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| - =================================== =================================== This Olympus Heights map took so long to process because it had to integrate with the immediately adjacent Apollo Square map, tying in the transportation systems and showing the various adjacent overlapping buildings from the other map (much of the Apollo Square map was done simultaneously). Map Orientation - figured out from Trolley routes (including the Artemis level map connected via that secure airlock we go thru to get to Apollo Square). Trolley line going North thru Mercury Suites turns North-West to head towards Point Prometheus. The Southwards line splits (beyond Athenas Glory) to continue on to many further destinations. Note - even though many accessways are shown leading to/accessing various hidden utility compartments and systems, there are far more not shown. Removeable panels, manhole covers, narrow spaces between walls are everywhere within the pressurized structure of most buildings. As usual with my extended versions of the game maps, the interior spaces are greatly increased from the limited areas we went thru in the games. Much more infrastructure has been added to make what we saw a functional part of Rapture. --- Fixes : A number of windows in the Mercury Suites apartments dont align with the floors above (which extend well past them). Inconsistancies were corrected by stretching a few rooms to meet/join the buildings wall lines (bigger always better, anyway). Window in Sander Cohens upstairs and Tenenbaums apartment were incorrectly too far back from the outside building's facade wall (seen from down on the viaduct) -- now corrected. As usual the Mercury Suites building's exterior shape was streamlined and simplified to make them more monolithic, but all the odd window positionings forced some irregularities (which the rich people paying the rents could afford the extra expenses of the more unique interior floorplan shapings). Mercury Suites/Artremis Suites buildings were shifted northwards to prevent overlap conflict with buildings on the Apollo Square map. That whole Tenenbaum's Safehouse section has been shoved Northwards a bit to be within the Olympus Heights Transit building (somewhat under Bistro Square area) because of the East-West sewer connections would have stuck out illogically into the Sea from the viaduct (while now it extends to connect other buildings in the Cluster). They should have probably done this in the game, as having that big mismatched block of structure haphazardly positioned UNDER the Viaduct breaks up/disjoints the whole aethetic/pattern of it being a bridge. But the level developers were not too careful to keep the internal and external views cohesive. The area under/within the viaduct matches the width of the main Trolley level and contains sewer/utility systems. Added a major expansion of the sewer system (that represenative bit we saw outside Tenenbaum's Safehouse) extending thru gratings to a vast network that actually runs thru lower levels of many sections of the City. The same passages also carry utility lines/pipes/conduits, and maintenance trams. It was thru similar tunnels that Atlas moved about when he was being hunted. Widened the Trolley viaducts (connecting the buildings/plazas) to fit properly sized Trolley cars going around tight curves (the car ends stick out more on curves and additional clearance is needed to avoid hitting pedestrians/scraping the wall). Mercury Suites (wealthy quality Apartments) - added some staff/servants quarters, numerous closet/storage/utility spaces. Stretched some of the apartments to fit the windows to the building's floor dimensions better. Additional Appartments were added and existing ones extended to fill the building interior space (no point in having empty closed off voids). The Trolleys shown on the original game maps have tracks so absurdly short in length and are virtually useless as to be laughable. OK, its a caricature showing an element of the City, and gamewise realism wasnt needed (though would NOT have been hard to put a little more thought into it). For the MMORPG, where realism is more emphasized/expected, the Metro Trolley mechanisms and facilities would follow (more) realistic practices and dimensions. Tracks should instead continue on thru the stations/buildings and extend to far-far greater lengths -- including out across the City to other building Clusters (They arent much good if they only traverse 300 feet in a City which is miles across). There are also junctions where multiple routes join and allow Trolleys to continue on in different directions (or passengers to transfer between Trolley lines criss-crossing the City). Double track at least makes sense with a track for each direction. The Trolley tracks now go thru buildings (and largely stay level), with stairs descending to the platform levels, which are now raised walkways matching the height of the side doors on the Trolley cars. Many of the Trolley 'stops' are no longer in the viaducts, but in the lower levels of the buildings in more convenient transit hubs. I've had to do some significant adjustments to allow the Trolleys to go thru the building by dropping the track lower to the level below the 'plaza' level and have stairs/ramps rise up from the track platform level to help with the required floor separation. There is also now additional commercial space existing in the plaza 'hubs'. --- North-South Trolley