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1

Discussion / 0.9.9.8 Build Tier List

« on: December 31, 2024, 22:17 »

I posted this 0.9.9.8 (and early 0.9.9.9 beta) build tier list on the JH Discord and was asked to post it here so I could include the short summaries I wrote explaining my rationale for each ranking.

This tier list factors how the build does at every point in the game and overall consistency, not just ranking on potential (what good is potential if you'll always die before reaching it or will almost never get the rare equipment you need for it?), nor how likely a build gets you past Phobos (sure Phobos is usually the hardest part, but Phobos deaths are much less painful than deaths in Deimos and especially Hell, so increasing your odds of not dying in Deimos and Hell is still important), and considers how much the build actually helps you clear difficult levels and survive arduous combat situations (any build can 100% clear a level without damage with a perfect corner shooting spot and a Tactical Shotgun, but rarely will you find such ideal conditions, especially on harder difficulties, so the less you have to depend on ideal conditions the better). Tiers are ordered, but the ordering isn't super important.

S tier

(Clearly broken and needs to be nerfed)

*Vampyre - Trivializes the standard game when it gives you near-IDDQD even in Angel Of Max Carnage and is by far the easiest option for most challenges/badges. Strategy with Vampyre also often amounts to little more than "run into enemies, mash click until they die", with maybe some rocket jumps in there to close gaps and calculated facerockets to trigger Berserker before rushing in. Its only weaknesses is a mediocre early game (that is mitigated with the free trait you get and being a level 6 mastery), and the Hellrunner block makes it not so ideal for any time-sensitive challenges, but it's so strong it could probably still work in those. The gap between Vampyre and every other build grows even farther on Nightmare, when melee is very powerful at corpse handling and Vampyre can abuse respawns for a full health refill whenever needed. It also requires nothing more than a mundane Nanofiber Red Armor and Chainsaw (or even just a Chainsword) to break the game, no need for rare or otherwise hard-to-get equipment, so it's super consistent and its floor is greater than nearly every other build's ceiling.

A+ tier

(Borderline broken, might need a nerf but doesn't outright trivialize the game)

*Ammochain - EE block makes typical rapid fire weapons unreliable and not being able to get WK1/2 until level 10/11 minimum without putting off Ammochain sucks, but consuming 1 cell per plasma burst is so powerful, both ammo-conservation and combat wise (other builds can't do more than five consecutive shots with a Plasma Rifle + TH2 without needing to go through a long reload or building a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, while Ammochain can do 40 consecutive shots with a vanilla Plasma Rifle without reloading), and having Reloader makes Shotguns a very reliable fallback, while that in addition to the Marine's durability makes the early game easy too. Also has the uncommon ability to get both HR + Berserker to make it even more powerful late game, and its non-EE blocks are irrelevant. Overall has a very high floor with one of the highest ceilings (just needs a Hyperblaster to crush the game, while getting any of the rare mods, a Laser Rifle, or Nuclear Plasma Rifle sends it into the stratosphere), with few special levels and challenges posing any issue.

A tier

(Very powerful and often optimal builds, but have enough drawbacks to usually not make the game a cakewalk)

*Shottyhead - One of the strongest mastery effects despite its simplicity, while also having very strong prereqs, being able to get WK at a reasonable level, doesn't require ancillary traits but still retains strong post-mastery options like Berserker and Intuition, and has probably the easiest early game of any build. Its only stumbling is the SoB + EE block makes any sort of Plasma Rifle much less effective, but this isn't a big deal unless the RNG is very stingy with shells when you essentially got rapid fire shotguns. It has one of the highest floors with one of the highest ceilings, while being good at every point of the game and rarely being worse than a solid pick for any given challenge, but being vulnerable to ammo concerns without a Nano mod keeps it from the A+ tier.

*Scavenger - Essentially plays like a masterless build, but gets more mods than usual and a lot more of those very coveted rare mods, that combines very nicely with the Technician's inherent abilities. While luck dependent, it'll usually get better equipment than other builds around the midgame, and is far more likely to obtain the super equipment that will trivialize the game. While it has the fewest blocks of any mastery and two of the blocks are pretty irrelevant, the Berserker block is painful and can leave the build somewhat vulnerable lategame without good armor. Like masterless builds, it can also lack power in late Phobos and early Deimos before you get the aforementioned buffed equipment, but is usually no worse than solid for any challenge that doesn't require immediate power.

*Cateye - The best build at damage avoidance, while it also offers a level of flexibility not seen in most other masteries, and has a good effect that benefits any weapon type, making it more of a "generalist" mastery than the actual intended generalist Scout mastery. Can have the problem of wanting too many traits however (particularly being unable to fit Int2 + WK2 + EE + HR in a timely manner), and Cateye can be lacking in power when damage avoidance is not possible, which cannot be alleviated by getting Berserker either as it's blocked (which also makes the build more fragile in the lategame). Often a viable pick regardless of the challenge, and does have the particular perk of being brokenly good in Angel of Max Carnage.

*Blademaster - No other build can clear floors faster, and Berserker in general is very strong, while its power scales up the higher the difficulty as its ability becomes more useful the more enemies there are. Its early game is on the weaker end and the late Whizkid acquisition sucks, while its effect doesn't really do much against isolated enemies, keeping it from being broken, but it remains consistently good floor and ceiling wise, and it remains an optimal pick for many challenges/badges, or when you just want to rush through the game with more power than a masterless build offers.

*Masterless Scout - The unequivocal best stair dive build, and the ultimate flexibility combines nicely with the Scout's inherent abilities. For more complete playthroughs however, its lack of power in the mid and late game can hold it back in difficult combat encounters and harder special levels, and generally specialization towards something will be more useful for any challenge/badge that isn't a stair dive. Still remains A tier for its stair diving dominance and the fact you can never really go wrong with it.

B tier

(Powerful builds with their fair share of drawbacks that keep them from being top tier picks)

*Masterless Marine - Generally outclassed by Masterless Scout and other Marine masteries, which fulfill their respective roles better, but it still has the strengths of versatility in a masterless build, and has a strong niche when you need a bulkier build than Masterless Scout while also needing said masterless versatility (particularly if you want Hellrunner on something bulky, which all non-Ammochain Marine masteries block, without having to make a detour for Triggerhappy as Ammochain would require).

*Survivalist - It fulfills its role well as the tank build, at the expense of having the worst offense in the game and a painful Hellrunner block. Usually terrible offense would tank a build's viability, but Survivalist makes tanking actually viable and gives you a big margin of error to play with, allowing you to get away with repeated mistakes and bad RNG rolls that would be fatal for nearly any other build. The lack of offense and speed can still get it overwhelmed though, and it's bad for any time-sensitive event, which alongside being generally outclassed by Vampyre, keeps it from being top tier.

*Masterless Technician - Mostly outclassed by Scavenger if you want to make the most of a generalist Technician, and mostly outclassed by the other Masterless builds if you want to make the most of having no mastery, as the Scout and Marine have stronger innate bonuses (particularly in the early game). But as a masterless build it's still pretty good, and it does have the niche of a generalist Technician's advantages that retains access to Berserker (which is particularly relevant in Angel Of Humanity).

*Army of the Dead - Probably has the lowest ceiling of any build, with probably the weakest mastery effect in the game (aside from Entrenchment) that becomes irrelevant with Nano-Shrapnal and Plasma(tic) Shotguns, and is probably never an optimal pick for any challenge/badge. But it has a good early and mid game with Shotgun specialization, Marine's durability, and relatively quick access to Whizkid, while Shotguns never become bad and it can still spec into a Berserker sidearm to help in the lategame if needed. With a high consistent floor that depends little on equipment/item luck, this build is rarely an outright bad pick outside of any challenge/badge that requires Hellrunner.

C tier

(Functional but held back by serious flaws, could use a buff)

*Sharpshooter - One of the strongest mastery effects in the game, and thanks to Technician, doesn't need to invest in Finesse to get Whizkid, which is very useful for a Pistol build. As a result, it has one of the strongest mid games and a still impressive late game, which is also boosted by it retaining access to the Good Stuff to bolster it farther in the later game (with the SoB block being its only real painful block). However, due to Pistol specialization and awful prereqs, it has an absolutely abysmal early game, the worst of any build, which gives it an awful survival rate in Phobos on harder difficulties if you're not very good at the game, and makes it very unideal for any challenge/badge where early power is needed. Such a polarizing mastery can be hard to rank, on a pure winrate basis it would be possibly the worst and generally Phobos is the hardest part, but since Phobos deaths are much less punishing time-investment wise, a build that offers such good mid and late game consistency still has value.

*Gunrunner - Has one of the highest potential ceilings in the game, being able to effectively get Pistol firing rates on Shotguns and Rocket Launchers while firing/moving/reloading all at the same time, and any combination of HR + Fin + Rel gives it an easy early game. But this mastery requires significant ancillary investment as it needs Shottyman to actually do anything worthwhile, which combined with a very late Whizkid acquisition and requiring the generally unhelpful Dodgemaster, gives it a very weak mid game. Gunrunner itself can also be rather finicky to utilize and is very ammo hungry whenever you use it, while the Brute block prevents you from effectively using a melee backup, as well as leaves you always frail. It can feel very good to wipe out a nasty horde in a quick run rampage, but deaths in Deimos are always painful and Shottyhead generally outclasses it (which you'll need to actively forego as you build to Gunrunner + Shottyman, as it overlaps Shottyhead's prereqs).

*Fireangel - Its defensive benefit is potentially very handy and no-damage rocket jumps is a nice benefit, but it offering no sort of offensive boost, while also blocking SoB and EE, leaves it with one of the worst offenses in the game, and the defensive benefit is not so good as to be worth the tradeoff. It has a tantalizing ceiling with being able to blow up everything with the Mother-In-Law, Nanomachic Tristar Blaster, or a nano-modded BFG 10K with no risk of blowing yourself up, but you'll very rarely get such weapons and often won't even get a Nano mod just to build a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher, which is necessary to take extensive advantage of rocket launchers offensively since rockets come in such small ammo quantities. It retains access to Berserker to compensate for the lack of offense, but besides not being easy to fit in, Fireangel removes the ability for you to get Berserker procs off of facerockets and barrels, making it not as strong as Berserker is in the hands of other builds. Overall it's not that bad, and has a decent early game thanks to Shotgun specialization, but it's never really any good either, outside of a particular niche with the Gatekeeper badges.

*Malicious Blades - The mastery effect is decent, but its offensive and defensive benefits are almost entirely outclassed by those of Berserker, which it blocks. The mastery has the benefit of its defense-boosting effects being usable with non-melee weapons, which when combined with it not blocking SoB like the other melee masteries, allows it to function more effectively as a hybrid-melee build, but such a build requires a ton of traits that leaves it weak for a long time, and having to keep a blade in your prepared slot to get said defense-boost prevents you from utilizing ammo boxes, hurting it farther in a hybrid build. Whether as a pure melee Technician or hybrid melee build, you are better off going masterless and getting Berserker instead, and a build specializing in blades specifically would still do much better with the other melee masteries. I don't see any challenge/badge where this is a remotely optimal pick, but it's never bad enough to rank it in the lower tiers.

D tier

(These builds aren't unplayable, but they're severely flawed and using them makes the game much harder, in need of significant buffs)

*Gun Kata - HR investment gives it a slightly easier early game than other Pistol masteries, but investing in Pistols still gives you a much harder early game compared to non-Pistol builds (and ultimately with pistols, you would rather stack SoG with SoB and get a level of EE early rather than get HR, as getting your combat to something acceptable is of upmost importance, so Pistol builds that don't go with any Pistol mastery still have the least painful early game). Unlike Sharpshooter however, it requires several ancillary traits to be effective; it technically doesn't require SoG3 but you need it ASAP or else your Pistols don't do shit, making Gun Kata effectively a level 8 mastery, but you also need two levels of Fin before you can get WK that's desperately needed for Pistol builds, then you need SoG 4 and 5 after that, still really want at least one level of EE so you stop missing so much, and you would want to fit in Int too... The SoB block without Sharpshooter's guaranteed max damage also makes your Pistols quite weak and unreliable, at least before you get SoG5, or before you get a Unique pistol or an Exotic pistol maxed out with Power mods. You altogether get a build with a weak early game, an abysmal mid game, and a still unimpressive late game, so you're always lagging behind other builds at every stage of the game. Gun Kata's effects itself can also be rendered pointless, as the "shoot faster after dodging" bonus doesn't matter once you reach the firing speed cap (nevermind the unreliability, if not outright impracticality, of utilizing it in typical difficult combat scenarios), and the reloading bonus doesn't matter if you get a Nanomachic Pistol or a Blaster (while being a finicky effect to utilize in general, especially compared to just using one Pistol and an ammo box). If you want to use Pistols with a Scout, you're better off going masterless or even Cateye, which doesn't block SoB and has an effect that is always useful regardless of what Pistols you have.

*Bullet Dance - It has theoretically the highest DPS ceiling of any build, but similar to Gun Kata it requires a grotesque amount of ancillary traits, while having the "Pistols suck in early game" problem exasperated by having to pick an actually useless trait in Triggerhappy, and Bullet Dance itself does more harm than good unless you find a Nano mod to build a Nanomachic Pistol or find a Combat Pistol and bulk mod the crap out of it, which you often won't. Said DPS ceiling is also rather overkill, when a Pistol with SoG5 and several levels of SoB will quickly kill anything before they can retaliate without the ammo-draining drawbacks of Bullet Dance. So you get a very weak early and mid game, for a late game that usually isn't all that hot either. If you want to use Pistols with a Marine, you're again better off going masterless, as you don't need to pick up Triggerhappy nor bother with Dualgunner until it's actually useful, while retaining freedom to get HR and even Berserker if you want extra lategame assurance (particularly in A100).

E(ntrenchment) tier

(Outright sucks, in desperate need of serious buffs or being overhauled completely)

*Entrenchment - Has awful prereqs that makes the early game hard, Finesse block cripples its offense with any weapon, requires a lot of ancillary traits that gives it a very hard mid game, all for a very underwhelming purely defensive mastery that both only kicks in when Chainfiring and gives resistances that are only slightly better than the resistances the Marine has inherently at all times. Then for the cherry on top, if you actually try to utilize it extensively, you'll waste a lot of ammo and quickly empty your clip, where you're then stuck with having to reload weapons that have 2+ second reload times while no longer having your resistances and not even being able to get Reloader to lessen the mauling you'll suffer. So you need to either find a Minigun and tons of bullets, or a Nano mod to make a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, just to make the build even functional.

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2

Nightmare! / [N!|AoP + AoRA|66%|YAVP] - First official Inquisitor Angelic Badge! (with video)

« on: December 14, 2024, 20:37 »

I recorded this entire run, which you can watch in this Youtube link.

I previously posted about obtaining Inquisitor Angelic in the first beta for 0.9.9.9 to test if the badge actually needed any nerfs despite nobody ever winning it prior in the 11 years since 0.9.9.7, but I don't consider obtaining badges in the beta versions to count, and like with Eagerness Angelic, I didn't want to wait around until 0.9.9.9 launches proper to get the badge officially. So I went back to 0.9.9.8 once more and was able to obtain Inquisitor Angelic there to officially claim being the first person to have verifiably won it.

I would recommend reading the linked thread about my 0.9.9.9 beta Inquisitor Angelic run, for my thoughts on the badge and my general strategy, so as to not repeat myself here. The differences compared to that run is that I lead off with Finesse instead of Hellrunner, to increase the chances that I kill the Sergeants in Phobos Base Entry without them using the Small Medkits, and since I'll get Hellrunner very shortly into Phobos 2 anyway. Then in the lategame after getting Berserker, I end up just getting as much Ironman as I could and even a level of Tough As Nails, rather than Fin2 + Whizkid, since I was perpetually short on medkits and had no good armor in the later half, desperately needing all the extra survivability I could scrounge up.

If you're interested in reading the floor-by-floor breakdown I wrote up rather than watching the video (or even read it alongside to see my thoughts throughout), you can find it in the spoiler tags:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Phobos Base Entry - As always you start off in Phobos Base Entry, which is never actually difficult to get through. But getting through it without taking a decent chunk of damage is luck-based, and there's even more luck involved with killing the two Sergeants before they use up their Small Medkits. If I took about 25% or more in damage, or failed to get both Small Medkits, I would just restart, as limiting damage and getting as many medkits as you can is important, while any Phobos Base Entry shouldn't take more than a minute and so it doesn't take much time to get a good Phobos Base Entry.

Floor 2 - This went pretty bad; aside from that embarrassing mishap where I misclicked the wrong direction several times when trying to shoot a Former Human, I took a lot of unnecessary damage, having to needlessly burn a medkit already, getting my armor damaged, and being unable to explore a large chunk of the level before running short on time. At least I got a couple more Small Medkits, but it should have went better and I really want more than one armor.

Hell's Arena - Trying to actually clear Hell's Arena in this challenge would be out of the question, but I always go in and clear the first wave before leaving, as you need all the EXP you can get this early and it is usually pretty easy to clear the first wave without taking much damage if you don't get bad starting spawn locations, while if anything respawns and it's not in your way, you can just ignore it when kill % doesn't matter here. Doing the first wave of Hell's Arena should ensure you'll always reach level 3 before floor 3 to get that crucial HR + Fin + Rel combo before bigger enemies start showing up. As for this particular run, I took a few plasma balls that I shouldn't have, but taking 27% damage overall wasn't too bad and was worth the tradeoff for EXP. Just remember to take off your Green Armor here, it does nothing to defend against plasma and you want to preserve it for enemies it'll actually do something against.

Floor 3 - What a bad floor; sandwiched by Imps and a Hell Knight at the start, some more awkwardly placed Hell Knights I had to get through, I lose my only armor, and burn two Small Medkits without getting any back. I also had no time to try exploring the vault that spawned here, which could have had some really nice stuff in it. This run isn't looking too good at this point.

Floor 4 - A much needed rebound here; the starting position looked precarious with a Pain Elemental in sight, a Pinky horde to the south, and hearing a Hell Knight around. But I'm able to kill the Pain Elemental before the Pinkies come, while there's a very conveniently placed acid barrel to help me take out the Pinkies, and the Hell Knight stayed away until I could confront him in a better spot. I also not only found a couple Small Medkits and a fresh Green Armor, but also got very lucky with a crate that dropped a Large Medkit. Early found stairs allowed me to explore the rest of the floor with low pressure  and I get a lot of EXP without taking much damage, this run is back.

Floor 5 - Starting me right next to a Cacodemon and other nasties that blocked off any immediate safe zone wasn't good, but I get a bit lucky with the Caco wandering away until I cleared out the weaker enemies, while immediately finding an uncontested Small Medkit, Large Medkit, and Radsuit was very nice, as well as the stairs to The Chained Court spawning right next to me. The rest of floor had nothing noteworthy but wasn't bad, and the damage I take is irrelevant for the coming level as long as I don't die here. Just wished I had some more armor...

The Chained Court - A mandatory stop, as not only to get the Chainsaw, but the Chainsaw's free Nerserk on pickup still works in AoP, so you basically get a much needed free full heal here. While entering low on health, I try to avoid immediately picking it up, first popping the Radsuit I just found so I can cross the lava to get the two mods I normally wouldn't be getting here (as you need to hit all the levers to lower the center room's walls, doing which would make me take way too much damage to be worth it). I do almost die and I thought about burning a Small Medkit to be safe in case a Former wandered near the center room as I tried making my way back to the Chainsaw, but I decide against it to make the most of the Chainsaw's one time Berserk. After having to pick up the Chainsaw earlier than I wanted, I go make a quick dash to the left to kill the two Barons hidden behind the switches, to get some EXP while the Berserk makes it low risk, and then run back to get the mod in the south center room before the Radsuit runs out. Unfortunately I still end up taking a lot of damage on the way back and have to burn a medkit that I shouldn't have had to, but besides the Chainsaw and EXP, getting a Power Mod on my Shotgun and a Bulk mod for later was very worth it. Just unfortunate I forgot to pick up those shells while entering the next floor with almost no ammo left and my only armor is nearly destroyed...

Floor 6  - Floor 6 gave me a Lost Soul cave, which is the easiest level you can ask for at this point. But a Lost Soul cave also means low EXP and not many items, and I take a bit of damage still as I had to Chainsaw them all. I did found a couple Phase Devices that will be very handy for an upcoming level and a fresh Armor though, as well as some shells, so considering I could have been dumped on a floor that started me next to Barons before I have Berserker and no Sergeant in sight to get ammo from, I'll gladly take this.

Floor 7 - Another cave, this time with Pinkies too, and almost as easy. Considering I could have gotten a floor with Barons, Commandos, Arachnotrons, and Revenants before I have Berserker nor Red Armor, the easiness is appreciated, but I also would have really wanted more EXP, going into Deimos at level 5 and still with no Berserker nearby is not good. Also wasn't a good floor for items either, just a Small Medkit I had to burn anyway as I had to Chainsaw a bunch. As for possibly entering Military Base and Phobos Lab, doing so is basically a death trap in this challenge combination. If you have a Homing Phase Device by this floor and Phobos Lab spawned, you could go in, nab the two Small Medkits at the start, maybe try getting the two Large Medkits in the caves if you think you can handle the Nightmare Demons, and then use the Homing Phase once you do so or when you're about to get mauled by the Nightmare Demons, while you can then run off with the Combat Shotgun and fresh Blue Armor next to the stairs. Homing Phases are very valuable in this challenge when it'll let you skip any nasty floor or save your ass if you can't find the stairs in time, but getting all that nice loot and some EXP could be worth sacrificing it (don't think about trying that with Military Base though; while the Phobos Lab exit stairs are sealed off in a locked room that no enemy can reach you in, Military Base's exit stairs are in a sealed room full of Elite Formers, who will promptly slaughter you once you phase in).

Phobos Anomaly - You get a big restock here with two guaranteed Large Medkits and a Red Armor, as well some ammo, but you have to get through the very deadly Nightmare ambush, the reason why you absolutely need HR2. With HR2, after activating run with no armor, you can run through it without the Nightmare Demons catching you and won't take too much damage if you're not unlucky (just be sure to shut the door once you make it to the other side if you can, which will get you some crucial distance before tiring as the Nightmare Demons and Cacodemons have to wait for the NJightmare Imps to open the door). If you don't have HR2, you'll need either Berserker, a Rocket Launcher to rocket jump out, or getting lucky with Phase Devices, otherwise you WILL die here. As I had two Phase Devices, I decided to try using them to phase past the ambush and save me some potential damage... and the first does not get me through, but the second one does. Unfortunately there is still the Bruisers to get past, and since I don't have Berserker, while absolutely not wanting to risk getting sandwiched by them and the Nightmare enemies, I just try to ignore them and run through. The narrow terrain still resulted in me taking some heavy hits and I had to burn a Small Medkit, but entering Deimos with four Large Medkits and two Small Medkits is a good spot... if my ammo and armor situation wasn't so bad right now.

Floor 9 - Not a good floor at all, got a terrible starting spot and no medkits to replenish the ones I had to burn, while I already had to use my Bulk mod on my Red Armor. Also when running back to the stairs, I ended up in a bad spot with my face right next to a Mancubus, but luckily I got a double move on it and so only took that one melee hit from it. At least there were a lot of Sergeants to fix my shell shortage. As for the special levels here, as painful as it is to skip, you must skip Hell's Armory; you'll end up eating a ton of damage trying to clear it within AoRA's time limit, and you'll have to push through a lot of enemies in tight corridors just to get to the mods and weapon cache. Entering Deimos Lab on the other hand could be rewarding; actually clearing it is out of the question, but if you're willing to gamble, the crates could have medkits and armors, while you also get a free Blue Armor if you're fast, two mods, ammo boxes, and possibly a very good weapon from the weapon cache. You could just as easily though get nothing from the crates, some former could get the Blue Armor first, the weapon cache could have nothing useful, and you can just end up eating full Plasma Rifle bursts from the Commandos. I ended up not risking it here, but if I had Berserker and a better armor situation I may have done so.

