Angband 4.0 beta release

[Nomad]

ID by use doesn't seem to be working on wands of Stone to Mud any more: I've zapped one at several walls and can see it making holes, but it still stays "a Silver-Plated Wand {tried}". Possibly a new bug introduced in one of the last couple of versions? I'm currently playing the latest, and haven't had this problem with Stone to Mud before.

[MattB]

Damn, I was enjoying that one. Special monster-piercing ammo would be a fun ego item, actually. Though probably not good for game balance.

I think we could come up with something that wasn't unbalancing.
How about if every successful wound caused by ammo led to a straight coin-flip chance of passing through the monster.
<The arrow transfixes the Black Orc>
If you have a 75% chance of hitting with your bow, then the odds of hitting the first monster would be 75%. If there's a monster directly behind then the odds of hitting that monster would be 3/4*1/2*3/4, or 28.1%, and so on like this:

1st monster: 75.0%
2nd: 28.1%
3rd: 10.5%
4th: 4.0%
5th: 1.5%
6th: 0.6%
7th: 0.2%
8th: 0.1%
etc. etc.

It would be great fun and the additional damage caused would actually be minimal. After all, it is rare that monsters line up like that and when they do, they tend to be weak. And if they're not, then the damage caused will be insignificant (as well as rare).

[wobbly]

Arrows of piercing in Sil also occasionally hit multiple targets.

[Therem Harth]

ToME 2 has piercing shots as a high-level ability for archers...

[Derakon]

Damn, I was enjoying that one. Special monster-piercing ammo would be a fun ego item, actually. Though probably not good for game balance.

I could imagine e.g. Arrows of Lightning that invoked a lightning bolt effect instead of a standard missile effect when fired, and dealt launcher-independent damage. Sort of like a wand that used ammo instead of charges. Base damage would be higher than for wands (especially for enchanted ammo), but it'd be heavier and the ammo would be used up with each shot with no option to "recharge".

[Nomad]

• missiles killing multiple monsters

Damn, I was enjoying that one. Special monster-piercing ammo would be a fun ego item, actually. Though probably not good for game balance.

[Nick]

Update d496ef6 fixes

• invisible glyphs of warding
• missiles killing multiple monsters
• Amulets of Inertia - these now generate with correct negative speed modifier, but don't display or ID correctly (you can only tell the modifer by player speed reduction)

After some detective work by noz the ignore-drop-crash bug is kind of fixed, maybe. At least, there is a place in the code after the real problem (which we still don't fully understand) where we can (probably) stop the crash. But we still really want to fix the actual problem. The fix should just print a message instead of crashing; please try to note the conditions where you get the message and report back. Over and out.

[MattB]

That's a regular issue with the new system for object generation (with allocation lines). Objects are created with a very high probability around their base depth, so if you want to find a rod of door/stair location, your best bet is to scum dlvl 8 for a while. Many times I've found an unidentified potion on dlvl 90+ just to find out it was potion of boldness or something similar.

Although it makes things a bit tougher if you play forced descent. I probably (un-ID'd) Deep Descented my way through about dlvl 6-11.

[MattB]

That's a regular issue with the new system for object generation (with allocation lines). Objects are created with a very high probability around their base depth, so if you want to find a rod of door/stair location, your best bet is to scum dlvl 8 for a while. Many times I've found an unidentified potion on dlvl 90+ just to find out it was potion of boldness or something similar.

Ah, thanks PowerWyrm. Makes sense.

[PowerWyrm]

And there we have it: just ID'd my first rod of door/stair on dungeon level 81!
I'm happy to believe it's just an anecdata outlier, unless anyone else finds the same issue.

That's a regular issue with the new system for object generation (with allocation lines). Objects are created with a very high probability around their base depth, so if you want to find a rod of door/stair location, your best bet is to scum dlvl 8 for a while. Many times I've found an unidentified potion on dlvl 90+ just to find out it was potion of boldness or something similar.

[MattB]

Oh, and I still haven't found a rod of door/stair location. It's probably just random chance, but it's getting a bit embarrassing searching around for doors on dlvl 55!

And there we have it: just ID'd my first rod of door/stair on dungeon level 81!
I'm happy to believe it's just an anecdata outlier, unless anyone else finds the same issue.

[Nick]

Nice catch guys - trap doors will be back next update.

[Nomad]

Is it just me...or has anyone seen a trapdoor recently?

Now you come to mention it, I don't think I have. Looking at the trap.txt edit file, there seem to be two entries with the same index, "name:16:door lock:door lock" and then "name:16:trap door:trap door".

Also, as per discussion in the Memorable Randarts thread, randarts don't seem to be being generated with any brands or slays.

[MattB]

Is it just me...or has anyone seen a trapdoor recently?

[Nick]

Update 5301a6b fixes:

• Thrown flasks of oil doing no damage
• Debug teleport level crash
• Objects not being moved off Sauron and Morgoth quest stairs
• Inscriptions on home objects vanishing on save and reload
• No menu on the pickup command

I think the pickup behaviour is OK - please complain if not.