Skull cavern dives and loot

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
Ok, did the run, probably my best run ever regarding depth, not iridium as I didn't have the miner perk so got like 30% less iridium.
Let's see how we did ig:
Screenshot (12).png

Only got a single level below this, actually my deepest I think because I usually just start mining around 1000 and only get like 300 levels down.
51 shards too is quite nice I think, though only 2090 iridium hurts my soul, I think if you don't count potential money from selling jades I made a profit on this, 840 gold too, I have to buy the stuff and bought a chest of it but that's already gone, my furnaces eat like 3 stacks at a time...
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
Wow! That's an awesome run, particularly on floors and prismatic shards
Realized this is also the farthest I've ever gotten on a non staircase run, funny
So far you have done nothing but place down stairs, so I wouldn't exactly call that a "non staircase run" 😉

Looks like you got into a nice groove in the second half of the descent, though, and quite consistently had 40+ floors. I suppose it's muscle memory kicking in. I simply couldn't pull off that consistently, those were rather my peaks, but hopefully I can improve with more runs. 51 shards is totally nuts, and with the Miner skill you'd probably have three full stacks of ore instead of two. With the assumption with Miner we get on average 3 ores per node instead of two.

Was going to ask if you thought going that deep before starting to mine was worth it, but I suppose your haul answers that question really. Think I started on floor 350-400-ish, at around 10 o'clock.

As for what you wrote earlier:
We are getting so much better at this, can't wait for you to get faster and faster at SC. I would recommend actually increasing your regular farm productivity, like a couple hundred to a thousand crystalariums is absolutely great, that's 1.4 million a week with gemologist or 3-4 thousand stairs a week which is pretty much your average 700 level runs every day.
This will help with money problems as being able to throw tens of millions of g at sc to train for times in other saves when you need it is a godsend, 1k crystalariums or even 1/2 is not that hard too, and will benefit you tremendously.
I'm using the Riverlands farm and not doing any farming, nor any animals, so it's hard to scale up profits, and I have little real estate to work with. One shed is almost full of diamond crystalariums, and another shed is roughly half-full of jade. Batteries have become the new limiter, and I'm down to 1, which I'm keep just to easier use "Add to chest" button. Funnily enough, there has been a raging thunderstorm and rain where I live, but nothing in-game. Suppose it's impossible during winter, so hope for a few nice ones in spring. With batteries becoming the bigger issue now, I'll have to 'waste' gold on solar panels instead, to at least get a slow trickle of batteries going forward.

Am not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong on my runs to have a slower pace, but maybe just need to get more training with it. Perhaps the clicking after the pause-buffering is too poor or something, perhaps the technique isn't right. Kinda seems from what you wrote earlier that you hold down the mouse buttons all the time? It won't mess up things, like suddenly picking up a topaz or whatever, instead of holding the stairs? Anyway, what I've done is to try to click very quickly upon unpause-pause, with right mouse button first, and then left. That seemed to work best for me, with less chance of getting stuck without going down. Clicking both simultaneously proved to be inconsistent for me. But like I said, perhaps this technique isn't good enough to consistently get 40+ floors, never mind 60-70. The latter may be impossible for me anyway, as I'm not a kid any more with super reflexes. 💀

Edit: Just noticed you have the zoom buttons on-screen, and have zoomed out the max. Would you say that is an important change, to give you a better grasp on 'good' floors without unpausing to check behind the inventory UI?
 
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Hill Myna

Farmer
Am not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong on my runs to have a slower pace, but maybe just need to get more training with it. Perhaps the clicking after the pause-buffering is too poor or something, perhaps the technique isn't right. Kinda seems from what you wrote earlier that you hold down the mouse buttons all the time? It won't mess up things, like suddenly picking up a topaz or whatever, instead of holding the stairs? Anyway, what I've done is to try to click very quickly upon unpause-pause, with right mouse button first, and then left. That seemed to work best for me, with less chance of getting stuck without going down. Clicking both simultaneously proved to be inconsistent for me. But like I said, perhaps this technique isn't good enough to consistently get 40+ floors, never mind 60-70. The latter may be impossible for me anyway, as I'm not a kid any more with super reflexes. 💀
Obviously I can't comment on the technique (I've only ever played on Switch with a max of 8 floors per tick! :grin:), but it definitely takes practice. When I first tried it I was REALLY bad at it, I might as well've not even pressed pause!

But the more I got used to the "feel" of it, the faster I became. Eventually, it came somewhat natural and I could tell when I was getting it correct, and so I tried to make that "correctness" as consistent as possible.

