Newb Qs: score; nasty potions; inventory

[Selek]

I'm loving Sil-Q. I've just finished my second run. My first ended at 100 feet; my second at 350 feet, where I was murdered by Bolrog the Merciless, or someone like that. I have some questions, though.

1. First, I see the leaderboard at this site sorts runs by 'score'. How do I compute this score? The top scoree is 411 million or so. I know my sad little runs won't count for much, but I'm curious how they'd compare.

2. At one point I quaffed a potion that hurt my DEX permanently, it seems. I think it was some Potion of Clumsy. Are there permanent debuffs like that? Is there any way to ID a nasty poison other than just trying it?

3. Likewise, I only ever IDd one staff, a staff of light. The others I tried didn't do anything. I suppose I should be trying them in battle?

4. Finally, is there any way to add inventory slots or storage? The constant shortage of space was a real annoyance.

Great game! Many thanks to those who are making it.

[wobbly]

Winning scores are mostly: Morgoth kill, number of sils, turncount. Not sure with losses, depth or xp? It'll be in the manual.

There is 2 stat drain herbs and 2 potions. Herb of restoration or stat potion to restore.

Alchemy in the perception tree or staff of understanding to id consumables.

Staves need a visible effect to autoid. A monster in sight, a staircase, a trap/rubble, an open door, a cursed item equipped should cover the majority of effects.

[Selek]

Thanks for your reply! very helpful. I appreciate that you took the time to answer all my questions.

Thanks again!

[Quirk]

Score on the latest version is:

1 000 000 000 - Morgoth killed
  xx0 000 000 - How many floors you descended, or ascended. This maxes at 41.
    x 000 000 - How many Sils you were carrying at death / escape.
      x00 000 - Challenge options. 1 for 5K xp, 2 points for Ironman (no taking up stairs), 3 for playing Sindar or Naugrim, 5 for Edain
       xx xxx - 100000 minus turncount

The challenge options column is new, so Sil-Q 1.5 scores will be higher; however this should allow the hardest challenges to be recognised better in the high score table.

The higher scores mean that when you get below 700' or so, you will absolutely be able to make the first page of the high score table. The current best score on Sil-Q 1.5 is a single Sil Noldor ironman win. To beat it you would need:
- to ascend with two Sils
- or ascend with one Sil with a Noldor doing iron man faster
- or ascend with one Sil with a Sindar or Naugrim faster

[Infinitum]

Some consumables must have a tangible effect in order to auto-id (excemptions being potions of true sight and the various healing potions). Also, Orc Liquour and potions of Miruvor aren't randomized. For potions, the only conditional ones are antidote, clear mind and voice.

For staves, the best way to cover the most conditions t once is to test them in a room with a visible open door, trap (or pile or closed door), an awake monster and a set of stairs. If it still doesn't Id it's most likely a staff of remove curse (or summoning, should the monsters have entered from another staircase).

I did write a ID guide a few years ago, it's pretty outdated though.

[Selek]

Winning scores are mostly: Morgoth kill, number of sils, turncount. Not sure with losses, depth or xp? It'll be in the manual.

I can't find this formula in the manual. I've searched on "score" and "winning," and I don't see an entry for it in the table of contents. I haven't finished reading the entire manual, so maybe I missed. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

[wobbly]

I can't find this formula in the manual. I've searched on "score" and "winning," and I don't see an entry for it in the table of contents. I haven't finished reading the entire manual, so maybe I missed. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

2 posts above your own.

[Selek]

2 posts above your own.

Thanks. I cleverly missed it. *blush* Sorry about that.

I made it to 450 feet this time. A Whispering Shadow got me. I might've survived had I had the presence of mind to swap to my Lantern of True Sight.

This time I did take Alchemy, and it was nice to have just about everything in my inventory identified. But I saw only one Forge the whole came, on the first level, and so I never made a ring or amulet.

[wobbly]

I made it to 450 feet this time. A Whispering Shadow got me. I might've survived had I had the presence of mind to swap to my Lantern of True Sight.

Well done. Its a common mistake believing whispering shadows are invisible, they are not and see invisible wont help you. They have a darkness aura and when there's a lot of them you need a lot of light. There are ways to deal with this but one thing to remember is sometimes they've spread too far and you need to shut a door and just stay away from that part of the level.

[Selek]

My latest run got as far as 550 feet. I'm improving!

In this run I did figure out how to spot and kill Whispering Shadows. I was using polearms, and I had the skill that pokes an enemy if you stand still and it approaches you. That always seem to identify the Shadow. Maybe it helped that I put more points in Perception and related abilities.

And yet it was still a Whispering Shadow that got me in the end, when I found myself sandwiched between a Shadow and a pack of angry Werewolves in a dark hallway. I need to think more about where is safest to fight mobs like this. Maybe a dead-end, with the dead end at my back? An open room?

[Quirk]

And yet it was still a Whispering Shadow that got me in the end, when I found myself sandwiched between a Shadow and a pack of angry Werewolves in a dark hallway. I need to think more about where is safest to fight mobs like this. Maybe a dead-end, with the dead end at my back? An open room?

Dead ends can work to reduce the enemies you are fighting to one at a time, but if you are unequal to the fight you will die there. In general it is wise to be aware of where the nearest stairs lie and try not to be cut off from them.

[wobbly]

Score on the latest version is:

1 000 000 000 - Morgoth killed
  xx0 000 000 - How many floors you descended, or ascended. This maxes at 41.
    x 000 000 - How many Sils you were carrying at death / escape.
      x00 000 - Challenge options. 1 for 5K xp, 2 points for Ironman (no taking up stairs), 3 for playing Sindar or Naugrim, 5 for Edain
       xx xxx - 100000 minus turncount

The challenge options column is new, so Sil-Q 1.5 scores will be higher; however this should allow the hardest challenges to be recognised better in the high score table.

The higher scores mean that when you get below 700' or so, you will absolutely be able to make the first page of the high score table. The current best score on Sil-Q 1.5 is a single Sil Noldor ironman win. To beat it you would need:
- to ascend with two Sils
- or ascend with one Sil with a Noldor doing iron man faster
- or ascend with one Sil with a Sindar or Naugrim faster

Looks like the ladder marks wins based on score. I have a non-finished character marked as a winner.

[Quirk]

Looks like the ladder marks wins based on score. I have a non-finished character marked as a winner.

Yeah looks like pav will need to update the criteria. I'll try to remember to send him an email.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Yeah looks like pav will need to update the criteria. I'll try to remember to send him an email.

Send a PM to pav. He will respond fairly quickly

[seraph]

it's worth noting that investing in will can prevent some negative effects from herbs and potions. also equipping certain items, e.g. a ring of dex, even +0 can protect you from dex draining effects.

to id potions i like to find some of the early spider enemies, let them poison me, walk around a corner (they won't follow) then quaff potions until i've found antidote. a couple floors later you can find madthorns which you can use to id clarity. in both cases make sure that you are missing at least 1 hp so you can id healing. both antidote and clarity tend to appear early and often, so if you have a lot of one type of potion, there's a decent chance you have one of these.

the others have given good tips for identifying staves, but i'll add that sometimes you need to use summoning multiple times, because it isn't guaranteed to work on the stairs that you are near.