How does Tartarus actually work?

[A Street Sweeper]

I feel like a total noob for needing to ask this, but after 5 complete runs I realised I don't know how the path even works. One time I had so many reward room paths I deliberately gave up on them, but since then it seems I get a handful and then locked into one path to the boss. One time I bought the guaranteed chaos boon from the fountain floor shop and that locked me into the direct path to the boss from the get go. No Hades room, no elite, no nothing.

So is it random how many alternate rooms you get or what?

[hewittlemming]

So every time you're taking a reward room, you're halting your progress while also make the game spawn more elites. So for example, you can go from IIII > III > II directly but if take a boss room and/or a money room, it becomes IIII > boss > III > money > II.

[A Street Sweeper]

Originally posted by hewittlemming:

So every time you're taking a reward room, you're halting your progress while also make the game spawn more elites. So for example, you can go from IIII > III > II directly but if take a boss room and/or a money room, it becomes IIII > boss > III > money > II.

Right, that part I think I understand, but what determines how long I can put off fighting Chronos for in the way you describe? Sometimes it feels like I get the Hades room and the special encounter and then get locked into one path straight to the boss.

[hewittlemming]

I noticed that at most you can only put off going the intended route four times from my experiences. Meet Hades one time, one boss(either or), and 2 reward rooms.

[Knight_of_Gallifrey]

Thus far I have, at most, seen 1 pom set, 1 coin set, 1 trial of gods, and 1 boss, aside, of course, the actual countdown. So perhaps 9 rooms from entry too charon is the max? Anyone else can confirm this?

[A Street Sweeper]

Originally posted by hewittlemming:

I noticed that at most you can only put off going the intended route four times from my experiences. Meet Hades one time, one boss(either or), and 2 reward rooms.

OK thanks, that would seem to make sense and reflects my recent runs.

Maybe I'm just misremembering then, I seem to remember one run where I had 1 pom room and 3 money rooms after the hades and boss room, with then another money room available that I skipped as I already had over 2k gold.

[every nadelubber dies]

no ive definitely had multiple, i think 3 money rooms before. i also don't understand it

[Merlebird]

I did notice that, when you're entering, it says "EXPRESS ROUTE SET" [sic]. It makes me think that the overall map is generated first, and then the progression route written over it, rather than sprouting branches off the progression route.

All this to say, there may not be a guarantee of how many non-progression rooms you "get," based on the path you take? Just procedural generation rules for how many branches the underlying map has, and which rooms can be overwritten. (I'm guessing, for example, that the Hades room can't be overwritten, but can be on a branch line that's made inaccessible depending on your choices.)

[roach]

I've definitely had runs where I had more than 3 "side rooms", and at least one where I had 5