Competition 64

[chem]

Is this Mad Chemist easy to find? Or is he a regular unique who needs to spawn by a lucky roll?

He's a regular unique. W:95:5 and type 'p', which means he will only show up deep, and will be mildly but not frustratingly rare.

If you see him, the generally safest response is to immediately teleport yourself away or teleport level. He is much more dangerous than the Serpent, and in fact I'd recommend killing the Serpent first.

I am not even sure if it's possible for a Ninja to kill the Chemist (well, given enough time and potions of life, anything is possible, I guess...); I'd have to check the ladder to see if it was done.

Daniel's suggestion about having chars that killed the Serpent but not the Chemist be put ahead (in the competition) of other, high exp chars, is a good one.

[Zikke]

Is this Mad Chemist easy to find? Or is he a regular unique who needs to spawn by a lucky roll?

[Daniel Fishman]

I would put people who have killed the Serpent between those that have killed the Chemist and those that haven't killed either, if that's possible.

[Nick]

Nick, would exp/playtime be ok, or you want absolute playtime for winners? And what for non-winners?

exp/playtime, and everyone who has killed The Mad Chemist ranks above everyone who hasn't?

[chem]

Chem, while you're here - you wouldn't have those elusive Entro spoilers available, would you? It'd be nice to make them available on oook, if possible, since they're not extant anywhere else on the web.

Also, so that I may make more helpful comments, are you planning to keep the scope of entro in your new variant - ie, the huge game world w/ wilderness, &c., or will this be a more focused venture? Are we looking at an Entro w/ V3.1 enhancements or a V3.1 with Entro enhancements? There are a lot of comments I would make, but I don't have a great picture of what general shape you have in mind for the game.

Frustratingly, I do not have the old changelogs. I thought they had been distributed with the source, but this appears to not be the case. The most important user-visible changes will be that some deep monsters are more deadly, and that there are some extremely powerful new artifacts. For people new to heng/entro, I'd recommend looking at old entro dumps on the ladder for gameplay comments and gear examples.

For the new variant, it will be more like 3.1 with entro enhancements. I think the wilderness would be too much code to port, and I was never crazy about it anyway. I do like the additional dungeons, though, so I will somehow make them or their themes available from the base Angband town. A more diverse, difficult, high risk, high reward, type of [V].

[Donald Jonker]

Yes, this is a very good link. In fact, critial to playing a ninja well. Another ninja tip: successful ninjas often rely heavily on the skill "hit-and-away".

Chem, while you're here - you wouldn't have those elusive Entro spoilers available, would you? It'd be nice to make them available on oook, if possible, since they're not extant anywhere else on the web.

Also, so that I may make more helpful comments, are you planning to keep the scope of entro in your new variant - ie, the huge game world w/ wilderness, &c., or will this be a more focused venture? Are we looking at an Entro w/ V3.1 enhancements or a V3.1 with Entro enhancements? There are a lot of comments I would make, but I don't have a great picture of what general shape you have in mind for the game.

[chem]

http://www.kmc.gr.jp/~henkma/heng-e/...nja/index.html

All info on the Ninja class (from the link that was posted earlier).

Yes, this is a very good link. In fact, critial to playing a ninja well. Another ninja tip: successful ninjas often rely heavily on the skill "hit-and-away".

[chem]

Competition 64 is now available at http://angband.oook.cz/competition.php?showcompo=64; it is an Entroband Vampire Ninja.

Note that comp 63 is not finished yet; we're trying out overlapping competitions.

*note, I am the entro creator / ex-maintainer*

Whoa, I had not checked the forums in the past few days and totally missed this thread until now. Entro for C64, great! Thanks! The choice of a vampire ninja is a good one. Ninjas are unique to entro, and may be a class I want to port over one day (it'd be a lot of effort). Vampire goes well with them.

For a victory condition, if it's still ok to change it, I would suggest the first player to kill The Mad Chemist (first chardump to do this). He is actually tougher than the Serpent in this variant. Failing that, max experience is a fine secondary condition.

After the [V] 3.1.x codebase stabilizes, I want to take the best of entro and bring it into 3.1.x. This would initially focus on the things that are easiest to port: races, some classes, monsters, items. Then I would move on towards additional quests (maybe more like NPP than entro) and themed dungeons. Also, game mechanic things such as variable energy for monsters and persistent dungeons (less likely). So, if feedback could be sure to talk about particularly enjoyable monsters/items/etc, I'd be sure to port those over. I'll also read any comments in the chardumps on the ladder for this competition.

Tips on playing a vampire: daylight is deadly, don't get caught outside without RLight. Tips on playing a ninja: light sources kill your natural stealth! Also, certain light weapons are heavily preferred by ninja -- check your skill rating, ninjas can only max weapon skill with certain types. Looking at other entro or hengband ninja dumps on the ladder should give you an idea of this.

General entro tips: certain fixed quests have excellent rewards, go check them out! It also pays to check out those dungeons in the wilderness and kill the boss at the bottom. Black reavers are *deadly*. The Mad Chemist is someone to be feared! Many low-level "fluff" monsters were eliminated from the game, and not replaced, so if you don't see them, don't worry about it.

[Zikke]

http://www.kmc.gr.jp/~henkma/heng-e/class/ninja/index.html

All info on the Ninja class (from the link that was posted earlier).

[Donald Jonker]

Since a couple people have asked, a quick guide to Entro Ninjas:
Ninjas can only wield a few light weapon types without getting slammed with prohibitive to_hit penalties (check knowledge menu - weapon proficiencies for these). They can't wear shields for the same reason.

They have to wear to wear very light armor or penalties to speed and I believe they cannot go into stealth mode. If they're in the dark and keep moving, you'll see a 'stealth' label at the bottom of the screen, which will give you a huge to_hit bonus on your first strike against an enemy. Thus it's a very good idea to strike, withdraw one move, strike again and so forth. The Ninja's class powers help in this regard.

Check online help and hengband spoilers posted earlier in this thread for more info. Or ask. I'm not very good at entro.. I just happen to be more knowledgeable than anyone else that has spoken up so far. :P

[pav]

Sounds fair. Any objections? No? pav, could you change that? It's labelled Play time in the dump.

Nick, would exp/playtime be ok, or you want absolute playtime for winners? And what for non-winners?

Guys, reupload your dumps.

[Nick]

I think we should (and need) to switch the rules to realtime or gametime. I favor realtime because it's cool and novel.

EDIT: If you go with real time, you should mention on the comp page that the char starts with 7 mins and change.

Sounds fair. Any objections? No? pav, could you change that? It's labelled Play time in the dump.

[Donald Jonker]

Nick - I've noticed you've gone with the standard xp/turns again for Comp 64. I'd like to respectfully disagree for 4 reasons.

1. Entro dumps don't have turncounts.

2. Entro dumps have real-time counters.

3. Entro dumps have Game-day counters (not sure how this functions).

4. Only two people (including myself) on the ladder so far.

Therefore: I think we should (and need) to switch the rules to realtime or gametime. I favor realtime because it's cool and novel.

EDIT: If you go with real time, you should mention on the comp page that the char starts with 7 mins and change.

[Nick]

Competition 64 is now available at http://angband.oook.cz/competition.php?showcompo=64; it is an Entroband Vampire Ninja.

Note that comp 63 is not finished yet; we're trying out overlapping competitions.

For linux users, try the following incantations (from the entro-src directory, after unzipping the source package):
aclocal
autoheader
automake --add-missing
autoconf
./configure --disable-japanese
make
make install

[Donald Jonker]

Ninjas on unicycles, that's what!

lol I stand corrected.