Well, I had mentioned here (https://forums.arcengames.com/starward-rogue/stealth-1-503-update/msg212347/#msg212347) about maybe doing a low/no damage boost redshift run just to see if the experience replicated. So I, uh. Did. 1.506. I'll spoil it 'cause it's fairly lengthy, but hopefully the writeup/pseudo-text-LP thing helps someone or another. General thought was it went a bit smoother, but even with some better items some stuff just took freakishly long to kill. Overall time was less, and the warden killed me, but still approaching the same ballpark. Regret not swapping missiles out earlier, because there were sod all for block shards and I ended up with the torp cannon, bleh. Also, trap master is bugged, apparently (I've actually got a save for this, though I don't know where to put it for it to be useful). And good gods does magnetic offense screw the sky-hammer sniper rifle. Just, sideways, upside down, on the ceiling. The power up pretty much ruins the weapon.
... also it's a bit inconsistent between floors in formatting/order of observations, et al. I had a headache by the time the run ended, heh.
Redshift no damage perk run, floor 1: Time, 7:58 AM
Shops, weapon, robot, cheap, keycards: 1 (2) (Indicates in shop) Floor's total credits: 22. Shops might as well not be there, pick up a shard and keycard from cheap shop.
Immediate thought: Let us know somewhere what our max missile count is.
Minibosses: Loco (three shots of precision railgun), time negligible. Drops triple missile launcher -- good damage, bad utility. Functionally worthless without another means of getting shards. Paragon (All four shots of railgun plus maybe a half dozen LR minigun shots brings down to somewhere between a third and half), takes somewhere in the 30-60 second range to kill after railgun shots are expended, fire uptime probably around 90, 93%. Drops shard. No damage from either.
Levels: 2: Savings Interest, Wishing for More, Shard Splitter. I take wishing; hard I would probably take splitter.
Blue Guard Flea benchmark: 1 precision shot. Eat a shot checking the name, heh. Only time hit this floor.
Other notes: Replaced minigun with sky-hammer after paragon.
Boss: Sunder. Full railgun (4 shots) takes off about a fifth of the health bar. Check time at 8:12, health bar right in line with the right side of the d. 8:13, fight finished. No damage, missed maybe... 3 shots, otherwise was firing hammer on CD. Gave 20/20 vision. This run, at least, I'll take crit chance, if not overcritical or base damage.
Total time for full clear with maybe 30-45 seconds on typing, 7:58-8:13, 15 minutes.
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Floor 2, start time 8:17, start credits 8
shops: health (shield transfer... I take it), defense, cheap, main item (more munitions, door wasn't locked) . Keycards [1] [Indicates inside trap net thing], I don't try for it. Sac shop found (don't think there was one on floor 1), keycard, overcrit (;_;), blood avenger. I got the health but they're either unnecessary, against the run's conduct, or just not useful enough to take, particular with -1 shields, ehehe.
Level 3, Brute, Small Energy Tank, Small Missile Pack. I take the tank.
Challenge thing, no damage.
Items seen: Beaming probe (take), mini black hole (I actually remember to go back for it after miniboss fight). // End of run note: I never end up using it, and replace it two or three floors later, never to see it again
Blue Flea benchmark: Still 1 shot.
Level 4, Rally, Resupply, Map Master. There's, uh. I take the third.
Miniboss: Bastille. I use the probe, my weapon setup is kinda' bad for this 'un. Take a couple hits here... one time too close when it let out the exploding bullet thing, other time just forgetting to toggle off sprint and moving a bit too far. Would be dead if I hadn't found a health upgrade, though even a single shard upgrade would have managed it. Fight ends at 8:30, didn't check when it started. Bast had just entered 3rd cycle; as seems oddly common, ended up killing it with a missile against the inner layer as it was forming in the 3rd cycle. It drops... 2 missiles.
Sprint over caltrops going to the boss, heh. 9 health going in after bast fight brought me to seven and health pickups back to 10.
Boss: Wallmaster, start 8:34-ish. Full railgun (90 energy, so 6 shots) and one hammer hit brings health down to right at the right of the B. Fight ends 8:36, maybe 30 seconds after railgun empties. Wallmaster is probably the easiest normal redshift boss, tbh. Drops Every Shot Counts. Crying inside, I leave it. Give it two minutes on typing this time, call it 17 minutes for full clear.
Level 5 off XP orb in boss room. Bloodlust, Missile Salvager, Critter. I take Critter.
Total credits at end: 19. Floor dropped... 11. I don't bother opening the defense shop. Buy dilithium power cell and shard from cheap. Tiny Damage boost tempts me terribly. I now have 2 credits going into floor 3.
End-level summary says it took 5:51.
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Floor 3, start time 8:44, start credits 2.
