[User Guide Development] Questions

[Pete Mack]

I did a grep on the codebase. That's the only instance. I had thought that SUMMON_UNIQUE also attempted to get powerful monsters but that is not the case.

[JamesDoyle]

Thanks, Pete, that's very illuminating, particularly on the DROP flags.

[edit] Oh, now: matters arising from those POWERFUL flags.

Not all creatures with the POWERFUL flag have a breath weapon, or ball spell, viz.:
Angel, Invisible Stalker, Water Elemental (which does have a Bolt), Fire Elemental, Earth Elemental, Smoke Elemental, Air Elemental (all ditto for Bolt), Will o'the Wisp, Archangel, Erinyes (has Bolt), Vrock, Hezrou, Cherub, Glabrezu, Barbazu, Seraph (Bolt), Marilith, Archon, Horned Reaper, Gabriel the Messenger.

There's three groups there, basically: elementals, angels and demons. Either there's another ability to which POWERFUL applies, or perhaps these had a ball spell or breath attack which was later removed - any elucidation, anyone?

[Pete Mack]

Almost there...

What does the POWERFUL flag do?

Monster Ball and Breath attacks have radius 3 damage instead of radius 2.

And hopefully a final question on the DROP flags:

Some creatures have more than one DROP flag; presumably there's no difference between a creature with DROP_2D2 | DROP 4D2 and one with DROP_4D2 | DROP_2D2? And is there a reason neither are listed as DROP_6D2?

There is no difference. The OR operator '|' is commutative like '+'. As for why there's no DROP_6D2, there's a separate flag (bit) for each term in the FLAGS list. Since there are only a limited number of such bits (32), it's a bad idea to waste them on duplicate functionality. Also, each flag requires more code...

[JamesDoyle]

Almost there...

What does the POWERFUL flag do?

And hopefully a final question on the DROP flags:

Some creatures have more than one DROP flag; presumably there's no difference between a creature with DROP_2D2 | DROP 4D2 and one with DROP_4D2 | DROP_2D2? And is there a reason neither are listed as DROP_6D2?

Cheers!

[zaimoni]

Haha - I have no idea what that means!

Especially since there is no RAND_75 ....

RAND_25 specifies a 25% chance of moving randomly
RAND_50 specifies a 50% chance of moving randomly
RAND_25 | RAND_50 specifies a 75% chance of moving randomly.

Note that V's monster-move algorithm is broken (it generates a range of move directions rather than a single move direction), so this probability is applied to each move direction tested for movability.

Zaiband's has not been fixed in this respect, although it is somewhat more effective at trying known-good squares first.

Is this a recent addition? I'm using the 3.0.10 version of monsters.txt and there are no DROP_1 or DROP_2 flags

Yes, I was thinking of V SVN when I wrote that. V3.0.9 uses only the drop-probability form.

[JamesDoyle]

Yes. This is not parsed for the exact number; RAND_25, RAND_50, and RAND_75 are implemented as the non-default values of a pair of bits.

Haha - I have no idea what that means!

DROP_1 and DROP_2 specify an absolute count for the number of drops.

Is this a recent addition? I'm using the 3.0.10 version of monsters.txt and there are no DROP_1 or DROP_2 flags

[zaimoni]

Thanks, zaimoni, very helpful; a couple of clarifications needed, if you can:

RAND_xx: Is XX the % chance of a random move?

Yes. This is not parsed for the exact number; RAND_25, RAND_50, and RAND_75 are implemented as the non-default values of a pair of bits.

I haven't decided what Zaiband is going to do here (this looks like a rewrite target, but the higher precision shouldn't actually help gameplay.)

DROP_: your comments about 'high' and 'low' numbers refers to the DROP_xx and DROP_xDy?

No. DROP_xDy guarantees x dy drops.

DROP_60 and DROP_90 specify probabilities of a single drop.

DROP_1 and DROP_2 specify an absolute count for the number of drops.

[JamesDoyle]

Thanks, zaimoni, very helpful; a couple of clarifications needed, if you can:

RAND_xx: Is XX the % chance of a random move?
DROP_: your comments about 'high' and 'low' numbers refers to the DROP_xx and DROP_xDy?

[zaimoni]

Physical attacks (B_ flags)

1.LOSE_(stat): how much does the stat go down by? if <18, and if over 18

Whatever drinking a potion of lose stat costs.

2.LOSE_ALL: affects all six stats, I assume, but do they go down by the same amount as each other, or just within the same range?

Neither; each stat is hit at its own scale.

F_ flags

1.What's the difference between ESCORT and ESCORTS? (Orfax has both, so there must be some difference)

Hmm...for V SVN:
* FRIENDS forces placing a group of monsters.
* ESCORT forces placing one monster, then checks whether FRIENDS or ESCORTS is set. If either of these flags is also set, a group of monsters is then placed.

2.For ESCORT, ESCORTS and FRIENDS, what creatures are specifiable, and how many?

All non-unique monsters with matching symbol and no deeper native depth are possible. No direct control other than that.

3.EMPTY_MIND and WEIRD_MIND: I'm assuming that this corresponds to 'never detected' and 'rarely detected' by telepathy, am I right?

Yes. "Rarely" is based on m_idx.

4.ONLY_ITEM and ONLY_GOLD: any treasures can only be items or gold, respectively?

