Robinson's Requiem ____ _____ _____ _ _ _ _____ _____ _ ________ | _ | _ | _ | | | | ___| _ | | _ ___| | |_| | | | | |_| | | | | |___| | | | | || |___ | /| | | | _ | | |___ | | | | ||___ | | | | |_| | |_| | | | |___| | |_| | | | ___| | |_| ______|_____|_|_| _|_____|_____|_| _||_____| ____ ____ _____ _ _ _ ____ _ _ | _ | __| _ | | | | | __| / | | |_| | |__| | | | | | | | |__| / | | /| __| | | | | | | | __| | | | | |__| |_| | |_| | | |__| |/| | |_| _____|_________|_|____|_| |_| Robinson's Requiem FAQ by Christian Schmidt (cs216@gmx.net) ######################################## INTRODUCTION ######################################## Welcome to this FAQ on Robinsons Requiem! This is my third in-depth FAQ (the first two were on Contraptions, a puzzle game, and The Machines, a top-down shooter), next to a couple of small walkthroughs. It seems that Ive comfor- tably settled on chucking out a strategy guide once every three or four years. Talk about diligence. With every FAQ I manage to finish, my admiration grows for those guys who have a dozen or more to their credit. Amazing work. I remember playing Robinsons Requiem a few years after its release on the PC and hating it: I had no idea what to do, and I kept dying. Frustrating. Yet there was an undeniable fascination to the idea of exploring a strange world, full of dangers, and trying to survive. I came back to Robinsons Requiem more than a decade later and stuck with it this time. Since there are no in-depth strategy guides to the game on the net, I decided to create one. Here it is. ######################################## CONTENTS ######################################## ABOUT THIS FAQ ________________ Notes from the author ABOUT THE GAME ________________ What is Robinson's Requiem? GETTING STARTED ________ [1GST] First steps on a hostile planet THE WORLD ______________ [2WOR] Getting to know Zarathustra FOOD ___________________ [3FOO] What to eat (and what not) CLOTHING _______________ [4CLO] Adapting to the environment HEALTH _________________ [5HEA] Treating and avoiding illness COMBAT _________________ [6COM] How to fighting effectively EQUIPMENT ______________ [7EQU] Items and their uses QUESTS _________________ [8QUE] Tasks and their solutions Credits ######################################## ABOUT THIS FAQ ######################################## This FAQ is the most comprehensive collection of information on Robinsons Re- quiem. It provides answers to pretty much any question you might have, with a heap of lists and data thrown in for good measure. Everything in here was checked and often double-checked. Yep, that took lots of time. Dont ask. Regardless, there are limits to this FAQ: * This FAQ is based on the PC version of Robinsons Requiem. It will likely be 99% accurate for all other versions as well, but I did not verify it. There may be differences. * This FAQ is based on the CD version of the game. Allegedly there are dif- ferences in handling and difficulty between the disk and the CD version. Most notably, the need to reselect the bow from the inventory every time you fired an arrow was removed for the CD. I have not checked the disk version. If you play it and find my assessments in this FAQ ridiculous or misleading, then this might be the reason. * This FAQ is NOT a walkthrough. There is at least one English language walkthrough in existence that I know of, over at The Spoiler Centre (www.the-spoiler.com). It can be wholeheartedly recommended. I dare say though that you will find everything you need to know to finish the game in this FAQ regardless, even if not in a step-by-step order. Please note that this FAQ was compiled while playing Robinsons Requiem at the highest difficulty level and in full simulation mode (i.e. with illness and environmental effects turned on). If you turn the difficulty and simulation detail down, several parts of this FAQ will simply lose their relevance for you, including most of the section on health. _______________________________________________________________________________ / A WORD ON LANGUAGE Many things on Zarathustra do not have names, neither in the game itself nor in the manual. That is quite appropriate f or an unexplored planet, but it po- ses a problem to the FAQ author who has to call things by some name or other. * The outdoor REGIONS are in part described in the AWE White Booklet that comes with the game. The names used in this FAQ correspond to that book- let, except for the Jungle, which is called Tropical Forest in the booklet. Since that region looks nothing like either a jungle or a tropical forest, I went for the shorter word. * The CAVES dont have any designations. I have named them after their pri- mary inhabitants. * Some CREATURES are explicitly named in the game (i.e. the Kagoo) or in the White Booklet (i.e. the Fridays), but most remain nameless. I have hapha- zardly tried to name those after their appearance (i.e. the "cave goril- las"). All objects and medical terms / diagnoses use the games own words as given by the Sesame computer. Please note that I am not a native English speaker. You may trip over word er- rors or grammatical mistakes. Sorry. I am not to blame for the occasional odd word for objects or medical conditions, as they are lifted verbatim from the game. Robinsons Requiem is a French game translated into English, and this translation seems to be shaky at times, too. _______________________________________________________________________________ / USING THE BOOKMARKS If you want to jump to a specific section of this FAQ quickly, use the book- marks from the "Contents" section above. Bookmarks are unique 4-letter-combi- nations such as [6EQU]. To jump to the corresponding paragraph, use the search function of your document reader / web browser to find those four letters (without the brackets). If you search for 6EQU, you will get directly to the Equipment section of the FAQ. ######################################## ABOUT THE GAME ######################################## Robinsons Requiem is an action-adventure game created by French developer Silmarils in 1994. In the United States it was published by Readysoft. Robin- sons Requiem was originally released for the Amiga, the Atari ST and the PC and later ported to Macintosh and the 3DO. In 1996 Silmarils re-released the game as a CD-ROM version for PC. Both the 3DO and CD-ROM versions contain live-action video sequences and voice acting as well as a new intro video. In Robinsons Requiem, the player is one of 20 space prospectors who crash- land on an unexplored planet called Zarathustra. The protagonists name is Trepliev 1. His primary objective is to reestablish contact with his crashed colleagues and find a way to leave Zarathustra. In order to do that, he needs to explore the planet, adapt to its environment and learn to survive. Robinsons Requiem was unique in two ways. First, it cleverly emphasized the survival aspect by introducing a simulation of Treplievs health and physical condition. Trepliev 1 must eat, drink and sleep regularly, can catch various illnesses, fracture bones or get poisoned and infected. Dealing with such ailments is an important part of the game, even leading to extreme measures: Robinson's Requiem is famous for being "the game where you can cut off you own limbs". Second, Robinsons Requiems 3D graphics are based on voxel technology, which results in realistically rolling landscapes and great field of view, but comes at the price of limited level of detail and a "chunky" look, especially close up. Upon its release in 1994 it performed badly on existing hardware. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN? The explorers in the game are called Robinsons in reference to Daniel Defoes famous literary character Robinson Crusoe. He washed up on a uninhabited is- land and resourcefully learned to survive. An appropriate term for a game of exploration and survival in unknown environments. A requiem is a clerical term for a mass for the dead, or for a musical piece performed at that occasion. In a figurative sense, it stands for a final farewell. An appropriate term for a game where death is found quickly and easily. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE CAN I GET THE GAME? At the time of writing the only legal source to get the PC version of Robin- sons Requiem - other than second-hand traders or Ebay - is Good Old Games (gog.com), a digital distribution website for classic games. It is sold bun- dled with its sequel, Deus. One advantage of the GOG version is that it comes with DOSBox pre-installed, a DOS emulator that you need to get the game run- ning under Windows. It also includes PDF files of both manuals that originally came with the game. This FAQ is based on the GOG version of Robinsons Requiem. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I GET IT TO RUN? Robinsons Requiem is a DOS game. If you are using Windows XP or higher, you will need the free e mulation software DOSBox in order to play the game (http://dosbox.sourceforge.net). Setting up DOSBox is a tad complicated, and I wont go into it here. You can get detailed instructions on the DOSBox web- site. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS IT TRUE THAT THE GAME IS VERY DIFFICULT? Robinsons Requiem has a reputation to be a darn complex game. This is largely unwarranted. Many of the stories that circulate on the net, mined from the depths of gamers memories, are strongly exaggerated. Take for instance this user comment on Good Old Games: "The games [Robinsons Requiem and its sequel Deus] have an incredible amount of micro-managing, as they monitor your heart rate, body tempera- ture, artery blocks, several internal organ conditions plus need for nourishment and dehydration. I wouldn't be lying if I told you pretty much everything can be combined and used on yourself and other items. The amount of medical conditions you must battle is mind baffling, I wouldn't wonder if a medical school student couldn't come up with all the cures you must invent in this game." That is fiction. Playing Robinsons Requiem does not require a university de- gree. Most of all, its scope is quite limited. Not "pretty much everything can be combined" - if only it were so! The game knows exactly 15 combinations, all of them straightforward, using only a fraction of all objects in the game. The amount of medical conditions is not "mind baffling", but small: less than a dozen. The game simulates only a handful of vital signs, and the "cures that you must invent" pretty much boil down to taking antibiotics and applying ban- dages. Dont be fooled into believing that Robinsons Requiem is the sophisti- cated survival simulation that some claim it is, and indeed Silmarils would probably have like it to be. It is in fact a rather compact (but nonetheless entertaining) action-adventure game. Robinsons Requiem IS challenging and sometimes frustrating, but not because of its complexity or non-linear nature, but because it is largely based on trial and error. In addition, it remains stubbornly obscure while you are try- ing to figure out how to solve a particular problem, or even just what to do next. During your first time on Zarathustra you will likely cheerfully explore your surroundings, hear some coughing and palpitation after a while, and then the screen turns black and you find out that you died. But how?? Even as you learn about illnesses, it seems that they are rampant and arbitrary and impos- sible to get rid of. The opposite is true. Robinsons Requiem is surprisingly forgiving. You wont have to deal with medical conditions nearly as much as youd think. If you do, the mechanics are simple and straightforward once you understand them. In fact you will only need to know how to react to two or three basic conditions, and thats it. With a little precaution, most illnesses can be avoided entirely. Learning how to treat and avoid dangerous conditions is part of the challenge of the game. It is not a terribly hard challenge, but it does provide quite some satisfaction to find out how to keep that flu in check or heal an infec- ted limb. This FAQ provides detailed instructions on how to cope with each me- dical emergency that you might encounter in the game. If dont want your play- ing experience to be spoiled, I suggest that you skip that part. ######################################## GETTING STARTED ####################################1GST _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DIFFICULTY LEVELS? Robinsons Requiem is meant to be played at the highest difficulty level in full simulation mode, and I would recommend this even for players who are new to the game. The game is not terribly hard once you understand its mechanics, and those cause-effect relations are easier to get if you see their full im- impact. On the lower difficultly levels, enemies take less hits before they die, wounds close more easily, it is harder to catch an illness and limbs dont fracture if you trip or fall. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE AM I? You are on the planet Zarathustra. Your ship crashed while approaching the surface. You ejected just prior to impact and parachuted to a clearing in what appears to be a tropical forest. Thats where you start out. Your mission was to explore the planet and survive. That is still your objective, only that its now a lot more difficult since all your gear is lost. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE IS MY EQUIPMENT? After your crash on Zarathustra, you start with nothing more than the clothes on your body. From the list of equipment in the AWE White Booklet, you only possess the underwear, jacket, trousers, shoes and backpack. All the rest you have to find throughout the game. In fact, reassembling a complete set of equ- ipment is one of the main objectives, since all items are required in order to finish the game. You will find some key objects in the vicinity of the crash site, but the rest is spread over Zarathustra. