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Requests For Features / A big list of suggestions and questions about JH tactics (and LOS questions!)

« on: December 30, 2020, 00:27 »

Hi Guys!!!
I've been *loving* getting my mittens on Jupiter Hell! I think you guys have done *such* a fab job with the the engine, how responsive it feels, how atmospheric it can be, and how open to potential it is! I just wanted to put together few thoughts I've been having about the combat tactics of the game as it is right now. I have a few questions about the LOS design decisions, and a bunch of ideas that I feel might not be too hard to implement, that could offer a great deal more strategic depth to the game.
I'm not covering nebulous concepts like 'make more diverse weaponry aka where's the BFG?!' or 'make more individual challenges/areas', because I appreciate that they are in the development pipeline, and how they're implemented is something I'm more excited to see the dev's solution to, after the way new content was handled in DRL!
That is to say, I'm certainly not as imaginative as Kornel and the dev team when it comes to world-building and novel content!

What I feel I *can* offer feedback on, though, is the minutiae that can create depth on the tactical level. Ideas that, I feel, will help the procedurally-generated content have emergent depth. As a dedicated DRL player, and someone who has handled micro-changes to balance games in the past, I feel like there's some potential for amazing improvements in the current content, and hope some of these ideas inspire changes that can really help improve the replayability of the game!

Since this is a long post, I've separated it into 2 sections - LOS-related ideas, and other suggestions. I've also broken each section up into suggestions. I figured this would be a lot less spammy than opening tons of different topics! I've noticed throughout the development of Jupiter Hell that Kornel has been open to suggestions from the playerbase (even going so far as describing is as 'a promise' from the devs to the community.) I hope you can understand that I'm throwing out ideas in the spirit of this open invitation; it's not something I'd ever be so cheeky as to do without there being such a strong invitation of player feedback! I just hope you can take these ideas in the spirit they are intended, rather than seeing them as a laundry list of features I'd selfishly want as though the game were my design baby!!! I'm not seeking specific implementation here, I'm just trying to inspire!

First, a comment about LOS:
One of the things that proved a real stumbling block for me when I was getting into Jupiter Hell was the way some weapons are completely blocked from attacking targets outside of your view. I originally typed quite a bit on this subject, but I'm going to put it behind tags at the bottom of this post, because it's not my motivation behind posting here. In short, I think hitting targets outside of LOS should at least be possible to avoid puzzled newcomers repetitively firing into the black expecting results. Making it for the most part impractical can be achieved by adding, like, an 80% miss chance for non-AOE weapons. I suggest this so that the strategies that are opened by making fog-firing impractical can still be enjoyed, while not confusing players with a weird unstoppable 'wall' at the edge of LOS!
The rest of this section is suggestions that would offer ways around this 'block' at the edge of LOS, and I think if ideas in these directions were implemented, it could make for some really interesting strategy playing around the limited firing range!


Suggestions to improve LOS-related strategy:
Regarding LOS, I think that (provided monster AI were fixed to retaliate to being attacked outside their vision) there are a lot of opportunities here to really make things interesting.

1. Hacking security cameras.
  I loved how the current hacking explores all kinds of different avenues as options for getting control over combat-ready units (droids and turrets). How about controlling some non-combat units though? Namely, cameras! I think it would be awesome if a player could hack the cameras on a level, giving a few areas of LOS outside of their own! Even if it was just 3-4 'circles' of LOS on a map it would really open up strategic options. I think this would be an awesome 'cheaper' option for thrifty hackers that just wanted that extra boost without spending all their multitools. Plus it has a really cool 'assassin/specialist operative' feel to it!

2. Drones with cameras.
'singalen' made a post suggesting that player-hacked drones share their LOS, and I think that's a really interesting idea! After a little thought it made sense to me that only units that had cameras onboard would be able to do this. I'm unsure whether all drones would have cameras - the bigger droids seem more like battle robots than reconnaissance tools. I'm sure, though, that the lighter drones would be likely to have cameras, and even the option of getting a weaponless 'recon drone' as a low-level helper could be awesome in this regard! Props to singalen for the suggestion!

3. Scopes.
  Scopes could be weapon perks, perhaps able to be added with accuracy mod packs, and attached by default on hunting and sniper rifles (like the wind-up perk is standard on chaingun class weapons). A scope could be an active skill, which takes a turn to 'deploy', and modifies the players LOS from the usual range:6 circle, to a range:9 cone (9 is just an example, a cone like the current shotgun blast area), for a turn. I feel this would be a great way that a player could use their intel and ranged weaponry without simply having an overpowered ranged attack. The fact that it would tank our DPS and restrict our peripheral vision could be balancing and immersive factors.

4. Flares.
  Flares that light up an area, extending our LOS a few tiles in their direction (by that I mean, stretching our LOS circle in the direction of the flare, rather than creating a new LOS circle around the flare - From my understanding of the way light levels function in JH this might not be simple, but if implemented another way it would strictly have to give a DISadvantage to the actor nearest the flare! Maybe something as simple as reducing the LOS of any actor within X tiles of the flare, and increasing the LOS of actors outside that area?) These would probably have to be more stackable than grenades, and found in packs of more than 1, to actually be viable finds, but they'd be a great opportunity for more strategic depth, imo.

5. Height.
   I know that height is currently uniform on single floors, and having a full 3d system with LOS restrictions and such would be a *huge* undertaking well beyond the scope of a feature suggestion like this, but perhaps a really simple form could be implemented? Something like a type of floor tile that looks like a 'platform', somewhat raised from surroundings, that extends LOS by 1 when a player is standing on it? The same platforms could reduce LOS by 1 tile if a player is not standing on them (so the LOS equation that determines whether a player can see a tile is given -1 if the tile is raised). This doesn't sound like it would to too massive to implement, and could open up the currently very 'fixed' feeling of LOS, while also opening further positional tactics to enrich the game's combat.
(On this subject, this might be reaching a little, but perhaps having a trait that allows players to climb on top of certain walls -  treasure chests, those destructible piles of boxes, explosive barrels etc?)
Whatever, climbing traits or not, I think just having a floor type that is slightly elevated that affects LOS could be really interesting.

6. Audio 'tells'.
  I appreciate that this is already somewhat implemented. Unfortunately, the strategy that is offered by reacting to sounds is somewhat hampered by the aforementioned inability to hit anything outside LOS. Still, even if it *were* possible, I feel that the sounds in JH are much less recognisable than they were in DRL. I think the monster audio was implemented in DRL *so* well that it's a real shame to lose it here - one of the most impressive measures of this feature, for me, is the fact that in really late stages of challenge for DRL, monsters can start to show up that don't make any sounds, and it gives them this feel like they're 'specialist' adversaries, really out to get the player. It actually took me a while to figure out what it was about nightmare imps that spooked me out so much, and when the penny dropped - their silence - it actually made me realise just how well DRL had done in immersing me through audio! For JH, I'd suggest that monster sounds be made more distinctive, I'm aware that distinctive sounds are there, but I wasn't for a long time; perhaps they're currently too quiet, or too rarely transmitted? Maybe this lack of hearing them is a product of not waiting on the spot for thousands of turns, and they just need to be emitted more often?
All of this, of course, would probably require some relaxation of the 'unable to hit outside LOS' rule in order to really offer direct interaction on the player's part, but even were it not possible to shoot outside LOS, I think the game could really benefit from some louder and more distinctive monster sound effects.

7. Enemy 'snipers'.
Of course, this 'interacting beyond LOS' section wouldn't be complete without giving the badguys ways to play with this! I'd suggest that certain monsters, namely those with long-range weaponry like artillery or rifles, be given another reaction besides just 'close in on the player'. Namely, let some monsters react to gunfire outside of their LOS by firing back! As a scripted reaction to being hit by a player outside of their LOS, or perhaps just a reaction to hearing gunfire nearby, enemies could be made to fire back at a player. This could function wonderfully to make a player wary about firing blindly even where ammo wasn't a concern! I'd think it a much better deterrent than just preventing hitting targets outside LOS, and I think it would feel fair, too: given that firing a weapon is sure to both betray a shooter's position and illuminate them!







