MAP09: Abattoire (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP09: Abattoire is the ninth map of The Plutonia Experiment. It was designed by Milo Casali and uses the music track "Deep Into The Code" from Doom. Abattoir is a French word that means slaughterhouse. The e at the end of the level name is a typo.

Essentials
Blue Key

You begin in a large room with eight pillars. Grab the shotgun ahead of you. As you go around the hall, you will be attacked by four spectres and on Hurt me plenty and above, a cacodemon in front of you. Kill them and proceed to the southeast of the room, where a super shotgun sits on a pad. As you step onto the pad, the surrounding floor will lower (it is a platform). Drop down into a small room with two demons. Kill them and enter the teleporter.

You are now in a new room with two crushers. Take the rocket launcher to your right. As you do so, the teleporter pad you entered this room on will rise up, preventing you from leaving. Collect the boxes of rockets on the steps, and kill the four demons (and two revenants on Hurt me plenty and higher). Take the plasma gun and the four energy cells around it in the middle of the room. Once ready, proceed up the steps to the platform where the first pair of revenants were, and it is highly recommended that you do not fire any shot until the blue key has been acquired.

As you cross the top step, a revenant will appear in a newly-opened alcove behind you, in the northwest of the room. Flip the two switches on either side of the platform to access the blue key. This will also reveal two lost souls in nearby alcoves. Grab the blue key and flip the switch behind it to re-lower the teleporter so you can leave. At this point, your course of action will differ depending on whether you prioritise speed and survival, or would like maximum kills.

If you prioritise speed and survival, make a beeline for the teleporter, and do not fire a shot. When you are back in the small room from earlier, wait for the revenant and lost souls to teleport back here, then kill them. This potentially avoids triggering the teleport trap in the room.

If you desire maximum kills, trigger the teleport trap be firing a shot. The following amounts of monsters will teleport to the platforms in the crusher pillars:


 * Hey, not too rough and below: three revenants, 20 imps
 * Hurt me plenty: five revenants, 35 imps
 * Ultra-Violence and above: eight revenants, 35 imps

The crushers may make your life slightly easier by crushing some enemies, but this is still a tough fight. Head to the alcove in the northwest of the room and grab the Invulnerability, provoke some monster infighting, and you can now proceed do kill all the monsters in any feasible manner. Once done, head back through the teleporter.

Once back in the small room, ride the platform back up to the starting room.

Yellow and Red Keys

Back in the starting room, head through the door with a blue pillar in the southwest of the starting room. You will be on a platform overlooking a blood pit. Flip the switch to slowly raise a walkway in the blood. There is a mancubus on a platform opposite yours - use the structure the switch is on to shield you from the fireballs. On Ultra-Violence and above, your shots will awaken two cacodemons - in this case, they are your first priority. If you don't have enough space to handle them, quickly kite them out through the door you came in for some breathing room.

The south wall of the blood pit has a cage with some enemies. Before you proceed along the walkway, it is strongly advised that you stick around on the switch platform for a while and kill any enemy that makes its way into the cage. Once you start seeing chaingunners, spectres and, on Ultra-Violence and above, Hell knights appearing in the cage, you are doing it right. What this does is to drain the trap in the red key room of its enemies via a hidden passage, sparing you a potentially deadly encounter.

Head along the walkway and clear the chaingunner cage to your left. You may be able to grab a chaingun by bumping the cage bars. Continue forward, but as you pass a yellow-keyed doorway to the right, turn around and fire a shot. Near the switch structure, a trap has opened, and three chaingunners will attempt to shoot you in the back. On Ultra-Violence, a mancubus will appear too, but it is too large to get past the switch structure - head back and use the super shotgun on it. Once done, head to the thin door ahead.

This next outdoor circular room has nine imps and one (Hurt me plenty) or two (Ultra-Violence and above) mancubii. Try to provoke some monster infighting - the wide spread of the mancubii fireballs is going to kill most of the imps, or get them to attack the offending mancubus. Head to the back of the room and run on this thin ledge to grab the yellow key.

