![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
WARNING: This post contains a large number of embedded images. If you have a slower connection you may have trouble loading the post in it's entirety.
The layout of HAMLET's nine floors requires vertical compliance in order for the elevators to function properly. For the most part great care was taken to line up these essential structures and draw them accurately in the map screen. However, after careful review I've noticed several errors. I will be ignoring very slight mismatches where alignment is only off by a few pixels as that can easily be attributed to scaling mishaps.
[Because of the large number of images needed to adequately cover the topic and their size the remainder of this post will be hidden behind a livejournal cut.]
I took screenshots of each floor map in ePSXe, cleared away the blue background, cropped each one, and then using transparencies aligned them according to common elevators. While I could have just extracted the maps from the game itself their native resolution is a bit too low and I would have had to correct for blurring in Photoshop. Why do that when I can make ePSXe do my scaling up for me?
To ensure visibility of the layers I had to color code them. For reference the full album can be found here: http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c374/abaxa/space%20griffon/map%20comparisons/?start=all
I'll start with level one.
Level One has three important reference points. Elevators 3 and 4 stop on most of the floors throughout HAMLET while elevator 5 covers some of the other areas. Elevator 1 goes directly to level nine making it critical to properly orientating the mines to the rest of the colony. Please note that the small white bands inside the green lines between the rooms on the east side are complete and passable hallways. The color just got clipped in editing.
This is level two and it is divided into northern and southern sections which are unconnected. The southern region is only accessible through elevator 3. However the northern portion has elevator 5 again, elevator 7 - another useful alignment point - and elevator 2 which is the only means of getting into one part of level six.
Rounding off the initial list is level three. It is the smallest floor but the presence of four elevators makes it very useful in lining everything up properly.
By using elevator 3 as a reference point I've lined up levels one and two. These two floors are also the only ones above the lunar surface and, as we shall see, the lower levels are not confined to this box since they can use the moon itself for support. What should be obvious, however, is that elevator 5 does not line up. I will return to this point shortly when it is more evident.
Elevators 5, 6 and 7 line up beautifully with level one. While only elevator 5 stops on the first floor the other two could have been easily added as evident by the blank areas in the map.
When level three is overlaid with level two the mismatch in elevators becomes more readily apparent.
If the northern sector is nudged a bit to the east this conflict is resolved. Since HAMLET's absolute upper floor boundaries are ill-defined I'm willing to write this off as a bit of convenience in mapmaking so that the map would display in a nice box.
Level four is where HAMLET starts spreading out horizontally and I had to start expanding my working canvas to keep up. Elevator 4 is in the south, elevator 3 sits in the center, elevator 7 provides access to the northern gauntlet and elevator 5 is the escape route from the eastern section.
Elevator 4 has been circled since the number got cut off when I cleared out the background. The oddity here is that elevator 6 goes right through an open passageway. This is a 'feature' we'll be seeing much more of in this little adventure. However the game is always clear that whenever this happens the elevator doesn't stop on that floor. I'm willing to believe that if the elevator isn't dependent on any vertical structure to function and if the floor and ceiling can be built to retract to allow the elevator car to pass then this is a feasible structure. Level two has an adjustable partition system that essentially restructures part of the level so it's not a big stretch to think something on a smaller scale exists just for a few elevators.
Levels one and four line up perfectly.
This shot, minus the rest of the level, is for clarity.
Level two, in it's original map state, is not so agreeable.
However, scooting the northern region to the east once again solves the dilemma. This is the same adjustment I made up above. I just copied the northern section into a new layer and created a layer mask.
It also lines up perfectly with elevator four on level three. The two vertical light blue bars at the bottom actually mark an access ramp that descends from level three to the eastern portion of level four. It may seem weird but it's the only means of going directly from the eastern section to the western without going through the isolation block in the center of level four.
[Level four is the bio-weapon development facility while level three houses food production. Elevator 4 was likely used to take food intended for the bio-monsters down to the containment pens. This way if one got loose it would be contained by virtue of the fact it couldn't use the elevator.]
This is level five. It's another floor broken into two unconnected sectors. The floor is further coded by block. Elevator numbers are larger and inverse colors to the block numbering.
With level three as a guide I moved level five into place. No adjustments were needed.
This is the north and northeastern portions of level six. The game divides this floor in two and you never at any point see the whole floor at one time. The yellow square is because, unlike the other maps which were snapped when the game opened the map for me, this one was done manually. That square marks the Griffon's position at the time the screenshot was taken.