Other ideas for strategic depth.
In addition to strictly LOS-related suggestions for increasing a player's tactical options, I'd also like to suggest a few other ideas:

a) AI reacting to sound:
  After implementing the pretty essential AI tweaks to make monsters respond to taking damage (at the moment they don't react at all!), it might be really good to have the monsters react to things like grenade explosions. I actually thought that this happened on a recent playthrough, but after testing it out a bit I think it was just chance! Either way, it might be extra-interesting to have different monsters react to explosions differently. Cowardly former humans might run *away* from a plasma grenade explosion, and Robots would likely run away from EMP blasts!
I also noticed that enemies certainly DO react to hearing doors being attacked. I'm unsure whether that's reacting to the sound of gunfire, specific to doors being attacked, or 1-time scripted events (there's certainly one in the military barracks); but I do like how it's a feature!

b) Doors.
  Remember Space Crusade? I used to play the videogame to it, and there was this one global event that gave the player the ability to remotely open and close doors. It was totally broken, because it could be used to shut the dreadnaught (the 'boss' in many missions) in a door as soon as it tried to leave its first room, killing it instantly!
Broken gameplay memories aside, being able to remotely control doors without actually standing next to them might be fun, but probably hard to implement... Perhaps a more balanced and easily implemented option would be that, after hacking the door controls, a player could be able to open or close doors without spending any time doing so? I think that, alone, would open up a lot of depth, since doors could them become advantageous to a player in certain situations! It would mean a player getting the first turn after opening a door, doors could be used to help kill turrets etc. This certainly sounds easy to implement, and it's a small enough effect to be given freely (ie no multitool costs) as an incentive for all characters to interact with terminals (because at the moment non-hackers actually only bother with them to open vaults).
Another idea would be for a hacker to be able to overide the door safety controls, allowing them to close doors when enemies are standing in them! This could, for example, deal some damage to a target and break the door (so that the action can't be repeated/abused).

c) Map hacking.
  I've watched a few videos, and one thing I've noticed is that nobody seems to pay multitools for the hacking feature to get a map of the level. Have you considered making this map feature stay between floors? If that feels too strong, how about making it so that, once the player has paid once (perhaps charge 2 or more multitools?), the feature costs 0 multitools for the rest of the current playthrough? That is, a player must still reach a terminal before getting their 'free' map, but the maps cost nothing for subsequent floors.

d) Exploration mode.
  Finally, I have a suggestion that occurred to me after playing JH 'unspoiled'. One thing I absolutely loved, although I appreciate it went against the design philosophy of the game, was the feeling of exploration and adventure when I started to see separate exits leading not to one-off special levels like DRL, but different paths! I had this great feeling of being 'lost' in a complex, until I realised that no staircase ever led away from the end of the game, thus effectively making it impossible to ever go in the wrong direction! I think it might make for an interesting 'angel of' game if you opened up the ability to go backwards! I appreciate that the level layouts probably aren't 'saved' so revisiting a previous floor (like in ADOM) would be impossible, but perhaps you could simply allow revisiting areas with new randomly generated levels, with a strict player-augmentation block (so a new randomly-generated level is created, but no XP is granted, and no medikits or stimpacks are generated for any floors with a depth less than or equal to the deepest a player has previously visited). This 'exploration mode' might be a fun equivalent to the 'angel of 100' game types, where a player could really go deep in exploring, without things getting too easy from stockpiling resources and experience.






I hope you devs can enjoy some of the suggestions in this list! I've put it together with the hopes that it can improve the replayability of what is shaping up to be an awesome game! Beyond anything else, though, *please* understand that I'm suggesting these out of a love for your products, not some kind of criticism! I *loved* DRL, it's among my favourite videogames of all time, and usually the first game I install on a new computer! I'm really passionate about your products, and would love to see Jupiter Hell match or exceed it on that list! If nothing else, see this list as a love-letter to your amazing game development, and a thankyou for everything you've done in this game, and your others! <3



Discussion 1: Firing outside of LOS being 'blocked':

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Re: firing outside LOS: One of the things that proved a real stumbling block for me when I was getting into Jupiter Hell was the way some weapons are completely blocked from attacking targets outside of your view. I know that at the moment you just can't hit a target outside LOS range; and I'd be really interested in hearing why this was done, because it's my understanding that it wasn't always the case, and as a new player, it was a huge source of confusion not only for me, but for a lot of people (judging by the queries I've read around the internet of people confused about weapon ranges and such). I *do* understand how max range is relevant even when attacks beyond range:6 are blocked (ie. the 'to-hit' equation featuring a scale between optimal and max range), so this isn't so much a 'why is there a max range greater than 6 for some weapons', as it is a 'why is hitting outside of LOS blocked?'
I can tell that, currently, the monster AI just isn't equipped to handle it, and I totally understand if temporarily removing the ability to strike targets outside of LOS was implemented as a stop-gap while the AI was fixed! What I really hope, though, is that it wasn't a permanent solution, because it feels like a clunky patch to cover up incomplete AI. In my eyes, the reaction to (for example) 'the summoner can be killed simply by shooting him outside of LOS' should *not* be 'don't let the player damage him outside LOS'. It should be 'make the summoner react to being struck outside of LOS' (and I don't mean *punish* the player for a sound idea, like, for example, the way JC punishes a player that tries this trick in DRL; I mean just make the summoner react by getting into range, or starting his summoning immediately, rather than removing a player's ability to hit him!) (also, randomizing his starting tile might make sense!)
Personally, I was really impressed with how striking targets outside LOS was handled in DRL - a fixed, *huge* chance to missthat could never be overcome via accuracy traits, and monster AI that would react to being dealt damage by moving in on the player...
Ultimately, I feel like the block on hitting targets outside LOS feels counter-intuitive and 'weird', and I'd love to hear whether a better solution was planned in future (or even what led to this design decision).
Also: I know, guys, that anything 'repetitive' is discouraged as a design principle, and maybe you saw firing into blackness as repetitive, but personally I don't think radar-shooting with a shotgun feels 'repetitive' at all! If anything, every shot feels like information gathering, and can have a slightly exciting, edgy feeling to it, rather than feeling like some chore! In fact, if you made it so that certain monsters reacted to the sound of gunshots, or other risk/reward tradeoffs (see suggestion 7, 'enemy snipers' below), it could feel pretty 'edge of your seat' exciting! More importantly, though, what certainly *did* feel VERY repetitive was firing at targets that I KNEW the location of (hacked tracking data) again and again and AGAIN for what felt like forever! Yes, this was before I, as a player, understood that the game didn't allow that strategy, but how can you prevent a new player getting into this repetitive loop? A little hint pop-up explaining that, 'sorry, we're not allowing this strategy!' would certainly do it, but it would instantly familiarise the new player with the reality that their strategic choices are being controlled, which is even worse than repetitive actions. (Plus, as mentioned, when ammo is a limitation, firing into the blackness never really feels very repetitive anyway - it's only a good idea when a player has a good idea that a target is there!)

For me, it feels pretty frustrating to be holding a weapon with the range to strike a target; and to have figured out the location of an enemy (be it via sound, doors opening, fixed targets like turrets, or other skill-based intuition); to only be blocked from doing so by a fixed 'disallowed' arbitrary restriction from the game engine. It feels like I'm playing against the fixed limitations of the developers, rather than playing against the ingame badguys, and I'd love to see other ways around it!
I don't actually think that fighting outside of LOS should be made practical as a general case, btw... For example, if it emerges that players are just firing into the blackness of fog of war by default, then that fixed 50% miss chance from DRL could probably be really pumped *up* for non-spread weapons up to maybe something as high as 80%! What I'm saying is that if you want it to be impractical to fight targets beyond LOS range, just make it _usually_ impractical by just taking up too much ammo! This still blocks the general strategy, while also giving a few niche areas such as levels where there are spare guns lying all over the floor, where a player can react to the current situation with an appropriate change of tactics! For me, this is the very essence of strategic depth, which is something that JH has the potential to have in spades, but is currently (understandably, as it's still in beta etc) a little short compared to your other chaosforge titles.

Discussion 2: Run-Wait

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I understand that run-wait was not implemented as a conscious dev decision to avoid repetitive play, and while I can totally get behind the idea of removing repetitive tasks, I feel that this particular decision actually has the opposite effect. Players are still going to wait for an enemy to approach their decent firing positions. We'll all do it! The question now is basically 'how long are you prepared to do it for?', with longer = better. That means, to play 'best', a player would be spending a good couple of minutes on every corner just in case monsters come into range! Effectively, it produces a *massive* repetitive task!
In fact, when you think about it, run-wait, as a command, can basically be phrased as 'skip this boring, repetitive task and fast-forward to the action'!
On top of that, I've also noticed that due to the way Jupiter Hell's AI has been designed, waiting on the spot isn't even an overpowering strategy the way it undeniably was in DRL. Jupiter Hell not only has fixed enemies that can't move, and enemies in rooms that will not come out until other events are triggered (like doors being unlocked)... It also mosty does away with the practice of monsters roaming randomly over any expanse of the map. Enemies tend to 'patrol' small areas. I don't know whether this was intentional, or a side-product of the AI, but effectively a player can wait for a hundred thousand turns and never see a great deal of the monsters on the level!
I think, due to the fact that run-wait is never going to be game-breakingly strong, and also the fact that without run-wait players will just manually (laboriously) hit the wait key until monsters come into view, I'd really encourage the devs to reconsider this design decision! I don't mind, at all, that it's been left out. Hell, I like a good, slow game!!! But I *do* feel that it is having the
opposite effect that that which the designers intended - leaving out run-wait has actually introduced more repetitive, laborious, time-consuming player actions to the core gameplay!

