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[Tormuse]

So recently, (12 days ago) Icy made the discovery that it's possible to get Thomas' Medal, Everyman Platinum, and Everyman Diamond in Ao100 and I've been trying to do it ever since.  This isn't a combination of challenges I had ever seriously considered before; the idea of taking Angel of Humanity, a game which is by nature, a slow, painstaking game, being careful not to ever let anything into your view, and then dragging it out over 100 levels does not really appeal to me...  but then, Sereg said some fateful words...

And now for the fateful words - if you manage to earn Thomas' Medal on Ao100, I will be very impressed. (shh, don't let Tormuse overhear >.> <.< >.>)

Damn it, Sereg!  You should know by now that I see such comments as a challenge!  :D

Anyway, that 22 hours down there was solid gameplay time spread over the last couple of weeks; any time I took a break, I saved the game and came back to it later.  I didn't bother recording a video of this one for reasons that I think are obvious.

I went back and forth a lot, trying to decide what build to go with.   I definitely wanted to be a Technician for the ability to insta-use medpacks; I correctly anticipated that that ability would save my life.  I considered Malicious Blades for the protection, but the lack of Eagle Eye or Intuition would have made a lot of the late game very difficult.  I also considered Sharpshooter, but I didn't want to be too reliant on one weapon if I ever got mobbed, (and Sharpshooter blocks SoB) so I ended up deciding to go masterless, (though I kept my options open until level 9, when I finally picked up SoB, in case I found a unique pistol or something) and I did pick up Scavenger to get myself a few extra mods, which I didn't end up really getting any benefit out of until I got a Nano pack out of the Trigun toward the end.  (I'm still disappointed that I didn't find or scavenge a single Firestorm mod in the entire game; Firestorm-modded Hyperblasters kick ass!)  :D  I think it's also worth noting that I got three Sniper mods back-to-back within two levels in the late 70's, the first ones I found in the game, one of which created a Plasmatic Shotgun which was very useful for corpse-disposal to prevent pesky Arch-Viles from reviving stuff.  :)

That Energy Shield carried me through most of the early and middle levels; things would've been a lot tougher without the 80% fire/acid/plasma protection.  It took quite a beating over time, once going as low as 44%, but I was able to repair it with the occasional Megasphere.  I had the Ballistic Shield around in case anything reached melee range, but I only used that once when a Nightmare Demon cornered me and I didn't want to shotgun it due to barrels nearby.  Before that, I was alternating between agility-modded red armour and power-modded blue armour, depending on what enemies I was facing, and toward the end, I was exclusively using the Phaseshift set, once I made a Cerberus version of the suit, which was extremely useful for the occasional slip-ups where something got a shot at me.  Before I got that Cerberus Phaseshift suit, there were two notable slip-ups that nearly got me killed.  (Sorry, I don't remember level numbers)

1)  Somewhere in the 20's or 30's, I started two tiles away from an Arch-Vile and I figured I'd be able to kill it before it could do anything to me, since it would take a few seconds to wake up and then another couple seconds to do its arm-raising thing, so I shot it with my Gatling Gun, (which at the time, wasn't tech-modded yet) and it unexpectedly got a double move on me, which it used to move one step closer and melee-attack me for 9 damage.  (No melee protection from the Energy Shield and 10 max HP meant this brought me to one hit point)  O_o

2)  Later on, (40's?  50's?) a Former Sergeant got one of those funny angles on me through a doorway where he could see me, but I couldn't see him, and he knocked me back into a pool of lava.  Fortunately, I had the Nyarlaptotep Boots on at the time, which mostly protected me from the lava damage and I had a level of TaN to protect me a little bit from the shotgun blast.  (The Energy Shield didn't)  Again, it brought me down to 1 HP.  (I could very easily have died there!)  :o

I considered turning that Nuclear Plasma Rifle into a Burst Cannon, since I've had good experiences with that in the past, but I was doing okay with it as it was and I calculated that the Burst Cannon modification would give it occasional knockback, so I figured just giving it some extra speed would be better.  I'm glad I did, especially when I started encountering the mini-bosses, Shamblers, Lava Elementals, and a Cyberdemon.  (Only one Cyberdemon?  I'm almost disappointed!)  :P  I was really nervous about encountering these guys until I realized that with all my speed-related traits, I could take a move action and fire action together in less than a second, and since Shamblers and Lava Elementals move at 1 move per second, I could safely get a shot off without them firing back any time they moved at the same time I moved.