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT SHOULD I DO FIRST? Find the basic equipment that is necessary for your survival. North of the starting point is the crash site of your ship. Find the medical kit between the debris. On the large plain east of the starting point, in the vicinity of the lake, you will meet your fellow Robinson Socrates 19. Talk to him, then kill him with a few punches. Pick up the survival knife that he dropped and loot his body for a battery, a gourd and matches. These items are indispen- sable, and you have no other option to get them. With this equipment in hand, your primary task is to stock up on food, water and firewood and start explo- ring Zarathustra. Your long-term objective will become clear when you sleep in the first night. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE SHOULD I SLEEP? Preferably somewhere safe, dry and warm. There is only one such place in the game, and that is the Canyon. Temperatures never fall below a cozy 24°C/75°F even at night, it never rains, and the local wildlife will leave you alone if you keep your distance. Whenever possible, try to sleep in the Canyon. In other outdoor areas, temperatures fall considerably during the night and it may rain. Caves on the other hand are damp and cool. B oth will give you flu. Your second best bet after the Canyon is to find a cave with a fairly mild temperature, such as the one connecting the Jungle to the Swamps, and light a campfire to keep you warm while you sleep. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHO'S THE WOMAN TALKING TO ME IN MY SLEEP? Thats Nina 1, an AWE classmate and fellow Robinson stranded along with you on Zarathustra. She has telepathic powers and will contact you every night in your sleep with short updates. Your ultimate goal is to find her and leave on her spaceship. Judging from her messages, Nina 1 is more than a bit unbalanced and possibly psychotic, so shes rather a woman youd want to stay away from. You dont ha- ve any alternative though. At least her volatile mental state, supported by the shaky translation, makes for some interesting reading. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT'S THE POINT OF NINA 1'S MESSAGES? Nina 1 gives you clues to the whereabouts of 17 of the 20 Robinsons on Zara- thustra, including herself (effectively all Robinsons outside of the Jungle). These hints are sometimes cryptic and usually of little practical use, but they also help you understand what happened to those of the Robinsons which you only find dead. All in all, Nina 1 can contact you 17 times. The first message is always the same; after that, the order seems to depend on which areas youre exploring. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY OH DEAR LORD DO I KEEP DYING?!? Dont worry, youre in good company. That question is familiar to every player of Robinsons Requiem. If youre playing the game for the first time, it can be immensely frustrating at times. But it is not that hard at all if you know what youre doing. Dont be afraid to start over with a fresh game several ti- mes. The more experienced you get and the more you know your way around, the smoother the first few days on Zarathustra will be, which may give you the ed- ge you need for the later part of the game. If you waste too much time and re- sources early on, youve practically lost without knowing it yet. Playing smoothly, knowing what to do in which order and minimizing resource consump- tion, illnesses and travel time is key. On the other hand, you do get enough medication to keep yourself alive for quite some time, so dont let an occa- sional infection stop you. You will need a certain amount of persistence to triumph in Robinsons Requiem, but keeping regular save games at different stages of progress helps a lot. ######################################## THE WORLD ####################################2WOR _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW MANY LOCATIONS ARE THERE ON ZARATHUSTRA There are five outdoor areas (Jungle, Swamps, Canyon, Massif, Desert) and five caves. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW ARE THE LOCATIONS LINKED? Here is a rough sketch of how the five outdoor areas are connected through caves. Note that the directions are NOT correct here, i.e. the Pteranodon Cave is to the north of the Jungle, not the south. Unfortunately the maps in the game do not connect in a completely logical way; or they might since caves can run under other areas, but that is hard to lay out here. | V ---------- -------- Gorilla Cave --- JUNGLE --- Mole Cave --- MASSIF | ---------- -------- | | | -------- / SWAMPS - Pteranodon Cave <- -------- | | | -------- Tyrannosaurus Cave --- CANYON | -------- | -------- DESERT -------- | --- AWE Base _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I GET TO THE MASSIF? Through the Mole Cave in the east of the Jungle. Remember that you can crawl by holding the CTRL key. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE PEAK TEMPERATURES FOR EACH REGION AND CAVE? Area Day Night Rain --------------------------------------------------------- Jungle | 30°C / 86°F | 24°C / 75°F | 20°C / 68°F * Swamps | 31°C / 87°F | 1°C / 33°F | - Canyon | 36°C / 96°F | 24°C / 75°F | - Desert | 60°C / 140°F | 0°C / 32°F | - Massif | 16°C / 60°F | 2°C / 35°F | 2°C / 35°F * * Before rain the temperature falls by -4°C / -7°F per hour. Cave Temperature ---------------------------------- Gorilla Cave | 7°C / 44°F Pteranodon Cave | -20°C / -4°F Mole Cave | 5°C / 42°F Tyrannosaurus Cave | 1°C / 33°F AWE Base | 40°C / 104°F _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DOES TEMPERATURE CHANGE ON ZARATHUSTRA? Each outdoors region has a maximum temperature during the day and a minimum temperature at night. The maximum is reached shortly after noon (12:20), the minimum shortly after midnight (0:20). Youd expect peak temperatures to last for most of the day / night, but that is not the case. In fact they only last for an hour, after which the temperature will slowly start falling towards dusk or rising towards dawn. For instance, the brutal max temperature of 60°C / 140°F in the desert only burns at around 12:30, while by 14:30 it has already fallen back to (still extreme) 52°C / 125°F. In effect, temperature constantly changes linearly outdoors, while in caves it is always the same. How much the temperature changes per hour depends on the difference between day and night peaks. In the desert, the thermometer rises / falls by 4°C / 7/8°F per hour during the day and a whopping 12°C / 21°F during dusk and dawn. In the Massif, the change is only 1°C / 2/3°F per hour during the day. In ge- neral, temperatures drop and increase more sharply during the hours of dusk and dawn. T hat is usually the best time to change clothes, depending on the region you are in. In case youre interested, temperature changes are always initiated at the turn of the hour, so that youll have 40° C in the desert at 8:00 and see it rising to its target of 44° in the next minutes, where it stays for the rest of the hour. On Zarathustra, temperature jumps. Not that this knowledge would have any practical value, but well, there you go. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG DOES THE NIGHT LAST? The night on Zarathustra is exactly 4 hours long, plus one hour each for dusk and dawn. Dusk starts at 19:00, dawn ends at 1:00. From 20:00 to 0:00 it is completely dark. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I LIGHT DARK CAVES? Use a torch. You can create torches by combining a branch with resin. You need matches or a campfire to light a torch. Once you get the halogen lamp, torches will be obsolete. You can switch the lamp on and off in the USE menu. The lamps key advantage is that it stays lit while you swim, while torches go out as soon as you touch water. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS THERE A WAY TO TELL WHETHER IT WILL RAIN? Yes. Look at the weather indicator on your Sesame computer. Its to the right of the clock. If the little icon shows rain, it means that it will be pouring in about an hour. Similarly, once the icon switches back to sunshine, you can expect the rain to stop soon. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS IT SAFE TO SWIM? Yes. There are no hidden dangers lurking underwater, and Trepliev can swim for as long as he wants to, even with full load. However, swimming will give you flu, even in warm water; the colder the water, the more quickly the flu ap- pears and worsens. If you stay in cold water for too long, Trepliev - inter- estingly enough - dies of fever. A more serious reason not to enter water, especially in caves, is that it ex- tinguishes your torches. Swimming in the dark is not recommended. The more relevant question when it comes to swimming is: Why would you? There is only one point in the game where it is necessary to swim. All other bodies of water can be ignored or bypassed. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS THERE A WATER SOURCE IN THE SWAMPS? Strangely enough for a wetland region, no. Theres an alternative source though: You can milk the Stegosaurus in the camp of the Fridays by clicking the gourd on its udder. The milk has the same hydrating effect as water. It takes a while until the udder is filled again, so in practice you are well advised to bring water with you when you explore the Swamps. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE GREEN BAGS IN THE SOUTH OF THE SWAMPS? Possibly the weirdest enemies in the game, carnivorous plants. Due to their dark green hue you can see them from a mile away, they are stationary, theres ample space to walk around them, and they only start biting if you stand next to them for a few seconds, so the threat they pose is really minimal, unless youre moving through the Swamps at night and bump into one by accident. Their bite is lightly poisonous. You can kill them with a few slashes of your knife, but theres really no point since the carcasses dont contain anything useful. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DO I GET KILLED WHEN I SLEEP IN THE SWAMPS? The Swamps are haunted by a predator during the night. If you sleep there, it will kill you. Visit the local natives to learn more about the creature. Once you defeat it, the Swamps is a safe sleeping place at night. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DO I KEEP SINKING AND DYING IN THE DESERT? You stepped into quicksand. Its deadly, and theres no protection. You can only avoid it. If you keep your eyes open, pools of quicksand are fairly easy to recognize as checkered dark areas. Keep a safe distance. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I WALKED INTO ROUGH TERRAIN AND SEEM TO BE STUCK. HOW DO I GET OUT? Unfortunately, the answer is: You cant. Robinsons Requiem has a few spots where players can get stuck, either purposefully (falling into pits in caves) or as a result of bad height mapping in the voxel terrain. Sometimes walking crouched (hold CTRL) helps, but usually youve ended up in a dead-end and need to restore a saved game. ######################################## FOOD ####################################3FOO _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I STAY WELL-FED? Look at your Sesame computer regularly. The yellow bar indicates your energy, blue is hydration. Dont let either fall too low. Eating food replenishes en- ergy, drinking from the gourd replenishes water. Always disinfect or boil wa- ter before drinking it. Meat is more nutritious if eaten cooked (at a campfi- re). Some food is poisonous or has medical effects. Some food also replenishes water, especially meat, so always eat before you drink. Dont overeat, this may cause stomach problems. Eating a vitamin pill restores a fair amount of energy. Save them for tight situations since they have no weight and dont spoil. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW CAN I FIND FOOD? Forage, hunt or fish. You can find fruit and vegetables scattered around every region, sometimes growing on bushes or trees. Some sources are inexhaustible, such as the potato field and the Marshmalho bush in the Canyon. Fruit on trees regrow every few days, such as the grapes in the Swamps and the apples in the Massif. Veggies on the ground can be picked only once. Only one kind of mush- room in the Desert is edible; refer to the AWE White Booklet that came with your game to find out which. Some creatures carcasses can be carved for meat with the survival knife, most notably tigers, buffalo and reptiles. The Swamps and the Desert both have inexhaustible sources of meat through their reptile creatures. As soon as you construct a fishing rod, you can fish in any body of water. Be aware that some vegetables, especially cabbage and pumpkins, weigh a lot. So does meat in large quantities. Be aware that meat first molds and then spoils after a while. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I CARVE CARCASSES? Use your survival knife on the body. You can do that multiple times. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I CREATE A FISHING ROD? Combine a branch, a liana and the nappy pin to create the fishing rod. Before you fish, combine the rod with an earthworm to add bait to he hook. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I CAN'T SEEM TO CATCH A FISG. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? Move to another spot on the same body of water. Whether you catch a fish or not seems to randomly depend on the location. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I HAD A FISH, BUT IT VANISHED FROM THE INVENTORY! WHAT HAPPENED? It molded. For some reason, fish turns into a slice of greenish meat when it spoils. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DID THE MEAT IN MY INVENTORY TURN GREEN? Raw meat molds after seven hours. Surprisingly, that is not bad news at all. Molded food loses a lot of its weight - down to 50g per unit from 300g per unit for raw meat - but retains its nutritional value. There is a 50% chance that eating it will give you benign food poisoning, which heals off by itself or is easily fought with antispasmodics. So dont throw away those green chunks, they are still good food! Note though that molded food will keep deteriorating slowly until after 24 hours it reaches the next stage, spoiled. The icon changes to a gooey mass a- round the bone. At this point, eating it will give you critical food poison- ing. Nows the time to dispose of it. One of the many quirky things about Robinsons Requiem is that if you have mo- re than one piece of raw meat, only part of your supply molds - 50% to be pre- cise, plus one on the molded side if its an odd number. The other stays fresh for 24 hours until the next stage sets in, at which point again 50% mold, and 50% of the molded meat spoil. If your started out with 10 pieces of meat, you will find that after 31 hours you have 2 raw pieces, 5 molded pieces and 3 spoiled pieces in your inventory. Weird planet. While meat in your inventory deteriorates, carcasses never do. As long as you dont leave the area, they are an endless source of fresh meat. Fruit and ve- getables never spoil, nor do pills. In case you wonder: Despite the fact that you can find salt and light fires, meat cannot be preserved by cooking or curing. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I COOK FOOD? Simply eat it while youre next to a campfire. The message should mention a "hot meal". _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT'S THE BENEFIT OF COOKING FOOD? The only food that benefits from cooking seems to be meat; it doubles its nu- tritional value, replenishing a fair amount of energy with every piece you eat. For all the rest, there seems to be no effect at all. Most importantly, cooking food does not protect you against adverse effects. Things that are poisonous stay poisonous no matter whether raw or fried. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I LIGHT A FIRE? Click on USE and then on the campfire icon. In order to be able to light a campfire, you need one branch and either matches or a lit torch. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE DO I FIND MORE MATCHES? You wont. The supply of 20 matches that you take from Socrates 19s body will have to last through the entire game. That makes it necessary to employ them economically. Matches are used to light campfires and torches. The game is clever enough to automatically conserve matches if there is an alternative source of fire nearby. Make use of that. Light torches on campfires when pos- sible, and vice versa. If a torch is about to go out while you still need light, click on the "replace torch" icon in the USE menu to light a new torch, provided that you have one ready. Be aware that campfires and torches go out when it rains, and torches go out when you swim. Halfway into the game you will find an alternative light source that does away with the need for tor- ches. For campfires, you will always need matches. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I PURIFY WATER? Either use a disinfecting pellet (from the USE menu) or boil it by clicking on the gourd in the USE menu and dragging it onto a campfire. When you move your mouse over the gourd in the inventory, the description should read "drinkable water". Both disinfecting and boiling have to be done separately for each wa- ter container. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHICH FOOD IS GOOD, WHICH IS BAD? There are 25 different consumable things in Robinsons Requiem, not counting medicine. Not all of them are beneficial - remember that Zarathustra is a hos- tile environment. To give a rough idea of how much energy and / or water a piece of food gives, Im using the following scale: + minimal effect ++ small effect +++ good effect ++++ strong effect In general, food with minimal effect (+), such as water, needs to be consumed in large quantities to quench hunger or thirst. Food with a strong effect (+++ or better) is usually heavy and limited in supply. The practical value of a food item is determined by its nutritional value in relation to its weight. By this aspect, most food is useless, or at least not worth carrying with you. Artichokes for instance weigh 400g and give only minimal energy and water per unit, so that you'd have to eat 10 of them to see a good effect - completely impractical. The food with the best balance between weight and nutritional value, as well as an unlimited supply, is plain and simple meat. For descriptions on where to find each item of food, check the EQUIPMENT sec- tion of this FAQ. ___ SAFE FOOD ______________________________________________________________ Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Artichocke | 400g | + | + | Brassica Olerica | 2000g | + | +++ | Eagles Egg | 800g | ++ | +++ | Epileptic Turtle | 3000g | +++ | +++ | Fish | 200g | ++ | ++ | Improved by cooking Grapes called "The Nurse" | 100g | + | + | Indeterminate Cucurbitacae | 2000g | + | +++++ | Macrolepioda Rhacodes | 200g | + | ++ | Marschmalho Ball | 50g | + | + | Meat | 300g | ++ | + | Improved by cooking Newtons Apple | 80g | + | + | Potato | 200g | + | ++ | Pumpkin | 5000g | + | +++++++ | Salt | 100g | | | Slows dehydration ___ UNSAFE FOOD ____________________________________________________________ Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earthworm | None | | | Food poisoning +2 Fruit of Lsk Syk Dyk | None | | | Blood Pressure +2/+3, | | | drunk Fruit of the Ahrys-Ah | 200g | | | Food Poisoning +5 Majuarina Leaf | None | | | Blood Pressure +1/+2 Meat / Fish (molded) | 50g | ++ | + | Food Poisoning +.25 Meat / Fish (spoiled) | 50g | | | Food Poisoning +5 Mushroom | 200g | | | Food Poisoning +5 Slice of Cactus | 150g | | + | 1 in 5 chance of food | | | | Poisoning +1 or +2 Snow White Pear | 50g | | | Food Poisoning +2 Wild Flower | None | | | Food Poisoning +.25 ___ DRINK __________________________________________________________________ Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stegosaurus Olibrius Milk | 1kg/l | | + | Water | 1kg/l | | + | Food Poisoning +2 | | | | if untreated Whiskey | 50g | | | Warming effect: Body | | | | Temperature and Pulse | | | | rise, drunk _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE UNTIL I CAN HARVEST FRUIT FROM TREES AGAIN? 30 hours. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THREE KINDS OF CACTI IN THE DESERT? No. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I USE THE NOOSE TO CATCH AN ANIMAL? I have no idea. Supposedly the noose should be used to catch the rabbits in the Massif. However, this doesnt seem to work, probably because there is no bait in the noose. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY CAN'T I PUT BAIT IN THE NOOSE? Again, I have no idea. One strange quirk is that once you place a noose and pick it up again, it appears in the construction menu. I havent found out what to connect it with though. ######################################## CLOTHING ####################################4CLO _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I PROTECT MYSELF AGAINST COLD / HEAT? Adapt your clothing. In hot places like the desert, take off warm clothes and wear a leafed hat against the sun. In cold places like caves, warm yourself with fur clothes. Dont stay in places with extreme temperatures longer than necessary, and dont sleep there. Be aware that the temperature in outdoor areas changes in the course of the day, which might force you to adapt your clothes accordingly; for instance, it can get freezing cold in the desert at night. Light a campfire before you sleep in cold places. Dont swim in cold water unless you have a waterproof attire. In the Jungle and the Massif it may rain. If it does, dont stay outdoors, seek shelter in a cave. You need to sew all protective apparel yourself. If you do not have adequate clothing yet, stay away from places with extreme temperatures and try to find the resources necessary to create protective gear. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I CREATE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING? With the exception of specific headgear, there are four sets of clothes in the game: Your underwear (adequate in hot climate), your starting suit (adequate in moderate climate), fur clothes (protection against cold) and reptile skin clothes (protection against water). A full set of reptile-skin clothes consists of jacket and trousers, and can be sown with 18 pieces of reptile skin. Those are easily collected from the rep- tile creatures in the Swamps, which respawn every time you leave and re-enter the area. A full set of fur clothes consists of jacket, trousers, boots, cap and gloves. That requires 25 pieces of fur. Unfortunately, the big furred creatures in the game - tigers and buffalo - do not respawn. Once theyre dead, theyre gone. You can get 4 pieces of fur from the two tigers in the Jungle, 8 pieces from the tigers in the Massif and 7 pieces from the b uffalo in the Canyon. Thats 19 out of 25 needed. The rest has to come from the rabbit creatures in the Massif, which give one piece of fur each. Fortunately, the little critters re- spawn. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I HUNT RABBITS IN THE MASSIF? Allegedly you are supposed to capture them with nooses, but I couldnt get this to work. You will have to do it by hand, which can be frustrating since the little critters are very fast. Fortunately a single hit with the hatchet is enough to kill them. Your best bet is to position yourself in the middle of the clearing where they live, follow the movement of one of them by turning around and wait until it comes straight at you. When it is close enough, hit it. This requires good ti- ming and a bit of patience. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I DON'T SEE ANY RABBITS! WHERE ARE THEY? The number of rabbits is randomized between 0 and 3 every time you enter the Massif area. If you see none or only one, it is best to walk back to the cave, enter and exit straight away. Return to the clearing and check how many rab- rabbits there are now. Repeat if necessary. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KNOW WHAT PIECE OF CLOTHING I WILL GET WHEN I SEW? What you get depends on how many pieces of fur / skin you have in your inven- tory. The game will always create the best piece possible. For instance, if you have six pieces of fur when you start sewing, you will get fur trousers. If you have four pieces, you get boots. For a full table of sewing require- ments, see the EQUIPMENT section of this FAQ. Due to a bug it can happen that all excess skins which would normally be left over after you create a piece of clothing get discarded. To prevent this from happening, either sew as soon as you have enough for the item you want or save before sewing. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I SURVIVE SWIMMING IN COLD WATER? Wear a reptile skin jacket and trousers. Even with this protection, dont swim any longer than absolutely necessary. Apart from easily inducing flu, swimming is also quite exhausting. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DOES ONE OF THE BUFFALO IN THE CANYON ONLY GIVE ONE PIECE OF FUR? Because its a calf. ######################################## HEALTH ####################################5HEA _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS IT REALLY THAT EASY TO DIE IN ROBINSON'S REQUIEM? In order to compile this FAQ I tried to let Trepliev 1 suffer in as many dif- ferent ways as I could think of, and in many instances I found it surprisingly hard to get him to die. The brisk temperature of -20° C / -4° F in the glacier cave for example doesnt lead to hypothermia at all, contrary to what one would expect. I put Trepliev in the cave naked, and the extreme cold let his flu soar to the point where he had to swallow an antibiotic pill every ten se- conds. That kept the infection in check, while Treplievs body temperature ho- vered around a stable 36.5 degrees. I kept this up for several game hours without problems - and that was without any clothes whatsoever! Not even ice- cold water does the trick, as Trepliev can swim naked in it for hours without coming even close to hypothermia. Similarly, Malaria is not at all a killer disease. It can be pretty annoying if it has broken out in full, but you have so many warning signs and so much time for early treatment that youd have to be pretty careless to let that happen. Your heart is surprisingly strong too, and in practice you hardly have to wor- ry about anything related to blood pressure, let alone manipulate it medical- ly. In all my time in the game, I havent even come close to a situation where the syringe of atropine would have been useful. That also makes blood loss less dangerous than it should be. While too much hemorrhaging can be deadly of course, youd expect it to let blood pressure drop sharply, but it doesnt. You can lose all your blood but for the last drop without risk of hypotension. The lowest pressure level I managed to reach was 5/7.5, at which point you black out, but dont die. Pain is another example: Intense pain can send you into shock. But this only ever happens with self-inflicted pain, never as a result of battle. With aspi- rin, morphine and anesthetic, your medical kit is literally packed with pain- killers, but unless youre amputating a limb or stitching more than one wound at a time, you will never need them. Treplievs stomach is fantastically durable. I let him eat 100 pieces of meat in a row - thats a whopping 30 kg (66 lbs) of food -, which made him burp a lot, upset his stomach a bit (food poisoning "to be watched") and pushed his weight up to a respectable 90 kg in the course of 12 hours. Other than that, Trepliev seemed to digest the treatment exceptionally well. Finally, infections are nothing but ridiculous given that youre stumbling through a foreign ecosphere: The only way to catch an infection is through open wounds, and the only way to get wounded is in combat. 99% of combat gashes give a benign infection, the lowest danger level, which will always heal off by itself within seconds. You can easily play through the entire game without a single infection that would need medical attention. