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[Sylph]

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I've been trying to get my marksman diamond badge, but I was challenging myself to do it without sharpshooter. I spent the last week or so trying to get a bulletdance marine win, and I've come to the conclusion that bulletdance is an absolutely awful master trait! My marines that went masterless were SO much stronger than those using bulletdance, to the point that I decided to do without masterless marines as well as technicians (because I felt like experimenting with pistol master traits).
Still, my bulletdance games did yield a close call to hell 6 (and it really felt like a stretch there). After a gruelling batch of marine runs, though, I played a game with a scout, and got the badge on the first try! ♥
(not including a couple that I binned on level 2)

Video:
I've uploaded a video of the entire game here, which I thought might be a nice up to date display of nightmare play. Never know, could be useful to people wanting to climb the (in my experience) massive skill wall between UV and N!.
Here's the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGKushTuBQ&feature=youtu.be

Win Attribution:
This win, I think, is pretty much attributable to intuition 1. I really didn't want intuition 2, as I don't find it much help, but I got it eventually anyway, when it became apparent that approaching mancubi was not gonna happen. Intuition 1 on nightmare lets a hellrunner scout spend maybe the last 40% of the game invulnerable! Berserk or invulnerability really is key for getting through the later game when you don't have access to powerful or explosive weaponry.
Still, this was all really a product of my never finding decent mods or items. I swear I find 10 times as many tristar blasters as I do combat pistols! This run was pretty unique in that I skipped the shambler in the armoury - I would take him on effortlessly when playing a marine, but I had a feeling those 2 levels of son of a bitch would make a big difference, and thought it best to stay out of the fight with him.
Still, bad mods, bad item drops, missed treasure... This has to be one of the 'lightest' games I've played on N! AoMr, but intuition 1 carried me to safety!

Quirky things:
- Cancelling the arena after second wave (my preferred strat for AoMr runs)
- 100% clear on chained court using only 1 berserk, then berserk rushing from chained court to anomaly. I've been doing these a lot with marines... My procrastination over picking up an environment suit made berserk wear out seconds too early!
- I skipped phobos lab, despite gunkata scouts being one of the few characters that can actually tackle it! The lack of the mod packs ultimately left me without my usual fireproof armour, which shaped the build and the game in general when mancubi and revenants stared to become common.
- Getting gunkata, but still standing-still pillboxing most opponents. The moving around necessary to use this master trait effectively is really hard to get used to, but I can tell it's a lot more powerful when used properly.
- Building a speedloader pistol, then throwing it away within a minute or so of making it!
- Cybie is *so* easy with dodgemaster!
- Found the butcher's cleaver and 2 invulnerabilities just outside the entrance to unholy cathedral! Totally taunting me! I forgot for a second that I was on AoMr and tried to cleaver the place. :)
- I neglected the opportunity to just nuke spider. Does anyone know whether I would have got my diamond badge if I had nuked him? I'm unsure what wins count for what...

Not sure what to go for next. I've really got my eye on the veteran angelic badge, but marksman angelic looks pretty easy, too...
--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Sylph, level 11 Arch-Vile Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 1302912 turns and scored 422508 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 35 minutes and 31 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 985 out of 1306 hellspawn. (75%)
 He was an Angel of Marksmanship!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 1

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

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Marksman Diamond Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  ####................................#####################>#
  ###...............####...............######################
  ##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
  #........####.....####.....####........####################
  .........####.....####.....####.........###################
  .........####..............####..........##################
  ........................................%.#################
  ..####............................####....#################
  .&####............................####....#################
  ..####............................####....#################
  ..####............................####....#################
  .....................................X....#################
  .........####..............####..........##################
  .........####.....####.....####.........###################
  #........####.....####.....####........####################
  ##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
  ###...............####...............######################
  ####................................#####################>#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 50/50   Experience 59160/11
  ToHit Ranged +2  ToHit Melee +2  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Son of a gun     (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 1)
    Dualgunner       (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Gun Kata         (Level 1)

  SoG->SoG->SoG->DG->HR->HR->DM->MGK->Int->EE->Int->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (64%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   pistol (2d5) [6/6] (P1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   high power pistol (2d6) [4/4]

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

    [a] ballistic blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [b] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [c] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [d] 10mm ammo (x21)
    [e] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [f] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [g] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] envirosuit pack
    [o] thermonuclear bomb
    [p] power mod pack
    [q] technical mod pack
    [r] technical mod pack
    [s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [t] 10mm ammo chain (x250)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 0%   

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

    230 former humans
    99 former sergeants
    107 former captains
    193 imps
    63 demons
    114 lost souls
    48 cacodemons
    42 hell knights
    34 barons of hell
    2 arachnotrons
    11 former commandos
    12 pain elementals
    7 revenants
    14 mancubi
    7 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena before it got too hot.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 6 he assembled a high power weapon!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  Level 9 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a speedloader pistol!
  He left the Armory without drawing too much attention.
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  Not knowing what to do, he left.
  On level 15 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he found the Butcher's Cleaver!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 20 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You reload the high power pistol.
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the pistol.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
 Mastermind.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the high power pistol.
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the pistol.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
 Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the
 Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You dualreload your guns!

