ISA Camp[edit]
Your player arrives from Earth aboard the Newton on a drone shuttle to replace Valeriy Borzov, who died "mysteriously".
Upon entering the Hub Camp airlock, Nicole des Jardins greets you and shows you the staff lockers, and the computer where the other crew members left some messages for you.
After she leaves on the Cable Car, go to the lockers, hold your key, and open your locker marked #2. Get the Personal WristComp and the ISA multitool. Check the WristComp and see if there are any new messages.
Go to the computer and see the messages left for you. You can meet the other protagonists and see their ID numbers.
- 002: You
- 004: Shigeru Takagishi – Scientist
- 005: David Brown – Commander
- 006: Francesca Sabatini – TV Journalist
- 007: Otto Heilmann – Chief Security Officer
- 008: Michael O'Toole – Codemaster
- 009: Richard Wakefield – Chief Engineer
- 010: Reggie Wilson – Print Journalist
- 011: Irina Turgenyev – Career Cosmonaut
- 012: Nicole des Jardins – Medical Officer
(Other characters are the IBI Agents Hiro Yamanaka and Janos Tabori, but won't appear in the game.)
The messages are optional for you to watch. But you must watch the two messages by O'Toole and Wakefield highlighted as urgent; if you don't, the Cable Car won't return for you.
O'Toole rants about numerology and a special number sequence. He gives you the code to operate the cable car (3134) and Wakefield tells you about his miniature robot creations, Falstaff and Puck. After you see this video, his locker is unlocked.
Return to the lockers. As you leave the computer you will get a glimpse of an Avian creature. Also you will get a message from Sabatini, about fetching her lighter.
You will hear a knock. It's Puck triggered by Wakefield's voice in locker #9. Open it and get him. He is actually a "Look at" icon to examine objects in the game. Once you get him, you will hear a noise on the left; the Cable Car has returned.
Follow the ladder down behind the lockers and approach the big object, one of the three bombs. Get the key laying on the far right end.
The key is on an International Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) key ring. It is for locker #6, (Sabatini's) and there you will find her lighter she asked you for: a datacube, three matrix puzzle pieces, two map puzzle pieces (NY Section A and CP Section A), and finally a blank key.
Insert the cube in your Wristcomp, and you will find out that she is on close terms with David Brown, to whom she talks about greater publicity.
With the blank key open #7 (Heilmann's) to find a straight lens and another data cube. It's an encrypted message from Heilmann to Yamanaka and Tabori.
If you took Puck, the Cable Car has returned for you to descend to the surface. There is nothing else to do here (although you can return anytime) so enter the Car and enter O'Toole's code (4143). "Coincidentally" you see the three beams light up, to dawn the Raman day.
- Notes
- If you stay on the Hub Camp too long, you will see a vidmail of Nicole asking you come down, and later a vidmail from Brown ordering you.
- Note that the environment is dark because it's Raman night. If you need, you can come here later when it will be Raman day and see the same place in different lighting conditions and new vistas.
Base Camp[edit]
Once you arrive, check the table on your left for a note from Nicole with a datacube, a tribute to "the 20th century writer Arthur Clarke". They are actually some advertisement for Clarke's new novel "3001: The Final Odyssey" published in 1997, shortly after this game was released. If not interested, you can leave them there.
Over in the corner of the room, check a specimen box on the table and take the two red matrix pieces and a yellow tile (NY Section B). You can leave there Sabatini's lighter as she asked you, but that will have no significance in the game or any riddle (the lighter is a red herring).
As you leave, Irina Turgeynev shows up and rants about Brown's plan to capture a crab biot. As she leaves, you can go out.
- Note
- If you haven't opened Sabatini's and Heilmann's lockers, Sabatini will show up and ask you to fetch her lighter. You won't be able to go out while she is there, so you must go back and do the above.
The screen will change to the Central Plains Radar Map. You will receive a vidmail from Brown saying that you are free to explore on your own while the rest are busy hunting a biot. See also the photo of the crab biot.
Raman geography[edit]
Rama is a cylinder 20 kilometers in diameter and 50 kilometers long. The airlock you entered (and the Hub Camp) is on the center of Rama's diameter. The Hub site you just left is designated as the south end of the Raman cylinder. The compass on your HUD shows the other end of Rama, the north.
The map seen here is seen in perspective as if looking inside the Rama if the southern top was invisible. The regions closer to the border are closer to the south, and those closer to the center are further away to the north. East is clockwise, and west is anti-clockwise.
The light blue strips are Rama's lighting system which turn day and night.
The black circle on the center is the "Cylindrical Sea", which separates the two hemicylinders halfway between the north and south poles. The Sea is frozen during the game, signifying a Raman winter. There is an artificial island named "New York," because it gives the appearance of being covered with skyscrapers. You will visit it later, although you never reach the Northern hemicylinder during the game.
The regions you will visit are: Beam Region, Wheel Region, London, and Bangkok.
Objectives[edit]
During this part of the game, you must find several matrices, the red ones. They have no fixed location where they may be found, so if you think that you missed something, look thoroughly at each step, even turn around right, left and behind you. Some can be found in the specimen box of the Camp. Or you can continue with the game until new items will be available later.
Note that much of the squares you find are "red herrings" only to confuse you, if you try to pass the puzzles at random. If you happen to find them, try to arrange them further down in your inventory (unfortunately you can't drop items) so that they won't pollute your vision.
During your search you will encounter biots, recognizable by their formation in the icon. If they are Centipede, click on the icon to approach them (they are harmless); three of them will drop a red matrix which you can take (the second one is useful). If you miss them, the useful one will be given to you by Nicole when you encounter her.
If they are Crab biots in triangular formation avoid them (close the preview icon) if your pixel is seen standing directly in front of them. If you are shown standing on the side, you can have a close up of them.
Your objective for this part is to find the inventory medallion and its four objects: a blank card, an avian ring, the human lair talisman, and the octospider lair talisman.