Current master post-4.1.3

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[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]

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?).

[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".

[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.

[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".

[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.

[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.)

[Nick]

Savefile and .new files attached.

The character you attached is dead - was that intended? Also, when you're providing a savefile when you've used randarts, attaching the randart file as well (it will be the newest file in your user\archive directory) makes my life easier.

EDIT: On the plus side, this did result in me finding a bug with incrementing the roman numeral after the player name when doing quickstart. It's just possible that this was the bug you were getting - was it happening after quickstarting a character and then going down stairs?

[gglibertine]

The character you attached is dead - was that intended? Also, when you're providing a savefile when you've used randarts, attaching the randart file as well (it will be the newest file in your user\archive directory) makes my life easier.

Noted, I'll remember that for next time. I've never tried to send savefiles before -- I got them up because my husband wanted to take a look. (I'm a tech writer, so my own coding/debugging skills are rudimentary at best, but he's refamiliarising himself with C for a new job after 18 years of COBOL/mainframe work, so he was interested in taking a stab at it.)

And yes, the character was dead. I was trying to start over from the savefile.

EDIT: On the plus side, this did result in me finding a bug with incrementing the roman numeral after the player name when doing quickstart. It's just possible that this was the bug you were getting - was it happening after quickstarting a character and then going down stairs?

Yep, that's exactly what was happening -- I couldn't make it off the shop level, even saving before using stairs just crashed instantly. Glad it was useful.

[bron]

I'm seeing a crash in one of the nightlies. Specifically, this one:
angband-84ffecf82ebd6f686fc90c80ac2d3f00a24ede13

Savefile should be attached. The character is trying to recharge a stack of Lightning Ball wands, one wand at a time. I've dropped one, recharged it, and moved to the side. I now again try to drop one Lightning Ball wand from my inventory stack (i.e. the sequence of commands "d", "n", "1"). The game aborts with the message "software bug".

[Nick]

I'm seeing a crash in one of the nightlies. Specifically, this one:
angband-84ffecf82ebd6f686fc90c80ac2d3f00a24ede13

Savefile should be attached. The character is trying to recharge a stack of Lightning Ball wands, one wand at a time. I've dropped one, recharged it, and moved to the side. I now again try to drop one Lightning Ball wand from my inventory stack (i.e. the sequence of commands "d", "n", "1"). The game aborts with the message "software bug".

Thanks, I think I have come across this one before but not been able to pin it down. I don't suppose you have a save before you dropped the first wand ?