Cobra on 9/4/2006 at 18:22
Sorry for the breif Hiatus, I have other stuff to do, and I am still stuck on trier. Anyway, I can show you how I did mako.
After getting the money for Sid Black, he dropped me off on the roof of the building, which was nice of him. There are three entrances into the Mako building. One is down through two floors into the basement, but that requires a multitool, or I could try and dodge the hunter killer bot, two SSC and in the front door, but that requires multitools or money.
But, guess what, I could sneak in through a vent in the roof. Admittedly I had to avoid a camera and flame turret, but that seemed an awful lot of expense as opposed to making a slightly smaller vent, with perhaps the grate WELDED on.. But no matter, that was the easy way in, so I took it.
I dropped into the office, and saw the little recording of stan (thankfully the AI doesn't pick up on sound which the player triggers, but doesn't personally cause.) The room was dark, and this was good, as there was quite a tricky situation.
A security did a circuit around the ring shaped corridor my room opened out of. In the two opposing corners there were security cameras, and next to the door to probably the smallest ballistics lab ever was a scientist and SSC chatting.
First order of the day was to get the code to the lab, which was down the stairs near the basement. Once the guard walked past and was quite a way away (they seem to have good hearing, and turn around quickly.) I dodged the camera and swept down the stairs. Thankfully there are no guards in this part, I nabbed the code from a data cube in the basement - not exactly the most rigourous security considering it was a super-weapon going into mass production. I then went to the utility closet, and picked up the crate of explosive lying around. At that time I wasn't actually sure what I was going to do with it, but experience teaches you that crates of explosive are always useful, even if you can't make them explode by throwing them.
This complete, I waited untill the circling guard was at the other side, near the room I had entered the complex, and made a mad dash for the lab. The SSC guard wasn't too happy, but he couldn't get a shot off before I was through the ladder, and hence off to saftey. I did originally try sneaking around the pillar nearby, but that was a no go.
I left my explosive crate near the ladder, and spoke to the scientist. I elected that the WTO method wasn't really a bust, although I had to pick up the mag rail (how did Donna Morgan get the schematics merely from me holding it is something I am not entirely sure of.) Anyhow, with the task completed, I went back, with two guards now spawned beneath me. Thankfully there was an airvent, but with a spider bot in it - this is where my crate came in. Using the technique I learned at Tarsus, I opened the grate, presented myself to the spider bot, then as it reared up I threw the crate at it to zap. The explosion was suitably vigourous, and alerted the SSC guards, but I was already in the vent, and hence safe.
The good thing about the explosion is it drew all the SSC guards to near the ballistics lab, allowing me to drop through and dash back to the dark from from whence I came. Task one done, task two still to go. I needed to go to the biolab.
Getting to the lift wasn't too bad, although I had to play a game with Fido to get there, and I had to choose my position carefully, as a patrolling SSC guard has line of sight to the corridor I was sneaking along. Thankfully there were little alcoves with corners I could hide in. Once I was close enough, I dashed to the elevator and triggered it.
Now, the lab itself contains two scientists and two SSC, one with a sub gun, and one with a boomstick. Fortunately, there is a grey who wants to irradiate some humans. So, my solution was to let him out and have his remonstration with the guards. Unfortunately, they usually kill him, but after the 20th or 30th reload, he finally did it. So, I trotted off to Stan, and healed up at the med bot. I then moved up the air vent, and triggered the holocom. I did the same on the way down, reaquinting myself with the med bot, and avoiding the SSC and turret.
Getting out couldn't be done stealthily, as the alcoves I used to avoid Fido did not provide adequate cover going the other way. So I ran like a maniac past the dog, into the room where I started, and up into the grate and freedom. From there I just had to dash past the camera and turret, and onto the roof and my pilot who was waiting for me, as Morgan promised. So off I went to Cairo.
Fragony on 11/4/2006 at 14:10
Hehehe awesome. This has inspired me to give the game yet another run tonight :thumb:
Fig455 on 17/4/2006 at 01:40
Nice work. I need to play this for a 7th time.
Cobra on 19/4/2006 at 22:57
Again, still stuck on trier, although I haven't had long to play, I think I might try smashing it at the weekend, I have an idea to at least have near full health when I start the cathedral, the problem then is getting there when there are lots of people with snipers, flamers and other damage heavy weapons.