line crosses the West-East line just above Mercury Suites (same West East path seen on the Apollo Square level map). We saw bicycles around Rapture (even advertisements for them), so where could you ride them? With the Trolley tracks made a little more realistically (in form and extent) and imbedded in a (longer) roadway surface (as they were in the Real World), they would offer useful paths to follow to travel thru Rapture.In other less congested parts of Rapture, the center walkway is flush with the tracks opening the whole surface to traversal and giving space for pedestrians and bicyclists to get out of the way of Trolley traffic. Also sufficient 'sidewalk' space to the sides would be provided so the people could avoid the Trolleys. A design (not seen on these maps) expands on these 'Streets' and would make the Trolley Viaduct structure wider and taller and have buildings (upto 3 stories) on one or both sides (and making them look much more like real city streets). Olympus Heights is an affluent area, so these common 'streets' city blocks are not present. Original Trolley cars have a boo-boo - their front-end has a doorway shape visible (cloned the back end shape I'd guess, inserting a wooden door slab), while on the inside is an implied front window (for the operator) with no evidence of any door (the front 'door' outside is blocked by handrails crossing it anyway). The original Trolleys all-in-all are a weird bit of work, and makes me wonder if the 3D designer ever actually looked at one close in real life. The opening at the rear end only makes sense if it is for connecting Trolleys into multiple units (and NOT as steps down to track level, which is normally a VERY wrong place to let passengers out). I've theorized (to sort-of justify what we saw) that those tiny Trolleys were of an older style (from days before the Trolley system was consolidated, and many seperate companies existed) and are being run because the newer cars have all been damaged in the City's chaos (we ARE near Apollo Square after all, which was close to being a 'war zone'). The tiny Trolleys we saw in the game have no seats in them, but those could have been removed to make space - as many seem to be used as shelters in BS1. --- The large Metro Bathysphere Station (5 holes) at Olympus Heights was added (expanded) later, long after when the newer Atlantic Express station was built. The new major Bathysphere hub tied in many of the lines of that consolidated system (Anton Kinkaide consolidated a network from earlier separate companies and 6 lines converge at this station) and with the other transportation systems. The more expensive local residences would also warrant extra (the more costly) Bathysphere travel than poorer districts, who's people would take the Trolley. I have added separate small Bathysphere stations in each building basement off an elevator (customers get direct passthru the Big station hub). These employ low (Rapture) pressure 'transfer' water tunnels connecting to the main Bathysphere Station in the far SW corner (it is a major station for a main hub in Rapture), where the shared cableway mechanisms are going off in 6 different directions. A transfer tube also comes in from the Apollo Square level map. The less affluent accommodations there limit the need for multiple 'Bathysphere' transfer stations. The Transfer tubes (light-brown) are largely imbedded in the seabed below the 'basement level' of the buildings, and then rise up into the building Stations where the Bathyspheres are then lifted out of the water. The use of Rapture-pressure water passages saves on the cost of construction and maintaining complex airlock gates/doors and pumping equipment for that number of small stations. --- An earlier Mk1 AE station was abandoned when most of the AE was rebuilt and the larger Mk2 Station was built as seen in the map. The abandoned MK1 station is located adjacent/ties into Apollo Station and Olympus Square (nice and central as it should have been). The new larger AE Mk2 station was added in another location (attached to Athenas Glory) as the AE did not want to cease the old station's operations while the new station was being built. Olympus Heights became one of Raptures primary AE stations, with 4 lines converging, so it got a double tracked layout. Previously on the old system, the line had dead ended at Olympus Heights. The Mk2 system's construction saw more than a few route changes/adjustments and expansions/extensions of Raptures train system. Later, Olympus Heights Train station would have had more changes after the Atlantic Express discontinued the City Passenger business. The AE facilities were still retained as Freight stations (freight hauling continued to be profitable), and it still carried the 'Through' passenger trains which connected the communities outside Rapture and connects at a few central stations. The old abandoned Mk1 station would have been repurposed to some other use - its location still being valuable real estate being so near the affluent neighborhoods. They would likely make reasonably good submarine docking stations (still using the track to bring submarines thru the airlocks). --- Notice the Submarine Garages on several of the Residential buildings. The People who lived in this area were affluent enough to afford Private Submarines (not exactly the prevalence Prentis Mill talked about when he is lamenting the fall-off of the passenger ridership for the Atlantic Express -- the more convenient