DescentBB

Got a bit of a challenge just for the heck of it: Throw a Calmarius element into the mix.
Complete a normal insane-max with 100+ shields left.

Didn't play for quite a time, but yesterday I turned Descent on again. Improved level 7 from 7:03 to 6:21. Still improvable, but that boss fight was close to perfect.

Can't help the impression that that boss dies way, way too quickly, even on Insane. Isn't he supposed to have like 4000 hp, compared to a Super Hulk's 325? I thought 4000 was the post-nerf value, apparently it was pre-nerf, though for some reason got carried over to Descent2.ham. Weird

Idk how many hp he has. But he has same amount of hp on all difficulties. It was the only time when it took me just two cycles (+ a few random shots while fighting red hulk).

Marvin wrote:Idk how many hp he has. But he has same amount of hp on all difficulties. It was the only time when it took me just two cycles (+ a few random shots while fighting red hulk).

In D1 perhaps boss life isn't determined by difficulty level, but in D2 it sure is. Also, according to descent2.ham he does indeed have 4000 HP. But then again, I believe that he was nerfed in Descent version 1.4, as people complained that he was too challenging, and his hp was cut in half. That's why I was wondering whether this 4000 figure was before or after the nerf. I'm forced to conclude that it was before the nerf, as the level 27 boss is indicated to have 7000 HP, and I sincerely doubt the first boss would have 1k hp more than the final boss.

I dunno... The final boss seems to take a few less hits to kill IMO - but you do have to consider you get mega missiles by then

And lots of invulns make the fight really easy.
You're right that it's pretty difficult to compare.

Why don't u guys post these to Speedrun.com?
https://www.speedrun.com/descent1

'd have to message Spooty to make a new category, or a new Moderator, but seems a good place for em to me!

Hi, Phozon. Thanks. I though about it and also wrote a message to Spooty on youtube long time ago, but he didn't answer. I also did quite worthy IL collection on hotshot (no death), but I saw there is only full game category on speedrun.com.
Btw great record on trainee, I really like your run!

Marvin wrote: wrote a message to Spooty on youtube long time ago,etc

Ah right, yeah he seems to not have been around doing this stuff for a while. Had to tweet@ him last time I wanted to contact.
I think i'll try to get in contact for making me a mod, so i can try and set up some single level categories and go from there. :s
And thank you!

Phozon wrote: I think i'll try to get in contact for making me a mod, so i can try and set up some single level categories

Would be great

Hey Everyone!
If you want to stick these on a Leaderboard,
I believe I have set it up on THIS PAGE: https://www.speedrun.com/descent1/individual_levels

Also,
a question: Do you think the Any% Single Level runs should be cold start? (not that there's much interest of that one).
because I wouldn't want to go through all the levels beforehand -eg: until lvl 20- to get the best weapons for just one level.
Oh, and if so, how would secret levels work?

I am sure individual levels should be done cold start.
About secret levels, you have to play previous level, die before destroying reactor to set your weapons to default, then save it (unless you can do it first try ).

Two more things: Like in full game category, there should be a difficulty option and deaths/deathless option. Otherwise I can't upload my collection of hotshot runs .

Ah ok, got it with the difficulties.
I just started with the 2 difficulty categories i thought might be more common first, seeing the posts about insane-max on here : )

As for the secret levels set-up that seems mighty awkward but if, say, the first run uploaded to one of them showed this set up then it could be fairly clear i suppose.

EDIT: aha, i sorted it so that the dropdown 'difficulty' and 'deaths' subcategories apply to the single level runs as well !

and I know you guys have those insane max runs to submit, so lets go!
Just link the youtube vid on the site, and a time -Get the leaderboards rollin'
>>> https://www.speedrun.com/descent1/individual_levels

I discovered something that will let you into a secret level without destroying the reactor - but it does require a level editor.

1. Back up your main Descent file.

To be safest, do the following in the backup rather than the original.
2. Turn the alternate exit from "door" to "illusion". You could also uncheck the "locked" flag.
3. Rename the backup (so that you do not get confused on which "Descent: First Strike" is the right one).

If you're not worried about scoring, you could also use the 'astral' cheat code to fly through literally any wall. Just disable it at the start of the secret level.

So I realise one more thing about any% single level speedruns:
Killing yourself as soon as you destroy the reactor technically ends the level. Um.
I know that when this was first thought of in the whole game speedrun it was looked down on / people thought it should have to be a different category.
(until it was realised that there isn't anywhere to really use this in a full game run).

Thoughts? category solutions/names?

I discussed this somewhere more than year ago. And it was one of reasons, why I decided to go for deathless speedruns.
I personally think it should be part of "deaths" category, but it feels kinda lame to not enter the exit.

Level 1 improvment:


Level 7 improvement:


And new run - Level 27:

Shieeet, very nice runs there!

Xfing wrote:Shieeet, very nice runs there!

Thank you!
I tried level 24 yesterday. Damn, it is hard... But I believe something like 5:30 is possible there. Best try so far ended just before reactor room..

24 is definitely one of the hardest levels in Descent. Beating it alone took me countless tries, much less speedrunning it! I take it triggering every matcen is not necessary?

It would be quite fine, if robots don't roam. That is the biggest problem here. Especially all light drillers and some heavy drillers. And two of secondary lifters also likes to be out of position which means end of run, you can't spend time by finding them. My route triggers most of matcens, but it is not a problem, you can run away easily without much confrontation:).
I tried it on ace and did it in 5:10 without much trouble, so 5:30 seems realistic on insane.

The unpredictable roaming robots make Descent (especially D1) so interesting, but on the other hand it makes speedrunning many levels hell. Good luck to you, Marvin, you'll definitely need it on the difficult levels!

