MAP26: Dark Dome (Alien Vendetta)

MAP26: Dark Dome is the twenty-sixth map of Alien Vendetta. It was designed by Anders Johnsen and uses the music track "Into Sandy's City" from Doom II. It was one of the few maps to remain unchanged from the first release to the second.

Inspired by Hell Revealed's MAP24: Post Mortem, this map takes place in a tall, large open cavern with a number of ledges and columns filled with monsters, with the player initially finding himself the hunted rather than the hunter.

Dark Dome was featured in Doomworld's Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, placing 88th.

Essentials
This level will prove to be just as much of a challenge as the previous level. This time, the monsters will attack you right from the beginning from just about every direction. Fortunately you start right on top of pickups, so you will also be prepared right at the beginning. Still, it will be challenging to find a good foothold to hold against the many monsters both above and below you. It is highly recommended, if you have the health and ammo, to clear everything before proceeding with completing the level.

You should first head to the southern portion of the map. Climb up any of the staircases here. Head to the southeast room and press the switch here. Be on the lookout for two cyberdemons, as well as cacodemons and pain elementals. Now go to the southwestern area, and climb the set of steps into the water. There should be an opening to the north, so go here and kill the barons of Hell then hit the next switch. This raises some bars a bit of a distance north. Drop down to the water here, and there should be a lift next to you. Ignore it for now and keep heading north until you find another entrance on the left. This is a large, water-filled chamber. Get into the middle here and the blue skull key will be lowered via descending waterfall. However, picking it up bars you in and pits you against many monsters. Fight for your life there until the bars are raised, then return to the lift. Take it up, and you will find a room full of imps. Two switches are on the sides, guarded by barons of Hell. Press both of them and you will reveal a spider mastermind. Behind him is the next portal. If the barriers are back again (those switches are timed) hit the switches again and quickly go through. Look out for the walls of revenants when you go west towards the portal. Grab the soul sphere and take it to the northeast part of the map. Go up the stairs here and open the door to be greeted by a cyberdemon. Behind him is the yellow skull key, and grabbing it reveals some barons. Now go back to the teleporter and enter it. This time, you will teleport to a small corridor where an arch-vile is probably running around. At the end of this corridor, you will be near the middle of the dome, on a ledge with a yellow switch. Press it, and return to the water heading to the northwest. There should be an opening (you probably saw it when running around if you were in the northwest portion of the main area at the time, except it was blocked by a yellow skull bar), so go through it. Kill the revenants, then go up the stairs to a teleporter. Taking it will take you to a small alcove (telefragging an arch-vile if you have not killed him yet) where you will obtain the red skull key. You will then teleport back to the walkway at the starting point. Be extremely careful here as cyberdemons among other monsters will teleport into the field here. Head back to the northwest portion of the main area. Climb up the stairs, and if you have not done so already, hit the switch here to lower the wall revealing cyberdemons, barons, and the red door. Behind the door are a bunch of arch-viles, to the left is a megaarmor, which reveals a wall of chaingunners. To the right is a door to a large marble chamber. You can decide to go left to the exit here, or you can go right for an optional fight with a megasphere.

Secrets

 * 1) There is a smaller water-floored area on the east side of the main area, accessed through either of two short, low tunnels (a room full of revenants opens when you enter the area). In the northwest corner of this area, there is a small opening between two raised platforms; an invulnerability sphere is visible atop one of them. Go through the gap between these two platforms and you will see a red square on the far wall. Shoot this square, then return to the southern half of this room. A bar blocking a staircase leading up out of the water has been raised (the staircase is located just south of the northern entrance tunnel). At the top of the stairs are two teleporters, both leading to platforms with arch-viles on them in the main area - if you have not killed these arch-viles, you will likely telefrag them. One of the platforms has a blur sphere on it, the other an invulnerability sphere. (sector 318)
 * 2) There is another smaller water-floored area off the main room, this one to the south; accessed by torch-lined tunnels to the far east and west, and a third, larger entryway in the center. Go as far east as you can in this area, where you will see a large, roughly triangle-shaped patch of gray rock in the otherwise brown-colored rock wall. You can see some cracks in a nearby (brown) wall; open this wall and flip the switch behind it to lower the gray wall. Inside is a motherlode of soul spheres. (sector 347)
 * 3) At the farthest south point of the map, up the stairs from where secret #2 was, are three rooms connected by archways. Go into the center room, where you can see a soul sphere atop a waterfall. To reach this secret, you will first need to step into the pool of water in front of you - but be forewarned that this causes three cyberdemons to rise from the water. Once they have been dealt with, go back into the water and look on the wall on the left. Part of the brown dirt wall has a larger "grain" than its surroundings; open it to reveal a teleporter to the top of the waterfall. (sector 68)

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

Player spawns
This level contains four spawn points:
 * 1) facing south. (thing 324)
 * 2) facing south. (thing 325)
 * 3) facing south. (thing 327)
 * 4) facing north. (thing 329)

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