Meteoran

Obsolete: This article refers to an aspect of the game which has been removed. It is retained for historical reference only.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Meteoran (monster).

Meteorae are the people of the heavens, fallen to earth. They possess exceptional skills, an uncanny sense for the space around them, and the ability to recover health and magic as they explore the dungeon. However, as creatures clearly not native to the world, they are easy prey for the dark forces that hunt adventurers - they have one-tenth as much time as normal before Zot finds them. (See the section on 'Zot' for more.)

Innate Abilities

• Otherworldly: Meteorae are astral creatures, and thus easily found by Zot. Their Zot clock runs 10 times faster: receiving only +600 decaAut per floor, and gain 200 turns after being found by Zot.
  • When Meteorae are about to be caught (<50 turns and <10 turns on the clock), their line of sight decreases by 2 or 4, respectively (their life is fading out).
• Passive Mapping 1: Meteorae can sense parts of the layout of the dungeon around them.
• Explore Regen: Meteorae regenerate HP and MP as they explore. For every new tile uncovered, you regenerate 1/210 of your max HP and 1/135 of your max MP. Unaffected by Passive Mapping or magic mapping. Unlike exploration piety, Explore Regen has fewer restrictions and works even in the Temple, while flying over deep water in Shoals, etc.
• Glowing: Meteorae glow, as if they were inflicted with Corona. They are unable to go invisible, their stealth is reduced by x2.5, and monsters are more likely to hit them. Followers of Dithmenos can suppress the glow by turning into a shadow.

Meteorae have a base Strength of 9, Intelligence of 9, and Dexterity of 9 (before background modifiers). They start with an extra MP point.

As the Zot clock does not exist in Dungeon Sprint, Meteoran is disabled for that game mode.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter
• Zealots: Cinder Acolyte
• Adventurers: Wanderer
• Warrior-Mages: Transmuter
• Mages: Earth Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength, intelligence, or dexterity (equal chance) every 3rd level.
• 20% more HP than average.
• +5 willpower per level.
• At levels 9 and 18, your Passive Mapping is upgraded to ranks 2 and 3, respectively.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Meteorae start with the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Thanks to their restrictive turn conducts, playing Meteorae like any other character is outright impossible. They often have to use meta turncount strategies just to live, such as skipping floors and having an odd branch order; see the Strategy section for more details. These tactics often make Meteorae underleveled, even with their absurd aptitudes, let alone undergeared.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	1	Armour	2	Spellcasting	2
		Dodging	2
Maces & Flails	3	Shields	2	Conjurations	2
Axes	2	Stealth	-2	Hexes	2
Polearms	2			Summonings	1
Staves	2	Invocations	3	Necromancy	2
Unarmed Combat	2	Evocations	2	Translocations	2
Throwing	2	Shapeshifting	1	Alchemy	2
				Fire Magic	2
Short Blades	1			Ice Magic	1
Long Blades	2			Air Magic	2
Ranged Weapons	1	Experience	2	Earth Magic	2

Strategy

• Visiting shops is often a struggle. Be prepared to simply never visit a shop again - this applies especially to the Orcish Mines, so come only when you're prepared.
  • Gozag might give you more gold, but each gold pile you pick up takes 1 turn (without Apportation).
• The Abyss is a good rune choice. The infinite plane can constantly activate your explore regen, and there is no clock there.
• Remember that picking up the Orb of Zot will stop the Zot clock for all branches. Completing a Ziggurat, too, if you can manage to do that feat.

God Choice

• Ashenzari gives skill boosts, and divine knowledge is especially useful to Meteorae; map knowledge lets you know which places are actually worth exploring.
• Jiyva gives even more regeneration and plenty of outs for monsters you can't handle. Meanwhile, Meteorae are naturally fast-paced enough to best deal with Jiyva's item eating slimes. But, as usual, Jiyva is rarely found early - by the time you usually find Jiyva, you'd already have plenty of piety with other gods.
• Okawaru synergizes well with the Meteoran playstyle. Those who skip branches are often underleveled, even with a +2 XP aptitude, meaning that their battles are considered 'tougher' and reward more piety. This can be used to get consistent and strong buffs that make up for being underleveled. Okawaru will also gift a healthy amount of gear.

Shaving Turns

Meteorae play like no other species, at least in any form of casual manner. Here are some pointers to playing a turn count species effectively:

Routing

Meteorans may want to (but not always) go in a "pure" sequential order. Doing all of the Dungeon in one go, going from Orc and Elf at the same time, and taking the Lair and its branches right after are examples. If not, leave time for you to backtrack. Doing things out of the normal order saves time in the long run, though isn't entirely necessary.

• It is extremely difficult to pinpoint when you're ready to skip a branch, and a surprising unique or situation might make some branch extremely difficult. Your extra HP and MP should make up for being somewhat underleveled. This, of course, ignores god choice.
• It's best to know the tools you'll need for each floor. Whenever it'd be a reliably castable spell, a decent amount of relevant consumables (like lignification for Lair), and/or a certain level of weapon training, these set goals can help make things reliable.

Exploration

Remember that full clearing every floor is nigh impossible for a Meteoran. Be ready to skip floors on a dime, and bank a healthy amount of turns for navigation and dangerous situations, alike.

• This does not mean that you can't autoexplore! Though take a close look and note when you'd be going far just to uncover a few extra tiles, and be prepared to descend very early. Autoexplore is still inefficient with turns, so the more optimal way is to not (unless you're overprepared).
• Try to take every unknown staircase you find. This includes downstairs and upstairs, even if you'd feel unprepared. This exposes the greatest amount of tiles, which along with a large burst of healing, exposes the greatest amount of items. If you aren't ready, you can go back up.
• Conserve time to search for "key" locations, such as the Temple (D:4-7) and Lair branches (Lair:2-3).
• Unlike a 'proper' turn count run, there's no need to completely skip branches. Most notably, you can do Orc and the Elven Halls just fine, though you might have to do both in one go.

Abuse the exploration regeneration to the fullest. Strong players can already get away with exploring-instead-of-resting, and that's on regular species without a gimmick to encourage it. Whenever you need to heal, explore, whenever that'd be in a upper floor or not. Explore regen also makes bread swinging (almost) obsolete.

• When trying to regenerate or explore, move diagonally when possible. All else equal, diagonal movement will uncover more tiles than cardinal movement. This allows you to heal more per move.

Finally, remember that the Zot clock measures action time, not turns. Cheibriados extends the clock as usual, but moving slowly, which counts as 1 turn of double length for score purposes, still counts as 2 "turns" as far as Zot is concerned.

History

• Meteorae were removed in 0.31. Gems were introduced in their place, to encourage turn-count speedrunning.
• Meteorae were added in 0.29. Their initial trunk version had already beaten the game's high score record (on June 12th, 2022).
• The Mayflytaur, a joke species with a very similar concept, was implemented during the April Fools 2022, during 0.29-trunk. See that page's history for more details on their development.