MAP15: Karmacoma (Memento Mori)

MAP15: Karmacoma is the fifteenth level of Memento Mori. It was designed by Florian Helmberger and uses the music track "Triangle of Fear" by Mark Klem.

The level is named after a song by the British band  from their 1994 album .

Essentials
Kill the enemies at the beginning and get some supplies before heading through the next door. Open it and head straight across into the next building. Head around the gray walls and flip the switch on the backside. Look out for the many monsters when trying to exit, then leave the building and head around it to the open doors. In the courtyard with the fountain, there are bars to the north that lead to the normal exit, as well as two doors. Take the one on the right, then go to the building that does not have a moat surrounding it, taking the entrance on the northern side. Drop into the nukage and head to the eastern side. There are four switches here. Press the leftmost one to raise a bridge from where you dropped off. The one next to it actually releases some monsters. The next switch opens a door at the end of the bridge and the rightmost switch lowers the bridge as a lift. Ride it up, and take either teleporter (the switch right next to the teleporters is another switch that lowers the bridge as a lift). In the caged area, kill the spectres, barons of Hell, and cacodemons as you make your way to the central teleporter. Take it to get the blue keycard, then exit the building and return to the courtyard with the fountain.

Now take the door on the left and open the blue door straight ahead. Kill the enemies inside, and flip a switch on the block to lower a nearby pillar, ride it up, then jump towards the block which is a teleporter to teleport onto the building with the moat around it (on the right side of the map). Enter it to find a central pentagram teleporter that you need to access. There are four side lifts each with a box of shells on each one. The northwest one is the one you need to go to. Navigate the maze until you find a switch, and then return to the main room to find a block has been raised so you can access the pentagram teleporter. You will teleport onto another pentagram; open the door to the northeast to find a room with the yellow keycard. Take the teleporter you came out of the teleport to the northwest corner of the map, ambushed by chaingunners unless you found Secret #6. Leave via the door to the south, cross the blocks over lava, and head for the building with the staircase. Open the door to enter a storage room. There is a switch in the southeast corner of the room that you need to flip, so navigate to it, then leave the building to find a bridge branching to the building to the west. Cross it and head around to find a yellow door leading inside. Head through the corridor killing chaingunners, demons, and spectres until you reach the top room with a baron of Hell and Hell knights. Hit the switch here, leave the building, and head for the building to the south which is now open. Climb the steps up and follow the ledge to a room with four switches. Flip the two furthest switches to open some gates to the east. Through these gates are a ton of monsters, but also the red keycard. Fight them off, being sure to pick up the red key. Then head back to the courtyard with the fountain and open the bars. Enter the teleporter and hit each switch behind each key barrier to take the normal exit.

Other points of interest
In the southwestern building, there is an invulnerability on top of a crate in the southeast corner. Press on the crate's eastern side to lower the invulnerability.

