Cobra on 26/7/2006 at 12:49

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Well, my adoring (yet rather quiet) fans, I have managed to alginon my way through the cathedral.

Crucially, to complete the cathedral, you really need to get out of the black gate with greater than 60% health, or there abouts, otherwise you will simply die - the more health you get, the better. There are 3 water dispensers in the SSC headquarters you can use to get some health back too, which is very helpful. Then, you can attack the cathedral. As I am scrooging, I am flying Ava, although really there is no difference between the her and Sid now, so you might as well fly either.

Now, the Neighbourhood is not a nice place to be, as it is swarming with paladins. There is a route which leads to the kid, and you can mantle up there. However, this leads to a flame turret, as well as two templars, and isn't really that much of a good idea, so I went towards the dried up canal. There is a templar with a flamethrower who patrols, but one can relatively easily sneak to behind a small set of stairs, then move while his back is turned, and only raise his alertness breifly to the first level. After that, there is an Aero bot doing the rounds at the canal proper, and a templarette with a pistol going up and down the stairs. Thankfully, there is a gap between the stairs and the edge of the canal which I could crouch under, hiding me from both the aerobot (passing under me), and the templarette (passing over on the walkway.) The aerobot patrols right to the far end of the canal, and thus I could drop down and peg it to the ladder, and whilst this alerts the bot, it doesn't open fire, but it does start patrolling. To avoid getting shot by it, I needed to climb up to the very top of the gate and crouch to bring my legs up - any lower and it starts shooting me.

Now, the grate which I am cowering under leads to the front door (the other route, through the tunnels by the way, is not suitable for entry, but it is suitable for exiting, due to the fact of the camera at the top of the lift you use to get to the cathedral proper.) Problematically, the front door has a flamer paladin, who is always alerted by my assent up the ladder (there I no way I have been able to climb slowly enough, and yet not get shredded by the the aero bot.) There is also a sniper and SMG wielding templars on a balcony overlooking the front door (which is where my route to the kid and past the flame turret would have taken me.) Thankfully, waiting long enough means the alerted flamer templar wanders elsewhere, and then it is a mad dash to the front door, which in my case meant only the smg got a couple of hits on me. Of course, running BACK that way would have been murder, but thankfully, I can use the other route to get away (in fact, I have to.)

Now I was in the cathedral proper, my first item of business was to dash to the broken window and mantle up to get inside (being stealthy only wastes time, and increases the risk of being spotted by the templarette or the Aero bot outside.) With Dumiers congratulations, I went upstairs, where there was a softkey of Samans chamber which I could grab. Unfortunately there is no means of getting to the chamber from the ground floor (as the door which leads to it requires a multitool, even from the inside) but there is another way - dropping down from the roof, this is half the reason you need such high health. The ledges either side of the balcony allow one to move all the way to the other side of the cathedral, and thus allow one to drop down on top of the data cube you need for the login.

On the cathedral floor there is one templar with a pistol patrolling around the walls, and another two in the center (interestingly, they have a conversation if you manage to sneak up without them noticing) one of them with a shotgun, and hence my highest priority. My initial attempts to distract them simply don't work - no matter what alerts them, they magically begin honing in on the players position. Whilst they cannot spot you high up, the rocket turret can - hence staying in its sight line is ill advised. Generally, walking along the ledge closest to samans quarters (the right one, looking towards the big window) is best; it doesn't hurt to wait untill the paladins have wondered farther away from you and your target door too. The next step is dropping down onto the table, where Saman initiates a conversation if the paladins are not shooting at you, which is a tad bizarre. After that ended, I read the data cube and ran to the quarters, which had a strange bug - hostile AIs can shoot at you even through closed doors. I crouched behind a wall, and got my code, I then waited.

After a while, the templars begin to return to their original positions - ideally you want to make your break for it whilst the shotgun templar is around the other side of the cathedral. I managed to dart across to the elevator, whilst only taking minor damage from scattered pistol fire. So, off I went for the underground route.

At this point I need to apologise to my readers, as my solution at this stage is far more trial and error than my more finesse filled ways of getting through Mako, Cairo, etc. In the tunnels there is a templar with an SMG, and a templar with a pistol and another with a flamethrower. Having repeatedly trying to stealth past the first one with a pistol (which is as far as I can tell impossible, due to the long hearing ranges they have, and the lack of a 'creep' function.) The solution is to run like hell. The twisting corridors allow one to basically be impossible to hit for the templars (who tend to stop to shoot.) The only real problem is the Aerobot outside - you tend to be on low health, and hence the aerobot can kill you in pretty short order. The solution is to save at the start, and keep trying it at different time intervals untill you hit the one where the aerobot is near the ladder you climbed up ealier. From then on in it is a reasonably simple matter of sneaking behind the stairs, then moving up behind the flamer templar, then pegging it to Klara, and thereby getting out of there. Admittedly it isn't pretty, and I have barely any health, but it counts.

Anyway, that is how I did the cathedral.

Matthew on 27/7/2006 at 10:05

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Just because we don't post, doesn't mean we don't read. ;)