: I kinda like this idea. It would also give the player an incentive to explore
: the level a bit (though maybe not on DeathWish). If however we decide to
: have only the one O2 canister on the last G3 level, would it be possible
: to place that canister nearer to where the player teleports in? There are
: two ammo caches on that last level (at the extreme east and west end of
: the level) that I would love to get, but have never been able to due to
: the lack of O2. On DeathWish, I would rather not have to enter the airlock
: to pick up that O2 canister, and then go back out to get that ammo. It
: would be more sensible to grab the ammo and O2 on the pad you teleport in
: on, fight as many enemies as you wish and/or grab those two ammo caches,
: and then enter the airlock. Besides, being able to run around outside
: before entering the airlock usually gets those beasts and turtles to
: fighting, giving you time to go grab those two ammo caches.
I'd just like to remind everyone that DW is not supposed to be easy :P It's supposed to be harder than the other difficulties in the scenario and it should be easy to die- it should just be "fair" in that you have a real chance at winning on the first try and not losing too much progress on failure (and of course not getting into an unwinnable situation).
I'm starting to think the best solution to the problem with unplayable save games is to remove the pattern buffers in the middle of the run and place one right before the entrance to the last level; this would both remove the irritation of having to run level 3 over and over while attempting the last level and make it more unlikely that you'd manage to save with too little oxygen as you'd almost certainly suffocate on the way there and go back to the starting save. If you grok the idea behind the "gauntlet" (always strafe-run and never look back) and don't make any wrong turns then there should be little difficulty in getting at least that far with a good oxygen supply.