[14]

2

Post Mortem / [0.9.6|UV|Te|YAAM] My first UV win! (Rapidfire Tech)

« on: December 28, 2020, 19:29 »

Yay! An ultra violence win with a combat-oriented technician! I was a little gutted, since literally the run before this, I was way ahead of the curve, fighting the summoner with a huge amount of resources, but after knocking down his first stage, I didn't realise just how poisoned I was, walked 3 tiles, and died!
Luckily, immediately after that I put in this run. Getting whizkid early for tinkerer seems a good way of stockpiling resources. I'm a little dismayed at just how few traits the technician has that actually make a difference in combat early-on. It seems that if you're not going for pistols, the only traits that affect combat are hunker down, and sustained fire, and of those, sustained fire actually rarely makes any difference - you're 2-shotting everything for the entire of the first episode, and it seems you can take a hunting rifle (to one-shot some targets), but no traits have the same effect.

Shotguns with quick-swap seem really valuable to me. Particularly if I get an elephant gun or jackhammer and mod it with autoloader. That gives an excellent 'panic button', where you can drop smoke, back up, and keep firing the shotgun into the smoke cloud as you retreat (autoloader working well here).
When there's not a need for a panic button, however, this was simply a matter of hunkering behind walls and firing bursts from wind-up weapons (chaingun/hyperblaster). I'd switch to SMG if something got close, but that isn't shown in the mortem because there came a point where hyperblast+chaingun is just a better use of weapon slots.
I was lucky enough to enter the armory with full keycards, and the rewards from that are awesome! Still, while my weaponry was better this run, I had less healing items than I had in the previous playthrough. That's perhaps more down to finding an armor that gave extra inventory slots than any flaws in the loadout or strategy, though.

I was kinda committed to making a tech work without using the 'wizard' traits (summoning, poison cloud), but I think doing so resulted in combat that felt a little too straightforward. On that note, I think the thing I miss the most, transitioning from doomrl, is knockback. Without knockback it feels like fights are a lot more 1-dimensional. That, and of course terrain destruction, but I can see how terrain destruction is ill-suited to this game.

I'm also a little curious about the mods. Now that 'precise' has been removed from most items, I can't see many modding strategies that do much more than a) skip turns of swapping or reloading, or b) just add damage numbers to a weapon. Precise was different in that it encouraged a player to use the 'aim' function instead of just firing until things are dead, so I sorta lament it's passing, even if it did feel a little overpowered when correctly exploited! I'll be keen to see something like assemblies make an appearance, as well as the bosses and new special levels!

Anyway, I'm going to have a good play with the other classes before moving on to nightmare games. From my limited experience it feels as though the technician is less well suited to a straight-forward strategy like this one (it feels much stronger to use poison gas or remote hacking strategies).

Lots of fun had with this game anyway! I'm glad to finally have a PC set up that can run it! :D

Anyway, here's the mortem! :
Sylph, level 14 Technician, defeated
The Summoner against all odds.
He survived for 23605 turns.
The run time was 3h 27m 7s.
He scored 6562 points.
He was ULTRAVIOLENT!

CALLISTO L3 - Lockdown
CALLISTO L3 -> Callisto Mines L1
Callisto Mines L2 - Infestation
Callisto Mines L2 -> Callisto Anomaly
Callisto Anomaly - cleared
EUROPA L2 -> Europa Dig Zone L1
Europa Dig Zone L3 - Exalted Summons
Europa Dig Zone L3 -> Tyre Outpost
Tyre Outpost - cleared
IO L3 -> CRI Laboratory L1
CRI Laboratory L2 -> CRI Armory
CRI Armory - cleared
BEYOND L2 -> Limbo
Limbo - cleared
BEYOND L3 - Exalted Summons

Awards
  Medal of Prejudice (+200)
   * Won with 100% kills
  Explorer Ribbon (+50)
   * Visited all encountered special levels
  Conqueror Ribbon (+100)
   * Completed all encountered special levels
  CRI Bronze Badge
   * Win any game with 100% kills
  CRI Silver Badge
   * Win a MEDIUM or higher game with 100% kills
  CRI Gold Badge
   * Win a UV or higher game with 100% kills

He killed 525 out of 525 enemies.

  41 archreavers
  27 fiends
  6 plasma ravagers
  2 military bots
  15 exalted fiends
  10 rocket turrets
  16 turrets
  4 security sentrys
  1 former CRI grunt
  12 CalSec bots
  10 exalted reavers
  8 CRI soldiers
  9 former CRI soldiers
  1 Summoner
  3 corrupted sergeants
  1 CRI bot MkII
  2 hellish sergeants
  21 ravagers
  11 CRI turrets
  2 combat drones
  20 former soldiers
  14 former guards
  2 former heavys
  23 fire fiends
  7 siege ravagers
  1 former sergeant
  3 exalted soldiers
  10 cryobeross
  6 CRI commandos
  52 CRI marines
  1 guardian bot
  8 hellish soldiers
  3 military drones
  4 hellish heavys
  8 corrupted soldiers
  6 hellish commandos
  4 former grunts
  9 toxic reavers
  25 ice fiends
  2 former CRI sergeants
  20 armored ravagers
  44 CRI bots
  6 reavers
  2 corrupted commandos
  8 cybeross
  2 security drones
  23 cryoreavers
  1 kerberos
  6 former commandos
  7 CalSec sentrys
  1 toxiberos
  2 security bots

Traits
  Skilled L2
  Packrat L1
  Sustained fire L2
  Whizkid L2
  Hunker down
  Tinkerer
  Incoming!
  ENTRENCHMENT L3

Trait order
  HDw->Whk->Whk->Tin->Skl->Inc->SF->MEN->
  MEN->Pak->Skl->MEN->SF

Equipment
  Slot #1 : AV3 hyperblaster P2A
   * Hunter 1
   * Exalted bane
   * Deadly 1
   * Molten 1
   * Critical 20
   * Point Blank 2
   * Spin-up

  Slot #2 : 12ga jackhammer B2
   * Autoloader
   * Swap Harness
   * Frenzy 2

  Slot #3 : 7.62 gatling A
   * Critical 25
   * Frenzy 3
   * Spin-up

  Body    : CRI combat armor P
   * Plated

  Head    : combat helmet PA2
   * Plated
   * Long-range tracking
   * Critical 10

  Utility : AV3 auto AMP
   * Auto gyro-stabilizer
   * Auto precise
   * Auto accelerator


Inventory
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x8)
  7.62 ammo (x90)
  gas grenade (x3)
  EMP grenade (x3)
  CRI phase kit (x1)
  multitool (x4)
  stimpack (x1)
  large medkit
  large medkit
  large medkit


3

Discussion / Special levels-Pass or play?

