Competitions 81 and 82

[andrewdoull]

There's really no need to switch keysets. My laptop has no numpad - but I find that the nine number keys in the top row work perfectly well. My muscle memory had a much easier time adapting to shifting three keys left or right (to go up or down) than it did when I tried the rogue keyset.

Whereas I prefer the roguelike key set even if there is a number pad because I don't have to move my hands...

So go figure

Andrew

[Pete Mack]

Whereas I prefer the roguelike key set even if there is a number pad because I don't have to move my hands...

Yup. Also I think it's a function of whether you ever used vi, and which you learned first.

[baddog73]

Hey I'm really happy to see just now a new Un compo. Yay~!

After a bit of a dry spell, UnAndrew strikes again!

...Player wields a keyboard ... Oh no! It's deathly cold! ... Player is now wielding a keyboard of competition addiction {cursed} ...

Damn, guess I'll be here a while.

-Ben


Edit: apparently needs some serious practice.

- dies by zapping a wand of haste at a rogue and failing to outrun him.
- dies by trying to throw a flask of oil (try it, it's fun!)
- dies by deadfall trap

Bug: the spell of "sting" doesn't ever register as having been tried.

[buzzkill]

My laptop is sans numpad too. I used a USB numpad for a time, but that was a pain. I now, quite happily, use the Fn (kinda like a shift key) + jkl,uio,789 (which mimics the keypad). I guess this roughly mimics the roguelike movement keys, if I remember correctly. On the plus side, playing on a full keyboard with numpad still comes naturally, even though most of my play is on the laptop.

[Magnate]

Yup. Also I think it's a function of whether you ever used vi, and which you learned first.

This is a good insight, I think. I never used vi. It's about the only technological paradigm which I missed by virtue of being too young.

[d_m]

This is a good insight, I think. I never used vi. It's about the only technological paradigm which I missed by virtue of being too young.

Hilariously almost all my coworkers (in their late 20's or early 30's) use Vim.

I never got the hang of that kind of modal editing--invariably I'd end up viing myself in the face. It may also have something to do with Emacs.

[Big Al]

My laptop is sans numpad too. I used a USB numpad for a time, but that was a pain. I now, quite happily, use the Fn (kinda like a shift key) + jkl,uio,789 (which mimics the keypad). I guess this roughly mimics the roguelike movement keys, if I remember correctly. On the plus side, playing on a full keyboard with numpad still comes naturally, even though most of my play is on the laptop.

This is what I used to use - I liked it even more than using a keypad at the side because I didn't have to move my hands around much to go from movement to other commands on the right side of the keyboard (open, etc.) - only a pinky up or down. But on the newer macbook models, they just totally got rid of this feature for some reason. I think I'll try Magnate's suggestion for a bit.

I got used to the roguelike keys for movement pretty quick, but it's the other commands that keep screwing me up. I keep accidentally moving when I was trying to (l)ook or (n) repeat last command.

Anyway, on to the game:

I've always found that if I can make it through Maggot's Farm, the awesome rewards from Bombadil's caches let me just fly through the rest of the game (up until maybe the King of the Wood Elves). But with 4 HP, I think I'm going to take the safer route this time.

Also, if I recall correctly, there was some command that lets you charge past monsters; so you swap positions with them instead of attacking, but I can't find it anywhere in the documentation. Am I imagining things or is there such a command? EDIT: nevermind, it's a period ("Run").

Also, a few bugs/typos:

- The description of a room I found is "You have entered a ." Savefile here if that helps.

- "You see 2 a giant grub Corpses."

- I got the new letter from Radagast the Brown (scho1-57-2.txt) as I should when I got to level 2. But then a little while later, I got the same letter again, right after I went down some stairs. (I was level 3 at the time.) Two copies of the tip show up in the tip recall (under '~' + '8'). According to the tip recall, I also apparently got the A Shortcut To Mushrooms tip (tval80-10.txt) twice as well. Also, the scho1-57-2.txt tip does not have a subcategory like the other tips do - it only shows up in the "All current tips" section.

- The spell description of Find Water says "dur 1d6+6" - why is there a duration here? It takes a little while for the water to bubble up, but definitely doesn't seem to take 7 or more turns or anything.

- Should druids get a speed penalty for walking through water? Considering that their major strategy seems to be summoning water to improve the electrical attacks, it's not so effective if I'm going to be slowed by walking in that water.

[andrewdoull]

I've always found that if I can make it through Maggot's Farm, the awesome rewards from Bombadil's caches let me just fly through the rest of the game (up until maybe the King of the Wood Elves). But with 4 HP, I think I'm going to take the safer route this time.

I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record I can tell: there are two possible characters you can choose for this competition - the second one is here and a lot easier to start with. You'll also notice that the Mirest (4 hp guy) ladder is littered with the remains of his broken fairy body, whereas the last time I checked, the other ladder had one living apprentice doing reasonably ok.

WRT finishing the Farm: the real danger is the cold bolts which are strictly LOS, and Mirest has a good selection of attacks which don't rely on LOS, and more importantly Detect Evil which will locate the guardian. If you get lucky and get a familiar with melee attacks, you might do ok, but I suspect Sticks to Snakes will be the best bet. Animate Dead will only animate skulls at the bottom of the farm but I've lucked out previously and found a skull room right next to the guardian. The problem is the animated skulls you'll get like to teleport around so are not especially reliable for fighting out of LOS, although they are immune to both sets of the guardian's ranged attacks.

