Yet another squelch thread

[scud]

Couldn't find a thread on this particular aspect, so sorry if this has been done before. Refers to 3.3.2 and reveals my shameful ignorance of macros and inscriptions and such.

In 'knowledge' armour and weapons are comprehensively listed, eg under 'sword' there are 14 weapons ranging from dagger to blade of chaos. Tantalisingly this view has a 'squelch' column, but squelch can't be enabled (although it's there for rings, potions, scrolls etc).

I'm at the stage where I'm only interested in Chaos/Balance/Power DSMs, Blades of Chaos, and Maces of Disruption.

So... how do I pick up a dagger and, having discovered it's not an artefact, have it destroyed without further investigation? Have tried autoinscribing all daggers (etc) with 'k' and, rather desperately, 'squelch', but to no effect.

*****

Pre-post edit: okay, have approached it from the other direction and am autosquelching all non-artefacts having autoinscribed items I want to keep, rather than those I want to destroy. This works, but...

a. Having initially inscribed a bunch of weapons in the hope of squelching them, I've removed the inscription but I still see the message 'You autoinscribe a Piece of Junk. You have a Piece of Junk {squelch}. You drop a Piece of Junk {squelch}'. Is this normal behaviour for items that have previously been autoinscribed, or have I failed to remove the autoinscription properly?

b. With a !k!d!v inscription against the DSMs and weapons I wish to consider, I have problems in discarding those items. Use of 'k' gives the expected 'ignore this item only' option, but the item isn't removed. Another 'k' asks if I want to unignore. The only way of getting rid is to drop (which leaves the item visible). Is !k!d!v not the appropriate inscribe in this case?

[Mondkalb]

There are quality squelch settings where you can define for a category of items that they are to be squelched if worse than a certain quality.
Press = for options, s for squelch options, Q for quality squelch options, select type, press return and choose a quality level.

You can always change these settings, so no serious harm can be done.

Or have you tried that already?

[scud]

The problem is that I only want to consider weapons which are:
a. artefacts, or
b. very heavy hitters, ie Maces of Disruption and Blades of Chaos

My initial approach was to turn off autosquelch (AS) and autoinscribe (AI) all lesser weapons with a squelch command. I don't know if such a command exists, but I couldn't find it.

So, approaching from the other direction, I set AS to 'non artefact' and put a !k!d!v against only MoDs and BoCs. This has the desired effect in that weapons other than MoDs/BoCs are destroyed on pickup. Have now changed the AI to be simply !d which means, once I've confirmed the drop of a MoD/BoC, it will 'disappear'. The !k inscription just got be toggling between ignore/unignore options without actually removing the item from my inventory.

It would be nice if the squelch toggle was available when looking at the list of specific weapon types, in the same way that it's possible to squelch specific rings, potions etc.

I'm still curious about the message re AI-ing lesser weapons prior to squelch, even though I've removed the AI that was once there.

The easiest solution at this stage is probably just to get on with it and kill Morgy; I could be playing a long time before I improve on my MoD Holy Avenger (+15, +17)

*****

EDIT: So I went and killed him and his summoned giant tan bats and blubbering icky things. I really should stop stockpiling dozens of *healings* and lifes before meeting him, because they're just not required in that volume.

[takkaria]

So, approaching from the other direction, I set AS to 'non artefact' and put a !k!d!v against only MoDs and BoCs. This has the desired effect in that weapons other than MoDs/BoCs are destroyed on pickup. Have now changed the AI to be simply !d which means, once I've confirmed the drop of a MoD/BoC, it will 'disappear'. The !k inscription just got be toggling between ignore/unignore options without actually removing the item from my inventory.

Right, so "!k" means 'you can't ignore this item'. This is intended behaviour. If you want to get rid of it, then you'll have to get rid of the !k inscription. The bug is how this interacts with the 'k' command and I'm not sure how to fix that.