« on: October 24, 2020, 06:36 »

Remember Horos' awesome 'nightmare advice' topic from a few years ago?
I wanted to edit my post in there with a 'years later' update, but the topic is locked.
Now, as I thought a bit more about it, I decided this place was quiet enough to justify revisiting it.
During one part of the discussion, I talked about how I tended to play N! Conqueror runs as a 'standard' playstyle. This moved the topic into a discussion about special levels on N!, and I posted a lists of which ones were always beneficial, which were situational, and which usually left me closer to game over than I was going in.
Now, only 3 years later, I've got a N!, Conqueror; 100%kills; Full Win (JC) with almost every master trait. I just did it with scavenger, which was loads of fun!
As such, I thought posting a new list would be a great demonstration of how much the skill in the community has increased in the last 3 years!
(I'm including my original list below, for comparison's sake)
Here's my new list:


Always beneficial:
- Hell's arena - Nowadays this level usually takes me 1 or 2 medpacks. Easy-ish, average rewards
- Military base - Shellbox(~50%), medkits++, modpacks, envirosuit! Very easy, good rewards
- Basic Chained court - Very easy, good rewards - Using 0-1 medpacks, leaving with mods, chainsaw, and berserk for days.
- Hell's armoury - Clear level from second-leftmost doorway, farm overcharged plasma guns to ease shambler battle. Quite easy, awesome rewards
- The wall - Deadly on low ammo. Worth doing if you bring extra ammo in! Easy-ish, poor rewards
- Halls of carnage - I now use (homing)phase device to skip this level! Worth it for BFG+xp+bulkpack. Average difficulty, average rewards
- Limbo - I still just don't struggle with this level, but consensus suggests I'm an outlier here! Somewhat hard, Incredible rewards
- The lava pits / Mt Erebus - Rocket jumping: great. I think the nuclear BFG trivialities these levels. Very easy, average rewards
- Phobos lab - A tricky level, but there are *so* many medpacks, you can almost guarantee coming out stronger. Hard-ish, good rewards.
- City of Skulls - Ok, I realised that the shell box completely trivialises this level! Yeah, I was stoopid!! Very easy, poor rewards.
- The vaults - Zero healing  = health deficit. If I've got the staff, I'm always game, but bring extra medpacks! Hard-ish, unpredictable rewards.
- Deimos lab - Some builds are in mortal danger from 2xshambler. At least supercharge is accessible with rocket dig! Somewhat hard, Incredible rewards.
- Chained court + - Years back I thought 'close to a deathtrap'! These days I lose 1, maybe 2 medkits on it and it feels much less 'chancy'. Somewhat hard, great rewards

Situational:
- Containment area - The only level I graded up! Barons can be inescapable, where not even rocket jump extricates. Hard, underwhelming rewards.
- Plains of torment - Shell box trivialises the (otherwise hard) ambush, but disappointing rewards = 'situational' level. Somewhat hard, poor rewards.
- Spider's Lair - Tricky at times, but BFG+battery is good, and with decent time-management, spiders aren't too deadly. Hard, average rewards.
- Unholy Cathedral - Obv. great for melee build. Otherwise it's XP+artifact for a cost of medpacks + speed mods / traits. Hard, poor rewards.

Not worth it
- Mortuary - It's not that I leave the mortuary worse-off than I entered it... It's that my chance of dying in the mortuary is *significantly* higher than the entire rest of the run put together! Extremely difficult, incredible rewards.



It really shocked me, just how differently I categorise them now, with only a few years of practice passing by!!

(The old list:)
Always beneficial:
- Hell's arena (if you're not fussed with conquerer, and health packs are running out, only say 'yes' once... You get a lot of medpack as a reward for an easy level, and you'll have a super-easy chained court!)
- Military base for sure.
- Basic Chained court for sure.
- Hell's armoury for sure
- The wall - pretty basic.
- Containment area - but I use most of the rockets I get there!
- Halls of carnage. BFG nice!
- The lava pits / Mt Erebus - If you have envirosuits or cerb boots, the lava element you get from here is like an extra life.
- Limbo : Not too tricky, and great rewards. The nuclear BFG is just beautiful! <3

Situational:
- Chained court + is close to a deathtrap, but the modpacks and staff are great later on, so it's a 'die now or be strong later', and the extra experience often pushes me into enough experience to get hellrunner in time for phobos lab!
- Phobos lab if you are fast enough to outrun a nightmare demon, if not it's a deathtrap.
- Deimos lab is pretty much always beneficial if it doesn't kill me. There's a very real chance of having hell's armoury or deimos lab make the rest of your run *far* easier. From *any* rare modpack, you can assemble a tower shield, gravity boots, nano(machic) weapon of your choice, plasmatic shotgun, or demolition ammo pistol, and every one of those items it worth risking your life for.
- Unholy Cathedral. This is great for melee characters, and possible for most non-melee character, but certainly not worth it - you will be expending modpacks and maybe even traits specifically to get your character able to, and your reward is a melee weapon and some experience! For ranged characters with juggler I'd not-worth-it . Without juggler it's awful! For melee characters it's incredible.
- The vaults - For about the last 10 runs, the only items I've carried out of the vaults (WITH key) have been ammo boxes. Maybe it's bad luck? The lack of health here makes it situational.


Not worth it
- City of Skulls - Huge ammo drain, and the reward you already collected from the wall! I for one think this level needs a better reward! The skulls are ok for the mortuary, but most BFG owners have other answers.
- Plains of torment - Pretty dangerous but nothing too taxing. Terrible, terrible rewards though. At least this one has supercharge!
- Spider's Lair - Absolute deathtrap. Nice reward (particularly the energy cell pack), but yeah, deathtrap.
- Mortuary - I clear corpses with skulls or the BFG, wait until I'm getting overrun, then homing phase to the nuclear BFG, bunker in the corner until all cover is destroyed, then bunker in the closeby corner until all the cover is destroyed there too. After that, sometimes I manage to clear the level. I die here a lot, certainly more than anywhere else.

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

4

Nightmare! / [N!|100%|3|YAAM] Masterless conquering N! (Veteran & Elite Angelic)

« on: April 24, 2019, 11:12 »

Hey! Figured I'd post here as it's my first angelic since returning/starting a new player.wad

Thoughts -
Finished the arena with no medpacks left. I've found this pretty normal for standard N! games.
Chained court went really badly, with both berserk packs being destroyed by barons, and I finished the level again out of medpacks, after having to tank the arena master with a chainfire chaingun.
Anomoly went well, but I used tons of rockets to destroy corpses/
Phobos lab seemed much easier than I remember it. I was hugely prepared with running mode strategies, but ultimately almost waltzed through. I didn't, because carelessness near the end lost me 2 large medkits to furmer humans - a mistake I'll not make again.
Deimos Lab: I fudged a little, and lost my agility boots standing in acid, which is why the tactical boots were so delayed in this run. Still, managed to finish this without too much trouble. 2 shambles are ridiculously scary (I'm assuming they respawn too if corpsed?), but luckily having a stack of 12 overcharged plasma rifles and juggler stops them from being too much of a tall order!
Cathedral: AoD was defeated with HR:2 and Finesse-3. An unmodified chainsaw made him easy work,but I did use both hatred skulls to hasten the task. Looking back I might have been better saving them for Mort/Limbo.
Lumbo: Despite using the hyperblaster, and regularly juggling to the scythe, I had major ammo issues this run. I had to do a good cell farm on every available level in hell to keep myself in cells. I had an extremely tricky time in limbo, at one point having to rely on rockets as my only weapon while I fought my way to the cover on the left, after which I could clear out all the N! cacodemons, then open the right bridge, and camp in the left cover until I got a N! Arachnotron to farm. I'm convinced that, had I rolled the mortuary, I wouldn't have completed it. This is despite entering limbo absolutely armed to the teeth with about 6 stacks of energy cells.
Lava pits was cleared using long-range nuclear BFG firing, and I had taken some really serious damage by the time I'd mapped the level and collected the extra environment suits. I think this is the level that makes me really miss a rocket launcher when I've been using missile launcher instead.
I was in two minds whether or not to fight carmac, but with decent armour, a few medkits, and an incredibly good trait build for hyperblasting, I went ahead. It took me 2 reloads. Had I realised there were 2 angelic medals up for grabs if I finished him I'd have certainly risked it. I wasn't so much playing for medals, as just to conquer N! 100%.

Demolition ammo combat pistol was an absolute gem! Total gift from above! It could just as easily have been a normal pistol, but I was lucky enough to spot a combat pistol in the armoury. I was unfortunate to get 2 firestorm packs in the armoury, but I was happy to get a win without onyx or nano. The corpse destruction of demolition ammo (or plasmatic shrapnel) is incredible on N!, and I kinda like how it stops the lack of onyx or nano from feeling like a rip off!


