non-retcon contest - completed

[Cristiona]

Finally starting to outlevel my FT. Not needing Lifeblood after every combat anymore, which is handy. Looks like I'll have just enough chips to make it to Don Carlos's discount rates, even though I'll have to autosell my gold coins as I'm pretty sure the park isn't going to cough up enough cash. Could maybe try poking around in the castle, though.

Also getting to the point were I'm going to need to swap equipment again, even though I was finally satisfied with it.

[penguinpyro]

Hey, Lxndr, are you in the contest? If so, the restrictions are "some pulls", not "all items", unless Harry gave you an exception.

[Lxndr]

Hey, Lxndr, are you in the contest? If so, the restrictions are "some pulls", not "all items", unless Harry gave you an exception.

I am not in the contest! I know myself too well to join any 'speed' contest.
Looks fun for those who are good at it, though.

[Kurg]

Ended my run by accident.
Thought it could be nice to start opening up the station, so I clicked on Susan...only a split second later I remember that, as I had defeated the mick, that meant ending the run.

Oh well. It was a pretty sucky run anyway, was only level 22.

[Cristiona]

That's why I haven't started the level 11 quest yet. And to keep from accidentally starting it, I also haven't done level 10.

[Harry Dresden]

That's exactly what happened to me, too. I started the level 11 quest through habit, and then figured I should finish it to get my sidekick back. Stupid Susan and her automatic run ending. She's evil, I tell ya!

[Harry Dresden]

Well, I gave up as well, frayday time is retcon time...

You gave up when you're in second place?

[Cristiona]

Knew it was gonna be a marathon; mentioned it pretty early on. My last run to 50 took 14 days, and that was all items. Oh well. The more people who drop out or goof up, the better for me. Come on, Bmara! Talk to Susan!

Anyway, after minimal adventuring the past few days, I'm slowly catching up to... something or other.

404k XP, which is about 1/3rd of the way there. Hit 7am today and still have 1 level banked and 182 turns. Oh, and an hour stored in my blanket. Frayday really fell on the wrong RL day. Skills are something of a hodge-podge, but I've finally maxed out Lifeblood, which has turned it into the healer of choice (along with various cracked nuts) allowing me to keep my buffs pretty high, they're all in the 800 minute range, and I'm slowly adding more as I go.

Also, I finally had to sell my gold coins. I had hoped to hang on to them, but I wasn't going to easily afford levels 23, 24 and 25 without them. Thankfully the Mystic is cheap.

[Cristiona]

So... many... buffs...

Aura: Keen Observation - 525.59 minutes
Stone Armor - 527.5 minutes
Talons of the Raptor - 536.25 minutes
Spines of the Echidna - 536.25 minutes
Aura: Vim - 538.75 minutes
Aura: Vigor - 538.94 minutes
Metal Detector - 548.25 minutes
Sundowner Breeze - 550.13 minutes
Mantis Reflexes - 552.25 minutes
Upgrade Weapons: Self-Balancing - 552.5 minutes
Armadillo Armor - 561.5 minutes
Nurture vs. Nature - 579.71 minutes
Ant's Strength - 614.25 minutes
Memory of the Elephant - 642.25 minutes
Upgrade Armor: Resistance - 877.25 minutes

[acidcat]

Congratulations mara! Can't say it was a surprise after even the first few days of the contest.

Depressingly you could've given me a 20 level headstart and still won. Please give us all some of your tips after the contest is over!

[penguinpyro]

Done: 193h 58m 15s

Whew.

[Cristiona]

197h 48m 7s
15 days

Bleh. What a pain in the ass. At least I got a vest.

Time: 11:18:45 PM
Bedtime: 12:59 AM

[Harry Dresden]

Is anyone else still doing this? Or should I assume the 4th prize will just not be given out?

[acidcat]

I'm still doing this Harry, but I'm going quite slowly. Really don't know how the others managed to go so quickly.

[Cristiona]

Well...

For me, I maxed out Sundowner Breeze and used a Marble of Madness, that gave a pretty solid block of FT right there. The rest of my equipment was a balance of -time, PP regen, +XP and FT. Taking a page from bmara's psychotic playbook, once I hit level 30 or so, I spent as much time as I could manage in the Crypt. Essentially, it worked like this:

Farm Castle until passive PP regen topped up my PP.
Digitize all Castle drops and make Recognizer Bots.
Go to Crypt, using a Recognizer and maxed Firestorm.
Retreat to Castle as needed.

Also, everything that wasn't a liao or Noctuary got either sold for leveling chips or digitized. There was a lot of equipment juggling with this tactic, though. In the Castle I used the bastard sword (later Trident), a Rook, and a +item sidekick. For the Crypt, the rook was swapped for a Steelbreaker (for the blocking), the trident was swapped for a Fall's Staff (for the +spell %), and the sidekick was swapped for a Cosmic Jester for the blocking and +spell damage.

My diet was (mostly) 3 Tanzanian colas made in-run and a dulce de diamante. I had also pulled a sack and a chest, so I made use of those items throughout the run. Finally, I also wore a Nutcracker hat for the entire run. It gave -5 seconds, but more importantly, it meant that any time I goofed and got my ass kicked I didn't have to worry about being bled dry by status effects, and those nuts were very helpful. They were very early caffeine and sugar, later, the chock-full-o, candied, and shells were sold for chips, while the other three were not only good for healing 40HP, but two of them gave useful buffs (PP regen and +DA). I think that the hat was one of the reasons I didn't have to pull a single item for autosell. There were a couple times where I had to scrape my inventory for things to sell, but I never had to pull anything just to autosell.

I believe PenguinPyro spent much of his time in the less abusive Reaches of Space, which has the added bonus of dropping Space Mead which has that lovely +10PP/turn. Really, PP regen turned out to be one of the keys as I was trying to juggle a lot of buffs, while at the same time blasting through 26 or so PP every turn (-1 cost from Jill's gloves, but 4 or 5 attacks for a Shoggoth) and needing to use Lifeblood every 4 or 5 turns.

[penguinpyro]

My strategy went approximately:

Levels 1-2: Quests, obviously.
Levels 3-12: Max out Firestorm, spam it to grind at Docks then Robot Hive, burning chips at the desert Enlightenment center (idea stolen from bmara), spend time on quests when I feel I'm up to it, with priority to level 4 and level 9 quest. I didn't bother with +FT when grinding, used as much FT as possible when doing lower-than-my-level quests.
Levels 12-15: Spent time taming away in Triassic. Bought a remainder cell phone, that, combined with all-xentrium gear later, was a godsend. Start pulling malkamite accessories and xentrium gear. Also unlocked the space station and finished all quests.
Levels 15-22: More time in triassic, now pulling liaos and dulce de diamantes nonstop, with the odd blue chip now and then, and adding +FT as fights were getting too easy.
22-32: Hundenswein all the way. Honestly, I should have begun this at level 20. Firestorm came in handy once again to bail my ass out. The dropped chips, stroopwafels and furry pills came in immense handy.
32-50: Again, should have entered the next area as soon as I could. Went to underwater city and Insanity, farmed enough to buy Trident of Nodens from Creepy Old Man, went back to Hunden for a few levels, then went to Outer Space and firestormed everything, burning chips at the space station's radiation center to replenish PP as necessary.

At this point, I stopped using the Psychoanalyst sidekick and was using clockwork armadillos and owls to stay alive. Started using Trident of Nodens at level 40 instead of radiation center. Whenever I got a good amount of bone flutes, I'd combine them and use them to semi-safely take on the Ancient Crypts (note: avoid shoggoths at all costs-very not worth it) in order to grab liaos and summoning cones. Still pulling liaos.

I believe in only using FT when fights are getting too easy, and not wasting any pulls on it, instead going for XP, -time and general combat ability. Yes, Space Mead was very, very useful. I sold just about everything that wasn't healing, a sidekick, good food or future equipment after level 15. Food consisted of a crapload of Mister Teas I bought early on, with pulled dulce de diamantes from level 10 to 20 and stroopwafels the rest of the way.

At later levels, after taking things such as stealth, meditation, firestorm, sugar purifier, proper hydration, etc, I took passive combat-based skills (sniper, both martial arts, Salt of the Earth, aura:vim) and lifeblood manipulation, since most of my -time, +XP equipment was subpar for past level 20. Then again, I had way too many skill points on me, so this may not work for you.

My experience boils down to this:
1) Taming is good.
2) Liaos are good. Dulce de diamantes are the ideal sugar, too, until you have access to stroops.
3) It's best that you only pull it if you're sure you can't loot or buy it in time. Blue chips can do a lot.
4) It doesn't matter if you're massively outleveled- maxed out Firestorm (with +spell damage skills/items if needed) will cover your ass as long as you can survive for long enough to use it (defensive sidekicks if necessary) and have enough chips or +PP to keep your PP up. And keeping your PP up also keeps your HP up due to Lifeblood.
5) FT is bad if you're already struggling, and great if things are getting too easy and you can't move on to a harder area yet.
6) You *might* want to save up part of your turns at the beginning, keeping 100 or so in reserve, so that you can pull your good equipment and not have to adventure with crappy items. You can burn the extra turns come Frayday. Bmara did this, and I would have too if I had thought of it
7) You'll want to delay the more annoying quests until later, when you've had enough total skill points to blow some on stealth/mental magnetism and have picked up +non-com, quest-aiding equipment, so that you can spend as little time on quests as possible. Don't delay quests too long though,- the opportunity costs of getting the relatively weak XP from quest combats goes up as you reach higher grinding sites.

[acidcat]

Thanks very much for the useful tips guys. Lots don't apply as I don't have the right items but didn't even think of some of the relevant bits (e.g. liaos). Also been a muppet and forgot all about PP regen with enlightenment centre, have been relying on my subscribers jacket all this time which has slowed me down. Hoping to finish very soon, thank you all for helping shorten this run by a few days. Will look at using the trident of nodens, but have been using firestorm generally so not sure if that will work for me.

[acidcat]

Finally!

Time Played This Run: 1w 3d 11h 16m 57s
Days This Run: 21
130 turns left

[acidcat]

And so here are some of the things I learned (and was taught) during my snail-like speed run to lv 50.

1) Items of the month are often good especially at low levels, but don't hang onto them past their optimal time. (Don't have them, but 3-speed bike shorts, nutcracker's hat seem to be useful throughout, sepia skullcap seems good for lots of it)
2) Items with -time and +XP are very good...
3) ... but Items that keep you alive long enough to adventure at higher level locations can be much, much better (I learned this to my cost as my weak +XP items were stopping me going to the crypts for ages)
4) Items with +PP or HP can be good at keeping you alive, but it's worth considering just buying the restorers (which mara pointed out are better than the enlightenment centre)
5) Consider what you'll use in the long term when spending skill points. I loaded points into first aid, which was good for low levels but I then also needed to spend on lifeblood to finish the run. Similarly don't put points into things like snout of the swine just out of reflex as it's normally useful.
6) Sidekicks are very useful. I especially love the Yith.
7) Doing the quests at low levels are a good use of your time often in terms of rewards and just to get them done early...
... But for heaven's sake, unlock the space station early, not after you've done the level 1-10 quests.
9) Doing the Jousting B quest early is good for the daily free healing.
10) Stock up on useful items to pull before starting (liaos are amazing!), and make sure any items are in an efficient form (e.g. gold star is one pull, and gives you 10 silver stars), and having done a limited run immediately prior to get gold foils is useful.
11) Selling stuff can stop you having to pull blue chips
12) Villains on can give you useful drops early on
13) Really consider what you need most from Nocturne's shop

[Cristiona]

Yeah, Jousting is stupid useful, and I'm glad I spent the time on that quest. The free heal was fantastic, and the gloves can be useful. My most recent run got a lot of use out of the Nottingham Gloves. I even put points into Mind Jab to get more healing out of it.

[zillow]

Time Played This Run: 2w 2d 9h 29m 55s
Days This Run: 51
170 turns left

I finished! Do I get a prize for being dead last?

[Harry Dresden]

Your "award" has been sent your way.