Although hard to see with level three as the upper layer elevator 5 is not aligned properly on level six's map. You can see the brown outline just to the left of the large 7 on the map. This was a serious goof in drawing the map and needed to be corrected.
Just to be sure, however, I checked it against level five using elevator 7 as a reference point. It is easier to see the errant elevator 5 south of the yellow square. Somehow it ended up a bit too far north.
This is the same as the prior shot but the layer order has been flipped. This makes elevator 5 visible on level five.
Just to hammer home the point here is the comparison to level one - which is great because level one doesn't have the visual noise the lower floors come with. Elevator 5 is obviously in the wrong place on level six's map.
This is to make absolutely sure I haven't buggered up my layering using elevator 7 as a reference point.
Okay, well there is a solution to this that isn't apparent in the map itself. Level six is actually divided into three regions not two. The factories, hangar, control room, and elevator 5 are one section and elevator 7 and the disposal area are a separate section. It is impossible to walk from one to the other and since at no other point in the game are two walls put next to each other like you see with the room for elevator 7 and the hallway south leading to elevator 5 an error had to have been made in drawing the map.
Before I run off copying and pasting into new layers I have another reference point to check.
That being elevator 2. It is circled in this shot with level six moved to line up elevator 5.
After all those comparisons I decided the most sensible solution would be to lengthen the hallway leading to elevator 5. This is what it looks like after a quick cut, moving the whole thing down far enough so elevator 5 lined up properly and the gap filled in.
It looks much better now! Still more about this region...
The northeastern area of level six has an unmarked elevator required by the game's plot. I've colored it in with black.
It goes straight here with no stops or going back.
Right through a hallway on level five! Oh you wacky game!
Yet it clears level three by a hair's breadth.
I erased the yellow square in Photoshop and marked out both Jim's escape path and the loopback he can take back to elevator 7. There are many unmarked locked doors on this floor. After arriving here elevator 7 no longer functions (hence the heavy redundancy with elevator 5) which is why the unmarked elevator is necessary in the first place.
The southern region of level six has another unmarked (and unusable!) elevator along with 3 and 4.
As we can see nothing seems amiss. The unmarked elevator, for future reference, is the brown box at the top obscuring the word farm in this picture.
The whole of level six in one image.
Our mystery elevator lines up with a cubby on level one behind the partition that can only be opened via laser cutter. This is probably just coincidence as there is nothing remarkable about that cubby.
It clears level two with no conflicts. I don't even need to flip the layers because the two hallways that overlap visually head in opposite directions.
However it runs smack into a hallway on level five. Meh, nothing too unusual there it seems. Since the elevator is player-unusable trying to guess where it goes is purely speculation.
However speculation is part of the fun! This shot shows how the mystery elevator lines up to level seven and it's damn near perfect to help explain on the game's plot mysteries.
Oreag and Rauzein's first assignment is to secure HAMLET's central databank on level seven - the large room to the north. This does not go as planned because an enormous number of guard robots defend the databank. Konrad joins up with them and at some point Oreag breaks off and heads up to level six to stop the flow of robots into level seven. He reports back that he closed a partition connecting the two levels without specifying where.
Even a cursory glance should be enough to dismiss elevators 3 and 4. Both are fully functional with no obstructions. There is also no ramp connecting the two floors. That leaves a perfectly placed mystery elevator which, if one wall were removed, would be the shortest distance between the factories on level six and the main databank on level seven.
EDIT: The ramp on level seven descends down to level eight - where the Guard Robot Control System is located and many guard robots are stored. That explains why so many guard robots were in the data bank when Oreag and Rauzein arrived. They came up from level eight to defend one of HAMLET's most critical areas. Since there are no factories on level eight once the horde was destroyed only a handful of guard robots remained on level eight to protect the GRCS itself.
Levels three, six (south), seven, and eight are visible in this image. The mystery elevator clears level eight as well.
The brown box is just barely visible as it peaks out from behind a corner in level nine.
Levels seven and eight are connected by the ramp and elevator 4. As level eight is bisected into two regions by locked partitions both are necessary. Elevator 3, which does not stop on level eight, goes right through part of a walkway.
Level nine originally did not line up and I had to move elevator 3 to the west and adjust the adjoining room. It seemed like the path of least resistance.
The two rooms are far closer then I'm comfortable with and this may require some adjustment down the road but the elevators themselves are where they're supposed to be.
Elevator one stops only on the first and ninth floors. It thus gets the title of passing through the greatest number of hallways along it's path.
Both elevators intersect halls on level eight and right next to the atomic pile to boot! Well, that's enough for this post. There are more images in the album on Photobucket for the curious.