consolidated Trolley system actually accounted for that). Sub docks have (waterproof) overheard cranes to facilitate repairs and probably also as part of an auto docking mechanism to simplify maneuvering in the tight space of the dock. You can see how extensive (and expensive) a Submarine Garage facilities is, and that should illustrate why Subs/Private 'Bathyspheres' weren't likely for the large majority of people in Rapture. Mercury Suites garage has 2 'decks' for a total of 5 separate Submarine garages (each with an independant airlock). -- Basement level now has the lower 'sewer' levels within the Trolley viaducts (utilities too). Connections run across to Apollo Station thru the loop and across the viaduct on to Apollo Square and beyond. The sewer system continues other directions following the added Trolley extensions. Ive modified/shifted the sewer area 'Tenenbaums Safehouse' so that the Sewer area is mostly under the building. The sewer opening we exited Tenenbaum's lair thru was rather grandiose and would actually have been covered with a metal grating. Its real purpose would have been for ports to drain the tracks (their roadbed being the low point on that floor) from the constant seepage and any larger leak incidents. Issue with the open sewer (adjacent to Tenenbaum's safehouse) is - if it runs for any length it must be fairly level (else it will overflow at one end). What is there actually looks more like it should be a local drainage catchment (done better in other levels with below-the-floor catchments covered by metal grating) where any water is then pumped thru pipes to the Pump Stations, where the high pressure pumps can push the water out into the Ocean (which is at a much higher pressure than inside). As usual there is always a moderate amount of seepage thru the walls of the buildings/viaducts, and this is what is normally collected and disposed of. What isnt seen in the game is the various utility lines running thru these passageways connecting buildings - electric power lines, hot water pipes(for heating), steam lines, fresh water pipes, air circulation ducts, gas lines, communications lines, sewage pipes (stuff you don't want to use an 'open' sewer for), Pneumo tubes, compressed air, accessways, etc... These conduits connect all the way back to Hephaestus and other utility oriented facilities. I added a utility Tram track thru sections used to move utility equipment and facilitate repairs. Its likely Big Daddies used these to move about the city for various maintenance tasks. --- Added the Olympus Heights Mall, above the Central Bistro Square. Olympus Heights would be a premium spot for shops, stores and offices. The various shops/restaurants/salons/services would cater to the nearby affluent residents (including Athenas Glory with its 10 floors of multiple apartments). The Olympus Heights Building extended several floors higher around the high central ceiling you see in the game. This is all accessible via added stairs and elevator. On the top floor there is a fine dining restaurant named 'Mount Olympus'. --- Added/expanded upon Athenas Glory (originally all we saw was its facing edge of building). It has been elaborated on (a bit), with convenience shops/small restaurants on 'ground floors' and several lower public levels, and convenient pathways/connections through to the AE Train Station (and the later Bathysphere hub). The Trolley now goes thru the lowest floor ... with the usual elevators and stairs to access its many floors of apartments. More conventional (but still 'deluxe') apartments fill this buildings many stories. Athenas Glory is more the typical regular 4/+ apartment per floor, with 6+ residential floors. Ive added a parking complex adjacent to Athenas Glory (being in a affluent area, it would be likely to have a garage not for privately-owned vehicles, but for ones used for the equivalent to taxi or limo service.) It would have storage 'parking' space for a dozen or more submarine vehicles. It has a pair of shared Airlocks with storage inside at Rapture pressure. An overhead crane mechanisme would move the vehicles to parking spots. You don't just 'park in the street' in Rapture. --- Note- Sander Cohen's 'Bat Cave' (secret entrance to his private Sub Garage), His 'Stretch' Limo Sub is there next to his apartment. See Sander Cohen's Underwater Wonderland out the window of his apartment (done by his business sideline of a seascape decorating business). Can you spot the hidden bunnies ?? I added this because of the 'Sea' windows in his apartment looked out that direction, yet on a floor above, part of an apartment (of the same building) sticks out well beyond it, requiring a supporting building extension on the floors below (and conflicting with an open sea view). So Cohen got a rather fancy giant aquarium to resolve the problem. --- I observed the adjacent buildings seen from Viaducts, and added them to the map (and matched up ones from the Apollo Square map). Note - most dont have interior details specified. Each one would have its own infrastructure, and Ive connected many using viaducts. As usual the decorative buildings (seen out thru the windows) are scaled down caricatures (easily seen if you use the fly+ghost cheats to get close to them, they are 1/2 to 1/3 size (window spacing indicates floor spacing). Several of the small buildings were corrected/enlarged and adapted to some of the viaducts which were stretched (to fix other problems). Many of the buildings