Why inscribe objects?

[schlosrat]

And if you inscribe two weapons with @w0, that marks them as swap weapons, and pressing X will automatically swap the one from the pack for the one in your wield slot.

What X command? In the standard keyset commands, X is undefined and in the roguelike keyset, it's Use and item. I play with the roguelike keyset since my laptop lacks a number keypad, and I've inscribed both my main and alternate weapons with @w0. Pressing X in roguelike pops up an ingentory list of items the game sees as having a use including food, potions, scrolls, rods, wands, staves, rings, but not my main or alternate weapon - dispite the fact that one of these acutally does have an Active function!

When I try switching to the standard keyset then pressing X gets me a "Type '?' for help." message.

Do I need to add a special keybinding for X or some other key to effect this?

[Raerick]

What do folks inscribe on objects? I've never inscribed an object (never won, either, maybe there's a correlation ;-) and can't think of a reason to inscribe something I have.

What are some reasons you inscribe an object?

I only use !g so that I am not accidentally picking up too many copies of spellbooks or various rods once I have enough of them.

[smbhax]

What X command? In the standard keyset commands, X is undefined and in the roguelike keyset, it's Use and item. I play with the roguelike keyset since my laptop lacks a number keypad, and I've inscribed both my main and alternate weapons with @w0. Pressing X in roguelike pops up an ingentory list of items the game sees as having a use including food, potions, scrolls, rods, wands, staves, rings, but not my main or alternate weapon - dispite the fact that one of these acutally does have an Active function!

When I try switching to the standard keyset then pressing X gets me a "Type '?' for help." message.

Do I need to add a special keybinding for X or some other key to effect this?

That post about X was from 2011. I *think* X was replaced some time back by auto-use of digging implements--as long as they're in your pack--and the dedicated missile weapon equip slot.

[backwardsEric]

What X command? In the standard keyset commands, X is undefined and in the roguelike keyset, it's Use and item.

If using the original keyset, 'x' is a keymap for 'w' followed by '0' which would wield whatever's in the pack inscribed with '@w0'. In the past (the change happened in 2013 and there's still an out-of-date comment in lib/user/pref.prf), that keymap was for 'X' in both keysets. Some (many?) of the variants will have the X keymap.

To get something similar in the rogue-like keyset and current Vanilla, you'll need to set your own keymap.

[Bill Peterson]

A lot of useful information here, I've been playing since 2.8.2 and still learned something. But a couple of comments.

I always inscribe spellbooks with @mx!d!v!k, no one in this thread mentioned guarding against throwing valuable items.

I have a weapon that gives telepathy and a more powerful one so I thought that if I inscribed both and my digger with @w0 I could cycle through all three. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. The program apparently chooses the first item in the inventory with the inscription.

Years ago I heard of an inscription !(something) that you could put on a digger to warn you that you were trying to attack with it. Does this still exist and does anyone here remember it?

[backwardsEric]

I have a weapon that gives telepathy and a more powerful one so I thought that if I inscribed both and my digger with @w0 I could cycle through all three. Unfortunately, this doesn't work. The program apparently chooses the first item in the inventory with the inscription.

Years ago I heard of an inscription !(something) that you could put on a digger to warn you that you were trying to attack with it. Does this still exist and does anyone here remember it?

The keymap for swapping (in Vanilla, only 'x' in the original keyset; previously 'X' in both keysets) only works for swapping between two items (one which will be equipped; the other in the pack). Vanilla, since 4.2, automatically uses the 'best' digger the character has for tunneling (the definition of 'best' has varied a bit, but versions since 4.2.2 shouldn't surprise you by what they do), so you could skip inscriptions on the digger to aid with manually swapping it in and out.

There's an open issue for Vanilla, https://github.com/angband/angband/issues/4723 , indicating that the inscriptions for confirming before movement or attacking (something like '^;^,' ) do not work with the standard keys for directional movement.