[Z+] Newb Questions

[Mangojuice]

Misc Z+ questions...

Still looking for a way to squelch corpses during game play?

What's with all the padded armour? and why doesn't it stack?

Why is my Cloak [1,+0] 'cursed'?

You can email the file to me: mangojuice75 at gmail, and I'll post it on the Z+ webpage.

There's no way to squelch corpses/remains, because they aren't objects. They are "fields" .. and you might want to be aware of them, because there are rare occasions when they matter. When you're a ghoul, for instance, and you can eat them.

Padded armor: early on there's not a lot of different things that are common, so you get mostly padded armor and hatchets. Armor and Weapons don't stack in Z+ (and in recent versions of Z): this is for realism - there's a reason 99 potions can fit in one inventory slot but 2 leather armors can't.

In Z and Z+ cursed things are not always negatively enchanted. You can even get things like a Cloak [1,+7] {cursed} on occasion, sometimes even (good) ego items are randomly cursed. This makes the remove curse ability a little more important.

[buzzkill]

You can email the file to me: mangojuice75 at gmail, and I'll post it on the Z+ webpage.

I will. I'm going to at least get the monsters nailed down before I do (It's the least I can do). Might take a couple of weeks cause I'm going on vacation. It's still very raw. I was just playing and had to correct a bunch of stuff I already fixed.

There's no way to squelch corpses/remains, because they aren't objects. They are "fields" .. and you might want to be aware of them, because there are rare occasions when they matter. When you're a ghoul, for instance, and you can eat them.

This is something I'd really like to assign a graphic to, but haven't a clue. It's a recurring, noticeable, black hole in the graphics. If you could cut and paste a portion of a particular file that needs to be altered to take care of this... well, that would be just great.

In Z and Z+ cursed things are not always negatively enchanted. You can even get things like a Cloak [1,+7] {cursed} on occasion, sometimes even (good) ego items are randomly cursed. This makes the remove curse ability a little more important.

OK, so the curse simply restricts you from removing it, in these situations? It doesn't necessarily indicate a negative modifier of other harmful effect?

[Mangojuice]

I will. I'm going to at least get the monsters nailed down before I do (It's the least I can do). Might take a couple of weeks cause I'm going on vacation. It's still very raw. I was just playing and had to correct a bunch of stuff I already fixed.

This is something I'd really like to assign a graphic to, but haven't a clue. It's a recurring, noticeable, black hole in the graphics. If you could cut and paste a portion of a particular file that needs to be altered to take care of this... well, that would be just great.

Add these to the .prf file:

# Glyph of Warding
T:2:0x87:0xA9

# Corpse
T:4:0x87:0xAD

# Skeleton
T:5:0x87:0xAF

"T:" stands for "thaumaturgical field" - in other words, traps, runes, and stores. You can find the list of them in lib/edit/t_info.txt.

OK, so the curse simply restricts you from removing it, in these situations? It doesn't necessarily indicate a negative modifier of other harmful effect?

For your cloak, yes. If an item is activatable, it has a higher failure rate if it's cursed. Also, cursed ammunition is very hard to hit with.

No rush on the file, whenever you're ready. And thanks, I know it's a lot of work. It was a lot of work with the 8x8 tileset and that one already worked properly in Z.

[buzzkill]

Add these to the .prf file:

# Glyph of Warding
T:2:0x87:0xA9

# Corpse
T:4:0x87:0xAD

# Skeleton
T:5:0x87:0xAF

"T:" stands for "thaumaturgical field" - in other words, traps, runes, and stores. You can find the list of them in lib/edit/t_info.txt.

Thanks mango. I'm back... but it's going to take me a little while to get back into the swing of things. Honestly, it took me a while to even remember what I was working on. It's amazing what a week on a beach (no WiFi) will do to you.

[buzzkill]

Still working on the DG graphics. I have the scroll's and corpses straightened out, as well as the wilderness and towns looking pretty good. I even created a few new tiles (bushes, and rocks). It's very playable up to about CL15 (that's about as far as I made it so far). I'm working my way through r_info right now (about 1/2 way), but there are a lot of new monsters in z+, and none of then line up properly.
My current peeve, is that the potions aren't appearing as the proper colors. If someone (Mango) could point me to the right _info file and proper section of the .prf I'd like to get this nailed down sooner rather than later.
Also, now that I'm beginning to play a little, could you point me to someplace where I can read a little about race and class abilities.
And, does the terrain effect your offense/defense/movement?

