Quake II/Drilling Area

Level objective
The objective for this level is to first lower an access bridge and then, crossing the bridge, find a service elevator that will take you to the Factory unit.

Strategy
The Drilling Area has three separate parts, which you must play through in sequence, but you discover this during the normal course of events and it creates no additional difficulty. The first part can be played backwards, starting at an alternate entrance from the Borehole, but again it all works out naturally. You will discover resistance from Guards, Gunners, Gladiators and Mutants, all of which you have met many times before. Use the techniques you have learned for dealing with them, particularly retreating from the fast-moving Gladiators and Mutants while firing a powerful weapon and, for the Gladiator, dodging furiously from side to side to avoid return fire. Ammunition, armor and health are in adequate, if not plentiful, supply. Make use of Grenades as they are most abundant. Overall, the level is of average difficulty and you should be able to play with your favored strategy.

Lowering the Access Bridge
Coming from the elevator, deal first with four Gunners and four Guards clustered around a short stairway and a cavern below. Stay near cover and employ the usual weapons for these Strogg types. There is Combat Armor under the stairway. The cavern leads to a passage patrolled by a Gladiator. A fifth Guard will also attack from the other end. The right hand wall of the passage is barred and through the bars you can see the lower part of the Drilling Area that you will need to visit later. If you look down and perhaps jump you may catch a glimpse of some of the enemies you will face, although it's hard to kill them from up here.

At the other end of the passage a left turn and then a right turn takes you to a tunnel in which plates move continuously up and down, making it difficult to pass through. As if that's not bad enough, a Gunner at the other end throws Grenades and fires his Machinegun at you. You may, at this point, wish that you'd found and taken the secret alternate route from the Borehole so that you'd start at the other end of this tunnel. Nevertheless, by crouching and with some patience you can fire an accurate long-range weapon at the feet of the Strogg and eventually be rid of them. As with all barriers of this type, the easiest way through the moving plates is to press against them when they are down and move a short distance forward as soon as they rise.

Yet another Gunner will greet you at the other end, coming out from hiding to the right of the tunnel exit, then another Gunner in the next passage, then a Gladiator, then a final Gunner in the room with the lever that lowers the bridge. Whew! Operate the lever and watch the bridge lower through the bars. In addition to operating the bridge, the lever has drawn back bars across a doorway in the lower part of the level. You need to go there now, find your way to the ../Lower Mines/ and thence to the final part of this level where you will cross over the bridge and exit. Your field computer changes your secondary objective to "Access bridge lowered. Find service elevator to Factory", which isn't really helpful. Unless you took out Strogg in the lower area, you should at this point have 18 of the 26 enemy kills.

If you move right up to the bars near the lever, looking through them towards the bridge that lowered, and turn around, you will see above you and slightly to the left the alternate way into this part of the level from the Borehole. You enter on that high ledge and the Gunner and Gladiator are unaware of you until you open fire. After killing them and operating the lever, you still need to fight all the Strogg to get back to the elevator and down to the lower part of the level. You'll meet them in reverse order, of course, which may make it a little easier to get through the passage with the moving plates.

Around the corner from the bridge control lever, there's a hatchway in the floor tucked into an alcove. It doesn't open from here nor give you a message explaining why not, so you're probably wondering what it's for. All will be revealed in due course. Retrace your steps to where you came in (or fight your way to the main entrance if you came in the alternate), go back to the Borehole and use the balcony-like elevator there to go down to the lowest level and re-enter the Drilling Area there.

Getting Down to the Lower Mines
At the lower area entrance you are immediately faced with two Gunners in the corners on the far side of the room. They have their backs to you and won't move until you either cross the threshold of the door or fire a weapon, so you have a moment to plan. The HyperBlaster is good if you can keep it aimed as your target moves or use the Rocket Launcher and fire at the Strogg's feet to avoid the missile sailing harmlessly past. Where the Gunners stood, there are two electrical fuses. Shoot them out with your Blaster. After the first one you'll get the message "1 more to go" and after the second "Sequence completed!" In the middle of the room a bar will lower allowing you to enter a downward-sloping tunnel into the rock. See Secrets, below, at this point.

The tunnel leads around two turns to a cavern in which there are two Mutants (everything in twos). Recall their long leaps and damaging melee attacks, so back away and use the Chain Gun to kill them as they follow you. From their cavern, the way leads through an opening to the left. If you come here too soon, i.e. before lowering the access bridge, you will find this opening barred and approaching it will produce the message "Drilling area. Access denied". Go though, follow the tunnel and you'll quickly come to a cavern containing a drilling laser. Operate the wall button to turn on the laser, keep clear and a new hole will be made in the cavern floor. You will get the message "New passage to lower mines created". You should have have 22 of the 26 enemy kills. You will be able to come back here later, but it will be quite a journey, so collect anything you need now. Drop into the new passage and play through the ../Lower Mines/ level.

Finding the Service Elevator
When, on returning from the ../Lower Mines/, you enter the final part of the Drilling Area, your field computer updates your secondary objective to "Service elevator to Factory accessible". Not only is it accessible, it's just a hop, skip and a jump (and the last four Strogg) away! Cross the bridge to the tunnel entrance. Now, if the bridge isn't down, don't despair, you just forgot to operate the lever that you can see through the bars in the room ahead of you (probably due to cheating or loading levels at the console). Drop into the water on the right-hand side of the central platform and swim into a well-lit underwater tunnel. You will come up through the mysterious hatchway that was mentioned a while ago. Go around to the left, operate the lever and return through the hatchway and the underwater tunnel, climbing a ladder back up onto the walkway near the door.

The tunnel leads around two bends to a large room with the service elevator in the middle. Your field computer updates again and, somewhat prematurely, shows "Primary unit objective complete" as the primary objective and "Proceed to the Factory" as the secondary. In the room are two Tanks, two Light Guards and some exploding barrels. You may not see the Guards because when the Tank on your left swings his Machinegun around he often takes them out by accident. Anyway, there is good cover at the corner of the tunnel, so strafe to the left, fire at one of the Tanks and strafe right back to safety. Grenades will work very nicely. If you want to reach all the secrets, however, there is one small complication - do not set off the exploding barrels that are around to the right of where the tunnel opens out into the room. If you stay back in the tunnel, you'll be OK, you only risk messing up the secret if you run out into the room to fight the Tanks. See below for details of the Secret.

After killing the Tanks, use the elevator to exit the level and move on to the Factory unit. If, first, you need to go back to complete enemy kills, find secrets or collect any items that you left behind you can reach all parts of the level, and, in fact, backtrack to anywhere in the unit, but it will be quite a hike. Begin by taking the underwater tunnel back to the first area in this level as described above. Try to exit the unit with full ammunition for all weapons and 100 armor points.

Secrets
This level has two (2) secrets:
 * 1) After killing two Guards and shooting out two electrical fuses to lower a bar, you go into a tunnel that slopes gently down to a bend to the left.  There is a crack in the rock wall of the tunnel on the right just at the bend.  Shoot it to break open an alcove containing an Invulnerability item.  When you do this, you'll receive the message "You have found a secret area".
 * 2) In the final room, where you find the service elevator that takes you to the next unit, there is an Adrenaline vial in plain sight on a high ledge to the right.  To reach it, jump on a barrel and from there jump to the stack of crates and climb up.  When you take the vial you'll get the message "You have found a secret".  Be careful not to explode the barrel when fighting the Tanks and Guards in this room or you won't be able to get the secret (other than using a Rocket jump).