ID: the game (tips and tricks)

[Derakon]

Turn-burning on stairs was changed with the last version as far as I know. (You really should play Sil already )

Yeah, yeah. My time is pretty full these days; I'll get around to it...eventually. Just like I'll get around to Pyrel and Jetblade and replanting my front yard and and and...

Whenever I get around to retiring, I am not gonna be bored!

[Patashu]

The idea that diving 300' in over your head corresponds to the color dark green might not make intuitive sense, though. Red means danger, not "things are too easy".

Why not use purple for 'deeper than expected'? So you've got yellow/orange/red for 'too shallow' and purples/maybe even blues for 'too deep'.

[BlueFish]

I have to concede that fully healing after every fight is silly... but I had simply just never thought about the rest-heal-time mechanic. It takes what looks 1/1000th of a second, so to me, it's an instantaneous thing. Since I don't value turncount, even with a game with a mindepth clock, I have no incentive to not fully heal.

Right. If you play with a self-imposed rule not to use upstairs until you have a sil, I don't think it's silly at all to fully heal after every fight. The turn clock will never be a problem relative to your current depth, and spending more time on levels just eases the pain of "ironman" to some small extent, by allowing you more monsters per level.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I think you are right about ironman play, except for maybe one minor thing in the early game, at least in regards to how I play. The only time I have ever felt any true clock pressure in Sil, ironman game or not, is ironman early levels, where sometimes I am neck and neck with mindepth up to sometimes as high as 400'.
Mindepth changes so fast at the start.

This is likely a symptom of poor ironman play by me... as I want to fully clear all levels, even the 50' to 150' ones, which I usually skip in regular. WildKhaine skipped those on his ironman run and went on to glory.

[half]

Turn-burning on stairs was changed with the last version as far as I know. (You really should play Sil already )

I don't know, I'm just impressed by Derakon's in depth knowledge of the game mechanics and advice about how to improve them without having played (or without having played much). If he played, it would spoil that!

[WaveMotion]

I think displaying the turn count and coloring it based on depth - mindepth would best work if color changes were accompanied by flavor messages about "Morgoth's grip" or whatever it is that draws the character closer to Morgoth, for explanation. (Maybe in order to avoid spamming, this could just happen when mindepth nears, reaches, and/or exceeds current depth.)

Even without the turn indicator, though, I think Sil could still benefit from some kind of flavor justification given for the minimum depth mechanic—I know half's talked about it here in the forum, but as far as I have seen there are no mentions of it in-game or in the manual.

[wobbly]

Do staffs of summoning id if your standing near the stairs? It's description says: "It summons 2d4 monsters out of sight on the current level". Yet I used it next to the stairs, a bunch of orc archers came down & the staff id-ed. So does it always summon at the stairs or is it just coincidence?

Hey that's weird. It's description also says "This item has not been identified"
Ok, I think I get that one now. It's because it's a staff & I don't know the no. of charges.

[taptap]

Do staffs of summoning id if your standing near the stairs? It's description says: "It summons 2d4 monsters out of sight on the current level". Yet I used it next to the stairs, a bunch of orc archers came down & the staff id-ed. So does it always summon at the stairs or is it just coincidence?

Hey that's weird. It's description also says "This item has not been identified"
Ok, I think I get that one now. It's because it's a staff & I don't know the no. of charges.

Yes, they do spawn at stairs, afaik nothing spawns in the middle of the map in Sil unless it is roost -> critters, web -> spider but they are already there and just come out of hiding. Often there is more than 1 stair on the floor and I don't know whether they summoning uses the closest stair or a random one.

Recently I wondered whether hanging on to a summoning staff can be moderately useful for further identification (to produce test targets for other staffs and trumpets).

[taptap]

Another ID bug: self knowledge message for boots of irime is the same as for bows of radiance even if you don't have a bow or arrows. no problem for experienced players but utterly confusing when encountered the first time.

[debo]

Yeah that's one of my favorite ones

[wobbly]

2 other strange ones I noticed with auto-id today. Arrows of piercing will say the arrow pierces the ... but not necessarily auto-id. Staves of imprisonment used in a room with all closed doors: You hear a click, but it doesn't necessarily auto-id.

[taptap]

Something not mentioned so far. There are no curses on Mithril armour and lamps. Not exactly sure about weapons, but imo Mithril swords are never cursed as well.

[half]

Something not mentioned so far. There are no curses on Mithril armour and lamps. Not exactly sure about weapons, but imo Mithril swords are never cursed as well.

I think this is true for feanorian lamps, but I don't think it is true for the armour or weapons (not that I recall any cursed ones).

[wobbly]

If your prepared to risk losing some good items you can get orc thiefs to identify outright bad items by dropping them in front of them & seeing if they'll pick it up. You could probably do this fairly safely with an orc thief trapped in a corner.

[BlueFish]

If your prepared to risk losing some good items you can get orc thiefs to identify outright bad items by dropping them in front of them & seeing if they'll pick it up. You could probably do this fairly safely with an orc thief trapped in a corner.

This is a neat trick, but orc thieves can't actually be cornered anywhere but in a corridor, backed up against rubble. They'll slip past you and accept the free swings you get on them if you try to corner them in a room.

If you want to use them for IDing stuff you should do so far away from any stair, and with either good ranged attack or sprinting/quickness.

I'm not sure what sorts of things they turn their nose up at. Just cursed stuff, or other "bad" things like stat-reducing potions and mushrooms? How about rings of hunger?