Quake II/Security Complex

Level objective
You will enter and leave this level four times. Your field computer will be of marginal use in telling you what to do. The first time, your objective is to find the Red Key and take it back to the ../Detention Center/. When you come back again, you'll need to go to the ../Torture Chambers/ to collect the Security Pass and the ../Guard House/ to get the Pyramid Key. You can do these in either order. On your final visit, use the Pyramid Key to open the security pyramid and then the Security Pass to drop a force field blocking the exit door. Then take the exit to the final level of the unit where you will complete the main objective.

Strategy
At first, the feeling of being slightly outgunned persists into this level as you face more Tanks, Gladiators and Medics and encouter your first Icarus. However, if you don't find the Grenade Launcher on your first visit here, be sure to bring it from the ../Detention Center/ on your second visit! When your objectives take you to the ../Torture Chambers/ and the ../Guard House/, you will also have multiple opportunities to aquire the HyperBlaster and you will once again begin to feel a match for your adversaries. Continue cautiously at first, but you can get bolder as your weaponry improves. Ammunition, Health and Armor continue to be in adequate supply.

If you don't follow the Walkthrough, you may get confused about your objectives in this unit as your field computer does not always make them clear. If you explore everywhere and put up with some backtracking when you do things in the wrong order you will eventually make your way through.

Walkthrough
The door opens to an outdoor courtyard. You immediately see a Gunner with his back to you, obviously harassing a tortured fellow Marine. Fell the Gunner with two blasts from the Super Shotgun, but be ready for a Medic to emerge from the opening up some steps ahead of you. Put the Marine out of his misery if you wish, but he has no parting gift for you.

Preliminary Exploration and the Red Key
Rather than just going straight for the Red Key, we're going to first explore as much of the level as we can reach. This is more interesting and we can clear away some Strogg that we would otherwise have to deal with later. At this point, don't pick up health, ammunition or other items; we will re-stock back in the Detention Center and collect the goodies here on our second visit.

First approach the closed door on left to open it. Kill the assorted Strogg beyond. There is Combat Armor here just sitting in plain sight but resist the urge to take it now. The exit from this area is barred and if you approach it you will receive the message "Yellow lasers still activated further access not granted". Do not disregard this warning. Unless you are really, really good at sniffing out secrets, take a look at the Secrets section before you go back. In this room is what is probably the most unfair secret in the game and even knowing this you may not be able to find it. What is inside will be very useful as we continue, so consider cheating this once even if you normally wouldn't look at the section below.

Returning to the main courtyard, go down some steps on the other side and into the cave there. Peek around a corner to the left and you will see a Tank at some distance. Recall that it takes quite a bit of damage to kill these guys, so pick your weapon accordingly. The corner offers excellent cover for right-handed shooters. If you choose Grenades, initiate the throw before you move out and aim, otherwise you will be exposed to return fire for long enough for the Tank to get some hits in. What would be really useful at this point would be the Grenade Launcher! The Tank goes down with 8 Grenade hits. He drops a triangular green box full of Cells, which are ammunition for the HyperBlaster that you don't have yet. Deeper in the cave is a wall button, but access to it is barred. Again, approaching results in the message "Yellow lasers still activated further access not granted". Around a corner to the right the low cave opens out to a high cavern. There is a door on the other side of a deep canyon with lava at the bottom and you can easily figure out what the wall button does. If you stand at the very edge, you can see the dangling feet of an Icarus up there. Shoot him if you want, but there's another higher up that you can't get to so you have to leave that one until later.

Again returning to the main courtyard, go up the steps that will now be to your right and through the doorway out of which the Medic came. Go down the steps inside and to the right and peek into the large room through the opening on the left. It has a map on the back wall. Your first problem is to deal with the Gladiator. He usually, but not always, comes after you, so withdraw, and use Grenades or the Super Shotgun, backing off to find cover after each attack. If he doesn't give chase, carefully entice him out. What you really need is a powerful, accurate, long-range weapon, like the HyperBlaster, but you don't have it yet. After the Gladiator, consider the two Gunners on the upper walkway. Again, the HyperBlaster would be nice, but with patience and constant retreating up the steps, you can pick them off with your ordinary Blaster or the Machine Gun. However, once the Gunners are dead, a Medic comes from the right and tries to revive them. Keep him under unrelenting Blaster fire and he will be too busy to get this done. Otherwise, you'll have to kill him and then the Gunners a second time. Alternatively, you can leave the Gunners alone for now, but don't forget that they are there. First, explore down the center steps and towards the rear of the room. You will find two Berserkers in a corridor along the back. Go through the door in the middle of the corridor to check out the Security Pyramid in the courtyard outside. If you go up to the button on a post, you will get the message "You need the pyramid key". On your way back inside, look up. The loggia above is where the Red Key is. Here's something interesting --- if you had the Grenade Launcher right now and you stood close to the building, jumped and launched a Grenade at a high angle at the top of your jump, it would just about make it over the parapet. Since there is a Gladiator up there, this would be a good way to kill him without exposing yourself to his attacks. If only you had the Grenade Launcher!

To get to the loggia, you need to go back to the map room and up the side steps to the lower walkway. If you did not deal with the Gunners up above, run and dodge and hope they don't hit you. Through the opening to the left of the map you will meet another Gunner. A short hallway leads to the loggia where a Gladiator stands guard over the Red Key. As before, hit him with something and retreat to cover to reload and avoid his damaging Rail Gun fire. With him out of the way, take the key. Your field computer will change the secondary objective to "Return to the detention center. Deactivate yellow lasers." Before you leave, take a look through the pillars and you will see that you are overlooking the Security Pyramid. When you return to the main courtyard, be ready for three Flyers (and run / dodge past the Guards if you did not kill them). Backtrack and go back through the door by which you arrived to return to the ../Detention Center/.

