experimenting with minimal id

[PowerDiver]

Yes, probably. When are you going to release your V patch as a full-blown variant with all this stuff fixed, so the rest of us can start stealing code from it?

The problem is that I kept doing things incrementally, and I did things wrong at first, so I need to re-architect my code now, in addition to writing doc and fixing a dozen bugs.

[Bandobras]

Activation depending upon depth is another bogus overloading that needs to be fixed.

IMO there ought to be deep items whose whole purpose is that they are easier to activate than the shallower versions of similar items.

In, was it Multiband or TOME, there was a flag making the item a fixed number of levels easier to activate than native depth. A cheap hack, but, hey, it's cheap!

[Nick]

In, was it Multiband or TOME, there was a flag making the item a fixed number of levels easier to activate than native depth. A cheap hack, but, hey, it's cheap!

O also has a flag which halves the activation level. Eddie's suggestion would be pretty easy to implement, though; there's in fact an unused byte field (right after level) in the object_kind structure that's just asking to be used, and it's even read in in the initialisation.

[takkaria]

5. When I hit a monster and do extra damage from a slay or brand, change the message accordingly - "You smite the Hill Orc!" for Slay Orc weapons, "You burn the White Wraith" for fire branded ammo. [This helps me use-id ego weapons and ammo, and adds flavour]

6. When I wield an unidentified weapon or armour, if it gives visible bonuses that can only come from egos or artifacts (like stat bonuses), give it the {excellent} pseudo-id status. [This helps me use-id ego items]

For people who don't follow development closely, these two are now in the development version and will be in the 3.1 release.

[Big Al]

6. When I wield an unidentified weapon or armour, if it gives visible bonuses that can only come from egos or artifacts (like stat bonuses), give it the {excellent} pseudo-id status. [This helps me use-id ego items]

Does this mean that artifacts will pseudo as {excellent} some of the time? That seems awfully confusing for some people - you expect artifacts as {special} and egos as {excellent} only. What if auto-squelch settings is to squelch excellent items (not that artifacts can be squelched anyway)? Would it be easier to mark artifacts as {special} when you notice it?

[PowerDiver]

Does this mean that artifacts will pseudo as {excellent} some of the time? That seems awfully confusing for some people - you expect artifacts as {special} and egos as {excellent} only. What if auto-squelch settings is to squelch excellent items (not that artifacts can be squelched anyway)? Would it be easier to mark artifacts as {special} when you notice it?

IMO artifacts should always be marked special [and auto-id, perhaps that is too much for you] on wield [even weak pseudo]. If you believe the descriptions in artifact.txt, they should really be obvious even on pickup.

[takkaria]

Does this mean that artifacts will pseudo as {excellent} some of the time? That seems awfully confusing for some people - you expect artifacts as {special} and egos as {excellent} only. What if auto-squelch settings is to squelch excellent items (not that artifacts can be squelched anyway)? Would it be easier to mark artifacts as {special} when you notice it?

Yes, and thanks for this; I just committed that approach.

[Rizwan]

OK, well see how you like my next proposal. It's a simple change to 1 line of object.txt: Rod of Perception goes from depth 55, rarity 6 to depth 30, rarity 1. I think this (together with the lack of *ID* in FA) brings a nice clean end to the ID mini-game at about the time it is starting to seem pointless.

I was just wondering the same thing reading through all the posts. Would it not be easier to just change the rarity of ID sources (scrolls, staves, wands, rods) so that they are much more common rather than going through all the complicated code of psuedo-ID? I mean would it be too simplistic? As in ruin the fun of psuedo-ID? Or unbalance the game somehow?
This is all being done so that you instantly know whatever it is that you pick up. If we make ID sources so very common would it give us the same end result? We would have the ability to instantly id anything not because of some inherent attribute of the player but just due to the fact that we can find a scroll of ID just around the corner.

[takkaria]

O also has a flag which halves the activation level. Eddie's suggestion would be pretty easy to implement, though; there's in fact an unused byte field (right after level) in the object_kind structure that's just asking to be used, and it's even read in in the initialisation.

In V 3.1, the level field is currently only used for device difficulty AFAIK (object allocation uses the A: line which has different struct fields), so that pretty much already does what people want.

[Nick]

In V 3.1, the level field is currently only used for device difficulty AFAIK (object allocation uses the A: line which has different struct fields), so that pretty much already does what people want.

That's a shame - now you have to find something to use that unused field for.

[takkaria]

That's a shame - now you have to find something to use that unused field for.

I curse Ben for all his unused fields. For someone who was so "concerned" with "efficiency", he left a lot of them "lying around".

[Nick]

I curse Ben for all his unused fields. For someone who was so "concerned" with "efficiency", he left a lot of them "lying around".

They have been bequeathed to you as a sacred trust. Use them wisely, my son.

[tigpup]

I was just wondering the same thing reading through all the posts. Would it not be easier to just change the rarity of ID sources (scrolls, staves, wands, rods) so that they are much more common.

Or utilise a mass_id system like NPP does.

-Neil