Template:Appearances Tabora is a planet in the Bogon Galaxy featured in Going Commando, home to the abandoned mining area. It is a planet rich with valuable sources of Raritanium and desert crystals, formerly a lush rainforest prior to Megacorp's mass deforestation of the planet. It is now covered in a desert wasteland, with large underground caves, and filled with hostile indigenous species.
Ratchet and Clank traveled to Tabora to meet up with Abercrombie Fizzwidget and deliver the Protopet. However, Fizzwidget crushed their ship, the Star Explorer, and ejected their seats, leaving them stranded on the planet. Luckily, the two were able to find their way back to the surface. With the help of the Mystic, who used the power of desert crystals, they then managed to repair their ship. Afterwards, he purchased any crystals from them for 1,000 bolts each.
History
An image of Tabora's rainforest
Tabora was formerly a rainforest planet, home to mostly harmless species. When Megacorp arrived on the planet, years prior to the events of Going Commando, they decimated the rainforest and transformed the planet into a desert, and built a mining facility ran by a robot management team to cut costs. The mining facility was no longer operational when Ratchet and Clank arrived.[1]
Qwark, disguised as Fizzwidget, 'accidentally' crushing the Star Explorer.
After retrieving the Protopet from Angela Cross in the frozen base on Siberius, Qwark, disguised as Abercrombie Fizzwidget, invited the two to meet him at the abandoned mining facility on Tabora. Upon arriving, Qwark landed with a huge ship, crushing Ratchet and Clank's ship, the Star Explorer. He ensured them not to fear, as the ship was insured.[2] Qwark then took the Protopet, and invited them onto his ship. During the flight, before leaving the planet, Qwark ejected them from their seats, causing them to fall into an underground cave, in hopes of getting rid of them for good.
In "Find a way out of the underground tunnels", Ratchet and Clank searched through the tunnels for a way up to the surface. Along the way, they found the OmniWrench 10000, a superior wrench to Ratchet's OmniWrench 8000, locked behind a logic puzzle that seemed impossible to complete. Ratchet ignored the puzzle, obtained the new wrench, and threw his 8000 away.
Angela demands they hand over the Protopet.
After reaching the end of the tunnel, Angela Cross, in her Unknown Thief disguise, landed in front of them, demanding they hand over the Protopet. While trying to threaten them, she fell off the top of her ship and tripped over, causing her mask fell off, revealing her to be a female lombax. She assured them that this changed nothing, and ominously told them that they had put the whole galaxy in "imminent danger" by giving the Protopet to Fizzwidget, and gave them a telescreen with coordinates to Dobbo.[3] Though confused, they resolved to travel to Dobbo if they found a ship.
Ratchet and Clank meeting the Mystic
The two then encountered the Mystic, who had found the debris of their ship. Ratchet protested that it was his, with the Mystic objecting and claiming that possession is an "illusion".[4] He then gave them the mission "Return crystals to mystic", asking for ten desert crystals. While the Mystic appeared delusional, the two obliged as they had no other options.[5] After returning the crystals, the Mystic, to their surprise, repaired the ship. Ratchet and Clank eventually also obtained ninety more crystals, in exchange for bolts.
Additionally, in "Explore the area", Ratchet and Clank searched the rest of Tabora and found the Glider. A button to call Slim Cognito's weapon mods store could also be used. They also found a Raritanium mining ship, and used it to mine Raritanium which could be exchanged for upgrades at Slim Cognito's Ship Shack.
While traveling in their ship Dobbo's testing facility, they watched another episode of Behind the Hero, describing how Captain Qwark was sent to court and promptly escaped.
Geography
Overview
Map layout of the mining area
Tabora from space appears entirely desolate, covered in desert wastelands following Megacorp's mass deforestation.[1] Though there are apparent continents visible, there seems to be little to no water outside of the underground mines, although lava can be found not too far below the surface, indicating volcanic activity. The mining area consists of a small town[6] with only three small buildings, surrounded by small fence. A canyon filled with lava is found adjacent to it on the west side. Natural underground tunnels are found close to the town, while underground mines with abandoned facilities are located nearby, with a slope leading towards them.
