. Head back down, and lift the crew quarters key off a corpse, then get a med hypo and a log off a counter by the sink. Now, it’s time to head on back to the locked door by the bulkhead…

Crew sector

When you open the door, keep in mind there’s a hybrid patrolling the length of the hallway here. He may be within sight when you open the door, he might not. Just remember while you’re raiding the rooms that he’s going to show up any second. In the first room on your left, there’s a desk with a magazine on it, and a log in it. There are also 6 standard bullets in a recess in the wall. Back in the hall, on the first and only door on the right, there’s lots of junk food, which you should get, eating some snacks in Engineering will be helpful. Sort of under the table in the middle of the room, on the side closest to where all the food is, there’s a grenade launcher with 2 grenades in it. Unload it, and throw it away. Once you’re done in that room, on the left side of the hallway is a rather banged up room, in the desk there are 6 rifled slugs.

Head through the big door in the hallway, and lift a log off the electronic equipment to your right. There’s a small armory behind the locked door, but you can’t get the code until Deck 4, by then you’ll probably have forgotten about it. I opened the door early and checked it out. There’s 3 grenades on a corpse, 2 bottles of alcohol beside him, an assault rifle with 4 bullets in it, 2 med kits and 12 anti-personnel bullets in a crate, 2 portable batteries in another one, and a suit of standard combat armor. By then you’ll probably have found a suit of standard combat armor, so unless you need the batteries and med kits you might as well not bother.

Now, it’s upgrade time! We’ve got all 4 upgrade units in a room across the hall from where the armory is, and there’s even an OS upgrade unit. The OS upgrades I think are pretty much necessary are Lethal Weapon, Smasher, and Cybernetically Enhanced. Lethal Weapon you should get first, it increases the amount of damage you deal with melee weapons and it’s good for situations where you, say, walk around a corner and end up face to face with a robot. For your second OS choice, I’d get Cybernetically Enhanced. If you can plug both an EnduraBoost and BrawnBoost implant into your brain, you’ll be pretty safe so long as you don’t run out of power. For the 3rd choice, get Smasher for the overhead swings. For your final choice, I’d recommend either Pharmo Friendly or Tank. I’d go with Pharmo Friendly, but it’s your choice.

Anyways, once you’re done at the OS upgrade unit, upgrade yourself at the regular stations however you see fit. There’s a plethora of crap lying around in the upgrade unit room, when you leave this sector it couldn’t hurt for you to throw everything into the bulkhead so its transported with you.

Next, it’s time to raid the crew rooms. First, though, there’s a pipe hybrid who will probably come up fairly soon. Wait for him to show up, and kill him. Then, it’s time to search the rooms, we’ll start with the upper ones. The first room has 3 bags of chips in it, the second one has 2 grenades in a desk, and a rad hypo in a locked crate. If you hack the computer, you can take down the shield blocking entrance to the closet. Take out the camera, then get the suit of light combat armor, the med kit, and the booze.

The next two rooms are not only both in view of a camera which you can’t reach, but they don’t have much in them. The closest room has a pack of cigarettes, a magazine, and a mug in it, so if you’re combing through the levels and taking everything that can be recycled, then you can try for it. There’s nothing in the next room, just some toilets and a pile of worms.

By now you’ll probably have spotted the shotgun hybrid. I used to shoot him far enough away that I couldn’t hear his death cry, but those days are long gone. Go down into the lower hallway, then get as close to him as you can. Listen to the camera, if you hear it go off run underneath the floor of the upper hallway. Hopefully the alarm won’t go off. When the hybrid spots you, dive behind the nearest wall and wait for him to come up to you, then beat the crap out of him. Once he’s dead, you can search the lower rooms in peace.

In the hallway, lying in the water, is a corpse with 6 standard bullets on him. In the first room, there’s a love log from Tommy to Rebecca. In the second room, there’s a psi hypo in a desk, and a log by Polito. In the third room, there’s a BrawnBoost implant in the trash can. Bring it with you, you can switch implants whenever the one equipped dies out. In the fourth room there’s 10 nanites on a corpse.

In the fifth room, the one at the end of the hall, you need to hit a light switch to turn the lights in there back on. Once you can see, go to the crate, and look up. There’s 20 nanites on a ledge up there, jump up and you should be able to reach it. In the other corner of the room, there’s a ladder leading up to a narrow ledge. There’s a wider ledge up there, hop over there and you’ll find 4 cyber modules on a corpse. Once you’re done in that room, go into the room opposite, where you’ll find an R+D sector key. Once you have it, head back to the other sector.

Science Sector Part III

Once you’ve returned from the Medical sector, head back into the hallway with the elevator in it. Just before the door to where the chemical room is, there’s a hallway heading down to your right, with a camera. Stay behind the wall that sticks out a bit, it’ll hide you from the camera. When you feel lucky, get ready to swing, then charge the camera, and destroy it. Head down the hallway to the first door on your left, then crouch, and walk in. There’s both a hybrid and a monkey in here, they both need to die. The lights will go out when they’re alerted, but you can turn them back on with a light switch in the room. There are 3 toxin hypos in one desk, and a log in the other. There’s a security crate in an adjacent room, there’s a med hypo, rad hypo, and 11 nanites in it.

Sometimes, the door that you use to get into the room doesn’t open again, for me anyways. In fact, it’s jammed so often that I’ve decided it’s normal for it to jam. The hybrid that you can see through the glass windows won’t be able to open it either, even if the door magically does open, he gets stuck running back and forth on the debris in the hallway, so maybe it’s not so bad. You can shatter all the windows leading to the room he’s in, so do that, then hop through the window into the room with him and beat him up.

There’s a fallen air conditioning duct in the corner of the room, take it out and you’ll find a med hypo under it. When you leave the room, lift a med hypo out of a body bag on a gurney. There’s a hybrid in this lower section nearby, I used to have lots of fun using him as target practice, shooting him in various different areas, let’s just say. Since you don’t have a pistol, just jump down and kill him, then lift 20 nanites out of the garbage can. In the security crate, there’s 44 nanites. Climb back out, then lift a hard to see log off the gurney across from the replicator. Incidentally, this is one of my supply replicators. I get med hypos from the first one you find, and toxin hypos from this one, whenever I run low.

