« Games - Fury3 / Guide - Terminal Velocity

Introduction

Terminal Velocity Logo

Terminal Velocity was developed by TRI and was the debut release of the new Apogee offshoot distributor; 3D Realms.
It is an amazing game, when you consider that it was made in 1995.

Differences between Fury³ and Terminal Velocity

My initial reactions to the game are that it is nowhere near as much of an enabler as Fury³. Power-ups in TV are really quite scarce and less varied.
Often, the only power-ups available are shield restores, meaning that you very seldom have missiles available and you have to be very careful with your use of turbo.
the other difficulty is that the game is split into three chapters, at the end of each, your resources are reset back to zero, meaning that you can't stockpile your weapons over the course of the game.

The levels have their targets and objectives concentrated into smaller areas of the planet.
This is particularly apparent in planets Crythania, Ositsho and Erigone, where their missions can be completed relatively quickly without too much travelling or exploration.

Tunnels and power-up can be found even more easily in Terminal Velocity, due to the differences in the map between Terminal Velocity and Fury3.
In Terminal Velocity, the map is an overlay that appears over your view of your surroundings. It works just like the minimap but it covers the entire screen and displays objects that are much further from the player ship.
In Fury3, opening the map pauses the game, meaning that using it is more time-consuming.
The range of the maps appears to be similar but I think the range of Terminal Velocity overlay map is greater.
In both cases, maps are accessed and exited by pressing Tab.

There is a broader variety of boss types in TV as opposed to Fury³.
Fury³ favours very heavily bosses located in underground chambers, protected by shield generators.
In Terminal Velocity, two bosses are large aircraft. Two are static structures with a few hidden surprises.
Also, some of the bosses have two phases, so that when its health bar reaches zero, the boss reappears in a different form and keeps fighting.

Terminal Velocity's ion cannon appears to be substantially more powerful than its Fury³ analogue; the dispersion cannon. Its functionality is the same, except that it seems to create more damage per hit, whereas Fury³'s DC14 appears to have been nerfed.

Where a mission contains an underground room, this is generally located on the map at (128,128).

Ymir

Planet 1 - Ymir

Ymir is an easy planet with a lot of power-up bunkers spread around. use the overlay map [Tab] to seek them out.
The enemies are relatively harmless, consisting of two streamlined aircraft and a tank with red-and-purple markings.

The planet is similar to the first planet in Fury3; Terran. It has good music. It's beautiful to fly around in, but is not quite as rich, visually.

In versions 1.0 and 1.1, Ymir's terrain was completely white with snow and ice. This was changed in version 1.2. While there are still numerous areas on Ymir, which are predominantly white with snow, it was made more varied with mostly green terrain and white peaks to the mountains.

The structure of missions 1 and 2 also underwent some slight changes in v1.1 to the locations of some mission objectives and to the order in which they had to be fulfilled.
This was done to make mission 1's tunnel part of its objectives and to remove mission 2's tunnel from that mission's objectives.
Apparently, the long, winding tunnel in mission 2 took new players a long time to navigate, since they didn't know to use Turbo to zoom through it.

Mission 1	Original tunnel location	(v1.0)
			 40, 10   =>   31,244
		Revised tunnel location		(v1.1 and v1.2)
			 27,13   =>    19,  2	*

Mission 2	180,199   =>   153,209

Mission 3	119, 82   =>    87,160 / 86,161 / 85,160
	
Mission 3 has 4 tunnels; the entrance to the Gunnar boss chamber, plus 3 exits to that chamber that open, once that boss is destroyed.
Each exit leads to slightly different points on the surface.
Each exit tunnel has to be traversed by re-entering the boss chamber twice in order to achieve 100% tunnel completion.

The boss is a dragonfly-like-looking machine. It has 4 shield generators around it that must be destroyed.
After that, the boss' hit point is the dark blue "neck" between the sphere at the bottom and body.

The actual boss chamber is located within a mountain at 128,128.

Crythania

Planet 2 - Crythania

Crythania is a slightly ugly green-and-brown, muddy planet with a grey sky. It has quite good music. 
The missions themselves are quite small, in the sense that they consist mostly of canyons, the sides of which reach up to cloud level. 

Mission 1	 52, 50   =>    63,  2	*

Mission 2	 52, 73   =>    43, 68

		 40, 81   =>   189,119
		189,122   =>    50, 62

		47,116   =>    68,  1	*

The first tunnel leads to a chamber with some powerups and enemies, located at (128,128). A separate tunnel leads back to the surface.
To destroy the floating commmunication centres, which are the targets at the end of mission 2, aim at the receiving dishes at the top.

