Mission Maps (Mission Details)[Outdated]

Overview

Screenshots of Mission Details for all vanilla Alien Swarm Reactive Drop campaigns, including mission maps, as seen at the start of each mission (in TAB menu).Click on an image to see a larger version.(No longer hosted; no download link for these jpg image files)Feel free to use these images for your own purposes.

0 Campaign Reference

1 Jacob’s Rest

1-1 Landing Bay

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1-2 Cargo Elevator

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1-3 Deima Surface Bridge

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1-4 Rydberg Reactor

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1-5 SynTek Residential

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1-6 Sewer Junction B5

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1-7 Timor Station

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2 Area 9800

2-1 Landing Zone

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2-2 Power’ Plant’s Cooling Pump

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2-3 Power Plant’s Generator

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2-4 Wastelands

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3 Lana’s Escape

3-1 Lana’s Bridge

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3-2 Lana’s Sewer

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3-3 Lana’s Maintenance

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3-4 Lana’s Vents

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3-5 Lana’s Complex

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4 Operation Cleansweep

4-1 Storage Facility

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4-2 Landing Bay 7

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4-3 U.S.C. Medusa

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5 Orion’s Threat

5-1 Niosa Refinery

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5-2 First Anomaly

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6 Paranoia

6-1 Unexpected Encounter

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6-2 Hostile Places

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6-3 Close Contact

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6-4 High Tension

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6-5 Crucial Point

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7 Resarch 7

7-1 Transport Facility

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7-2 Research 7

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7-3 Illyn Forest

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7-4 Jericho Mines

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8 Tears for Tarnor, Ch.1: Insertion

8-1 Insertion Point

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8-2 Abandoned Maintenance Tunnels

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8-3 Oasis Colony Spaceport

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9 Tilarus-5

9-1 Midnight Port

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9-2 Road to Dawn

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9-3 Arctic Infiltration

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9-4 Area9800 Landingzone

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9-5 Cold Catwalks

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9-6 Yanaurus Mine

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9-7 The Factory

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9-8 Communication Center

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9-9 SynTek Hospital

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BM Bonus Missions

BM-1 Bonus Mission 1

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BM-2 Bonus Mission 2

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BM-3 Bonus Mission 3

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DM Deathmatch

DM-1 DM Desert

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DM-2 DM Deima Surface Bridge

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DM-3 DM Residential

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DM-4 DM Test Lab

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Logging Project

The Mission Details screenshots account for less than 3% of all the screenshots I took while doing what I call ‘Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Logging’. In total there are 1862 screenshots, logging everything from objectives to pick ups to requirements to my own observations. These screenshots are no longer available for download.

I have pasted into the next section the contents of the ‘Observations’ text document from that project.

Observations

ALIEN SWARM REACTIVE DROP LOGGING OBSERVATIONS

There are, in total, forty-five cooperative missions.

Mission Icon
Each mission has a mission icon (a screenshot of some part of the mission which uniquely identifies the mission) which appears in Mission Selection for the campaign, Game Settings for starting a game, and during the loading screen (assuming the console command ‘rd_show_mission_icon_loading 1’ has been activated), and is identical in each appearance (including for each mission of the Deathmatch campaign), without exception. (In Deathmatch, both DM Deima Surface Bridge and DM Residential share the respective mission icons of the Jacob’s Rest campaign missions which they are based on.)

Campaign Icon
For most campaigns, each campaign has the same ‘campaign icon’ as the first mission icon of the campaign. The exceptions are Area 9800 (custom title icon), Operation Cleansweep (the mission icon of the final mission of the campaign), Tears for Tarnor, Ch.1- Insertion (an image of a half-lit planet), Bonus Missions (title icon), and Deathmatch (title icon).

Mission Icon for Repeated Mission
The mission icon for Area 9800: Landing Zone is very different to the mission icon for Tilarus-5: Area9800 Landingzone. Most notably, the icon for Tilarus-5: Area9800 Landingzone is not red.

