Chaosforge Forum

  • December 09, 2024, 06:04
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.



Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Doomrl Guide  (Read 25539 times)

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Doomrl Guide
« on: April 03, 2019, 13:41 »

Since my old topic was shut, and the link as down, I figured I'd post my doomrl guide here for the commmunity to enjoy, butcher, use, abuse, add, edit, or destroy as they enjoy most! As usual, it's unfinished, but it includes some useful info, and I'm pretty sure the stuff on assemblies hasn't been seen before.

Still needs work on cerberus armour, but other than that, hope you all enjoy my dears!

Code: [Select]
         ¯         ¯         ¯         ¯         ¯         ¯         ¯
DoomRL Guide
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
  ~By Sylph
Contents:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
DoomRL guide                   [DODE ]  Game features                   [GAES ]
  About this guide............ [ABDE ]    Special levels............... [SPLS ]
  About doomRL................ [ABRL ]    items........................ [ITMS ]
Beginning in DoomRL            [BERL ]      Weapons.................... [WENS ]
  Combat tactics.............. [COCS ]      Mods....................... [MODS ]
                                            Assemblies................. ]ASES ]
  Defense..................... [DESE ]      Detailed weapon analysis... [DEIS ]
  Corner Dodging.............. [CONG ]      Inventory strategy......... [INGY ]
    Tactics example 1:........ [TAE1 ]    Enemies...................... [ENES ]
    Tactics example 2:........ [TAE2 ]  Character builds                [CHDS ]
  Armour and dodging.......... [ARNG ]    Traits....................... [TRTS ]
  Gift dropping............... [GING ]    Old traits................... [OLTS ]
    Tactics example 3......... [TAE3 ]    All-round builds............. [ALDS ]
  Tagging..................... [TANG ]    Weapon/challenge builds...... [WEDS ]
    Tactics example 4......... [TAE4 ]    Master Trait Trees........... [MAES ]
  Re-architecture............. [RERE ]  Challenges and difficulty       [CHTY ]
    Tactics example 5......... [TAE5 ]    Normal game.................. [NOME ]
  Corpse Disposal............. [COAL ]    Challenges................... [CHES ]
    Tactics example 6          [TAE6 ]    Badges....................... [BAES ]
  Firing through Doorframes... [FIES ]     Nightmare................... [NIRE ]
                                         
                                         






DoomRL guide                     [DODE ]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

  About this guide.............. [ABDE ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
This guide was written over 4 years, as an aide to players of all skill levels.
Roguelike games have a tendancy to begin with a player just getting killed, so
this guide was originally focused on getting new DoomRL players piling into
hell and shooting nightmarish creatures with metal legs.

I began this guide as a complete beginner (started writing at less than 1 week
of playing). This may sound incredibly early to be writing a guide, but I did
so in order to ensure I included information valuable to a beginner, rather
than just focusing on expert knowledge alone. Thus, I understood very well what
a beginner is going through while writing this guide- Doomrl is basically a
world of expert knowledge, with nothing intermediate. The new player ends up
having advice on how to best defeat the angel of death and obtain the longinus
spear, but no clue how to use a pistol without losing half their health on
level 1.

Given that DoomRL's combat is so vastly different from that of other roguelike
games (ie - being primarily gun-based), and given that there is quite a good
deal of importance to the day-to-day* fights, this can make things taxing for a
new player. Think of this document as an 'I'll hold your hand while you find
your feet' for a new player. (I'd write some joke about finding severed feet,
perhaps involving metal legs, were it not such a obvious link)

Originally, this guide was aimed at beginner and intermediate players - I
consideredthe first release of it 'finished' while at a stage of play where I
had managed a few wins on nightmare, obtained a diamond badge, but was in no
way a pro at nightmare yet. This was during an earlier version of doomrl,
before assemblies, classes, and level pairings had made it into the game.

I began to update the guide after returning to Doomrl in 2013. These days, I'm
quite confident tackling the game on any difficulty, and can reasonably expect
victory in standard nightmare games, so I'll touch on the subject of expert
play. If you're busy earning angelic badges, you're past my level of play, and
there's nothing I can teach you. x

(* - is there even a daytime in hell?)


  About doomRL.................. [ABRL ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
DoomRL is a roguelike game based on ID software's doom series.
It's basically a tactical combat game, with a little overarching strategy. The
aim is to guide a marine though 24 levels of rooms, items, and enemies, with
the goal of defeating the spider mastermind.

DoomRL is a very different kind of roguelike game. We've all heard it being
referred to as a 'coffee break roguelike' for it's short game completion time,
but it's scope goes quite a bit further than just being quick to play.

Part of the unique charm of DoomRL is the fact that every single moment is
important. There's no ploughing through an easy level, since it's one sprint to
the end with no going back. More significantly, every single attack in the game
does damage (there's no 'you block the goblin' or 'the goblin fails to hurt
you' going on here, and although there is armour, there's also a 'minimum
damage' on attacks. In short, if something hits you, you are taking some
damage). Then there's the fact that health is a finite resource - the player
does not regenerate health without using items to do so, and those health-
giving items can only be used once each.

Add the above together and look at what happens - the player is required to
approach every fight, even those with the lowliest enemy minion, with
appropriate tactics. The player is constantly thinking, and very rarely just
'playing on autopilot'.

Another plus-point for doomRL is how accessible it is - it has far, far less
key commands than other roguelike games. In fact it's pretty much done away
with the roguelike tendancy to overcomplicate key commands. For example,

[u] in doomrl will [u]se something...

Most roguelike games would prefer to break this down into:

[d]rink potion,
[z]ap wand,
[h]andle lever,
[r]ead scroll,
[w]ield weapon,
[W]ear accessory
[E]quip armour,
[e]at food,
[u]se tool
And on, and on, and on….

Then add the fact that you can play the entire game with only the mouse, and
we soon see that DoomRL is a lot easier to get into than most roguelike games
due to it's simple control mechanism and popular subject matter.

On that matter, a brief overview of the controls follows:
(Make sure numlock is turned off)

numeric keypad Move (8 different directions)
f Fire
r Reload
d Drop an item
g pick up an item
> Go to next level (must be standing on a >)

The above is all you need to know to experience your first game or two, but
later on you'll want to learn the other controls:
F Alternate fire mode on weapon
R Alternate reload on weapon
U Unload item
, walk mode - select a direction to walk that way until
   you encounter something.
. stay still for a turn. Can be specified as a direction
   for walk mode to sit and wait.
z Swap weapons - switches to your 'off hand' weapon,
  which is quicker than going into your inventory.
e Examine Equipped items

Beginning in DoomRL              [BERL ]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Ok, so we've got the game, we've started up, and we're on the title screen...
What's going on here?
Right, well in DoomRL, the player can unlock extra features by hitting certain
criteria. For a new installation of DoomRL, the only real game type we have
access to is a normal game, on easy, normal, or hard difficulty. ('I'm too
young to die', 'hey, not too rough', and 'hurt me plenty', respectively.)
I wouldn't advise 'I'm too young to die' unless you're having a lot of trouble
getting anywhere on 'hey - not too rough'. This is because 'I'm too young to
die' significantly changes some of the 'rules' of the game to make it easier
for you - certain levels don't show up, healing items give twice as many
hitpoints, etc. 'I'm too young to die' will only teach you bad habits, that you
need to un-learn later.

If we go ahead and start a new game, we get a chance to see a nice ascii blood
effect going down the screen, we get to enter our character's name, and we get
presented with our one-and-only game-critical character creation choice - a
trait. Traits are gained every time a player kills enough baddies to levelup.
This is typically every couple of floors. Traits are exceedingly important in
doomRL, and you can get more info about them in the 'traits' section, below.
Don't concern yourself yet with finesse, son of a bitch, or hellrunner as
starting traits - keep things simple for now. If you're just starting out, it
might be an idea to select 'tough as nails' for it's early game power - it'll
help stop you dying. Alternatively, 'Eagle eye' can also make the start of the
game a more simple task - it'll help you kill things without worrying too much
about range or position.


After selecting a feat, we're presented with the graphical interface of the
game. You're the little grey marine, and there's a building in the middle
of this floor, filled with former humans. While it's possible to just rush in
and grasp victory, this level is a good opportunity to learn the basics of the
two most vital combat skills in doomrl - corner shooting, and giftdropping.
We'll cover these in 'Combat tactics', below.





  Combat tactics................ [COCS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
  Defense....................... [DESE ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
In DoomRL:
1. Most enemies have guns
2. There is no such thing as 'zero damage'
3. There is no health regeneration
4. Medikits/health globes are finite.

Put those together and you can see that every pistol-wielding nobody is a
somebody you'd rather kill without giving him a chance to hurt you. Every
bullet that hits you will leave a somewhat long-team gash in your health, and
thus it's imperative that you avoid them.

So, what do we do about the whole bullet problem? There's armour, there's that
matrix business of dodging bullets, and there's cowardice. In the DoomRL
community, many players define 'defense' in 3 different classes - passive,
active, and tactical. Since this guide is for the new player, we'll not be
getting into traits and builds and weapons and the like just yet, instead I'd
like to offer my fast translation of the '3 forms of defense':

Passive defense:
standing there getting shot at

Active defense:
running around getting shot at

Tactical defense:
not getting shot at

It should be pretty obvious that tactical defense is the best option here. The
fact that the community splits these 3 forms of defense up almost like they're
3 different options is a little strange to be honest - 'tactical' defense is
basically playing doomrl as a tactics game (ie, playing it properly), while the
other 2 are actual long-term strategies to defend yourself should you be forced
into a situation where your tactics can't be applied. (and those situations are
very, very rare if you apply all of the below tactics.)



  Corner Cover................ [COER ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

How does tactical defense work? Simple, actually - monsters can only attack you
if they can draw a straight line to you, without hitting any walls. You, on the
other hand, can stick your gun out to shoot around corners, and other trick
shots.
Put characterfully, the marine's shooting skill is his single greatest
advantage over the monsters of hell.
Put technically, the LOS algorithm for the player is much more generous than
the one for the monsters.
Put simply, tactical defense is the core of the strategic playability of
doomrl.

For all those readers who want to try tactical defense, I'm not going to bother
explaining/ranting and do a pictorial step-by-step instead.




    Tactics example 1........... [TAE1 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Fighting a cacodemon in the arena using a combat shotgun.

1.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####.@.║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║........║
║........║
╚════════╝
We've heard a cacodemon to the left, so we stand here and shoot a shotgun in
his general direction, hearing demon screams. Make sure to completely reload
the combat shotgun after every shot.

2.
╔════════╗
║o.......║
║........║
║........║
║.####.@.║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║........║
║........║
╚════════╝
Ok, now the cacodemon has come to greet us. It looks to me like he can probably
attack us from where he's floating. Since we don't want to get shot at, we move
south-west...

3.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####...║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║.....@..║
║........║
╚════════╝
From here we reload then wait a few turns. If the cacodemon follows, that's
great. If he doesn't, we can always move back up and resume step 1 & 2 (and we
often get to repeat step 1, 2 and 3 so many times the enemy get's killed).


4.
╔════════╗
║........║
║....o...║
║........║
║.####...║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║.....@..║
║........║
╚════════╝
Bingo, cacodemon is here! we can shoot, or we can move left... Probably best to
move left. Shooting him might just knock him backwards far enough to allow him
a clear shot at us. Moving left might make him give up, in which case we can
repeat steps 1-4!

5.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####o..║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║....@...║
║........║
╚════════╝
Ok, Ok, this guy decided to turn the corner. Give him what for.


6.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####o..║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║....@...║
║........║
╚════════╝
We shot him, and it knocked him back a square, but in his turn he immediately
moved back to where he was before, so it looks like he just stayed still....
A combat shotgun can be reloaded extremely quickly provided there are shells
left in the gun ready.

7.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####...║
║.#..#o..║
║.####...║
║....@...║
║........║
╚════════╝
Wow, he managed to gain 1 whole square of ground while we reloaded. This is a
worst-case scenario. The cacodemon is now finally in a position in which he can
shoot at us next turn. Unfortunately for the tomato, we have a loaded shotgun
pointed right at him. *Click*...

8.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####o..║
║.#..#...║
║.####...║
║....@...║
║........║
╚════════╝
And he got knocked back. In fact, this time he got knocked back 2 squares, but
in his turn he instantly moved closer to us again... Not close enough, though.
Take note of how similar this looks to step 6, above. In fact, we're in exactly
the same situation. The cacodemon is now playing the unenviable role of
'shotgun thrall'. He won't be stuck in this pattern forever though,

9.
╔════════╗
║........║
║........║
║........║
║.####.•.║
║.#..#%..║
║.####...║
║....@...║
║........║
╚════════╝
Because cacodemons explode when they've had enough shotgun shells pumped into
them.


'Great', you say, 'but what if I don't like shotguns?'... Well, whether you
like them or not, they're one of the best weapons for the first half of the
game, due mainly to their ability to repeatedly knock targets back so easily,
but fine, let's do a different example...




    Tactics example 2........... [TAE1 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Fighting a cacodemon in the arena using a chaingun.
This situation can be done using a pistol too, but if you're trying to kill
cacodemons using a pistol, you'd better have some of those juicy marksmanship
traits, like 'son of a gun' and 'dualgunner'... Still, the nature of these
weapons is very different from a shotgun. chainguns and pistols aren't as
effective at knocking targets back (in fact, it takes a huge amount of work to
get a pistol to knock something back, and it's both very difficult and
undesirable to have a chaingun doing it.)
Luckily, these weapons do have an advantage over shotguns - they're more
effective at corner shooting.

1.
╔══════════╗
║..........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####.@║
║....#..#..║
║....####..║
║..........║
╚══════════╝
Ok, similar situation, but this time we don't have a weapon that knocks a
target back, nor do we have a weapon that is good for scouting. In this case,
we have to remember that the further from the centre of the level we are, the
lses chance there is of a monster passing us on his travels, so we get as far
to one corner as possible (in this case the right), and pick a block to hide
behind. We stand in the position indicated above, and we wait. Note - the
above diagram has an X to mark, roughly, the direction of the center of the
current level is.
(Second note - it would be wiser to sit at the bottom-right corner of this
block while waiting, because there is a greater chance that after waiting,
the first monster to arrive would appear in a position where he is unable
to retaliate, but I'm gonna cover the worst-case here)
2.
╔══════════╗
║.o........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####.@║
║....#..#..║
║....####..║
║..........║
╚══════════╝
A cacodemon has appeared, but he's way too high up for us, and can hit us. We
move down a few spaces.

3.
╔══════════╗
║..........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####..║
║....#..#..║
║....####..║
║........@.║
╚══════════╝
Ok, from this position, perhaps, we'll have a better chance of a cacodemon
appearing in a decent spot. Note that we're looking just a little around the
corner to see any danger approaching.

4.
╔══════════╗
║..........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####..║
║....#..#..║
║.o..####..║
║........@.║
╚══════════╝
Alright, a cacodemon has appeared, and he's in a spot where he can't shoot
back. We give him a volley from our chaingun, just to let him know we're
playing.

5.         
╔══════════╗
║..........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####..║
║....#..#..║
║..o.####..║
║........@.║
╚══════════╝
Now we're in an interesting situation. We can safely give him another volley,
or we can move north-east. Moving north-east is by far the better move for 2
reasons. First, if the cacodemon persues us, we're in a better position to use
chainfire to end him, because we're starting our chainfiring a turn earlier.
Second, if he doesn't persue us, we can repeat step 3 & 4 until the cacodemon
has died.
Either one's a winner.

6.       
╔══════════╗
║..........║
║..........║
X..........║
║..........║
║....####..║
║....#..#..║
║....####.@║
║...o......║
╚══════════╝
So the cacodemon persues... We begin using chainfire with our chaingun (use
capital F instead of small f), shooting 3 bullets. Ratatat...

7.         
╔═════════╗
║.........║
║.........║
X.........║
║.........║
║...####..║
║...#..#..║
║...####.@║
║...o.....║
╚═════════╝
Then 4 bullets... Rattatata

8.         
╔═════════╗
║.........║
║.........║
X.........║
║.........║
║...####..║
║...#..#..║
║...####.@║
║....o....║
╚═════════╝
And now 6 bullets....Dakkadakkadakka...
It's highly unlikely that a cacodemon is still standing after coming this
close. If a half-decent character (son of a bitch, eagle eye x2, finesse etc) is
using the chaingun, this cacodemon should be dead. However, were it a baron of
hell, we'd probably need to keep firing for a turn or 2. Even then, though, a
mighty baron of hell can't take much of this 6-bullets-per-turn business.






Note that the above examples aren't an exact science. If we're not playing
challenge games, we can vary from scouting with the shotgun to chainfiring with
the chaingun, depending on the situations that present themselves.