What I'm saying is, it can only go uphill from here, so keep experimenting and see if you can find any tips from the "good" ticks that you can apply to the "less good" ones!
Edit: Just noticed you have the zoom buttons on-screen, and have zoomed out the max. Would you say that is an important change, to give you a better grasp on 'good' floors without unpausing to check behind the inventory UI?
We talked about this briefly in another thread, but yes! It makes planning the course of action significantly easier, informs you of Serpents much faster, and you might spot a dense cluster of ore that you mightn't have otherwise.
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
Thanks and cheers :thumbsup:

Will have to play around with the zoom level too then, hah. The worry is that I mess up even more when needing to use the pickaxe, clicking on stairs/holes, and particularly when trying to place stairs after having moved around. I keep wasting a lot of time because the character is stuck between two tiles or something, making everything 'red'. But like with the pause buffering technique and the slingshot, will need to practice it a lot more. The pace earlier wasn't exactly slow either, but can also save a lot more time overall if I decide to go even deeper before starting to mine. Floor 400 vs 1200 is a pretty huge difference! Then again, if I can get two stacks of iridium ore somewhat consistently moving forward by starting on floor 400-ish, that's not a bad place to be :P

Gotta admit, it's also tempting to try out the Gavel. With so many prismatic shards now, enchanting two weapons won't really be an issue. Getting the Cinder shards is the limiter there, funnily enough.
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
Oh deary me..! I did it all wrong before. Trying to unpause->click mouse buttons->pause. Now am trying to hold down both mouse buttons all the time, and it's going faster. Not much admittedly, but a little. The downside is that if you get one of those strange floors with an invalid tile where the stairs pop up in a neighbouring tile, you can suddenly see 4-5 stairs there instead of one, wasting quite a few. I'm not in great physical shape right now, and kinda shaking a little from nervousness, but having a go of it anyway. Have the slingshot (275 ammo), but have almost zero practice with it

No guarantees I'll keep this day as is, because noticed I am basically out of all bombs, but want to see how this descending malarky works out when I now hopefully understood the technique better. Kinda makes me wonder even more how you can squeeze out 70 floors per 'tick' on this, but yeah.

Will note down my timing, as @FilthyGorilla did earlier. I got to the cavern a little later this time, and fudged getting through the door, so the first stuff I noted down are from 6:30
6:30, floor 50 (?)
6:40, floor 87 (37)
6:50, floor 137 (50)
7:00, floor 173 (36). Felt awful. Lots of rocks and crap in the way, and had to hack away a stone too when locked in. Missed some pauses too, maybe I was too aggressive. Not nice.
7:10, floor 221 (48). Started off badly with needing to remove an iridium node. Used the slingshot after some failures with the pausing and trying different tiles. None were available. But after that it must have gone reasonably well, though I did miss a pause too and was left staring at the screen for a little moment.
7:20, floor 257 (36). Terrible end with first failing with a slingshot, and then needing to move around a stone and to the stairs two tiles away. Wasted some floors there. Otherwise it went well.
7:30, floor 306 (49). Felt quite well, but poor ending with being totally locked in and needing to pickaxe away a stone.
7:40, floor 347 (41). Awkward start, but felt things were going well, so a little surprised at 'only' 41. Seems like my best level is upwards of 50 in close to ideal situations. Think I'll gobble down a Magic rock candy now. Two should suffice for the whole day I reckon, and maybe it improves floor layout or lack of rocks locking us in? One can hope...
7:50, floor 394 (47). Strange, this one felt awful, yet the floor count was near my best. Some mistakes were made. Didn't drop the MRC, tho. Some of the floors above really should have been taken on, hurts my soul to see so much purple, but let's keep going *gulp*
8:00, floor 427 (33). Yeah, that felt downright dreadful. Soooo many mistakes, staring at the screen unpaused, and rocks all over the entrance area. Awful. Pausing to write up here may not be ideal, but I'll do it this time. Probably gets out of the groove a little bit.
8:10, floor 475 (48). That felt better, and the timing was generally more accurate. Ate Magic rock candy. Some treasure floors are such traps though. Tiles on the floor makes stairs impossible, and need to side step. Grrrr.
8:20, floor 539 (64!!). Crikey! Unless I missed the tickover a little, that's one hell of a ride. Again, some floors should have been taken on, but let's pretend I am purple colours blind, if that's a thing.
8:30, floor 579 (40). Horrible again, barely a floor went by without needing to move the pointer due to red outline, then boxes, torches and nooks and crannies. Still, 40 isn't bad considering it was my previous 'best' in the last run. This new technique is clearly better, though, and if I can get the timings tighter, 60-70 is actually not entirely impossible. Seems like everything needs to be perfect for those 'ticks' tho.
8:40, floor 627 (48). Some minor mistakes but not too bad. A couple of jawdropping floors that I truly only notice on the animation away from the floor. 15-ish nodes nearby hurts. Should probably start mining soon tbh. I'm running low on stairs anyway. Maybe I can make it to 10:00 and still have a decent amount left? We'll see. Currently a reserve of 518, which was every last bit I had stored up.
8:50, floor 679 (52). Smooth rhythm for the most part, trying to be aggressive. Sometimes too much, but overall a good one.
9:00, floor 733 (54). Looks like I'm stabilising more around the 50-mark. Lots of moving the pointer around, and a couple of mistakes, but no real lockins.
9:10, floor 782 (49). Some WTF floors passed up, but that's how it goes. Maybe I can go to 9:30, but then need to look more seriously at mining. Will need the stairs left then probably, because altho some floors are dreamy, many others are practically naked, at least from what I can see near the entrance (with default zoom settings in fairness).
9:20, floor 817 (35). That was ****, no two ways about it. Three times I'm stood there with stairs all around me, but due to invalid tiles they are all two tiles away. Two other times I needed to move around a rock. Surprised I made it over 20 tbh, felt awful. Wasted sooo many stairs too due to that crap.
9:30, floor 869 (52). Much better. Tried to be aggressive and overdid it a few times, but overall a good one. Painful to see a Mystic stone while going down a stairs, but what can you do... With 259 stairs left, think I ought to start mining now. Will need a healthy amount for the remaining 14+ hours, and tbh it probably won't be enough.
---
Across 18 different 10-min ticks, that is an average of 45.5 floors per tick. The low ones ruin it, and seemed like I stabilised around 50 for a while, with the 64 being an outlier.

