Part 31: Commentary Corner - Mission 9 Part 2

Mission 9 Extra Stuff Part 2!
So Havoc ends up in a fight with Supervillain Raveshaw, who is now a towering mutant (he is specifically coded to get 50% bigger for his appearance here) and lets out a surprisingly silent roar during his introductory cutscene. This is also the first time in Renegade that we see (rather large) blue tiberium crystals, something Tiberian Sun introduced as a more potent but unstable version-- bombing a field caused a big chain reaction, and you could even use a full harvester as an improv truck bomb.

Thanks to the Portable Ion Cannon, the fight ends rather fast, so we don't get to see him do all of his gimmicks. One of which is just stopping and yelling for no reason while you shoot him.

Ravehaw, when hurt, will use the blue tiberium to heal. A "mysterious technology based on blue tiberium" is explained as how the engineers heal vehicles and people with their repair guns, too. Although, if you're too close to the tiberium, it'll zap you for five damage. Like Mendoza it's chaingun-class damage, even though electrical damage exists in the game with all the fancy effects Much like Sakura, upon which he was based game-wise, his knowledge of the tiberium's location is hardcoded and thus he's largely unusable in your own map.

When he's nearly dead, he'll also climb up the platform to wait to be finished cinematically. He also will fall cinematically to a (hardcoded!) floor position, meaning your theoretical alternative boss fight arena needs to be built just like the one you find him in.

But earlier in the fight, he'll also run up there and faff about for a while before trying to do a Macho Man body slam on Havoc. Raveshaw's groin gives off an invisible (and hardcoded) explosion when it hits, so you don't need to be hit directly. Oh my! A direct hit will also do 500 points worth of mutant If Raveshaw gets bored and decides to hop down from the upper platform instead of doing a bodyslam, he will also do 500 points worth of damage per foot. So don't let him directly stomp you.

We get to see him throw Havoc around a little (an annoying part of the fight, considering you move slower than he does and it pauses your actions). Usually he'll throw him much farther if unimpeded by terrain, and he can toss you clear across the boss arena for a flat 20 damage. This gives you a little bit of time before he runs up to grab you, but if you're farther than about 60 meters he's got a 20% chance of just jumping right to you instead of running in a headshottable line.

Raveshaw's boss fight will also spawn random Stealth Black Hand soldiers, which explains how they arrive without you noticing and is a tie-in to the gimmick of the base. This provides him with extra ammunition, and he'll throw warbly-voiced stealth troops at Havoc as improv missiles -- when he grabs them they'll uncloak, and they "explode" when they impact the surface anywhere to damage Havoc.

He'll also look for other kinds of hardcoded crap to throw at you. He'll look around the whole map for plastic drums or A/C units to toss. It's only somewhat hardcoded here; anything with (Raveshaw Ammo) in its name as seen in LevelEdit is a valid thing he'll try to throw. But, look around the boss arena, and tell me how many of those you actually see

Anyhow, here's somebody on the lowest difficulty cheesing the fight. It works but it's terrible to watch.