Duration: 13:58

358 views

3

Difficulty rating: 24 (NIGHTMARISHLY HARD)

--- My opinion ---

YESSSSSSS! Let's end this nightmare finally... This is damned, frikkin' ***N I G H T M A R I S H L Y*** HARD level. I needed to find a better superlative because levels I marked 'extremely hard' are very easy comparing to this...
I can say this is the hardest level I ever played in Descent...
Took me weeks to find out the best strategy to maximize my chances. If you don't believe it try to do it after me, good luck!

It's practically impossible to do an over 100 run on this one due to the big amount of unavoidable damage you take at the very start of this level.

So let's see where are the risky areas.

First the green platformer trap... There is one on the floor and the ceiling. AND OPENS 1 CUBE AWAY FROM YOU! Your only chance is after destroying all those roaming drones (and the scoreboard is at 2200) is timing the door closure and TRICHORD in. So the platform robot will only bang the door and won't fire into the corridor.
The class 2 drone cannot be killed from outside it's too deep inside, so you must face it after trichording. This maneuver is very hard to master.

The second is hot spot is the MOST EVIL TRAP I ever encountered in this game so far... Rocket mech trap, open 1 cubes away from you and cannot fly through. It's look unsurvivable and for a lot of time it seemed this level is impossible to do.
But then I discovered a way that improves you chances a lot. It was discovered using trial and error:
push yourself on the floor while shooting. I guess the mech turns towards you in his room. While keep pushing on the floor and shooting rush over door. Due to a glitch if you push at a locked door you can fire through and damage the mechs inside. I don't use this glitch normally, but in this level this is your only chance. But this is not enough you need to move right as the door opens you can keep the mech stunned. If you did it right, the rocket mech may only fire only 1 missile at you so you can survive... It works best with vulcan but can be done using lasers too.

The third hot spot is the area with lot of corridors that contain the yellow key. The door is next to the blue one I entered the ring into. There are 3 rocket mechs in station mode (2 normal and 1 green platform): when they sense the player is near they rush out. As far as I can remember the search distance is 10 cubes, so you must pray while banging with lasers at the corners... This is your only safe chance to get rid of them... If you did it right and destroyed them all (including the lifter and the drone). The scoreboard registers 6700. You more often than not run out of energy before completing it, without energy you cannot proceed must restart...

From this point you can more or less say you are in control: due to the curved corridor design, you need to corner snipe pretty much everything, direct encounter = instant death.

The yellow area with the dark gray corridor is the hardest and most frustrating. There is a stationing green platformer you must lure out. And there is a stationing spider also but it usually got sandwitched between mechs and destroys itself, spreading spiderlings along the whole corridor showing up at unexpected places and kill you in surprise, in this case it survived and come out (I only saw it in the level editor, this was the first time I ever saw it alive). The hardest thing in this corridor is the rocket mech, you can see its brown texture briefly around 8:00. It's usually deeper inside. It have a tendency to rotate around its axis fire a missile at you at the tiniest hole is likely means a direct hit and game over...

Once you cleaned this corridor rush for the red key. Be fast before the rocket barrage from the other side hits you.

Rescuing the 4 hostages are tricky, wait till the end of the level, so the cloaked rocket mech will come out, and can be fired at from safe distance. Otherwise you again need to corner snipe but the driller can rush out and bash you during that, I wante to avoid it at all costs.

The reactor area again a corner snipingfest with a cloaked rocket mech, and an advanced lifter. No direct encounter is feasible.

--- Level description ---

Full Name: Joel Mathis

Name of Mission:R&D 2

Description of Mission:

Advanced version of Munitions Research and
Developement.

--- My opinion 2 ---

Is there a non-advanced version?