Descent

[hhallahh]

Geez, it seems pitiful on easiest difficulty... you can just run right over all the guys. You can probably get a decent time without firing a single shot except at the Reactor.

It's been a long time since I've played, and I know it ramps up in difficulty... but not that much, really. Play through to the Vertigo series and then we'll have fun.

[stx-Vile]

So what would be the ruling on dying after the core is destroyed, since the game will say you didn't make it out alive and go to the next level.

I'd consider having a no-death category, as well...

[lag]

hhallahh: I invite you to try. It doesn't always go as smoothly as in the end result, oh no! Especially the vulcan robots.

stx-Vile: I say for a run you have to make it out alive; otherwise it would be easy to just suicide against a wall. I prefer having the option of dying, but... as you can see, all my runs so far have been no-death. This could actually be impossible to achieve in later levels though, when you simply don't have the shields available to storm through a room.

[slYnki]

Lag.Com, have you ever seen the Doom runs, where they get insane speeds by running sideways? Well, do that with your ship in Descent and I think it makes you fly faster. In that huge area in level 3 when you're heading for the blue key, that's a good area for more speed.

[hhallahh]

Yea, I probably overstated my post, apologies. In retrospect, I realized that most FPS speedruns are done by just running through rooms, unless there's a specific reason why that's not feasible.

It is tempting to play again - I loved Descent - but I simply don't have the time onhand. Besides, if I did, I'd probably just get Descent II and then the Decent I level pack for that. Hm.

[lag]

I realise strafe-running (or strafe-flying ) would make me a bit faster... but I'm loathe to use it, as it could totally screw up my sense of direction, which is already pretty fragile on Descent to begin with. I'll try using it in open sections like you mention, but don't hold your breath.

hhallahh: Nooo! Descent 1! More people working on something always gives better results.

The Level 3 demo is ripe for improvements anyway, so I'll try that next.

Oh yeah, also... I made a little tool called 'ddsig' which makes the demo output a little message when it starts playback; I've used it on all my demos to include mapname, time and player info. It's simple to use, and hasn't corrupted a demo file yet. If it DOES... run it on the demo file again with the signature 'DELETE', which should 'uncorrupt' it. And tell me more, so I can fix my program!

[stx-Vile]

http://www.dashevil.sytes.net/stx-Vile/01_0029T.rar

That strafing does seem to help, though its use will probably be more limited with slow turning and having to "prepare" to open doors from a distance.

[slYnki]

If you practice enough and you get to be more familiar with the controls, strafing isn't that terribly hard. Although I can't vouch for that because I haven't used it too terribly much  

[Avder]

Allright, I registered for this forum just to post in this topic, so, blah, whatever, anyhoo.  So you guys are doing descent speed runs?  Allright, sounds good.  I played multiplay descent for quite a few years.  I was never the best, but I wasnt the worst either.  Here are a few tips that I can offer to you guys:

-CHORD! What you guys call "strafing" has been called "Chording" in the descent community for years. Triple-Chording, or TriChording, is a significantly effective way to improve your speed once mastered.  A person trichording perfectly moves 1.74 (or thereabouts) as fast as a person flying straight ahead in only one direction.  You do get used to it after you develop a sense of direction.

-Know the level! Fly around in cheat mode, learn every single aspect of the level you are going to run! Every level has secrets, some of which could more than likely be exploited for speed increases.

-Learn to play on a harder difficulty.  We consider "hotshot" to be the normal skill level of descent, and insane to be hard.  As the difficulty increases, the number of shots fired by enemies increases, their AI becomes (slightly) smarter, and the vulcan bots become pure hell!  The higher the difficulty you played on, the more impressive your run will be.

-Single segment runs will be faster and easier than runs of single levels.  This is because of the upgrades that you will accumulate over the course of the game.

-Use weapons effectivly.  If youre playing a multiple level run, the two main primary weapons you should be using are Quad-Laser level 4 and the Fusion Cannon.  Quad Laser 4 can hit for a potential 52 units of damage if all four shots hit the robot.  The Fusion cannon can deal MASSIVE amounts of damage to multiple robots in a line as it pierces each robot and moves on to the next.  The longer you charge the weapon, of course, the more damage it does.