Speaking of mini-bosses, the wiki is clearly wrong about when they start showing up; I encountered my first Lava Elemental on level 69, but the wiki says they start on level 70.  Also, according to the mortem, I had an Agony Elemental cave on level 74 and I know I encountered some before that, but the wiki says they start arriving on level 80.  I don't remember when Shamblers started showing up, but I suspect that number is off too.  I wonder if the wiki is referring to a lower difficulty level?

I came very, very close to getting an Untouchable Medal; I hovered at 199 damage for something like the last 20 levels of the game, and then it started throwing everything at me, a blast of unholy atmosphere, a Shambler, and two Lava Elementals, all on a level with no cover.  Taking damage was unavoidable and it was bad enough for me to consider using my homing phase device and just abandon getting 100% kills.  (At first, I was doing that just for the experience, but I didn't want to give up on YAAM after getting that far)  Oh well, here's a screenshot of my character screen on the last level for posterity:  :)

Spoiler: Screenshot (click to show/hide)

---------------- DoomRL Character Info ( U / AoHu + A100 ) ---------------------
                                                                               
                                                                               
   Tormuse, level 24 Technician,                          =IVtt;,               
   currently on level 100 of the Phobos base.           +RY;=+=;VR             
   He survived 404614 turns, which took him 79127 seconds. YYMW:+#             
   He took 199 damage, 0 on this floor alone.      .=###RYI;ItI;iiVVB:.   . ,tYt
   He killed 3959 out of 4005 enemies total.       #WWtXtXX: ;IXRIi  .=,tVMB,, 
   His current killing spree is 742, with a record of 742. ==;;    ,:;tB=  =   
                                                  ;R#:,       +VYt+: :.,R##     
   Current movement speed is 0.21 second/move.    ;iRX; :t ;VIt;, ,: VItIi:     
   Current fire speed is 0.26 second/shot.        ,Y###Ytt:;,. ,,:,+           
   Current reload speed is 1.07 second/reload.     ,  ,,.. .,,.=  ,=           
   Current to hit chance (point blank) is 98%         tI ;IYI+.+;:=+:           
   Current melee hit chance is 91%                     :;=:...:=;:,:i           
                                                      :+:;i. ,,:+=,;i           
                                                       .=;:,.;=:.=;             
                                                        ;,,. =+RXI+:           
                                                        .+;;,=;=;=;             
                                                           : i==+=I,           
                                                             =t:;+Y:           
                                                           ,, =tiii             
                                                           t, .ii+:             
                                                              tB#WWt           
-----------------------------------------[ <Enter>,<Escape>,<Space> ]-----------

Anyway, this has been a long, slow, stressful game and I'm glad to finally have it over with.  :)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Tormuse, level 24 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Technician,
 completed 100 levels of torture on level 100 of Hell.
 He survived 407003 turns and scored 2356763 points.
 He played for 22 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 4006 out of 4006 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Humanity!
 He was also an Angel of 100!

 He saved himself 29 times.

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

  Levels generated : 0
  Levels visited   : 0
  Levels completed : 0

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

  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Untouchable Badge
  Experience Medal
  Thomas's Medal
  Everyman Platinum Badge
  Everyman Diamond Badge

