Gameplay Options file?

[Lord Fell]

After a long time hiatus playing Angband, I got the bug again recently, and downloaded the newest version.

I've actually downloaded a couple of the different variants, and am playing around with them a bit to see which one I like best. Part of this "style" is to play fast and loose, dive fast and die hard... this also populates my Bone file.

The problem I'm having is that I can't seem to figure out how to permanently set my options. There should be a way to create your options, Save that file, and then Load the old options file. Failing that, it shouldn't be too difficult even for a someone who is as rusty at Coding as I am (and couldn't code my way out of a moist paper bag when I did code) to edit the Options File.

Help?

[Nick]

I believe that if you set your options, and then start new characters from the same savefile, the options should remain the same.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Some options do; some options don't. The play-related options are retained, so you don't have to reset things like "keep map centered" or the hit point coloring. The squelch options are NOT retained, I believe; I know the quality-based ones aren't, but that's logical, as a low-level character doesn't want to squelch Good weapons/armor. Specific-item squelches *probably* could be retained, tho, if they're not now.

But, yes, this would be nice, because it's annoying to reset all the stuff. Not a huge issue, because of course you only do it at character birth. But, I noticed that, for example, I had to kill off a 'dummy' character in order to turn on randarts...because that was a birth-time option, and at least in the Windows version, you *can't* change the birth options BEFORE you have a character. Again, not a big deal, but irritating.

[ekolis]

You can't change birth options before birth? That's odd, I thought you could do that by pressing the = key at the gender/race/class selection prompts... was that feature removed, or is it just not all that well documented?

[Derakon]

Last I checked you can still set options during birth. It's just not called out in the UI.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Ahh...my bad, yes indeed you can.

[Lord Fell]

So, perhaps this has become something of a Feature Request thread.

I see there is an option to [L]oad a preference file, but no option to [S]ave one. There should be a way to save .prf files for different users, or different modes (easy mode, hard, Ironman, etc).

I don't entirely understand Squelch though. Does that mean that once you discover a "bad" item, the item generator auto-deletes it on creation?

[Lord Fell]

Oh... yeah. Definitely a feature I'd want.

I created a character, "default" killed her off, and started a new one. The new character is saved under "default" in the character file. If I want to start a new character before the current incarnation of default dies, I have to rebuild my options from scratch again.

[Derakon]

In current Angband, the command to save is 'o', but it might also show up as 'd' for dump. It's definitely there, either way. You can also load saved options that you created for a different character, so once you've set up options once you shouldn't need to re-set them ever again (or at least until the options are changed in a new Angband version).

Squelching automatically hides items from you if you declare you aren't interested in them. For example, if I squelch wands of Clone Monster, then they'll still be generated, but I won't see them. I can in future unsquelch them (or turn off hiding of squelched items, which is one of the interface op tions) and any generated wands of Clone Monster will be visible again.

[Magnate]

So, perhaps this has become something of a Feature Request thread.

I see there is an option to [L]oad a preference file, but no option to [S]ave one. There should be a way to save .prf files for different users, or different modes (easy mode, hard, Ironman, etc).

Please rest assured that this request has been made enough times that it is definitely under consideration. Stand by for improved pref file handling any year now ...