Hardcore Happenings

2006-08-31

75% and counting

Progress isn't all that impeded at the Castle. It's a bit tougher, but that's about it.

And autoselling is a hassle.

I also have 103 penguin skins and 164 yeti fur in reserve. Suppose it's a "penguin skin " day at the Bounty Hunter Hunter. 267 * 194 = 51798. That's 5%.

And another herb brownie down the gullet. And I couldn't help myself adding 1% to the Three Amigo Trophy progress.

2006-08-30

Like a thousand voices crying out at once

Noooooo!

The Icy Peak changed into a "proper" area, with non-combats and what-not. Just as I'm farming for golden meat stack. And I also had a lot of adventures left from yesterday. In any other situation, I would have loved this, but darn... and I had accidentally overdrunk yesterday...

I'm wondering what my best bet is now, the Peak, or the Castle, or even the Airship.

I needz the meat!

2006-08-29

55% and counting

Finding time to play is harder. My stash is up to 55%, so that's looking well. I've also got two extra brownies down me gullet, so that ain't bad either.

While I've got the meat, I'm so tempted to sink it in stuff like the Halls, or red balloons, but it would just be folly to do so. It's way smarter to first get the Golden Meat Stack, break the prism and then continue meatfarming, wearing stainless slacks.

I'm back to the question of: which skill to keep? I've already got Moxious Madrigal, now it's wondering which is next.

The contenders:
Moxie of the Mariachi (P) - Maybe later, but right now its minor usefullness is dwarfed by the other skills
Aloysius' Antiphon of Aptitude - Expensive to keep going, but bonus stats are never rotten
Cletus's Canticle of Celerity - Great to get the initiative, but Muscle classes will have the wind-up clock option, disco bandits have the passive skill, pastamancers have fusilli.
The Polka of Plenty - Meat is always useful, but it's rarely the big bottle neck. On the plus side, this buff is easy to keep up.
Fat Leon's Phat Loot Lyric - Nothing ever drops! Useful to have this buff to counter that. Massive item+ bonus.
Jackasses' Symphony of Destruction - Apparently this is really useful in combination with high ML. I mostly play hardcore with not such high ML and can use Tenacity and Rage as damage increasers. It's MP cheaper than Rage, and cheaper than Tenacity with a Legend, it's also slightly more effective. Then again, it takes an AT song slot.
The Ode to Booze - Extra adventures from drinking! Woot! Kind of expensive though.
The Sonata of Sneakiness - Extra non-combat adventures, mostly for usage above the beanstalk. High MP cost.

Jackass looks really good, but I've got similar skills already, so it would make my runs efficient by replacement, not by innovation.
Phat Loot and Polka are boosts on top of boosts I already have.
Antiphon has great promise, but high requirements.
Which means it's down to the Ode or the Sonata...

The skill project has my options rated from most preferred to least preferred as follows:
Phat Loot (#4), Antiphon (#5), Ode (#7), Sonata (#12), Jackasses(#14), Polka (#17), Moxie (#21), Celerity (#22).

As overall, only Phat Loot makes the cut of being rated (#11). Although Ode to Booze and Antiphon do get some marks.

Originally, I was tending to go for Sonata, now I'm way tempted to go for Phat Loot, although it might be too basic for my non-marginal skillset. Will I end up with the Ode, instead?

2006-08-25

25 % and counting

Yesterday I was too busy to be able to play, but today I had extra adventures because of it.

Using KoLMafia to farm, I averaged quite close to 1k/turn in pure meat at the Peak, with of couse the extra meat from furs to close the deal.

I also got the "Best Meal of My Life" trophy done, which is neat.
On other trophy notes:
Only 750k meat before smashing the prism,
Only 75 brownies to go down my gullet,
Only about 500k each to the 3 legends (estimate),
Only 50 red balloons (5000k!) to be bought.

And then I'll have every Trophy known and attainable to me.

2006-08-23

Mob Penguin Cellular Phone

Personal note: Not quite a cellular. The landline should work today, so DSL is edging closer. They've only got the show model of the washing machine left, so I'll get 40 euro discount on that. Woo.

On a game note, I reached the tower today. I only had a handful of turns left, so I didn't bother to get extra zaps out of my wand. I'll zap the last key tomorrow, see how far I get up the tower. I'll probably defeat the Sorceress. But no ascension! After the Sorceress, the farming job begins.

Poor Yeti.

2006-08-22

Frobozz

Personal notes: I'm settled in my new house, but the DSL seems to be taking a while.

