Data Processing Terminal

It seems that the Strogg have shut down power to the Data Processing Terminal in order to impede your progress. To reach the roof, you’ll have to find some way to bring power back online.

Despite being powered down, the facility still has some juice left for critical systems, such as the teleporters you’ll see soon after you start your skulking about. These guys will pop in numerous foes for you to deal with, so listen for the distinctive sound and take cover when appropriate. Note that you can shoot the green teleporter orbs above the teleporter pads to destroy them. Most of your enemies will be of the Stroggified Marine nature, but you can also expect some heavier targets now and again.

Soon enough, you’ll come to the power station of the center, which will let you restore the juice to the entire building. Unfortunately, as soon as you try to leave this room, you’ll be ambushed by a number of enemies, including two Banshees, a Parasite, and another flame-throwing Enforcer. If you proceed slowly into the room, you should be able to trigger the first Banshee’s appearance before the rest of the foes; if you get overwhelmed, don’t forget about your DMG, or the old backing-up-while-launching-grenades tactic.

When you finally reach Sledge, you’ll have to find and activate the elevator system to reach the top of the tower. Doing so involves little more than running through a nearby room and flipping a switch, but unfortunately you’ll have to actually wait for the elevator to arrive before you can head on up. Of course, "waiting" is rarely a spectator sport in this game, and indeed, before the elevator arrives, the nearby teleporters will twink on and start spewing out Stroggs. Worse than that, though, are the three Tanks that pop up out of the floor. You’re going to have your work cut out for you here, obviously.

Video Walk-through

Wait off to one side here while the elevator comes down, and you'll be able to hit multiple enemies with one DMG blast.

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Now, there’s no particular reason why you need to remain near the elevator while it’s dropping down from the roof, and a bunch of reasons why you actually shouldn’t. It’s much more useful to walk down to the bottom of the floor here and circle around the data pumps to the left, so that you’re on the opposite side of the room from the teleporters where the Strogg come in. If you are, then you’ll be able to fire your DMG down the hall to hit the Tank and the Strogg behind them, or just duck and cover while Sledge goes crazy with his hyperblaster. He can take a huge amount of damage (he never actually did die while we ran through this area), so feel free to let him take the lead.

When the three Tanks are dead, the elevator will arrive, but Strogg will continue to pour in through the teleporters, so run for the elevator and hop aboard to move on.

Data Processing Security

Your path to the roof of the Data Processing facility will be impeded around the 2,000th floor of the compound by some misaligned data nodes. Damn those data nodes, they always get misaligned just when you need them. You’ll have to follow the path indicated by the red beam here until you reach the control panel that controls the data nodes, just past numerous Gunners. When you do, rotate it to the right twice to emit the beam (you’ll know you’ve been successful when Sledge congratulates you) and unlock the path back to the elevator.

Along your way, you’ll come to a broken router. After you unlock the router’s guts with the nearby control panel, find the lift on the lower level and take it up to the control room above, where you’ll have control over all eight of the router nodes. You’ll need to manipulate the nodes one by one until the red beam is routed through the area to the far door. Begin with the lower left router, then proceed on to the middle left, middle right, upper right, and upper middle nodes to bend the beam through to the door and unlock it.

One more obstacle lies in your way, as the Strogg will raise a large platform to block the beam of light. You’ll need to ride the lift near the locked door here, fight your way to the platform controls (which are guarded by a pair of Banshees), and lower it again to finally unlock the door leading on. On your way back to the elevator, grab the Large Armor Vest and the medpack under the stairs in the room just beyond the two Banshees.

When you do finally reach the roof, get ready for one heck of a fight, as two Icari (of the missile-launching variety) and a Gladiator will be waiting for you. These guys don’t like to bunch up, so clumping them together for a DMG blast won’t be a workable solution. Try to head down the first path to the right that you can, using your lightning gun to blast the Icarus there, and hope that Sledge follows you and contributes to the cause. The Icari don’t seem to like the lightning gun, although they’re quite resistant to damage in general. Luckily you’ll be able to use the many structures in this area to block the missiles that they fling in your direction.

Data Processing Terminal

On your way down to the Terminal, you’ll run across the Tower Guardian again. One gets the sense that he doesn’t necessarily like what you’re doing to his towers, but he won’t be able to stop you just yet. This is a pretty short level, meant solely to reify your conceptual journey to the Networking Terminal, or somesuch; you won’t have to actually shoot anything here.