Competitions 89 and 90

[fizzix]

From my observations of monster pathfinding, they'll try to get as close to you as they can even if the path is obstructed. However, what I think is going on here is that the orcs near the door aren't flowing around the orcs between them and you (whereas they would flow around a wall with the same configuration), so they keep just dumbly trying to march forwards. Meanwhile, the orcs who are adjacent to the walls are trying to flow around them, but there's no room because the entire place is filled with orcs.

Pits might just be more dangerous if they had 80 monsters in them instead of 95.

There's more to it than that. There are 2 separate problems here.

1: monsters treat, vaults and moated rooms as one connected room as far as the path-finding algorithm is concerned. (this is IMO a bug) This has 2 noticeable effects. One is that monsters with group_AI will have no problem filing into a moat to attack you even though they would avoid a normal corridor. The second is monsters can be stuck in very simple configurations because of the path-finding algorithm. Here's an example.


#############
#.......@...#
#.####+####.#
#.#.....Z.#.#


pretend that is a moated room with crappy dimensions. The Z will not be able to find the path to you because its algorithm doesn't consider there to be walls there, so it can't find the door. The same thing happens in pits, monsters will not come out if you are in the moat opposite the exit.

2: orc's detection radius is small. If you are in the moat opposite the door, they cannot detect you there and won't chase you anyways. Even if they had the path algorithm to get to you, which they don't, they don't know you're there until you get closer to the door. You can very easily just let one or two out at a time if you want.

[Derakon]

I didn't know that.

If you've ever seen a group of Dreads get generated in a corridor, that should be a big hint.

If the moat adjacent to the door had monsters, would the orcs open the door even though pathfinding should see no way out?

From my observations of monster pathfinding, they'll try to get as close to you as they can even if the path is obstructed. However, what I think is going on here is that the orcs near the door aren't flowing around the orcs between them and you (whereas they would flow around a wall with the same configuration), so they keep just dumbly trying to march forwards. Meanwhile, the orcs who are adjacent to the walls are trying to flow around them, but there's no room because the entire place is filled with orcs.

Pits might just be more dangerous if they had 80 monsters in them instead of 95.

[fizzix]

If the door is on the other side of the pit from you, then the orcs won't get out. Perhaps that's the explanation?

I think this is it. If the door is opposite of your approach, especially if you're coming from the east-west direction, the orcs closest to the door can't sense you and block the orcs that can from moving.

[PowerDiver]

How would you achieve such a setup? Passwall monsters are not generated both asleep and in walls,

I didn't know that.

If the moat adjacent to the door had monsters, would the orcs open the door even though pathfinding should see no way out?

[Derakon]

One possible explanation is a sleeping passwall creature in the door.

How would you achieve such a setup? Passwall monsters are not generated both asleep and in walls, so the monster would have had to have been awake to walk into the door. Then you'd have to sleep them, but to my knowledge there's no way you could do that unintentionally...not to mention most passwall monsters are undead anyway and thus immune to sleep.

[PowerDiver]

hmm... I stumbled upon orc pit where every orc was awake (as always) and quite aware of me (as usual), but none of them could get out of that pit. Pit with locked door? Jammed door? IIRC I have never seen that before. A bug?

One possible explanation is a sleeping passwall creature in the door.

[Derakon]

If the door is on the other side of the pit from you, then the orcs won't get out. Perhaps that's the explanation?

I don't think I've ever seen a locked or jammed door in a pit before. Reason being that those doors are always secret, which IIRC precludes them having any other special features.

[Timo Pietilä]

Yes. Difference between 3.1.2v2 and latest dev-version is very small.

hmm... I stumbled upon orc pit where every orc was awake (as always) and quite aware of me (as usual), but none of them could get out of that pit. Pit with locked door? Jammed door? IIRC I have never seen that before. A bug?

Didn't investigate because at that point I couldn't handle that many orcs.

[PowerDiver]

In my game H-Troll didn't have any problems with melee power whatsoever.

It all depends on your luck. In my current game, I have not seen anything with a str or dex bonus. I have used Narthanc and Forasgil to good effect, because I get 2 blows. I think the 2nd blow was the difference in being able to clear an orc pit. In my previous game [YASD] I never found a good light weapon and so the str and dex were irrelevant.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think that's really sort of the point. The lack of the second blow for the HT, and the choice of using active turns, both reduce some of the advantages that a HT could have had relative to a dwarf.