Right, here is how I did Cairo:
Sid Black dropped me off at the Airport. Cairo, much like Seattle allows one a lot of flexibility in what one needs to do, some of the challenges I took on are not strictly necessary to complete the set, but I did them anyway as a show of my power ;). It should be noted that after this point the game gets considerably more linear, and thus more frustrating for players like me, as I am rammed into difficulty after difficulty without a workaround. So, here goes.
Welcome to the Arcology.
This initially consisted of a lot of quest getting from various authorities, some of them (like the coffee wars) I ignored. I generally trotted around the arcology and outside, generally making myself known. It is nice how everyone is willing to tell you all their problems without wondering if they can trust you. Anyhow, spoilt for choice with what I could do, I thought I would work my way from the medina upwards. I took note of the Med bot hanging around the Mosque, who I would soon become very well aquainted with.
The Greenhouse.
I decided I would follow the WTO one more time for this purely optional sidequest of taking away the food from the mouths of plague 11 victims (wouldn't it be nice that the token super-corporation wasn't patently evil?)
There are several routes of attack to shut down the greenhouse, the one I choose was to use the hydrophonics computer. The approach is simple, I darted around past the camera and waited by the storehouse with an Aero bot doing the rounds. I rushed past, taking care to avail myself of the conveniantly placed explosive crate nearby.
Climbing the ladder put me up against gold beams and a door behind. Thankfully, gold beams ignite explosive crates (not sure why..) but using my unenhanced (but seemingly very strong, or the REAL conspiracy in DX2 is the fact all the funiture is inflateable...) strength, the crate managed to blow the gold beams, and the door behind. I was now in hydrophonics. The login is stored on a datacube nearby, and then all I had to do is wait untill the camera was arcing away from my route, and dash to the computer. The turret DOES open fire, but usually doesn't do too much damage. Hydrophonics now disrupted, I promptly departed.
The next part is tricky, as I had to help the WTO with the mag rail (see above) May-Chen decided it was a good idea to try and get me killed. Hence the difficulty. One shotgun and one pistol wielding seeker were walking towards me. As I hope readers have picked up, the shotgun is pretty much the DTS of invisible war, I would prefer to face two SMGers, or several pistol wielding opponents to a shotgun, simply because running past them is painful. The alley is about three meters wide, and hence trying to just dart past them doesn't work (BTW, the beggars that were there and confronted me on the way to the greenhouse I paid off, conversely you can pick a fight and run away like a coward to the SSC to shoot them.) Anyhow, the solution to this is to run like a maniac to a little alcove which leads to a small tunnel (you must crouch.) Whilst the tunnel doesn't lead anywhere, it means that eventually the girls walk past so they are no longer between you and the exit. When that happens, you can run away and be free.
The nanoformers, corruption, and some very conveniant airvents.
Swell 11, I had been told by the Omar and Lin may (who seemed to have forgotten about the whole "trying to get me to eat buckshot" incident.") Told me about a counter nanite the templars were holding in their secret bay, as well as some seriously unhealthy looking body armour they had. With the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, not to mention salve my conscience considerably, I decided I would do it (note this is optional.)
The problem is, that once you get access to the Templars hangar bay, there are two templars walking around on the ground floor, there is also a Mil bot in there, and a turret and sniper on the balcony high up. Not fun, however, it CAN be done.
First up on the menu is the two wandering templars. This is easy enough. There is a biogas trap by the ladder to the VIP overlook, and it advantageously has a vent which means one can run through it and not choke on the gas. So, one one has got the templars attention, you can persuade them to follow you (stand in front of them, wait for them to run towards you and aim, duck behind the corner, etc.) then trigger the trap, the templar tries to follow you, and gets knocked out by the gas (you need to trigger it yourself, as the AI is smart enough to deactivate traps, but not avoid activated ones.) Scratch two templars.
Next up is the balcony, you HAVE to go upstairs to get the login to the biohazard area with the schematic. However, the sniper is somewhat disagreeable to this. To take care of the sniper, you merely need to grab an explosive crate from the ground floor (avoiding the milbot as you go.) Now, the tricky bit.
You need to put the explosive crate on the edge of the balcony closest to the ladder you need to climb up. You then need to peek up so that the turret will start rotating to engage you (the two templars we knocked out earlier will have activated the alarm before giving chase.) You need to then quickly shimmy down as it begins to fire. With a bit of the patience you can do it such that the turret shoots the explosive crate you put up there, sending the sniper flying an appeciable distance. Unfortunately, the explosion usually puts you down to quite low health, and doesnt destroy the turret.
