Pardon the brain dump but this is taking ridiculous amounts of time and my girlfriend's eyes start to glaze over when I'm telling her about computing Skitter damage on the fly.
So the game computes damage as 10x player health - 0.1 health is one damage, the player starts with 60. The Stoopid Lizard-Things hit for 3 each and _seem_ to be triggered by certain floor squares, give or take--the ones without pods, alas. If you're lucky you can get hit only once before running over a pod (20 damage), but sometimes they swarm and will hit you as many as seven or eight times.
The lower route from the right ladder to the Green Crystal involves two swarm attacks+pods. Minimum damage is therefore probably 46. (3+20)*2 I just finished a run with 55 damage (three more lizard attacks than minimum) despite the freaking swarms of Skitters, who shoot early and often and who randomly spawn in heart-stopping moments. Also, you have to run over pods in a way that usually involves running at swarms of monsters trying to kill you, which prevents me from keeping the MP-41 accuracy as high as I'd like Also, the game's having trouble with my damage ratio, which stands at -153.-67 (sic) despite being at 27 593 / 55 = 501.69.
My next goal is to make it to the suffocation room on I'd Rather Be Surfing (where I can rest without wasting time) before resting or using a blue potion. This will involve leaving the Nuclear Bomb and both sapphires until after I have beaten the game for the first time (before I eat the Easter Egg).
tl; dr:
8:22 AM, 55 damage (all from inevitable environmental factors on Watch Your Step), still on original health, and headed through LOSVC towards Surfing.
No Yellow Crystal, sapphires from WYS, no Nuclear Device (but I'll get them all yet)
