This is a tool-assisted speedrun that devestates Map 23 of Eternal III quickly!
- Map 23: Time Gate II
The map features 3 big locations and a big Hub with teleports. You should visit a city block and a lava cave, find 2 keys and use 3 teleports in order to finish the map.
Ammo management wasn't that difficult too. I didn't have to use simple weapons, like SSG and a Chaingun, in order to keep more powerful weapons for later. Two rockets were spent to manipulate high damages and/or infighting.
Lava Cave section !!!
I needed to visit this location twice. Firstly, to find a yellow key. Secondly, to kill the remaining monsters, find a secret and remove the first half of the door to the final secret.
Some triggers were activated later, like the one that lets monsters out of transparent cages in that big room. I didn't expect that much, but that room was rich for infighting.
Hub section
Location placements make monsters walk around in appropriate areas of the Hub, so it wasn't a big deal to look for them and kill on the way to various points.
The front platform with imps deserves particular attention. Jumping from the top of it is required to open a secret hub section with 3 doors. Instead of using a teleport to get on that platform, I blasted rockets in a specific way to make imps' corpses cross that linedef which saved a lot of time. I didn't expect wedding crashers to use the teleport to get there, but it didn't cause much time consumption.
The right platform which requires a red key was difficult. I need to kill monsters quickly to prevent them from crossing the linedefs that would teleport them elsewhere.
City Block section
The first building isn't intended for stayers. The set of linedef actions which lets the room change it's floor (altitude), thereby imitating multi-storey building, can be broken if you cross the linedefs too quickly. If you do that, you'll get a softlock. So I had to slow down a little.
The arms cache with some ammo, berserk and a chainsaw isn't considered as a secret, but it was necessary for me to grab it. The chainsaw slows down the weapon switching if I need fists. I was aware of it from the very beginning, but decided to pick -complevel 2 instead of 9 to follow the rest of Eternal Doom TASes.
I had some time to wait for the Spider Mastermind, but I couldn't find a fast strategy to eliminate the remaining monsters without using the BFG. I could do it better.
Telefraging the Spider would be a great idea, but it would be really hard for me to prevent two Barons of Hell (things 395, 396) from teleporting to him and catch a right moment for telefragging.
Cacodemon limbo arena
This is the most difficult part of the entire map in terms of speedrunning. I'm not sure if I picked the fastest one, but at least it looks well-made.
Possible improvements:
1. I could save some more ammo and avoid ammo problems by the end of the map. For example, I shouldn't have killed those 4 mancubuses (things 284, 285, 286, 297) with a plasma rifle. One BFG shot would be better.
2. Fighting the arch-vile (thing 153), which guards the main switch, could be improved. You can kill it together with a hell knight and a revenant with a single BFG shot and save 3 rockets.
3. My first BFG shot could be improved. For example, to kill 3 arachnotrones and save some rockets.
About 60% of input and most damage manipulations were made in XDRE 2.20.
Time: 4:57.37
Music used: Speed of Doom - Map 7