Floor 10 - Yet another cave, this time Pinkies and Cacodemons, and much worse as I had nowhere safe to run, ending up having to stand my ground and shotgun down a bunch of Cacos with no cover. At least I got a couple Small Medkits here and finally get Berserker, but ended burning a Large Medkit as well as one of the Small ones, and my Red Armor took a beating.

Floor 11 - A breather with a lot of great items; a Blue Armor, a Combat Shotgun, a Rocket Launcher, and a Super Shotgun. Could have maybe explored a bit more than I did though, wasn't good to burn a medkit without finding a replacement. As for The Wall and Containment Area, they're free to leave if you enter them, so you can take the stairs to them if needed, but unless you got so many medkits you don't mind burning some, they're not worth trying to enter and clear. Well with Containment Area, you could enter and hope the crates drop a medkit or something else useful, but with so few of them, you probably won't get anything and will end up just losing health to the crate maze Imps for nothing. If you have a Homing Phase, you can just also run to the Backpack, grab it as the ambush spawns, and then immediately Homing Phase out, but considering my build doesn't need to carry that much ammo while Homing Phases are so valuable, I don't think that's a fair tradeoff.

Floor 12 - A very bad starting spot led me to taking a lot of damage from Commandos and nearly dying, while having to burn another of my precious Large Medkits. Only got a single Small Medkit for my troubles here that I had to burn too, and I end up leaving early as I found the floor too risky to explore farther. As for the special levels here, City of Skulls is free to enter and exit, so its stairs can be used if needed to escape, and it's normally the easiest special level in Nightmare by far, while Blood Skulls can potentially be very valuable in a challenge where healing is so precious, but without Blademaster, Shottyhead, or Gunrunner, you'll have a very very hard time killing everything within the AoRA time limit. As for Abyssal Plains, it's not free to enter at all and so don't go in it unless you're desperate. It does have a Large Medkit, but you'll probably burn one just trying to get to it. If you have a Shell Box however, maybe you can just run to the center, ignoring the Nightmare Imps and aforementioned Medkit, while then try to kill the Agony Elemental without taking much damage, succeeding which will award you skulls that could be useful and the stairs will be right there to exit. I never tried that but it could pay off.

Floor 13 - A small rooms level can normally be bad in AoRA as it can take a long time to find the stairs, but the less open nature makes combat is usually easier and indeed I wouldn't take much damage here. Only found a single Small Medkit though I had to burn and my Red Armor is nearly damaged while I still haven't found another Power Mod to make it Nanofiber to ensure I'll always have ok armor, at least I finally got some boots and a Shell Box.

Floor 14 - A maze... the absolute worst type of level you can get. I'm very fortunate though that I spawn with the stairs in sight, trying to find the stairs in a level with so many enemies and no good cover could otherwise get very nasty. I do bust out the Super Shotgun to see if there's anything useful I can find on the floor and take some calculated Archvile zaps for free Berserker triggers, but unfortunately I find nothing worthwhile before it gets too risky to keep pressing forward, damaging my Red Armor and taking some damage without replenishment.

Floor 15 - I start right next to a Homing Phase, great I have one mulligan in the final stretch, and I find a much needed Technical mod for my Chainsaw. Unfortunately I still find no armor, no Power Mod, and no medkits, while my lone Red Armor is in tatters. So despite the level being a bit easy, I'm not in good shape here...

Tower of Babel - The Cyberdemon is no threat when you have Berserker, still it would be unavoidable damage and I considered maybe trying to fight him the long way by repeatedly side-stepping rockets while SSGing him inbetween reloads. I decided to just run in and Chainsaw him though, and I wouldn't take much damage overall. Once you reach Hell, any run is viable to win, but with only a single Large Medkit and my armor situation in dire straits, while I'm unable to just grab an Invuln and make a mad dash to Dis, this run desperately needs some reprieve or very lucky stairs to survive.

Floor 17 - And I do get some reprieve, with early stairs and a Large Medkit. I try exploring for more, but end up just taking a beating and finding nothing worthwhile, at least Berserker saved me when a Mancubus got me at a very bad angle. As for The Vault and House Of Pain, they're free to enter and exit, while clearing House Of Pain could be doable but it's not worth the risk when you're running so low on medkits, especially when you have to deal with Nightmare Arachnotrons (not to mention if you accept the invitation to enter, you're locked in House Of Pain until you clear it, not good when you're on a time limit). As for The Vaults, you could try poking in to the left and right vaults to see if they have anything, but when you got Nightmare Arachnotrons, as well as Nightmare Archviles that will teleport out of the center vault, it is absolutely not worth it.

Floor 18 - A terrible start, I lose my lone Red Armor, and burn my last Large Medkit. I also make a very dumb decision at the end to try berserking through the Cacodemon vault hoping a Medkit or two could be inside after I couldn't just corner shoot them all, but there was nothing but a Green Armor, leaving me exiting the floor with no medkits, no good armor, and a quarter of my health, while still several floors from Dis. I was thinking the run was over at this point, but I press on...

Floor 19 - I get the stairs immediately, as well as the message that a unique spawned, but most importantly, after a few steps I see a Large Medkit I desperately needed. Unfortunately a group of Hell Nobles and a Commando are heading right towards it, fortunately ducking behind the crates and whipping out the Super Shotgun was all it took to take them all out, while luckily nothing else is in range to contest it. I then immediately find a second Large Medkit that's uncontested, as well as the unique, that turns out to be Nyarlatotep's Boots, one of the best uniques I could ask here for when it'll speed my movement up a lot and give me great foot protection. I explore a bit more and there wasn't anything else, I can't complain when those finds rejuvenated my run, but I would really like some armor better than tattered Greens... As for Unholy Cathedral, it should be a mandatory stop for any build with Berserker, but since it'll be a decent amount of unavoidable damage and I only had a single Large Medkit, I decided I was better off trying to preserve as much health as I can, despite how nice the Longinus Spear would have been...

Floor 20 - A very bad floor, I start off surrounded by a ton of nasty enemies, and while the Radsuit + Berserk ensure the Mancubus and Baron could only do 1 damage a hit, all the Arachnotrons and Commandos around would still rack up damage quickly. I thought I got through it, but then ended up surrounded by Arachnotrons while low on health. So after picking up a damaged Blue Armor and using a Bulk Mod I just found on it to get some decent armor, I decide it's time to use my Homing Phase. It gets me out of there and the stairs just had a lone Mancubus, but unfortunately there was no items nearby. I should have maybe explored a bit more, and should have seen if Mortuary spawned, where I could have went in, quickly rocket jump around Berserked to pick up some much needed Red Armors and Large Medkits before immediately leaving, but seeing how low on health I was and how precarious the floor was, I decide to just leave and use up my last Large Medkit, hoping I get a good run of luck to finish this out as I'm so close to the end...

Floor 21 - ...And I get an Arachnotron Cave, with a bunch of Arachnotrons in the open and no stairs in sight, I thought the run was over at this point. I survive it though with some careful maneuvering and usage of Run, while finding the most clutch of Small Medkits to heal me back up after getting near death, before then just making a mad dash to the stairs. Just two more floors left before Dis now...

Floor 22 - I spawn right next to a horde of Archviles, Mancubi, and Chaingunners; with nothing else better I just start Chainsawing them berserked, and in the chaos the Mancubi reveal the stairs to Mt. Erebus while I'm being knocked around. Seeing more enemies coming, I just take the stairs to Erebus as it's free to exit and enter, and I just need to make it to Dis to win, it's not worth sticking around to try finding anything or getting any more EXP so close to the end.

Floor 23 - Well the game is going to make me work for it in the penultimate floor, starting me next to a ton of strong enemies. I initially tried berserking through them all, but I decide it's better to just run away and try finding a better position, where luckily I then find a good corner shooting spot to take them out. After eliminating the immediate threat in still decent health I start exploring and find no quick stairs, but I do find a couple Phase Devices and a Large Medkit to basically seal this run. With time running a bit low, I decide to facerocket myself some to trigger Berserk as the Radsuit will limit it to 1 damage and then try using those Phase Devices to get me to the stairs. The second brings me next to them with a Baron and Archvile in sight, who I just ignore as I just need to descend the stairs to win.

Dis - Since partial wins still award you any badge that doesn't require a full win, you can just wait out the nuke timer and win at this point without risking dying to the Mastermind. But as I made it to her with a Medkit to spare, and while Berserker renders here a nonthreat, I just rush in and quickly Chainsaw her to death to claim victory.

Curiously, while in the 0.9.9.9 beta I could consistently make it to Deimos and then kept losing there, taking me 12 attempts overall (not counting the runs I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), here in 0.9.9.8 I kept dying in Phobos, but then the first attempt I make it to Deimos I end up going all the way, with it taking 8 attempts instead overall (again not counting runs that were abandoned in Phobos Base Entry). Maybe corpses not respawning in sight does help a bit with making Phobos more consistent even if you're rushing through levels, or maybe I just had a good run of luck in the beta and bad run of luck in 0.9.9.8. Overall for this specific run, my level and item luck was pretty mixed (the Super Shotgun and Laptop Boots were very nice, as was being able to go into Deimos with several Large Medkits, but I would have really liked a second Red Armor and another Power Mod), and I was often teetering on the knife edge there in the later half, but not having ideal luck makes succeeding in such a difficult challenge all the more sweeter.

Now for the first mortem to officially have the Inquisitor Angelic Badge! (And a cool Inquisitor Diamond too, which isn't a badge you see all that much either, granted the Marine's buffs does make that badge quite a bit easier now, definitely wouldn't try to double it up with Inquisitor Angelic back in 0.9.9.7).

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 ONLYMEDKITS, level 12 Cyberdemon General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 46179 turns and scored 598958 points.
 He played for 51 minutes and 23 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 628 out of 949 hellspawn. (66%)
 He was an Angel of Purity!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 3
  Levels completed : 0

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Inquisitor Diamond Badge   Complete AoP on N! as Marine
  Inquisitor Angelic Badge   Complete AoP+AoRA on N!

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

  ###########################################################
  ##################................................#########
  #################...............####...............########
  ################.......####.....####.....####.......#######
  ###############........####.....####.....####........######
  ##############..........###.....####.....####.........#####
  #############...........###..............####..........####
  ############............................................###
  ############.....###............................####....###
  ############.....###............................####....###
  ############.0..####............................####&...###
  ############....####............................####....###
  ############............................................###
  #############..........####..............####..........####
  ##############.........####.....####.....####.........#####
  ###############........####...X.####.....####........######
  ################.......####..%..####.....####.......#######
  #################...............####...............########
  ##################................................#########
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 42/100   Experience 66284/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 4)
    Finesse          (Level 1)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)

  Fin->HR->Rel->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Iro->Iro->Iro->TaN->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   blue armor [1/2] (7%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (4d6) (T)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] shotgun (9d3) [1/1] (P1)
    [b] combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
    [c] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1]
    [d] super shotgun (8d4)x2 [2/2]
    [e] green armor [1/1] (41%)
    [f] green armor [1/1] (21%)
    [g] green armor [1/1] (16%)
    [h] blue armor [1/2] (24%) (B)
    [i] shotgun shell (x38)
    [j] rocket (x10)
    [k] rocket (x10)
    [l] rocket (x9)
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)

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

    bullet     - internal 100%  torso 95%   feet 95% 
    melee      - internal 100%  torso 95%   feet 95% 
    shrapnel   - internal 100%  torso 95%   feet 95% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 95% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 95% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 85%   feet 80% 

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

    57 former humans
    62 former sergeants
    25 former captains
    147 imps
    50 demons
    139 lost souls
    32 cacodemons
    13 hell knights
    24 barons of hell
    16 arachnotrons
    16 former commandos
    7 pain elementals
    9 revenants
    15 mancubi
    14 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 19 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He decided it was too dangerous.
  On level 23 he encountered an armed nuke!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

 70 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 14 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 36 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 7 killed the bitch and survived.
 27 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

3

Nightmare! / [N!|AoI + AoRA|94%|YAVP] - First official Eagerness Angelic Badge! (with video)

« on: December 08, 2024, 18:37 »

I recorded this entire run, which you can watch in this Youtube link

In DRL since version 0.9.9.7, there has been 17 Angelic Badges, the highest tier badges available. Of those 17 badges, 7 have never been verifiably won by any player since 0.9.9.7's release back in 2013, which are; UAC Angelic (beat the standard game on Nightmare with no damage), Demonic Angelic (beat standard N! with 100% kills and no damage), Speedrun Angelic (beat standard N! in under 4 minutes), Pacifist Angelic (beat Archangel of Pacifism with only one enemy dying, which must be the Spider Mastermind), Inquisitor Angelic (beat Angel of Purity + Angel of Red Alert on N!), Eagerness Angelic (beat Angel of Impatience + Angel of Red Alert on N! with 90+% kills) and Masochist Angelic (beat Archangel of Masochism on N!). Of those 7, the formermost 4 have been deemed to be outright impossible without cheating, and the lattermost is considered possible though extremely extremely difficult. The middle 2, Inquisitor and Eagerness Angelic, while not intrinsically impossible like the aforementioned 4, were thought to be so absurdly difficult that they were bordering on impossibility and would require esoteric cheese with rare items to obtain (namely for Eagerness Angelic, finding an early Trigun and getting an Invuln chain that allows you to nuke most of the levels, or finding a Dragonslayer with Vampyre, surviving a nuke with Invuln, and then farming the infinitely spawning Nightmare Demons for a long time to buffer your kill percentage a huge amount), so me and Icy have been proposing to easen their requirements alongside the unwinnable 4.

Then the first beta version of 0.9.9.9 dropped, which made some big changes to Nightmare in response to most players finding it unfun and avoiding the difficulty altogether; these changes are enemies will not respawn in your vision, respawns do not drop their inventory (and so cannot be farmed for ammo), and most importantly, respawns no longer count towards the kill percentage. These changes still don't make the unwinnable 4 humanly viable, and don't affect Inquisitor Angelic that much, but they are significant for Eagerness Angelic; the main reason it was thought borderline impossible is the fact that the time limit of AoRA makes meticulous corpse disposal unfeasible and so all the respawns would inevitably prevent you from maintaining such a high kill percentage of 90%, thus allowing you to ignore them entirely and not have them affect your kill percentage makes the badge a whole lot more viable. There was still concern that requiring 90% kills, in conjunction with the restraints of AoI (which most importantly prevents you from carrying medkits to heal on demand), was still too much, but to be sure if the badge still needed nerfing, I tested getting it in the beta (as well as tested Inquisitor Angelic), and was able to win it (link goes to the Jupiter Hell discord). However, when looking at the winning mortem and calculating the kill % with respawns factored, it came out to... over 90%... so I would have still won the badge even without the aforementioned kill % change with respawns, meaning this badge was very possible all along. Since 0.9.9.9's official release is still likely a ways off and wanting to claim this badge first in an official version, I decided to go boot up the official release of 0.9.9.8 and win the badge officially.

When it comes for the build to use for Eagerness Angelic, Blademaster seems to be the clear best shot, as no other build can clear floors faster, and Blademaster's ability to make every killing blow an instant action gives you the capability to farm kills to make up the large amount of kills needed, namely from Pain Elementals as Blademaster can wipe out a whole swath of Lost Souls instantly (and indeed I would do a bit of Pain Elemental farming throughout this run, but it would end up proving unnecessary, as even if you removed all the Lost Soul kills, I still would have had over 90% kills). As for trait order, I leadoff with Hellrunner; since most of your actions will be just moving, the trait that makes your movement take less time is invaluable when you're on a time limit for every floor (while Hellrunner is also just great in general). I immediately deviate from Blademaster's prereqs however by taking a level of Reloader; just surviving early Phobos on Nightmare is very difficult as is without any combat-boosting traits, and getting Brute doesn't help much yet when you don't got a Chainsaw, while of the available traits, Reloader gives the biggest boost when you're relying primarily on Shotguns. Since you're doing so much reloading, making your reloads 30% faster saves you a lot of time too and thus gives you more actions to work with on each floor. I then deviate once more to get a level of Intuition; powerups are very important on N! when they're doubly effective, but especially so in AoI where you're unable to store medkits in your inventory, so you are very reliant on powerups to keep your health up, and especially especially so in AoRA when Invulnerabilities allow you to survive nukes, making immediately knowing where all powerups are located on each floor crucial. However, I do not get the second level of Intuition, as being able to detect enemies outside vision isn't too helpful when floors are so enemy dense and they're often on top of you immediately, while you desperately need to get yourself stronger ASAP, so I go for the second level of HR instead to get even more speed. At this point I'll be getting the Chainsaw, making it time to get two levels of Brute and then Berserker; Berserker is especially important, as being berserked speeds you up significantly, and when Berserker triggers from you being hit, berserk's +60% resistances get applied before damage is calculated, giving you a big defensive boost against the hard hitting VMR (or I can trigger it intentionally at nearly any time with a face rocket whenever I need said boosts). It is then the third level of Brute, and finally Blademaster. After Blademaster, I get a level of Finesse to farther increase my offense and overall speed, then I get Juggler since I'm swapping around weapons so much (especially handy when I use rocket jumping to get in an enemy's face, or to swap between my Shotguns and Chainsaw as needed without taking a hit). Then it's another level of Finesse for yet more DPS/speed, and then Whizkid to get more mods on my stuff instead of letting mods I find go to waste (though I don't take the second level, as I wasn't coming across enough mods to make it worthwhile). I finally take some levels in Ironman to give me some lategame assurance, since I could always run across some levels that deprive me of health.

Now for the actual run. With Phobos Base Entry, I just employ my usual tactic of immediately running to the base, and if Shotgunners come out early and I take a lot of damage, I Q+Y out. Otherwise there's not much to say about it, except you don't need to be fussed about trying to get the medkits as you can't bring them with you anyway. You can try to wait around and farm the respawning formers as much as you can within the time limit to both get more ammo + beef up your kill count a little, but it's not really worth doing here, and since you'll probably end up dying soon after, it's often a lot of wasted time. With the early Phobos levels, your immediate priority is to locate the stairs and kill whatever is in the way. Once you find the stairs, you can go around and kill more enemies to both get that crucial EXP and bolster your kill count, as well as grab any armor and anything else helpful that you can within the time limit (such as the Power Mod I found in an early vault, that was really helpful for my Shotgun). This early on, don't be too plussed with your kill %, you're unlikely to maintain 90+% at this point, so worry about buffing your kill count later and leave levels early if they get out of hand. For the early special levels, you absolutely have no chance of beating Hell's Arena with this challenge combination on N!, but you can dip in, clear out the first wave for extra EXP + some help for your kill %, and then immediately dip out (if you're feeling ballsy, the second wave could be doable, but you'll likely either get yourself killed or leave yourself in a crippled position if the next floor doesn't start you next to an uncontested health source). The Chained Court is then mandatory, having the Chainsaw and being a relatively safe place to get some more EXP before the really nasty enemies start showing up, yet I nearly botched it here and had some bad respawn luck with the Barons that prevented me from leaving in good health. Fortunately the next level I was able to get a health globe early and the level was about as easy as you can hope for a late Phobos level to be on N!. Phobos 7 then looked good at first, including having a Rocket Launcher at the start that is a key weapon for this challenge, and it had a very good Invuln spawn too, but when I tried getting to the Invuln as time ticked down, some Barons that picked up armor and other items nearly ruined the run, yet I was able to avoid letting the Baron blow up the Invuln and grab it just in time. Thanks to the Invlun and having just picked up Berserker, the extremely deadly N! Phobos Anomaly ambush was a nonfactor, without the Invuln I would have had to run back to the starting room and hope I can outlast all the Nightmare enemies without losing all my armor. The Bruisers can be bypassed, but with a facerocket to trigger Berserker, they can be killed without taking much damage for that sweet EXP.

Any run that makes it to Deimos is in a serious position to succeed, but Deimos 1 went rather awful, being near death at one point as I had to get a Berserk near barrels while a I could hear a Revenant, Mancubus, and Hell Knight lurking around. I managed to secure the Berserk without it blowing up or me dying, but I get banged up as I try to exit, and end up taking the stairs to Deimos Lab with my Red Armor damaged and my health in not too good of shape. I could have just exited Deimos Lab without issue, but I decided to take the risk to explore the rest of the level as the crates could have health and Blue Armors if I'm lucky, guaranteed Supercharges, a guaranteed Shell Box, two mods, and the weapon cache could have a very helpful weapon. It did get dicey but the risk mostly paid off as I exited the level in better shape, and one of the mods was a very useful Technical mod to speed up my Chainsaw, but I forgot the guaranteed Blue Armor, the weapon cache ended up having nothing good in it, and the other mod was not a Bulk mod to restore my Red Armor as I was hoping for. Luckily Deimos 2 started me next to an Armor Shard that wasn't too contested and so I got my Red Armor back in good shape, while this was the point I got a fortunate stretch of floors that really bolstered this run. Aside from that convenient Armor Shard, Deimos 2 had a vault with a Bulk mod and a Combat Shotgun, as well as an Invuln. Deimos 3 had more mods that allowed me to make a Tactical Shotgun and another Invuln, which I take advantage of to clear The Wall for a lot of EXP and a big rocket stash while taking little damage (without that Invuln, I wouldn't have entered The Wall, as with no means to heal and being on a timer, trying to clear it would have killed me or left me crippled). Then Deimos 4 gave me a very easy Pinky cave, as well as a nice Phaseshift Armor and a Power mod for it (plus another Onyx Armor I didn't need). I also fortunately got City Of Skulls instead of Abyssal Plains, which I enter as Blademaster has a very easy time with it and it allows me to rack up a huge amount of kills at little risk to buffer that kill %, being worth taking some minor damage. Deimos 5 and 6 were typical Deimos levels that weren't bad, but when playing a bit recklessly on Deimos 6 I took a concerning amount of damage, while an Invuln I was banking on got destroyed, leaving me in a not so good spot health-wise as I entered Deimos 7. Deimos 7 turned out to be an Island level, not good as a melee build when you don't have lava immunity, but in yet another fortunate turn, I happen quickly upon some medkits that were mostly uncontested, as well as another Invuln. With the rest of the floor being easy enough, I save the Invuln to take out the Cyberdemon with no damage and enter Hell in a very strong spot. Deimos 7 had a Firestorm mod too, not that useful but I slap it on my Rocket Launcher as I was unlikely to find the Bulk mods to make a Tactical Rocket Launcher at this point.

When you make it to Hell in good shape, your chances are very good that your run will succeed, but when you're unable to carry medkits, I can easily die if I overextend too much, or if I get a very nasty maze level or Arachnotron cave. The first two floors of Hell were on the easy side, and Hell 2 had an Invuln, which ended up being especially useful as Hell 3 did spawn me in an Arachnotron Cave that could have been potentially deadly without it. Hell 3 itself had an Invuln too, which I take advantage of to clear the Unholy Cathedral with no damage and secure the Longinus Spear, setting me up to finish the run. I keep the Chainsaw though to kill Pain Elementals without gibbing them as the Spear would (gibbing Pain Elementals prevent them from leaving Lost Souls behind, not that I really needed to squeeze those extra few free kills, but I just wanted to be sure I built a very good buffer in case I had to leave any preceding floors quickly). The remaining floors of Hell wouldn't threaten me and it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way as I blew through floors ridiculously fast, while Hell 5 even had a Sniper mod so I could make a Plasmatic Shotgun, the best weapon for destroying corpses (not that I really needed it at this point). Then there's Dis, where in AoRA, you can just wait out the nuke timer and take the partial win, which will still award the badge, but it was simple enough to run in berserked and smash the Mastermind's brains in.

