So, I was inspired by
this thread to see if I could get the Conqueror medal in an Angel of Marksmanship game. I never really seriously considered it before, because there are just too many special levels that simply don't lend themselves to a pistol build, but then that thread got me really thinking about it and saying to myself, "okay, it's next to impossible... but if I wanted to *try* it, how would I do it?" ;) Obviously, I don't get any medals for this; I was just doing it for fun to challenge myself. :) I played at UV difficulty because it's the only way I could envision getting enough levels for my strategy to work.
So, when coming up with my strategy, I anticipated that the biggest obstacles would be:
1) Phobos Lab (if it generates): Nightmare demons! Not fun to face with a pistol.
2) The Wall/Containment Area: Need a way to tunnel through the wall or a lucky phase.
3) City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains: Lots of bullet-resistant enemies! :o
4) Unholy Cathedral: Can only use my fists! :|
5) Mortuary/Limbo: Swarms of enemies that I can only shoot one at a time.
I initially considered going with a Gun Kata build, just because I think it's kind of an awesome trait, :) but went with Sharpshooter because GK blocks Brute and I was anticipating that I would have to fight the Angel of Death. (I didn't end up getting brute anyway, but whatever...) The run really started coming together when I reached Deimos Lab because there was a tonne of useful mods that let me assemble an energy pistol, nanomachic pistol, and demolition pistol. The game would have been a hell of a lot tougher without that kickass weaponry. :D The funniest part was that after I assembled the energy pistol and nanomachic pistol, there was a while before I could complete the demolition pistol, so there was a stretch of time where I had no weapons that used bullets in an AoMr game. :P It is also worth noting that when I found the GCB in the Vaults, I applauded my computer screen. :)
Anyway, as it turned out...
1) Military Base generated this time! *sigh of relief* I wasn't fast enough to outwalk those nightmare demons, so they would have given me trouble otherwise.
2) I was very thankful for the energy pistol that let me do some tunneling through the Wall, especially since one of my previous very promising runs failed because I never found a single power mod or phase device, so I couldn't do the Wall. In this case, I just made a tiny, narrow corridor and then just fired my nanomachic pistol through the hole a bazillion times until everything was dead. By this point, I had consistent knockback, so nothing could get close enough to harm me. :)
3) The nanomachic pistol meant that I had no ammo worries in CoS, so it was easy enough. The energy pistol meant that bullet resistance wasn't an issue, but I found I hardly used it because it was more fun to just spam them with my infinibullets. :)
4) Augh... the memory of this level haunts me... :S I didn't get a hatred skull from CoS like I had hoped, (2 blood skulls and a fire skull) so I had to do UC by outspeeding the AoD... only I didn't get the best equipment for that, and I probably could have distributed my agility mods better. I figured that without the damage increase from being berserk, a couple levels in brute wouldn't make any difference, since the AoD has 10 armour, so this meant that I would only do one point of damage per hit... to a being that has 410 hitpoints... I honestly felt like giving up before I even started, but with all the crazy equipment I had accumulated, I felt determined to give it a try and, well... I've shown that I can be patient before. :P (At least, with EE3, my fists were very accurate!) :D
I think I misremembered the AoD's speed, or maybe he's faster in Nightmare! difficulty, because I seem to recall that you have to be faster than 0.67 seconds per move to be able to hit him without being hit. I was slightly faster than him in this game even though I was moving at 0.72 seconds per move, which now that I look at the wiki, makes sense, because it says he has 150% speed. If my calculations are correct, 50% more speed means 25% less time taken for each move, so he was moving at 0.75 seconds per move, which would give me a 0.03 second margin for error. This meant that for each 100 steps he took, I could take 101. :) This meant that I had to circle around the cathedral a ridiculous number of times, waiting for opportunities to do my one point of damage at a time and I had to repeat it about 400 times. I didn't actually have to take 100 steps for each hit, though, because my punching speed was 0.55 seconds per punch so there was a bit more of a margin for error there. What I did was observe his movement patterns; he would sometimes hold position for one of my moves and sometimes get a double move for one of my moves, depending on which way the game rounded off its calculations. I found it best to strike him any time he did a double move. His movement patterns were fairly erratic, but there was a point in the pattern where he did some quick successions of alternating between holding and doubling and I could get a few whacks in while he was doing that. I messed up several times over the course of the 400 punches and he hit me back sometimes, and in the end, I was down to my last med pack, but ultimately, I emerged victorious! :D
5) I almost died in Limbo! :o I entered invulnerable, which should have been a huge advantage, but I started near 5 Arch-Viles and I used up my invulnerability trying to gun them all down instead of getting myself into a defensible position. I used up both my envirosuits that I had been carrying around forever, so I could run off into the lava to escape the barrage of the multitudes of enemies reviving around me. I had hoped to use the demolition pistol to blow up the bodies, but they were reviving and coming at me too fast and I had to get some distance. Fortunately, the right side of the map was largely empty, so, once I reached the relative safety over there, I was able to move across the map slowly, from right to left, clearing enemies as I went, taking them out one at a time. (I can't imagine how I would've done this without the nanomachic pistol!)
