I wanted to join a survivors club, but tragedy on the final floor has cause for the rejection of my application to said club, so perhaps I will try forming a small club for fallen, pit veterans. Not the ones that expired on the shallow floors of the before ten, or the halls of the teens, but those that for all seemed to be going well before some unexpected turn of event robbed them of the internal satisfaction of victory.

If you are such a defeated veteran and you wish to tell your story fill out the form below.
Version:
Character:
Difficulty:
Floor upon death:
Cause(s) of Death:
Contributing factors:
Heroic tale of your expiration:

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Version: Vanilla
Character: Marine
Difficulty: Normal
Floor upon death: 30
Cause(s) of Death: Pummeled to death by grenade onslaught.

Contributing factors: Nigh complete lack of opportunity to repair items for the final 10 floors.

Heroic tale of your expiration: Things were going well on the 30th floor. I had life, unused med bays, and far more food than I would be able to use. Ammo was low, but I had enough stuff to craft all the energy packs I would need to finish out the level. Truth was I was just glad to be there. Not too long before that I was hurting when backtracking a couple of floors lead me to just the right bot, that left just the right item to get me back in the game. Now I was nearing the end of the final level and things were looking good, but I made a mistake when I started it that was about to change everything.

At the start of it I had one nano-reconstructor and some of my low end guns were in a real hurt. My armor wasn't at its best, but I figured it had more than enough to get me through any two floors and I was hoping there would be at least one repair station somewhere in that maze. I used that reconstructor, to save a weapon I could have lived without, and then watched as my armor's health started dropping faster than I had planned for. When I rounded that corner grenades started raining down on me, the armor gave out, and my life started dropping fast. I did what I could. Cyber scramblers got them fighting each other, but I couldn't shake them all, and I couldn't kill them fast enough. With no insta-meds left it was over, and darkness swallowed me up only to spit me up back on floor 1. FLOOR 1!

I died my first time on floor 30, I think to a Zuul Alpha. But, even if I knew what to expect I would have died. I had no ammo for any weapon :p

Where's the survivor club thread? I don't see one, but I should be in that one! Sorry to post this since my two runs I'm about to talk about are successful runs: hope you don't mind. I don't remember the losses! (Except that there are twelve of them). Think of this as a positive turn until someone post another defeat run?

1st victory:
Vanilla version
Engineer
Easy difficulty
Floor upon death: N/A!
Contributing factors (that helped me win): Enough weapons to clear the rooms until the last two before the finishline. Energy drinks that provided me with extra speed (to outrun mobs). While everything looked bleak and I was about to give up, a decision "fuck it, I'm gonna use all my nanobots and run to that one room I see over there just to see if I can make it".

I had already bagged a couple of defeats on the normal mode before I realized I would need more recipes in order to have a fighting chance. Therefor, I switched to Easy and picked the Engi. The sadorandomizer works in mysterious ways, however, and later I found myself on the 20+ floors already even if I had been mostly playing just for the sake of deciphering messages. I was a killing machine. I had a huge arsenal. I had a chitin armor. I had food and medpacks to support a strike force. I had pretty much no troubles whatsoever in the first 29 floors (at least, I don't recall any). So when I reached floor 30, I was confident as hell. This would not fail.

That is when I saw the amount of mobs I had to deal with. H-o-l-y s-h-i-t. I was shooting at everything, constantly. I had no idea where to go. I was rocket blasted in the face all the time. And by the time I had cleared maybe 50% of the whole map, my weapons were destroyed. My armor was destroyed. All my medpacks were used. And I was standing in the middle of frenzied bots and monsters, holding nothing but a remaining Mag pistol with >10 bullets. I thought this was it. I have no chance against these enemies. But! I saw there was another room closeby. I looked at my inventory, saw I still had my nanobots left, and some energy drinks. Previously I had had luck with an augmentation bay, and gained a speed boost. I decided this: Let's just see if I can make it there. I used all my nanobots, and an energy drink. My speed was probably 6 now. Then I ran. As fast as I could. I got hit on the way, but not fatally. I got to the door. Opened it. Ran. Mobs didn't follow. It was there. The final stasis pod. I was victorious, even though practically completely stripped of weapons, equipment and armor. And not a minute later from the moment I thought I wouldn't be able to beat the game.

