DRG 6x2: illegal heartstone fight (true solo scout)
So uhhhh I found another use for the "void despawning" tech (though it doesn't actually need the void this time). If you haven't seen those previous "illegal" uploads, to recap: going ~300m away from bugs basically culls them from existence. The exploit takes advantage of a performance optimization that the game uses to forget about bugs that are far enough way that the player may never see them. In the case of the heartstone fight, you can stand 300m away from where all the bugs spawn in and they'll never even get to start their little bug lives or have their first bug kiss or pay their bug taxes. If a bug spawns in a forest and there is no one around, does it make a sound? There are notable exceptions to this optimization, and the following enemies cannot be culled by distance: * Bulk Detonators * Grabbers * Patrol Bots * Sentinels * Dreadnaughts - all three types :( * Spitballers * Brood Nexii * Leeches * Heartstone phase 2 rocks * Heartstone phase 4 laser beams Luckily for us despicable criminals, only those last 2 actually matter for the purposes of this run (bulk dets only target players, not dottie). This run is on hazard 6x2, which is important because it adds MORE flying rocks (you'll lose like a side and a half on phase 2), but more importantly doretta's damage resistance is quite substantially improved so she can survive more hits, so it kinda doesn't matter. The reason that second detail is important is that this strategy may not extend down to hazard 5 as dottie takes a lot more damage even though there would be less rocks (but who knows, with less rocks overall it might be fine; the proof is left as an exercise for the reader lmao). I will say watching the health bars tick down was a bit engaging at least, and you could really tell that the final dottie plate is a lot tankier than the rest. And this could be placebo, but it appears that the damage caused by the phase 4 laser beam towers isn't a strict constant damage. There may be some sort of falloff effect or a "catch-up" mechanic to give an edge on the players favor. It seems that the start of the laser phase was ticking down faster than after the beams were up for a while, and it could be doing less damage the longer the beams are up. I didn't actually do ANY math or checks into this, but it was something that kinda looked like it would be a thing when I was playing. A more enterprising viewer willing to put in some legwork could slow down the video and check how fast the hp % ticks down per second, and maybe graph that or something to see if there is any statistical significance to that hypothesis. If you do end up doing that, please leave a comment with your results because I'd really love to know!
So uhhhh I found another use for the "void despawning" tech (though it doesn't actually need the void this time). If you haven't seen those previous "illegal" uploads, to recap: going ~300m away from bugs basically culls them from existence. The exploit takes advantage of a performance optimization that the game uses to forget about bugs that are far enough way that the player may never see them. In the case of the heartstone fight, you can stand 300m away from where all the bugs spawn in and they'll never even get to start their little bug lives or have their first bug kiss or pay their bug taxes. If a bug spawns in a forest and there is no one around, does it make a sound? There are notable exceptions to this optimization, and the following enemies cannot be culled by distance: * Bulk Detonators * Grabbers * Patrol Bots * Sentinels * Dreadnaughts - all three types :( * Spitballers * Brood Nexii * Leeches * Heartstone phase 2 rocks * Heartstone phase 4 laser beams Luckily for us despicable criminals, only those last 2 actually matter for the purposes of this run (bulk dets only target players, not dottie). This run is on hazard 6x2, which is important because it adds MORE flying rocks (you'll lose like a side and a half on phase 2), but more importantly doretta's damage resistance is quite substantially improved so she can survive more hits, so it kinda doesn't matter. The reason that second detail is important is that this strategy may not extend down to hazard 5 as dottie takes a lot more damage even though there would be less rocks (but who knows, with less rocks overall it might be fine; the proof is left as an exercise for the reader lmao). I will say watching the health bars tick down was a bit engaging at least, and you could really tell that the final dottie plate is a lot tankier than the rest. And this could be placebo, but it appears that the damage caused by the phase 4 laser beam towers isn't a strict constant damage. There may be some sort of falloff effect or a "catch-up" mechanic to give an edge on the players favor. It seems that the start of the laser phase was ticking down faster than after the beams were up for a while, and it could be doing less damage the longer the beams are up. I didn't actually do ANY math or checks into this, but it was something that kinda looked like it would be a thing when I was playing. A more enterprising viewer willing to put in some legwork could slow down the video and check how fast the hp % ticks down per second, and maybe graph that or something to see if there is any statistical significance to that hypothesis. If you do end up doing that, please leave a comment with your results because I'd really love to know!