dangerous change to searching

[PowerDiver]

I use 's' when I want to rest a turn. I presume many others do as well. 'R' '1' <enter> is too many keystrokes, and the '5' is not necessarily under a finger.

Now there is some sort of autorepeat. What's worse is that it does not disturb properly. E.g.

## #
# # #
# ## #
# ### #
#W###@#

I press 's' once, planning to keep tapping, and the next thing I know Ren has run up the corridor on the left and come down to be adjacent to me before I get another turn, even though I should have had multiple chances to abuse LOS at him if in the mood.


P.S. No, I wasn't planning to abuse LOS, this was a test.

[andrewdoull]

I use 's' when I want to rest a turn. I presume many others do as well. 'R' '1' <enter> is too many keystrokes, and the '5' is not necessarily under a finger.

Now there is some sort of autorepeat. What's worse is that it does not disturb properly.

There was a change to make rest auto-repeat for 20 turns. I didn't understand why this change was made - its easy enough to map 's' to 020\rs if you need this functionality.

Andrew

[buzzkill]

I was all for this change, but I assumed it would use default disturb options, as the rest command does.

[Pete Mack]

I use search all the time to rest for a single turn.

In any case, 20 turns searching is a lot to waste when you are pretty sure nothing is there. In short, I am surprised this change got accepted in the first place.

[Marble Dice]

If numpad 5 is inconvenient, doesn't comma also hold position?

It auto-repeats for 10 turns, not 20.

And while your complaint may be valid, I don't think your LOS-test case is. You don't have visibility down that slanted corridor any deeper than the conventional hockey stick.

[PowerDiver]

If numpad 5 is inconvenient, doesn't comma also hold position?

It auto-repeats for 10 turns, not 20.

And while your complaint may be valid, I don't think your LOS-test case is. You don't have visibility down that slanted corridor any deeper than the conventional hockey stick.

I cannot unlearn 's'. I tried, but keep doing it even 10 seconds after I remind myself not to. I need a UI option to turn it off. In any case, how do I specify that I want to search only one time? That ought to be allowed at least as a macro.

Ren went up to the top and then came down the entire hockeystick, 5 full steps in my LOS without disturbing my search. I was at speed +8, so that is at least 4 times I should have been disturbed before he reached me. If I was resting, I would have been disturbed. This is a definite bug.

[Marble Dice]

You can still issue a repeat command to force one turn: 01s

When I try your test scenario, Ren moves from the W to the X before I get disturbed:

#######
##.####
#.#.###
#.##X##
.W###.#
..###@#
..#####

I tried with searching or with resting, and I even tried with resting (and telepathy) in r1883 before the searching change, and it still happens. My character doesn't have line of sight any deeper than the X (even after wizard lighting), which is why I'm not getting disturbed earlier. What am I doing wrong?

[PowerDiver]

If you really want this kind of functionality, you should do it like the hitpoint warning. Set up an interface for the player to specify the number of searches when pressing the s key, and please default to 1 so that people get the behavior they remember if they don't know about the change.

[PowerDiver]

You can still issue a repeat command to force one turn: 01s

When I try your test scenario, Ren moves from the W to the X before I get disturbed:

#######
##.####
#.#.###
#.##X##
.W###.#
..###@#
..#####

I tried with searching or with resting, and I even tried with resting (and telepathy) in r1883 before the searching change, and it still happens. My character doesn't have line of sight any deeper than the X (even after wizard lighting), which is why I'm not getting disturbed earlier. What am I doing wrong?

Maybe I am clueless.

Aah -- did you have ESP at the time? Or a huge light radius? Should those matter?

I had both and had used enlightenment.

[edit some more] or maybe not. I dug the tunnel, so enlightenment didn't matter, and might not have worn light boost at the time.

I think it should count, but maybe I blamed this change for something unrelated. I know things were coming around corners at me before when I searched, so I was looking out for it.

[Zikke]

I constantly have my right hand fingers on the number pad, so 5 is super convenient for me. I thought that was standard, but I guess not...

[PowerDiver]

maybe I blamed this change for something unrelated.

Some things bear repeating. Sorry if I was confused about this.

[Marble Dice]

I think it should count, but maybe I blamed this change for something unrelated. I know things were coming around corners at me before when I searched, so I was looking out for it.

This is still the kind of feedback I hoped to uncover with the first thread: that some people use "s" as a part of their gameplay in a way that is not consistent with "searching in one tile for a possible secret."

If you really want this kind of functionality, you should do it like the hitpoint warning. Set up an interface for the player to specify the number of searches when pressing the s key, and please default to 1 so that people get the behavior they remember if they don't know about the change.

I actually like the sound of that. There was a nasty "Hack --" comment on some of the auto-repeat code about needing to make it user-configurable.

[PowerDiver]

I constantly have my right hand fingers on the number pad, so 5 is super convenient for me. I thought that was standard, but I guess not...

I don't remember the precise reason I started using 's' any more, but possibilities include avoiding autopickup when you just dropped something and in some variant [or maybe Moria?] ISTR that while other numkeys worked '5' did not.

[Magnate]

This is still the kind of feedback I hoped to uncover with the first thread: that some people use "s" as a part of their gameplay in a way that is not consistent with "searching in one tile for a possible secret."



I actually like the sound of that. There was a nasty "Hack --" comment on some of the auto-repeat code about needing to make it user-configurable.

Personally I think Eddie is in the minority, as evidenced by the first thread. I think most of us use 5 or , to do a one-turn rest, and s for searching. That said, if it's not too much hassle to make it configurable like the hitpoint warning, and if Takkaria will allow what is essentially another option, let's please everyone.

[Marble Dice]

That said, if it's not too much hassle to make it configurable like the hitpoint warning, and if Takkaria will allow what is essentially another option, let's please everyone.

No, shush! You've ruined it! It's not an option, it's a user-configurable value preference!