Stack items when dropping

[Derakon]

The conversation about charge drainers in the "additive multipliers" thread reminded me of something I ran into with one of my recent characters. I wanted to take down a charge drainer -- I think it was Omarax, but I could be wrong. Of course I was carrying several useful staves that I didn't want to get drained -- speed, destruction, magi. So I tried to drop them off a few squares back in my ASC so Omarax couldn't destroy them. Of course, the first one drops fine, and then the second one drops on a tile adjacent to the first one, which put it into range of ball spells.

I could, naturally, have simply gone further back into the ASC to drop them, but I still feel like dropped items should land on the space they're dropped on, not the nearest empty space. Heck, do this for monsters too. The item-explosion on monster death thing is a holdover from the days when there could only be one item in a square.

[PowerDiver]

I'd like to see this change.

[Derakon]

I guess this is so simple that nobody else felt the need to comment.

[nullfame]

This makes sense to me. Can stacks be infinity large or is there some cap like 10 item types or 99 total items? Not that I think this matters in practice, I'm just curious.

[fizzix]

sure, i'll comment.

stacking when dropping would be a welcome change. However, I'd prefer the current method of monster drops. It's easier to see everything that's around. Although with the existence of the item list this is really a minor issue.

[PowerDiver]

This makes sense to me. Can stacks be infinity large or is there some cap like 10 item types or 99 total items? Not that I think this matters in practice, I'm just curious.

I think it is low 20s, 23 or 24. You need to be able to select, e.g. when destroying an item in a stack on the floor.

[Magnate]

I guess this is so simple that nobody else felt the need to comment.

Well, I opened ticket #1175 for it, but didn't note that here. Sorry.

[Derakon]

One thing that does come to mind with the "item explosion" is that it's not uncommon for the player to kill dozens of monsters on the same tile, which could theoretically overfill the tile with items even with Vanilla's drastic reductions on drop rates. So I suppose spilling to an adjacent tile should still be possible, though I'd personally prefer if that only happened once the base tile were filled.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I think I'd rather leave monster drops spread out too. What might be good, tho, is reduce the maximum distance an item can get 'thrown' to try to find an empty square. Right now, IIRC, an item can land 4, maybe 5 squares away...reduce this to 2, maybe even 1 away from the point of origin, except for the case of a square having a full stack...then it can 'slide' to a different square.

[ewert]

My vote would be on fill the death square first, then overflow to nearby squares.

[fizzix]

actually, one thing I really don't like is when you kill a monster and the drop lands on the square you are standing on.