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT IS DANGEROUS THEN? The most common condition that can quickly escalate is fever. You need to keep it in check with antibiotics or you will die. Continuous blood loss is highly dangerous, which in effect means that combat is nothing to be trifled with, as the only way to receive open wounds is through combat. Multiple wounds can make you bleed to death in a matter of a minute. Death by starvation or dehydration is a constant threat and probably your most serious problem overall. If you do not take good care of your water and food supply, you will run into trouble quickly. Being bitten by a venomous creature can kill you within a few hours. Food poi- soning works slower, but is ultimately as deadly. Falling is potentially deadly, especially in the high difficulty level. Finally, some creatures can kill you instantly; dealing with them is obviously very dangerous. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I AVOID GETTING ILL? Well, the truth is that you will get ill sooner or later, so you need to know how to medicate yourself anyway. But you can - and will have to - take pre- ventive measures to lower the probability of serious illness. In order of im- portance: * Dont be bitten or wounded in fights. Its simply not worth it to risk an infection or a fracture. Both will seriously hamper your progress and can start a downwards spiral. * Always wear a ppropriate clothes. The first thing you should do when- ever you enter a new area is adjust your apparel. * Never drink water thats not disinfected or boiled. Never eat spoiled food. Some vegetables are poisonous or have side effects. Your only chance to learn which is to try it and cope with the consequences. * Take medicine preemptively. Swallow a quinine tablet every time you enter the Swamps. Get an anti-venom shot before you face spiders. Eat salt before you enter the desert. * Sleep in the Canyon whenever possible. Alternatively, sleep in caves and always light a fire. Dont sleep outdoors in the Jungle or Massif where theres a risk of rain. * Dont overexert yourself. Dont run too much. If your character starts yawning, it is a clear indication that you should sleep. * Dont get wet. Dont swim unless it is absolutely necessary. Dont stay in the rain for too long. * While you have to stay fed and hydrated, you dont need to keep both levels always at max. Thats not very effective either. Just make sure that the levels dont fall too low. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE ILLNESSES? There are three ways to examine yourself, and you will need to use all of them constantly. Your SESAME shows reading of your vital signs - pulse, body temperature, ener- gy level and so on. If anything is clearly out of the norm here, that is an indication that you have a medical problem. Learn to read the Sesame and check it regularly. Pay special attention to your three energy levels: blood (red), food (yellow) and water (blue). The MEDICAL VIEW shows Treplievs body. It is mainly used to see wounds, indi- cated by red marks. As long as the mark persists, you continue to lose blood. Each limb can only have one wound, each hand and foot one, the head one, the chest three. In the worst case, Trepliev can have 12 open wounds at the same time. Apart from wounds, the body screen can show two additional conditions. If one of the eyes is white,it was damaged beyond repair. If there are red spots on Treplievs chest, he suffers from food poisoning . The X-RAY SCAN is activated by pressing the icon at the top left next to Trep- lievs head on the Medical Screen. It shows infections, poisons and fractures. If a limb is infected or fractured, it will light up red in the scan. Click on it to get a diagnosis message. * A red box around the forehead indicates sunstroke. * A red box around the ears indicates temporary deafness. * A red box around the throat indicates flu. * A red box around the stomach indicates food poisoning. Conditions on the Medical Screen and the X-Ray Scan are often linked, but that doesnt necessarily mean that they show the same problem. For instance, when Trepliev 1 is wounded, the damage will be visible both on the skin and the x- ray. However, the body view indicates that the wound is bleeding, while the x- ray highlights the infection that came with the wound. When the bleeding stops, the body screen looks normal again, but that doesnt mean that the in- fection is gone as well. The same is true the other way round. Thus always check skin and x-ray independently. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT IS THE SCALE FOR THE SERIOUSNESS OF A CONDITION? For illness and infection, from least dangerous to most dangerous: Benign To be watched Worrying Critical Very critical (limb flashes in x-ray scan) For poison: Weak Significant Very high For Gangrene: Consider Amputation Amputation Necessary Amputation Urgent _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE THINGS IN THE MEDICAL KIT GOOD FOR? Item Helps with ---------------------------------------------- Antibiotic ML44 | Flu and infections Antiseptic | Infections Antispasmodic MV44 | Food poisoning Anti-Venom Serum MS44 | Poison Anaesthetic MW44 | Amputations Aspirin MU44 | Sunstroke Sedative MC44 | Sleeping (+2 hours) Morphine MH44 | Fractures Tranquilizer | Fractures Vitamin MY44 | Low energy Quinine | Malaria Disinfecting Pellets | Water purification Bandages | Wounds Needle and Thread | Wounds Tourniquet | Blood loss Suction Pump | Poison Plasma Pouch | Low blood level Empty Syringe | Injections Syringe of Atropine | Low blood pressure Cyanide Capsule | Unbearable existence _____ WARNING SIGNS ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE NORMAL VALUES FOR THE VITAL SIGNS? Pulse 50-60 bpm Blood Pressure 7/13 cmHg Temperature 37.4 °C Weight 75 kg _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE LETHAL VALUES FOR THE VITAL SIGNS? Pulse -- (You will never die of cardiac problems since the pulse is linked to other symptoms. For instance, one degree of fever raises the heartrate by 18 bpm, but it will ultimately be the fever that kills you, not the tachycardia) Blood pressure 11/21 (Hypertensive Crisis) -- (at 5/7.5 you pass out, but wont die) Temperature 41.5 (Hyperthermia) -- (theoretically hypothermia can occur at 35° C, but that seems to be impossible to reach in the game) Weight -- (your body weight is just an overall measure of how well-fed you are, but has no medical significance in the game) _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY SO I SEE STARS? If you see stars on a black screen, you have passed (i.e. from low blood pres- sure or lack of sleep) or were knocked out, e.g. by a buffalo in the Canyon. You will be back on your feet after a few seconds; make sure to identify the cause immediately and react to it. If you see stars while you walk around, there are several possible reasons: * severe blood loss * low blood pressure * low energy (severe starvation) * lack of sleep * being drunk (from whiskey) * being drugged (from eating psychoactive plants) Since seeing stars can be both harmless or very serious, you need to quickly find out whats causing it. If you see stars from blood loss or starvation, you are close to dying. Act immediately. All other conditions are cured with a good night of sleep. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DOES MY MOUSE CURSOR SHAKE? This is to indicate that you are shivering, a symptom of a serious illness that needs your attention quickly. Shivers are usually a sign of fever, but can also occur during a Malaria outbreak. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I HAVE SPOTS ON MY CHEST. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? You have serious food poisoning. _______________________________________________________________________________ / CAN THE SOUNDS THAT TREPLIEV 1 MAKES HELP ME IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM? Yes. Besides the Sesame readings, theres also a broad array of audio cues to indicate that Trepliev feels some kind of discomfort. Sneezing - Coldness, beginning flu Coughing - Serious coldness, strong flu Yawning - Sleepiness Heavy breathing - Exhaustion Heartbeat - High pulse, falling blood pressure Burping - Usually harmless, potential sign of stomach upset (food poisoning) Hickups - Drunken, drugged Sobbing - Dehydration Shivering - Dehydration, fever Mad Cackling - Sunstroke, high fever Laughter - Overloaded Cry of surprise - Tripped and fell Cry of pain - Wounded by an attack Cry of agony - Severe self-inflicted pain Sigh - Death Note that Trepliev 1 will randomly sneeze, cough or yawn when hes fishing. Those are not warning signs. _____ FLU ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE FLU? Flu is the most common illness for Robinsons, and Trepliev 1 will catch it se- veral times during a normal playthrough of the game no matter how much you try to protect him. Dont panic. Flu is extremely easy to treat, and as long as you dont let it run rampart, it wont even come close to killing you. Trepliev 1 will start sneezing and coughing if hes caught the flu. Once it reaches the stage of high fever, the cursor starts to shake and you might hear palpitations from a racing heartbeat. If you suspect that Trepliev 1 caught a cold, x-ray scan his body. Flu lights up as a red box around the throat. If you click on the box, your Sesame computer gives the level of seriousness of the condition. If and how quickly flu spreads is determined largely by how warm Trepliev 1 is. A light flu will vanish by itself if you stay in a warm outdoors area or next to a campfire for a while, or if Trepliev wears suitable warm clothing. Conversely, if youre in a cold region and / or not dresses adequately, the flu will grow worse. The more Trepliev 1 is freezing, especially if you force him to swim in cold water unprotected, the more rapidly the flu develops into fever. In extreme cases, it can take less than an 90 minutes (game time) from infection to death by hyperthermia. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT FLU? One pill of antibiotics immediately l owers the level of seriousness of flu by one. If your flu is "to be watched", then it will be "benign" after swallowing the pill. That means that if it is "very critical", taking four pills at once will push it down to "benign" straight away. Not particularity realistic, but thankfully very handy. You cannot get flu - or any kind of infection for that matter - lower than "benign" through medicine. It has to heal off by itself, which takes a few hours. As long as you dont venture into a cold place during that time, the illness wont break out again. Since antibiotics work immediately in Robinsons Requiem, you can keep flu perfectly in check even while exploring those dank and freezing caves. Just listen for the warning signs and pop a pill once in while when necessary. _____ BLEEDING WOUNDS __________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE BLEEDING? Fresh wounds bleed, which means that your blood level (the red bar on your Se- same) drops. If it falls to zero, you hemorrhage to death. A combination of several bleeding wounds can lead to death within less than a minute. This is an extremely dangerous situation that you should try to avoid. The only way to get heavily wounded in the game is in combat. Unfortunately, there are hardly any warning signs for blood loss up until its almost too late. Trepliev 1 will start seeing stars and hearing his racing heartbeat if his blood level is very low. However, there is a very easy visual sign: Whenever there is a red wound on Treplievs body in the medical view, he is bleeding. If you watch your vital signs on the Sesame, you will see the red bar next to energy and hydration drop. The more wounds, the faster. On the other hand, you shouldnt watch, you should act, and quick. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I STOP THE BLEEDING? Wounds will ultimately close by themselves, but it may tike quite a while; the time span depends on the difficulty level and on the seriousness of the in- jury. On the higher realism settings, heavy wounds can bleed for hours. They should thus be treated quickly. There are three ways to stop wounds from blee- ding: * Applying a bandage will speed up the natural healing process. While that means that wounds close more quickly, there is still a period of continued and potentially dangerous blood loss. * If the wound is on a limb (arm, leg, hand, foot), applying a tourni- quet to that limb stops the bleeding immediately. However, it does not close the wound. As soon as you remove the tourniquet, the blood loss continues. * Any wound can be closed immediately by sewing it with the needle and thread. This is an extremely painful procedure. Without local anesthe- sia, you survive one such treatment. If you try to sew a second wound shut within the same hour, the pain will send you into a deadly state of shock. The safest way to treat minor gashes is to put a tourniquet on the limb, swipe the wound with antiseptic and then apply a bandage. The safest way to treat critical wounds is to put a tourniquet on the limb, swipe the wound with antiseptic, inject a shot of anesthetic into the area and sew the wound shut with needle and thread. A wound that has closed will vanish from your body in the medical view. How- ever, that doesnt necessarily mean that the infection is healed as well. Use the x-ray scan to find out. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I REFILL MY BLOOD LEVEL? Your body creates fresh blood over time as you eat and drink. If you need quick relief, use one of the ten plasma pouches that come with your medical kit. Each infusion replenishes about one fourth of your blood. _____ INFECTION ________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE INFECTIONS? Wounds can get infected. If benign, this infection will heal quickly without further attention. If the level of seriousness is "To be watched" or higher, there is a good chance that the infection will worsen if it isnt treated. Infections lead to fever and ultimately death of hypertension. In order to identify an infection, x-ray your body and check whether there are any red bo- xes on any limb. Click on the box to find out about the condition and its se- riousness. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT INFECTIONS? The easiest way to treat infections is to swipe the wound with antiseptic (whiskey works as well, if you have it). That lowers the level of seriousness by one. Each wound can only be disinfected once. Disinfection only works on open wounds. More serious stages of infections are treated with antibiotics. Each pill of antibiotics lowers the level of all infections on your body by one. If you leave an infected limb untreated, it will become gangrenous. _____ GANGRENE _________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE GANGRENE? Gangrene develops out of an infection or blood deprivation to a limb. If you leave an infected limb untreated, it will start flashing in the x-ray scan once it reached the "very critical" stage. After that, it becomes gangrenous. There are again three stages for that: First the Sesame suggests "Consider am- putation", then it warns "Amputation Necessary" and finally "Amputation Ur- gent". If you ignore the gangrene, you will die of poisoning within eight hours. Once a limb has become gangrenous, the only possible treatment is amputation. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I AMPUTATE A LIMB? Amputation is the only way to survive gangrene or severe poisoning. Only arms and legs can be amputated. If the gangrene or critical poisoning is on your torso, then there is no way to treat it; such a condition is fatal. You cannot amputate hands or feet separately, only the complete limb. As you would expect, amputation is an excruciatingly painful procedure, so do not try it without proper anesthesia. The procedure is just as described in the AWE White Booklet: Put a tourniquet on the limb and inject a shot of anesthetic into that body part (morphine will not be good enough). Click the survival knife on the limb to cut it off. Sew the wound shut with needle and thread. Disinfecting it first is not only un- necessary, it is also impossible. When all is finished, remove the tourniquet. You can lose a leg without noticeable hindrance, same as with fractured legs. Losing an arm means not being able to use the bow any more, which is the only two-handed weapon in the game. It is entirely possible to finish the game with a missing limb. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT HAPPENS IF I AMPUTATE BOTH LEGS OR ARMS? You die. As soon as you remove a second limb, no matter how much time has pas- sed and no matter in what condition you are, you will always die of syncope. Apparently some people have managed to amputate more than one limb - theres even a Youtube video to prove it (www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_WmEhONDSI) -, but I was not able to reproduce it no matter how many tranquilizers and shots of morphine I pushed into poor Treplievs system. He always sighed his deep sigh and passed away. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT HAPPENS IF I FORGET TO TAKE THE TOURNIQUET OFF? After roughly three hours, the compression will cause the blood-deprived limb to become gangrenous. At that point your only chance to survive is amputation. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS A TOURNIQUET NECESSARY BEFORE AN INJECTION? No. It does not seem to make a difference whether a tourniquet is present or not. _____ FOOD POISONING ___________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE FOOD POISONING? Food poisoning can happen very easily if youre not careful, especially if you drink untreated water. Quite a few of the local plants on Zarathustra are poi- sonous as well; check the FOOD section of this FAQ for details. Food poisoning develops comparatively slowly, so you have plenty of time to fight it. On the other hand, it is sneaky in its earlier stages and only shows effects once it gets dangerous. Food poisonings shows up on the x-ray scan as a red box around your stomach. Once it has reached the "Worrying" stage, red spots appear on your chest in the medical view. If the food poisoning is critical, you will have the same physical effects as with poison, flu or infections, namely fever and high pul- se. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT FOOD POISONING? Take antispasmodics. Each pill immediately reduces the level of seriousness by one. Once treated, food poisoning will heal off over time. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS FOOD POISONING A POISON, CAN I TREAT IT WITH ANTI-VENOM SERUM? No. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT HAPPENS IF I TAKE TOO MANY PILLS AT ONCE? You get food poisoning, which is the games way of telling you that youve upset your stomach. _____ POISON ___________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE POISONING? In the x-ray view, poisoned body parts are blinking. If you click on it, the diagnosis message reads "Infected by venomous bite", followed by the level of seriousness: Weak Significant Very high Untreated, a poisonous bite will get worse quickly and lead to death in a mat- ter of hours. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT POISONING? After the bite you have about 10 seconds to apply the suction pump to the af- fected part (click the nozzle of the pump on the bloody spot on the body). If you do it in time, you get the message "Suck the venom - the risk of poisoning has gone". If you are too slow, nothing will happen. The suction pump removes all poison completely from that body part, though the wound and infection of course stay. After the 10 second period the poison has entered your bloodstream. Create a shot of anti-venom and apply it to the affected body part in order to cure the poisoning. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I PREVENT POISONING? The best advice is of course: Dont be bitten. There are only two poisonous creatures in the game, the plants in the Swamps and the spiders in the Canyon. Both are easily avoided. If you want to be on the safe side regardless, take preventive measures: A shot of anti-venom serum injected anywhere in your body gives you temporary protection. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG DOES A PREVENTIVE SHOT OF ANTI-VENOM SERUM PROTECT ME? Three hours. You get a rough indicator message if you x-ray your body. "Serum very active" - 3 hours left "Serum active" - 2 hours left "Serum not very active" - 1 hour left If you dont get a status message on the serum any more, its effect has run out. _____ FRACTURE _________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE A FRACTURE? If one of your legs is fractured, the small green icon on the right side of the screen that normally depicts a walking man changes to a man on crutches. If one of your arms is broken, the only physical indicator is that you cannot use the bow and more, the only two-handed weapon in the game (as an aside, Trepliev is right-handed and automatically switches weapons to the left hand if the right arm is broken). If you fracture a limb by tripping or falling, there is a cry of surprise as a sound cue. Fractures look like normal wounds on the x-ray scan. You have to click on the limb to get the diagnosis in order to recognize a fracture. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT A FRACTURE? Create a splint from a branch and a bandage, then apply it to the fractured body part. Make sure to disinfect and bandage the wound first. Taking tran- quilizers or shots of morphine to fight the pain can help the healing process. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR A BROKEN LIMB TO HEAL? I stopped counting after the fourth day, so lets just say: a long time. In general fractures are a nuisance that you should avoid. _____ MALARIA __________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE MALARIA? The only location where you can catch Malaria is in the Swamps. You only ever have to worry about it while youre there, never in any other region or cave. Your Sesame computer has a handy Malaria indicator, the little green light next to the "Exit" button. It turns yellow if you have caught the virus, and red if the infection has broken out. At that point Malaria introduces itself physically with short bursts of shivering and palpitation. Once the infection is strong, fever rises to around 40° C / 104 ° F and the pulse fluctuates a- round 110, both high but not life-threatening. After a while the shivering fits turn permanent, and the fever comes in waves. This can continue for quite a while -- a Malaria infection progresses slowly and lasts for days. The good news is that its hard to die of Malaria. The bad news is that the infection is almost impossible to get rid of once it has fully broken out, so you need to treat it early or even preventively. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT MALARIA? While the infection is still in the incubation period, simply swallow Quinine pills until the indicator light turns green again. To temporarily shield your- self against infection, take a Quinine pill before entering the Swamps and do not stay in it too long. _____ SUNSTROKE ________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I RECOGNIZE SUNSTROKE? The only place to get dangerously stung by the sun is the Desert. Sunstroke shows up in the x-ray scan on the upper head. It has the same levels of seri- ousness as any other illness. Untreated, sunstroke leads to fever symptoms (increased temperature, high pulse), shaking and ultimately death of hyper- thermia. If you walk around the Desert unprotected at noon, you will be dead within three hours. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I TREAT SUNSTROKE? The only place to get sunstroke is the desert during the day. The best measure against it is preemptive: wear a hat. Any hat will do, although the leafed hat is recommended since it is lightest and doesnt increase sweating. The preemptive measure is also the cure in case you got sunstroke: wear a hat. The level of seriousness will then decrease over time. If you want to speed the process up, take some aspirin. Each pill lowers the level of seriousness by one. Drinking water does not help with sunstroke. _____ SLEEP DEPRIVATION ________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY CAN'T I RUN EVEN THOUGH THE ENERGY BAR IS FULL? I "LACK STRENGTH"? You need to sleep. Alternatively, eat one or two vitamin pills. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG CAN I GO WITHOUT SLEEP? 42 hours. Trepliev will start yawning after about 15 hours. After 29 hours, his blood pressure drops until he faints. After 32 hours without sleep, he starts seeing stars. After roughly 36 hours, he will faint again. After 42 hours straight, he simply drops on the spot and sleeps for 12 hours. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW LONG DO I SLEEP? How long you sleep depends on how long you stayed awake before. The maximum amount is 12 hours if you are extremely tired. Normal is around 7 hours. Sleep can be interrupted by rain, attacks or illness symptoms. If you slept soundly, you cannot go straight to sleep again. A sedative can help you sleep if youre not tired. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO SEDATIVES WORK? Basically, taking a pill of sedative adds two hours to your sleeping time. It will allow you to sleep even when you couldnt naturally, either because you are not tired or too ill. The effect is not cumulative; taking two pills will not let you sleep longer. You cannot extend your maximum sleeping time beyond 12 hours. Taking a sedative is useful if youre waiting for a specific time of day and want to fast-forward slightly, or if you want to give your body a short pause to heal. You will never need sedatives for medical purposes, so feel free to use them to skip ahead in time. Sedatives have no side-effects. _______________________________________________________________________________ / CAN I OVERDOSE ON SLEEPING PILLS? No. Even if you swallow all 10 at once, nothing happens. You wont even sleep longer. _______________________________________________________________________________ / CAN I DIE OF EXHAUSTION? Only in the sense that your energy bar is depleted, but not through strenuous tasks like extended running or swimming or through lack of sleep. _____ DEAFNESS _________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY IS THE SOUND GONE? Chances are that you have been deafened by a buffalo attack or a blow to the head from a giant. Deafening is temporary and will go away after a few se- conds. It is not dangerous in itself, but can indirectly cause harm since you wont hear sound cues such as the trampling of an approaching buffalo or your own cries of pain when hit. _____ BLINDNESS ________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY IS PART OF THE SCREEN COVERED IN BLOOD? You lost an eye. Flying creatures (Eagles and Pteranodons) with their sharp beaks and archers can pierce out an eyeball. The corresponding side of the screen is then covered in blood, and your field of view permanently narrowed. Other than that, there is no detrimental effect; the damaged socket doesnt need treatment and wont get infected. Lost eyes cannot be recovered. You can finish the game with only one eye, but dont lose another one, which is enti- rely possible of course. Being completely blind leads to an early death. _____ MISCELLANEOUS ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DOES LOSING AND GAINING WEIGHT AFFECT TREPLIEV'S CONDITION? I have no idea. I would assume that a fat-bellied Trepliev uses more energy when moving around, but that is hard to verify. In practice, weight doesnt seem to have any noticeable impact and can safely be ignored. You cannot die of weighing too little or too much. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW MANY DIFFERENT CAUSES OF DEATH ARE THERE? When you die, the last thing you see is your Sesames diagnosis of the cause of death. I have counted 19. There may be more. Hyperthermia (41.5 body temperature) Hypertensive Crisis (blood pressure over 11/21) Cardiac Arrest (from Atropine misuse) Violent Traumatism (long fall or lethal hit) Uncontrollable Hemorrhage (bleeding to death) State of Shock (too much self-inflicted pain) Syncope (double amputation) Exhaustion (energy drops to 0) Dehydration Poisoning (from wildlife or food) Poisoning by Gangrene Alcoholic Overdose Suffocation (stepping into quicksand) Asphyxia (choking from gas) Cold Water Shock Electrocution Laser Impact Carbonisation (falling into lava) Cyanide Poisoning (taking the cyanide pill) ######################################## COMBAT ####################################6COM _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I FIGHT OPPONENTS IN MELEE? Melee combat is fairly easy to win in Robinsons Requiem. Creatures will al- ways stay put while they attack, and never attack while they move. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Advance towards the creature, hit it and immedi- ately take a step back to dodge its attack. With the right timing, you will easily defeat most opponents without being hit. Just make sure to have enough open space in your back, and that no second enemy can approach from the side. If there are multiple enemies in the area, advance cautiously and let them come towards you one by one. That said, there are several exceptions which make melee combat more challeng- ing or even impossible. First, there are enemies who will damage or even kill you outright as soon as they reach you, namely buffalo and tigers. You absolutely need to kill those from a distance before they can sink their horns or teeth into your flesh (see below). Second, there are creatures which are too small to be hit with a normal blow, specifically spiders and the mole-like beasts in the Mole Cave connecting the Jungle and the Massif. One option is to time your hits so that they strike when the creature rears its head up for an attack. That works, but if your ti- ming is off you risk being bitten. The preferable alternative is to switch to ranged weapons. Third, there are creatures which under normal circumstances cannot be damaged at all; those are bosses, and part of the challenge in the game is to find out how you can trick, weaken or avoid them. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I FIGHT WITH RANGED WEAPONS? Ranged combat is a pain in the ass in Robinsons Requiem because it suffers from several drawbacks at once: * You cannot move while you have a ranged weapon drawn * There are no crosshairs or indicators to tell where shots are going * The aim jumps, making pixel-precise aiming impossible This means that hitting a target is as much down to luck as to skill, which is of course not exactly helpful in life-threatening situations. Effective ranged combat means starting to shoot from a distance and in rapid succession while the opponent advances towards you in a straight line, and to kill it before it reaches you. In order for this to work, you need to aim quickly and as accurate as possible, since shots easily miss the target if you are a bit off. That is a waste of ammunition. It might be worth practicing shooting with the bow for a while until you get the hang of it, and then re- loading a savegame. If you cannot kill the enemy before it reaches you, your weapon is too weak and you have no business being there yet. For instance, dont bother fighting dinosaurs with the bow. You will need spears or better for that. Later in the game you will encounter opponents who dont advance towards you, but rather move sideways. Trying to hit those with a ranged shot can be a frustrating endeavor, since the games collision detection is fluky at best. Since those enemies usually fire ranged weapons at you as well, standing still while aiming your bow, spear or gun is dangerous because it makes you an easy target. Dont let them get too near; in close quarters, they will hit every time. From a distance, their hit rate is far lower. Try to eliminate them with a few precise shots from as far away as possible. Alternatively, zig-zag in on them and land a few rapid strikes with your best melee weapon. _______________________________________________________________________________ / SO I NEED TO FIGHT EVERYONE? No. You can outrun any opponent in the game, and you should definitely make use of that. For instance, the poisonous spiders in the Canyon are a real pain in the ass when you fight them, but fortunately, you can easily slip past them without thinking twice. Combat is always a risk, and you should only take that risk if the fight is necessary to advance the plot, if you hunt for food and skins or if you need to clear an area so that its save for you to perform a specific action, such as sleeping. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF ENEMIES ARE THERE? There are 25 different kinds of enemies in the game, including three "bosses" which can only be defeated by special means. In addition, the are two boss va- riants of other creatures. _______________________________________________________________________________ / DO DIFFERENT CREATURES ATTACK DIFFERENT BODY PARTS? Yes. Creatures attack what they can reach. While flying creatures naturally target only the upper part of body, crawling creatures dont get higher than the lower part. A few enemies kill you instantly if they reach you and must be defeated with ranged combat. Some attacks have special (= very bad) effects, such as injecting poison into your system or plucking an eye out. Creature Region Attacks Special effect ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Amazon | Swamps | Head, chest, arms, hands | Buffalo | Canyon | Chest, legs, arms | Fracture, Deafness Carnivorous Plant | Swamps | Hands | Poison Cave Gorilla | Cave | Head, chest, arms, hands | Centaur Archer | Massif | Everything | Blindness, Infect. L2 Centaur | Massif | Chest, arms, hands | Dog Droid | Base | - Instant Death - | Eagle | Jungle | Head, hands, eyes | Blindness Flying Drone | Base | Arms, legs, hands, feet | Fracture Giant | Cave | Head, chest, arms | Fracture, Deafness Lizard | Desert | Chest, legs, feet | Mole Creature | Cave | Legs, feet | Native Savage | Canyon | Chest, arms, hands | Pteranodon | Canyon, | Head, hands, eyes | Blindness | Cave | | Rabbit | Massif | - | Robinson | Several | Chest, arms, hands | Spider | Canyon | Hands, feet | Poison Swamp Reptile | Swamps | Head, chest, arms, hands | Tiger | Jungle, | - Instant Death - | | Massif | | Tyrannosaurus | Cave | Chest, arms, hands | Walker Droid | Desert, | Arms, legs, hands, feet | Fracture | Base | | Werewolf | Jungle | Head, chest, arms, hands | ___ BOSSES ___________________________________________________________________ Creature Region Attacks Special effect ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alpha Mole | Cave | Chest, arms, legs, hands, feet | Infection Lvl 4 Centaur Leader | Massif | Chest, arms, hands | Giant Robot | Desert | - Instant Death - | Kagoo | Swamps, | - Instant Death - | | Cave | | Triceratops | Desert | - Instant Death - | _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KILL TIGERS? Since tigers kills you with a single hit, melee is pointless. You need a ran- ged weapon. The first such weapon in the game is the bow. You need to create it yourself from a branch and a liana. The arrows are made from branches and eagle feathers. Once you have the bow and enough arrows, slowly walk towards the tiger until it charges, then quickly fire two or three arrows at it until it falls down. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I BEST KILL THE ALPHA MOLE? Shoot it with the distress pistol. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KILL THE KAGOO / THE TRICERATOPS / THE GIANT ROBOT? Check the QUESTS section of this FAQ. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I DESTROY THE FLYING DRONES IN THE AWE BASE? You must destroy all the flying drones swarming in the main control room of the AWE base, or they will kill you. Unfortunately, hitting small moving tar- gets like the flying drones is pretty much down to luck. The drones will fire at you if you come too close, which means that you can pluck them out of the air one my one if you keep a safe distance. You absolu- tely need the Heavy Laser so that you can shoot continuously without regard to ammunition. Basically the only feasibly strategy is to keep firing away in the general direction of a drone, adjusting your aim now and then, and hoping that it explodes sooner rather than later. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I GET BETTER WEAPONS? There are a number of weapons in the game, roughly divided into three catego- ries: The ones that you create yourself, the ones that you get from the indi- genous tribes of Zarathustra, and the ones that you take off of the corpses of other Robinsons. Needless to say, the latter ones tend to be the most tech- nologically advanced and therefore best, but you only start finding them later in the game. All the sophisticated weapons are unique, and it is easy to miss them. As a rule of thumb, do not only search the bodies of dead Robinsons, but also the area immediately around them where they might have dropped the wea- pon they were holding. As you explore the planet and access new areas, you will acquire new weapons in a fairly linear manner. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW MANY WEAPONS ARE THERE IN THE GAME AND WHERE CAN I FIND THEM? See the EQUIPMENT section of this FAQ. _______________________________________________________________________________ / THE MANUAL SUGGESTS I CAN USE A TORCH AS A WEAPON. HOW? You cant. The manual is wrong. ######################################## EQUIPMENT ####################################7EQU _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I INCREASE MY CARRYING CAPACITY? You cant. Its fixed at 50 kilos. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I DROP ITEMS? You cant. Once you pick up an item, you have no option to drop it again. If you want to get rid of it, your only choices are to use it up (if possible) or to destroy it by clicking on the trashcan icon in the inventory. Then its gone for good. Its thus not advisable to pick up everything you find. Think about whether you need it immediately or might want to save it for later. You cannot create a stockpile, so youre forced to carry everything with you all the time. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I MANAGE MY LOAD? The more you advance into the game, the more you will realize that carrying capacity is a severely limiting factor, and sooner or later becomes a huge problem. Managing your load is a challenging and time-consuming task. Those indispensable extra sets of clothes weigh a lot, so does a decent supply of food and water, and then you accumulate a growing set of weapons, ammo and re- sources. It can be a vexing problem to decide what to keep and what to leave, especial- ly since things that you discard via the trashcan icon are gone for good. In addition, the more you carry, the quicker your energy and hydration levels de- crease. Be aware that some food is very heavy, particularly cabbage, pumpkins and me- at. Always eat cabbage and pumpkins immediately. Fresh meatusually can be ac- quired fairly easily, so carry only small quantities with you. If you notice that the meat you carry has spoiled, throw it away. Water is heavy, but abso- lutely indispensable. Never cut back on it! Branches are important as firewood and construction materials, but since you can easily cut fresh ones wherever there are trees, dont bother carrying too many with you. They are heavy. Constructed objects usually are lighter than their constituent parts, so try to turn raw materials into something useful immediately rather than carrying large supplies of resources with you. On the other hand, dont stockpile con- structed items that you dont need. If you should require a noose for instan- instance, you can usually cut the necessary branches on the spot. Make sure that you have a good supply of arrows and torches though. Consider discarding obsolete weapons as soon as you have found better ones. Spears are strong, but only if you carry a sufficient quantity with you (at least four), and that adds considerably to your load. As soon as you have the laser, get rid of all spears. Dont bother carrying the truncheon around, the hatchet that you acquired earlier is better. Never drop your survival knife, since it is required to cut branches and carve meat from animals. Medicine and other small items like feathers, leaves or earthworms have no weight. Stock up on them liberally since that may spare you from having to come back later. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHICH THINGS CAN I CREATE FROM RAW MATERIALS? Empty Syringe + Bottle of Anti-Venom Serum = Jab of Anti-Venom Serum Empty Syringe + Bottle of Morphine = Morphine Jab Empty Syringe + Bottle of Anesthetic = Anesthetic Jab Branch + Resin = Torch Branch + Wire = Noose Branch + Feather = Arrow Branch + Liana = Bow Branch + Bandage = Splint Branch + Liana + Nappy Pin = Fishing Rod Fishing Rod + Earthworm = Fishing Rod with Bait Needle + Leaves = Leafed Hat Needle + 2 Fur = Fur Gloves Needle + 3 Fur = Fur Cap Needle + 4 Fur = Fur Boots Needle + 6 Fur = Fur Trousers Needle + 10 Fur = Fur Jacket Needle + 6 Reptile Skins = Reptile-Skin Trousers Needle + 12 Reptile Skins = Reptile-Skin Jacket Empty Bottle + Sulphur + Charcoal + Salpeter + Bandage = Molotov Cocktail Battery + Wire = Booby Trapped Battery (Wear Kevlar Gloves!) _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE BONES GOOD FOR? I have no idea. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE SESAME COMPUTERS THAT I KEEP FINDING GOOD FOR? They are part of the main quest and are required to finish the game. Their purpose will become clearer once you reach the Canyon. For the time being, just hold on to them. _______________________________________________________________________________ / THE RED LIGHT ON MY SESAME COMPUTER STARTED TO FLASH. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? The battery of your Sesame is running low. Once the light started flashing, the energy reserve will last for one more day. Afterwards the computer shuts down, which means you cannot use the automap, the diagnostic scans and the save / load functions any more. Recharge the computer by clicking on a battery URG1B in the USE menu. There are six replacement batteries in the game, all of them in the possession of other Robinsons. Each battery lasts one week. In effect that sets a time limit of seven weeks or 49 days for your adventure on Zarathustra. Dont worry - thats more than enough time to succeed. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT IS THE RAZOR FOR? After a few days on Zarathustra you will grow long hair and a beard. Use the razor to shave. I assume that having a face full of hair is beneficial in cold places and possibly inconvenient in strong heat, but since that is very hard to verify, it remains pure speculation. Nevertheless, if you absolutely want to be on the safe side, consider growing a beard before you venture from the Massif into the Pteranodon Cave. It might help. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT DO I DO WITH THE EPILEPTIC TURTLE? Eat it. You can then wear its shell as a helmet. The helmet blocks attacks to your head. That is especially useful against flying creatures. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE DO I FIND WITH ITEM? ___ FOOD ___________________________________________________________________ Item Location Supply ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Artichocke | E Massif, green plants by the lakeside | Unlimited Brassica Olerica | Jungle, in several places | 4 Eagles Egg | S Jungle, nest on the ridge | 1 Epileptic Turtle | E Tyrannosaurus Cave, turtle room | 1 Earthworm | W Jungle, from small earth hill | Unlimited Fish | All lakes and rivers | Unlimited Fruit of Lsk Syk Dyk | W Swamps, Pick from the plants | Unlimited Fruit of the Ahrys-Ah | SW Massif, on a solitary bush | 1 Grapes "The Nurse" | NE Swamps, from the grape bush | Random Indeterminate Cucurbic. | E Swamps, in thick wilderness | 5 Macrolepioda Rhacodes | Desert, cut from small mushroom stalk | Unlimited Majuarina Leaf | NE Jungle, bush on ridge past bridge | Unlimited Marschmalho Ball | NW Canyon, from the Swampsmallho tree | Unlimited Meat | Carved from the remains of creatures | Unlimited Meat / Fish (molded) | Raw meat or fish spoil after 7 hours | Unlimited Meat / Fish (spoiled) | Molded meat or fish spoil after 24 h | Unlimited Mushroom | Desert, growing all over in four types | Unlimited Newtons Apple | S Massif, from apple tree near cliff | Random Potato | NW Canyon, from field in the village | Unlimited Pumpkin | NE Canyon, near Nietzsche 26 | 3 Salt | E Tyrannosaurus Cave, from the wall | Unlimited Slice of Cactus | Canyon, cut cacti in the desert area | Unlimited Snow White Pear | SE Jungle, from pear tree at the lake | Random Wild Flower | Canyon, from blue flowers all over | Unlimited ___ DRINK __________________________________________________________________ Item Location Supply ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stegosaurus Milk | W Swamps, from Stegosaurus udder | 1l/30h Water | From all lakes and rivers | Unlimited Whiskey | From Epicurus 92s body | 1 ___ RAW MATERIALS __________________________________________________________ Item Location Supply ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Battery | W Desert, search the wrecked spaceship | 1 Bone | Several caves, search skeletons | Unlimited Branches | Use Survival Knife on some tree | Unlimited Charcoal | M Pteranodon Cave, use Survival Knife on wall | Unlimited Empty Bottle | Drink all the Whiskey | 1 Feathers | S Jungle, from Eagle corpse or nest on ridge | Unlimited Fur | Skin Tiger (2), Buffalo (2), Rabbit (1) | Unlimited Leafs | Use Survival Knife on some bushes or trees | Unlimited Liana | Swamps, use Survival Knife on Liana trees | Unlimited Resin | W Jungle, use Survival Knife on resinous tree | Unlimited Salpeter | NW Gorilla Cave, use Survival knife on the wall | Unlimited Sulphur | NE Pteranodon Cave, use Survival knife on wall | Unlimited Wire | NE Jungle, search parts of the spaceship wreckage | 5 ___ WEAPONS & AMMUNITION ___________________________________________________ Item Location Supply ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arrow | Create from Branch and Feather | Unlimited Bow | Create from Branch and Liana | Unlimited Distress Pistol | Desert, dropped by Freud 37 | 1 Flares | Desert, from the body of Freud 37 | 10 Hatchet | Massif, dropped by Centaur | 5 Heavy Laser | SE AWE Base, next to body of Abelard 39 | 1 Laser | Massif, dropped by Pavlov 95 | 1 Laser Charges | From the bodies of Pavlov 95 or Nietzsche 26 | 40 Molotov Cocktail | Create from raw materials | 1 Spear | NW Canyon, dropped by Natives in the village | Unlimited Survival Knife | Jungle, dropped by Socrates 19 | 2 Truncheon | Pteranodon Cave, dropped by Giant | Unlimited ___ ATTIRE _________________________________________________________________ Item Location ---------------------------------------------------------- Fur Boots | Create by sewing Fur Fur Cap | Create by sewing Fur Fur Gloves | Create by sewing Fur Fur Jacket | Create by sewing Fur Fur Trousers | Create by sewing Fur Gas Mask | Take from the body of Nietzsche 26 Helmet | Eat the Epileptic Turtle Jacket | Already equipped Leafed Hat | Create by sewing Leaves Native Necklace | Receive from Epicurus 92 Pair of Kevlar Gloves | Take from the body of Pavlov 95 Reptile-Skin Jacket | Create by sewing Reptile Skin Reptile-Skin Trousers | Create by sewing Reptile Skin Shirt | Already equipped Trainers | Already equipped Trousers | Already equipped ___ OTHER ITEMS ____________________________________________________________ Item Location Supply ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Liter Bag | NW Canyon, from a hut in the village | 1 Battery URG1B | From body of Socrates 19 and several Sesames | 6 Fishing Rod | Create from Branch, Liana and Nappy Pin | 1 Gourd | Jungle, take from the body of Socrates 19 | 1 Halogen Lamp | Swamps, from the Friday Leader after Kagoo | 1 Matches | Jungle, from the body of Socrates 19 | 20 Noose | Create from Branch and Wire | 5 Razor | Pteranodon Cave, from the body of Diogenes 48 | 1 Splint | Create from Branch and Bandage | 20 Torch | Create from Branch and Resin | Unlimited ___ MEDICAL KIT ____________________________________________________________ Item Supply -------------------------------------- Antibiotic ML44 | 60 Aspirin MU44 | 50 Disinfecting Pellets | 40 Antispasmodic MV44 | 20 Vitamin MY44 | 20 Quinine | 20 Bandages | 20 Tranquilizer | 10 Sedative MC44 | 10 Bottle of Anaesthetic MW44 | 10 Bottle of Morphine MH44 | 10 Bottle of Anti-Venom Serum MS44 | 10 Plasma Pouch | 10 Empty Syringe | 5 Tourniquet | 4 Bottle of Antiseptic | 1 Syringe of Atropine | 1 Suction Pump | 1 Cyanide Capsule | 1 Needle and Thread | 1 Nappy Pin | 1 ######################################## QUESTS ####################################8QUE _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHICH ITEMS ARE MUST-HAVES IN ORDER TO FINISH THE GAME? * Survival Knife * Gourd * Matches * 3 Liter Bag * Native Necklace * Distress Pistol * Halogen Lamp * Battery * Wire * Kevlar Gloves * Gas Mask * All 20 Sesame computers _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHICH ITEMS ARE RECOMMENDED, BUT NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY? * Full set of Reptile-Skin Clothes * Full set of Fur Clothes * Charcoal, Sulphur, Salpeter, Whiskey Bottle * Bow and Arrows * Laser _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT ARE THE MAIN QUESTS AND IN WHICH ORDER SHOULD I TACKLE THEM? ___ JUNGLE __________________________________________________ 1) Explore the wrecked spaceship and find the medical kit 2) Defeat Socrates 19 and take his possessions 3) Defeat Darwin 5 and take his Sesame 4) Find a way to the Swamps ___ GORILLA CAVE ____________________________________________ 5) Get the Sesame of Hume 60 6) Get some Salpeter ___ SWAMPS __________________________________________________ 7) Get the Native Necklace and talk to the Fridays ___ JUNGLE __________________________________________________ 8) Create a bow and kill the tigers 9) Find a way to the Canyon ___ PTERANODON CAVE _________________________________________ 10) Defeat Diogenes 48 and take his possessions ___ CANYON __________________________________________________ 11) Talk to Nietzsche 26, get spears and the 3 liter bag 12) Find the Sesame of Pythagoras 32 13) Find the Sesame of Hegel 17 14) Find a way to the Desert ___ TYRANNOSAURUS CAVE ______________________________________ 15) Find the Sesame of Pascal 22 ___ DESERT __________________________________________________ 16) Defeat Freud 37 and take his distress pistol 17) Find the Sesame of Descartes 122 ___ SWAMPS __________________________________________________ 18) Defeat the Kagoo in the Swamps and get the halogen lamp 19) Defeat Epicurus 92 and get his Sesame 20) (Optional) Create a full set of reptile-skin clothes ___ TYRANNOSAURUS CAVE ______________________________________ 21) Find the Sesame of Theophrastus 7 ___ JUNGLE __________________________________________________ 22) Find a way the Massif ___ MOLE CAVE _______________________________________________ 23) Find the Sesame of Spinoza 44 ___ MASSIF __________________________________________________ 24) Defeat Pavlov 95 and take his laser 25) Find the Sesame of Schopenhauer 26 26) Defeat the Centaur leader and take the Sesame of Kant 217 27) (Optional) Create a full set of for clothes 28) Find the raft and ride it into the Pteranodon Cave ___ PTERANODON CAVE _________________________________________ 29) Get some Sulphur 30) Get some Charcoal 31) Find the Sesame of Marx 49 ___ CANYON __________________________________________________ 32) Return all Sesames to Nietzsche 26 33) Defeat Nietzsche 26 and get his possessions ___ DESERT __________________________________________________ 34) Defeat the Triceratops 35) Get the battery from the crashed spaceship 36) Defeat the giant robot 37) Find and enter the AWE Base ___ AWE BASE ________________________________________________ 38) Find the Heavy Laser 39) Find the Sesame of Abelard 29 40) Find the Sesame of Nina 1 41) Insert all 20 Sesames into the main computer 42) Find the exit door and escape _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I SURIVE THE DESERT? Apart from the quicksand, your biggest problem is the heat. If you plan to venture into the desert, make sure that youre dressed appropriately (i.e. with a leafed hat and light clothing) and that you have the maximum amount of water with you (dont even think about going in there without the three liter bag!). Salt is an invaluable help to limit dehydration. Keep a close eye on your hydration level, drink regularly and eat a pinch of salt now and then. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DO I DIE WHEN I RIDE THE RAFT DOWN THE WATERFALL IN THE PTERANODON CAVE? No matter if you go down the waterfall swimming or on the raft, you will al- ways end up falling into the ice-cold water of the underground lake. If youre unprotected, you die of cold water shock. To avoid that, wear the reptile-skin jacket and trousers. _______________________________________________________________________________ / DO I HAVE TO GO DOWN THAT WATERFALL? No. Once you collected the sulphur, you can return all the way you came via the Massif, the Mole Cave and the Jungle, enter the Pteranodon Cave from the southeast and make your way to the lake to reach it from below. Jumping down the waterfall just saves you a lot of time. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHAT IS THE KAGOO? The Kagoo is a tyrannosaurus that descends on the village of the Fridays in the Swamps every night. It has its lair in the Tyrannosaurus Cave in the southeast. However, you cannot kill the Kagoo while it is in its lair. You need to meet it outdoors. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I GET THE KAGOO OUT OF ITS LAIR? Wait for nightfall in the Swamps. As soon as it is dark, you should hear the roar of the Kagoo. It will find you anywhere on the map, but it is best to wait for it in the Fridays village; it will appear from the south. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KILL THE KAGOO? Your attacks wont harm the Kagoo unless it is distracted first. In order to do that, you need the distress pistol from Freud 37. Fire a shot in the air so that the night sky lights up. That will blind the Kagoo and cause it to fre- eze. In that stage, you can hit it with your weapons, preferably spears and arrows, but a shot or two with the distress pistol help a lot as well. You wont be able to kill it on the first go, so be prepared to use the distress pistol to blind it again as soon as the sky darkens and the Kagoo begins to move. _______________________________________________________________________________ / THE DISTRESS PISTOL DOESN'T BLIND THE KAGOO! Theres no point in shooting directly at the Kagoo from the weapons menu. You need to fire a flare by clicking on the pistol in the USE menu. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DIDN'T I GET THE HALOGEN LAMP AFTER I DEFEATED THE KAGOO? Where you find the lamp apparently depends on which version youre playing. In the CD version of Robinsons Requiem, you need to take the lamp out of the Friday leaders hand. Talk to her after you killed the Kagoo. She gives you a kiss. Afterwards she will hold the lamp in her hand. Click on her to pick it up. In the disk version, the lamp will lie in the grass at her right side. It can be hard to spot, especially at night. Looking down ("+" key) helps. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE IS EPICURUS? After your first encounter with Epicurus 92 in the Swamps, he vanishes. You need his Sesame computer though to finish your main objective. To bring him back, you have to defeat the Kagoo. After that, he will wait for you in the south of the Swamps. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KILL THE TRICERATOPS IN THE DESERT? The triceratops is one of the boss enemies that can only be killed in a spe- cific way. Normal weapons dont harm it, and it will kill you instantly if it touches you. Note that it is not actually necessary to kill the triceratops. When you ap- proach the area, it will initially be asleep. It is possible to sneak past it by crouching and going towards the crashed spaceship in a large arc. Even if the triceratops awakes, it is not particularly fast, so you may be able to grab the battery and outrun it. Just make damn sure that you have enough car- rying capacity left (10 kg) or you will be rendered an immobile target! Sneaking or running past the triceratops is a difficult endeavor, so you might prefer to kill it. The only way to do so is to lob the Molotov cocktail at it. This requires good timing. Let the triceratops run straight at you and throw the bottle about three seconds before it would hit you. It is highly recommen- ded that you save your game before you attempt this, as you only get one chance to get it right. There is no second Molotov cocktail in the game. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE DO I GET A MOLOTIV COCKTAIL? You need to construct it yourself from an empty bottle of whiskey, sulphur, charcoal, salpeter and a bandage. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I CAN'T FIND SALPETER! Its in the Gorilla Cave that connects the Jungle to the Swamps. Go to the northeast corner and then follow the path west all the way to a dead-end. The wall is slightly darker here. Step close to the wall and use your survival knife on it to scrape off some salpeter. Once will be enough. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I CAN'T FIND CHARCOAL! Its in the Pteranodon Cave that connects the Jungle to the Canyon. You need the Halogen Lamp to be able to swim to the north side of the underground lake and follow the path north into a network of tunnels and intersections. Beware the aggressive giants. To get to the charcoal from the lake shore, take the second left, again the second left and then the first right. Youll find a long cave wall sprinkled with white. Its hard to miss. Use your knife on the wall to break some charcoal loose. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I CAN'T FIND SULPHUR! Its in the Pteranodon Cave that connects the Jungle to the Canyon. You need to enter the cave from the Massif on the raft. Follow the left arm of the un- derground river all the way to its end in the NW corner of the cave. You will find a dark wall. Use your knife on it to collect some sulphur. _______________________________________________________________________________ / I CAN'T FIND THE BOTTLE OF WHISKEY! Epicurus 92 has it. You need to defeat the Kagoo first, then Epicurus. In or- der to use the bottle for the Molotov cocktail, you first need to empty it. Prost! _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I DESTROY THE GIANT ROBOT IN THE DESERT? The robot guards the entrance to the AWE base. It cannot be harmed by any weapon, and it will kill you instantly as soon as it reaches you. You need to destroy it remotely by setting a trap for it. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I SET A TRAP FOR THE GIANT ROBOT? Find the battery from the wreck in the desert and rig it with a wire to create a booby trap. Slowly approach the robot. As soon as it starts to move in your direction, drop the booby-trapped battery in front of you and take a few steps back. When the robot touches the battery, it gets electrocuted. Dont step in- to the battery yourself, it will kill you instantly. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DO I GET ELECTROCUTED WHEN I TRY TO BOOBY-TRAP THE BATTERY? You need to wear Pavlov 95s kevlar gloves. _______________________________________________________________________________ / CAN I LURE THE TRICERATOPS / THE GIANT ROBOT INTO QUICKSAND? No. They simply walk over it. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW MANY SESAME COMPUTERS ARE THERE? As you know from the AWE White Booklet that came with the game, there are 20 Robinsons on mission to Zarathustra. One of them is yourself, Trepliev 1. You have your Sesame with you. The other 19 Sesames are scattered around Zarathu- stra along with their owners. In general, each computer is always where its owner (or his corpse) is, with the exception of Nina 1s Sesame. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE ARE ALL THE SESAME COMPUTERS? Sesame Location Type ------------------------------------------------------ Trepliev 1 | Your own Sesame | - Socrates 19 | E Jungle | Fight Darwin 5 | W Jungle | Fight Diogenes 48 | N Pteranodon Cave | Fight Hume 60 | Center Gorilla Cave | Corpse Pythagoras 32 | W Canyon | Corpse Hegel 17 | NW Canyon | Corpse Epicurus 92 | S Swamps | Fight after killing Kagoo Theophrastus 7 | W Tyrannosaurus Cave | Corpse, guarded by Kagoo Pascal 22 | S Tyrannosaurus Cave | Corpse Freud 37 | W Desert | Fight Descartes 122 | NW Desert | Corpse Spinoza 44 | W Mole Cave | Corpse Pavlov 95 | W Massif | Fight Schopenhauer 26 | W Massif | Corpse Kant 217 | NE Massif, plateau | Fight centaur leader Marx 49 | N Pteranodon Cave | Corpse The above 17 Sesames are the ones you need in order to finish Nietzsche 26s quest. Afterwards there are three more to find: Nietzsche 26 | NE Canyon | Fight Abelard 29 | SE AWE Base | Corpse Nina 1 | N AWE Base | - _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I KNOW WHICH COMPUTERS I'M STILL MISSING? If you place your mouse cursor over the computer icon in your inventory, the messages will list the IDs of all Sesames you have in your possession. It might help to write them down on a piece of paper. Compare that to the full list of Robinsons in your AWE White Booklet that came with the game. In order to finish Nietzsche 26s quest, you need 17 Sesames, including your own. Since your own computer is not counted while you wear it, the number next to the computers in the inventory should read "16". If it reads "19", you have found all Sesames and can finish the game. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHY DO I SUFFOCATE IN THE AWE BASE? It has been flooded with poisonous gas. Wear the gas mask that you got from Nietzsche 26 before you enter the base. _______________________________________________________________________________ / HOW DO I OPEN THE METAL DOORS IN THE AWE BASE? To open the doors is your final task; once you manage to do that and reach them, you win the game. The doors are opened remotely from the control room in the east part of the base. In order to activate the mechanism, you need to in- sert all 20 Sesame computers into the grey master terminal. An alarm will sound to indicate that you were successful. You now have a limited time to reach the doors and escape. _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHERE IS THE 20TH SESAME? On your chest. Remove your shirt in the DRESS menu to find it. _______________________________________________________________________________ / THE AUTOMAP DOESN'T WORK ANY MORE! The automap, medical status and saving / loading are functions of your Sesame. Once you remove it from your body, you cannot access them any more. That means that you will have to find the way to the metal doors from memory and without saving. Its not too hard. Before you remove your Sesame, have a good last look on the automap. You need to cross the lava-filled wall, then turn left at the first intersection and right at the second. _______________________________________________________________________________ / IS THE END SEQUENCE WORTH ALL THE EFFORT? I would love to say it is, but unfortunately - no. The ending is a complete letdown. However, the real reward is being able to boast that you beat the game. In full simulation mode, that is quite a feat. _______________________________________________________________________________ / DID I MISS ANY OF NINA 1'S MESSAGES? Check for yourself. Here is the full transcript of her communication with you: "Hello Terpliev1... Its me, Nina1... Dont worry, you are asleep. But you know my telepathic powers and your subconscious is easy to reach... Ive managed to land in a volcanic zone. If you could deactivate the force fields, we could get off this cursed planet. Just the two of us... So long..." "Hail, comrade alumnus. I dont know whether Ive done the right thing in contacting you. You look so clumsy! Such an idiot! Nietzsche26 looks much more resourceful. Hes settled comfortably in the bottom of a canyon and doesnt need anything, good cheerio kid!" "Well lazybones... What are you making?... I dont intent to spend my life here. Ive other ideas! Freud37 moves about much more than you. Hes lan- ded in the desert and I sense that he is already near me. Perhaps I shall be a little unfaithful..." "Dear Trepliev, Im glad to find you there. Asleep, but accessible, I can give you some information you need in your quest. Ive sensed Schopen- hauer26 and Pavlov95, talking in a vast clearing. They didnt seem to agree... Im all yours, kisses." "Hey, Trepliev, I wonder if were going to spend the rest of our lives he- re. Fate is so weird. I dont know what to think of all these mysteries. Ive contacted Epicurus. Hes O.K. Hes made friends with the natives. Its a good thing, friendship between nations. Bye bye Trepliev." "At last! There you are! Swine! Whereve you been all this time? Have you been drinking or something? If youve been with girls Ill know about it. So watch out! I just wanted to let you know that Diogenes48 is hidden in a cave with a weapon. He could do you some harm, unless I get you first." "Oh Trepliev! Before my eyes a moon is shining and lighting up the sky ... Before this cold star I hold my breath, hoping for a gleam, a smile, a look ... I weep ... and Kant 217 departed like a hero, to face the knights without fear. Him too now, I shall mourn ..." "Dear friend, Im very glad to be able to talk to you. I hope I can give you some very valuable information, so that you can join me again as soon as possible. I inform you that aforesaid Hegel17 has gone to negotiate for food in a native village, near a canyon. So long, and good luck." "Shush. Im suspicious. I think someone is watching me. I dont know whe- ther I can trust you. So, did you know Pythagoras32 spent all day collec- ting Maschmalho balls! Dont tell a soul! Ill contact you again." "Hello again, Im so happy! Ive managed to contact you again, and it wasnt easy ... because theres a lot of wind ... Ha ha ha ... Ive seen Descartes122 ... He is very hot, poor fellow, and very thirsty. Not like me! There are lots of bottles of whisky in my vessel. I promise to keep one for you... Hic!" "What? Im there, no? I can still hear your reproaches! Havent I always given you my attention? Youre not jealous by any chance? I imagine you think Im still attached to Hume60? Understand that hes only a heap of bones, eaten by the ape-men. I despise him, you understand. Do you still love me?" "Greetings Trepliev1, if I remember it well, you were always seeing that big blondie Peggy4!? She didnt have much to please, did she? Well, Ive had news of Spinoza44 ... he was crouching in the dark, in a stinking ca- vern. So long." "Oh puppet, Im missing you terribly... I think of you all the time... Hurry... Its so cold here... Ohhh... Take care of yourself, dont end up like that fool Marx49, who go eaten by some evil giants... Hurry love, co- me to me!" "Greetings. Its cold. Brass monkey weather. Fed up with canned food. Im bored ... nothing going on in this dump. Bad news: Theophrastus7 has been eaten by a Kagoo! Its a hard life. Bye." "Have a good sleep, my little tripod darling. Tomorrow, youll be able to join your little Ninette again. Its Pascal22. He has found eternal rest, at the bottom of a cave, close to the sea. The fool." "Kisses, my sweetheart Trepliev! Why are we here? Would fate condemn us to die here on this heap of stones? Arent we dreaming? Or playing video ga- mes? Its like Abelard39, he seems to have gone to sleep in a suffocating place... But is he really asleep? Is that all an illusion? To be or not to be? Im asking you!" "Hello Darling, there isnt far to go now, we shall meet again soon. Ive lost my Sesame down a volcanic fissure. I hope you can get it back for me, so it can be entered on the computer. See you soon, my love." _______________________________________________________________________________ / WHOA, DID I JUST SEE A DIFFERENT DEATH SCREEN? Could be. There is a second screen that look almost the same, but replaces the tormented face with a skull. It is very rare and doesnt seem to be linked to a specific kind of death, so if you want to see it, youll have to die a lot. ######################################## CREDITS ######################################## _______________________________________________________________________________ / GREAT FAQ! WHOM CAN I THANK? Hey, thanks! If you'd like to write a few words, see the credits below for my e-mail address. I appreciate the encouragement. _______________________________________________________________________________ / THIS FAQ SUCKS! WHOM CAN I COMPLAIN TO? Uhm ... I guess that would be me. If you have any suggestions or additions or even corrections for the FAQ, please don't hesitate to contact me. My e-mail address is right below. _______________________________________________________________________________ / CREDITS Created by Christian Schmidt Munich, Germany July 2010 This document may be distributed freely. You may change whatever you like, though I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me if you're planning to do so. ;) Comments and additions are welcome: cs216@gmx.net _______________________________________________________________________________/