There are also plenty of opportunities to change tactics per enemy - if your
marine is a little too slow, the cacodemon might end up in a position where you
can't keep knocking him back our of line-of-sight with your shotgun... Many
situations can arise where the cacodemon is going to be getting a chance to
shoot us, or one of his buddies might show up to spoil our fun. In those
situations, entering running mode is a good idea, to benefit from the dodge
bonus and speed increase in order to hotfoot it out of there.

During fights like these, you need to react to what the enemy is doing, be
ever-wary of when he can and when he can't shoot at you, and remember the
knockback potential of powerful weapons (shotguns and rocket launchers,
mainly). Always consider the option of using 'running mode' and moving away
before you start eating fireballs - you get lots of running throughout the
game, one per staircase, one per health pack, one per health globe - that's
perhaps 4 per level, use or lose em.
When you do use running mode, approach or escape from opponents at a 45-degree
angle, to enjoy the massive benefit of the running mode dodge bonus.

This simple example however, should go to demonstrate how a little bit of
manouvering strategy can turn a blow-for-blow painful gunfight against a hard-
hitting opponent into an incredibly one-sided victory, with a good potential to
actually suffer no damage whatsoever. To set up such positioning, the walk-wait
command, which waits on the spot until a monster comes into view (comma, then
fullstop) is your friend, and this is the reason nightmare difficulty and the
'red alert' challenge are so much harder than ultra violence.
As a final note - just because I gave examples for shotguns and chainguns,
don't discount the unique benefits of the other weapons... A plasmagun is
basically the same as a chaingun, but the rocket launcher is unique in it's
ability to knock targets back even if they are already far away.... It's
amazing how much easier arachnotron-infested cave levels become when you start
using the knockback effects of a rocket. Similarly, the BFG can be a great
weapon to switch to in a time of need. 2 BFG shots will generally clear a third
of the level.




  Armour and dodging............ [ARNG ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The other forms of defense - those that involve enemy bullets being fired...

Be aware that armour slows you down, falls apart like it's made of soggy
tissue, and gives you 1-4 damage reduction (uniques and mods excluded).
Think of your 'running mode' as armour too - pretty strong armour, actually.
Even if you're standing still firing a chaingun, it's absolutely worth using
'running mode' in a gunfight when you're facing a lot of weak bullets hitting
you, like pistols, chainguns, plasma guns, arachnotrons etc - running mode
gives more far severe accuracy penalties to enemies than it does to you.

Running mode also makes you run quickly- faster than a demon, in fact! (very
useful if you're being chased by a demon and need to reload that chaingun).
If you choose between red armour and naked running mode, you're getting a
similar straight-up protection, but moving while running is twice as fast,
gives a large chance to dodge shots, and doesn't lead to armour damage,
for just a -2 to hit on your ranged attacks.
By 'large chance to dodge shots', I mean a *large* chance. Even on the highest
difficulty levels (ultra violence and nightmare), you'll dodge perhaps 75% of
enemy projectiles when you zigzag your running to dodge bullets as you retreat.
This is because running mode has a chance to 'dodge', and an increased chance
for an enemy to 'miss', 2 seperate mechanics than can be combined.

That said, there are many times when armour is important - I generally use an
armour strategy based on what I find, but as a rough guide - put on a suit of
green before entering hell's arena. Give up on green and start on blue when you
start seeing arachnotrons, and switch to red when you start seeing archviles.
Second, consider removing your good suits of armour when you have to slug it
out with knights and barons - their acid attacks destroy your armour incredibly
quickly.

Always keep a backup suit of armour or two - red if possible - for those awful
situations where there's nowhere safe to run and you have to duke it out. If
you're under fire, provided you have a decent chunk of health left, don't
hesitate to change to your strongest armour even if it means eating bullets for
a turn.
It can really pay to have a couple of 'special' pieces of armour for certain
circumstances. A fireproof-modded red armour (find a suit of red armour, find a
bulk mod and a tech mod to put on the armour), will reduce the damage that a
revenant does down to 6% of your hp! Similarly, a ballistic mod applied to a
ballistic vest, duelist armour, or gothic armour, will make pretty much every
enemy you face do only ~2% damage per attack in melee.


Dodging works differently - Basically, an enemy who _misses_ will have their
shot travel right through you without hurting, whereas _dodge_ is a seperate
chance that the enemy shot will target the square you were in last turn, rather
than the one you're in now. Obviously if you haven't moved, or if you moved
directly towards or away from the shooter, of if a blast weapon hits the wall
right behind you, you're going to get hit anyway. If you're trying to dodge
bullets, move in a way that will dodge incoming fire (normally diagonally), and
try to use running mode if you can.



  Gift dropping................. [GING ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
This tactic is an absolute gem. With it, you need never worry about anything
that used to be human, and knights and barons won't be nearly as scary as once
they were....
Once again, an example serves better than just talking about it, so lets go
ahead and try this:

    Tactics example 3............. [TAE3 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Doing level 1 with melee using giftdropping.

Quick note - this example is for a melee-specialist. Take note, though, that
the tactics contained here would be far more effective for a player armed with
a ranged weapon. Ideally, a shotgun will kill emerging enemies without them
even having a chance to use medikits. A pistol-user would be advised to enter
the building and try to snatch the medikits before enemies pick them up,

Since zombies do pathetic damage in melee, we're going to use giftdropping to
complete the first level of the game without being shot at.


1.
╔═══════╗
║#####..║
║....#..║
║....#..║
║....+@.║
║....#..║
║....#..║
║#####..║
╚═══════╝

First of all, with the door closed, we drop a medipack (or perhaps our blue
armour if playing angel of berserk) on the floor outside the door to tempt the
enemies out.

2.
╔═══════╗
║#####..║
║....#..║
║....#..║
║..../+.║
║....#..║
║....#@.║
║#####..║
╚═══════╝

Now we move to the side of and open the door, so that enemies can't see us
until they're standing in the doorway. From this position, we use the walk-on-
the-spot command (pressing comma enters 'walk mode', where the game will ask of
us a direction to keep walking until our marine finds something interesting.
When asked for a walk direction, pressing full-stop tells the character to walk
nowhere - he will stand on the spot and wait a while until something
interesting happens.) Repeat it a lot of times until someone arrives.

3.
╔═══════╗
║#####..║
║....#..║
║....#..║
║....h+.║
║....#..║
║....#@.║
║#####..║
╚═══════╝
Here's the first enemy, who ran out of the room to grab the medikit we dropped!
We could shotgun him for an instant kill, but since this is a melee example,
we'll move north... Former human melee attacks are so pitiful.

4.
╔═══════╗
║#####..║
║....#..║
║....#..║
║....h+.║
║....#@.║
║....#..║
║#####..║
╚═══════╝
And he slaps us for our trouble. If we're really unlucky, our health drops from
100% to 98%. Most of the time, though, he misses. All we have to do now is
destroy his face, then wait for the next one.




Short example, wasn't it? Repeat step 2-4 until the level is cleared (though
you'll often have to switch to a different doorway). Get used to using this
technique. The Alternative is waiting at the very bottom square of the diagram
and either using a shotgun to one-shot the enemies the second they show their
face, or the pistol to attack enemies 2-3 times while they try to walk around
the door.

There are two effective positions to gift-drop in a door.
You can try it in one of the squares behind the door frame, so that monsters
will see it through the doorway, as shown in the example above.
You can also try it directly in the door frame, which has a better chance of
encouraging enemies to come (they have more chance of seeing your item), but
also blocks the door from being closed, and forces you to walk into the doorway
to recover your medikit. This can be dangerous when there are monsters on the
other side of the door who aren't interested in first aid.


Gift-dropping works on any enemy that can use items. That includes former
humans, barons of hell and hell knights. If you employ giftdropping well, you
will normally be left with a ball of imps that are not interested in your
items, and you'll have to deal with them without sneaky traps. :)




  Tagging................. [TANG ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Quite similar to gift dropping, above. Tagging is a method for getting enemies
to come to you, without having to offer them your nice stuff.
Its disadvantage over giftdropping is that you need to expose yourself to an
enemy long enough to attack them (I'm assuming you're not an exhibitionist).
The advantage, though, is that it works on enemies that do not pick up items
(imps, cacodemons, revenants, archviles, mancubi, arachnotrons etc).

Tagging has many applications...
- It becomes incredibly useful in nightmare games, where disposing of enemies
in doorframes so that the corpse is crushed is the only way of actually
getting rid of them for good.
- Learning to use it is also useful for bringing baddies in closer for shotgun
attacks.
- With a good movement speed, it can be used to lure tough enemies like
barons into situations where you can use your running speed to lead them in
circles, attacking them freely whenever you gain distance on them.
- It allows a single pistol bullet to bring a monster into range for a melee
attack, conserving ammo, and allowing you to bring your melee skills
to bear!


However, tagging is one of those tactics that's not as immediately obvious as
the others mentioned in this guide, and situations where tagging is going to
be of benefit are much harder to spot, but since it's a powerful tactic, we'll
go over a few applications here.


    Tactics example 4............. [TAE3 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Tagging for a perfect kill.

1.
╔════════════════╗
║......@........#║
║#+#####+########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝

This looks like a nice opportunity to use a doorway for tagging! lets get
ourselves in that door!

2.
╔════════════════╗
║...............#║
║#+#####@########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
Ok, now we wait on the spot until we see a monster.

3.
╔════════════════╗
║...............#║
║#+#####@########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║...............c║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
That cacodemon can attack us from where he is now. Let's get back around
the corner, then imediately fire our shotgun blind in his direction.


4.
╔════════════════╗
║......@........#║
║#+#####*########║
║........*X......║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
Boom!
We hear the cacodemon scream from taking shotgun damage, so we know we
tagged him. Now we can reload our shotgun, and run back...


5.
╔════════════════╗
║..@............#║
║#/#####/########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
Notice that we're sitting near another doorway and have opened the door.
This is an example of opportunistic strategy in doomrl- it's something
that will come with practice, and it's thinking like this that makes a
good player at doomrl.
(Were there no doorway we would probably be a couple of squares further
to the right- close enough to do high shotgun damage, but not so close
that the cacodemon could attack us from within the doorframe.
Alternatively, we could have activated running mode, got some distance
from the cacodemon, then led him to a more favourable firing position.)
We ensure that our shotgun is loaded, and wait until the cacodemon
comes...

6.
╔════════════════╗
║..@............#║
║#/#####c########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
And here he is! Another shotgun blast will aggravate him even more,
then we can run into the nearby doorframe...

7.
╔════════════════╗
║....c..........#║
║#@#####/########║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
║................║
╚════════════════╝
We've been here before... The cacodemon is a goner!






  Re-architecture............... [RERE ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
This is a trick that doesn't get as widely discussed or used as the two above,
but it is an incredibly useful and powerful technique to master. It requires a
rocket launcher.

Re-architecture is directly related to how proficient in the above tactics a
player is. It's useless to a new player, but to someone who has a good
understanding or 'feel' for the tactical aspects of doomRL (knockback, corner
shooting, enemies congregating to the center of a floor, giftdropping, tagging
etc), it's invaluable.

Many players will cite 'passive defense' or 'active defense' as the strategy to
turn to when there is no option of using 'tactical defense'. Re-architecture is
basically the method of *making* an option to use tactical defense. It's being
pro-active about pro-active defense!

The idea is incredibly simple, but so often disregarded - you just remodel the
level you're on to give yourself an incredible firing position. Typically
you'll want this firing position to be *just* out of combat shotgun range from
the centre of the level (that is, the dead-centre of the level is 4-5 squares
out of your line-of-sight.) You also want this firing position to be of a type
that will allow you to kill anything up to a baron without it being able to get
close enough to shoot you.
Again, let's break out the examples. This time, we're not doing hypothetical,
and instead I'm picking a real level to demonstrate on:



    Tactics example 5............. [TAE5 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Sculpting a real level to fight an arch-vile and his friends.

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║############################################################║ 
║#...............................=..............|;..#.......#║ 
║########+#######+#######.###.=====###=######+###+###.......#║ 
║#...|........................======.=....#.........#.......#║ 
║#.......>....................=====.=.....#......+..#.......#║ 
║#...........0..===..........i..==........#........;#.......#║ 
║#.......0.....=====.......i..}==...................#.......#║ 
║#.....0.......===.=...i.R.h........................#.......#║ 
║#..........}..=====.....h......h...................#....0..#║ 
║#..............===.....Vihh.hAB........../.................#║ 
║##+#########=====##..#####o==#/#######################/#####║ 
║#.......%...=====....A...i==B=......................@......#║ 
║#...........=====}...==.R.====.....................#.....&.#║ 
║#............===..=..=.....==.0.........O;........./.......#║ 
║#....[....=.......===|........}....................#.......#║ 
║#.........==.....==..}.....|..|....................#.......#║ 
║########+#==#######=#######+######+#######+######+##......0#║ 
║#..|.....===.+....=................................#.......#║ 
║#..................................................#.......#║
║############################################################║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
After waiting a few hundred turns, open levels will usually end up looking
something like this. A big ball of monsters in the centre of the map.
Most levels have more walls than this, but that makes this tactic more
effective - the more walls you've got, the more material you've got to make
your fire-base out of.

Ok, so looking at the above picture.... It's a pretty good example of one of
those rare levels where there's no way of attacking the monsters without
risking return fire. That is, there's no opportunity to use tactical
defense....
Ok, we're on the right of the level, in the bottom-right room of the map.
Now see those boots (the semicolon) a little to our left? We'll be firing
our rocket launcher somewhere above those boots, then standing in a
sweetspot... Like so...

╔════════════╗
║............║
║......./....║
║#######X####║
║............║
║............║
║......O;....║
╚════════════╝
X marks the spot.

╔════════════╗
║............║
║......./....║
║######...###║
║............║
║............║
║......O;....║
╚════════════╝
Lawenilothehl

╔════════════╗
║............║
║......./....║
║######.@.###║
║............║
║............║
║......O;....║
╚════════════╝
And now we've potitioned ourselves nicely. We can fire a shotgun off to the
left, and fully expect it to start hurting the monsters that have gathered
there. When a monsters show up, he will usually be in a position where he
can't fire back...
╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║############################################################║ 
║#                               =              |;  #       #║ 
║########+#######+####### ### =====###=######+###+###       #║ 
║#   |                        ====== =   .#.        #       #║ 
║#       >                    ===== =  ...#...   +  #       #║ 
║#           0  ===             ==    ....#....    ;#       #║ 
║#       0     =====          }==    ...........    #       #║ 
║#     0       === =                .............   #       #║ 
║#          }  =====                .............   #    0  #║ 
║#              ===                .B...../.......          #║ 
║##+#########=====##  ##### ==#/#########.@.###########/#####║ 
║#       %   =====         == =    ...............          #║ 
║#           =====}   ==   ====     .............   #     & #║ 
║#            ===  =  =     == 0    .....O;......   /       #║ 
║#    [    =       ===|        }     ...........    #       #║ 
║#         ==     ==  }     |  |      .........     #       #║ 
║########+#==#######=#######+######+#######+######+##      0#║ 
║#  |     === +    =                                #       #║ 
║#                                                  #       #║
║############################################################║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

For example, take this baron of hell. He's dead-meat, and hasn't got a chance
of walking up close enough to us before we've shot him to pieces.

Sometimes, of course, enemies will approach without standing next to the wall,
and in those cases, once again, play it as you see it... Is the monster nearly
dead? Can you survive a salvo off them? Is your inventory full but healthpacks
are lying on the floor? Can you run south-east and wait for the monster to lose
interest in you?

Complications or not, the fact remains that we can re-sculpt levels to our
advantage, and this makes the rocket launcher one of the most useful tools in
the game.





  Corpse Disposal............... [COAL ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
(This is a section for more advanced players, and is not necessary for your
first few victories, so feel free to skip it and go play! In fact, with all
the tools mentioned above, you're already capable of beating the lower
difficulties of doomrl without much trouble, so go get'em tiger!)

Disposing of corpses is actually a surprisingly necessary duty of our marine.
This is obvious to anyone who has played on the 'nightmare' skill level or the
'angel of darkness' challenge, but when such players go back to easier
difficulties, they find these skills essential for fighting the dreaded
arch-vile. This is because arch-viles, or nightmare difficulty, cause corpses
to come back to life!

Corpses can be destroyed with area-effect weaponry. In the first few levels,
before the arena, exploding barrels can be used. However, The rocket launcher
is usually the first real tool a player finds to destroy corpses, but often
causes as many problems as it solves as it destroy walls so aggressively. A
few rare weapons, and very notably two assemblies, can destroy corpses without
doing massive damage to the level walls. Unfortunately, demolition ammo
requires a (rare) firestorm modpack, and plasmatic shrapnel requires a (rare)
sniper modpack (see the assemblies section, later, for more details). The
rarity of these items means we can expect to be playing most of our later
games without being able to destroy corpses easily.