[Pete Mack]

you really should try to grab the knowledge code from unangband, which is highly portable and doesn't require the menu toolkit. (V and FA use the same code, but integrated with the menu API. NPP uses the old, nonportable knowledge code.) You would probably be done with this chore, long since.

[buzzkill]

you really should try to grab the knowledge code from unangband, which is highly portable and doesn't require the menu toolkit. (V and FA use the same code, but integrated with the menu API. NPP uses the old, nonportable knowledge code.) You would probably be done with this chore, long since.

Really, no really, you have too much faith in me Pete. I've almost no idea what you are talking about (??? knowledge code, menu toolkit, menu API, NPP ???). I don't know too much about how Angband or it's variants are written and/or compiled, and I don't have the knowledge to do either.

This little foray into establishing the DG graphics in Z+ is as close as I've come to programming since I was a teenager. I figured there must be an easier way, but... the manual editing is working.... very..... slowly.......

[Mangojuice]

Still working on the DG graphics. I have the scroll's and corpses straightened out, as well as the wilderness and towns looking pretty good. I even created a few new tiles (bushes, and rocks). It's very playable up to about CL15 (that's about as far as I made it so far). I'm working my way through r_info right now (about 1/2 way), but there are a lot of new monsters in z+, and none of then line up properly.
My current peeve, is that the potions aren't appearing as the proper colors. If someone (Mango) could point me to the right _info file and proper section of the .prf I'd like to get this nailed down sooner rather than later.
Also, now that I'm beginning to play a little, could you point me to someplace where I can read a little about race and class abilities.
And, does the terrain effect your offense/defense/movement?

Good news: I did the potion colors myself already.

Here's the code snippet:

# Potions (!)
S:0xE0:0x88/0x87
S:0xE1:0x88/0x97
S:0xE2:0x88/0x80
S:0xE3:0x88/0x8D
S:0xE4:0x88/0x92
S:0xE5:0x88/0x91
S:0xE6:0x88/0x85
S:0xE7:0x88/0x89
S:0xE8:0x88/0x87
S:0xE9:0x88/0x8C
S:0xEA:0x88/0xA0
S:0xEB:0x88/0x93
S:0xEC:0x88/0x8E
S:0xED:0x88/0x95
S:0xEE:0x88/0x84
S:0xEF:0x88/0x81

This replaces the similar lines already in graf-dvg.prf.

Edit: Race/Class abilities -- the help files are from Zangband mostly but they should be correct. There's probably a race spoiler out there for detailed info on the Zangband races, and Z+ hasn't altered them (yet). Terrain -- some terrain is impassible. Some terrain is "half-los" -- forests of various kinds -- these sometimes allow LOS and sometimes don't but you can always move through them. There are penalties to your movement speed and ranged attacks through forests. Other than that terrain doesn't affect much in the game other than its flavor. Beware, though, of acid/lava/poison swamps, et cetera, and don't let yourself drown in water either. Generally speaking, the ascii symbols have a consistent meaning to them: # = impassible, . = open line of sight and passable, % = half LOS, and ~ = liquid. This is one reason I actually kind of prefer playing without graphics -- it's more obvious what terrain affects what, by looking at the ascii symbols.

[buzzkill]

Good news: I did the potion colors myself already.

Thanks!!! I saw that snippet in the .prf (as well as earlier in this thread, DOOGH!). I just figured there had to be more somewhere else as it seems this would only cover 16 different flavors. Obviously there are more than 16 different types of potions.

Generally speaking, the ascii symbols have a consistent meaning to them: # = impassible, . = open line of sight and passable, % = half LOS, and ~ = liquid. This is one reason I actually kind of prefer playing without graphics -- it's more obvious what terrain affects what, by looking at the ascii symbols.

Yes indeed. I was a bit confused at first, when I assigned the bushes a tree-like graphic. LOS was a nightmare! After some experimentation, I finally changed bushes and rocks to light and medium hills, which looked really good, and gave excellent LOS, but I felt that it was possibly taking too much 'flavor' from the game. The new bush and rock graphics work well since they're only half height. You can still 'see green', and have descent LOS, though not as clearly as with the 'hilly' tiles (as a forest should be???).

