Lantern of Brightness > Phial of Galadriel?

[Patashu]

I don't suppose there's a Rod of Satisfy Hunger in vanilla?

[Derakon]

Yep, there's one of those too. I had mercifully forgotten about it.

[thapper]

Was there a rod of probing? Or were we only probing with other things? I can't remember.

[Derakon]

Obviously it is not "rod", but we don't have item type for "ball".... Why does that sound dirty...

Someone hasn't thought closely about the Rod of Cold Balls recently.

Or the Rod of Speed, for that matter.

[Timo Pietilä]

Woah woah woah. the palantir is NOT a rod. Its a seeing stone / crystal ball thing. Its a light source more than anything else.
Also, I like it being the "mixed benefits" light source.

By canon tolkien, the artifact lightsources should probably go
Star < Arkenstone < Phial = Palantir in terms of power rating.

Palantir is not light source. More like TV. You don't try to light up your room using your TV as light source. It requires activation to use (someone have to be looking at one before it works). Very powerful thing, sure, but not light source.

Obviously it is not "rod", but we don't have item type for "ball".... Why does that sound dirty...

[debo]

I know that I like to use my rod broadly.

...


(Sorry. I just couldn't help myself.)

[Magnate]

I'm sorry, I'm not quite familiar with code, having read about 3 chapters of a book about C and made a program that gets you the fibbonacci sequence, along with one for powers of 2. I would like to help Angbands development through any means possible though. I am not familiar with git, but learning to operate there would be a big help. I most likely do not have the latest version of v4, could I just quickly ask if anything has changed in the edit files so that I could move my current ones in there?
O.K., logged into IRC just now. Could someone teach me how to operate on Git? And then perhaps tell me what tvals, svals et al. are?

I tend to be on IRC in the evenings (UK time) and at weekends - happy to help where I can.

v4 edit files are not much different for objects - just the balance and heft fields I think (which will not be an issue for rods!).

Probably best to stick to the edit files for the time being, and look at the artfact rod idea as a subsequent pull request.

@emulord: I think Timo uses 'rod' in a very broad sense - we know it's a massive great crystal ball thingummy - the point is that it's not something 'worn' in the traditional sense (and yes I know that @ "wearing" a light source is weird anyway), so it would be better as an artifact that was carried in the pack.

[emulord]

Woah woah woah. the palantir is NOT a rod. Its a seeing stone / crystal ball thing. Its a light source more than anything else.
Also, I like it being the "mixed benefits" light source.

By canon tolkien, the artifact lightsources should probably go
Star < Arkenstone < Phial = Palantir in terms of power rating.

[Philip]

I'm sorry, I'm not quite familiar with code, having read about 3 chapters of a book about C and made a program that gets you the fibbonacci sequence, along with one for powers of 2. I would like to help Angbands development through any means possible though. I am not familiar with git, but learning to operate there would be a big help. I most likely do not have the latest version of v4, could I just quickly ask if anything has changed in the edit files so that I could move my current ones in there?
O.K., logged into IRC just now. Could someone teach me how to operate on Git? And then perhaps tell me what tvals, svals et al. are?

[Magnate]

Good point about the Palantir. I suppose O's code might be too ancient to use, but maybe Nick has modernized FA's code into a patch-able state. O has staves, wands and rods as artifacts and FA inherited it, so I think that would be interesting. Does anyone know/has tried to patch rod/staff/wand as artifacts?

I did the spellbooks and imagine it would be very similar. Are you familiar with git? If you study the v4 commits which changed the spellbooks, it should be self-explanatory. You'll just need to make a special base object for the Palantir Rod, like the high spellbooks. Then change its artifact details to match the rod tval and the new object's sval and see if you can generate it. (If you're not familiar with git, come to #angband-dev and we'll talk it through.)

Re your earlier question, prob best to do this in v4 first. Feel free to add the Club of Bullroarer and anything else you want to test out. I like the sounds of your changes to the lights.

[Philip]

Palantir should actually be artifact rod. Something you don't wear that activates for clairvoyance. That might require code change though, I don't think artifact code allows items that are not wearables or arrows to be artifacts. Wands, rods, staves, scrolls or potions can't be turned to artifacts. Not sure about books though, there was discussion about turning dungeon books as artifacts at some point, I'm not sure if the code for that has made it to the vanilla yet (it would allow more than five dungeon books and more variety to spells in the books. Maybe even randart books).

Good point about the Palantir. I suppose O's code might be too ancient to use, but maybe Nick has modernized FA's code into a patch-able state. O has staves, wands and rods as artifacts and FA inherited it, so I think that would be interesting. Does anyone know/has tried to patch rod/staff/wand as artifacts?

[Timo Pietilä]

Palantir isn't really a light source, should be an amulet.

Palantir should actually be artifact rod. Something you don't wear that activates for clairvoyance. That might require code change though, I don't think artifact code allows items that are not wearables or arrows to be artifacts. Wands, rods, staves, scrolls or potions can't be turned to artifacts. Not sure about books though, there was discussion about turning dungeon books as artifacts at some point, I'm not sure if the code for that has made it to the vanilla yet (it would allow more than five dungeon books and more variety to spells in the books. Maybe even randart books).

[Philip]

Yes, I'm a bit surprised that nobody's offered this up, since we've now had multiple pvals for almost two years. It's just a text file edit, so I thought someone would fiddle around and post a "less aggravation" version of artifact.txt.

I'm with Timo on light sources btw. Phial should have radius 4 and be the best and rarest of the artifact lights.

I would also support a less aggravate patch, and if anyone has any ideas whatsoever on what to change, I may well fiddle around a bit. Just be warned that any patch of mine will invariably contain many mistakes, contain The Club of Bullroarer, and will also have the Phial replace the Arkenstone and the arkenstone replace either the phial or the star. Palantir isn't really a light source, should be an amulet. In fact, there is about a 50% chance that the Palantir will find itself at light radius 2, and that it will not only keep aggravate, but get a malus to saving throw. I'd have to play a couple games first though.
EDIT: What format of edit file? It can be v4 combat or 3.4.1 format of edit file.

[Magnate]

By the way, now that there are multiple pvals (yay for multiple pvals!), would it be good if some of the artifacts that currently aggravate, instead had hefty maluses to stats or speed?

A.

Yes, I'm a bit surprised that nobody's offered this up, since we've now had multiple pvals for almost two years. It's just a text file edit, so I thought someone would fiddle around and post a "less aggravation" version of artifact.txt.

I'm with Timo on light sources btw. Phial should have radius 4 and be the best and rarest of the artifact lights.

[fizzix]

I had a patch that changed aggravate to a stealth malus a while back. It's probably not that far out of date if someone still wants to test it out.