However, we need not destroy corpses! We can sink them, melt them, burn them,
or even crush them in a door! There are ways of getting the level to do
corpse disposal for us! Basically, corpses cannot be generated on water, acid,
lava, or an open door.

Knowing this, corpse disposal methods are obvious - either kill enemies as they
traverse water, kill them in a doorway (giftdropping works well here), knock
them back into acid/lava, or even push a barrel of napalm or acid on top of a
pile of corpses and destroy it.

Thirdly, a monster that dies on top of a pre-existing corpse will squash the
corpse, replacing it with his own. We can use this to our advantage. For
example, after killing a baron, we can stand on his corpse (preventing it from
rising) and wait for a former human to arrive. We can then lead the former
human on to the corpse of the baron, then kill him. This leaves us with a
former human corpse, that we can stand on or lead to a doorway as befits the
current situation.

Standing on a corpse prevents regeneration. Make no mistake, this can be
exploited to clear entire levels from a safe firing position, even when there
are no doorways or water nearby. You'll be amazed at how many seemingly
impossible nightmare levels, that you would otherwise skip, can be cleared
simply by standing on corpses. Plus, just imagine standing with one boot on
an ever-growing pile of hellspawn! Oh, I could do this all day!

When the level is cleared of roaming monsters, just take your foot off that
single, last monster, and either rocket his corpse, barrel the corpse, or let
him resurrect and lead him to some water/acid/doorway.

 

Finally, remember that when an arch-vile resurrects it's friends, or when
nightmare enemies regenerate, they will stand still for the 4 turns it takes
them to rise. Take advantage of these 4 turns by shooting the creature
until it is 'mortally wounded' or 'almost dead'. When the creature is so
near to death, you can get out of it's line of fire, wait until it treads on
top of another corpse, water, or a door frame, then finish it off. This
4-seconds grace period also makes tagging such enemies quite painless, which
is good for leading them into chokepoints.

« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 01:28 by Sylph »
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2

Brickman

  • Lance Corporal
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 28
  • Lost Soul
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2019, 21:28 »

Is that info on corner shooting actually correct? My experience is different. For instance, in "tactics example 1" in picture 7, where the cacodemon is a knight's move away, I don't think it can attack this turn (even if you did something with no knockback). And I believe if your positions were reversed it COULD attack, even though the line isn't any more straight.

Tactics example 2 also looks surprising. I would not expect to be safe in the positions you call safe, but I haven't actually tried.

Oh also, your guide cuts off at the start of tactics example 6. Was that an accident or were you planning to post it in chunks?
Logged

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2019, 01:29 »

Code: [Select]
    Tactics example 6............. [TAE6 ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Corpse disposal...
I'm gonna do this example mainly with pictures, because it's more of an
storyboard example of how you can clear a large volume of monsters,
efficiently desposing of their corpses, than it is a single specific idea.
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║CornerAmbush║║imp dies    ║║waiting     ║║tagging     ║║CornerAmbush║
║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║..@.........║║..@.........║║............║║............║║..@.........║
║.i####+#####║║.%####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.h####+#####║
║...........%║║...........%║║...........%║║...........%║║...........%║
║.........%..║║.........%..║║........h...║║.......-*...║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║r human dies║║waiting     ║║tagging     ║║            ║║e demon dies║
║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║..@.........║║............║║............║║..@.........║║..@.........║
║.%####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.c####+#####║║.%####+#####║
║...........%║║............║║............║║............║║............║
║............║║........c...║║.......-*...║║............║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║waiting     ║║rdy shotgun ║║keep shoot'n║║(nearly dead║║Rdy Chainsaw║
║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║............║║............║║............║║............║║..@.........║
║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.B####+#####║
║....B.......║║...B........║║....B.......║║...B........║║............║
║............║║............║║............║║............║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║of hell dies║║waiting     ║║tagging     ║║            ║║r human dies║
║..===......#║║.===....h..#║║.===...-*..#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║..@.........║║............║║............║║............║║............║
║.%####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.@####+#####║║.h####+#####║║.%####+#####║
║............║║............║║............║║..@.........║║..@.........║
║............║║............║║............║║............║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║retreat     ║║drop medpack║║wait        ║║round corner║║wait        ║
║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║............║║............║║....h.......║║............║║............║
║.%####/#####║║.%####@#####║║..####@#####║║..####+#####║║..####h#####║
║.....@......║║............║║............║║...@........║║...@........║
║............║║............║║............║║............║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗
║r human dies║║wait        ║║ReadyShotgun║║wait 1 turn ║║knockback   ║
║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║║..===......#║
║............║║....h.......║║....h.......║║.....h......║║.....*......║
║..####*#####║║..####@#####║║..####@#####║║..####@#####║║..####@#####║
║...@........║║............║║............║║............║║............║
║............║║............║║............║║............║║............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝

As we can see, corpses can be stacked until the level is nearly
empty, then the last 1-2 can be disposed of using doorframes, liquids
on the floor, or explosives.




  Firing through Doorframes..... [FIES ]   
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
This is a bit of a strange one, but can be very useful. If we tell our
character to fire a non-shotgun weapon at an open door, he tends to make sure
that his shot travels through the door without hitting the walls around it.
While we can't usually see what's on the other side of the door, have faith
that the bullet is flying in there.
If we aim directly for the open door, here is and example of the shot
trajectories (represented with 'o' characters)
╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔════════════╗╔═════════════╗
║............║║............║║............║║.............║
║.......o@...║║.......oo@..║║.......ooo@.║║.......ooooo@║
║######o#####║║######o#####║║######o#####║║######o######║
║....oo......║║...ooo......║║..oooo......║║oooooo.......║
║..oo........║║ooo.........║║oo..........║║.............║
╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚════════════╝╚═════════════╝
As you can see, we get some pretty wierd shot trajectories.






Game features                    [GAES ]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Now that we've covered basic tactics, the main thrust of this guide is complete
- the basic way of 'playing' doomRL is covered, and as such, we'll move on to
content...


  Special levels................ [SPLS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Every few floors, you'll find a level that has *2* exits. One of the exits will
be red, which signifies that it leads to a special level. Usually, special
levels are 'twinned', meaning the game flips a coin, and picks out of 2
levels to give you. Usually, these levels are similar in theme and rewards,
but different in layout and tactics. The first 2 special levels, though, are
exceptions. The arena's twin is so similar to the arena, it's still called
the arena (and the only difference is the shape of the obstacles to hide
behind, although this does demand different tactics). The second special level,
the chained court / Chained court +, is selected depending on whether or not
you finished the arena previously. The vaults is also an exception, in that it
is not twinned at all.




Hell's arena
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
An exercise in the above tactics. If you're an angel of berserk, don't enter it!
Hell's arena is an open level with a number of obstacles scattered ramdomly
throughout. It spawns demons and cacodemons, and asks if you want to continue
after every 5-10 monsters, for 3 waves in total. Clearing the arena is all about
knowing the fundamentals of doomrl strategy, most of all using cover.

The arena rewards the player with a large medikit, blue armour, rocket launcher,
and supercharge globe, for completion. Notably, just clearing the first 2 waves,
then selecting 'no' when asked to continue, will reward the player with a
large medikit and a small medikit, which can be a useful way of tackling the
(much easier) chained court, while still getting some reward for the arena.

On nightmare, tackling the arena hinges on a player's ability to keep corpses
under control. The arena isn't particularly difficult if a player ensures that
every demon dies on the corpse of the last creature slain, and every cacodemon
destroys the corpse of the last creature slain with his fireballs. This is
somewhat easy, as far as nightmare challenges are concerned, but it's worth
being cautious about whether to fight the final wave, not because of the
difficulty, but because of the implications when tackling the chained court.


The chained court:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

More recent versions of doomrl updated the chained court to adjust itself when
the player has already cleared the arena, so take note that there are two
versions of this level that I will guide on seperately...

Easy chained court (arena not completed):
The 'classic' chained court spawns the player next to a chainsaw and 4 berserk
packs. Don't instantly collect these!
To the left and right are doors, and behind those doors are 2 somewhat open
areas, one to the left and one to the right. These areas contain former humans,
'cages' that house barons of hell/cacodemons, a lever to open the 'cage', and
an enclosed 'exit room'.
If the cage to the left and the right of the starting area are both opened, the
starting area itself will open it's upper and lower walls, revealing more
former humans, and a few modpacks.

The most important thing in this level is the chainsaw. The second-most
important are probably the modpacks. The berserk packs can be extremely useful
for the next few levels.

There are as many different ways of tackling the 'easy' chained court as there
are players, but the method I'll go over here can cover all difficulty levels
(including nightmare), will get you most of the berserk packs to take into the
next level (we'll use 1 or 2), will collect bath the modpacks, and will kill all
monsters:
If entering the level on >100% health, remove any good armour (just use green)
and head to the left, gunning down former humans. Activate a lever and kill the
baron that spawns (trying to activate the second lever while he attacks you is
risky and you will probably need medpacks to do it). Now that he's dead,
activate the second lever, then attack the second baron. If he knocks you back
to the limits of his sight range, then just activate running mode and run
(zigzagging) away from him (back into the starting room).

From the starting room (again), collect the chainsaw (to activate berserk) and
head to the right. We want to switch the lever, then get to the upper-right
corner as fast as possible, but 2 barons will be attacking us (and knocking us
back). This time, we want to hit the lever, and if we have a high-damage build,
kill both barons. For a high-speed build, run past them (you might need a
medpack if you try to run past them without dodgemaster).

At the top-right, clear the stairs room, then use the doorway here as a safe
firing position. Killing formers, weakening barons and tagging resurrecting
formers as they get up, before disposing of them all in the doorway. You should
be able to clear the entire level from here without taking any serious damage.
When finished, collect the modpacks, collect your share of ammo, then collect 4
berserk packs and run *fast* to the exit to enjoy a few levels of berserk!


Chained court +
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
This level had me stumped for perhaps longer than any other. The player starts
in a room similar to the start room of the 'easy' chained court, above, but
there are only 2 berserk packs and a chainsaw in this one. To the right of the
start room are a few former humans. North and south of the start room are 2
barons apeice (4 in total), and to the left is a large open area, a lot of
former humans, and the arena master (an arch-vile with enhanced stats). Since
the arch vile resurrects corpses, and since any attempt to defend the start room
is usually met with visitors (barons) coming through it from the other side,
there is no safe door shooting to be done.
If a player lets the barons start to wander, they will inevitably destroy the
walls to the start room, destroy the berserk packs, or seriously damage the
player (depending on how the player attempts to tackle them), and if they die
they can be resurrected by the arena master. Ultimately, you'll find that this
level is actually very easy once the barons are all dead and their corpses
destroyed, so consider that your top priority.

Strategies for the chained court + usually hinge on utilising the doorways until
they are no longer safe, then looping around the start room, but recently I
finally found a strategy that works for most character builds, without using
more than a single medpack.
Since you tackled the arena to unlock this level, you will undoubtedly have a
rocket launcher. From the start room, immediately pick up the chainsaw (you
don't want it destroyed), then move yourself into the bottom-left doorway, and
hit the top-left wall tile of the start room with a rocket. This will reveal the
top 2 barons, which you can easily dispatch while your berserk powerup is active.
When they are dead, take up a corner firing position to the north of the start
room, where the barons were, and rocket the south-west corner to blow open the
bottom of the start room. You can use corner-shooting to safely dispatch the 2
barons down there, stacking their corpses where possible.

Next, dispose of the baron corpses with more rockets, if it's safe to do so
without destroying the remaining berserk packs, then use what little wall is
left to fight off the horde of former humans (this part is easy).
Disposing of their corpses is of benefit, but not strictly necessary.
Eventually, the  bodies of the dead formers will start to be resurrected by the
arena master. At this point walk over to and collect one of the berserk packs,
then walk to the left, and dispose of the arena master either with a rocket
launcher (uses lots of rockets), by rocket-jumping to melee range and finishing
him with the chainsaw (uses 1-2 medpacks), or with a highly damaging weapon
if you're lucky enough to have any decent cover left. Dispose of the remaining
former humans, use arena staff and rockets for corpse disposal, and collect
rewards.
Note that the arena master's staff is a highly useful item, particularly for
technicians. If your character is a technician, this item should be used almost
every time you use running mode. Note that the staff tired you out, but can be
used while already in running mode! Running mode lasts for 30 turns, and the
arena staff can be used on the 30th turn of running mode, where you would be
going to 'tired' anyway, for absolutely free damage to multiple targets.
Technicians only take 0.1s to use it, too!




Alternatively, my old strategy:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Hard chained court (Arena completed):
This is probably the player's greatest challenge in the game so far. Our
little guy starts in a room with 4 doors, a chainsaw and 2 berserk packs.
Outside of the room is a horde of former humans. Directly above and
below the starting room are barons of hell, and to the far left of the
level is a special arch vile.
Tackling this level head-on is a recipe for disaster on higher skill levels.
The arch vile, former humans, and barons will destroy a player that tries a
berserk charge, and if the player stays in the safety of his starting room,
he will be overwhelmed by baron and vile fire while the walls of the room get
destroyed.
Instead, begin by picking up the chainsaw and a single berserk pack. Move to
the right of the level, taking out the former humans at range. Now move south
(walking through lava will do almost no damage to you while berserked, and
speed is important here), and 'tag' the two barons with attacks. Have them
follow you to the right of the level, at least as far as the small lava pools,
before destroying them with a berserk chainsaw, or ideally, knocking them into
the lava with a shotgun.
After this is done, move north and repeat the process with the top 2 barons. If
you're lucky, neither of the barons have decided to wander to the left of the
level, and you can take them out.
This baron-hunting is done so that the baron's bodies are too far from the arch
vile to get resurrected, and it's highly important on higher difficulties.
Trying to deal with the barons after they have migrated to the left of the
level is tricky because they have a tendancy to destroy the walls and doors of
the starting room, which makes the rest of the strategy pretty much impossible.
Now that the barons are dead, move back into the starting area, use the last
berserk if you're too low on health (below 50% or so), and go and stand close to
the leftmost doors. Wait on the spot until someone opens a door, at which point
you'll want to 'tag' a former human with a weak shot, then wait until they walk
into the doorframe. Once they've walked into the doorframe, use a shotgun to
knock them into the lava. No corpse: No resurrection.
As soon as you've lava-bathed your first human, open both doors, to prevent them
from being destroyed by any AOE attacks, and try to repeat this 'tagging and
bathing' activity with the rest of the humans from the left.
If you're unlucky enough to have a baron survive, then use the same basic
principle, but once you have knocked them into the lava, close the door. The
stupid baron AI will sit in the lava, fighting with you to open the door, until
it dies.
At some point, the arena master will come knocking. When he does, you'll want
to get him into a knockback loop with a shotgun while he's 2-3 squares away. If
he comes closer, knock him in the lava and close the door for 20 turns or so.
This is unlikely to kill him, but it will injure him without him having much of
a chance to attack you. Also note that the arena master actually does a lot of
damage to himself when he attacks you at close range, but not melee.


Phobos Lab
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
If you get phobos lab, you've just lost a coin toss! Military base typically
has equal or better rewards and is a lot easier!
Phobos lab consists of 3 main 'parts', so I'll break it down:
Part 1 - drowning demons.
You begin phobos lab standing on a small island next to 2 small medpacks. You
will need both of them to do this level properly, so pick them up.
Fight your way north, open a door, and you'll see a large room with a lot of
acid in the middle of it. This expanse of acid is what you'll be using to drown
the (nightmare) demons that lurk bayond the north door of this area.


The wall
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Backpack is on left-centre, so don't blow it up with blind firing.
Shoot through the wall with rockets, then prepare to fight some terrifying
enemies, including arch-viles on high skill levels. Also, sculpting a 'niche'
on the right can work well....

###########################################################
#############.........##.....##############################
...........................................................
...........................................................
...........................................................
............B........1.....................................
...........2.########.@....................................
.............#########....................................
........V...B#########.....................................
...........B.#########.....................................
.......B..B.B#########.....................................
....B.....B..#########.....................................
..B...V..BB.B#########.....................................
........B..BB#########.....................................

The idea here is to creep into position 1 and wait on the spot until a monster
shows up somewhere around position 2. When you see one, shoot him once to get
his attention, then fall back to the 'niche' position shown as @ in the diagram
above, and finish said monster as he walks towards you.

Containment Area
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯



Halls of Carnage
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Always visit here, it's a free supercharge and BFG. Save the
supercharge at the start of the level for later - there are two more inside.
Left side of the level has shotgun guys, easy to deal with, particularly with
liberal use of wait command and gift-dropping.
Middle-Right side of the level has 3 locked doors, loads of cacodemons + lost
souls, and a lava river with a supercharge in it.
Far right of level is a load of concentric squares containing demons,
cacodemons, hell knights, and barons of hell, with a supercharge on the far far
right, and a BFG in the middle.

