The airlock in 'Deep Doodoo' was originally released as a stand alone 'how-to' map when the subject of airlocks came up on the MMMG mailing list. Never one to resist a challenge, I cooked this up, and then built the rest of the level around it. The list of features for Gemini is accurate except the volcano stopped working (at the time of writing it works on and off) for reasons unknown, and the switches that slid down the wall were dropped ... they worked fine, but added nothing to the plot and weren't as hard to hit as I thought they would be. Another time maybe.

MikeT June 1997



An airlock example


Best looked at in forge, has some explanatory notes on the map.
Uses jjaro texture set as that was what the rest of the level is going to be.

The airlock problem is that it has to act as follows

1) marine enters dry airlock, throws switch, door to airside closes, room floods, door to liquid opens.

2) marine reenters flooded airlock, throws switch, door to liquid closes, room empties, door to airside opens.

In otherwords, a different door is triggered first in each case depending on the state of the liquid.

The solution uses 6 platforms, 2 for each door (C+D,E+F), 1 to control the liquid level (B) and 1 to shut down  the lights on the activation switch whilst the airlock cycles (A).

B never deactivates itself but does activate/deactivate the airlockÕs media light when it is turned on and off by the switch. The medium thus starts moving immediately and so must be set to be at least 2.5 units above/below the room when at each tidal level. Make it rise and fall very slowly (I used 420 ticks for the becoming active/deactive phases). B also activates adjacent platforms on both activating and deactivating. A activates, moving very slowly and keeps the light on the switch off whilst everything else cycles. C,D,E & F start moving. D+E close quickly before the medium passes through the room, C and F open/close. Crucially, C&F are set to contract (in this case rise up) slowly so that by the time D&E open up again, the originally open door has finished moving, but the other is still in motion. By making C&F double height doors passing a long way into the floor, the opening door has not yet cleared the doorway.

See the map for a few fun lighting tricks with which to enhance the experience :)

This piece of Marachitecture will be appearing in a level to be released in a couple of months time (the 9 level continuation of Gemini Station), but feel free to use it. Credit me and I'll be very happy. Other things that will be appearing in the levels I'm working on will be: an open sided bridge which you can pass under and walk over (a small trick is involved, but the effect is wonderful), a volcano which chucks out flaming lava (hilarious), a holographic terminal display, a gently floating spacecraft for you to fly off in, switches that gently slide down the wall, a very nasty sneaky monster that will really get you the first time it activates (did me anyway), a prgrammable (3 state) transporter and a whole host of other fun things. Five levels are 99% done, 1 is halfway and 3 are merely paper scribbles. Hopefully I can finish them sometime in this lifetime. Map is roughly 3Mb at the moment (missing about 10 of the term graphics required so far), so it is going to be large. It will be infinity only (needs the embedded physics files) and so includes an infinitised version of the original Gemini (which according to forge had a single zero-length line, but converted with minimal interference from the pfhorte version - so don't nuke and pave unless you have to). What a long paragraph, I wish I could write my PhD this freely and easily.

MikeT
mpbt100@cam.ac.uk


  

     __________________________________________
    /                     A                    \
   /____________________________________________\
  |\                      B                     /|
  | \__________________________________________/ |
  |  |                                        |  |
__|  |__________________     _________________|  |__
  |  | |               |_____|              | |  |
  |  | |                switch              | |  |
  |  | |                                    | |  |
  |C |D|                                    |E| F|
  |  | |                                    | |  |
  |  | |                                    | |  |
__|  |_|____________________________________|_|  |__
  |  |                                        |  |
  |  |                                        |  |
  |__|                                        |__|
