Yay, I made it to the Data Miner myself! I'm happy, 'cause this was my first try back at stealth running in like, a year. I've been showing this game to a friend, and although they have slowly been gaining competence at combat running, I wanted to show them that there are other options out there. If only all my runs could divine so much knowledge, haha.
I've already transcripted everything from Data Miner to the wiki. A few things are unclear to me though, and will require me to try a few times... or just ask you guys lol. Are the schematics terminals randomized? I mean, if they are, they probably have some reasonable bounds, but I'm not sure if they are static. Also, what happens when you fail to kill the Data Miner? I had read a little about him in this thread and so I had a go at him, and my Ripper downed him in one hit. After escaping past those damnable Enhanced Grunts, I took a breather. My mind will be blown if I really just got the location of every staircase henceforth.
You mentioned that Lower Caves connect to both the lower Factory floors. Does this mean I can hit, say, Zion from Factory -7, and then Data Miner from -6? And that in a future run, it might be reversed?
Also, there are two Research branches, right? I think Testing and Quarantine, though in retrospect I can't find hard data on Quarantine. Do they exist / can be accessed?
I need data on Zhirov, Perun, and Svarog, too... I mean, I need someone to try hitting them and telling me what happens, haha. Adv. Scans of them would be neat, too. I want to know what Zhirov is holding... Oh, also, Zhirov's logs point to a Hidden Lab off of Armory - do we know what this is?
I only play a little every day, so it might be another few days or so before I come across noteworthy information, but I'll do a write-up on how I interpret everything so far like you did, Sherlockkat. I guess my next stop should be Archives. Sounds like an interesting place
What's in Hub_04(d)?