Hell's Armory - With a lot of patience and hiding round corners, this level can
easily be completed without ever being shot at. Contains arachnotrons on the
far-right. Always spawns 4 random (possible unique) weapons, 8 suits of
assorted blue & green armour, 3 mod packs, and loads of ammo.

Unholy Cathedral - Avoid unless you're playing a melee game, have the chainsaw
and 'berserker' trait, and have some decent armour. If you have those, then if
you're tough enough, run straight past lost souls and demons heading right
(you'll take perhaps 150% health and armour damage - trust me, it's worth it to
ignore them and keep running.)
While still in the demon's room in front of double-doors, go to running mode
and start hitting demons and lost souls until you berserk. The second you
berserk, slip on your strongest armour, use a medipack for full-health, then
open the door to the right and fight the angel of death. If you don't have
berserk or if it wears off, he'll decimate you - about 70% health per turn if
you're not wearing armour. If you fail to berserk after fighting all those lost
souls and demons, then just leave, you don't have a chance. With berserk, and a
suit of red armour, the angel of death will do far, far less damage to you
(about 13% per turn), and you'll kill him relatively quickly with a berserk
chainsaw - perhaps only 2-3 large medikits and a couple of suits of armour.


City of Skulls - Don't flick the lever! Blow up some walls to find lost souls
and pain elementals. After clearing them all, on higher difficulties the level
will be swarmed with pain elementals - be ready, near the stairs, with some
area weaponry. Best tactic is to *carefully* stand on the stairs down and
rocket the north-east room's nearest corner, because it has a BFG inside...
Then either leave, or get to work on the other rooms, saving the one nearest
the stairs for last, so that you're ready to run away if the sudden, final
elemental swarm overwhelms you.
This is possible for an angel of shotgunnery brave enough to hit the lever,
provided he's carrying plenty of shotguns with him - I'd advise a couple of
doubles for clearing the swarm, at least 2 combat shotguns so that no time is
wasted reloading, and a standard shotgun if he's using the 'juggler' trait,
just for that slight extra spread shot when it's needed.
An angel of berserk who picked the 'vampyre' trait should remove his armour,
hit the lever, then have some fun - see how many levels your berserk lasts for
after you're finished eating a few hundred lost souls!
As for angels of marksmanship - don't even bother! Not a chance!

The Vaults - Rocket your way into the left and right side (far left wall of the
right vault, bottom-right wall of the left vault). The center requires a phase
device to get in, and I'd advise using the phase device the instant you enter
the level (so that the monsters are still waking up), or doing it under
invincibility - there's mancubi in there.

Spider's Lair - can be nasty, but never too bad – I used to just run straight
for the north-east teleporter, then move to the top of a barricade and arm the
rocket launcher. However, a recent tip on the forums revealed a new way of
tackling the spider’s lair – enter the level with a BFG in your hands. 2 shots
on a teleporter will destroy 3 of the teleporters. Walk through the fourth,
remaining teleporter, and you can proceed to camp it’s destination tile,
waiting for spiders to come through one-at-a-time.

The Lava Pits - Is this worth saving 2 environment suits for? Depends how slim
pickings have been in your game - basically lets you trade envirosuits for
armour, boots, and experience. Don't count on getting anything more than a few
pairs of shoes, though.

The Mortuary - Make no mistake, the mortuary is probably the hardest level in
the entire game, but if your character is capable of doing it without using up
all his medpacks, you should go for it - there are at least 6 suits of red
armour in there, as well as mod kits, supercharges, an assault shotgun, a
nuclear BFG, and a protection:7 suit of armour.
If you don't want to risk your life for all those rewards, you can just trade
your homing phase device for a supercharge, perhaps a mod pack, and a couple of
suits of red, by entering the level, picking stuff up, then leaving via homing
phase device.
If you want to clear it, make sure you have a BFG, and having a homing phase
device for when things ultimately go wrong is a good idea. You'll also want 3-4
suits of red and 4-5 large medikits to withstand the beating you're about to
receive.
The basic situation in the mortuary is you, standing in the center of the level
with a few small walls around you (similar to the 'monsters appear from
everywhere' levels), but around the level are a few hundred corpses on the
ground, and 5+ arch-viles to resurrect them all.
There are two effective strategies for clearing the mortuary. The first, and
most frequently advised, is to use a homing phase device to take you instantly
to one of the level exits in the corner, then corner-shoot everything coming
for you until there's nothing left. The trouble with this strategy is the fact
that the arch viles will keep resurrecting monsters, but the viles themselves
wont be very inclined to come meet you - you'll end up running out of
ammunition shooting at them. This is particularly problematic in version
0.9.9.1, where the BFG cannot be fired further than the player can see.
The second strategy I find effective is entering the mortuary with a fearsome
ranged attack, and taking the viles and their minions from the starting,
central room, ideally killing them before they come into vision (firing into
the blackness). The plus point of this strategy is that the arch viles will
come to you, instead of just hanging back resurrecting. The downside is that
everything on the level that they summon will also come to get you.
Out of the two strategies, I tend to prefer the second strategy if my character
has the 'ammochain' or 'intuition 2' traits. I will also use the second
strategy if my character is using shotguns and has plenty of shells and guns.
This is because, for obvious reasons; shotguns, ammochain, and intuition are
all adept at shooting into areas you can't see, with the hopes of killing
archviles.
The first of the strategies is more popular in the doomRL community, but I have
more trouble pulling it off. Monsters tend to either get resurrected so quickly
that they overrun my corner position, or I manage to hold them off, but can't
make any ground against them, can't kill the archviles, and end up running out
of ammo, healthpacks, or armour, leaving the level.

Phobos Arena - A fight with the cyberdemon. He has to reload after every shot
he takes at you, so dodge his rockets, then shoot him while he reloads.
There are, of course, other approaches - ammochain characters can just fire
plasmagun fire non-stop until he dies (takes a few medikits), intuition 2
characters can use phase devices to fight the cyberdemon without him every
having a chance to see you, characters with the 'dodgemaster' feat basically
have a free win against the cyberdemon, since you have a gauranteed dodge
against his rockets, and can shoot him while he reloads. Finally, nuking him is
a viable option for a 'partial win' (since it kills you too). If you nuke him
and survive, then you have to go on to fight JC, and it doesn't count as any
kind of a win unless you defeat JC too.



  items......................... [ITMS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯

    Weapons..................... [WENS ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Pistol
¯¯¯¯¯¯
The pistol is a surprisingly effective weapon considering it's weakness in ID
software's Doom. In the very early game, it is more effective than the shotgun
when firing at long-range against single targets.
It makes use of 10mm ammo, but unlike the chaingun, actually rolls 2 damage
dice to determine damage done. This means the pistol fires 10mm bullets at a
much higher power than the chaingun, getting more damage dealt per bullet
fired, but at less damage per second spent firing.
For most characters, the chaingun is a much better platform to fire 10mm ammo
from, but if a player takes relevant pistol traits, or finds a unique pistol,
it can be a formiddable weapon.
As an extra point - note that traits probably make more difference to the
pistol than any other weapon - with a typical handful of traits a pistol user
can fire twice as many bullets per shot, for free (whenever he dodges), and get
a free reload whenever an enemy is killed.
There is a large number of special pistols in the game, giving you a pretty
strong chance of discovering one if you're making a pistol-based character. The
only surprise I'll spoil involves 'trigun' - it's alternate reload, 'angel arm'
will nuke the current level, and kill you, if you're not invulnerable.

Shotgun
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Never misses, spreads out, hits multiple targets, but gets weaker at longer
range, and the player has to spend a great deal of turns putting shells into
the thing.
The shotgun is an exceptionally useful weapon for 'firing blind', that is, when
you feel there may be an enemy in a room, simply firing shotgun shells into an
area out of your vision and listening for screams.
Note that the shotgun is prone to a few strange quirks when aiming tactically -
The standard shotgun is good for corner-shooting provided your character is on
the right, and the bullets are travelling left.

Combat knife
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
 - More powerful melee attack, but melee is still only worth it for berserker
characters. Can be thrown 4 squares to destroy barrels in angel of berserk, or
to get monster attention.

Combat shotgun
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
A slightly more rifled shotgun (better at long range, less spread), with a
unique feature - 4 'quick reloads' per fight. These mean reloading extremely
quickly, or reloading for free automatically when moving. After 4 quick
reloads, you can't do any more until you manually pump shells back into the
thing, taking a turn per shell as normal for a shotgun.
The combat shotgun is not particularly suitable for firing around corners, it's
rifled shots do not follow the standard projectile rules for corner-shooting,
so you often have to position yourself further away from a corner in order to
fire around it. On the plus side, given it's range and spread, it can still be
highly useful to use the protection of a corner to blind fire a combat shotgun
at enemies you cannot see.

Double shotgun
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Rubbish at range, incredible up-close, but still not too good against strong
enemy armour. Overall great for it's ability to knock targets back, setting up
great corner knockback tricks etc.
Unlike the other shotguns, the double shotgun is generally good for all corner
firing.

Chaingun
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Excellent ranged weapon. The chaingun is effectively your 'sniper rifle'. It is
excellent for firing around corners, clearing a coridoor of enemies while you
remain safe and out of sight. It's poor against well-armoured opponents, but
mods or traits can help alleviate this flaw.

Rocket launcher
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Powerful, massive area of effect, and very strong knockback make this weapon
quite safe to use in the open against a big horde of monsters. When using, be
wary of the fact that items on the ground will be destroyed - you'll kill the
enemy swarm, but won't get any ammo for doing so.
The rocket launcher is probably best used for fighting arch-viles and their
minions. When you hear an arch vile, if you can't take it down outside of
direct combat, then rather than going headfirst into a battle with it, it's a
better idea to use the rocket launchers from a fairly long range - blow up some
walls, and pound rockets until you hear an arch-vile death scream. The area
effect of the weapon means that resurrected minions will be killed while you're
still hurting the arch vile.

Plasmagun
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Much, much more powerful chaingun, with limited ammo and armour-penetrating
bonus. This is probably the most effective single-target weapon in the game,
and it's worth saving some cells for tricky situations against tough opponents.
Note that although it functions much like a chaingun, the plasmagun is much
more powerful, and does not share the weakness to armoured opponents that the
chaingun does.
With appropriate traits (ammochain), the plasma gun also becomes the most
powerful of your weapons, capable of killing an arachnotron or a hell knight in
a single turn of firing.

BFG
¯¯¯
Like a really, really big rocket launcher, that can fire more than one shot
before it needs to reload. Incredible weapon, and pinpoint accurate to your
cursor. Bulk mods are also great on a BFG. The bfg lets out one massive
explosion when it hits a target.

Chainsaw
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Surprisingly big damage, and powerful armour-piercing weapon.

    Mods........................ [MODS ]
    ¯¯¯¯
Mods are added to your equipment to make it work better. Weapons and armour
can receive a single modpack each, and each level of The whizkid trait allows
the player to put 2 additional mods on a weapon or armour.
Unique items usually cannot be modded, but technicians are capable of modding
a few.

Armour cannot take more than 1 of the same mod type, and a weapon can't take
more than 3 of the same type - you can't put 2 bulk (for 300%) or 2 power (for
8 defense) on that red armour, but with whizkid you *can* use 1 bulk and 1
power (for 200%, 6-defense)!

Agility mod -
  Agility mods are vital for ammochain characters, since they can't take eagle   
  eye, but desperately need weapon accuracy. Best candidates are the chaingun
  early-on, the plasmagun, and the rocket launcher. For other characters,
  agility mods can still be of great use - put them on your boots to run more
  quickly! Also note than any pistol-user than does not take eagle eye will
  gain a huge benefit from agility mods on their weaponry.
Power mod -
  Great for pistols to go towards knockback (you'll need traits, too, though).
  Good for chain/plasma guns to help pierce armour and give extra damage per
  shot.
  Probably best, though, on red armour - red armour with a power mod gives a
  massive -6 reduction in damage taken per shot (for most characters, this
  means 12% health saved per bullet). In angel of max carnage, power mods on
  weapons become more desirable, since it's a flat +1 damage.
Tech mod -
  This usually gives more damage/second than a power mod when applied to a
  weapon. However, this quickly slopes off on many weapons when you consider
  enemy armour. Best used on a weapon that has no trouble against armour
  (plasmagun, rocket launcher, BFG, and Army-of-the-dead shotgun). A complete
  and utter waste on armour - knockback is actually your friend - it often
  saves you from dying in a mancubus/revenant ambush, and the 'rocket jump'
  ability is more effective if you don't techmod your armour.
  All-in-all, tech mods are usually the best mods to put on to weapons to
  increase their combat potential (outside of sniper or firestorm).
Bulk mod -
  Possibly the most useful mod - I tend towards red armour as the first
  Recipient of a bulk mod, but you may prefer a BFG first - it gets an extra
  shot before reloading and better cell carrying capacity. Bulk mods help your
  red armour - it effectively triples the lifespan of red armour.(200%, but
  armour still degrades at 50%, so bulk gives 150% full-strength red, instead
  of only 50%).
  Also good on rocket launchers and double shotguns, since you spend more time
  reloading than you do firing with those weapons.
  For melee weapons, bulk mods are always much better than power mods. That's
  just the way the maths works out for the chainsaw and combat knife.

Rare mods -
  Firestorm mods increase the number of shots a rapidfire weapon fires by 2,
  or increases the blast area of an explosive weapon. Sniper mods remove the
  accuracy penalty for firing at long range / at a location you can't see (for
  1 or 2 sniper mods, respectively), onyx modpacks make a suit of armour
  indestructible, and nano modpacks make the item regenerate ammo/durability.

    Assemblies................. [ASES ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                                                                             ║
║     ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯      ║
║                         Quick reference (assemblies)                        ║
║                         ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                        ║
║This quick reference is for you to glance over while you look at your        ║
║build/modpacks, trying to decide. Each category is ordered based on the most ║
║useful assemblies for the appropriate character. For instance, a highpower   ║
║pistol is far weaker than a storm bolter pistol, but it's ability to be      ║
║created early in the game, be built without taking whizkid, and knock targets║
║back are massively important to pistol using characters. Likewise, burst     ║
║weapons on rapidfire weapons are great, but the gatling gun is almost        ║
║universally useful to rapidfirers.                                           ║
║                                                                             ║
║    Pistol      |   Rapidfire:       |    Shotgun        |    Melee          ║
║HighPower    PB | Burst          PBB | Focus Double  PAT | ChainSword**   PB ║
║Demolition PTTF | Gatling gun**   BB | Plasmatic      PS | piercing Bl    AP ║
║StormBolter TBB | Hyperblaster** ATT | Elephant**     PP | Ripper**     TPPB ║
║Speedloader  AT | AssaultRifle   AAA | Aslt Shotgun   PT | DoubleChain** PPB ║
║Energy      PPT |                                                            ║
║                                                                             ║
║    Boots         |   Armour        |    heavy         |    Nano/Onyx        ║
║Tactical       AA | Fireproof    BT | MicroLauncher TT | Gravity Boots    NAA║
║Fireproof      BT | Tactical     AA | VBFG9000     PPP | Nanomanufacture BBBN║
║Enviro Boots* BPT | Ballistic    AT | BiggestFG   BBFF | NanofibreSkin    PPN║
║Cerberus     PPAT | nanofibre    PB | Tac Launcher BBB | Power Armour      PN║
║                  | Cerberus*  PPAT |                  | Tower shield      PO║
║                                                       | Lava boots        TO║
║                                                       | Nano Shotgun     PPN║
║ *: mod order is important, make sure Tech is last                           ║
║    Cerberus armour retains melee, bullet, shrapnell resistance, and         ║
║    durability of it's target armour. Probably best on Duelist/ballistic vest║
║    /gothic.                                                                 ║
║**: Specific target. There is only a single item this assembly can fit on:   ║
║    Gatling gun=chaingun | Hyperblaster=plasma rifle | ElephantGun=Shotgun   ║
║     ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯      ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝


Assemblies are 'special' items made by applying certain modpack combinations
to mundane or exotic items. Many of them have enhanced or different propeties
over their base items.
All assemblies are restricted to which items they can be applied to. While
some assemblies enjoy a reasonably large range of potential targets (highpower
weapon can go on any pistol or rapidfire weapon), others are extremely limited
(elephant gun can ONLY go on a basic, standard shotgun).
Note that basic assemblies (those that require only 2 modpacks, and can thus
be built without taking ranks in whizkid) are balanced to be somewhere between
normal and exotic items in power, whereas advanced assemblies (available to
whizkid characters) range from exotic to unique in their equivalent power.