Mission 3	No tunnels

The boss is simple to kill, even on higher difficulties. Set your throttle low, keep your distance, hold your course steady, and its chances of hitting you are quite low.
In the wreckage that litters the surface in this mission, you can see a tank from Ymir as well as a police ship from New Kroy (Fury³).
At 128,128 is a small valley with some good power-ups. At either end are points, where it looks as though tunnel entrances/exits were going to be placed but were not implemented.

Moon Dagger

Planet 3 - Moon Dagger

The Moon Dagger is a gigantic space battleship. This mission has no analogue within Fury³ itself but it does seem to be the inspiration for the Kular-T battlecruiser mission in Fury3's expansion pack.
This 'planet' contains a range of quite dangerous aircraft and ground installations. The turrets bear a distinct similarity to a TIE-Fighter.

Mission 1	No tunnels

On the surface at (63,227), is the image of the Terminal Reality team. 
This image can be found in the PREVIEW directory of the game's CD-ROM. 

Mission 2	  8, 91   <=>   137, 27

This tunnel is right next to the jump point and leads down to a chamber with four power-up bunkers.
The entrance tunnel runs in both directions and takes you back to the surface.

Mission 3	  8, 74   =>   161,140
		This tunnel exits into a chamber
		161,146   =>    8, 90

		  8,104   =>   161,168
		This tunnel exits into a chamber
		161,174   =>     8,112

Tei Tenga

Planet 4 - Tei Tenga

Tom Hall, who worked on Terminal Velocity, previously worked on the original 1994 game Doom.
In his design bible for Doom, the game was originally to be set on the fictional planet/moon Tei Tenga:
Tei Tenga | Doom Wiki
The setting was changed to the martian moon; Phobos when Hall left the project.
The Tei Tenga shown in Terminal Velocity lines up closely with the information in the Doom original design document.
It is a desert planet covered with the skeletons of huge, extinct lizard creatures. This concept is cleverly worked into the planet's tunnels.

The planet is vaguely similar to Sebek in Fury3 and the enemy helicopter logic / AI appears to be the same as that of the pandanian hovercraft in the Sebek mission.

Aside from this, the planet has only a fair variety of fighter aircraft and a stationary hovertank/turret as enemies.

This planet is irritating due to the lack of power-ups. All you get is shields and that's nearly it. There is no turbo to be found anywhere.
If you play the planet on more difficult settings, it means that you can hardly afford to explore the environment.

Mission 1 8, 45 => 26, 32 *
17, 38 => 13, 60

The second tunnel's entrance is marked by an alien lizard skull. It's best to destroy this before entering the tunnel, since it is hard to enter the tunnel otherwise, without the ship registering a collision with the skull object.
This second tunnel leads to a chamber with some helicopters to destroy and not much else.

Mission 2 236, 72 => 254, 63 *
228, 46 => 232, 45

250, 50 => 225, 52
254, 49 => 232, 74
252, 58 => 229, 55

Mission 2 has quite a few tunnels; all of which are quite close by eachother and are all one-directional. Only one is a mission objective while another tunnel has to be entered at quite a jaunty angle to prevent the ship from bouncing straight back out, since the tunnel wall is almost at 90' to the entrance.

Mission 3 No tunnels

Regarding the boss, set your throttle to 50%. This allows the boss to swing around to face you without colliding with you, but prevents it from outrunning you when it swings away.
The boss is not especially dangerous and can be destroyed with sustained laser fire.
Also, how much does it resemble the Longsword bomber from Halo?

Ositsho

Planet 5 - Ositsho

This is a very attractive lava planet that appears to have been the basis for the L24-D mission in Fury³ and for Chimera; the lava planet in Fury³'s sequel; Hellbender.
It has a lot of attractive towers and other ground installations that appear not to be military in nature. It's a shame that the game calls upon you to destroy so many of them.

Power-ups on the level are not scarce but are not varied. These mostly consist of shield and MAM power-ups.

Mission 1 27, 30 => 33, 13
247, 10 => 11,235

Mission 2 179,216 => 157,229
=> ???,???

The above tunnel leads into a room with some power-up bunkers and two exit tunnels.
The left tunnel leads to the surface at (157,229).
Taking the right tunnel causes the game to crash when you reach the surface, which is irritating since there is an SWT power-up in there.
Whatever the issue with that tunnel is, it doesn't cause Fury³'s engine to crash when the mission is loaded into it.

Mission 3 62, 51 => 117,112
124,135 => ?

The boss is a static lava monster; the Magma Dragon, that launches fireballs. The boss is simple to destroy, if you have enough PAC or RTL ammo to fire quad lasers at the creature's head.
Just use turbo to circle the boss and break its aim.
The difficulty is that, after exiting the tunnel, near the boss' location, you may be low on shields.
That tunnel has a lot of forcefields across it, that cause a lot of cumulative damage and you might have to go find a power-up or use a DAM to replenish your supply.

