MAP26: Base Exposure (Memento Mori II)

MAP26: Base Exposure is the twenty-sixth level of Memento Mori II. It was designed by Mark Klem and uses the music track "Anger's Reprise" by David "Tolwyn" Shaw.

Mission briefing
According to both the text file and the Infopack:


 * Yesterday, a team of 4 went into sector 26 and had a run in with some cyberdemons. The reports that I received indicates that a few wildly placed rockets from one of the cyberdemon lords blew away a massive amount of wall structure revealing what may be an underground base of some sort.  After me and a few others suited up, we locked on the coordinates of the base and went in...


 * The entrance to the blown out wall is pretty high in radioactivity. The good news is; there isn't very much of it at all.  Looks like most of it has dried up over the days.  It was pretty well guarded by a team of former human sargents, [sic] and a few "pinkos" were placed down a hall for a surprise attack from behind.


 * There also appears to be some sort of holding cell here for other demons. There must be a way in there, because a few items are visible.


 * Deeper inside the metal encased operational facility is a red key, which is important to acquire if you ever want to leave this sector. If things start heatin' up, the sargents will move this key to another area.


 * There is a teleporter revealed after you get the key which will take you back to the upper level of the base. But getting to it may deliver a slight problem; death.


 * On the way to the exit, there will be many creatures that will do their best to stop you from getting out. The exit is trapped, so watch it.

Essentials
Base Exposure is very much like Klem's other submission to the megawad - a large and expansive map with areas designed around setpiece encounters. However, in this one, ammo is in very short supply relative to the opposition you face, so causing substantial amounts of monster infighting is almost mandatory to complete the map from a pistol start.

Start - Accessing the Base

You begin in a small rock cave. Run across the water to the door ahead. Pick up the shotgun and the two sets of 4 shotgun shells, one on either side of the door. Open the door to enter a large stone hall with two zombiemen (Hey, not too rough and below), two imps (Hurt me plenty), or four imps and a chaingunner (Ultra-Violence and above). On Ultra-Violence and above, your best strategy is to let the chaingunner open fire and mow down the imps for you, then finish it with the shotgun.

Head further north into a room with a T-shaped walkway over a slime pit. Beware of imps from a cage in the northeast, as well as up to two cacodemons that will be awakened when you enter this room. Dodge fire from then shotgun guys in the window to the east, then head for the eastern branch of the walkway to access their room. There are up to five shotgun guys inside. Push on the switch on the west wall to lower the brick walls in this room to reveal computer panels. Find the imp in an alcove in the southeast. Kill it, then flip the switch in the alcove. This will open the door in the east, but also raise the ceiling in the west of the slime pit to reveal another (larger) imp cage with up to nine imps. Make a dash through the rain of fireballs and exit this building (which wil be called the "starting building") through the doorway in the north. Outside, watch for up to two imps in ambush, as well as a chaingunner located on a perch in the southwest (Ultra-Violence and above only). The imps in the larger imp cage will also be able to fire at you from four windows high on the north wall of the starting building, so watch your back as well.

To the west is a wooden door locked by a red key, so you have to head east first. Going around the east side of the starting building, you will find up to four shotgun guys, up to 11 imps and up to two arachnotrons in an open field. You will also have to deal with up to five imps attacking from windows in an extension from the starting building, a Hell knight on a bridge (not on Hey, not too rough and below). There is also an isolated moss-stained stone building in the south, with a staircase blocked off by blue bars and a chaingunner behind them (not on Hey, not too rough and below). With so many different monsters and monster types, the choice is clear - save your shells and let infighting thin the ranks of the monsters. Mop up once the horde is manageable.

Next, find the doorway at the northeast corner of the starting building and head up the stairs. You are in the smaller imp cage overlooking the slime pit from earlier. Flip the switch in it and a door will open close to the doorway. This leads to another flight of stairs. Mow down any remaining imps and follow the passageway around. You will now be in the extension from the starting building, with the blue key on a windowsill at the end of the extension. Approach it with caution - once you step into the patch of light on the floor, a fake floor trap activates and a demon (Hey, not too rough and below), Hell knight (Hurt me plenty) or baron of Hell (Ultra-Violence and above) appears, along with a chaingun. Take it down, then collect the chaingun and blue key.