Open the door, and stay to the left, out of sight of the security camera. This one’s a bit hard to get to. It’s quite a ways down the hall and you have to run like hell, then leap, and destroy the camera before it sets off the alarm. It you can’t get there in time, check to see if you have any keys bound so you can actually run. If you do, but still can’t make it, then shoot up a speed hypo. You’ll probably get hurt crashing into the wall, but hey, it’s better than a security alert.

Once you’ve taken out the camera, go into the room to your left, and wave at the turret behind the unbreakable glass, who’s guarding the ammo and strength hypo, then head into the smaller room, where there’s a corpse with a pistol by him, with 11 bullets in it. Head back into the hall, and head into the door on your right. Lift 6 standard bullets from the overturned desk, a maintenance tool off the corpse, 6 anti-personnel shotgun shells out of a crate, 6 armor piercing bullets off the counter, and a log off the counter on the other side of the sink.

Head back into the hall, and pick up the bottle of juice on the floor between the two corpses. The far one has a speed hypo, and 12 standard bullets. Once the hall takes a turn, get the 6 shotgun shells out of the shotgun on the corpse in the room on your right. There’s 6 standard some more bullets on a ledge to your left, once you’re back in the hall, but take out the security camera first, then head into the room.

Once you’re in the room with the hybrid, head down and beat him up. There’s a corpse in the corner of the room with 6 armor piercing bullets on him, and a pistol with 1 standard bullet in it in front of him. When you approach Watts, he’ll talk to you, and then two shotgun hybrids will show up. You need to trigger the conversation, then run back to the elevator and get right by the door before the hybrids show up. You’ll be close enough to hit them before they actually get into the room and are able to shoot you. You won’t actually be able to kill them before they get into the room, but hey, every little bit helps. Once they’re dead, get the logs off the guy who’s now dead, and wonder if the stomach lying on the floor is his or not. Now you have the code to the maintenance conduit, so you should go there now.

When you reach the hallway, you’ll probably notice the robot decided to get out and take a little stroll. Bang on the wall to lure him towards you, then when you can see him, charge him and get right in his face, and swing. Hope like hell a weird little bug I get sometimes happens when you kill him, sometimes the explosion when the robot blows up doesn’t happen right, and I don’t take any damage from it. Punch in the code to the door, 12451 for those too lazy to find out for themselves. (I just realized, 451 is in the second code in the game, too. I’ve played this game for 5 years and just realized that?) Inside the room, there’s a corpse with a maintenance tool on him.

Preparations for Engineering

You should probably do a little bit of shopping before you head onto Engineering. Since there’s radiation in the coolant tubes, it couldn’t hurt to get a few more rad hypos. I never use them myself, I only ever use them in the last radiated area in the game, since I’m usually stuck there a while. Either way, I usually just get med hypos to get me through the coolant tubes. Pick up the chemical Os, and take it with you, although to get to the object you’ll be researching you might have to do some hacking to get through it in pieces that aren’t in the two or three digit range. Heal up with the surgery machine, there’s a complete one by Watts, and hit the recharge station in the room with the Diego log. Then, you should be in good shape, and it’ll be time to head onto Engineering…

To be Continued . . .


That's just the rough draft, I whipped that up in maybe 3 or 4 hours and only had the patience to read it over once, so it still needs some work. If you guys notice any typos, mistakes about where something is, or if my direction giving's too confusing, just let me know where I screwed up and I'll fix it up. I'll get the walkthrough for Engineering going, but considering how jumpy I've been today I'll bet I won't make it much past the coolant tubes and the first protocol droid.

[TheNightTerror]

And back I am! I went and played through Engineering, I wrote up a walkthrough for it. I totally skimped out on the walkthrough for the cargo bays, though, I'll probably do a better one later. But after spending another 4 hours on the walkthrough I really, really need a break. Here's what I've done:

Section 3, Deck 1, Engineering Deck

Coolant Tubes

Now, it's time to get rolling on the deck that's actually somewhat tricky. When we land in the first room, there's some stuff to pick up off the ground. There’s a severed arm with a bottle of vodka still in hand. Since the owner of both the arm and the vodka has long since departed, snatch the bottle, and pick up the rad hypo nearby. There’s a mug on the floor by the desk in the next room, and the desk has a log, med hypo, and 20 nanites in it. If you haven’t already, enable the minimap.

When you go through the two doors, you’ll be in the radiated coolant tubes. You need to get into the engine core, the sign on the floor tells you to go left to get there. When you go through the door only door along the way, you’ll be face to face with a hybrid, so be ready to kill him. The corpse behind him has 2 cyber modules, swipe them. There’s a pack of cigarettes on the floor by the security crate, which has 6 armor piercing bullets and a med hypo in it. You can't go through the door there, the safety seals are locked because of the radiation. You need to purge the radiation, you need to head through the level until you find a lead.

Now, it’s time to get out of the coolant tubes. If you look at the full sized map, you’ll see there’s one corridor that leads south, if a spaceship has a south. If you see a ghost of someone dying of radiation poisoning, you’re going the right way. There’s a room on your left which holds a corpse with 2 cyber modules on him, a pistol with 1 bullet in it, and a crate with 6 anti-personnel shotgun shells in it. Keep going down the corridor until you get another e-mail from Polito, she’ll give you the code to Utility Storage 4.

In the coolant tubes, there are two doors heading towards the shuttle bay, asides from the inaccessible one that leads to the engine core. The path near the top of the map is the one with the most radiation, if you take the lower path you won’t take as much damage. I ran into 2 hybrids going through here, but I felt like I missed one, he was probably patrolling the upper path through the coolant tubes. Just before you reach the door leading out, you’ll find Utility Storage 4 on your left, and a corpse with 6 standard bullets on him. Punch in the code for the door which Polito provided, 59004 for the lazy, and raid the crates. There’s a toxin/radiation suit, a rad hypo, a speed booster, a med hypo, and 10 nanites. Leave the coolant tubes, and get ready for another awkward moment.

Interlude 2

Protocol droid explosion dodging

This is something that you can’t really be taught, but you have to learn on your own. As you know, these friendly little fellos walk up to you and blow themselves up. However, with enough practice, you can get close enough that they’ll blow up, and be able to run away and not be caught in the explosion. I was never good at judging distances even in real life, so I can’t tell you how close you have to be before they blow up. I'm useless, I know.

But, try getting the protocol droid to chase you, then turn around and walk backwards, and pay attention to how close the droid gets before it blows up. Once you know how far away you can be before it’ll blow up, then try running towards one, and turning when you’re the same distance away. Hopefully you’ll get the hang of it, there’s nothing like a group of these pests to ruin your day.

