Strategy:Phobos Lab

Beware of opening doors, because you will get flooded by a group of demons.

0.9.9.7

Ultra-Violence

Don't even THINK about coming in here on UV unless you can get your movement speed below 0.71s/move through some means that doesn't involve using Berserker, and ideally it should be well below that. Not likely, since this is early game, but still! Builds that aren't using at least Hellrunner 2 might as well not bother, because you need at least Hellrunner 2 or some speed-increasing items to reach speeds like that, even if you're a Scout. If you came in here by mistake, better have a homing phase device so you can nope your way out of this with the mods and combat shotgun, or this run is over. You're locked in until you fight your way through and press both switches.

Right away, be very careful not to destroy the doors when killing the first shotgun guy across the pond. You need those doors to be able to close just in case of emergencies. If one door opens because a guy is coming in, open the other one IMMEDIATELY so the shotgunners don't destroy it. Kill all the Formers before continuing on to the cave, because the formers could be your undoing if they're able to open the doors on you and let the Nightmare Demons in. Once done, clear both the doorways of any debris, and if you can, shoot a rocket straight north from the start and hope you hit a nightmare demon through the open doors up top. If you do, go back inside the start room and shut the doors and Run > Wait until they die in the acid. This could take a while. Whether you do or you don't, this next part is gonna suck.

Nightmare demons are FAST! They move and attack every 0.71 seconds, which means you'll get bitten 2-3 times a second once they close the gap, and thanks to their innate armor of 3, they take very low damage from shotguns, and knocking them back will be no easy feat! Don't even THINK about reloading in their faces, or you'll be dead even if you had full HP. There's about half a dozen of them holed up in the first tunnel that you MUST clear out to progress, because the doors to the switch that unlocks the exit will not open or be destructible without the switch at the end of the cave being pressed. Further unfortunately, thanks to a glitch in Demon AI, the nightmare demons and their pink cousins will usually get stuck deeper in the cave and will not come out unless they're damaged or they see you, so there's no point in waiting for them to come out until you've let them out yourself. But that's also a bad idea, because you need some space between them, so you actually want to be able to close the doors leading into the cave to the north.

Unless you get ABSURDLY lucky and some of them come running outside, you're going to have to kill them all. If you modded their sounds and you hear any of them grunting in pain, immediately run back to the start and close the doors and wait until you hear the screams of their freed souls.

You're going to need at least two shell boxes and a double shotgun to fight them, and even that will take quite a while and be risky if there's no space between you. If you have a rocket launcher, you can try splashing them from around the corners, but get ready to run and rocket jump, because they'll practically teleport to you once they're hit. Be careful not to give yourself a face-rocket while trying! Press F rather than use the mouse so you can be sure. Nightmare demons are tough enough to survive in acid for a long time even though it damages them, and your only realistic hope of getting away from them if you can't close the doors leading into the cave is running all the way around to the start location and closing those doors, so if the doors are blocked and unable to be closed (i.e. because a shotgun guy destroyed one while trying to shoot you), or you have to rely on Running to reach speeds that fast, you're probably going to die.

This is extremely dangerous even for very good players with a plan, so it's usually better not to bother with Phobos Lab on UV/N! unless you're REALLY over-prepared.

If you do manage to clear out the cave to the north and press the switch to unlock the doors, shoot the doors open from a safe distance away and get ready to run, because there are more nightmare demons that love to stand right next to those doors, and they will charge through the instant the doors pop open. Your only hope of getting any space between you is once again to run back to the start location and close the doors in their faces. If you can't do that, your run might be over unless you have an envirosuit and wait in the acid, or you can hide in the northern caves and shut those doors.

The other enemies are normal demons and low-tier enemies like imps, and zombiemen, and shotgun guys, which if you're ready for this level, should be trivial to kill. But be careful when walking through the long hallways, and be sure to radar-shoot and corner-shoot to keep them from heaving balls of fire down your throat.

Once you reach the back, grab both of the envirosuits. Don't leave any there because you will need to be carrying at least one while you're out pressing the switch. You'll see why in a second. There are enemies on the two little islands that you should kill from out of vision with your shotgun. Once the way is clear, load up and get ready to run once again, because once you press the switch, it will lower the bridge and unlock the doors to the exit, but unless you have a Homing Phase Device, there's one last fight for you to clear, and it's nasty and unfair.

You see, no matter how much time you have left on your current envirosuit, the INSTANT you touch the shore in the back again, your envirosuit will wear off and the walls holding back an ambush will lower, flooding you with four nightmare demons, four shotgun guys, and four more regular demons. This is why you need to be carrying both envirosuits, as you will NOT have time to use the other one from the ground. You will get surrounded by demons and nightmare demons and will be eaten in seconds if you try. You probably wouldn't even reach the suit.

Now, unless you have a homing phase device, the safest place to run is back out onto the acid on top of one of the Large Health Globes in the corners. The acid should soften the nightmare demons up, but it's going to be a rough fight and you'll probably lose your armor if you don't have a shell box.

