The Journey to 100%

[Icy]

Cool, nice to hear. I just wasn't sure if my struggling is a result of bad skill or if that's normal and expected given how difficult the game is.

Day 36:

I rotated around again, but mostly went for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge some more. I can tell most of the story in a few pictures:

Spoiler

Spoiler

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Spoiler

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

 jhgf, level 4 Apostle Lt. General Marine,
 was bitten by a demon on level 3 of the Deimos base.
 He survived 3544 turns and scored 56268 points.
 He played for 6 minutes and 56 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 40 out of 385 hellspawn. (10%)
 Who gave him the ticket to Hell, anyway?
 He was an Angel of Pacifism!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 1
  Levels completed : 0

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

  Gatekeeper Platinum Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  #.h.......0.#..........X.........==s.........#.....#....s.h
  #...ch....B.#...........c.....==.=...........#.....#.h#....
  #..h..i.....#..#.###########.c====..#........#.0...#..#...s
  #....0.....|...#.........c....#.....#........#.......s#..hs
  #...0..........#..............#.....#.......B#........#....
  #.^#.....#######..#....#####..#..####........#.#####..#h...
  #..#...h.......#..#...........#...}.#...h........O.........
  #..#...........#..#...........#.....#..................h...
  #..#.#####..0..#..#...........#.....#..###################.
  #..#......B.......#........0..#.....#..........>........h..
  #.h#..............#............................B........h..
  #..#.########.#####.###########........>..#################
  #..h...............................|......h.h...#.h..h...#.
  #.....h.^..........0.........................h..#..h...h.#.
  #.h#0h#....===....#.....h.....#####.##########..#....h#..#h
  #..#..#.....=.=...#........................h..........#..#.
  #..#^.#..===.=....#....^...........................hh.#..#.
  ##########=#=##############################################
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/60   Experience 1902/4
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Marine

    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)

  HR->HR->DM->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nothing
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] green armor [1/1] (100%)
    [b] thermonuclear bomb

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

    None

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

    7 former humans
    5 former sergeants
    2 former captains
    19 imps
    4 demons
    1 lost soul
    1 cacodemon
    1 former commando

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

  He left level 2 as soon as possible.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He cowardly fled the Arena.
  He left level 3 as soon as possible.
  He left level 4 as soon as possible.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  Entering level 8 he was almost dead...
  On level 11 he finally was bitten by a demon.

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

 You open the door.
 You hear the scream of a freed soul!
 You open the door.
 You hear the scream of a freed soul!
 The baron of hell hits you.
 You use a homing phase device. You feel yanked in a non-existing direction!
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 You enter Deimos, level 3. Where the hell is the way out of here!?! You sense
 a passage to a place beyond...
 You start running!
 You stop running.
 There is a green armor [1/1] (100%) lying here.
 You picked up a green armor [1/1] (100%).
 The demon hits you. You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 998 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 728 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 123 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


I hope this kind of luck isn't always necessary! :P

After that, I didn't get too far in other challenges. I think I'm going to put focus on finishing up the last 5 remaining gold badges to complete that page. In total, I only have 64 remaining medals and badges left to collect, and I'm confident I can get many of them still. I intend to keep going as long as I can continue to achieve more.

[Icy]

Day 37:

Today's target was Arena Gold Badge, one of the five missing gold badges, and it was very challenging and often unforgiving! I tried many runs going into Hell's Arena and did fine with circling the pillars, but the moment I had 2 or more enemies targeting me, it was over. Demons also outsped me, so my strategy was to take pot-shots from a distance, run and hide, then let them stop chasing and repeat. Unfortunately, this was difficult when Demons would group up with each other or other enemies.

I always went with Marksmanship+Light Travel and almost always went with Intuition x2, but changed strategies a few time for the third trait I'd gain part way into the Arena. I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain. I also tried Tough as Nails since I would always enter with very little healing, but again, it didn't really solve my problems.

One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!

Another more indirect detail with using aimed shots is avoiding the case where I miss my target and hit something else, leading to more enemies after me. I had a really great run in Hell's Arena where I missed a Cacodemon, hit another Cacodemon instead, and unfortunately got swarmed. To be fair, this is more my mistake and is an important part of the game I should pay more attention to.

With that in mind, I also tried using Eagle Eye for my third trait, especially when taking my shots at Demons, but they would still often get to me before dying and a guaranteed 6+ damage per hit by them stacks up way too quickly. So after some more attempts, I ultimately decided that Hellrunner would be the best trait to go with. In combination of Scout+Light Travel+Hellrunner, I was fast enough to start circling Demons too, which is significantly easier to deal with.

Once I had my gameplan on lock, I still lost a couple runs due to bad spawn luck and enemy movement luck, where I would be forced to hide behind a pillar in dire hopes that one of them would run away somewhere else.

Eventually though, I finally got my completion:

Spoiler

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

 fdsd, level 3 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 committed a stupid suicide on level 3 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 18257 turns and scored 13031 points.
 He played for 23 minutes and 36 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 49 out of 86 hellspawn. (56%)
 He was an Angel of Marksmanship!
 He was also an Angel of Light Travel!

