Hell is filled with sewer levels and made for space marines. Let's play DoomRL!

Ahh. Yeah, that's pretty sensible. (yes this is a shallow excuse to talk about Iji instead)

I have a habit of trying to break games, but actually Iji is better designed than I expected - for example I tried to skip Jump 3 but, despite managing a crazy rocketjump to the topright of the main shaft, I could not make it up the last shaft of the level. I was actually surprised that Asha DIDN'T have lines for confronting him a third time.
On the topic of Asha, I can't help but think that the scrambler is PROGRAMMED to do that to his lines on purpose. Yukabacara would do that, I'm sure.

Combat shotguns are common (but useful!) early items. Early double shotguns, though, are precious treasures that probably justify switching to a shotgun-heavy build.

Of course, I always think that about shotgun builds, but hey.

More fun times for everyone: Chainguns... and more?

yaaaay it's not dead!
Alt fire on the chain gun... I don't remember the details well enough to comment on that really :/ The most significant thing you didn't mention though is that a portion of the shots are wasted in between targets when you aim around with it.
Unique items are indestructible I think (maybe lava and acid can destroy them? but not explosions? I don't remember for sure)... but anything else is destroyed if it takes 10 or more damage I think it was. Bullets won't do anything, but any explosions will hit stuff on the ground for a (usually) random amount of damage. This means you actually do not want to go pick that nice mod up until you're SURE there are no more imps nearby, because even their attacks can randomly destroy items if you're unlucky enough. You are EXTREMELY lucky you didn't lose your rocket launcher this way.
>Mods producing assemblies
This sounds like something new, I've never heard of it from when I played the game a year or so ago. Neat.
Energy Cells are very useful, yes, and worth dropping some ammo from your other weapons for. What you didn't directly mention though is that with how fast the weapons that use energy cells go through them, you do NOT want your main weapon to use energy cells. Trying to do so will end up with you out of ammo when you really need it.
Levers aren't too bad... if you pull them near a door... and you know they're not one of the REALLY bad levers... and you've cleared the level out (or at least everything possibly in sight) already. Or if you like to gamble. I am not a gambler.

Yeah, explosions are dangerous and your main weapon shouldn't use power cells (unless it's a plasma rifle and you have Ammochain, haha).

Assemblies are a new thing in the latest version of DoomRL. Basically, if you install the right combo of mods onto the right weapon, you get a thing. For example, one nifty new pistol assembly, using one agility mod and one technical mod, is the speedloader, which basically makes reloading take as long as shooting the pistol itself. Unfortunately, you need a level or two in Whizkid for the truly formidable assemblies, and some of them require some really rare mod packs, like Nano or Firestorm.

Anyway, here is a video about rockets.

They STILL haven't changed that?!?

The wall is pretty brutal, there's no cover other than the wall itself and... using rockets is actually a bit tricky because you can DESTROY the loot you're trying to get to with missed shots. The backpack is still a great prize though, and IIRC there was another nice reward back there too... but maybe that's changed if they finally updated WizKid.

anyways I think I'm gonna go download the newest version and do a centurion/WizKid run, see what fun stuff I can put together.

They damn well better not change it.

Exactly. Otherwise plasma rifles become "BFG 9000s for people who like wasting shots and time". They're basically THE reason to use Ammochain.

Ammochain still has weaknesses, though, like the inability to take Eagle Eye to improve accuracy and the total lack of defensive traits available.

So after watching the videos, I downloaded and started playing this. I am attempting to limit my spoilers to only the assemblies, which is making it pretty entertaining so far. My two best runs so far involved me going Dual Pistols.

On the one I found a Unique pistol, The Grammaton Cleric Beretta which let me get to the Hellgate. I am pretty sure I would have gotten farther, except I forgot to use a healthpack and the Bruiser Brothers got me. Also, I had just gotten Gun Kata, and wow, that basically eliminates the real issue with dual pistols, reload time.

The second run that went well I had unlocked the Angel of Marksmanship challenge, so I chose that to try out. Cleared Hell's Arena, the Chained Court, and got to Hell's Armory before dying to a Shambler.

However, most of my shotgun builds fail very early on. I usually go straight for Shottyman, is that not optimal?

Keep the videos coming, and I hope I didn't spoil anything for anyone playing!

In the early game, you don't really need Shottyman; by the time you get it, you'll probably have a combat shotgun, which works nearly as well under early game circumstances. Go for Dodgemaster first if you want to build around shotguns.

So I sort of took your advice, but i chose to go for Brute -> Badass first so I could go to Army of the Dead after Shottyman. That really helped, especially when I found a couple Superchargers. I bet the Fire Angel route is good too. Made it past the Hellgate into hell, but went into the Unholy Cathedral and used up all my health packs getting back out, and died on the next level. I'm looking forward to my next attempt!

So what is this "ammochain" you keep mentioning? It sounds like a secondary skill, but I don't see it listed. (I'm half-asleep and a week ill, so if this is a stupid question, humor me please.)