If you're patient enough to get Air or Fire Spirit, I think you'll be away laughing.

Also, a few bugs/typos:

- The description of a room I found is "You have entered a ." Savefile here if that helps.

I've got a few room description bugs to work through today.

- "You see 2 a giant grub Corpses."

Fixed in SVN.

- I got the new letter from Radagast the Brown (scho1-57-2.txt) as I should when I got to level 2. But then a little while later, I got the same letter again, right after I went down some stairs. (I was level 3 at the time.) Two copies of the tip show up in the tip recall (under '~' + '8'). According to the tip recall, I also apparently got the A Shortcut To Mushrooms tip (tval80-10.txt) twice as well. Also, the scho1-57-2.txt tip does not have a subcategory like the other tips do - it only shows up in the "All current tips" section.

It's an open bug. The fix is relatively straight forward though and on my list for today.

- The spell description of Find Water says "dur 1d6+6" - why is there a duration here? It takes a little while for the water to bubble up, but definitely doesn't seem to take 7 or more turns or anything.

Any spell which creates a magical region has to last for a duration of some time. What complicates things, is that a) this duration is in dungeon turns, not player turns and b) the duration is actually the number of times the region 'does something' and the time intervals between each step is determined by the region type, so could be fast or slow. So find water does 1d6+6 'springs' of water, one which happens every 30 game ticks. So at normal speed, it'll last between 1 and 2 player turns.

- Should druids get a speed penalty for walking through water? Considering that their major strategy seems to be summoning water to improve the electrical attacks, it's not so effective if I'm going to be slowed by walking in that water.

The penalty is actually a doubling of the amount your inventory weighs for the purposes of working out encumberance, which translates into an effective speed penalty. I'd rather do e.g. a Water Walking spell than a class specific bonus or penalty. This also lets me create e.g. Boots of Water Walking, which a druid would prize higher than other classes. But the whole terrain walking thing is for a later version...

And having Druids have a spell which creates water at such a low level only happened last week, so this being an effective tactic is only a new addition. Lightning Spark has historically been the most powerful low level mage attack anyway - this is a bump specifically for e.g. fighting uniques.

Andrew

[andrewdoull]

I recommend you update to pre3 if you're playing the competition. There's several bug fixes for Aspir and quite of bit of balancing work for Merist to e.g. make the familiar you get more useful regardless of the one chosen.

Andrew

[baddog73]

I'm getting an error with the windows build:

"Error at line 14 of 'limits.txt'. Record -1 contains a 'obsolete file' error. Parsing V:0.6.3'."

-Ben

[Bandobras]

See http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpos...92&postcount=4

[andrewdoull]

See http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpos...92&postcount=4

It's fixed now. Please download again.

That noise you heard was my palm hitting my face...

[baddog73]

I have a snake familiar, what can I do with it?

Can I interact with it, or does it just do things on its own?

Can I get information about its powers?

Bug? When my familiar attacks something I get no messages, but I do when it defends. e.g. "It ducks the blow" but no "It bites the mold"

Bug: Familiar always evades magic, i.e. when I zap a wand of haste monster at it.

Bug? Familiar movement always interrupts rest and shift+movement.

Apology for all the questions - if I give my familiar the ability to wear armor can I see what it's wearing or tell it to wear this or that? When it leaves my service and returns does it retain that armor?

[andrewdoull]

I have a snake familiar, what can I do with it?

Can I interact with it, or does it just do things on its own?

Firstly, are you running 0.6.4-pre3? There's a tip file that provides information about how to interact with summoned monsters including your familiar that should come up at level 3. Basically it'll attack whatever you target, if you target an empty grid it'll move there, otherwise attack whatever it sees, and you can tell it to target a particular species of monster by targetting one of that species and pressing 's' instead of 't' to target.

You can also 'O'ffer items to your allies, 't'ake off items from them, and tell them to 'd'rop items - choose '&' from your allies.

Can I get information about its powers?

Recall it like any other monster. You'll choose its powers as you advance, those are displayed in the character dump.

Bug? When my familiar attacks something I get no messages, but I do when it defends. e.g. "It ducks the blow" but no "It bites the mold"

In the interests of trying to cut down on messages, you only get updates on the injury status of monsters your allies attack (e.g. The Orc is wounded), as opposed to the individual attacks. However, the fact that your familiar evades attacks is still message spam.

Bug: Familiar always evades magic, i.e. when I zap a wand of haste monster at it.

There's a workaround in pre3 if you hit 'p' and target the ally by hand - the real fix will be to allow you to target your own allies, which is on the list.

Bug? Familiar movement always interrupts rest and shift+movement.

I'm trying to work on a more general 'interrupt' framework, so I've put off doing anything here. It should stop moving if you try to rest though... I might just hack something in in the mean time.

Apology for all the questions - if I give my familiar the ability to wear armor can I see what it's wearing or tell it to wear this or that? When it leaves my service and returns does it retain that armor?

The 'wear armour' attribute makes it have built-in armour - you don't have to then give it armour as well. I probably need to reword that slightly.

Andrew

[baddog73]

Thanks very much for the help