Choice to use active turns is because of that is only method that doesn't penalize resting which in RL doesn't use time. Time saved by H-Troll regen during resting isn't real benefit, just imaginary, so that is why I cannot use any other method.

In my game H-Troll didn't have any problems with melee power whatsoever. Especially early game. I do however have problems with devices and too high failure rates with spells. To compensate those I could have used points to CON to max H-Troll HP advantage. Now that healing spells are % of wounds HP it could mean a lot. I think that would have been much better than using points to WIS or STR or DEX.

Maybe also Dwarf with STR 6, WIS 12, CON 6 would have been better (I do believe that for Dwarf 18/50 is most important).

[Timo Pietilä]

Part of diving is planning for the midgame. Even with a dwarf priest, I typically put 6 in each of str/wis/dex/con. That's what I used in my priestly ferric diving.

For Dwarf priest I'm pretty sure 18/50 is much more important than DEX.

Maybe Two Dwarf Priests, one with 6, 12, 6, and one with 6,6,6,6 for next comp.

We really should have some RL time counter for this to show real speed of the game. All of those turn counters do that pretty weakly: resting doesn't take time almost at all, but OTOH neither does running, and that takes active turns, while resting doesn't, which means that player turns that penalize resting isn't' good for the job, but neither is active turns because it penalizes running, and game turns isn't any better because it has same limitations as player turns + speed twisting counts to benefit RoS, Escaping and haste.

That 18/50 at start has huge effect of how fast you gain levels. clvls, that is. Which in turn helps diving to get dlvls. So much effect that it is important to buy PB3 ASAP, because you might be very close to clvl 9 by the time you go back to town for first time, if not already there. OoD makes life easy after that.

[bron]

For a comparison comp, I think the right choice is str 8, wis 6, dex 5, con 5.

Yes, exactly my choice as well: 18/20 Str and 10 Dex to get the 2 blows, 18 Con (a cutoff point), and the rest into Wis.

I realize it is more than a little unorthodox, but any chance we could have this combination as a *third* choice for comparison?

[PowerDiver]

I think H-Troll priests need to concentrate a bit different set of stats than Dwarf. Maybe STR 8, WIS 8, CON 8. Or maybe even STR 6, WIS 6, CON 12 for max diving capability. For Dwarf 12 points to WIS is no-brainer (it puts them to 18/50 which is one of the breakpoints), but there too maybe combination of 6,12,6 would have been wiser choice.

Part of diving is planning for the midgame. Even with a dwarf priest, I typically put 6 in each of str/wis/dex/con. That's what I used in my priestly ferric diving.

It is easier to raise int and wis than the other stats, due to potions of *enlightenment, so you still "expect" to max wis before any of the other stats.

For a comparison comp, I think the right choice is str 8, wis 6, dex 5, con 5. You've inspired me to play a half-troll with that start for a while.

[Timo Pietilä]

In case anyone is reading this, it looks like the bug is with preserve mode itself, not with the knowledge menu. I've tested by using cheat_peek, and artifacts which are left on the floor unIDd are preserved when leaving the level, even if preserve is off.

Really? I wondered why item memory isn't showing any lost artifacts. If this is the case then preserve off isn't actually preserve off.

And I have been very careful about emptying vaults and even taking some unnecessary risks because of that: enchantress summoning Dracolisk and me failing three times in a row with TO was the scariest this far, and closest to death was entering into room full of impact hounds and failing three times with portal (stun really sucks, heavy stun even more, and I didn't have teleport scrolls at that point).

[Timo Pietilä]

Have reached drolem depth, now need to dive fast to get detection.
I do wish that you had spent a few points on CON, rather than completely maximizing STR and WIS.

I realized that same for H-Troll priest. Dwarfs usually don't have this problem because of very high WIS and decent device skills which leads to with very low failure rate teleport other. However H-Troll priest seem to have stumbled in problems with device failures and not low enough failure rates with spells. Melee-power is not a problem for me, but dealing with escapes is.

I think H-Troll priests need to concentrate a bit different set of stats than Dwarf. Maybe STR 8, WIS 8, CON 8. Or maybe even STR 6, WIS 6, CON 12 for max diving capability. For Dwarf 12 points to WIS is no-brainer (it puts them to 18/50 which is one of the breakpoints), but there too maybe combination of 6,12,6 would have been wiser choice.

Well, this is a bit challenging anyway because of no-preserve, so consider those as YAChallengingPicks.