Rocketband

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I have been continuing to play Rocketband, and while it has a couple bugs (hand-me-downs from the Rune-id-branch before those bugs were fixed), I have found it quite fun to play. After the comp win, I began playing High-elf Mages, which I believe are the better choice. Nonetheless, it took me 10 tries to get one to stay alive (deaths by bad luck or from inattention), I finally have one that is thoroughly viable. @ found an amulet of ESP at DL 28 which completely changed his prospects. Now, at dungeon level DL 63 he has found Mordenkainen's and has a hasted speed of +43. As long as I don't screw it up, he can plunge all the way down on created stairs and take out the Big Bosses.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Now at DL 81 with Kelek's. While @ must take care with Mass Banishment not to overstep his hp pool, the game is now a foregone conclusion unless I totally screw it up. @ just took out two medium permanent walled vaults and 11 uniques without even breaking a sweat. Used a Rune of Protection scroll to bottle up uniques behind a permanent walled turn and used splash damage to take them out.

With Banishment, @ is able to easily get rid of the scariest monsters in the game, namely magic and shrieker mushroom patches, vortices, hounds, and dragon flys. (Apart from hounds, that last sentence seems funny to any Vanilla player, but so it goes in Rocketband.)

The early game is the most difficult to survive. Before Reveal Monsters is consistently available, one must rely on the weaker detect monsters supplemented with detect invisible.

The next big milestones after Reveal Monsters is to get ESP and consistent Stone to Mud. Armed with these and some mapping staves/scrolls, @ can make tactical decisions and take out high-level targets.

Mordenkainen's allows swift descent with Create Stairs, followed by Kelek's and access to Banishment and Mass Banishment. Once @ has all the above, Morgoth is pretty much done for absent making a mistake.

Definitely learn to use the targeting mode. It is your friend. Splash damage and reflections, hockeysticks and stair scumming. Morgoth is going down!!!

[Derakon]

Good luck! I'm glad you're enjoying this exceedingly silly variant.

[AnonymousHero]

(snip)

Are you a demon? Specifically, Maxwell's demon?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Are you a demon? Specifically, Maxwell's demon?

Nah, entropy is balanced by all the death's in the attempts to finally get a viable @.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Another Rocketband success. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19035

After my comp win, it took me another 10 tries to get a viable @. This one found an amulet of ESP and the world began to open up for him. Then, once he had ESP together with Mordenkainen's and Kelek's, the end was a foregone conclusion as long as I didn't screw up. In my determination, Half Elf Mage is the way to go. It's also an odd thing, Rocketband is most dangerous at the lower levels. Once you have the above mentioned requirements, it actually becomes quite a bit easier.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Yep, I've gotten a system down and working pretty well. Another @ now has all it takes to go after the Big Bosses, and he's only at DL53. Here are my thoughts on the milestones required and also about the spell arsenal of my High Elf Mage rocketeer.

Milestones: With each milestone achieved, the danger level decreases. It's never easy, but definitely easier as each is accomplished.

- Detect Monsters combined with scrolls/staves Detect Invisible
- Reveal Monsters (or better yet, a stack of Detection rods)
- Stone to Mud and staves/scrolls/rods of Mapping
- Stealth
- Speed
- ESP - This is what makes everything possible.
- Mordenkainen's -Stair Creation
- Kelek's - Banishment, Mass Banishment

Revealing monsters must be an ingrained habit done more often than you think you need to, or @ is doomed to death. Stair scumming is de rigueur. ESP is the major watershed moment. Play with full monster knowledge, you need to know which monsters have rockets and what their average life rating is. There are many mid and high level monsters that require more than one rocket shot, and if they are packing rockets too, then @ needs a long enough hockey stick or enough reflective splash shots to take them out before they get LoS. I also play this with full rune knowledge so I'm not bothering to have to figure out armor, rings, amulets, etc.


The only Spells I've used in the rocketband games:

All from MB1
- Magic missile - destroy weaker monsters in early levels. wake up monsters selectively to get them to move to a more advantageous position, e.g., when near a treasure you don’t want to blast into oblivion
- Detect monsters - constantly until Reveal monsters becomes available consistently.
- Phase door - when scrolls run out and phasing is needed.
- Light area - used when needed, but not in a room with undetected monsters.
- Find traps, doors & stairs - until Rods of Detection are stacked
- Stinking cloud - to strategically wake a monster when LOS for a magic missile is undesirable.

None from MB2 - (maybe teleport self, but carry a staff. Unlike Vanilla, you don’t have to worry about the staff burning, but it may run out of charges or explode on recharge. They are plentiful enough though that I’ve never had a problem.) Oh, and don’t carry multiple book copies either. If one “burns” up, it’s because @ was hit by a rocket and is dead.

4 from MB3
- Satisfy hunger
- Lesser recharging (to recharge staves of mapping, mostly)
- Turn stone to mud
- Reveal monsters

2 from MB4
- Teleport other
- Haste self

None from MB5 - resistances and AC are irrelevant

None from MB6 - the attack spells here are irrelevant

4 from MB7
- Door Creation
- Stair Creation
- Teleport Level
- Word of Recall

None from MB8 - greater recharging is nice, but by the time it’s useful, the game should be about over and for such a minimally useful spell, not worth wasting an inventory slot.

3 from MB9
- Banishment
- Word of Destruction
- Mass Banishment

[Egavactip]

I was kind of irritated to see Rocketband appearing in the regular Angband ladder.

[HugoVirtuoso]

I was kind of irritated to see Rocketband appearing in the regular Angband ladder.

That's why I keep mentioning about a separate Rocketband ladder.

[Derakon]

What needs to be done to accomplish this? I thought it was simply a matter of changing the variant name at the top of the character dumps, but clearly that didn't fix it. Do we need pav to do something?

[AnonymousHero]

What needs to be done to accomplish this? I thought it was simply a matter of changing the variant name at the top of the character dumps, but clearly that didn't fix it. Do we need pav to do something?

Yeah, I'm *guessing* that the list of variant names is hardcoded in the forum software in a few places.

(That said, I wouldn't worry about it, given that it's a one-off type thing.)