So, off to the mosque for some healing, and return to the base, thankfully no one seems to be overly concerned with the explosion and bodies. Now, the good old "run like hell" approach is now used. Dart up the ladder and looping right to gain cover from the turret shooting at you, and get the login from the v comm, dart back again, getting peppered again by the turret (realistic damage my ass.)
Return to medbot, heal up.
Return to hangar, and the oblivious milbot, and dart through the biohazard to get the molecular schematic, return. I didn't even bother with the armour schematic, as there was little point. Job done, and probably several thousand lives in my credit, I departed.
Tarsus Academy - turning the best and brightest into cold hearted killers.
Tarsus is a bit tricky, as to actually get to the students, you normally have to pass a couple of Greasels. However, there is another way, which is what a choose.
Back in the medina, there is an appartment held by two female templars, the important thing about this room is that it has the keycode to the headmasters secret room so you can access it from the office, so basically do the whole thing BACKWARDS. However, getting to the keycode without getting perforated is tricky, but doable. Firstly, one must aggravate the spider bot. This usually triggers the paladins (and leo, the omar, and the harvester, strangely) to start looking about. However, providing the spider bot never attacks you, the paladins don't turn hostile. So it then all one needs to do is tempt the spider bot around in a circle and hence get into the airvent, after that you can walk around (as the female templars tend to be outside, or shooting at leo from the balcony, which is interesting) read the data cube and generally nose around. Mission accomplished, time to trek through several load zones back to the headmasters office.
Now, after entering the code on the keypad conspicuously hidden behind the mantlepiece, you can now start getting the info from this room (I think, strictly that you can leave now, as you have enough information to go to the corporate suites.) Attacking the vents in reverse is simple however, and after talking to the kids, you can dart past the greasels because you start off behind them, and you are usually in cover by the time they start spitting at you. Job done, I dobbed them into the SSC guard, then walked off to the final part of the Cairo.
Corporate suites.
This is nasty, this place is crawling with paladins and security systems, not very fun. Thankfully, Miss sparks is ready to help me out with her SMG. It takes a few reloads, but by generally helping out (diverting fire from her, opening the doors so she has a slightly longer range to shoot the shotgun guy from, etc.) She can kill everyone on the level for me besides the guys in the office cubicles, and the balcony looking over it, and one more paladin with a flamer. It is a relatively simple matter of getting the attention of templars and having them run after you and letting Klara kill them. It isn't quite as easy as that, as she often dies, but with time, you eventually get lucky.
You can leap over the not very cleverly placed security beams guarding the turret, and you can take care of the two guys on the balcony by letting them chase you into the biohazard trap, and letting the gas take them out (like I did for the bay 23.) I backtracked breifly and spoke to the security director, and he offered me the code to the nano former bay - I already had it, but I couldn't kill him anyway. He also was so kind to warm up his mag rail on the flamer wielding templar in the next room.
Now, there are two paladins hanging around in the office cubicles near the door to the lab (might be three, but it doesn't matter.) You can tempt them out of the room and into the corridor, but they don't go up the stairs so you can gas them. Thankfully, they are far enough away so you can leap over the balcony and dart into the labs.
The Labs were a bit of an anticlimax; running like a maniac and jumping can bring you straight to Nassif without getting shot by the robo dogs. As I couldn't easily kill her, I needed to talk to her, Klara also turned up, and evidently had a few med kits with her, and starting shooting at a camera... Unfortunately this triggered the riot shotgun dog near the camera to start shooting at nassif, it didn't actually manage to kill her, which was a pity - I would have liked to have seen whether Klara would start shooting me if Nassif went down.
Mission accomplished. Getting out of the lab was simple, just pegging it back the way I came, and not taking enough damage to die. After that I tidied up some loose ends, I released the nano formers, spoke to the arcology chairman, etc. Considering my work there was done, I went off to Ava and got her to fly me to trier for free, which was a nice change from Sid.
TheGreatGodPan on 21/4/2006 at 21:10
Quote Posted by Cobra
I decided I would follow the WTO one more time for this purely optional sidequest of taking away the food from the mouths of plague 11 victims (wouldn't it be nice that the token super-corporation wasn't patently evil?)
I haven't played IW, but the World Trade Organization is not a corporation, and (although you didn't mention them, they are often lumped together) neither is the International Monetary Fund. Neither would exist if it hadn't been for governments starting them and supporting them. In that sense, they're kind of like the U.N.