Now, back to regular programming…

On the way to the Shuttle Bay

Now, you’re right where you need to deal with a protocol droid. Bad is that it’s the first one in the game and you probably haven’t tried dodging the explosions before. Plus, it’s a nice cramped area. Not to mention the damn security camera in the best area to try dodging. It’s a bit awkward to destroy, you need to be under it and to jump, and by then it’ll have spotted you. Stopping with a droid after you isn’t the best idea. If you can’t dodge the droid’s explosion, run into the ressurection station, and activate it on your way in. The camera will have seen you, and the droid will have too. He’ll come in and blow you to bits, the camera won't be able to see you for too long, and if you don’t survive you won’t go anywhere.

Once it’s exploded, take the camera out, and lift the log off the floor. Check the decapitated female corpse, she has 15 nanites on her. If you have a sick sense of humor, try nudging the nearby head and pushing it back towards her body and try to position it so that it’s almost back in place. I did it once and now it's almost a tradition for me.

You’ve probably heard a monkey inside the central room. He’s on the top catwalk thingy, climb the ladder up and smack him with the wrench. There’s 12 armor piercing bullets in front of the security computer. If you climb down to the lowest level, you’ll find a corpse with 2 cyber modules, and 5 nanites on her.

Go through the door that had the log in front of it, and go up the metal floor. You’ll run into a pipe hybrid, but showing him how superior the wrench is to the pipe will deal with him. There are two corpses in the room, the male one has a maintenance tool on him. There’s a camera in the room just past the security computer, take it out.

Now’s the fun part. We’ve got an area with a nasty amount of respawning baddies, and there’s turrets along the way to boot. Since the resurrection station is active, you can get killed as many times as you need to take them out. When a security camera gets thrown in the mix things get ugly, though. Anyways, head on through the door, and take out the camera. Go through the next door, and get 6 standard bullets from the corpse, and 2 bullets out of the gun by his hand. Go up the grav lift, and get the log off the floor. Go back down, and continue the way you were going. There’s a turret in this next room, take it out.

The next room is very awkward to get through. There’s an out of reach camera, two turrets, a card on a body half way through the room that you may need to finish the game, and the room’s pretty big. So, if you’re hacking, I’d strongly recommend you take down the security and destroy both turrets. If you’re on Easy and specializing in hacking you may be good enough to hack one of the turrets. But, I’m going to assume you can’t.

When you get into the room, run straight through to the bulkhead. Once you’re out of sight of both turrets and the camera, wait a bit. When you hear the turrets retract, run forward, frob the body, and run back. You may be able to stay in use mode from just out of sight of the turrets and the camera. If not, you’ll probably have to take down the cameras to get the card. Once you have it, run into the central room, and get out of sight of the camera. There’s a red squishy thing on the surgery table, research it. It’ll heal you once you know what it is. There’s 15 nanites on the corpse, 15 in a locker, and 2 cyber modules and a log in the other. There’s also light combat armor, which you should have by now, and the two upgrade units you’re not allowed to use. When you leave the room you’ll meet up with 2 shotgun hybrids. Do the only humane thing there is, kill them.

Pre-Cargo Bay Times

Well, we’re almost to the cargo bays now! Almost. Head forward, and when you reach the room with the big central column, go to the left to avoid accidentally getting yourself zapped. Everything fades to white, and in a CamVator vision, the Many tries to convince you to join them, because their biology yearns for you, and gives you a tour of their innards in an attempt to do so. Thanks, but no thanks. Once the vision’s over, head into the next room and lift a log off the floor, and get 3 packs of cigarettes out of a box, and 4 bottles of liquor out of another. Head into the next room, which has 4 doors, and a camera in it. Take the camera out.

Now, depending on what kind of shape you’re in, and how the idea of going to the cargo bays with only a wrench sounds to you, you may want to get the resurrection station running. Since I’m a smart person and went through the bulkhead with 9 hitpoints left, I’m going to go fire it up and write the walkthrough for it. If you don’t want to go there, then skip the next part and go straight to the Cargo Bays section.

Precautions

Head straight through to the room with the barrels in it. You need to get into the grav shaft heading up to where the resurrection station is, which is to your left. Don’t waste any time. There’s a turret who’ll happily shoot you, or shoot the barrels and blow them up, a monkey who can also shoot you, and a shotgun hybrid who'll love to kill you too. I got shot by the turret, and ended up with 1 hitpoint left and had to break down and use a med hypo. Head up the elevator, and watch the ghost kill himself. Looks like you, doesn’t he?

Walk forward and out the door far enough for a hybrid to throw a severed head at you, then back up. There’s a pipe hybrid and a shotgun hybrid up here, take them out, but stay out of sight of the camera. Once they’re dead, you can knock out the camera in relative safety. Despite being on a high floor, setting off the alarm will still result in baddies coming for you. They’ll just magically appear at the top of the elevator. If you don’t believe me, then set the alarm off, and when you go back to watch the elevator and end up face to face with someone who appeared out of nowhere in 2 seconds, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Activate the resurrection station, and relax a bit. Search the bodies, you’ll nab 10 nanites. Get a log off one of the computers, then look outside if you want. There’s 2 upgrade units in here, the only 2 you’re allowed to use actually. If you want to increase your strength or endurance stats, this is the time to do it.

Once you’re finished with the upgrade units, kill the shotgun hybrid in the main room, the monkey on the high ledge, and the hybrid down in the hole, however you see fit. If you’re hacking turrets then leave it be and let it do the dirty work, otherwise take it out. The turrets aren’t wise, though, even if they’re not hacked, if you can get the shotgun hybrid between you and it, it’ll shoot the hybrid until it drops, then shoot you. Once the hybrid is dead, head for the turret, but never approach it in a straight line, and beat it down.

Once all hostility in the room has been neutralized, get some supplies. In the crates by the ledge where the monkey was, you’ll find 8 packs of cigarettes, 9 bottles of liquor, a log, a maintenance tool, 2 bags of chips, a bottle of juice, and 20 nanites. In the hole where the hybrid was, there’s 6 rifled slugs and 6 anti personnel bullets. Once you’re done there, hit the recharge station, and then it’s off to the cargo bays . . .

