Central Dynamo

The Central Dynamo is a room in the Phazon Mines. It appears in Metroid Prime. 
==Description==
The Central Dynamo is the location of the Cloaked Drone and Power Bomb upgrade in the Phazon Mines. Four Ice Troopers patrol the area after the drone is defeated.
Just after Samus defeats the Cloaked Drone and before she gets the Power Bomb upgrade, she has to enter a small hatch which leads underneath the floor. There, she has to move through a maze of electric streams, where she eventually gets the Power Bomb upgrade. The maze is made out of two types of "walls": white, stable streams of electricity, that deal damage to Samus and knock her back, and yellow currents. The latter are unstable and will not always function. Instead, they will flash on and off. This however does not decrease the damage taken, and seem to cause a bigger knockback.
Here and there, Samus will encounter a small puddle of some liquid (probably water). When laying a bomb in the liquid, the electrical currents surrounding it will deactivate and not come back.
==Connecting rooms==
*Save Station Mines B (via White Door)
*Dynamo Access (via White Door)
*Quarantine Access A (via White Door)
==Inhabitants==
*Cloaked Drone (First visit)
*4 Ice Troopers (Later visits)
==Scans==
;Dynamo Unit
:"Multiple safety system malfunctions detected. Unit should be taken offline immediately."
;Power Bomb
:"Power Bomb. Press / in Morph Ball mode to use a Power Bomb."
;Bendezium debris
:"Collapsed Bendezium wall section is structurally unsound."
;Computer screen
:"Phazon processing and security systems are taxing the Dynamo beyond safety tolerances.Though the conversion to geothermal power is easing the drain on our systems, it is not enough. Further power use at current levels could lead to system failure."
;Computer screen
:"Dynamo maintenance team is not responding to service call. Rerouting request to Central Command."
;Computer screen
:"An entire shift of Dynamo workers have been transferred following bouts of Phazon madness.Units have reported to Science Team for use in laboratory studies and the new Elite Pirate program. Their dementia will make them adequate training adversaries for the Elite team."
;Computer screen
:"The keeping of pets has been suspended until further notice.Domestic beasts have been deemed highly susceptible to Phazon madness, and are thereby a hazard to personnel. All Gronkats and Olbaps must be disposed of immediately. Failure to comply will result in the loss of pay for a cycle and reduced rations."
==Items==
;Power Bombs
: At the end of the electrical maze under the Dynamo Unit.
==Development notes==
There are two unused layers in the Central Dynamo, which are empty but labelled "Irving" and "Amanda". These may be references to Prime engineer Irving Mah and designer Amanda Rubright, and may suggest that the two were involved in creating this room.
The maze is a byproduct of the scripting system designed by Zoid Kirsch and Frank Lafuente.Kiwi Talkz. "#121 - Zoid Interview (Metroid Prime, Cameras, Scripting, Sequence Breaking , Programming etc.)" YouTube. January 22, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2022. (starts at 28:46) It is one of Kirsch's favorite parts of Prime, and allowed him to make use of a maze generator that he wrote when he first learned to code at the age of 13.Zoid Kirsch (ZoidCTF). "Metroid Prime Dev Stories #9: Central Dynamo’s Power Bomb Maze. When I first started programming and learning BASIC one of the first programs I wrote was a maze generation algorithm when I was 13. It could generate a maze of any size with a single solution. 1/5 When designing the room for the power bomb upgrade, I suggested a randomly generated maze for the morphball that players would have to solve. I quickly wrote up the algorithm I remembered from my early days. 2/5 I wanted to ensure that the maze was of sufficient length, so I wrote a tool that would generate and then solve the maze. I picked 300 random seeds that the solver indicated at least 75% of the maze was required to be traversed. 3/5 This results in 300 different mazes that can be generated in the Central Dynamo room. The maze also features two obstacles along the route in the form of water puddles that must be bombed to short out the nearby nodes and open the path. 4/5 The speedrunning community wrote up on how the maze works here, https://wiki.metroidprime.run/wiki/Central_Dynamo… There’s also a tool to determine which maze you have based on the starting positions. The community is amazing! 5/5" 11 November 2022 12:35 p.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1591122506806882304 He also joked that speedrunners hate him because the maze is randomly generated in every playthrough.Old Game Plus. Metroid Prime, Dev Interview Special. February 8, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2022. https://oldgameplus.libsyn.com/metroid-prime-dev-interview-special (starts at 56:13)
==Trivia==
*The maze is selected at random from a large amount of preset configurations. The amount of different mazes that the algorithm can generate is 300. 
*The Central Dynamo is mentioned in a scan in the Monitor Station room of the Magmoor Caverns. A computer screen in that room states that the Space Pirates have urged Energy Command to deactivate the dynamo and switch to geothermal power immediately.
*The Energy Core theme plays in this room during the maze puzzle.
==Gallery==
Pbomb expansion prime Central Dynamo.jpg|Samus, about to acquire the Power Bombs in the maze area under the floor of the Dynamo.
Cloaked_Drone.jpg
Phazon_Mines_Screenshot_HD_(11).jpg
Central Dynamo Ice Beam Remastered.png|The room filled with Ice Troopers in Metroid Prime Remastered.
==References==
ru:Центральный Генератор
Category:Rooms
Category:Phazon Mines Level Two
Category:Boss Rooms
Category:Rooms containing upgrades in Metroid Prime