Survival Guide

There are many factors at play that makes survival in deeploop possible, and this page will brief over many of the shorter mechanics that do not need entirely dedicated pages for. (Include drop times somewhere)

Weapon Loadout

The focal point of survival can be viewed through the weapons ran, which will be the crux of offense and defense.

The Ultra Shovel (ushov)

The first tool here is the ushov which does 30 damage and requires no ammo - just 14 rads in order to swing. While the damage itself is fairly respectable, the important factor here is its reload time. At only half a second per swing and paired with Long Arms, Ultra Shovel has the reach and spread to knock away most enemy bullets while keeping the player completely safe.

The ultra meter can be used to discern rad levels, but does not have a visible number. A full meter has 600 rads, which allows for 42 ushov swings before running empty.

The Super Plasma Cannon (SPC)

The other vital tool here is the SPC, which is the weapon that has the highest damage potential in the game. However, it also has the highest reload time and ammo cost of any normal weapons, requiring a few mutations to effectively use. Central to this is Trigger Fingers.

Crown of Blood (CoBlood)

The other tool used for efficiency is Crown of Blood, which can be picked up in any loop vault. It can cause up to double the number of enemies in the level (but not always) at the exchange of every enemy dropping 1 less rad, which is neglible. As level sizes aren't increased to compensate for enemy counts, this leads to more enemies squished together which translates into more enemies being killed per SPC shot/ushov swing.

With these three combined together, the gist for deeploop is seen. CoBlood causes for more packed levels, in which SPC can fire into crowds, who will give a ton of rads and ammo drops. These will be used to fuel SPC to be fired multiple times (known as SPC spam), while ushov can be used to deflect all the projectiles and carve through swathes of nearby enemies, and cleaning up any smaller enemies that SPC ends. Both weapons compliment each other with one filling the screen with high-damaging projectiles to kill the bulk of enemies and bosses, while the other defends the player while cleaning up whatever is left.

(Expand into SPC spam & hotswapping)

Popo Freaks

Normal IDPD Appears in Loops 0-2			Elite IDPD Appears in Loops 1-2			Popo Freaks Appears in Loops 3 onwards

Starting in Loop 3 all IDPD will be replaced with Popo Freaks. These mutated enemies will share characteristics of both IDPD and normal enemies. (L3 0-1 will still have normal/elite IDPD)

Their attacks include doing 5 contact damage, shooting a large swathe of IDPD bullets that do 3 damage each, and upon death they have a chance of dropping blue grenades, that can do 8 damage each for a total of 16 damage.

Uniquely they will also pick the nearest corpse from where they died to revive themselves after 26.6 seconds pass from being killed, unless if the exit portal has opened for the level. As long as the level is ongoing they can infinitely revive.

They will drop 25 rads upon dying as well as a chance for 1 pickup.

The following table is the HP values for Popo Freaks. Ultra Shovel does 30 damage, so it can kill in one swing from L3 to L5 with Scarier Face, otherwise taking two hits. Starting from L21 normally/L31 with Face, they start taking three swings instead.

1. The Popo Freak attacking the player with a wide spread of bullets.
2. Upon death it drops 25 rads, and this one happened to drop grenades as well.
3. A brief animation plays over a corpse to revive the Popo Freak, giving a brief window of reaction time.

'Chain Killing' illustrated on the image on the right is a simple strategy to easily handle Popo Freaks once they take two swings to kill. While the first swing will not kill any Popo Freaks, the second swing will kill the ones in front while setting the ones in back to low HP, in which the player can quickly swing to kill them as well.

This is a fairly effective way to maintain high rad levels while minimizing risk to the player, and largely makes Popo Freaks a non-threat.

Vans

The number of Vans spawned will increase proportional to the number of loops, meaning that the number of loops will be the same as the number of Vans. They always follow the same logic of spawning in when anywhere from 20% to 80% of the current enemies in the level have been killed, but only if any Popo Freaks have been killed up to that point.

The main change of Vans in L3+ is they will instantly detonate upon coming to a stop. These create three IDPD explosions that hit for 8 damage twice for a total of 16 damage, and can stack. They will also spawn three Popo Freaks, however, they are no longer considered on the IDPD team so they will take damage from the explosions instantly. This stacks to 48 damage will will instantly kill them up to Loop 13 normally, or Loop 21 with Face, though will be low HP.

This means that every Van blown up will kill three Popo Freaks instantly that will drop 75 rads total with the chance of pickups.

(Van management and dmg here)

Enemy Iframes

Invincibility frames are always granted to enemies upon taking damage, however most sources of damage ignore enemy iframes. A full list of iframe sources can be viewed on the weapons page.

The most notable one is melee, which applies to Ultra Shovel. If an enemy has iframes active they will completely ignore damage from the ushov, and because of that some situations can arise where an enemy takes lesser damage from another source and fails to get killed, and sometimes can cause surprise damage to the player.