Erigone

Planet 6 - Erigone

Erigone is an interesting planet. It is clearly the inspiration for the Vestra asteroid planet from Fury³.
This planet contains only type of aerial target, a six-wheeled mining vehicle and some turrets as enemies.
However, the missions have underground tunnel and room systems that are more complex than those on other planets in Terminal Velocity.

Mission 1 63, 75 => 75, 82
64, 75 ", " *

The tunnel system in this mission is entered via either of the above tunnels (left and right).
Each tunnel leads to a different underground room (1 and 2).
Rooms 1 and 2 each have an exit leading back up to the surface, as well as an additional exit leading to room 3.
Room 3 is the one with the row of purple lights in the floor.
It has two exits leading back to rooms 1 and 2 and an exit to the surface (75,82).
The exit tunnel is the only one in this mission, which is unidirectional.
For 100% tunnel completion, you have to enter each of the following 9 tunnel entrances:
2 on surface
2 in room 1
2 in room 2
3 in room 3

Mission 2 168,213 *
160,206 175,206
167,199

The four entrance tunnels above are laid out in a diamond shape on the surface. Each tunnel leads down to a separate underground chamber, containing a power-up bunker and some enemies.
Each chamber has a single exit, leading back to the same entrance on the surface.

Mission 3 35, 63 => 39,214
41,210
45,213

The above entrance on the surface leads to room 1, which leads to room 2, which leads to the boss chamber as follows.
(entrance) => [room1] => [room2] => [boss] => (exit)
There are no other exits to rooms 1 and 2.
Once the boss is destroyed, three exit tunnels open, leading back to the surface at the co-ordinates shown above.

The boss is a pulsating green sphere with 4 shield generators.
When the boss's health gauge reaches zero, it reveals a second stage with a different appearance.
When the boss health gauge is reduced to zero the second time, the boss is destroyed.
The boss has no specific hit point and can be destroyed fairly easily with quad lasers or MAM rockets.

Centauri III

Planet 7 - Centauri III

This is my favourite planet of the game. It is similar to Terran and Sebek from Fury³, albeit with some quite irritating music.
The palm trees here make a repeat appearance on Terran.
There are only three enemy types; a blocky, grey aircraft, the C-Nome walkers and the hydrosled catamarans.

In the first mission, the white hydrosleds have extremely high weapons accuracy. As soon as you spot one, fire and then break away. Use turbo to flank them.

Mission 1	 57,  7   =>    50,172
		 16,206   =>     4,199

In the first tunnel, the C-Nome walkers fire red tracers. This is the only time I saw them fire anything.

Mission 2	125, 63   =>   111, 36

Mission 3	 18, 69   =>    64, 94
		 82,108   =>   191,221
		156,178   =>   218,199
		145,135   =>   218,199

The boss is a large tower with four legs. It is completely undefended and spawns large numbers of C-Nome walkers.
Reduce throttle and attack the section with the orange circles, near the top of the tower to destroy it.

Ceres Asteroid

Planet 8 - Ceres Asteroid

This asteroid is clearly the basis for the Ares planet in Fury³ but with a less garish red colouration to the terrain.
It has fairly average music and a straightforward boss in the form the asteroid's reactor, located in an underground chamber.

Mission 1	 26, 21   =>     5,  0

The above tunnel leads to an underground chamber then back to the surface.
Mission 1 is an example of TV's poor balancing. I couldn't find a single power-up that wasn't a shield restore.
This mission seems to have been used as a testbed. There is an extra, non-functional jump point at (254,77), which can be destroyed. Its destruction does not affect the main jump point.
At (128,128), there appears to be a prototype of the asteroid's boss chamber.

Mission 2	No tunnels

Mission 3	 99, 79	*

Proxima 7

Planet 9 - Proxima 7

This computer planet has some quite beautiful music and contains only two missions.
It is apparently the basis for the last two missions of the Fury planetoid; the last planet in Fury³.

Mission 1	 44, 46   =>    44,36

This mission contains only a large, heavily fortified area with a single tunnel.
This level is challenging, even on "easy" difficulty, given that everything fires back.
The tunnel has a sharp turn with an obstruction, which is difficult to get past. You have to use full throttle/turbo to get past it. At least the tunnel contains shockwave torpedoes, which are very rare in the game.

Mission 2	 51,185   =>   ???

