TMA20AC Mission — The Builder's Paradise (Mar 24, 2020)

Linda on 1/9/2020 at 03:46

Try to lower the Sky Details, nothing.

I've turned of the vsynch and this is what happened: (https://ibb.co/MNwYb48)

Inline Image:

https://i.ibb.co/MNwYb48/dump000.png

91 fps for an "old" videocard is quite impressive. Anyway I still get this problem... Whatever, it's been months, maybe 1 years since my last Thief Metal Age play, maybe my eyes are no more trained.

Linda on 2/9/2020 at 04:07

I am afraid it was my eyes out of train. Anyway, impressive, nasty mission, loyally following what was the nasty Karras mind; the monsters are as disgusting as shocking. If I'm not wrong some of them are realizations of the first artistic sketches of the Mechanists robots, I don't even want to think to the citizens attacked by these minions... I like this cyber-horror ambientation.

Anyway looks like I'm stuck: I reached the zone where the metal angels are (below Karras), but I can't open any door... The only key I have is the Control Room Key but I've seen no control rooms, or it looks like this one is beyond the extraction quarter for which I can't open its entrance...

Plus I was wondering what Friend Kernel said in that victrola recording...

Dahenjo on 2/9/2020 at 14:01

Quote Posted by Linda

Not sure exactly where you are but think you may need to climb up to level where you see archer patrolling with the bot with a light and from there you can access areas to proceed farther. If you want you can check my (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WreyIfG5_UA) playthrough showing how I did it. Kernel says he's going to become the 'arm of justice' to put down the rebellion but doesn't do that much to stop you anyway, I chose to proceed without him to play more stealthily/unhampered.

91 fps sounds like your video card is performing well, but I know myself & others had similar issues even with pretty powerful systems, especially in that outside section with many lags/crashes which could be dromed related more than from hardware. I use an AMD video card and was able to help the situation by installing latest drivers, tweaking settings etc and had to redo my playthrough several times to get a good version without these problems, but the mission is so excellent otherwise it was worth it.

Marmbo on 4/9/2020 at 04:49

Wow that was a mission and a half. 5 hours 22 minutes to complete with optional quest. Loot 4645/4771 Secrets 8/9 What I'm wondering is what is the crazy tall walking robot thing with the laser scanner that you find if you're up on the roof and carefully make your way down to the lowest area out there without dying. It's just stuck out there and you'd never see it playing the game normally.

Linda on 8/9/2020 at 08:50

Quote Posted by Dahenjo

Not sure exactly where you are but think you may need to climb up to level where you see archer patrolling with the bot with a light and from there you can access areas to proceed farther.

I'm right below where the archer is! Coincidence.

Inline Image:

https://i.ibb.co/VVt6Ns0/dump002.jpg

Quote Posted by Marmbo

Easter egg? :laff:

This mission is very exciting, I would advice it to all those loving Mechanists.

FireMage on 8/9/2020 at 20:06

Quote Posted by Marmbo

What I'm wondering is what is the crazy tall walking robot thing with the laser scanner that you find if you're up on the roof and carefully make your way down to the lowest area out there without dying. It's just stuck out there and you'd never see it playing the game normally.

This is a scrapped creature due to lack of time. It's supposed to patrol around and spit rust gas on its target ie the player. Unfortunately, I didn't had the time to finish its script so I had to keep it as an easter egg, unfinished, just to say "Hey, it exists". Another scrapped creature is the mecanical caterpillar that you can see (ofc non fonctionnal) in the museum above the big double green automatic door.

@Linda : if you say the mechanical angels and turrets in Karras's quarters are active, I guess you unfortunately killed the worker bot waiting at the entrance instead of following it. In such case, you'll unfortunately need to use an invisible or speed potion to pass all this dangerous area to reach the elevator throne and get to the upper floor to continue the adventure.
It's a level design mistake, I know, it's a thing I plan to fix for the update. Once you'll be up there Find the emergency exit lever, then leave this ambush and find the break room. There you'll find the security room and the key of the factory (which will grant you the access almost EVERYWHERE in the compound and the Irina's Book which will tell you how to win.)

downwinder on 12/9/2020 at 02:50

just beat mission on expert only got 4/9 secrets

great job on mission,pretty hard over all with all those readables and triggers to move forward in mission

thank you for a great mission yes i used those sprocket arrows they helped alot

Linda on 14/9/2020 at 05:40

Quote Posted by FireMage

@Linda : if you say the mechanical angels and turrets in Karras's quarters are active, I guess you unfortunately killed the worker bot waiting at the entrance instead of following it. In such case, you'll unfortunately need to use an invisible or speed potion to pass all this dangerous area to reach the elevator throne and get to the upper floor to continue the adventure.
It's a level design mistake, I know, it's a thing I plan to fix for the update. Once you'll be up there Find the emergency exit lever, then leave this ambush and find the break room. There you'll find the security room and the key of the factory (which will grant you the access almost EVERYWHERE in the compound and the Irina's Book which will tell you how to win.)

Actually I'm at the control room where there are two levers. I have already substituted the memory crystal with an empty one found in the basement but none of the lever lower... I am supposed somewhat to call a giant elevator in the main hall but I can't see any way to get it down...

FireMage on 15/9/2020 at 14:37

So if you reach such a point, it means you found Irina's ledger and the factory key so it means the last thing to do is to turn off the valva which gives Karras the control over the control room. To find this valva you need to follow the glowing green conduct upstairs.

Additionnal hint : It will lead you to the south entrance to Karras'quarters that you can open by activating the levers that control South Emergency Exit ie the room with four levers that you should have met when you escaped Karras' ambush

Jefftime on 16/9/2020 at 13:58

Hello! New member here and have been loving the fan missions I've tried out from this contest so far.

I can't seem to get this mission to load at all. When I hit play, it crashes before I even get in game. I'm playing with a GOG copy of Thief II. I tried updating to NewDark 1.27, copying the files over into the directory. I set my audio channels to 48 and hardware acceleration to on. Still crashes. Any advice?

I've loaded it with both DarkLoader and FMsel, and both seem to be fine, so I don't think it's the loader

EDIT: I actually figured out what I did. Since I primarily use DarkLoader, and this mission wasn't showing up in the list (since it's a .7z not a .zip) I had decompressed it, and then rezipped it and put it in my FM directory. This made it show up in DarkLoader, but apparently broke it. Given the advice I found elsewhere in these forums, I don't think I'll be using DarkLoader anymore :). I redownloaded the mission, reinstalled Thief 2, and used FMsel instead and it was able to load into the first cinematic!

Hopefully this is useful info for anyone else that had this issue

Looking forward to trying this mission out!