Preparing for 4.2 release

[Nick]

Thought I was imagining it at first, but it's repeated enough times that it's for sure. Getting a lot of "run past" problems, where @ runs over $ but they aren't picked up. Also happens occasionally with objects such as ammo, etc.

I haven't been able to repeat this. Are there specific circumstances where it happens? What are your pickup options set to?

[Nick]

Same with rune knowledge birth option off. Found a very early jackpot Amulet of Sustenance and it was already pre-identified but had {??}. As I started reading ID's on it, sustaining runes started to reveal. Haven't used ID on HoldLife yet and there in the pic, it appears ´half-identified'.

Did you have "know flavors" birth option on?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I haven't been able to repeat this. Are there specific circumstances where it happens? What are your pickup options set to?

I haven't discovered the specific repeatable conditions, but it happens while running (the normal mode of travel). Options set DO NOT automatically pick up objects, except for ammo, which I inscribe with "=g". Pick up options should be irrelevant for $. Next time you happen to be watching on angband.live, I'll point it out when it happens.

[Thraalbee]

Angband 4.1.3-515-gbe48a3a47. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22674

Hobbit Ranger "Revansch" started her quest with Str 18, Dex 15 and Con 13. Int & wis 10. Starting gear:
*) 4 Rations of Food
*) 7 Potions of Cure Light Wounds
*) 8 Scrolls of Phase Door
*) 4 Wooden Torches (5000 turns)
*) a Sling (x2) (+0,+0)
*) 74 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0)
*) 80 Iron Shots (1d4) (+0,+0)

First levels in the dungeon went smoothly, the sling was enough to kill what had to be killed but mostly I was helped by Stealth starting out already as "Excellent".

The first nice find (at 1250') was a holy avenger throwing axe, courtesy of Shagrat, which provided 4 points of Wisdom and See invisible. More than decent melee too but I had decided to only use shooters, so that didn't really help.

The second thing advancing my situation was two =Escaping. I always wonder why only the first ring gives a -15 (iirc) penalty to to-hit for shooters. Why not another -15 for the second? Anyway, with two of those and some ammo, you can take care of most stuff. Notably Mim who dropped a nice artifact Longbow x5 (+10,+21) with resist confusion. That's an end-game weapon, so already at level 29, and 1550', all I needed to win was to find the second book or find truckloads of arrows. And gain HP of course. As you know, arrows aren't that frequent but I found the book before being overwhelmed and from then it was a totally different game.

My stealth improved over time and once at "Legendary" level I even managed to sneak by nasty 's' drujs with confidence. Not a common happening. This was great when clearing out vaults.

The end-game kit was unusual in that all resistances and protections were covered plus fire immunity. Not a single hole although I didn't have regen, so there was a tiny room for improvement. Native Speed 24 not counting the 4 points lost to burden.

Sauron went the usual way but the Morgoth fight was a bit odd. I lobbed seeker arrows of wounding but didn't take much damage. Only a single mana storm which coincided with a darkness attack from a summon (took me down to 150hp) so the many unique's summoned were a bigger problem. Having a truckload of ammo was nice. First time as ranger not having to loop back and collect arrows mid-fight.

Reflections

(1) The create ammo spell does not make a huge difference if you use a powerful staff or something like _light or _see invis. I was worried that it would be too good at higher levels but it wasn't. Not a single holy might arrow in the entire game and creating frost and fire brand as well as slay evil were sufficiently rare to be balanced.

(2) A ranger, now with unlimited ammo even for ironman, no longer need melee. If the old "we've got to nerf rangers" thread wakes up again, my first suggestion would be to nerf ranger melee , like max 2 or 3 blows if you carry a longbow or crossbow.

(3) Picking up arrows (with =option "show damage" on) says "You have 22 arrows (+1,+1) (0)" etc. The final (0) does not make sense. Sometimes it gives a larger number. It could be that it says how many it picked up but gets the number 1 too short. Not sure.

