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31

Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas

« on: August 17, 2023, 07:14 »

I added a few more things to my original suggestion post, I'll point them out here for ease of convenience to review:

*Buff the Micro Launcher?

Even as a guy who likes Rocket Launchers and rocket jumping, I find it hard to find a worthwhile niche for the Micro Launcher. 0.8 second firing speed, 0.8 reloading speed, extra accuracy, and a smaller explosion radius is nice, but you already get the formermost just from applying one of the prerequisites Technical Mods on your Rocket Launcher (and it would be even slower than a Rocket Launcher with two Technical Mods). But the main problem is the substantial downgrade in power to 5d5, which aside from making it weaker for combat, also hurts its utility usages, as it has a much higher chance to fail to blow up a wall in a single rocket (or might even fail after two!), and its rocket jumps would send you a shorter distance (you can argue less self-damaging rocket jumps is a boon, but with just Fireproof Red Armor, you can already reduce 6d6 rocket jump damage down to 1-3, not to mention self-damage won't matter when you're invulnerable, where rocket jumping sees much of its usage). Then there's the Tactical Rocket Launcher that just completely outclasses this weapon, and whose BBB mod cost is arguably a lesser cost than two Technical Mods. It seems to exist as an economical improvement to the Rocket Launcher for builds that aren't investing in Whizkid, but the improvement is minor or even arguably a sidegrade.

I'm unsure how to buff the Micro Launcher to give it a defined niche instead of just buffing its power. At least though its firing speed needs to reflect the Technical Mod investment, so it should be no more than 0.7 seconds firing speed, I would maybe go all the way down to 0.5 seconds firing speed to try giving it a niche as the fastest firing Rocket Launcher. Conversely, as a basic assembly that uses common mods, you can argue a cheap economical option that isn't great is the point, though I would still argue to at least give it the 0.7 seconds firing speed.

*Buff the Double Chainsaw?

The Double Chainsaw's 8d6 power is certainly a big upgrade over a BP Chainsaw's 5d7 power, so this assembly isn't inherently bad. The problem is it's completely outclassed by the Ripper that just requires one more level of Whizkid and an additional Technical mod, while also being completely outclassed by the Longinus Spear and especially Azrael's Scythe. As a result, if you want to maximize your Chainsaw, you won't be making this instead of the Ripper, and otherwise for a weapon you plan to ditch once you get the Spear or Scythe, you probably don't want to expend the extra Power mod on it, if you don't just go for the cheap disposable option of the Piercing Chainsaw instead. The only arguable niche for the Double Chainsaw is for Blademasters in A100, where they can't get the Spear or Scythe, and they could possibly get more use from its stronger single-hit power than the Ripper, as more one-hit kills will make them mow through hordes faster (though I think the Ripper is still better, as it'll activate Berserker quicker, and because of all the boss and nightmare monsters that you aren't killing in one hit even with the Double Chainsaw).

However like the Micro Launcher, there's no clear way to buff it; make it stronger, then what's the point of getting the Spear or Scythe; make it faster, what's the point of the getting the Ripper. You can argue just leaving it as is, as the midway option for people who want to improve their Chainsaw more before the Spear/Scythe but don't want to go all in on the Ripper. Maybe my later suggestion of making the Unholy Cathedral appear a bit later would make the Double Chainsaw a more attractive option as a midgame weapon you'll ultimately dispose of.

*Revert the Nightmare Archvile's attack to dealing plasma damage

Prior to 0.9.9.7, the Nightmare Archvile's zap used to do 16d1 plasma damage, but in 0.9.9.7, this was changed to 25d1 fire damage. This is a big damage improvement on paper, but we all know how much easier it is to get good defense against fire; as it currently stands, the Nightmare Archvile isn't really that threatening to a lategame A100 player that will certainly have very strong fire-resistant armor like the P-modded Energy-Shielded Vest (reduces it to 9 damage, much more if it was assembled to Nanofiber Skin or Cybernano Armor), Cerberus Armor (reduces it damage to 7, 5 if P-modded), the Lava Armor (reduces its damage to 2), or even the Inquisitor Set that completely neutralizes it. For an enemy that is supposed to invoke a "OH SHIT!" response as its ingame description gives and for being the final enemy that spawns in A100, it really doesn't live up to the hype, Nightmare Arachnotrons elicit a bigger fight or flight response from me. I'll also note its explosion still uses the plasma explosion graphics too, and it would be consistent with other Nightmare enemies who all use plasma attacks (aside from the melee-exclusive Nightmare Demon). That said, 16d1 plasma damage isn't too much of an improvement (the aforementioned armors reduces it damage to 7, 8 or 7, 6, and 10 respectively), so I would bump it up to at least 20d1, or just make it 25d1 plasma damage to really hammer in the threat of the final A100 enemy (and make carrying a Plasma Shield around more enticing).

*Make the Lava Elemental harder?

Despite being the boss of the final special level right before the end of the standard game, the Lava Elemental is quite lackluster. Having fire attacks is already easily defended against, but its attack isn't even as strong as the VMR's. It has very strong armor with 5 protection and health regeneration, but it's nothing outrageous for this point of the game, especially with its low-end HP for a boss. It's strong in melee, but not any stronger than the Barons and Mancubi. Has anyone ever actually had a hard time against the Lava Elemental, let alone die to it?

Now buffing its stats would help, and I do think its projectile and melee attack could use a damage buff. However one unique aspect of its attack is its projectile leaving behind lava. Normally this doesn't matter in The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus, as you got three spare radsuits to use even if you brought none in. So it's easy to do everything in these levels only expending a single radsuit, and then kill the Lava Elemental while being completely protected from its lava splashing effect with a radsuit on, while typically killing him fast enough to even have a spare radsuit left. My suggestion would be to take away these radsuits on harder difficulties; ITYTD and HNTR have the three as usual, but then HMP has two radsuits, UV has only one radsuit, and N! has no radsuits at all. This would make tackling these levels without bringing radsuits with you (or building lava-immune boots) a lot more difficult, and the Lava Elemental can be actually scary if you have no form of lava immunity. By making it hit a lot harder in melee, you would also discourage players preventing it from leaving behind more lava by getting in melee range.

32

Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas

« on: August 16, 2023, 23:13 »

Thanks for the feedback!

Regarding my Intuition change with bonus floors, I meant the red stairs leading to the bonus levels. Having those not be stair sensed would be a slight nerf to Scout to help balance it a bit more compared to other classes.

Ah I see, I agree with this change then.

I like your points about Arena Diamond Badge, although I'm not a fan of making Hell's Arena appear on different floors for different challenges, which sounds like a messy inconsistency. Although this is a slightly different topic relative to the badge, perhaps having Hell's Arena appear on floor 3 but be a fair bit harder could be a good change? Depending on how much of a change it would be, it could still keep all the current badges and medals relative for it being fair.

I'll note that Hell's Arena does already have different rewards depending on the challenge you're playing (sometimes radically so), so Hell's Arena adapting to the challenge you're on is already a part of it and as such, I think having its depth adapt too for different challenges wouldn't be that inconsistent.

I like your suggested ideas, although nuking 20 floors, like the Fallout medals, mostly devolves to finding Trigun.

If that number would be too high without the Trigun, it could be reduced to like 15 floors or whatever other high number that requires active effort to achieve but isn't too high without lucky drops.

I'd lean against Angel of Death being a random spawn since it's significantly stronger than other "boss enemies" and is more similar to final bosses. It has more health than Cyberdemons, 2.5x the armor, and is quite a lot faster, just that the trade-off is it doesn't have any ranged attacks. It also would be a bit weird fighting it without melee attacks, and forcing that on the player would be pretty unbalanced. Most non-melee attacks would be doing only a few points of damage, meanwhile it has 410 HP on Ultra-Violence.

I'll note the Cyberdemon used to be the actual final boss in earlier versions of DRL, and we now got him as a normal ass enemy in A100! I do think being melee-restricted still significantly keeps the AoD in check, as evidenced by the fact the throwing knife strategy is a legit way to cheese him, except in A100 you would have actual guns to use instead of having to plink him with an inaccurate knife for 1 damage at a time. That 10 armor can be a big pain, but at such deep depths, you should certainly have something to handle it with by then; shotgun builds can get Nano-Shrapnel, Plasmatic Shrapnel, and the Plasma Shotgun; pistol builds can get the Energy Pistol or Blaster; rapid-fire builds got their Plasma Rifles and the Laser Rifle (both of which can also be used by other builds with sufficient investment); as long as Brute isn't blocked by their master, most builds can comfortably invest a few points into it and Berserker; and then rocket launchers, the BFG, and other non-build specific weapons like the Railgun can also be used effectively on him. If you want to really make sure that any build will have some reasonable means to kill him, you can have him start spawning at dlevel 80 instead (while bumping the Shambler down to dlevel 70, so you don't got all the bosses suddenly appearing at once at dlevel 74-80). Or even at dlevel 90, so that the Nightmare Archvile isn't the only new enemy that starts spawning in the dlevel 84-90 range.

Granted, that does take some time to go through, but their mystique would be a bit watered down if they were easy access. With the pair of them guaranteed, it would also be easy to farm tons of kills under current circumstances. A 100% kill rate on HNTR is pretty easy too if you're patient.

Being only able to use the Dragonslayer for a single floor with my suggested idea I think limits losing the mystique of it (in A666, you could bump the guaranteed spawn to floor 665), and you could limit it to requiring UV difficulty at least, or something else besides maintaining 100% kills. In any case, I don't think a full win in A100/666 should be entirely luck-dependent on any difficulty, part of why the Lava Element and guaranteed nuclear weapons were added in the standard game was so that a full win was always obtainable without getting lucky with specific item spawns, as very old versions of DRL required.

I agree with allowing Juggler to easily swap around weapons from the inventory. One could argue that changing it so that it only works with the prepared slot is another good idea, but I don't think the trait is too overly powerful that this needs to be done. There is also an inventory trade-off with carrying extra weapons for instant swapping, particularly a pile of Shotguns on Nightmare difficulty in the early game.

If Juggler was changed to only work with your prepared slot, that would nerf it to near worthlessness; aside from the limitation of only being able to utilize it with two weapons at a time, it would also prevent utilizing it at all alongside an ammo box. I agree Juggler isn't an overpowered trait; it's very handy for sure and I don't ever mind picking it for a mastery, but it's usually not a trait you'll go out of your way to get before more pressing traits (such as you would with Intuition). And yes, having all those weapons to take advantage of it is a cost in itself with limiting inventory space.

I disagree and think Badass with removing health decay is very powerful. Since boosted health is hard to maintain, especially when using Run->Wait, giving yourself 50% and 100% more health is a huge safety net for making mistakes, receiving unlucky damage rolls, and making aggressive play when necessary. The difference between Badass x2 and Badass x0 can feel almost like immortality, so long as it's not one of the first traits you get. I do agree it's not amazing as a starting trait for Marines though, but if Marines are buffed in other ways, then it would be fine.

I do disagree with this, finding that I can keep boosted health long enough with fast speed, or can utilize it well enough to go super aggro at the start of the level to kill beginning enemy hordes, as well as finding that relying on randomly spawning powerups to be useful at all to be a limitation. This is certainly a very subjective argument though and so I won't press if people disagree (I'll just continue to grumble having to invest in Badass when a mastery requires it...)

I agree with increasing the weight of Chainsaw. I think a weight of 6 is a bit high for being a very strong weapon, especially when Ripper is fairly easy to make, or alternatively loading it up with Agility Packs if you don't have good accuracy. I'd say a weight of 5 and level generation of 9 or so.

I don't think a weight of 6 would be too out of whack, considering how you normally get an early guaranteed Chainsaw from a potentially easy special level, while a Ripper would still take a while to make in A100 considering you're missing on the guaranteed mods from special levels (not to mention you need at least Brute 3 to actually hit things with it, and Brute 4 to go over 90% accuracy, which you might not even be able to get until around dlevel 25 on UV, while Agility mods are wasted on it). I'll also note the Assault Shotgun and Combat Pistol each have a weight of 6, so it's not unusual for powerful staple exotics to have that weight. In any case, not much point in arguing over the exact number, as long as we agree that the Chainsaw should be more common.

I think your idea for Duelist Armor could be good, but I'd have to spend a bit of time considering all possibilities. Cerberus Armor (P) with your suggestion would be arguably stronger than other current variants since most end-game enemies don't deal much bullet or shrapnel damage, and the extra melee resistance would be more appealing. It would also be a pretty insanely strong armor for early/middle games for melee builds, especially with its movement speed to help with charging enemies. I do agree that more variety for exotic armors would be good.

Former Captains and Sergeants can do a nasty amount of damage when you got no armor, and only 2 protection after a Power mod will let them still be able to leave a dent in you, so it would be a fair tradeoff I think for the Cerberus Armor (while Gothic Cerberus and Onyx Cerberus would still be very stiff competition). As for early-mid game melee, it would certainly be very powerful, though losing the bullet and shrapnel resistances is also gonna really hurt at this point of the game too when Formers are still very common, who are also enemies you can't easily rush when you don't got an armor that can just tank them.

Like Tower Shield, I think your buff suggestion to Ballistic Armor could be good, but definitely want to avoid making it too good since it's a basic assembly and only requires basic mod packs. Maybe take your suggested changes and also include -15% movement speed?

I think the movement speed penalty would be excessive, unless you also got rid of the negative fire resistance that serves as a major tradeoff to it as is.

I like your suggestion for Cybernetic Armor, just keep in mind that it can be somewhat consistently obtained in Hell's Armory, so making it too good might make it broken. The armor being cursed does help balance out giving it a buff, and also indirectly buffs Technicians who can mod it while other classes can't and likely would be interested in it.