Underground tunnels
The first area of the underground tunnels
The underground tunnels are visited only for the mission "Find a way out of the underground tunnels", and cannot be returned to. The tunnels are filled with strange rock formations, that tend to look like oddly twisted support pillars or arches. Sometimes thin webbings is spread between the formations and the wall or ceiling of the tunnel, some also have thin, orange-tipped, growths taller than Ratchet. Several streams of lava can be found throughout.
The passage in the underground tunnels
The area begins when Ratchet falls down a pit onto a mound of sand in a big hollow cavern, with a tunnel stretching out. At the end of the tunnel is a small stream of lava, across which is a small cavern with a high up ledge on the right that leads into another long, bending tunnel. At the end of this is a cavern with three islands, separated by streams of lava running between them; the leftmost island leads into a large tunnel filled with lava, with platforms upwards to a higher up room with stone walls on the right and at the end, but cavern rocks on the left. This room contains two glass display cases, with one on the right showcasing the OmniWrench 10,000 while the left contains just a rock, and a nonsensical logic puzzle is written in binary on both. When Ratchet arrived here, he smashed the left display case and obtained the OmniWrench 10,000.
After this room is a higher up ledge to another cavern with lava in the middle, and a rocky path that bends all the way around back up to the left again. This leads to a long tunnel, with a pool of lava in the middle and a versa-target above it, allowing the gap to be crossed with the Swingshot onto a rocky surface. Past this is a long path filled with lava bending down to the exit to the tunnels, with a short path of sand where Angela appeared to Ratchet and Clank. At the end of this is an elevator shaft leading up to the town by the desert dunes.
Town
The town
The town is a small area with three small buildings. Each building is round and only one story tall, and contains breakable abandoned mining equipment on shelves, including hammers, discs of an unknown purpose, and large water canisters. The largest building is surrounded by pillars with blue lights on the top, and has a set of rotating panels fixed onto the top. The town unlike the dunes has little sand inside, and most of the surface is rock. On the left of the town, a bridge leads across the canyon to the dunes.
Desert dunes
An oasis in the desert
The desert dunes are a large, empty, open area, surrounded at the western, northern and eastern ends by a large hill that cannot be traversed. Most of the dunes are entirely empty, aside from their inhabitants, a few rocks and hills, tumbleweed in the ground, desert crystal shells, and debris used by the desert dune monsters to hide under. The dune monsters' hiding spots are piles of rocks and dead branches, while the desert crystals are contained in a large exterior purple shell. Aside from crystals, the dunes contain Raritanium found within them, dug up with a mining vehicle from set positions in the ground, though it will refresh on return or death.
Aside from a few notable features, the dunes are relatively identical. One portion of the dunes to the west of the town is surrounded entirely by the lava-filled canyon, and a few bridges across it lead to other parts of the canyon and to the town. Two small oases, the only known sparse sources of water in the desert, are located in the dunes, one in the bottom-left corner, another halfway down from the top-left corner. To the right of the town in the dunes is a tall stone pillar with a mining vehicle on top, reachable with a grav-ramp and by using the Gravity Boots. Located just north from the town is a button from where Slim Cognito's weapon mod store can be accessed.
Desert crystals.
The desert contains 100 desert crystals, 65 of which are found in a purple shell, while 35 are found from killing desert dune monsters. These can be sold to the Mystic for 1,000 bolts each (10,000 in challenge mode). The map will fill in parts of the map the player has visited, making it easier to clear them all.
Underground mines
A corridor in the underground mines
The underground mines are visited during "Explore the area". Unlike the underground tunnels, the mines are largely filled with abandoned machinery and buildings rather than natural caves, held up by metal supports and pillars. The mines also have a lot of water as well as fans, likely to support life. The mines are reached through a small building in the south side of the town, behind which is a slope leading down into a tunnel, the entrance to the mines.
