4.0.3 bugs

[gglibertine]

I just tried opening a 3.5.0 savefile in 4.0.3 and I get the following error message: "Savefile block can't be read." I don't see anything obvious in the release notes -- will I need to download an intermediate release to open savefiles from 3.5.0?

ETA: Worse yet, 3.5.0 will open the savefile, but says "Failed" every time I try to save it.

[AnonymousHero]

I just tried opening a 3.5.0 savefile in 4.0.3 and I get the following error message: "Savefile block can't be read." I don't see anything obvious in the release notes -- will I need to download an intermediate release to open savefiles from 3.5.0?

ETA: Worse yet, 3.5.0 will open the savefile, but says "Failed" every time I try to save it.

3.x savefiles are not compatible with 4.x. Not even close .

[gglibertine]

Well, POO.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Well, POO.

4.0 represents a major code reconstruction (and major improvement for the future of the game).

[gglibertine]

4.0 represents a major code reconstruction (and major improvement for the future of the game).

Oh, it's very nice (though I'm having a rough time adjusting to the use of the pipe for the quiver on my annoying British keyboard). And I managed to quickly kill the unsaveable character anyway. The lava pockets around the town are interesting... where did that come from, exactly?

(Note to self: look for online source of cheap American-layout keyboards.)

[fph]

(Nothing prevents you from running an outdated 3.5.0 version and finish playing your character, though.)

[Ingwe Ingweron]

The lava pockets around the town are interesting... where did that come from, exactly?

The lava pockets in the town are the first of experiments introducing new "terrain" features. In some future version we may hope to see lava, water, trees, forests, etc., in and around the dungeon. Check out FAAngband (also maintained by Nick) for an idea of what those might be like.

[Nick]

I can reproduce this. Windows version.
Generate a new character.
Load a pref file with auto-inscriptions.
Quit the Character; the Word of Recall scroll gets auto-inscribed.
Generate Object spoilers (a). Infinite loop.

Thanks, got it.

[fph]

Since we are speaking about the lava pockets in town: do they have a gameplay effect that I haven't figured out yet, or are they just isomorphic to permawalls? Even with fire immunity I cannot walk into them.

[Nick]

Since we are speaking about the lava pockets in town: do they have a gameplay effect that I haven't figured out yet, or are they just isomorphic to permawalls? Even with fire immunity I cannot walk into them.

No, currently they are equivalent to permawalls - they were mainly included in 4.0 as a small advertisement of changes to come (and to add to the sense of doom in the town).

At some stage lava will get interesting - probably by causing fire damage to monsters/player walking on it.

[Nick]

I updated to 4.0.3 just now. I just noticed something and I wonder whether it's deliberate?

When I recall to a level and then try to go upstairs, the game won't let me That goes for both stairs created by the game and those magically created by me.

I don't suppose you still have a savefile for this, do you? I can't immediately reproduce the problem.

[Derakon]

At some stage lava will get interesting - probably by causing fire damage to monsters/player walking on it.

Buck the trend of lava as a simple damage field! Have the intense heat from magma deal damage to things adjacent to it (which should probably be denoted as a superheated tile somehow), and the massive wind created by the temperature differential should deflect projectiles and spells that pass near it.

[Nick]

Buck the trend of lava as a simple damage field! Have the intense heat from magma deal damage to things adjacent to it (which should probably be denoted as a superheated tile somehow), and the massive wind created by the temperature differential should deflect projectiles and spells that pass near it.

I'm not seeing it

[Derakon]

I'm not seeing it

Bah, fine, I guess my suggestion would only really make sense for really large magma deposits, not those little flows.

[Nick]

OK:

- dropping missiles from the quiver doesn't refresh the missile count in the inventory subwindow immediately
- picking up missiles from the floor doesn't refresh the equipment subwindow immediately
- "do_break" (used for SHATTER attacks) does nothing when it should avoid monsters from swinging at empty air
- no check vs player death is done after applying damage, so the game still can apply cuts and stuns to a dead player

And I've found this minor glitch: walking over a spellbook that has learnable spells doesn't switch the "Study" indicator from greyed to white.

These ones are all fixed.

- "command_menu" in ui-context is never freed (there's no reason to make it static too)

There's some subtlety to this - when I tried freeing it after every use I got segfaults. Possibly command_menu and command_menu_iter should both go inside textui_action_menu_choose().

- uniques with the S_KIN flag summons "kin", while they were summoning "their minions" before

There will be some more detailed improvements to monster messages - and messages in general - later, and this will be picked up then.

- unidentified potion of dragon breath asks for a direction, while it should simply cast a ball around the player

This is just lucky for the player that it happens there's only one potion which requests a direction.

- "you see a Pendant <+3,+4>" when finding Ingwe (jewelry treated differently compared to other artifacts)

I'm not going to bother fixing this, on the grounds that ID is about to be completely redone. The same is likely to apply to similar edge cases.