If you're still alive by the end of that, congratulations! The worst is over. But now you have to get back over the acid and leave without dying, and there are still imps and formers blocking your way. Radar-shoot to find the shotgunners, but beware not to get surrounded, because they will be coming from both above and below. Best to hug one side for cover rather than approach from the middle. Once you clear out the back, grab any ammo you need and get ready for one more ambush. At least this one isn't so bad, though, it's just four imps and a couple of former humans, but once again they won't be attackable until you're close, and both top and bottom will open at once. Best to kill the group near you with a shotgun, or you can use a rocket launcher if they aren't too close. If you're running a pistol build, two bullets each should bring them down by now. Now deal with the other group by radar-shooting until you see the level give you the all-clear. Now go collect your rewards.

Phew! Was that worth it? Hell no! But good job anyway! That was hard! Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 05:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

It can't be stressed enough that if you are going to try this level on UV or N!, you need to have a phase device, because if you get cornered by the Nightmare demons without one, your run is over. You will also want to bring with you a pair of Protective boots if you found them before Phobos Lab, even if you already have agility modded Steel boots or assembled your Tactical boots, as often the best path to escape the Nightmare demons will be through the big acid pools, and so having Protective boots on would significantly reduce the amount of damage you will take running for your life through the acid. If you're lucky enough to find a Ballistic vest, Duelist armor, or a Ballistic shield before Phobos Lab, you will absolutely want to try preserving their full durability for this level, as their significant melee resistance will be critical to nerfing the threat of the Nightmare demons, with the former two cutting their damage output more than half, while the lattermost will neuter their attacks to a single point of damage, making this level a lot less scary. If you are fortunate enough to bring one of these melee-resistant armors into Phobos Lab, do take care to not let the Nightmare demons destroy them outright, as they can still be very useful later (Duelist armor is one of the best armors all-around by being one of the very few with plus movement speed, while it and Ballistic armor make great bases for the Cerberus armor if you're planning to invest into Whizkid, and all three can be crucial to overcoming Unholy Cathedral later for non-melee builds). Also note that if you do hoard these armors to maintain their durability and Military Base ends up spawning on dlevel 7 instead, it won't be wasted either, as much of the enemies there have bullet and shrapnel weapons, and so they'll still be very useful there. Omega Tyrant (talk) 21:49, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

For one more way of handling the ambush after activating the left acid room switch, if you're able to outrun the Nightmare demons after activating run, you do have enough space upon reaching the shore to run out through the top or bottom of the room, where you can then flee out of there and get to a safe space behind doors (preferably in the exit area where you got those nice mods and Combat shotgun to pick up). To do this, make sure you're at the absolute top or bottom of the acid pool before reaching the shore, as this strategy will not work if you're any closer to the center, as the demons will block off the path to escape. When doing this, also just run past the Formers and Imps that pop out of the wall near the exit of the room, tanking whatever damage you take from them; you can mop them up later after you get out of there and there is one more Large Health Globe at the exit to fully heal up any damage from them if you exhausted all other health sources on the map.

Once you're safe at the doors of the exit area, you can just hit run -> wait until enemies appear, shoot them from your safety, and if a Nightmare demon pops up, you can shoot at it and then slam the door in its face when it gets near. After that you can hit run -> wait a ton of times where it'll hopefully run around in acid and kill itself. When opening the door back up without getting the notification that everything has died, make sure you have your Double shotgun equipped (or a Tactical shotgun if you were able to assemble it) in case a Nightmare demon was still waiting at the door and instantly pops in upon opening it, so you can knock it back and close the door back up (having Intuition 2 will let you know for sure if anything is waiting outside the door before opening it); otherwise you could very well end up dying letting a Nightmare demon into the small exit area if you cannot out-DPS it, you will not have the room to outmaneuver it. If the coast is clear, you can repeat the run -> wait strategy until something appears. If nothing appears for a while, demons may have gotten stuck somewhere, where you will unfortunately have to go and seek them out, hopefully in a place where you can easily escape from (make sure to restore your tactics through a health recovery source before doing this, in case it is a Nightmare demon you have to outrun and not just an Imp lollygagging around). If it is a Nightmare demon, the same strategy applies where you make a mad dash for the exit room once you get their attention, close it, and then hit run -> wait until they die in the acid hopefully. If you don't care about maintaining 100% kills though and aren't really wanting the extra EXP from killing them all, you can just leave upon first reaching the exit room instead of going through the trouble to kill the rest of the enemies, but it is fairly easy to mop up the remaining enemies at this point even if they're Nightmare demons and you will have at least one Large Health Globe left, so you should still try to finish them.

This strategy for handling the final trap is especially pertinent if you do not have a Shell Box or are not a build that can kill the Nightmare demons quickly, as they will still have plenty of health left even after running through all the acid to reach you across the acid pool room (as acid only deals 3 damage to per action and they got a very hefty 80 HP to burn through), so you will get cornered and die here if you don't have a means to keep quickly knocking them back or the DPS to kill them in time (which only builds with Brute + Berserker + a strong melee weapon or rapid-fire builds with a strong Plasma rifle will have any shot at DPSing them quick enough to kill them all before dying). Omega Tyrant (talk) 05:22, 6 August 2023 (UTC)