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

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

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

  Hell Champion Medal
  Arena Gold Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  i..........#.............0.....^...........................
  ##########.###############+###################+############
  #i.......#.#..........0......+.............................
  #....c..+#.###################+#################+##########
  #....+.}.#.+.................^.............................
  #.......c#.#####+##########################################
  #........#.#..i.......i......#..hhh........................
  #........#.#..hi.......\....+#..hhh....|......^........|...
  #........#.#..i.............^+...h.........................
  #..|.c...#.#.................#......0....|............|....
  #........#.#.......&.........#>.+..........................
  #.c......#.####################################+##########+
  #.c......#.#............................................i..
  #........#.#######+#######..###############################
  #........#.#...........|...............h...................
  #....|...#.#.|.....................+......0............*...
  #####+####.#..^...........................0................
  ...........#..................X................s...........
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 3074/3
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Hellrunner       (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->Int->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   green armor [1/1] (14%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   pistol (2d4) [1/6] (T1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] 10mm ammo (x58)
    [b] 10mm ammo (x100)

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

    Bullet     - internal 0%    torso 3%    feet 0%   
    Shrapnel   - internal 0%    torso 3%    feet 0%   

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

    10 former humans
    7 former sergeants
    1 former captain
    11 imps
    8 demons
    3 lost souls
    7 cacodemons
    2 barons of hell

-- 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 3 he finally committed a stupid suicide.

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

 Fire ( aimed ) -- Choose target...
 You see : a baron of hell (mortally wounded) | blood | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the baron of hell.
 Fire ( aimed ) -- Choose target...
 You see : a baron of hell (almost dead) | cacodemon corpse | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the baron of hell. The baron of hell dies. The crowds cheer!
 "Blood! Blood!" The voice booms, "Congratulations mortal! A pity you came to
 destroy us, for you would make a formidable Hell warrior!" "I grant you the
 title of Hell's Arena Champion!" "And a promise is a promise... search the
 arena again..."
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 The voice laughs, "Flee mortal, flee! There's no hiding in hell!"
 You enter Phobos, level 3. You feel excited!
 The barrel explodes! You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 1017 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 746 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 124 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


This was very difficult and rewarding! I'm happy to finally get it! I learned a lot through playing and have shifted some minor details in my mindset and playstyle because of it. I'm a little disheartened that in Papillo's difficulty rating thread that he rates this as a 9/30 skill challenge, but I suppose I could repeat this challenge now that I know what I'm doing. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's a solution to runs where you start in the centre of Hell's Arena and surrounded by Demons and Cacodemons. I also don't yet see how players do these kinds of things without Intuition x2.

I got over a plateau I had and feel ready for more!

[Sereg]

A bit late to help you out with this one, but I had this discussion awhile back when I was attempting Arena Gold. Hopefully it sheds some light on the solution for you - kudos for completing it with your method, but I suspect you'd have had an easier time this way.

[LuckyDee]

I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain.

For the record, SOG increases fire speed, not reload speed.

One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!

And I'll trade that bit of info for this one: I had totally forgotten this is an option. And on my current run (MSs Ao666 around dlev 30 - and with a GCB!) this might well come in handy. Although with a mandatory EE3, I don't know how much difference it'll make. Anybody care to do the math on this one?

[ZicherCZ]

And on my current run (MSs Ao666 around dlev 30 - and with a GCB!) this might well come in handy. Although with a mandatory EE3, I don't know how much difference it'll make. Anybody care to do the math on this one?

At EE3 there would be a noticable difference only if you 1) use running tactics and 2) full-auto mode and 3) your target is at the far end of your LOS. Even then you would still have a 84% hit chance. If a single condition mentioned above is not true, the hit chance goes up to 95%. If two or three of the conditions are not true (or if you fire in single shots, without regard to anything else), there would be no difference at all, and your hit chance is at >98%, the maximum possible.

Well, those were the maths. And since neither the Wiki nor the source code mention any existence of GCB alt-fire, all of the maths may be moot.

[LuckyDee]

And since neither the Wiki nor the source code mention any existence of GCB alt-fire, all of the maths may be moot.

Good point. Still, I salute you.

[Icy]

You know it's funny, I couldn't get a run with Son of a Gun, mistook what the trait did, and managed to rationalize why it wasn't great. :P Definitely meant firing speed, lol.

I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.

Day 38:

Feeling rejuvenated, I went hard for some more gold badges and my first target was Speedrunner Gold Badge. I tried a few Intuition/Shotgun builds, and abused Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon, but even though I wasn't taking any damage, I really couldn't kill him in a decent pace. So, I opted for a Vampyre melee build instead.

None of it was necessary, but I had some really good luck on this run. I Phase Deviced past all the enemies in Phobos Anomaly right by the Bruisers, had just enough Large Med-Packs for the Cyberdemon, found Malek's Armor nearby the staircase on one of the floors (which I almost missed since I was berserk), and then had an Invulnerability just before the Spider Mastermind!

