Which wad/megawad is the tightest on ammo

[Soundblock]

...without ever completely running out?

I'll nominate 300 lines of Doom, for starters.

[Maes]

I'll nominate Ancient Aliens and The Great Bicycle Mystery 2.

[Memfis]

Try the Hellfire series by Shadowman. It has secrets where all you get is a single pistol clip. And that already changes a lot.

[Urthar]

Back To Basics tends to keep the player feeling hungry.

[yakfak]

I've always been confused about how you're meant to max some hellcore/hc2.0 levels
maybe the idea is that you shouldn't be able to?

[Ribbiks]

yakfak said:

I've always been confused about how you're meant to max some hellcore/hc2.0 levels
maybe the idea is that you shouldn't be able to?

I complained about that awhile back: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1293754

a few maxes seem to have popped up since then, which is interesting. But I really wonder sometimes how (if?) that wad was tested...

[gaspe]

I think that maybe I already posted about this but in my experience on pistol starting Hellcore makes me think that the wad wasn't tested well and ready for a release. In particular in some E2 (and maybe E3 too) maps I recall that the ammo wasn't enough in many situations. Even the description field in the text file has a mood of "I released this so I can call it finished and get over it".

[TimeOfDeath]

Some of gggmork's maps are notoriously stingy on ammo while being designed for maxing. feckyoo has some pretty crazy infighting scenarios and low/no ammo.

[Tracer]

I'll nominate Unloved.

[Pirx]

i found malcolm sailor's maps very tight on ammo.

[noshutdown]

i havn't played many of them, but e4m1 is the tightest i can tolerate.

[Lila Feuer]

noshutdown said:

i havn't played many of them, but e4m1 is the tightest i can tolerate.

Also tightest on health on UV.

[Chezza]

Shameless self promotion - Operation UAC for Brutal Doom. Deliberate scarce ammo to push players to take advantage of BD's chainsaw, grenades and headshot mechanics.

[ReFracture]

Chord series by Malcolm Sailor.

[Soundblock]

I'm wondering if all these entries are even possible if playing them from pistol start? I mean, balancing pistol start is one thing, balancing an entire episode/megawad quite another...

[Maes]

NUTS.WAD. If you think about it, the ammo in the first room isn't remotely enough to kill all monsters by conventional means, if you really had to shoot them one by one.

[Azuruish]

Well... Nuts2 and Nuts3 are maxable at least... I would like to add Chillax at that list :) EveryF**kin map are very limited on ammunition.

[Maes]

Azuruish said:

Well... Nuts2 and Nuts3 are maxable at least...

NUTS.WAD is obviously beatable (and easily maxable) too, if you let the baddies duke it out), but what if you couldn't use infighting? Most of the kills in the first room occur due to infighting (leaving only a "hard core" of Barons and Knights), and the second room...well...it'd be a miracle if a couple of Cyberdemons and a lone archvile survive.

Azuruish said:

I would like to add Chillax at that list :) EveryF**kin map are very limited on ammunition.

Now that I think about it...you're right. I've only played them on ZDaemon with respawning items, so I never thought about it. It's slready bad playing a mapset designed for Super Weapons with the regular ones...add non-respawning ammo and items...ouch.

Also, how about Cyberdreams? I think you're never even given any weapons at all, and the only use you have for the pistol is rather unconventional (no spoilers, hehe).

[40oz]

I'm gonna second Hellfire 2 like memfis said. Its super stingy with resources (health included) I haven't tried to beat it again but I got too frustrated by MAP02.