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

 426 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 369 of those were killed.
 7 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 15 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 35 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 29 killed the bitch and survived.
 5 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------


[LuckyDee]

Watched the first two and a half minute due to time constraints.

You scare me.

[Thiebs]

I also didn't have the time to watch the whole thing, but told myself to watch until I learned something. Never thought to fire at nothing as a way to skip less than a second, but I imagine it can come in awful handy! Thanks!

[Sylph]

I also didn't have the time to watch the whole thing, but told myself to watch until I learned something. Never thought to fire at nothing as a way to skip less than a second, but I imagine it can come in awful handy! Thanks!

Yes! Swapping weapons can also be effective, particularly when it comes to imps (which, being faster than 100%, will sometimes get a double-move against you and fireball you if you wait on the spot, but will never get a double-move if you use 'z' repeatedly.)
Even more nicer is dropping items to pass time, but i almost never do that, generally only when at death's door, or when I was going drop something anyway (typically giftdrops).

Unfortunately, I didn't use the switch weapons method much in the videos, because dualgunner makes 'z' swapping items take no time (something I myself learned from these AoMr games). We all keep learning! x
You'd hear the switching constantly if you turned the volume up (must remember not to record with such a low volume!). My partner was getting sick of the sample by the end of the game!

I wasn't expecting people to watch the whole thing, btw. Just thought it might be a good reference. I would have loved to have watched something similar when I was stuck on the anomaly a few weeks ago!

[Sylph]

Watched the first two and a half minute due to time constraints.

You scare me.

How rude! I'm not scary!

Actually LuckyDee, I thought of you a few times during these runs, given your post the other week. Thought you and I I might be able to unravel some good points of gunkata. :)

[LuckyDee]

How rude! I'm not scary!

Frolicking about with 4% health and actually stepping into monsters view? And not getting shot at once? Don't tell me that's your friendly smile at work... :)

I am going to watch some more of the video; Thiebs already pointed out a significant use of the time mechanism which I'd completely missed, so there's definitely more interesting stuff in there yet...

[Thiebs]

Frolicking about with 4% health and actually stepping into monsters view? And not getting shot at once? Don't tell me that's your friendly smile at work... :)

I thought that was pretty awesome, actually. ;)

[Sylph]

I thought that was pretty awesome, actually. ;)

Exactly! I mean, you gotta have a little faith in yourself! :D

[Tormuse]

I've been meaning to post here for the past few days, and then I noticed that your Strongman Diamond badge thread got locked already, so I guess I'd better post now before it's too late!  :o

I spent the last week or so trying to get a bulletdance marine win, and I've come to the conclusion that bulletdance is an absolutely awful master trait!

I came to the same conclusion.  :D  Running out of bullets in your gun is enough of a problem without having a master trait accelerating your loss of bullets!  And losing Eagle Eye means all those extra bullets you fire just go to waste.  :|

...Here's the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGKushTuBQ&feature=youtu.be

Very cool!  :)  I haven't had a chance to watch much of it yet, but I echo the sentiment of disbelief that you went for such a long stretch at 4% health even though you had so many med packs!  :o  You definitely had a lucky setup on level 2, where all the enemies could only approach you from one direction and it was all water, so no corpses to regenerate.  That's the kind of lucky starting position I dream of in this kind of game.  :)

- I skipped phobos lab, despite gunkata scouts being one of the few characters that can actually tackle it!

Yeah, if you had HR 2 by then, you had a really good chance of success.  I've found that if you're fast enough, it's quite easy to lead the Nightmare Demons into an acid bath; all you have to do is get their attention and walk counter-clockwise around the edge of the acid pool to the lower-right corner and they will cut across it to try to get to you.  You don't have to step in the acid at all; they'll do all the work for you.  :)

- I neglected the opportunity to just nuke spider. Does anyone know whether I would have got my diamond badge if I had nuked him? I'm unsure what wins count for what...

As far as I know, nuking the Mastermind and dying with the nuke gives you a "partial victory" and still gives you all badges that you would normally get for winning that challenge.  And don't you mean nuked "her?"  I admit that I'm surprised you misgendered the Mastermind.  ;)

...but marksman angelic looks pretty easy, too...

Shouldn't be too hard...  I've had some unsuccessful runs of it that did decently well, but not well enough for me to consider posting them.  Perhaps you'll beat me to that badge.  :)

[Juice]

Damn, I'm gonna have to learn play N! properly, you two make it sound easy :) (and the videois big help as well)

[thelaptop]

I've been meaning to post here for the past few days, and then I noticed that your Strongman Diamond badge thread got locked already, so I guess I'd better post now before it's too late!  :o

Yeah, there's an activity-based auto lock going on.  If a thread is not replied to in some amount of time, it gets locked on its own.