How to cope with the Cargo Bays 101

I’ll write a shortened version of getting what you need from the cargo bays, for those who really don’t want to explore, and for my own convenience, because simply feeling a bit lazy. I’ll get a list of what’s in there later, for now just check out www.sshock2.com , which has a walkthrough that does list everything in the cargo bays.

You can’t immediately get into Cargo Bay 2, where the woman who recoded the door in Hybrid Spawn Central is hiding, so go to Cargo Bay 1. There was some kind of itty bitty problem there, there’s a corpse under some debris, and the key card slot is smoking. The door will open anyways, which is always nice. And you’ll see the hallway is littered with protocol droid shipping crates, which isn’t so nice, even with a resurrection station going, considering sometimes they break out of the crates and come say hello. You could destroy the crates themselves but they explode, so you’d just be creating more of a problem.

You can probably hear a robot to your left and a hybrid to your right. You want to go towards the hybrid, who packs a shotgun, waiting until you can barely hear the robot before you go couldn’t hurt. If you don’t want to search the whole cargo bay, and you only want to get the card, you don’t need to deal with the robot at all. Take out the hybrid, then go to the back of the room.

You’ll see a long row of protocol droid crates with a body lying in front of them. There’s an elevator between the row of crates and one of the doorways you can enter from. If you don’t want to/can’t do some protocol droid explosion dodging, then this is your salvation. When you go out of use mode when you search the body, who has the Cargo Bay 2 card, the droids will be released. Unless you’re dodging the explosions, run to the elevator and take it up. Wait for a droid to walk under it, then drop it on its head. It’s quite funny. “Sir, where are you?” *BANG*

Once you’re safe, head out to Cargo Bay 2. I thought I was in the clear but a droid spawned in the room with the 4 doors and came and blew up in my face. Goggles managed to shake it off, but then I heard ‘hazardous anomaly’ from behind me. Robot on the way! I went through the door to get closer and ran face to face into a pipe hybrid who I’m guessing also spawned at some point. The robot didn’t find me, though. I just thought I’d share in case something similar happens. This is why I never clear out levels until I’m almost finished with them, I don’t need the heart attacks I get when someone pops up from behind me and starts emptying their shotgun into me.

Back on topic here. Once you get to Cargo Bay 2, you need to get all the way to the other end of it, then go to the top level to find the log with the code to the door. Once in the bay, hang a right, and head over there. I’m not lazy, honest, but I’m only going to get you there, I won’t walk you through finding everything there is in the bay. Before you go through the door to Cargo Bay 2B, you’ll probably run into a pipe hybrid, past it there’s 2 more.

Next, there’s a segment that can be problematic. There’s a hallway with a turret in it, and there’s a maintenance robot nearby. But, remember in the nice big room where there was the turret by all the explosive barrels? And how you could get the turret to shoot the hybrid for you even if it wasn’t hacked? You can do the same thing here. The turret will probably fire a few shots at you as you run into the hallway and hide behind the boxes, and that will send the robot on a search. Jump up and down and bang on the boxes, and he should show up. Walk into him, and beat him with the wrench, the combination of being beaten by the wrench and the turret will probably see him die shortly. Just back up before he explodes and get out of the turret’s sight before it has a clear shot at you.

Head into the next room, and ride the one working elevator up to the top floor. There’s a robot up here, jump up and down until he comes over then beat the crap out of him until only debris is left. You could leap forward off the elevator, search the body of the woman who has the log then go back down, but what’s the fun in leaving the robot alive? Don’t bother getting the French-Epstein device she has, though. I never was able to recycle it, therefore it’s of no use.

It’s time to backtrack…

Head back out of the Cargo Bay, and leave via the bulkhead you came from. Those who’ve played System Shock 1 are probably familiar with ritual suicides. You likely will want to do one here. It’s not graceful, but I have a hard time getting out the door and out of sight of the camera before the alarm sounds. If you stand to the far left of the bulkhead, the turret which doesn’t have a camera above it will shoot you to death. If you don’t want to do this, run into the room in the middle of the room, where you found the squishy red thing. Wait there a moment, then run around it and hide behind the wall by the crates. Then, run for the door. Either way, head back to the locked door up the gravshaft, which you now have the code for. For the lazy people, the code’s 15061.

There are 6 anti-personnel bullets on the corpse, and a log on the floor. Try to use the computer, but you’ll find out it’s not working either. However, the log on the floor is by the ever resourceful Delacroix. She installed a back door to the fluidics control computer. You need 45M-DEX from Auxiliary Storage 5. Bad news is its back to the radiated coolant tubes for you! Before you leave via the grav shafts, check under a misplaced metal sheet, you’ll find a med hypo.

Remember where you went to trigger the e-mail from Polito back at the beginning of the level? Keep going down that hallway and you’ll get there. There’s a few friendly beings along the way, a shotgun hybrid, and a pipe hybrid. When you get to the room, search the body and swipe his 2 cyber modules. Open up the door, 34760 for the lazy, and head on in.

Ah, a chemical store room! Beautiful. Find 45M-DEX, and bring along the chemical V. Why? Why not? Head in the room in back, kill the monkey, and search the desk and swipe 10 nanites and 6 bullets. Delacroix said to install the hardware override you just picked up in command control, which was where the resurrection station was on the other side of the bulkhead. Head back there.

You’ll probably run into a spawned friend or two along the way, maybe even seven, one spawned right in front of my eyes when I went through the bulkhead. Once you get to command control, install the hardware override in the slot, and you'll be able to get the coolant tubes purged. Head back there, commiting suicide to get past the turrets again if need be, and purge the radiation.

[TheNightTerror]

Backtrack we need not do again

The coolant tubes are now safe to walk in, so if you had your hazard suit equipped, put the combat armor back on. Take hallway that was the most radiated, and keep an eye out for corpses or hybrids you may have missed. Once you get back to the door that was locked before, head in there, then climb up the ladder, and go through the door. You should be in a nice big room. There’s a pipe hybrid who will shortly come up the ramps across the room. There may or may not be a monkey around here. On occasion, I’ve found the monkey caught under the grating by the door to the starboard nacelle. If he’s stuck there, walk over and laugh at him. He’ll try to shoot you, but since the blast will hit the grate and be close enough to hurt him, he’ll die after 2 shots.

