DicemanX
Brain of Cthulhu
It's time to close out the year with a bang with my biggest and most ambitious project to date: a fully automated playthrough from pre-hardmode all the way to the Moon Lord! In other words, I beat the game with a starting character, with only 100 life and a measly Copper Shortsword in hand, without touching the keyboard or mouse except for a bit at the beginning and one unavoidable mouse button press midway. Here are the rules I followed for this considerable challenge:
Rules for Automated Playthrough:
1) The player character must be newly created
2) The world must be in pre-hardmode with no bosses or events completed
3) The player character can be outfitted with pre-hardmode gear at the start so long as the gear doesn't require beating a boss
In the video I begin by equipping a Platinum Armor set and a Warding Obsidian Skull to reach 25 defense, the minimum necessary for the damage prevention machines used throughout the run. I then immediately teleport to the dungeon entrance and activate the Old Man's curse, and at that point the run becomes automated. Midway through the run I click the left mouse button to summon the Golem - clicking the altar is unavoidable. Everything else is completely AFK!
Video:
Playthrough Progression:
Below are the necessary (and a few optional) steps to progress from pre-hardmode all the way to the end of the game. The total playtime has so far ranged between 5 and 7 hours, the bulk of which involved waiting for the three mechanical bosses to spawn. Here are the steps:
Defeat Skeletron (necessary for Cultists to spawn at the end)
Defeat the Wall of Flesh (necessary to be able to break a Demon Altar)
Blow up all the Shadow Orbs (to trigger a meteor) and a Beehive Larva (optional)
Defeat Eater of Worlds and Queen Bee (optional)
Wait until a meteor hits at least one Demon Altar (to allow mech bosses to spawn)
Beat The Twins, The Destroyer, and Skeletron Prime (necessary to spawn Plantera Bulb)
Break a Plantera Bulb and beat Plantera (necessary to be able to summon Golem)
Farm for a Power Cell in the temple and summon and defeat The Golem (this will spawn the Cultists)
Kill the Cultists at the dungeon entrance to initiate the Lunar Event and summon the Lunatic Cultist
Defeat the Lunatic Cultist
Defeat the 4 Lunar Pillars
Defeat the Moon Lord
Notes:
This engineered world seems foolproof after much testing except for one part: the Moon Lord can kill the player when it spawns in if the player gets a very unfavorable spawn. The Moon Lord can release an eye so that it positions itself over a player teleporter, and it will kill the player (200+ damage) when the player eventually uses that teleporter. The chances of this happening are fortunately very small. Nothing can be done about this unless the player's life can be bumped from 100 life to 120 life. The reason why 120 life is critical is because it allows the player to survive a phantasmal bolt, which is always the first attack the Moon Lord does that can actually reach the player through the blocks. The bolt can be exploited to knock the player into a teleporter, the same way every other boss knocks the player into a teleporter linked to a damage prevention machine.
Alas, since I wanted to do a run with minimal gear, I kept the life to 100 and thus took a (minimal) risk at the Moon Lord arena. That arena took a long while to build, since none of the existing arenas were good enough. It takes about 30 minutes for spear traps to kill the Moon Lord, and thus the arena has to be specially engineered so that the player never takes any damage. I succeeded - see the schematic below, but it took a while.
One final note: it was with some stroke of luck to discover that a meteor landing on and destroying a Demon Altar will trigger the generation of hardmode ores and enable the spawning of mech bosses! For some reason this doesn't work on Crimson Hearts, so the world must have corruption, not crimson. You can incidentally force the meteor to spawn where the altars are by placing treasure chests everywhere else - meteors do not strike within 25 tiles of any chest or NPC! To spawn the meteor, I blow up every shadow orb with explosives, which are wired to the teleporters connecting the WoF arena and the mech boss arena.
Schematics:
Skeletron + Lunatic Cultist Arena:
Wall of Flesh Arena:
Mechanical Boss Arena:
Plantera Arena:
Golem Arena:
Lunar Event Pillar Arenas:
Moon Lord Arena:
World Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBRkNfczAtdHdEOWM/view?usp=sharing
To do an automated run, follow these instructions:
1) Create a new character and load the world Omega_Prime
2) Open chest and equip the Platinum Armor set and Obsidian Skull
3) Use the teleporter to teleport to the dungeon entrance
4) Click the Old Man, and enable the curse
At this point the game will be fully automated. You will however have to left click on the Lihzahrd Altar to summon the golem once you reach the Temple (you'll have to wait for a Power Cell to drop first). Note that it might take a long while to get past the mechanical bosses (somewhere around 4-6 hours usually).
Also: there is a very tiny chance that the Moon Lord will clip the player when it first spawns in, ending the run, and nothing can be done about this. If the player can survive the Moon Lord's entry, the Moon Lord will not be able to hit the player from that point onwards.
Acknowledgements:
@stefnotch, @five--three, and @FSG Gaming for their work on Mechmod - the T-MEC community mod:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/mechmod-a-t-mec-community-mod.38088/page-2#post-848106
@Thiner for proposing the fall-damage invulnerability machine, and for @stefnotch, @ZeroGravitas, @z26, and @Bahamut2001 for working out most of the details:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/a-new-type-of-invulnerability-machine.27586/
To everyone for posting positive comments and feedback!