Finally, head to the isolated building in the south. Open the blue bars and step up all the way to the tiled floor, then turn around and head back outside. You do not need to flip any of the switches - what triggers the entrance to the base to open is crossing from the final step onto the tiled stone floor of this building.

The Base - Red Key

East of the isolated building, a large part of the wall has lowered, revealing a new passageway. Three imps will rush out from this passageway. On Ultra-Violence and above, you have your first cyberdemon encounter, which you probably should kill immediately - it can follow you into the first few areas of the base if you try to avoid it. Head into the new passageway, which has a vine-covered passage at its end. Head down the steps and a across a small slime channel to reach a silver corridor, which marks the beginning of the "base" section of this level. In this first section, watch for up to three shotgun guys in the west (none on Hey, not too rough and below) and up to four demons in the east.

If playing from a pistol start, you may wish to head east first. As you approach the end of the corridor, the panel at the end of the corridor opens, revealing an alcove with a chaingunner (Hurt me plenty and below) or a mancubus (Ultra-Violence and above). Kill it and grab the BFG9000 it is protecting. From here, you may wish to access secret #2 for more cells for your BFG9000 (although you may have to use some ammo to deal with the monsters released.

Next, head west and through the thin metal door. This leads you to a square-shaped room with a blue cutout on the western wall, a cage and a medikit on a blue square. Collecting the medikit causes a fake floor trap to activate, causing a shotgun guy (Hurt me plenty and below) or a revenant (Ultra-Violence and above) to appear in the cage. You may also awaken a chaingunner and up to two revenants in the oval room to the south while in this room, so deal with them.

Head towards the oval room facing backwards (north). If you are playing on Ultra-Violence and above, equip your BFG9000 too. When you step out of the square room, a trap opens in the north wall of the square room. It releases two imps (Hurt me plenty and below) or an arch-vile (Ultra-Violence and above). With limited cover available, the BFG9000 is the best way to stop the arch-vile before it launches its fire attack.

In the oval room, steps lead down to a rocket launcher. If you pick it up, parts of the eastern and western sides of the oval will lower, releasing up to three revenants and five lost souls from two traps.

From the oval room, head south through the narrow crushing ceiling. You are now in the western arm of a cross-shaped hallway. Carefully proceed east through the series of five narrow crushers to reach the junction of the cross-shaped hallway. This triggers a trap, releasing up to 16 demons in an attempt to sandwich you from all four cardinal directions. Use your rocket launcher to clear the eastern arm's demons, then back into it and mow them down as they come with a weapon of your choice. The demons approaching from the west are unlikely to survive the sequence of crushers, so they are less of a threat.

From the junction of the cross-shaped hallway, head east to a blue platform and drop down into a large silver arena. You will encounter up to four cacodemons, two arachnotrons and five shotgun guys. On Ultra-Violence and above, you have an extra shotgun guy in the window in the southwest and a chaingunner on top of the stairs in the northeast to deal with. These monsters are still not a big deal if you can get the arachnotron's plasma gun to do the dirty work for you.

Head up the steps in the northeast. Watch for up to three shotgun guys in the window to the right. Continue around the corridor, and take note of the window in the south wall of the northernmost part of the corridor. At the end of the corridor is a computer room with a switch. Flip this switch and backtrack to the arena. Along the way, you will find that an imp (Hurt me plenty and below) or a Hell knight (Ultra-Violence and above) has appeared in that window in the northernmost part of the corridor - anticipate it and take it out quickly.

Back in the silver arena, you will find that the door to the south has opened, and you face up to three shotgun guys. Head further into the room and you will find a shotgun guy (Hurt me plenty and above only) and an arch-vile (Ultra-Violence and above only) waiting in ambush, as well as up to two other shotgun guys beyond the window in the east. Take them down and head up the steps in the northeast of this room. In this corridor, kill the shotgun guy and the chaingunner, then open the door in the north. In this passageway, kill the two shotgun guys and open the door at the end. You will be back in the computer room from earlier. Head north along the corridor, and you will find that a new passageway has opened in the southeast. There are up to two demons and two chaingunners here. Mow them down, continue along the passageway and kill the two shotgun guys (one on Hey, not too rough and below). You will be in the room with the red key. Collect it from its alcove, and the wall behind it will lower, revealing a corridor with a large amount of rockets, cells and an invulnerability. Collect them all.