It should be noted that getting the Cybernetic Armor in Hell's Armory/Deimos' Lab also takes up a rare mod slot, while getting a Nano mod or Onyx mod is necessary to actually take advantage of the armor. So the chances of actually getting to utilize Nanofiber Skin or especially Cybernano Cybernetic Armor in a standard game is still exceedingly slim, and thus like with the point about super weapons and Inquisitor Set, it shouldn't factor heavily into balancing it.

First, what would be their inherent property if you have something like Green Armor (F)? Second, canonically, it seems a little silly to stick Sniper Packs on an armor. It can depend on your perspective though, whether you view it like attaching scopes to your armor, or if it's more like a computer chip or something.

You can still leave Sniper and Firestorm mods unable to be used on armor normally, which wouldn't be unusual, when you can't use Firestorm mods on pistols yet the Demolition Ammo assembly exists. As for how it would make sense, I like to think of it as adding scopes to your helmet that lets you see farther :)

I'm uncertain what to suggest regarding the Missile Launcher for City of Skulls and Abyssal Plains. Maybe Napalm Launcher, although that might become a bit too strong for that point in the game. Semi-related, but I do think the difficulty between the two also needs to be adjusted.

Would be really interested to hear how you think their difficulty should be adjusted. Abyssal Plains is currently a lot harder for most builds, you do got some more stuff in it but I wouldn't be opposed to tinkering with it a bit to make the risk/reward better balanced.

I like the idea of adjusting enemies for The Vaults. The only thing with your proposal is you would have Barons on HNTR and UV, but not HMP, which would be a bit weird. I think changing it is good, but it'd need more discussion.

You misread, my suggestion would take the current HMP setup for HNTR, which consists of Mancubi in the left vault and Revenants in the right vault; Barons would only start showing up on UV. I have edited my post to make it more clear.

I kind of diagree with preventing getting stuck in Mt. Erebus as that's the risk you take from trying to cheese it. However, it should at least have a bit of a lava patch so that you can gracefully end your game and receive a proper ending instead of Ctrl-Qing.

I think softlocks should be avoided as a fundamental part of game design (which should also be addressed with The Wall/Containment Area, where one suggestion I saw that I liked was having the wall collapse after killing all enemies), and I'll note that The Lava Pits has no softlock risk for using a Phase Device despite being much harder to do without a radsuit. If it's deemed too easy to beat Mt. Erebus without a radsuit with just a Phase Device, perhaps add more far out islands that decreases the chance of the Phase Device getting you to the main island.

I disagree with hunting enemies being able to use items as they would get absurdly powerful, but I do agree with fixing the coding logic for them. Note that a Cyberdemon wielding a Plasma Shield could survive nukes currently, and while you could just buff nuke damage, it's a good demonstration of how insane they would be.

Bruisers being able to use items I don't think would be excessive to deal with, as is they're arguably currently less threatening than Barons in A100, since the latter will eat up all your medkits, armor, phase devices, and ammo (though I guess you can also argue that lets Barons and Bruisers keep separate niches in lategame A100, instead of the latter just being a strictly upgraded version). I remember we discussed the possibility of a Cyber being able to survive a nuke with a Plasma Shield, and it was inconclusive if the armor would only absorb 100 damage or the full theoretical 5700. I do think someone nuking a level and finding a Cyberdemon still alive would make for a hilarious moment though. In any case, I don't think a Cyber with even strong armor would be too unkillable, but medkits would certainly need to have the aforementioned healing cap before letting any Cybers use them.

I believe locked vaults is an older version or glitched and never existed as I have never encountered them. It could be an interesting idea.

Good to hear I'm not the only one who never seen them. I like the idea of them, so I do hope they're brought back or whatever bug is preventing them from spawning is fixed.

I like the idea of a lever potentially restoring ammo, but it feels a bit silly as a concept. Maybe more specifically, have it drop a random small ammo pickup, similar to making enemies spawn around you, as opposed to directly reloading your weapon or something.

That sounds better than supplying the ammo into your inventory as I originally suggested, just as long as we get a couple more useful levers.

I sort of agree with your tree idea, just that enemies can get stuck and be dumb around them. For example, Former Humans in Phobos Base Entry will endlessly fire into them, to the point of expending all their ammo. I'm not sure how other AIs would interact with them.

I think that's part of the strategic applications they could have. Conversely, enemies with explosive projectiles could hit them to still damage you (or you could exploit them for enemies to kill themselves). Lots of potential ways they could be utilized for the player or enemies, which I would like to see experimentation with (as well as just added decoration flavor that DRL currently lacks).

33

Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas

« on: August 16, 2023, 05:17 »

Now to post some of my own ideas.

GENERAL FEATURES

*Add a toggle to turn off the powerup overlays of Berserk, Invulnerability, and Envirosuit

These are just rough to the eyes and make it harder to discern things (particularly with making it hard to see the enemy Xs of Intuition). Keen enough players can pay attention to the powerup indicator in the HUD to know if they still have the powerup, which players have to do anyway to be aware of when the powerup is about to run out.

*Allow already obtained badges to show up in mortems when their conditions are fulfilled again, while keeping count of how many times each badge has been obtained

Medals already do this, so it's weird that badges don't, and it makes the Awards sections of mortems a bit empty after you already got most of the badges. Could also be fun to see how much of each badge you can collect.

*Make all difficulties and challenges available from the start, or at least make it a toggable option

I can see the appeal of gradually unlocking stuff, or otherwise trying to steer newbies away from immediately jumping in on UV because that is what they do in Doom and then getting promptly slaughtered. From what I observed however, locking away the harder difficulties and all the challenges just annoys returning veterans who lost their old DRL installation, who can easily jump back in on UV and want to play some of the funner challenges like A100 or AoMC, but have to grind out several runs first before they're able to. A simple toggle in the config.lua file should suffice, giving returning veterans the option to skip that initial grind, while newbies or people who otherwise preferred unlocking things will have their experience untouched.

*In mortems, highlight badges with colors of their respective tiers

Just a nice QoL thing to make the badges pop out more when looking over your mortem at the end and to give that extra dopamine rush when getting the harder badges. Could also have obtained badges highlighted in their respective colors in the Player Info's badge collection screens. Could give medals their own unique highlight too, but I don't know what coloring for them.

ANGEL OF 100
These are some suggestions to help improve Angel of 100 specifically (and Archangel of 666 by extension):

*Add more medals and/or badges for A100

One disappointment with A100 is how empty the Awards section of your mortems are after completion, when the only medals you can get are the UAC Stars, Medal of Prejudice, the Experience Medal/Cross, Dervis' Medallion, and the Apostle Insignia (well there's a few more you can possibly get like the speedrunning medals, the Untouchable medals, the Icarus Crosses, and the "kill all enemies with knives/your fists" medals, but these aren't realistically obtainable in A100). 43 medals is also a weird amount, so perhaps bump it to an even 50. Not saying add 7 medals just for A100, but a few more you can get in it would be nice; some ideas I have is clearing out a boss-only level (could have a medal for each of them, but one covering them in general would be enough as it could get annoying trying to encounter them all), finding 10 uniques (so an amped up version of Aurora Medallion for A100), nuke 20 floors (so an amped up version of the Fallout Crosses for A100), create 15 different assemblies. This can be discussed farther.

*Cycle between the Phobos, Deimos, and Hell tilesets after floor 25

One issue with A100 is how over 80% of the floors are Hell, so things start to get samey looking. The dream would be to add more unique tilesets for deeper levels (a Thy Flesh Consumed tileset would be amazing), but that understandably would probably be too much for an update to an old free fangame, so just letting the preexisting tilesets cycle instead of being stuck with Hell's for 84 floors would help break up the monotony.

*Modify fluid generation so that water and acid can still spawn in deeper levels

Another part of the aforementioned monotony is how over 90% of fluids you encounter will be lava after past like floor 10, with only occasional level types being able to break the fluid monotony up. More randomization with what fluid type spawns regardless of depth would make floors more varied, and it wouldn't necessarily make things easier, as players can't utilize water to escape or harm enemies, and knocking enemies into acid does a lot less damage than lava does (especially to Hell Nobles). It would also serve as an indirect nerf to the Inquisitor Set, where the fire immunity may as well be fluid immunity when you rarely actually encounter any acid to run through, negating any real need to keep Cerberus Boots or Enviroboots on you once you have the set.

*Add the Angel of Death as a regular enemy in deep floors

I get not having the Arena Master in A100 when he is just a bulkier Archvile with a weaker attack, while the Nightmare Archvile exists for a stronger version, and not having the Spider Master or John Carmack when they're final bosses. But why not the Angel of Death? Having such a strong and fast melee enemy would also help counterbalance being able to near solely rely on a modded out Energy-Shielded Vest or the Inquisitor Set, when you got a melee enemy even stronger than Nightmare Demons. Is not having him appear because he would be too tedious to kill? If so, I don't think he is much worse in that regard than Cyberdemons are, or Agony Elementals for builds with weak crowd control. I would suggest having Angels of Death start spawning at dlevel 80, and hey, maybe allow the single enemy level type to possibly have only Angels of Death too.

*Guaranteed Berserker Armor and Dragonslayer spawns

In order to get a full win in A100/666 (which as I understand will be counted in 0.9.9.8, seeing the GitHub changelog for it), you need these two pieces of equipment by the final floor to spawn the Apostle and then kill it. This however requires a large amount of luck in A100, and even in A666 you're not guaranteed to find both before the final floor. The game ending text for not doing so even says you missed out on the "mystery" behind them... despite it being a low random chance that you could even have the opportunity to. So add a way to guarantee them spawning. What that should be can be debated, perhaps have the Berserker Armor automatically spawn on floor 50 if you've carried a 100% killrate that far, and then have the Dragonslayer automatically spawn on floor 99 if you've carried a 100% killrate to it? I think that would be fair, and on UV and especially Nightmare difficulty, carrying a 100% killrate through all of A100 isn't a small feat, while losing inventory space from carrying around the Berserker Armor for all those floors would be an additional handicap.

*Add more music slots in the musichq.lua file

Something that might only appeal to me, but as someone who likes to mod the music of the game, it disappoints me a bit that there are only 24 level slots to assign music to, and then the game randomly shuffles between them for the rest of A100 after that point. An admittedly minor thing that probably few people care about, but would be neat if I could mod in up to 50 songs or even have unique tracks for every single floor of A100 if I wanted to.

TRAITS
In addition to what Icy covered, I'll add:

*Let Juggler instantly swap weapons from your inventory

As you can already swap instantly with quick keys (which can be modified to be any weapon in keybindings.lua) or with your mouse wheel, the restriction on manually swapping weapons from your inventory is only a senseless inconvenience, particularly only hindering players with no functional mouse wheel and who do not have the tech savviness to modify their keybindings to utilize Juggler with exotic/unique weapons. And otherwise it is annoying to have to save out of the game to modify my keybindings upon finding a good exotic/unique if I want to utilize Juggler with it via quick keys.

*Buff Badass

I'm not sure how to buff Badass exactly, but as it is, it's easily the least impressive advanced trait by far, especially compared to the other two classes' instantly accessible advanced traits, and whenever a mastery requires it, I find it to usually be a dead level. Not having health decay above 100% is just not that big of a boon except for maybe Vampyre; any strategy that relies on retaining boosted health to survive is a flawed one, and you can't even utilize it without finding certain powerups if you're not running Vampyre, not to mention that fast builds can carry boosted health for a long time even with decay, largely negating the need for Badass. Then knockback reduction is also not that useful and can even be counterproductive, when it'll nerf rocket jumping, and knockback from enemies can be useful to escape a bad spot and reposition. Then in scenarios where you do want knockback resistance, it's better to have equipment for that, as you can then take it off when you want higher knockback, which you can't do with Badass' knockback reduction. One idea I can think of is building off what Icy suggested for the Marine and have each level of Badass give 5% or 10% inherent resistance to everything in addition to preventing health decay (whichever is deemed to be better balanced), while then removing the knockback reduction entirely. It could alternatively be that each level grants an additional 10 actions with powerups instead of knockback reduction.

WEAPONS
Some weapon ideas I have that Icy didn't touch on:

*Add a new standard Pistol

Pistol builds are inherently disadvantaged, where they require luck to find anything better than their starting peashooters, unlike other builds that will come across guaranteed upgrades to their weak starting weapons. I'm not sure how to go about this, but one idea I saw someone suggest was adding a Magnum, which would serve as a stronger but more inaccurate Pistol (maybe 3d4 with +2 accuracy?), and also help make Sharpshooter's overkill investment into Eagle Eye do something useful, serving to help their overtly hard early game, while additionally incentivizing other Pistol builds to invest in Eagle Eye or use Agility mods. I'm not too versed in Pistols however, so those that specialize in them should give their input.

*Significantly improve the Chainsaw's generation weight

Currently the Chainsaw has an item generation weight of 3, which makes it as rare or even rarer than some uniques. This makes melee builds, other than Malicious Blades, weak in A100/666, unless they get really lucky early with quickly finding the Chainsaw, Cleaver, or Dragonslayer (it also doesn't help that the two other melee uniques are worse than modded Combat Knives, farther reducing the chance of them finding a good melee weapon). I think it should have a generation weight of at least 6, maybe even higher, and perhaps let it spawn a little earlier than floor 12 too, so that melee builds can more realistically actually find a melee weapon better than the Combat Knife. This change would additionally have virtually no impact in the standard game, when any build that wants a Chainsaw will just get the guaranteed one from the Chained Court earlier than they ever could find it randomly, and finding another randomly generated Chainsaw later would do nothing useful.