Fig455 on 23/4/2006 at 12:56
still cheering you on, Cobra...:thumb:
Dr. Dumb_lunatic on 25/4/2006 at 15:30
Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan
I haven't played IW, but the World Trade Organization is not a corporation, and (although you didn't mention them, they are often lumped together) neither is the International Monetary Fund. Neither would exist if it hadn't been for governments starting them and supporting them. In that sense, they're kind of like the U.N.
That's kind of like saying "I haven't played Deus Ex, but FEMA is not run by an ugly son-of-a-bitch with a face all marked up with bioelectrics."
It's the future, and it's the future 20 years after EVERYTHING went tits-up: a lot has changed. It might not be a corporation NOW, but it definitely
is in IW.
TheGreatGodPan on 26/4/2006 at 21:17
Quote Posted by Dr. Dumb_lunatic
That's kind of like saying "I haven't played Deus Ex, but FEMA is not run by an ugly son-of-a-bitch with a face all marked up with bioelectrics."
It's the future, and it's the future 20 years after EVERYTHING went tits-up: a lot has changed. It might not be a corporation NOW, but it definitely
is in IW.
That's a lousy analogy. I didn't say that the WTO isn't run by Chad Dumier and secretly part of the Illuminati, it's that the WTO is in no way a corporation. FEMA in Deus Ex is still FEMA, it's an agency of the U.S government that handles emergencies. If it built railroads and researched fertilizer that would make no sense and there would be no point in calling it FEMA. None of the stuff I've read about the game indicates it's still not a corporation, but if you can point out where it is made known that it is one, you win at the internet.
Cobra on 6/5/2006 at 19:27
I have, ahem, lost my DX IW disc, and as exams are fast approaching, I am going to take a break from all of this for the time being. I think I might have a way to get through the cathedral, but if any of you guys feel like taking up the baton, you are welcome.
Anyway, as a farewell-for-now gift, I will tell you how I managed to do the black gate labs.
After chatting with most of the locals in the tavern, and then the WTO headquarters, I got permission from Dumier to attempt to single handedly rescue Nicolette (although I am not sure if she would be thrilled by the idea.) No matter, I needed to rescue her. After aquainting myself with an SSC guard by the gate, I moved on to peek around the corner.
In the open courtyard of the Black gate base, there is one templar at the far side, nearish to the entrance you took to the sewers, there is a girl with a pistol stalking around the building to the far left ahead of me. Oh, and a huge military bot strolling around too. Now, there are two mini tower things, one close to my left, and one far ahead and left. The one closer to me seemed a nice option, there was unfortunately a templar with a shotgun right infront of the door, so that was a no go. Thankfully, sticking to the far left wall, and the shadows allowed me to not arouse the military bot, and when the pistol girl was around the back side of the tower, I darted in through the door.
So far, so good. There was a camera and a turret, but a quick sprint when the camera was looking the other way got me to the ladder, and then a very long climb upwards. Remembering that the entrance to the lab was quite close to the top, I patted myself on the back for finding the path of least resistance.
Unfortunately, at the top of the ladder, there was a small difficulty, well, actually, quite a large one. The ladder opened up behind some boxes, but two templars were far to close for comfort, and there was another walking around outside who occasionally popped in, as well as stairs to an upper level. The lab was close, but it was an enclosed space (although pretty much all of IW is an enclosed space), and there was a templar with a shotgun.
However, a plan quickly emerged as to what I should do. I crept up behind the boxes, and then leapt over them and darted for the escape. I grabbed the boxes by the keycode and tossed them at the templars and punched the key code in (the flying boxes didn't actually do much, but it was gratifying.) I then ran into the elevator and sailed off to the black gate.
Now inside, I seemed to be stuck in another problem, a templar with a shotgun was patrolling around me, and it was impossible to sneak around him, as there were no alcoves or points of cover in the bare hallway. There is also a turret with an alarm beam trigger blocking my passage rightwards. The door to the left was locked, so the only method besides running through the beams was to go through the window to the little room beyond. However, I didn't have anything to throw. So, I generally got the paladins attention (it is a shame video games don't often implement the ability to cuss or make offensive gestures at NPCs.. ) Anyway, standing infront of the window and getting him to shoot at me broke the window, as well as taking me down to about half health. I promptly jumped through the broken window, and found the entrance to the (you guessed it) ventilation system I would now be using.
The air vents are extensive and so getting to Tongs office was a relatively simple affair, despite a paladin stalking around the front door, now having the codes to the cells, I had to get to the cells themselves. Unfortunately I had to run through most of the level to jump down into the maintenance area for the air vents. It takes a few reloads (waiting untill the paladin on patrol is as far away as possible is an advantage.) Then there is a vent system which can be used to get you close enough to the cells so as to be able to find cover from the paladins on patrol (thankfully, my mad dash earlier had alerted most of them away from this position.)