Definitely wish I had more than this puny amount of bombs, but at least I took with some essences, so once I get some gold I can make more mega bombs.

Screenshot from 2022-08-16 15-45-54.png

Made many mega bombs, which cut into the gold, and otherwise I tried to use the slingshot. Missed a lot, but I can see the use in it. The zoomed out view made it easier for overview ofc, but I struggled even more with placing stairs on the run, and it made it more awkward when skipping floors.

Fell asleep on floor 1232, which ofc smashed my previous record of 768. To be honest, I hoped for more iridium ore than this, but not like it's a bad count 😂 Prismatic shard is a little low again, ratio-wise, so that kinda blows, but 39 is a new PB and very nice haul after all.
Screenshot from 2022-08-16 16-43-50.png
Skull cavern floor 1232 loot.png
Good thing I stopped descending at 9:30, because there are only 51 stairs left. Gold is surprisingly high, given all the mega bombs that were made.

Total raw value: 398,200g
Iridium ore smelted to bars: 851,100g

A good return on investment, but should also be noted that practically all the ~1200 stairs went into this. Around 150 explosive ammo too, plus more than all the bombs I took with.
 
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Hill Myna

Farmer
So this pause buffering thing won’t work on the switch?
Short answer: yes, it does allow you to save time when staircasing. But overall you're only saving fractional amounts compared to PC, because of the control limitations when un-paused.

I've watched videos of pause-buffering on PC, so I'll give my best explanation about the differences & similarities, with the caveat that I haven't actually played on PC.

1. The part where you pause during the black screen works exactly the same, with the exception that the Switch's processing of inputs are slightly delayed, and the buttons are slightly firmer than on the average keyboard (this will affect every step of the process to some degree).​
For example, you can come down the ladder, pause, un-pause, and immediately eat food, losing very little time, similar (identical?) to on PC.​
2. ...but the process of placing objects on Switch is very different to when you have a mouse.​

To place a Staircase, you have to be facing a valid tile, and then press either the Y or the A button, which are on opposite sides of the button pad. This will place the Staircase, although at a slower speed to on PC, because you can't hold both those buttons down at the same time.​

Then to "enter" it, you have to be right next to it (as in you physically can't get any closer), which means you have to move there, losing even more time.

So, in the best-case scenario, the process looks like this: Take the ladder, pause in the black screen, unpause, and during the time period where your inventory is closing, hold A or Y, wait for the game to register that there is a ladder in front of the player, release A or Y to prevent Staircase spam, then move towards it, and time the A/Y button press perfectly to take the ladder, repeat.​
But when there's a rock directly south of the player...​
3. You will not be able to place a staircase, thus you have to rotate. To rotate with a joystick, you have to nudge it in the direction you want to turn.

This is fiddly. Nudge it too little and nothing will happen, nudge it too far and you'll end up walking onto the tile where you're trying to place the Staircase, thus invalidating that tile (meaning you have to rotate again).​
4. And in the worst-case scenario where you have to swap from Staircases to your Pickaxe to break yourself out, you'll have to:​
un-pause, select your Pickaxe (this can't be done from the inventory like on PC, as it requires the shoulder buttons, which swaps between tabs such as Skills, Social, etc.), rotate to the tile you want to affect, press the Y button to use your pickaxe, swap back to your Staircases, place the Staircase, and then take it.​
All this adds up to a significantly increased time in between entering the Floor and taking the next ladder, so the time saved from pausing in the black screen is nearly irrelevant, but it does still help a tiny bit, so that's why I bother in the first place!

P.S. Aaand yes I know that @Savagerider, you play on Switch; I'm trying to explain it to both parties and it's difficult! :D Hopefully the way I explained it was at least understandable!
 
Ok, did the run, probably my best run ever regarding depth, not iridium as I didn't have the miner perk so got like 30% less iridium.
Let's see how we did ig:
View attachment 11426
Only got a single level below this, actually my deepest I think because I usually just start mining around 1000 and only get like 300 levels down.
51 shards too is quite nice I think, though only 2090 iridium hurts my soul, I think if you don't count potential money from selling jades I made a profit on this, 840 gold too, I have to buy the stuff and bought a chest of it but that's already gone, my furnaces eat like 3 stacks at a time...
51 SHARDS?????????????????????????????? WHAT
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
Wow! That's an awesome run, particularly on floors and prismatic shards

So far you have done nothing but place down stairs, so I wouldn't exactly call that a "non staircase run" 😉

Looks like you got into a nice groove in the second half of the descent, though, and quite consistently had 40+ floors. I suppose it's muscle memory kicking in. I simply couldn't pull off that consistently, those were rather my peaks, but hopefully I can improve with more runs. 51 shards is totally nuts, and with the Miner skill you'd probably have three full stacks of ore instead of two. With the assumption with Miner we get on average 3 ores per node instead of two.

Was going to ask if you thought going that deep before starting to mine was worth it, but I suppose your haul answers that question really. Think I started on floor 350-400-ish, at around 10 o'clock.

As for what you wrote earlier:

I'm using the Riverlands farm and not doing any farming, nor any animals, so it's hard to scale up profits, and I have little real estate to work with. One shed is almost full of diamond crystalariums, and another shed is roughly half-full of jade. Batteries have become the new limiter, and I'm down to 1, which I'm keep just to easier use "Add to chest" button. Funnily enough, there has been a raging thunderstorm and rain where I live, but nothing in-game. Suppose it's impossible during winter, so hope for a few nice ones in spring. With batteries becoming the bigger issue now, I'll have to 'waste' gold on solar panels instead, to at least get a slow trickle of batteries going forward.

Am not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong on my runs to have a slower pace, but maybe just need to get more training with it. Perhaps the clicking after the pause-buffering is too poor or something, perhaps the technique isn't right. Kinda seems from what you wrote earlier that you hold down the mouse buttons all the time? It won't mess up things, like suddenly picking up a topaz or whatever, instead of holding the stairs? Anyway, what I've done is to try to click very quickly upon unpause-pause, with right mouse button first, and then left. That seemed to work best for me, with less chance of getting stuck without going down. Clicking both simultaneously proved to be inconsistent for me. But like I said, perhaps this technique isn't good enough to consistently get 40+ floors, never mind 60-70. The latter may be impossible for me anyway, as I'm not a kid any more with super reflexes. 💀

Edit: Just noticed you have the zoom buttons on-screen, and have zoomed out the max. Would you say that is an important change, to give you a better grasp on 'good' floors without unpausing to check behind the inventory UI?
Ok, it’ll take a bit to get through this:
1. I meant it was equal to the farthest I have been on anothe run that did not use staircases, I see the misunderstanding here.

2. Deeper is more fun, and pause buffering takes like no time, also realized something cool, I’m pretty sure the record for legit sc depth is like 4K, I could easily beat that tbh, with the run I had consistently until 2amI could go past 5k.

3. Honestly even if I pick up something which happened twice during that whole run, with the two types of quartz, the game paused during animations, I lose like one or two floors from that, the more likely loss of time is getting mixed up and losing unnecessary time.

4. I only play on full zoom, I wish the game went further, it’s somewhat for the floors as a byproduct but I’ve memorized which floors are worth it to stop at just from their entrances, I could play on the closest zoom and still know.

5. solar panels during the winter are op, they produce guaranteed every week as there is no rain, I have like 200 of them?
And one which I keep on the mainland to let me know as I keep them in the desert.
Also they aren’t too bad, 5 iron, 5 gold and 10 refined quartz sounds like a lot but it’s something you add onto every week.
You only have like 200 crystalariums anyway, you realistically will only need like 40 of them, that’s like 2 good runs worth of gold ore for you (1000).

Yeah and work with the pause buffering, try to test it’s limits, it’s better to have one bad run which you learn than always mediocre ones.
Good luck good day.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
Oh deary me..! I did it all wrong before. Trying to unpause->click mouse buttons->pause. Now am trying to hold down both mouse buttons all the time, and it's going faster. Not much admittedly, but a little. The downside is that if you get one of those strange floors with an invalid tile where the stairs pop up in a neighbouring tile, you can suddenly see 4-5 stairs there instead of one, wasting quite a few. I'm not in great physical shape right now, and kinda shaking a little from nervousness, but having a go of it anyway. Have the slingshot (275 ammo), but have almost zero practice with it

No guarantees I'll keep this day as is, because noticed I am basically out of all bombs, but want to see how this descending malarky works out when I now hopefully understood the technique better. Kinda makes me wonder even more how you can squeeze out 70 floors per 'tick' on this, but yeah.

Will note down my timing, as @FilthyGorilla did earlier. I got to the cavern a little later this time, and fudged getting through the door, so the first stuff I noted down are from 6:30
6:30, floor 50 (?)
6:40, floor 87 (37)
6:50, floor 137 (50)
7:00, floor 173 (36). Felt awful. Lots of rocks and crap in the way, and had to hack away a stone too when locked in. Missed some pauses too, maybe I was too aggressive. Not nice.
7:10, floor 221 (48). Started off badly with needing to remove an iridium node. Used the slingshot after some failures with the pausing and trying different tiles. None were available. But after that it must have gone reasonably well, though I did miss a pause too and was left staring at the screen for a little moment.
7:20, floor 257 (36). Terrible end with first failing with a slingshot, and then needing to move around a stone and to the stairs two tiles away. Wasted some floors there. Otherwise it went well.
7:30, floor 306 (49). Felt quite well, but poor ending with being totally locked in and needing to pickaxe away a stone.
7:40, floor 347 (41). Awkward start, but felt things were going well, so a little surprised at 'only' 41. Seems like my best level is upwards of 50 in close to ideal situations. Think I'll gobble down a Magic rock candy now. Two should suffice for the whole day I reckon, and maybe it improves floor layout or lack of rocks locking us in? One can hope...
7:50, floor 394 (47). Strange, this one felt awful, yet the floor count was near my best. Some mistakes were made. Didn't drop the MRC, tho. Some of the floors above really should have been taken on, hurts my soul to see so much purple, but let's keep going *gulp*
8:00, floor 427 (33). Yeah, that felt downright dreadful. Soooo many mistakes, staring at the screen unpaused, and rocks all over the entrance area. Awful. Pausing to write up here may not be ideal, but I'll do it this time. Probably gets out of the groove a little bit.
8:10, floor 475 (48). That felt better, and the timing was generally more accurate. Ate Magic rock candy. Some treasure floors are such traps though. Tiles on the floor makes stairs impossible, and need to side step. Grrrr.
8:20, floor 539 (64!!). Crikey! Unless I missed the tickover a little, that's one hell of a ride. Again, some floors should have been taken on, but let's pretend I am purple colours blind, if that's a thing.
8:30, floor 579 (40). Horrible again, barely a floor went by without needing to move the pointer due to red outline, then boxes, torches and nooks and crannies. Still, 40 isn't bad considering it was my previous 'best' in the last run. This new technique is clearly better, though, and if I can get the timings tighter, 60-70 is actually not entirely impossible. Seems like everything needs to be perfect for those 'ticks' tho.
8:40, floor 627 (48). Some minor mistakes but not too bad. A couple of jawdropping floors that I truly only notice on the animation away from the floor. 15-ish nodes nearby hurts. Should probably start mining soon tbh. I'm running low on stairs anyway. Maybe I can make it to 10:00 and still have a decent amount left? We'll see. Currently a reserve of 518, which was every last bit I had stored up.
8:50, floor 679 (52). Smooth rhythm for the most part, trying to be aggressive. Sometimes too much, but overall a good one.
9:00, floor 733 (54). Looks like I'm stabilising more around the 50-mark. Lots of moving the pointer around, and a couple of mistakes, but no real lockins.
9:10, floor 782 (49). Some WTF floors passed up, but that's how it goes. Maybe I can go to 9:30, but then need to look more seriously at mining. Will need the stairs left then probably, because altho some floors are dreamy, many others are practically naked, at least from what I can see near the entrance (with default zoom settings in fairness).
9:20, floor 817 (35). That was ****, no two ways about it. Three times I'm stood there with stairs all around me, but due to invalid tiles they are all two tiles away. Two other times I needed to move around a rock. Surprised I made it over 20 tbh, felt awful. Wasted sooo many stairs too due to that crap.
9:30, floor 869 (52). Much better. Tried to be aggressive and overdid it a few times, but overall a good one. Painful to see a Mystic stone while going down a stairs, but what can you do... With 259 stairs left, think I ought to start mining now. Will need a healthy amount for the remaining 14+ hours, and tbh it probably won't be enough.
---
Across 18 different 10-min ticks, that is an average of 45.5 floors per tick. The low ones ruin it, and seemed like I stabilised around 50 for a while, with the 64 being an outlier.

Definitely wish I had more than this puny amount of bombs, but at least I took with some essences, so once I get some gold I can make more mega bombs.

View attachment 11430

Made many mega bombs, which cut into the gold, and otherwise I tried to use the slingshot. Missed a lot, but I can see the use in it. The zoomed out view made it easier for overview ofc, but I struggled even more with placing stairs on the run, and it made it more awkward when skipping floors.

Fell asleep on floor 1232, which ofc smashed my previous record of 768. To be honest, I hoped for more iridium ore than this, but not like it's a bad count 😂 Prismatic shard is a little low again, ratio-wise, so that kinda blows, but 39 is a new PB and very nice haul after all.
Good thing I stopped descending at 9:30, because there are only 51 stairs left. Gold is surprisingly high, given all the mega bombs that were made.

Total raw value: 398,200g
Iridium ore smelted to bars: 851,100g

A good return on investment, but should also be noted that practically all the ~1200 stairs went into this. Around 150 explosive ammo too, plus more than all the bombs I took with.
Yeah you are definitely getting better than me now lmao, at east for now, and yeah, the 64 was probably an overload, I did that too, thought I got 67 but realized I only got 38 the next like you got 40 and realized it was probably a crossover, still probably a mid 50 which is getting good.
What technique are you using now? Just my one?
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
1. I meant it was equal to the farthest I have been on anothe run that did not use staircases, I see the misunderstanding here.
Yeah sorry about that. I realised afterwards that I probably misunderstood. Going that deep without stairs, tho, is seriously good. Did you mega bomb every floor or something? Assume you must have found a truckload of manholes.
I’m pretty sure the record for legit sc depth is like 4K, I could easily beat that tbh, with the run I had consistently until 2amI could go past 5k.
Wow, really? That's not a lot, but I would think some of the streamers or whatever have done this stuff all the way down? IIRC, GodzillaFreak said he could probably get to 9-10,000 if doing that the whole day. Is there an overview somewhere of these kind of records btw? I checked up speedrun.com, but they don't have categories like that, just the more typical CC, bundles, perfection, marriage etc etc. Didn't find anything on YT from a quick search either. Good luck if you go for a record attempt like that. Sounds like you have the jade production to pull it off at least, with so many crystalariums. Boggles the mind just to think about it, haha
solar panels during the winter are op, they produce guaranteed every week as there is no rain, I have like 200 of them?
Damn, that's a lot! I have 5 right now... Spent a day fishing for trash in the volcano entrance just to convert CDs and glasses to refined quarts. Sadly have next to no quarts due to recently buying bombs for it. Almost all resources have suddenly become a problem for me. Always lack something, gah! Will work on getting more solar panels, though, and then focus more on crystalariums again later, because without a way to get rain totems, it's the only realistic way to get a stable supply of batteries. Also, after the next diamond cycle, will put jade in those crystalariums as well. Otherwise it will take an eternity before I can have a proper deep dive in the Cavern again.

Yeah you are definitely getting better than me now lmao, at east for now, and yeah, the 64 was probably an overload, I did that too, thought I got 67 but realized I only got 38 the next like you got 40 and realized it was probably a crossover, still probably a mid 50 which is getting good.
What technique are you using now? Just my one?
Wouldn't go that far really, just my first real go of it, and it was nice to understand the technique better. But I've been practicing pause buffering in the regular mines too when being there, so have a better 'feel' for it now, while I'm sure you'll improve loads quickly since you have done 60-70 floors before.
The 64 may have had a slight overtick, but not much I think, since I paid pretty good attention to it. The next one (40) was poor, but that was also due to loads of poor layouts and crap in the way. So even if there was a slight overtick, think it must have been a good one, with let's say around 60. Combined, those two still had 52 average despite the problems in the second tick.

Technique: yeah probably. I'm trying to do what was explained in those videos by Waligug (?) and GodzillaFreak, plus your explanation in one of the previous posts. It worked much better to hold down the buttons all the time instead of the clicking game I had going. Still, sometimes the pausing is fudged up or something, and I place the stairs but don't go down, and after that I sometimes waste time because I lose rhythm. Like the game ends up unpaused, and I quickly pause and unpause again... *facepalm*

Found it was easier to get quickly down with normal zoom settings though, because then the mouse pointer could be slightly below the actual inventory, so I wouldn't randomly pick up items. When I later changed to 75% zoom to get a better view of the floors once mining, it was harder to pull off those quick descents.

Godzilla mentioned in that WR run that he may do a video later explaining the techniques better, but don't think he ever did. Nothing about it on his channel at least, and there aren't that many videos really. Some old random stuff, and those few deep dives. Would have been gold to get this stuff explained even better, to make sure we are doing it the correct way.

What I don't get at all, tho, is how he's able to use the slingshot so incredibly quickly and efficiently. I'm using the pullback method, which is supposed to be the quickest, but you still need to actually pull back (which sometimes fail and you don't get the pullback sound). Yet he's spending a frame or something nutty unpaused, and somehow successfully pulls off a shot, or even several, in that miniscule time. Don't understand how that is possible. He must have found a trick of some kind.
 

FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
Yeah sorry about that. I realised afterwards that I probably misunderstood. Going that deep without stairs, tho, is seriously good. Did you mega bomb every floor or something? Assume you must have found a truckload of manholes.

Wow, really? That's not a lot, but I would think some of the streamers or whatever have done this stuff all the way down? IIRC, GodzillaFreak said he could probably get to 9-10,000 if doing that the whole day. Is there an overview somewhere of these kind of records btw? I checked up speedrun.com, but they don't have categories like that, just the more typical CC, bundles, perfection, marriage etc etc. Didn't find anything on YT from a quick search either. Good luck if you go for a record attempt like that. Sounds like you have the jade production to pull it off at least, with so many crystalariums. Boggles the mind just to think about it, haha

Damn, that's a lot! I have 5 right now... Spent a day fishing for trash in the volcano entrance just to convert CDs and glasses to refined quarts. Sadly have next to no quarts due to recently buying bombs for it. Almost all resources have suddenly become a problem for me. Always lack something, gah! Will work on getting more solar panels, though, and then focus more on crystalariums again later, because without a way to get rain totems, it's the only realistic way to get a stable supply of batteries. Also, after the next diamond cycle, will put jade in those crystalariums as well. Otherwise it will take an eternity before I can have a proper deep dive in the Cavern again.


Wouldn't go that far really, just my first real go of it, and it was nice to understand the technique better. But I've been practicing pause buffering in the regular mines too when being there, so have a better 'feel' for it now, while I'm sure you'll improve loads quickly since you have done 60-70 floors before.
The 64 may have had a slight overtick, but not much I think, since I paid pretty good attention to it. The next one (40) was poor, but that was also due to loads of poor layouts and crap in the way. So even if there was a slight overtick, think it must have been a good one, with let's say around 60. Combined, those two still had 52 average despite the problems in the second tick.

Technique: yeah probably. I'm trying to do what was explained in those videos by Waligug (?) and GodzillaFreak, plus your explanation in one of the previous posts. It worked much better to hold down the buttons all the time instead of the clicking game I had going. Still, sometimes the pausing is fudged up or something, and I place the stairs but don't go down, and after that I sometimes waste time because I lose rhythm. Like the game ends up unpaused, and I quickly pause and unpause again... *facepalm*

Found it was easier to get quickly down with normal zoom settings though, because then the mouse pointer could be slightly below the actual inventory, so I wouldn't randomly pick up items. When I later changed to 75% zoom to get a better view of the floors once mining, it was harder to pull off those quick descents.