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

  ===========================================================
  ===========================================================
  ===.................====.".=====......||..[....%...........
  ===|################..==...=|===.########|######%##########
  ===.#..............#.===========.#....%.|\.....#.#.........
  ===.#..##%.......X.#.===========.#.......==....#.#.........
  ===.#..##......#...#.===========.#......====...#.#.........
  ===.#.....##...;...#.===========.#|....=.=.=...#.#.........
  ===.#..##.##||.....#.===========.#.....=[==....#.#.\...%%..
  ===.#..##.....|....#.===========.#.......=.....#.#.........
  ===.#.........##...#.===========.#|........;...#.#..%......
  ===.#.##...#.......#.===========.#.........%...#.#.........
  ===.#.##...#.^.....#.===========.#.............#.#.........
  ===.#...........%..#.===========.#...^.........#.#.....%...
  ===.#....|.........#.===========.#.............#.########/#
  ===.#########/######.===========.#.......[.....#...........
  ===...[..............===========.###############.==========
  ========...==|===========|======......|......%......===^===
  ========...===========================...==================
  ===========================================================

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

  Health 19/12   Experience 831194/24
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +3  ToDmg Melee +3

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

  Class : Technician

    Ironman          (Level 1)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 3)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Scavenger        (Level 1)

  HR->HR->EE->EE->Int->Int->Fin->Jug->SoB->WK->SoB->DM->WK->SoB->Rel->Fin->MSc->TaN->Fin->HR->TaN->Bad->Bad->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   cerberus phaseshift armor [0/0] (74%) (A)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nuclear plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [52/52] (B3T2)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   tactical shotgun (9d3) [4/5] (P1)

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

    [a] plasmatic shotgun (8d3) [1/1] (T1)
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d7) [5/5] (P1)
    [c] gatling gun (1d7)x6 [60/60] (T1)
    [d] hyperblaster (2d4)x3 [40/40]
    [e] energy shield [0/0] (100%)
    [f] ballistic shield [0/0] (100%)
    [g] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] shotgun shell (x37)
    [j] rocket (x10)
    [k] power cell (x50)
    [l] power cell (x50)
    [m] small med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] homing phase device
    [q] Hell Staff
    [r] Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)
    [s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [t] shell box (x100)
    [u] shell box (x100)
    [v] power battery (x120)

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

    Bullet     - internal 0%    torso 30%   feet 0%   
    Melee      - internal 0%    torso 30%   feet 0%   
    Shrapnel   - internal 0%    torso 30%   feet 0%   
    Acid       - internal 0%    torso 70%   feet 0%   
    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 70%   feet 0%   
    Plasma     - internal 0%    torso 50%   feet 0%   

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

    156 former humans
    323 former sergeants
    332 former captains
    152 imps
    45 demons
    664 lost souls
    80 cacodemons
    167 hell knights
    457 barons of hell
    186 arachnotrons
    24 former commandos
    64 pain elementals
    259 revenants
    319 mancubi
    368 arch-viles
    60 nightmare imps
    69 nightmare cacodemons
    123 nightmare demons
    48 nightmare arachnotrons
    8 nightmare arch-viles
    6 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    5 elite former captains
    5 elite former commandos
    46 bruiser brothers
    12 shamblers
    6 lava elemental
    16 agony elementals
    1 Cyberdemon

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

  Level 8 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 13 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 15 he assembled a gatling gun!
  He nuked level 19!
  On level 20 he ran for his life from acid!
  On level 24 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  He nuked level 26!
  On level 28 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 30 he found the Acid Spitter!
  Level 31 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 32 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
  Level 33 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 33 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 35 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 35 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 35 he assembled a gatling gun!
  On level 38 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 39 he found the Enviroboots!
  He nuked level 40!
  He left level 40 as soon as possible.
  He nuked level 41!
  On level 43 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  Level 47 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 49 he ran for his life from lava!
  He nuked level 49!
  He left level 49 as soon as possible.
  On level 50 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  On level 54 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  Level 55 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 57 he was bombarded!
  He sounded the alarm on level 58!
  Level 59 was a hard nut to crack!
  He nuked level 61!
  On level 62 he was walking in fire!
  Level 65 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  He nuked level 66!
  He left level 66 as soon as possible.
  He nuked level 67!
  On level 69, hell froze over!
  On level 71 he found the Hell Staff!
  On level 72 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 73 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He nuked level 73!
  He left level 73 as soon as possible.
  On level 74 he stumbled into a agony elemental cave!
  On level 76 he assembled a gatling gun!
  On level 76 he assembled a speedloader pistol!
  Level 78 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 78 he found the Railgun!
  On level 79 he assembled a gatling gun!
  On level 79 he assembled a assault rifle!
  On level 80 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 82 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 83 he ran for his life from lava!
  He nuked level 86!
  He left level 86 as soon as possible.
  He nuked level 87!
  Level 91 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 95 he found the Trigun!
  On level 96 he assembled a micro launcher!
  On level 97 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  Level 100 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 100 he finally completed 100 levels of torture.

