Sil

[half]

Any attempt to resize any window except the main window results in immediate crash. I am running windows xp.

That doesn't sound good! I hope you didn't lose much (Sil autosaves when you use a staircase). Is anyone else having this problem? (Save before testing!) It certainly doesn't happen on the Mac build, and I haven't heard it reported by any playtesters, though it is possible it snuck in late in development.

[half]

Interesting. You mention in-game high scores. If they are indeed useful, can you expose them in the character dump in the next version? We could then start scoring Ladder by them.

Scatha is basically right about the scoring method, it is pretty much a lexical ordering based on several different areas, though it might include one more component. I think the easiest solution is probably for me to put a score-like number on the character dumps in the next version. It won't really be a numerical score, but will give the correct ordering.

For example, a character at dungeon level 18 (900 ft) who took 12,345 turns would get a score like:

18 * 100,000 + (100,000 - 12,345) = 1,887,655

However the numbers will actually be a little longer than this to add a bit more information. If I had such a 'score' number is there a limit as to how big it can go? 2,147,483,647? That would probably be enough.

[half]

I especially like the "EXP consistently for doing things beyond the actual killing" aspect---great grind deflater and conceptually allows for folks to challenge more full-bodied builds.

Yes, it seems to work quite well. I've had a character make it more than Halfway to Morgoth without any points in Melee, Archery, or Evasion (the combat skills).

I noticed a spot that said something like "not yet" on a graphical mode field---I wonder if Shockbolt's excellent stuff could function with Sil? Or that Unified NPP 32x32 one recently making great strides at being all-inclusive, yet specific to each?

I'd love to get Shockbolt's tiles working with Sil. I didn't even know that tiles currently work with Sil, as they don't work on Macs and checking the version of NPP that Sil forked from, I see that it didn't work on Macs then either. To get Shockbolt's tiles working, I think I need PNG support and transparency, which I don't know how to do. I might need to wait until they are working with V for Mac and then ask those kind souls who achieved it what is involved. I really think that Shockbolt's tiles are one of the best things to happen to Angband in recent years and that we really need to use them to their best potential.

[half]

Chardumps are now accepted by Ladder. I understand this is a no-class game, like Sangband.

It is great that you managed to get the ladder up so quickly, and the screenshots are working too.

You are right that there are no classes in Sil, but there are 'Houses' which are sub-types of the Races and are listed near them on the character dumps. If it is easy, it might be nice to have the Race then the House in the "Race Class" column. So the character Telchar would be "Naugrim Nogrod" (or "Naugrim - Nogrod" might be better still).

[Storch]

Error in Windows

Any attempt to resize any window except the main window results in immediate crash. I am running windows xp.

[pav]

Interesting. You mention in-game high scores. If they are indeed useful, can you expose them in the character dump in the next version? We could then start scoring Ladder by them.

[Scatha]

Wouldn't it be misleading if the dump is made in Town (do we have Town in this game?)

There isn't a Town, but there is a complication here: after you acquire a Silmaril (or if you're feeling particularly brave/foolhardy, more than one), you're trying to escape, and get to as shallow a depth as possible. There is a level at 0ft: the Gates of Angband.

This is where I think half might have better insight in how to get it to work (as he wrote the code to get the in-game high scores based on this), but I'll summarise: the following is a list (with gaps) in increasing order of impressiveness, where * denotes possession of a Silmaril.

50ft
...
950ft
1000ft
* 1000ft
** 1000ft
*** 1000ft
* 950ft
** 950ft
...
* 0ft
...
* Escaped
** Escaped
*** Escaped

So having a Silmaril dominates not having one; if you have a Simaril you want to be as shallow as possible, with ties broken by number of Silmarils; if you don't have a Silmaril you want to be as deep as possible. Any remaining ties are I believe resolved in favour of low turn count.

[pav]

In particular, Depth is the relevant one for scoring purposes.

Wouldn't it be misleading if the dump is made in Town (do we have Town in this game?)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

This one I can answer. Depth is indeed current depth. Min Depth (which is entirely a function of 'turn count') is the shallowest level a player can reach when they use the stairs.