-Know where cloaks and invulnerability powerups are!  Invulns should be a no brainer, as you can take unlimited damage while under the influence of this powerup.  The cloak can be even more userful, however, as it will allow you to move completely undetected by enemies so long as you dont fire or run in to a wall loud enough to make a sound, thus letting you bypass huge sections of levels without having to destroy enemies.

-Get a good joystick!  This game is far easier to play on a good joystick, perferrably one with a twist (third axis), which will allow you to control your banking on the stick in addition to your Y axis and X axis movements.  My personal favorite is the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D pro (we used to have a joke: The only things to come out of Microsoft that dont suck are vaccums, whores, and 3D Pros). Otrher good sticks that people use are the MS Precision 2, the Saitek Cyborg Evo, and the Logitech Freedom, however some people have had major troubles getting any joystick at all to work with descent on a modern computer, so you may wish to dust off that old P2-400 with an SB16 and use a DOS version of the game such as D1X 1.30 or D1X 1.40.

-Prioritize your targets!  Know exactly which robots are the most dangerous.  IMO, the two most dangerous bots you'll face are the vulcan bot, and the red hulk (shoots homing missiles).  The vulcan bot is the only bot whose fire you cant dodge if moving correctly.  The Red Hulks fire can be dodged, but only if you move correctly (hint: trichord at an angle toward it so you exit the homing missiles view cone).

Hope this helps you guys out.  You could probably do the whole game quite easily once you know what youre doing, since powerups carry over from level to level.  Maybe I'll do it just as a way to get you guys started.

[stx-Vile]

Hope this helps you guys out.

Help would be an understatement.  Something we hope for when a game is suggested (at least to me, but probably others as well) is a response from an established community that is much more familiar with the game.  On that note, thanks a bunch for your input.

I do believe the core difficulties of interest will be Trainee, Hotshot, and Insane... doing all five seems like a bit much, but is still welcome, I suppose.  We were talking about doing a QDQ-style run, where each level is run repeatedly, but the results are chained together until the entire game is finished, and hopefully that'll become a reality once we get more experience with the game... or that just might be a pipe-dream, but at least the first step has been taken.

I'm actually starting to think a single-segment run of the whole game would be really fun too, though...

[lag]

Oh yes, thanks a lot for that. I've been running using the keyboard and OpenGL D1X 1.43 so far... I really don't like joysticks.

Glad someone else is interested, though... I'm no expert, as you can see from my demos. I did realise 5 difficulties might be a bit much, but I've found Hotshot and Ace are pretty different. Not so for Trainee/Rookie though.

Oh, and... nice demonstration of the strafing/chording technique, Vile. I'll try and work this into my existing runs before they become outdated.

[Avder]

Trust me on this, the only way you'll be able to get very far in some of the more difficult levels without being an outright master of Descent is if theyre played as part of a full-game run, just due to the fact of the sheer size of the robot mobs that occupy some of the later levels.

That said, the best way to do a run of the later levels without come through the whole game would possibly start by locating a fusion cannon, that gun alone can level the playing field quite nicely.

And also, just for a field of reference, while trichording its possible to run with a homing missile directly behind you for quite a long time.  There are several demos of this floating about in the established descent community.  The speeds that can be reached while chording properly are quite extreme, and if I had a place on the web to upload some files I'd offer up a few popular multiplayer levels and some of the chording demos that have been recorded in them just so you guys have a reference.

A little more help for you guys, if I can remember it right anyway, the full damage table:

Quad Laser 4: 52 (13*4)
Vulcan Cannon: 4 per shot fired (the clicking noise, not the numerical count of ammo left)
Spreadfire Cannon: 9 per bolt, 27 total
Plasma Cannon: 11 per bolt, 22 total
Fusion Cannon: Well in excess of 100 when full charged

Concussion Missile: 25
Homing Missile: 25
Proximity Mine: 25
Smart Missile: Each bolt does around 20, I think
Mega Missile: Around 150 for a full force impact, plus a huge splash area.

I could be way off on a few of them, but I think I'm at least in ballpark range with most of them.  I'm a lot more certain about primary damage than I am about secondary. I know the laser, plasma, and vulcan cannon numbers are right for sure.  Odd that I'm not sure about spreadfire, and it used to be my favorite weapon, too! heh.

Anyway, if you guys want, I'll help coach a bit as you learn the game, and possibly offer a few demos myself if I can get my joystick to work right on this comp.  The basic stuff that Ive seen in pretty much all speed running applies to this game: get only essential items and kill only what you need to kill to stay alive and get through the level.