Ammochain is one of the Master rank traits, the ones that block off other traits. It basically gives you unlimited ammo with chain fire weapons like the plasma rifle and chaingun, which is, of course, immensely powerful. The weakness of Ammochain is mostly in the traits it locks off (notably Eagle Eye and Tough as Nails, both very useful for chaingunners) and the fact that your defenses are largely going to be dependent on your armor, since all that chain firing kinda prevents you from dodging.

Even so, it's one of my favorites, and the only one I've cleared Hurt Me Plenty with. I'll try to demonstrate it with the next character in the queue.

It looks like it's the only trait that Stiv didn't grab a screenshot of, and the wiki doesn't have the flavor. Grab us a screenshot, please?

As a bonus: this screenshot contains a link to the next update! Don't tell anyone, though!

Yes, there is a level cap. It is 25. Typically even with 100% kills you only hit about level 20-22, which is pretty far away from 25 as far as exp amount goes.
Unless, of course, you're doing an Angel of 100 run. Then you'll hit the level cap and it kinda sucks, but often you can kit yourself out so well you're nigh-unkillable outside of a really, really bad luck streak.
When I did it I believe I got Intuition 2, Gun Kata, and one of those auto-refilling pistols. I often just blindly hailed bullets at enemies from around corners, so nothing even saw me before it died, especially when my pistols did enough damage to cause kickback and fired 4-6 times a second.

Justice Flexton finds the two most dangerous enemies in DoomRL..

Spoiler: the second most dangerous is the arch-vile.

4 minute video, this can't end well.

And it didn't. Better luck next time, Chet CoarseHair

Good grief. That half makes me think that there's a range limit of some kind preventing you from shooting that far, although I don't personally know of one. A combat shotgun, bizarrely, would have been the best choice in that situation I think. It would have pushed the baron closer to the barrel, and then blown the barrel up.

Arch-Viles are definitely the most frustrating enemies. I have literally filled up a quarter of a level with ammo drops because of a group of them respawning enemies before, their attacks are undodgable and do a good amount of damage, they don't die that easy, and they are absurdly fast.
Mancubi are a close second though, just because they fire rockets for tons of damage and the rockets are not dodgable by normal means.

Poor Napalm Kickhead, he turned his back. That was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Well, now he's stupid and dead.

I could make a post here, but the previous post pretty much covered what I had in mind.

The DOOM comic is the greatest artistic work in any language ever and I utter that sentence without a hint of irony.

I must confess I am pretty ignorant about the doom comic :<

Kinda looking forward to seeing Ammochain, it actually is a skill I've never used before, although it's also probably one of the most boring skills.
Nice Arena win, I usually lose a lot more health than that unless I use somewhat-cheesy shotgun tactics: Shooting enemies just out of range, or just in-range and pushing them back out of range. ... I pretty much always use those tactics though because it's a roguelike and it's mercilessly out to kill you unfairly too :/

also I just recently finished a run myself with the super-secret ending, my first ever actually, while doing an Angel of Markmanship run. I didn't actually know about the new lava element until actually CLEARING the lava pits, exactly 2 nukes spawned, and yeah pretty much everything fell into place. I did try for an actual combat kill for a while but it reaaaaally doesn't work with pistols so eventually when I was low on armor and health I just used my second nuke to kill us both.

You, and everyone else in this thread, owe it to yourself to get acquainted.

New to the current version of DoomRL: Early side bosses!

Oh man the Arena Master. I totally underestimated him the first few times I fought him and he slaughtered me. I never knew the trigger for fighting him, that's good to know I guess. He is definitely tougher than a standard Archvile though.

Hooray modded boots, now you go ZOOOM. I really wish there was more support for moving and shooting at the same time, it would make it feel more like Doom and less like a typical roguelike. And also probably much easier.

>There's never a point where you don't have to really worry about stuff on the later floors.
This I would argue is actually untrue. A decent build with Intuition 2 can completely break the game, especially if you have the monster sounds memorized.
Actually, just knowing all the sounds and waiting around listening for them, then shooting blindly when you know it's needed can do wonders for your survival.

I have fought the Arena Master only twice, each time chainsawing him up with the berserk packs. I used the staff a little bit, but the fact that you only get one use before being tired and unable to use it made it sort of useless. Also, the tactical boots regenerate their health as well, so it is hard to destroy them.

I love seeing the Chaingun usage! I have not given it too much love so far in my runs, but it looks to be pretty powerful. Here is to hoping you get to ammochain so we can see some awesome plasma rifle chainfire!

Stiv's been out of town for the past few weeks or so, so on today's installment of Doomguy's adventures we have Beat wondering why anyone would play a roguelike and all my armor getting destroyed.

Commenting on another LP he hasn't followed?
BEAT is the guy who shows up to the recording studio drunk and hasn't read the script.

Not drunk, high.

The distinction is crucial.