Gripes -- equipment optimizing program

[juggle5]

Thanks for the feedback! Determining the right weights is tricky business, so it's good to hear when things are going wrong.

There are some limitations to the complexity of what we can model, since the optimization is done by solving a linear programming problem. However, it is easy to reduce the importance of CHA/sound/shards/nether/nexus/chaos, and increase the importance of permanent light. We do have the ability to use different weights based on variant, race, and/or class; I just haven't filled in all the combinations yet.

I'll have to think if it's possible to handle things like giving 0 importance to infravision if you have see invisible, or 0 importance to resistances once you have the corresponding immunities..

@camlost: Using the randart code to compute the goodness of a set of equipment is a good idea, but there are two issues with it. (1) it makes the optimization problem *very* hard--basically you just have to try every combination of equipment by brute force, and (2) it's hard to maintain/extend across variants (or even different versions of vanilla).

[PowerDiver]

Here's the result for your character. It looks like there's some tweaking that should be done: Gripes prefers to give you lots of stealth and speed at the expense of damage. If you are planning on fighting Sauron, then I could re-run this with the ring of acid forced to be worn.

I was prepping for Morgoth, so sustains were key for a char planning to melee. I didn't use your code. I changed my mind so many times and took so many tries to find the best kit I simply figured it must be a decent test case.

I was curious if your code would understand that 2 stacked rings of speed could both be worn, but using 2 slots. Your output put them both in the same slot.

I also disagree with Derakon about basic 5. So long as I am playing a mage-caster carrying MB5, those are less important than rChaos IMO. Inability to know who is who is deadly. In a similar vein, a priest-caster with ESP and PB6 or a stack of rods of detection needs SI much less than others.

The breakpoint thing is also important. I needed +4 str from equipment to get the 5th blow. Anything less counts very little, and anything more really doesn't add much past the value of +4.

[onemonkey]

A recent nostalgia moment for my youth spent playing Moria led me to Google, which led me to Angband. And these forums have been a great help in finally getting a character to any real depth.

I'm still new enough to Angband that I'm unsure about optimal kit. I saw this thread today and gave GRIPES a spin -- what a cool thing! -- thanks for developing this tool! It has already given me some insight into how to value items.

Questions on gripes' specific suggestions for me, though:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10553

1. swap out Aeglos for the Battle Axe of Bali Stonehand, even though it's less average damage. Is this because of weapon weight, or the +3 to STR, CON, & STLTH?

2. swap out my heavy crossbow of extra shots for the Short Bow of Amrod. Am I valuing that second shot too much? The stat bonuses on the bow too little?

3. Wear the Law Dragon Scale Mail? Really? I've already got those resists covered -- is the extra AC and breath activation better than the +3 speed from Thalkettoth?


I also know I'm carrying / housing things I don't need. Some things I've been carrying as swaps, and some things I'm just not sure about. Any help on the character is appreciated in general , not just the feedback on the weighting given to items by Gripes (please do that on the ladder not here, though, to keep this more about the results of Gripes).

[juggle5]

I was curious if your code would understand that 2 stacked rings of speed could both be worn, but using 2 slots. Your output put them both in the same slot.

Gripes doesn't currently handle the counts for stacked items. We've known about this for a while, but it was low priority on our list of bugs/improvements, since it's actually pretty rare that stacks are important. Most of the time, you can only wear one of something, e.g., it doesn't matter if you have one or 5 identical suits of armor.

You've hit on the one scenario where stacking is important--you need to have a character with two identical rings worth wearing simultaneously but yet are not wearing either of them! We figured that if the character is not wearing either of them, then he must have some other, much better rings anyway. We looked through all the characters on the ladder, and only a couple had multiple identical rings of speed stashed at home.

So in the output earlier, Gripes is treating the two rings of speed as a single ring. You can get around this problem by wearing one of the rings, or putting one ring at home and one in your inventory.

The breakpoint thing is also important. I needed +4 str from equipment to get the 5th blow. Anything less counts very little, and anything more really doesn't add much past the value of +4.

Yeah, breakpoints are important, but unfortunately we can't model them. For mathematical reasons, the "benefit" for increasing some stat or attribute has to be a concave function, which isn't true with stats having odd breakpoints.

[Derakon]

Re: breakpoints, we should eventually be moving to a fractional blows system which should make the value function for STR/DEX concave.

No idea on if the CON <=> HP relationship is going to get smoothed out anytime soon, though.

[Netbrian]

I don't think Gripes values free action enough -- at higher levels, it's absolutely required, but the default optimizations seem to value it about as much as Sound Resistance.

[grassy]

Gripes fails with the following error on a randart:

More than one equipment class matched for the Ball-and-Chain of Ringlon ... at gripes.pl line 1004, <CHARDUMP> chunk 1.

Ringlon:
+5 str, wis, con, chr
Slays animals, *dragons,undead*
Branded with acid
Provides resistance to cold, fear,blind, shards.
Grants telepathy, ability to see invisible. Aggravates creatures nearby.

Activates for heal ...

Also in the dump is:

m) The Set of Gauntlets of Nurim [3,+51] (+2)
+2 strength.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

which I can only sell for 1 AU.

Attached chardump.

[damerell]

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~d...es/gripes.diff is a patch to GRIPES which appears to make it work with Angband 3.3.2 (and quite possibly 3.4.0); it recognises pStun, with a somewhat arbitary weight for it, knows that Conf/Fear/Blind are described as "protection" not resistance, and that artifact names now begin "the" not "The" (which I suppose is a tiny first move against the Gratuitous Capitals which beset Angband).

I don't know if the original authors are still around, but if so; another existing issue is that stats over 18/220 have value if and only if they are not sustained.