*Improve the BFG9000's generation weight*

Similar to the above, where the BFG9000 is a guaranteed weapon you can get without too much hassle in the standard game, but is exceedingly rare to ever find in A100, due to its item generation weight of 2 making it even rarer than the aforementioned Chainsaw. This one isn't a pressing balance issue, I just think it's weird how you can easily go entire A100 runs without ever finding this trademark weapon. This can be argued against, as finding a second randomly generated BFG in a standard game can be huge, though given the BFG's minimum floor depth of 20, bumping its generation weight up to 4 or even 5 would make it very unlikely that the player would find one before the standard game ends. Either way I wouldn't argue too hard for this change however.

*Buff the Micro Launcher?

Even as a guy who likes Rocket Launchers and rocket jumping, I find it hard to find a worthwhile niche for the Micro Launcher. 0.8 second firing speed, 0.8 reloading speed, extra accuracy, and a smaller explosion radius is nice, but you already get the formermost just from applying one of the prerequisites Technical Mods on your Rocket Launcher (and it would be even slower than a Rocket Launcher with two Technical Mods). But the main problem is the substantial downgrade in power to 5d5, which aside from making it weaker for combat, also hurts its utility usages, as it has a much higher chance to fail to blow up a wall in a single rocket (or might even fail after two!), and its rocket jumps would send you a shorter distance (you can argue less self-damaging rocket jumps is a boon, but with just Fireproof Red Armor, you can already reduce 6d6 rocket jump damage down to 1-3, not to mention self-damage won't matter when you're invulnerable, where rocket jumping sees much of its usage). Then there's the Tactical Rocket Launcher that just completely outclasses this weapon, and whose BBB mod cost is arguably a lesser cost than two Technical Mods. It seems to exist as an economical improvement to the Rocket Launcher for builds that aren't investing in Whizkid, but the improvement is minor or even arguably a sidegrade.

I'm unsure how to buff the Micro Launcher to give it a defined niche instead of just buffing its power. At least though its firing speed needs to reflect the Technical Mod investment, so it should be no more than 0.7 seconds firing speed, I would maybe go all the way down to 0.5 seconds firing speed to try giving it a niche as the fastest firing Rocket Launcher. Conversely, as a basic assembly that uses common mods, you can argue a cheap economical option that isn't great is the point, though I would still argue to at least give it the 0.7 seconds firing speed.

*Buff the Double Chainsaw?

The Double Chainsaw's 8d6 power is certainly a big upgrade over a BP Chainsaw's 5d7 power, so this assembly isn't inherently bad. The problem is it's completely outclassed by the Ripper that just requires one more level of Whizkid and an additional Technical mod, while also being completely outclassed by the Longinus Spear and especially Azrael's Scythe. As a result, if you want to maximize your Chainsaw, you won't be making this instead of the Ripper, and otherwise for a weapon you plan to ditch once you get the Spear or Scythe, you probably don't want to expend the extra Power mod on it, if you don't just go for the cheap disposable option of the Piercing Chainsaw instead. The only arguable niche for the Double Chainsaw is for Blademasters in A100, where they can't get the Spear or Scythe, and they could possibly get more use from its stronger single-hit power than the Ripper, as more one-hit kills will make them mow through hordes faster (though I think the Ripper is still better, as it'll activate Berserker quicker, and because of all the boss and nightmare monsters that you aren't killing in one hit even with the Double Chainsaw).

However like the Micro Launcher, there's no clear way to buff it; make it stronger, then what's the point of getting the Spear or Scythe; make it faster, what's the point of the getting the Ripper. You can argue just leaving it as is, as the midway option for people who want to improve their Chainsaw more before the Spear/Scythe but don't want to go all in on the Ripper. Maybe my later suggestion of making the Unholy Cathedral appear a bit later would make the Double Chainsaw a more attractive option as a midgame weapon you'll ultimately dispose of.

*Increase the amount of rockets in Rocket Boxes from 20 to 25

Rocket Boxes carrying only 20 rockets is too low; proportionally, a 10mm Ammo Chain and Power Battery hold over twice as much ammo as their respective inventory stacks, and while a Shell Box also holds exactly twice as much as a shell stack does, shotgun shells are much more efficient relative to the amount of them you get and it's a much larger quantity. Once you get the Backpack, Rocket Boxes carry only six more rockets than an inventory stack can, making them not much practical for holding extra rockets in your inventory (and ten more rockets without a Backpack isn't much better). You could also argue to increase the amount of rockets you can hold in your inventory and the amount of rockets you get from ammo pickups, though for what is intended to be a secondary weapon, I don't think that's really needed, just make Rocket Boxes more valuable.

ARMORS
Some ideas on modifying or adding armors not touched on by Icy:

*Change the Medical Armor's resistances from 20% melee/20% bullet/20% shrapnel to 15% fire/15% plasma/15% acid

The Medical Armor currently has no use other than to be a crappy backup armor when you don't have a supply of Blue Armors or better yet, or used as a consolation base to the Cerberus Armor assembly when you couldn't find anything better. This set of resistances would still make it terribly outclassed by the Energy-Shielded Vest and is still gonna be rather mediocre armor, but at least it is being outclassed by only one other exotic armor that's rare to find, rather than being outclassed by most of the other exotic armors, and has reason to be worn over a Blue or sometimes even a Red armor. If these resistances are changed, also apply these new resistances to the Medical Powerarmor as covered prior. The health regeneration gimmick can be buffed too as suggested prior for the Medical Powerarmor, though the healing buff can be kept to only the Medical Powerarmor to make it more special than the more common Medical Armor.

*Change the Duelist Armor's resistances from 50% melee/50% bullet/50% shrapnel to 70%60% melee

The Duelist Armor is great and serves it role well as the armor you use to get in enemies' faces and melee them, or to otherwise be solid movement-boosting armor. The problem is it outclasses a bunch of the other exotic armors, most notably the Ballistic Vest, that has the same exact resistances but one less point of protection and no move speed bonus; it says a lot when the Ballistic Vest's primary perk is being another means to make 50+% resistance to all Cerberus Armor without having to give up your Duelist Armor. These changes will centralize the Duelist Armor around its primary purpose of melee, which can be argued as making it even better, but it leaves the Ballistic Vest a niche to be much more effective against Formers while remaining strong in melee, and it also makes for more deliberation on what base you use for Cerberus Armor; this new Duelist Armor will get you Cerberus Armor with stronger melee resistance than anything else, but you would be left essentially naked against Formers.

*Buff the Tower Shield

For an assembly that requires an Onyx mod, the Tower Shield is very not worth it. The Fireshield isn't particularly worth it either, but the niche of being able to reduce absolutely any fire attack in the game down to 1 damage is a strong niche, while it doesn't kill your mobility and has 200% durability to at least last if you avoid letting Barons and Arachnotrons hit it. The Tower Shield meanwhile has a flat 12 protection, which is very high but isn't completely negating any of the strong enemies, while killing your movement with -50% speed, and its durability is a weird 150%, so it doesn't last that long either, especially with its more generalized defense. The exact stats can be argued, but at minimum, that durability needs to be 200% and the movement penalty needs to be reduced to at least -30% for me to ever consider assembling it over just getting infinite durability Red Armor or a Fireshield.

*Buff the Ballistic Armor assembly, by having it give +40% melee resistance/+40% bullet resistance resistance/+40% shrapnel resistance/-20% fire resistance

This assembly is almost ok, problem is physical hits tend to not be as strong as fire hits, so resistances to them aren't saving you as much damage as the equivalently proportioned resistances of the opposite Fireproof Armor does. As an example, Barons and Mancubi do 9-11 damage with their melee hits, the strongest melee enemies you'll encounter outside of a couple bosses and Nightmare Demons, so this assembly reduces their damage by 3, saving you only one more point of damage than just a Power mod would have (while bullets will never do more than that and shrapnel gets doubly reduced by armor). Then against the weaker melee hits of most enemies, it's reducing damage no more than a Power mod would have, meanwhile the -30% fire resistance is really going to hurt when the powerful fire attacks hit you (an Archvile zap does 6 more damage to you for example). The extra 10% physical resistances would make any armor this assembly applied to clearly better against physical attacks than just applying a Power mod would have made it, while -20% fire resistance isn't quite as crippling a tradeoff. As it currently is, this armor only really has a niche to help non-melee builds try to beat the Unholy Cathedral.

*Change the Cybernetic Armor's resistances to 20% against everything.

This is to both help the monotony of so many armors just having a flat 50% resistance to all physical attacks, and to make the Cybernetic Armor possibly actually worth it; those 50% physical resistances are mostly overkill when you have 7 protection, while no resistances against energy attacks makes this armor not really all that good at actually protecting you from the enemies that largely matter. There's the gimmick that you can't take this armor off and it has no durability regeneration but Technicians can fully mod it, with the idea being that they can use a Onyx mod, the Nanofiber Skin assembly, or Cybernano assembly to get themselves a very strong armor that can't be damaged. As the Cybernetic armor currently is however, doing those would certainly get you some good armor, but not good enough to comfortably commit being stuck with it for your entire run, before even considering the opportunity cost of Nano and Onyx mods (for example, P-modded Cybernano Cybernetic Armor still reduces damage from an Archvile zap less than simple Fireproof Red Armor does, while the latter also won't slow you down as much, is much cheaper to assemble, and can be taken off for armor better suited for other scenarios). With these new resistances, these assemblies will make the Cybernetic Armor truly a contender for best armor in the game and something to seriously consider committing to, without making you completely nigh-invulnerable; Nanofiber Skin would give you 45% resistance against everything alongside 7 protection, or you get 20% resistance to everything alongside 11 protection with Cybernano. However, even after a Power mod, they're not reducing all attacks down to 1 damage without TaN investment, and you're still going to be slow with that severe -30% movement speed penalty, so it's not completely broken. Not to mention the setup to get Nanofiber Skin or especially Cybernano Cybernetic Armor is very rare as is, it should very much be worth it and not clearly outclassed by the Energy-Shielded Vest in those assemblies.

*Buff the Necroarmor to regenerate 5% durability per action, still at the cost of 1 HP per action

The Necroarmor's gimmick is that it drains your health in order to regenerate itself. But it regenerates slower than other regenerating armors, only doing 2% per action instead of the standard 5%, and this effect is obviously counterproductive to the armor's job of actually reducing damage you take. I did some math  (https://drl.chaosforge.org/wiki/Strategy:Necroarmor) and figured out that the you still come out ahead net positive in health after regeneration against hits that deal less than 17 damage. But the armor is still rather crummy, requiring hits to deal 10 or less damage just to match a Red Armor in practical effectiveness, while acid and plasma attacks just completely destroys the armor's effectiveness. This change still wouldn't make this armor that great, but it will help make it not become a net negative against acid, plasma, and stronger attacks (even against a max damage Baron ball, this change would make the armor drain 6 HP to recover after you take 14 damage, thus it's not worse than taking the hit naked), so that you will be incentivized to use it over Red Armor and modded Blue Armor at least.

*Add armor assemblies that utilize the Sniper mod and Firestorm mod

Having armor assemblies for these isn't entirely necessary, but these mods are a lot less desirable than Nano and Onyx mods, and several builds can't utilize them much, if at all. So adding some more ways to utilize them would be appreciated, and I got a couple ideas I think might be good (names are placeholders I haven't put much thought into):

Scouting armor - any armor + AS (or ATS if it would be too good for a basic assembly) = The armor gives +1 vision when worn, could also give +5 or +10% movement speed on the base armor, but could be omitted if deemed too good on top of the vision boost (would definitely be something handy for any build, thematically fits the Sniper mod, and currently the only way to get any vision boost is by Cateye and temporary Light Goggles).

Blastproof armor - any armor + TF (or TPF if too good for a basic assembly) = The armor reduces damage from explosions by half, and adds +30% knockback on the base armor, could be a bit more (or less) for what is deemed best balance wise (there is currently no way to reduce damage from specifically explosions outside of Fireangel, and there's no way to increase knockback on armor, while this would additionally serve clear utility to make ideal rocket jumping armor).

*Add the "Tactical Set" - Wearing Tactical Armor with Tactical Boots completes this set, which grants the player with the effect of Dodgemaster

I think the game could use a couple more sets, with an obvious equipment set being the Tactical Armor and Tactical Boots. Aside from being thematically fitting, Tactical Armor is also an underused assembly, as the risk of running around essentially naked is too high, and the cost of two Agility Mods is a bit high for players, especially when they've likely already spent two Agility Mods on Tactical Boots. The Tactical Armor probably still wouldn't be used much, but having this set could get some players to assemble it in more scenarios, such as an out to the Cyberdemon for low-DPS builds with no Dodgemaster. There's also already precedent of equipment granting players the abilities from traits, with the Butcher's Cleaver having inherent Blademaster.