Common examples of low damage that can trigger iframes are enemies being damaged by wall debris or getting hit by enemy corpse knockback which can be very hard to predict. Mutations like Impact Wrists and Sharp Teeth are commonly avoided as they cause iframes more frequently while having low damage output.

Any enemy can be iframed and cause the player to get punished - however there are a few specific threats that are known for causing frequent deaths or Spirit drops, as shown in the following two tables;

The first table are enemies that can slip through ushov swings while iframed and cause a lot of damage to the player - they're much more aggressive, so sometimes damage is very hard to avoid.

Slips through ushov swings:
Assassin	Buff Gator	Explo Freak
Desert, Sewers, Scrapyards	Sewers, Scrapyards, Caves	Caves, Labs, Palace
5 Melee Damage	4 Flak Damage + 1 Pellet Damage (x10)	2 Contact Damage 5-10 Explosive Damage

The second table are enemies the player may accidentally walk into if they get iframed which can cause a lot of damage - this is mainly for players who are pushing too hard, and is more easily avoided.

iframe threats:
Sniper	Jungle Fly	Laser Crystal	Rhino Freak
Desert, Scrapyard Palace (less relevant)	Desert	Sewers, Caves, Labs	Caves, Labs
5-10 Explosive Damage (Death)	5 Contact Damage	20 Contact Damage	5 Contact Damage

There is a rare exception in which enemies will not have iframes active at all and can take immense amounts of damage known as multi-hitting. This occurs mainly for Big Bandits during their charge attack, and Dogs during their jump attack. Any weapon that normally respects iframes can do massive damage, which includes Ultra Shovel.

Swung normally	Swung during charge

The table to the left shows two instances of L10 Big Bandits, who have 650 health.

The first image is a single ushov swing that only does 30 damage - it would take 22 swings to kill Big Bandit, and the player only has 42 swings max with a full rad bar.
The second image is a single ushov swing that did 150 damage, because it hit Big Bandit while he was charging. This cuts it down to 5 swings max using ushov alone. (Exact damage can vary)

Big Bandits will use their charge attack if the player is behind a wall within range, or is standing right on top of them (extremely risky). However they will only charge if they're in aggro mode which is very easy to trigger (being damaged at all or firing at the player at any point).

On the other hand Dogs will only try to attack the player if they're within line of sight, so a more aggressive approach has to be taken with standing out in the open and then quickly swinging as a reaction for when they pounce. It often times takes two swings through jumps in order to kill.

Player Iframes

Player iframes are always triggered if any sort of damage is taken, and most damage sources in the game will respect this. There are, however, exceptions.

The two most notable examples are Laser Crystals and Buff Gators who can easily shred HP in some situations. (Explosions as well, outlined in the section below)

Laser Crystal	Laser Crystals shoot out four lasers each doing 1 damage per hit, however they do not respect player iframes and can easily stack if directly in line with the player. This can also stack with lasers from other Laser Crystals, which can shred even full HP in under a second in the worst case scenarios. Damage only stacks this high if the player is walking directly into/away from the lasers, otherwise they're easily pushed out of the way while only taking minor damage. It's easiest to get combo'd while on cobwebs, which almost feels like being stunlocked.
Buff Gator	Buff Gators shoot a flak shot that deals 4 damage, and breaks into 10 pellets that each do 1 damage. Each of these pellets ignore iframes and can shred the player's HP if they walk directly into the flak shot, dealing up to 14 damage. The main threat with Buff Gators is how aggressive they fire at the player, sometimes giving very little reaction time. Even one Buff Gator could easily cause a Spirit drop or in some rare cases even kill through it by taking the player by surprise.

Strong Spirit gives full invulnerability to any damage source, however this is a very brief window of protection - only about 5 frames. There are some cases (such as with Laser Crystals or Buff Gators) that it's possible to kill through Strong Spirit if any damage persists longer than Spirit protects for. An example of this is shown in the drop-down;

Enemy surviving through iframes & killing through Spirit:

	The following screenshots will break this gif down on how the Buff Gator survived a swing from Ultra Shovel and made Chicken go headless through Strong Spirit. This happened during a real run during a daily on 3-2 L5. This is an example of sloppy playing - SPC is wasted on one enemy in an empty hallway, so Chicken starts pushing heavily only with her ultra shovel in tight corridors. Going headless could have been avoided with more careful playing, and better utilization of SPC.
Buff Gator surviving through iframes
	1st Picture: Chicken goes to swing her ushov in a closed room. Notice the sleeping Assassin in the purple square.
	2nd Picture: The sleeping Assassin is killed and its body is knocked towards the Buff Gator, who is just out of range of Chicken.
	3rd Picture: The Buff Gator is then hit by the sleeping Assassin's corpse as it lights up, signifying iframes are active.
	4th Picture: While the Buff Gator's hurt animation plays Chicken swings her ushov at the Buff Gator, but no damage is done as his iframes are active. On Loop 5 with Scarier Face, Buff Gators still only have 30 HP so would have been killed to a single swing still as ushov does 30 damage.
Buff Gator killing through Spirit
	5th Picture: The Buff Gator is still alive so fires his Flak Cannon at Chicken who has 7 HP. This immediately does 4 damage bringing her down to 3 HP.
	6th Picture: 10 pellets burst forth from the flak ball into random directions. As Chicken was walking towards the flak ball as it exploded, many pellets instantly hit Chicken causing her to take an additional 3 damage and dropping Strong Spirit. The other pellets randomly start to fly in all directions, note the one in the yellow square.
	7th Picture: The pellet in the yellow square bounces off a nearby wall and starts flying towards Chicken, who is actively walking towards it to escape the Buff Gator.
	8th Picture: Spirit invulnerability ends despite the halo animation still playing - the one pellet makes contact with Chicken dealing 1 damage, causing her to go headless. This situation would kill most other mutants.

Explosions

Explosions are a constant in deeploop, thus is important to understand the mechanics behind.

As explained on the weapons page, explosives deal consecutive damage in two separate instances. This means normal explosives caused by enemies/the player deals 5 damage twice for a total of 10 damage, while IDPD explosives from Vans/Popo Freaks do 8 damage twice for a total of 16 damage. It is possible for the player or enemies to avoid both instances of damage if they move in/out of the explosion radius at the exact right moment.

Explosives do not respect iframes, which means that taking damage from multiple explosions at once will always be deadly. The first exception to this is Boiling Veins which forces explosions to respect player iframes, meaning only one instance from one explosion can ever damage the player at a time while also giving full invulnerability at low HP. The other exception is Strong Spirit which will block all explosion damage if consumed for a few frames, however this is very brief.

When multiple explosions happen within proxmimity of each other they will push each other outwards to cover more area. This is easily noticable while using weapons such as Nuke Launcher or Super Bazooka, however this also goes for enemy explosions too. In deeploop this can become an issue due to the volume of Vans and Popo Freaks. The image to the right shows five IDPD grenades spawned right on top of each other, their explosion causes them to push outwards. The more nades there are, the more unpredictable they become.

Chain explosions is a term used for when explosions can proc other explosions to happen, otherwise chaining together. This commonly occurs when clearing Popo Freaks out as their grenades stack with each other, and especially when Vans spawn as their explosions can proc IDPD grenades.

On Non-Beta versions of the game chain explosions can occur, and in later loops the explosion radius can be so big the player can be killed from off-screen grenades. To work around this extra caution should be given during Van spawning phase, and not to underestimate the size of explosions if grenades start piling together.

On the openbetas (2021 & 2023 betas and NTT v100)

Settings

The full mechanics of each setting can be viewed here. This section will brief over any settings relevant to meta runs. Any of the following settings can be changed mid-run with the exception of changing FPS.

For Audio settings:

• It is recommended to keep sound audio on as there are many sound cues in the game, especially important for off-screen events such as Vans spawning, Throne 1's laser charge or Popo Freaks reviving.
• Music being on is up to player preference, though there is a slight advantage in having it on with immediately knowing when bosses die. Particularly useful for Big Bandits.
• 3D sounds is recommended to leave on as it gives directional audio which can be useful to discern which direction off-screen Vans are spawning from, and situationally can help track down off-screen bosses.

For Video settings:

• Screenshake is recommended to have off as it can be a distraction, especially with the amounts of chaos in later loops.
• Freezeframes can create artificial lag to give more 'impact' to each kills, which can be used in order to give the player more reaction time.
• Some players turn freezeframes up to 40% or 50% in particularly difficult, less laggy areas (Cave and Palace), while turning freezeframes down (closer to 20%) or off for other areas.
• Ultimately up to player preference - having them on can add time to a run, in exchange for more reaction time.

For Game settings:

• Boss intros are kept off by most players as they can be a distraction, and used to sometimes cause a Throne II crash on u98.
• Mouselock will keep the mouse in the game to prevent accidentally from clicking outside of the game. Up to player preference.
• On the 2023 update this was changed so mouselock only applies while the run is active, not during pause menu.

For sub-menu 'Mechanics' on 2023 beta/ntt_dev:

• Customizable framerate and resolution. Record tables require 30 FPS and 4:3, though some allow for 60 FPS runs.
• Rad attract is up to player preference, but will change how they behave.
• Classic: Acts like previous versions where they can get stuck on walls, and the player can avoid collecting rads by corner-hugging.
• Fast: Rads will no longer get stuck on walls at all.
• Modern: Rads can 'wiggle' around walls if they cannot reach the player while in range. The player can still hug walls to avoid collecting them.