Spoiler

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

 hgfghdf, level 7 Apostle Lt. General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 20984 turns and scored 92320 points.
 He played for 12 minutes and 31 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 199 out of 540 hellspawn. (36%)

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 4
  Levels completed : 0

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

  Mastermind's Brain
  Minor Icarus Cross
  Compet-n Gold Cross
  Speedrunner Gold Badge

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

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

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

  Health 120/60   Experience 19859/7
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Marine

    Brute            (Level 3)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->Bad->MVm->Bad->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Malek's Armor [3/3] (100%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   piercing chainsaw (4d7)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shotgun (8d3) [1/1] (T1)

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

    [a] shotgun shell (x50)
    [b] shotgun shell (x50)
    [c] shotgun shell (x50)
    [d] shotgun shell (x18)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] small med-pack
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] phase device
    [k] agility mod pack
    [l] agility mod pack
    [m] shell box (x100)
    [n] shell box (x100)

-- 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 90%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 

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

    52 former humans
    29 former sergeants
    11 former captains
    26 imps
    13 demons
    26 lost souls
    4 cacodemons
    8 hell knights
    4 barons of hell
    1 arachnotron
    1 pain elemental
    1 revenant
    14 mancubi
    5 arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  He left level 7 as soon as possible.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He left the Deimos Lab without drawing too much attention.
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He fled the City in terror!
  He left level 13 as soon as possible.
  He left level 14 as soon as possible.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a piercing blade!
  On level 19 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 19 he found the Malek's Armor!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  He came, he saw, but he left.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 hit! You are hit! You dodge! Boom! You are hit!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You feel like
 a killing machine! You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 1023 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 751 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 124 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


My next target was UAC Gold Badge, which is just beating a standard game on Ultra-Violence. Since re-adjusting my playstyle, I decided to focus on early Hellrunner, and it's SO helpful! I'm really starting to appreciate stronger evasive tactics and the extra movement speed is amazing! I also used Tactical Boots to build on it some more. Of course though, Intuition came first, but Hellrunner was next. I honestly didn't struggle that much at all until I ran into some bad luck:

Spoiler

Just as I decided I was ready to fight the Spider Mastermind and stopped killing everything in favor of stairdiving, the game gave me a triple stacked Invulnerability right by the stairs:

Spoiler

The good luck continued:

Spoiler

Then on Hell 7, I had a really nice setup for cleaning out enemies. I made the mistake of letting an Archvile have a chance to attack though:

Spoiler

Spoiler

But with enough healing and luck, I managed to dash and survive!

Spoiler

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

 i7rf56t, level 10 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 68397 turns and scored 187611 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 9 minutes and 35 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 530 out of 821 hellspawn. (64%)

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

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

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  UAC Gold Badge

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

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

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

  Health 50/50   Experience 46991/10
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 1)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)

  Int->Int->HR->HR->DM->TaN->TaN->Bad->Bad->Fin->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nanofiber red armor [2]
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   laser rifle (1d7)x7 [33/40] (F1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]

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

    [a] nuclear plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [31/31] (B1)
    [b] medical armor [2/2] (77%) (A)
    [c] shotgun shell (x70)
    [d] shotgun shell (x70)
    [e] shotgun shell (x70)
    [f] shotgun shell (x70)
    [g] shotgun shell (x70)
    [h] shotgun shell (x2)
    [i] shotgun shell (x70)
    [j] shotgun shell (x70)
    [k] power cell (x54)
    [l] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)

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

    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 13%   feet 0%   

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

    88 former humans
    47 former sergeants
    17 former captains
    107 imps
    57 demons
    79 lost souls
    36 cacodemons
    12 hell knights
    28 barons of hell
    21 arachnotrons
    8 former commandos
    5 pain elementals
    10 revenants
    6 mancubi
    4 arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    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 as a champion!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
  On level 9 he found the Jackhammer!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 10 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  He left level 18 as soon as possible.
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  He came, he saw, but he left.
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He decided it was too dangerous.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You use a large med-pack. You feel fully healed.
 You reload the tactical shotgun.
 You reload the tactical shotgun.
 You reload the tactical shotgun.
 You reload the tactical shotgun.
 You reload the tactical shotgun.
 You swap your weapons.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You reload the laser rifle.
 You hear the scream of a freed soul! Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
 Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

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

 1025 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 752 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 124 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


Now that I'm greatly appreciating movement speed, I'm having to also re-adjust how I play. When I would use a slower style, I would take a lot less risks and play a campier game. Being much faster early on has lead to me making dumb risks and mistakes I wouldn't otherwise make, so I have to change that a bit as I play more. I'm really starting to think Hellrunner is one of the best traits! The only that I'm a bit hung up on is I still love using the power of infinity with an early game Nanofiber Red Armor, which is -20% movement speed. In the same way, I'm also thinking that Inquisitor Armor (and the set) are ridiculously good more and more.