After Deactivating the Yellow Lasers
On your second visit to the Security Complex, after turning off the yellow lasers in the Detention Center, your field computer will update your secondary objective to "Open control pyarmid [sic] and locate the security pass". It seems that the Strogg can spell better than the Marine Corps computer programmers. We could also wish for greater clarity in our objectives. It is not possible to open the pyramid until we have retrieved the Pyramid Key from the Guard House. The security pass is not in this level; it is in the Torture Chambers. So, what we actually must do now is to find and play through those two levels. Finding the exits that lead to the levels is easy if we remember where yellow lasers blocked our progress during preliminary exploration. It doesn't particularly matter in which order we visit the levels, so here we will somewhat arbitrarily choose to go to the Guard House first.

The Guard House
From the main courtyard, go again through the closed door on left to the room where there is (or was) Combat Armor. Now you can leave this room through the doorway out to a second courtyard where you will need to deal with four Enforcers, one on either side of the doorway and two more on either side when you step down into the open area. There is a balcony overhead and the crashed drop-pod of a Marine named Willits next to a door on the opposite side. Resist the urge to grab Willits's Chain Gun and Power Shield and instead turn and back up slowly across the courtyard, looking up until you can see what's on the balcony up above. If you don't like the look of this, you can change your mind and go to the Torture Chambers first. You will return via the opening onto the balcony that you can see to the right of the inactive lift platform. Alternatively, just make for the door by the drop pod, which is the exit to the Guard House, and hope that you are not noticed. The best approach, however, is to use the Grenade Launcher as you did in the courtyard in the Detention Center. The Tank is not sufficiently maneuverable to be able to attack and you can pop eight Grenades up there and take him down like a sitting duck. Now it's off to the ../Guard House/ to collect the Pyramid Key.

You'll return from the ../Guard House/ through the same door, next to the drop pod. Come out backwards, looking up over the door, where you will find that three Flyers have appeared. If you spray them will bullets, you'll immediately be able to recoup the ammunition from poor Willits's Chain Gun. Your field computer will update your secondary objective to "Proceed to security pyramid." Don't do that yet; you'll only have to come back for the Security Pass. Go back to the main courtyard.



The Torture Chambers
From the main courtyard, go again down the steps and into the cave where you killed the Tank. With the yellow lasers off, you can get to the security panel that raises the bridge across the lava canyon. Look out for Icarus above, one if you took one out earlier, otherwise two. On the other side of the canyon, go through the door, turn right down a flight of steps and find a second flight going down into a cave on the left. In the room at the bottom there are three Guards and a Tank, but with the weaponry and skills now at your disposal you will be able to clear them away quickly. Leave for the ../Torture Chambers/ through the door at the end of that room.

On your return from the Torture Chambers you'll immediately have to deal with two Enforcers. Your field computer will update your secondary objective to "Proceed to security pyramid." Now that you have both the Pyramid Key and the Security Pass, this is good advice (if you don't have the Pyramid Key, go to the Guard House, see above). Note the two Cells against the wall to your left. If you equip the HyperBlaster you'll be able to come back for these and recover full ammunition. Go to the right and through the door. There will be a Guard just inside the building and then a Medic coming from the right. Continue along the hallway and you'll come out on the upper walkway in the large room with the map. What Strogg you meet will depend on how thoroughly you cleaned the area in your preliminary exploration. Drop down to the lower walkway, crouching to avoid fall damage. Alternatively, if you want to score all of the enemy kills and didn't deal with the Tank on your way to the ../Guard House/, continue across the upper walkway and you will come out on his balcony.



Finally, the Security Pyramid
Take the steps down to the floor level of the large room with the map and go out through the doors at the back to the Pyramid. Press the button on a pillar there and the two halves of the structure will slide apart. A lift platform will come up in the middle bearing an Icarus, the last enemy in the level. Before taking the lift platform down, consider scouring the area for any items you may not have picked up earlier (the next level is an arena boss fight, although not a very hard one). There is plenty of ammunition, so you should be leaving with 200 Shells and 300 Bullets and Cells. If you go back to the courtyard at the Guard House exit (there may be Grenades on the way), you should find that the lift platform there is now working and will take you back up to the Tank's balcony (take his Bullets). If the lift isn't working, you missed some kind of trigger in the Torture Chambers. You could go back there and try random stuff, but it probably isn't worth it. Don't miss the Quad Damage (if you stoop to use such a thing) in a container in the large room with the map and the Bandolier under the steps nearby.

The lift platform under the pyramid continually goes up and down, so just wait for it and take it down. At the bottom is the exit to the ../Grid Control/ level (and a HyperBlaster and four packs of Cells in case you've been stumbling around blind and missed both of them earlier in the unit). The exit door is blocked by a force field, but the Security Pass disables this as you approach. See you in ../Grid Control/!



Secrets
This level has just one (1) secret:
 * Approach the closed door on the left of the courtyard where you enter the level from the Detention Center. It will open; go through and fight the Strogg in the hallways to arrive in a room with equipment racks, computers and Combat Armor.  There is an exit from this room to another courtyard that, until you turn them off, is blocked by yellow lasers.  With your Blaster, shoot the wall to the right of this exit, behind the two packs of Grenades on the floor.  If you get very close to the wall and look at an angle you can see that it is set back very slightly, but from any distance this wall looks featureless and there is no clue that wall drops down when shot.  But, drop down it does and in the alcove so revealed is a Grenade Launcher.  When you enter to take it you receive the message "You have found a secret".