are many stories taller and (largely duplicate) higher levels have been omitted from the set of maps. The view of the Central Square building (where the Bistro is) from the Trolley Viaducts, shows a tall building of at least 6 stories above the Trolley level (10+ , but caricature views are undersized and not to the proper playing scale). This map shows several of its further levels now connected by elevators and stairs opening into the square. They did not bother to include any such in the game Level maps - not even as blocked or destroyed doors). Ive added Stores all around the Bistro hub (main and lower level) which would serve all the adjacent buildings. Various shops have been added at the Square (a logical central place - the level dev was a bit lazy and didnt even give us blocked doors/shop fronts in such a likely venue). One odd shaped building existed on both Olympus Heights and Apollo Square level maps with different orientations of their rectangular shape. The shapes were combined to preserve the facing viewed from either map, resulting in an irregular six sided building. -- Added bulkhead doors for Viaduct connections between buildings (standard safety requirement throughout Rapture -- A STRICTLY ENFORCED REQUIRMENT). The Trolley tracks have their own much larger Bulkhead safety doors. Note these doors are in a normally-open position (so dont have to constantly open and close like Securis style doors do). They are driven by hydraulic rams and are capable of cutting thru anything blocking their closing - including Trolley cars. Ive stretched the Trolley viaduct's lengths a little to clear structures on the Apollo Square level map (from Apollo Square Station), which would have been overlapping otherwise. They were lengthened and give a somewhat less crowd placement of buildings. Added a large Security Station for this district (afforded by the affluent people who live in the area - as lots of riff-raff go thru on those Trolleys). --- Ive added the Multi-Player map, as another 'Affluent' Residential building (that MP level was called Mercury Suites also, but has a different floorplan -- why waste it). I added it as a left node off the Olympus Heights transit hub. I thought maybe 'Mercurius Prime' might be a name (Hermes was already taken elsewhere) and decided on new a ritzy sounding name of "Metropolitan Mansions". The Multi-Player level map building (now Metropolitan Mansions - hanging left off the transit hub) has alot of windows placed willy-nilly, making for many irregularly positioned walls. At least the upscale nature of the residences means that more expensive (and thinner) 'window wall' construction could be afforded in such an irregular arrangement. The Metropolitan Mansions building has been filled out to nearly 3 times the MP-game visible volume, and now has 9 apartments of various sizes (many multi-leveled, and one traversing 4 different floors - it is 'Mansions' after all ....). An additional lower floor has direct access to the Transit hub and a bunch of special services (including a swimming pool) you would have in an upscale Residential complex. A 4th residential floor (seen as a blank wall extending upwards around upper edge of that original airy Atrium) was added, extending a number of apartments with additional floorspace. Several of the apartments have their own private elevators. Fairly modest apartments are on the bottom floor (ie- that dentist's office). Metropolitan Mansions may have had a circular dome lounge on the roof (with private bar service) accessed via the central elevator. This is not shown in my level maps. The new Submarine Garage is adjacent, which has a Obelisk on it roof which towers over the main building. This bit of ostentation (and also an advertisement) has observation decks (and probably bar service) at various levels. If we have a Lighthouse that looks like the famous one at Alexandria, then we might as well have an Obelisk too. --- Tenenbaum's Safehouse/Santuary/Lair looks like it originally was a Utilities Hub (with an office with a window !) which is the tie-in to Rapture's Utilities Network (Electricity/Heating/Air/Fresh Water/possibly Pneumo/Sewers/Communications/gas) placed in each of the City's Building Clusters. There actually would be at least 3 equivalent, utility 'hubs' in each area (feeding in from redundant utility Mains crossing the City), so as to be failsafe in case of breakdowns (and a reason why so much of Rapture is still inhabitable with the general lack of maintenance). That rather grand sewer entrance with its segment of open sewer (we saw outside the 'Safehouse' located below the Trolley Viaducts) -- it is a bit odd, and strangely emerges where everyone and his brother can fall into it and blocks much of the Trolley loading platform. Simple enough to cover it with a metal grate. Oddly they made that safehouse location a solid structural block right under that Trolley Viaduct and sticking out to the sides (it encompases the Sewer and Safehouse interiors). More common-sensical is to flip the Safehouse (sewer hub) to be over on the other side of the sewer room, so as to be under the Bistro plaza (inside the Olympus Heights building). The sewerway should also be dropped further below the modified Trolley tracks, burrowing thru in that same direction. The Safehouse/Utility Hub should NOT be below the level of that open sewer/water channel, so that if it overflowed it would NOT flow down and inundate the Utility Systems. Simple reality intrudes