max speed - max necessary speed

[Mudd]

Pardon the ignorance of a returning player...

What is max speed attainable? Is 30 still considered the max necessary speed?

[fph]

Yes. 30 is the speed Morgoth has. When fighting him, you want to be faster than him so that he cannot get two consecutive moves on you, because that could be fatal. Fighting M with less than 30 speed is a big risk. You can count towards this speed of 30 also the temporary +10 effect that you can gain from potions of speed, mushrooms, or the Haste spell; so you only need a +20 bonus from equipment effectively.

This guideline is only for the final fight, though. Apart from M, there are very few monsters in the game that have speed greater than 20, so you can survive for most of the game with less than that.

There is (essentially) no maximum speed in the game, but speed has diminishing returns: as you get faster, one extra point of speed does less and less. The more recent versions can display a speed multiplier (e.g., 2.3x), which gives you a better idea than the raw number. This multiplier does not increase linearly with the speed points. The general idea is that the first 10 points of speed are very powerful, possibly more powerful than anything else in the game (because they also scale your damage and give you more chances to escape dangerous fights); in the 10-20 range speed is still nice to have and generally you want to optimize your kit towards it; and after 20 it starts getting less useful.

[Mudd]

Yes. 30 is the speed Morgoth has. When fighting him, you want to be faster than him so that he cannot get two consecutive moves on you, because that could be fatal. Fighting M with less than 30 speed is a big risk. You can count towards this speed of 30 also the temporary +10 effect that you can gain from potions of speed, mushrooms, or the Haste spell; so you only need a +20 bonus from equipment effectively.

This guideline is only for the final fight, though. Apart from M, there are very few monsters in the game that have speed greater than 20, so you can survive for most of the game with less than that.

There is (essentially) no maximum speed in the game, but speed has diminishing returns: as you get faster, one extra point of speed does less and less. The more recent versions can display a speed multiplier (e.g., 2.3x), which gives you a better idea than the raw number. This multiplier does not increase linearly with the speed points. The general idea is that the first 10 points of speed are very powerful, possibly more powerful than anything else in the game (because they also scale your damage and give you more chances to escape dangerous fights); in the 10-20 range speed is still nice to have and generally you want to optimize your kit towards it; and after 20 it starts getting less useful.

Thanks! This is how I remember it... a lot of changes in identify, traps, etc.. so wanted to make sure

[Derakon]

The effective speed cap is at +70, which is 2% faster than +69 speed and 29% faster than +30 speed. While your speed number can be higher than +70 (the table goes up to +89), your effective speed remains capped at getting at most 49 energy per game turn. See extract_energy in the source code.

[Pete Mack]

There is one way to get by with less speed, and that is mushrooms of sprinting, which stack with other sources of temp speed. Unfortunately they are very rare, and they leave you exhausted (slowed) after quite a long time. 1 or 2 is enough for the fight against M.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

There is one way to get by with less speed, and that is mushrooms of sprinting, which stack with other sources of temp speed. Unfortunately they are very rare, and they leave you exhausted (slowed) after quite a long time. 1 or 2 is enough for the fight against M.

Thanks for this explanation. I have spent all these years simply squelching, err... ignoring, mushrooms of sprinting as being too risky due to exhaustion and never realized they stacked over other temp speed.

[PowerWyrm]

Sprinting stack? I thought only Terror did...

[Grotug]

There is one way to get by with less speed, and that is mushrooms of sprinting, which stack with other sources of temp speed. Unfortunately they are very rare, and they leave you exhausted (slowed) after quite a long time. 1 or 2 is enough for the fight against M.

I also thought mushrooms of sprinting stacked with temporary haste, but apparently not. Although my source of sprinting came from an activation, not a mushroom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGMYOpx1iMU&feature=youtu.be#t=80m10s

[Sky]

AFAIK by that table 45 speed is roughly 20% more energy that 30 speed, thus using a second ring of speed +15 would give you an overall higher DPS than a ring of damage +15.

[Derakon]

AFAIK by that table 45 speed is roughly 20% more energy that 30 speed, thus using a second ring of speed +15 would give you an overall higher DPS than a ring of damage +15.

That depends on what your base damage is. If your base damage is 50/blow on average, then the damage ring increases your per-blow damage by 30%. But if your base damage is 100/blow then it's only a 15% increase. Somewhere in the middle then (specifically, at 75 damage/blow) is where the damage ring gives the same damage boost as the speed ring does.

Of course, more speed has other ancillary benefits like better effective stealth, less time to use devices, etc. so the value comparison isn't that clear-cut.

Also, I just checked the table, because your numbers didn't sound quite right. At +30 speed you get 38 energy per game turn. At +45 speed you get 43, which is only ~13% more.

[wobbly]

Sprinting stack? I thought only Terror did...

This is correct. Speed & Sprinting don't stack (it's or in calcs), Terror stacks with either.