That aside, now you need to power up computers in each of the nacelles, which order is up to you. Keep in mind there’s an unreachable camera in the starboard nacelle by the door to the computer room, and a shotgun hybrid patrolling by the port nacelle. When you’ve power up both computers, head down the ramp to where the pipe hybrid appeared from. There’s a corpse with 15 nanites and a laser rapier on him.

I never used the laser rapier, and I doubt I ever will. The minimum requirements to use it are too high for my tastes, and I can survive to Deck 4 to get the crystal shard without any trouble. Just to quickly test it, I loaded a save file fairly late in the game and summoned the rapier when I had the modules to get the skills to use it. It doesn’t seem to reach any farther than the wrench, so it’s definitely not worth the trouble. Just hang in there until Deck 4.

Check your map, you should notice there’s some numbers near where you are, meaning there's either a higher or lower level nearby. Go to number 1, it’s an elevator which will take you to where you need to go. Once you’re up there, activate the computer in the room. Odds are you’ll upset the shotgun hybrid nearby and he’ll come for you. If you go out to greet him in the room where he was, beware the camera above the door with the keypad. It’s too high to reach, but you can dodge it once you're far enough into the game to get the code for the keypad. There's two doors leading out of the room with the main power computer, go into the one you haven’t been through yet. There’s 2 bottles of booze, a bottle of juice, a pack of cigarettes, a mug, a log, and inside the desk, there's a psi hypo and 10 nanites.

A Side Trip

Do you feel like cracking some more skulls and getting a few more supplies? If so, read on, if not, skip to the next section and go to the elevator. There’s a lift that was offline before but works now, the one by the hatch you used to get into the engine core. Go down it. Inside the security crate right next to the lift you’ll find a bottle of juice, a PsiBoost Implant, and 6 anti-personnel bullets.

There’s a shotgun hybrid just down the way, end his life. On the platform opposite the one the hybrid was on, there’s a corpse with a speed hypo, and a female corpse with 2 cyber modules and 12 nanites. Past the archway there’s a turret, neutralize it however you want. There’s nothing on the platforms past the next archway, past the next one and you’ll have 2 shotgun hybrids to play with.

Once they’re dealt with, it’s time for your first cyborg midwife kill. Hopefully you’ll be able to research some of her guts once she’s dead and you can kill the rest faster. When you can see her, charge her, then crouch and swing. The midwives have both ranged and melee attacks, but if you crouch, they can’t hit you, on most occasions. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. They're rather disturbing creatures who really need to die. The corpse near her has 12 standard bullets on him. Head up the lift, and back to the elevator.

Preparations for Hydro

Unfortunately for Polito’s patience, you’ll soon find out that you can’t make it to Deck 4. There’s a blockage in the elevator shaft and you can’t go any higher than Deck 3. You’ll be up against spiders, eggs, worms, and quite a few more midwives. You definitely need toxin hypos before heading up there, you’ll need to circle strafe the spiders to take them out, and since you have to take the eggs out with a wrench to boot, you’ll probably get infected with toxins more than once. Head back to good old safe Deck 2, and get toxin hypos from the replicator near the door to the R+D sector, and med hypos from the replicator the ghost was by, if you need them. Pick up the chemicals Sb and V which you should've found and stored somewhere by now. If you don't have it already, make sure you have research skills. Level 1 is all you need. Then, heal up, hit the recharger, and you should be good to go.

To be continued…

And I'm spent. Fire away any comments you have, my sanity could use a break.

[Sah]

Wild stuff. I'm not that much of a SS2 mofo, but this tutorial makes me think about finishing the game again. Good job!

[TheNightTerror]

Thanks. Well, I guess I can't very well stop what I've started, so I'll try to remember to do a very, very, very rough draft of a walkthrough for Hydro later tonight, since I haven't slept in over a day already I'll need to read it over once I've slept.

I could use a little bit of input on what to do about the little video I'm throwing together, which has only the 3 tricky spots I mentioned I video captured so far. Currently the resolution's still at 640x480, and there's no sound, so what format and resolution should I save it as once I'm done? And, is there something I should add to my little 'yes, it IS possible to do this and survive' video? Somehow I think there's going to be requests that I capture the death of Korenchkin and the first rumbler in the game . . . wonder why. Just please don't ask me to film my entire rampage through the brain room. At 7 fps at best, it'll kill what's left of my "sanity."

[Waffnuffly]

Oh my god man, I started a melee-only game on Impossible difficulty. I'm finally up to Hydro D now, but JESUS, this is like 10 times harder than ever before. Great idea!

[TheNightTerror]

And, after a very nice long nap and a run through Hydroponics, I give you the walkthrough. Hopefully a quick readover was enough to catch any errors in here . . .

Section 4, Deck 3, Hydroponics

Finding Toxin A

When you try to go to Deck 4, you'll find out the elevator shaft's jammed, so go to Deck 3 instead. You'll get an e-mail from Polito, listen to it and leave the elevator. The first time I played the game, I made a bee-line for the security station I could see. That was in the good old days, when I was a whimpering baby who took down the security even when every camera and turret in the deck was destroyed, but even now that I’ve toughened up slightly, I still go down there first. If you go down the hall past the security station, 2 shotgun hybrids will come out of the two doors. It’s possible to kill them both before they can even get a shot off, especially if they foolishly stop in the doorways.

In the far room, there’s a log and 6 shotgun shells in the desk. In the other room, you find the first vial of Toxin-A. When you approach it, Polito will e-mail you, and a few seconds later you’ll hear a midwife in the hall. Run to the door, and wait for her, crouching, then kill her once she’s close enough. Pick up the vial of Toxin A, then research it.

Since you probably won’t have a research skill higher than 1 or 2, you’ll probably be waiting a while for it to finish. If you want you can go back to Deck 2 to avoid giving the game time to spawn more friends for you to play with on Deck 3. But, by the time you get to the first regulator it should be almost fully researched, so you don’t have to.

Once you’ve got the Toxin A, head back to the security station, and up the ramp. There’s a camera up by the glass windows, run up there and give it a good hearty smack. You’ve probably heard hybrids and a midwife nearby, they’re behind the glass windows and will become particularly upset when you destroy the camera. You don’t have to worry about them coming after you, as they can't open doors that you need a keycard for, you can search the computer areas nearby in relative safety. You’ll find a bottle of juice and a can of pop in the garbage can by the female corpse, who has a PsiBoost implant and 10 nanites on her. By the other computer, near the door to sector A, you’ll find a desk with a mug and magazine on it.

