My own variant (sort of)

[Therem Harth]

I've decided to start a new variant. The working name is "Strawberry Angband", and it will basically be Vanilla, with some tweaks to remove things I find annoying - tweaks that probably would never get accepted into CVS, thus Strawberry. The tweaks will mostly be of the minor sort, but that may change as I understand the source code better.

Here's the list I've come up with so far:

1. Automatic stat gain.

Rationale: I dislike looking around for stat potions and sources thereof.

Methods: There are two ways this can be done. One is to just boost everything every five levels - very easy, but maybe unbalancing, especially as the linear stat gain means characters would be gaining stats even at early levels (before the appearance of stat gain potions).

The other is to have a prompt for a stat to raise, and give a bigger boost to the selected stat, a la Hengband. This would be harder for me to do (I'd probably best check out the Heng source code) but more balanced I think.

2. Trap detection fallback.

Rationale: Requirement of frequent trap detection is IMO annoying, esp. for warriors, who have no reliable source of it. And it makes sense for experienced characters to be able to recognize the presence of a nearby trap most of the time.

Methods: Have a stat (INT or WIS) give a useful bonus to perception and searching. Alternatively, give each class an innate perceptions/searching bonus that rises with level. I prefer the former option.

That's basically it for now, but I'm open to further suggestions on how to remove nuisances, improve balance, and/or make the game more fun. Especially balance suggestions - I don't want to make the game TOO easy.

Flame on!

[Therem Harth]

Okay an update: I've decided for now that the best way to do stat gain is to increase a *random* stat every level. But I don't want stats to increase on gaining levels from restoration of lost experience, because that would be kind of abusable. How can I check to make sure that this is the first time a level has been gained?

[will_asher]

I've decided to start a new variant. The working name is "Strawberry Angband", and it will basically be Vanilla, with some tweaks to remove things I find annoying - tweaks that probably would never get accepted into CVS, thus Strawberry. The tweaks will mostly be of the minor sort, but that may change as I understand the source code better.

That's almost exactly how my variant got started. It won't be long before you'll remove the "(sort of)".

[Therem Harth]

Thanks. I think.

Anyway, to answer my earlier question: the code seems to take care of it already. Yay.

[Therem Harth]

Okay 'nother question: where on Earth are the race/class adjustments to searching and perception processed? For the life of me I can't find them.

[Pete Mack]

In the initialization code, init1.c and init2.c. THey are read from the p_class.txt and p_race.txt files.

[Therem Harth]

Thank you very very very much.

[Therem Harth]

Okay, I am trying to add INT and WIS bonuses to Searching and Perception respectively. Key word "trying", because no matter what I add to srh and fos in init1.c, no bonus gets added in the game. What am I doing wrong?

[nppangband]

There is a function, called update_player I believe, that re-calculates the player stats any time there is a change. init.1 only reads the class and race files. You will have to change the in-game code to get INT and WIS to factor into searching, etc...

I will go look at the function now and tell you the exact place if somebody doesn't beat me to it first.

[nppangband]

The place to make that change is in the file called calc.c (in the player subfolder). There is a function called calc_bonuses that should be your starting point.

[Therem Harth]

Thank you!!!

Edit: and yes that did work. Woo hoo!

[Nick]

I've decided to start a new variant. The working name is "Strawberry Angband", and it will basically be Vanilla, with some tweaks to remove things I find annoying - tweaks that probably would never get accepted into CVS, thus Strawberry.

I like it.

[Therem Harth]

First version is available here: http://users.norwoodlight.com/danlev...ry-0.01.tar.gz

You can compile and run it with ./configure and make just like normal Vanilla Angband.

v0.01 changelog:

- Add automatic stat gain. One stat is raised, at random, each time the player gains a level for the first time.
- INT and WIS add to searching and perception respectively, the bonus being the stat's index multiplied by five. This sounds like a lot, but it ensures that smart and wise characters get good trap detection, whereas Troll characters are still bumbling idiots in the early game. I will tweak this to something with a sharper curve if necessary though.

(And an addendum on the second modification: I playtested with a half-troll warrior, and it worked fine - trap detection scaled *exactly* how I wanted as levels increased and INT and WIS went up. So for now the x5 bonus multiplier stays.)

Oh, and a final note on Strawberry: I intend to keep it in sync with V development, i.e. new V releases will be followed by new Strawberry ones. Basically I intend it to be not so much a variant in its own right, as V with certain annoyances and tedium factors removed. I'm sure it could be turned into a patchset for V, but I don't have the skills to do that yet, so I won't. Yet.

Finally... If you have any suggestions for tweaks, features, or lack thereof, please do say something!

P.S. In case Strawberry doesn't have enough "cool stuff" to satisfy you, I'm tentatively planning on forking ToME 2 at some point. Tentatively, I say. But it will probably happen. :P

[Therem Harth]

0.02 is now out: http://users.norwoodlight.com/danlev...ry-0.02.tar.gz

There is only one change here, in the object info file: all spellbooks now resist the elements, because getting your low-level books burnt up is No Fun.

P.S. Seeing as all of the above changes make the game a bit easier, I'm especially open to suggestions for increasing the difficulty.

[Derakon]

Well, to make up for reducing burden in the backpack, you could make armor encumbrance increase spell failure rates a bit. It wouldn't prevent perfect casting for mage/priest-types but it would make it a bit harder to achieve.