Current master post-4.1.3

[Chud]

From post #1 of this thread:

• Arcane caster glove penalty removed

Please understand, I write the above with no intention of snarkiness, although I realise it could very easily come across that way. My intention really is to just be helpful.

Ayup.

No worries, my own fault for not reading (or remembering).

[PowerWyrm]

Commit 3b3a1e2 adds temporary slays and brands. In PWMAngband, I already added temporary lightning brand for the Elementalist class, so I checked my implementation. Was similar, except that I added a temporary message ("it is branded with lightning") when inspecting an object (in describe_slays and describe_brands) and calculated the damage accordingly (in obj_known_damage). I didn't see that part in the commit, no idea if it was implemented later, but it would be nice to add it in V too if not.

[Nick]

New builds are now up on the nightlies page, with the following changes:

• Shockbolt's trap and rubble tiles added
• Some memory leaks fixed (thanks elly)
• Some other technical bugfixes (thanks kusunosetoru and steils)
• Changes to necromancer spells - basically swapped the places of Disenchant and Vampire Strike, and doubled Vampire Strike effect

Interested in how the necro change works.

EDIT: Also updated on angband.live

[jevansau]

Trying a necro with the latest build.
Don't seem to have as much see in the dark any more. 4 spaces at L20

Also found a pricing bug: In the weapon store:
a Light Crossbow of Extra Shots (x3) (+2,+7) {??} for 15635907
I guess it could be some outrageous shooting speed.

Save and randart file attached if you need to look.

[fph]

Tried a couple of the new necros, but in both cases I got greedy and died before statgain depth. So I couldn't really try reliably the new change to the spells. I think they mitigate the problem, but the main issue could be in the even-earlier game, when the only way you have to deal damage is a magic missile that deals half damage to evil and no damage to undeads. I met an early skeleton kobold in a corridor before getting book 2 and before finding a sling in the shops, and basically I had no way to damage it...

[Nick]

Trying a necro with the latest build.
Don't seem to have as much see in the dark any more. 4 spaces at L20

Also found a pricing bug: In the weapon store:
a Light Crossbow of Extra Shots (x3) (+2,+7) {??} for 15635907
I guess it could be some outrageous shooting speed.

Save and randart file attached if you need to look.

Thanks, will investigate.

[Chud]

New builds are now up on the nightlies page, with the following changes:

• Shockbolt's trap and rubble tiles added
• Some memory leaks fixed (thanks elly)
• Some other technical bugfixes (thanks kusunosetoru and steils)
• Changes to necromancer spells - basically swapped the places of Disenchant and Vampire Strike, and doubled Vampire Strike effect

Interested in how the necro change works.

EDIT: Also updated on angband.live

Trying a new Necro now with this nightly; will let you know. Early on, it still seems that Evil's damage resistance to nether (and thus the Necro's main attack) is pretty crippling, but if I survive to the point where I can deal more damage I'll let you know how that goes.

[gglibertine]

OK, I see this and it's very odd. Most of those red stars aren't actually objects. Further investigation required.

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?

[Diego Gonzalez]

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?

Yes, it happened to me yesterday but I forgot about it until now. I think it was some kind of mold or scroll mimic (perhaps this last one isn't a bug).

[Chud]

Another Necro observation... the dark affinity actually seems to be a significant handicap, since your sight range is so limited in open spaces. This is a problem because you can't target things you can't see, so you're largely forced to work at close range as a spellcaster, which is pretty dangerous.

Hallways aren't quite as bad, because you can detect and then fire blindly, but open rooms get really dangerous if you have breathers you can't see but that can target you for several turns before you can target them. You can alternate detect and fire, but now you're effectively at half speed.

I don't know how thoroughly intertwined the seeing-things and area-light mechanisms are in the code, but I could imagine this might be pretty difficult to change? If so... maybe a new spell along the lines of Detect Monsters but with a duration rather then one turn, and limited to LoS if possible?

[khearn]

Sounds like telepathy would be pretty important for necromancers. Maybe they should have a spell that provides it for a while? Won't help vs. mindless things like molds and jellies, but should be useful against things with breath weapons.

[Pondlife]

should be useful against things with breath weapons.

Except drolems.

[khearn]

Except drolems.

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

[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]

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.