Now, it’s time to deal with the hybrids and the midwife. Break the glass and jump down. The best spot to try this is by the door to sector A, they probably won’t be able to see you there and you’ll have a chance to run over and kill them. You’ll only find a pipe hybrid and a shotgun hybrid, the other hybrid and the midwife are down the ladder. But first, a brief interlude…

Interlude 3

How to cope with eggs

I hate eggs. You almost always can’t get close enough to them to destroy them before they release a little present for you. Currently, you have two things to worry about them releasing. Worms, and toxin balls. Later on you’ll run into ones who release flies, but I’ll cover them all here. Firstly, you want to search every egg you find. Sometimes you’ll find the healing gland you found on the surgery table in Engineering, which is always nice.

Once you’ve searched them, inch forward until they release their present, then back off fast. If it’s a worm that’s released, they’ll come to you, and you can kill them before they get close enough to nibble on your feet. If they release toxin balls, you need to get back fast, and avoid the balls if you can. If they hit you, you’ll get infected with toxins even worse than you probably already were, and you either have to die, or use a toxin hypo to relieve your suffering. When you run into the eggs that release flies, destroy the egg, then take off. You probably won’t have been able to search them, and with the flies in your face, you probably won’t get the chance. Since running from the flies is the best and only way to deal with them, when you return to the egg it’ll be ready to release more flies for you, so there’s no point in leaving it there.

Just a side note, I’m starting to notice connections between what the eggs release, and what, if anything you find on them. If they release toxins, odds are you’ll find healing organs in them. If they release worms, if you find anything it’ll be some object I can’t remember the name of which needs to be researched. A psi organ, I think it is.

And back to the walkthrough we go…

Snowland

Now that you know a wee bit about how to take out the eggs, search the dark room you found the hybrids in. There’s a ladder leading down, and there’ll be a lot of eggs down there. Keep in mind that while you’re down here, you’ll have to worry about the shotgun hybrid and the midwife, who both have ranged attacks. Know where the nearest wall to hide behind is. When you destroy the first egg, the midwife will likely come running to defend the other eggs. Just wait for her, then kill her when she arrives, then kill the shotgun hybrid when the opportunity arises.

When you search the area down here, search and destroy all of the eggs. There’s 4 bodies down here. In no particular order, here’s what you’ll find on each of them. On the female corpse, you’ll find an ice-pick, 18 nanites, and the Hydro A card. You need it to get to one of the regulators, so make sure you get it before you leave. On one of the male corpses, you’ll find 38 nanites, 6 armor piercing bullets, and 3 cyber modules next to him. In the hallway with the regulator in it, you find 2 corpses. On the one farthest from the regulator, you find 9 nanites. On the one closest to the regulator, you find a speed hypo, 6 standard bullets, 36 nanites, and a log.

By now toxin A should be researched. Stick it into the regulator for a nice helping of cyber modules. Climb back up the ladder, and go back to the room with the windows in it. On the highest box farthest from the windows, there are 3 cyber modules. Mantle the lower boxes, and pick them up.

Exploration

Head down the hallway from the dark room, the one that has a keep clear sign in front of it. You’ll probably hear some monkeys. A lot of monkeys. Head through the big door, then hang a left, to the doors which slide open sideways. The monkeys are back here. You need to get the doors open, get the monkeys to see you, then run like hell and dive behind a wall, and wait for them to come to you. I ran into 4, there may be more. Once the monkeys are all finding out what the afterlife has in store for them, it’s time to explore. There are 2 sets of stairs leading down to watery areas. Down the first one there’s a log, and 3 cyber modules. Down the next one there’s a camera. Be ready to run down there and destroy it.

There’s a body with lots of blood around him up here, steal his 6 rifled slugs, and Hydroponics sector B card. There are 2 more monkeys down the hallway he’s facing. There’s also a shotgun, a bit hard to see in the dark. Pick it up, and throw it into the hallway. If you’re lucky, a monkey will be nearby and come to see what the noise was. If you weren’t lucky, pick it up again and go down the hallway to the corner, then throw the shotgun around the corner. That should get both monkeys aggravated, kill them.

Go past the doorway leading to the chemical store room and watch the rather disturbing ghost scene, with Dr. Miller and nurse Bloome. There are some supplies in here. There’s 2 med hypos on one of the surgical units, and a rad hypo between the two of them. There’s a corpse, who has 24 standard bullets, a laser rapier, and 16 nanites on him.

Head down the hall and go into the sliding doors on your left, then hang a left before the crates and go into the chemical store room. You can probably hear a cyborg midwife in the connecting room. Run in and kill her, judging by the log you find on her, she's nurse Bloome. She’s guarding a vial of toxin A, and the chemicals V and Sb, but you don’t need the chemicals anymore. In the chemical room, on the top shelf just to the right of the sink, you’ll find a med kit. There’s also 3 cyber modules in the trash can.

Leave the room, and go left. Be careful, there’s a camera in the room you’re about to enter. Swipe 13 nanites from the corpse in the doorway, then run behind the central column, out of sight of the camera, and get 2 med hypos from the locker. Leave, and head back towards where you entered. You can go down the hallway and destroy a series of eggs, but save before you do. You may very well end up searching all the eggs, finding nothing, then get torn apart by the midwife who spawns in the hallway you entered from.

Head back the way you came, towards Snowland, but when you see the door leading there, which has 'cold storage' written beside it, head left instead of right. There’s 6 grenades lying on the floor, and 1 inside the grenade launcher. Open the door, and you’ll hear a camera to your right. It’s out of reach. No good. Run under it, through the door and up the ramp, and you’ll find the door to Hydroponics sector A. Now’s as good a time as any to go there. When you open the door, you’ll see a camera slowly scanning the room. Wait until it’s slowly turning away from you, then charge it and destroy it.

Hydroponics sector A

When you arrive here, you’ll hear a camera to your right, and several eggs. Run around the corner, and take out the camera, then deal with the eggs. The one under the camera releases a worm for me, it may be different on different installations and difficulty settings, but on Easy it’s not too much of a danger. Go to the upgrade units, and look up. There’s a hole in the ceiling, and there’s 3 cyber modules up there. If you want to upgrade your endurance or strength stats, now is a very good time to do it.

On the female corpse, you’ll find a vial of Toxin A, and on the male corpse you’ll find a Swiftboost Implant, a pack of cigarettes, and 19 nanites. (I thought the female corpse was Delacroix my first time through the game, since there’s logs by her about how she was the one who made it, I thought she’d died trying to kill the worms.) Now, you should be ready to go.