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

 Sylph, level 18 Hell Baron Lt. Colonel Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 3425803 turns and scored 1067097 points.
 He played for 8 days, 22 hours, 44 minutes and 35 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 2626 out of 2626 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

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

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

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

  Medal of Prejudice
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Explorer Badge
  Conqueror Badge
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Heroic Silver Badge
  UAC Platinum Badge
  Veteran Diamond Badge
  Veteran Angelic Badge
  Elite Platinum Badge
  Elite Diamond Badge
  Elite Angelic Badge
  Demonic Platinum Badge
  Reaper Platinum Badge
  Longinus Platinum Badge
  Longinus Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 29/60   Experience 181064/18
  ToHit Ranged +6  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +2  ToDmg Melee +2

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 1)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 2)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 3)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Triggerhappy     (Level 2)

  Fin->Jug->EE->SoB->SoB->TH->Fin->WK->WK->EE->TH->Fin->HR->HR->HR->EE->DM->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   cerberus red armor [0/0] (69%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   hyperblaster (2d4)x3 [0/40] (T1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nuclear BFG 9000 (8d6) [40/40]

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

    [a] double shotgun (10d3)x2 [2/2] (P1T1)
    [b] demolition combat pistol (5d2) [15/15]
    [c] minigun (1d6)x10 [200/200] (F1)
    [d] missile launcher (6d6) [4/4]
    [e] BFG 9000 (11d6) [100/100] (P1)
    [f] red armor [4/4] (196%) (B)
    [g] phaseshift armor [2/2] (121%) (B)
    [h] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [i] Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [j] 10mm ammo (x140)
    [k] shotgun shell (x70)
    [l] rocket (x14)
    [m] power cell (x70)
    [n] power cell (x60)
    [o] small med-pack
    [p] small med-pack
    [q] homing phase device
    [r] power mod pack

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

    Acid       - internal 25%   torso 95%   feet 25% 
    Fire       - internal 25%   torso 95%   feet 25% 
    Plasma     - internal 0%    torso 50%   feet 0%   

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

    321 former humans
    188 former sergeants
    147 former captains
    228 imps
    110 demons
    497 lost souls
    68 cacodemons
    36 hell knights
    92 barons of hell
    246 arachnotrons
    250 former commandos
    66 pain elementals
    108 revenants
    67 mancubi
    51 arch-viles
    16 nightmare imps
    20 nightmare cacodemons
    56 nightmare demons
    48 nightmare arachnotrons
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  Entering level 2 he was almost dead...
  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.
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 9 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 10 he assembled a demolition ammo!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  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 tactical boots!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Frag Shotgun!
  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 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  On level 23 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 The missile hits the cacodemon.
 You dodge! Boom!
 The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
 hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
 Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
 hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
 Carmack. You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
 The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
 hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
 Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile
 hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John
 Carmack. John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher.
 The missile hits John Carmack. The missile hits John Carmack. John Carmack
 dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...

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

 109 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 90 of those were killed.
 And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 12 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 6 killed the bitch and survived.
 6 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


5

Discussion / Doomrl Guide

« on: April 03, 2019, 13:41 »

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

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

Code: [Select]

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






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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Most roguelike games would prefer to break this down into:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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





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

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

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

Passive defense:
standing there getting shot at

Active defense:
running around getting shot at

Tactical defense:
not getting shot at

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



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

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

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




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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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


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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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


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



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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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


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




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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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






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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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



6

Bug Reports / ubuntu 16.04: Massive delay on mouse input

« on: December 23, 2016, 06:55 »

Hi! Can anyone help me with this? I'm trying to play doomrl, and it works fine on most of my computers, but on one of them (the one with the nvidia graphics card and fastest processor) there is a *massive* delay on mouse clicks (like over a second). There's no delay on keyboard commands..

I'm really pretty new to gaming in linux, and was wondering whether anyone has a good idea of why this might be? Any suggestions of things to try?

(Just to note - other games don't suffer from this)

7

Discussion / Angel of Death speed randomized?

« on: October 23, 2016, 23:03 »

Hi folks!
Was the angel of death's speed set to some random value in a recent version?
I just downloaded doomrl for a bash, got tot he cathedral, and lost all my large medkits before running out of the level without conquerer (which led to me quitting).

It seemed sometimes I could move 4 times before he stopped, other times 6, other times 11... Sometimes he'd move twice in the time I only moved once... It was really weird...?

Has this been changed recently?

8

Discussion / Restore the assault rifle to it's former glory.

« on: June 18, 2014, 11:41 »

Hi folks,
I'm starting this topic to encourage discussion on the assault rifle assembly. It's my opinion that, while it was arguably the strongest 'mid tier' assembly a player could make, it was NOT overpowered.
Further, it's my opinion that, in it's current form, it's a bit rubbish!
I'd like to talk about the option of getting the assault rifle assembly back down to 0.5s firing speed, and in turn preventing it from being built on to any weapons other than chainguns (we have the hyperblaster assembly for plasmaguns, and it's hard to balance an assembly that can be put on 2 vastly different weapons without being too powerful on one and too weak on the other).

The assault rifle was perhaps a little too strong when compared with it's rivals among non-rare mod asssemblies, but it's my impression that requiring 3 agility mods is just about as taxing as a mod requirement can possibly get, outside of nano or onyx. Preventing a player build tactical boots and tactical armour is a huge cost. Whether or not it was strong, though, the full half-damage nerf was too hard a hit, imo. It's only useful in games where the player takes levels in triggerhappy, but not eagle eye, which is a ridiculous build path outside of ammochain (given that triggerhappy only works with rapidfire weapons, and eagleeye is the most important trait for rapidfire weapon builds). It's greatest advantage over similar weapons (gatling gun, burst laser etc) is ammo efficiency, which makes it pointless even when taking ammochain, and it builds out of *3* agility mod packs. For a whizkid character, this means it costs you your 25% movespeed boots.
Overall, I'd argue that assault rifle needs strengthening dramatically. While 0.5s firing speed was extremely good, I'm tempted to suggest it's ok. The assault rifle / plasma assault rifle, back when it used to have 0.5s firing time, does indeed have among the highest DPS of all rapidfiring weapons/assemblies (losing out to tech-modded laser rifles and miniguns). That said, I'd prefer to have a higher single-burst damage than a high DPS, because 0.5s time between 2 shots gives a chance of retaliatory fire, depending on chance, whereas a more powerful burst can often kill the monster outright, making firing time irrelevant.
With that in mind, I'd say 'among the highest DPS, but not the very highest' is just about perfect for an item that costs a trait, 3 of the most saught-after modpacks, and has a reduced ammo consumption.
To be honest, the fact that this item was nerfed so heavily baffles me. I think, provided is can only be made out of a minigun, it was pretty close to perfect before.

9

Discussion / Destroyer diamond

« on: December 23, 2013, 06:14 »

Hi folks!
I'm just wondering, has anyone managed to achieve destroyer diamond *without* sereging it?

I used to have this badge, back before it's requirements were changed (in fact it was my first ever diamond).. Nowadays, though, it's far more of a challenge, having basically had AoP and AoI added to it!
Now I'm, so far, 'clean' of using dual angels to cheat my way out of the challenge of tricky badges, but I'm unsure about this one - I really like AoMC, as far as game modes go, but acknowledge that it's easier than a normal game. This badge, though, seems completely our of reach. Some levels just start you in a situation where you have to take damage. Hell, it's hard to do level 1 without taking 10-20 damage. I'm tempted to just leave it alone and pick up some of the easier diamond badges (I've yet to do longinus diamond and scavenger diamond, but there's easy ways to do both of them outside of dual angel play)... I'm unsure though, whether it's even been done? If not, I'm unsure whether that will make me more or less eager to finish it!

So, has anyone managed to complete destroyer diamond without using dual-angels?

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

10

Nightmare! / [N!|AoLT|91%|YAVP] Masterless Rapidfire Lightfoot Diamond!

« on: December 14, 2013, 11:41 »

Yay! Another biamond!
Lightfoot diamond looked like an easy badge to obtain when I first started to tackle it. I was close to victory on my second attempt, using a scout with Intx2, based on shotguns The only real challenge seemed to be having enough ammo to kill the cyberdemon (about 120 shells), then getting lucky on invulnerability/berserk for the rest of the game. After another 3-4 tries, I realised taking berserker - despite the melee restriction - would probably give me a win, but I started playing with other builds (since it's not often that a diamond badge gives us a chance to play with other builds is it? :) ).
I had quite a few close calls using bullet dance (I'm determined to get a diamond badge with that rubishy trait!), but after a while decided I wanted a few games with ammochain.