Head west through the newly-lowered window, then north back into the large silver arena. The walls in the west have lowered, revealing a baron of Hell (Hey, not too rough and below), a cyberdemon (Hurt me plenty), or a cyberdemon and a spiderdemon (Ultra-Violence and above). On Hurt me plenty and below, you will use your invulnerability and full stock of rockets and cells to duke it out with the boss monster. However, on Ultra-Violence and above, your 'gotcha!' sense should be tingling. Get the spiderdemon and cyberdemon to engage in infighting, and they will do each other in. You can then finish off the remaining, severely weakened boss monster.

From where the boss monster(s) came from, you will see two sets of lights in the west between two curved walls. The southern one is actually a little offset from the northern one, hiding a hole in the floor. Drop into it, then drop down two more times to reach a teleporter that leads you back to the junction of the cross-shaped hallway. You now need to backtrack back to the surface - a simple affair, but take note of the trap that has opened in the square room near the entrance to the base. It has three imps (Hey, not too rough and below), four imps (Hurt me plenty), or two arachnotrons and two shotgun guys (Ultra-Violence and above)

Yellow Key

Head back to the area north of the starting building (watch for up to two chaingunners on a perch and two imps in the northeast), then go through the door in the west. On Ultra-Violence and above, you will be immediately greeted by a chaingunner. As you head into the next large courtyard, you will face up to three shotgun guys, six cacodemons and a huge horde of demons. Put your slaughter map instincts to use and herd them up, then put a BFG9000 round or two in the group for a satisfying and devastating scene of carnage.

Continue west into a cavern with a bridge. On Ultra-Violence and above, watch for two cacodemons. Head south into a larger outdoor area with up to six mancubi in the southeast and up to seven Hell knights (six Hell knights and two barons of Hell on Ultra-Violence and above) in the northwest, along with two imps caught in the middle. Your task is simple: cause a massive sequence of monster infighting by placing yourself between both groups of monsters. Finish off the survivors when done.

Next, run through the waterfall in the northwest to find a switch. Flip it, then head back out. A wall west of the waterfall will have opened. Two demons (Hey, not too rough and below) or an arch-vile (Ultra-Violence and above; no monsters emerge on Hurt me plenty) will emerge. Go through the passageway revealed and deal with the imps on the platform in the south, along with a pain elemental (not on Hey, not too rough and below). Jump across the pillars to the platform with the imps, and the southernmost pillar will sink into the slime, allowing you to go behind the pillars. Proceeding west, you will find a long stone hallway with green pillars. It contains a number of imps and up to two Hell knights. On ultra-Violence and above, the real problem is added - yet another cyberdemon. The far end of this hall has the yellow key and two switches. Depending on your difficulty level, your strategy is different:


 * On Hurt me plenty and below, your concern is not releasing any more monsters. Grab the yellow key, then flip the right (north) switch only to lower the pillars to the east. make a dash for those pillars, then ride them back up.
 * On Ultra-Violence and above, your concern is getting a better meatshield from the cyberdemon's rockets. Grab the yellow key and flip both switches. The second switch opens up the walls in the area, releasing a massive horde of lost souls. It also lowers the pillars, releasing six Hell knights and two barons of Hell. With your enhanced meatshield of monsters blocking the cyberdemon's rockets, get out of there.

Exit

Backtrack to the area northeast of the starting area. Head east onto the U-shaped bridge (watch for up to two cacodemons). As you exit the bridge, watch for four mancubi (Hurt me plenty) or a cyberdemon (Ultra-Violence and above). Use the bridge as a hold-point to handle these monsters.

Continue west to a house. Kill the arachnotron outside, then head in and clear the interior of shotgun guys. Flip the switch in the northwest of the house to lower a wall to the west. This reveals another open area with a row of stone blocks, behind which is an arachnotron (Hey, not too rough and below), an arachnotron and a Hell knight (Hurt me plenty), or three arachnotrons, two Hell knights and three revenants (Ultra-Violence and above). take them out and head through the yellow door in the southwest of this area.

