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Todano is a planet in the Bogon Galaxy featured in Going Commando. It is a mountainous world, with forests and grassy areas on top of large cliff plateaus, and the site of the Megacorp Armory. The armory features guided Megacorp tours hosted by a robotic Abercrombie Fizzwidget and frequented by space tourists. Stuart Zurgo was one of its employees. It is also inhabited by mutant test-squirrels.

Ratchet and Clank traveled to Todano after Fizzwidget told them about a commercial he had filmed for the tours around the armory. Frustrated that their meeting with him at the Deep Space Disposal Facility had been essentially fruitless, the two landed on the planet as it was their only lead to find Fizzwidget. Eventually, they were contacted by Angela Cross.

History[]

The Megacorp Armory was responsible for the production of many rockets used by Megacorp. The Triple-B, or Big Badass Bomb, became a popular product that was instrumental in defeating Megacorp's competitors (the dialogue deliberately makes it unclear whether this was by selling the bomb, or using it) and making Megacorp the only major corporation in Bogon. The Megacorp Armory was also responsible for constructing the Z-X9 galaxy cruise rocket.[1]

Todano was home to a population of squirrels, which were used as test subjects. One such squirrel, named Bobo, tested the Z-X9 galaxy cruise rocket, and flew it into a black hole, but never returned.[1] Squirrel Rights groups later campaigned against this, causing Megacorp to stop this practice and released these mutant test-squirrels into the wild, where they became dangerous.[2]

A new Megacorp Weapons Facility was constructed at the site of the Megacorp Armory,[3] which would be the site of tours. Stuart Zurgo worked for the armory around this time.[4][5]

After Ratchet and Clank contacted Qwark, disguised as Fizzwidget, on Dobbo, Qwark first traveled to Todano to film a commercial for the tours around the new facility. He then met them at the Deep Space Disposal Facility as promised, showed them the commercial, and then promptly left. Ratchet and Clank chose to travel to the planet to learn more, in "Explore the Weapons Facility".

Bring Qwark Collectible to Armory Employee cutscene

Ratchet and Clank meet Stuart Zurgo.

In "Investigate the facility interior", Ratchet and Clank traveled to the armory's inner facility, using the Tractor Beam to get through. Along the way, he found Stuart Zurgo, a Captain Qwark fanboy, who referred to them as enemies due to them being responsible for defeating Qwark in their previous encounter with him. After embarrassing himself in a roleplay in front of them, he then asked to exchange them Qwark merchandise for an Armor Magnetizer he had developed. While exploring the rest of the facility, Ratchet obtained the Sheepinator. The two later bought a Captain Qwark action figure from the Plumber on Aranos, and took it to Stuart Zurgo, trading it for the Armor Magnetizer.

Search the rocket silo cutscene

Angela sending a transmission to the duo.

In "Search the rocket silo", the two explored the facility's rocket silo and eventually received a transmission from Angela Cross. She revealed that the Protopet, which they had previously referred to as the "experiment", was to be marketed as a pet in spite of its flaws, and showed them a commercial featuring the Protopet with Billy on planet Boldan. Still believing that Fizzwidget would listen to them, Ratchet and Clank resolved to travel to Boldan, where the commercial stated Fizzwidget was giving away free Protopets, to try and get through to him to stop the Protopet from being sold around the galaxy. Angela disagreed that Fizzwidget would listen, but still transferred the coordinates to planet Boldan.

When they left and traveled to Boldan, the Thug Leader put out a message to the Thugs-4-Less about their new employment under Megacorp, advising the Thugs to also be on the lookout for Ratchet and Clank, offering a free pizza party to the squad that defeated them.[6]

Geography[]

Overview[]

Megacorp Armory map

Map layout of the Megacorp Armory.

Todano is covered in large rocky mountains, many of which appear to be completely impassable, though the mountains near the armory are home to forests on top of large cliff plateaus. The forests, high up in the mountains, are home to a population of red squirrels, mutated by Megacorp's use of them in experiments, prior to being released out into the wild.[2]

The Megacorp Armory is home to large rockets, and a tour of a rocket exhibit in a forest is presented by a Fizzwidget robot and viewed by space tourists. The dam observation deck[7] at the top is connected to the armory above, containing a new weapons facility and the rocket silo above. The new weapons facility, featured in the commercial, is used to develop smaller scale bombs and weapons.[8] It is a building surrounded by a water reservoir, with several normally impassable laser walls throughout it used to block intruders. The armory is also home to a large rocket silo, from which test rockets are launched.[9]

Tour area[]

Megacorp Armory 1

An overview of the dam.

The tour area is located on the south-eastern end of the armory, below the dam. It begins on a platform over a cliff on the end, with the Star Explorer landing pad and a flying red tour bus dropping off tourists. The tour is guided by a Fizzwidget bot with a set pattern, and leads through a forest on top of two cliffs, throughout which are four large rockets. The first rocket is unnamed and has facial recognition technology, the second rocket is one that Fizzwidget forgot the name of but claims is "really big and goes really far", the third rocket is the Z-X9 galaxy cruise rocket that test-squirrel Bobo flew on, and the fourth is the Triple-B, or Big Badass Bomb, that was responsible in Megacorp's early success.[1] Each of the rockets are destructible.[a]

Robot tourists following Fizzwidget bot

A Fizzwidget bot giving a tour of the armory to a group of tourists.