Wierd build
This game, in particular, was spoiled (by complete accident) by my taking a rank in eagle eye, which is a blocked trait for ammochain. I blame LuckyDee, for eliciting good discussion on the power of EE over on his recent mortem thread! It took me about 6 levels before I realised I'd blocked the master trait I intended to take, and god i wish I'd taken a technician, like I normally would in a masterless build (deimos lab dropped cybernetic armour).
Given that the game was spoiled, I decided to just tackle all the special levels for my own experience. I was *very* glad to realise that only a single level in hellrunner, combined with an agility mod on green armour or boots (I had no boots at that point though) is enough to outrun nightmare demons on Phobos Lab (strictly on AoLT - don't try it outside of that challenge! Thanks for pointing that out, Tormuse!) (I'm not sure it's EVER given me military base on N! - is military base deactivated on nightmare? Is it something to do with me only half-completing the arena?
Anomaly, thankfully, is pretty straightforward now that I've started using phase devices differently. Even without a rocket launcher! I just lead all the baddies over to the left of the map, shut the start room doors, boost up, then wait for a nightmare imp to open the door before phasing. This way, I get to fight at the startroom door if I want (only adviseable for shotgun builds), and there is a *much* greater chance of my phase device getting me safe (because all the ambush monsters are gathered on the left of the map). This game, I actually tackled both bruiser brothers before leaving the anomaly, which was basically just because my damage was so high (♥ gatling gun).
I also decided to tackle the phobos lab. I only entered the lab with a single large medpack, and accidentally destroyed both supercharge globes with a stupid rocket fire further right than I normally do (playing risky, still), but, testament to the raw damage of rapidfire builds, I managed to dispatch both shamblers (one of them had to be killed twice), and access the cache. There was a cybernetic armour in the cache. I've never seen anything other than modpacks drop there - was this a nightmare thing, or just a chance drop? Anyway, cybernetic armour wasn't the only notable drop...

Nano
Doing phobos lab and deimos lab finally paid off, and the deimos lab cache gave me a nano pack. At this point, I decided this was no longer a ruined game, so I started to take things seriously again (ie, skipping levels that i didn't need to do (I was something like 98% at this point)). The rest of the game was fairly straightforward - couple of tricky levels (I just *hate* the maze levels on nightmare, because there are no doors, but I feel I'm starting to learn to use patches of water and barrels a little better now, given that I've played quite a few games without rocket launchers).
The spider's lair, in particular, had me down to 35% health, and no medpacks (I only carried a single large medpack around with me because of inventory restrictions). I ran out of bullets, so was relying on only my plasma rifle, which I had to wait to recharge (SO frustrating when the floor is carpeted with arachnotron corpses/cell packs). Still, shortly after that I assembled a nanomachic plasma gun, and the rest of the game was close to a cakewalk. Mastermind went down without hitting me, despite me *not* having invulnerability!

Lesson learned
- Persevere!
- carry a weapon that uses cells when entering spider's lair
- Where I usually fire rockets to unlock superharges in deimos lab is, indeed, the best place to shoot them
- Eagle eyex2 is *incredibly* strong with gatling gun. Like, old-assault-rifle+triggerhappyx2 strong!

ps. Can we have old assault rifle back? And a buff to hyperblaster? :D
pps. Just a few platinum badges away from Marshal rank now! x

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

 Sylph, level 14 Arch-Vile General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 2956476 turns and scored 564058 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 11 minutes and 54 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1511 out of 1659 hellspawn. (91%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Light Travel!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 3

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

  Mastermind's Brain
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Lightfoot Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 95/60   Experience 89874/14
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +5  ToDmg Melee +5

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 1)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 5)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Triggerhappy     (Level 2)

  EE->SoB->Fin->SoB->EE->TH->HR->TH->SoB->Fin->WK->WK->SoB->SoB->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (72%) (AP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nanomachic plasma rifle (1d7)x6
    [c] [ Boots      ]   plasteel boots [4/4] (200%) (BP)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   BFG 9000 (11d6) [70/100] (P1)

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

    [a] red armor [4/4] (200%) (B)
    [b] large med-pack

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

    Acid       - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 50% 
    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 25% 

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

    226 former humans
    145 former sergeants
    115 former captains
    417 imps
    74 demons
    159 lost souls
    47 cacodemons
    35 hell knights
    48 barons of hell
    52 arachnotrons
    82 former commandos
    17 pain elementals
    29 revenants
    23 mancubi
    11 arch-viles
    25 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena before it got too hot.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 9 he assembled a gatling gun!
  On level 9 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 15 he assembled a nanomanufacture ammo!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  He left level 21 as soon as possible.
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched!
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
 Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
 flinched! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies.
 Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

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

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

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


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

11

Nightmare! / [N!|AoMr|75%|YAVP] Gunkata Marksman Diamond! (Full game video inside)

« on: December 03, 2013, 22:43 »

Character selection
I've been trying to get my marksman diamond badge, but I was challenging myself to do it without sharpshooter. I spent the last week or so trying to get a bulletdance marine win, and I've come to the conclusion that bulletdance is an absolutely awful master trait! My marines that went masterless were SO much stronger than those using bulletdance, to the point that I decided to do without masterless marines as well as technicians (because I felt like experimenting with pistol master traits).
Still, my bulletdance games did yield a close call to hell 6 (and it really felt like a stretch there). After a gruelling batch of marine runs, though, I played a game with a scout, and got the badge on the first try! ♥
(not including a couple that I binned on level 2)

Video:
I've uploaded a video of the entire game here, which I thought might be a nice up to date display of nightmare play. Never know, could be useful to people wanting to climb the (in my experience) massive skill wall between UV and N!.
Here's the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGKushTuBQ&feature=youtu.be

Win Attribution:
This win, I think, is pretty much attributable to intuition 1. I really didn't want intuition 2, as I don't find it much help, but I got it eventually anyway, when it became apparent that approaching mancubi was not gonna happen. Intuition 1 on nightmare lets a hellrunner scout spend maybe the last 40% of the game invulnerable! Berserk or invulnerability really is key for getting through the later game when you don't have access to powerful or explosive weaponry.
Still, this was all really a product of my never finding decent mods or items. I swear I find 10 times as many tristar blasters as I do combat pistols! This run was pretty unique in that I skipped the shambler in the armoury - I would take him on effortlessly when playing a marine, but I had a feeling those 2 levels of son of a bitch would make a big difference, and thought it best to stay out of the fight with him.
Still, bad mods, bad item drops, missed treasure... This has to be one of the 'lightest' games I've played on N! AoMr, but intuition 1 carried me to safety!

Quirky things:
- Cancelling the arena after second wave (my preferred strat for AoMr runs)
- 100% clear on chained court using only 1 berserk, then berserk rushing from chained court to anomaly. I've been doing these a lot with marines... My procrastination over picking up an environment suit made berserk wear out seconds too early!
- I skipped phobos lab, despite gunkata scouts being one of the few characters that can actually tackle it! The lack of the mod packs ultimately left me without my usual fireproof armour, which shaped the build and the game in general when mancubi and revenants stared to become common.
- Getting gunkata, but still standing-still pillboxing most opponents. The moving around necessary to use this master trait effectively is really hard to get used to, but I can tell it's a lot more powerful when used properly.
- Building a speedloader pistol, then throwing it away within a minute or so of making it!
- Cybie is *so* easy with dodgemaster!
- Found the butcher's cleaver and 2 invulnerabilities just outside the entrance to unholy cathedral! Totally taunting me! I forgot for a second that I was on AoMr and tried to cleaver the place. :)
- I neglected the opportunity to just nuke spider. Does anyone know whether I would have got my diamond badge if I had nuked him? I'm unsure what wins count for what...

Not sure what to go for next. I've really got my eye on the veteran angelic badge, but marksman angelic looks pretty easy, too...
--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Sylph, level 11 Arch-Vile Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 1302912 turns and scored 422508 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 35 minutes and 31 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 985 out of 1306 hellspawn. (75%)
 He was an Angel of Marksmanship!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 1

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

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Marksman Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 50/50   Experience 59160/11
  ToHit Ranged +2  ToHit Melee +2  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Son of a gun     (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 1)
    Dualgunner       (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Gun Kata         (Level 1)

  SoG->SoG->SoG->DG->HR->HR->DM->MGK->Int->EE->Int->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (64%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   pistol (2d5) [6/6] (P1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   high power pistol (2d6) [4/4]

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

    [a] ballistic blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [b] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [c] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [d] 10mm ammo (x21)
    [e] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [f] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [g] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] envirosuit pack
    [o] thermonuclear bomb
    [p] power mod pack
    [q] technical mod pack
    [r] technical mod pack
    [s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [t] 10mm ammo chain (x250)

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

    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 0%   

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

    230 former humans
    99 former sergeants
    107 former captains
    193 imps
    63 demons
    114 lost souls
    48 cacodemons
    42 hell knights
    34 barons of hell
    2 arachnotrons
    11 former commandos
    12 pain elementals
    7 revenants
    14 mancubi
    7 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena before it got too hot.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 6 he assembled a high power weapon!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  Level 9 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a speedloader pistol!
  He left the Armory without drawing too much attention.
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  Not knowing what to do, he left.
  On level 15 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he found the Butcher's Cleaver!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 20 he stumbled into a complex full of mancubi!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You reload the high power pistol.
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the pistol.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
 Mastermind.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
 missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the high power pistol.
 You swap your weapons instantly!
 You reload the pistol.
 The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
 Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the
 Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You dualreload your guns!

