Descent Speed Runs?

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:53 am

Most of you have probably heard of speed runs. Theyre basically people trying to beat computer games in single player as fast as possible. There are a few websites dedicated to hosting some of these files, one of them being speeddemosarchive.com, which I browse every so often and see which games Ive played have been beaten in whatever fashion that ends up being impressive. Theres quite an astonishing array of games that have been beaten, but as of yet there are no descent speed runs on their list.

There is, however, a forum topic on their forum where they're apparently discussing possible descent speed runs and how best to do it. I posted a few pointers in their thread after watching one of their runs of d1 level 5 and seeing how sloppy it was done.

link to the topic: http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB. ... 1122543729

Perhaps the descent community should start working on some amazing d1/d2/d3 singleplayer speed runs and blow these bastards away? I mean after all, doom, doom 2, and quake all have giant collections of speed runs that people watch for entertainment. I imagine some of the better players in the descent community could outright blaze through the singleplayer missions with ease.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:23 am

I could try it... I can only play D1x with a mouse, but I might be able to do level 5 fairly snappily.

Edit: Well, I'd need to learn it properly of course. But damn... 'hard to beat'? I did level 3 in 1:35 on my first try - 14 seconds faster than his best time...

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:21 am

A speed run in D1 would depend grately on the skill level, I'm probably the fastest at hotshot level, Tranee slows me down more then insane tho.

Buef · Post by **Buef** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 11:32 am

I would LOVE to see a video of CajunAce doing the entire D2 game in a speed run with one life. I forget what his personal record was, but it was the fastest I had heard of at the time...

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:14 pm

is it even possible to record a demo that long in the various games?

Vander · Post by **Vander** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:42 pm

My fastest time for completing Descent 1 is 10 years and counting. I don't think I ever played past level 15 or so.

10 years. Damn. "Vander's Casket" was finished and uploaded to Compuserve on 10/20/1995. Oy.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:54 pm

fliptw wrote:is it even possible to record a demo that long in the various games?

Wayyyyy before I had internet (and thus, I was a completely incompetent noob) I recorded like, a 7 hour demo of me going through every level in D1 on hotshot, and literally killing EVERYTHING, Getting ALL the hostages, and NEVER dying. I think I ended up with like a million points, 56 lives, and enough rings under my eyes to do saturn proud. So yes, it should be possible to record a modern-ish speed run going through either D1 or D2.

catch22 · Post by **catch22** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:08 pm

We had a speed run competition at a LAN party (7 years ago?) in lv 1 D2 (on insane).

I was able to pull it off in 30 sec. flat. I think the fastest was 26 / 27 sec.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:52 pm

and literally killing EVERYTHING, Getting ALL the hostages, and NEVER dying. I think I ended up with like a million points, 56 lives

Should be over 7.5 million points, with like 7 deaths the whole game, and losing hostages once, 59 or so lives. No deaths etc., would be higher.

That session I managed to fire off a volley of 8 or so missles AT ONCE with some rambo keypress during a panicky duke out with 4 bots.

Been searching for that keypress-combo ever since.

Pun · Post by **Pun** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:42 pm

I dont think I ever got past the first 5 or 6 levs in d3. I played a lot of D1 single tho, since that and modem to modem coop games were really all you could do on a mac back then.

[unrelated] What's up Seth!? Been a year since the LAN. Sure wish we could have pulled off another one

[/unrelated]

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:01 pm

Well I just punched my way through to level 16 in an hour and a half or so, and without hardly remembering where any of the damned keycards were, so I ended up flying around like a newbie going "where the F*** is that F***ing blue F***ing KEYCARD", etc.

I stopped cause my hands were getting cramped.

catch22 · Post by **catch22** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:42 pm

Salutations Pun!

I'm still a fan of (and still perform on occasion) chording demos. Probably some of the most impressive flying your ever going to see.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:49 pm

That site is very cool.

catch22 · Post by **catch22** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:13 pm

What site?

[edit] Never mind, I'm an idiot

[/edit]

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 11:22 pm

I actually uploaded onto compuserve (back in the day) a demo of me killing the D1 end boss with flares only (IIRC the lvl 7 boss). It took about an hour.

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 11:30 pm

descent and lander are good games for that.

load em up, put on on the hardest dificulty setting and jump in trying to get through levels as fast as you can.

it's a fun way to pass a small amount of time - kindof a game of "how far can you possibly get in this game if you only have 5 minutes of play", coz i normally play games really REALLY slowly and carefully.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:23 am

Well so far I've managed to get all hostages and beat level 1 in just a hair under 40 seconds.

If I skip the hostages I could probably get it down to 28 or 27 seconds, but I like "100%" speed runs better.

Sarge · Post by **Sarge** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:14 pm

Vander wrote:My fastest time for completing Descent 1 is 10 years and counting. I don't think I ever played past level 15 or so.

10 years. Damn. "Vander's Casket" was finished and uploaded to Compuserve on 10/20/1995. Oy.

"Vander's Casket" = Your first level?

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:57 am

So is anyone gonna maybe try this, or am I the only one insterested in humbling this group of rank amatures?

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:03 am

A few Rangers are giving it a go.
We play at ACE setting though.

One of our pilots reports doing it in 33 secs. lvl 1
and 1:22 level 2, but he says he's rusty

I have no real time to myself right now

but if I did I'd give it a whirl).

FunkyStickman · Post by **FunkyStickman** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:30 am

I think I'll give it a shot, not that I'm all that or anything. Sounds like fun.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:08 am

Canuck wrote:A few Rangers are giving it a go.
We play at ACE setting though.

One of our pilots reports doing it in 33 secs. lvl 1
and 1:22 level 2, but he says he's rusty

I have no real time to myself right now but if I did I'd give it a whirl).

That level 1 time with or without hostages? Because I can do around 30 myself without hostages.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:20 pm

Ok I posted your question.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 7:50 am

I ran level 1 Trainee minimum pass in 0:31, but my playing style is far from perfect.

From memory the best 100% pass of the level on Insane that I heard about was around 1:50 by Darkhorse...

Clocked 1:35 running level 3 on Ace myself...

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:26 pm

Ok thats without hostages, with his time is 44 secs.
I won't reveal who it is until he knocks the rust offa his pyro.

We do have some speed demon pilots to wake up too

Again lets play at Ace settings.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 9:22 pm

ooo Installed D1 last night went to 22 seconds into reactor room, then after 8 seconds of battling lost it

Reactor is a CAMPER!

Heh I'm rusty.

I guess Verran and Lord Death are the tri-Chording kings at the Rangers, both amazing pilots.
Both on LOA.

roid · Post by **roid** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 9:37 pm

Canuck wrote:Reactor is a CAMPER!

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 10:09 pm

In the days before I even had the full version of Descent 1 - me and my Buddy JT ("Contact" these days) used to play the Descent Demo against each other, seeing who could clear all the robots and kill the reactor and escape the fastest!]

I think our record time was under 50 seconds - but I can't be sure.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 11:49 pm

All robots killed, and reactor destroyed in under 50 seconds?

No.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:18 am

If you had two players, you could do it.

If it was just one, it's not really possible. You can't fly around enough of the level to even see all of the spawn points of the robots in that time...

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:14 am

hmm... but what if you strategicly used concussion splash damage? it could theoretically be possible to kill robots hidden behind distant corners without needing to even see them (and therefore saving you the trouble of going after them to flush them out).