Let's discuss the RE15 Sewers ....

[RMandel]

By Jove, I think he's got it! Better not let the Church know ... they'll be bringing in the Inquisition for sure.

"NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"

[RMandel]

Now that I've had a week or so to think about this, I'm more convinced than ever that geluda is on the right track. I think I also know a way that at least part of his theories can be confirmed. It means asking the Team a favor, though. Can you guys tell us when the backgrounds for all of the Sewers rooms were created? Or if that's asking too much, then in what order they were created? This directory rebuilder we have out here for the MZD build doesn't restore the original date stamps for the files. I think if we had that info, it would go a long way in proving or disproving your ideas, geluda. Thanks, Team, whatever you decide to do to help - or if you can.

[Guest]

Thanks for the comments! Unfortunately I don't think there's much else to explore with the maps without making up too much stuff. The last thing I feel to consider really is whether these rooms were even part of the era 4 RPD at all, i.e. Outdoor A and Garage B. The presence and dominance of the Drains in later eras really complicates things if we try and include ROOM 201 in the mix; I don't feel it's possible to make things fit and make things flow without making dramatic changes to the scenarios which would by all means be a figment of imagination rather than making estimated guesses on actual material.



If you take this image for instance it all makes sense from an orientation perspective, however it requires too many made up rooms to try and connect everything together, and most of those doorways appear to go off in all sorts of different directions. The question of "why would Leon ever need to be in the green sewers?" is one that bugs me a lot and leads me to believe this is not the right way of looking at things. The end conclusion for me is that either way we are missing secondary access routes into the sewer system, ones which lead us to the Drains from both ladder shafts and something I haven't gave much thought about as of yet. It's the only way to make the Drains fit properly and whether ROOM 201 is part of that system, I don't know, it could be although I haven't seen anything yet that would make it work without giving the scenario or map layout problems.

Both characters would need an access point into the green sewers, potentially ROOM 201/207, and both characters would need another access point into the Drains. Both sections would need to be in similar in size and allow both scenarios to end in a similar way without making one more overly complicated than the other, such as back tracking, etc, and both would not have to conflict with the other maps. Finding a solution to include everything is difficult, something I'm still slowly trying to work on.

But one curious thought this has left me with is that the sewers is exactly what lead them to scrap this game. I honestly think they messed up, they made a big mistake in the sewers by switching to the Drains design and got so far through development that they didn't know how to fix it, didn't know whether it was worth trying to recover it and ended up just reworking the whole thing. Nothing fits, that's the problem and the more you try and make it fit, the more strain it puts on the scenario, something again that was met with criticism by the developers. This is further apparent by the fact that in BIO2 they went straight back to the green sewer concept, the Drains was written off entirely likely because it was unrecoverable and part of the very problem that needed fixing.

I believe Enigmatism made mention of this a while back. If you'll notice:

1. The RPD building sits on a 1m foundation. Go to Oudoor A and notice how the window beside the metal drums is actually located way higher than where it should be (compared with the window on the 2f). That's because the wall trim is actually a foundation for the building, which would mean that there's a short flight of entrance steps leading up to the lobby.
2. B1 level is actually taller than B2 level thanks to the height of the garage.

It seems like the team actually took these two things in consideration when building their recreation of the basement stairwell, since 1F > B1 takes two flights of stairs, whereas B1 > B2 only takes one.
And if I remember correctly, the western side of the 2F is actually 0.25m shorter than the 1F's if you overlay the maps, but that is probably just an error on the part of the pixel artist who made the maps.
Also, it's worth noting that the Outdoor A & B areas accurately reflects the location of the windows (or lack of them) seen in the interiors of the building. The window on the northern side of Chief Iron's office is actually visible in Outdoor B.

Does this mean Outdoor A could actually closer to a level of B1 than 1F?

[Guest]

So I've just been thinking. Perhaps we could consider that there are two levels of B2 where sewer tunnels could potentially exist? If we look at some rooms, such as the Alligator tank for example, there is a ladder leading up to a platform, surely that platform can't be B1 just because there's a ladder leading you up there? Could the same be said for the rest of the ladder shafts? Perhaps there is a series of rooms directly above L Tunnel that is still part of B2 that is parallel to the upper tiers of the Drains. For instance, the ladder at the most northern end of L Tunnel, perhaps there is a short ladder no longer than the one in the Alligator tank leading to a room directly above which is still considered part of B2. Just like there are two sets of stairs leading to the base of B1, perhaps there are "two sets of stairs" leading to the base of B2 as well, however the last "set of stairs" is actually a ladder shaft and not a climbable set of stars. This would mean that the base of the Drains is not parallel with RPD B2 but in fact just slightly below, what would be parallel to RPD B2 would be those few upper tier rooms of the Drains.

So instead imagine it like this:


[B1 - RPD foundation]
[B2 - Basement 1 floor]
{B3 - Basement 2 floor, green access tunnels and upper tier of the Drains}
{B4 - Lower tier of the Drains}











Opinions? This is the kind of solution needed to make things fit, this would allow RPD B2 and the green sewers to sit with the Drains without having to play games of Tetris to find some clever way to make the Drains and RPD B2 interlock with each other, because the only rooms that would interfere would be those few rooms in the Drains with upper tier levels.

Saying that I don't think this is going to work with ROOM 201 either, the game of Tetris is just as bad.



Something I've been using to try and help visualize.

[Deathlygasm]

This topic is too confusing for me damn

[RMandel]

Well ... that last map about sums it up, geluda. We're right back where we started.

At least we've come up with various things for the Team to experiment with, once they get this far - especially you, geluda. They've got my kludged map if they don't want to go that far out, and they've got Enig and bio's original proposal as a sort of "ultimate" fallback position. What they will do in the final analysis is up to them, of course.

Still, I've think we've done a good job of exploring most (if not all) of the really good possibilities regarding the Sewers. There's more, of course, but I think these are the best of the lot.

Y'know, perhaps we ought to pin this thread and call it a day. We can always start a new one if something else comes up worth considering.

[Guest]

It's got my head in stitches I can say that much! I've got one last idea that's reay worth thinking about, I'll post something a bit later on. Out of curiosity, what was yours and enigmas proposal?

I see in the first post maps I was just about to create. There's one thing I find interesting and quite positive, it's the fact that after looking at it for long enough we've all pretty much came to the same conclusion!