*Change the Gothic Set from giving +4 protection to +50% resistances against everything

There are two glaring problems with the Gothic Set; one, +4 protection on an armor with no energy resistances is not enough of a tradeoff for becoming completely immobilized, and two, the Angelic Set exists, which also grants +4 protection but without any sacrifices to mobility. So not only is the Gothic Set incredibly niche in practicality, it's also completely outclassed by another set that does the same thing without any drawbacks. This change could make it become actually viable in situations where out-DPSing a bunch of baddies is imperative; currently the Archvile does 10 damage to you in the Gothic Set, 8 if the Gothic Armor was P-modded, and high damage rolls from Mancubi and Revenants could do even more, while plasma enemies are of course hardly fazed. With you still taking decent damage, the Gothic Set is just making you a sitting duck that would get promptly slaughtered. With this change, the aforementioned Archvile zap now does only 4 damage, 2 if P-modded, and you'll be often be reducing hits from common plasma enemies down to 1, while Hell Knights and Cacodemons do no more than 3 or 2 (whereas before their max damage rolls would do 7 or 6). There's farther synergy with the Gothic Cerberus Armor, where this set would give you 95% resistance against everything, and so reduce practically any hit down to 1 damage; this might sound too strong, but given you're completely immobile for the Gothic Set (while rapid-fire enemies can still rack up damage quickly in big hordes), and that the Gothic Boots themselves aren't much useful (so carrying them around is often a waste of inventory space), I think this is still reasonably balanced.

SPECIAL LEVELS
I already covered Phobos Lab vs. Military Base, so a few more changes for the special levels that I think would improve the game.

*Replace the Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains

This one is obvious, that second Missile Launcher always felt like filler that the devs threw in because they had no idea what to replace the original second BFG that used to be in City Of Skulls. I'm not sure what to replace it with, and I don't think any specific weapon would be fitting. Perhaps it can be a randomized guaranteed non-BFG non-melee exotic weapon? Would give more incentive to visit these two levels that aren't really rewarding outside of possibly making Mortuary/Limbo a bit easier later and potentially giving non-melee builds a Hatred Skull for the Cathedral, especially for pistol and rapid-fire builds that outright struggle in these levels.

*Swap the depth of Unholy Cathedral and The Vaults

An idea I seen someone else suggest long ago that I think is pretty sound. The reasoning being any good unique you find in The Vaults you won't get as much time to use, while lategame melee is very powerful with little effort thanks to the guaranteed artifact weapon from the Cathedral, thus this would serve as a slight nerf to them. It would also give non-melee builds a bit more of a chance to get good melee-resistant armor before the Cathedral, prevent you from being able to cheese Scavenger Platinum and Diamond via Azrael Scythe's altfire (though I don't exactly like purely luck-based badges to begin with, so I wouldn't mind those badges being changed), and you won't have that damn Arena Master Staff clogging your inventory quite as long.

*Modify The Vaults' enemy selection

This is one I made a thread about looooonnnnnngggggg ago, but never got a dev response to (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7270.msg63862.html#msg63862). In short, it has its hardest enemy composition on HNTR, when it's difficult to avoid the Aracnotrons in this level, the Barons on that difficulty always steal your armor (while their projectile's big explosion isn't easy to avoid in the crampness of this level either), and having just VMR to deal with makes it easy to just put on strong fire-resistant armor to neuter the threat. Even if you swap the enemy composition around, it still would be a much easier level on UV than other special levels, so I suggest the following changes:

HNTR - Same enemy composition as current HMP, which is Mancubi in the left vault and Revenants in the right vault, with a mix in the center
HMP - Replace the Mancubi with Arachnotrons
UV - Replace Revenants with Barons, add 2 more Arachnotrons in the left vault and 2 more Barons in the right vault, then add 4 Arch-Viles in the center vault without replacing any of the existing enemies.
N! - Replace Arachnotrons with Nightmare Arachnotrons, add Red Armor right next to all the Barons in the right vault to pick up (Phobos Base Entry has a Green Armor that only spawns on UV or N!, so this should be possible right?), and replace the Archviles with Nigntmare Archviles (currently you can't encounter them in the standard game, so you could do so here while making this level much tougher).

*In Mt. Erebus, prevent being able to teleport into the "mountain" with a Phase Device

A minor thing, but I inadvertently discovered this potential softlock when trying to beat Mt. Erebus without a radsuit (luckily I had a Homing Phase to get out). Perhaps have the "mountain" fill in the space where there are no monsters until the mountain is brought down, leaving no space for players to phase into it?

ENEMIES

*Buff Nightmare Imps

Nightmare Imps in their current form are some weird diet Hell Knight, being offensively the same, just marginally faster but with a lot less HP and no ability to use items/armor. This gives them no distinct role among enemies, and makes them laughable by the time you start encountering them, when they're much weaker than this enemy you been fighting since dlevel 3 on UV/N!. My suggestion would be to lean into the speed aspect and make them like their Doom 64 selves by being frail but very fast enemies. The exact stats can be argued, but the idea I have is:

Reduce HP to 18
Increase their speed to 160% (if too high, at least to 140%)
Reduce their projectile's damage to 2d5, but let them shoot two projectiles each time they attack.
Reduce their melee attack to 1d3+4, perhaps add the double attack effect too if possible on a melee attack.

This should give them a more defined spot among the enemy roster and finding a group of them could maybe actually be a threat to the player, or will at least be a big hassle that needs to be dealt with quickly.

*Increase the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give

Getting 95 EXP from such a dangerous enemy is a pathetically low amount, this is less than you get from Nightmare Imps, Cacodemons, Hell Knights, and even Elite Former Humans. This is also a big culprit behind Phobos Lab being so unrewarding, especially when the Elite Formers give you such a crazy amount of EXP in comparison. I would say bumping the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give to 263 is fair (which is equivalent to an Arachnotron), and see my prior post on even with that massive increase, Phobos Lab still doesn't give you more EXP on UV/N! than Military Base does now.

*Decrease the EXP that Elite Formers give you

Conversely, Elite Formers give you a really high amount of EXP each, despite their threat not really meriting such a high amount of EXP, contributing to the huge disparity in EXP yield between Military Base and Phobos Lab. I would let Elite Former Commandos still give you 608 EXP, but I would nerf the EXP yield of the other Elite Formers by the following:

Elite Former Humans: 167 -> 128
Elite Former Sergeants: 320 -> 263
Elite Former Captains: 452 -> 320

*Buff Elite Formers in melee

A main reason why Military Base is a lot easier than Phobos Base is how you can easily lure the Elite Formers into melee range, where they are all weak except for the Elite Commando, who is instead just mediocre. You could just give them a damage bump of like +3 to +5, though I think it would be neat if you instead let them attack with a Combat Knife, which would fit the theme of them being elite fully-armed soldiers. I do not know if this is programmable however; if it isn't, then just give them a flat damage buff to their current melee attack.

*Revert the Nightmare Archvile's attack to dealing plasma damage

Prior to 0.9.9.7, the Nightmare Archvile's zap used to do 16d1 plasma damage, but in 0.9.9.7, this was changed to 25d1 fire damage. This is a big damage improvement on paper, but we all know how much easier it is to get good defense against fire; as it currently stands, the Nightmare Archvile isn't really that threatening to a lategame A100 player that will certainly have very strong fire-resistant armor like the P-modded Energy-Shielded Vest (reduces it to 9 damage, much more if it was assembled to Nanofiber Skin or Cybernano Armor), Cerberus Armor (reduces it damage to 7, 5 if P-modded), the Lava Armor (reduces its damage to 2), or even the Inquisitor Set that completely neutralizes it. For an enemy that is supposed to invoke a "OH SHIT!" response as its ingame description gives and for being the final enemy that spawns in A100, it really doesn't live up to the hype, Nightmare Arachnotrons elicit a bigger fight or flight response from me. I'll also note its explosion still uses the plasma explosion graphics too, and it would be consistent with other Nightmare enemies who all use plasma attacks (aside from the melee-exclusive Nightmare Demon). That said, 16d1 plasma damage isn't too much of an improvement (the aforementioned armors reduces it damage to 7, 8 or 7, 6, and 10 respectively), so I would bump it up to at least 20d1, or just make it 25d1 plasma damage to really hammer in the threat of the final A100 enemy (and make carrying a Plasma Shield around more enticing).

*Make the Lava Elemental harder?

Despite being the boss of the final special level right before the end of the standard game, the Lava Elemental is quite lackluster. Having fire attacks is already easily defended against, but its attack isn't even as strong as the VMR's. It has very strong armor with 5 protection and health regeneration, but it's nothing outrageous for this point of the game, especially with its low-end HP for a boss. It's strong in melee, but not any stronger than the Barons and Mancubi. Has anyone ever actually had a hard time against the Lava Elemental, let alone die to it?

Now buffing its stats would help, and I do think its projectile and melee attack could use a damage buff. However one unique aspect of its attack is its projectile leaving behind lava. Normally this doesn't matter in The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus, as you got three spare radsuits to use even if you brought none in. So it's easy to do everything in these levels only expending a single radsuit, and then kill the Lava Elemental while being completely protected from its lava splashing effect with a radsuit on, while typically killing him fast enough to even have a spare radsuit left. My suggestion would be to take away these radsuits on harder difficulties; ITYTD and HNTR have the three as usual, but then HMP has two radsuits, UV has only one radsuit, and N! has no radsuits at all. This would make tackling these levels without bringing radsuits with you (or building lava-immune boots) a lot more difficult, and the Lava Elemental can be actually scary if you have no form of lava immunity. By making it hit a lot harder in melee, you would also discourage players preventing it from leaving behind more lava by getting in melee range.

*Expand the depth Former Commandos can spawn

Former Commandos are a potentially very dangerous enemy, but they have a very narrow depth they can appear, with them no longer appearing individually after dlevel 17. They can also appear a bit longer in a monster group with other formers, but this stops after dlevel 21. After this point, you'll never see this enemy again, outside of The Mortuary and in the rare Archviles + Formers level. I never understood why such a dangerous enemy with a defined role as an extreme glass cannon stops spawning so soon, they should be able to keep spawning throughout the game, or least make their depth range not so ridiculously narrow. Could also add them to Archvile + Formers and Barons + Formers group.

*Expand the depth Pain Elementals can spawn

Pain Elementals also have a rather narrow depth range, with them no longer spawning after dlevel 20, and the only monster group they are a part of stops spawning immediately after at dlevel 21. After this you'll never see them again in normal levels, outside of rare Pain Elemental caves, and then from the Agony Elemental at very deep depths in A100. This is despite them serving a unique role that makes them a serious pain for certain builds (particularly pistol and rapid fire builds). Like with Commandos, they should be able to appear throughout the remaining entirety of the standard game, and perhaps through all of Angel of 100, or at least until dlevel 50 like Cacodemons and Arachnotrons (who can still appear afterward in vaults and monster groups respectively). Could also make a Cacodemons + Pain Elementals group to get cute (Cacodemons currently don't appear in any monster groups, and I think this could be fitting), that spawns throughout the game.

*Make the Apostle possibly challenging?

For a super secret final boss, the Apostle is a huge disappointment. Ignoring that he is just a super Archvile, he does have some qualities that could be threatening; a 40 damage plasma attack with a huge explosion radius is actually pretty damn scary even if you're berserked, when you're stuck in the horribly slow Berserker Armor that has no plasma resistance. He also teleports around and regenerates. But you get in once, you just hit him two-four times and then he dies possibly before he could even retaliate. I have a couple suggestions that could make the Apostle possibly come somewhat close to living up to its status:

1: Increase the Apostle's HP to 500
2: Have the Apostle immediately teleport whenever it is hit

He has 30 armor sure, but when you're berserked with the Dragonslayer and likely have several levels of Brute, that 30 protection ain't making that much of a difference in surviving longer than Carmack and the Mastermind (in fact on average, they are surviving one to two more hits than the Apostle does against a berserked Dragonslayer even with no Brute). Additionally, have him immediately teleport away when hit, so that the player can't just get in once and mash click to win. This would make his health regeneration matter, and the enemies he revive will become a bigger problem with wearing you down as you chase him around the map. These changes could admittedly make him annoying and drawn out, but an annoying drawn out fight is much more climatic than the complete disappointment he is now.

*Fix hunting enemies ignoring items and armor

When an enemy has the hunting behavior enabled, they'll completely ignore any items and armor along the way, even if they're programmed to use items. This mainly affects the Bruiser Brothers and Cyberdemons, who are programmed to use items but will never use them because they are always hunting the player, but it can extend to Formers and Hell Nobles during the alarm level event and in arenas, where they can be given the hunting behavior. If Cyberdemons using items would be too strong, then that ability can be removed (conversely, medkits can have a 110 HP recovery cap, so that Cyberdemons with them won't be overtly obnoxious, but makes it so even a Marine with 5 levels of Ironman can still fully heal).

MISCELLANEOUS

*Modify danger level to increase more sharply after Phobos?

A common criticism of DRL is that the difficulty is largely front-loaded even when you're not playing challenges that exacerbate early game difficulty, where the vast majority of runs end in Phobos, and making it to Hell can often near-guarantee victory, with only the optional Mortuary/Limbo being any threat to kill you at that point. This is primarily caused by how powerful the player becomes in the lategame, and it would take a complete rebalancing of the game to fully address it, which isn't feasible, but you could maybe help the lategame keep up with the player if the danger level was substantially higher; indeed Hell levels can feel a bit empty even on harder difficulties. Conversely, you can argue the current difficulty balance is fine, as an easier lategame is countered by the fact you have much more to lose if you die at that point and so you have to be extra careful to not make mistakes; you die in Phobos, you just lose like 15-30 minutes, maybe an hour, but you die in Hell, that could be your entire evening going down the drain. I think the later game having harder Hell levels could be interesting, but I am also fine with the current level balance, and messing with the danger level climb could be too much of a balancing change. If this were to be done, you would also probably need to keep the danger level formula used in A100/666 as is, as a more sharply rising danger level could make lategame A100/666 have absurd enemy density.

*Do locked vaults actually exist, and if so, can they be made less absurdly rare?