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2nd victory:
Vanilla version
Scout
Normal difficulty
Contributing factors (that helped me win): The amount of recipes I had on the Engi run. Amazing luck with weapons, ammo, and gear. Previous knowledge of the floor 30 layout. Pheromone bait and cyber scramblers. Extra armor.

I couldn't believe the luck I had with crates on this run. By the time I was on around floor 15, I had found more weapons than I could ever carry (ever found TWO Mag pistols in one crate? I have). Auto pistol, mag pistol, auto shotgun, rifle (later modified to a sniper rifle), laser pistol, laser carbine, like five rad blasters, reg. shotgun, pepperbox, target pistol, two machine pistols, sword, all kinds of grenades...the list goes on. And not to mention the other gear, such as the artifact that boosts stats, which I used until I found the health medallion that gives +1 health on every step, and the pocket tesseract. And since I knew lots of recipes beforehand, I was able to craft everything else (like the quantum scan helmet). Also, I knew what I was going to face. Therefor I had made sure I was carrying enough cyber scramblers and pheromone baits as well. All this still almost wasn't enough.

The scramblers weren't as good as I hoped. I had about 10, but used almost all by the time I had got through the first major bot room. Previous rooms had done some serious damage to the weapons I had room to carry (I guess I had six different ones), and one by one I saw them turn to ashes. The ones that didn't were seriously starting to lack ammo. A harpy bot also shot my chitin armor to pieces, and I almost couldn't outrun it to switch to my spare exo armor. That was the first time I was seriously worried of my chances. At this point my weapons included only a machine pistol with 24 bullets, auto shotgun that was blinking with around 10 shells, and rad blaster (with a decent shape and +300 bullets, but seriously, what are you going to do with that). Then I decided: I need to re-enact my previous run. Ignore everything, and just run. And that is what I did. Three or four huge bots were still standing when I returned to that hallway and room...and two VN probes just for kicks. I was sure they would disintegrate me with their shots. Luckily, just some random gear experienced that fate, and I was able to lock myself between the bot room, and the final room before the goal. The last room consisted of all sorts of beasts: xombie hivers, those man-bear beasts, a toxoid, a xomboid and whatnot. But I had survived this far past the bots, and now held one last straw: the pheromone baits. Open door. Toss one in. Close the door. Watch the mayhem.

It was ridiculous. A war broke out in that room. Everyone was killing everyone. Once some of them started to cool down, I would toss another bait in there. And again I watched. After only a handful remained (and the baits no longer seemed to effect them), I healed one last time and used another energy drink. And again I ran. A toxoid grabbed me on the way, but I got him with the remaining auto shotgun shells. After I had gotten through the last door, I was relieved. This was it: I had done it. The adrenaline rush was incredible. Now that I've beaten the game on Normal, I can break free from the game. It took 39 hours to get here. And now I can move on to other games.

Indeed you should be in that club. It was a riveting tale, and quite novelesque. I would have made that club, but my premature death got in the way, and so here we are. The looser's group wishing we could be like you - alive.

With the engineer and scout no less. I haven't gotten anywhere with them. I tend to do OK with the scout, but she keeps dying from the sniffles. Last time I borked my antibiotic craft of 96% (which seems to happen more than 4% of the time) then promptly got a level 1 disease. Level 1 and she couldn't walk it off....again.

I'm not impressed with your resilience young lady. None whatsoever.

Funny thing, because for me the Marine class was the hardest one to play. He always gets a good start thanks to his gear, yes, but his lack of ability with anything other than weapon skills always became slowly my demise. Can't open every crate and locker, and especially a poor repair skill = slow degradation of weapons and a drainage of ammo. I remember a run where I had four weapons, and lost them all to the repair stations. Yeah: not only did those repairs fail: the fails were so epic he disintegrated his weapons himself. I found that once the Scout has built enough Might, she's the best class for a serious try at a victory, but I guess it all comes down to personal preferences, the way people develop their characters, and of course, what sort of luck they have with loot.

Anyway, hope this thread gets more responses. I would love to hear people's war stories, whether successful or unsuccessful.