Right.

5.KILL_BODY: does this mean kill live monsters?

Yes, if they are "weaker".

6.KILL_ITEM: this means destroy items lying on the floor?

Yes, unless they have an applicable slay. (I tried out mirroring this for the @ in Zaiband, but the game balance issues were a bit much when merely having an item in the backpack did damage and actually wielding a self-slay weapon was an instakill. It's much simpler to have a half-Troll not be vulnerable to slay Troll.)

7.NEVER_BLOW: no physical attacks?

Yes. This has side effects on monster spellcasting

8.RAND_xx: no idea

Random movement.

9.DROP_xx: gold?

High numbers are % chance of dropping, low is forced-count of drops.

10.DROP_xDy: items?

Forced random count of drops.

Both of these may be gold or items unless controlled by the only options.

11.DROP_GOOD: ego or artifact? It doesn't always produce anything, how do this work?

It tries harder to drop something "good", but doesn't do any intelligent pre-screening to weed out item types that can't be "good".

S_ flags

1. ARROW_x: does the value of x correspond to the 1d6, 3d6, 5d6 or 7d6 damage mentioned in mon_blow.spo?

Yes.

[JamesDoyle]

Phew, it's been quite some time since I made any progress on this, bui there are good reasons

School holidays, plus the complexity of wading through the monsters files, plus having a great character that got ringil, and made it to 3800' feet before dying...

Anyway, questions I can't seem to find answers to (possibly because I've overlooked them, of course):

Physical attacks (B_ flags)

1.LOSE_(stat): how much does the stat go down by? if <18, and if over 18
2.LOSE_ALL: affects all six stats, I assume, but do they go down by the same amount as each other, or just within the same range?
3.LOSE_WI and LOSE_WIS: what's the difference?
4.EAT_GOL and EAT_GOLD: what's the difference? And how much is stolen?

F_ flags

1.What's the difference between ESCORT and ESCORTS? (Orfax has both, so there must be some difference)
2.For ESCORT, ESCORTS and FRIENDS, what creatures are specifiable, and how many?
3.EMPTY_MIND and WEIRD_MIND: I'm assuming that this corresponds to 'never detected' and 'rarely detected' by telepathy, am I right?
4.ONLY_ITEM and ONLY_GOLD: any treasures can only be items or gold, respectively?
5.KILL_BODY: does this mean kill live monsters?
6.KILL_ITEM: this means destroy items lying on the floor?
7.NEVER_BLOW: no physical attacks?
8.RAND_xx: no idea
9.DROP_xx: gold?
10.DROP_xDy: items?
11.DROP_GOOD: ego or artifact? It doesn't always produce anything, how do this work?

S_ flags

1. ARROW_x: does the value of x correspond to the 1d6, 3d6, 5d6 or 7d6 damage mentioned in mon_blow.spo?

Thanks!

[PowerDiver]

There is in fact a significant hole, because of the way they are used. I bet if you looked at dumps of chars at 2500' or deeper, and checked the artifacts actually being wielded, you would see a different pattern.

Just as an example of what I mean check out my "tales" character. At the end, I had acid and fire immunity, and cold resistance from artifacts that I already wanted to wear. That is quite typical. I faced Morgoth with no perm rElec, only the resistance spell.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=7807

[Pete Mack]

Pete, I think wielded items cannot be destroyed by elements. Only stuff in the backpack can...

I think you meant, skelwing, and I think that was his point: it's easier to carry a Ring of Lightning as a swap than it is the other 3 types.

My point, and Eddie's, is that Rings of Lightning are actually useful, while the others are less so:

(a) Double Fire & Cold resists are available variously as potions and relatively low-level spells
(b) Additional Acid resistance is not so useful, as you can get 50% (cumulative) acid resistance just by wearing useful armor in all slots. Combined with RAcid, your effective resistance goes to up to ~83%.
(c) There are already other rings for Fire and Cold resistance
(d) Priests and Paladins tend to need RElec from odd sources like a Ring.
(e) The other resistances are covered by relatively common end-game quality artifacts that DON'T also give RBase.

[pav]

Pete, I think wielded items cannot be destroyed by elements. Only stuff in the backpack can...

[Pete Mack]

There's another reason: RAcid is not as critical as the other three, and there are already ways to cover RCold and RFire with rings. Just imagine that you are playing a priest wearing a +5 AoWIS. Suddenly that Ring of Lightning might be looking very good indeed.

And I absolutely agree with Eddie: the standard artifacts are set up to make RElec harder to get than the others. Vilya is RARE, and almost all artifact armor has RAcid.

[Skelwing]

2. Why is the Ring of Lightning 5000gp when the other three elemental rings are 3000, and all four have completely parallel stats?

It seems unlikely that the difference in price would be due to a lack of rElec in artifacts - the prices of items were probably set back before anybody was worrying about the distribution of artifacts.

OTOH, rings can be destroyed by electricity, so the IGNORE_ELEC flag will actually help you. The IGNORE_FIRE, IGNORE_COLD, and IGNORE_ACID flags (on the other three elemental rings) don't, because rings are vulnerable only to electricity in the first place. This advantage may not be worth 2000 extra gp, but it is certainly an advantage.

This is just wild speculation, but it seems more likely to me.