Current master post 4.2.0

[spara]

Ah, I see what you mean. I was taking this as no change to ID of potions and scrolls, but the runes for properties acquired by shapechange would only be learned if the character is wearing a relevant piece of equipment - the way it works for !rFire now.

That's exactly what I meant. I'm only proposing a change to the rune id process to make it more logical.

[MKula]

Hey, so I wanted to raise some "quality of life" issues to see what others think; these are just things that I found to be "annoying" or maybe unclear in the current state of things (again, "QoL" stuff):

Flags:
- What exactly does "Blessed" mean? There's no description of it anywhere in-game that I can find. Examining an ID'd Blessed weapon (or HA) just says "your weapon is blessed" and leaves it at that with no info on the benefits of it.

Necro:
- Since Necro's don't need light (but benefit highly from infra) I would love to see infra on the main view to know how much I have (maybe either beside light radius in the buff area at the bottom, or where HP/SP is on the left?).
- Spells that self-damage should have that damage value in the spell description if space allows (e.g. Shadow Shift description doesn't says it damages you 2d5)
- Nether Bolt does no damage to undead; I wish it said that somewhere (see Monster Memory below; I think that covers this issue).

Monster Memory:
- Currently a monster getting hit by a nether bolt doesn't appear to update the monster memory. This came up during my playthroughs because I noticed that undead are immune, but the monster descriptions don't include that info when they get hit.

Thoughts? A couple of them are admittedly questionable/controversial, but I figured I'd raise them anyway just in case.

EDIT: One more I recalled for mages:

Mage:
- I kind of wish Electric Arc functioned more like Noxious Fumes (@-centered AOE); a short range bolt hitting one target is a bit... disappointing

[Sphara]

Mage:
- I kind of wish Electric Arc functioned more like Noxious Fumes (@-centered AOE); a short range bolt hitting one target is a bit... disappointing

There is nothing wrong in player-centered ball spell in general, but Lightning Arc is the only guaranteed beam spell mage has early on. Fireball can pull the ball spell trick just nicely even though it requires targeting.

[MKula]

Fireball can pull the ball spell trick just nicely even though it requires targeting.

Yeah, fair point about the beam. You do indeed get Fireball not long after and that can essentially serve the same purpose.

[Nick]

What exactly does "Blessed" mean? There's no description of it anywhere in-game that I can find. Examining an ID'd Blessed weapon (or HA) just says "your weapon is blessed" and leaves it at that with no info on the benefits of it.

Blessed now means priests and paladins get combat bonuses for using it. The description could be improved to show that.

Since Necro's don't need light (but benefit highly from infra) I would love to see infra on the main view to know how much I have (maybe either beside light radius in the buff area at the bottom, or where HP/SP is on the left?).

I don't think infravision is of sufficient general importance to be always shown. There are a bunch of things that are useful to know, but only so much screen real estate, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. Also infravision doesn't change very often, and can easily be seen from the 'C' screen.

- Spells that self-damage should have that damage value in the spell description if space allows (e.g. Shadow Shift description doesn't says it damages you 2d5)

Yep, that should be doable.

Currently a monster getting hit by a nether bolt doesn't appear to update the monster memory. This came up during my playthroughs because I noticed that undead are immune, but the monster descriptions don't include that info when they get hit.

That is probably doable too.

I kind of wish Electric Arc functioned more like Noxious Fumes (@-centered AOE); a short range bolt hitting one target is a bit... disappointing

Electric Arc can hit more than one monster if it's long enough; it doesn't stop at the first monster it hits (unlike bolts and balls).

I've filed an issue to do the info improvements.

[MKula]

I don't think infravision is of sufficient general importance to be always shown. There are a bunch of things that are useful to know, but only so much screen real estate, and the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Yeah, agreed on this point. Infra's generally a minor thing.

I do feel like if you have no light, though, the game should tell you "your infra's kicking in". Maybe if your light is zero, the callout at the bottom changes from "Light (0)" to "Infra 30" (in the same purple colour as no light), or something? If you get a light again, it switches back to "Light (2)" in yellow or whatnot.

Or not. You're right that it's not a big deal. Just throwing that out there.

[Nick]

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

• Improve the multiplier version of monster speed in lore
• Revert the change stopping ignore of items with unknown runes, as it introduced too many side-effects
• Tidied up some code for projections
• Adjusted some tiles (#4274, #4406)
• Make the player only learn runes from shapechange if they are also wearing a relevant item (#4404)
• A few information fixes pointed out by MKula (#4408)
• Some MSVC compile fixes by Kusunose
• A raft of stuff from backwardsEric:
  • Several improvements to unit testing
  • Use of binary search in get_obj_num()
  • Fixes to equipment comparison
  • Improved textblocks, and then used the improvements for displaying two object descriptions together
  • Allowed repeat for magic that targets an item (enchant, identify, etc)
  • Group slays and brands that do the same damage together in weapon descriptions
  • Made floor stacking more sensible
  • Fix a compiler warning
  • Improvements to messages

[Nick]

Note that there's currently a slight problem with repeating, in that you can keep on reading Identify Rune scrolls on an object after it has all its runes identified. Fixed in development, fix will be in the next build.

[moosferatu]

Is it intended behavior for an inscribed consumable to lose its inscription when you've used all of the item and then get some more?

[fph]

Is it intended behavior for an inscribed consumable to lose its inscription when you've used all of the item and then get some more?

Inscriptions are tied to the individual object (e.g., that specific dagger (+5, +6)), not to the object type (e.g., *all* scrolls of recall in the world). However, you can set the game up to auto-inscribe every object of a certain kind: use the knowledge menu =, auto-inscription setup {, then { to inscribe a certain object type.

[moosferatu]

Inscriptions are tied to the individual object (e.g., that specific dagger (+5, +6)), not to the object type (e.g., *all* scrolls of recall in the world). However, you can set the game up to auto-inscribe every object of a certain kind: use the knowledge menu =, auto-inscription setup {, then { to inscribe a certain object type.

Cool, thanks!

[mrfy]

Did something change to the chance of ammo breaking on contact? When I look at Iron Shots (+0,+0) in the general store, the chance of breaking is 1%. This seems awfully low.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Did something change to the chance of ammo breaking on contact? When I look at Iron Shots (+0,+0) in the general store, the chance of breaking is 1%. This seems awfully low.

Doesn't seem low to me, for an iron shot. If it were an arrow or a bolt, that would be very, very low. But really, how easy is it to damage a rounded ball of hard metal so much that it isn't usable?

[Nick]

So the reason is that they're throwing items now, which all have 1% breakage chance. I wondered about making an exception, but as Ingwe says, it does seem reasonable.

[mrfy]

Doesn't seem low to me, for an iron shot. If it were an arrow or a bolt, that would be very, very low. But really, how easy is it to damage a rounded ball of hard metal so much that it isn't usable?

True. I'll just have to manage my inventory more so I'm not so overburdened with lots of Shots. I just expected them to break more often.