Obviously with a game as detailed and complex as DoomRL, claiming a single trait path is the best in all cases is wrong, but I think for most of my usual Scout runs, I'll be doing Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster, before putting focus into a master trait. I think the last two gold badges won't be too difficult for me to get now, but might take some luck. Then I'll be ready for lots of Nightmare come collecting platinum badges!

Good progress today and great skill development!

[Tormuse]

Oh dear, I've fallen way behind in this thread; I need to catch up on reading!  :o

I noticed that the armor is indestructible, but while the boots have self-repair, they don't specifically say they're also indestructible. Could I potentially destroy the boots if I stand in acid for too long?

All uniques are indestructible, even if you drop them in lava, even if you nuke the level they're on.  No unique armour or boots can be destroyed while you're wearing them.  The only exception to this is if a Former wears unique armour and then gets gibbed.

All that said though, I discovered a really cool trick that significantly improves use of the Inquisitor set for this type of run. Despite taking no damage from explosions, they can still trigger Berserker trait and with my Nanomachic Napalm Launcher...

Yeah, it's pretty nice.  :)  The trigger for the berserk is based on how much damage you *would have* taken.  Knockback works like that too; you can use a rocket launcher to rocket-jump around while wearing the Inquisitor set and not take any damage.

I imagine there's some sort of hard cap with how much berserk I can stack, so it's not true permanent berserk, but it's pretty dang close!

I'd be curious to know what the cap on berserk time is too; maybe someone who is more adept at reading the source code can tell us.  :)

I also learned on a floor with a flood of acid/lava that also has a flooding lever, you can cut off the area where the incoming flood takes up:

Spoiler

Pretty cool niche mechanic!

I'm not quite clear what you mean.  What's happening here?

I also noticed that I could still put an item into my prepared slot, despite not being able to switch, so I imagine Dragonslayer with Malicious Blades. Perhaps mixing it with Butcher's Cleaver would get into some serious insanity. :P

You better believe it!  :D

Too late, gave up on run and suicided.
How can a gamemode be so boring? Seriously, I was going nuts from tedium.

I feel your pain; my current game is into the 570's and even with the finish line in sight, I feel the temptation to just end it too.  I think the secret is to take lots of breaks and do only tiny bits at a time.  It's really important to find other interesting things to do in between sessions so you don't get bored.



I'll probably have more to say once I've read some more posts here; I'll be back later.  :)

[Tavana]

I'd be curious to know what the cap on berserk time is too; maybe someone who is more adept at reading the source code can tell us.  :)

Picking up the Dragonslayer adds 10,000,000 to the Berserk timer. It's technically possible to run out of Berserk after picking it up. As to the maximum that stat could be, BerserkLimit is a LongInt, so that means you could have up to 2,147,483,647 on your Berserk timer before the game would be upset with you.

[ZicherCZ]

As to the maximum that stat could be, BerserkLimit is a LongInt, so that means you could have up to 2,147,483,647 on your Berserk timer before the game would be upset with you.

Only in theory. For the Berserker trait, the more turns you already have on your berserk "counter", the smaller are further increases. If you are not yet zerking, you gain 20 turns. If you already are and have n turns remaining, you only gain 10 - (n div 10), minimum 1 turn. This effectively means that the cap is 90 turns - after each next Berserker proc, you would only gain a single turn. This math is valid for both type of Berserkers procs (four hits in a row, and being hit hard enough).
For the record, Berserk Packs give 40 turns and Hatred Skulls give 5 turns per corpse destroyed. These items may surpass the effective cap of the Berserker trait, but of course they are not that common.

[Icy]

Tormuse, that screenshot you were confused about shows a level where I had both an acid flood ("You feel the sudden need to run!") and a lever to flood the whole floor with water ("The air is really humid"). After the acid flood fills part of the level, you can hit the lever to revert some of the acid to water behind the "wave". Potentially, you could undo the entire flooding of acid.

Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage. I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired, but it would never happen in a real game nor would anyone actually wait out the berserk's effect. :P

Day 39:

My targets this time were my last two gold badges. I started with Hunter Gold Badge and initially thought it would be best to do a full game run for more kills available and to make use of the doubled experience, but I decided to try mixing it with Overconfidence first. I had a pretty nice setup on floor 4 where I blew up every corpse except for one remaining Zombieman, which I killed repeatedly. I figured with a rough high of 20ish monsters per remaining floor (for 60ish total), I could kill the Zombieman enough times to allow me to stairdive through the remaining floors, so I did just that! It took awhile, but that's the power of patience!

Spoiler

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

 fr432, level 8 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 43001 turns and scored 59864 points.
 He played for 38 minutes and 7 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 247 out of 289 hellspawn. (85%)
 He was an Angel of Darkness!
 He was also an Angel of Overconfidence!