Overall this took me six attempts, as well as a few more I Q+Y'd on a bad Phobos Base Entry... which isn't quite as much as you would expect to need for a badge thought borderline impossible for over a decade (and all those runs died in Phobos, with only one of them making it past The Chained Court, which died in Phobos 7). Granted, Reloader's buff in 0.9.9.8 was a big help, and 0.9.9.8's enemy reveal on the final three enemies is another advantageous factor, but this badge still should have been possible with my Blademaster strategy in 0.9.9.7 (if I tried this in 0.9.9.7, I would probably however go with Finesse for the second level and avoid Reloader altogether, and hope I get blessed with early Shell Boxes). As for the level luck, I had some pretty bad Phobos floors (that nigh-immortal Phobos 7 Baron would have haunted me if I didn't reach that Invuln in time...), but it's hard to ask for much better Deimos floors than what I got, and I had a great run of luck with not getting a single maze (those are run killers in Nightmare normally, let alone having to do so when you're under a timer and trying to kill most enemies). The item luck was pretty nice too, namely getting that early Power mod and a Rocket Launcher before Deimos were key to this run, as well as those well-time Invulns before crucial levels (it can't be stressed enough how good getting a Phobos 7 Invuln is). Very happy with how this run turned out, and better yet that it didn't require a big grind to get.

Now here is the mortem with that shiny badge never seen officially in a mortem before!

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 NOMEDKITS, level 16 Cyberdemon General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 57617 turns and scored 896737 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 39 minutes and 18 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1269 out of 1338 hellspawn. (94%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Impatience!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 6
  Levels completed : 3

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

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  Eagerness Angelic Badge    Complete AoI+AoRA on N!/90% kills
  Quartermaster Platinum Badge Complete AoRA on N!
  Longinus Platinum Badge    Complete Unholy Cathedral on N!

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

  ###########################################################
  ###########................................################
  ##########...............####...............###############
  #########.......####.....####.....####.......##############
  ########........####.....####.....####........#############
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  ######..........####..............####..........###########
  #####............................................##########
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  #########.......####.....####.....####.......##############
  ##########...............####.X.............###############
  ###########..................%.............################
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 82/70   Experience 125752/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +8  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Int->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->MBm->Fin->Jug->Fin->WK->Iro->Iro->Bru->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (92%) (AP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x46)

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

    [a] plasmatic shotgun (8d3) [1/1]
    [b] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
    [c] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (B1F1)
    [d] blue armor [4/4] (100%) (P)
    [e] red armor [4/4] (200%) (B)
    [f] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [g] red armor [4/4] (62%) (A)
    [h] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [i] onyx armor [2] (A)
    [j] Medical Powerarmor [6/6] (100%)
    [k] chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [l] shotgun shell (x70)
    [m] shotgun shell (x70)
    [n] shotgun shell (x70)
    [o] shotgun shell (x59)
    [p] shotgun shell (x70)
    [q] rocket (x14)
    [r] rocket (x14)
    [s] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [t] shell box (x100)
    [u] rocket box (x25)

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

    bullet     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    melee      - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    shrapnel   - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    123 former humans
    106 former sergeants
    60 former captains
    131 imps
    147 demons
    404 lost souls
    55 cacodemons
    20 hell knights
    58 barons of hell
    20 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    37 pain elementals
    16 revenants
    20 mancubi
    19 arch-viles
    4 nightmare imps
    16 nightmare cacodemons
    8 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 21 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 23 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You wear/wield : a Longinus Spear (8d8)
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You miss the Spider Mastermind. You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 Next!

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

 62 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 7 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 35 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 6 killed the bitch and survived.
 27 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

4

Nightmare! / (0.9.9.9 Beta 1) [N!|AoP + AoRA|66%|YAVP] - Inquisitor Angelic is very possible

« on: December 05, 2024, 20:28 »

So of the seven Angelic badges that were never verifiably won in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 and in the few months 0.9.9.8 been out, Inquisitor Angelic was one of them, and as a result, me and Icy have been proposing to nerf its difficulty requirement. 0.9.9.9's first beta brought some huge changes to Nightmare! however; namely enemies can't respawn in vision (without the aid of Archviles that is), respawns don't count towards the kill percentage (so you no longer need to dispose of every corpse to get 100% kills, but also can no longer cheese a respawn to puff up your kill count for any badge that requires less), and respawns no longer drop their inventory on death (so you can no longer farm infinite ammo off of formers). With these changes, I've been playing N! a lot in testing out the beta, and it got me thinking about how they affect these unwon badges. Masochist Angelic becomes a bit more doable, as it'll make getting through Phobos Base Entry without getting hit less luck-based and you can now more safely kill things if you find a nice camping spot, allowing you to get more crucial levels (and perhaps make surviving long enough to get Vampyre viable, so someone should definitely eventually win this badge). Eagerness Angelic becomes actually realistic now without have to cheese with an early Trigun or a miraculous Dragonslayer, though its 90% kill requirement may be still a bit high (so we amended our proposal of lowering it to 75-80% instead of the 50% we proposed before these changes). UAC Angelic becomes slightly more realistic, but I still think it's virtually impossible without save scumming (and so the proposal of nerfing it to UV remains), and Demonic Angelic becomes a lot more viable in theory, but considering how ludicrously impossible it already was, still absolutely no one is getting this without lots of save scumming (and so the proposal of changing it to 100% kills + Untouchable Pin or Medal remains). Then Speedrun Angelic is virtually unaffected, while Pacifist Angelic didn't require Nightmare anyway, and so both remain just as impossible, direly needing their requirements to be changed to something more realistic.

That leaves Inquisitor Angelic, which isn't really affected by these changes all that much, as kill percent is irrelevant, and since it's AoRA, you're typically not staying around in one spot for long nor sticking around the level long enough for respawns to start becoming frequent, so easier to manage respawns isn't much a factor. Thinking it through though had me questioning if that badge was as impossible as it was hyped up to be; while AoP + AoRA is a very nasty combo (you lose most of your healing in a challenge where you're forced to rush and thus take a lot of damage you can't easily heal off, can't use Maps to find the stairs and other useful items, can't use Berserks to speed you up and lessen damage, and can't use Invulns to avoid damage or as a mulligan if running out of time), there's nothing that makes it inherently impossible unlike the other unwinnable badges, you must simply play quickly to beat the nuke timer and survive well enough to make it to Dis. No having to avoid getting hit a single time while regularly dealing with 50+ respawning enemies, no having to kill more cumulative enemies in AoRA than what Quartermaster Diamond requires on top of them respawning and being unable to heal on demand, no having to beat the game in an inhuman time limit while desperately trying to push through WTF enemy density, and no having to run through 24 floors with no traits while praying not a single enemy dies to infighting or kills themselves or spawns on lava. So why has no one won it, was it really that inhumanly difficult, or was it that few people, if any,  actually gave it a real serious grind because they were that spooked by the combo of AoP + AoRA? Seeing how Angel of Purity is one of the least popular challenges, if not the most unpopular, I was wavering towards it being the latter, and so decided to give this badge a real try myself to ascertain if the badge really needed nerfing.

Right away, while it was certainly very tough, I got a feeling it was doable, as I was able to make it to Deimos without that many tries. I was unsure of the build, and I was initially trying Scout + early Intuition, but after a few deaths that couldn't make it past mid-Phobos, I ruled Intuition out; the first level practically does nothing, as knowing where powerups are is worthless when you can't use them, and since floors get so dense on N!, you can't avoid enemies anyway and they're often on top of you, so it was much more prudent to improve your combat and speed than being able to detect enemies outside vision. After I made it to Deimos 1 with the Scout and quickly died, I decided to try a Marine instead; this sounds unideal when speed is everything in AoRA and when AoP makes the Marine's powerup bonus irrelevant, but the most often cause of failure by far is simply running out of medkits and then health when you can no longer heal by powerups nor can keep armor in good shape, while punching through lots of enemies is the much greater obstacle than just finding the stairs, so having extra HP and those inherent 20% energy resistances makes a big difference here. Once I started using the Marine, I was able to consistently make it to mid-Deimos, so I knew this was the play if I could just be a bit luckier with items and floors.

As for traits, I naturally lead off with Hellrunner when it's AoRA and I want to limit whatever damage I can. After that it's Reloader + Finesse, you're relying on the Shotgun a lot, and this combo greatly increases the reliability of corner shooting, while giving you a lot more shots you can afford to make on each floor (you go from being able to do 150 shots + reload with the Shotgun per floor at maximum to 193). I was initially going for Rel2 too, but I found it wasn't too necessary and other traits were more imperative. Then you need Hellrunner 2 ASAP; aside from all the big advantages of HR2, you need it to reliably get through Phobos Anomaly without a Phase Device or Rocket Launcher that you often won't have, and even with HR2 you can end up burning all your medkits in the Anomaly if you're unlucky, so you can't risk making it to Anomaly without it. After HR2, I then go for Bru2 and Berserker; you can't really use melee much early on when healing is so limited and having HR blocks getting Vampyre, but when you can't repair armor, Berserker (that stacks very nicely with the Marine's resistances) is a major survivability boost once VMR start popping up (while you can then utilize it to quickly kill tough enemies when it makes sense to do so). After Berserker, I get Ironman to get some desperately needed HP and to better stretch out my few medkits I often have left by mid-Deimos (while slightly reducing physical damage is a nice plus too), and then I got another level of Fin when I made it far enough. As for the special levels, they're mostly a skip unless they let you more quickly escape a level and can be run through without much danger, but I did find it helpful to dip into Hell's Arena and kill some enemies, as with HR + Fin + Rel, you can do so without taking much damage and that extra EXP is helpful. The Chained Court is also mandatory; aside from the value of the Chainsaw itself, its Berserk on pickup still works, so this is essentially a free guaranteed full heal that you often really need, while you can also pick up some more EXP without taking much damage (I wouldn't complete the level though, I would just run through the right, pick off the formers there and kill the two Barons before leaving, that one free Berserk lasts just long enough for that and the two mod packs aren't worth burning your very limited medkits). When I got Deimos Lab, I would also take the opportunity to kill some enemies there as the beginning area gives you a very safe opportunity to do so and you can easily flee once time starts running low (it may even be worth going into the teleporters and possibly getting some medkits from the crates + the two mods and a nice weapon from the cache, but I never risked it as you can easily end up getting plasma'd by a Commando after teleporting or have to punch through a bunch of Cacos at awkward angles).

After making it to mid-Deimos so consistently, I knew this was completely doable, and after 12 attempts (plus about another half dozen or so I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), my theorycrafting about the badge would be proven correct. Finding a Phaseshift Armor in early Deimos was huge, and getting luckier with a random Nano mod in late Deimos was even better (which I put on the aforementioned Phaseshift Armor to ensure I always had decent armor in conjunction with Berserker and was very fast), while the RNG blessed me with late Phaseshift Boots too. That is not to say my luck was amazing though, I did get some really nasty floors in Deimos, including an Arachnotron cave in mid-Deimos that destroyed my armor reserve before that Nano mod and most of my medkits, and this very nasty maze at the end of Deimos, which I wouldn't have survived without Berserker. Hell started me off with another maze + barrel event, but once again thanks to Berserker, I am able to get through it. First half Hell was a bit shaky, as I only had a couple large medkits, and so I skipped Unholy Cathedral as a result despite how useful the Spear would be. When Hell 4 gave me those aforementioned Phaseshift Boots though, I also found a Homing Phase after killing a Baron and got a bunch of medkits from crates, at which the point the run was sealed. Once you make it to Dis you automatically won, as you can just let the timer run out and get the partial win, but since I had a bunch of medkits and very good armor, I go in and smash the Mastermind to bits.

Unfortunate this was in a beta and so it's not really "official" (which is why I didn't record a video of it), but I still found it worth posting as the first Inquisitor Angelic Badge, and to show that it is indeed possible. This is only the first beta of 0.9.9.9 and so things can end up changing quite a bit by the official release (such as N! possibly adding back a universal speed bonus for enemies that will make this a bit more difficult), but I can't see anything that can be changed that would make this badge impossible, so I'll be removing the proposal to nerf this badge's requirement to UV (and when 0.9.9.9 releases proper, I'll be sure to record a proper run of this badge). As for doing this badge in prior versions, as the Nightmare changes aren't a big difference to this badge as explained prior, this should be fully doable in 0.9.9.8. As for the possibility of this badge back in 0.9.9.7, I did use the Marine here, whose inherent 20% energy resistances did not exist then, and this run certainly wouldn't have succeeded without those resistances (that aforementioned Arachnotron cave that nearly killed me would have done me in for sure, and those resistances crucially stretched out my medkits as explained prior), but this should still be very possible with a Scout if you get good enough item + floor luck (I was able to get to Deimos with a Scout after all, it was just less consistent than with the Marine). Doing it in 0.9.9.7 however, would mean that Deimos and Hell have a bit less enemies (due to 0.9.9.8 modifying the danger formula to get higher values in Deimos and Hell, with the difference being most pronounced on N!), so that is one way this badge would be slightly easier there (and seeing how most of my runs were failing in Deimos, that could be meaningful).

With that all said, here's the glorious mortem:

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.9 BETA 1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PUER, level 12 Arch-Vile Lt. Colonel Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 40811 turns and scored 581230 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 1 minute and 17 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 629 out of 951 encountered hellspawn. (66%)
 He killed 677 out of 1053 enemy spawns total.
 He was an Angel of Purity!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 3
  Levels completed : 0

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Inquisitor Gold Badge      Complete Angel of Purity (AoP)
  Inquisitor Platinum Badge  Complete AoP on UV
  Inquisitor Diamond Badge   Complete AoP on N! as Marine
  Inquisitor Angelic Badge   Complete AoP+AoRA on N!
  Quartermaster Bronze Badge Reach level 16 on Angel of Red Alert
  Quartermaster Silver Badge Complete Angel of Red Alert (AoRA)
  Quartermaster Platinum Badge Complete AoRA on N!

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

  ###########################################################
  #######................................####################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  #............................................##############
  #....####............................####....##############
  #...&####............................###...0.##############
  #....####............................###.....##############
  #....####.....................X......#.......##############
  #..............................%.............##############
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #######................................####################
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 77/90   Experience 62068/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 3)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Fin->Bru->HR->Bru->Ber->Iro->Iro->Fin->Iro->WK->

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

    [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (100%) (NP)
    [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x30)

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

    combat shotgun (8d3) [3/5] (P1)
    rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
    Railgun (8d8) [40/40]
    green armor [1/1] (100%)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    rocket (x8)
    power cell (x50)
    small med-pack
    small med-pack
    large med-pack
    large med-pack
    phase device
    phase device
    rocket box (x25)

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

    bullet     - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    melee      - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    shrapnel   - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 

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

    73 former humans
    80 former sergeants
    37 former captains
    104 imps
    83 demons
    162 lost souls
    37 cacodemons
    16 hell knights
    29 barons of hell
    10 arachnotrons
    15 former commandos
    9 pain elementals
    7 mancubi
    13 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 10 he found the Railgun!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical boots!
  Level 23 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind!

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

 67 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 14 of those were killed.
 13 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 5 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

5

Post Mortem / [U|AoMC+AoCn|94%|YAFW] - Finally get Scavenger Diamond in 0.9.9.8

« on: October 26, 2024, 18:25 »

For the complete video of this run, here is the Youtube link.

I put off finally playing Nightmare to get the Scavenger Diamond badge back, which took me over a week. In previous versions, you could cheese this badge by getting Azrael's Scythe and exploiting its altfire, Whisper Of Death, which deals 20 damage to every enemy on the map at the expense of max HP, allowing you to kill every enemy in The Vaults without actually getting inside any of said vaults, technically fulfilling the requirements for the badge. In version 0.9.9.8 however, The Vaults had its spawning depth swapped with Unholy Cathedral, which made it no longer possible to get the Scythe before The Vaults, so now you must actually get inside each of the vaults in order to clear it. 0.9.9.8 also buff the enemy layout in The Vaults significantly; previously on UV difficulty, you just had 4 Archviles in the left vault, 4 Revenants in the right vault, and 4 of both in the center vault, so just coming in Fireproof Red Armor would greatly neuter the enemy thread. In 0.9.9.8 however, the left vault now has 6 Arachnotrons, 6 Barons in the right vault, and 4 of both in addition to 4 Archviles in the center vault. This mixture of different damage types means you can no longer just rely on some easily obtained fire-resistant armor, while Arachnotrons also rack up damage much more quickly even when you have strong armor, and Barons will steal the armors within the vaults to get much more resilient. So you not only need to get lucky, but also have an ideal setup to actually surviving getting teleported into a small room full of nasty enemies. 0.9.9.8 also added an alternative level to The Vaults called House Of Pain, which you cannot get the Scavenger badges in, so half of all runs will be unable to even get a chance at this badge by default (well theoretically anyway, I've been having House Of Pain spawn well more than half the time, enough so that I'm half-convinced there could be a bug giving it a disproportionate spawning rate).

For the actual strategy, first the build. To survive teleporting into the center vault, being berserked is a must and so you want Berserker, which leaves two viable masteries; Vampyre and Blademaster. Blademaster could work, but Vampyre is the clear optimal choice; that 60% resistances from berserk stacks with the 20% inherent energy resistances the Marine has, which when combined with any decent armor, will reduce all damage from The Vaults' enemies to 1. Berserked melee is also very powerful, which will give you the DPS to kill the enemies, and will ensure any Barons that get any good armor will fall swiftly (unless you're unlucky enough for them to get an armor with very good melee resistance). Vampyre giving you HP back for each kill will also keep your health up, which is crucial to keep you from dying to a death of a thousand cuts. Vampyre itself is additionally broken good in 0.9.9.8, which will allow you to rush through the game in a way you wouldn't be able to do with a weaker mastery, significantly speeding up attempts when you're likely going to have make several of them at the least.

Speaking of speeding up attempts, the Scavenger badges don't require a standard game or any specific challenge, so I do a Dual-Angel of Angel of Confidence + Angel of Max Carnage. Normally when it comes to spamming quick attempts, Angel of Overconfidence is the gold standard for starting you off in Hell. However, AoOC will give you only a single floor of preparation, so not only you will be lacking crucial levels when entering The Vaults that could leave you too weak, the odds are very low you'll also find the items you need (at least one Phase Device + decent armor), and then the odds are even lower that you'll actually get into the center vault. Angel of Confidence, on the other hand, provides a middle ground; it starts you off in Deimos instead, which gives you 8 random floors + Tower Of Babel + four special levels, giving more than enough time to get the traits and armor you need, as well as making it likely you'll get the necessary Phase Devices (on average you'll get two over the 8 random floors, if you're lucky you can get more, but if unlucky you could still get none at all). Then by combining it with Angel of Max Carnage to make everything always do max damage and have max accuracy, it'll speed the game up by allowing you to kill enemies much faster, especially as you do need to explore floors thoroughly to find as many Phase Devices as you can and anything else helpful (it is also helpful for killing Formers and Hell Nobles before they use items they may have found, which includes Phase Devices that you need, just be careful to not gib the Formers as that will destroy any items they have). Doing this in AoMC does sound counter-productive to actually surviving getting into The Vaults, and normally that would be a death sentence, but as explained earlier, Vampyre is so strong that it'll still shrug off all those hits for 1 damage as long as you have good enough armor. AoCn + AoMC did result in me dying or quitting out a few times on the first floor, as the game can start you in an unsurvivable situation, but the majority of the time I could survive whatever floor it starts me in.

When it comes to the special levels along the way, doing Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab is a must, which Berserker + AoMC makes the normally tough Shambler fights a breeze. Aside from getting much needed equipment and mods (as well as increased odds at getting a particularly helpful weapon I'll get to in a bit), I really want an Onyx or Nano mod, as Vampyre wants an indestructible or regenerating armor to bumrush through the rest of the game and thus make attempts go faster. If I didn't get a Nano nor Onyx mod from the Armory/Lab, and didn't find a Red Armor on the first floor to at least make Nanofiber Red Armor for some sort of indestructible armor, I would just Q+Y out, but for the majority of runs I got at least one of those. When I got an Onyx or Nano mod, I would try saving it for a Red Armor or something else better than Blue Armor, but if I didn't find one by the end of Deimos 3, I would just put it on Blue Armor, as that would suffice since a berserk Marine's resistances are so strong. With the rest of the special levels, I would do The Wall/Containment Area, as they're easy for Vampyre, while the Backpack + rockets is very handy for a particular strat I'll describe in a bit, and you need some sort of Rocket Launcher to open the left and right vaults, so the guaranteed Missile Launcher is nice if you haven't found a Rocket Launcher yet. City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains can be skipped, but I do them still to get some extra EXP since they're easy for Vampyre and have lots of rockets. Then I do Halls Of Carnage since I often could use the two mods it has, but would skip Spider's Lair, as I don't really need the BFG nor anything else on the level and am surely strong enough at this point to not need anymore traits.

Now for helpful items, the best thing you want to find is a Napalm Launcher. As mentioned earlier, a Phase Device can't plop you on acid nor lava, so if you find a Napalm Launcher, you can force a Phase Device to put you in the center vault by covering every single outside floor tile in lava before using a Phase Device, guaranteeing you success. A Napalm Launcher is uncommon, but not exceedingly so, and I found it four times in over a dozen attempts. The first three times, House Of Pain spawned... but finally in this attempt where I get a Napalm Launcher in Deimos Lab, I end up getting The Vaults, allowing me to finally succeed. When trying to get Scavenger Diamond this way, you really want to build Cerberus or Lava Boots, to ensure you don't hurt yourself too much when covering The Vaults in lava. An Acid Spitter can be used similarly, but it's much less effective, as the Napalm Launcher just uses rockets and so you can stockpile a bunch of them to cover the entire map in lava, whereas the Acid Spitter will have to "absorb" the acid its single shot leaves behind, which besides being a tedious process, the Acid Spitter will be unable to leave behind a net positive of acid in the thin hallway areas of The Vaults, so you won't be able to cover the majority of floor space with it.

As for total attempts, I didn't keep track, and I Q+Y'd out of most unsuccessful runs, but it was somewhere around a dozen to two. As I said in the beginning, the vast majority of runs had House Of Pain spawn, including all my runs where I had a Napalm Launcher (before this successful run), and/or had several Phase Devices stockpiled. And in runs where I got the Vaults, I either had no Phase Device, or in two cases, a single one, which failed to get me into the center vault (you have a 29.36% chance to get teleported into the center vault, so you need two to have more than a 50% chance, and four to reach 75+% odds). Then there was a run where I got The Vaults with two Phase Devices and an Acid Spitter, but even after covering as much of the level as I could in acid, both Phase Devices failed to get me in (though I at least managed to salvage a Klear Cross out of that run). I took a break for a couple days after that very deflating failed run, but in my immediate next attempt after, I finally did get a run with a Napalm Launcher and The Vaults, netting me Scavenger Diamond at last. Once you succeed and exit The Vaults with everything dead, you can die and still get the Scavenger Diamond badge, but I go and rush through the rest of the game to finish the run.

Now for the mortem:

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PLSGIVEMETHEVAULTS,
 level 14 Cyberdemon Lt. General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 188054 turns and scored 319446 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 19 minutes and 40 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 920 out of 974 hellspawn. (94%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Confidence!

