DescentBB

I am playing Vertigo and am at level 18. Right near the red door and the exit is a grate that seals off the two hostage chambers and there are a couple of goodies in there. I cannot shoot through the grate and there does not seem to be enough room in there to send a guided missle through the grate and open the door from the other side. Can anyone tell me how to get the hostages in Vertigo level 18?

Thanks,
Ohmster

Just use your Phoenix cannon to shoot energy blobs through the grill of the door... and since it's shots from the Phoenix, the shots will bounce off the back wall of the room and hit the door... causing the door to open.

Fairly easy (but not obvious). Be careful, you can easily bounce the energy blobs right back at yourself.

Oh duh, I did not even think of that and the givaway was the phoenix cannot right at the entrance to the red door! Those blobs are so big that I though that they would not go through the fence, they did, problem solved. Thanks me bud!

Ohmster

You can also shoot a Smart Missile through it in the right angle and the blobs will open the door just as a guided missile could do.

However, the way intended by the level designers (who obviously did not read my tips pages so they did not deactivate the regular door opening mechanism from the other side) was pretty cool IMO: you gotta destroy the reactor and then shoot a trigger in the exit tunnel which will open this door as shown in a demo accessible from my complete demo list page.

Moon,

can you explain to me how the mission designers, after having created and released the (faulty) mission, should have read your tips on the mission and then warp back in time to tell themselves to fix this?



Or are we just living in the wrong time stream here?

he was being facisious.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear so I'm trying it again.

Apart from the fact that level *designers* should have thought of such exploits as the Smart Missile/Phoenix Cannon/Guided Missile technique to open doors from the wrong side, using markers to keep open doors, themselves (or were they in fact intentional as the rocket jump in Doom?) I had used these methods extensively right from the beginning on my page.

E.g. I used a Guided Missile to get the very first Earthshaker in Secret Level 4. I've been in contact with about 3 or so ppl from the Descent team over the years so I guess I can say my page was being noticed.

Now I don't remember when Vertigo was released but in the meantime there would have been plenty of time to notice these tricks were being used and to take this into account when designing levels.

Since they had this really cool idea of placing a trigger in the exit tunnel I hate to see it \"spoiled\". Especially as this idea isn't as disrupting to the Descent universe as the otherwise pretty cool secret behind the entrance door in D2 level 4.