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

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

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

  UAC Star (silver cluster)
  Hunter Gold Badge

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

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

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

  Health 37/50   Experience 22246/8
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->Int->HR->HR->DM->Fin->Fin->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   blue armor [2/2] (91%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   assault shotgun (7d3) [5/6]
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [40/40]

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

    [a] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
    [b] minigun (1d6)x10 [200/200] (F1)
    [c] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [d] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] shotgun shell (x50)
    [g] shotgun shell (x50)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] shotgun shell (x26)
    [j] rocket (x10)
    [k] rocket
    [l] power cell (x20)
    [m] power cell (x50)
    [n] power cell (x50)
    [o] power cell (x50)
    [p] power cell (x50)
    [q] power cell (x50)
    [r] large med-pack
    [s] phase device
    [t] 10mm ammo chain (x250)

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

    Plasma     - internal 0%    torso 20%   feet 0%   

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

    87 former humans
    34 former sergeants
    24 former captains
    15 imps
    3 demons
    40 lost souls
    16 cacodemons
    2 barons of hell
    10 former commandos
    3 pain elementals
    6 revenants
    2 mancubi
    4 arch-viles
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 8 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You reload the assault shotgun.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 You reload the assault shotgun.
 Your assault shotgun is already loaded.
 You hear the scream of a freed soul! Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
 Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

 1039 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 763 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 126 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


Along that run, I was also curious about the "relatively safe" message that comes up when everything is dead. Obviously with respawning monsters, it'd never be the case that you'd be relatively safe, but wondered if on top you disposed of all the corpses if you would then get it. Nope! It never comes up!

That left Strongman Gold Badge and it was quite tough to get! Being that I was only allowed Fists and Knives, it's easy to assume Malicious Knives is the way to go, but it takes awhile to get started with that strategy and after many attempts, I changed course and went with a Scout for the extra speed and knowing where the stairs are. I figured Blademaster would be useful enough too.

I was pretty well set to beat the game with this challenge, but I ended up unncessarily luckboxing it anyway! :) I found a nuke early on in Deimos, some conveniently placed Invulnerabilities, and Hell floors 4 through 7 had the stairs about 50ish tiles total away from the starting point across all four floors. From there I did a nuke sacrifice against the Spider Mastermind and completed 26/26 gold badges!

Spoiler

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

 fdsg, level 6 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 14745 turns and scored 72098 points.
 He played for 15 minutes and 12 seconds.
 He wasn't afraid to be hurt plenty.

 He killed 154 out of 599 hellspawn. (25%)
 Who gave him the ticket to Hell, anyway?

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

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

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

  Malicious Knives Cross
  Major Icarus Cross
  Compet-n Gold Cross
  Strongman Gold Badge

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

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

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 11496/6
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Scout

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

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->HR->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (100%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   piercing combat knife (2d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (93%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   combat knife (2d6) (P)

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

    [a] green armor [1/1] (100%)
    [b] blue armor [1/2] (21%) (A)
    [c] small med-pack
    [d] small med-pack
    [e] small med-pack
    [f] small med-pack
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] phase device
    [m] envirosuit pack
    [n] technical mod pack

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

    31 former humans
    25 former sergeants
    3 former captains
    31 imps
    29 demons
    16 lost souls
    4 cacodemons
    8 hell knights
    1 baron of hell
    2 former commandos
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he assembled a piercing blade!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He left the Deimos Lab without drawing too much attention.
  He left level 15 as soon as possible.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  Level 17 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  He came, he saw, but he left.
  He left level 20 as soon as possible.
  He left level 21 as soon as possible.
  On level 22 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He decided it was too dangerous.
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  On level 24 he finally sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind.

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

 You enter the damned city of Dis...
 Are you sure you want activate the thermonuclear bomb? [Y/n]
 You use a thermonuclear bomb. Warning! Explosion in 10 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 9 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds!
 Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds!
 Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. That hurt! You' going berserk! You feel like a
 killing machine!

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

 1061 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 784 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 126 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?

Anyway, here's some updated status screenshots!

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

The unseen missing platinum badge is Arena Platinum Badge.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)

Next up will be more picking away at badges and rotating on what I go for! Hopefully I don't get stuck with progress for too long!

[Tormuse]

Now I have some time so I can reply to the rest of this!  :D

Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.

That one is definitely going to need a lucky phase and/or invulnerability going in.  (The latter of which would mean you'd have to skip Military Base/Phobos Lab)  I doubt that AoPc would be the best way to do it, although maybe...  if you have Dodgemaster and choose your steps very carefully around the Bruisers?  Like lure them south a bit and then run around an arc north of them, being careful not to get too close to that north wall?  Personally, I prefer to just shoot them from outside their weapon ranges and/or cornershoot them with a shotgun to knock them back and not get a chance to shoot back, (bonus points if you have a shellbox for faster reloading) but if you're just going for the exit without bothering to kill anyone, then yeah, Dodgemaster would be the way to go.

I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get...

Oh, it is very, very ridiculous.  The one and only time I got it, I was phenomenally lucky; that'll probably never happen again.  :)  That being said, dual angeling with Darkness for the experience boost or Light Travel for the speed boost are probably the way to go.

Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency...

My advice for N! games is to not expect consistency.  Skill can take you far, but N! requires a mix of luck and skill, especially for the harder challenges.

I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.

