Sil 1.1.1

[jdh]

Hi Starhawk. Thanks for posting about this rather serious bug. I haven't heard anyone else having the same problem, so luckily it seems to be uncommon across people even if common across your plays. If anyone else is having this problem, please post here to say so.

I don't have time to trace this down at the moment, but thanks for posting your savefile too -- it should help when I have the time. A quick search for the error message in the source code shows it involves parts of the code I don't understand. My best guess is that it is something to do with modifying the save/load code which I sometimes tweak between versions.

Is this with the latest version of Sil 1.1.1 (half fixed a few bugs, including one which generated invalid objects)? I took a quick look at it and the object it's choking on appears to be an excellent pair of greaves with no artefact type and a 254 ego type, which is out of range (this is what the load chokes on).

[WildKhaine]

Strange random error when loading up a game I'd been playing earlier today:

Error (Cannot parse savefile) reading 1.1.1. savefile -more-

Loading a 1.1.1 savefile...
Restoring Dungeon...
Cannot place object 1!
Error reading dungeon data

The savefile was made using this version of Sil (1.1.1), so I'm at a loss. Savefile is attached.

I had this happen to one of my saves awhile back. Deleted the file and haven't had the same error message again.

[half]

I'm playing on a Windows 7 box. This has only occurred since the 1.1.1 update. Any ideas?

Hi Starhawk. Thanks for posting about this rather serious bug. I haven't heard anyone else having the same problem, so luckily it seems to be uncommon across people even if common across your plays. If anyone else is having this problem, please post here to say so.

I don't have time to trace this down at the moment, but thanks for posting your savefile too -- it should help when I have the time. A quick search for the error message in the source code shows it involves parts of the code I don't understand. My best guess is that it is something to do with modifying the save/load code which I sometimes tweak between versions.

[Starhawk]

Strange random error when loading up a game I'd been playing earlier today:

Error (Cannot parse savefile) reading 1.1.1. savefile -more-

Loading a 1.1.1 savefile...
Restoring Dungeon...
Cannot place object 1!
Error reading dungeon data

This happened again with another savefile. My behavior: open Sil 1.1.1, start a new character (brand new savefile), play a few levels, quit. Come back later in the day, play a couple levels, quit. Come back a third time, get the error above -- savefile is unusable.

I'm playing on a Windows 7 box. This has only occurred since the 1.1.1 update. Any ideas?

[Starhawk]

Strange random error when loading up a game I'd been playing earlier today:

Error (Cannot parse savefile) reading 1.1.1. savefile -more-

Loading a 1.1.1 savefile...
Restoring Dungeon...
Cannot place object 1!
Error reading dungeon data

The savefile was made using this version of Sil (1.1.1), so I'm at a loss. Savefile is attached.

I don't need you to move heaven and earth to fix this particular savefile, as the character isn't advanced or much in danger of winning the game. But thought you might like to see the bug so that someone else doesn't lose their first potential winner.

[Patashu]

The game should save everything it can automatically. Hard drive space for text is so cheap nowadays.

[Nick]

I've thought about writing a patch for something like Crawl's mortem: always save a chardump Character-Timestamp.txt on death. It isn't very hard with strftime, but there is a question of how much Sil should be writing to disk without asking the user.

I had a "view your last character" feature in FAangband for a while (when you first opened the game after dying) - but after some code changes I never re-implemented it.

[fph]

I've thought about writing a patch for something like Crawl's mortem: always save a chardump Character-Timestamp.txt on death. It isn't very hard with strftime, but there is a question of how much Sil should be writing to disk without asking the user.

What about a file named last-character.txt, that gets overwritten every time? If your worries are about the used space on disk, rather than the amount of I/O, this will solve the problem.

[jdh]

The first of these would be nice, but would take me several hours to program, which is not really worth it. You will just have to stop pressing ESC...

I've thought about writing a patch for something like Crawl's mortem: always save a chardump Character-Timestamp.txt on death. It isn't very hard with strftime, but there is a question of how much Sil should be writing to disk without asking the user.

[half]

Would it be possibly to have the death message accessible via the savefile because I invariably on impulse don't save the chardump but press ESC after a stupid death?

Is there any chance to reconfigure my keyboard (i have no diagonals on my laptop and using the numbers instead is tedious and error-prone).

The first of these would be nice, but would take me several hours to program, which is not really worth it. You will just have to stop pressing ESC...

The second can be done via the pref files (as adding an interface for it is probably not worth the time yet). I've added a quick guide to this to the relevant file pref.prf:

# Keyset mappings take the form:
# A: action
# C: keyset : key
#
# There are 4 keysets (0, 1, 2, 3), representing the Sil and Angband-style sets
# without and with the hjkl movement
#
# When you press the 'key', the underlying 'action' is triggered.

[half]

The way for non-numpad players to get diagonals is for them to go to the Options menu and turn on the "roguelike keys", described in the help screens when you press '?'. It'll seem at first like a counter-intuitive way to move around, but you'll soon get used to it and you'll love how you'll never have to move your hands off the keyboard.

I was surprised when my laptop based players told me they were just using the number keys at the top of the keyboard for diagonals, but when I tried it I found it very easy to get used to. In my experience arrows plus number keys is easier than hjkltybn -- at least so long as you aren't worrying about diagonal movement when not in combat.

Keypad is significantly better than either for me. Also note that Sil has a very streamlined interface. You can almost do everything with one hand on the keypad and the other on Shift/Alt/Control modifier keys. The main exception is 'u' and maybe I should have an alternate key for that.

[WaveMotion]

Is there any chance to reconfigure my keyboard (i have no diagonals on my laptop and using the numbers instead is tedious and error-prone).

The way for non-numpad players to get diagonals is for them to go to the Options menu and turn on the "roguelike keys", described in the help screens when you press '?'. It'll seem at first like a counter-intuitive way to move around, but you'll soon get used to it and you'll love how you'll never have to move your hands off the keyboard.

[taptap]

Would it be possibly to have the death message accessible via the savefile because I invariably on impulse don't save the chardump but press ESC after a stupid death?

Is there any chance to reconfigure my keyboard (i have no diagonals on my laptop and using the numbers instead is tedious and error-prone).

[half]

Ah, thanks! I was considering making treacherous path boots on purpose. I guess they may still be worth it for the higher xp monsters, but probably a silly idea.

Danger increases the depths of all generated monsters by one level (50 ft). This is the standard way to think of it. However, you can also think of it as meaning that you keep the challenge level fixed by playing at 50 ft shallower than you otherwise would have, making all treasures worse by 50 ft. Looked at this way I think Feanorian blades seem less like a good idea.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Ah, thanks! I was considering making treacherous path boots on purpose. I guess they may still be worth it for the higher xp monsters, but probably a silly idea.