It would be nice if the squelch toggle was available when looking at the list of specific weapon types, in the same way that it's possible to squelch specific rings, potions etc.

V doesn't support that squelch-by-kind on weapons and armour since it's a load of added complexity and the UI would be awful.

[fizzix]

Right, so "!k" means 'you can't ignore this item'. This is intended behaviour. If you want to get rid of it, then you'll have to get rid of the !k inscription. The bug is how this interacts with the 'k' command and I'm not sure how to fix that.

If the Bash doors command is removed, you can free up a 'B'ury item command which completely destroys an item, (although something like !k should prompt a "are you sure?")

Can we move autoinscriptions to be assigned on sight (or at least on ID) as opposed to on pick-up. If you ID a BoC off the floor it will disappear even if it's autoinscribed with !k, since the autoinscription never takes effect.

[scud]

Right, so "!k" means 'you can't ignore this item'. This is intended behaviour. If you want to get rid of it, then you'll have to get rid of the !k inscription. The bug is how this interacts with the 'k' command and I'm not sure how to fix that.

So... the '!' prefix means that confirmation is required before carrying out the prefixed action, but the (un)ignore options sort of get in the way of the confirmation dialog?

Have done some tinkering and a '!d' inscription has the desired effect: once the drop is confirmed then the item is 'disappeared'.

V doesn't support that squelch-by-kind on weapons and armour since it's a load of added complexity and the UI would be awful.

Purely from a consumer perspective the UI is already in place: you can view all items of armour and weaponry by narrow type, and there's even a squelch column heading. I'm not asking for a third ignore option, eg...
a) This item only
b) All excellent with no high resists Blunt Melee Weapons
c) All non-artefact Great Hammers
...but even that third option wouldn't be too confusing, would it? Option d) 'All weapons of *Slay Yeek*' might be asking too much, of course

(Although obviously the above would require prior identification, which isn't what I'm looking for)



BONUS QUESTION: DSM once had its own set of squelch settings, but now it's part of Body Armor. Was there a reason for this? Why didn't the same reasoning apply to Elven Cloaks?

[takkaria]

So... the '!' prefix means that confirmation is required before carrying out the prefixed action, but the (un)ignore options sort of get in the way of the confirmation dialog?

No. The !k inscription isn't the same as all the other ! inscriptions. It has the additional feature that no matter what else you do, the item will never be ignored/squelched.

Purely from a consumer perspective the UI is already in place: you can view all items of armour and weaponry by narrow type, and there's even a squelch column heading. I'm not asking for a third ignore option, eg...
a) This item only
b) All excellent with no high resists Blunt Melee Weapons
c) All non-artefact Great Hammers
...but even that third option wouldn't be too confusing, would it? Option d) 'All weapons of *Slay Yeek*' might be asking too much, of course

(Although obviously the above would require prior identification, which isn't what I'm looking for)

I think the best fix for your problem to move maces of disruption and all the other high-powered but 'normal' weapons over to their own squelch category. One of the devs has said they're planning on doing this so it should be in 3.5.

BONUS QUESTION: DSM once had its own set of squelch settings, but now it's part of Body Armor. Was there a reason for this? Why didn't the same reasoning apply to Elven Cloaks?

DSM was always part of body armour in V from squelch's introduction. As of 3.4.1 it was in its own category.

[Timo Pietilä]

DSM was always part of body armour in V from squelch's introduction. As of 3.4.1 it was in its own category.

Official version, yes, but there was squelch patch made from NPP version before that, and that had pretty much all the settings NPP had. It had way more settings than stripped-up official vanilla version.

[MattB]

Is there an argument for simply dividing the squelch class for body armour a bit further?

Namely:

a) Leather armour
b) Metal armour
c) Dragon Scale Mail

Many's the time I've been looking for either magic leather or plain metal.
Or ego leather or good plate, for instance.

Just a thought...

(Personally, I love FAngband's squelch system and don't have a problem with the UI at all).