Dr Granola gave good advice, so I'll quote them here:

As a self-professed noob who cribs every strat they find and read about, who also has no business telling you any of this, I'd say go for a bit of both. Just keep pumping out runs, and getting better along the way. The beast of both worlds!

That's right, be the BEAST of both worlds!  :D  (I know that's probably a typo, but I liked it)  :P  Seriously, though, yeah, just keep playing and keep getting better.  That's what I did, and as you get more experience, you learn how to adapt your strategies to each situation.

The best active player at the moment has to be Tormuse(and as far as I'm aware he also has the highest confirmed Angelic count of any player in the history of DRL)

Oh, hey, thanks!  :D

Another pretty good player is Papilio, who doesn't seem to be active lately, but was putting out Diamond and Angelic badges fairly regularly for a while and recorded a number of videos of himself playing, so there's another resource for possible strategies.  (Feel free to watch my videos too; link is in my sig)  ;)

...and while I suspect Dragonslayers from the cathedral are more consistent then that badge, they'd still require a massive amount of luck in the Arena. Again, you'll probably want to wait on Tormuse for that one, because he's actually done it.

I have gotten the guaranteed DS to spawn twice, here and here, (the second one includes videos) both of which I got the Hell Arena Pwnage medal by using AoMC, Int 2, and *lots* of bullets.  I'm not sure how I would do it outside of those conditions, but I think Int 2 is a huge help, regardless.

Demonic Angelic is, if memory serves, 100% kill rate damageless nightmare? This is probably theoretically possible, but not only would it require an absurd number of attempts coupled with absolutely insane luck, it would also require player skill to be absolutely monumental. I would consider this to be on the very far end of the attainability scale.

You and me both.

...Playing is the biggest part of it, and the rest is probably engaging with the community, getting feedback on runs, and familiarizing yourself with details of gameplay, whether that's learning from other players, reading the wiki, or checking stats in game. You're doing a good job of engaging with the community on this thread, and the rest is up to you, but I think you're on the right track.

What Sereg said here.  You're doing well and you're on the right track to achieving all your goals.  Just keep doing what you're doing.  And yes, engaging with the community is good too; some of my best games came from adapting strategies that other people suggested, even when I was skeptical of them.  (The strategies, not the people)  :P

Here's the very first mortem I ever posted.

Oh, hey, that's neat!  You joined the forums about a week before I did!  :o  I didn't realize that we're from the same era!  :D

A bit late to help you out with this one, but I had this discussion awhile back when I was attempting Arena Gold. Hopefully it sheds some light on the solution for you - kudos for completing it with your method, but I suspect you'd have had an easier time this way.

There's some good AoMr stuff in that discussion.  Don't underestimate Dualgunner; it was responsible for victory in a lot of my early AoMr games.

I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.

That's something else that'll come with time, I think.  When you learn not to rely on Int 2, there's a lot you can do with those two levels.  :)

Picking up the Dragonslayer adds 10,000,000 to the Berserk timer. It's technically possible to run out of Berserk after picking it up.

This makes me really tempted to find myself a small but heavy object to weigh down the wait key on my keyboard after picking up DS and just leave the game on, overnight, with the key depressed and see if I can run out of berserk power.  :D

Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage.

Erm...  I'm not sure what you're getting at here; being berserk already makes you move faster than normal running, in addition to the extra protection and melee damage.  There really isn't any situation where it's advantageous to not be berserk...  unless, I don't know...  maybe you feel that you're doing too much damage and you want to gib Formers less frequently?  (Though DS does so much damage that you would still gib them a majority of the time anyway)

I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired

I'm not.  I can't even imagine any hypothetical, obscure, edge-case scenarios.  Being berserk gives so many advantages, that it's pretty much objectively a good thing.

One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?

1)  I'm pretty sure they have to be Combat Knives.  I know for a fact that Butcher's Cleaver invalidates the Malicious Knives Cross medal from a game I played in this thread.  (At the time, I attributed it to something different I did early on in the game, but I've learned since then that it was the BC that did it)  I don't know if DS invalidates MKC, but it just so happens that I will find out soon.  ;)

2)  That counts as a melee kill.  It's based on what weapon you have in your hand when the enemy dies.  This is a widely used strategy for Strongman runs, swapping to ranged weapons to weaken enemies, before swapping back to melee to land the killing blow.  Juggler is good for this strategy.

3)  That gets counted as whatever weapon you have in your hand at the time, and it's the source of a lot of ruined runs of this type.  :P  That being said, someone said that there's a line in the code for this version (that wasn't present in previous versions) that if an enemy dies at the same time that you're punching, it counts as a fist kill, even if you have a ranged weapon in hand at the time.  Testing seems to confirm this, but if you're going for a fist-based Strongman badge, I wouldn't recommend it, for fear of accidentally ruining the run.