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

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

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

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


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

12

Post Mortem / [H|100%|24|YAAM] Strongman Diamond (thank god that's over)

« on: November 28, 2013, 10:53 »

After discussing it in another thread, I decided to post this mortem after all...
I'll try to keep it insightful and entertaining, but as usual I'll include headings to help you skip the boring bits. ;)

Core victory reasons
This victory was mainly down to paying lots of attention to enemy health levels, and armour management strategy. Namely, switching between a P-red armour, energy shield, Fireproof red armour, and a ballistic duelist armour, to defend against general attacks, plasma/acid, fire, or melee attacks, respectively. More than any other, though, I found that switching to a suit of nanofibre red almost every time my berserk activated gave me all the defense I needed, and kept all my 'special' armours healthy for when I needed them - it's amazing just how much damage you take in strongman diamond.

Armour musings
Nanofibre red is very easy to make, and so is fireproof red. Ballistic armour is a must, for me, any time I find an armour with inbuilt melee resistance (duelist, ballistic, etc). Those 3, alone, are pretty much enough to make it through the whole game, especially if you P-mod your nanofibre before you B-mod it and keep using the 100%-75% range of it until you run out of 'disposable' armour and take the plunge to turn it into nanofibre. It's shocking just how little damage P-modded red takes - for most of the game it takes less damage than it recovers from armour shards! Likewise, B-mod a red and use it all the way to <50% before you put the T mod on for fireproof. Between those two modding orders, my armour was pretty strong in every attempt, but there does come a point where getting nanofibre seems ideal (about when archviles, mancubi, and revenants start showing up everywhere).

The build
The particular build didn't seem that important beyond the anomoly, but prior to that, getting a third level of brute before berserker increased my chance of getting a marine through the early game LOADS, like, doubled the chances or something! Basically, brute 1 is good for fighting humans, brute 2 lets you single-tap imps with the pistol to get them to chase you round a corner, and finish them with a fist to take zero damage. Brute 3 is pretty much necessary to have any kind of a chance of killing a demon or hell knight without taking a load of attacks (I shotgun them until they're heavily wounded or above, and then pistol them to mortally wounded if I get a chance). Actually activating berserker (4 melee attacks) is pretty rare if you're wounding monsters with guns prior to hitting them, and you take too much damage in the early game (pre red armour) NOT to wound monsters before finishing them.
After vampyre, the whole game flips, and becomes pretty much a walk in the park until hell, at which point decent armour management is necessary, but there's nothing particularly difficult about getting your win after you get vampyre. Not that it means getting your badge most of the time, though. Kornel should just re-describe this challenge as:

'win the game with just a fist,
then roll a dice and get a 6',

- It would feel less frustrating! :D
[edit - especially notable given tormuse's report (a version ago) of getting strongman diamond without getting platinum! ]

Special levels
Also worth noting is my tackling the arena. I found the large medikit well worth the 1-2 small medikits I'd typically use completing it, and the blue armour allows me to tackle the chained court without any significant cost (maybe 1 small medikit). If, however, things seems difficult, skipping the arena's last wave still gets you the large medikit, and you get an additional a small medikit that you would not otherwise get, which can help get a character back into the game, provides a much easier chained court (no arena master), and only struggles if you get phobos lab instead of military base (where the rocket launcher is really valuable against the demons!)
This time, though, I got a full clear on the arena, a straightforward chained court, and rolled military base, which can be cleared completely with giftdropping. That's pretty much ideal, but not particularly rare.
Oh, Hell's armoury is *so* much nicer than phobos lab, but a melee build can typically handle either of them without any worries. 2 shamblers aren't any trouble for a berserker!
I only did the vaults because I'd just picked up 2 invulnerabilty globes, otherwise I'd probably skip them (approaching revenants on foot is suicide, shooting at them is risky in a strongman challenge).
Similarly, I entered Dis with invulnerability, but decided not to use the nuke, just in case my own death would fail me on the challenge (wasn't sure how it's tracked).

Run summary
Overall, I'm very glad to finally have gained this badge. Making sure *not* to kill monsters* doesn't feel very doomrl, and while I welcomed the change at first, I was getting pretty eager for a return to 'usual' play after a couple of nights of this. The headache is hugely increased when you can get disqualified without knowing what went wrong, and continue playing, which ended up being incredibly disheartening even on this successful run (I was fairly sure I would not get a badge at the end, for some infraction I was unaware of). This resulted in my sense of relief being greater than my sense of acheivement when I finally read the mortem. That is, 'thank god I don't have to do that again'. :)

*: at range.



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

 Sylph, level 11 Arch-Vile Mjr General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 759458 turns and scored 167114 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 23 minutes and 27 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 698 out of 698 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!

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

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

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  Medal of Prejudice
  Sunrise Iron Fist
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Strongman Gold Badge
  Strongman Platinum Badge
  Strongman Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 107/60   Experience 59906/11
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Marine

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

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

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (57%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nothing
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   pistol (2d4) [6/6]

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

    [a] missile launcher (6d6) [4/4]
    [b] fireproof red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [c] nanofiber red armor [2]
    [d] ballistic duelist armor [2/2] (100%)
    [e] energy shield [0/0] (100%)
    [f] chainsaw (4d6)
    [g] rocket (x10)
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] homing phase device
    [r] homing phase device
    [s] envirosuit pack
    [t] thermonuclear bomb
    [u] bulk mod pack
    [v] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)

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

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

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

    107 former humans
    79 former sergeants
    27 former captains
    64 imps
    59 demons
    198 lost souls
    35 cacodemons
    24 hell knights
    18 barons of hell
    5 arachnotrons
    6 former commandos
    14 pain elementals
    26 revenants
    9 mancubi
    8 arch-viles
    5 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    2 elite former captains
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He purified his fellow comrades.
  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 14 he assembled a ballistic armor!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 18 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 18 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You swap your weapons. You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
 You are hit! You are hit! You need to taste blood!
 You swap your weapons. You need to taste blood!
 You are hit! Boom! You are hit! You dodge! Boom! You are hit! Boom! You need
 to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 The Spider Mastermind hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. You're going berserk!

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

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

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

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


13

Discussion / Strongman badges

« on: November 23, 2013, 08:25 »

Hi,
I'm working on strongman platinum and diamond at the moment. I'm having trouble understanding what, exactly, the criteria are for this.
Reading previous posts, I've read conflicting ideas:

1. Any enemy dies while you are armed with a weapon fails you
2. You are allowed to punch enemies while you have a weapon armed, but they may not die by any other means.
3. Enemies who die on the turn you fire a weapon mean a fail

I'm wondering which of the above is true. I'm also wondering whether we're allowed to break crates (right-click on them with fists equipped), whether we can use right-clicking to punch people when we have no weapon equipped, whether monsters that die from acid/lava while I have a weapon equipped counts again me, etc.

Anyone know for certain which of these apply in the current version? It's frustrating that testing is so hard, because there's no record on my character sheet of whether I've broken the rules, and therefor can only test by winning games (which on AoOC HNTR might be a good way of testing, now that I think about it)
[edit - no it wouldn't. Too difficult to start out with fists only that deep, factoring deaths, would probably take longer than AoC runs overall]

playing for ages and being unsure whether I'm already disqualified is stressful! :D

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

14

Nightmare! / [N!|97%|YAFW] Melee/Pistol Hybrid, dual-diamond (Veteran+elite)

« on: November 15, 2013, 04:44 »

Hiya! I'm back! My first N! win since 0.9.9.0, going with a build I was working on before I left doomrl for a few years.

