I'll make personal addenda to your comments so as to state my own experiences or simply clarify.
1. Hoard. No matter how much inventory space you have, you will often have need of more at times. First thing you should do when entering a level is find a safe place to stash the stuff you don't immediately need. 'Safe place' is relative but should be enclosed by doors and far from things that cause splash damage. If you can't find such a place, hold on to your stuff until you do. The most preferable place for this stash is near the exit if you can find it early in your exploration. Once you clear out a level, take stock of your available inventory, stashes included, and determine what is best to carry forward with. (see below concerning ammunition, much less will go to waste this way)
Can't say I've ever bothered to make a note of this for every floor. Yes, it's good to keep something of 'safe place' in mind for special occasions, but I believe the important lesson here is to simply stock up as early as you can, as often as you can. The ratio of armor:ammunition:weapons:med-packs:other depends on your build and place in the game, which is typically something learned through experience and preference.
2. Avoid bad situations and look for a better tactical angle. Never assume that you can luck out. You can take on bad odds, but you need to do so carefully, cautiously, and always, ALWAYS have an exit plan, be it a homing teleport or a nearby door you can close. If a problem looks ugly, you can almost always find an alternative route, or make one. This makes the rocket launcher useful to carry almost always, just for destroying walls, even if you don't use it in combat. The Anti-Freak Jackal is beautiful in this capacity.
Pretty much everything that causes explosions will also destroy walls for that often-required alternate exit. RL is the common weapon of choice, with the missile launcher close behind. Anti-Freak Jackal certainly is a good unique for the job, but let's not forget the plasma shotgun, blaster, and BFG variants. Hell, even the plasma/laser rifle is capable of tearing through them: the key is that walls have ~20DR, and the only type of damage that can ever hope to pierce it is either in huge amounts (like BFG and RL) or plasma-type.
3. Know what ammunition is common and at which points in the game. I love pistol builds, even though they're not the simplest to play
the downside is that you generally end up hurting for pistol ammunition the deeper you go, as human captains become less common, and former humans almost non-existent. There is one opportunity in the game to get something that helps carrying ammunition, it's incredibly dangerous, and difficult to survive, but prepare for it, be ready when you find the stairs for it, for this humble item is well worth the effort later down the road for precisely this reason.
So you feeling like leaving out what this item is called? I mean, since it's implied that you can always go for it, the answer is obvious enough having played the game numerous times, but still. If you're going to spoil the Anti-Freak Jackal, I don't think it's consistent to leave them in the dark for a much more common find.
4. Try to plan to keep one effective weapon that does decent/mild damage, good accuracy (and is not a shotgun)
you find the Unique weapon that would make your life so much easier, but it's surrounded by barrels, and a baron of hell is sitting on top of it,
crap. Have something you can carefully peck away at something ugly with, without spraying the dangerous things around it. Those rare, incredibly valuable items can mean the difference.
For sure, you can't expect to wield only shotguns, save AoSg. I can't really say that this situation is common enough to invoke a stratagem around it. In fact, this specific case is unwarranted, as uniques are indestructible in 0.9.9.1. Exotics aren't, though it's not too hard to get the Baron's attention if it's THAT useful.
5. Nothing is worth dying for.
you find the Unique weapon that would make your life so much easier, but it's surrounded by Mancubi and Arch-villes
yes, plural. Shit
one step anywhere near that situation and it gets ugly
and it's hard to get a shot at the Arch-Villes without eating more rockets than a fireworks display on the Fourth of July. That special thing is worth going for, but not worth giving up so many health packs and armor that you'd find surviving the subsequent levels impossible to survive, even with the nice gear. Choose wisely as to the cost of pursuing something dangerous.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. It's probably worth unloading a few BFG shots or a couple stacks of rockets, but anything that's going to deplete your emergency health supplies should never be considered as a worthy piece of equipment (with VERY few exceptions).
6. Know what is inside special levels before you blunder into them. I'm not suggesting you spoil the levels if you don't want to, but do know that you'll find out the hard way which levels are impossible to overcome, much less survive unless you're a one-man army, or using a specific build, sometimes it's better to bypass the special opportunity, if you want to meet the big guy at the end.
To be clear, unknown special levels should be explored only if you feel overprepared for whatever you think might be in them. Even once you get to know them, clearing a given special level should only be considered when you are adequately prepared for what's in it.
8. Don't waste mods, you may or may not be a whizkid, but plan your mods almost with the same level of care as you would your build. Your mods are part of your build even, and while you can't predict which mods you will get, know what mods you really need for your weapons. I avoid putting mods on armor, unless I've got spare armor to switch out. I prefer boots first for agility,
just have a good idea as to which mods give the most benefits for each weapon, which mods will be overshadowed by your traits, and which mods you NEED for your build to work better. Oh, a bulk mod on a BFG is never a bad idea, trust me.
Might as well go into some more detail on this one:
- Power goes well on just about any weapon, more important on some than others (combat shotgun, pistol)
- Agility is first used on boots, then armor. If building for a master trait that blocks EE, it can be used on rapid-fire guns just as well.
- Bulk is for BFG and armor, and RL if you don't have another use for it.
- Technical goes well on just about any weapon; really no point on armor/boots unless you're playing a specialized challenge (AoB/AoPc in particular)
In general, I don't like to carry mods around unless they're agility (which, for the first few, can be awfully important) or I am on the verge on getting WK. There's usually a place to stick them on and, if not, discarding isn't the worst thing.
9. Mancubi are unpredictable
they can be very easy one moment, but can still kill you very quickly if you get yourself into a bad situation. I loathe the things, and I die to them almost more than anything else (baron's even)
handle with care, even if you still can usually kill them before they get a shot off.
For people who listen for monster noises, always be wary of the Mancubi grunt. They're surprisingly intelligent (albeit slow) and know how to cut corners so that they can occasionally get a surprise round on you.
10. Kill Arch-Villes with great prejudice. Nothing else should be higher on your target priority list, and unless a Unique or a really, really good Exotic is at stake, no collateral damage is too much until you've wiped this particular evil off the map. Fighting an Arch-Ville only to find that Mancubi that you just killed resurrect right behind you (did I mention that I hate them)
is a a bad way to die.
Arch-Viles are #1 priority, always. As a check, every time I kill one, I kill something else and wait to see if it revives. If not, great, I can advance: if so, I gotta play it cool until the next one comes into killing range. They can often be attracted by corpses, too, which can be used to your advantage.
14. Know your options when you pull the trigger and your weapon goes 'click'. I don't know how much time it takes to swap to a prepared weapon (without juggler), but it's a hell of a lot faster than reloading, pulling a weapon from your inventory takes one second (I think) which is usually faster than reloading. Sometimes it's just better to run like hell and take the time to reload everything before you head back into combat. The tab key is your friend in these situations. Oh, and don't alt-reload the combat shotgun, just don't, ever, you'll feel awfully stupid because you sat there, happily loading one shell after another while a Demon chewed on you.
Swapping (using the "z" key) is 0.8sec, slightly faster than the 1.0sec from the inventory, and certainly much faster than most reloading times. As for the combat's alt-reload, it's the kind of thing you use when you know you're out of harm's way. Like, when the level becomes "relatively safe", or all the doors are closed and you're far away from all of them.
Good stuff. Maybe not completely comprehensive, but I'd certainly give this a link to any newbie wanting to learn the ropes without me having to explain things for a few hours.