Originally posted on rec.games.roguelike.misc, and Kornel suggested I post it here (didn't know this site existed!).
I've been having a play around with DoomRL again, and it's a superb
waste of an hour or so when you've nothing better to do :). I had
several frustrating games where I got to the Arena only to be killed by
the CyberDemon (mostly due to cockiness: I'm sure I can survive one more
rocket before I use the next healing pack and then... oh. Damn. I guess
I didn't notice that my armour had been shredded. Just like the last
game. And the time before. Argh. That sort of thing.) I then decided to
have a bit of fun playing around with traits that I never normally use.
OK, then, time for the Pistol Challenge: first three traits into Son of
a Gun, and the only weapon allowed is the pistol (RL allowed only for
opening the Wall and the Halls, and you musn't damage any critters with
it).
As expected, the first few games were a slaughterhouse in entirely the
wrong direction. I never got below level 3. However, the next game just
seemed to have incredible luck with the items. I had a couple of early
levels with two invulnerabilities on them, lots of Blue armors, and one
level with four (count'em: four!) supercharges! These helped me to get
through to experience level 4, and with three levels of Son of a Gun and
one of CatEye, things actually started to look survivable. So much so,
in fact, that I managed to win! Here, then, is the first Pistol
Challenge YAFPCVP!
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DoomRL (v.0.9.8 (WIN-S)) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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Gunner, level 7 soldier, sacrificed himself to kill the Cyberdemon
on level 20 of the Phobos base.
He survived 104691 turns and scored 26409 points.
>>> My lowest-scoring win, bu a long shot.
He killed 405 out of 417 hellspawn. (97%)
>>> Would have been 100%, but I used the Wall as a shortcut to make an
>>> Invulnerability last longer. No RL at the time, so no Wall kills :(.
>>> I wish now that I hadn't taken this short cut, but at the time I
>>> wasn't seriously expecting to win!
He held his right to remain violent.
>>> Of course!
He found the Phobos Arena.
He stormed the Chained Court.
He ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
>>> Used two rockets here, one for each wall, but carefully opened 'em
>>> up in the corners so I didn't hurt any poor Lost Souls before
>>> blowing them away with the pistol :). Had a nasty moment when I was
>>> cornered by five pinkbeasts: luckily I'd already snaffled one of the
>>> supercharges so made it through after losing a Red armour and 130%
>>> health :(
He fought on Hell's Arena.
>>> This is _REALLY_ hard pistol-only and no Cateye. I burned 3 or 4
>>> health packs and still only just made it.
He faced The Wall.
>>> No other side branches this game. I _still_ haven't found the City
>>> of Skulls or whatever it's called, even though I've reached level 20
>>> a good dozen times. I'm starting to think that it's all a hoax.
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health -174/50 Experience 27556/7
>>> Deader than dead! I _just_ made it to level 7 before getting to the
>>> Arena, as you can see (27500xp for level7, I think). Not that the
>>> extra level of Tough as Nails helped any against the CyberDemon.
ToHit +0 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +0
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Tough as nails (Level 2)
>>> I was tempted to go for Finesse instead, but I wasn't sure how the
>>> Finesse bonus would stack with the Son of a gun bonus. Kornel, do
>>> these stack, and if so can you get an 80% speed bonus with both
>>> maxed? That would give you the equivalent of a chaingun in terms of
>>> bullets per move, with the SoaG damage bonus on each bullet!
Son of a gun (Level 3)
>>> This isn't quite as useless as it first appears after you get a few
>>> levels: you are firing twice or thrice for every go your opponents
>>> get, and a couple of bullets kills a seargeant or imp. It still
>>> takes _far_ too many shots to take a Baron down, though.
Cateye (Level 2)
>>> I must admit that after I got to level 4 and hence gained the first
>>> level of Cateye I abused it mightily. I suspect that this challenge
>>> won't be doable in version 0.9.9 when Kornel improves the AI :(.
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] nothing
[ Weapon ] nothing
[c] [ Boots ] nothing
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
>>> All blown away by the bomb, of course. I had a couple of Red Armors,
>>> three or four Blue ones, five reserve pistols (and was wielding a
>>> Rapid Pistol found on level 16 or so), a couple of Large Health
>>> Packs and a couple of Phase thingies. What makes it all so annoying
>>> is that I had another nuke (in fact I found three altogether), so if
>>> the appropriate circumstances had presented themselves on level 19
>>> this could have been the first pistol-only Ultimate Winner! Grr.
>>>
>>> I think the RNG was taunting me a bit on this game. I found an
>>> impressive array of special weapons, including two (TWO!) Advanced
>>> Plasma Rifles. Which I couldn't use. Sob.
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
64 former humans
63 former human sergeants
29 former human captains
43 imps
47 demons
39 lost souls
33 cacodemons
9 barons of hell
1 Cyberdemon
>>> Eat gamma rays, sucker!
12 hell knights
14 arachnotrons
>>> Two cave systems full of them upped the count somewhat.
5 former human commanders
>>> And every single one of them slaughtered one bullet at a time!
>>> Lovely.
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the suface of Phobos.
On level 2 he battled through a maze of rooms.
Afterwards he fought on Hell's Arena.
On level 3 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 4 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 5 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 6 he battled through a maze of rooms.
He then stormed the Chained Court.
On level 7 he found hellish caves.
>>> Demons.
On level 8 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 9 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 10 he found a hellish city.
Afterwards he witnessed the Wall.
>>> Just a short cut, like I said.
On level 11 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 12 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 13 he battled through a maze of rooms.
He then ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 14 he found a hellish city.
On level 15 he battled through a maze of rooms.
>>> If anything I hated the lots-of-little-rooms maze levels more than
>>> the hellish cave levels, as I was relying heavily on running away
>>> and then sniping with Cateye, and the maze levels are too
>>> up-close-and-personal.
On level 16 he found hellish caves.
>>> Arachnotrons. Used two phase thingies in a frantic escape from the
>>> middle of them all, then killed three or four with the pistol. The
>>> others walked round and round in a nice big pool of lava until they
>>> killed themselves :).
On level 17 he battled through a maze of rooms.
On level 18 he found hellish caves.
>>> Arachnotrons again. Oh joy. Killed every one of these properly, with
>>> the pistol, after the initial period of OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITIMGONNADIE
>>> getting out of the centre of the cave. The trick to survival, I
>>> found, is that if there's an Arachnotron you can't run away from,
>>> run directly towards it and shoot it point-blank. Their plasma guns
>>> are deadly, but they can't melee for toffee :) Careful use of
>>> tactics settings is essential...
On level 19 he battled through a maze of rooms.
Then at last he found the Phobos Arena.
There finally he sacrificed himself to kill the Cyberdemon.
>>> I had a go with the pistol, but after emptying four clips into him
>>> and failing to get beyond 'Barely Scratched' it was obvious that it
>>> was the nuke or nothing. He must have disgustingly thick armour.
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
Before him 42 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
39 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
Is he immortal? 2 souls claim to have killed him...
1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
1 killed the bastard and survived.
>>> And seven or eight stupid idiots got to him and then died with
>>> Health Packs and phase thingies and so on still in their backpacks.
>>> You are avenged, my children!
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Ok, next is the Chainsaw Challenge! Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be
posting a YAVP for that one any time soon ...
--
Mark Mackey
The Association for the Advancement of Dungeon Crawling
Hints, tips and spoilers
http://www.swallowtail.org/crawl/
Author
Topic: Pistol-only YAVP (Read 3176 times)