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

  Levels generated : 8
  Levels visited   : 8
  Levels completed : 8

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

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Scavenger Platinum Badge   Clear The Vaults by luck
  Scavenger Diamond Badge    Clear The Vaults by luck on UV+

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

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  .........................................................X#
  .......................................................|}.#
  .........................................................|#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 120/60   Experience 95812/14
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +18  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Bad->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Bad->Fin->Jug->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   blue armor [4] (OPT)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x95)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [3/5]
    [b] plasma rifle (1d10)x8 [40/40] (F1P3)
    [c] assault shotgun (8d3) [6/6] (P1)
    [d] napalm launcher (7d7) [1/1]
    [e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [f] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [g] rocket (x12)
    [h] power cell (x70)
    [i] power cell (x70)
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] phase device
    [n] cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%)
    [o] shell box (x100)
    [p] shell box (x100)
    [q] rocket box (x25)
    [r] rocket box (x25)
    [s] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 90%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 90%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 

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

    43 former humans
    68 former sergeants
    21 former captains
    79 imps
    55 demons
    339 lost souls
    23 cacodemons
    34 hell knights
    50 barons of hell
    34 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    46 pain elementals
    39 revenants
    13 mancubi
    31 arch-viles
    10 nightmare imps
    7 nightmare cacodemons
    1 nightmare demon
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

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

  On level 1 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 1 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 2 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 3 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 4 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 5 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  On level 6 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 8 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 9 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 9 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
  On level 11 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 11 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 12 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 12 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 12 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 14 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 14 he found the Necroarmor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 16!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You need to taste blood! Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : blood
 You need to taste blood!
 You reload the tactical rocket launcher. You need to taste blood! Fire --
 Choose target...
 You see : blood
 You need to taste blood! Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You need to taste blood! You feel vulnerable again.
 You wear/wield : a Longinus Spear (8d8)
 You hit John Carmack. You are hit! That hurt! You're going berserk! You need
 to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 55 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 2 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 33 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 5 killed the bitch and survived.
 26 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

6

Post Mortem / [U|AoMC+AoCn|98%|YAFW] - Failed Scavenger Diamond run leads to first Klear Cross

« on: October 24, 2024, 19:19 »

I've been making attempts at the Scavenger Diamond badge over the past week, and been having an awful run of luck with it; most attempts I get House Of Pain, including every attempt I found a Napalm Launcher and/or several Phase Devices, and I've only gotten two attempts up to this point where I got The Vaults with at least one Phase Device, both of which I had only one Phase Device and both failed to get me into the center vault.

This run however looked like it was finally going to be it; I've been doing Angel Of Confidence + Angel of Max Carnage to speed up attempts, and Deimos 1 started me in a precarious situation next to multiple Chaingunners and a Pain Elemental, while a horizontal acid river severely restricted where I could go and I had no good corner shooting spot. I managed to survive that start, and then pulled off a Shambler's Head in Hell's Armory, which netted me an Onyx mod + Nano mod, while the Armory also had an Acid Spitter; I much rather have the Napalm Launcher, but the Acid Spitter can also be used to eliminate eligible teleport tiles in The Vaults and thus increase my chances of phasing into the center vault. The floor immediately after that I find a random second Onyx mod and Red Armor, so my armor is set to rush through the game without worry and I shortly find Gothic Boots after to use the second Onyx mod on, which will be nice for limiting the damage I take from reloading the aforementioned Acid Spitter. I then find a Chainsaw near the end of Deimos, so I also get a better melee weapon than the Chainsword too, for that extra assurance. This of course would be all for nought though if House Of Pain spawns yet fucking again... yet this time I do get The Vaults, with the Acid Spitter and two Phase Devices.

When in The Vaults, I clear out the left and right vaults, and then start covering the level in acid. This is a tedious process, and I'm quite limited in how much acid I can spread as the damage is still racking up even with me only taking 1 damage from each acid step. I also can't effectively use the Acid Spitter in the narrow passage ways, as it both covers less tiles and would end up net negative with reloading the Acid Spitter after (since every "sucked up" acid tile becomes a water tile, restoring it as a valid teleport spot). After covering most of the left and right vaults in acid, as well as the left and right nooks where you get more space to spread acid around, I probably had around at least a third of the level covered in acid to significantly increase my odds, and so I decide it's time to pop the Phase Devices. The first Phase Device... doesn't get me in the center vault, and then the second Phase Device... still doesn't get me in the center vault either...

Well I was feeling quite deflated, finally getting a good inventory setup while The Vaults spawns and I still don't get into the center vault, Scavenger Diamond runs should not be taking anywhere near this long. At this point I would normally Q+Y out, but decide to just finish the run. Shortly after I would randomly find a third Onyx mod, pretty useless at this point but why I couldn't get this luck with The Vaults? The rest of the run would be unremarkable, if not for me finding a Trigun in Hell 5. I was actually a bit disappointed at first when I saw the Pistol Unique that spawned was the Trigun and not the GCB (as the Grammaton Cross is one of the handful of medals I'm still missing), but then thought I may as well get the Fallout Platinum Cross out of the way (another medal I haven't gotten yet), especially as I did get the Nuclear BFG from Limbo and then found a random nuke after on Hell 6 to help puff up that nuke count. On Hell 7, an Invuln would spawn, and with enough medkits stockpiled to spam Angel Arm enough for Fallout Platinum Cross, I then start spamming it to puff up that nuke count... Where I then noticed that Angel Arm doesn't tire you like I thought it did, and realized I had an opportunity to get the newly added Klear Cross here, a medal I was dreading having to grind eventual runs for. With that, I then descend into Dis still invulnerable, and spam Angel Arm until my max HP got too low to use it anymore. With the Marine's 60 max HP, I was able to get 10 Angel Arms off, which, alongside the prior activated nuke, put my nuke count at 11. I then rocket jump to the stairs to keep my invuln intact for Hell Fortress, where I overcharged the Nuclear BFG for the win and for my 12th nuke, just enough to net me the first Klear Cross.

So while this run didn't achieve its goal, I did not end up empty handed, and it's a big relief that I ended up not needing to make a big grind for Klear Cross after all. I'm getting pretty close now to getting all the medals, with only six left...

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PLSNOMOREHOUSEOFPAIN,
 level 15 Cyberdemon Lt. General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 96213 turns and scored 458778 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 17 minutes and 17 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 969 out of 982 hellspawn. (98%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Confidence!

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

  Levels generated : 8
  Levels visited   : 7
  Levels completed : 6

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Fallout Platinum Cross     Nuked at least 6 levels in one game
  Klear Cross                Nuked at least 12 levels in one game
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Shambler's Head            Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab w/o taking damage

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

  ###########################################################
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #X.........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 66/10   Experience 101689/15
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +20  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Bad->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Bad->Fin->Jug->Bru->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [2] (O)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   ripper (6d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav steel boots [1/1] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x87)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5]
    [b] assault shotgun (7d3) [6/6]
    [c] Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
    [d] Acid Spitter (10d10) [0/10] {a}
    [e] red armor [4] (AO)
    [f] Berserker Armor [0]
    [g] Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [h] rocket (x14)
    [i] rocket (x14)
    [j] rocket (x10)
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] homing phase device
    [r] lava element
    [s] lava gothic boots [10] (A)
    [t] shell box (x100)

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

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 

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

    19 former humans
    56 former sergeants
    38 former captains
    53 imps
    34 demons
    452 lost souls
    36 cacodemons
    20 hell knights
    49 barons of hell
    23 arachnotrons
    20 former commandos
    42 pain elementals
    31 revenants
    36 mancubi
    36 arch-viles
    9 nightmare imps
    3 nightmare cacodemons
    5 nightmare demons
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

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

  On level 1 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 1 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 3 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 4 he found the City of Skulls.
  On level 4 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 6 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 7 he assembled a lava boots!
  On level 8 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 9 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 9 he entered the Vaults.
  He managed to scavenge a part of the Vaults' treasures.
  On level 11 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 11 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 12 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 12 he assembled a ripper!
  On level 12 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 13 he found the Trigun!
  He nuked level 14!
  On level 14 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 14 he found the Berserker Armor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He left level 16 as soon as possible.
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 17!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You wear/wield : a ripper (6d6)
 Warning! Explosion in 9 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. You need to taste blood!

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

 54 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 2 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 32 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 5 killed the bitch and survived.
 25 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

7

Century Lounge / [U|ArchA666|60%|666|YASD] - Intentionally dying on floor 666 for annoying medals

« on: October 09, 2024, 19:51 »

0.9.9.8 has added two new particularly annoying medals:

*The Purple Heart, which requires you to die at level 20 or above

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

*Gutts' Sorrow, which requires you to die with the Dragonslayer equipped

(spoilered in case anyone still cares about that particular weapon and its secrets).

With me missing the Experience Cross and another spoilery medal in 0.9.9.8, also very annoying medals to get, I thought up of a way to gather them all up at once; play A666 so you can reach level 25, maximize your chances of finding the spoilery equipment in a single run to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

encounter the Apostle, and then just kill yourself at the end after killing the Apostle, since killing him doesn't immediately end the game and thus you can go run in lava or let the infinitely spawning Nightmare (Caco)Demons kill you (can't do it via nuke though, since the Apostle spawning disables you from nuking, even after he dies).

I wasn't completely sure if this would actually work, as I thought maybe the spoilery medal would require you to win the game or some other conflict with medals would happen, but nope, it worked exactly as planned and now I won't need to do any other separate runs specifically for any of these medals.

As for the build, I went with Blademaster, as I'm good enough to survive early A100/666 with a melee build lacking a Chainsaw, and then Blademaster will mow through those hundreds of floors faster than any other build, especially once I found the weapon I was looking for (which luckily I found in the 100s, and even with it being current bugged to not give permanent berserk, is still absurdly powerful in the hands of Blademaster and I was able to maintain being berserked 99% of the time anyway). Could have done this run much faster than 20ish hours, but I was still mostly exploring floors through most of the game instead of stair diving as I really wanted to complete Armorer Gold (the last Gold badge I need to have them all again), which required me to find an Energy-shielded Vest (the last Exotic I haven't found yet on this 0.9.9.8 file), and the game gives you no message when Exotics spawn, so I couldn't just stair dive until getting the "there is something really valuable here!" message like I could with trying to find the Uniques. Of which, I didn't find a single Energy-shielded Vest until floor 451, or at least not one that was nabbed by a Former or Hell Noble first where it would inevitably get instantly destroyed by me having such a powerful melee weapon (and then the game spawned a second one on the floor immediately after, the RNG really wanted to troll me there). After that I could breeze through the last couple hundred floors in a couple hours, and I luckily managed to find the rest of the Uniques I was missing for Armorer Gold. I also wanted to complete the rest of the assemblies I haven't made yet for Technician Diamond, but I shortly realized building Cybernano Armor would lock me out of wearing that particular spoilery armor I needed to wear at the end, so unfortunately I still need to do that in another run (was able to build the Mother-In-Law at least before finding the spoilery weapon, the other assembly I was missing, and it was very fun rocket jumping around with it until said spoilerly weapon prevented me from using it anymore).

Lastly this could have been done on HNTR, but I did it UV, partly because it's the difficulty I find most fun, and partly to maximize the amount of Cyberdemons I could find so I get Cyberdemon rank, as I needed to kill about 70ish more of them to get the rank (and I did not feel like waiting until that many more non-100/666 games to get that rank back). I didn't get a single Cyberdemon level, but I still managed to find well more than enough to fulfill the kill requirements for Cyberdemon rank (I also did some exploiting with Archviles now being able to revive Cyberdemons in 0.9.9.8 to puff up the Cyberdemon kill counts, but that probably wasn't necessary).

Here is the monster mortem for anyone that wants to see all of it, though I'll give one last spoiler warning for those that care

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PURPLEBLADE, level 25 Arch-Vile Lt. General Scout,
 committed a stupid suicide on level 666 of Hell.
 He survived 783181 turns and scored 17186272 points.
 He played for 21 hours, 43 minutes and 38 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 31613 out of 52296 hellspawn. (60%)
 He was an Archangel of 666!

 He saved himself 18 times.

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

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

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

  UAC Star (gold cluster)    100+ kills without taking damage
  Experience Cross           Reach experience level 25
  Purple Heart               Reach experience level 20+ and die
  Gutts' Sorrow              Awarded for dying with the Dragonslayer
  Apostle Insignia           Awarded for killing the Apostle
  Armorer Gold Badge         Discover all exotics/uniques

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

  #==###########################====##==#####################
  .==..........%%.%.........%O..====..==......==.....#......[
  %==[|..O.|}%}|0.%|....||..%.+.X===..==...%====.....#%......
  #==#%..###.%.###...###||#%%.###====.==|###=.==.|#..#...==#=
  .==#......}.}..0..|..#}.#...%%.====.==.%..=====.#......====
  |==#.%...|.|.....[...#..#.%%|..======.|...#=.=%.#..|...==.=
  .==...#...###...|.####........#=====####.....#......%.##===
  #==...#;.......#...0||.|#..#[.#.====%...|%....||...#.....#.
  #.==..#...|....#||%%}}}|#..#|%#.====..^............#.....#.
  #.==###..#.}####%%%%%#|}#..#..#%=====##.......%.#|.#..===.=
  }.==.%...#|}||||..#.%#}|}.......======...............=====.
  |.==...%%#.%}}}%.|#..#%%%....|.%======....#%..%%......=====
  ##O=###...######.%#...^!%.|###}======##...#........#..====#
  ..==...%%%..|...%%....%%#..}}^#======..#[|#........#.%===..
  ..==...%....|........|..#..O||#======..#..#..#.....#.......
  #==#..%###%..######..#..#%.#}}#======..#...###.....#..####.
  .==.......%%.%.%..%..#...%.#|}====%==...........%%..%.#....
  .==......%%|.........#...%.#|}====.==.%.......0...%..%#....
  #==###########################====#==######################
  ==#############################======######################

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

  Health 0/100   Experience 7844543/25
  ToHit Ranged +2  ToHit Melee +12  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +15

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 5)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  Int->Int->HR->Fin->Fin->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->WK->WK->Bru->Jug->MBm->Bru->Bru->HR->Fin->Iro->Iro->Iro->Iro->Iro->DM->EE->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Berserker Armor [19]
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Dragonslayer (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav phaseshift boots [4/4] (60%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   Mother-In-Law (6d10) [1/1] (P1)

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

    [a] phaseshift armor [4] (AOP)
    [b] Malek's Armor [3/3] (100%)
    [c] large med-pack
    [d] large med-pack
    [e] large med-pack
    [f] large med-pack
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] homing phase device
    [m] homing phase device
    [n] homing phase device
    [o] hatred skull
    [p] Hell Staff
    [q] cerberus plasteel boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [r] antigrav plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [s] Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)

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

    bullet     - internal 50%   torso 95%   feet 50% 
    melee      - internal 50%   torso 95%   feet 50% 
    shrapnel   - internal 50%   torso 95%   feet 50% 

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

    909 former humans
    1967 former sergeants
    2814 former captains
    126 imps
    60 demons
    5060 lost souls
    1359 cacodemons
    996 hell knights
    3536 barons of hell
    1042 arachnotrons
    96 former commandos
    1100 pain elementals
    1684 revenants
    2250 mancubi
    3023 arch-viles
    84 nightmare imps
    1006 nightmare cacodemons
    1887 nightmare demons
    635 nightmare arachnotrons
    236 nightmare arch-viles
    24 elite former humans
    14 elite former sergeants
    229 elite former captains
    158 elite former commandos
    590 bruiser brothers
    316 shamblers
    180 lava elemental
    99 agony elementals
    132 Cyberdemons
    1 Apostle

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

  On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 19 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 20 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 24 he found the Necroarmor!
  Level 26 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 30, hell froze over!
  On level 30 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 31 he found the Acid Spitter!
  On level 33 he found the Railgun!
  On level 35 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  He sounded the alarm on level 44!
  On level 46 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  He sounded the alarm on level 52!
  Level 55 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 56 he found the Mega Buster!
  On level 57 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  On level 57 he found the Hell Staff!
  On level 58 he found the Malek's Armor!
  On level 62 he was targeted for extermination!
  On level 62 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  On level 65 he found the Shielded Armor!
  On level 69 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 70 he was walking in fire!
  On level 74 he was targeted for extermination!
  On level 76 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 81 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 82 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 83 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  On level 85, hell froze over!
  On level 86 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 89 he assembled a ripper!
  On level 90 he was bombarded!
  He sounded the alarm on level 91!
  He flooded the entire level 91 with lava!
  On level 94 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  Level 96 was a hard nut to crack!
  Level 98 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  Level 104 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 105 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 108 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  He left level 111 as soon as possible.
  He left level 112 as soon as possible.
  On level 116 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 116 he found the Lava Armor!
  On level 119 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 120 he ran for his life from lava!
  Level 122 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 125 he assembled a Mother-In-Law!
  On level 126 he stumbled into a complex full of shamblers!
  On level 126 he encountered an armed nuke!
  Level 127 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 128 he found the Butcher's Cleaver!
  On level 131 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  Level 132 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 133 he found the Anti-Freak Jackal!
  Level 134 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 137 as soon as possible.
  On level 139 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 139 as soon as possible.
  On level 144 he was targeted for extermination!
  On level 146 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  On level 148 he found the Revenant's Launcher!
  He sounded the alarm on level 149!
  On level 150 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 150 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 152 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 153 he stumbled into a lava elemental cave!
  On level 154, hell froze over!
  On level 155 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 157 he ran for his life from acid!
  On level 160 he was bombarded!
  On level 164 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  On level 164 he found the Dragonslayer!
  Level 165 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 167 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 167 as soon as possible.
  On level 171 he was bombarded!
  On level 176 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  On level 177 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 179 as soon as possible.
  On level 181 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 182 he was stumbling in the dark!
  Level 185 was a hard nut to crack!
  Level 187 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 199 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 203 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 211 he was walking in fire!
  On level 214 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 216 he found the Trigun!
  On level 223 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  On level 225 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 228 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  On level 230 he was stumbling in the dark!
  On level 234 he found the Charch's Null Pointer!
  Level 239 was a hard nut to crack!
  He sounded the alarm on level 241!
  Level 244 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 248 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  He left level 258 as soon as possible.
  On level 259 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 260 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 262 as soon as possible.
  On level 271 he stumbled into a complex full of bruiser brothers!
  On level 272 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 275 as soon as possible.
  He left level 276 as soon as possible.
  He left level 277 as soon as possible.
  He left level 279 as soon as possible.
  On level 281 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 289 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 290 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  Level 291 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 291 as soon as possible.
  On level 294 he was targeted for extermination!
  He left level 296 as soon as possible.
  He nuked level 299!
  He left level 303 as soon as possible.
  On level 306 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 306 as soon as possible.
  On level 308 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 309 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 310 as soon as possible.
  On level 311 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  Level 316 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  Level 317 was a hard nut to crack!
  Level 319 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 320 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
  He left level 321 as soon as possible.
  On level 322 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He nuked level 322!
  On level 324 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  On level 329 he ran for his life from acid!
  Level 331 was a hard nut to crack!
  Level 334 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 340 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  On level 343, hell froze over!
  He nuked level 343!
  Level 345 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 348 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 351 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 351 as soon as possible.
  He left level 352 as soon as possible.
  On level 357 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  Level 361 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 362 he was walking in fire!
  Level 364 was a hard nut to crack!
  Level 372 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 373 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  Level 377 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 379 he was targeted for extermination!
  On level 386 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 387, hell froze over!
  He left level 394 as soon as possible.
  On level 401 he stumbled into a lava elemental cave!
  On level 405 he was targeted for extermination!
  On level 411 he found the Jackhammer!
  Level 415 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 415 as soon as possible.
  Level 418 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 422 he was bombarded!
  On level 424 he ran for his life from lava!
  Level 426 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 429 he stumbled into a agony elemental cave!
  On level 432 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 433, hell froze over!
  He left level 433 as soon as possible.
  On level 434 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  On level 435 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  He left level 435 as soon as possible.
  He left level 436 as soon as possible.
  He left level 441 as soon as possible.
  Level 444 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 446 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 448 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  On level 450 he ran for his life from acid!
  He left level 452 as soon as possible.
  He left level 453 as soon as possible.
  On level 454 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He nuked level 454!
  He left level 455 as soon as possible.
  Level 457 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  He left level 457 as soon as possible.
  He left level 461 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 462!
  He left level 463 as soon as possible.
  On level 464 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  He left level 464 as soon as possible.
  He left level 465 as soon as possible.
  He left level 466 as soon as possible.
  On level 467 he was targeted for extermination!
  He left level 467 as soon as possible.
  On level 468 he was targeted for extermination!
  He left level 468 as soon as possible.
  He left level 469 as soon as possible.
  He left level 470 as soon as possible.
  He left level 471 as soon as possible.
  On level 472 he found the Enviroboots!
  He left level 474 as soon as possible.
  On level 475 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 476 as soon as possible.
  On level 478 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 479 as soon as possible.
  On level 481 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  On level 481 he was targeted for extermination!
  He left level 482 as soon as possible.
  He left level 483 as soon as possible.
  He left level 487 as soon as possible.
  On level 488 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 488 as soon as possible.
  He left level 489 as soon as possible.
  He left level 490 as soon as possible.
  He left level 491 as soon as possible.
  He left level 492 as soon as possible.
  He left level 493 as soon as possible.
  He left level 494 as soon as possible.
  On level 495 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 495 as soon as possible.
  He left level 496 as soon as possible.
  On level 498 he was walking in fire!
  He left level 498 as soon as possible.
  On level 499 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 499 as soon as possible.
  On level 500 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 500 as soon as possible.
  On level 501 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 501 as soon as possible.
  He left level 502 as soon as possible.
  He left level 503 as soon as possible.
  He left level 504 as soon as possible.
  He left level 505 as soon as possible.
  He left level 506 as soon as possible.
  Level 507 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  He left level 507 as soon as possible.
  On level 508 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 508 as soon as possible.
  He left level 509 as soon as possible.
  He left level 510 as soon as possible.
  Level 511 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 511 as soon as possible.
  He left level 512 as soon as possible.
  He left level 513 as soon as possible.
  He left level 514 as soon as possible.
  On level 515 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 515 as soon as possible.
  He left level 516 as soon as possible.
  He left level 517 as soon as possible.
  He left level 518 as soon as possible.
  On level 519 he stumbled into a agony elemental cave!
  He left level 519 as soon as possible.
  He left level 520 as soon as possible.
  He left level 521 as soon as possible.
  He left level 522 as soon as possible.
  He left level 523 as soon as possible.
  He left level 524 as soon as possible.
  He left level 525 as soon as possible.
  He left level 526 as soon as possible.
  On level 527 he was targeted for extermination!
  He left level 527 as soon as possible.
  On level 528 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  He left level 528 as soon as possible.
  He left level 529 as soon as possible.
  He left level 530 as soon as possible.
  He left level 531 as soon as possible.
  On level 532 he was stumbling in the dark!
  He left level 532 as soon as possible.
  He left level 533 as soon as possible.
  On level 534 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  He left level 534 as soon as possible.
  On level 536 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 536 as soon as possible.
  On level 537 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 537 as soon as possible.
  He left level 538 as soon as possible.
  He left level 539 as soon as possible.
  He left level 540 as soon as possible.
  He left level 541 as soon as possible.
  Level 542 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 542 as soon as possible.
  He left level 543 as soon as possible.
  On level 544 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 544 as soon as possible.
  He left level 545 as soon as possible.
  He left level 546 as soon as possible.
  He left level 547 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 548!
  On level 549 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 550 as soon as possible.
  On level 551 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 551 as soon as possible.
  He left level 552 as soon as possible.
  He left level 553 as soon as possible.
  On level 554 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  On level 555 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  He left level 555 as soon as possible.
  He left level 558 as soon as possible.
  On level 559 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 559 as soon as possible.
  He left level 560 as soon as possible.
  He left level 561 as soon as possible.
  He left level 562 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 563!
  He left level 563 as soon as possible.
  He left level 564 as soon as possible.
  He left level 565 as soon as possible.
  He left level 566 as soon as possible.
  On level 567 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 567 as soon as possible.
  On level 568 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 568 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 569!
  He left level 569 as soon as possible.
  He left level 570 as soon as possible.
  He left level 571 as soon as possible.
  He left level 573 as soon as possible.
  He left level 574 as soon as possible.
  He left level 575 as soon as possible.
  He left level 576 as soon as possible.
  On level 577, hell froze over!
  He left level 577 as soon as possible.
  On level 578 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 578 he found the Subtle Knife!
  He left level 579 as soon as possible.
  He left level 580 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 582!
  He left level 582 as soon as possible.
  He left level 583 as soon as possible.
  He left level 586 as soon as possible.
  He left level 587 as soon as possible.
  On level 588 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 588 as soon as possible.
  On level 589 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 589 as soon as possible.
  He left level 590 as soon as possible.
  He left level 591 as soon as possible.
  He left level 592 as soon as possible.
  He left level 593 as soon as possible.
  He left level 595 as soon as possible.
  He left level 596 as soon as possible.
  He left level 598 as soon as possible.
  He left level 599 as soon as possible.
  On level 600 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 600 as soon as possible.
  He left level 601 as soon as possible.
  He left level 602 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 603!
  He left level 604 as soon as possible.
  He left level 606 as soon as possible.
  He left level 608 as soon as possible.
  He left level 609 as soon as possible.
  On level 611 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 611 as soon as possible.
  He left level 612 as soon as possible.
  He left level 613 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 614!
  He left level 614 as soon as possible.
  On level 615 he stumbled into a complex full of bruiser brothers!
  On level 616 he found the Berserker Armor!
  He left level 617 as soon as possible.
  He left level 619 as soon as possible.
  He left level 620 as soon as possible.
  He left level 623 as soon as possible.
  He left level 624 as soon as possible.
  He left level 625 as soon as possible.
  He left level 626 as soon as possible.
  He left level 627 as soon as possible.
  He left level 628 as soon as possible.
  He left level 629 as soon as possible.
  On level 630 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 630 as soon as possible.
  He left level 632 as soon as possible.
  On level 633 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  He left level 633 as soon as possible.
  He left level 634 as soon as possible.
  He left level 635 as soon as possible.
  On level 636 he was stumbling in the dark!
  He left level 636 as soon as possible.
  He left level 638 as soon as possible.
  He left level 640 as soon as possible.
  He left level 642 as soon as possible.
  He left level 643 as soon as possible.
  He left level 644 as soon as possible.
  He left level 645 as soon as possible.
  He left level 647 as soon as possible.
  Level 648 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 648 as soon as possible.
  He left level 649 as soon as possible.
  On level 650 he stumbled into a lava elemental cave!
  On level 651 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 651 as soon as possible.
  On level 653 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 654 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 656 as soon as possible.
  He left level 657 as soon as possible.
  He left level 658 as soon as possible.
  On level 659 he was bombarded!
  He left level 660 as soon as possible.
  He left level 661 as soon as possible.
  He left level 662 as soon as possible.
  On level 663 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  Level 665 was a hard nut to crack!
  He nuked level 666!
  On level 666 he finally committed a stupid suicide.