4)  Are you referring to Juggler trait?  I know that in previous versions, the game would always attribute the kill to whatever you have as your main weapon in hand, but I'm pretty sure this version properly attributes Juggler-based melee kills to the weapon in your prepared slot.  (The previous version let you put the Chainsaw in the prepared slot, get chainsaw kills, and count them as fist kills; it was great for Strongman badges!)  :D

5)  Everything that dies from the Angel Arm would be pistol kills, since it immediately nukes while you have the pistol in your hand.  Side note:  If you nuke a level with the Nuclear BFG/Plasma Rifle and have your hands empty when the ten seconds run out, it will count those as fist kills.

Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)

Haha, yeah!  That'll be Everyman Gold.  Congrats!  :D  I kind of figure I'll get that at the same time as Everyman Diamond or Angelic if I ever achieve those.  :)



Sorry about the huge wall of text; like I said, there was a lot to catch up on.  I'm still following this thread and I'm interested to see what you do next.  :)

[Tavana]

More on Berserking - I was incorrect.

Firstly, the flag isn't FBerserkLimit, its FBersekerLimit. Kornel has some lovely artifacts from either typos or previous iterations. I love you Kornel! :D Secondly, it looks like FBersekerLimit is actually used to test if you should go berserk with incoming damage, not how long you're going berserk. I'm still not that good with FreePascal, but I think what we're looking for is simply called "duration" in dfaffect.pas, in the call TAffects.Add(). That's a DWord, which is the same as a LongWord, and it's basically an unsigned version of LongInt. So, technically (and theoretically) you could add 4,294,967,295 to your berserk timer at a time. However, I don't see anything defined for what the maximum duration actually CAN be. I'm not really inclined to do more code diving at this point, either.

[Icy]

Thanks for the responses and information, Tormuse! I'm always happy to read long posts, so if you have more walls of text to share, please do! :)

Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge? It'd be ideal if I can just set my damaging weapon in my prepared slot, rather than pulling from my inventory each time I need to prep for a kill. That Juggler/Chainsaw trick sounds cool, but I assume it's been corrected now?

Day 40:

Off to Nightmare! I've been a little reluctant to playing Nightmare, not so much because of the difficulty, but moreso because of the lack of feeling of completion when playing. In actual Doom and Doom 2, I never really enjoyed Nightmare mode because there are literally an infinite number of monsters via respawning, and there's no sense of accomplishment or getting that mental checklist check when only temporarily killing a monster. I usually opted to play UV with the -fast parameter because of that.

However, I've come to realize in DoomRL, this isn't a big deal since corpses when destroyed are no longer active. Simply by changing my mentality towards Nightmare to needing to kill and dispose of corpses has actually made the difficulty more playable and more importantly a lot more fun! The tricks with using staircases, fluids, corpses on top of each other, and so forth adds more room for ingenuity in the game, which I like! The other thing is Nightmare offers some player advantages over Ultra-Violence through more experience points, double effect bonuses (I particularly like the Small Health Globes), and extra ammo. Stocking up on Shotgun Guys and Zombiemen is also fun!

One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.

Anyway, I figured the best way to practice and learn would be going for the Hell's Arena related badges and medals. With abuse of Max Carnage+Light Travel, I got Arena Platinum Badge on my first try:

Spoiler

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

 lol, level 4 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 was spooked by a lost soul on level 3 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 7632 turns and scored 30760 points.
 He played for 9 minutes and 25 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 81 out of 99 hellspawn. (81%)
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Light Travel!

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

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

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Hell Champion Medal
  Arena Platinum Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  ####################.#==##.#=....=##..#####################
  ##################...|.s..............#####################
  ##################.s.......=..........##...################
  ##################....#..............+###..################
  ###################.......>.#........#####..###############
  ####################..............^.........###############
  ###################......................#..|#==###########
  ##################.#s....s....=..............+==###########
  #################...##....s+.X=...........s##.==###########
  ##############..s.............s..[.....^.####===.##########
  ###############.#...................s....#####==###########
  ################..........................####===#=########
  ##############..#.........................####==.=.########
  ##############..............s........s...##...===..########
  ##############.s........##.........s.^..s....=.s=..\#######
  ################........=#........s..........==......######
  ##################...#==....#.......##...##.===.#......####
  ###################.#=..#..#.........##.....##==.##..#.####
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 4354/4
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +12  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->Int->HR->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   chaingun (1d6)x4 [16/40]
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shotgun (8d3) [1/1]

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

    [a] shotgun shell (x40)
    [b] shotgun shell (x50)

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

    Acid       - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 25% 

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

    33 former humans
    8 former sergeants
    1 former captain
    6 imps
    13 demons
    5 lost souls
    13 cacodemons
    2 barons of hell

-- 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 3 he finally was spooked by a lost soul.