Secrets

 * 1) In the central building, the eastern room from which monsters are released has a candle sitting in front of the southern wall. Open the portion of wall the candle is in front of to find a berserk pack (sector 47).
 * 2) A portion of the outer wall in the southeastern corner of the building southeast of the map has a candle sitting in front of it. Open this portion of wall to find seven armor bonuses on a stairway leading to a room (sector 206) with a blue armor, a switch and two teleporters. Both teleporters lead to the inner side of the eastern gate at the north of the map. The eastern teleporter leads to the northern edge of the gate where two bullet boxes can be obtained.
 * 3) Flip the switch in secret #2 and enter the western teleporter to be taken to the southern edge of the gate. Jump to the pool (sector 60) with the soul sphere in it to register this secret.
 * 4) In the northeastern building, take the northeastern elevator. Press on any of the inner walls to reveal a horde of enemies and a blue armor (sector 112).
 * 5) In the northeastern building, take the southwestern elevator. A portion of the wall at the center of the maze is misaligned; open this portion of wall to find a secret room (sector 108) with a berserk pack.
 * 6) After teleporting from the northeastern building, a portion of wall to the east of your landing spot has pipes on it. Open this wall to find a switch that triggers crushers in the northwestern building, killing the four chaingunners (imps on easy skill levels) who would normally attack you at that location. This actually consists of two sectors, including the door sector (sector 437), that are both marked as secret.
 * 7) See secret #6 (sector 438).
 * 8) The recesses of the outer walls to either side of the crate storage door in the west of the map are marked as secret. (sector 281) However, they are both impossible to reach unless you use the  cheat, or jump on to them in a source port that allows jumping. Also, on medium and hard skill levels it is possible to lure the arch-vile to this area and perform an arch-vile jump to reach each secret.
 * 9) See secret #8 (sector 282).
 * 10) Before leaving the warehouse, make sure the door is open. (Use the southwestern switch to open it.) After obtaining the red keycard, a small walkway will rise beside the western windows of the warehouse. Reenter the warehouse, lower the crate with the invulnerability on it by pressing on it from the eastern side (if you have not acquired it already,) exit the windows, and stand facing the center of the building's western side. Fire your rocket launcher at the wall and run backwards simultaneously; the momentum created by this will propel you to the west onto a small platform (sector 271) with a megasphere and a teleporter. The teleporter leads to the secret level, Technology Base. This exit is reminiscent of the famous rocket jump exit in Doom's E3M6: Mt. Erebus.

Bugs

 * In single-player mode, two additional red light switches (Linedef 2450 and 2857) should appear in the green nukage building in the southeast, down in the pools on the northern wall, one on each side. These switches lower (Type 62 - SR Lift Lower Wait Raise; Tag 21) the activated bridge just like the big switch (Linedef 1151) between the teleports does. In the eastern pool, there are three other switches, of which the southern one activates (Linedef 1077; Type 20 - S1 Floor Raise to Next Higher Floor (changes texture); Tag 21) the bridge, but it raises too fast to get on top. The player needs the fourth (easternmost) switch to use the bridge as a lift. Now for the bug: The player has to set foot on the super shotgun floor patch in the center of the starting area to reveal (Linedef 2444, 2445 and 2446; Type 38 - W1 Floor Lower to Lowest Floor, Tag 65) the switches in the pool. Not doing so (i.e. walking around the shotgun) means the above mentioned two switches stay blocked by sectors 380 and 447 and the player will be locked in the pool later.
 * Due to secrets being impossible to reach, only 80% of the secrets can be obtained. (In fact it is possible to lure the arch-vile to secrets #8 and #9 and perform an arch-vile jump to register those secrets, but since the arch-vile is replaced by a baron of Hell on easy skill levels and the secret sectors (281 and 282) neither are hidden nor contain any item, this has to be considered a map bug.)
 * The southern linedef of the red key platform (Linedef 1979) has a different action than the rest. While the others have type 22 (W1 Floor Raise to Next Higher Floor (changes texture), the southern side has type 30 (W1, Floor Raise by Shortest Lower Texture). If this is triggered after raising the western walkway normally (see secret #10,) it will rise further and completely block the windows, preventing the player from reaching the secret exit. If this is triggered first, the player waits for the wall to be risen and then triggers one of the others, the wall will rise a little up more to the window's level, enabling him to reach secret #10 only by rocket jumping without the need to run backwards simultaneously.

Routes and tricks
When doing speedruns of this level, the most optimal elevator to lower in the northwest elevator and teleporter building is the southwest one, activated by the teleporter platform's western switch. From the southwest of the building, you can strafejump into the western portion of the yellow keycard building, circumventing the need to enter the northeast building.

The secret exit on this level can also be accessed by strafejumping to the platform from either window of the warehouse, without needing to activate the walkway first.

Current records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 6, 2020.

Player spawns
This level contains nine spawn points:
 * 1) facing east. (thing 627)
 * 2) facing south-east. (thing 628)
 * 3) facing west. (thing 629)
 * 4) facing west. (thing 630)
 * 5) facing south-east. (thing 631)
 * 6) facing east. (thing 632)
 * 7) facing north. (thing 633)
 * 8) facing south-west. (thing 634)
 * 9) facing north-east. (thing 635)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: