Part 7
Sorry about the long hiatus, gang. I blame real life.
For everything.
Ever.
Welcome to the mining deck! Where plasma cutters, line guns, and contact beams are not actually out of place. Weird, I know.
Small warning: there were some audio issues with this video. Whenever Kendra appears in a video call, there's a LOT of feedback. Tread carefully... it won't happen again, though.
Part One: Viddler (Polsy), blip.tv.
Part Two: Viddler (Polsy), blip.tv.
Also, if you were waiting on the Schadenfreude Run for the plot video to go up, here are the old links:
Schadenfreude Part One: Viddler (Polsy), blip.tv.
Schadenfreude Part Two: Viddler (Polsy), blip.tv
Mission Objectives
"Isaac" posted:
Find the Mining Access Key
Kendra located the Mining Access Key on the Processing Sub Deck. That must be where the mining supervisor died... I knew these men. I can't believe they are all dead.
Find The S.O.S. Beacon
That beacon could be our only way off this goddamn ship. It's stored somewhere on the Maintenance Sub Deck. It sends out a strong sub-space broadcast that should alert any ship in this sector.
Plant the Beacon
I need to secure the S.O.S. Beacon to the asteroid. Once the asteroid is launched, the beacon will clear the Ishimura's navigation array, and it will be able to broadcast a clear signal.
Destroy the Gravity Tethers (4)
Mined asteroids are held in place by gravity tether beams. I need to disable all of them in order to launch the asteroid away from the ship. A clean shot past their outer casing should do the trick.
Launch the Asteroid
The beacon's in place! Just need to get the Control Room and launch the asteroid off the ship.
Go to the Bridge
The beacon's on its way, broadcasting loud and clear. Now we cross our fingers and hope someone picks up the signal. The chances are slim, but it's our only hope. Kendra says there's something wrong with the Communications Array, which means if someone tries to reach us, we can't hear them. Got to get back to the Bridge and fix it.
"Obviously, people are dead on the Mining Deck. Clearly, the beacon might not work. My girlfriend? Why would I mention her? She's only the love of my life." Isaac knows what's up.
Text Logs
"G. Kreuz" posted:
PROCESSING ROOM PROBLEM
MINING DECK LOG
KREUZ, G. (QMED)
The situation here just got a lot worse. The gravity failure came as we were collating asteroids, and one broke free of the grav beam. It collided with a wall, killing two crew, and split into chunks. They're free floating in the processing room, and we can't restore gravity to get the Master Key until they're cleared. We could really use some engineering help up here.
Jesus Christ. Why do you need a key to get into the control room, when there's an emergency? Why is it so difficult to make multiple copies of the keys? How hard is it to keep that gravity beam intact? Why couldn't you just use kinesis on the asteroids? How did you get the fucking asteroids in here in the first place?!"A. Dallas" posted:
MINING TIMELINE
MINING LOG
DALLAS, A. (SUPERVISOR, 2ND ENGINEER)
Planetcrack went smoothly from this end, although there do seem to have been some problems planetside, and we've temporarily lost contact with the colony.
First rockball was extracted from the tectonic load approximately one hour after planetcrack, and has been processed, refined, and smelted.
Results have exceeded even optimistic initial estimates. Normal recovery is around 35% mineral, 5% fossil, 60% waste, but material from the first ball was 65% mineral (and 0% fossil, in line with expectations). That's 6.5 tons of ore from a 10-ton ball. Assuming it's not an anomaly, we've hit a motherlode.
Problems with the colony? I'm sure it's nothing to worry abou... oh wait, shit.
Trivia
* Dallas was the guy who described the ship's fatalities to the captain in Chapter 4. Ironic, really.
* Apparently, the second chapter of the No Known Survivors viral campaign ties in around this point. As for the exact details... well, that remains unclear... perhaps they'll be revealed later on.
Continuity Issues
* Dallas' mining log says that fossil content is expected in a planetcrack yield. At the same time, Downfall declares that "the only planets we ever found in all of space were dead. Earth was a fluke." Personally, I interpret that as meaning that there were no signs of life, ever... including fossils. Though it could just be me.
* In the "you need to plant the beacon first" message, Kendra calls the asteroid a "shuttle". Either she's a moron, or the script was revised at some point and that line of dialogue was overlooked.
New Clues
* There was at least one hour in between the planetcrack and Dallas' log. Considering that he didn't mention any warped, mutated ghouls, it seems likely that the Necros hadn't shown up at that point.
* When Dallas made his final log, contact with the colony was still inactive.
* Seems that Dr. Kyne was looking for the Marker in Cargo - and he was rather determined to get ahold of it.
* If Aegis VII has no fossils on its surface, that would suggest that Necromorphs are a recent development, or that previously, the bacterium had no host.
Bonus Stuff
That fucking drill beam!
The exterior of the Ishimura's mining bay, with a focus on those (remarkably fragile) gravity tethers.
Bonus - the Making of Chapter 7
Since it took a while to make this video set, I think that I should probably explain the underlying architecture. I owe you, after all.
A Brief History of Fucked posted:
1) I record the Military Suit runthrough. Discover that I'm somewhat rusty.
2) A small shitload of homework descends upon me. I alternate between working, planning gags for the video, and staring off into space.
3) I record my goofus run.
4)Batman: Arkham Asylum launches. I get a little bit distracted.More schoolwork arrives. Yes.
5) I realize that it's not going to be possible to publish the main and Schadenfreude runs at the same time. I put the Schadenfreude Run up early, and weep quietly as I attempt to cleanse the stench of failure from my body.
6) I finish recording the level. Splendid!
7) I upgrade to Mediacoder 7, which the Support Fort Says is stable. It works! Yay!
8) I cut together a rough version of the video. The gags work out! The timing is good! Everything is super!
9) I upgrade to Adobe CS4, which is standard for the school. I copy-paste the file over from CS3.
9) I add the Downfall segment.
10) It doesn't work.
11) I recode Downfall in Huffyuv. Oh good, it's not running at chipmunk-speed now.
12) ...where did my video effects go? Shit. I fix it.
13) Export video for subtitling.
14) ...why is it blurry?
15) Hunt for a solution online. Find nothing.
16) Stumble across a workaround on a massive fluke.
17) Re-export video.
18) ...where is my motherfucking sound.
19) Remake the audio track from scratch.
20) It finally works!
21) I forgot to add some of the special effects. And the Marker gag is misaligned.
22) fucckkkkkkk
23) Re-export.
24) The audio is too quiet, and the music I added in is too loud.
25) FUCCKKKKKKK
26) Fix it. Subtitled. Encode with Mediacoder.
27) Kendra sounds like she's coming through a tin can.
28) Hell with it. I said Thursday, it's coming out Thursday. Export.
29) Subtitle size is fucked up.
30) Back to Mediacoder 6 I go. Re-export.
31) Wrong settings.
32) Fix. Upload.
33)I drink a bottle of tequila. I wake up in an alley next to a Venezuelan hooker, only to find that my wallet is gone andmy videos have finished encoding.
34) Post videos.
35)Find more tequila
Completely accurate.
Fledgling Gulps posted:
Dammit, every time I see that you were the last poster I get my hopes up.
Priapus01 posted:
Loving the LP so far... but can you post normal runs before schadenfruede in the future?
HenryEx posted:
Take it easy and don't burn out on us.
Oh, I forgot to mention - if you manage to spot the point where I cut out a rather stupid death, you win a prize! I do not know what the prize will be