Current master post-4.1.3

[gglibertine]

I've been having problems with crash on save (usually when going down stairs) with the last two builds but the latest is significantly worse. I'm ending up with incomplete .new files that seem to cut off at arbitrary points (not including everything that the character actually did), with the original savefile still stuck in its initial state (complete with Farmer Maggot showing up and dropping the same item every time). I can't get the current character off the shop level at all -- if I go downstairs, it crashes on save, and if I try to save first, it still crashes on save.

Savefile and .new files attached. Interestingly, three of the .new files turned up in C:\Program Files (x86)\!angband-4.1.3-424-gfb1a969bd\lib\user\save, and one of them turned up in C:\Users\meredith\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Progr am Files (x86)\!angband-4.1.3-424-gfb1a969bd. (I stick an exclamation point in front of the folder I'm using so I know which one is the most recent. Hopefully that's not what's causing the issue.)

[jevansau]

One other necromancer disadvantage, particularly with randarts is the number of artifacts rendered unsuitable because they have a small bonus to light radius.

Speaking of randarts, one thing that really needs to be looked at is max depths - particularly bad for lights, but can also be an issue for other weaker object types.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

What if the necromancer just had their own darkness aura, like some monsters do?

That sounds to me more like a "race" based innate quality rather than the "learned" skill of a class. Maybe an advanced necro would gain such ability after reaching a certain level, like rangers extra shots or warriors overcoming fear, but I don't think it should be from "birth".

[wobbly]

Dark aura might be ok. Damage from light is taking them even more into vampire teritory. Stealth bonus or penalty might be ok. At least that takes some sting out of not being able to see as far.

[Derakon]

What if the necromancer just had their own darkness aura, like some monsters do? So they're automatically in darkness all the time unless a monster with a strong enough light aura gets close. That does away with a lot of the fiddliness of staying in darkness, but means that you can make the penalty for stepping into light much more extreme, like "taking significant damage every turn" or "automatically blinded".

[fph]

Another random piece of feedback on necromancers: I realized that I basically never cast Create Darkness. In the very first levels, 3 mana for a spell that just creates darkness is a lot (especially when compared to the priest's Call Light, which costs only 1), while in the later levels the spell penalty matters a lot less and it feels like a waste of a turn.
What if "create darkness" was instead the side effect of another spell that does something useful? For instance, something like "channel the light nearby into a bolt that damages monsters for XdY".

Maybe a different version of Dark Spear, moved earlier, or a ball effect to replace Noxious Fumes (another spell I basically never cast, because who wants to become poisoned to kill a couple of worms or clear mushroom patches?).

[PowerWyrm]

Commit b6ebf27 (timed monster disenchantment), typo in look_mon_desc:

if (mon->m_timed[MON_TMD_HOLD]) my_strcat(buf, ", disenchanted", max);

should be:

if (mon->m_timed[MON_TMD_DISEN]) my_strcat(buf, ", disenchanted", max);

[fph]

Just a random comment: many of the recent changes go in the direction of making the game more Tolkien-themed, but the necromancer at the moment feels more like a Dracula knock-off: fears light, turns into a bat, bites monsters to drain their life... What's next, vulnerability to wooden stakes?

I don't have specific suggestions on how to reduce this effect, though.

[Sphara]

You can SHIFT+DIR fast-travel through webs without tearing them up. Again, I don't know if this is a bug and furthermore, this behavior actually provides smoother gameplay. Especially, since a pack of Mirkwood spiders usually leave quite a webby scenery after they are killed.

[Chud]

You wouldn't be able to see a lot of detail using sound, since sound has a pretty long wavelength, and the size of the details you can see is proportional to the wavelength, so all humanoids would pretty much look the same.

Not necessarily - you're assuming only the human hearing range. If you have Ears of the Bat, well, some bats can hear as high as 200kHz, which would give a wavelength of 1.7mm if I'm correct. (In 20-degree air.)

[Nick]

I just encountered a similar issue -- there was a red star that turned out to be not an object, but a mold. Could the issue be that molds are being identified as objects because slime molds are objects?

OK, thanks, that might help me track that down.

[khearn]

Yeah, echolocation would be limited to LoS, unlike telepathy. It would also detect brainless monsters. Maybe make the range limited by a combination of the caster's level and stealth?

Might be interesting to have the map tiles show up a little brighter than unlit tiles, but not as bright as lit tiles.

But all monsters should show as gray, since you can't tell their color by their echo. And you wouldn't get told the monster's color, you'd just see "a dragon bat" instead of "a red dragon bat", since you wouldn't know colors from echolocation. Hmmm, I guess it would also need a bunch of new gray tiles, one for each monster template.

You could just use the monster templates in monster_base.txt to determine what you report to the player. So they'd get told that it's a 'dragon fly', or a 'humanoid'. You wouldn't be able to see a lot of detail using sound, since sound has a pretty long wavelength, and the size of the details you can see is proportional to the wavelength, so all humanoids would pretty much look the same.

It might be nice to special-case a few things like dragons, since all of them from babies up to matures use the same 'dragon' template. It would be nice to show the player that it's a 'baby dragon', a 'young dragon', or a 'mature dragon'. That ought to be doable by looking at the name. Ethereal, chaos, etc would all look like 'mature dragon'.

Checking your monster memory wouldn't be possible, since you don't really know what it is. Unless you want to get really fancy and check to see what the entire template has in common and show that. But I suspect that often there would be nothing that is the same across the entire template, so it might not be worth the effort.

Of course, once the monster is close enough to be seen normally, it would display in color and you'd get the full name and info.

It'd be some work to implement, but it'd be a pretty cool effect.

[Hounded]

...maybe a new spell along the lines of Detect Monsters but with a duration rather then one turn, and limited to LoS if possible?

Make it sensitive to stealth and call it "Ears of the Bat" or something playing off Echolocation to keep it thematic perhaps?

[khearn]

Except drolems.

Wouldn't want it to be a cure-all.

[Pondlife]

should be useful against things with breath weapons.

Except drolems.