Godzilla mentioned in that WR run that he may do a video later explaining the techniques better, but don't think he ever did. Nothing about it on his channel at least, and there aren't that many videos really. Some old random stuff, and those few deep dives. Would have been gold to get this stuff explained even better, to make sure we are doing it the correct way.

What I don't get at all, tho, is how he's able to use the slingshot so incredibly quickly and efficiently. I'm using the pullback method, which is supposed to be the quickest, but you still need to actually pull back (which sometimes fail and you don't get the pullback sound). Yet he's spending a frame or something nutty unpaused, and somehow successfully pulls off a shot, or even several, in that miniscule time. Don't understand how that is possible. He must have found a trick of some kind.
You don’t need to pull it back, just tap at the climax of the pullback and release, then you can place a stair as it explodes, I do it all the time.
Also for the no staircase run I didn’t actually get many chutes, mostly ladders and animation canceling as well as a lot of slingshot use.
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
You don’t need to pull it back, just tap at the climax of the pullback and release, then you can place a stair as it explodes, I do it all the time.
It's so extremely much quicker than I can pull it off, though? For example in 4:50 into that 9000 ore video. The screen barely blinks, yet he's able to pull off a shot. When I try something like that, nothing comes off. I need to spend probably half a second first, so the slingshot has time to "pull back" so to speak, even if I just click. So I don't really get how he's able to do this so extremely quickly. I must be doing something wrong.

Elsewhere, both sheds are filled with jade crystalariums now, so that will make it easier to have these deep dives more often. That's maybe 1000 stairs a week.

Tried out the Galaxy Hammer (with +2 speed, and +20% damage from the Forge) during a Skull cavern invasion btw, but it was rather catastrophic. Ran out of food in the end, and barely got to floor 100 with the 10 stairs I brought. It's simply too slow to deal with enemies consistently. Seems to have less reach than the Galaxy Sword as well. For now at least, I've gone back to the sword. With +30% damage on the sword, they do almost exactly the same damage (per hit) anyway. And the sword is quicker, so...

Edit: Yikes. Does the whole operation lag more during SC invasions? Tried to do a deep dive, but by 7:20 I was over 100 floors behind the previous attempt. Seemed like the game lagged a little every time I went down a stair. So I tossed out the day, better try again later when the Cavern is normal again.
 
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FilthyGorilla

Local Legend
It's so extremely much quicker than I can pull it off, though? For example in 4:50 into that 9000 ore video. The screen barely blinks, yet he's able to pull off a shot. When I try something like that, nothing comes off. I need to spend probably half a second first, so the slingshot has time to "pull back" so to speak, even if I just click. So I don't really get how he's able to do this so extremely quickly. I must be doing something wrong.

Elsewhere, both sheds are filled with jade crystalariums now, so that will make it easier to have these deep dives more often. That's maybe 1000 stairs a week.

Tried out the Galaxy Hammer (with +2 speed, and +20% damage from the Forge) during a Skull cavern invasion btw, but it was rather catastrophic. Ran out of food in the end, and barely got to floor 100 with the 10 stairs I brought. It's simply too slow to deal with enemies consistently. Seems to have less reach than the Galaxy Sword as well. For now at least, I've gone back to the sword. With +30% damage on the sword, they do almost exactly the same damage (per hit) anyway. And the sword is quicker, so...

Edit: Yikes. Does the whole operation lag more during SC invasions? Tried to do a deep dive, but by 7:20 I was over 100 floors behind the previous attempt. Seemed like the game lagged a little every time I went down a stair. So I tossed out the day, better try again later when the Cavern is normal again.
Honestly the hammer is much much better just because of the special ability, you need to have both the profession and enchant to make the special attack take bear no cooldown, with that I can easily beat hard mode skull caverns with monster musk and only using a slammer or kudgel.
 

Pangaearocks

Planter
That would be the GodzillaFreak run which I think is posted earlier in this thread.
It's a different one. Still GodzillaFreak, but the one in the video had slightly over 9000 ore, and here it's 11.5k. Probably much the same approach, but somehow he was even more effective, by a pretty large margin.
 

Elenna101

Farmer
It's a different one. Still GodzillaFreak, but the one in the video had slightly over 9000 ore, and here it's 11.5k. Probably much the same approach, but somehow he was even more effective, by a pretty large margin.
Oh, right, sorry. I'm guessing the difference is using a different number of ladders at the start, but yeah I don't know if there's a video on it.
 
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