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

 You need to taste blood! There is rocket (x3) lying here.
 You feel your anger slowly wearing off... You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You feel more calm.
 You hit the nightmare cacodemon. The nightmare cacodemon hits you.
 You hit the nightmare cacodemon. The nightmare cacodemon dies. Next!
 There is rocket (x3) lying here.
 Argh!!! Lava!
 You dodge!
 Argh!!! Lava!
 Argh!!! Lava!
 Argh!!! Lava!
 Argh!!! Lava! You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 43 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 16 of those were killed.
 2 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 23 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 5 killed the bitch and survived.
 16 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


8

Post Mortem / Badge Hunters for Version 0.9.9.8

« on: October 01, 2024, 11:44 »

For the old Badge Hunters thread that covered all previous versions, click this link.

In Game Hunter's absence, I'm starting up a new Badge Hunters thread that covers version 0.9.9.8 and beyond. This thread will document everyone who has obtained each Diamond and Angelic badge, with links to each of the winning mortems. If you obtained a Diamond or Angelic badge, be sure to post it to the Post Mortem board, and feel free to notify me directly so I can update this thread accordingly (I'll link mortems from external sources like Discord, but linking threads from here is preferred). Each badge's list of achievers will be in chronological order of when each person won the badge.

Legend
(^) - The linked mortem has video of the winning run.
(d) - The link goes to a mortem posted on Discord (be sure to join the Jupiter Hell Discord server to view such links)
(*) - The linked mortem fulfilled the requirements for the badge, but the badge doesn't show in the mortem since the player copied over a previous version's data where they obtained the badge previously.
(S) - The badge was achieved in the standard game (only noted for badges that don't explicitly require it).
(Pure) - The badge was achieved purely, as in, it was obtained in the requisite challenge only and not in a Dual Angel.

The following challenge headings are only noted for badges that don't explicitly require the noted challenge:
(AoOC) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Overconfidence.
(AoCn) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Confidence.
(AoMC) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Max Carnage.
(AoLT) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Light Travel.
(AoSh) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Shotgunnery.
(AoB) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Berserk.
(AoRA) - The badge was achieved in or by mixing the challenge with Angel of Red Alert.

Other headings will be added if needed

Diamond Hunters

Technician Diamond

• Buzzard (d)
• Omega Tyrant

Armorer Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Heroic Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Gatekeeper Diamond

• Omega Tyrant (S)
• wyvric (d) (S)
• Clamp360 (d) (S)

UAC Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Veteran Diamond

• wyvric (d) (*) (S)
• apalapan (d) (AoB) (AoOC)

Strongman Diamond

• Groncho (d)
• Omega Tyrant

Elite Diamond

• wyvric (d) (*)

Demonic Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Reaper Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Berserker Diamond

• apalapan (d) (AoOC)

Marksman Diamond

• Clamp360 (d) (AoOC)
• Icy (d) (AoOC)

Shottyman Diamond

• wyvric (d) (*) (AoOC)

Lightfoot Diamond

• This badge is currently bugged and so may be unwinnable!

Eagerness Diamond

• wyvric (d) (Pure)

Inquisitor Diamond

• Omega Tyrant (^) (AoRA)

Quartermaster Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Hunter Diamond

• apalapan (AoOC)

Destroyer Diamond

• apalapan (d) (AoOC)
• Clamp360 (d) (AoOC)
• Icy (d) (AoOC)

Masochist Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Centurial Diamond

• Currently unachieved

Everyman Diamond

• Omega Tyrant (^) (Pure)

Daredevil Diamond

• wyvric (d) (*) (AoSh)
• Buzzard (d) (Pure)

Arena Diamond

• This badge was only won once after over a decade in 0.9.9.7 and is very luck-based in nature, so it is strongly recommended you have video proof when claiming this badge!

Longinus Diamond

• wyvric (d) (*) (S)

Scavenger Diamond

• apalapan (S)
• Omega Tyrant (^) (AoMC) (AoCn)

[--------------------------------------------------------------]

9

Post Mortem / [U|AoMs|100%|YAFW] - The first UV pure AoMs Conqueror

« on: September 26, 2024, 13:04 »

Here is the Youtube link to the video of the entire run if you want to watch it.

To get Masochist Platinum, you just have to beat Angel of Masochism on at least Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, in addition to having no levels in the Badass trait. However, after looking on the Chaosforge forums and seeing that no one has beaten pure AoMs as a Conqueror on Ultra-Violence difficulty (there were a few AoMs Conqueror mortems I found, but they were either on lower difficulties or mixed AoMs with AoMC), I decided to aim for achieving that instead of just getting the Platinum badge.

For the build, I decided to have some fun and do Malicious Blades, since I don't see it fitting in to any runs I have planned in the near future, while the generalist nature of it makes it good for Conqueror runs and the great defensive boosts it grants will make it quite useful for a challenge you cannot heal on command in. I deviate from its prerequisites at the start to take a level in Ironman, as each level of Ironman essentially gets you 10 more HP after every level up (and another temporary extra 20 boosted HP), while saving a point of damage from formers and melee attacks early on is also pretty useful. After that it's straight to Malicious Blades to get those defensive boosts as soon as possible.

However, on my first try at this, I get incredible item luck that killed much of the challenge. First I get a Duelist Armor in floor 5, a very useful armor in general for being one of the few in the game that makes you faster for wearing it rather than slower, but that combined with its 75% melee resistance makes the usually very difficult Phobos Lab a ton more easier, as with it I could outrun Nightmare Demons without having to activate run and reduce all their bites to 1 damage when they got in (especially handy in a challenge where you cannot restore your tactics on a floor without certain powerups). Then in Deimos Lab, the weapon cache had a Frag Shotgun that was useless, but much more importantly a Super Shotgun, and then not only that, the mod cache after killing the Shamblers had not just one but TWO Nano mods (now killing the Shamblers without being able to heal would normally be a huge threat, but with Malicious Blades' 75% melee restance + 10%  from Ironman, I could reduce all their melee attacks to 1 damage even with just Blue Armor, so after releasing them I immediately ran into one of the little mod rooms and waited until one teleported inside, where I was able to melee them individually to death without getting hit by any plasma bolts). With these Nano mods, I was able to make the broken Nano Shrapnel Super Shotgun, and Antigrav Boots (which let me get Technician Platinum too as that was the last advanced assembly I needed on 0.9.9.8), to ensure I could basically never get touched while never needing to worry about ammo (and when I did get hit, MMB ensured that damage wasn't much if it was anything but plasma or acid). Then shortly after that in Deimos 3 I find a Phaseshift Armor to make me even faster than Duelist Armor can, which when combined with the Antigrav Boots, meant I was getting about four to six moves for every move an enemy made. And late in the game I find a Medical Armor for good measure, whose ability to restore your health to 50% when it drops below at the expense of its durability still works in AoMs, meaning I had a means to heal at low health (I also discovered during this run that the Blood Skulls can still heal you in AoMs too after wasting the first one I got from the Agony Elemental, and then I found another one of those too randomly).

So basically, everything after Deimos Lab is a complete cakewalk where I just infinite Super Shotgun everything to death while moving as fast as actual Doom Guy, and so this run isn't really a good representation of this challenge as you'll almost never get this lucky, but hey, still the first UV pure AoMs Conqueror win, and the nature of Roguelikes is that you sometimes get incredibly lucky.

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 NEEDNOHEALING,
 level 16 Hell Baron Lt. General Technician,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 353367 turns and scored 437751 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 28 minutes and 12 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1293 out of 1293 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Masochism!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Angelic Pin                Clear the Mortuary/Limbo w/o taking damage
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Chessmaster's Token        Complete Hell's Arena on AoMs/AoI on UV
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Technician Platinum Badge  Discover all advanced assemblies
  Masochist Gold Badge       Complete Angel of Masochism (AoMs)
  Masochist Platinum Badge   Complete AoMs on HMP w/o Bad

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

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ............................................%.............#
  ..............................................%...........#
  ..........................................................#
  .........................................%.....||.........#
  ........................................%......}......X...#
  .............................................%|...........#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 70/70   Experience 133978/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +2  ToDmg Melee +8

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

  Class : Technician

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 3)
    Malicious Blades (Level 1)

  Iro->HR->Fin->HR->Bru->Bru->DM->MMB->WK->WK->Fin->Iro->Fin->SoB->WK->SoB->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (93%) (APT)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nano super shotgun (6d4)x2 (P1T1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   combat knife (2d5)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d7) [5/5] (P1T1)
    [b] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [c] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [d] red armor [6/6] (100%) (P)
    [e] medical armor [4/4] (191%) (ABPT)
    [f] Shielded Armor [2]
    [g] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [h] Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [i] rocket (x14)
    [j] rocket (x14)
    [k] rocket (x14)
    [l] phase device
    [m] phase device
    [n] homing phase device
    [o] homing phase device
    [p] blood skull
    [q] rocket box (x25)
    [r] rocket box (x25)
    [s] power battery (x120)
    [t] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 20%   torso 95%   feet 70% 
    melee      - internal 20%   torso 95%   feet 95% 
    shrapnel   - internal 20%   torso 95%   feet 70% 
    acid       - internal 0%    torso 10%   feet 50% 
    fire       - internal 0%    torso 60%   feet 75% 
    plasma     - internal 0%    torso 10%   feet 0%   

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

    111 former humans
    88 former sergeants
    67 former captains
    186 imps
    119 demons
    301 lost souls
    93 cacodemons
    60 hell knights
    63 barons of hell
    30 arachnotrons
    17 former commandos
    29 pain elementals
    37 revenants
    34 mancubi
    26 arch-viles
    7 nightmare cacodemons
    12 nightmare demons
    2 nightmare arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 9 he found the Frag Shotgun!
  He nuked level 9!
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 10 he assembled a nano-shrapnel!
  On level 10 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  On level 10 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
  He slaughtered the beasts living there.
  On level 14 he found the Shielded Armor!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 17 he trespassed on the House of Pain.
  He conquered the House!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 22 he found the Necroarmor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  On level 23 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  On level 23 he was targeted for extermination!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You feel your invincibility fading...
 You feel vulnerable again.
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 This is it. This is the lair of all evil! What will you meet here?
 You are hit!
 Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn!
 The hell knight dies. The hell knight dies.
 The hell knight dies. You hear the scream of a freed soul!
 John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher.
 You hear the scream of a freed soul!
 You are hit!
 John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press
 <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 32 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 12 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 18 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 3 killed the bitch and survived.
 13 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

10

Post Mortem / [M|AoRA|100%|YAFW] - The rare AoRA Conqueror

« on: September 23, 2024, 22:04 »

As I did not feel like doing the grind to get Quartermaster Diamond again yet in 0.9.9.8, I went just for Quartermaster Gold on easy old HNTR, and got Skull Silver out of the way, so I won't need to do City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains in the eventual Quartermaster Platinum and Diamond runs if I'm not in a good position to do them (I especially wouldn't bother with Abyssal Plains on UV/N! even with Blademaster). Along the way though, I decided to see if I can check off doing a Conqueror on AoRA, and succeeded at that, a rare feat even on HNTR difficulty. Unfortunately unlike with my prior two mortems I posted here where I claimed the first AoI and AoD conquerors, I can't claim the first AoRa conqueror, as Papilio did me beat to it. Being the second to have done it is still nice though.

Unlike Papilio, who went with Gunrunner, I went the Int2 -> Blademaster route like I did previously for Quartermaster Diamond and getting Skull Silver previously in 0.9.9.7. This made Hell's Arena harder, and I was barely able to get Phobos Lab done (had to use a bunch of rocket jumps and finished with less than 30 seconds to spare), but made all the Deimos and Hell special levels a lot easier, particularly City of Skulls and Unholy Cathedral. In this particular run, I got blessed by a vault with a Combat Shotgun on floor 2, but then the luck balanced the other end when I got consecutive Lost Soul caves in the middle of Phobos. Sure that was good for being super easy levels to clear, but meant I got shafted a lot of EXP, and so I didn't even have Berserker by Phobos Lab, while later still didn't have Blademaster by City Of Skulls. City Of Skulls still ended up being pretty easy with Berserker + rocket jumping and a Shell Box-aided Tactical Shotgun, but Phobos Lab came close as stated before. Deimos Lab also came pretty close despite this just being HNTR, and I had to burn the Homing Phase I had after killing the Shamblers and cleaning out the mod cache (which included an Onyx mod, very good, but also a Sniper mod, useless), while having to skip on the weapon cache (which had a Nuclear Plasma Rifle and Combat Translocator, not at all useful for this run but I still would have wanted to pick them up to work towards Armorer Platinum/Diamond). For one more note, enemies being revealed on the final three and items being revealed when all enemies are dead is a very helpful addition for AoRA, which does make getting 100% kills in the normal levels a bit easier, but that does get counterbalanced by Intuition 2's extended enemy detection radius being nerfed, that likely ended up costing me my first run (this overall took me two attempts, where I Q+Y'd out on my first attempt in Hell's Arena because I missed an enemy when going back and forth, that costed me too much time to clear it).

As for doing a UV AoRA Conqueror run, I think it is possible, but it would be absurdly difficult, even moreso than getting Quartermaster Diamond, and only a Blademaster build could realistically do it. Maybe someday I'll try for that...

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 IMAQUARTERMASTER,
 level 13 Hell Baron Lt. General Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 53767 turns and scored 190110 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 32 minutes and 11 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 871 out of 871 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Red Alert!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Skull Silver Badge         Clear City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains on AoRA
  Quartermaster Bronze Badge Reach level 16 on Angel of Red Alert
  Quartermaster Silver Badge Complete Angel of Red Alert (AoRA)
  Quartermaster Gold Badge   Complete AoRA with 100% kills

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

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ........................................................X.#
  ........................................................}.#
  ........................................................||#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 85/50   Experience 77666/13
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  Int->Int->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->Bru->MBm->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Angelic Armor [11/11] (95%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x65)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5]
    [b] assault shotgun (9d3) [6/6] (P2)
    [c] BFG 9000 (10d6) [130/169] (B2)
    [d] red armor [6] (AOP)
    [e] duelist armor [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [f] rocket (x11)
    [g] rocket (x14)
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] phase device
    [p] homing phase device
    [q] plasteel boots [4/4] (100%) (P)
    [r] shell box (x100)
    [s] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    106 former humans
    65 former sergeants
    29 former captains
    92 imps
    69 demons
    326 lost souls
    40 cacodemons
    36 hell knights
    22 barons of hell
    12 arachnotrons
    6 former commandos
    19 pain elementals
    16 revenants
    12 mancubi
    9 arch-viles
    1 nightmare demon
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 10 he ran for his life from acid!
  He sounded the alarm on level 11!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  He left level 16 as soon as possible.
  On level 17 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 17 he found the Railgun!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  On level 19 he stumbled into a complex full of imps!
  On level 19, hell froze over!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  On level 20 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 22 he found the BFG 10K!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You're going berserk!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You're going berserk!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You're going berserk!
 The lost soul hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. Next!

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

 31 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 12 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 17 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 3 killed the bitch and survived.
 12 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

11

Discussion / My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get

« on: September 20, 2024, 17:02 »

This thread is to document the mortems for all the badges and medals I obtained in 0.9.9.8, as for most of them I did not feel like making individual threads here for (and so the Post Mortem board does not get flooded with my runs). This also records my progression to 100% (or rather how close I can get, given how some of the Angelic badges are currently realistically impossible). I additionally will be using a scoring system I devised to track how "close" I'm getting to 100%, which is being used instead of just doing a flat percentage of every badge/medal because it would be silly to treat a Bronze badge of equal weight to an Angelic badge. The scoring system is as follows:

*Each Bronze badge is worth 1 point
*Each Silver is worth 2 points
*Each Gold is worth 4 points
*Each Platinum is worth 8 points
*Each Diamond is worth 16 points
*Each Angelic is worth 32 points.
*Each Medal is worth 3 points.

While badges can vary significantly in difficulty in each tier (e.g. Brick and Lava Silver have probably been obtained less than most Golds and even some Platinums, whereas Gatekeeper Diamond is easier than most Platinums), the difficulty average of each badge tier is roughly twice as hard as the preceding tier, and doing it this way, I won't get bogged down with trying to attribute specific subjective scores to every individual badge. Then there are medals that are tricky to score, as there is no discrete tiering with them, and they range wildly in difficulty from Bronze level (Arena Bronze and Hell Arena Champion are literally the same thing) to harder than most Platinums (few people have probably ever gotten Hell Arena Pwnage or Chessmaster's Cross, and Dervis' Medallion is literally the same thing as Centurial Diamond). For simplicity sake, each medal will be assigned 3 points regardless of difficulty, so again I don't get bogged down with assigning subjective scores to every individual medal and so the maximum score ends up at a clean 1500 ((26*1)+(26*2)+(26*4)+(26*8)+(26*16)+(17*32)+(50*3)=1500)

First standard HMP run for many Bronze/Silver/Gold badges and medals

This is my first run of the official 0.9.9.8 release (well I had one run before, but I tested an old telefragging bug that someone reported, and after it was confirmed fixed, I decided to kill myself by telefragging to see if you got a funny death message for it, unfortunately you don't :( ). The Unlock All setting was bugged in the release version, with it not unlocking the harder difficulties, so I had to start off with a standard HMP game. I did a quick run through with the currently broken Vampyre in a mostly uneventful run that gathered up many of the easy badges and medals, other than me taking a detour to obtain Iron Skull for the first time (which thankfully had its requirement reduced to a less absurd 5000 damage). Still a tedious medal, but I didn't need to spend too much time on it, as getting halfway there at City Of Skulls, and then just taking many lava baths before picking up healing items/powerups in the second half of the game was enough to get me to 5000 damage.

Badge count - [12|4|2|0|0|0] Medal count - 9/50 Score - 55/1500 (3.67%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 QUICKVAMP, level 14 Human Private Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 284721 turns and scored 242741 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 7 minutes and 26 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 2884 out of 2884 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

 He saved himself 2 times.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Explorer Pin               Visited all generated levels
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Iron Skull                 Took 5,000+ damage in one game
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Technician Bronze Badge    Discover an assembly
  Technician Silver Badge    Discover an advanced assembly
  Armorer Bronze Badge       Discover 10 exotics/uniques
  Heroic Bronze Badge        Receive 8 unique medals
  Gatekeeper Bronze Badge    Clear out the Anomaly
  UAC Bronze Badge           Win standard game on any difficulty
  UAC Silver Badge           Win standard game on Hurt Me Plenty
  Veteran Bronze Badge       Win game on any difficulty w/100% kills
  Veteran Silver Badge       Win game on Hurt Me Plenty w/100% kills
  Lava Bronze Badge          Clear the Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus
  Reaper Bronze Badge        Enter the Mortuary/Limbo
  Reaper Silver Badge        Enter the Mortuary/Limbo and exit alive
  Reaper Gold Badge          Complete the Mortuary/Limbo
  Brick Bronze Badge         Clear The Wall/Containment Area
  Skull Bronze Badge         Clear City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains
  Arena Bronze Badge         Complete Hell's Arena
  Longinus Gold Badge        Complete Unholy Cathedral
  Arachno Bronze Badge       Clear Spider's Lair

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

  ###########################################################
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  ###########################################################

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

  Health 73/60   Experience 89258/14
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +8  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 1)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Fin->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Jug->Bru->Fin->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Lava Armor [4/4] (98%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Acid Spitter (10d10) [0/10] {a}
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   ripper (6d6) (T)

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

    [a] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B1)
    [b] assault shotgun (8d3) [6/6] (P1)
    [c] plasma shotgun (7d3) [30/30]
    [d] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [e] nanofiber red armor [2] (A)
    [f] duelist armor [4/4] (61%) (AP)
    [g] Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [h] rocket (x10)
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] homing phase device
    [n] fireproof plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)
    [o] phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [p] shell box (x91)
    [q] shell box (x100)
    [r] rocket box (x25)
    [s] power battery (x120)
    [t] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 95% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 

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

    91 former humans
    91 former sergeants
    22 former captains
    144 imps
    52 demons
    2126 lost souls
    45 cacodemons
    20 hell knights
    50 barons of hell
    51 arachnotrons
    14 former commandos
    103 pain elementals
    16 revenants
    22 mancubi
    14 arch-viles
    1 nightmare arch-vile
    5 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    2 elite former captains
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He purified his fellow comrades.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 9 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he found the Lava Armor!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  Level 13 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  On level 14 he assembled a ripper!
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he trespassed on the House of Pain.
  On level 17 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He conquered the House!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he assembled a fireproof boots!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You wear/wield : a ripper (6d6) (T)
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 The missile hits the lost soul. The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies. You
 hear the scream of a freed soul! The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies. You
 hear the scream of a freed soul! You hear the scream of a freed soul! The lost
 soul dies. That hurt! You're going berserk! John Carmack dies.
 Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 2 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 1 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


First standard UV run for Veteran and Elite Platinum, as well as some more medals and several Golds/Silvers/Bronzes

Here is my first official UV run of 0.9.9.8. I advanced enough as a player that I can consistently fully beat standard UV with virtually any build and don't need to make any thorough plans for it, so I just went with my favorite build of Shottyhead here. Aside from picking up some more Silvers and Golds, I reobtained Veteran and Elite Platinum here, while also picking up the Hell Arena's Key and Shambler Head (the latter of which I believe is the first time I got it outside of AoMC). Nearly picked up the Angelic Pin too, but making Nano Shrapnel with the Double Shotgun proved to be a mistake as I couldn't hit things outside my vision with it without shooting at very specific angles, so I tried waiting the center of Mortuary behind the walls for cover after clearing out one side, where an Imp then got a double move and hit me (I thought Imps couldn't do that to Scouts, but maybe wait was changed to no longer be affected by the Scout's speed bonus?).

