Competition 138

[OOD Town drunk]

With the change in how treasure veins appear (solid brown/orange color) I am unable to determine the composition of the wall without attempting to tunnel it. Currently I am wielding a whip with 18/10 strength, so unless it is magma, I just waste 100 turns. Is there a way to look other than l and L? (neither of which allow the inspection of walls) Or is there another solution to this that I am overlooking? Other than having to turn off my repeat obvious commands option?

[Nick]

With the change in how treasure veins appear (solid brown/orange color) I am unable to determine the composition of the wall without attempting to tunnel it. Currently I am wielding a whip with 18/10 strength, so unless it is magma, I just waste 100 turns. Is there a way to look other than l and L? (neither of which allow the inspection of walls) Or is there another solution to this that I am overlooking? Other than having to turn off my repeat obvious commands option?

'l' for look and then 'o' should enable you to move around and examine any grid, including walls. Also, you might prefer the hybrid wall option instead of solid blocks.

[Pete Mack]

OK, I've played this character enough that I can confidently say:

• I hate starting with 10 CON points!
• Randarts are now very well done. Kudos!
• I like the force descend option.
• I don't like the "no level feelings" birth option, especially in combination with forced descent.
• I still don't like bad stealth characters in the early-to-mid game.
• Edit: No selling rocks!

[clouded]

I am repeatedly getting an assert: cave.c line 3143, "Expression: cave_in_bounds(c, y, x)"

I'm using Win7, playing v3.5-dev-271-g28365cc (the most recent zipfile at the moment)

It has happened randomly a few times, but it is repeatable by loading a fresh comp save, commiting suicide, loading that save again and selecting Y to start the character again.

[takkaria]

I am repeatedly getting an assert: cave.c line 3143, "Expression: cave_in_bounds(c, y, x)"

I'm using Win7, playing v3.5-dev-271-g28365cc (the most recent zipfile at the moment)

It has happened randomly a few times, but it is repeatable by loading a fresh comp save, commiting suicide, loading that save again and selecting Y to start the character again.

I'd stick with the previous nightly download for now. I'll try to fix this tomorrow night.

[Gorbad]

New bug:

Mushroom of Second Sight shows up as 'Second Sight' (without the 'a Dark-Blue Mushroom of' part). Other mushrooms (like Fast Recovery) have shown up properly.

Quite odd, as I see no difference in the object.txt.

[Edit: In the store it shows up as a Second Sight of Second Sight]

[Nick]

New bug:

Mushroom of Second Sight shows up as 'Second Sight' (without the 'a Dark-Blue Mushroom of' part). Other mushrooms (like Fast Recovery) have shown up properly.

Quite odd, as I see no difference in the object.txt.

Yep, it's a code (not edit file) problem, fixed in development.

[Raajaton]

I just downloaded a more recent version of 3.5-dev than I was currently playing for the purposes of starting a competition character. The version I downloaded used the old school # for walls instead of solid blocks. I've grown accustomed to the solid blocks and wanted to use them instead. I copied fonts-win.prf from my other version into this new folder, and the walls are back to being solid.

I just want to make sure that by doing this I'm not going to potentially create any other problems, or if there is a better way for me to go about it.

[fizzix]

I just downloaded a more recent version of 3.5-dev than I was currently playing for the purposes of starting a competition character. The version I downloaded used the old school # for walls instead of solid blocks. I've grown accustomed to the solid blocks and wanted to use them instead. I copied fonts-win.prf from my other version into this new folder, and the walls are back to being solid.

I just want to make sure that by doing this I'm not going to potentially create any other problems, or if there is a better way for me to go about it.

One of the display options is to use solid block walls. The let's play videos I posted have that option set. If that's what you're going for, it should work fine.

[Raajaton]

Ahh ok there it is. I've gone in there a number of times and never noticed it before. I guess I was never looking for it since the previous versions I've played recently had them turned on by default.

The shop color is now different - I feel like I'm in a new town!

[Derakon]

Okay, I think I'm about done here -- I just lost by far my most promising character (with just a slightly worse experience:turns ratio than Pete's character! *shakes fist*), and if I do start playing another one soon, I want it to be something different.

On the whole, this version looks really solid! Congrats to the developers. There's a few bugs (Takkaria has compiled a list) but overall the balance feels good and, barring a couple characters who were unlucky when it comes to drops, the pace of play was solid throughout.

[Estie]

Argh, close death there, sorry for your loss.

As for balance...I was a bit worried about the low amount of healing potions. A green book caster doesnt rely that much on them, so I tried a warrior under the same ruleset, and yes I was continually very low on ccw. I did the thing Pete Mack recommended and bought out the cheap weapons from the temple for faster restock (does that really work ?), I also dumped foodrations and carried 40 !clw stack instead. And of course I bought all csw and ccw, so was using 2 slots where in previous versions it was only 1 for ccw, still I had to avoid many fights for lack of heals.

I am not sure if low amount of heals makes for a more interesting game or not, but the workarounds feel a bit artificial. Maybe for that reason it would be a good idea to increase the supply.

For whats its worth, the warrior failed to zap a rod of TO (half orcs and their device skill...) on Osse, who breathed nether to end his life somewhere in the middle of Angband.

Edit: for clarification, the big heals lategame (potion of healing and above) seem sufficient; its the midgame thats low on ccw.

[Derakon]

Yeah, a number of us in #angband-dev have noticed that CSW and CCW seem to be in comparatively short supply. My hypothesis (given I haven't looked at the restock code) is that the code is seeing the stacks of 40 CLW and the like and thinking that there's plenty of items in the store already, thus preventing it from doing as full a restock as it would otherwise do.

CLW can make a decent healing supplement in conjunction with phase door -- phase away, then chug CLW. It won't do much against status ailments though.

[OOD Town drunk]

I did the thing Pete Mack recommended and bought out the cheap weapons from the temple for faster restock (does that really work ?),

If you have a enough money (Which is really easy to do when you have the no_selling flag turned on) you can actually buy out a stores entire stock for an immediate fresh selection. Including the black market. Which is pretty cool, especially late game, when you're lugging around a half million gold coins (Sounds fuggin heavy!) You can reset the black market as many times as you can afford, scooping up all of the stat potions and high quality projectiles.

I believe what they were referring to specifically though, is that when the stores conduct their daily restock (Every 10,000 turns) some items reset while some hang around. The less the store has hanging around, the more new stuff they will stock. So if you buy out most of their cheap shit, next time you return home, there will most likely be more new merchandise than if you were to do otherwise. (This is all from experience, so if I am in error on any of this, please inform me!!)

[Estie]

Not sure if the complete buyout still works with the guaranteed 40 !clw; I strongly suspect that it doesnt. The effect of buying out +0 weapons would typically reduce the inventory from some 60 items by 5, which doesnt look like it would yield a noticable amount of extra ccw.