I believe there are several ways to conquer this room, since the nature of the spawning means that you are not on a timer, and so you can keep trying many times to pass an area until you succeed with no negative effect.
These are some of the techniques I used to solve this room:
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×First, look for "safe" areas, where you can stand and only have two squares to defend from tar babies. I would also look to see which areas have most of them, namely the southern and eastern sides of the room (the north and west sides are more exposed).
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×You also need to move from safe area to safe area "quickly", in the sense that you shouldn't stand in the middle of a room killing babies unless you absolutely have to. Often, diagonal killing (facing diagonally and moving at 135 degrees to the direction you face) can be helpful, as is retreating to the safe area before dealing with the babies (since you'll have all the time you need when you get there.)
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×Finally, dealing with the babies requires efficiency. Try to be aggressive in dealing with them by trying to kill as many in the fewest moves possible. For example, if a 1 square line approaches you, instead of standing still and attacking by swinging left to right, which has only an efficiency of about 0.5, try stepping from side to side to make the line into a 2 square one, meaning you can kill them more quickly. Also, tar babies can't form where you are standing, so if you see the mother about to spawn, you can use yourself to block the creation of some babies, which will help reduce the number you have to deal with after the spawning.
For this room in particular (see
this picture)...
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×...I'd take the advantage of the fact that there will be few or no babies at the start of the room, and go for Orbs 1-4 first, since they are in relatively open areas and are near the centre, which means you could get swamped by babies quite easily there later on after several spawns. The rest should be no problem if you make your way carefully around the room, although you may have some trouble near orb 5, since the passage around there is only one square wide, and is next to a blob of tar, which you will have to block every 30 moves to stop the babies from forming.
[Edited by agaricus5 at
Local Time:04-01-2005 at 06:58 PM]
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Resident Medic/Mycologist