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[Momentarythought]

Hello-- first time poster with a question about the rarity of unique items.  I've been mostly playing a much older version of DoomRL (pre-difficulty levels and with no advanced traits) and decided to give the latest version a try.  Some things I like in the newest version, some things I don't, and so on.
One thing that seems to be puzzling me is why certain rare items appear pretty much every game I play, and others never.  I've been playing with 0.9.9.1 for about two or three months now, and have gone through at least a hundred games.  In nearly every single one, the Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Trigun appear.  I even found the Beretta on level 1 of the base last night (not the entrance level, the first actual base level)!  Meanwhile, several other uniques listed in the wiki-- Nano Pack, BFG 10K, Onyx Armor Pack, and a few others, have yet to appear at all in any game I've played.  A few seem to turn up at least a few times (Jackhammer, Railgun, etc.) while others not even once yet.  But always, at least eight games out of ten, the Beretta and the Trigun.  Is that normal?  I personally find the 'angel arm' feature of the Trigun enormously overpowered-- stockpile a few homing phase devices, and if you find just one invulnerability globe you can burn through the last four or five levels of the game without effort (Grab invulnerabilty, nuke, phase to stairs... next level, nuke, phase to stairs... and so on, until invulnerability wears off or the Cyberdemon is nuked...).
I guess what I'd like to know, in part, is why those two uniques are so common, and how the rarity of uniques is balanced?

[LockeCarnelia]

That simply shows you that the RNG loves you and wants you to run more AoMr games, in my opinion.

[thelaptop]

Also you can't burn through the last four or five levels if you hope to live -- you only have 50 HP to begin with.

Also, do not question the good fortune the RNG gives you.

On another note, what names are you using for your marines?

[Game Hunter]

One thing that seems to be puzzling me is why certain rare items appear pretty much every game I play, and others never.  I've been playing with 0.9.9.1 for about two or three months now, and have gone through at least a hundred games.  In nearly every single one, the Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Trigun appear.  I even found the Beretta on level 1 of the base last night (not the entrance level, the first actual base level)! Meanwhile, several other uniques listed in the wiki-- Nano Pack, BFG 10K, Onyx Armor Pack, and a few others, have yet to appear at all in any game I've played.

Quick question: how often do you beat the game, as opposed to getting through...say...the first ten or so levels? The thing with item rarities, as far as we can understand, is that some items are bound to spawn earlier than others. Special pistols, for instance, are much more likely to show up on the first few levels, while some of the "stronger" items (such as laser rifle, plasma shotgun, etc) won't, indeed can't, appear until much later, sometimes not even until Phobos Hell.

You remind me that I need to make a record of when I find special weapons so I can actually figure out the system, heh.

But always, at least eight games out of ten, the Beretta and the Trigun.  Is that normal?

Honestly? No, you're getting extremely lucky. Excluding BFG and chainsaw (for obvious reasons) I've only found about 150 special pieces, 43 of those uniques (excluding artifacts, also for obvious reasons) over some 500 games. Sure, half of those are probably N! death before level five, but if I were actually finding Trigun every five or so games...well, you saw how far I got with that last time. As a point of measure, I have yet to see Nano/Onyx packs, too. (They're REALLY good, by the way...I'm pretty sure I could win a game with one, regardless.)

I personally find the 'angel arm' feature of the Trigun enormously overpowered-- stockpile a few homing phase devices, and if you find just one invulnerability globe you can burn through the last four or five levels of the game without effort (Grab invulnerabilty, nuke, phase to stairs... next level, nuke, phase to stairs... and so on, until invulnerability wears off or the Cyberdemon is nuked...).

Yeah, that's the basic idea. Getting 3-4 homing phases is pretty lucky all by itself, though. Trigun is meant to be powerful (on par with fully modded blaster and my personal favorite unique these days) and the Angel Arm is simply icing on the cake.

I'm curious as to what difficulty you're playing on: if you're getting consistent Grammatons and Triguns, you should consider bumping up to UV just for kicks (if you aren't at least playing on that difficulty). Pistol runs are my favorite style of play (albeit ridiculously hard on N!) and I certainly envy your particular case.

[LockeCarnelia]

Yes, indeed, Onyx Packs and Nano Packs are astounding.  I had a Nano Pack on a Cybernetic Armor on a Ao100 run, won that one handily.

Just had an easy "fun-run" that gave me two of the best uniques in the game, along with two Assault Shotguns in a row on level 6 and 7.

[Game Hunter]

As if to be laughing in my face, take a look at this AoP run:
--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (v.0.9.9.1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Game Hunter, level 10 Arch-Vile Lt. General, killed by a mancubus
 on level 21 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 9229 turns and scored 57208 points.
 He played for 12 minutes and 51 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 77 out of 677 hellspawn. (11%)
 Who gave him the ticket to hell, anyway?
 He was an Angel of Pacifism!


