Completely Completing Descent Series

Ziqidel · Post by **Ziqidel** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:21 am

I recently decided to play all the descent series in insane difficulty (except D2 Vertigo which I can't buy because there are no more copies).

D1 is going fine, and I think it is going to be the easiest of the series in insane because D2 and D3 have robots that take ages to destroy, and jump out of the way anyway. I've played D1 in Ace (up to level 18 when I decided to stop for a while) without dying, so I thought I'd be able to play D3 in Ace as well.

But in D3 level 1, I got killed 3 times in Ace, even though I never died after that until the Homunculus got me in level 6. After that, in levels 7 and 8, I got killed even more times than in level 6.

Now, in Level 11, I decided to go in the Phoenix and not accept any deaths. I am up to the part where you have just got the mine key.

But that was in Ace. I don't know what will happen when I get to Level S2 in insane, and I don't know whether it will take ages and ages just to get one lucky shot at one robot in D3. D3 is a lot harder than D1 or D2.

But I suppose the way to do it all is to save after one robot has died, and just take ages to kill them one by one. After all, that's what I hear most "insane" players saying about that skill level. Do you agree that this is the best way to go about playing insane?

Oh, by the way, some people mentioned an invulnerability in Level 6 that you can use on the humunculus but I checked in D3edit and there was only the one that is too far away, in the secret room.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:18 pm

D1 SP in insane is the most fun out of the three. I never bothered playing D2 SP or vertigo on insane because it couldn't compare to D1.

D3 SP on insane should be renamed to Descent 3: Tedium. It's long, boring, the robots are all way too small dodgy and can absorb way too much damage for their size, generally it brings out the mistakes made in the design of D3 SP even more then the other modes.

Ziqidel · Post by **Ziqidel** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 4:57 am

Is trichording sliding up and left and afterburning forward all at the same time, and do you have luckily find the right angle for it to work?

The maximum number of keys the computer can recognise at a time is 3 so I can't change the angle without stopping trichording. I was just practising whether you could trichord out of the D3 Level 6 wind tunnel away from the boss and I decided it must have been a malfunction that hepled Zero do it when he was doing D3 in insane without dying.

I see what you mean with Descent 3: Tedium when I'm in level 7 of D3. It would take a miracle to get to the energy centre without dying and yet you have to take ages and waste all your energy to do it.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:22 am

You don't have to be afterburning, just moving forward or backward. Actually, tri-chording while afterburning helps you quite a lot less than it does otherwise.

fyrephlie · Post by **fyrephlie** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:37 am

trichording = moving in 3 directions at once... i.e. forward / slide left / slide up ... i beleive the math on it is that you move like 1.2x faster bichording and 1.7x faster trichording. the idea is that you dont use your ab at while trichording. you just move faster. great in multiplayer so that no one can hear your bursts of ab doom.

you want to look in the opposite direction you are moving ... in the example above you move up / left ... so you look down right and watch the corner of the screen. its tricky

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 3:02 am

1.4 and 1.7, respectively. Figures are approximate only.

Trichording is just a method of getting the most speed out of your ship possible - it makes no difference whether that involves the afterburner or not (but most people will do it without, unless they have to go absolutely as fast as they can).

Trichording with the afterburner results in a speed increase of only 22% though, as opposed to about 73% (I think) without.