DefCon 5 - PS1 - Part 4 - Escape (Mostly Blind, Ending and Credits)
0I've dealt with the intruders so now I have to procure the items that will let me escape and complete the game. This is just a case of using the VOS terminal to send out recon droids. On the recon droid deployment screen you're shown a map of the area with the coloured dots representing crash sites. Pick the site you want and send the droid on it's way. The white dot is your crashed shuttle and yields the access PAD to hangar A, which is where you must go to leave the facility and end the game. The other dots are crashed intruders. The yellow dots can give you a PAD that confirms it's the weapons division who are attacking the base, presumably in a conspiracy to monger fear and not have their funding cut. The green dots can provide the PADs for two fighter craft, that are needed if you want to be safely escorted out of the facility. Sometimes the droids will return with resources like ammo but as you can see it doesn't take long to get the PADs you need.
After that I go to the communications section of VOS and watch the distress signal FMVs, not sure what these do or if anyone actually comes to your rescue, they're probably just there to add some flavour to the game. I also check out the "archives" which is a bunch of background info on the game universe. I scroll through it fast but you can always pause if you are actually interested in this game's lore.
Before you can escape the base must be in self destruct mode. There are two ways of instigating this mode, the hard way or the easy way. The hard way involves finding a PAD on level 7 and using the terminal to start self destruct. This will put the base on lockdown and start a countdown timer, giving you just a couple of minutes to escape. Some of the base is inaccessible during this lockdown making things even more stressful.
Because I'd got a bunch of trapped berzerkers on level 7 I really didn't feel like searching through the rooms and then dealing with the self destruct countdown so I plumped for the easy way. All you need to do is go to hangar A and wait around until the intruders damage the base so much it automatically goes into self destruct mode. Yup it's that simple and the reason I said that there's no point in optimising the defence system, the worse it is the quicker you can escape.
When I do get to hangar A I had some time to kill so I went wandering (along one of the longest corridors in PlayStation history) and got a bit lost, easily done in this game as there's no map outside of the VOS terminals and everything looks the same. Once I find my way back to hangar A I decide not to risk any more wandering so I just hang about, swapping rooms every now and then to top up my oxygen, until the base finally goes into self destruct. Then it's off on the shuttle with my fighter escorts and off to the ending and credits. Job done.