If there're new things to add, feel free to PM me to unlock the particular thread.  I don't mind helping to keep discussions in their right contexts.  =)

(Great, I'm in the 1980s now... dang.)

[Sylph]

I've been meaning to post here for the past few days, and then I noticed that your Strongman Diamond badge thread got locked already, so I guess I'd better post now before it's too late!  :o

That's quite a shame, the strongman challenge is significantly more taxing, or at least more intricate, and certainly has more questions worth addressing about it!

I came to the same conclusion.  :D  Running out of bullets in your gun is enough of a problem without having a master trait accelerating your loss of bullets!  And losing Eagle Eye means all those extra bullets you fire just go to waste.  :|

I could stomach it a little more if it allowed brute. In fact it blocks probably the 3 most important basic skills in the game (for me). It's certainly the weakest of the pistol master traits, though (with sharpshooter being the strongest). I thought, perhaps, that nightmare would solve the ammo problems, and while it does, the raw damage of bullet dance *still* isn't high enough to carry us through hell. The skill needs auto reloads or something, as there just aren't enough ammo chains to keep fast reloads going. I'm not done with it though, and pretty determined to get a win with bullet dance. Maybe that will be my angelic AoMr build? ;)

Very cool!  :)  I haven't had a chance to watch much of it yet, but I echo the sentiment of disbelief that you went for such a long stretch at 4% health even though you had so many med packs!  :o  You definitely had a lucky setup on level 2, where all the enemies could only approach you from one direction and it was all water, so no corpses to regenerate.  That's the kind of lucky starting position I dream of in this kind of game.  :)

Yeah, to be honest I just rush through level 1 and 2. I find the level after the arena to be the one that makes or breaks a game. I usually find level 2 pretty simple to finish without taking any significant damage, and this game featured a hammering on level 1. I would have quit and restarted, but I've found it's at least worth exploring level 2 even after a bad level 1, in case it spits medpacks at you or features a combat shotgun/modpack special room or something! Doing it this way, though, makes me very careless about level 2, because I don't really care if I die - I want to make up for a bad level 1, or die and start again! That said, I'm fairly sure I had a similar close call later in the game, refusing to phase device until dangerously late while under mancubus fire!

Yeah, if you had HR 2 by then, you had a really good chance of success.  I've found that if you're fast enough, it's quite easy to lead the Nightmare Demons into an acid bath; all you have to do is get their attention and walk counter-clockwise around the edge of the acid pool to the lower-right corner and they will cut across it to try to get to you.  You don't have to step in the acid at all; they'll do all the work for you.  :)

Very true. Took me a few tries before nailing the tactics. Also worth mentioning just shutting the doors at the start area when they're chasing you, and waiting a few hundred turns while the N! demons either drown themselves in acid, or return (wounded) to their 'stuck' positions, where you can repeat the acid run.
My thinking here, though, was that the berserk needed to last for the anomaly. However well a character can clear phobos lab, he'll still be held back by a lack of rocket launcher at the anomaly, so berserk rushing is more important than a few modpacks and some XP from phobos lab. On that subject, I'm completely stuck (still) about how to tackle the N! anomaly without phase device luck, a rocket launcher + running speed, or using scout/marine and the chained court berserks, skipping levels 6, 7, and 7*.

As far as I know, nuking the Mastermind and dying with the nuke gives you a "partial victory" and still gives you all badges that you would normally get for winning that challenge.  And don't you mean nuked "her?"  I admit that I'm surprised you misgendered the Mastermind.  ;)

That's good to know going forward! I'll be sure to use nukes when I've nothing to prove!
For some reason I never thought of the mastermind as a 'she'. I guess it's because her face reminds me of that guy from teenage turtles... I always misgender things though! I've just edited this post after noticing I keep misgenderng doomguy. :)

Shouldn't be too hard...  I've had some unsuccessful runs of it that did decently well, but not well enough for me to consider posting them.  Perhaps you'll beat me to that badge.  :)

Oh, I doubt that, too much other new content to pour over before I take up that challenge! For example, I got my first apostle kill last night. :D

[Tormuse]

Yeah, there's an activity-based auto lock going on.  If a thread is not replied to in some amount of time, it gets locked on its own.

Well, here's the thread I mentioned that I wanted to post in.  (It got closed after only a week!  Is that typical?  I thought it was supposed to be months)

And while we're at it, I wouldn't mind reopening my pet thread.  :)  (Although, if I want to post more pictures, it might be suitable to start another thread anyway)

[thelaptop]

A week turnaround for mortems is "typical".  Not sure if I would want to mess with that.  I think the duration is longer for some of the other sub-forums here.