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

 The missile hits the baron of hell. The missile hits the baron of hell. The
 baron of hell dies. You advance to level 4! Press <Enter>...
 The crowds cheer! "Kill! Kill!" The voice booms, "Congratulations mortal! A
 pity you came to destroy us, for you would make a formidable Hell warrior!"
 "I grant you the title of Hell's Arena Champion!" "And a promise is a
 promise... search the arena again..."
 Too tired to do that right now.
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 The voice laughs, "Flee mortal, flee! There's no hiding in hell!"
 You enter Phobos, level 3. Twisted passages carry the smell of death...
 The lost soul hits you.
 The lost soul hits you.
 The lost soul hits you.
 The lost soul hits you. You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 1062 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 785 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 126 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


This is also nice to get since I can show off all my missing platinum badges in one screenshot now. :P

Following that, I figured I could do it again, just that I would need to avoid taking damage for Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal, and after a couple tries and careful play, I got it pretty easily:

Spoiler

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

 hgfdrtf, level 4 Apostle Lt. General Scout,
 was burned by an imp on level 3 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 7866 turns and scored 32699 points.
 He played for 7 minutes and 48 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 82 out of 118 hellspawn. (69%)
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Light Travel!

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

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

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

  UAC Star (silver cluster)
  Hell Arena Pwnage Medal

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

  #======####################################################
  #======.#...................#.............................#
  ======..#...................###################+#+#########
  ======..#............0......#.........................^...#
  ======..+...................###########+###################
  ======..#...................#...................[.i..B...X#
  ======..#...................#...i.............##..........#
  ======..#......+....}.......#..##..0.....##...##..i%.##...#
  #======.#..............^....#..##........##..........##...#
  #======.+...........+.......#0.^..i.......................#
  #======.#.......|...........+.............##...##.........#
  #.===[==#...................#.....i.##....##...##.##i.....#
  #..======.......*.......0...#....##.##............##i.....#
  +..======.......|...........#h...##...B..0.##......i......#
  #...=====0..................#h.h...........##.i.0.........#
  #...====0=..................#.h...##.........i......##....#
  ###+======###+###+###########.....##.......iB...i...##....#
  #===========================+.................i...0.......#
  #===========================#..............i.........h....#
  ####======#################################################

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 4882/4
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +12  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->Int->HR->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   shotgun (8d3) [0/1]
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] chaingun (1d6)x4 [40/40] (A1)
    [b] shotgun shell (x37)
    [c] 10mm ammo chain (x250)

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

    None

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

    19 former humans
    8 former sergeants
    6 former captains
    9 imps
    22 demons
    2 lost souls
    14 cacodemons
    2 barons of hell

-- 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 3 he finally was burned by an imp.

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

 You reload the shotgun.
 You reload the shotgun.
 The cacodemon dies. The crowds go wild! "BLOOD! BLOOD!" The voice booms,
 "Congratulations mortal! A pity you came to destroy us, for you would make a
 formidable Hell warrior!" "I grant you the title of Hell's Arena Champion!"
 "And a promise is a promise... search the arena again..."
 There are stairs leading downward here.
 The voice laughs, "Flee mortal, flee! There's no hiding in hell!"
 You enter Phobos, level 3.
 You dodge! The missile hits the imp. The imp dies. The imp dies. The imp
 dies.
 You are hit! You dodge! The missile hits the hell knight.
 You are hit! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! The missile hits the hell knight.
 You are hit! You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 1065 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 788 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 40 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 126 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

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

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


I dropped it on the ground in favor of ammo, but I had a rare Phobos 2 Rocket Launcher pick-up for Hell's Arena, which helped!

Following that, I grinded for Chessmaster's Cross, but haven't been able to get it yet. I learned a lot about knockback control by mixing up with Chaingun and Shotgun, but my skill with it is still improving. On my last run though, I did get to the third wave, but had extremely bad luck with a Baron being revived immediately after killing him, along with a Cacodemon right behind me. I did learn from this though in that, I should try to time my kills to skip over respawn cycles, which is a very important mechanic to control.

So I'm enjoying learning on Nightmare now and things are going well! I'm going to continue grinded for Chessmaster's Cross and maybe a few more easier badges and medals!

[Tormuse]

Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge?

The kill would be attributed to the Knife/Fist in your main slot.

One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.

As far as I know, you get the double powerup duration from N! difficulty plus 25% from being a marine.  I've never timed them, so I don't know exactly how they stack.

EDIT:  Okay, I just did a quick test where I played four games where I picked up the first berserk that I saw and just spent them by walking back and forth and counting the moves.

1)  HNTR Scout:  40
2)  HNTR Marine:  60
3)  N! Scout:  80
4)  N!  Marine:  100

The act of picking up the berserk counts as the first move and the last move is when the screen stops being red.  And the indicator at the bottom of the screen changed to indicate that berserk was running out five moves from the end in each case.  So, when the in-game description says that Marines get 25% more time, it means 25% of the new value after it's doubled by N!

More on Berserking - I was incorrect...

While I appreciate the effort you put into your code-diving, I think Icy and I kind of meant how high it can practically go by whacking enemies with Berserker trait and ZicherCZ covered that.  Thanks, though.  :)

Still, you provided interesting information about DS's berserk counter;  I seem to remember, a while back, when ArchAo666 was invented, someone wondering if it was possible to run the DS's berserk timer out through regular gameplay of that challenge.  For the record, I'm gonna say no to that, because in my current ArchAo666 game that I'm playing, I'm less than 50 levels from the end and my turn counter is just over 400000, so not even 1 million, let alone 10 million.  :)