Unangband 0.6.4-pre4 released

[Arralen]

I really have troubles with thrown weapons and potions in pre4 - especially if it's against monster that are "big" (those that give you the message "can't reach"). Javelins and Flask of Gunpowder just fall harmlessly to its feet, without any message 'bout missing or something.

Is has gotten so bad in Caradhras, that I haven't used throwing any more for 10 or more levels, until today, when I deliberatly tried it - wanted to put those un-tolkien gunpowder flask to some use, but I couldn't.

Dunno if this working as designed, but I suspect there's either a message missing or some screwup with the "you can't hit giant monsters" code

[Arralen]

I don't really have a problem with the "teleporting away" from a dungeon (entrance) level, but with the fact that I can get from Lonely Mountain to Numenor in one hop if I have both maps with me, while I have to traverse several zones to get from Hobbiton to Rivendell because there are no maps for that. (Not that I would want some - as I said, I like the overland travel).

You've constructed a pretty complicated (underlying) campaign map of Middle Earth (which someone did a nice graphic of .. have saved it in my UN download folder for reference; just noticed it's missing the Lonely Mountain map entry, though). Sadly, the map teleport feature devalues it quite a bit, as I could get e.g. from Caradhras to Orodruin or Angmar in one step. And that's a shame !

[andrewdoull]

Personally, I rather read that as ...
" Shut up, I'm reusing the stairs code from normal dungeon management, which is not really suited for the task, but fixing the thing would either break lots of other things, or require the rewrite of quite a bit of code, but the time required to do that I would rather invest elsewhere ...

It's not so much a shut up, as I don't feel the need and 'realism' travelling between even normal levels is quite broken. It would be relatively straight forward to generate FAAngband wilderness stairs on the borders of the levels and require you stand on one to travel. I think it'd only need to touch a little bit of the dungeon generation code, mostly by copying and pasting from the relevent FAAngband wilderness generation code.

It's quite nice for instance to be able to teleport away from Beorn and recharge before going back again.

Andrew

[Nick]

No, I don't have a clue 'bout C, and I'm not starting my own variant. Never. Ever.

That's what I said

[Arralen]

The maps are made from the wood pulp used to construct stairs in all the dungeons. As a part of the pulping process the magic that prevents monsters moving up and down stairs gets modified to allow you to teleport from the borders of almost any wilderness area.

Personally, I rather read that as ...
" Shut up, I'm reusing the stairs code from normal dungeon management, which is not really suited for the task, but fixing the thing would either break lots of other things, or require the rewrite of quite a bit of code, but the time required to do that I would rather invest elsewhere ...

Nevertheless, if it is working as designed atm, there's obviously a design error, which should be rectified sooner or later, IMHO, because with maps enabling teleport to every restricted area from another, the whole concept of "overland map" (levels, not objects) is superfluous.
And I love overland levels ... even if UN has pretty few of them - the ground levels of the dungeons, basically. Somehow I was under the impression that Andrew likes the wilderness levels from FA, though, and I'm hoping they might get transferred to UN one day ... . Thinking 'bout it, the "zoomable" overland map from Tome/Heng might be the best thing to do, but the level generation code used by those variants is pretty much awful.
So all it needs is the overland map code from Tome, the wilderness maps from FA, the dungeons from UN (including all the nice terrain), and everything would be fine.
No, I don't have a clue 'bout C, and I'm not starting my own variant. Never. Ever.

[Nick]

The maps are made from the wood pulp used to construct stairs in all the dungeons. As a part of the pulping process the magic that prevents monsters moving up and down stairs gets modified to allow you to teleport from the borders of almost any wilderness area.

Personally, I would have gone with "It just does".

[andrewdoull]

Hmmmm ... and what about teleporting from the snowy trails of Caradhras directly into the sunken city of Numenor ... don't tell me this is because of the "ease of travel"

The maps are made from the wood pulp used to construct stairs in all the dungeons. As a part of the pulping process the magic that prevents monsters moving up and down stairs gets modified to allow you to teleport from the borders of almost any wilderness area.