(This is a long post, so I'm gonna break it into sections, make it easier for you folks to skip the parts you aren't interested in)

Speculation on current version
I've always liked the idea of jack-of-all-trades builds in this game, I've posted skill suggestions relating to them, and voiced my concern when fireangel got turned into a shotgun-based master trait (back in 0.9.9.0 it used to require ironman, juggler, and badass). When it was changed, I started working on various all-round builds. I think the reason for this is that I get soooo sick of equipment restriction playing the angel challenges, and kinda try to overcompensate in non-angel games by using all the weapons I possibly could. Plus, I absolutely love all aspects of this game, why limit myself to just a couple of weapon types? ♥

The build was designed back then for conqueror runs, which sadly I didn't go for in this game, because I need to get my diamond badge collection to match my profile signature, one step at a time! :D
That said, the build is also designed for clearance, and to be honest if I had not entered the arena and been a little less intent on saving medikits in the first 5 levels of the game, I would have probably managed the 100% N! for veteran angelic. Might go for that next!
After the anomaly the game wasn't half so challenging. The most memorable tough point was clearing deimos lab without a rocket launcher, using only doors, acid, and cacodemon attacks to dispose of corpses.
I must say I do love spangly new N!, but the fact that cacos and imps can be used to dispose of corpses feels really weird - it's like a cheat (still wasn't used to being able to destroy corpses!) That said, these monsters are a lot tougher, as are the special levels (Anomaly, phobos lab, and CC+ all feel at the edge of or beyond my ability at the moment).

Early game:
Everything up to the anomaly was juggler-based shotgun traps and flipping between chain gun and pistol to guarantee landing corpses in doorframe. This isn't as simple as it sounds, because with juggler, taking levels in brute is basically wasting 2 character skill levels, and I really felt my character getting behind whenever I get hellknights, or vaults with demons/cacos. I visited the arena just to get a little xp from killing a demon or two. Ended up sitting on cacodemon corpses until the next cacodemon destroyed it, and realised that this would potentially make the arena much easier, one to note for my future runs! Still, I ended it fairly early, mostly because I needed a chainsaw, but wasn't confident generating CC+ (I find that level hard enough on UV, thankyouverymuch!)
Oh, and I skipped phobos lab, because, frankly, I find the level impossible on UV, never mind N!. I didn't have a master trait, and had no rocket launcher to coax the N! demons out of their ambushes, so yeah, no thanks!
Despite no rocket launcher and no phase device, the anomaly was relatively tame with berserker, I just kinda stood in the middle of the ambush looking pretty, and I got vampyre from the first demon that fell to cacodemon fire. Queue berserker rampage, corpse-in-door disposal using wait command, and vampire corpse farming ready for the bruisers (7 bruiser brother kills in the mortem!).
Had a really scary moment in arachnotron caves too, don't remember whether it was before or after anomaly. Where I was down to 26% health after using all medkits, and had to run through 2 turns of arachnotron fire to get to a supercharge globe. I appreciate how lucky I was to survive that, although it was pretty unlucky to find arach caves this early in the game, and I deserved a little something off lady luck considering my lack of ANY anomaly busting gear.

Middle game:
As said above, clearing the anomaly without a rocket launcher was tricky. but I still hadn't found a rocket launcher by the phobos lab, which was even worse! Had to use a lot of doors to dispose of corpses when I remembered how the level works (have to clear it all for the cache). In the cache I was really hoping for onyx or nano, but I got 2 firestorm. Bit bad with this build, but that's just how it goes isn't it?
Right after the phobos lab I found the anti-freak jackal. I've never rated that unique very much, but in a N! game with juggler it's absolutely obscene! It's just a corpse sniper, and turns N! into, basically, UV, although vampire kinda takes the edge of it, since vampire is so good at farming then disposing of corpses. Either way, at that point in the game my character was way ahead of the difficulty curve, and would breeze through hell.
When I got to The wall I knew I could clear it pretty easily. I took my armour off for it, and still finished the level without breaking a sweat, ending on 200%. The missile launcher I got, which I rate as an amazing weapon, I only remember using for a single shot, all game, in a combat situation (2 barons needed knocking in different lava patches). This is rare for juggler - normally juggler makes the missile launcher SUCH an important part of my arsenal.
I skipped spider's lair because I'm pouting and bitter that you don't get a nuclear plasma rifle from it any more! :P
Cybie, of course, went down to Berserk, although being unable to make myself a fireproof red armour, I did lose a lot of health and a suit of red trying to get to him!

Late game.
Bit gutted I didn't enter the unholy cathedral for longinus platinum, I feel it would have been easy with this build (had 200%hp and red armour with AP mods), but it just felt completely pointless given that I had a double chainsaw, and I didn't want to be surprised by any new additions (I've done it on lower difficulties in this version, but I have a feeling N! will flood it with N! cyberdemons or something! :) )
I never got a homing phase device, but I had a bomb, so I didn't dare enter limbo either, despite being pretty powerful at that point.

Got an invulnerability before mt erebus, and had 2 bombs, so figured I'd nuke the place, see what happened. Very pleasantly surprised that I still got the boss fight & my reward!
I thought twice about going for a full win, mulled over the numbers for a while, figured I must have got the maths wrong, and in the end decided it was worth it anyway!  I was actually pretty surprised that a combat pistol with SoaGx5 takes down JC as easily as it looked on paper, and I'm fairly convinced that berserk kicking in on rocket hits and barrels makes berserker stronger than it should be, but hey, if the final true evil in the game is gonna do 6hp dmg and 2%dmg to my red armour throughout the entire fight, I guess I shouldn't be complaining! ♥

The weakpoint of the build, I guess, is having no EE (this accuracy problem, along with inventory ammo problems from being a jack of all trades, is why I favoured pistols over rapidfire weapons). It really feels weird having a T3F2 plasma rifle and it doing negligible damage compared to pistols. I would give my right arm to get that in an EE build! :D

Thanks for reading anyway, this is probably the strongest N! game I've had, and I'm happy with the 97% clear rate, but convinced I can do better!
here's the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Sylph, level 16 Hell Baron Lt. Colonel Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1228311 turns and scored 880120 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 19 minutes and 26 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1800 out of 1849 hellspawn. (97%)
 He held his right to remain violent.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 3

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

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Hell Armorer Badge
  UAC Platinum Badge
  Veteran Platinum Badge
  Veteran Diamond Badge
  Elite Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 114/60   Experience 138176/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Son of a gun     (Level 5)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

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

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (198%) (BP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   combat pistol (3d5) [10/15] (A2P2)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   10mm ammo chain (x190)

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

    [a] plasma rifle (1d7)x10 [40/40] (F2T3)
    [b] missile launcher (6d6) [4/4] (T1)
    [c] Anti-Freak Jackal (5d3) [4/6]
    [d] blue armor [1/2] (48%)
    [e] red armor [6/6] (100%) (AP)
    [f] Cybernetic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [g] double chainsaw (8d7) (P)
    [h] 10mm ammo (x6)
    [i] shotgun shell (x23)
    [j] rocket (x14)
    [k] power cell (x70)
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] technical mod pack
    [p] lava element
    [q] hatred skull
    [r] Hellwave Pack
    [s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [t] rocket box (x20)

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

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

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

    275 former humans
    234 former sergeants
    87 former captains
    169 imps
    89 demons
    217 lost souls
    136 cacodemons
    42 hell knights
    118 barons of hell
    48 arachnotrons
    98 former commandos
    23 pain elementals
    132 revenants
    17 mancubi
    39 arch-viles
    38 nightmare imps
    5 nightmare cacodemons
    20 nightmare demons
    7 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    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 cowardly fled the Arena.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 10 he found the Anti-Freak Jackal!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 13 he assembled a double chainsaw!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 20 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He nuked level 22!
  On level 22 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. You are hit! That hurt! You' going berserk!
 You feel like a killing machine! You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 You quickly reload the combat pistol. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You
 defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...

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

 159 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 128 of those were killed.
 7 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 3 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 21 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 18 killed the bitch and survived.
 3 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


15

Discussion / Nightmare Anomaly

« on: November 09, 2013, 15:51 »

Hiya folks!
Been hammering out a few standard nightmare games recently (I only just got back into the game. Last time I played a lot, corpses couldn't be destroyed with explosives!)

Anyway, I seem to be completely stuck on the anomaly. It seems, on N!, my options are either
a) To find a (lucky) rocket launcher before I get there (Doing the arena every game is a little too much to ask of me), and still take a TON of damage (5+medikits and still died after being knocked about by N! cacodemons so much I couldn't get through the door)
b) Find a (lucky) phase device, and get lucky with where it leads to (last time, a game finished about 10 minutes ago, it teleported me about 10 squares to the left, and I then got through the door, but burned 7+ medikits and still died to N! demons and cacos.

Does anyone have any tips for me? I'm talking standard nightmare game here, and can only really get that far with rapidfire builds at the moment. I'm convinced kornel wouldn't have put a 'Roll a dice, 1-5 is game over' level into the game as a compulsory, so there must be something I'm missing...

Thanks in advance for any help...

(Also, as an aside, I find phobos lab completely impossible compared to military base, but at least it's skippable)