My Golden Meat Run isn't going all that bad. I'm halfway the White Citadel Trophy as well. I had the chance to farm the Peak in full glory, and I got about 1k a turn. My run itself is currently at the Giant Castle, so the Sorceress can start counting down as well to my arrival.

1,000,000 meat / 1000 meat/turn = 1000 turns of farming.

Foodwise, reagent food seems my best choice, added with a herb brownie (long run, anyway, so I can afford to farm it).
Boozewise, I've unlocked the hippy shop, so the booze giant with that fruit is my drinking plan.

Everything is looking allright, I say.

2006-08-17

Eating out

I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment and have some time off from work. It eats into my internet time, although today I headed out to the Internet Cafe to get my shot of Loathingness.

I've got my Stomach of Steel now (and dropped Teet!). I ate 3 hell ramen to prepare for my new ordeal: Eating White Citadel Burgers and White Citadel Fries. The current status, 1 burger down, 59 to go (and 10 fries).

Getting a goblin outfit is really, really, really tedious. I had an eye-pod equipped baby gravy fairy, with sympathy, leash, empathy and a green snowcone, and *it just wouldn't drop*. The pants were the toughest. I did get 6 more goblin shirts in the meantime, hah!

I really don't know how to play Accordion Thieves, seeing as how I haven't bought a single song yet. Playing casually just really puts off wanting to cast *any* buff. Maybe using mafia or scripts more in that regard will help me. The routine of buying mp restorers, going to skills, adding buffs, adventuring a bit and then buying more restorers is simply tedious and a hassle to my enjoyment of the gameplay. This run is going to be long anyway, so I don't mind as much :-)

Keypunch out.

2006-08-16

Precious Lucklessness

I did ascend, as expected, but I didn't reach level 6, and hence didn't get to drop Teetotal today. Oh well, tomorrow. Tomorrow, there's always tomorrow.

FYI: This run is going to be the Golden Meat Stack attempt.

2006-08-15

At the top

I had trouble getting that last Myst point. Using the sombrero against the tower monsters and even selling all my gear, I was just not getting there.

Tomorrow. Again tomorrow.

2006-08-14

At the Base

I'm at the base of the tower. Got the puzzle turned on my last turn today :-)

Basically, I'm confident tomorrow the Sorceress will fall, after all, I got a zapping wand, a handful of tower items (including the elusive NG), and a good feeling.

One problem though, is my lack of offstats.
Only 61 base mysticality, and 67 base moxie.

So, I'm taking the Sombrero and monster boosters to hopefully solve that problem. Hall Donations are a possibility as well. Especially my lack of mysticality is potentially troublesome.

2006-08-13

I blame the RNG

Having trouble accessing the Internet, I had to spend the first muscle day simply gymming off surplus adventures. Now I have eight minutes left to write my blogpost after spending about 52 trying to get to the Tower.

Statwise, I'm almost there, mostly due to a couple of Wheel appearances. It's turned to moxie now, and I hope I will be able to get to the Tower tomorrow.

It was just phooey on the RNG. It did give me a shitload of lowercase N's, but no numbered scrolls. Then it held me up at the airship for a ridiculously long time. Then it was just no "turn-the-wheel", although the situation was looking rather hopeless already. I also don't have a barbed-wire fence just yet.

Being able to use the Fizzy Invigorating Topic saves a lot of time, so that was good.

Also, in PvP, I met my match in Strangerer. I won the 3 stat fights, but he won all mini's, blegh. Congrats, Strangerer. That'll teach me to tussle with those Iocaine Powder dudes.

2006-08-09

You Twiddle Your Thumbs

Actually, I wasted two adventures by taking on a Yeti and fleeing, while I was supposed to adventure with my (abused) multi.

I wish there was some "lock" you could set on the game sometimes. You could lock it when drunk. It would not be funny, though.

In other news, I hate it when people attack me and fail. Gets my rank up way too fast :-)

[update]
And in other other news, why did I drink that Hatorade and attack that one person? It's cost me 20 substats of each!

2006-08-08

Booze & Food Snapshot

Top 10 Booze:
373 Infinitesimal IPA
214 dirty martini
173 white Canadian
158 vesper
116 fine wine
103 ice-cold Willer
85 bodyslam
73 Imp Ale
66 a little sump'm sump'm
53 green beer

Top 10 Food:
338 herb brownies
165 pr0n chow mein
152 bat wing chow mein
147 Knob sausage chow mein
98 spaghetti with Skullheads
90 Lucky Surprise Egg
59 mugcake
53 rat appendix chow mein
51 hot wing
48 spicy enchanted bean burrito

I just felt like it. I don't know if there are any drastic changes. I think the boozes might have made a few position switches, but nothing big probably. White Canadians have nestled themselves higher to the top.