Oh, also, in each difficulty the value of shield orbs decreases by 3 points.  In hot shot one is worth 12, in Ace 9, and in Insane 6.  The good news is obviously you'll be repaired before the start of each level, the bad news is it will be harder to stay above 100 shields the higher you go difficultywise, as well as needing to dodge faster and use weapons more effectivly.

AS for what to look for in each level, I would reccomend a checklist similar to the following:
-The location of all Vulcan Bots
-The location of all Red Hulks
-The location of all needed keycards (The order will always be the same: Blue-Yellow-Red for a 3 key map, Blue-Red for a two key map, or just Red for a one key map)
-The location of shield caches
-fusion cannon locations
-Invuln/cloak powerups
-Traps (where if you fly through something, doors open up and enemies come out in ambush, or knowing where you need tt fly to trigger a materialization center (mat-cen for short)
-Shortest route between the reactor and the exit
-Whats guarding the reactor
-Whos on first...er,wait a minute!
-Weapons caches that arent too out of the way of the route
-MegaMissiles
-Smart Missiles

Ok, so the checklist is a bit longer than I had intended, and its not in order of priority, but thats a general idea of what you will need to know about a level before you can effectivly run it.

Levels 1-7 will be the easiest to run.  These were the maps released in the shareware version of descent and dont contain any weapons above the plasma cannon or proximity mine, but they dont  contain a lot of the meaner enemies (with the exceotion of red hulks and vulcan bots....but their useage isnt as sadistic as in later levels).

There are three secret levels in the game, so if you want to do the most complete run, you need to do these.  The entrance to secret levels will be a hidden exit that wont be as obvious to find as a standard exit, but it will always be in range of the reactor.

Also, the higher up in difficulty you go, the less time you get to escape after nailing the reactor.  I believe you get 30 seconds on Insane.  Thats plenty for the early levels, but on later on you WILL need to be abel to execute the route to the exit quickly and with your ship shaking violently.

Just let me know if you guys have any more questions if you need help with something.  I'm always happy to help get an underapreciated game some much needed attention.

Also, trust me, if youre serious about getting good at this game, get a joystick. It makes things a lot easier (more buttons availible, analog control of all 3 axes, etc). Theyre difficult to get used to at first, yes, but it makes movement so much easier in the long run.

[lag]

I just finished my run of Level 10, but my host is playing silly buggers, so I guess I'll upload it later today. I know a lot of the single-player things that you're mentioning... that's part of planning my route! You can see that I clear out the big main room of vulcan robots/homer hulks, though I leave the cloaked conc hulk, as he never hits. I try to take out all the red hulks I can while cloaked or invuln... also I'm doing some chording in two directions, which helped the time a little I'm sure. Doing chording in three is a nightmare on the keyboard, as if I press any other buttons, the buffer gets full, and it starts beeping at me.

Feh! Every level after 8 gives you one of each weapon, if I remember rightly. Not necessarily near the fastest route, but you get the idea. Smart/Mega missiles are definitely a help, though I didn't think it was worth grabbing the one on level 10.

And yeah, I know about secret levels. I took the secret exit on this latest demo, hehe. It's closer after all.

Edit: Host back up now, uploading as I write.

[slYnki]

I don't know why the discussion on joy sticks triggered this memory, but does anybody remember the game: High Octane?

It's a REALLY REALLY old futuristic racing game. If I remember, you just collect weapons and stuff and you can shoot your opponents on the race track. Damn that game was fun to play. I think they made an actual car racing game called High Octane recently, but the one I remember is awesome and totally old school. Seeing a speed run of THAT would be awesome o.o

[Avder]

Ive been playing a little bit on hotshot, mostly seeing how far I can survive in to the game, and I'm getting to about level 7 or so before I'm finally killed.  I'd have demos, but my version of d1x likes to crash after the demo exceeds 16 megs in size for some reason.

That said, I think the three most important difficulties for speed running will of course be Trainee, Hotshot, and Insane. Eventually, if people do manage to get good at this game, I think trainee shouldnt even be used as a serious speed run.  I also think there should be two main categories: pure speed and 100%.  A 100% run in a descent level should consist of destroying the reactor, getting all the hostages, and never ever dying.  A 100% run, if done single segment, should also incude the three secret levels, whereas a pure speed run should probably pass them by as the only objective is to complete the game.