After many failed tries, after great tries lost by raoming secondary lifters running into mega/smart missile shot, or not getting cloak from enemy before reactor room, or some unexpected unlucky situation, or by stupid mistake by myself, when I was on a great shape etc., I finally managed to finish this level! Did some minor mistakes, but I'm fine with it, time is under 5 minutes!

There it is :

Dat Spreadfire... I've been exclusively playing D2 recently, and Spreadfire there isn't bad in my opinion, but that's just because I've forgotten how good it was in D1

Great run, I like how you went primarily with Fusion. Very useful weapon for sure.

Very impressive! Wish the fusion were as useful in D2 as in D1... BTW I remember when I went to that inner loop at 2.24, I found one more plasma driller and a couple of (non-cloaked) vulcan drillers, did you kill those too (IDK probably they came from anywhere else)? And how you ensure that there are 100% kills, with all those roaming robots?

If you met these robots there, it was rare situation. Never happened to me during speedrunning, but these robots like to roam.
I know the level well and I know how many of each robots is there, so I'm actually quite sure if it is 100% run even before checking the replay, which I always do to make sure before uploading vid.
Btw I realised my route is not optimal:(. I can go for invulnerability before taking blue key and save a few seconds..

Marvin wrote:If you met these robots there, it was rare situation. Never happened to me during speedrunning, but these robots like to roam.
I know the level well and I know how many of each robots is there, so I'm actually quite sure if it is 100% run even before checking the replay, which I always do to make sure before uploading vid.
Btw I realised my route is not optimal:(. I can go for invulnerability before taking blue key and save a few seconds..

You could also save like 2-3 secs if you managed to kill that one robot right off the bat insteaad of having to try 2-3 times

Since I wasn't really happy about my route, I made a bit painful decision to run it again. It brought some real frustration again, but I was rewarded at the end! Not only I saved 7-8 secs by new route, but also another 12-13 by better execution, so the final time is 4:33! Since I was low on shield in the middle of run and didn't expect to survive, I didn't care to much and went full risk at some point. I expected an end of the run at red key area, because there was light driller ahead of super mech, but I didn't care and still shot the mega. I was surprised it decided to aim to super mech anyway:). Another scary thing was a fact, that one roaming secondary lifter appeared just before entering the yellow door. I was already thinking about reset there.. And reactor room went pretty smooth, killing two super mechs before getting the cloak is great, I have never did it before and also the timing of getting that cloak was just unnaturaly perfect:D. Not gonna lie, I'm happy with this run:). I will upload it soon.

Marvin wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:11 pm ...Another scary thing was a fact, that one roaming secondary lifter appeared just before entering the yellow door.

Hups, I mean the door before yellow door..

So there it is:


I also improved secret level 1 run by more then 50secs, it was one of my oldest runs and not optimised.:

Just improved level 12 :

Cool run on SL1, but you could shave off a couple seconds, bumped into the blue door in the beginning (missed flare), and then those laser platforms blocked you for a couple seconds on return from yellow key. Everything else is perfect, how I hate the end with the supervisors! But you did it like a boss.

Thought i'd share this non-'max' , just any% insane run because of the silliness of it. (sry for bad video)

Thanks, Alex. There are also other small mistakes, but it is anyway much better run than my old one, so I'm ok with it. End is quite annoying, lost some previous tries there..

Thanks for your run Phozon. Insane any% is brutal category for harder levels . I tried level 1 and 2 (but deathless)

Improved level 10 and level 8 a bit. Level 8 is still far from perfect, but it is RNG hell and finishing it in perfect time is way too crazy, even a decent time is very hard..

Great runs, I liked how you dodged the first red hulk missiles, for me it was always very hard in D1, so I just blew up those red guys from afar, with missiles, or corner sniping.
It seems that you kill some of the red hulks later with one Fusion shot and a homing missile, never knew it is possible.
The second one (L8) looks more like a fast paced normal run, you had to be more cautious in places, and I think you could save some time by using concussion missiles on melee bots (you had some remaining in the end). I can imaging that those romaing robots and spiders which spawn random number of robots are a big nuisanse for speedrunnuing, especially when you don't have Fusion.

Sorry for late response. Thanks. The key for dodging them is start banking at right time, just infront of them. But it is a bit scary:). About fusion - it is possible to destroy red hulk with one shot even without a missile, but it cost you shield, becuase you have to overcharge the fusion quite a lot.
Level 8 is hell for speedruning. It is much harder than it might look due to a lot of RNG. I spent a lot of time to finish this level.

I recently tried level 13. Already finished it (7:10 or so), but I would like to do it faster. Something like 6:45 should be doable.

With homing missiles, yes, I also learnt to dodge them in D1, need to move at maximum speed (=trichording or at least bi-chording) and right angle when it is just about to hit you. It is even possible to outrun it, I recoded this :

In fact I play Rebirth 0.58.1 that has a bug that makes those homers much harder to dodge than DOSBox and later builds (0.59.xxx), maybe this was the reason why I had problems with D1 homers. D2 ones are quite easy to dodge of course. And also, homers fly straight for 1/8 sec, making it possible to avoid the lock if you are very close to the firing robot. And the max lifespan for those homing missiles is 20 sec, and it decreases when they do a lot of turn (this is an observation from game code)
About Fusion, is there damage cap for over-charging it? I thought when you hit charge limit your shields start to drain and damage done to enemies does not increase...

All of my runs are done in Rebirth 0.58.1 also:). I know that turning rate of homings was decreased in later version, but I keep playing in 0.58.1 for some reason. Agree, that it is in general really hard to avoid them in this version.
About fusion, yes, there is a charge limit, but you start loosing your shield earlier than the limit is reached. So you have to "pay", if you want to shoot a fullcharged shot.