Unthankfully, however, I have a bust. Gold beams are present infront of the cell doors, and there is no code I am aware of to get them open, and I have scoured the base for data cubes. There is no method of jumping over or ducking under the beams, nor interposing any object which doesnt disintergrate. I even tried to get a guard to deactivate the gold beams for me, unfortunately that hasn't worked, and even if it did, the guard would kill me before I could get to a medbot/nicolette. So I am forced, sadly, to conclude that the game forces a bust at this point. If anyone finds a way to do it, do tell.
Anyhow, with a heavy heart I nabbed a multitool to open the beams, and then went through to the cells, after finding out about the conspiracy of the Order/WTO duality. I charged up at the medbot (thank goodness.) The illuminati commando and WTO showed up soon after (why Dumier trusted me over them to do the hostage rescue is a mystery) but now with a load of allies, I could kill all the templars by getting them to follow me into the WTO firepower. That cleared up the outside, so I returned to the lift, job done.
Two major problems exist with getting OUT again. The first is there as soon as you exit the lift, the pair of paladins are still there, and they have a nasty habit of blocking the archways you need to get through to escape, and the shotgun kills you very quickly (how the commando and WTO personel managed to get through without killing these guys, and the milbot/templars downstairs is quite impressive, or just an oversight on the designers part.) They generally do a lot of damage or kill you, but after a few attempts, and a few tricks (backing to the corner of the elevator to force them to move out of the doorway to get a shot at you, for example) means you can dart around and out the ladder, albeit with half health or less.
Second problem is outside, as a new, shottie toting templar has now spawned, pretty much overlooking the route I had used earlier to infiltrate the facility. He is an utter pain, picking up on tiny movement sounds, and his visual radii of detection means it is all but impossible to sneak around him without augmentation. The milbot outside means you cannot peg it, or it makes you eat rocket launcher. However, the capacity alex D has of hurling boxes the better part of fifty meters comes into play. With a bit of fortune, you can alert the templar, but make sure he walks off the wrong way, so he doesn't detect you. However, there is still a milbot hanging around, so a judiciously thrown box can distract the newly spawned templar, the milbot, and the pistol templar to behind one of the pillars of the black gate. Their attentions otherwise diverted, I could run back to the exit, and hence safety.
And that is how I did the Black gate, be back in a coupla months, enjoy.
Cobra on 23/7/2006 at 00:49
Thread necromancy, I know, but I am now back, although I can only devote sporadic amounts of time to my self appointed project.
Anyhow, I will give a brief summary of my progress, and sticking points.
I am doing the game in Alginon style, with an extra restriction of not spending any credits either (so I suppose I could call it Alginon+, if I really wanted to.) Here are the current busts which I am all but certain are unavoidable.
1. At Tarsus, I must install a biomod, else Nassif will not unlock the door out of the biomod room to let me progress.
2. At Mako, I need to actually pick up the mag rail to complete the WTO objective, although I can drop it immediately afterwards (as far as I am aware, there is no way I can get the scientist killed without dying myself.)
3. At the black gate, I need to use a multitool on the set of gold beams preventing access to DuClare and Morgan. There is no keycode, as far as I am aware, and there are no objects I can carry which will block the gold beams. (I will check this out further.)
However, importantly, I have found out you can do Seattle and Mako without spending a single credit, but it is hell. Here is a breif account.
After reporting back to Chen after reading Lamars data cube (see above to the Seattle stage.) You need to get to Ava to fly for free (instead of paying of sophia sak and paying sids fee, like I did last time.) Problematically, that is through the inclinator again. Firstly you need to enter one of the rooms in the greasel pit to talk to Ava over a holocom (although I think she will still ask for aid when you get to the WTO terminal, there is no point risking another two trips if she doesn't.) Then onto the inclinator.
The girl with the sniper rifle and the boy with the pistol are now a little bit annoyed, but their threat goes down to searching as they didn't see me. Hiding behind the box near the entrance means that they will gradually walk towards you. The lit dumster nearby should mean you can see their shadows and work out where they are, then, I pegged it and whack the button to the inclinator.
