Competition 157

[AnonymousHero]

Spoiler
The '45 trap' can be a death trap if players accept it uprepared. Declining has *that one other bad effect* though.

You should almost always accept it -- you don't actually have to do the quest level straight away -- in fact you can wait as long as you like. The only situation in which you might want to decline is if you have identified artifacts lying on the level -- you'll lose those because you'll be teleported to the town instantly if you accept the quest.

Btw, this is the reason I've removed the prompt in my 2.3.X-ah fork. It really is a completely pointless non-choice.

[PowerWyrm]

How do you make +10 elven boots when the max for the ego is +5?

[Estie]

How do you make +10 elven boots when the max for the ego is +5?

I have no idea what you mean by "max for the ego", but the possible pvals for egos are different when items are created via alchemy. For example, I have had speed boots +20 (with other characters); crown of magi goes up to at least +7 (the highest is +3 when they are found) and so on. Stat rings seem to be in the same range though, I havent ever managed to get higgher than 6, and even 6 is very rare.

Its leech/power a couple times till I am happy with the result, and a blessing to Eru when the occasional cursed item happens and I can just cast the remove curses spell while alchemists who foolishly worship a false god have to buy a scroll

Edit: where pval is (randomly) dependant on dungeon level when an item is created by the game, it is an (obviously different) function of the alchemy skill when created this way afaik. You see higher pvals as the alchemy skill goes up. I am sure code diving can reveal the exact function.

[Derakon]

Oh, random note -- as I recall, Amulets of DOOM exist in ToME 2. They give maluses to all stats, and they auto-recurse themselves. But every once in a while when you remove the curse from an item, the pvals on the item flip, so you can end up with an Amulet of DOOM (+7 to all stats), for example. This doesn't work with items that don't auto-recurse because you only get one shot and the odds of it happening are somewhat rare (on the order of 5%, I believe).

[AnonymousHero]

Oh, random note -- as I recall, Amulets of DOOM exist in ToME 2. They give maluses to all stats, and they auto-recurse themselves. But every once in a while when you remove the curse from an item, the pvals on the item flip, so you can end up with an Amulet of DOOM (+7 to all stats), for example. This doesn't work with items that don't auto-recurse because you only get one shot and the odds of it happening are somewhat rare (on the order of 5%, I believe).

Wasn't there some ridiculous exploit where Alchemists could purposefully (very cheaply) create cursed artifacts and abuse this to flip the values? (It's been years and years since I've played so I may be misremembering.)

[HugoVirtuoso]

I think the Scrolls of *Remove Curse* CAN positive-flip the values (for the better) especially on Amulets of DOOM. I don't remember the percentage occurrence of this happening, though.

[Estie]

Doesnt have to be *remove curse*, if a simple remove curse does remove the curse (as it will in case of amulet of DOOM), there is a chance for the flipping.

Making cursed egos/artifacts with an alchemist would indeed be very useful, but I dont think thats possible. The "P"ower menu doesnt offer any cursed egos, even when you have *identified* one previously. Maybe this wasnt the case in older versions though.

In fact *id*ing a "Cursed ring of spell" (that can re-curse itself) will not give you knowledge for a normal "ring of spell". I assume they are 2 different egos, and the former counts as detrimental and is not available for creation by alchemy.

[PowerWyrm]

So far it has been silly, but fun.

What the hell about Dim Gates? How are you supposed to clear THAT??? All rooms/passages are filled with Qs which are always in LOS. And you cannot teleport, destroy or genocide on special levels...

Sup with altars? Not that really matters, but only black ones are generated...

Pets are annoying. Found Gandalf somewhere in Angband, and I had to flee the level after he summoned demons and angels on the whole level. Couldn't cope with the neverending spamming of messages...

Why the hell would the RNG generate a small level with an angel pit with a follower of Eru???

Drop piles are badly designed in this game. You cannot access the top item like in TomeNET, and there is no squelch system, meaning that you'll have to look at every square in detail to see what's there and then sort the garbage. During the midgame, I made a macro to destroy the first item on the floor... until I found that if you miscalculate the number of items on the floor when you kill stuff, the engine will start to destroy your inventory without asking for confirmation (lost a couple tomes that way). After a while, I simply ignored drops unless it was a single item -- too much hassle.

Seems that I missed a princess. The engine generated a small level once with a quest message, but I couldn't find any unusual room. Sounds like it was generated out of bounds...

Recall points are buggy. I have often recalled to another dungeon when on the surface. Annoying.

Auto-more doesn't work. You get either zero messages or you get spammed. Easy to miss a yes/no prompt when clearing the mess... and a quest or reward.

[PowerWyrm]

And how are you supposed to enter the Nether realm? Do you need to kill Melkor in the Void? Any advice how to do it?

