Quote from Sword of Apollo on November 10, 2011, 10:18 pm

Thanks, kurtisss. I'm glad you like my map so much.

Have you seen any black and purple checker patterns on any objects? If not, don't worry about the "missing" file. That vtf is packed in one of the bsp's. If you DO see any black and purple checker patterns, I don't know what to tell you, since I've tested the latest upload, and I have no problem. The only thing I could say is to check that you're not trying to play this map in Portal 2. If you're in Portal 1, and the problem occurs, then tell me what OS you're using, I guess.

@Nintendofan9797: I'll send you a private message regarding your issue in a little while.
[EDIT: You're going to have to unblock private messages in the control panel if you want help from me. Board preferences > Edit global settings]

Quote from kurtisss on November 12, 2011, 8:22 am

Oh then there is no problem since no black and purple checker patterns have been seen from this side
Thanks a bunch!
I was just worried about having some bug eating my files lol.
But thanks for the reply and for helping me get rid of my doubts.
Regarding the puzzles, I think I might have found an unintended solution when I [spoiler]placed the high energy pellet in the receptacle(?) with the aid of the blue book I found in the big room with the pedestals[/spoiler] so that might help in the portals challenge.

Quote from PCdoc on December 7, 2011, 5:04 pm

I revisited this map after getting stuck a year ago.
I did manage to get into the top area this time, and even handled the Energy Ball properly.

However, there are a couple of parts that I never would have gotten without the walkthrough:

1) the part where you get a [spoiler]new sphere to act as a stepping stone to escape and then set up a vertical drop and fling to the Button. I knew I had to fling up there[/spoiler] but could not find a way - that was very insidious.

2) the [spoiler]double-fling[/spoiler] to the final top button. In a million years I would never have tried that. I spent a long time trying too.

I love the timed [spoiler]fling to the Exit door[/spoiler] - took me 50 tries but I finally made it.
I also loved the Disney ride to the hellhole.

In the final hellhole with the high-speed sled, I kept wondering why I was not [spoiler]sailing upward when the sled slammed into the end and I had placed a Portal there. Finally I realized you have to jump upward about 2 inches. I think that should have been made to be flush with the flooring so no jump is required.[/spoiler] It would have that extra smoothness and cool factor that way.

One final thought - seeing the 5 parts I assumed there was 5 maps, interconnected. I finished what I thought was Level 1 and then assumed Level 2 would start. Nothing happened so I tried to start it manually - but it failed to start that way. I could not run it as a Bonus Map - tried to but it does not show up in my lists of Bonus maps. So I tried to import it but there was no BMZ file.

This was an excellent, long and difficult map which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Quote from Sword of Apollo on December 23, 2011, 1:24 am

kurtisss wrote:

Regarding the puzzles, I think I might have found an unintended solution when I [spoiler]placed the high energy pellet in the receptacle(?) with the aid of the blue book I found in the big room with the pedestals[/spoiler] so that might help in the portals challenge.

That unintended solution [spoiler]was only introduced with the latest update to v.1.7.1 as a side-effect of my adding a little extra convenience for the player, and it uses an object clearly "foreign" to the main puzzle in the level. Anyone trying to get a Gold in Minimum Portals is hereby notified that using that object in that way is "cheating." There is another way to get the Gold that doesn't involve that object. The challenge is to figure out the REAL way that was possible in v.1.7.[/spoiler]

PCdoc wrote:

I love the timed [spoiler]fling to the Exit door[/spoiler] - took me 50 tries but I finally made it.

I would have hoped that it wouldn't have taken that many tries. Were you playing on the latest version of the map? I reduced the difficulty on that a while back.

PCdoc wrote:

...I kept wondering why I was not [spoiler]sailing upward when the sled slammed into the end and I had placed a Portal there. Finally I realized you have to jump upward about 2 inches. I think that should have been made to be flush with the flooring so no jump is required.[/spoiler] It would have that extra smoothness and cool factor that way.

Thanks for the suggestion, but your suggested setup was the first thing I tried with that puzzle. [spoiler]Imagine what your confusion would have been like if you had placed a portal flush with your feet, and still didn't go through--because that's what happened when I tested your suggested design. The game engine simply won't let that happen: you must jump either way, and if the portal is too low and you jump, your momentum will tend not to be straight up on the other side, and you tend to fall into the sludge. So I created a buffer at the bottom, so that the lowest possible position of the portal is the right position to jump into the portal.[/spoiler]

PCdoc wrote:

One final thought - seeing the 5 parts I assumed there was 5 maps, interconnected. I finished what I thought was Level 1 and then assumed Level 2 would start. Nothing happened so I tried to start it manually - but it failed to start that way. I could not run it as a Bonus Map - tried to but it does not show up in my lists of Bonus maps. So I tried to import it but there was no BMZ file.

Remember how I said in the level description that there is more to this level than meets the eye? And that is is "brimming with big secrets?" You might want to take another look at the readme in the .zip.

PCdoc wrote:

This was an excellent, long and difficult map which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.

Quote from breakingspell on December 31, 2011, 6:21 pm

Well, I dusted off Portal and decided to do another run of all the custom maps i had on it. Of course, i beat the main course of this map fairly easily, but I'm once again stuck on that colored puzzle! I give, what's the secret to the order of the colors in the room with the six colored buttons? I'm going to laugh at how easy it was, i bet.

Quote from breakingspell on January 1, 2012, 10:42 pm

And of course, now i'm laughing my ass off at [spoiler]seeing the little numbers and not thinking,[/spoiler]

What a great map. Finally finished the puzzle, [spoiler]and the last room, overlooking the observatory[/spoiler], was a great way to finish it. Once again, 10/5!

Quote from atomikf on August 16, 2012, 2:40 am

Hi! Wonderful map, very much was pleasant to me. Though nerves spoiled at the end). By the way, I solved its some puzzles a little in a different way. The last button on the center in general in a different way - yours way I didn't guess.
I added video with the main differences in walk-through: http://youtu.be/y26EqTwz8AA
Good luck!

Quote from Sword of Apollo on March 6, 2013, 9:26 pm

Here's a video walkthrough I did of the secret areas in Take-Off.
Needless to say, big SPOILER alert, since it gives away everything.

[spoiler]N9Wp3U5TVsk[/spoiler]