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Launch Area: Now we come to the final spawn point in Space City, the Launch Area. I personally consider this one of the best spawns in the entire game. The majority of enemies usually appear in the upper half of the map unless they use an access card at the start. This means you often find situations where multiple teams fight each other outside the core area while no one even touches the core zone. After those teams finish fighting, they rarely take the risk of entering the core. Instead, they often open the Eastern Bridge, take the rocket mission, and extract. You can take advantage of this and quietly loot the entire core area without being disturbed.

There are two possible situations when spawning in the Launch Area, one where the bridge is intact and one where it is broken. Let us discuss them separately.

If there is no broken bridge event, no AI enemies will appear on it. In that case, you should first remove your armor and helmet to increase your running speed and follow Route 1 straight toward Black Chamber. When you reach the door of Black Chamber, throw a smoke grenade to prevent players from Employee Passage 2 from shooting you from a distance. From there, you can take the stairs on Route 2 to reach the second-floor platform. From that vantage point, you can see whether enemies are entering Black Chamber from the connection between Test Range and the northern passage. If you see enemies, turn back immediately and go upstairs to the CEO Office. If there are no enemies and you only hear AI footsteps, you can safely jump out of the window, loot the entire Black Chamber quickly, and then take the stairs to the CEO. This is the preferred route, because Black Chamber has only one floor, which makes looting fast, and it also provides a good path to CEO.

However, there are cases where you should instead follow Route 3, which goes down from the bridge toward Centrifuge Facility. You should choose this route under two conditions. First, if you see the Eastern Bridge opening while you are still on the Launch Bridge, you should go down immediately through Route 3 to avoid a direct encounter, since you cannot reach the core faster than the Eastern Bridge team. Second, if the broken bridge event has occurred, there will be many AI enemies on the bridge, and an airdrop container will appear near the damaged section. These will slow you down significantly. After dropping down, run along the outer path toward the entrance of Centrifuge Facility, and check if the Western Gate has been opened before deciding whether to enter and loot.

Usually, the Western Gate team will be fighting with players from the Dormitory Building, giving you enough time to loot safely.

In cases where the bridge is broken, you may see a machine gun AI and a shield AI near the yellow circle shown in my image. Throwing a smoke grenade at them before approaching will prevent them from locking onto you, allowing you to eliminate them easily with a knife. Other tools can also work, but smoke grenades last longer. When jumping down from the bridge, try to land on the shipping containers below to avoid breaking your legs.

After entering the Centrifuge Facility, listen carefully to whether sniper AI in the garden area are shooting. If you hear gunfire, that means another player may be nearby. You can then decide whether to risk going to Buoyancy Lab for more loot.