According to the wiki (https://drl.chaosforge.org/wiki/Room_Generation), "locked vaults" are a thing, which you cannot open or blow up the walls of, without activating a corresponding lever. I cannot recall ever finding a locked vault once, do they actually exist but are absurdly rare, do they exist but are bugged from spawning, or did they exist in old versions and were removed? I do like the concept of them, so whatever the case, I would like if they could actually spawn at a reasonable rate.

*Make ammo rooms more randomized

Currently there is little-to-no randomization with the ammo you get from ammo rooms; all ammo that spawns in an ammo room is the same instead of being able to be a variety, and the ammo that does spawn is static based on the dlevel. Egregiously, once you reach dlevel 12, ammo rooms will only ever have plasma cells from that point forward, which constitutes half the standard game and near 90% of A100. Aside from making little sense why ammo rooms are this restricted in their randomization, it also makes these rooms less useful than they could be. It's particularly annoying to shotgun and pistol builds, whose primary ammo becomes more scarce later in the game, and so end up often becoming reliant on Formers to maintain their ammo as a result, sometimes even having to farm them near Archviles to not run out of ammo. Ammo rooms being able to have all types of ammo throughout the game will make them useful more often, and will help make the aforementioned shotgun and pistol builds less reliant on the ammo drops of Formers in the lategame.

*Add an ammo-restoring lever

Levers in their current setup are largely more likely to be dangerous. You're not gonna make players without Intuition gamble with them either way unless they're desperate for a heal, but I think adding one more useful effect would make them a bit useful more often for players with Intuition. An ammo-restoring one seems pretty obvious, have it give you ammo equivalent to a small ammo pickup for whatever weapon you're carrying, with a randomized 1-3 uses.

*Add trapped powerups and items

One suggestion I seen when browsing old feature requests that I liked was adding trapped powerups and items, which would summon enemies around the player or flood the room with acid/lava when picked up, or any other adverse effect. This is one trademark mechanic from Doom that currently is sorely missing from DRL, which should fit seamlessly into a roguelike. In order to do it, perhaps you can create designated "trap rooms" in the same vein as ammo rooms, where in the middle there will be a powerup, rarely an exotic, or very rarely a unique, and then there's a random chance it'll spring some trap upon picking it up (though not always, sometimes the "obvious trap" is just a fakeout). Exact percentages for these outcomes can be discussed farther.

*Have trees randomly spawn as part of normal level generation

It's weird that this unique object was added to the game, but is only ever used for the very first level and then never again. Doom uses the same tree object through its Hell levels, so there's already "canonical" precedent to have it at least spawn during the Hell levels if it would be considered too weird to have it in the tech base styled Phobos and Deimos levels. And/or add a new "outside" level type where this tree can spawn. Could be unique strategic applications (or hindrances) for what is effectively a wall that enemies will try to shoot you through, but is unexplored with the trees only being in the first level. Alternatively, add a new "skewered corpse" object that functionally does the same thing, but would be thematically appropriate with any level and adds some prevalent decoration from Doom that was missing before (would require a new sprite however, and I don't know if anything requiring new sprites for Graphics mode is off the table).

34

Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas

« on: August 16, 2023, 00:48 »

Here are my responses to some of the ideas here:

GENERAL FEATURES

"Allow saving on Nightmare difficulty (needs discussion)."

Absolutely, I said it in the Discord server and I'll say it again; trying to prevent some players from cheating shouldn't come at the expense of accessibility and convenience for everyone else. If I or anyone else wants to play Nightmare difficulty, we shouldn't have to commit to being able to set aside several consecutive hours to play it or leave the game running on our computer, where a myriad of obvious issues happen (hardware or software errors ruining your progress, being unable to play other games or do anything else intensive on your computer until you finish that Nightmare run, increased energy bills from leaving a game running on your computer over night, etc.). And this is before getting into the absurdity of playing Nightmare on A100 or even worse A666. Not to mention that anyone that really wants to cheat can circumvent this anyway, as TwoDev clearly demonstrated over a decade ago. Plus ultimately if some more players do start reporting getting Diamond and Angelic badges if this change was made because they're now able to savescum Nightmare difficulty, who really cares? Require stream proof if you really want to maintain the integrity of the Badge Hunters thread, as speedrunning boards already do for especially fast runs to be accepted.

TRAITS

"Nerf Scout class bonuses and buff other class bonuses (needs discussion)."

Blocking stair sense in special levels wouldn't do much since their location is static, maybe you could have certain level events block it, like armed nukes and floods. I do agree with giving the Marine something extra, 10 more base HP is a very minor bonus compared to what the Scouts and Technician get, I think inherent 10% resistance to everything sounds good and I had similar ideas to giving them inherently more defense. Technicians being able to mod more uniques also sounds good as that ability seems mostly negligible as is.

"Nerf Intuition by marking items as a green X instead of showing what they are, and change monster sense radius from 3 to 2."

I would miss being able to instantly discern powerups, but this is understandable to maintain parity with ASCII players (conversely, maybe give the powerups their own ASCII character for ASCII players to discern them?). Nerfing the monster sense radius to 2 is completely justified, even nerfing it to 1 would still make it very powerful (would still be able to know an enemy is about to pop into view without needing to radar shoot, and it doesn't affect knowing nearby enemies are around when your view is obstructed.

"Allow assemblies before Whizkid x2 to still get an extra mod pack after later getting Whizkid x2."

Strongly agree with this, always been a weird and unintuitive limitation, especially when equipment made after WK2 are indistinguishable ingame from equipment made before WK2. The argument against is the current setup gives players some opportunity cost consideration, with delaying certain assemblies until after WK2 for more power later, or making them and getting immediately utility from them now, but I don't think it's a worthwhile one; players will usually delay advanced assemblies until WK2 anyway when it requires just one more level to get, and basic assemblies are still usually made immediately because they're needed ASAP. As such, I don't think there is much intriguing opportunity cost consideration happening here, and so all it does is make advanced assemblies essentially require WK2 anyway, while players have the inconvenience of having to recreate basic assemblies after WK2 to mod them later.

"Buff Ironman to 25% HP."

I think Ironman would still be filler with this change, don't think you can really do much to make it a priority trait without making it ridiculous, as purely defensive traits are inherently disadvantaged. Not to mention that buffing it makes the trait even less incentivized for those running Berserker that want to maintain easy Berserker procs. I would leave Ironman as is; it can still be universally useful as it currently is, just increasing your offense and speed will nearly always be more valuable than only increasing your defense.

"Buff Reloader to 25% speed."

Agreed, players usually only begrudgingly pick Reloader when they're running a shotgun build to get to Shottyman or Ammochain users as part of its prerequisites. Even with this buff it'll probably remain that way, but maybe pistol and rapid-fire builds might pick it later in the game for assurance if they're running low on ammo boxes.

"Remove Gunrunner blocking Whizkid and change it to another trait such as Brute."

I've never used Gunrunner before, so I can't speak much on this, but I always did found the Whizkid restriction weird, and it's part of why I never used it, as it looks underwhelming. Is the Whizkid restriction because Kornel thought it would be broken with the Focused Double Shotgun and Tactical Rocket Launcher? Even then, I don't think that particular setup sounds excessively strong compared to other good mastery setups, and Gunrunner is already a late blossoming mastery when you essentially need Shottyman with it to make good use of it, which delays the mastery until level 9 at minimum if you make no detour for anything else.

"Remove Army of the Dead blocking Finesse and change it to another trait such as Son of a Gun."

Strongly agree, Army of the Dead's restrictions are too harsh for what is ultimately one of the weakest mastery effects in the game (so my Shotguns do only 2 or 4 more damage per hit before dropoff, but I'm slow as hell, I can't mod my stuff nor assemble more than basic assemblies, and I've got possibly the worst DPS of any build if I don't become a melee hybrid build?!). I think you can allow both Finesse and Hellrunner for MAD and it still would be a tier worse than the other shotgun masteries, but it desperately needs to be allowed at least one of them. Otherwise MAD itself needs to do a lot more than just give piercing shotguns.

WEAPONS AND ARMOR

"Disallow the Nano-Shrapnel assembly working with Super Shotgun."

"Nerf Biggest Fucking Gun (needs discussion)."

I strongly disagree with these; as I mentioned in the Discord, players will rarely ever actually obtain these and so their power is justified. In few standard games will you find both a Super Shotgun and Nano mod, and even in A100 you can't bet on ever finding both. Then the Biggest Fucking Gun is even less likely, very few standard games will ever find two Firestorm mods unless they run Scavenger (in over 100 games I've only once been able to make a Biggest Fucking Gun in a standard game), and it's not even likely you'll ever be able to make it in A100 when the BFGs are even rarer than half the uniques. You mentioned in the Discord how you're primarily an A100/A666 player and how that might affect your biases, and I think this is an example of such, overly focusing on the endgame potential of these weapons that are only realistically reliable to obtain deep into A666 runs.

With that said, I'm all for turning Nano Shrapnel into a master assembly that requires PPPN. Not much of a nerf, but an extra power mod isn't that light of a cost, and it makes it consistent with Nanomanufacture ammo being a master assembly. Also if WK2 is changed so you can mod any assembly regardless of when you made it, this change would be felt.

"Frag Shotgun consumes bullets, but because it takes 4 to fire, you only get 25 shots out of a full stack, of 66 shots out of an ammo box, as opposed to 50 shots out of a shell stack, and 100 from an ammo box like for other Shotguns. This somewhat defeats the purpose of Frag Shotgun since it's less ammo efficient, and I'd say let it fire while only consuming 2 bullets, and maybe adjust the clip size appropriately to 8 or 10."

The Frag Shotgun needs way more than this; 7d3 power is already very underwhelming for a shotgun you can't mod, but 1.5 second firing speed makes the weapon near-unusable. That sort of atrocious firing speed is appropriate for an extremely powerful weapon like the Railgun, not a shotgun only as strong as a vanilla Combat Shotgun. And this horrible weapon is also one of the rarest weapons in the game, not spawning until floor 15 and having a generation weight of 1? This weapon needs a complete rebalancing, or some new crazy gimmick to justify the terrible stats and rarity.

My suggestion is reduce the firing speed to the standard 1.0 seconds and buff the power to 10d3, while letting it start spawning a lot earlier and increase its generation weight to 3; this is about as good as it'll need to be for me to consider carrying it + bullets rather than just two more stacks of shells, though it is quite boring and still eventually gets outclassed by modded out shotguns. Conversely you keep the 1.5 second firing speed but give it absurd power like 15d3, which additionally really hammers in its ammo efficiency. Or you do the opposite and give it 0.5 second firing speed but with 6d3 power, which is probably more fitting for a weapon that uses bullets. Either of these two options would make it more distinct gameplay-wise than other shotguns to fit its unique designation and make it viable to use, while it won't get easily outclassed by modded shotguns.

"Mjollnir is pretty weak, is extremely rare, and most other melee weapons are way better, even a Chainsword. Having some range doesn't really make up for it all that much, so I'd suggest buffing the damage a fair bit, to something like 1d25 if we want to maintain its high damage variance."

I agree, though it should also be able to spawn starting on floor 1 like the Cleaver and have its generation weight increased to 3. Even with its power buffed, it's still clearly outclassed by the Chainsaw and its gimmick is primarily only going to be useful in the early game for melee builds and the Unholy Cathedral, so you gotta give it a chance to be obtainable when its niche is still useful.

"Subtle Knife doesn't count as "knife kills" for a few badges and medals. I think allowing it would be a very small and fair change, and also would slightly buff the weapon which is currently pretty bad."

Agreed, and like the Mjollnir, it needs a big power buff (why is it only as strong as a bulk-modded Combat Knife?) or needs to be given an attack speed buff to justify the weak power, needs to be able to spawn much earlier, and needs its generation weight increased. Also remove the max HP cost of Invoke, it still wouldn't be great but at least it might get usage occasionally, either way its effect is not remotely worth the max HP cost. Alternatively, make Invoke much stronger, like instantly killing all non-boss enemies in view.

"Nerf Inquisitor Set pieces movement speed from +25% to 0% (needs discussion)."

The point I said before rare broken weapons applies here; even with individually being among the more common uniques, you are almost never finding both in a standard game (especially when they don't start spawning until floor 15, and even if you do find both, you probably have very few floors left anyway), while you aren't too likely to find both in A100 either, at least not until it's very late. Maybe a slight nerf to the movement speed of the individual pieces could be ok (like -5% speed each), as individually Nyarlaptotep's Boots and Malek's Armor are still extremely powerful compared to other armors and boots (there is really no reason to not primarily wear those boots over anything else unless you make Antigrav boots, when they have the same speed as A-modded Tactical Boots and Phaseshift Boots while carrying much better protection), or reduce their item generation weight to 2 to make them less common. Inquisitor Set could also be indirectly nerfed by making acid generation a lot more common in A100 (something I'll cover in my own suggestions later).

"Medical Powerarmor is pretty much a worse Red Armor, and the self-healing isn't really all that great. I think making it have 6 protection could be a good buff for it, while keeping it still pretty plain."

Agreed, though I think it also at least needs the resistances of the Medical Armor (always been weird how the "upgraded" armor doesn't have any resistances), and I would say buff their healing ability too (let it heal up to 50%, might get some actual use at that point).

"More exotic armors. Some suggestions: "Acid-Proof Armor" which has 95% Acid Resistance, or "Glass Armor", which has 50% durability."

Agreed, and I mentioned in the Discord server how it's weird all of the non-shield exotic armors have physical resistances aside from the Energy-Shielded Vest. I think some of the current exotic armors can have their resistances modified to be more unique too, though I'll cover that later in my own suggested changes.

"Make Backpack indestructible."

