A couple of 3.4 issues

[bron]

So I'm playing in the latest competition, and I've noticed a few things about the 3.4 release. I should note that I'm playing a straight self-built (but unmodified) "curses" version on a genToo Linux box:

1) Targeting has been changed, in what I think is a bad way. I'm wondering if this is deliberate(?) or a bug. I don't recall that it was this way in 3.4RC: when I have something targeted, the shot goes off immediately once I choose the weapon, without the former request for confirmation (i.e. hitting the '5' key). I admit this makes a certain amount of sense, which makes me wonder if it was deliberate, but it is a significant interface change to slip in between the release candidate and the release. I don't like it because it leads to errors: my competition character has almost died twice now because I forgot I was already targeted at something other than the newly-arrived extra dangerous monster, and failed to first change the targeting before I selected the uber-weapon I wanted to shoot at it.

2) I squelched "average" body armor, and this caused the *magical* White DSM I was wearing to be marked "{squelched}".

3) If I attempt to pickup an item from a square that also has squelched items in it, I get a menu asking me which item I want to pick up, just as if there were multiple items, but the menu only lists the one (unsquelched) choice.

3.b) ... and sometimes when I then select the (only) item from the menu, the game does indeed pick it up, but then I also get the message: "You see nothing there".

[Derakon]

Dunno about the other ones, but for the first item, it sounds like the competition character has the "use old target by default" option set. Just unset that and you should be good to go.

[fizzix]

2) I squelched "average" body armor, and this caused the *magical* White DSM I was wearing to be marked "{squelched}".

Squelching DSM is far from ideal. I dunno what can be fixed for 3.4.1. It would help just to separate DSM into its own category. Anyone want to do this? (I might look at it considering I got my other coding goals accomplished this past weekend).

3) If I attempt to pickup an item from a square that also has squelched items in it, I get a menu asking me which item I want to pick up, just as if there were multiple items, but the menu only lists the one (unsquelched) choice.

3.b) ... and sometimes when I then select the (only) item from the menu, the game does indeed pick it up, but then I also get the message: "You see nothing there".

This is #1680, I submitted a pull request to fix this yesterday, and it should be ok in 3.4.1, provided I didn't screw up something else in the process.

From what I understand, when you pick up items, the code would first run through all the items to get a number, and then only use the non-squelched items when you attempted to pick it up. I changed that first run through to only count the unsquelched items and this seemed to solve both problems. I'm hoping there wasn't a good reason why it was set differently though!

[bron]

Dunno about the other ones, but for the first item, it sounds like the competition character has the "use old target by default" option set. Just unset that and you should be good to go.

Ok, I'm an idiot. You're absolutely right of course. Thanks!

[bron]

Squelching DSM is far from ideal

I agree, and would like to see DSM made a seperate category. However, the point of this report is that White DSM [14,+10] gave a pseudo-id of "average" and is squelched when I squelch "average" body armor, despite the magical "+10" bonus.

[fizzix]

I agree, and would like to see DSM made a seperate category. However, the point of this report is that White DSM [14,+10] gave a pseudo-id of "average" and is squelched when I squelch "average" body armor, despite the magical "+10" bonus.

Yeah I noticed that too. I don't know what's up with that, I'll dig a little.

[Derakon]

To be fair, the average DSM does have a +10 bonus.

Arguably DSM should just have a base AC that's 10 higher. Sure, that makes it a bit easier to enchant, but enchant scrolls haven't been sold in town for ages now so I hardly think it's a big deal.

Not that that helps any with people who don't want to squelch it.

[fizzix]

I think Derakon figured out what's going on. The magical bonus was somehow not treated as a magical bonus as far as the squelch was concerned. You get the same thing with craftsmanship not being treated as "excellent" since it doesn't have any new abilities, even though it comes up as excellent on pseudo. Basically magical according to the squelch menu and magical according to pseudo are not consistent (which is bad). At least this is my guess.

Regardless, I just submitted a pull request so hopefully dragon scale mail should be its own category in 3.4.1. Using the same savefile in both versions should work but it seems to erase all the quality squelch settings.

[Timo Pietilä]

To be fair, the average DSM does have a +10 bonus.

Arguably DSM should just have a base AC that's 10 higher.

Not quite the same thing. [40,+0] cannot be disenchanted, but [30,+10] can.

Not a major thing but still.

[PowerWyrm]

This is #1680, I submitted a pull request to fix this yesterday, and it should be ok in 3.4.1, provided I didn't screw up something else in the process.

From what I understand, when you pick up items, the code would first run through all the items to get a number, and then only use the non-squelched items when you attempted to pick it up. I changed that first run through to only count the unsquelched items and this seemed to solve both problems. I'm hoping there wasn't a good reason why it was set differently though!

See my comment to #1680. The pull request breaks the change from #1165. Separating squelch/marked items in scan_floor() should fix the problem.

[fizzix]

See my comment to #1680. The pull request breaks the change from #1165. Separating squelch/marked items in scan_floor() should fix the problem.

Ah, you mean #1665, I figured there must've been a rationale for this behavior as I didn't remember it in the past. Ok, I'll look at it and see if I can fix it.

Still, if it came to a choice, I'd rather have the incorrect behavior for stuff in the dark and the correct behavior for squelched + unsquelched pickup since one occurs much more frequently than the other. Yet, if we can get both working properly, then there's no reason not to do that. Thanks as always for your help.