The forest that the tour leads around has some low hills, and is infested with mutant test-squirrels. Bridges connect the landing pad, plateaus and a platform at the end. At the end of the tour, the flying tour bus picks up (surviving) robot tourists before returning to the start to unload a new group of tourists, and the Fizzwidget robot enters a room (with a platinum bolt), built into the mountain next to the dam to then warp back to the start. To the left of said room is an elevator shaft that leads to the top of the dam, and the two other components of the armory.

Dam observation deck[]

Megacorp Armory 2

The exterior of the weapons facility.

The dam observation deck[7] is an area south of the weapons facility, located in the center of the armory, after taking an elevator shaft from the tour area up to the top of the dam. It oversees both the southern forest and the water reservoir (filled with sharkigators) on the other side. On the other end of the dam is a Megacorp vendor, and a zipline and teleporter, both of which lead back to the landing pad. Past this is a small plot of land, with on the north side a barbed wire fence and an electric gate, leading to the rocket silo. A bridge leads across the water reservoir to the weapons facility.

Weapons facility[]

Megacorp Armory 4

The facility's interior.

The weapons facility stands in the center of the water reservoir, connected to land by a bridge, with a large round platform in front of the entrance. It is a tall, grey building, with rotating satellite dishes on top, as well as two turrets, and a few towers. The interior of the facility was featured in the commercial and used to develop smaller scale bombs and weapons.[8]

The facility interior contains several impassable laser walls that block intruders, as well as Inspector Bots, likely present while a tour is not ongoing. It also contains several cylindrical glass casings of varying size, some of which contain rockets, that can be moved with the Tractor Beam. Megacorp Trooper garrisons, spawned through warp pads, are present as well. Sheep are also seen throughout the facility, likely a product of the Sheepinator located in a room within. Behind the glass walls are tubes and machinery, and across them are computer terminals. The facility also contains many long conveyor belts presumably used to transport the rockets in glass casings.

Megacorp Armory 3

Stuart Zurgo's stand.

The facility also contains a path to a natural bridge leading to a small plateau on the side of a mountain, where Megacorp employee Stuart Zurgo runs a stand, next to a metal building.

Rocket silo[]

Megacorp Armory 5
Megacorp Armory 6

The exterior and the interior of the rocket silo.

The rocket silo, where test rockets are launched,[9] is a heavily guarded area located behind a barbed wire fence, electric gate, and a minefield. The mines will rise into the air when an intruder approaches, and detonate creating a shock wave in an area around them. Along the mountains on the left of the minefield are tunnels connected to underground buildings in the silo. Behind the minefield is a large glass fence surrounding an immense rocket's silo, and on the right of the fence is a large tower with an elevator leading underground to the rocket silo itself.

It is a vast area with a walkway surrounding the rocket's silo inner wall, and several underground metal rooms and corridors, connecting to rooms built into the nearby mountain. Along the walls of the corridors are several screens connected by wires, along with pipes, machinery, and armor behind glass. Several warp pads are found in the floors of some rooms, through which Megacorp Troopers warp in.

Behind the scenes[]

Todano was designed by then-junior designer Mike Stout, who inherited the level from Brian Allgier, who created the initial paper map.[10] Stout did more work on Todano than any other level, including programming elements of the level not related to the enemies.[11] Stout had to become more involved because the level had been worked in late, since it was close to the end of the game,[12] and because the assigned programmer, Lingish, had to build a new forcefield for the Tractor Beam segment in the facility interior in "Investigate the facility interior".[13] Stout also did not design the enemy segments, as he found it challenging to design them for the level.[14]

The level became difficult to program, because Todano contains the only water plane with geometry underneath it in which Ratchet is not swimming. This became a problem, as the water was programmed so that Ratchet would be swimming if entering an area below a specified Z plane. A special if statement had to be added by Brian Hastings in order to ignore this for the "Investigate the interior facility" segment and allow it to work.[15][16]

Repeatedly killing robot tourists as they emerge from the tour shuttle results in a series of increasingly threatening messages urging the player to stop. The original idea was that enemies would appear if many tourists died.[17]

The mine explosion effect was later used for the fight with Dr. Nefarious in Up Your Arsenal.[18]

The rocky planes added around the map were actually scaled down versions of the mountains seen in the distance.[19]

For the facility interior in the "Investigate the interior facility" segment, sheep were added as they were already loaded into memory (given Todano already had memory constraints), and Stout wanted to give the player something to hit.[20] The forcefield in the facility interior ended up as two different strips, and blocking it with a pillar, it would block one strip while showing the other.[13] The rocket pillars moved by the Tractor Beam would have originally fired up and taken the door with it, but this was cut as it was too out of scope.[21] The focus tests for the segment proved difficult, as the theatrics had not yet been ready.[22] After the segment, the ambush of squirrels was included to give the players a chance to use the Sheepinator.[23]

Notes[]

Annotations[]

  1. In the game, hitting them enough times will cause them to fall to the side and crash, or to fly off into the air and explode elsewhere. The last rocket destroys a Megacorp Robot Guard when this happens.

Citations[]

References[]

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