Question about Hell Revealed Map 26

[tmorrow]

I've been working my way slowly through Hell Revealed. On Map 26 I'm curious about what appears to be 4 monsters that you cannot seem to kill and that I could only find by using IDCLIP. I did some internet searches but couldn't find anything about them. The monsters and locations are:

1. In the central area there are 2 Arch Viles, one in a tiny room the east and another in a tiny room to the west.

2. In the West area there are also 2 Arch Viles, in the south-east and south-part part of the building, each on elevator that continually go up and down.

I have a theory that they are in some way there to support the creation of the ghost monsters that appear as you play through the level, firstly some ghost imps in the West area and then at the end of the map a bunch of ghost mobs come pouring out from the arch vile points when you return to the central area to the final exit.

I've watched several UV max attempts on http://doomedsda.us/wad585m226.html and these 4 Arch Viles are not killed in any of those replays. Also the while the ghost imps are killed, in no replay did I see anyone attempt to take on the multiple ghosts monsters that appear at the end. I am therefore assuming that the 4 Arch Viles and the final set of ghost monsters are not required for successful UV Max attempt on this map.

Can anyone shed some light on this or confirm/deny my assumptions?

[drifter20k]

They are there to create clipping ghosts just like a certain level in Icarus: Alien Vanguard. I don't know of any way to kill them.

[Vile]

Splash damage from rockets is the only way, if I recall correctly. I believe it was intentional to create them, though it's been a while since I've played the map. Requiem map23 intentional creates SS Nazi ghosts, if you need another example.

Max demos require killing all reachable monsters, though barricaded archviles are usually excluded if there is no way to reach them. I would think the killing of the ghosts would only be required if they actually appear, though some max runs are just problematic due to normal monsters being stranded by faulty teleporters, so I could be wrong.

[gggmork]

The warp near the end that leads back to the start has walk over line triggers that cause the ghosts and you can avoid triggering those lines to not cause the ghosts to appear (going from memory so might be slightly wrong). Whether you 'have' to trigger and kill the ghosts (with rocket splash damage) for a true uvmax is debatable I guess. Or you can simply make a new category 'uvmax with ghosts' and 'uvmax without'.

[tmorrow]

If you don't have the rocket launcher then the ghost imps that appear in the west area can be taken out by causing in fighting between the baron that appears in the same wave as the ghost imps. Baron melee attack damages ghost imps too. I think melee monster attacks and rocket splash damage are the only way to hurt ghost enemies.

I haven't tried wiping out the end ghost monsters since there are a lot of them. If you save most of your rockets until then you might pull it off with rocket splash damage near the pillars or building, not sure. Maybe a proficient player me can show me how :-)

I'm still assuming the 4 arch viles can't be reached and that only purpose is to spawn the ghost baddies, I was wondering if someone can confirm. I'll have a look at Requiem 23 and see how the ghost nazi's were created.

[Ryback]

From your link above, Peo's 41:05 and Kai's 45:02 demos have the ghost monsters killed at the end.

[tmorrow]

I'd watched 5 of the fastest replays and wasn't aware of these two. I should have watched all of them. Thanks for finding these for me. I was wondering if there was enough rockets to take all of the ghosts out and both players showed it can be done without too much trouble if you have plenty of rocket ammo left.

Peo's replay uses the same strategy as I use but he executed it much better than me. The 2 ghost cacodemons at the end can be tricky since they tended to move away from the walls/pillars.

Kai's replay also showed that the rockets you have at the end are more than enough to take out the ghosts. Again one of the cacodemons caused some problems as it drifted out beyond reach.