Badge count - [13|6|6|2|0|0] Medal count - 14/50 Score - 107/1500 (7.13%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 SHOTTYHEADABEST,
 level 15 Imp Sergeant Major Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 728621 turns and scored 400078 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 4 minutes and 47 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1345 out of 1345 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

 He saved himself 3 times.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  UAC Star (gold cluster)    100+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Shambler's Head            Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab w/o taking damage
  Hell Arena Key             Clear Hell's Arena w/o damage
  Gatekeeper Gold Badge      Clear Babel on HNTR w/o taking damage
  UAC Gold Badge             Win standard game on Ultra-Violence
  Veteran Gold Badge         Win game on UV/100% kills
  Veteran Platinum Badge     Fully win the game on UV
  Elite Platinum Badge       Win standard UV game as Conqueror
  Arena Silver Badge         Complete Hell's Arena on UV
  Scavenger Bronze Badge     Find The Vaults
  Scavenger Silver Badge     Scavenge The Vaults
  Scavenger Gold Badge       Clear The Vaults

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

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

  Health 133/70   Experience 118643/15
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Reloader         (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Shottyman        (Level 1)
    Shottyhead       (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Fin->Rel->SM->Jug->MSh->Fin->WK->WK->HR->Fin->HR->Iro->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [4] (AOT)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nano double shotgun (7d3)x2 (P1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [8/8] (100%) (APT)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x100)

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (9d3) [5/5] (P1)
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5] (T1)
    [c] laser rifle (1d7)x5 [40/40] (A3)
    [d] napalm launcher (7d7) [1/1]
    [e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [f] Lava Armor [4/4] (100%)
    [g] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [h] shotgun shell (x70)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] rocket (x8)
    [k] rocket (x14)
    [l] power cell (x70)
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] homing phase device
    [s] lava element
    [t] environmental plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [u] shell box (x100)

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

    bullet     - internal 20%   torso 40%   feet 40% 
    melee      - internal 20%   torso 40%   feet 40% 
    shrapnel   - internal 20%   torso 40%   feet 40% 
    acid       - internal 0%    torso 10%   feet 10% 
    fire       - internal 0%    torso 35%   feet 10% 
    plasma     - internal 0%    torso 10%   feet 10% 

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

    100 former humans
    81 former sergeants
    69 former captains
    203 imps
    109 demons
    404 lost souls
    71 cacodemons
    28 hell knights
    78 barons of hell
    56 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    37 pain elementals
    22 revenants
    18 mancubi
    28 arch-viles
    12 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 8 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he found the Lava Armor!
  On level 17 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 17 he found the Revenant's Launcher!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  On level 19 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he assembled a nano-shrapnel!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he assembled a environmental boots!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  On level 22 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You see : floor
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : blood
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You wear/wield : a nano double shotgun (7d3)x2 (P1)
 You dodge!
 You feel your invincibility fading...
 John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher.
 You feel vulnerable again.
 You start running!
 John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press
 <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 3 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 2 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


Quick run for Pacifist badges and Icarus + Compet-n medals

For the official 0.9.9.8 release, I opted to not use the Unlock All option, as I wanted to see how quickly I could unlock everything. So after the UV run, I went for the quick Angel Of Pacifism run to get another rank of unlocks, which took some attempts, and in one of those failed ones I got Pacifism Bronze (excluded the mortem here because I forgot about it initially and trying to edit it back into this first post later had it hitting the character limit, while I didn't feel like editing all the posts to fit it in chronologically, surely no one cares about the mortem for a Bronze badge?). In less than an hour I was able to get a successful run, picking up the Pacifism Bronze to Gold badges, as well as all the Icarus and Compet-n crosses, which got me enough medals to get Heroic Silver too.

Badge count - [14|8|7|2|0|0] Medal count - 19/50 Score - 131/1500 (8.73%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 aopc fast, level 10 Demon Sergeant Major Scout,
 sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 8885 turns and scored 35538 points.
 He played for 8 minutes and 21 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 22 out of 443 hellspawn. (4%)
 My, wasn't he a wimpy chump.
 He was an Angel of Pacifism!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 0

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

  Minor Icarus Cross         Won the game in less than 40,000 turns
  Major Icarus Cross         Won the game in less than 20,000 turns
  Compet-n Silver Cross      Won the game in under 30 minutes
  Compet-n Gold Cross        Won the game in under 20 minutes
  Compet-n Platinum Cross    Won the game in under 10 minutes
  Heroic Silver Badge        Receive 16 unique medals
  Pacifist Silver Badge      Complete Angel of Pacifism (AoPc)
  Pacifist Gold Badge        Complete AoPc in under 10 minutes

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

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  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/80   Experience 1276/10
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->HR->Int->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->Iro->Iro->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [4/4] (85%) (T)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (4d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   steel boots [1/1] (60%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] green armor [1/1] (100%)
    [b] green armor [1/1] (100%)
    [c] blue armor [2/2] (83%)
    [d] red armor [2/4] (35%)
    [e] small med-pack
    [f] small med-pack
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] phase device
    [o] phase device
    [p] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)

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

    bullet     - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    melee      - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    shrapnel   - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 70%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 70%   feet 60% 

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

    5 former sergeants
    2 former captains
    3 imps
    6 demons
    4 lost souls
    1 former commando
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He cowardly fled the Arena.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  He left level 9 as soon as possible.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He left the Deimos Lab without drawing too much attention.
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  Not knowing what to do, he left.
  He left level 12 as soon as possible.
  He left level 13 as soon as possible.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  Level 17 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 17 he trespassed on the House of Pain.
  He left the House without drawing too much attention.
  He left level 18 as soon as possible.
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  On level 24 he finally sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind.

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

 You enter the damned city of Dis... You advance to level 10! Press <Enter>...
 Are you sure you want activate the thermonuclear bomb? [Y/n]
 You use a thermonuclear bomb. ""Handle with care"... WTF?" Warning! Explosion
 in 10 seconds! Run - direction...
 Warning! Explosion in 9 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds!
 Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. That hurt! You're going berserk! You feel like a
 killing machine! You need to taste blood!

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

 10 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 5 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 3 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


UV A100 run for Centurial Bronze to Platinum

Next up I went for an A100 run once it was unlocked, easily my favorite challenge mode, and throughout all my time playing DRL, I have probably put as much or more time into A100 runs than I have playing standard games. Again I can make about any build work in A100 on UV (I even did a 100% UV A100 run with Entrechment once during the beta process), but went with Scavenger here. Part of it is because Scavenger is really fun in A100 (especially so with 0.9.9.8 letting Scavenger now disassemble any type of equipment), but part of it is I also wanted to build as many assemblies I can, particularly the annoying ones that require rare weapons and/or rare mods, to both build towards the Technician badges and to get them out of the Schematics pool for Armory/Deimos Lab (unfortunately 0.9.9.8 has not changed how Schematics drop, so you want to get all the assemblies done ASAP so you don't have them cost you a crucial rare mod in any of the harder challenge runs). There was still quite a few I was unable to make (quite annoying I didn't find a single BFG nor Chainsaw despite them being made less rare in 0.9.9.8), but I was able to get the majority of assemblies done, while thanks to Technicians getting the newly added WK3, I was able to build the ultimate pistol to completely eradicate the lategame (a P3N2S2 Combat Pistol, a 3d6 Combat Pistol that was effectively Nanomachic and retained its accuracy against out-of-sight enemies). With this run, I get the Centurial Bronze to Platinum badges done, as well as the Experience Medal.

Badge count - [15|10|8|3|0|0] Medal count - 20/50 Score - 151/1500 (10.07%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 SCAVENGER100, level 24 Demon Sergeant Major Technician,
 completed 100 levels of torture on level 100 of Hell.
 He survived 719482 turns and scored 2321030 points.
 He played for 13 hours, 32 minutes and 48 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 4805 out of 4805 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of 100!

 He saved himself 14 times.

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

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

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (gold cluster)    100+ kills without taking damage
  Experience Medal           Reach experience level 20+
  Armorer Silver Badge       Discover 30 exotics/uniques
  Centurial Bronze Badge     Reach level 16 on Angel of 100
  Centurial Silver Badge     Reach level 51 on Angel of 100
  Centurial Gold Badge       Complete Angel of 100 (Ao100)
  Centurial Platinum Badge   Complete Ao100 on UV

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

  ###########################################################
  #...^......................|}...#.......^.........%.....|..
  ####/#########/###/####/###..####|................%...0..0.
  #.....}..............%..%.....%.#%..}..................%.0.
  #.....|......|.............|.............+.................
  /............}....}|..........X............................
  #....|.......|..........|.........########/######|##|######
  #...................................%.%%..%........|.......
  #######=##=####/###/######....###|#..%.......*.............
  #.%....===.=....................#./........................
  #|.....=====.....0..............#.#............===.........
  #....%..===.....................#./...........=====........
  ###########################/..#+#.#...........=====[|...[..
  ====...................%........#.#...........=====..."....
  ===========================================================
  ===========================================================
  ===========================================================
  #...=======================================================
  #...............................#.#............0...........
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 118/60   Experience 814891/24
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +5  ToDmg Melee +5

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

  Class : Technician

    Ironman          (Level 1)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 5)
    Son of a gun     (Level 5)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 3)
    Scavenger        (Level 1)

  SoB->SoB->EE->EE->Int->Int->WK->SoG->SoG->WK->MSc->SoG->Fin->Jug->SoG->Fin->WK->HR->SoB->SoG->HR->SoB->Iro->SoB->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   fireproof phaseshift armor [2] (OT)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   combat pistol (3d6) [15/15] (N2P3S2)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   10mm ammo chain (x182)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5] (T2)
    [b] rocket launcher (6d8) [1/1] (F1P2)
    [c] hyperblaster (2d4)x7 [40/40] (F2)
    [d] demolition combat pistol (7d2) [15/15] (P2)
    [e] assault shotgun (10d3) [8/8] (B1P3T3)
    [f] plasma shotgun (9d3) [51/51] (B2P2T3)
    [g] cerberus gothic armor [2/2] (200%) (PT)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] rocket (x10)
    [j] power cell (x50)
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] homing phase device
    [q] power mod pack
    [r] firestorm weapon pack
    [s] firestorm weapon pack
    [t] cerberus plasteel boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [u] shell box (x100)
    [v] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 70%   torso 95%   feet 70% 
    melee      - internal 70%   torso 95%   feet 70% 
    shrapnel   - internal 70%   torso 95%   feet 70% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 

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

    219 former humans
    316 former sergeants
    410 former captains
    128 imps
    111 demons
    1216 lost souls
    202 cacodemons
    139 hell knights
    503 barons of hell
    115 arachnotrons
    12 former commandos
    153 pain elementals
    217 revenants
    290 mancubi
    356 arch-viles
    52 nightmare imps
    64 nightmare cacodemons
    152 nightmare demons
    43 nightmare arachnotrons
    7 nightmare arch-viles
    16 elite former humans
    14 elite former sergeants
    10 elite former captains
    11 elite former commandos
    30 bruiser brothers
    11 shamblers
    4 lava elemental
    2 agony elementals
    2 Cyberdemons

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

  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 18 he found the Acid Spitter!
  On level 25 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 28 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 29 he found the Charch's Null Pointer!
  On level 31 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
  On level 32 he assembled a grappling boots!
  On level 32 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  He nuked level 35!
  On level 39 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 42 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  On level 43 he assembled a tactical armor!
  On level 44 he assembled a tactical armor!
  On level 45 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  On level 47 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  On level 47 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 49 he found the Butcher's Cleaver!
  On level 51 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  On level 53 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  On level 54 he assembled a fire shield!
  On level 54 he assembled a speedloader pistol!
  On level 57 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 57 he assembled a micro launcher!
  On level 57 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 57 he assembled a assault rifle!
  On level 58 he assembled a micro launcher!
  On level 58 he assembled a burst cannon!
  Level 59 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 59 he assembled a demolition ammo!
  On level 59 he found the Hell Staff!
  Level 62 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 62 he assembled a piercing blade!
  On level 65 he assembled a focused double shotgun!
  On level 65 he assembled a micro launcher!
  On level 66 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  On level 67 he was stumbling in the dark!
  On level 67 he assembled a elephant gun!
  He sounded the alarm on level 71!
  On level 71 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 71 he assembled a storm bolter pistol!
  On level 73 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 74 he assembled a tactical armor!
  On level 74 he found the Frag Shotgun!
  On level 74 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 74 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 74 he assembled a energy pistol!
  On level 75 he found the Necroarmor!
  On level 75 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 76 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  On level 77 he assembled a gatling gun!
  On level 77 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  He sounded the alarm on level 79!
  On level 80 he assembled a high power weapon!
  He nuked level 82!
  On level 83 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  On level 84 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 86 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 87 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 89 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 89 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 89 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 91 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 94 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 95 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He sounded the alarm on level 98!
  On level 100 he finally completed 100 levels of torture.

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

 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood! There is a Invulnerability Globe lying here.
 You feel invincible! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 There are stairs leading downward here. You need to taste blood!
 You did it! You completed 100 levels of DRL! You're the champion! Press
 <Enter>...

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

 11 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 5 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


Zen Master's Cross AoOC run for many annoying medals, Heroic Gold, and Daredevil Gold

0.9.9.8 added new some medals, four of which are the Pacifism Medal (win with 10% or less kills outside of AoPc), the Shotgunnery and Marksmanship Crosses (win with all your kills being with fists and shotguns or pistols respectively, outside of AoSh and AoMr), and the Zen Master's Cross (win without directly killing anything outside of AoPc). These medals are quite annoying (especially the Shotgunnery and Marksmanship Crosses that feel pointless when we already got weapon-locked challenges), but in the beta testing I discovered that going for the Zen Master's Cross will get all those medals, as well as the Malicious Knives Cross and Sunrise Iron Fist, due to a technicality in the coding where those medals are earned by not recording a kill with any disqualifying weapon. So if you don't kill anything directly... you don't record any disqualifying kills, and thus you'll obtain all of them in a pseudo-pacifist run.

With that in mind, I just did some quick AoOC runs on HNTR playing a stair-diving pacifist, nabbing the Nuclear BFG from Mortuary/Limbo, and then nuking the Mastermind. It took a few attempts, but you don't need to get that lucky to win this way. With a whopping six new medals from this run, I get enough for Heroic Gold, and also pick up Daredevil Gold too.

Badge count - [15|10|10|3|0|0] Medal count - 26/50 Score - 177/1500 (11.80%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Zencheese, level 1 Mancubus 2nd Lieutenant Scout,
 sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 3417 turns and scored 11936 points.
 He played for 4 minutes and 49 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 8 out of 214 hellspawn. (3%)
 My, wasn't he a wimpy chump.
 He was an Angel of Overconfidence!

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

  Levels generated : 4
  Levels visited   : 2
  Levels completed : 0

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

  Medal of Pacifism          Won with 10% or less kills
  Shotgunnery Cross          Won & killed only with shotguns/fists
  Marksmanship Cross         Won & killed only with pistols/fists
  Malicious Knives Cross     Won & killed only with knives/fists
  Sunrise Iron Fist          Won & killed only with your bare hands
  Zen Master's Cross         Won & killed w/o using fists/weapons
  Heroic Gold Badge          Receive 24 unique medals
  Daredevil Gold Badge       Complete Angel of Overconfidence (AoOC)

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

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

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 486/1
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Intuition        (Level 1)

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (86%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nothing
    [c] [ Boots      ]   steel boots [1/1] (70%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] speedloader pistol (2d4) [6/6]
    [b] combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
    [c] high power chaingun (1d8)x4 [26/26]
    [d] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [e] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [f] combat knife (2d5)
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [j] shell box (x100)

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

    fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 0%   

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

    2 former sergeants
    5 demons
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  On level 3 he stumbled into a complex full of hell knights!
  On level 3 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 4 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  He managed to escape from the Mortuary!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 8!
  On level 8 he finally sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind.

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

 You wear/wield : a nuclear BFG 9000 (8d6) [40/40]
 Are you sure you want to overcharge the nuclear BFG 9000? This will overload
 the nuclear reactor... [Y/n]
 You overcharge the nuclear BFG 9000! Warning! Explosion in 10 seconds! Run -
 direction...
 Warning! Explosion in 9 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds!
 Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 13 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 6 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

12

Post Mortem / [HMP|AoD|100%|YAFW] - First AoD Conqueror?

« on: September 20, 2024, 14:25 »

I did this run a few weeks ago and wasn't going to post it here, but when building my mortem dump thread, I thought to take a search to see if anyone has actually done a Conqueror run in Angel of Darkness before, and the only such thread I could find was this TwoDev thread. Of course it's accepted now that TwoDev's runs were bullshit (whether it be from him hacking the game to give himself god mode or posting outright fabricated mortems), so I'm going to assume this is the first time a Conqueror run in AoD has been pulled off (or at least the first one to do it legitimately and post it here). This was only on HMP and was why I wasn't going to post it here at first, but a Conqueror in AoD is still quite imposing. Hell's Arena in particular is very difficult, when you have no means yet of easy corpse disposal, are lacking traits even with the boosted EXP gain, and the reduced vision means you can't safely run -> wait anywhere on the map. Yet, surprising myself given how I couldn't do it the few times I tried before in some casual AoD runs, I managed to pull it off first try (taking advantage of Brute letting me kill Demons on the stairs easily so they had no corpse, and intentionally eating a few calculated plasma balls on troublesome Cacodemon corpses to destroy them). Then the rest of the run after went pretty smooth, while Berserker protected me from any big hits from enemies I couldn't see. Mortuary was going to be the big hurdle and I was ready for it with Blademaster + Scythe, but got Limbo instead. Not wanting to risk dying from getting repeatedly hit into lava and Limbo not having conductive ground for melee fighting, I just immediately hit the switches and then homing phased to huddle in one of the corners, waiting for nearly every enemy to come up to me and kill them. It was quite time consuming and I was always worried about accidentally going down the stairs (very easy to misclick when hitting the space bar now descends), but it wasn't hard once that setup was done. Most disappointed though I didn't get Spider's Lair, and so now I'll need to do another AoD run to get Arachno Silver (or try getting it whenever I eventually go for Hunter Diamond, which probably wouldn't be ideal).

Don't have much other commentary unfortunately, as again with this run being a few weeks old, I don't have fresh thoughts and didn't record much of it in the Discord server. However I did find out that you can still get the newly added Darkness event in AoD, and if it happens, your vision gets reduced to four tiles, pretty nasty.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GX8hcUZXwAA5azf?format=jpg&name=large

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 BLADE, level 18 Mancubus 1st Lieutenant Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1252501 turns and scored 383738 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 40 minutes and 38 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 1316 out of 1316 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Darkness!

 He saved himself once.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Hunter Bronze Badge        Reach level 9 on Angel of Darkness
  Hunter Silver Badge        Complete Angel of Darkness (AoD)
  Hunter Gold Badge          Complete AoD on HMP/80% kills

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

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ................................................X.........#
  ................................................}.........#
  ...............................................||.........#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 71/70   Experience 164552/18
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +10  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +15

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  Int->Int->Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Jug->Fin->WK->HR->Bru->WK->HR->MBm->Iro->Bru->Bru->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   powered red armor [5/5] (100%) (T)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [8/8] (100%) (AP)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x85)

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [3/5]
    [b] plasmatic combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5] (T1)
    [c] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [0/5] (T1)
    [d] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [e] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [f] shotgun shell (x70)
    [g] rocket (x13)
    [h] power cell (x70)
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] technical mod pack
    [q] lava element
    [r] environmental plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)
    [s] shell box (x100)
    [t] shell box (x100)

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

    bullet     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    melee      - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    shrapnel   - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 70%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 70%   feet 60% 

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

    137 former humans
    117 former sergeants
    43 former captains
    159 imps
    141 demons
    324 lost souls
    74 cacodemons
    65 hell knights
    48 barons of hell
    44 arachnotrons
    6 former commandos
    19 pain elementals
    43 revenants
    29 mancubi
    15 arch-viles
    26 nightmare cacodemons
    15 nightmare demons
    3 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 12 he assembled a double chainsaw!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 14 he was stumbling in the dark!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 17 he found the BFG 10K!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  On level 19 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he assembled a power armor!
  On level 20 he assembled a environmental boots!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You feel like a killing
 machine! You're going berserk!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You're going berserk!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next! You're going berserk!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. Next!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 Next! You're going berserk!

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

 15 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 6 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 7 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 1 killed the bitch and survived.
 4 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

13

Post Mortem / [U|AoI|100%|YAAM] - First AoI Conqueror?

« on: September 19, 2024, 01:36 »

I wasn't going to post individual threads for platinums and diamonds I already obtained back in 0.9.9.7 (I plan to make a mortem dump thread for those), but for my reobtaining of Eagerness Platinum in 0.9.9.8, I thought it was worth posting by itself, as I believe it is the first AoI conqueror run, and in UV no less (in my search to see if someone did it back in 0.9.9.7, I see papilio came close but couldn't get The Vaults). Most special levels become a lot more dangerous in AoI, as they have little to no means of healing when you can't bring medkits in, so that alone made completing a conqueror that much more imposing. But the big stumbling block was The Vaults; you can't bring the Arena Master Staff in nor Phase Devices, so there is no way to get into the center vault (couldn't even use the Whisper Of Death exploit, as you have no way to restore your tactics for the requisite four uses without bringing medkits in). The only way to clear The Vaults in AoI is to be lucky enough to find a Nuclear Plasma Rifle or BFG and an invuln right before The Vaults, and then nuking The Vaults (can't do it with a regular nuke either, as you can't carry those in AoI). In 0.9.9.8, this is still true for The Vaults, but a new paired level for The Vaults was added in 0.9.9.8, House of Pain, which is fully beatable without the Arena Master's Staff, which luckily spawned in this run and thus the first AoI conqueror. That wasn't the goal of this run, I was just aiming to get Lava Silver out of the way too and so played Scavenger to absolutely ensure I could get Cerberus or Lava Boots (though Scavenger is very nice for AoI as it lets you bypass the inability to stash mods in your inventory for later use, either by slapping a mod you want to save on some piece of equipment and then scavenging it later to get the mod back, or an exploit I discovered where scavenging with an empty inventory slot will have the resulting mod deposited straight to your inventory to use whenever you want). But I tend to just normally do every special level unless there is serious reason to skip it, and so went through them all along the way, while happening to get House Of Pain to complete the conqueror (though Unchained Court did kill me twice due to Barons destroying the berserks, and I also actually died in Military Base once because I tried the camping at the beginning doors strat without being able to gift drop the Elite Formers due to no medkits nor phase devices, leading to an Elite Sergeant coming up to one of the doors and SSGing me to death before I could act). Unfortunately I couldn't cap it off with a full win too, as no invuln spawned on Hell 7 (can't bring a Lava Element with you in AoI), so I had to settle for blowing away the Mastermind with the Biggest Fucking Gun. That means the first AoI full win conqueror is still on the table for someone to achieve.

Also big RIP to my F-modded Hyperblaster, had to scavenger it at the end to complete the Biggest Fucking Gun after I couldn't get another Firestorm mod. Tried recycling a ton of other mods I had through random assemblies at the end to finish my Nuclear VBFG too to get that assembly out of the way, but the game wouldn't give me just one more Power mod, oh well.

