E2M7: Spawning Vats (Doom)

E2M7: Spawning Vats is the seventh map of The Shores of Hell in Doom. E2M7 was the first level started for Doom, and early versions appear as E1M1 of Doom 0.4 and E1M11 of Doom 0.5. It was designed by Tom Hall and Sandy Petersen and it uses the music track "Waltz of the Demons." The par time is 4:00.

As the last of the levels representing man-made complexes, Spawning Vats is in effect an amalgamation of all previous bases, including a container warehouse and a computer complex.

Walkthrough
At the start, you will see two openings to go through. Take the one on the left. Follow this hallway into another room. When you do get into the a new room, go straight into another room, skipping the door on your right. In this room, kill the Imps in here, and go right, heading down the stairs. In this large room, kill all the Demons in here. Grab the goodies. In the southeast part of the room, there is a lump with a switch on it. Hit it, and the lump will lower. Go through the hall into a bigger room. Kill the Cacodemon(s) and a Baron in here (that only appears on hard skill levels). In this room, take the health, and get the blue key. Now backtrack your steps back to the room you started this level in.

In the room you started in, take the other opening you did not go through. Follow the hall into another room. In this room, open the blue door. Kill the Demon in front of you, and go right and get the Chaingun. Now turn around, go straight (not up the stairs), and go through the opening to the left of the staircase. Kill any enemies here, and go up the stairs in the room. Follow the staircase to a platform with the yellow key.

From where you are, kill the Imps in front of you. When you do, hop off the platform and go through the opening north of the platform you just jumped off. In this room, go left, and open the yellow door to your right. Go into the room killing any Imps. From the yellow door, get all the way to the other end of the room, and open the door to the right. Kill the Imps in here, and enter the alcove near the pillar. Follow the small hall to a switch, and hit it (kill the Imp in here too). Now, exit this hallway to see the pillar has lowered. Get the red key on it. Now leave this room and go left, out the yellow door. Out here, go left, and then when you get to the "rectangular" hallway, go left, and when you get to the wall, go right, and open the door. In this room, open the red door to your right. Go inside, and hit the switch on the right. The switch will disappear, and hit the new one. Leave the red door, kill the Cacodemon, and take the bridge rising to the exit door. Open it, and hit the exit switch.

Secrets

 * 1) In the hall connecting the warehouse and the outdoor area in the east, climb the small staircase leading to a small control room. Follow another set of stairs down to a switch. Flip it to open a secret room behind you.
 * 2) In the corridor lined with hemi-cylindrical "vats" in the west, there's a narrow opening between two of the vats on the west wall that leads outside.
 * 3) At the north end of secret 2 is a switch on the wall. Flip it to open another secret area.
 * 4) In the room in the southwest with several small slime pools in alcoves. In one of these alcoves is a small tunnel leading to a rocket launcher and a teleporter.
 * 5) After getting the red keycard, go through the teleporter in secret 4. Open the red door and flip the switch behind it.
 * 6) After flipping the switch in secret 5, as well as the switch behind the blue door, go all the way back to the starting room. A nook holding a soul sphere and a bulk cell will be accessible.

Bugs

 * Two "hanging leg" decorations (Things 192 and 193) and an energy cell (Thing 99) have no flags set for any of the difficulty classes, so they do not actually appear in the level.
 * In this level it is possible to trigger an example of the Tutti-frutti effect. Upon entering the crate room, a door closes behind the player.  The door consists of two sectors.  By blocking the second sector, it is possible for one sector to be closed while the other remains open.  A short texture which does not vertically tile is used for the linedef between the sectors: as a result, the tutti-frutti effect appears.
 * Early versions of this map had several linedefs with flag bits 9-15 set (which apparently had no function).
 * In the southeast courtyard with the two small nukage pools, two corpses hang from the ceiling despite it being open sky.
 * Linedef 1286 (just in front of the south side of the yellow door), lacks a lower texture causing a small HOM effect.
 * A Reject table blindspot causes the demon behind the blue key door to not see the player in front of the door.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

Trivia

 * Spawning Vats is the final level for the 32X version of Doom.
 * Spawning Vats contains one of the rare instances in official Doom levels of a non-animated damaging floor, a row of blue lights in a trench.
 * Spawning Vats was originally designed to be a hangar, as the alpha versions of the map are based on the "Hangar 2" area in the Doom Bible.