FAangband 1.0

[Chryana]

Hi. Congratulations for reaching the 1.0 release. I have not played FAangband much, to be honest, but I have been following its development to some extent, and downloaded and compiled every new release. Your Angband variant is certainly one of those with the most active development. That being said, I've been running into trouble with the latest release... When I try to run the executable with the -mgcu command line option, I get the error message "The 'lib' directory is probably missing or broken.". If I try the -mx11 option, the message is "Couldn't load the requested font. (8x16x)", which is obviously incorrect, since there a 8x16x.fon file in the font folder. Also, I can't compile with the file Makefile.std.... It's ok I guess since I can build the game with the Makefile in the root directory, but I've not seen any variant yet which I could compile at all where that file wouldn't work until now. Anyways, thank you very much.

[Nick]

1.0! Ho-ho! Some variant maintainers are really brave.

Meh - it's just a number. It doesn't mean it has any less bugs than previous versions.

[Bandobras]

Congratulations!

1.0! Ho-ho! Some variant maintainers are really brave.

[Nick]

I assume you can you see objects on sand dunes rather than them being disguised like on rubble? (If it wasn't for other dunes removing LoS anyway).

Yes, that's right - in particular, they're visible if you use Object Detection.

[Psi]

It's basically the sand dune thing. Previously, deserts were made up of rock and rubble, so all items had to be generated on floor or grass, and tended to concentrate on the paths. Now there are a lot of sand dune grids, which can also have items generated on them - so the number of potential spots for items has grown enormously, and the (same number of) items are more spread out.

I assume you can you see objects on sand dunes rather than them being disguised like on rubble? (If it wasn't for other dunes removing LoS anyway).

[Nick]

Two questions I forgot to ask - are the mobs of mixed 'p's, without any guarded items, deliberate? I seem to encounter them reasonable frequently from DL2 onwards...

Yes. The way this now works is that if a player-race monster (for example, an Easterling novice mage) that normally appears in groups is generated, instead of a group of novice mages, you will get a mixed group of Easterlings. Another thing to note is that a given player-race is more common close to its home town.

Secondly: I spotted the change about reducing the number of artifacts generated at Anf58 - however, this seems, at first glance, to have nerfed the number of items of any quality appearing at Anf 56/58 - or is it that the items are there but just hidden by sand dunes?

It's basically the sand dune thing. Previously, deserts were made up of rock and rubble, so all items had to be generated on floor or grass, and tended to concentrate on the paths. Now there are a lot of sand dune grids, which can also have items generated on them - so the number of potential spots for items has grown enormously, and the (same number of) items are more spread out.

[Psi]

Secondly: I spotted the change about reducing the number of artifacts generated at Anf58 - however, this seems, at first glance, to have nerfed the number of items of any quality appearing at Anf 56/58 - or is it that the items are there but just hidden by sand dunes?

The change to nerf artifacts is purely reducing the bar for the autoscummer on levels with dungeon entrances. So that will not have caused that.

I believe it is probably to do with the sand dunes, but I haven't actually investigated it too deeply.

[Seany C]

Two questions I forgot to ask - are the mobs of mixed 'p's, without any guarded items, deliberate? I seem to encounter them reasonable frequently from DL2 onwards...

Secondly: I spotted the change about reducing the number of artifacts generated at Anf58 - however, this seems, at first glance, to have nerfed the number of items of any quality appearing at Anf 56/58 - or is it that the items are there but just hidden by sand dunes?

[Seany C]

Yellow perils, as in yellow p (Beastmaster) or h (Gavernians) that cause no end of headache in the wilderness.

Ah - it's only the summoner (beastmasters/animists/druids) that I have a problem with, once my CL's into double figures. Archers can be nasty for low-level chars but a decent AC seems to cut the risk down significantly...

Nick - 15+d10 sounds good - that should stop it from being ready to recharge as soon as your mana's depleted...

[Nick]

So this would mean that a player would have to simply drop items they felt they didn't want?

Yes, that's right

Would this also impact the amount of found items?

Well, my favoured option (today, anyway) is the squelch for gold idea. This means that squelched items, instead of being still there but hidden, get turned into gold - probably in an amount that is some fraction of their sale price.

The no selling idea does remove one of the current chief purposes of the towns - so I will probably have a rethink of all the town functions as well.

[JimmyMike]

This is an idea of Eddie Grove's. The basic idea is that it removes the collecting of gear just to sell, and gets away from "Angband:Game of Shopping". You can't just ban selling and do nothing else, because then you don't have enough money to buy consumables; Eddie's solution is to increase gold drops.

I actually have a new idea on this, but I'll post it in a separate thread.

I'm glad to hear that; I was a bit worried that it would be impossible to sustain ration reserves, let alone get new equipment. So this would mean that a player would have to simply drop items they felt they didn't want? Would this also impact the amount of found items?

-JimmyMike

[Pete Mack]

Heh, fair point for many chars but sneaking around with a Longbeard tends to turn into a firefight pretty damn quickly...
Yellow perils - druids

Yellow perils, as in yellow p (Beastmaster) or h (Gavernians) that cause no end of headache in the wilderness.

[buzzkill]

I suppose it depends how you play. I haven't yet tried to scoot and shoot an opponent - and I wouldn't have the patience to do that with a wimpy firebolt. I've been using the activation as a means of preventing having to rest (to keep my turncount down).

It is cheesy, but that wimpy firebolt is quite formidable when your supply of them is unlimited. Cheesy, but irresistibly tempting. Even relatively strong enemies falls easily to the firebolt (x10)/phase/activate/repeat combo. It will carry you to DL20 quickly. It used to work for 1/2 casters too, but I think that has been disabled.

[Nick]

I realize that I'm new around here, and this may be a silly question and all, but I noticed on the "Big Things" page (planned new features for FAangband) that there will be "No Selling to Shops" and just wondered that really means what I think it means and what the reasoning for this is. Can anybody shed some light on it?

This is an idea of Eddie Grove's. The basic idea is that it removes the collecting of gear just to sell, and gets away from "Angband:Game of Shopping". You can't just ban selling and do nothing else, because then you don't have enough money to buy consumables; Eddie's solution is to increase gold drops.

I actually have a new idea on this, but I'll post it in a separate thread.

[JimmyMike]

I realize that I'm new around here, and this may be a silly question and all, but I noticed on the "Big Things" page (planned new features for FAangband) that there will be "No Selling to Shops" and just wondered that really means what I think it means and what the reasoning for this is. Can anybody shed some light on it?

-JimmyMike