The entrance to the above tunnel is masked by a texture resembling a giant floppy diskette drive. Fly right into the slot to enter the tunnel.
The tunnel contains a large number of timed forcefields. The only way to avoid taking damage from these seems to be to fly through them on turbo.
This is the last boss of the game (officially). It is a giant computer chip, protected by 8 shield generators (four on ceiling, four on floor). After this, the boss is relatively easy to destroy, although there are no shield power-ups, in tunnel or in the boss chamber, until you destroy the boss.

Unknown Body

Planet 10 - Unknown Body

This is a hidden planet in the game with a single mission.
To access it, start a new game, and when prompted for your name, enter the following (case sensitive):
	"Terminal"	as the name 
	"Reality"	as the callsign
The planet is referred to as "geiger", as in HR Geiger, in the game's files. You'll see why when you see it. The planet has suitably creepy music.

Cheat Codes

TRIGODS        Toggles invincibility
TRISHLD        Restores your shield

TRWARP#        Warp to planet # (available in v1.1 onwards)
TRINEXT        Skip to next level.

TRIFIR0        30 seconds of invincibility
TRIFIR1        PAC ammo (100)
TRIFIR2        ION ammo (100)
TRIFIR3        RTL ammo (100)
TRIFIR4        MAM ammo (40)
TRIFIR5        SAD ammo (20)
TRIFIR6        SWT ammo (20)
TRIFIR7        DAM ammo (1)
TRIFIR8        Afterburner fuel
TRIFIR9        30 seconds of invisibility

3DREALM        All weapons, afterburner, and fuel
MANIACS        1000 units afterburner fuel (and something else??)
TRIBURN        300% faster afterburner and afterburner fuel
TRIHOVR        Hover mode
                    After entering this code hit Ctrl to hover in one place.

TRFRAME        Frame rate counter
TRSCOPE        Sound oscilliscope

Debug keys

Use these key combinations, while in any of the menus.

Ctrl + B        Terminal Video Interface
Within this menu, press "2" to play back a .TVI movie file, then enter the filename, without any path.

Ctrl + D, Ctrl + F or Ctrl + L
Mute sound

Ctrl + M		Play internal or external .MOD music file with oscilliscope
To play an internal .MOD music file, enter the filename. To play an external .MOD music file enter in the filename with complete path.
If non-existant file path is entered, the game quits back to DOS.

Ctrl + P		Play internal or external demo
To play an internal demo enter in the filename (use Demo Directory below). 
To play an external demo enter in the filename (if you screw up you'll get dumped back to DOS).
External demos MUST be located in the TV\DEMO subdirectory (see below).

Ctrl + R		Record external demo
To record an external demo, first create the subdirectory \DEMO in your \TV directory. 
Then, after hitting Ctrl + R, enter in the filename of the level that you wish to record the demo on (use Level Directory below). 
Again if you screw up you'll get dumped back to DOS.
The demo recording seems to be limited to a very short period of time. Record your demo and then when prompted enter in a filename to save your demo to.

Ctrl + S -      Module / Sound Debug Menu
	1 - Load Module (internal or external, see  M above)
        2 - Sample Testing
	 - Play sample

Ctrl + Z        Video / frame rate test

Z	Displays system benchmark in any menu

Command Line Parameters

(case sensitive)
-pause        Pauses the initial loading screen
-turbo        Increases game speed by 50%
-hyper        Increases game speed by 100%

Changes in Version 1.1

Gameplay
 - Improvement in enemy A/I ...
   Enemy aircraft dodge your shots, try to get behind you and dogfight
   Effect especially apparent on Terminal difficulty
 - Enemies now spawn in front of player 75% of the time.
 - Enemy spawn time more reasonable.
 - Improved missile base velocity and acceleration curve.

Menu Changes
 - Show screen shots of registered on shareware version when quitting.
 - "Instructions" added within main menu.

Balancing
 - Power Core adds 25% to shields, instead of 12.5%.
 - 40 missiles instead of 20 when you get them.

Control
 - Mouse support added.  Use left button to fire, right for afterburner.
   Or use it in combination with the keyboard.
 - Native GUS support through UltraMID
 - Addition of CH flight stick w/hat.
 - Ability to "swap" y-axis on mouse control.
 - Better mouse support - relative or absolute movement.  And
   sensitivity control.  Full configurability of buttons.

Graphical
 - Red screen flash is now "transparent."  It lasts for .25 sec.
 - Parts option to turn of parts on explosion for slower machines, and to
   set to overkill, for some busy action for those with Pentiums.
 - Smoke trail on missile.

Acknowledgements

This guide incorporates info from Adam Williamson's walkthrough, which helped me with the tunnel co-ordinates for the first three planets, provided by Mark Randel.
RNagel's Codes guide was very helpful for cheat codes, debug options and CLI switches.
There was no strategy guide published for Terminal Velocity, unlike with its successor: Fury³.