Speed ascension

A speed ascension is a type of informal conduct, taking one of two forms: lowest turn-count, or shortest real time elapsed. Short ascensions tend to be low turn-count ascensions too. This article does not reflect the state of the art. The best learning tools are Maud's ttyrecs on NAO.

How fast is fast?

First ascensions vary greatly in turn-count, most of them falling between 50,000 and 100,000 turns. A careful, well-spoiled player can ascend in under 50,000 turns in most roles, and ascensions below 30,000 are not uncommon. Anything below 20,000 probably counts as a speed ascension. On NAO, 1% of all winning player accounts have an ascension below 10450 turns, and 10% have one below 24450. No ascension is possible in less than 2000 turns in vanilla NetHack, since this is the minimum number of turns it takes for a character's alignment record to reach 20, a requirement for entering the Quest.

Real-time speed records are very hard to determine, since vanilla NetHack does not track real time elapsed. The usual method is to time the ttyrec of the game with a utility such as timettyrec. The xlogfile patch also tracks the real time elapsed in a game.

Certain roles are better than others at the very fastest ascensions, though any role can be ascended relatively quickly. Good spellcasting ability and being able to get the Eye of the Aethiopica are both very handy in a turncount speedrun, making wizards and neutral monks the two roles that have pushed speed ascensions the furthest. For a realtime speedrun, dwarven valkyrie is preferred for being the strongest role overall.

General speed strategy

Risk management is very different from normal games. In normal play, you avoid only death. But in speed games, delay is as bad as death. The challenge is how pervasive any good player's risk management habits are.

• Don't be a pack rat
• Don't fully map every level
• Become very fast as soon as possible
• Avoid monsters rather than fighting them
• Avoid being burdened to any degree
• Make extensive use of digging and level teleportation
• Get as many scrolls as you can. You will write boatloads of charging scrolls.

Specific speed tactics

• Move diagonally
• Kick down doors if you arrive diagonally (be careful in Minetown)
• Wear a ring of conflict
• Wear a ring of regeneration while polymorphed into a strong fighter form (master mind flayer, minotaur, jabberwock, titan,...)
• Wish for the Eye of the Aethiopica
• Teleporting into the Sanctum as of 3.6.0 is limited to the right side of the map making it a lot less useful strategy
• Use jumping and a helm of opposite alignment to reduce time spent on the Astral Plane
• Controlled polymorph self into a xorn to phase through the Castle walls
• Controlled polymorph self into a master mind flayer and use #monster to wake the Wizard of Yendor from outside his tower, or use a drum of earthquake. At the very least, levelport within his tower.
• After retrieving the Amulet of Yendor, convert to chaotic to minimize the effects of the mysterious force

• A 2391-turn bones-free ascension by Maud: NAO dumplog, ttyrec
• A 2251-turn bones-free ascension by Maud: NAO dumplog, ttyrec part1 part2 part3
• A 2135-turn ascension by Maud: NAO dumplog
• A 2130-turn ascension by SpeedyCat7: reddit post NAO dumplog
• A 235-turn AceHack ascension by nht: reddit post dumplog ttyrec
• A 4841-turn bones-free UnNetHack ascension by nht: reddit post dumplog
• A 1015-turn bones-free set seed UnNetHack ascension by nht: dumplog ttyrec part1 part2 Notes
• A 2:48:30 ascension by Eidolos: RGRN post
• A 1:16 ascension by Sayo: NEU dumplog
• A 1:03 ascension by Sayo: NEU dumplog ttyrec

A collection of fast (real-time) ascensions from NAO and other servers, most in Ttyrec format and with logs of important in-game events: Fast NetHack ascensions

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.