-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  None

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  +.......+....+.........#.......+....+.......+....+....\....
  #########.+..#.........#=..}[=.#....#########....#.#######+
  +.......+....#........./=^..==.#....+.......+....#.#.......
  #.......#.^..#.........#====...#.===#.......#..0.#.#.......
  #.......#..............#.==....+.===#.......#....+.#.......
  ####+####+####.#./..../####+######==####/####/#######+####+
  =..#.#............=............/M.==V../i......../....."...
  ==0#.#.......#..==.......V.i...#/#######.}.i...0.#....0....
  ...#.#.......#.====...%........#V......#M.i......#.........
  =###+#######/==.===...........M#.......#i.0......#.........
  =.=......\..=.=====.......M....B..M..[.#........./.........
  ##=#+####=#========.##.####.#######/####/####/#######/####+
  =..=.#....====..==#.......#.........M......./..../....#....
  ===..#...=====....#.....0.#........M#########....#....#....
  ...|.+....===#....+.......+.................+..0.#....+....
  .....#.......#..^.#.......#.........#.......#....#....#=...
  ...>.#.......+....#.......#...X.............===..+.=.==.=..
  ###############################.#..#.######==#####=#=#===##
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health -13/80   Experience 4853/10
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

    Ironman          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 3)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Badass           (Level 1)

  HR->Iro->HR->Iro->Iro->TaN->TaN->DM->TaN->Bad->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (4d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (98%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [b] small med-pack
    [c] small med-pack
    [d] thermonuclear bomb
    [e] Nano Pack

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    12 former humans
    15 former sergeants
    4 former captains
    25 imps
    2 demons
    10 lost souls
    1 baron of hell
    3 hell knights
    2 former commandos
    1 arch-vile
    2 mancubi

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  On level 3 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He cowardly fled the Arena.
  On level 6 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 10 he found Hell's Armory.
  On level 13 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 15 he encoutered the Phobos Hellgate.
  On level 16 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 20 he found the Nano Pack!
  On level 21 he finally was killed by a mancubus.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 You open the door.
 You close the door.
 You open the door.
 You close the door.
 You open the door.
 You close the door.
 You close the door.
 You close the door.
 You close the door.
 You open the door.
 You close the door.
 You open the door.
 You close the door.
 The mancubus fires! Boom! Boom! Boom! The mancubus fires! Boom! You are
 hit! Boom!

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 Before him 534 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 433 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 63 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 14 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
 Is he immortal? 23 souls claim to have killed him...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 19 killed the bastard and survived.
 2 showed that it can outsmart hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------
FYI, I was working on a Compet-N Platinum on UV. Doesn't look like it's going to be easy (although this could have been a Gold). There was actually another unique (floor 12, I believe) but there was simply no time for it.

[LockeCarnelia]

Haha, nice.

[Momentarythought]

Also you can't burn through the last four or five levels if you hope to live -- you only have 50 HP to begin with.

Also, do not question the good fortune the RNG gives you.

On another note, what names are you using for your marines?

Well, as I understand it, you permanently lose five hp for each use of Angel Arm, and each level of Ironman gives you a permanent ten hp-- is that correct?  Usually by that deep in the game I've earned my master trait (Army of the Dead is my favorite) and the extra levels past that go into Ironman.  Since Army of the Dead has Badass for a prerequisite, it's not unusual to be boosted past 100 points anyhow.

Name?  Odd question; does the name somehow influence the RNG?  Well, since you ask, it's frequently 'Flynn', after Errol, since I've got a streak of the swashbuckler.

Quick question: how often do you beat the game, as opposed to getting through...say...the first ten or so levels? The thing with item rarities, as far as we can understand, is that some items are bound to spawn earlier than others. Special pistols, for instance, are much more likely to show up on the first few levels, while some of the "stronger" items (such as laser rifle, plasma shotgun, etc) won't, indeed can't, appear until much later, sometimes not even until Phobos Hell.

Ok, that lets me know something about relative rarity, I guess.  I usually play on ITYTD or HNTR-- not really had much success at higher difficulty levels. 
I've tried a few pistol games, and I really prefer shotguns, which is why I've been puzzling over my (apparent) luck finding pistols.  I think I've gotten the Jackhammer twice, maybe three times, and the Assault Shotgun once.  Super Shotgun once or twice, too.  Even just the regular Onyx Armor seems pretty impressive, and I found one of those in my last game. 

[Fanta Hege]

I've learned to notice that item rarity usualy scale a bit with the item type aswell. Pistol uniques are suprisingly more common than say, BFG10k. Same goes for Butchers cleaver, I seem to find Butchers nearly every 5th game.

On and on, it is usualy just very random. If you're lucky, you might just find a blaster every game or Dragonslayer every 10th game.

But if you ask me, it seems that the more power the unique has, the more rarity comes with it.