Before going into detail about every assembly in the game, I'm going to put
out a tactical reference. The tactical reference will cover which assemblies
are worth building, which are worth taking whizkid for,etc.

One thing that applies pretty much across-the-board for assemblies is that
a player should generaly choose from one of two strategies... No whizkid, or
2 levels in whizkid. This is because of the strange manner in which assemblies
contradict usual modpack usage. A non-whizkid can put a single modpack on
an item, but can squeeze 2 mods on if it means completing an assembly, which
makes the basic (2 mod) assemblies a good deal for a non-whizkid.
A level-1 whizkid can put 3 modpacks on any normal item, but is confusingly
incapable of making 4-modpack assemblies, and cannot make basic assemblies
any better than a non-whizkid.
A level-2 whizkid, on the other hand, can make all assemblies, and can put a
modpack on any assembly, provided she finished the assembly AFTER she took a
second rank in whizkid. This means that a player going for whizkid x 2 should
really never assemble any items until *after* reaching the final whizkid rank,
and this mad dash to whizkid x 2 makes going for only whizkid x 1 a very poor
strategy.



 

high-power weapon



Most notably powerful assemblies (ie, the ones worth checking out for general
gameplay):


Non-whizkid:
highpower minigun <- This thing is Massively stronger than the gatling gun
      if you have a few levels of Eagle Eye
Tactical boots Let's face it, The insane movespeed you get from a
couple of agility mods is hard to pass up. The
question is rarely IF you should build tactical boots,
but rather WHEN. I tend to find it best to use the
first agility pack on boots, the second, and third
on tactical armour, and the fourth on tactical boots,
to maximize movespeed at any given point, without
having to lug around a broken, useless piece of A-
modded green for too long.
Tactical armour Every bit as amazing as tactical boots, and hugely
underrated by a lot of players to boot! Make no
mistake, insane movespeed is better than high
protection value - you don't even have to take damage
99% of the time if your movespeed is this high, and
in the rare situations that you do, you can usually
run to a safe place before changing armour.
Gatling gun Extremely strong weapon available to all characters
to help see them through levels ~5-15. The gatling
gun is endgame-capable, cheap to mod, and almost
gauranteed. It requires eagle eye to use proficiently
though!
Fireproof armour Not only is fireproof armour an incredible assembly
in itself, it is also built out of a damaged bulk-
modded red and a lousy tech mod, which are both very
common items that we would normally be tempted to
dump.
Ballistic armour Only really becomes worthwhile when applied to an
armour that already has melee resistance, but the
resistance stacking from putting this on a ballistic
vest, duelist armour, or gothic armour makes you
almost immune to melee damage.
Power Energy vest This one has to be mentioned here. It's a rare
opportunity, but there is no build in the game that
can't benefit from carrying around an energy-shielded
vest. If you find a nano pack to combine with one,
you get an incredibly strong late-game piece of
protection. Even without any levels in whizkid the
protection you can get from this is vast.


whizkid 1
(Basically, don't bother. If you're taking 1 level of whizkid, you are
pretty much restricted to get the second, since a second level of
whizkid allows you to further improve the advanced assemblies. That is,
all of the 'good' advanced assemblies in this list would include an extra
mod... The exceptions are utility assemblies, that are not used for
direct combat, or items that have only negligible improvements from mods.

Plasma shotgun Corpse disposal on Nightmare difficulty is invaluable,
and this assembly allows corpse disposal for the cost
of the (terrible) sniper modpack.
Focused double shotgun worth thinking about taking with Whizkid 1, since most
shotgun characters will find that they don't really
require any superior weaponry to a focused double
shotgun. The drawback, though, is that a player need
only find a super shotgun to make this assembly,
completely redundant.


Whizkid 2:
There are a lot of whizkid 2 items that are good, so for the sake of being
brief, I'm only going to be mentioned the absolute game-changers here.
On any given run through a player can expect at least 1 exotic modpack or
appropriate exotic weapon, so it's not unreasonable to take whizkid,
expecting to create something on this list for the second half of the game...


Burst laser rifle Burst laser rifle (with firestorm or power mod). This
is pretty much the top of the entire bunch for damage
output.
Nanofibre skin energy A ridiculously strong suit of armour. When P-modded,
         vest the player will be taking 1 damage from almost every
enemy attack, and not only can this armour never be
destroyed: It also continues to offer almost all of
it's protection even when on 0%. Oh, and it
regenerates.
Burst nuclear plasma extremely quick ammo regeneration, extremely high
damage. It's hard to lose a game with this item.
Nanomachic rocket Nanomachic weapons are extremely powerful. Which is
launcher the best is a tricky subject, but most players
Nanomachic plasma find plasma rifles and rocket launchers to work best.
Note that the nanomachic assembly is probably on the
weak side of game-changing, but is available with
reasonable regularity.
Gravity boots The movespeed from these is probably the most
powerful application of a nano modpack, and that's
saying something! Agility mod them and enjoy never
having to fight anything that's in a position to
fight back ever again!
VBFG9000 A surprisingly useful place to dump your spare
power modpacks, this gun can put a lot of damage
out, particularly if you have access to the 'juggler'
trait so that you don't have to waste turns equipping
it!
« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 01:30 by Sylph »
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2019, 01:30 »

Code: [Select]
hyperblaster The hyperblaster has great ammo efficiency, but only
or TTT plasma rifle average damage output, and very weak burst (damage
in a single round of firing).
However, if a player manages to get movement speed
below 0.5s, then a T-modded hyperblaster or a TTT
modded plasma rifle can fire quickly enough to
*gaurantee* that a monster is unable to fire back,
even without cover. Provided the player continues to
step backwards, then side-to-side until the enemy
comes into range. Essentially this unlocks a new
form of tactical defense, and it's game-breakingly
powerful (hence it's inclusion here).
Demolition ammo pistol See 'plasma shotgun', above. The power of this item
lies in it's ability to dispose of corpses on
Nightmare difficulty, without expending rare or
valuable ammunition. This assembly is weaker than the
plasma shotgun due to it's restricted targetting (it
needs a wall to shoot against), and uses a firestorm
mod (which is more valuable than a sniper mod), but
in a nightmare game where no sniper mod, Antifreak
Jackal, or plasma shotgun has been found, I wouldn't
hesitate to use my first (and only) firestorm mod on
this assembly. When you can dispose of corpses with
such ease, nightmare doomrl is simply an easier
ultra violence (with double healing and duration from
powerups).





Modpack use:

Nano
- The nano pack is undoubtedly the best modpack in the game. It's basic function is making an item regerate it's ammunition/durability (after a 5-turn pause), which is extremely useful, but it has 3 incredibly strong uses in assemblies, too:
Nanomachic: BBBN
A nanomachic weapon has no ammunition, and never needs be reloaded. Whether this is better than simply using a normal nano pack is game-dependant.


I just got out of another game, one where I was collecting platinums for a rank up (N! scout explorer), and I had a go with the following build: EE->SoB->SoB->TH->TH->SoB->HR->EE->Fin->Jug->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->
It was *obscenely* strong in the early game (2 salvos killed hell knights), and later on, I was killing knights with a single barrage of my gatling gun. I think I even single-salvo'd a baron a few times. On top of this, it got hellrunner in time for phobos lab (and you *can* do phobos lab with just 1 rank of HR and an agility mod, but it requires a lot of care not to allow formers to use the medpacks, because you need a *lot* of running mode to beat those demons).
It also gets juggler in time for deimos lab/armoury. It's actually quite impressive how easily 2 shamblers can be taken down when you have 15 overcharged plasma rifles, EE2, SoaB3, and juggler!
Later on, it gets berserker for lategame play, although with certainty the hardest part of the game was the mortuary without berserker - I burned 6 medpacks, and spent *ages* battling my way through that level.

I've also come to realise that firestorm modpacks, when used on a pistol, can be considered the key to lategame nightmare play. Don't underestimate the demolition ammo pistol! It almost completely removes the problem of nightmare corpse regeneration. That said, it's not so hot in the mortuary, given the lack of decent walls to use. I think, going back, I would have done the mortuary differently... I might have been a little too hasty in getting all the cover on the left of the map destroyed while BFGing corpses, and had I taken care to use it against approaching monsters, stacking corpses, I might have not had such a close call.

Juggler+spear lets you un-equip melee for 3 attacks, then spear for the finish, which is basically a free berserk any time you walk near a corpse.

    Detailed weapon analysis... [DEIS ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
CAUTION - SPOILERS FOLLOW.....

There are actually 3 types of item in doomrl - normal, exotic, and unique.
Exotics are *far* more rare than normal weapons, and unique are even more rare
than exotics. Most weapons have one or more exotic and unique counterparts,
and in this section I will not only list them all, I will try to cover
detailed use of each and every weapon in the game:


╔═══════════════════╦══════════════════════════════╦══════════════════════════╗
║   Basic weapons   ║           Exotics            ║        Uniques           ║
╠═══════════════════╬══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════╣
║ Combat knife      ║                              ║ Butcher's Cleaver        ║
║ Pistol            ║ Blaster                      ║ Trigun, Beretta, Jackal  ║
║ Shotgun           ║ Plasma Shotgun               ║                          ║
║ Combat shotgun    ║ Assault Shotgun              ║ Pencor Jackhammer        ║
║ Double shotgun    ║ Super Shotgun                ║                          ║
║ Chaingun          ║ Minigun                      ║                          ║
║ Rocket Launcher   ║ Missile Launcher             ║ Revenant's Launcher      ║
║ Plasmagun   x     ║ Laser Rifle, Nuclear plasma  ║ Railgun                  ║
║ BFG 9000  * x     ║ Nuclear BFG                  ║ BFG 10,000               ║
║ Chainsaw  *       ║ Longinus Spear  *            ║ Dragonslayer             ║
╠═══════════════════╬══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════╣
║ Power Modpack     ║ Firestorm Modpack            ║                          ║
║ Agility Modpack   ║ Sniper Modpack               ║                          ║
║ Tech Modpack      ║                              ║ Nano Modpack             ║
║ Bulk Modpack      ║                              ║ Onyx modpack             ║
╠═══════════════════╬══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════╣
║ Green armour      ║ Phaseshift armour            ║ Malek's armour           ║
║ Blue armour       ║ Onyx armour                  ║ Baron armour, Necroarmour║
║ Red armour        ║ Gothic armour                ║ Cybernetic armour        ║
╠═══════════════════╬══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════╣
║ Steel boots       ║ Phaseshift boots             ║                          ║
║ Protective boots  ║                              ║                          ║
║ Plassteel boots   ║ Gothic boots                 ║                          ║
╠═══════════════════╬══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════╣
║ Phase device      ║ Combat translocator          ║ Hell staff               ║
╚═══════════════════╩══════════════════════════════╩══════════════════════════╝

 *: Note that, technically, the chainsaw and BFG 9000 are in fact exotic
weapons. They're listed as normal here because they have a lot more in common
with normal weapons than they do with exotics - they are common (in fact,
gauranteed in all standard games), have their own exotic and unique
counterparts, and have a number key associated with them.
Similarly, the longinus spear is only listed here as an exotic weapon -
because it is common (gauranteed in every game, in fact),



    Inventory strategy.......... [INGY ]
    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Inventory in doomRL is probably the most important aspect of the game-spanning
strategy that there is. Managing your inventory is something a player has to
get the hang of, but this section will deal with a few tips and guidelines for
effective play:

Health packs - use 'em or lose 'em
Health packs are lovely items. However, be absolutely aware that saving these
is *not* an effective strategy. I see a lot of Dead characters who were
carrying 5 or more medipacks. As well as posing the obvious question 'why was
stocking up on medikits more important to this player than surviving?' it also
highlights what a waste of inventory space this practice is.
The golden rule to medikits (and most other inventory equipment) in doomrl is:
Use it! It's all well and good hanging on to the valuable stuff until you
absolutely need it, but only a very good player is able to tell when those
situations arise *before* the game-over screen appears. (I certainly can't!)
We might think we're gonna know what that situation is, but it's doubtful
anyone who hasn't been playing doomRL for years actually can.
The better approach is to take the following strategy:
Always try to use your equipment, and only worry about when you 'absolutely
need it' when you've run out. This feels dangerous, but you'll quickly find
that you never actually encounter that situation where 'you absolutely need
it'... Why? Well, because the situation came and went. You used the item
without realising it was one of those situations, and your character is still
alive and kicking.
Furthermore, it's surprising just how quickly an empty need in your inventory
gets filled.

Ammo - your lifeblood
Make no mistake, ammo is incredibly important. In fact, it's more important
than health packs, armour, phase devices, mod kits, and even weapons. You can
live off health orbs if you're out of health packs (try playing angel of
impatience), you can use other forms of defense if you're out of armour
(including health packs and orbs), you can finish the game without mod kits,
phase devices can be as dangerous as they are helpful, and even going through
the game with only 2 weapons (one in each hand) is a fairy easy task.
Playing without ammo, on the other hand, is impossible for most characters. If
you run out of ammo, you are in a desperate situation.
To keep on top of the ammo situation, first we're going to talk about
efficiency. Spending inventory space on some ammo is more 'efficient' than
others.

10 rockets
- These can deal out lots of kills with blast effects, but due to the fact that
it destroys items, it's actually not a very efficient ammunition type to carry
around (perhaps best just to take enough to destroy walls and blast away
spiders). Typically, you'll kill about 10 creatures with a stack of rockets,
but blow up all your treasure.

100 bullets
- 10mm ammo is very efficient when fired from pistols. From a pistol character,
you'll kill perhaps 25 creatures with one stack. Very nice. In the hands of a
chaingun user, however, you'll kill perhaps 10, and if you're scouting
properly, the number will be far less.

50 Shotgun shells
- Incredibly efficient if used correctly. 50 shotgun shells will kill perhaps
35 monsters when you're using the layout of the level like a good shotgunner
should. (you'll kill about 30 if you're scouting with your stack too).

50 Cells
- Not very efficient. These will pretty much never rival a shotgun for
inventory efficiency. However, despite only carrying half as many per inventory
space, cells aren't much worse per slot than chaingun bullets, and give you
perhaps 10 kills per stack against a typical mix of monsters. The fact that
energy cells should be saved for the toughest opponents usually makes this
number far lower, but that's ok.
From a BFG, a stack of cells will do a nice chunk of damage, but like rockets,
above, the item destruction makes it an inefficient use of ammo.

Given the above, it's easy to see that shotgun shells are one of the best ammo
types to carry around with you. Unfortunately, shotguns themselves don't carry
much ammo in the weapon, meaning if you want a stack of shells as a backup ammo
supply, you're going to have to spend 2 inventory slots to get it.

Often, a player can choose to 'give up' on a specific ammo type, which saves a
little inventory space because it means he can stop carrying around the weapon
associated with it. For example, many players give up on shotgun shells, or
10mm ammo. This can be an effective strategy, as long as you know you're going
to be ok on what you have.
There are, however, characters that can't get as much mileage out of their
ammunition. Typically this is characters than have not selected damage-
increasing traits, and the best examples are those taking the 'fireangel'
master trait. Such characters are very likely to run out of ammo if they don't
manage it well, and as such are well-advised not to completely give up on an
ammo type.
An effective strategy for conserving ammo is to think of your inventory
ammunition as 'backup', and make sure to bring along a weapon capable of firing
everything you find on the ground. In this method, you're killing the monsters
from a level using the ammo you pry from their cold, dead hands.
For example, you might have a character than mainly uses shotguns, so you enter
every level carrying 150 shotgun shells, 10 rockets, 100 cells, a shotgun, a
rocket launcher, a chaingun, and a plasmagun. Despite carrying no 10mm ammo
(because it's not very efficient), you can fire every clip you find on the
level, because you bought your chaingun along. While it takes some getting used
to, this strategy is a great way to gaurantee never being desperate for ammo
for too long.

Typical inventory guidelines.

For new players, who haven't got the hang of just how much to carry around, I'd
say the following is fairly typical:

Left hand: Rocket Launcher 1/1
Right hand: Chaingun 40/40
Blue armour [2] 80%

a combat shotgun 5/5
b plasmagun 40/40
c BFG 9000 100/100
d red armour 4 78%
e red armour 4 [B] 200%
f 10 rockets
g 50 shotgun shells
h 100 bullets
i 100 bullets
j 100 bullets
k 100 bullets
l 50 cells
m 50 cells
n 50 cells
o small health pack
p Large health pack
q Large health pack
r Large health pack
s Phase device
t Homing phase device
u Thermonuclear bomb

Breaking it down, that's:
3 spaces for extra weapons (give or take)
2 spaces for spare armour (more if necessary)
4 spaces for primary ammo (whether it's shells, bullets, or energy cells)
3 spaces for energy cells (for emergencies)
1 space for backup ammo (make it something efficient)
1 space for rockets (for demolishing walls)
4 spaces for health packs
2 spaces for phase devices
1 free space for bombs, mod kits, etc.