I was worried about doing the Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus now that my envirosuits were gone, but as luck would have it, I found another envirosuit on the next level, and Mt. Erebus generated, so one was enough. *Whew!*
Not much to say about the fight with JC except that the GCB combined with an ammochain made short work of him and I finished him off all completely without incident. :)
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DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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Tormuse, level 16 Apostle Chaos Mjr General Technician,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 366376 turns and scored 411990 points.
He played for 11 hours, 29 minutes and 50 seconds.
He was a man of Ultra-Violence!
He killed 1383 out of 1383 hellspawn. (100%)
This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
He was an Angel of Marksmanship!
He saved himself 4 times.
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 11
Levels completed : 11
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Medal of Prejudice
UAC Star (silver cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Conqueror Badge
Grim Reaper's Badge
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Champion Medal
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 70/60 Experience 124676/16
ToHit Ranged +6 ToHit Melee +6 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +0
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Technician
Ironman (Level 1)
Finesse (Level 3)
Son of a gun (Level 4)
Eagle Eye (Level 3)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Sharpshooter (Level 1)
SoG->SoG->EE->SoG->EE->EE->MSs->WK->WK->Fin->Fin->Fin->Iro->Int->Int->SoG->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] nanofiber duelist armor [3] (P)
[b] [ Weapon ] Grammaton Cleric Beretta (1d7)x6 [12/18]
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] 10mm ammo chain (x100)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] energy pistol (2d5) [6/6]
[b] nanomachic pistol (2d5) (P1)
[c] demolition pistol (5d2) [6/6] (P1)
[d] minigun (1d6)x8 [200/200]
[e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
[f] tactical armor [0/0] (100%) (A)
[g] Necroarmor [6/6] (100%)
[h] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
[i] power cell (x70)
[j] power cell (x70)
[k] large med-pack
[l] large med-pack
[m] large med-pack
[n] large med-pack
[o] large med-pack
[p] large med-pack
[q] thermonuclear bomb
[r] thermonuclear bomb
[s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
[t] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Bullet - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
Melee - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
Shrapnel - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
117 former humans
92 former sergeants
80 former captains
138 imps
103 demons
408 lost souls
64 cacodemons
32 hell knights
78 barons of hell
16 arachnotrons
10 former commandos
54 pain elementals
57 revenants
27 mancubi
40 arch-viles
17 nightmare imps
13 nightmare cacodemons
7 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
5 elite former captains
2 elite former commandos
2 bruiser brothers
2 shamblers
1 lava elemental
1 agony elemental
1 Angel of Death
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
1 John Carmack
1 Arena Master
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
He left the Arena as a champion!
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
He purified his fellow comrades.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
On level 9 he assembled a energy pistol!
On level 9 he assembled a nanomanufacture ammo!
On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 9 he assembled a tactical armor!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
He wiped out the City of Skulls.
Level 13 was a hard nut to crack!
On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 14 he assembled a demolition ammo!
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
On level 17 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
On level 18 he ran for his life from lava!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
On level 20 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
On level 22 he found the Necroarmor!
He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
On level 23 he found the Jackhammer!
Then at last he found Dis!
He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
The missile hits the baron of hell. The baron of hell dies. The missile hits
John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack.
The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack.
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : John Carmack (mortally wounded) | pool of blood | [ m ]ore
The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack.
You quickly reload the Grammaton Cleric Beretta.
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : John Carmack (almost dead) | pool of blood | [ m ]ore
The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press
<Enter>...
You feel relatively safe now.
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
1153 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
879 of those were killed.
4 of those were killed by something unknown.
149 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 36 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
85 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
4 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
56 killed the bitch and survived.
25 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
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