The first room is a round room with a pool of water, and a ledge upwards to the right, which leads to a much longer, narrower room. A seesaw-like device in a second pool of water with a fixed block in the center, and one connected to it by metal bars on each end, leads up to a higher ledge, and at the end of the room is a large landing for two artificial waterfalls. At the top of the waterfalls is a short tunnel leading outside, which can be reached by freezing the waterfalls and wall jumping up. The end of the tunnel leads outside onto the canyon, though across this, another tunnel can be reached by gliding. This tunnel bends to the right, before bending back to the left to an exit back onto the canyon, where Ratchet found the Glider, with a pad from which the Glider can be used to fly through the canyon.
Canyon
The lava-filled canyon starts from underneath one of the mountain to the south-west of the town, and circled north, east, south, passing the town, and ending to the west underneath the same mountain. It effectively encircles a sizable portion of the desert, though several bridges can be used to cross. It is filled with lava, as well as large metal barriers with circular holes, and five pillars with unknown function that reach almost to the top. At the end of the canyon is a small alcove, reachable with the Glider, containing a platinum bolt and a teleporter that returns to the town.
Behind the scenes
Tabora was programmed by Tim Trzepacz, and designed by lead designer Brian Allgeir. The entire map layout was based on Jimi Hendrix' head, as Allgeir had to design it after staying up very late from managing the design department, and was stuck for inspiration.[7] The team became attached to the idea of mining crystals as a commodity, leading it to becoming a series mainstay.[8] For Tabora, armor was introduced to the enemies, which was done to make it apparent how much health an enemy had left (as well as to allow enemies in other levels to be reused and yet still look different).[9] The mutant sandflies were added to encourage players to switch to autotracking weapons.[10]
It was originally possible to ride a yellow hovering vehicle around the dunes area in Tabora to traverse the level faster. This hovering vehicle is seen in the Insomniac Museum, and would have also been used to fight the Giganto-Mech on Snivelak. However, the vehicle became obsolete with the Charge Boots and mining vehicle, and thus was removed.[11][12]
One of the bug reports filed by Insomniac Games' QA department related to the waterfall in the "Explore the area" path, claiming that the effect "looked like ass". This was sent to Brian Hastings, with the submitter requesting to "remove the 'looks like ass' part" of the bug report. Brian did not remove it, which resulted in an awkward situation.[13] Another common bug report related to finding all crystals. Several bug reports were filed claimed that it was impossible to collect all crystals, though every time this was investigated by the developers, they found that the submitter had simply missed a crystal.[14]
In the Glider segment, in early builds of the game, the obstacles around the lava were originally large piles of rocks until they were replaced by metal pillars. This was likely changed as the rocks blended in with the background.[15]
For the text on the logic puzzles below the wrench, binary code was used, as English text could not be used due to localization issues.[16]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Going Commando script § "Megacorp's History of Tabora"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Meet with Mr. Fizzwidget (gameplay)"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Find a way out of the underground tunnels (gameplay)"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Find a ship (gameplay)"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Return crystals to mystic"
- ↑ Going Commando script § "Teleporters"
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 1/2 (@6:56) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 1/2 (@11:09) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 1/2 (@1:22) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 1/2 (@2:52) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 2/2 (@6:56) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary - RC2 - Bonus 3 (@1:10) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 2/2 (@4:23) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 2/2 (@10:45) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.
- ↑ Ratchet & Clank 2 ALPHA Differences (@34:11) published by RC Lombax on June 29, 2018 on YouTube. Accessed August 27, 2019.
- ↑ Developer Commentary: Ratchet and Clank 2 - Ep 12 - Part 1/2 (@4:55) published by uselesspodcasts on July 13, 2011 on YouTube. Accessed June 2, 2019.