Nice! This is quite similar to the FayAngband method.

[Scatha]

I should perhaps have mentioned that even the "bang it till it stops moving" build will almost certainly need to pick their fights and fight locations with care sometimes, and be prepared to run away if things look like they could get nasty. This is part of the tactical interest of the game. But you probably realised this anyway!

[Storch]

Thanks a lot. I read the manual and the numbers obviously had some connection to the combat mechanism :-) Now I see that it is the complete info about the combat which is certainly useful. I miss this in angband, where it is hard to say how difficult is to hit your opponent.

[Scatha]

Hello all,

I helped somewhat with the design and development of Sil. Anyhow, I'm familiar enough with the game that I thought I might try my hand at answering some of the questions in this thread, to take the pressure off half.

I have two questions:
What are good starting stats for simple "bang it on the head till it stops moving" warrior?

I don't want to be too prescriptive, but the main point would probably be to put a good majority of your experience points into Melee and Evasion (later on in the game you will probably want some Will and Perception, but I'll leave that to you to experiment with). For the stat allocation, I'd suggest going light on Grace and having a balance of the others (you can't allocate them entirely balanced, but I don't think it's obvious which is best to push furthest, so I'll leave this to personal choice).

Edit: Oh, and take a Noldo for sure. Dwarves can make effective fighters, but they are a bit tricky in the early game, and less powerful overall; Sindar aren't very suited for this style; and Edain lead to a much harder game. In light of my comment on Grace, you probably don't want a House of Finarfin character for this build (but there are a lot of viable fighter-with-tricks builds, and they can be good at these).

What does the combat rolls window show? Is it useful information or just illustration?

Fair question. For every attack made, this window shows the dice rolls. The top half is for attacks you make, and the bottom half is for attacks monsters make (usually against you). The left half shows the to-hit roll, and the right half shows the damage roll. A line might look like this:

@ (+8) 23 11 12 [+1] o | (3d7) 10 7 3 [1d4]

This shows you attacking an orc scout. The result of a d20 plus your attack bonus of +8 was 23; the orc scout's roll plus evasion bonus of 1 was 12. The difference is 11, so this is what you hit by (the central number of the left side, in red). This was enough to get a critical hit with your curved sword, so we roll an extra damage die: 3d7 instead of 2d7. We got a 10, and the orc scout got a 3 on its 1d4 armour roll, so we deal 7 damage to it.

Whether you think this is useful information or not is partially up to you! It is certainly possible to play the game without this information, but I think it is often helpful to understand the combat system, and see why you are effective (or not!) against different enemies or in different circumstances.

I'm a little confused about the lack of character level concept in this game. Is there something you want me to use instead, half?

Is this to use as a ranking method? I can probably describe how it should work, but I think I will defer to half on this one, as he is likely to have a better idea of the technicalities.

Also, in the sample dump I got from will_asher, the Depth (current depth?) is shallower than Min Depth (max depth? recall depth? other depth?). Can you clarify this to me?

This one I can answer. Depth is indeed current depth. Min Depth (which is entirely a function of 'turn count') is the shallowest level a player can reach when they use the stairs. If they try to reach a level which is shallower than that, they will lose their way and emerge at that depth, as a result of the power of the Enemy, calling all new things in Angband to him. In particular, Depth is the relevant one for scoring purposes.

[pav]

Chardumps are now accepted by Ladder. I understand this is a no-class game, like Sangband.

I'm a little confused about the lack of character level concept in this game. Is there something you want me to use instead, half?

Also, in the sample dump I got from will_asher, the Depth (current depth?) is shallower than Min Depth (max depth? recall depth? other depth?). Can you clarify this to me?

[Storch]

Hello,

I have two questions:

• what are good starting stats for simple "bang it on the head till it stops moving" warrior?
• what does the combat rolls window show? Is it useful information or just illustration?

Thanks a lot.

[buzzkill]

I noticed a spot that said something like "not yet" on a graphical mode field--

I haven't done any serious testing, but 32x32 tiles DO work with Sil, even on WinVista. Some just don't seem to be mapped correctly.