Strongly agree, and the concern about being able to get it easily via nuking shouldn't matter, when you can still get the artifact from the Unholy Cathedral, Angelic Armor from The Mortuary/Limbo, or any other unique from other special levels after nuking. The Backpack being the sole exception doesn't make sense.

BADGES, MEDALS, AND MISCELLANEOUS

"Disallow many badges to be earned by abusing Dual-Angel challenges."

I strongly agree with disallowing badges through Dual-Angel challenges that don't explicitly require a specific combination. Seeing the majority of mortems getting many Diamond and Angelic badges by combining them with AoMC or AoOC really did make them feel cheaper, which is why I went for Quartermaster Diamond the "pure" way recently, when all but one of the mortems recorded with it in the Badge Hunters thread did it by combining AoRA with AoMC.

"Create more in-game rankings to require more of each badge type, instead of just 15."

Also agree; as is, getting every badge of each tier has no incentive, and even if you do want to let players avoid some annoying badges per their choice, avoiding 11 of them is a huge chunk to have to never get to increase in rank. Maybe increase it to at least 20 required before higher ranks stop considering badges of that tier?

"Having some hidden medals is a bit silly since everyone reads the wiki anyway, and the chances of players accidentally discovering them is close to 0% when some of them are extremely arbitrary. I'd say just make them visible like the other medals."

Agreed, never really understood why this was a thing in the first place.

"Iron Skull medal isn't hard to earn and it just requires a niche setup (usually involving Vampyre), and I think 10,000 is way too high. Under normal circumstances, players likely will never take more than around 1500 damage, and when grinding for 10,000, the point has been made by like 5,000 damage. I think lowering the value to 5,000 maintains the requirement without opening it up in non-Vampyre games, and also not dragging out the idea of it for excessively long."

Strongly agree, this medal is just tedium. I think completely redoing it would be better so it's a real challenge to get and not just a measure of how patient you are farming Pain Elementals with Vampyre. Maybe change it to like taking 2000 damage in a game and winning (or any other high but still realistically obtainable number), while disqualifying players with Vampyre from getting it? Either way, the 10,000 number is ludicrous.

"For Arena Diamond Badge, this mostly just requires gross amounts of luck to complete. I'd say either change it to Angelic tier, or bump the difficulty down to Ultra-Violence."

Agreed, it really says something that after a decade, this is the only Diamond badge with still no verified run of anyone obtaining it in 0.9.9.7, after Hell's Arena was hardlocked to spawning on floor 2, instead of being able to spawn on floor 3 as it could in prior versions. Having Hell's Arena only spawn on floor 3 instead would be an alternative and could make the badge doable again, while I know people argued before to make that change regardless because they felt Hell's Arena was too luck based to beat when you only have one real floor of preparation before entering it (though I also understand the devs' view on it that each special level should be a serious risk/reward consideration to enter, with Hell's Arena being arguably too easy for general play when it spawned on floor 3). Alternatively if it's possible, Hell's Arena can be kept on floor 2, but in challenges with especially hard early games (such as Angel of Berserk and arguably Angel of Marksmanship), Hell's Arena can be programmed to spawn on floor 3, which I think would be a nice compromise between the two viewpoints.

I also agree with the rest regarding badges/medals that are virtually impossible or essentially duplicates.

"Make Phobos Lab more rewarding to enter compared to Military Base (needs discussion)."

Obviously agree, but I got some numbers on this. Here is the amount of EXP you currently get from killing everything in each level on each difficulty, with the EXP multiplier factored (may be slightly off as I'm not sure how rounding is handled but is close enough regardless to get the point across):

ITYTD: Phobos Lab = 1688; Military Base = 2726
HNTR: Phobos Lab = 1588; Military Base = 3424
HMP: Phobos Lab = 2662; Military Base = 4557
UV: Phobos Lab = 3055; Military Base = 7302
N!: Phobos Lab = 4044; Military Base = 9698

This is an absurd EXP disparity, with Military Base having over twice as much EXP on the hardest difficulties. The big culprit for this is the pitiful amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give (why do they only give 95, even Nightmare Imps give more at 128), as well as the ridiculous EXP the Elite Formers give (even the Elite Former Human that's hardly more threatening than the normal Former Human gives 167 EXP, while they increase drastically from there, with the Elite Former Commando giving as much as the earlier bosses and Archviles). Right away, Nightmare Demons should give a lot more EXP, I say giving as much as an Arachnotron at 263 would be fair. If you did this, the amount of EXP you get from Phobos Lab on UV and N! would become:

UV: 3055 -> 5057
N!: 4044 -> 9084

Conversely, if you slightly bump down the amount of EXP given by the Elite Formers (Elite Former Humans down to 128, Elite Former Sergeants down to 263, Elite Former Captains down to 320, we can keep Elite Former Commandos the same), the EXP yield of Military Base would become:

HNTR: 3424 -> 3053
HMP: 4557 -> 3813
UV: 7302 -> 6084
N!: 9698 -> 9028

This change would make their EXP yield a lot closer, and even nearly identical on Nightmare (with Phobos Lab coming up slightly ahead). The exact EXP numbers for each enemy can be debated, but this idea should be agreeable. This addresses the massive EXP yield disparity between the two levels, but Phobos Lab would still be a lot harder with a lot less material reward than Military Base, so I would farther suggest adding two more random mods, with one each being located in the far left trap rooms that open up upon reaching the shore after hitting the left acid pool's lever. Aside from making this more similar to other special level pairs where one is harder but correspondingly more rewarding (such as Deimos Lab giving you two rare mods instead of one), this could offer a nice dichotomy, where Military Base gives you more resources (ammo and medkits), while Phobos Lab offers better equipment by having two extra mods. The placement of these two extra mods would also incentivize players to actually do all the hard parts of the level, instead of just homing phasing out to run off with the Combat Shotgun and the two mods near the exit.

For one more change, you could also make the Elite Formers stronger in melee, so that they aren't so easy to cheese by just gift dropping them to come into melee range, which in turn would make Military Base a bit less free (maybe they could all use a Combat Knife in melee if that's possible to program? It would fit them being elite fully-armed soldiers).

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

35

Post Mortem / [U|AoRA|100%|YAFW] Quartermaster Diamond with Blademaster and no AoMC

« on: August 01, 2023, 01:16 »

When looking at the people who got Quartermaster Diamond according to the Badge Hunters thread, I noticed all but one (papilio's run) that were listed got it by combining it with Angel of Max Carnage. This inspired me to do it the "pure" way. Also since I usually play really campy and will willingly hit wait -> run for minutes on end to get a single enemy to walk into my vision, I wanted to try this challenge that will force me to play aggressively.

So first thing was deciding the build. I know Gunrunner is popular for this badge and papilio used it for his pure AoRA Quartermaster Diamond, but I had some major problems with it. For Gunrunner to be effective required getting Shottyman, so the build wouldn't truly come online until level 9 at minimum, and that's if I don't make a detour for Intuition, otherwise it would take all the way until level 11 to get everything, by which point I would be through most of the game already (I certainly wouldn't be able to safely handle most of the special levels with the incomplete Gunrunner build to get there faster). Papilio's run apparently did it without Intuition until late into the game, I don't know how he did it but I found Intuition too important to hold off, not only for finding enemies quickly but to also ensure I don't walk into enemy fire; with no time to camp, I really needed to know where enemies were to avoid taking too much damage. I also considered Cateye, which I used to get Quartermaster Gold on HNTR long ago, but for finding enemies, Intuition was usually enough, and rapid fire weapons are crappy at taking out the groups of enemies you often fight on UV. Additionally with no AoMC, I would have to spend levels in Eagle Eye rather than being able to speed myself up. This decision got solidified when I went to finally get Skull Silver a couple weeks ago and was trying Cateye, only to get frustrated with it even on just HNTR, with runs failing without me even reaching City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains, leading me to instead try Blademaster, which worked wonderfully and got me the idea to try it here.

So for the build strategy. First two levels I go straight to Intuition 2, immediately knowing powerup locations and the effectively enhanced vision to find enemies was imperative. Additionally this will delay Blademaster to just level 9, which I can get around the middle of the game, maybe even slightly sooner, quite a bit more workable than Gunrunner. After that I take the first level of Hellrunner, when that's essential for AoRA for obvious reasons and Brute is a dead level this early. After that I go for the two levels of Brute and Berserker however; that second level of Hellrunner would be really nice, but I'm approaching the Chained Court at this point, so I need Brute to effectively use the Chainsaw and Berserker itself is crucial. After Berserker, I go for the second level of Hellrunner, then the third level of Brute, and finally get Blademaster at level 9. Finesse and Whizkid came after for the extra attacking speed and some helpful assemblies.

Another part of the strategy was abusing Berserker to keep myself frequently berserked to do everything much faster. With the base 50 HP, you can reliably berserk yourself by blowing up a rocket in your face, and with good fire resistant armor, you can be taking as low as 1 HP in exchange for 20 actions of berserk, letting you blitz through levels. Combined with Blademaster and the Scythe, I'm able to clear out lategame levels in little over a minute, even when they have vaults with lots of extra enemies. Of course getting to that point wasn't easy, most runs just die in Phobos that I didn't Q+Y on, and by having to spend levels on Brute instead of getting Finesse, SoB, the second level of Hellrunner sooner, or even Reloader, those later Phobos floors got tough when I was still primarily using a Shotgun. Many floors just weren't winnable, but I was happy to exchange a tougher Phobos for ensuring the second half of the game would be a cinch, I would rather keep losing 15-30 minutes of work in Phobos than to lose an hour or two in late Deimos or Hell. Making it past Phobos though didn't guarantee victory; I would still be a few levels away from Blademaster, and indeed I have had quite a few runs die in early Deimos, two making it as far as Deimos 4 and no Blademaster still by that point (the first of those runs I lost from me missing a 98% hit on a Baron in melee when we were both near death and I still had medkits left, the other died when a lone enemy got lost in a maze that I couldn't find in time, while that first run I still also had no Rocket Launcher, and the second wouldn't just give me any armor). Finally after over 30 attempts that I didn't Q+Y near the start on, it came together...

The first couple floors were uneventful, as was Hell's Arena, where I did my usual strat of clearing two waves and running out. I found I could semi-reliably clear two waves in Hell's Arena, nice to get some extra EXP (enough to get me an extra level early on) as well as a large medkit and maybe a small medkit (if the RNG spawns it in a place I could still pick it up). Usually fully clearing it wasn't viable, and the couple times I possibly could I still declined; getting the guaranteed Rocket Launcher would be really nice (which was crucial for my strategy and the RNG was unkind with spawning them randomly, with most of my runs that made it to Deimos never finding one), but I really wanted the easy Chained Court, as I obviously needed the Chainsaw and wanted those two mods, while UnChained Court didn't seem viable without a big medkit expenditure and maybe still not even then. Speaking of the Chained Court, that went easy as always, but I also got an agility mod, great for speeding my boots up, and a power mod, which I found to be really helpful on the Shotgun for more reliably one-shotting formers and Imps, while also often saving me a shot on bigger demons (and increasing the likelihood that they don't get to me). Normally I would save the power mod for a Tactical Shotgun, but with no Phobos Lab/Military Base, I might not find a Combat Shotgun for several more levels and so learned the immediate utility with the P-modded Shotgun is better (and indeed I wouldn't find a Combat Shotgun this run until very late into the game). Shortly later on floor 6, I would find a Technical mod, which I wanted most on my Chainsaw (I initially would Bulk mod it before, but later found the faster attacking speed is more useful, as it would increase the likelihood of killing things without getting hit and would help activate Berserker quicker, especially important against strong melee enemies like Barons). Floor 7 gave me an easy Pinky/Caco cave, and I always skip Phobos Lab and Military Base; fuck trying to deal with the Nightmare Demons on a time limit, and the latter has so many enemies while the Elite Formers are actually dangerous when you can't just camp them, on top of both also having a ton of required running around and it being very easy for enemies to get lost wandering around in them. Then came Phobos Anomaly; the strategy here was trigger the ambush, run back to the starting room, then berserk Chainsaw through everything and heal back up with one of health globes. Then with the Bruisers, after triggering them, I would retreat to the halfway doorway and wait for them, as there the second one wouldn't be able to attack me at an awkward angle, then berserk Chainsaw through them and retreat back to the second health globe to heal up, with more than enough time to do so.