Foodwise, it's fun to see that my favourite hole-filler, hot wings, are edging in, and that spaghetti with skullheads have overtaken Lucky Surprise Eggs (pre-ascension glut). Herb brownies have made quite a progress towards the end goal. Noteworthy mention is that Gnochetti di Nietschze (34) is at 11.

Turtle Tamer Style

I realised that this run was going very much Turtle Tamer style. Slowly but surely plodding onwards.

That said, I think I'll hold my adventures 'till Muscle Day.

Now chances are that I might ascend earlier than that (4 rollovers), but the betting chances are not all that great. If I wait 'till Muscle Day, I'll have close to 200 adventures, and the stat bonus. It's still not a sure thing I can finish it that day, but I've got 50% increase in chance.

Basically, the next couple of days will be about summoning snowcones and not loosing at pvp.

2006-08-06

Careful where you wave that thing!

I performed the little scheme and am now in possession of the treasured "zapping wand". I'll try not to blow it up like last time. I used most of my remaining adventures to get shysterweed.

With the knob goblin learning pill available and the cheap MP from the market guy, I hope I can now catch up on some lost stats because of all these shenanigans. Especially since as little bonus, I got a ring of aggravate monster.

Should be level 8 quite soon, and then it's time to face the Yeti. (And to get a chrome weapon!)

2006-08-05

A little scheme

Tomorrow, I'll get a DD Key, then get my mainstat to 47 (should be easy), then the wand, and hopefully can zap my goblin outfit.

...and his familiar, Tonto

It came up in chat how much you could boost a familiar. For your run-of-the-mill familiar it goes as following:
Natural poundage (20) + Familiar Equipment (5) + Amphibian Sympathy (5) + Empathy&Leash (10) + Green Snowcone (5) + Heavy Petting (5) + Plexiglass Pith Helmet (5) + 3 Tiny Plastic Familiars (3).

For a grand total of: 58!

Those without boosting familiar equipment will have 5 less. The Pet Rock will have 6 more (its familiar equipment gives +11), and the Doppleshifter can be boosted to 68 (+15 familiar equipment).

The Lone Mod

Adventuring was pretty decent, I beat the Bonerdagon, but I'm short two shysterweeds. Ugh. I also got that rare weapon that people do crave in HC: spiked femur!

Why is a spiked femur so nice, you wonder? Well, for starter's, it's one-handed. That means you can use it with other items equipped.

Secondly it's got 100-power. Except for the titanium assault umbrella, I think that's the most powerful a one-handed item can get. And you can get it at level 7! The next one-handed weapon of that strength only comes at level 10.
The next good thing is the fact that it gives a melee damage bonus (great in combination with LTS). The bonus is +6, which is pretty major (*3 = 18!). And what's even better is that it's SPOOKY. Now considering that at level 8 you will be fighting Yeti's, which are of the cold element, you will be dealing double damage against them as well!.

In short: 1-handed, powerful, extra melee damage, spooky = YETI-DEATH.

In other news, during the Dutch Saturday afternoon, there's a lack of mods. For whiles, I was even completely on my own. That sort of power goes to my head too easily :-). Not too bad, though, since due to school holidays too many jackasses which would've been constrained by their education get to wreak their particular brand of havoc on the chats.

2006-08-04

While you were gone

My handful of adventures today was well-spent, tying up the ends that needed to be tied.

In the meantime, I've caught up on a few fun things that have been added while I was gone.

For starters, there's a new Trophy. Actually, I already had heard rumours of existence, but now it's confirmed. You get it from eating White Castleitadel Burgers (and fries). The burgers which, concidentally, will go up to 2-8 adventures, instead of merely 2-3 adventures, if you eat enough of them.

I really need to get my stomach next run and extend the run (or do a throwaway softcore teetotal) to finish my Bouquet of Hippies (338 out of 420) and apparently the Burgers and Fries got wiped, or I haven't eaten them since they started recording. For that I need 60 burgers and 10 fries . I'll work on the Meal first, since that's more efficient both meatwise and timewise. (140 fullness required and about 10k meat vs. 164 fullness and 86*4k meat estimate). In the meantime I can get the Three Amigo and Red Balloon Trophy.