Shops: Consumable, cheap (keycard, 4 rocket pack, tiny damage boost (;_;)), health (hardened field emitter. After some thought, I take, after hunter fight. Energy now back down to 95, 6 HK shots, health back to 11), main item (Locked, +5 missile capacity, I take). Keycards 1 (1). Sac shop has magnetic offense. I take it. Max health now 6. Actually kinda' bad for this weapon setup -- it seems to screw with the sky-hammer somewhat, makes its damage somewhat inconsistent even if you land the shot directly on something -- but eh. Choice room there, has hunter killer. I... take it, after some deliberation. Damage is notably better than railgun.
Miniboss: Green Hunter. Full HK shots plus 1 or 2 hammer hits takes it down to just to the left of the M. I use a couple missiles just to speed things up. Drops homing multi mini missile launcher. Major damage upgrade, major utility downgrade. See statement on triple.
First +max health from shard collection.
General floor note: Let me reiterate: Magnetic offense when I have this main gun was a bad idea. Shots regularly pass through smaller enemies doing no damage, or spaz out on top of them, again doing no damage. Enemies in general, really. I just watched three direct hits in a row on a sparkler dance a jig on top of the enemy and do nothing of worth.
Level 6, Second Chance, Time Apprentice, Trap Master. I take trap master -- it's without doubt one of the absolute strongest perks in the game, imo. //End of run note, well, it would be if it worked consistently <insert string of vulgarities>
Boss: Invader. Start time 9:06. HK shots empty around 1/6th health missing. Maybe... 3 actually landed on the boss. Magnetic offense is royally screwed up levels of bad in this fight with this weapon. End up taking a few hits this fight, some due to inattention, more due to things just not ruddy dying when I shoot them because that powerup screws the sky-hammer to hell. It takes two shots of damage to kill the smaller centipede enemy. At one point my bullet overlaps with one about seven times before it actually dies. Second/third phase (when the reflecting bullets come out) takes a while real time -- there's definite slow down from too much crap being in the room. The crap wouldn't be there if I didn't have MO, heh. Or if it just worked consistently; when it actually registers hit the pierce+home will kill like four or five centipede things in one shot. When. Fight finally gorram ends at 9:22.
End credits: 70. Total credits on floor, 68. I buy a keycard, don't bother to open the consumable shop.
Some fiddling around (shopping, picking up heals -- I end up with 10/11), I leave the floor at 9:25. Game says total time was 13:31. Say five-ish total minutes typing. Floor took ~36 minutes, a bit shy of half that just on the boss.
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Floor 4, start time 9:27, start credits 63, 1 keycard.
Slide out of room before checking the challenge... again. Did that last floor, too. Sprint+moment of inattention = whoops.
Shops: Cheap (two keycards, heal.* I take 'em all. 122->105), weapon (has torpedo cannon, rest irrelevant. Give me money, game.), robot, main item (hardening module. Eh. Had TK repulsor from floor... 2, I think. If it did anything I couldn't tell.). Keycards 2 {2} (2) {Indicates behind missile-break barrier}. Only sac shop (Compact molecules, large and in charge. Down to 4/12 health when I get there, so I take the 7 cost molecules. Health now 4/5. I am magnificently tiny.).
Blue Flea benchmark: No railgun anymore. 1 hk kills, as does 1 crit hammer shot.
Level 7: Medium Energy, Enhance Warheads, Medium Missile Pack. I take the energy, lamenting my decision to not take the warheads. 9 HK shots now.
Condemned: Maze bomb, central space variant. Dead easy with redshift, ha. Drops anger protocol. It installs in my brain as I leave it on the floor :V
Shot passes through a green flea about ten times before it gets hit a second time and dies. Another, I put eight shots into one of the smallest pieces of that floating debris stuff from the block whatsits before one actually registers. ... a second one in the room has 22 shots phase through it before it gets destroyed.
Tiny transport nets me my second shard HP boost. I haven't been missing shards.
... I take a hit from caltrops. What.
Miniboss: Arcoris x2. Full HK shots bring the bar to the :. Both still alive, though. Drops hornet nest. I... I take it. Bloody magnetic offense. Bloody sky-hammer.
Level 8: Power Orbital, Energy Orbital, Fight or Flight. This. This level is complete trash. I take fight or flight. // End run note, I'm pretty sure that actually ended up getting me hit once or twice, from the speed boost throwing me off and ending up with me in another shot when the I frames wore off, ha. Energy orbital would have been a better choice.
2nd miniboss: Toxic Reaper. Full HK shots take maybe a 5th of its health. Fight starts ~10:05. Ends 10:11. Felt like double that, boss is entirely too monotonous for how much health it has. I take one hit stepping on the slime, bleh. It drops the turbo blaster! I don't want it, but I take it anyway.
Enough money for torp, after cheap shop. 105-15. I go back and get those keycards hiding behind explodable barriers.