yet again on a seemingly tossed-together game level ... Ive narrowed the original sewer entrance (the whole opening should probably be covered by a grating anyway allowing pedestrians to use the whole walkway surface to access the stairs to the platform). The Sewer itself also would be wrong in its direction and its being incomplete -- as it should run building-to-building (imbedded in the bottom of the viaducts) towards whatever recovery/disposal site exists locally (pumping drainage into the Ocean). Looking at the level again - imagine the smell in that sewer area (and possibly the Safehouse), particularly with maintenance somewhat discontinued and effluvium including body parts accumulating --- cleaning/unclogging sewers will be one player activity in the MMORPG... --- Tenenbaum must have had many resources, which we dont see, to feed/supply/protect not only herself, but all those Little Sisters (shouldn't there be more of them there if we have 'Saved' all those ones we got our hands on ??? And if we ate alot of them (tasty ADAM...), shouldnt there be alot less there ??)So, Tenenbaum may have had allies. Just to find such a place probably required the help of someone else, ditto for securing it. The timeline for when she 'went underground' isnt too clear, but she did operate for an extended period of time and managed to personally free Little Sisters -- whereever she got them from, possibly from Big Daddies (secret sauce like Hypnotize no doubt would help - but without Tenenbaum being a 'Splicer ' ??). One theory is that Tenenbaum still obtained ADAM from some of the Little Sisters she had 'rescued', and used it to buy cooperation and materials from various contacts. It is within the realm of possibility that she became Sander Cohen's 'supplier' of various interesting mixes (back in BS1 times), to get at least some assistance. She may have also dealt with Sinclair (possibly in trade for secrets from Fontaine's Labs). Her ongoing research would also likely need an ADAM supply. --- There might seem to be alot of 'Pumping Stations', but the drainage systems would be redundant. Should one system fail, the adjacent buildings pumps could do the needed work. Also when Rapture was being built, buildings were flooded while the structural 'pressure containment' was being achieved, so the pumps in the building itself were not yet operational and the initial draining was done by an adjacent buildings pumps. --- Oddities : You see alot of Signs Saying 'Point Prometheus', even when the same direction you are looking leads to Apollo Square or other City transit destinations (an overused Asset...). A Walkway Viaduct (below outside near the Athenas Glory blockage) comes straight out of the Sewer/Safehouse level. Mustve been the usual level devs adding filler without much caring about conflict problems with existing interior spaces. ((Maybe the Sewer was previously a popular venue where SeaSlug Races were held and high-end clientel were the customers ???)) Another Hotel Monseñor sign (we see many across Rapture). Rapture is too small in population to justify having multiple Hotel Monseñor locations (it was just the level Devs reusing Assets as filler). In Rapture advertising, signs would be an important part of the commercial system, so I suppose such signs as this one are just name recognition and NOT the site of the Hotel (that tower is kinda small anyway). Actually, we should be seeing alot more signs all over the buildings visible from windows in the Viaducts (maybe many were burned out / turned off by that time (BS1) for non-payment of their electric bills, or damage). The tall buildings might look big, but because of the thick wall structure, the actual interior spaces are much less in volume that an equivalent building on the surface (which even up there have a significant amount of their volume dedicated to elevators, hallways, utilities and stairwells). The pressure compression struts within extra thick floors also decrease useable interior space. Original buildings like the 'Monsenor' Tower have been (on my map) enlarged to try to match what was shown in their caricature, and even then the interior floor for that one is still only about 50 by 60 feet. But then, that makes it more plausible for the large number of building in the Rapture Cityscape (we get shown in so many window views) to all still contain only about the 20000-40000 people which Rapture is supposed to have (as mentioned in the Novel). Looking out the windows on the Viaducts, there appears to be many floors stretching down below on many of the adjacent buildings. Often nerar the top the windows are closer together to do forced perspective. That was largely for show - to make it look more impressive no doubt (they are also exagerated caricatures 1/2 to 1/3 correct size). At the same time in the building we walk thru, there are sewer/basement/foundation levels immediately below the main level we have access to. For those other buildings with floor upon floor going down, would you really WANT the sewer to be at a higher level than your apartment ??. . .
- Olympus Heights is the tenth level of BioShock. This district was once where the upper class of Rapture had their apartments, but it was hit hard during the Civil War, leaving it in a terrible state. File:Spoilers.png Jack will have to venture through the area in order to locate samples of an antidote to remove Fontaine's mental control over him.
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