Then came Deimos, most runs don't make it this far, and while I had no Rocket Launcher yet, I did have several medkits, phase devices, and my Red Armor fully intact, so it was looking promising. First Deimos floor was a maze, which could have been really bad... but a group of Pinkies spawned right next to the start, so I was able to quickly get berserked and run through much of the level, including taking out several potentially troublesome Barons with little time and health lost. After clearing out the floor, I saw I got Hell's Armory, which was great! I have cleared Deimos Lab in a prior run before, but only because I had a Homing Phase and I couldn't grab any of the mods, which would be the likely case in any attempt as enemies get lost too easily in it. While I spent a few medkits in the Armory, it had not only a Super Shotgun, but a Nano Mod, making it more than worth it. The first thought is making a Nano Super Shotgun or a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher or Antigrav Boots, but I decided to go with the unsung Power Red Armor. First, I didn't even have Blademaster yet and was still levels away from being able to get Whizkid, what good would saving up for one of those assemblies be if I end up dying before I could get them? Second, as a melee build that will be rocket jumping and blowing myself up for berserk while time is of the essence, an armor with great fire resistance, melee resistance, no movement penalty, and regenerating durability was really ideal, even with its knockback resistance nerfing rocket jumping. Then in the second floor of Deimos, I not only found a Rocket Launcher immediately, ensuring I wouldn't be deprived of this vital weapon, but I also found this...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A second nano mod, this early? This run went from very promising to being the run. The first thought was making a Nano Super Shotgun or Antigrav Boots, but I decided I would save up for the Nanomachic Rocket Launcher, as I believed an infinite Rocket Launcher would work best with my strat here. Of course it would take several more levels before I could make it still, so the game wasn't exactly won yet. Up then came Containment Area, my initial plan was to clear it out without triggering the ambush for the extra EXP, rocket box, and maybe something nice from the crates. However I did get Blademaster by this point and decided to go all the way with it, which went without a hitch. Then came City Of Skulls, which with Blademaster, was still very easy to clear on UV with multiple minutes to spare (I would have skipped Abyssal Plains though, as it would be too easy for enemies to get lost wandering around in circles). The luck with special levels didn't stop there, as I then got Halls Of Carnage; Spider's Lair would have concerned me as a melee build that would need to camp to not get shredded, but Halls of Carnage you need to beat fast anyway and so it was no different (just needed to make damn sure none of the Lost Souls escaped the central room before progressing). Later half Deimos was easy even with just a T-modded Chainsaw still for my melee weapon, one floor got a little iffy when it had a bunch of napalm barrels and a couple enemies got lost near the end. Probably could have still found them in time but there was an Invulnerability, so I just camped it until the end, grabbed it, and then used rocket jumping to also take it with me to the next floor.

The Cyberdemon went down easy, the first floor of Hell was easy, and then came the Cathedral, which was free as usual for a melee build, where I got the Scythe and the game was essentially won, compounded farther when I finally got that Nanomachic Rocket Launcher a couple floors later. At this point I was easily completing levels in under two minutes while taking minor damage, and even an Arachnotron cave was of little threat. I probably could have did the Mortuary but skipped it just to be safe (not that I needed the Nuclear BFG for a full win in AoRA anyway). In fact the only thing that threatened the run at this point was some hardware failure, which did nearly happened when my shitty keyboard started fucking up on the sixth floor of Hell. After many unplugs, replugs, and about an hour of troubleshooting while the game was still running, I finally got my keyboard and mice working properly again (which is the reason why the gameplay time stretched over three hours when it should have been around two). With that issue out of the way, I clear out floor 6 of Hell, clear The Lava Pits easily when Blademaster again let me kill all the Lost Souls in little time (and berserk Scythe gibbing Pain Elementals so they couldn't spawn Lost Souls was also nice for preserving my radsuits). The lategame also started drowning me in very good armor, with me finding a Plasma Shield on floor 5 of Hell, The Lava Pits had an Energy Shield and Lava Armor, and floor 7 had a Duelist Armor, but the Power Red Armor was all I needed and I never made use of them.

With an uneventful penultimate floor, I wait out the nuke's timer against the Mastermind before popping the Lava Element at the last second, then rocket myself ten times to build up berserk before entering Hell's Fortress. There I rocket jumped across to maintain my berserk and killed Carmack in a few clicks, finally netting me Quartermaster Diamond (my fifth diamond badge). Overall this is the most I grinded for a badge yet, but it was quite fun to be forced to play so aggressively. I don't think you need anywhere near as much luck as this run got to make the Blademaster strat work, just having some Red Armors and securing the Rocket Launcher in early Deimos should have been enough (which I cannot stress enough how much the RNG was hating me before this run by denying me Rocket Launchers), but I'm certainly not going to complain about the RNG giving me a break with the amazing item luck I got here.

With that all said, here's the mortem:

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

 NOTIME33, level 15 Arch-Vile Lt. General Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 66091 turns and scored 440520 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 11 minutes and 24 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1158 out of 1158 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Red Alert!

 He saved himself 3 times.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 8
  Levels completed : 7

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

  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Quartermaster Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 31/50   Experience 107250/15
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    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->Jug->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   powered red armor [5/5] (86%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shotgun (9d3) [1/1] (P1)

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

    [a] combat shotgun (7d3) [4/5] (T1)
    [b] nanomachic rocket launcher (6d6) (T1)
    [c] super shotgun (10d4)x2 [2/2] (P2T2)
    [d] BFG 9000 (10d6) [130/130] (B1)
    [e] duelist armor [2/2] (100%)
    [f] plasma shield [0/0] (100%)
    [g] energy shield [0/0] (100%)
    [h] Lava Armor [4/4] (100%)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] shotgun shell (x70)
    [k] shotgun shell (x4)
    [l] shotgun shell (x70)
    [m] power cell (x70)
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] phase device
    [s] homing phase device
    [t] hatred skull
    [u] gothic boots [10/10] (200%)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 85%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    120 former humans
    104 former sergeants
    52 former captains
    127 imps
    81 demons
    384 lost souls
    51 cacodemons
    21 hell knights
    59 barons of hell
    22 arachnotrons
    17 former commandos
    41 pain elementals
    14 revenants
    27 mancubi
    23 arch-viles
    6 nightmare imps
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

-- 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.
  Level 9 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 9 he found the Trigun!
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a power armor!
  He decided to nuke Hell's production center.
  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.
  Level 14 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  Level 15 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he assembled a nanomanufacture ammo!
  On level 19 he found the Mjollnir!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 22 he found the Lava Armor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  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 : floor
 You need to taste blood!
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You prepare the Azrael's Scythe instantly!
 You hit John Carmack. Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn! 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. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. Next! You're going berserk!

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

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

 59 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 29 killed the bitch and survived.
 24 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


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

36

Post Mortem / [U|AoCn|100%|YAWF] Daredevil Platinum with Malicious Blades

« on: July 20, 2023, 07:16 »

For my 15th platinum badge, I went for Daredevil Platinum. Took a few deaths and a few other runs I Q +Y'd on before I got a starting level that was both doable and gave me enough resources to take on Deimos Lab/Hell's Armory. That second part is important; one run started me with a Lost Soul cave (I didn't even know you could still get those in Deimos on UV), which while very easy to beat with minimal damage, left me gaining only one level and with little ammo nor any armor, leading to me running out of shells in Hell's Armory before half the enemies were even dead, causing a swift demise once I had to try using the Chaingun with no SoB nor EE. When I finally got an ideal starting level that left me in good enough shape for Deimos Lab, it also had an Assault Shotgun and Laser Rifle. With getting such good weapons this early, I didn't dare try releasing the Shamblers (that I had little hope of taking on with not even having Berserker, due to going for a Malicious Blades build). This first run to get past Lab/Armory would prove successful, with the Assault Shotgun and Laser Rifle really helping with keeping me alive until I got MMB, and I would still make heavy use of them even after getting Azrael's Scythe. Unfortunately I didn't find many mods and so couldn't really mod them all out, making going for WK2 a mistake (at least I did get modded Tactical Boots out of it, so it wasn't entirely wasted).

For other notes, I was happy I got City of Skulls, not sure I could have handled the starting Hell Knight ambush in Abyssal Plains with the equipment I had and no Berserker to fall back on. The fight with the Agony Elemental got a bit out of hand, but with some strategic retreats I was able to handle only burning a single Medkit, and got a very nice two Hatred Skulls out of it (letting me beat Unholy Cathedral without a Piercing Knife and being some very good help in Mortuary). Really wanted Halls Of Carnage for the two mods there, but Spider's Lair wasn't bad. Was a bit unsure of tackling Mortuary with a generalist MMB build that lacked especially strong guns, but it went surprisingly well, coming out nearly net equal in Medkits and without burning too much ammo. It certainly helped that 4 Arch-Viles spawned near the start, so I was able to take out over half the Arch-Viles quickly after immediately using my second Hatred Skull. Then Lava Pits spawning instead of Mt. Erebus when I had no radsuits was bad, but thanks to MMB's fire resistance extending to your feet, running with just Protective Boots I found the floor before was enough to reduce lava damage to 1, making it easily doable after using a Phase Device to teleport to one of the islands. After going through an Arachnotron cave, a maze, and a lava flood for the final few floors before the end, Carmack went down without a real fight, netting me Daredevil Platinum.

Overall, Malicious Blades certainly didn't seem optimal for this badge and I may have survived one of the other attempts with a different build, but it worked out at the end and it was pretty fun.

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

 DOUBLADE5, level 14 Arch-Vile Lt. General Technician,
 defeated the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1065826 turns and scored 316399 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 20 minutes and 45 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1404 out of 1404 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Confidence!

 He saved himself 2 times.

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

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

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

  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (silver cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Daredevil Platinum Badge

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

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

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

  Health 44/50   Experience 96190/14
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +1  ToDmg Melee +10

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

  Class : Technician

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

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

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (195%) (ABP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   combat knife (2d5)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [4/5] (T1)
    [b] assault shotgun (8d3) [6/6] (P1)
    [c] laser rifle (1d8)x5 [40/40] (P1T1)
    [d] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [e] blue armor [1/2] (46%)
    [f] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [g] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [h] shotgun shell (x70)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] shotgun shell (x70)
    [k] rocket (x14)
    [l] rocket (x14)
    [m] power cell (x70)
    [n] power cell (x70)
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] large med-pack
    [s] homing phase device
    [t] phaseshift boots [4/4] (94%)

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

    Bullet     - internal 0%    torso 50%   feet 50% 
    Melee      - internal 0%    torso 75%   feet 75% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 0%    torso 50%   feet 50% 
    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 75%   feet 50% 

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

    35 former humans
    56 former sergeants
    65 former captains
    71 imps
    74 demons
    754 lost souls
    59 cacodemons
    23 hell knights
    56 barons of hell
    54 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    54 pain elementals
    26 revenants
    27 mancubi
    25 arch-viles
    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.
  He fought hard, but decided the reward was not worth it.
  On level 3 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 4 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 6 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 8 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 9 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 9 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 10 he found the Anti-Freak Jackal!
  On level 12 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 12 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 12 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 14 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  On level 15 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 15 he found the Mega Buster!
  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 --------------------------------------------------

 launcher.
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You dodge! Boom!
 You dodge! The missile hits the cacodemon. You dodge! Boom! You dodge! The
 missile hits the cacodemon.
 Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn!
 You wear/wield : a Azrael's Scythe (9d9) You dodge! The missile hits the
 cacodemon. You dodge! The missile hits the baron of hell. You dodge! The
 missile hits the cacodemon.
 You hit John Carmack. You dodge! The missile hits the cacodemon. The
 cacodemon dies. The cacodemon dies. You dodge! The missile hits the baron of
 hell. You dodge! The missile hits the baron of hell. You are hit!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

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

 58 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 29 killed the bitch and survived.
 23 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


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

37

Post Mortem / [U|AoB|100%|YAFW] Knocking out Scavenger Diamond + two Platinums in one run

« on: July 18, 2023, 08:09 »

I was just going for only Berserker Platinum at first in this run and wasn't intending to kill everything. The first few attempts that made it past Phobos Base Entry without me hitting Q there didn't make it far once the Hell Knights came, however this attempt got me some very good luck with timely Berserk Packs and Supercharges being available during that awful dlevel 3-5 range. This early powerup luck allowed me to kill all those Hell Knights and Cacodemons on the way to The Chained Court, where maintaining a 100% kill rate is at its most difficult on AoB. I also found a Ballistic Armor on dlevel 5, helping me even farther with killing everything without burning too many resources before I got Vampyre, and made Phobos Lab a lot less painful, as well as ensuring I got very good Cerberus Armor later. With this early luck, I maintained a 100% kill rate throughout the game, netting me Azrael's Scythe, which allowed me to exploit its altfire in The Vaults to get Scavenger Diamond. I forgot Gargulec Cross was a medal you got for finishing with a 100% killrate in AoB on UV and I was one medal short of Heroic Platinum, so seeing them in the mortem at the end was a nice surprise, making me more thankful for that early luck and saving me from having to do another AoB UV run later on for the Gargulec Cross.

Deimos wasn't so nice with the luck though. Deimos Lab had a... Firestorm and Sniper mod, completely useless while I was really hoping to make Antigrav Boots and get infinite durability on my Cerberus Ballistic Armor. Then after I lost my Red Armor early in Deimos and before I could make Cerberus Armor, one level started me in a big open room full of Mancubi with nowhere to run. After one big blast from them, I was left at 16% health, but luckily I had a Homing Phase and nothing was waiting for me at the stairs, so I was able to recover and then clear out the level. I also accidentally built my second pair of Tactical Boots at WK1, so I wasted my chance at getting +25% speed Tactical Boots.

In Hell things went easier. I managed to find an Energy Shield, and combined with some nearby Invulnerability, really helped with clearing Limbo, which I found to be a lot harder than Mortuary when you're stuck to purely melee. Limbo still got dicey though; after clearing the middle and right islands, my Energy Shield was nearly destroyed, and trying to progress through the left islands wasn't working. I kept getting hit into lava, getting harassed by Nightmare Cacos out of reach in lava, and getting perpetually blown away by Mancubi and Revenants. I ended up fleeing to one of the corners on the right islands and huddling there waiting for all the enemies to come to me, killing them each one at a time until I finally finished them all. The rest of the run was smooth sailing after that.

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

 IMAMANANDAHALF4,
 level 15 Arch-Vile Lt. General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 2251172 turns and scored 394538 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1215 out of 1215 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Berserk!

