Level gen questions(chunks & gens)?

[wobbly]

So I've started playing around in level generation again & I have a series of questions. I'd like to be able to take gens from pre-refractor variants into a V-like & currenty am getting nowhere fast. I have lots of questions but for now I want the most basic rundown. Anyway some questions.

• Most gens are split between chunk & gen. What goes in _chunk, what goes in _gen?
• How do I convert levels from before _chunk, _gen?
• Classic, has just _gen & I've followed that format for my small classic (OWD) in recent coffeeband versions, why is that the case and have I done anything wrong?
• I'm interested in grabbing the old FA wilderness levels & the Sil levels for coffeeband theme levels. Any help on how to go about this is appreciated.
• A bunch of other stuff I've missed because I don't know what I'm doing.

[Gwarl]

I am likewise mystified by level generation processes and would also like to steal wilderness from FAangband if someone with understanding can explain it to us.

What would be super cool would be some sort of command line utility that includes necessary angband includes and spits out the generated dungeon layout into a .txt file for examination.

[Nick]

Chunks are just pieces of dungeon - usually a whole level, but levels can be made up of chunks. They will have all the rooms and corridors, and only has monsters, treasure and traps where the room specifies it (pits, vaults, etc). The _gen() functions will generally specify a level size, then call one or more _chunk() functions to fill it, then add rock other than granite, stairs, objects, traps, the player, and monsters.

FA levels are a whole nother deal, and mere designed prior to the chunk system. Basically they work by

• placing exits
• making paths to join all the exits
• filling the level with appropriate terrain (grass for plains, trees for forest, etc)
• adding "formations" which are little clumps of other terrain
• sometimes adding ponds and/or "wilderness vaults"

although some like river levels or Nan Dungortheb levels work a bit differently, and the dungeon entrance levels are special too.

The curious may have noted that Angband now has a data file called world.txt which specifies all the levels and how to get from one to another. I have no idea why I mentioned that now

[wobbly]

I'm wondering how easy it is to just fudge the mountain level generation. For my purpose it's just a dungeon level, orientation doesn't matter as it's not connecting wilderness maps.

So if it places the plateaus 1st as rooms and joins them normally, then places the branch ends as tiny rooms & joins them to a plateau room & then does a sweep of the map turning off all the room flags...

I'm not sure, maybe that works or maybe it just ends up looking wrong.