In this final stretch of the level, charge forward with guns blazing, taking out any imps you see in your way. You will arrive in an area with four pillars and an exit door in the southeast. As the briefing has warned you, the exit is trapped. using the exit door opens a trap west of the exit, with the following monsters:


 * Hey, not too rough and below: One cacodemon.
 * Hurt me plenty: Three Hell knights and one baron of Hell.
 * Ultra-Violence and above: One revenant and one arch-vile.

Flip the switch in the south of this trap to open the exit door. Flip the switch in the exit chamber to end this level.

Official

 * 1) When you lower the plasma gun beyond the blue bars for access, you will notice a switch in the south. Flip it and steel bars will open in the north. Jump from the northern window and over these bars to find (on medium and hard skills a sergeant, a megasphere and) a box of bullets (sector 156). Walk toward the bars again to exit.
 * 2) Exit secret #1 and go straight east, through the hall made of great bricks and the cave in its southeast. Cross the nukage pit and proceed to the tech-like looking hallway's east, where a compartment with a chaingunner on easy and medium skills or a mancubus on hard skills, also a BFG9000 opens in front of you. The southern wall's central recess has a hole in it revealing a switch and a health bonus. Shoot the switch to unveil another switch in the compartment. Flip it and four of the lights next to the walls central recesses will lower, releasing out a demon (on easy skills) or (two on medium or four on hard skills) Hell knights from the north, but also enabling access to the demons' cage (sector 122) in the west, where you can find a cache of supplies: five (on easy) or one (on medium) medikits, five health bonuses on hard skills, four (eight on easy) bullet boxes, two (four on easy) shell boxes, two (four on easy) rocket boxes and four (eight on easy) energy cells.
 * 3) In the large, cross-shaped hallway south of the ovoid room where you found a rocket launcher, enter the southern hall and then backtrack to the room north of the ovoid one to find that the western, blue wall has opened to reveal three (easy) or four (medium) imps or, on hard skills only, a sergeant and two arachnotrons, also a medikit on easy/medium or a health bonus on hard and a switch. Flip the switch and head back to the compartment in the north to find a corridor (sector 387) with two boxes of rockets and a backpack.
 * 4) After the red key door, you can climb a stairway into the western side of the central building. There, you can drop off the northwestern window onto a tiny ledge in front of it. From there, walk to the western platform to find a compartment (sector 149) with a soul sphere.
 * 5) After crossing the U-shaped wooden bridge over a large brown mud lake to the very north of the map, behind the wall in front of you go southwards to find a stairway leading up to a rocket launcher. At the south of this stairway is a portion of wall with grime on it. Open it to find an invulnerability (sector 360).
 * 6) In the room opened when you try to open the exit door, the southernmost portion of the eastern wall is covered in grime. It can be opened to collect a megasphere (sector 340).
 * 7) Sector 432 is marked as a secret, but is not used in the map, rendering it unobtainable.

Non-official

 * 1) After using the first switch in this map, some large brick walls surrounding this room lower, revealing computer consoles and an alcove with an imp, guarding the switch that opens the next door. A part of the southern computer console has hazard stripes on it, open it to reveal a super shotgun. Grabbing it lets another one appear right behind the next door.

Bugs

 * Sector 111, the gravel sector north of the toxic pool sector in the east of the map, is also a type 7 damaging floor, even though there is no slime on it.
 * Due to an unused sector marked as a secret, you can only obtain 85% secrets on this level.

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on June 3, 2014.

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

Technical information
The two "exit" signs hanging from the ceiling of the cave in the west of the map appear to project light on the ceiling, but not on the floor. This is accomplished through a fake floor effect. The two small sectors representing the light projected from the signs (sectors 299 and 300) have brightness 255, but their floors are lowered to -256. Since the surrounding floor is at -8, these lowered floors form pits with untextured sides. Due to the "flood-fill" manner in which the Doom rendering engine draws flats, these untextured sides are filled with the texture of the surrounding floor, which is at brightness 144. This gives the illusion that the two sectors have different ceiling (255) and floor (144) brightness levels.

Trivia

 * The theme of this level is an arranged version of Mark Klem's "Hidden Anger," previously used in Memento Mori as the theme of MAP01: The Teleporter, MAP18: A Dead Man's Town, and MAP29: Island of Death.