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 NOTIMETOWASTE,
 level 16 Hell Baron 1st Lieutenant Technician,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 389267 turns and scored 403123 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 20 minutes and 10 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1652 out of 1652 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Impatience!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  Mastermind's Brain         Killing the Mastermind w/o taking damage
  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (gold cluster)    100+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Chessmaster's Token        Complete Hell's Arena on AoMs/AoI on UV
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Technician Gold Badge      Discover all basic assemblies
  Lava Silver Badge          Clear the Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus on AoI
  Eagerness Bronze Badge     Reach level 9 on Angel of Impatience
  Eagerness Silver Badge     Complete Angel of Impatience (AoI)
  Eagerness Gold Badge       Complete AoI on HMP
  Eagerness Platinum Badge   Complete AoI on UV as non-Marine

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

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

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

  Health 61/50   Experience 132456/16
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +4  ToDmg Melee +4

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

  Class : Technician

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 1)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 4)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 3)
    Scavenger        (Level 1)

  SoB->EE->EE->Int->Int->WK->WK->MSc->SoB->Fin->Jug->HR->Fin->WK->SoB->SoB->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   fireproof red armor [4] (AO)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   biggest fucking gun (20d12) [45/325] (B1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (9d3) [5/5] (P1T1)
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5] (T1)
    [c] plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [40/40] (S2)
    [d] nuclear BFG 9000 (10d6) [40/40] (P2)
    [e] shotgun shell (x70)
    [f] shotgun shell (x70)
    [g] shotgun shell (x70)
    [h] shotgun shell (x28)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] shotgun shell (x70)
    [k] rocket (x6)
    [l] rocket (x14)
    [m] rocket (x14)
    [n] power cell (x8)
    [o] cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [p] shell box (x100)
    [q] shell box (x62)

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

    bullet     - internal 0%    torso 20%   feet 0%   
    melee      - internal 0%    torso 4294967286% feet 0%   
    shrapnel   - internal 0%    torso 20%   feet 0%   
    acid       - internal 25%   torso 35%   feet 25% 
    fire       - internal 25%   torso 90%   feet 25% 
    plasma     - internal 0%    torso 10%   feet 0%   

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

    133 former humans
    83 former sergeants
    47 former captains
    172 imps
    101 demons
    729 lost souls
    29 cacodemons
    30 hell knights
    68 barons of hell
    50 arachnotrons
    15 former commandos
    61 pain elementals
    33 revenants
    28 mancubi
    37 arch-viles
    3 nightmare imps
    6 nightmare cacodemons
    16 nightmare demons
    2 nightmare arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 9 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 13 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  On level 13 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  He left level 16 as soon as possible.
  On level 17 he trespassed on the House of Pain.
  On level 17 he found the Necroarmor!
  He conquered the House!
  On level 18 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 21 he assembled a lava boots!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  On level 22 he assembled a tactical armor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  On level 23 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 23 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 23 he assembled a biggest fucking gun!
  On level 23 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 23 he assembled a fireproof boots!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 There is an envirosuit pack lying here.
 No time to waste. You use an envirosuit pack from the ground. You feel
 protected!
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 You enter the damned city of Dis...
 There is a lever (woah!) here.
 You pull the lever...
 Out of range! Out of range!
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You quickly reload the biggest fucking gun. Your power battery is depleted.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies.
 Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 19 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 9 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 8 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 killed the bitch and survived.
 4 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[--------------------------------------------------------------]

14

Post Mortem / [U|AoH|100%|YAFW] Everyman Diamond with the new and improved Survivalist

« on: September 16, 2024, 17:29 »

Here is the Youtube link of the entire run if you want to watch it.

Back in 0.9.9.7, the only non-Angelic badges that you don't need to play Nightmare for that I never got were Armorer Diamond (which is just a grindfest you'll eventually get if you play long enough) and Everyman Diamond. Everyman Diamond is a very intimidating badge, that few people ever gotten even with the aid of dual-angel cheese, so I put it off for a long time, but before finally making the plunge into Nightmare, I decided to try getting this last UV badge I never attempted in 0.9.9.7.

When it comes to handling Angel of Humanity, you have two main ways to handle your build; one is you try to never get hit, playing as evasively and carefully as possible, but given how enemy dense the levels can get on UV, the chances of you managing to never get hit by something that will instant kill you over 24 floors, in addition to all the special levels, are very slim, especially without the reliably strong offense you would have in Angel of Max Carnage. The other build you can try is, counterintuitively, an extreme tanking build; you might risk lacking the speed or offense to handle some tough situations, and with such low HP you can never just stand there tanking everything, but it does give you a lot more margin for error. With those considerations, I decided to go the tanking route with Survivalist, which was significantly improved in 0.9.9.8 by the Marine gaining an inherent 20% resistance to fire/acid/plasma damage, in addition to Ironman being buffed to give +10% resistances to bullet/shrapnel/melee damage per level, and Survivalist getting doubled healing from small medkits and health globes.

When it comes to trait order, I open with Ironman, as while the extra 2 max HP is very little (4 when boosted), it does still make a difference in ensuring you don't get killed in one or two hits, and more importantly, the +10% physical resistances is quite helpful in the early game, allowing you to take 1 less point of damage against most enemy attacks in the early game. I then take Badass, as with it letting you retain boosted health to 150%, effectively gave me 21 max HP with how health globes will often get you over 100% with such low HP, overall significantly improving my margin of error. I then deviate from Survivalist's prereqs to go for two levels of Finesse and two levels of Whizkid; Finesse is very helpful in general for improving offense, safety, and increasing the reliability of corner shooting, but more important is needed for getting Whizkid, as assembling Cerberus Armor is critical, in addition to improving other equipment to make up for the lack of power and speed. Once that is done, it's finishing Survivalist with getting two levels of Tough As Nails and a second level of Ironman, and once I get Survivalist, i become a hell of a lot more durable, being able to actually tank stuff in Cerberus Armor. I then take the second level of Badass to effectively make my max HP 32, my health isn't looking so fragile anymore. After that it's the final level of Finesse, then Ironman for farther durability, then a level of Brute to make Unholy Cathedral not take so long, then one more level of Ironman, and finally I take one more level of Brute to make killing Carmack with the Scythe easier.

Now for all the levels and my commentary on how they went:

Phobos Base Entry - This level is easy, as the Red Armor in conjunction with the level of Ironman ensures nearly everything does 1 damage, with only high damage rolls at close range from the Sergeants being able to do a bit more, and there aren't many enemies altogether. However, given this is the first floor, if I took more than a couple hits I would just Q+Y out, as each HP this early is precious, and there is very little time loss resetting until you get a good Phobos Base Entry.

Floor 2 - I swap to the Green Armor here to preserve my Red Armor, as you won't be able to encounter any armor shards until floor 5 and I really need it for later. Wearing Green Armor makes me very vulnerable and I die a couple times on this floor, but again little time is lost, so making this floor a lot harder to preserve the Red Armor was worth it.

Hell's Arena - Cacodemons are scary this early, as even with Red Armor and the Marine's 20% plasma resistance, their plasma balls will deal 4 damage on average, and can deal up to 8 damage, so often they will kill you in three or even two hits if you're unlucky. Enemies additionally spawn in random spots, so if you get surrounded by Cacos and Pinkies at the start of any wave, it's basically game over. Then there's the two Barons in the final wave, whose acid balls deal 6 damage on average to a Marine in Red Armor, and up to as high as 12 with a max damage roll. All while you lack the speed to outrun anything here, and with no offense boosting traits, enemies will often get to you before they die when corner shooting them. It's not too hard though if you take it carefully, and with the Barons you can lure them into a favorable position with gift dropping (try to lure them as away as you can see them without them seeing you, and then just start hammering away with the Shotgun when they pop up, you'll often be able to kill them this way before they reach you even with no offense boosting traits). Clearing Hell's Arena gives some very nice rewards, but especially so in AoH, when the usual Blue Armor is replaced with a randomly chosen Ballistic Vest, Phaseshift Armor, or Acid-proof Boots. If you get the Boots, that's an instant reset, as they're far less useful. The Ballistic Vest meanwhile, with its 50% resistances to all physical damage, makes a very good base for the Cerberus Armor, which gives you an armor that reduces all damage by at least half, bolstered even farther by the levels of Ironman I'm getting, and it'll be handy for The Chained Court, Phobos Lab, and any Demon caves before it's turned Cerberus. Then there's Phaseshiift Armor, which has weaker physical resistances (30%) and so would make a weaker Cerberus Armor, but it does has some perks that made me want it more (which luckily I did get in my first Hell's Arena clear); it has an extra point of protection that makes it defend better against energy attacks, a massive +25% movespeed bonus that will actually let me outrun enemies before I turn it Cerberus, and it has the potential to create the Phaseshift set if I find the Phaseshift Boots, which will grant me immunity to damaging fluids (very important, as lava deals 12 damage, 8 damage once you factor the Marine's 20% fire res and the two levels of TaN I get, so yeah I want to avoid lava at all costs). The weaker physical resistances will be alleviated by Ironman anyway, as well as a bug in this version that has the Technical mod's resistance boosts carry over to armor assemblies that use it (effectively meaning Cerberus Phaseshift Armor will have 50% physical resistances, and after a couple levels of Ironman + TaN, it will reduce any physical hit to 1 damage).

Floors 3 to 5 - Hell Knights and Cacodemons start showing up in this range, while caves can also start spawning, and floor 4 was particularly dangerous here, with me once ending up trapped by a Hell Knight in a dead end, but thanks to running and the Phaseshift Armor, I was able to pull through this range without much issue.

The Chained Court - You got four Barons now, a bunch of formers that can chip you down, as well as the Arena Master, a buffed up Archvile whose zap will always deal 4 damage to a marine in Red Armor, a whopping 11 if I'm wearing Phaseshift or Blue Armor. All in a level where you have little cover and no good camping spots. You however get the Chainsaw, as well as two more Berserks, and when berserked, everything here will be doing only 1 damage to you in Red Armor. Leveraging the berserks and avoiding letting the Barons destroy them is crucial, with my strat being to take the Chainsaw, immediately head up to one group of Barons and saw them down as well as any formers that get in the way,  then taking one of the Berserks to heal up and head down to the other group of Barons, aided by the Marine's extended powerup duration. The first part went without a hitch, but the second part got a little dicey as the Barons wandered a bit far into where the Chaingunners and Arena Master are, so I ended up shotgunning them down slowly at a distance, which still managed to kill them before the berserk ran out. After that I make sure to gib the Baron corpses and camp the central building until the Arena Master pops up, picking off any formers that show up in the meantime. Once he does, I get a shot on him to draw his attention if he hasn't already started charging his attack, and then make a mad dash for the final berserk, then get back to him and Chainsaw him down, while making sure I'm not exposed to a former while fighting him. Once he is dead, it's then mopping up the rest of the formers, though taking it slowly as Chaingunners can rack up damage quickly when you have such low health.

Floors 6 and 7 - Barons, Former Commandos, Arachnotrons, and Revenants start showing up as regular enemies, so this can be a very dangerous range when I don't yet got Cerberus Armor. Floor 6 especially when it spawned me in a cave with Cacodemons and Pinkies, but Phaseshift Armor shined here, as I was able to leverage its movespeed to outmaneuver them and take little damage. Then floor 7 I get very lucky; first there was a vault I found quickly, which once cleared out, made for a very good camping spot, and it had an Onyx Armor, an amazing base for the Cerberus Armor (it has no physical resistances to give the armor, but its infinite durability is carried over). Since the Phaseshift Armor was already nearly Cerberus, my priority was still towards turning it Cerberus, and the Onyx Armor would not be needed at all if I get an Onyx mod later to get infinite durability for the Cerberus Phaseshift Armor, but I hold onto it just in case. This floor also had THREE power mods, very very nice, as I could ensure Cerberus Armor before Deimos, and build a P-modded Tactical Shotgun. I hold off turning the Phaseshift Cerberus as it'll be better as normal Phaseshift for...

Phobos Lab - Often this is one of the hardest special levels in the game, as the Nightmare Demons are so durable, so fast, and so strong (with their bite dealing 11 to 13 damage, 6 to 8 with one level of Ironman and in Red Armor, enough to quickly two-three shot me). Phaseshift Armor and the P-modded Tactical Shotgun made this level very easy, as I was able to outrun the Nightmare Demons without activating run, while with the power and technical mods bolstering its protection + melee resistance, they would only deal 1 damage to me anyway even if they did get in to hit me. An Invulnerability I was able to take in too to clear out much of the cave without them being able to harm at all? Couldn't ask for an easier Phobos Lab, Military Base may have even been tougher than this despite normally being much easier.

Phobos Anomaly - The ambush is a potential obstacle, but in Red Armor, a Marine will only take 1-3 damage from a rocket jump. So once you reach 12 steps from the starting room, destroy the door on the other end, activate run, trigger the ambush, and rocket jump out of there, then mop up from safety and heal. When it comes to the Bruisers, the Cerberus Armor will reduce their acid balls to 1 damage, but I opt to stay in Red Armor and use a radsuit to buff my acid resistance by +25% instead to try preserving the Cerberus Armor, while utilizing hit and run tactics with the Tactical Shotgun until I got to a good corner shooting spot I created. The extra acid resistance proved to not be needed, as i killed them without getting hit.

Hell's Armory - Deimos Lab was the level I most dreaded, as even with Cerberus Armor, the dual Shamblers could deal up to 4 damage still, while it would take so long to kill them with how lacking my offense is and I can't evade with my lack of speed. Instead I got Hell's Armory, which with it having only a single Shambler for the boss fight, was much easier. I messed up at the start by letting a Commando get several shots at me instead of Chainsawing him when he got in melee range like I should have, but after that it was smooth sailing camping and clearing out the level. Unfortunately the weapon cache had nothing useful (it had a Combat Pistol but I'm not investing in Son of a Gun, so worthless). It had the mods for me to assemble a Hyperblaster, which offered much superior DPS to the Tactical Shotgun, especially against the Shambler whose 3 armor weakens shotguns a lot. The Shambler fight didn't go pretty, and you can see in the video how two of them could have been a big problem, but I killed him before he got me in too critical of health. Unfortunately the mod cache didn't have an Onyx or Nano mod as I was hoping, but a Firestorm mod is nice for the Hypberblaster, and that prior found Onyx Armor came useful here, as I was able to turn it Cerberus to ensure I had infinite durability Cerberus Armor to fall back on if the Phaseshift got damaged or just to preserve it for when I need the physical resistances.

Floor 10 to 11 - These floors were a nice demonstration of how powerful a Marine in Cerberus Armor is, as I took quite a few blows from Barons and a Mancubus that got the drop on me, which would normally be fatal in a normal game, let alone in AoH, but the Cerberus Armor was reducing all their hits to 1 damage, so I survived without too much issue.

The Wall - Containment Area is usually quite a bit harder, but with Cerberus Onyx Armor, neither of these levels would have been hard. In the Wall, just break through, corner shoot it while wearing the Cerberus Onyx Armor to prevent the Cerberus Phaseshift armor from getting damaged, and try to get the Baron's corpses to stack on each other to prevent the Archvile from reviving them, while occasionally just blowing them up with the Rocket Launcher.

Floor 12 - I took a full Commando volley, which even in Cerberus Armor managed to knock nearly 40% of my health off, but the floor went without any real problems, and I get Survivalist here, which from now on will reduce basically half of all hits I take to 0 damage.

Abyssal Plains - The beginning ambush here from Hell Knights with no cover can be a problem, and even with Cerberus Armor + Survivalist, I took a lot of damage getting to the Large Medkit. Was able to easily heal myself up after though with one of the health globes, and while Arachnotrons can be dangerous in a level with no good cover, mop up of the level went without a hitch, as the health globes were more than enough to recover any damage I took. Then there's the Agony Elemental ambush, but with a Shell Box for fast reloads and two levels of Finesse, the Tactical Shotgun was able to handle it easily. Unfortunately I got three Blood Skulls from the Agony Elemental, was really hoping for a Hatred Skull or two, and even a Fire Skull would have been better, but sometimes the luck gotta balance out.

Floors 13 to 14 - These floors are mostly uneventful, even a bunch of VMR spawning near me isn't very scary at this point. I found a nuke though, which I decide to hold onto in case I want to nuke the Cathedral or Mortuary/Limbo later.

Spider's Lair - Normally this level would be very scary in AoH, as due to the Arachnotrons firing five shots each time they attack, they can still deal up to 5 damage to you even if your defenses are good enough to reduce all their hits to 1 damage, while you're fighting over a dozen of them in a large open level with no good cover. However not only does Survivalist does a lot to protect against them, but I had an Invuln on Floor 14 that I'm able to carry into here, which I take great advantage of to kill most of the Arachnotrons for free, and then mop up of the remaining few was easy. Halls Of Carnage could have been the greater danger here, when my build lacks speed and I had no Homing Phase to cheese it, but I'm happy getting Spider's Lair to get the Spider Killer Cross, otherwise I would need to play AoH again just to get that annoying medal. I also decide to ditch the Missile Launcher at this point as I plan on making a Tactical Rocket Launcher very soon, and Tech mod the Plasteel Boots, in case I can make Cerberus Boots or Lava Boots later, or at least fireproof them in case I need them for Lava Pits/Erebus or just for safety near lava.

Tower Of Babel - After an uneventful floor 15, it was time for the Cyberdemon fight, which with his rockets being unable to deal more than 1 damage to me in P-modded Cerberus Armor, was a very easy fight, when he can't threaten me even during the 2.5 second reloads of the Hyperblaster.

Floor 17 - An uneventful floor, but I'm able to finally assemble my Tactical Rocket Launcher, and I also pick up a Green Armor, as I will need an agility modded one later for the Cathedral to outspeed the Angel Of Death, but hold off on modding it just in case I can find something better...

House of Pain - The opening room that surrounds you with Arachnotrons could be dangerous, but another Invuln allows me to trivialize it. Then the second and third rooms aren't bad when Cerberus Armor negates the threat, you just have to avoid getting knocked into the acid/lava. Then the Nightmare Archviles in the final battle can actually do damage, as 70% plasma resistance + 2 protection and 2 TaN still can't reduce their damage below 4, but I got a nice corner shooting spot to take them out with just the Tactical Shotgun boosted by fast reloads from the Shell Box, and I took care to dispose the Arachnotron corpses before leaving the first room so they couldn't be revived. Among the random rewards I got an Acid Spitter, which was worthless, but I did get another Phaseshift Armor. This may have seemed worthless too, but with it I no longer needed the Green Armor for Cathedral, and having the Phaseshift Armor instead would be much preferred, as messing up against the Angel of Death won't get me near instantly killed with its melee resistance, while I can also take advantage of its +50% knockback boost for very far rocket jumps when invulnerable (as turning the first Phaseshift Armor Cerberus gave it a big knockback resistance instead that limited my rocket jumps).

Floors 18 to 19 - The random floors at this point are of low threat to me with how tanky I've gotten and how far I can stretch Invulns out. But on Floor 19 I found what I wanted most, Phaseshift Boots to complete the Phaseshift Set. They nearly got destroyed by a Mancubus, but I managed to get them, and at that point fluids were no longer a danger. I keep the Plasteel Boots though, in case I need to fight near lava in the Cerberus Onyx Armor.

Unholy Cathedral - With the Phaseshift Armor and Phaseshift Boots, I'm able to outspeed the Angel of Death without any Hellrunner, and with three levels of Finesse, I can attack faster than him too with the Chainsaw, while getting a level of Brute also means the process of running away and slowly whittling him down with the Chainsaw inbetween his moves wouldn't take so tediously long either. I did mess up a couple times, which is very dangerous when the AoD does 16-18 damage before armor/resistances, but with me having 60% physical resistances from the Phaseshift Armor and three levels of Ironman in addition to 4 protection from the Phaseshift Armor and two levels of TaN, he only dealt 2 to 3 damage, so nothing too bad despite the scary red screen flash when getting hit. Getting Azrael's Scythe for this is pretty nice too, as it will be my strongest means of offense going forward.

Floor 20 - The final floor before The Mortuary or Limbo, the potential run ender, but for this final level of preparation, I get two Invulns in an otherwise yet another uneventful floor, very very handy for what comes next.

Limbo - I considered just nuking it, but I decided to beat it conventionally, and with the two Invulns +, Phaseshift Set, I put on a masterclass of how useful Rocket Jumping can be, darting around the level to destroy a ton of corpses before the Archviles can revive many and then killing everything before the Invulns even ran out, netting me an Angelic Pin too for the no damage clear of Limbo. I leave behind the Angelic Armor though, as it offers nothing better than my current armors, but the Nuclear BFG is nice.

Floors 21 to 23 and Mt. Erebus - The run is practically won at this point, the Phaseshift Set will trivialize both The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus, while there is little that the random floors can do to threaten me. Floor 22 had an Aracnotron cave, which could have been some threat, but with some more Invulns, I'm able to clear it without any damage.

Dis: Taking yet another Invuln with me, I could just have rocket jumped in and smashed the Mastermind with the Scythe, but I wanted the full win, so I nuke her with the Nuclear BFG (keeping the other nuke instead in case I need it to nuke Carmack, as I can activate it straight from my inventory, much better in the middle of a fight).

Hell Fortress: Thanks to rocket jumping, I'm able to carry the invuln I used to nuke Dis into the Fortress,  allowing me to kill John Carmack with the Scythe before he could even get the chance to deal damage. In the event the Invuln ran out and his spawns got out of control, I still had the Lava Element on deck to get some more invuln, as well as nuke him as a last resort.

With that all done, here is the mortem. Overall this only took me a handful of attempts, with the first run that got past Hell's Arena going the entire way, and so I definitely think Quartermaster Diamond is the even harder of the UV Diamond badges, which in comparison took me 30ish attempts over several days to get.

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 NOHEALTH, level 16 Hell Baron Mjr General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 948711 turns and scored 434704 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 22 minutes and 11 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1185 out of 1185 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Humanity!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 11

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

  Medal of Prejudice         Won with 100% kills
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Conqueror Pin              Completed all generated levels
  Untouchable Pin            Won taking less than 500 damage
  Angelic Pin                Clear the Mortuary/Limbo w/o taking damage
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Every Soldier's Medal      Clear The Wall/Containment Area on AoHu
  Thomas's Medal             Win AoHu as Conqueror
  Hell Champion Medal        Clear Hell's Arena
  Spider-Killer Cross        Clear Spider's Lair on AoHu
  Everyman Gold Badge        Complete Angel of Humanity (AoHu)
  Everyman Platinum Badge    Complete AoHu as Conqueror
  Everyman Diamond Badge     Complete AoHu on UV as Conqueror

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

  ###########################################################
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  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..................................................%.......#
  ........................................|X................#
  ........................................|}.......%........#
  ..........................................................#
  ...........................................%..%%..........#
  ..............................................%...........#
  ............................................%.............#
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  ###########################################################

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

  Health 40/20   Experience 134414/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 4)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Survivalist      (Level 1)

  Iro->Bad->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->TaN->TaN->Iro->MSv->Bad->Fin->Iro->Bru->Iro->Bru->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   cerberus phaseshift armor [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x81)

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (9d3) [5/5] (P1)
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [0/5] (T1)
    [c] hyperblaster (2d4)x5 [34/40] (F1)
    [d] BFG 9000 (12d6) [220/220] (B3P2)
    [e] cerberus onyx armor [2] (P)
    [f] phaseshift armor [2/2] (100%)
    [g] shotgun shell (x70)
    [h] rocket (x14)
    [i] rocket (x9)
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] thermonuclear bomb
    [r] lava element
    [s] shell box (x100)
    [t] shell box (x100)
    [u] power battery (x120)

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

    bullet     - internal 40%   torso 90%   feet 40% 
    melee      - internal 40%   torso 90%   feet 40% 
    shrapnel   - internal 40%   torso 90%   feet 40% 
    acid       - internal 20%   torso 90%   feet 20% 
    fire       - internal 20%   torso 90%   feet 20% 
    plasma     - internal 20%   torso 70%   feet 20% 

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

    95 former humans
    75 former sergeants
    43 former captains
    109 imps
    105 demons
    368 lost souls
    56 cacodemons
    27 hell knights
    60 barons of hell
    57 arachnotrons
    11 former commandos
    28 pain elementals
    58 revenants
    16 mancubi
    39 arch-viles
    9 nightmare imps
    5 nightmare cacodemons
    12 nightmare demons
    2 nightmare arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 9 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
  He slaughtered the beasts living there.
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 17 he trespassed on the House of Pain.
  On level 17 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He conquered the House!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 21 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  On level 21 he assembled a fireproof boots!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 hit! The cacodemon dies. You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! Fire -- Choose
 target...
 You see : pool of blood
 The cacodemon dies. The cacodemon dies. The cacodemon dies. The cacodemon
 dies. John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher. Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You dodge! You dodge! You dodge!
 You wear/wield : a Azrael's Scythe (9d9) You are hit! You are hit! You are
 hit! You are hit!
 You hit John Carmack. You dodge! The missile hits the cacodemon.
 You hit John Carmack. You are hit! You are hit! John Carmack reloads his
 rocket launcher.
 You hit John Carmack. You are hit! You are hit!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 27 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 12 of those were killed.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 13 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 killed the bitch and survived.
 9 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


15

Requests For Features / Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9

« on: August 08, 2024, 19:19 »

With 0.9.9.8 officially released, many of the suggestions in this compilation suggestions thread for 0.9.9.8 have been implemented. So at Kornel's suggestion, I'm starting up a new compilation thread for 0.9.9.9, to start a fresh thread and to have a better organized OP that doesn't cover all the stuff that was already implemented or formally rejected, as well as to cover new suggestions.