Also, one of the new smithables is the Muculent Machete, which gives +5% meat and is one-handed. Two of those, instead of two penguin whips will not only dispatch Yeti's with more ease, it will also give me 4 percentage points more meat income.

But first...beat *this* fucking run.

2006-08-03

The Future of Runs

I have been thinking about the future of my runs.

Currently:
Turtle Tamer, HC, Mongoose, Oxygenarian. (Skill to Keep: Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises)
Next:
Accordion Thief, HC, Oppossum, Teetotal-drop (Skill to Keep: Antiphon), and Go for Golden Meat Stack

After that there are several paths. One the one hand I want the Disco Bandit cool cocktail-crafting skills for hardcore (A). I also have this idea I might go on a series of Teetotal trips with the muscle classes and get my absorption up (B), or even simply get my Seal Clubber skill set expanded (C).
There's also the option of going on the Elemental Protection series of runs (D). And finally there's the thought I could get "monster/event" manipulation skills (E) going.

Here's the lists:


A:
Disco Bandit (Super-Human Cocktailcrafting) ->
Disco Bandit (Advanced Cocktailcrafting) ->
Disco Bandit (Self-preservation)

B:
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Hide of the Walrus) ->
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Hide of the Otter) ->
Turtle Tamer Teetotal-drop (Skin of the Leatherback)

C:
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Pulverize) ->
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Musk of the Moose) ->
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Northern Exposure) ->
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Hide of the Walrus) ->
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Claws of the Otter) ->
Seal Clubber (Seal Clubbing Frenzy)

D:
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Northern Exposure) ->
Turtle Tamer Teetotal (Cold-blooded Fearlessness) ->
Disco Bandit (Heart of Polyester) ->
Pastamancer (Tolerance of the Kitchen) ->
Sauceror (Diminished Gag Reflex)

E:
Seal Clubber Teetotal (Musk of the Moose) ->
Disco Bandit (Smooth Movement) ->
Accordion Thief (Carlweather's Cantata of Confrontation) ->
Accordion Thief (The Sonata of Sneakiness)
(this last option might require some tuning in order)

The thing is, I maybe should instead simply pay more attention to moon alignments and base my runs on that. I mostly have all the skills to be able to make a good time ascending. A and especially E will probably improve my times, as might C, although I'm in a pretty good combat state already. D and B are way more conceptual in their approach to runs.

Another thing to note is that I might put in a softcore run before the series of runs (after getting the golden meat stack), simply to get some extra stuff like the Hippie and 99 balloon trophies, extra tattoo's and whatnot.

[update]

I just realized there's also a "hi mein in HC" run (F).

F:
Seal Clubber (Pulverize)
Pastamancer (Transcedental Noodlecraft)
Sauceror (The Way of Sauce)

This could be combined with (A) to make a cool "food and booze" run:

AF:
Seal Clubbber (Pulverize) ->
Turtle Tamer (Cold-blooded Fearlessness) (optional) ->
Disco Bandit (Super Human Cocktailcrafting) ->
Disco Bandit (Advanced Cocktailcrafting) ->
Accordion Thief (Ode to Booze) ->
Pastamancer (Transcedental Noodlecraft) ->
Sauceror (Way of the Sauce)

Return of the Yendorian

So, quite some time in Prague and now back to play 200 turns in Oxycore. (Long story short: finished Seal Clubber, took thrust-smacking, now am Turtle Tamer OXY).

I didn't get quite as far as I'd like, mostly because I keep falling in this dumb old traps. Such as forgetting my motto: "Nothing ever drops.".

I was trying to get a knob goblin elite outfit, so that I could enjoy learning pills while fighting non-meatdropping monsters, such as the pixel monsters. Except the outfit doesn't drop. Apparently drop rate is about 4% (or lower). So my boostings probably don't get it up to 6%. And then considering that meeting a guard is probably around 40%, which means that only 2.5% or so (crap math) of adventures there will yield a particular item. Ugh, now that I typed it out, it seems even more awful than the experience. I did get 2 out of 3 parts, and some double, but you need at least one of each of the items. At least you have 3 chances at each.

My better bet is to get a wand and zap the outfit.

I did get a meat maid and other fun stuff. I should make a better plan to progress. Oxy is slower than it had been in my imagination.

And all that considered, there is also *new* stuff. Apparently the "Yendorian Platinum Credit Card" *is* an ultra-rare, there are new food and smithing recipes (don't care much about the former, but I do about the latter) and there's a new fun mr. store familiar, which I probably won't use all that much, but I like the idea.

I also spent some time considering my future runs, I'll post a nice list in the next post.