Flamer Required?
A Flamer Unit is essential for merely four missions. However, when also considering the usefulness of a Flamer Unit with regard to Parasites, Biomass, and extinguishable fire, the Flamer Unit can easily be considered a requirement for more than half of all the missions. This gives strength to the argument that the Flamer Unit is the single most essential weapon and equippable item.

Tech Required?
A Tech is essential for twenty-seven missions, more than half of all the missions, despite one mission (Operation Cleansweep: Storage Facility) being perfectly completeable without the unique abilities of a Tech Marine. When also considering the usefulness of a Tech Marine with regard to controlling doors, activating additional defences, and one optional objective (the lights in Paranoia: Crucial Point), the Tech Marine could be considered a requirement for more than three-quarters of all the missions. If it was not already clear, then it is now obvious that the Tech Marine is the single most essential class of character with regard to completing the average mission. This also gives an opportunity for the argument that the Tech Marine may as well be brought along for every mission.

Cliffs and Falling
Area 9800, Lana’s Escape, Orion’s Threat, and Research 7 contain many deadly cliffs, rather than having barriers that prevent movement (invisible walls) to keep marines from falling off. But that is not to say that the other campaigns are completely safe. It is better to not assume that any visible cliff is safe. Operation Cleansweep, as ever, scores high on the niceness scale, as can be expected from its title (though I think irony would be more fitting for Alien Swarm lore and atmosphere).

Boxes Drop Items?
Only in Tilarus-5: Communication Center and in the missions of Orion’s Threat and Tears for Tarnor, Ch.1: Insertion do destructible boxes sometimes drop an item. The only boxes which do this are the long/wide, dark boxes. Rather than screenshotting each and every box, I have screenshot only the first box which dropped an item during my logging (second run), to save virtual space while also providing evidence to this text and serving as a helpful reminder for anyone browsing those screenshots.

In Orion’s Threat, a dropped item will either be a piece of equipment or a weapon, and there is a much greater chance that the item dropped will be equipment, though I think greater yet is the chance that no item is dropped. Personally, I seem to get a lot of Laser Trip Mines, Personal Heal Kits, Combat Flares, and a few Freeze Sentry Gun Cases.

In Tears for Tarnor, Ch.1: Insertion, a dropped item will never be a weapon, but will most likely be ammo (but never a crate/satchel) and will sometimes be some kind of equipment. Again, I think a destroyed box is much more likely to give nothing than something. Personally, I seem to get a lot of Shotgun ammo and Pistol ammo. Due to lack of observation opportunity (and unwillingness to grind box punching to find out), the claim that a dropped item may be equipment in Tears for Tarnor, Ch.1: Insertion might actually only apply for the final mission, Oasis Colony Spaceport, with the other two missions providing only ammo.

In Tilarus-5: Communication Center, the item dropping is not random at all. Every single drop is scripted, and so I thought it necessary to log every single drop. The good drops combine with the lack of random to reward box destroying far more than in any other mission.

Doors Open from Which Side?
Doors open from the black strip side in most campaigns. I consider this to be the correct way for doors to open since all the doors in Jacob’s Rest, the original Alien Swarm campaign, open from the black strip side. Doors open from the opposite direction (the black strip disappearing first) in both missions of Orion’s Threat, and in Midnight Port, Road to Dawn, Yanaurus Mine, and Communication Center of Tilarus-5. (Yes, I tested nearly every door. It was the same play through as for testing cliffs.)

Repeated Mission
Tilarus-5: Area9800 Landingzone is extremely similar to Area 9800: Landing Zone. No doubt one of those missions is an earlier version of the other. The differences between the missions can be seen in the logs (screenshots) for the respective missions, but are summarised below.

Campaigns: Missions & Speedrun Times

This project was originally created to constitute a resource for the guide ‘Campaigns: Missions & Speedrun times’ by Laosh’Ra. Go check it out: [link]