[AnonymousHero]

So far it has been silly, but fun.

What the hell about Dim Gates? How are you supposed to clear THAT??? All rooms/passages are filled with Qs which are always in LOS. And you cannot teleport, destroy or genocide on special levels...

There are some spells which give you LoS interruption, but not many... The one that comes to mind which should work for an Alchemist is Stone Prison (from wands), but you have to target them at *something*.

Sup with altars? Not that really matters, but only black ones are generated...

Only altars to Melkor/Morgoth are generated in the dungeon. However, there are others in (or just outside?) Lothlorien, I think.

Pets are annoying. Found Gandalf somewhere in Angband, and I had to flee the level after he summoned demons and angels on the whole level. Couldn't cope with the neverending spamming of messages...

Yup, I find myself annoying with "friendly" monsters spamming crap all over the level. You can get rid of them by pressing "P" to dismiss pets and "y" (I think that's the right sequence).

Drop piles are badly designed in this game. You cannot access the top item like in TomeNET, and there is no squelch system, meaning that you'll have to look at every square in detail to see what's there and then sort the garbage. During the midgame, I made a macro to destroy the first item on the floor... until I found that if you miscalculate the number of items on the floor when you kill stuff, the engine will start to destroy your inventory without asking for confirmation (lost a couple tomes that way). After a while, I simply ignored drops unless it was a single item -- too much hassle.

There is a sort-of-squelch system. It's called the automatizer and it allows you to "program" various actions (such as pick up, destroy, etc.) upon various conditions. The most simple case is to use "k" (to destroy an item), press "$" (to enable auto-destroy) and type T/F to auto-destroy by (F)amily or (T)ype. Family corresponds to tval (so basically, "all axes" or "all light armors") whereas Type corrsponds to a tval/sval combo, e.g. "all Crusader Axes" or "all Main Gauches".)

You still have to walk over/identify equipment to destroy it most of the time... which is incredibly annoying.

Seems that I missed a princess. The engine generated a small level once with a quest message, but I couldn't find any unusual room. Sounds like it was generated out of bounds...

Sometimes the algorithm cannot find space for the princess room. I think this was fixed in my fork, but I can't remember for sure.

Recall points are buggy. I have often recalled to another dungeon when on the surface. Annoying.

They aren't buggy as such. They just have somewhat counterintuitive behavior -- the behavior is consistent, though.

Auto-more doesn't work. You get either zero messages or you get spammed. Easy to miss a yes/no prompt when clearing the mess... and a quest or reward.

Open a second window with the messages; all messages will show up there.

(Auto-more is also one of those things that I'll change when I get round to it. It's a hack to work around a problem that shouldn't exist, namely spammy messages and the lack of a message log on the main screen.)

[PowerWyrm]

And how are you supposed to enter the Nether realm? Do you need to kill Melkor in the Void? Any advice how to do it?

Found it on the wiki. You need to get to the second to last level of the Void. Good thing that I checked, because it seems that doing the Void will require a ton of preparation. I'm currently empowering Anarion with my alchemist to put all missing resists and immunities I need on it and pump +life. Then I suppose I need some item that allows to breathe in the Void and a buttload of healing potions.

[Estie]

Found it on the wiki. You need to get to the second to last level of the Void. Good thing that I checked, because it seems that doing the Void will require a ton of preparation. I'm currently empowering Anarion with my alchemist to put all missing resists and immunities I need on it and pump +life. Then I suppose I need some item that allows to breathe in the Void and a buttload of healing potions.

There is basically only one good option for breathing in the void - a cloak of air. Iirc, you cannot learn how to make that as an alchemist even if you *id* it, so thats your cloak slot occupied.
Other methods include not breathing at all (stairscum for short running distance, heal damage from lack of air) or the phial of undeath, a heavily cursed light source that you dont want to wear for extended periods of time. Again, I believe you cannot learn the no breathing flag from it - someone correct me if I am mistaken.

[HugoVirtuoso]

You should also look for a standalone random artifact or something that activates for Satisfy Hunger. And look for the Rod tip of Home Summoning.

[debo]

Congrats to PowerWyrm for taking the comp -- again! Also to our runners-up. I guess ToME2 wasn't a super popular comp choice

[AnonymousHero]

You should also look for a standalone random artifact or something that activates for Satisfy Hunger. And look for the Rod tip of Home Summoning.

You should never rely on the Rod of Home Summoning in the void. If you hit a dungeon town (yes!) you are royally screwed. Instead bring everything you absolutely need with you and perhaps use the rod after every level to replenish your inventory if necessary. If you hit a dungeon town, throw the rod away. That way you get some benefit from it, but aren't completely dead in the water if you happen upon a dungeon town.