  Enemies....................... [ENES ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
h
color - white
name - former human.
speed - 80%
ranged - 4-16%
melee - 2-4% (usually misses)
health - 10
armour - 0-4
description - weak opponent armed with a pistol. Hardly bears even being
careful around. Drops pistol + ammo. Only has armour if it picked some up.

h
color - grey
name - former sergeant.
speed - 80%
ranged - 2-50% (range dependant, 50% is a rough figure)
melee - 2-4% (often misses)
health - 10
armour - 0-4
description - Shotgun guy - can be dangerous if he fires at close-range. Best
killed by setting up a position where he can't shoot at you, or at long range
where his weapon is uneffective. If you're close and see one, moving to melee
range is also safe (compare his melee damage to his ranged). Drops shotgun +
shells.
(Note - range damage maximum is a rough guess - theoretical maxumum for point-
blank is 16-72%, but since they never fire at point-blank range (they melee
attack instead), this will never be witnessed. I've personally never seen more
than 50%.

s
color - yellow
name - Lost Soul
speed - 220%
ranged - 0
melee - 4-8%
health - 10
armour - 0
description - Incredibly fast and incredibly weak. Swarms of these can be
dangerous. Try to take then down with a shotgun at fairly close range. That
way, you can kill the whole swarm with 2-3 shots, and take no damage.

i
color - brown
name - Imp
speed - 105%
ranged - 6-34% (armour counts twice)
melee - 6-10%
health - 12
armour - 0
description - Dangerous at all ranges, and can't be lured with giftdropping
since he doesn't use items. Best killed with tactical defense, shooting around
a corner where he can't fire back. Often, you'll have to wait for him to wander
into your sight to set this up. Running mode also makes dodging his fireballs
very effective, which can allow you to rush into cover or into melee with him.

c
color - pink
name - Demon
speed - 120%
ranged - 0
melee - 14-18%
health - 22
armour - 1
description - Pretty easy, actually. He takes some punishment, but 2 pretty-
close-ranged shotgun shots will kill usually kill him, and will almost
certainly knock him back, out of melee range. The main tricks for fighting
demons are: Using weapon swap/inventory screen instead of reloading for
shotguns, stepping diagonally around a doorframe to make the demon give up
chasing you, and using 'running mode' to run quicker than them if no other
option presents itself.

h
color - red
name - former captain.
speed - 80%
ranged - 2-12% (4 shots)
melee - 2-6%
health - 10
armour - 0-4
description - His chaingun is fairly dangerous at all ranges. Best killed with
tactical defense or giftdropping.

o
color - red
name - cacodemon
speed - 100%
ranged - 8-44% (armour counts twice)
melee - 14-18%
health - 40
armour - 1
description - Basically, almost exactly like an imp, but tougher and deals more
damage.

B
color - brown
name - Hell knight
speed - 100%
ranged - 8-38% (armour counts twice)
melee - 14-18%
health - 50
armour - 1
description - Dangerous opponent at all ranges. Can be lured with giftdropping,
but when he comes to pick up the gift, you won't kill him the instant he
appears - he's too tough for that. Best dealt with by setting up a good firing
line such as:
╔═══════╗
║#####.@║
║B......║
╚═══════╝

O
color - brown
name - Pain elemental
speed - 100%
ranged - 0
melee - 14-18%
health - 40
armour - 1
description - Spits special lost souls, which give no experience when killed.
Only spits out lost souls when it can see you, so closing a door on it pacifies
it, and shooting at the swarm of lost souls while out-of-sight of the elemental
will let you thin the swarm effectively. Note that, when you have the 'vampyre'
trait, it's in your best interest *not* to kill these, as their lost souls can
be farmed for 200% health as many times as you like.

B
color - Red
name - Baron of hell
speed - 100%
ranged - 10-54% (armour counts twice)
melee - 18-22%
health - 60
armour - 2
description - Bad news. Much like the hell knight above, but with even more
health, more armour, and a more powerful attack with a large radius.

A
color - Yellow
name - Arachnotron
speed - 130%
ranged - 2-10% (6 shots)
melee - 6-10%
health - 50
armour - 2
description - Pretty accurate shooter. The bad news - at close range a single
lucky arachnotron is capable of taking you from 100% to zero health in a single
turn (due to it's speed 130%)! Good news: when you get used to the way armour
works, these things are no sweat. Just consult the following chart, which
concerns plasma vs armour.
- green armour: -1% per bullet
- blue armour: -2% per bullet
- red armour: -4% per bullet
- berserk: -4% per bullet
Since armour has half effect against plasma attacks, you'll be wanting the red,
or the blue + running. Running mode is also always welcome, since it doesn't
use any resources to go into.
Alternatively, get into melee range. When fighting multiple arachnotrons, play
very slowly: it's surprisingly frequent how many situations crop up where you
can run into melee range of an arachnotron, and use it as a shield to fend off
the shots of it's brethren.

h
color - blue
name - Former Commando
speed - 100%
ranged - 1-14% (6 shots)
melee - 6-10%
health - 20
armour - 2-6
description - Surprisingly scary zombie. If they pick up a suit of red, they've
probably got more armour than you, and aren't going down before they've had a
chance to fire at you once or twice. If you're not wearing armour, they can do
up to 114% damage to you in a single turn so, like arachnotrons, remember the
armour, berserk, and running effects on damage.

M
color - Brown
name - Mancubus
speed - 80%
ranged - 6-62% plus 16-96% splash from 2 extra attacks
melee - 0
health - 60
armour - 2
description - Really, really dangerous, but also easy to deal with if you're
not caught flat-footed by them. The mancubus can be beaten using tactical
defense (but watch out - one screw-up and your defensive wall is gone). It can
also be killed by hugging it at point blank range (just be careful not to knock
it away with shotguns).
The bad news, of course, is that if one fires at you when your back is to a
wall, you'd better be wearing some strong armour, because you're gonna lose an
*average* of 89% health without it (and on a particularly unlucky day, you're
losing 158%).
If you decide to stand nex to them (for a melee attack, perhaps), you'll find
that they can't fight back, and will simply try to move away from you. This can
often be a safe way to beat them.

R
color - white
name - Revenant
speed - 120%
ranged - 10-50%
melee - 0
health - 30
armour - 4
description - Good armour, plenty of health, a weapon that never misses and
knocks you around in inconvenient directions... Eek... It's usually best to
defeat these with tactical defense - using wall tricks to shoot them without
return fire. Dodging is useless against their attack, and armour isn't very
effective either.
Take note, however, of the lack of a melee attack. If you enter running mode
when a revenant is close by, you can keep running into them and attacking them
with melee or rapid-fire weaponry, and in their turn they will harmlessly only
move away - they cannot attack or shoot at point-blank range.

V
color - Yellow
name - Arch-vile
speed - 160%
ranged - 22%
melee - 0
health - 70
armour - 2
description - Ack! Absolute nightmare! Their speed of 160% means arch-vile's
usually attack twice with their 22% damage flames that never miss. Red armour
still helps, of course, in part because of the protection is offers (4), and
in part because of it's fire resistance. More importantly, fireproof red
offers a *huge* fire resistance, to the point that arch viles will do almost
no damage to you (additionally, it also works with their friends: revenants
and mancubi).
Their speed of 160 also means that they can only be outrun if you have unique
armour/boots, and even then it's hard work. This, in turn, means their lack
of a melee attack is hard to take advantage of, and only really worth trying
for berserker games.
There are three good ways to deal with arch-viles:
1. The first costs normal ammo and doesn't always work - it is done with a
decent wall and perhaps a coridoor (the usual corner tricks), but this is
difficult because there will always be normal monsters that come out before the
arch-vile, and the arch-vile will just resurrect the normal monster again and
again until you run out of ammo. If you know there's an arch vile nearby, shoot
and listen for his hissing gasp... If firing up the coridoor doesn't hurt him ,
then relocate yourself and find a different angle of attack. This method is
much more practical if you have ammochain, eagle eye, or army of the dead
traits.
2. The second method costs 2-3 stacks of rocket/cells and your treasure. This
method is less situational, generally always being somewhat effective, but
sadly very taxing on your resources. Use missiles to blow up walls, and pound
monsters with missiles or a BFG until the vile shows up, at which point you can
pound him with missiles until he's dead. Trouble here, of course, is that not
only did you just use over a hundred cells or 20-odd rockets, but you blew up
all the ammo on the ground too! This causes ammo problems if you do it too
often, so you're best doing this only when you can't get a good snipe on the
vile.
3. The third method costs XP. This is probably the most effective way to deal
with Arch-viles in the long run... You open your inventory screen, check it
against your traits and think about whether you're on track to beat a
cyberdemon on level 25 (tip - I've been killed by him once in 25 fights). If
you are on track (you probably are), then you walk around the arch-vile and
avoid fighting him. If you're lucky, you'll find an invulnerability globe that
will make killing him safe & simple, or the stairs down, which means for the
cost of a little XP you can keep both your items and your life.

C
color - Red
name - Cyberdemon
speed - N/A
ranged - 6d6
melee - ?
health - 200
armour - 4
description - The cyberdemon has different AI than most monsters. It also has a
powerful weapon. The way it walks towards you in between it's bouts of firing,
combined with it's massive health and armour, mean that you usually end up
either backing to a wall taking splash damage from it's rockets, or in melee
with the thing!
Beating it is never too hard though - you can try to dodge it's missile then
shoot back while it's reloading, you can guide it past a pillar, then use
running mode for a few moves to get around it's side and hit it with a few
gauranteed BFG shots (5-6 are required), you can try tactical corner-shooting
to wear it down with a plasma rifle, and you can even phase device, relying on
the fact that the cyberdemon moves left/right as much as possible before it
starts moving up-left or up-right to get to you. Diagram?
╔═══════════════════════════════════╗
║...................................║
║.....................####..........║
║..1..................#  #..........║
║.....................####..........║
║...................................║
║.....CDEFG......................5##║
║................................4# ║
║................................3##║
║.......####....................2...║
║.......#  #........................║
║.......####........................║
╚═══════════════════════════════════╝
The above diagram shows 5 turns. The player, in position 1, started getting
worried, and used a phase device, appearing in position 2. He then walks up to
3, 4 and 5.
The cyberdemon prefers to walk horizontally, and thus moves through C, D, E, F
and G towards the player.
Once the player is in position 5, despite not being able to see the cyberdemon,
he can spam plasmagun shots or rockets to his left for 14 turns or so (being a
good shot or having infinite ammo helps).

@
color - Blue
name - John Carmack
speed - N/A
ranged - ?
melee - ?
health - 250
armour - 5
description -

A
color - Red
name - Angel of Death
speed - (roughly) 130%
ranged - 0
melee - (Roughly) 23% (3 hits)
health - 250
armour - 10
description - The angel of death is fought in the unholy cathedral, which means
ranged weapons cannot be used to defeat him (they don't work on that level).
The melee damage is my own rough estimate - it is in no way accurate.
Pay special attention to his stats - it's clear that with his 10 armour, fists
and the combat knife will hardly scratch him.
Furthermore, his massive damage means you can't rely on large health packs to
tank him, you use the large health pack for 100% health, and in the same turn
he brings you back down to 30% health, meaning you have to use another large
health pack, and thus can't attack or even put on armour without being killed
that turn.
Now bear in mind the effect of armour - we're taking 70% dmg per turn, but red
armour will save you 24% health, berserk will save another 24%, and tough as
nails or a power mod on your armour will save an extra 12-24% each. With some
decent armour, say, a suit of red, tough as nails 2, and berserk, you'll
take only 10% health dmg per turn.

The way to beat him is pretty clear - make sure you have berserk - the
combination of 4 extra protection and a damage high enough to penetrate his
armour is the only real way you can fight him fair in melee and win. Since his
level has a lot of demons and lost souls, the best course of action is taking
the 'berserker' trait, and running straight past the lost souls and the demons.
Stand next to the double-doors that lead to the angel, then, while still in
running mode, kill all the lost souls and demons in melee, hoping to trigger
your 'berserker' trait. When it triggers, pop on your best suit of armour (red
with bulk or protection), open the double doors, run to the angel of death, and
chainsaw him to death.
After killing him you get the longinus spear - an incredible melee weapon that
should be just perfect for your already melee-optimised build.
Update - since skulls were introduced, non-melee characters can kill the angel
of death by saving a hatred skull, littering the cathedral with demon corpses,
then using the hatred skull to turn all those corpses into berserk.
Also, if your speed is high enough, it's possible to use 'hack and back' on
the angel of death (roguelike veterans will understand hack and back, but to
explain it here, it's basically using your speed bonus to get 'double turns'
against the opponent, getting a free attack every 10 steps back or so
(depending on your speed vs his).



Angel of 100 secret enemies:


i
color - Blue
name - Nightmare Imp
speed - ??
ranged - ??
melee - ??
health - ??
armour - 0
description - Similar to the imp, but it seems to be a little tougher to kill
(still goes down to a single volley of most decent weapons), and do a little
more damage.
The biggest difference, however, is the fact that the nightmare imp does not
make any noises.

c
color - Blue
name - Nightmare demon
speed - ??
ranged - ??
melee - ??
health - ??
armour - 0
description - Similar to the demon, but it seems to be a little tougher to kill
(still goes down to a single volley of most decent weapons), and do a little
more damage.
The biggest difference, however, is the fact that the nightmare demon does not
make any noises.

o
color - Blue
name - Nightmare Cacodemon
speed - ??
ranged - ??
melee - ??
health - ??
armour - 0
description - Similar to the cacodemon, but appears to do more damage. May be
tougher to kill, but it's hard to say...
The biggest difference, however, is the fact that the nightmare cacodemon does
not make any noises.



Character builds                 [CHDS ]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
EE->SoB->SoB->TH->EE->HR->TH->WK->WK->SoB->Bru->Bru->
EE->EE->SoB->SoB->SoB->HR->EE->Bru->Bru->Ber->TH->











legacy info:

  Traits........................ [TRTS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯
Soldier trait tree:

  SonOfAGun  SonOfABitch  Reloader      Badass ToughAsNails IronMan Brute      [Badass]
  SonOfAGun  SonOfABitch  Reloader       |   \ ToughAsNails IronMan Brute      |
  Dualgunner Triggerhappy | Shottyman    |    \  |         /IronMan Berserker  |
       BulletDance  Ammochain ArmyOfTheDead     Survivalist                Vampyre

Scout trait tree:
      Brute     Hellrunner Reloader Finesse [Hellrunner]  SonOfAGun  SonOfABitch  Intuition
      Brute     Hellrunner Reloader Juggler [Hellrunner]  SonOfAGun  SonOfABitch  |
Berserker Brute   |      \ Shottyman /   |  Dodgemaster   Dualgunner Triggerhappy |
        Blademaster        ShottyHead   RunningMan   GunKata                  Cateye

Technician trait tree
SonOfABitch  ToughAsNails Finesse Brute Hellrunner  Reloader  SonOfAGun      EagleEye     Whizkid
SonOfABitch  ToughAsNails   |     Brute Hellrunner  Reloader  SonOfAGun      EagleEye     Whizkid
Triggerhappy Badass         |      |    Dodgemaster Shottyman SonOfAGun EagleEye Intuition |   
     Entrenchment         MaliciousBlades     FireAngel         SharpShooter       Scavenger   

Finesse -> juggler -> hellrunner -> hellrunner -> dodgemaster -> brute -> brute -> maliciousblades -> SOAB SOAB TH SOAG SOAG SOAG SOAG SOAG

  Old traits.................... [OLTS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Traits are the solitary character advancement mechanism for doomRL. When you
kill enough monsters, you get to choose a new trait. That's it, and the system
is elegantly designed for some surprising levels of character planning depth.

Traits are formed into a 'tree'. There are basically 3 tiers of traits
1. Basic traits that can be purchased at character creation,
2, Advanced traits that require other traits to 'unlock' them,
3. Master traits that require more than 1 trait to 'unlock' them.

The trait tree is designed so that no master trait is avaiable for purchase
until at least character level 7. Also, all master traits 'block out' certain
basic traits. This block goes both ways - the master trait cannot be bought if
a player posesses a blocked basic trait, and the basic trait cannot be bought
if the player posesses the blocking master trait.
Note - in the current version (0.9.9.1) all master traits block in such a way
that it is impossible to ever get more than a single master trait. This is
probably intentional, and will likely continue in future versions of doomRL.
I've split the trait trees below into 'general' traits, and 'task-specific'
traits. The task specific traits are typically less powerful than the general
ones, and are best suited to the angel of shotgunnery, berserk, and
marksmanship challenges.