[buzzkill]

My miserable life as a sprite

From the Z+ help files...
Sprites have the special power of spraying Sleeping Dust.
What's the keystroke??? How does this work???

[Mangojuice]

From the Z+ help files...
Sprites have the special power of spraying Sleeping Dust.
What's the keystroke??? How does this work???

All activated racial abilities and mutations are accessed via the "Use power" command: 'U' in the original keyset, 'O' in roguelike.

Many of the racial abilities are not available at low levels.

[buzzkill]

You fly over a trap door.

Another sprite question. Z Plus 3.0. I received the message "You fly over a trap door."
That's all well and good, but I want to go down, and pressing '>' just tells me "I see no down staircase here."
Is there a way flying characters can take the trap door... down?
It seems to me that this should be possible.

And unrelated to the above...
My Sprite/Monk is currently using Life Magic, but it seems he can learn more spells than there are in his books. Does he access to a second school of magic, or are there dougeon books to be found? I noticed spell books in stores that he can read (death magic), but spells in those books are "uncastable".

[Mangojuice]

Another sprite question. Z Plus 3.0. I received the message "You fly over a trap door."
That's all well and good, but I want to go down, and pressing '>' just tells me "I see no down staircase here."
Is there a way flying characters can take the trap door... down?
It seems to me that this should be possible.

And unrelated to the above...
My Sprite/Monk is currently using Life Magic, but it seems he can learn more spells than there are in his books. Does he access to a second school of magic, or are there dougeon books to be found? I noticed spell books in stores that he can read (death magic), but spells in those books are "unlearnable".

There's no way to intentionally set off traps in Z+. I might integrate that into a future version but it's not there right now. As for flying, you're right, I could make hitting a trap door while flying give you the option of descending.

No, there are no other realms you can use. You are probably missing the 3rd and 4th books, but even if you had them you are probably being told you can learn more spells than you would actually be able to. That's all you need to know; read further if you want to understand the logic.



In older versions, the number of spells you can learn at a given point is based on (1) your Int/Wis combined with your level, which is then (2) capped by the number of spells available.

In 0.3.0, this all changes. The number is still based on your Int/Wis combined with your level, but there's no check based on the number of spells available any more (partly because for non-priestly types, the number available is vague, thanks to spell focusing). The number of spells you get is capped only by the total number of spell slots you have available. So it's a bit imprecise. You could be told you can learn 8 new spells when even with all the books, it's only possible to learn 2 of them at your current level.

But that is worth fixing in the next version; it's confusing.

[buzzkill]

Z Plus 3.0 - CL 21 Sprite/Monk

I've noticed that once I stun an enemy he can neither move nor attack. Is this normal for Z+? If so, is this normal for all classes, or is it exclusive to monks? My monk seems to stun enemies quite often, and once stunned they rarely recover/survive. It seems almost unfair. I know that when my character is stunned he can still fight and/or run.

Also... my stealth is rated as: Chaos Rank. I know this is good, but how good?

[Mangojuice]

Z Plus 3.0 - CL 21 Sprite/Monk

I've noticed that once I stun an enemy he can neither move nor attack. Is this normal for Z+? If so, is this normal for all classes, or is it exclusive to monks? My monk seems to stun enemies quite often, and once stunned they rarely recover/survive. It seems almost unfair. I know that when my character is stunned he can still fight and/or run.

Also... my stealth is rated as: Chaos Rank. I know this is good, but how good?

This is normal for Z and Z+. The ability to stun monsters is far, far better for monks than other classes; other classes simply cannot do this with melee attacks at all; there aren't even artifact weapons that do this. Other classes can cause stunning with certain magic effects, like sound-based damage. Yes, basically, stunned monsters don't move, so it's very nice. Some monsters can resist stunning but nothing is immune.. but undead, for instance, are very resilient, as are uniques.

The reason they rarely recover is probably that you continue to stun them more and more as you attack.

Chaos Rank is very good; the highest level is Amber, (e.g. Amber [17]) and the second highest is Chaos Rank. Chaos Rank stealth is awfully good; good enough that you probably could do without any item that increases your stealth (like a ring of Invisibility) and still have exceptional stealth.