Control Tower

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Connecting Rooms
East Tower
West Tower

Control Tower is a room located in the Pirate Labs portion of the Phendrana Drifts region of Metroid Prime. It contains the Artifact of Elder as well as multiple methods of getting a Secret World.

General Information

Room Layer Information
Default
1st Pass Enemy - Special enemy encounter
2nd Pass Enemy - Flying
3rd pass enemy - Elite
Test Layer
Don't Load
tower
Tower Down

Defeating the 1st group of pirates in this room disables layer "1st Pass Enemy - Special enemy encounter" and enables layer "2nd Pass Enemy - Flying". It also changes layers in the following rooms in Magmoor Caverns:

  • Monitor Station - Disables layer "1st Pass Enemy" and enables layer "2nd Pass Enemy".
  • Triclops Pit - Disables layer "1st Pass" and enables layer "2nd pass scripting".
  • Lava Lake - Disables layer "1st pass - magdolites" and enables layer "2nd pass - Pirates".

Knocking down the tower to access the Chozo Artifact disables layer "tower" in this room.

Fighting the Elite Pirate in Elite Control disables layer "2nd Pass Enemy - Flying" in this room, and enables layer "3rd pass enemy - Elite" This doesn't seem to change the enemies in this room.

Collecting the Artifact of Elder in this room enables layer "Got Artifact 3" in Artifact Temple.

Without Plasma Beam

Load trigger for West Tower. To keep East Tower loaded, and maintain the elevator hologram without scanning the Scan Post, do not touch this trigger after collecting Elder.

It is possible to acquire the Artifact of Elder without the Plasma Beam. Normally, it is required to use Plasma Beam to melt the ice and shoot the weakened part of the tower using a missile. However, by simply jumping over the barrier using the crates, is is possible to skip this entirely. This is done in any% speedruns to save time off of doing this normally. Note that in speedrun routes, you will most likely be low on Power Bombs by this point, so you may be at the mercy of the RNG to quickly get PB drops in this room. Additionally, shooting the wave beam door just before the cutscene starts is faster, because the door will be open by the time Samus returns to East Tower (assuming the West Tower load trigger is never activated).

Skipping the Pirate Fight

The door to West Tower seen from above. Touching any of the blue regions starts the one-time Space Pirate fight in this room.

If entering the room from West Tower, there is a set of triggers that activate the pirate fight directly in front of the door. By carefully jumping on top of the door frame and on the top of the tower, it is possible to jump over the triggers.

Obtaining Artifact of Elder Without Items

The videos below show various ways of obtaining the Artifact of Elder without various items that are normally required, as well as ways to escape from there.

No Missiles

No Space Jump or Plasma Beam

Secret World

There are many methods of getting out of bounds in this room.

TODO: Description for all methods

Slope Jump Method

Bomb Jump Method

HBJ Method

Stuck in Tower Method

The geometry of the room changes when the tower is shot. By positioning yourself correctly when the cutscene starts, is is possible to find yourself inside the tower. From here, it's possible to fall to the bottom of the room, landing you out of bounds.