Competition 75

[Psi]

Or instead of starting from the original savefile everytime, start from your dead character that will randomize all flavors etc.

But then you are not playing the same 'game' as everyone else as you will have different shops etc - which is particularly important in an ironman comp. Other comps also start with a partially developed char.

[fizzix]

Obviously if you die enough times, you are going to start to remember a few flavours - that can't be helped. I don't think it is in the spirit of the competition to start recording them though. I'd also suggest that any 'list flavours in descriptions' option is off (assuming it exists in the variant in question). Then you won't see the flavour name again in the game so are less likely to remember it and you won't get other people learning flavours via your dump.

That's kind of what I thought.

Thinking about it a little more, it'd be pretty easy to write a standalone program to randomize the flavors.txt edit file If I understand the code correctly, this should have no effect on gameplay besides matching the flavors to different numbers. The program can be rerun on each restart. This probably goes above and beyond the call of duty, and for now, I'm going to assume that knowing certain flavors helps make up for not having pb1 in down.

(pretty easy for me means that an incompetent coding bub like myself could write something for it. Granted, not in a language usable to anyone else...)

[NiJabbieJabba]

It seems like the turncount/XP ratio is incredibly dependent upon the luck one has in finding speed items. Obviously, there's a lot of skill involved in diving quickly - I'm not a particularly rapid player, and I'm impressed by those who are. This comes to my attention as I just passed Murphy up on the competition ladder - I have a HUGE unfair advantage due to my +30 or so permanent speed. In terms of player turns, I'm sure I've played more than he did, but he never found any permanent speed items.

Permaspeed is already enough of a bonus for survival. Doesn't seem like it also ought to be factored so heavily into competition scoring.

[Psi]

This comes to my attention as I just passed Murphy up on the competition ladder - I have a HUGE unfair advantage due to my +30 or so permanent speed. In terms of player turns, I'm sure I've played more than he did, but he never found any permanent speed items.

Yes, permaspeed and particularly an early find of such is a huge advantage in terms of turncount. However you are both the highest level and deepest descended character in the competition and are therefore rightly in the top spot anyway.

As angband is a random game, you really can't factor for luck when ranking a competition and XP/turncount is probably the best measure for skill (as opposed to pure XP which favours grinding).

[Nick]

As angband is a random game, you really can't factor for luck when ranking a competition and XP/turncount is probably the best measure for skill (as opposed to pure XP which favours grinding).

Yeah, it's hard to get a really good measure of performance, and I keep coming back to XP/turncount. It usually comes out OK (at least as a means of picking the winner) by the end anyway.

[Ghen]

This competition is my first and it's tearing me a new one, ironman is tough LOL.

My starting equipment:

1 whip (I always find something better before 350 anyway, main gauche or rapier.. Once was a dagger +3,+4)
15 food (ran out once, don't want to again)
9 flasks of oil (I've been finding lanterns quick and they're obviously good for throwing)
5 torches
1 !CCW for major problems
8 Scrolls of phase door because that's all the money I have left
10 arrows to waste the remaining gold

Sometimes the thief in town will take my stuff while I'm buying everything and I have to chase him down grrr

[buzzkill]

R1626 Bug.

A Ring of Searching (cursed, -2) produces a + flag, not a -, on the character screen, and although the the ring is wielded in the D equipment slot (E is empty), the + appears in both the D and E columns on the char screen.

[PowerDiver]

R1626 Bug.

A Ring of Searching (cursed, -2) produces a + flag, not a -, on the character screen, and although the the ring is wielded in the D equipment slot (E is empty), the + appears in both the D and E columns on the char screen.

The thing about learning empty slots has been fix in 3.1.2 dev for a while. The + vs - is a good point. That part of the code doesn't check the sign, but you are right that it should.

[Bill Peterson]

What versions are allowed for this competition? I've been using the 3.1.1626 from the .zip file on rephial.org but now I'm confused. When I found the first prayer book I saw that detect traps and detect stairs were 2 distinct prayers. AFAIK that's not the case in other 3.1.x versions - looking at x-spell.c on the SVN repository that change was made in rev. 1622. Don't know how 1626 retained the older configuration.

So can I use any later version? Or would having the new prayer configuration be an unfair advantage for those using a later version?

[PowerDiver]

What versions are allowed for this competition? I've been using the 3.1.1626 from the .zip file on rephial.org but now I'm confused. When I found the first prayer book I saw that detect traps and detect stairs were 2 distinct prayers. AFAIK that's not the case in other 3.1.x versions - looking at x-spell.c on the SVN repository that change was made in rev. 1622. Don't know how 1626 retained the older configuration.

So can I use any later version? Or would having the new prayer configuration be an unfair advantage for those using a later version?

The two spells are combined in 3.1.2, not in 3.1.1. The rev numbers confuse the issue, but are less important than the version number.

[Psi]

So can I use any later version? Or would having the new prayer configuration be an unfair advantage for those using a later version?

For a comp, everyone needs to be playing the same version IMHO.

[buzzkill]

more 1626 bugginess...

A ring of teleportation (non-cursed) automatically sets itself as squelch. I have auto-squelch worthless items turned on, but this is hardly a worthless item. It also auto ID's itself upon wield, even before a teleport takes place.

Kudos! The squelch system is much better now that 'y' to squelching an item also destroys it. Now I only object to the shopping item/action order.

[PowerDiver]

more 1626 bugginess...

A ring of teleportation (non-cursed) automatically sets itself as squelch. I have auto-squelch worthless items turned on, but this is hardly a worthless item. It also auto ID's itself upon wield, even before a teleport takes place.

Kudos! The squelch system is much better now that 'y' to squelching an item also destroys it. Now I only object to the shopping item/action order.

"worthless" means 0 price in object.txt I believe

it ids because you know when you see the +2 speed when you wield it

no change to squelch -- you just have different options set since the comp has default settings -- the objects are dropped and invisible, not destroyed

[buzzkill]

it ids because you know when you see the +2 speed when you wield it

Couldn't it be a ring of speed +2, or do such things not exist?

[PowerDiver]

Couldn't it be a ring of speed +2, or do such things not exist?

It could be, but it's like learning a potion. If you are confused, you learn CSW vs CCW when you quaff even though it could be either one.

It's probably more than 99.99% likely that the first ring you pick up with +2 speed is teleportaion rather than speed, so it's not really giving the player much of an edge.