I'll be maintaining this thread in Icy's absence, and any new suggestions from anyone else is welcomed, no matter how mundane or outlandish the suggestion may be. Before suggesting anything though, I would recommend reading Icy's OP in the aforementioned linked thread, consider the feasibility of being able to implement the suggestion, and backing your suggestions with well-reasoned points, while being open to any feedback your suggestion gets. I'll also note that I do not have any authority with the game nor am I a member of the ChaosForge team, so my own ideas are not above anyone else's, I'm just a passionate player organizing this and offering feedback.

Changes

This thread will be organized into separate posts for changes (which itself will be organized into bugs/exploits/fixes, traits, equipment/items, enemies, special levels, and miscellaneous), everything for badges/medals, and new content ideas. A suggestion marked with an "X" in its box and colored light blue means it has been implemented; a suggestion marked with "~" and colored light green means it has been partially implemented, while a suggestion marked with "~" and colored pink has been soft rejected but may by partially implemented in another way; a suggestion marked with "?" and colored light yellow means an attempt was made to implement it but needs testing to confirm it is working properly, or marks an "issue" that may not be an issue at all; and a suggestion that is struck through and colored red has been officially rejected by Kornel. Each suggestion will additionally have links to the posts explaining the justification for the change and other discussion regarding it.

Bugs/Exploits/Fixes

[?] Bug: The game may lock up on the trait selection screen upon levelling up, where the game still runs with the music playing and you're able to scroll through the background with the mouse, but your trait selection does not register and you cannot exit the screen, forcing you to kill DRL in Task Manager to exit and lose your progress. 1 2 (May have incidentally been fixed in the JHC UI changes, needs thorough testing to fully confirm it has been fixed.)

[~] Bug: Nightmare's -10% speed penalty seems to not be working. 1 2 (Kornel has no recollection of ever adding Nightmare's speed penalty nor likes the idea of difficulties nerfing the player, and after farther testing previous versions back to 0.9.9.6, it may have never actually existed in the first place, or was removed in a very old pre-graphics version. It's up in the air on if this "feature" will be (re)implemented as a universal speed bonus for enemies instead, which needs discussion.)

[ ] Bug: In the latest beta, if you complete a special level on Nightmare/AoD and then exit with any respawns alive, the exit text and mortem history text gives you the level's completion messages, and you'll earn any badges/medals that require completing the level, but the game doesn't actually count the level as completed for Conqueror purposes. 1

[X] Bug: If a former is killed out of vision by something other than you, an error message may pop up stating it failed an attempt to call a table value. This most commonly occurs when a Former Sergeant shoots a barrel and kills himself. 1

[X] Bug: Corpses will sometimes be ungibbable by explosions and plasma(tic) shotguns for no apparent reason. 1

[?] Bug: Lightfoot Diamond and Angelic badges aren't being awarded when their criteria is fulfilled, perhaps indirect kills are being counted as "melee" kills? (I can confirm this badge isn't being awarded, unsure what is the cause if it's not the change to indirect kill attribution causing it) 1 2 3 (May be now fixed but needs to be tested.)

[X] Bug: The melee accuracy bonus of Brute is still not properly applying to thrown weapons. 1

[X] Bug: Sharpshooter doesn't work with explosive pistols, even on direct hits. 1

[X] Bug: In armor and boots assemblies that require a Technical Mod, if the Technical Mod is applied before completing the assembly, the Technical Mod's resistance boosts will stack onto the assembly's resistances, making assemblies like Fireproof Armor more powerful than intended. 1

[ ] Bug: The new modding UI in the latest beta will not allow you to attempt modding non-compatible equipment with Firestorm and Sniper mods, which prevents you from assembling Demolition Ammo (and any future assembly that would require applying them to normally non-compatible equipment). 1

[X] Bug: The Dragonslayer's permanent berserk isn't working, with it granting no additional turns of Berserk at all. 1

[?] Bug: Using the Dragonslayer's altfire, Whirlwind, can crash the game. It's unclear what conditions causes this crash, as sometimes you can use Whirlwind without the crash happening. 1 (An attempt was made to fix this, needs testing to confirm if the fix has worked.)

[~] Bug: When initiating a rocket jump, the targeting cursor can extend beyond immediately adjacent tiles, despite rocket jumping only being able to hit immediately adjacent tiles (in previous versions, the game wouldn't let you extend targeting beyond this range). Additionally when initiating a rocket jump with enemies onscreen, the targeting cursor will default onto an enemy, forcing you to move it back to an adjacent tile to rocket jump. 1 (Reverting back to 0.9.9.7's targeting isn't possible, so Rocket jumping will now let you fire on a tile more than 1 tile away, with the fired rocket just exploding at 1 tile towards the direction fired regardless.)

[ ] Bug: Projectiles can go through walls without exploding from certain angles, including the outer boundary walls, and explosive projectiles will not explode when clipping. (Needs more thorough testing to fully identify how this bug works). 1

[X] Bug: Ammo stacks dropped by ammo levers are not affected by the difficulty multiplier. 1

[X] Bug: The lava flood in Halls Of Carnage sometimes does not activate. 1 2

[X] Bug: Screenshots aren't saving properly as of the latest beta, unless you manually create a folder named "screenshot" in DRL's root folder. 1

[ ] Bug: Technician badges may have issues in the latest beta with being awarded properly? (Only a single example so far, where a Technician Gold badge wasn't awarded in the run that finished all basic assemblies, but rather in the run after) 1

[ ] Bug: If too many sounds play in quick succession, the music can get turned off until you enter a new floor or save and reload. 1

[X] Bug: When booting up the game, the loading bar will stretch beyond the screen.

[?] Bug: If a flood event occurs on an island level, it's possible to start in the middle of lava. 1 (This may have been fixed in the old 0.9.9.8 beta, neither I nor Icy have ever experienced this and no one has reported it happening yet.)

[?] Exploit: The Spider Mastermind can get stuck when shot across the bottom or top middle pillars, making it only able to go up and down. The AI might need to be adjusted. 1 (This may have been fixed in the old 0.9.9.8 beta, needs more thorough testing to confirm.)

[X] Fix: The Unlock All option doesn't unlock the harder difficulties.

[ ] Fix: The item reveal mechanic when all enemies are dead does not work in Nightmare, it should activate when all enemies are dead at the same time, or after each individual enemy has been killed once. 1

[~] Fix: Damage calculation on direct hits with explosive attacks seem to happen after knockback is applied, resulting in direct explosive hits doing less damage than they should, or possibly no damage at all. 1 2 (Confirmed to be an intentional design choice, but a direct damage component on explosive hits may be added?)

[ ] Fix: The new screen shaking effect should have its intensity based on the strength of the inciting projectile/explosion, rather than shaking at the same intensity regardless. 1

[X] Fix: The new modding menu can display incorrect info, noticed instances so far is it displaying bulk mods making armors/boots 10% faster rather than -10% slower, and showing you being able to apply more than one of the same mod to armors/boots/melee weapons when you can't. 1

[ ] Fix: The mortem's kill ratio message in the latest beta is based on the total enemy kill ratio with respawns, rather than the unique enemy kill ratio, when it should be based on the latter. 1

[ ] Fix: The character info screen doesn't account for equipped ammo boxes with its displayed reloading speed, when it should.

[ ] Fix: Ironman's trait description is unclear with it stating you get +20% max health, which isn't fully true as Marines still only get +10 HP rather than 12 HP, so it should be reworded to state +10 HP. 1

[ ] Fix: In Scavenger's trait description, update it to clarify that melee weapons, armors, and boots can be scavenged. 1

[ ] Fix: Angel of Humanity's and Archangel of Humanity's descriptions should clarify that Marines start with 12 max HP rather than 20. 1

[X] Fix: For weapons with very long names (such as the "Burst nuclear plasma rifle"), the name can stretch beyond the available UI space on the HUD, obscuring its ammo. And for armors with very long names, their names will instead stretch into the next line the HUD, obscuring your weapon's name. Whether it be scaling down long names, letting them stretch farther into the HUD, or anything else, something should be done to fix this issue. 1 2

[X] Fix: When using the Look command, you are unable to scroll the screen with the keys, forcing the use of a mouse to do so. As an obvious detriment to keyboard-only players, this should be fixed. 1 2

[ ] Fix: When equipping a weapon from the ground that auto-equips on pickup, such as Azrael's Scythe, the game will erroneously give the "You don't have [X weapon]!" message. 1

[ ] Fix: Charch's Null Pointer shows that its damage is 0d0, when it's actually 10d1. 1

[ ] Fix: The infinitely spawning Nightmare Demons and Nightmare Cacodemons when equipping the Dragonslayer and Berserker Set severely complicate clearing special levels with said equipment. Either they shouldn't count towards a special level's completion, their spawning should be disabled in special levels, or they should have a spawning limit of some sort. 1

[X] Fix: When the Apostle spawns on the final floor of A100/A666, the ability to see all enemies immediately activates since all enemies technically die when you first enter the floor. Given this is supposed to be a boss fight, this mechanic should be disabled when the Apostle spawns like it is for boss levels. 1

[ ] Fix: Archangel of 666 shows both in-game and in the high scores that it's Ao100. Additionally, the ending mortem says you "finally completed 100 floors of torture". 1 2

[X] Fix: Non-lava fluids are supposed to be able to appear in A100/666 beyond floor 30 for greater level variety, but you still only encounter lava except for in specific level types/events/features that could already have water and acid appear. (Fluid spawning formula was tweaked farther in addition to two new fluids in blood and mud, later A100 is not a complete lava fest anymore.)

[X] Fix: Elite Former Captains erroneously didn't get the melee damage buff that all the other Elite Formers got. 1

[X] Fix: Nightmare Imps erroneously had two different speed values applied to them. 1

[X] Fix: The player's sprite does not update properly when armor is destroyed. The player additionally doesn't show the proper armor and weapon equipped at the start of challenges and mods that have different starting default equipment. 1

[X] Fix: In the ASCII version, the cursor for the look command does not show and the targeting cursor blends in the invulnerability overlay. 1

[X] Fix: Music resets to max volume regardless of setting whenever booting up the game or entering a new floor.

[ ] Fix: Repeated sounds (such as from several enemies being hit at once) can still get too loud, the sounds should be better staggered out instead of stacking all at once on each other, or perhaps add a limit of some sort that prevents the same sounds from being stacked too loudly on each other. 1 2

[~] Fix: Ensure bridges that go over rivers are not blocked off by walls or rooms without doors. 1 2 (This might be too technically difficult to implement.)

Traits

[X] Nerf Hellrunner's dodging bonus to +10% per level (needs discussion). 1

[~] Buff Tough As Nails to give +5% inherent resistances to fire, acid and plasma per level in addition to inherent +1 protection. If implemented, the Marine's inherent energy resistances will need to be nerfed to prevent them from getting too tanky. 1 (Implemented with a 10% resistance buff per level instead)

[X] Nerf Vampyre (needs discussion). Some ideas include increasing its prerequisites, disallowing Vampyre from healing beyond 100%, and/or prevent the resistances of berserk from stacking with the resistances of the Marine. If the aforementioned TaN buff is implemented, also change Vampyre's SoB block to TaN instead. 1 2 (Has been nerfed indirectly from berserk and Marine resistances being toned down, as well as directly with TaN block and no more healing over 100%.)

[X]Buff Entrenchment (needs discussion). Some ideas include increasing the resistance bonuses to +50% when chain firing, granting +20% to all resistances when just equipping a chain firing weapon, and some means to allow chain firing longer (such as reduce ammo consumption when chain firing or instant reloading when your clip runs out during chain firing). Alternatively, Entrenchment could be replaced with an entirely new mastery, a la Running Man -> Gunrunner in 0.9.9.7. 1 (Indirectly buffed from TaN buff and buffed directly with +50% resistances and 1 ammo on subsequent Chainfire volleys.)

[~] Give Bullet Dance the additional perk of reloading faster when dual gunning. 1 (SoG changed to give +3 damage and 10% firing speed reduction per level, needs to be tested to see if farther adjustment to SoG or Bullet Dance itself needs to be made.)

[X] Give Fireangel an additional offensive-based perk (needs discussion). One possible idea is when using rocket-based weapons, each shot will get +2 dice in damage calculation. 1 (Was buffed to have explosions gain +1 radius and all projectiles they shoot are explosive.)

[~] Buff Gun Kata to have an instant Pistol attack after dodging instead of it being near-instant. Also consider letting it apply Dodgemaster to all enemy projectiles inbetween moves (needs discussion). 1 (SoG changed to give +3 damage and 10% firing speed reduction per level, needs to be tested to see if farther adjustment to SoG or Gun Kata itself needs to be made.)

[~] Change Gunrunner's prerequisite of Juggler to Finesse 2. 1 (Prereqs were changed to just Hellrunner 2 and being level 5, so easier prereqs but might be too light?)

[X] Buff Malicious Blades (needs discussion). One idea is, in addition to nerfing Berserk, change Malicious Blades' TaN block to Badass or Son Of A gun. 1 (Now deals double damage with blades.)

Equipment and other Items

[ ] Add sounds for all actions for exotics/uniques/artifacts. 1 2

[X] Lessen the speed penalty for heavy boots, to make them less punishing to wear in fluids with the new fluid-slowing mechanic. Exact proposed values are in the linked message. 1

[ ] Allow Technicians to add a single mod or basic assembly to the following unique armors: Medical Powerarmor, Necroarmor, and Shielded Armor. 1 2 3

[ ] Buff the Chaingun's accuracy to +3. 1

[ ] Increase the Blaster's generation weight to 4. 1

[ ] Frag Shotgun needs farther buffs. One idea to make it standout is to change its damage to 6d3 and decrease its firing speed to 0.5 seconds. Additionally allow it to spawn sooner and be less rare (such as a depth of 10 and weight of 3). 1 2

[ ] Increase the Medical Powerarmor's generation rate to 3 (matching the similarly powerful Necroarmor in rarity). [1

[ ] Let Mega Buster use alt fire to switch modes, but you have to collect all the damage types (more similar to Mega Man). 1 2

[ ] Increase the Mjollnir's generation rate to 2 or 3. 2 3

[ ] Allow Subtle Knife kills to count as "knife kills". Additionally modify it to spawn sooner and be less rare (such as a depth of 7 and weight of 2). 1

[ ] Nerf Trigun's Angel Arm to not be an instant nuke and require 10s like regular nukes. 1

[ ] Farther buff Ballistic Armor by having it retain any plasma and acid resistances the base armor has. 1

[ ] Buff Grappling Boots to retain the base boots' movement speed instead of having a set -10% speed. 1

[ ] Change Nano-shrapnel to a master assembly, with an assembly requirement of PPPN or PPTN. 1

[ ] Change the resistance values that Technical Mods add to boots to be +20% acid and fire resistances while removing the other useless resistance buffs, rather than using the same values they apply to armors. They can keep the +20% plasma resistance as well if the proposed blood fluid is added and utilizes plasma damage. 1

[ ] Buff Agility Mods to give +2 accuracy when applied to melee weapons instead of only +1. 1

[ ] Allow Firestorm and Sniper mods to be applied to melee weapons (needs discussion on exact effects). Current ideas are a Firestorm mod will turn their damage type to fire so they can gib much easier, in addition to possibly increasing the lower of damage die or sides by +1 too, and a Sniper mod will give them the autohit property. 1

[ ] Allow Firestorm mods to be added to explosive weapons with an explosion radius of 1 and 2. If done, consider making the mod give them only a +1 radius boost rather than the usual +2 boost. 1

[ ] Give Sniper mods an effect for Shotguns, instead of doing nothing. One idea is each Sniper mod applied to a Shotgun will reduce its dropoff reduction rate by 1% (so a basic Shotgun with one Sniper mod will have its dropoff damage reduced from 7% to 6% per tile, and if triple modded with Sniper mods, its dropoff damage will be reduced from 7% to 4% per tile). 1

[ ] When a third Sniper Mod is applied to a ranged weapon, have it give the autohit property instead of doing nothing. 1

[ ] Allow the Lava Element to appear as a randomly spawned item. Make its spawning weight 2 or 3, and perhaps give it a spawning depth of 30+ so it can only randomly appear in A100/666. 1

Enemies

[ ] Add sounds for Nightmare enemies, Lava Elemental, Agony Elemental, Arena Master, and Apostle. 1 2

[ ] Add sounds for enemies spawning, enemies reviving, and Archviles charging their attack. 1 2

[ ] Make Cacodemons and Nightmare Cacodemons more aggressive in their attack frequency. Possibly also consider buffing Nightmare Cacodemons to hit slightly harder. (needs discussion) 1

[ ] Farther buff all Elite Formers by increasing their melee accuracy. 1

[ ] Farther buff the Nightmare Archvile by increasing its attack's explosion radius to 2, matching the Arena Master's explosion radius. 1

[ ] Lower the Nightmare Cacodemon's spawning depth in A100/666 to 50+. 1

[ ] Lower the Shambler's spawning depth in A100/666 to 70+. 1

[ ] Increase the Lava Elemental's generation weight to 2 or 3 so it isn't so uncommon in deep levels of A100/666. 1

[ ] Allow the Angel Of Death to spawn in very deep floors of A100/666. Its spawning depth can be either 80+ or 90+. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

[~] Buff the Apostle to have 500 HP and always teleport after being hit. Also when it dies in A100/666, kill all enemies and end the game like JC. 1 2 3 4 (Apostle has gotten massive resistances instead that makes it drastically more durable, but instant teleportation on hit has not been added yet nor ending the game when it dies in A100/666.)

[ ] Change hunting AI to not ignore items and armors (if implemented, Cyberdemons may need their ability to use items removed or medpacks may need a healing limit of 110 HP to keep them from being potentially too obnoxious). 1 2 3 4 5 6

Special levels

[ ] When special levels are destroyed by a nuke, disable any traps/subsequent enemy spawns they may have from triggering and have the game register them as cleared (this includes Containment Area, City of Skulls, Abyssal Plains, House of Pain, The Lava Pits, and Mt. Erebus) 1

[ ] Make Military Base more difficult as it's still much easier than Phobos Lab. One idea is removing its Tracking Map on UV and N! difficulties. Another idea is if the "patrol" AI flag is added to the game, it could be applied to enemies here so the player cannot rely on camping at the start to kill everything. (Needs discussion) 1

[ ] Change how Schematics drops in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab work, so that players do not miss out on a rare mod because of them and so each run is truly independent (can probably just have them drop separately from the rare mods). 1 2 3 4

[ ] Have The Wall/Containment Area open up after all enemies are dead to prevent softlocks if you use a Phase Device. 1 2

[ ] Replace the redundant Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains. What to replace it with needs discussion, but one idea is that it can instead be a random guaranteed exotic non-BFG ranged weapon, to make these levels potentially more appropriately rewarding. 1

[ ] In City of Skulls, replace the lever with a horizontal coordinate trap, so that it isn't free to run through. Also extend the middle pillars to go all the way up to the top and bottom of the screen, so that the player is forced to be between the pillars when the trap activates. 1 2

[ ] Buff the enemy layout on the Nightmare! version of City of Skulls and Spider's Lair, as these levels currently have no difference compared to UV (aside from extra HP for the Agony Elemental) and are much easier than their respective counterpart levels (needs discussion). How much to buff them is contingent on if a N! speed bonus for enemies is implemented, but current idea is increasing the amount of Pain Elementals in City of Skull's second wave, and replacing a third of the Arachnotrons with their Nightmare variants in Spider's Lair. An alternate idea for N! City Of Skulls is to flood the level with mud after tripping the lever/linedef, so the player is made much slower relative to all the flying enemies here (and perhaps on UV, it can flood with water, since the level is one of the easiest on UV too). 1 2

[ ] The Nightmare! version of The Vaults was supposed to give each of the six Barons in the right vault a set of Red Armor to pick up, but currently it seems only one Red Armor is spawning. Additionally, have the two teleporters in the center vault have their teleport destinations be on opposite ends of the map, so a player cannot easily camp the teleport locations to safely kill each of the center vault's Nightmare enemies. 1

[~] If you don't have the Arena Master's Staff, you can softlock in House Of Pain on Nightmare and in Angel Of Darkness from dead enemies reviving while you're locked in another room, so something should be done to prevent this softlock. 1 (Enemy respawning has been disabled on the level altogether for the timebeing, may be temporary if another solution is figured out to prevent softlocks while enabling respawning.)

[ ] In House Of Pain, make using the Arena Master's Staff required to access the Large Health Globes on the level. 1

[X] Define a default song to play for House Of Pain in the music.lua file, so that it doesn't play a random song at default that will likely be unfitting. Suggestions for the song to use are either Sign Of Evil (i.e. E1M8's track) or Dark Secrets (i.e. The Vaults' track).

[ ] Make Unholy Cathedral more difficult (needs discussion). Current suggestion is increasing the Demon count on HMP to match current UV/N!, then replacing half of them with their Nightmare versions on UV, and replacing all of them with their Nightmare versions on N!. 1

[ ] Add ammo pickups to The Mortuary and Limbo, to compensate for respawns no longer dropping ammo. Current idea is an ammo box in each corner, and double them on Nightmare. 1

[X] If Blood is added as a new fluid, replace the lava in Limbo with it. 1

[ ] In The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus on Nightmare difficulty, remove the last Radsuit, so that there is no Radsuits on the level at all. 1

[ ] Prevent being able to teleport into the "mountain" on Mt. Erebus, so that the player does not end up potentially softlocked 1 2 3 4

[ ] Make Mt. Erebus more difficult (needs discussion). Some ideas include adding Cacodemons separately from Lost Souls/Pain Elementals (and then replacing them with their Nightmare versions on UV/N!), increasing the number of Revenants and Mancubi on UV/N! (or possibly even replacing them with Nightmare versions if they're added to the game), and/or having to fight two Lava Elementals as the boss fight instead of one. 1

[ ] Disallow nukes from being activated in Hell Fortress altogether. Additionally have any active powerups get turned off when entering Hell Fortress, so you cannot take an Invulnerability or Berserk stack into Hell Fortress to trivialize it. 1

[ ] Improve the Apostle fight in Hell Fortress. Suggestions include giving it unique entrance text, unique victory text, and have the fight spawn a ton of corpses of strong enemies when entering the level, so that the Apostle's resurrecting capabilities get utilized. 1

Miscellaneous

[X] Nerf Berserk to give +50% all resistances instead of +60%. 1

[ ] Have dying to John Carmack count as a normal death instead of as a partial win. 1

[ ] Add method for guaranteed Berserker Armor and Dragonslayer in Angel of 100 / Archangel of 666, so that full wins in A100/666 aren't terribly luck-based. 1 2 3 4

[~] Obtaining high scores mostly devolve into playing Archangel of 666 and aren't really used as a means to compare runs. Perhaps they should be changed (needs discussion). 1 (High scores have been separated into their own individual boards for each challenge, so A100/666 scores will no longer dominate a player's high score leaderboard.)

[ ] Give EXP for pulling levers (but consider disabling this bonus if the player has Intuition) 1