Competitions 89 and 90

[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.

[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).

[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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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?

[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.

[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]

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.

[PowerDiver]

From my observations of monster pathfinding, they'll try to get as close to you as they can even if the path is obstructed.

Sure, but I figured Timo knew that. I was looking for cases where it looks like they should open the door based on common experience but they do not.

Another huge problem with pathfinding is passwall monsters and permanent walls. I think they are coded to ignore walls entirely, and so get stuck in greater vaults in positions where a non-passwall monster can pathfind to reach you easily.

[Timo Pietilä]

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.

No, at closest it looked like this:

#.#ooooooooooooooooooo#.#
#.##########+##########.#
#.......................#
#########################


       ##################
       #....@............
       #.################

They should have stormed out of the pit, but they didn't. Are those doors always secret? Couldn't secret door be locked?

[PowerDiver]

When you are powerful enough, or maybe when you have killed enough, I don't know the rule, some monsters run away if they can. If the orcs near the door were all scared of you, and no one could push past another, that might explain it.

[Timo Pietilä]

When you are powerful enough, or maybe when you have killed enough, I don't know the rule, some monsters run away if they can. If the orcs near the door were all scared of you, and no one could push past another, that might explain it.

That might be it. I don't know. Feels that it isn't because I wasn't ready to handle that many orcs, but OTOH snagas start to avoid you pretty soon and IIRC those were the closest to the door.