Competition 146

[chris]

Thanks. Was there a reason the competition character was rolled with such bad starting stats? You can easily roll an 18/81 starting Int for a H/E Mage.

[bron]

I tried this and it is still "Fiddled save file" [...] also tried Bron's zipped savefile above with no luck

My savefile is in a different format: evidently the PC executable is different from the source version.

I've looked into this "Fiddled save file" problem, and the issue is that the game savefile records the time that the savefile was created, and then when you start the game and read the file, it compares that internally saved time against the time that the filesystem reports as the last time the file was changed, aborting with the Fiddled message if they aren't nearly equal. I can change this in the source version, but the only way I see around this in the pre-built executable is to start the game as a wizard ("-w" option on startup). To do that, you need to add a line with your user id to the lib/files/wizards file.

[chris]

All right, third attempt. It seems that the game detects something to do with the age of the savefile; I can download it and it works fine, then I download 5 minutes later and it fails. So we have a new strategy.

The savefile for download is now not a savefile. It is a zipfile of the entire game folder with the correct savefile in the folder. So what you need to do is

1. Download the 'starting savefile'
2. Rename it whatever.zip
3. Unzip it, and just open the game; the competition character should load straight away.
4. If you die (perish the thought!), just unzip again and repeat.

I tried this and it is still "Fiddled save file".

How are people playing this comp? I also tried Bron's zipped savefile above with no luck

EDIT: You know ... never mind. I tried playing a new character and the UI is just too painful to use. Worst was when Grip approached me not quite diagonally but such that I had no way to target him with a magic missile. Did I really used to play this game?

[MattB]

I've promised myself I'll get to dlvl5 before dumping - no luck yet...

[PowerWyrm]

I have generated a save file (attached) with what I believe are the same starting stats as the competition savefile (e.g. 13:18/21:11:15:13:15), but using the source-built executable. My intent is to try and use this file to enter then competition. If I'm wrong about the starting stats, or if using this file is considered to be cheating for some reason, please let me know.

Good luck with the competition! I'm currently struggling with the character, 2.4-FK is really basic with almost all aspects of the game. At clvl25, I would normally be at 1500ft, looking for stat pots. Currently, I have not the hp, mana or equipement to do so, which is frustrating. Levels also take forever to clear, and with preserve off you have to clear every bit of each level...

[Nick]

I have generated a save file (attached) with what I believe are the same starting stats as the competition savefile (e.g. 13:18/21:11:15:13:15), but using the source-built executable. My intent is to try and use this file to enter then competition. If I'm wrong about the starting stats, or if using this file is considered to be cheating for some reason, please let me know.

I haven't checked, but this competition is based on trust, so please go right ahead

[bron]

I have generated a save file (attached) with what I believe are the same starting stats as the competition savefile (e.g. 13:18/21:11:15:13:15), but using the source-built executable. My intent is to try and use this file to enter then competition. If I'm wrong about the starting stats, or if using this file is considered to be cheating for some reason, please let me know.

[Nick]

Since no one had a suggestion, I'll just try to upload the changes in three parts.
These are the changed files, and should be able to be dropped in place instead of the original files in src/ in the download directory. I chopped it up so each piece was below the upload threshold for oook.

Awesome, thanks - I will get to looking at this, but sadly our government is still working...

[PowerWyrm]

My latest incarnation of Frog bought a Wand of Annihilation from the black market, hoping to kill things easily with it... Alas, in this version, it doesn't seem to do any damage: a Wand of Magic Missiles kills things as fast

[PowerWyrm]

Wow, this takes the cake! Mughash just dropped... a broken sword (-2, -3). And before that Bullroarer dropped a dagger (+1, +0). This version seems to generate garbage at shallow depths... Half of the items on the ground are skeletons, empty bottles, spikes and such. Fortunately, no turn count exists in this version... because a char like this will take forever to level.

Up to now, I don't recall ANY monster dropping something better than (+0,+1) or (+1,+0) weapons or [+1] armor parts. Good drops are simply average items enchanted once. Only Wormtongue ("great" drop) dropped something useful. The only way to get equipment seems to be from floor items when you scum for level feelings. This means a LOT of resting...

[PowerWyrm]

Sometimes you have to press the spacebar 15 or 20 times before being able to input a key. This is bullshit... I don't see how people are able to play with auto-more disabled. The first really "playable" version seems to be the stable 2.5.9.

[bron]

Since no one had a suggestion, I'll just try to upload the changes in three parts.
These are the changed files, and should be able to be dropped in place instead of the original files in src/ in the download directory. I chopped it up so each piece was below the upload threshold for oook.

"I don't make policy, I just think up ways to circumvent it" -- me

[PowerWyrm]

Dead characters are not flagged as "dead". Not a big deal, you just need to tag them manually on the ladder.

[bron]

The zip file with my changes is too big to upload to the forum. Any suggestions on how I should publish it?

[bron]

not yet managed to correctly read the starting save file

After studying a dump of the bytes, I have concluded that the save file from the competition page is not in the same format as what is read/written by the source, despite the fact that they both claim to be version 5.2.1

A simple example of this is right at the beginning of the file. The first three bytes are the version number (major, minor, patch), and the 4th is the (initial) value for the xor_byte, which is used to do simple encryption. This four-byte header is then followed by 112 entries, one for each artifact. The source reads and writes each of these 112 entries as four-byte integers, each with the initial value of zero. So 448 bytes of (encrypted) zeros following the header. The competition save file on the other hand has only 112 bytes of (encrypted) zeros following the header. One can only assume these are 112 one-byte (rather than four-byte) entries, one for each artifact.

I suppose it would be possible to decode/decrypt the competition save file format, and eventually convert one into the other, but this seems like more work than I want to do. Any chance we could get an alternate starting save file (created from a source built executable) ?

I should mention that I know nothing about Macs or Windows, and in getting the code to work on Linux I threw out a lot of stuff from io.c, much of it being mac or msdos conditionally compiled. So I don't really know how hard it will be to produce an executable for those boxes. I'm led to believe that the "curses" implementations on those machines have improved a lot since the frog-knows days, so it may not be too bad.

I'll want another day or so to clean up the prototypes in externs.h, and then I'll try to publish the changes.