Light effect stacking?

[Thraalbee]

How does light stack?
I've got a star with +3 radius light + a ring with +4 radius light and I only see five steps in all directions not counting the tile I am standing on.

[Carnivean]

I believe that 5 is the maximum light radius.

[Timo Pietilä]

I believe that 5 is the maximum light radius.

IMO that's restriction we shouldn't have. There is no point of restricting light radius, if you get lucky enough to get bigger than five radius light then you get lucky with light. Maybe put limit to LoS range.

[mushroom patch]

Light radius is meaningless on the high end anyway. It's such a tiny fraction of total LoS that you need alternative methods of seeing monsters for ranged combat. Indeed, such alternatives are readily available.

Making light meaningful past the early game would require rethinking LoS (not hard: max LoS should be about 10, so that the part of the map that matters fits on a standard terminal) and detection/telepathy effects. Lights should have more interesting effects as well, rather than nonsense like rBlind (a resistance that shouldn't even exist), e.g. no see invisible except from lights and then only in light radius, anti-summoning area effects, etc.

[Timo Pietilä]

Light radius is meaningless on the high end anyway.

I wouldn't say meaningless, just low importance. You need light or magic mapping to see twists in corridors nearby and that sort of things.

[mushroom patch]

The state of design perfection: Everything is the most important thing, except for everything else.

[bio_hazard]

We could have light provide other benefits than just illuminating squares. For example, if light >+4, provide see invisible or passive damage to light sensitive creatures within radius. Or auto-detect traps (whatever happens to traps in 4.1)

[AnonymousHero]

IMO that's restriction we shouldn't have. There is no point of restricting light radius, if you get lucky enough to get bigger than five radius light then you get lucky with light. Maybe put limit to LoS range.

I was thinking the exact same thing when I actually thought about it after seeing the "5 is max" post.

Light radius of various items/egos could always be tweaked if deemed necessary, but it doesn't seem logical nor necessary (balance-wise) to restrict light radius. Perhaps this is actually just an implementation artifact from when these things took a lot of CPU?

[AnonymousHero]

We could have light provide other benefits than just illuminating squares. For example, if light >+4, provide see invisible or passive damage to light sensitive creatures within radius. Or auto-detect traps (whatever happens to traps in 4.1)

One thing I'd be a fan of would be providing fuzzy enemy detection beyond LoS/Light radius, i.e. just show an asterisk (but randomize it slightly so you don't necessarily see it every turn). (Sil has this and it is really brilliant, even though I can't say I like the game itself very much.)

[Tarrasque]

I support removing the max light radius restriction. Light doesn't make that much of a difference, especially past radius 2.

Having darkness that works like negative light could give some more reason to have powerful lights. But even without that I think it's still neat when I get a better light.

[ScaryMonster]

The first time I saw an angband with dungeon illumination code, I was in love. The linear leaps in lighting didn't bother me. Now that the whole thing has matured, perhaps it is time to consider another layer of sophistication.

There has been a lot of success in angband, in falling back to a pseudo-physical energy analysis for solving game play questions. This is just one of those areas that needs a little further elaboration than it has had previously.

The problem here is that the game and the code uses an linear progression of integers to model something that is not.

Light intensity falls off inverse to the radius squared. Which means that the additional light intensity that would take you from a radius of 1 to 2, would not take you from a radius of 2 to 3. To increase your radius from a 1 to 2, would be an increase in intensity of a 1 to 4, to increase radius from a 2 to 3, would be an increase in intensity of 4 to 9. It ought to require 3x of the 1 to 2 thingies to increase the radius from a 1 to 3.

It would be a very powerful magic item that offered a +1 to your light radius no matter what it started. It could be that lesser magic would be able to increase a light source up to a capped value. It might make a 1 to 2 or a 2 to 3, but that's it. Or it might increase both a 1 or 2 to a 3.

[emulord]

Giant amounts of light radius feel very satisfying. A cap is unneccessary. Light isnt even something that should be optimized for, so its a nice bonus when you get it.

I get that it can be powerful, so I like the suggestion above. We already have the speed->energy conversion for balance, lumens->light radius makes sense too!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Giant amounts of light radius feel very satisfying. A cap is unneccessary. Light isnt even something that should be optimized for, so its a nice bonus when you get it.

I get that it can be powerful, so I like the suggestion above. We already have the speed->energy conversion for balance, lumens->light radius makes sense too!

Sounds reasonable to me. Gandalf lit up the entire great hall in Khazad-dum for a brief time so the Fellowship could marvel at the dwarf city.

[luneya]

Sounds reasonable to me. Gandalf lit up the entire great hall in Khazad-dum for a brief time so the Fellowship could marvel at the dwarf city.

Yeah, but that's the "spell of light illuminates whole room" effect, not anything to do with light radius.

[AnonymousHero]

I get that it can be powerful, so I like the suggestion above. We already have the speed->energy conversion for balance, lumens->light radius makes sense too!

If there's a falloff function it doesn't make sense to change the existing system, IMO. Light is nowhere near useful enough (as-is or with falloff) that somebody would try to maximize it intentionally.

Having a linear increase might make for some interesting trade-offs in equipment choice. (I'm not betting on it, but it's such a small change that it's trivial to have people play-test for a version.)

All, IMO, of course.