Preparing for 4.2 release

[Nick]

New builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live with the following changes:

• Lightning Strike can now only strike targets in line of sight (thanks kaypy)
• Meteor Swarm now has the subsequent meteors continue past where a dead targeted monster was rather than continually hammering the same grid (kaypy again); this is a result of more general code to make multi-effect spells target correctly
• Cones of effect now make sure to hit every grid in the target path (thanks wobbly)
• Create arrows spell now stops showing as untried when it's tried (thanks Sphara and gglibertine)
• Memory overrun error in darkness spell fixed (thanks Kusunose)
• Recharge activation for Thingol now reasonable (thanks Holy_Rage)
• Fast monsters summoned by traps are now held until the player gets a move (thanks Sphara)
• The correct maximum (z_info->f_max) is used for bounding terrain features in map_info() (thanks wobbly)

There are also a few things which have been reported a while ago and I'm not sure if they're still problems:

• Crashes or other weird behaviour from Single Combat
• Problems giving things with the {??} inscription to stores
• Monsters failing to attack a ranger's decoy

so if anyone can clear those up one way or the other, that would be good.

[Nick]

Thanks for those last two bugs, both easily fixed in development.

[gglibertine]

Minor cosmetic bug using Create Arrows spell. It stays 'untried' in the spell list, even after you have already successfully cast it. You don't get extra scum EXP casting it over and over again, though

Confirmed, same is happening for me.

[Kusunose]

I'm playing with UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer enabled and when a monster cast a darkness spell, it emitted the following message:
project-player.c:874:28: runtime error: index 26 out of bounds for type 'element_info [25]'

Apparently, the function 'project_p' does not expect the projection type ('typ') to be outside of the element projections (ELEM_MAX: 25), which DARK_WEAK (26) is.

[Sphara]

Minor cosmetic bug using Create Arrows spell. It stays 'untried' in the spell list, even after you have already successfully cast it. You don't get extra scum EXP casting it over and over again, though

[PowerWyrm]

You see 2 Gloopy Green Potions.
Your body starts to scramble...
You see a Gloopy Green Potion of Surprise.

um, when did this get added? It's quite a surprise.

You drink a Gloopy Green Potion of Surprise. You hear Mike Patton starting to sing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCdUfAE5Rz8

[Nick]

You see 2 Gloopy Green Potions.
Your body starts to scramble...
You see a Gloopy Green Potion of Surprise.

um, when did this get added? It's quite a surprise.

It was a replacement for Lose Memories. A number of possible effects, one of them potentially useful.

[mrfy]

You see 2 Gloopy Green Potions.
Your body starts to scramble...
You see a Gloopy Green Potion of Surprise.

um, when did this get added? It's quite a surprise.

[gglibertine]

The character background always refers to the father alone ...
to make babies you need a female as well.

You are the son of a human royal prince and an elven woman.

More like this ...

This *is* a good point, although we've come a long way since the shops gave you a discount if you played a female character because I guess the original developers believed in the mythical "pussy pass"?

Feminism? In *my* Angband? It's more likely than you think!

I wonder if adding some professions as well might be add a bit of flavour. The key would be not to assign them by gender or use gendered terminology, e.g. 'dancer' is gender-neutral but 'dancing girl' is problematic. There's no reason the father can't be a weaver or a tailor (note that 'seamstress' is again problematic), and no reason a mother can't be a warrior or a priest. There are all sorts of other potentially interesting professions you might add as well, e.g.,

• Apothecary
• Healer
• Bowyer
• Fletcher
• Innkeeper
• Archaeologist
• Teacher
• Candlemaker
• Tanner
• Brewer
• Miller
• Baker
• Potter
• Chancellor
• Sergeant at arms

Alternatively, you could go Pythonesque and just say, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."

[PowerWyrm]

I start usually with the birth option usefull kit off.

As mage you have a hard time then ... no starting books available in the shop ... doh!

Mage books are sold by Bookseller now.

[Nick]

I start usually with the birth option usefull kit off.

As mage you have a hard time then ... no starting books available in the shop ... doh!

Are you looking in the right shop? Shop 4 is now a bookseller rather than temple, and holds town books for all the classes.

The character background always refers to the father alone ...
to make babies you need a female as well.

You are the son of a human royal prince and an elven woman.

More like this ...

That's a good point.

My search did not show any results to Angband live (or did i just overlook them?).

Please what is Angband Live?

Click the link and find out

[Derakon]

Lol, mage without useful kit. Isn't that masochism?

Tibarius is, as I recall, very big on shopping. Presumably the intent is to start with max gold (the "useful kit" deducts from your starting gold) so they can buy exactly what they want to buy instead of what the game thinks they should have.

Considering how weak mages are in the early game, I could absolutely see someone deciding to e.g. get an attack wand instead of spellbooks.

[Gauss]

I start usually with the birth option usefull kit off.

As mage you have a hard time then ... no starting books available in the shop ... doh!

Lol, mage without useful kit. Isn't that masochism?

[Tibarius]

birth option usefull kit

I start usually with the birth option usefull kit off.

As mage you have a hard time then ... no starting books available in the shop ... doh!

[Tibarius]

discriminating females

The character background always refers to the father alone ...
to make babies you need a female as well.

You are the son of a human royal prince and an elven woman.

More like this ...