 He saved himself 3 times.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 9
  Levels completed : 9

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

  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Gargulec Cross
  Heroic Platinum Badge
  Berserker Platinum Badge
  Scavenger Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 100/50   Experience 117276/15
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +10  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +15

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

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 1)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 1)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

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

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   cerberus ballistic vest [0/0] (105%) (B)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   ripper (6d6) (T)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   combat knife (2d5)

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

    [a] blue armor [4/4] (75%) (ABP)
    [b] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [c] red armor [6/6] (100%) (AP)
    [d] red armor [6/6] (158%) (BPT)
    [e] red armor [4/4] (86%)
    [f] phaseshift armor [4/4] (72%) (AP)
    [g] energy shield [0/0] (15%)
    [h] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [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] large med-pack
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] large med-pack
    [s] phase device
    [t] lava element
    [u] acid-proof boots [0/0] (100%)

-- 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 95%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 95%   feet 60% 

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

    96 former humans
    72 former sergeants
    61 former captains
    167 imps
    62 demons
    336 lost souls
    58 cacodemons
    40 hell knights
    34 barons of hell
    68 arachnotrons
    14 former commandos
    29 pain elementals
    58 revenants
    31 mancubi
    35 arch-viles
    16 nightmare imps
    11 nightmare cacodemons
    17 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  He sounded the alarm on level 9!
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
  He slaughtered the beasts living there.
  On level 13 he assembled a ripper!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 15 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  He sounded the alarm on level 17!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Acid Spitter!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
  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 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  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 need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. You need to taste blood!
 John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher. You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. You need to taste blood!
 Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the lost soul. The lost soul dies. You're going berserk! You need to
 taste blood!
 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 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. You're going berserk!

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

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

 57 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 28 killed the bitch and survived.
 23 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


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

38

Post Mortem / [U|100%|YAFW] Rocket jumping for Gatekeeper Diamond

« on: July 18, 2023, 07:31 »

I was playing a Fireangel build for fun, but realized that I could take advantage of the free rocket jumps to get past Phobos Anomaly damageless without having to get lucky with a Phase Device, and then Cybie is completely free with the requisite Dodgemaster (alongside Fireangel ensuring any splash if I get cornered near walls won't hurt me either). The first run I got past Anomaly without damage, but then got killed by the Shamblers in Deimos Lab (trying to fight them without having a Focused Double Shotgun nor Tactical Rocket Launcher turned out to be a very bad idea). The second run I got past Anomaly damageless again, and then got to Cybie this time, where he was effortlessly beaten without damage, netting Gatekeeper Diamond. I then completed the rest of the run for a full win.

Of particularly notable events, I found an Assault Shotgun on dlevel 5, which was amazing, never found one that early before. The luck got cruelly balanced out however by not finding a single Double Shotgun until Hell, so no Focused Double Shotgun for most of the run. Then I also ran into a big ammo crunch at the end, having to resort to killing individual Lost Souls with the Nuclear BFG in The Lava Pits to desperately conserve my shells. But I managed to get through with enough ammo at the end to finish off Carmack.

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

 Boomer, level 16 Arch-Vile Mjr General Technician,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 981294 turns and scored 409220 points.
 He played for 5 hours, 59 minutes and 18 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1458 out of 1458 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

 He saved himself 3 times.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 10
  Levels completed : 10

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Arena Key
  Gatekeeper Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 70/70   Experience 123704/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Technician

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

  HR->Rel->Rel->SM->HR->DM->MFa->WK->WK->Fin->Jug->Fin->HR->Fin->Iro->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (77%) (AP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   BFG 9000 (10d6) [79/169] (B2F1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x78)

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

    [a] focused double shotgun (9d4)x2 [0/2] (P1)
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [3/5] (T1)
    [c] assault shotgun (10d3) [5/6] (P3T2)
    [d] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [e] red armor [4/4] (72%)
    [f] red armor [2/4] (45%) (A)
    [g] Cybernetic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [h] Necroarmor [6/6] (100%)
    [i] Angelic Armor [7/7] (95%)
    [j] shotgun shell (x12)
    [k] rocket (x5)
    [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] acid-proof boots [0/0] (100%)

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

    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 0%   

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

    127 former humans
    90 former sergeants
    78 former captains
    147 imps
    89 demons
    458 lost souls
    59 cacodemons
    75 hell knights
    53 barons of hell
    38 arachnotrons
    34 former commandos
    36 pain elementals
    58 revenants
    33 mancubi
    54 arch-viles
    8 nightmare imps
    12 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    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 boots!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  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 ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a focused double shotgun!
  On level 18 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  On level 19 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  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 was targeted for extermination!
  On level 23 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  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 use a large med-pack. You feel fully healed.
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun.
 John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher.
 You don't have a plasma rifle!
 You prepare the tactical rocket launcher instantly!
 You prepare the BFG 9000 instantly!
 You prepare the focused double shotgun instantly!
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun.
 You dodge!
 Carmack raises his hands and summons hellspawn!
 The revenant dies. The revenant dies. The revenant dies. The revenant dies.
 The revenant dies. The revenant dies.
 You prepare the BFG 9000 instantly!
 The missile hits John Carmack. The revenant dies. John Carmack dies.
 Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

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

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

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


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

39

Post Mortem / [U|100%|YAAM] Mundane run inadvertently gets me Technician Diamond

« on: July 18, 2023, 07:00 »

Nothing special about this run, was just a run for fun when the schematics for Nanofiber Skin Armor dropped on Hell's Armory. This would normally annoy me, but that was the last assembly I never made nor found the schematics for prior, so this run netted me Technician Platinum and Technician Diamond. I know Technician Diamond is probably the least impressive Diamond badge, but thought to post this in case the Badge Hunters thread ever gets updated. I did get exceptional luck with finding both Duelist Armor and Phaseshift Boots, especially nice when doing a MAD build so I wasn't painfully slow during it. Also despite the schematics drop, I found two random Onyx mods later. Unfortunately they came after I already modded the Duelist Armor and MAD means no Whizkid, so I ended up slapping one on a Red Armor, and then the other on Gothic Boots late in the run for the hell of it because I found nothing else worthwhile to use it on. Ended up missing out on a full win when the Nuclear BFG got blown up in Limbo and I couldn't find another nuke before reaching Dis, oh well.

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

 Monsieur Crow,
 level 16 Arch-Vile Br. General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 821336 turns and scored 393705 points.
 He played for 5 hours, 42 minutes and 55 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 1429 out of 1429 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

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

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

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Conqueror Badge
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Technician Platinum Badge
  Technician Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 54/60   Experience 127762/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +10  ToDmg Ranged +2  ToDmg Melee +17

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

  Class : Marine

    Tough as nails   (Level 3)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Badass           (Level 1)
    Shottyman        (Level 1)
    Army of the Dead (Level 1)

  Rel->Rel->SM->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->MAD->TaN->Bru->TaN->Bru->TaN->SoB->SoB->Bru->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   duelist armor [4/4] (69%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (84%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x91)

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

    [a] elephant gun (12d3) [1/1]
    [b] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
    [c] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (T1)
    [d] BFG 9000 (10d6) [130/130] (B1)
    [e] Railgun (8d8) [40/40]
    [f] red armor [4] (O)
    [g] shotgun shell (x70)
    [h] shotgun shell (x70)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] rocket (x14)
    [k] rocket (x14)
    [l] rocket (x14)
    [m] power cell (x70)
    [n] power cell (x70)
    [o] power cell (x70)
    [p] power cell (x70)
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] large med-pack
    [s] large med-pack
    [t] gothic boots [10] (O)
    [u] shell box (x100)

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

    109 former humans
    96 former sergeants
    51 former captains
    173 imps
    72 demons
    541 lost souls
    61 cacodemons
    27 hell knights
    77 barons of hell
    17 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    41 pain elementals
    35 revenants
    28 mancubi
    43 arch-viles
    2 nightmare imps
    4 nightmare cacodemons
    5 nightmare demons
    7 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    5 elite former captains
    2 elite former commandos
    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.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
  He purified his fellow comrades.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 8 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he found the Railgun!
  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 13 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  On level 13 he assembled a tactical boots!
  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 assembled a elephant gun!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 18 he found the Mega Buster!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Charch's Null Pointer!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 21 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 22 he ran for his life from lava!
  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!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 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 feel vulnerable again.
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You miss the Spider Mastermind. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 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 dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

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

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

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


40

Discussion / Re: Quick questions thread!

« on: February 03, 2018, 06:59 »

Wiki says "original shotgun blast" so I confused it with the damage type

By that it means it keeps the type of shotgun blast the shotgun previously had, e.g. a Double Shotgun will still have a wide blast, a Combat Shotgun will have a focused blast, a Plasma Shotgun will have a plasma blast (which despite the name, does not necessarily equate to plasma-type damage), etc.

41

Discussion / Re: Sniper mod pack on shotgun

« on: January 23, 2018, 00:31 »

Missile Launchers are a rare drop; it's unlikely that you'll find one in Ao100.

Unless you're me, in which case you'll find three of them outside the special levels in a normal game, while you don't want to use it :|

Anyway, anyone have the answers to these prior questions of mine?

Can someone give me a thorough breakdown on how damage from Rocket Launchers work? I've read that their actual damage output is lower than what their programmed damage values would normally entail, and my experience in the game seems to support that statement, however I can't find an explanation on how it works and how one can more accurately calculate their damage output. Reading the explosions page on the wiki hasn't helped me with this; I thought maybe damage is calculated after knockback is incurred (and thus they take less damage from being farther away from the explosion center), but according to the explosions page there's a pretty generous range of 3 steps from center until damage dropoff begins, so I don't know if that's the actual explanation on why RLs do less damage (and I also don't particularly recall monsters against walls dying faster to them).

Another thing confusing me on RL damage output is that on the wiki's Rocket launcher and Missile launcher pages, their average damage is listed as 21, while the Tactical rocket launcher page states its average damage is 15, even though it still has 6d6 damage. Is it something with its smaller explosion radius causing less damage? Is it simply a math error made by an editor that was never fixed? Or is that the actual average from 6d6 rocket damage, and the math used to find it was never applied to all the Rocket Launcher pages?

Another question I can't seem to find the answer to on the wiki; when resistances factor in, how is the reduced damage result rounded?

42

Discussion / Re: Progressing on UV Arch Ao Lt. How do I improve?

« on: January 21, 2018, 08:40 »

Schematic drops are annoying after the first few times when you have access to the wiki, but I do appreciate that they count as "finding" assemblies towards the Technician badges (thus saving me the trouble of having to make some of the useless or heavily luck-based assemblies), and I'm in agreement that a game shouldn't essentially require players to look up external information to figure out things that are essential to the game. Schematics also aren't even the worst drop you can get in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab; firestorm mods are counterproductive, if not useless, most of the time, and Cybernetic Armor is just a "fuck you" unless you're playing a Technician and are lucky enough to get a nano and/or an onyx mod, and unlike Schematics, you can't ever stop them from spawning.

43

Discussion / Re: Progressing on UV Arch Ao Lt. How do I improve?

« on: January 20, 2018, 12:20 »

Barons destroying the berserk packs are the biggest issue for me, which is why I aim to pursue and kill them outside the center building, instead of trying to camp there for them. I avoid the Arena Master blowing them up by using the strategy I mentioned to deal with him.

To pick up the Chainsaw with a full inventory, if your hands are empty, you can hit the use button over it and that will pick it up. You can also do that to pick up any weapon, armor, and boots from the ground and equip them instantly without them going into your inventory, as long as the corresponding equip slot for them is empty.

By camping in the central area waiting for the Arena Master as I described, you'll be able to avoid Formers getting in there when you need to get to a Berserk, while also limiting the amount of distance you need to go to run away from him (which reduces damage and decreases the chance of him blowing up the Berserk as you get to it).

44

Discussion / Re: Progressing on UV Arch Ao Lt. How do I improve?

« on: January 20, 2018, 06:31 »

Once you make an assembly or get the schematics for it, the schematics for it can never spawn again (and thus once you find all assemblies, you'll never get schematics again). Doing an Ao100 game is a good way to build all the assemblies (the only two assemblies you won't be able to make together in the same run are Nanofiber Skin Armor and Cybernano Armor), and you could do it as a Scavenger to help you get as many mods as quickly as possible. And you can kill yourself once you make enough assemblies if you don't want to do a whole Ao100 run. Or you could spam HNTR games up to the Armory/Deimos Lab as a Scavenger, and get yourself killed once you got some assemblies made. Just creating all the basic assemblies would significantly reduce the chance of schematics spawning, and master assemblies are very rare drops as schematics unless you're playing on Nightmare. Finding all the assemblies will also get you the Technician Diamond badge.

As for the Unchained Court, what part are you having difficulty with? I find it really hard on UV for most builds, though melee builds should have it easiest; grab a berserk, take out the Barons ASAP, destroy their corpses if they weren't killed on the right side, and then camp out in the door on the left side, while shooting at the Formers that come into view. Once the Arena Master comes into view, shoot at him to get his attention if he hasn't already initiated an attack, and then activate run and get a Berserk (while first closing the door if he hasn't already initiated an attack). Then when berserked, just run up to him and click until he dies, then just camp out in the middle and take out the rest of the formers, while gift dropping if you want to attract their attention faster.

45

Post Mortem / Re: [U|AoP|93%|YAVP] Inquisitor Platinum

« on: January 19, 2018, 20:03 »

Oh that's why I didn't get the Backpack, I thought I picked it up, and when I noticed I didn't have it afterward, I assumed I didn't and it got blown up. Well good to keep that in mind if I ever try for Inquisitor Diamond.

In any case, this is a really unpopular challenge, for myself included, because there's so much you can't use!  I mean not that I depend on Invulnerabilities or Berserk packs, but they sure are nice when you have access to them.  So, good for you for completing this.  It takes a certain kind of dedication!  :)

Yeah it wasn't really any fun and I don't see myself playing it again just for the sake of it, Invulnerabilities and Berserks are just too fun to miss out on.