Cameras and alarms
The Security tab (left edge) holds everything that watches and warns: cameras, alarm buttons, sirens, alarm lights, and the alarm systems that tie them to the guards.
Alarm systems
In the game, an alarm system is a control that parts of the level are wired to. Each system reads as a sentence, with four groups under it:
- Raised by: the cameras and alarm buttons that set it off.
- Answered by: the guards who react when it rings.
- When it goes off: sirens, flashing lights, the alarm heard around the base, reinforcements arriving, and whether the mission fails.
- Turning it off: its buttons. Pressing one while the alarm rings silences it.
Each part is an icon in its group. Click it to fly to it on the map. Hover it for a strip of four: show, select, take it off this alarm, and remove it from the mission.
The eye beside a system draws it on the map: a line from every part to its control, and a ring round each guard who answers.
Placing parts
At the top of the tab:
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| New alarm system | A system of your own, for a corner the level never alarmed |
| Security camera | Sweeps (±45° at 20° a second, pausing 3 s) and raises its alarm when it sees the player |
| Fixed camera | The same, looking one way |
| Alarm button | Raises its alarm, and silences it |
| Siren | Wails while its alarm rings |
| Alarm light | Flashes while its alarm rings |
Pick one and click the map near a wall, a masonry fence or the side of a building. It mounts itself on the wall within 4 m, facing away from it, at its own height: a camera about 4.5 m up, a button at hand height, a siren high. The preview says what it will hang on and how high. R turns it. Dragging a placed part keeps it on a wall. With no wall near, a camera stands on its own, 3 m up.
Every part's panel has one line: which system it is on. It starts on the nearest.
A camera's settings
Select a camera, yours or the level's, to set:
- Tilt, View width and Range.
- Sweeps right, Sweeps left, Speed and Pause.
- Raises its alarm when it sees you: untick it for a camera that only watches.
- Mount on the nearest wall snaps it onto a wall again.
- Raises alarm: which system it is on. A camera of the level's can be moved to another system too.
On the map, a camera's view cone is drawn, and dashed, the whole arc it sweeps.
Guards and the alarm
A guard's panel has the same line, Answers alarm, and a tick that makes him a reinforcement: he is not on the map until that alarm rings, and comes back as many times as you set. That is how the game's own levels call in their squads.
A guard you place gets the alarm the nearest of the level's guards answers, so he reacts like his neighbours. A guard inside a building also gets a way out of it for when the alarm rings.
A stealth mission
Tick The mission fails if any alarm goes off at the bottom of the tab (or under the objectives). Then use Sight lines to check that there is still a quiet way in.
Next: ground and buildings.