Boss: Lady Staccato. Start 10:16. Full torp barrage (7 shots) and however much main gun fire was involved leaves health at something between 3/4ths and 4/5ths full. Take one hit from being a bit too stationary and getting caught in a net. Fight ends 10:24. Eight minutes. Drops recovery module. I shrug and replace the hardening.
Floor ends 10:25. Summary total time says 21:29. Say five minutes for typing. Total time: ... about 57 minutes. End credits, 22. Total floor credits... 66, if I'm mathing right.
*Just to make sure, since that gets me full health, I check on trap master again. I don't know what's happened, but it's not working anymore.
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Floor 5, start time 10:30. Start credits, 22. 5 keycards. 10 spent on xp
Disarmament challenge! I have no missiles at the moment, and a torpedo cannon. Hrm.
Shops: Cheap (2 health, worthless spire knowledge), defense, consumable (orbiting station, lighter alloys circuit, wormhole journey), main item (main gun railgun. I cry a little inside some more and leave it.). Sacrifice room. Keycards: 3 [1] I actually get the [] one, mostly by spamming torps at the turrets.
1st condemned: Hunter. Fortunately without hard mode's increased bullet speed, I just run circles around the room until they explode. Looks like it dropped the corrosive module, but unfortunately I have no shields, 5 health, and trap master is acting wonky. I don't actually check to make sure. Or pick up the item, heh.
Level 9: Missile Salvager, Bloodlust, Energize. Got negative shields, got no interest in missiles, so I take bloodlust because it's all that's left.
Discover torp cannon can't one shot least krill spitters. Only half-kills the gold ones. Bleh. Same room gives 3rd shard health up.
Blue Guard Whiteblue can take three torps to the face, and still need some helping along with the main gun to die.
2nd condemned: Mission. Thank you, rng. Drops Supercharged. Fire rate up is fine.
I find out a room or two later Blue Guard Whiteblues are harder to kill than inferno cannons. They die in just three torps, no excess. Imperial tab in same room, awesome.
Oh bloody hell. Intent on testing if the imperial tab works in sac shops (Yes, awesome), I forget what I was doing and pick up glassbreaker. Damage boost is now at 20% ;_;
Miniboss: Arcoris x3. Five torps(missed a shot) and some incidental main gun bring it to right on the i in arcoris. None of them dead. Take a hit from not paying attention to how far I was sliding, otherwise uneventful. Drops repulsive hornet mines (yeah, no).
Level 10: Large Missile Pack (No.), Brutal Deluxe (;_;), Large Energy Tank. Process of elimination. I now have 11 torp shots.
Remnant Mark I: 6 torps, one of them a crit.
Rusted Lumiflare: With about a 6th or 7th of bar missing to main gun: 9 torps. Didn't count crits. Had a bit of health left over. Probably would have taken 10 and a bit without the main gun fire. I swear these bloody things are my most hated enemy by a couple orders of magnitude. Please stop existing, rusted lumiflare's freakish tankiness. Or at least put less crap on my screen ;_; Also trap master didn't work on this room. The long twisty spike with lasers, caltrop surrounded loot box, and small-ish enemies on both sides. Without the teleporter. There were three rusted lumiflares in this room. I didn't have 30 torps.
Note to self: Don't use trap master until someone fixes it.
Level 11: Major Shield, Time Master, Heavyweight. First, no immediate help. Third, glassbreaker. Hrm.
Find guide to the galaxy in a locked loot chest. How magnificently useless.
Warden ti-- freaking non-functioning trap master. Maybe just have that perk explode every caltrop and applicable trap on the map when you enter the floor or somethin'? Back I go to get full health.
Alright. Warden time. 20% damage boost, turbo blaster, torpedo cannons, no robots, one tac nuke, full (15) missiles. Start, 11:29. Hrm. Let's count, corner thingy with just main gun. Pretty much non-stop, 23 seconds. Rets dead, using torp cannon one shot down. All shots gone, maybe 1/5th HP gone. Wavey laser phase seems to be causing a little slowdown. Not really bad, though. Bleh. End up dying at 11:37, not quite half way through, maybe a minute of that typing, probably less. Didn't move quite far enough to the south. Apparently actually forgot to pick up the recovery module, heh. Would have lived through that hit if I hadn't been stubborn about the no-missile challenge until after something clipped me. Only times I stopped hitting the blighter or the rets were when I was moving between rets and couldn't hit one, or the shield popped up and I had to reposition a bit. Actually remembered to drop the nuke on the warden, too! Oh well.
Floor apparently took about an hour all its own. I'm not sure how. Call it maybe six, seven minutes for typing, would leave a near dead on 60 minutes from start of floor 'till death. Forgot to check credit total. Eh.
Total time according to game... 69:<somethingorother>. It's now 20 minutes 'till noon. I started at eight. Not doing this again, heh. Now for the vulgarity/spelling passover.