When I got to the top bit, you again, run to the ladder past the two thugs and climb up it, but on the beams, you need to stick to the right. You should come across a vent which will lead you to where the sniper rifle paladin and a pistol wielding thug are. The sniper rifle is the problem, and so the best route is to grab the box and toss it down the stairs, as soon as the sniper rifle dude walks down the stairs, you break cover from the vent
You basically cannot afford to get hit except with pistol fire, so it takes several attempts, but you can do it (the next med bot is at mako, and there is one thing you have to do there which makes you take a lot of damage.) Anyhow, after finally get out of the inclinator, I headed up to the WTO terminal, (providing you took damage, you can get some healing back from th various water fountains in upper seattle, but you need to have about 75% health.) Now knowing that dumsters block gold beams, I stuck one in the way and snuck under, avoiding the thugs (why they didn't mind me doing this is a mystery.) So off I went to the WTO terminal.
Now, the terminal is tricky, although if there is one thing doing the game alginon style does make you appreciate, it is the feeling of being a super cool secret agent, rather than just a guy with a sniper rifle who kills everyone. As soon as the level loads, I headed right to avoid the two chatting templars. There is a robodog walking up and down the left side side of the runway (a very short runway, as it happens.) Thankfully there are also boxes which allow me to hide behind as he went past. Someone carelessly left a datapad with the security login down in the tunnels beneath you, so you need to drop down at a fortuitous moment (no damage is taken, and usually the WTO girl with a shotgun is far enough away not to hear you. Tail her and stick to the left, and eventually you get the logins, climb back up the ladder, and hide behind the Boxes. The next objective on my list was to make it to the control tower, if only to scout out what I should do next. The door far away can be reached whilst crouched, despite the camera which swings over it. Shutting the door behind me, I crossed over to the right. On the right side of the hallway is a robodog, which patrols only the missile battery, as well as a WTO soldier with a boltcaster doing the patrol along the side, much like the other robo dog.
Whilst the robo dog was moving away from me, I sped across to a corner near the control tower door - dark enough so that the WTO soldier didn't get alerted when she stopped her patrol reasonably close to me. When she turned around, I went up into the control tower and scouted around. Not much use, but was useful was the (you guessed it) venting system which I could use to access a warehouse near the battery, and the security computer nearby to disable one battery. Also present was the softkey, so I could get into the maintenance area for the OTHER gun without using multitools. So, off I went back to the the other battery to the right side of the runway. The camera wasn't a problem to get around. In the maintenance, deactiveate the battery and the camera, and then I went all the way back to the pilot beacon.
On activation, a couple more WTO turn up, one with a flamer, and one with a shotgun, thankfully, their supra-acute hearing I could turn against them by tossing a tyre out of the control tower, and thereby drawing them across to the battery below me. I then darted out from the control tower and ran over to Ava, triggering the conversation, and thus getting me out of there.
And, if you thought that was hard, the first part of Mako makes it look easy.
Knowing that I couldn't get in the front door or the basement without spending money or multitools, my only option was the roof vent. From Avas landing, the front door led right next to an SSC, and climing up led to the same result, the route was the (you guessed it, again) vent behind some boxes. Throwing some boxes around got the attention of the spider bots, and by opening the vent and quickly leaping over some pipes, I forced them to take the long way around, allowing me to jump back over and close the vent behind me, allowing me to progress. The vents/pipes lead to the groundskeeper room, and importantly allowed me to get to the front door, which I had to cross to get to the roof access.
Now, the problem, there is an SSC patrolling around the front door, and there is a hunter seeker with an insanely long visual and audio range patrolling nearby. Getting caught by either generally means a quick death, so I had to sneak. For this evasion, timing is crucial. Firstly, sneak up to the pillar whilst the guard is walking to the door, and the bot is walking towards you. Make sure the bot cannot see you. Then, as the guard begins to walk around the pillar, start crouch walking across to the other side of the front door, and use the pillar to conceal yourself from the guard, if timed right the bot should be moving in the same direction you are, and not spot you (why you can't give a bot 360 degree vision is beyond me, but nevermind.) The next bit is somewhat easier, but relies on lucky timing. When the bot starts moving back, you need to start moving whilst crouched to the roof access, there is no hope of remaining hidden, with all the bright light and the guard who circles, but, if the guard is walking away from you, you can make a break for the ladder.
This is why you need so much health, the ladder is gas trapped, and so you need to jump up and move as fast as possible. It is just about possible, but you lose most of your health. From there on in, it is simple matter of going to the platform sid drops you off from, and then going across the vent. From thereon, I did exactly the same as last time.
Anyway, I hope that justifies the necromancy, I will give another progress report when I crack the cathedral.