Go through the door, and stay right. We’ll save the doors to the left for a little later. There’s a log on the floor, by Polito. Hang a right, and go into the room there. There’s 19 nanites on the corpse right in front of the door. Around the boxes, there’s 6 anti-personnel bullets in the security crate. Past the door, there’s a male corpse, then some crates. In the nearest crate, there’s an anti-toxin hypo. Head out the door, and hang a right and search the crates to find a speed hypo, 6 rifled slugs, and in the locked crate, an auto-repair unit.

If you’re hacking, I recommend you take out the security now. You’ve probably heard 2 robots past the only 2 doors you haven’t entered yet. The room’s in an H shape, and there are two cameras, each on either side of the short hallway connecting the two longer ones, and two robots, each patrolling the long hallways. If you’re not hacking, you need to be extremely careful. There are 2 ways to kill the robots, I’ll list them both.

1. Listen to the footsteps of the robot, maybe save a few times and open the door to see where the robot is. You need him to be past the camera. When you run into the hallway, destroy the camera, and keep running, then attack the robot. The other robot will come to investigate what’s going on, kill your victim before he shows up. You need to stay out of the short hallway to avoid the camera seeing you and setting off the alarm.

2. I found out this attack method by accident, I was trying to inch forward and get closer to the door to be able to hear better and the doors opened with the robot right on the other side. I leapt backwards, and beat the crap out of him, and destroyed him. Once he was dead, I waited for the other one, and backed up close to the door to the room with the crates in it. When he showed up, I ran in there, then waited for him. When he was far enough away from the door to the H hallway I attacked. Considering I took no damage, (the robots exploded wrong and I wasn’t hurt by it) this may be the better of the two attacks.

Once the robots and the cameras in the H hallway gone, do a bit of searching. On the left long hallway, you’ll find 17 nanites up by the plants on the right side of the hallway. In the connecting hallway, you’ll find a corpse on a trash can with 3 grenades, and on the corpse lying on the bench, you’ll find 12 bullets and 13 nanites. There are guns beside both corpses, I screwed up and forgot to count the bullets in them. 9 perhaps? On the right long hallway, there’s a corpse with an assault rifle lying in front of him. I’ll never understand why, but I never, ever, ever remember to search him. Maybe it’s because he holds a card you need to get into Hydroponics section D and it’s necessary to search him? Who knows. In addition to having that card, he holds 15 nanites and 12 armor piercing bullets.

Go out the door in front of him, and go down the hallway and swipe a psi hypo off the female corpse. Go through the big door, and greet the shotgun hybrid the only way you know how. Polito sends you an e-mail, telling you to get your ass in gear, but it sounds…different. There’s some kind of background noise. Weird.

There’s rooms with eggs on either side of the hallway you’ll be going down, it’s up to you whether you want to use a couple toxin hypos and try to get organs out of the eggs. There are also supplies in some of the rooms. In this section, there is nothing in the room on the right side of the hallway, but in the room on the left, there’s 6 rifled slugs lying on the floor between the eggs, and up the ladder and beside the plants on the catwalk, there’s 6 anti-personnel bullets.

You may have heard yet another robot further down the hallway. Run through the door and kill him. In the rooms on the right side of the hallway, you’ll find 3 cyber modules past the eggs, and on the catwalks up the ladder, there’s a crate with a rad hypo and 14 nanites in it. In the room on the left side of the hallway, there’s a maintenance tool and 16 nanites.

In the next room, there’s the enviromental regulator, a cyborg midwife, and a camera. Go down the hallway as far as you can without being spotted, and watch the camera. Just before it starts scanning back towards you, charge the midwife and kill her, then run back to the hallway before the alarm sounds. There’s a robot in the room behind the regulator, sometimes he comes out to say hello, sometimes he doesn’t. If he comes out, kill him, otherwise leave him be. When the camera makes the two sounds that mean it’s decided there’s really nothing there, go back into the room, stand directly under it, and hop up to destroy it. Place the Toxin A, and head back to the bulkhead.

When you get there, a shotgun hybrid will have spawned. Kill him, and search him. There’s a log, and you’ll find out this particular hybrid was not a male, but actually a female. She was originally Turnbull, the one who was pissed off with Bronson about changing the code to the Deck 2 armory. It’s one of my favorite logs, I love everything about it, especially the ending. “Don’t have any regrets about punching my clock - I was already gone.”

Hydroponics Sector B/C, continued

Once you’re back, it’s time to return to the elevator. There was a door to your right that you could’ve gone through at the beginning of the level, head through there now. In the room with the elevator in it, there’s a log on the floor, pick it up. It’s the first time I found it, and I’m feeling rather stupid right now. How many times have I played this game again? I’ve organized all the logs twice even, and listened to them all in order, and I never once noticed that there was a log I’d never found before in there. Damn. I’m really a sharp knife now aren’t I?

Anyways, once you go through the door, and through the next door, you’ll see an OS upgrade unit ahead of you. You’ll probably also hear a camera and some eggs. There’s turrets in the room with them, too, and there’s breakable windows between you and them. Despite trying to abstain from hacking when writing the walkthrough, I took down the security systems and took the turrets and cameras out, then got some organs from the eggs.

In the now very safe room that you walked into, you’ll find 3 crates with bullets in them, there’s 6 standard bullets, 6 armor piercing bullets, and 12 anti-personnel bullets. On the desk on your right, there’s a pack of cigarettes, on the counter past it there’s 3 magazines and a mug. On the next desk, there’s a bag of chips, and on the floor beside it, there’s a pistol with 12 bullets in it. There’s a recharge station here, and a tech upgrade unit. If you want to upgrade anything, go for it. At the OS upgrade unit, I’d recommend getting Smasher, the overhand swing upgrade.

Now that you’re done in the room, go out of it, then down the hall. When you go around the corner, be careful. There’s a hybrid here who has The Power. He’s able to walk through the doors like they’re not there. He may be in a room, but he can walk through the jammed door, unlike you. He can’t shoot through it though, thankfully, so wait for him to come out and kill him. Once he’s dead, go into the door down the hall from the one he walked through. There’s a log by Delacroix on the desk explaining the rather unhappy looking replicator. Mantle the desk, smash the window, and search the desks, and nab 2 vials of Toxin A, and a LabAssistant implant.

