PWAD: sd20x7.wad
PWAD Name: Stardate 20x7
Map: 3
Skill: 4
Category: UV-Max
Exe: DSDA-Doom 0.29.4 complevel 9
Recorded on: 2/23/26 (mm/dd/yy)
Time: 4:32.54
Author: Twilight
Attempts: 426
Description: I had never played this map before trying to beat 0xf00ba12's time for demo month.  My name for this map is "What Did That Switch Do?".  In the previous record's run, he hits 2 switches that he doesn't need to, and it's because nothing happens within line of sight for any of these switches, so I doubt he even knew that they were unnecessary (the ones behind the rev and shotgunners and the chaingunners). 
His run was also impossible to follow because the sheer amount of insane luck.  He just punches out a pain elemental next to an arch vile, chaingunners and revs. Just watch it. So I had to come up with my own strategy. 
I decided to do the first part pacifist after much trial and error. Getting damage on the manc with the chaingun while waiting for the lift was my first thought, but then you get infinite height blocked trying to jump down.  Toward my final attempts, I would just reset if the cyber didn't walk out to the revs because that is where he needs to be to get good infighting with the archviles. 
I also cut down on the travel time by immediately killing the two cybers after starting the infighting in the secret area.  This also makes going for the secret that leads to the 2 keys much easier when there are no enemies to dodge.  
There is no avoiding a stupid amount of infighting rng that getting a good time requires.  You don't have enough rockets and plasma to kill everything yourself. Each run felt just like a roll of the dice.  This map is not a good map to max speedrun. I had a run that would have been 4:1x because the 2nd cyber got pinned by a hell knight, but I couldn't find an imp that got boomed down into the poison pit.  With max speedrunning, I'm coming to realize that all I care about is performing my strategy well, and if the time can only be improved with better infight rng, then I'm satisfied. 