Btw., IMHO it should be either "sunken cities of Numenor", or "the sunken city of Armenelos", as there where at least 5 cities on the island of Numenor (Andúnië, Ondosto, Armenelos, Rómenna, Eldalondë and maybe Nindamos, the biggest settlement on the south coast)

Thanks - we're going with cities...

Typo ?!
"The spectral anaconda ... An enormous serpent, floating in the air and bounding off the dungeon walls"
I never heard the word "bounding" used that way, but then, I am not a native speaker ...

Stolen from Sangband, and given Leon's mastery of English, I'm sure it is correct.

Andrew

[baddog73]

As a native speaker, I say that although a bit archaic, bounding is perfectly correct.

-Ben

[Derakon]

Well, it'd either be "bounding" or "bouncing", and bouncing makes me think of a rubber ball. The entire sentence should be redone, though; it's just weird.

[Arralen]

Hmmmm ... and what about teleporting from the snowy trails of Caradhras directly into the sunken city of Numenor ... don't tell me this is because of the "ease of travel"

Btw., IMHO it should be either "sunken cities of Numenor", or "the sunken city of Armenelos", as there where at least 5 cities on the island of Numenor (Andúnië, Ondosto, Armenelos, Rómenna, Eldalondë and maybe Nindamos, the biggest settlement on the south coast)


Typo ?!
"The spectral anaconda ... An enormous serpent, floating in the air and bounding off the dungeon walls"
I never heard the word "bounding" used that way, but then, I am not a native speaker ...

[Big Al]

Fixed the problem with extra spaces in SVN - though you might need to delete the dungeon.raw file for it to work.

Not sure about the maps thing, but it might be a bit more on the "reducing annoying things" vs. "realism" side of things. Forcing to carry map(s) with you has the downside of using up more inventory slots in exchange for easier travel.

[Arralen]

Is it working as designed if you ...


.. have to actually carry a map, instead of having it at home (and inspected once), to enter some "restricted" area?


.. are on Caradhras 20 (restricted), and your bag of maps ( 'There and Back Again', Citadel of Isengard, Mountain Caradhras, sunken city of Numenor) seems to allow you to travel directly to (note the surplus space characters!)

   Location                      Level
a) Rivendell                      0
b) the Lonely Mountain (!!)      26-36
c)  Isengard                      3-33
d)  west Moria entrance           6-24
e) the sunken city of Numenor    35-48

I would guess at least the Lonely Mountain, Isengard and Numenor would require a little bit of teleport .... which at least for Numenor worked in a test.

[andrewdoull]

Re: ID. I can't browse books outside my specialty, so I'm not sure which books to sell. Is there a chance we could change things so that all characters could at least browse spellbooks for descriptions, even if you can't use them?

You can always examine it even if you can't browse it.

Re: chill. I like the radius 1 suggestion but it might be a little over-powered for a level 1 spell. It should definitely scale up in damage - and duration... that might just be an oversight on my part.

Andrew

[andrewdoull]

Yeah, that's what I mean. I've been using poison bolt, darkness bolt almost exclusively (until I found the psy book) for direct damage, but it would still be nice to have a 3rd damage type when poison and dark are ineffective.

It would be nice... but we can't give you everything... thanks everyone for the bug reports btw.

Andrew

[baddog73]

I use a lot of darkness bolts in the third master spellbook for direct damage, though they are expensive.

Yeah, that's what I mean. I've been using poison bolt, darkness bolt almost exclusively (until I found the psy book) for direct damage, but it would still be nice to have a 3rd damage type when poison and dark are ineffective.


Whoa, holy bugs, Batman: I just managed to summon 2 familiars! Any idea how this happened?
edit - Just figured something more about this bug, you can summon another familiar when after loading a saved game with a summoned
familiar already present

Bug: There's something odd about ally targetting. Sometimes I can't clear ally targets, so I have to target a space (then they all get unstuck) then I can untarget to get them to follow again.

Convenience: The food algorithm should consider eating elvish waybread when travelling.