Rules for Automated Playthrough:
1) The player character must be newly created
2) The world must be in pre-hardmode with no bosses or events completed
3) The player character can be outfitted with pre-hardmode gear at the start so long as the gear doesn't require beating a boss
In the video I begin by equipping a Platinum Armor set and a Warding Obsidian Skull to reach 25 defense, the minimum necessary for the damage prevention machines used throughout the run. I then immediately teleport to the dungeon entrance and activate the Old Man's curse, and at that point the run becomes automated. Midway through the run I click the left mouse button to summon the Golem - clicking the altar is unavoidable. Everything else is completely AFK!
Video:
Playthrough Progression:
Below are the necessary (and a few optional) steps to progress from pre-hardmode all the way to the end of the game. The total playtime has so far ranged between 5 and 7 hours, the bulk of which involved waiting for the three mechanical bosses to spawn. Here are the steps:
Defeat Skeletron (necessary for Cultists to spawn at the end)
Defeat the Wall of Flesh (necessary to be able to break a Demon Altar)
Blow up all the Shadow Orbs (to trigger a meteor) and a Beehive Larva (optional)
Defeat Eater of Worlds and Queen Bee (optional)
Wait until a meteor hits at least one Demon Altar (to allow mech bosses to spawn)
Beat The Twins, The Destroyer, and Skeletron Prime (necessary to spawn Plantera Bulb)
Break a Plantera Bulb and beat Plantera (necessary to be able to summon Golem)
Farm for a Power Cell in the temple and summon and defeat The Golem (this will spawn the Cultists)
Kill the Cultists at the dungeon entrance to initiate the Lunar Event and summon the Lunatic Cultist
Defeat the Lunatic Cultist
Defeat the 4 Lunar Pillars
Defeat the Moon Lord
Notes:
This engineered world seems foolproof after much testing except for one part: the Moon Lord can kill the player when it spawns in if the player gets a very unfavorable spawn. The Moon Lord can release an eye so that it positions itself over a player teleporter, and it will kill the player (200+ damage) when the player eventually uses that teleporter. The chances of this happening are fortunately very small. Nothing can be done about this unless the player's life can be bumped from 100 life to 120 life. The reason why 120 life is critical is because it allows the player to survive a phantasmal bolt, which is always the first attack the Moon Lord does that can actually reach the player through the blocks. The bolt can be exploited to knock the player into a teleporter, the same way every other boss knocks the player into a teleporter linked to a damage prevention machine.
Alas, since I wanted to do a run with minimal gear, I kept the life to 100 and thus took a (minimal) risk at the Moon Lord arena. That arena took a long while to build, since none of the existing arenas were good enough. It takes about 30 minutes for spear traps to kill the Moon Lord, and thus the arena has to be specially engineered so that the player never takes any damage. I succeeded - see the schematic below, but it took a while.
One final note: it was with some stroke of luck to discover that a meteor landing on and destroying a Demon Altar will trigger the generation of hardmode ores and enable the spawning of mech bosses! For some reason this doesn't work on Crimson Hearts, so the world must have corruption, not crimson. You can incidentally force the meteor to spawn where the altars are by placing treasure chests everywhere else - meteors do not strike within 25 tiles of any chest or NPC! To spawn the meteor, I blow up every shadow orb with explosives, which are wired to the teleporters connecting the WoF arena and the mech boss arena.
Schematics:
Skeletron + Lunatic Cultist Arena:
Wall of Flesh Arena:
Mechanical Boss Arena:
Plantera Arena:
Golem Arena:
Lunar Event Pillar Arenas:
Moon Lord Arena:
World Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBRkNfczAtdHdEOWM/view?usp=sharing
To do an automated run, follow these instructions:
1) Create a new character and load the world Omega_Prime
2) Open chest and equip the Platinum Armor set and Obsidian Skull
3) Use the teleporter to teleport to the dungeon entrance
4) Click the Old Man, and enable the curse
At this point the game will be fully automated. You will however have to left click on the Lihzahrd Altar to summon the golem once you reach the Temple (you'll have to wait for a Power Cell to drop first). Note that it might take a long while to get past the mechanical bosses (somewhere around 4-6 hours usually).
Also: there is a very tiny chance that the Moon Lord will clip the player when it first spawns in, ending the run, and nothing can be done about this. If the player can survive the Moon Lord's entry, the Moon Lord will not be able to hit the player from that point onwards.
Acknowledgements:
@stefnotch, @five--three, and @FSG Gaming for their work on Mechmod - the T-MEC community mod:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/mechmod-a-t-mec-community-mod.38088/page-2#post-848106
@Thiner for proposing the fall-damage invulnerability machine, and for @stefnotch, @ZeroGravitas, @z26, and @Bahamut2001 for working out most of the details:
http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/a-new-type-of-invulnerability-machine.27586/
To everyone for posting positive comments and feedback!
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