Changing colors of uniques

[Donald Jonker]

So let's pretend for a moment that I'm an utter moron...

I decided I just died my last death to not recognizing a unique when I saw it and getting instadeathed. I'd like to implement Eddie's idea of changing all uniques to the color purple for easy recognition on my personal copy of V - how should I go about doing that?

Ideally it'd be a color no other monster uses, but I could change any other conflicting monsters to something else. I tried going into "interact w/ visuals" but could only seem to dump options. I probably should do something more permanent anyway, so I can easily translate it b/w versions.

[will_asher]

Go into monster.txt in the lib/edit folder.
The G: line for each monster entry is its symbol and color like this
G:<symbol>:<color>
So just change all the G: lines for uniques to
G:<symbol>:v (v for violet)

Then you can search the txt file for "G:<symbol>:v" to find all the non-unique monsters that use the same symbol and color and you can change their color to something else.
(It lists the color abbreviations near the beginning of monster.txt)

[Marble Dice]

Hack the source or edit the monster.txt file. Here's a run-down of color use in monster.txt:

Qty  Color        Define        EditCode 
 60  Violet       TERM_VIOLET   v
 58  Dark gray    TERM_L_DARK   D
 54  Red          TERM_RED      r
 53  White        TERM_WHITE    w
 45  Brown        TERM_UMBER    u
 43  Green        TERM_GREEN    g
 42  Yellow       TERM_YELLOW   y
 41  Light brown  TERM_L_UMBER  U
 40  Blue         TERM_BLUE     b
 40  Gray         TERM_SLATE    s
 38  Orange       TERM_ORANGE   o
 28  Light red    TERM_L_RED    R
 28  Light blue   TERM_L_BLUE   B
 24  Light green  TERM_L_GREEN  G
 23  Light gray   TERM_L_WHITE  W
  0  Black        TERM_DARK     d

If you want to hack a copy of the source, you could try modifying the grid_data_as_text function in cave.c as follows. This should force uniques to be violet, and all normally violet monsters to be light green.

                        /* Desired attr & char */
                        da = r_ptr->x_attr;
                        dc = r_ptr->x_char;

                        [COLOR="Lime"]/* Don't use the unique color for "normal monsters" */
                        if (da == TERM_VIOLET &&
                            !(r_ptr->flags[0] & (RF0_ATTR_MULTI | RF0_ATTR_CLEAR)))
                           da = TERM_L_GREEN;[/COLOR]

                        /* Special attr/char codes */
                        if ((da & 0x80) && (dc & 0x80))
                        {
                                /* Use attr */
                                a = da;

                                /* Use char */
                                c = dc;
                        }

                        [COLOR="Lime"]/* Unique monster */
                        else if (r_ptr->flags[0] & (RF0_ATTR_UNIQUE))
                        {
                                /* Unique attr */
                                a = TERM_VIOLET;

                                /* Normal char */
                                c = dc;
                        }[/COLOR]

                        /* Multi-hued monster */
                        else if (r_ptr->flags[0] & (RF0_ATTR_MULTI))
                        {
                                /* Multi-hued attr */
                                a = randint1(15);

                                /* Normal char */
                                c = dc;
                        }

You still might see that color on clear monsters or in the multi-hued cycles, but at least you'd know what to watch out for. As for what color to use, most violets are already unique or multi-hued, so that's probably a pretty good bet for uniques. I figure light green is a pretty threatening color, not unlike violet, so use that for the non-clear, non-multi-hued normally violet monsters. I haven't tested the code, and YMMV with the gameplay.

[Zikke]

Personally, I would love for this to be a standard practice in V (having all uniques be purple). And we can change mind flayers and nexus hounds/Qs to something else.

[Pete Mack]

Personally, I would love for this to be a standard practice in V (having all uniques be purple). And we can change mind flayers and nexus hounds/Qs to something else.

Before you go down this route, take a look at NPP. There uniques are easily identified, and have a similar color pattern to the basic monsters. You need 31 colors (or more) instead of 15 (not counting black.)

(Other variants use more colors, including UnAngband, but I think NPP has the about the right compromise for V.)