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

 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : an arch-vile (heavily wounded) | floor | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the arch-vile. The missile hits the arch-vile. The missile
 hits the arch-vile. The missile hits the arch-vile. The missile hits the
 arch-vile. The arch-vile dies. You feel relatively safe now.
 There is a Large Health Globe lying here.
 You feel like new!
 There is an acid-proof boots [0/0] (100%) lying here.
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 You did it! You completed 100 levels of DoomRL! You're the champion! Press
 <Enter>...

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

 1593 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 1254 of those were killed.
 8 of those were killed by something unknown.
 164 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 56 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 111 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 5 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 76 killed the bitch and survived.
 30 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[Tavana]

Well, you definitely have some skill. That skill might simply be patience. Lots and lots of patience. Kudos, man.

[Sereg]

Sweet tap-dancing Jesus.

[Ridonk]

Does not compute - head still exploding from your last run...

Extremely impressive, especially imagining all those UV starting positions from level 50+, which any one of could get you killed easily if unlucky.

[Sereg]

I believe you're correct about minimum spawn depths being affected by difficulty.  I'm sure the wiki mentions it,  but perhaps it doesn't go into detail on the Ao100 specific spawns... still,  that's almost certainly the explanation for the out of depth minibosses you observed.

Amazing run... you never cease to impress. I'd be really impressed, though, if someone managed to get UAC, Speedrunner, and Demonic Angelic all in the same game...

[ZicherCZ]

Tormuse, you are a beast. Simple as that. Congratulations on pushing the boundaries of the possible yet again!

Speaking of the depths for minibosses, the table at the top of the monster generation page states the basic minimum depth where a monster can appear. Near the bottom of the same page, there is a table that displays adjustments of minimum depth by difficulty levels (unchanged for ITYTD and HNTR, -3 for HMP, -6 for UV and N!). That explains why you met those minibosses earlier, and the difficulty adjustments also explain why on UV+ you meet those bloody hell knights as early as level 3.

I updated the Wiki page to display this information above the basic table instead below it.

[Tormuse]

Thanks, everyone!  :D

Does not compute - head still exploding from your last run...

Pull yourself together, man!  :P

Extremely impressive, especially imagining all those UV starting positions from level 50+, which any one of could get you killed easily if unlucky.

It's not as bad as you might think, once you've got all the level-ups and equipment; all the SoB, EE, and Fin combined with a Hyperblaster or (in this case) Nuclear Plasma Rifle means you can melt anything that starts next to you at the start of the level, or if you're surrounded, melt the ones that are the most isolated and take advantage of HR and DM to get away from the others.  (Int 2 helps you know where concentrations of enemies are lightest)  Sometimes, I would also use the Tac Shotty to knock groups back (or large individuals) or the Tac Rocket Launcher to disperse large groups.  Juggler trait is a massive help to instantly switch to whatever weapon is most appropriate at the moment.  And in a pinch, the Technician's ability to insta-use phase devices can get you out of a tight spot with considerably less danger than other classes.  (Or Hell Staff, as applicable in this case)

EDIT:  Of course, there were still plenty of harrowing circumstances, like this Nightmare Arachnotron cave that luckily had an invulnerability nearby.  (Survived by virtue of Nyarlaptotep boots, Energy Shield, and a healing globe from the previous level)

Spoiler: Screenshot (click to show/hide)

------------------------------ Past messages viewer -------------------- 100% --
   ^                                                                        ^   
 There is rocket (x4) lying here.                                               
 You wear/wield : a 10mm ammo chain (x250)                                     
 There is 10mm ammo (x82) lying here.                                           
 There is a Small Health Globe lying here.                                     
 You feel better.                                                               
 You start running!                                                             
 There are stairs leading downward here.                                       
                                                                               