General Traits
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The following master traits are useful for 'all round' character types:

Brute     ToughAsNails     Finesse      SonOfABitch  EagleEye  Ironman
Brute     ToughAsNails      |   Finesse SonOfABitch  EagleEye  Ironman
Berserker    Badass     Juggler Whizkid TriggerHappy Intuition Ironman
       Vampyre                     AmmoChain         Cateye

Task-specific traits
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The traits below are more 'specialised', and best suited to a character
on a challenge game, or one who strongly favours a single weapon type:

Hellrunner  Reloader  ToughAsNails Brute     Hellrunner  SonOfAGun
Hellrunner  Reloader  ToughAsNails Brute     Hellrunner  SonOfAGun
Dodgemaster ShottyMan      Badass  Berserker Dodgemaster DualGunner
      FireAngel  ArmyOfTheDead Vampyre  BladeMaster   GunKata


FireAngel     blocks  Eagle eye, Son of a Bitch, Son of a Gun
AmmoChain     blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Gun, Eagle Eye
Cateye        blocks  Tough as Nails, Reloader, Brute
ArmyOfTheDead blocks  Finesse, Hellrunner, Eagle Eye
Vampyre       blocks  Hellrunner, Son of a Bitch, Eagle Eye
BladeMaster   blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Gun, Son of a Bitch
GunKata       blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Bitch, Brute

Generally, for trait strategy, aim for a master trait. Most master traits are
far, far better than ordinary traits.
There are plenty of great character builds that don't use master traits, but
there are plenty of bad character builds too... Going for a master trait is a
sure-fire way of getting a decent character in the game, and it's a good idea
to try out every master trait before experimenting with off-the-wall builds.

Ideally, a player should select a general master trait when going for a normal
game. Weapon-specific traits should be considered in challenge games, such as
'angel of shotgunnery', 'angel of berserk', or 'angel of marksmanship'.

Of all the traits, a lot of the community is currently in a moderate agreement
about 'Ammochain' being the most powerful trait, with some players calling for
a nerf. However, there are players that think that Cateye and Vampyre are also
strong contenders. My personal experience, both from my own games and from
other community members posting on the boards, is that Ammochain is vastly more
powerful than the other master traits.



  Master Trait Trees............ [MAES ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
            FireAngel
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Reloader       Hellrunner    Brute   Ironman ToughAsNails      Finesse
Reloader       Hellrunner    Brute           ToughAsNails  Finesse Juggler   
ShottyMan  Dodgemaster  | Brute Berserker       Badass     Whizkid
      FireAngel        Blademaster

                 

- In the most recent game update, the requirements of Fireangel were
changed to make it a 'shotgun trait'. Unfortunately, this spoiled it's
use for all-round characters, since it now blocked 'son of a gun'
and forced all-round builds to look elsewhere for a master trait.
In the process, however, fireangel became a lot more compatible with
the 'Blademaster' master trait, such that the two are possible to obtain
together. Whether a player would want to outside of a melee-orientated
game is another matter entirely.
In the current build, consider picking fireangel if you are using an
'active' shotgun build, and like to do a lot of moving while fighting.
The downside to fireangel, though, is that the player's weapons are so weak, he
is going to run into ammunition problems later in the game. You always have the
option of being a chainsaw berserker to save ammo, but it's quite possible to
live without. Perhaps check the 'inventory strategy' section of this guide for
a little help.

            AmmoChain   
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
SonOfABitch      Finesse      Reloader  Brute     Hellrunner Ironman
SonOfABitch  Finesse  Juggler Reloader  Brute     Hellrunner 
TriggerHappy Whizkid          ShottyMan Berserker Dodgemaster
        AmmoChain     

- Ammochain is an incredibly powerful trait. It has 2 main focuses - infinite
ammunition on rapid-fire weapons, and increased attack ability with rapid-fire
weapons. A marine using a well-modded plasmagun and ammochain not only has
infinite ammunition, but is also quite capable of killing revenants,
arachnotrons, and barons with a single turn of shooting. Realistically, an
ammochain player can fully *expect* to mod a weapon up to 2-turn baron disposal
in a regular game.
The only real downside of ammochain is the fact that it blocks intuition 2 and
badass, making it a lot more difficult for the player to survive the attacks of
opponents.
All things considered, think of ammochain a little like you think of 'angel of
max carnage', but with infinite ammo...

            Cateye
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯
SonOfABitch  EagleEye     Finesse      Hellrunner  SonOfAGun  Ironman 
SonOfABitch  EagleEye  Juggler Finesse Hellrunner  SonOfAGun
TriggerHappy Intuition         Whizkid Dodgemaster DualGunner
         Cateye

- Cateye is another extremely powerful master trait. It falls a little short of
ammochain later in the game, but is stronger for the middle part. It's blocked
traits aren't as bad, though - you're never going to want to take brute in a
game where you are taking eagleeye and triggerhappy. Losing reloader can hurt,
but since it's so easy to get juggler here, you can fix that by carrying a
spare plasmagun in place of a stack of cells. Losing tough as nails and badass
is a nasty one though.
Overall, cateye would be an excellent master trait, were it not for the fact
that the best thing about it, intuition 2, is available earlier in the game,
and blocks nothing. cateye itself is simply icing on the cake, and it's icing
you don't need.

            ArmyOfTheDead
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Reloader  ToughAsNails SonOfABitch  Brute     SonOfAGun  Ironman 
Reloader  ToughAsNails SonOfABitch  Brute     SonOfAGun
ShottyMan Badass       TriggerHappy Berserker DualGunner
    ArmyOfTheDead

- This trait is useless for anyone who isn't going exclusively shotguns.
For shotgun users, it's very powerful, but even in angel of shotgunnery, where
no other weapons can be used, it is only perhaps equal to other character
builds. It's not bad, by any stretch, and just about the only way of having a
chance of killing john carmac using a shotgun, but don't expect the kind of
paradigm-shifting effect you get from a chaingunner user cateye or
ammochain. Basically, with ArmyOfTheDead, a player can kill well-armoured
monsters such as revenants, mancubi, and barons without wasting a stack of
shotgun shells and a minute of in-game time. When you meet a revenant backed up
by an arch-vile, you'll really feel the drain on your ammo just trying to get
past it unless you have this trait.
On the other hand, a character using finesse and juggler is almost certainly
better at using shotguns to take down unarmoured opponents, which are the
majority of opponents in the game. The finesse build also utilises shotgun
knockback traps to better effect than the ArmyOfTheDead character, and said
juggler later has access to the 'fireangel' master trait, which allows him to
bypass the well-armoured foes when they are not in a position to be killed.



            Vampyre
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
ToughAsNails Brute          Finesse      Reloader  SonOfAGun  Ironman 
ToughAsNails Brute     Juggler   Finesse Reloader  SonOfAGun
      Badass Berserker           Whizkid ShottyMan DualGunner
         Vampyre

- The premier melee trait. Vampyre lets you steal a little health from every
opponent you kill in melee. While this doesn't sound like much, remember this
is a game where health is usually finite. This trait is the only way to
regenerate your health, and with a little ingenuity (standing next to pain
elementals, or near a corse on 'nightmare' difficulty), you can spend most of
your time on 200% health.
Of course, since the path to obtaining vampyre includes getting badass, that
200% health isn't going down as time passes either!
After taking vampyre and brute(3) the best strategy is probably to plough
points into ironman, so that your 200% health is actually 160hp instead of just
100.
As a final note, it's worth mentioning that Vampyre is actually very useful
outside of 'melee only' games. The ability to steal health from opponents is
powerful in it's own right, but when a player is faced with an endless stream
of opponents to kill in melee, be it from a pain elemental, arch-vile
resurrection, or a nightmare game, he is able to take 200% health every time
such a situation arises.



            GunKata
            ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

       blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Bitch, Brute

Hellrunner  SonOfAGun       Finesse      EagleEye  Reloader  Ironman
Hellrunner  SonOfAGun  Juggler   Finesse EagleEye  Reloader 
Dodgemaster DualGunner           Whizkid Intuition ShottyMan
        GunKata

- Gunkata is a decent trait, but, like shottyman, I can't help but feel that
there are more powerful builds for pistol-uesrs. For players using a pistol,
the 'dualgunner' trait is clearly the pick of the bunch, but to expand beyond
that, a player is faced with a choice:
Do I spend points on my dodging skills in order to make free reloads and free
shots available? (Gunkata)
Or do I work on my raw pistol damage so that I can knock back or kill targets
without getting shot at?
Often, the second option is better for a pistol user, and this trait can often
be left on the sidebench.


  Juggler....................... [JUER ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

A note should be made here about 'juggler'. This is an awesomely versatile
trait that is available very early in the game. Used well, it can be worth
it's weight in gold (not that it weighs anything). Take note that 'swapping'
to the prepared item costs no time, as well as arming a weapon with one of
the weapon keys. This goes beyond the obvious pistol/chaingun/shotgun swapping.
For instance, a shotgun can be placed in both the weapon and the prepared slot,
allowing 2 shotgun blasts without any downtime. If a player has an inventory
full of shotguns, they can make use of juggler to dramatically reduce their
sustained-fire reload time, too... Fire a shotgun, switch to combat knife,
drop the empty shotgun (0.5 seconds), then press 3 to arm a shotgun - the
player just spent 0.5 seconds to get a freshly loaded shotgun in their hands,
half of the reload time that a shotgun would normally require, and
significantly less reload time that the 'shottyman' trait takes (0.8s).
Making use of these shotgun tricks will make hell's arena a breeze, even
without a combat shotgun or chaingun.



  All-round builds.............. [ALDS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Normal games allow players the option of using all weapons. In such a game any
decent build is viable, but the very best are probably those that use the
chaingun in the mid-game. This is more than likely because shotgun weapons are
not as effective at firing around corners. I've hand-picked a few builds which
I find particularly effective.


Jack of all trades
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Finesse -> Juggler -> Tough as nails -> Tough as nails -> Badass -> Brute ->
Brute -> Berserker -> Vampyre

An immensely tactical build, this has the distinct advantage of being able to
run on very low ammo, and as such is great in any general game, including angel
of light travel. Vampyre is a trait easy to ignore when not doing an angel of
berserk game, but it's actually immensely powerful even when melee isn't your
prime focus.
The build focuses on corner-pulling enemies using a pistol, using shotgun
knockback with juggler to pound them to next-to-zero health, then finishing
them off with a vampiric melee attack to regain health. Used correctly, it
tends to keep a player on 200% health most of the time. It's powerful from the
very start of the game (juggler), and has the huge advantage of being able to
cope with arch viles so well, you're almost pleased to hear their welcoming
scream. A good corner and you end up with a worthy health-leeching target that
the archvile will be all too happy to continue to resurrect for you, until
you're at 200% health with berserk activated, at which point you can peek
around the corner with 6 damage reduction even without armour, let loose a
double shotgun blast, hurting the vile pack and having him dispose of corpses
for you, before backing off to repeat the trick when you're back on 200%
berserk.
Make no mistake, this build takes some serious getting used to, but once the
player is proficient in it's use, there's very little stopping him.
After vampyre is obtained, the last 3 traits are completely dependant on player
preferances, or the items obtained in the current game. You can expand into
whizkid if you're finding a lot of mod packs, son of a gun if you have a decent
pistol (even an ordinary modded pistol will do), ironman if you want your
leeching to go even further, or shottyman if you've been lucky enough to find a
unique or exotic shotgun. Any unique you find will be highly useful to the
build, meaning the 'power boost' that most builds get from finding a relevant
unique will be present in over half of your games.
Note - this build is extremely useful in a 'Nightmare' difficulty game, due
to the respawning enemies and health leech. Every level will tend to start
you on 200% health. Similarly, pain elementals are basically replenishing
supercharge globes - don't kill them, take your armour off and leech leech
leech!




shottychain - for the plasmagun fan
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
finesse -> juggler -> finesse -> SOAB -> SOAB -> Triggerhappy -> Whizkid ->
Ammochain -> Ironman -> Ironman -> Ironman
Probably my favourite build for nightmare difficulty. This build begins with a
focus on shotguns, but instead of using shotgun-specific traits like
'shottyman' or 'army of the dead', it simply uses the power of finesse +
juggler to attack with a very high rate of fire on shotguns. The biggest
disadvantage of shotguns are the need to constantly reload, and their inability
to penetrate armour. This build uses juggler (instead of shottyman) to get
around the reloading problem, and instead of penetrating armour with 'army of
the dead', it moves into an ammochain build for the plasmagun against the well-
armoured opponents later in the game.
In the early game, With juggler, you can use 'swap' and the number keys to get
a lot of shots out before you have to reload. For example, you could hold a
shotgun in each hand, and a combat shotgun in your inventory. This lets you
fire 3 shots without any time at all reloading, and another 4 with minimal
reload time. Finesse means you're firing shotguns quicker than enemies can
move, and with knockback that means a lot of enemy control.
Another variation is holding 2 combat shotguns (1 in each hand), and
discharging both of them to continously knock a target back, slowing his
approach. By the time he's finally walked dangerously close to you, you can
change to a normal shotgun and finish him off. The combination of instant
weapon-switching instead of reloading, and the increased firing time from
'finesse', gives you so much knockback power in the early game that, with a
good tactical defense, opponents will never get to attack you.
It also keeps you able to change instantly to chaingun when needed, and only
holds back your ammochain for a single level. Later on, the ability to rely on
an infinite-ammo plasmagun, but switch to a BFG for crowd clearance, an
overcharged plasms rifle for assassination, or a rocket launcher for an
emergency rocket jump, is another huge advantage for those tricky situations.




« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 01:32 by Sylph »
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2019, 01:32 »

Code: [Select]
shocket - for a big-boom kinda guy (rockets and shotguns)
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Note - this build can no longer be used, with the requirement changes of
fireangel.

finesse -> juggler -> EagleEye -> ToughAsNails -> ToughAsNails -> badass ->
IronMan -> FireAngel -> EagleEye -> Intuition -> Intuition
This is a somewhat different approach. While still maintaining a strong
shotgun-juggling based early game (see shottychain, above), this build doesn't
move on to using the chaingun.
Instead it skips right over into Fireangel.
This build capitalises on the knockback effect to protect the player, but also
has 'tough as nails' offer an extra armour bonus, as well as an immunity to
splash damage. It is strong in dealing with arachnotron caves, where dual-
wielded rocket launchers and even rocket jumps can help keep the spiders at
bay.
This combination then allows the player to get the 'intuition' trait, at which
point he can start using the plasmagun without wasting his cells, since he
knows where the enemies are. Intuition also allows strategic rocketing groups
of enemies, and late-game ammo problems aren't quite as much of an issue since
mancubi and revenants drop rockets.
A slight variant on this is taking finesse and whizkid instead of the second
eagleeye and intuition.


CrackShot - for the strategic player
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
EE->EE->Int->Int->HR->HR->DM->Fin->SoB->SoB->TH->SoB->TH
A very quick rush to intuition, allowing the player to see the position of
monsters, and have the ability to hit them reliably with a chaingun. This build
then gives the player a good dodging ability, to avoid ranged attacks from
barons and cacodemons. Finally, it further builds up rapidfire skills, to
obtain an awesome plasmagun attack by the end of the game.
This is a build without master skills that is surprisingly consistent
throughout the whole game - accurate chaingun at the start, intuition very
shortly after the arena, dodgemaster in time for arachnotron caves, and a
strong plasmagun to make use of the cells in the lategame.



Light weapons guy
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Finesse -> Juggler -> SonOfAGun -> SonOfAGun -> SonOfAGun -> Dualgunner ->
Hellrunner -> Hellrunner -> Dodgemaster ->

This is an experimental build, not very powerful, but an incredibly fun one to
play.
The build focuses on switching constantly from pistol to combat shotgun,
occasionally using the rocket launcher, chainsaw, overcharged plasma rifle, and
bfg when necessary.
Essentially, this build monopolises on the awesome power of the pistol when 3
traits are spent on 'sonofagun', combined with the incredible knockback power
of finesse + combat shotgun. When using good tactical defense, a single pistol
can often kill a baron while it approaches (something a 3-trait chaingun user
will struggle to do), but in the event that a target gets close enough to shoot
back, the player can use juggler to instantly switch to a combat shotgun and
initiate a knockback loop for 5 shots, easily enough to finish off the pistol-
wounded target. Provided a good defensive position is used, this marine can
kill all targets without exposing himself to enemy fire.
Playing the build features a massive amount of weapon switching, and reveals
the pistol's surprising ability to penetrate armour at range - to such an
extent that it's not worth carrying around cells until a BFG is found.
Plasmarifles are carried, but should be overcharged on pickup for that single-
shot power.
After every fight a light weapons guy should equip dual pistols. Upon seeing a
monster, he can use these pistols, but be sure to change to a shotgun before
the enemy gets close enough to fire back. If the finesse shotgun pushes an
enemy back out of this 'danger range', then switch back to a single pistol -
even without dualgunner, sonOfAGun makes for an awesome pistol attack.
Furthermore, the build requires very little ammunition to use - 2 stacks of
shells, and another 2 stacks of bullets, are more than enough to clear most
levels, freeing up inventory space for rockets, medikits, cells, and armour. At
about level 10 ammo should be hoarded, ready for the trek through hell where
ammo can become a serious issue.
A bulk mod on the pistol is a big help, and a power or agility mod is also
useful.
This build's main weakness comes from arachnotron caves... Running mode and
dodgemaster help alleviate the problem a little, but it's hard to find a good
shooting spot in such levels, which leads to regular skipping of caves - don't
try to get 100% kills using this.