When you leave the room, go into the door across the hall. In the desk, there’s 3 cyber modules, on the female corpse, 19 nanites and a med hypo, in the far desk, a log, and under the desk, a sugrical unit key. Head out of the room, going right. You can probably hear the cyborg midwife. Go up the ramp, and down the hall to your left is where she is. In front of your face when you went up the ramp was a door to Hydroponics sector D. Well, let’s get that over with, shall we? There’s 3 grenades on the floor on your way to the bulkhead.

[TheNightTerror]

Hydroponics sector D

When you arrive here, you’ll see this isn’t the tidiest of places. There’s blood all over the walls, and gouge marks in the wall. There’s a log just in front of the bulkhead, and a corpse just past it. He holds an EnduraBoost implant, 3 grenades, and 20 nanites. (Not sure on the last one, forgot to note it, but it appears that’s what was there.) Destroy the egg, and kill the midwife. Destroy the 2 eggs, and get a psi hypo and log from the desk there. Go up the ramp and get a maintenance tool from the crate, and 3 cyber modules hidden behind one of them. Don’t bother hacking the security crate, there’s only a French-Epstein device in there. Get the Korenchkin log off the computer nearby, then go down the ramp, and into the room with the really funky sound in it.

The corpse in the room has a little special something with her. I don’t mean the 65 nanites, med hypo, and speed hypo. I mean the powered armor. It’s a wonderful little device, but it sucks up power like an alcoholic drinking a flask of whiskey during a coffee break when the boss isn’t looking. As it protects you much, much better than standard armor, it’s handy to keep around. Personally, I threw away the hazard suit to use this one instead, just keep a good suit of combat armor with you in case the power runs out.

Do you enjoy jumping puzzles? I don’t. I hate them as a matter of fact. But, if you go through the one in this room, you'll get 3 cyber modules, a maintenance tool, a bottle of bubbly, a magazine, and 6 anti-personnel shotgun shells. I just noticed it this time through. There’s 3 breakable windows, shatter the one farthest to the right. Get up in the window frame, and walk out of it onto the narrow catwalk. Follow it around, and you’ll find a ladder. Climb up the ladder, then jump on the pipes. Follow the pipes around the room, and you’ll get to the little stash. Get out of there the way you came, I was able to get through the window again on my first try.

Leave the room, and go through the first door on your right. Guess what, it’s time to circle strafe spiders! Yippee! You can hear a cyborg midwife down there, too. Now wouldn’t be a bad time to try on that new suit of powered armor. Go down, and kill the midwife, and the 3 spiders. Crouching really wouldn’t be a bad idea here, either, since the spiders here are just itty bitty ones, and midwives can’t hit you if you’re crouching.

Once the hostility in the area has been eliminated, let’s do a bit of searching, shall we? Go back to the ramp, and head to its right. The corpse has 20 nanites and 12 anti-personnel shotgun shells. Go down the narrow hall, in the dip there’s 3 cyber modules. Head back to the ramp, and go left, back the way you went when you took out the spiders and the midwife. Take all the eggs out, and place the vial of Toxin A in the environmental regulator.

To the right of the regulator are two corpses. Once has 6 armor piercing bullets, a toxin hypo, and 20 nanites on him, the other has 12 bullets on him. Past his outstretched hand, there’s a gun, with 7 bullets in it. As you’ve searched every inch of this sector, it’s time to leave via the bulkhead.

Hydroponics Sector B/C continued again

Once you’re out, head back to the hallway the midwife came out of. There’s a mug on the bench, and chips on the floor beside it. Go down the ramp, and swipe 6 rifled slugs off the floor, a bottle of vodka, and get 18 nanites which are sort of jammed into the bottom of the bench. Go through the door, get 10 nanites off the corpse, and get the log off the floor to his right. Head through the door to your left, and get a toxin hypo off the corpse to your left.

Go up the ladder, and, even though there’s not really any point in it, activate the resurrection station. Go through the door. There’s a log on the desk to the right of the wall which has a log in it, but be warned there’s an unreachable camera watching it. There’s also 3 cyber modules on the floor. Head down the ramp, and take out the midwife and the eggs. In the corner of the room, in the dark, there’s an auto-repair kit. On the corpse there’s 12 nanites. And, in the middle of the room, there’s the final enviromental regulator.

When you go to leave the room, go out the window on your right and you can walk over the glass ceiling here. Just watch out, before the corpse with 20 nanites and a Swiftboost implant one of the unbreakable windows isn’t so sturdy, and you’ll fall through. Past the corpse, over the pipes, is another little crawlspace leading to more ceilings, and 39 nanites, and a maintenance tool. There’s no glass in these ceilings, you might as well jump down and run for the elevator. That’s what I did.

Preparations for Ops Deck

Well, we’re finally able to meet Polito! Obviously she’ll be sending us on some errands, so the typical stocking up on med hypos couldn’t hurt. If you’re going to be using the crystal shard, bring the chemical Y with you, and up your research skills to level 4. There are some spiders and eggs around there, so make sure you have a couple toxin hypos.

One last thing, if you want to piss off Polito, go to Deck 5 first, and try to explore. She’ll send you an e-mail telling you to get your ass back to Deck 4, more or less. You can’t go very far, the doors won’t open, you get a message saying, ‘security lockdown, access denied.’ In fact, if you try to go anywhere on Deck 4 except for the bulkhead to Polito’s office, you’ll get that message. Hmmm…

To be continued…

Phew! I may try to write the Ops deck walkthrough today, but considering there's a thunderstorm on it's way, don't be surprised if I don't. As usual, if you have any nitpicks or comments, fire away.

[Sah]

Section 2, Deck 2, Med/Sci Deck

Not so friendly lands/Science Sector Part II

Let’s go straight down the hall to the room with the big sliding door. Once it opens you have a nice view of ‘Remember Citadel’ written in blood on the wall, and a big tube in the middle of the room. Interesting. Keep the wall on your left, and go to the body. He has a pistol with 8 bullets in it, although I’m pretty sure that’s only on very low difficulty settings.

Just to be sure, what do you mean by "very low difficulty settings"? Normal and Easy, right? Anyways, the pistol was there each time I played a game on Normal (I needed to test the no_spawn function so now I know).

Yeah, and the walkthrough is getting more and more interesting. I was always wondering how good that shiny crystal shard is in combat.