                                                                               
 You enter Hell, level 43. Twisted passages carry the smell of death...         
 You start running!                                                             
 Argh!!! Lava!                                                                 
 Boom! You are hit! Boom! Boom! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! Boom!   
 Boom! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!                                   
 You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You       
 dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! Boom! You     
 dodge! Boom! Boom! You dodge! Boom! There is a Invulnerability Globe lying     
 here.                                                                         
 You feel invincible! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You   
 are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You 
 are hit! You are hit!                                                         
                                                                               
--------------[ Use arrows, PgUp, PgDown to scroll, Escape or Enter to exit ]---

Amazing run... you never cease to impress. I'd be really impressed, though, if someone managed to get UAC, Speedrunner, and Demonic Angelic all in the same game...

Naw, the *real* challenge is to complete a N! Conqueror game with 100% kills, full win, under 4 minutes, all damageless, using only your fists to get UAC, Veteran, Strongman, Speedrunner, Elite, and Demonic Angelic badges at the same time.  The theoretical highest number of possible Angelic badges to get in one game.  :)

...I updated the Wiki page to display this information above the basic table instead below it.

Ah, interesting stuff!  There was a time that I avoided spoilers like in the wiki, but now that the source code is freely available, I'm finding that there's all kinds of enlightening things about this game that I never knew.  (Like the above AoHu "exploit")  :)

[khiijol]

another very impressive run, congrats!

for the theoretical perfect 6x angelic run, has anyone tried writing bots for doomrl? i know bots have ascended in nethack - it would certainly make speedrunner way easier if a computer is doing the thinking

[Tormuse]

Interesting question...  I honestly don't know, but I have to imagine that it would be difficult to program a bot to do all the corner-shooting and radar-shooting that would be necessary to play damageless.  Can a bot be designed to respond to in-game audio?  Because a lot of damage avoidance comes from listening to pain sounds from unseen monsters.  (And does anyone really know how to play optimally?  I can't really say I do)  :P

Maybe we could get the bot-writer in touch with 2Dev, since (I suspect) he has an altered version of the game in which the player is always invulnerable.  (That's my theory, anyway; it would explain a lot)  That would certainly make the bot-writing easier!  :D

EDIT:  My thread is stickied again?  Who's doing this?  :)

[Sereg]

I would think it would be possible - in theory if you have a bot playing a game, it's reading the game's output, not actually seeing the screen, so I don't see any problems with it being able to react to audio output any more then visual output.

I've thought about creating a DRL bot similar to the Angband borg, but unfortunately I wouldn't know where to begin... someone with a background in AI development would probably be your best bet for something like this.

[MaiZure]

Off the cuff, I'll say that its certainly possible, but it is more tedious then complicated. If someone wanted to attempt it, you'd probably want to do it with Linux and rely on the 'ptrace' syscall to control the DoomRL process. It's up to you if you want to load DoomRL separate from your bot app, or fork/exec it, or manually load the ELF in a sandbox. I would probably avoid shortcuts like piping/redirecting stdIO to your bot app, which is how Rogue/Hack bots worked in the old days. In any case, getting your app loaded and plugged in to DoomRL is step one.

Step two is deciding how to "read" all of the game output. Start with the screen, then work around the sound. Forget the actual audio or the screen appearances...i.e. just associate the sound assets with parameters passed to the play interface (all this is visible with ptrace). For graphics, stick to console and read the character buffer. Just to make your life easier during ptrace, disable ASLR.

Step three is deciding what you want your character to do (the AI problem). Thelaptop would probably know best about that part. Lots of options exist...from the user controlled 'expert system', to the system that learns best policy via trial and error.

Doing this from scratch would be a lot of work...mostly boilerplate stuff, but nothing terribly difficult...it would take a while for one person


EDIT: I realized that I probably understated the knowledge necessary to get this done. This project absolutely requires precise understanding of how a process is created, loaded, organized, and executed. Not something a casual hobbyist would know, but certainly possible for a CS/EE graduate student or a systems engineer with some experience.