Exit the room and head to the yellow-keyed doorway. There are four imps, two spectres and on Hurt me plenty and above, an arachnotron. Let the arachnotron take out the imps and spectres for you, then kill it off. Grab the red key in the alcove ahead. This will trigger a trap to open, but if you waited to snipe the enemies in the cage in the blood pit earlier, you will face minimal opposition. If not, you will face six chaingunners, two spectres and, on Ultra-Violence and above, two Hell knights in this tiny room. Circle around the trap to make sure all monsters are dead.

Finale

Backtrack to the starting room. A pillar will have opened with an arch-vile in it - kill it quickly. Eight alcoves in the edges of the room will release a total of eight (Hurt me plenty or below) or 16 (Ultra-Violence and above) imps into the starting room. Kill them and collect the stimpacks and boxes of shotgun shells in their alcoves if needed.

At this point, if you need health or ammo, you should backtrack and grab it from wherever available. Once you enter the blocked teleporter, there is no return. Once ready, head to the blocked teleporter in the south of the starting room. Raise the bars, collect the energy cell packs and head through.

You are now in a semi-circular room with a lot of enemies on a ledge (on Ultra-Violence, six imps, two barons of Hell and two Hell knights as well as two cacodemons in a niche). Turn around and head for the skull panel; open it for a soulsphere. As you do so, the enemies on the ledge lower to the floor. Use your plasma gun and rocket launcher to kill everything in this room, and then head to the door in the south (it automatically opens as you approach it), but do not enter the next room yet.

This next room is highly dangerous if you do not take it carefully. If you fall off the walkway, there is no way to get back up and death is guaranteed. The following details a safe way to handle this room.


 * Before entering the next room, use the rocket launcher to snipe off the seven chaingunners in the cage in the distance.
 * Once they are all dead, head onto the circular walkway, but do not follow it around yet. The door you entered through will close behind you, sealing you in. Snipe off the imps on either side.
 * Facing the exit teleporter, follow it anticlockwise. The moment you pick up the second rocket, run to the closed door. In each corner of the room, a Hell knight (Hey, not too rough and lower), an arachnotron (Hurt me plenty) or a mancubus (Ultra-Violence and above) will appear alongside a revenant. Make sure you see only one far corner at once, and kill both enemies on it. Once both far corners are cleared, carefully peek out and take on the enemies on each near corner.
 * Once all these enemies are dead, continue anticlockwise. Note two brown metal doors, one in the western wall and one in the eastern wall, next to two teleporter pads. Just as you pick up the next (third) rocket, immediately fire two rockets towards either metal door. This should allow you to kill the six imps in each chamber behind the door before they teleport onto the walkway.
 * Head to the back of the walkway. Face south and run onto a platform with a switch. Flip the switch to raise the platform and a bridge to the exit teleporter.

Enter the exit teleporter to complete the level.

Official

 * 1) From the starting area, head down the stairs and lift in the south-west. At the bottom is a room with a teleport surrounded by several lion-faced columns. Instead of teleporting, try opening the columns until you find the one that contains a soul sphere. (sector 27)
 * 2) At the far end of the room with the two crushers is a raised platform with two skull switches on it. Press both switches, one which reveals the blue keycard and one which raises a bridge to it. There are three red openings in the wall on the far side of the bridge. The easily reachable center opening holds the blue key, of course. The outer openings (which are circuitous with one another) lead to a secret area. Simply run into either from the raised bridge. (sector 64)

Non-official

 * 1) After taking the red key, enter the ambush area from the west and find the fake wall, from which a passage leads to a backpack and an energy cell pack.

Bugs

 * 1) Thing 304 (a short green firestick) is in void space because the "pillar" it is in does not have a niche for a firestick like most of the other pillars in the starting room.
 * 2) It is possible to avoid triggering the traps in the crusher room by stepping up to the platform in the east of the room through the diagonal sides of the trapezoidal top step.

Current records
The Compet-N records for the map are: The data was last verified in its entirety on May 5, 2013.

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