There are, of course, many other effective builds to call upon. I included the
above simply because they are very effective builds that make use of all the
game's ranged weapon types, which makes for a character that is both powerful,
and fun to play.

  Weapon/challenge-specific builds........ [WEDS ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
And now we'll cover which builds to go for in various special situations:

Pistol:
The primary disadvantages of the pistol are the reasonably low damage, and the
clip size.

SonOfAGun -> SonOfAGun -> DualGunner -> SonOfAGun -> SonOfABitch -> SonOfABitch
-> SonOfABitch -> EagleEye

This pistol build does not bother with GunKata, but instead focuses on getting
pistol damage so high, it reliably knocks opponents away from the player. With
a good application of tactical defense and a power-modded pistol, focusing on
damage is a good way to tackle a pistol challenge, but I'd still advise taking
hellrunner -> dodgemaster before confronting the cyberdemon.

SonOfAGun -> SonOfAGun -> DualGunner -> HellRunner -> HellRunner -> DodgeMaster
-> GunKata -> SonOfAGun
This pistol build, on the other hand, selects the GunKata trait. GunKata allows
a player to use his pistol while performing other actions (namely, firing while
dodging, and reloading whenever a kill is made). It's a very powerful trait,
but to use it well the player is required to see opponents and dodge shots,
both of which could be considered avoidable dangers were a different character
build taken.









Shotgun:
The main advantage of the shotgun is the ability to knock targets away when
they are trying to approach, and the ability to hit more than 1 target with a
single shot.
The shotgun's biggest disadvantages are the time it wastes being reloaded, and
it's inability to penetrate armour at long range.

Finesse -> Juggler -> Hellrunner -> Hellrunner -> Dodgemaster -> Reloader ->
Reloarder -> Shottyman -> FireAngel -> Finesse -> ToughAsNails ->
whizkid

A very versatile and powerful way of using a shotgun. This build uses the
'juggler' trait to almost completely eliminate the large reload times on
shotguns. Instead of reloading shotguns in combat, a marine can just use his
juggler skills to instantly pull out a fresh, loaded shotgun.
However, this build does nothing to improve the shotgun's inability to
penetrate armour at range, and as such well-armoured opponents are difficult to
fight later in the game, hence the use of 'fireangel' to RUN past revenants,
mancubi, and arch-viles without suffering damage.

Reloader -> ToughAsNails -> ToughAsNails -> Badass -> Reloader -> Shottyman ->
ArmyOfTheDead ->
This shotgun build, on the other hand, usese 'reloader' to reduce the reload
time on the shotgun, and 'ArmyOfTheDead' to attack armoured targets. It is a
powerful shotgun build, but reloader does not completely eliminate the
reloading disadvantage of the shotgun. Compared to the above 'fireangel' build,
using an army of the dead shotgun character is harder in the early and mid
game, and only becomes the more powerful shotgun build when stronger enemies
start to arrive.







Rapidfire:
Rapidfire weapons include both the chaingun, and the plasmagun. These weapons
are very similar in their application. The plasmagun is undoubtedly the better
of the 2, but has a rarer and heavier ammo source. Rapidfire weapons have the
advantage of a very high single-target damage, but consume ammunition quickly,
and generally cannot knock a target back (unless a player tries very hard to
acheive knockback effects, which will completely spoil the rapidfire weapon
because targets knocked back will often be missed with subsequent bullets in
the salvo)

Ammochain build:
Finesse -> Juggler -> Finesse -> SonOfABitch -> SonOfABitch -> TriggerHappy ->
Whizkid -> AmmoChain -> SonOfABitch -> TriggerHappy -> Ironman -> Ironman ->
Ironman
Behold, the awesome power of ammochain! This build is pretty much the best way
to reach ammochain for me - Juggler makes shotgunning your way through the
early game incredibly easy, and your infinite-ammo plasmagun will still arrive
in time to defeat archviles (at 'the wall' for ultra violence games). Not much
to say that hasn't already been said.

Eagleeye build:
EagleEye -> EagleEye -> Intuition -> Intuition -> Hellrunner -> Hellrunner ->
Dodgemaster -> Finesse -> SonOfABitch -> SonOfABitch -> TriggerHappy ->
SonOfABitch -> TriggerHappy
This is a different way of using rapidfire weapons. It handles the early game
using pistols and chainguns, and moves straight into intuition 2 to see where
all monsters are on the current level. After that, it sets up a bit of defense
(only really needed for nightmare difficulty), then moves on to making the
marine better at wielding his chaingun/plasmagun.











Challenges and difficulty        [CHTY ]
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
  Normal game................... [NOME ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
By 'normal game' I'm referring to completing the game (with any ending) on any
skill level other than nightmare, with no challenges or particular badges being
saught.
Under these conditions, the game is a relatively easy challenge once you've got
used to the general tactics detailed in this guide. Specifically, though, I'd
go with a character build that uses the 'ammochain' trait if possible.
Ammochain is useful not only for it's infinite ammo and powerful plasmagun,
it's of particular significance in a standard game because of the inventory
space it saves - this allows the player to save phase devices, enrivosuits, and
medikits to help him tackle any levels he comes across.
Usually, in a normal game, the best way of succeeding

  Challenges.................... [CHES ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
There are many 'angel of' challenges in doomRL. Completing them all is a much
more difficult challenge than a simple victory, but perhaps best tackled
through badge hunting (thereby killing 2 birds with one stone [Why you'd want
to be killing birds is beyond me.])

  Badges........................ [BAES ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯
Badges are doomrl's way of giving lasting challenge and appeal to determined
players. Each badge features a different test of a players skills. It’s
possible to try for more than one badge in a single game, but the more
difficult badges (diamond and platinum) are exceedingly difficult, and a player
would be well advised to focus on one at a time when she reaches this level.


  Nightmare..................... [NIRE ]
  ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
DoomRL is a very different game on nightmare difficulty. This is because
dropping a gift and waiting for monsters, or waiting on the spot until a
monster walks into your vision so that you get the first shot, is not an option
- any amount of waiting will allow enemies to respawn, and the longer you stay
on a level, the quicker monster respawn times become (from 10% per 'tick' to
100%). At 100% per tick, which kicks in after a few thousand turns, a typical
room of monsters will regenerate far more quickly that you can even kill them,
let alone get past them.

Playing on nightmare generally consists of 2 tactical shifts - the first is
that you want to try to kill enemies while they are standing on an open door,
water, acid, lava, or a corpse from another monster. If they die like this,
they don't leave a corpse, and thus can't be resurrected. The second is about
speed - try to get everything done in as few turns as possible, to minimise the
effect of enemy respawns. Always consider walking down stairs when you see
them, and try not to walk through the same area more than once (or twice, if
you have to).

I personally have a great deal of difficulty playing on nightmare skill level.
Giftdropping is exceedingly effective for leading monsters into doorways to deny
them a corpse, but those monsters that do not pick up items, or those that can
survive a turn or two of sustained firing, are incredibly difficult - it's hard
to deny them a corpse, because they don't die when you want them to.Probably
the worst are cacodemons and hell knights - at the stage they show up (level
3+) you don't have the equipment to properly deal with them, but avoiding them
denys you experience, meaning you end up meeting arachnotrons in caves without
the traits to beat them.

This being said, there is one effective strategy for stomping in nightmare -
selecting the 'angel of max carnage' challenge game. This gaurantees hits, and
gaurantees maximum damage. In nightmare, this is invaluable, as it lets you
deal with tricky opponents like hell knights as quickly as you would usually
deal with imps. In fact, on angel of max carnage, if you pick the relevant
traits, a plasma gun will kill an arachnotron, hell knight, baron, cacodemon,
and revenant in a single turn, making nightmare games comparitively easy under
this 'challenge' game.

Outside of 'angel of max carnage', each level should be examined as you play it
- sometimes, if the layout is right, it's possible with a lot of patience,
giftdropping, and waiting, to completely clear a level using corpse denial.
This should be attempted on the first 5 levels or so for items and experience.
Other levels don't have the right layout, or the right monsters, to make this
possible. On such a level, a player must adopt the opposite strategy - not
patience, no giftdropping, and no waiting - you should rush through the level
while the regeneration chance is at 10%, and try to kill and pick up as much as
you can on your way to the stairs. Most of the later levels, including any that
involve mancubi or revenants, should be tackled this way.





Weapons:
                  S                        A                                 
                  C                        M                                 
                  H                        M                                 
                  E                    R   O     T                           
                  M                    E   /     O                           
   N              A          A   T     L   S  C                               
   A              T    D     V   I     O   H  L  H   D                           
   M              I    M     R   M     A   O  I  I   P                           
   E              C    G     .   E     D   T  P  T   S    Special
                                                                 
Pistol                2d4  (  5) 1s   1.2  1   6 +4   2
shotgun               8d3  ( 15) 1s   1.4  1   1  -   7   Shotgun
Combat Shotgun        7d3  ( 13) 1s   0.7  1   5  -  12   Shotgun
Double Shotgun        8d3x3( 43) 1s   2.0  2   2  -   7   Shotgun
Chaingun              1d6x4( 14) 1s   2.5  4  40 +2   2.6
Rocket launcher       6d6  ( 21) 1s   1.5  1   1 +4   4   Blast
PlasmaGun             1d7x6( 24) 1s   2.0  6  40 +2   4.7
BFG9000               10d8 ( 44) 1s   2.0 40 100 +5  27.8

speedloader pist AT   2d4  (  5) 1s   0.4  1   6 +4   2.6

gravity boots ANA  movespeed +80%

Biggest f. gun PFSN 20D20(210) 1s   n/a 100    100      Plasma/Regen
Nanomanufacture BBBN base -    n/a n/a    n/a      Infinite Ammo
demolition ammo TTTN                                        AOE 3x3
cybernano armor PPNO indestructible
Ripper           TPBN 12d6( 42)


plate armour onyx + power on red armour
tactical shotgun power + tech
grappling boots tech + tech



























combat knife knife
green armor garmor
blue armor barmor
red armor rarmor
steel boots sboots
protective boots pboots
plasteel boots psboots
Small Health Globe shglobe
Berserk Pack bpack
Invulnerability Globe iglobe
Supercharge Globe scglobe
Large Health Globe lhglobe
Megasphere msglobe
Computer Map map
Tracking Map pmap
Light-Amp Goggles gpack
armor shard ashard
10mm ammo ammo


















































































shotgun shell shell
rocket rocket
power cell cell
10mm ammo chain pammo
shell box pshell
rocket box procket
power battery pcell
pistol pistol
shotgun shotgun
double shotgun dshotgun
combat shotgun ashotgun
rocket launcher bazooka
chaingun chaingun
plasma rifle plasma
small med-pack smed
large med-pack lmed




















































































phase device phase
homing phase device hphase
envirosuit pack epack
thermonuclear bomb nuke
power mod pack mod_power
technical mod pack mod_tech
agility mod pack mod_agility
















bulk mod pack mod_bulk
lever (floods with water) lever_flood_water
lever (floods with acid) lever_flood_acid
lever (floods with lava) lever_flood_lava
lever (harms creatures) lever_kill
lever (forces explosions) lever_explode
lever (destroys walls) lever_walls
lever (summons enemies) lever_summon
lever (Armor depot) lever_repair
lever (MediTech depot) lever_medical
lever (opens the lab) lever_spec3
lever (lowers walls) dis_switch
schematics (basic) schematic_0
schematics (advanced) schematic_1
schematics (master) schematic_2
Backpack backpack
lava element lava_element
teleport teleport
stubitem stubitem



Exotic Items
chainsaw chainsaw
combat pistol ucpistol
blaster ublaster
super shotgun udshotgun
assault shotgun uashotgun
plasma shotgun upshotgun
tristar blaster utristar
minigun uminigun
missile launcher umbazooka
napalm launcher unapalm
nuclear plasma rifle unplasma
laser rifle ulaser
combat translocator utrans
BFG 9000 bfg9000
nuclear BFG 9000 unbfg9000



medical armor umedarmor
duelist armor uduelarmor
bullet-proof vest ubulletarmor
ballistic vest uballisticarmor
energy-shielded vest ueshieldarmor
ballistic shield ubalshield
plasma shield uplasmashield
energy shield uenergyshield
onyx armor uoarmor
phaseshift armor uparmor
phaseshift boots upboots
gothic armor ugarmor
gothic boots ugboots
acid-proof boots uacidboots
firestorm weapon pack umod_firestorm
sniper weapon pack umod_sniper
Onyx Armor Pack umod_onyx
Nano Pack umod_nano
shockwave pack uswpack
blood skull ubskull
fire skull ufskull
hatred skull uhskull

Unique Items
Butcher's Cleaver ubutcher
Subtle Knife usubtle
Mjollnir umjoll
Trigun utrigun
Grammaton Cleric Beretta uberetta
Anti-Freak Jackal ujackal
Jackhammer usjack
Frag Shotgun ufshotgun
Mega Buster umega
Revenant's Launcher urbazooka
Railgun urailgun
BFG 10K ubfg10k
Acid Spitter uacid
Charch's Null Pointer unullpointer
Cybernetic Armor ucarmor
Medical Powerarmor umedparmor
Shielded Armor ushieldarmor
Necroarmor unarmor
Lava Armor ulavaarmor
Malek's Armor umarmor
Enviroboots uenviroboots
Nyarlaptotep's Boots unboots
Hellwave Pack uhwpack
Hell Staff umodstaff


Berserker Armor uberarmor
Dragonslayer udragon
Angelic Armor aarmor
Longinus Spear spear
Azrael's Scythe uscythe
Arena Master's Staff uarenastaff
</code></pre></html>
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2

Dervis

  • Nightmare Berserker
  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 321
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2019, 16:11 »

That's quite a good read, and quite thorough as well.
I probably disagree on a couple of stuff but I'd rather point out the 2 actual mistakes:

Power armor - Only usable on common armors, so no powered energyshield vest for you:P. That being said, powered red armor is top-tier armor and it's only not used more often because anti-gravity boots are ridiculously overpowered.

Juggling shotguns from inventory - The method you listed isn't the best one. You just need to carry 2 non-shotguns with you, and you won't have to waste the 0.5 seconds dropping the empty shotty. When quick-equipping a weapon the game will always choose the one with the most ammo.
Typical scenario is going into Hell's Arena with 6 shotguns, a pistol and a combat knife. Fire a shotgun, play with z, 1 and 2 until you have the pistol and knife equipped, and next time you press 3 you'll have a loaded shotgun ready.
Logged

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2019, 08:42 »

The juggling shotgun thing was an artifact from previous versions. I'm not sure whether the power armour thing was. Did they scrap plate armour? ;)
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2

Deathwind

  • Colonel
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 505
  • HMP Angel of Patience 0.9.9.4
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2019, 01:26 »

There's some issues with the special level section, kinda feels like it hasn't been updated in several versions.

Plate armor was actually rather sweet but it became the tower shield once shields were introduced.
Logged
v.997 [16/5/2/0/0]

Ashannar

  • Elder
  • Second Lieutenant
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 187
  • Shottyhead Aficionado
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2019, 02:22 »

As long as we're talking about artifacts from older versions, the "monsters clump in the center of the map" thing was patched out in one of the later versions. I can confirm they don't do it anymore in 0.9.9.7. Nice guide, though. I'm learning a lot. The shooting through doors thing is blowing my mind.
Logged
Hell Baron Major (0.9.9.7) 22 18 12 1 0 0

Sylph

  • Elder
  • Major
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 322
  • Galaxy Angel
    • View Profile
Re: Doomrl Guide
« Reply #9 on: May 02, 2019, 10:17 »

As long as we're talking about artifacts from older versions, the "monsters clump in the center of the map" thing was patched out in one of the later versions. I can confirm they don't do it anymore in 0.9.9.7. Nice guide, though. I'm learning a lot. The shooting through doors thing is blowing my mind.

They don't do it as much, but I still feel they do so. Try sitting in the corner of the level on something big like 'ciity of skulls', and just see how many thousands of turns pass by without you being disturbed.
Logged
Badges:
DRL:26 22 22 19 13 6
  JH:15 13 11   7   2
Pages: [1]