(4) Randarts were balanced this game. With the exception of the early drop of the x5 artifact bow, I am quite happy with the progression of drops from somewhat useful to great to really great. No single item were awesome enough to be a gamechanger. The bow itself was not overpowered as such, it just came very early. The first and only Lotlorien bow I found was better for damage output.

(5) Rods/wands of Teleport Other makes the game more fun. However, I suggest waking monsters up when they are teleported. I once managed to teleport six unique's into the same tiny room, all still asleep http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=4637

(6) Using two =Escaping with no penalty for the second ring (as far as I can tell) is just too good for archers. I'd either reduce the speed bonus for =Escaping to +2 or double the to-hit penalty when using two.

[Nick]

Thanks for the report.

(3) Picking up arrows (with =option "show damage" on) says "You have 22 arrows (+1,+1) (0)" etc. The final (0) does not make sense. Sometimes it gives a larger number. It could be that it says how many it picked up but gets the number 1 too short. Not sure.

That's the label for the quiver slot the arrows are going into.

(5) Rods/wands of Teleport Other makes the game more fun. However, I suggest waking monsters up when they are teleported. I once managed to teleport six unique's into the same tiny room, all still asleep http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=4637

Yes, I need to decide what wakes monsters and what doesn't (there probably should be some randomness to this), and teleporting should be high on the wake list.

(6) Using two =Escaping with no penalty for the second ring (as far as I can tell) is just too good for archers. I'd either reduce the speed bonus for =Escaping to +2 or double the to-hit penalty when using two.

OK, will look at that.

[Derakon]

What if Escaping had no stat modifiers, and the "terrified" flag automatically conveyed +X speed? That would effectively mean that the two rings would not stack.

It's always bugged me that those rings are as powerful as they are. Early permanent speed is ridiculously hard to balance, and as it stands it seems like they're more or less a no-brainer for any character that relies primarily on ranged damage.

[PowerWyrm]

Continuing to port the "struct loc" refactoring to PWMAngband, I just tested some changes and suddenly monsters were not removed from screen when they died. I tracked the problem and found out the following:

void delete_monster_idx(int m_idx)
{
...

/* Wipe the Monster */
memset(mon, 0, sizeof(struct monster));

/* Visual update */
square_light_spot(cave, mon->grid);
}

Yeah, sure this will work...

[Pete Mack]

Well, 0,0 will sure be blank.

[Diego Gonzalez]

I see sometimes that monsters first drop their objetcs and then are wiped from screen. Perhaps this odd behavior is related to this code.

[fph]

(2) A ranger, now with unlimited ammo even for ironman, no longer need melee. If the old "we've got to nerf rangers" thread wakes up again, my first suggestion would be to nerf ranger melee , like max 2 or 3 blows if you carry a longbow or crossbow.

To be fair, they did nerf rangers, but then we all complained.

[emar]

When clicking with a mouse or using look->g, @ will only successfully travel to a square if there's an unimpeded direct path; if there are any obstacles in the way, @ travels as far as possible (as the crow flies), then halts as soon as it hits an obstacle.

Is this intentional?

[Chud]

Minor bug, perhaps -- I drank an unknown potion, which turned out to be Surprise! "Your body starts to scramble..."

... only, nothing scrambled. As far as I can tell it didn't do anything, unless there's a hidden effect I haven't noticed.

This is in the latest nightly.

[Chud]

Another minor bug -- someone dropped some blue dragon scale mail, which I had not identified yet. The description says "provides resistance to cold" along with "you do not know the full extent ..".

After I identified it, now it says resistance to lightning as expected, and it no longer says resistance to cold.

[jml34]

Sorry I didn't realize the development section was also about Vanilla. I'll post code there next time. (Are diffs against 4.1.3 ok?)

About autopickup limits: is it okay to have limits that only work in the range of one stack (i.e. 1..40), or should the code be able to deal with limits over several stacks (e.g. the player wants two stacks of !CCW so {!L80} should work) before the code can be considered user-ready?

[Nick]

Wow, that "only 11 bugs left" thing really went to hell in a hurry. Thanks for all the reports, have confirmed at least two, will follow up.