[FA] FAangband development

[Nick]

I finally took time to take a look at FAAngband, and my first impression is that the UI needs to be upgraded:

- ToME/S/O style ingame savefile handling menus needs to be added. Lack of that makes it a pain to play multiple characters.

Agreed, but I'm a bit scared of this - the O version at least doesn't seem to behave well in Windows when you are moving savefiles around. It probably should be done as a port-specific thing for when there isn't menu-based savefile handling.

- The main-x11 port doesn't use a settings file to store UI settings.

I had forgotten how annoying this is because I use a script for playing in Linux which sets up all the windows. I can post it later if anyone's interested, but it's based on one written by (I believe) Ben Harrison and included in the comments at the top of main-x11.c.

- And of course the main-x11 port looks crappy and primitive compared to the SDL port in Sang.

Yes, although it has a certain rustic charm . The next version will definitely have an SDL port, and probably GTK as well.

While we're on this (and in the absence of a porting forum ) is there any value in having other interfaces, like Qt or FLTK? I don't know enough about this to judge, and any commentary I could find on GTK vs Qt seemed to be decided on religious grounds.

[CJNyfalt]

I finally took time to take a look at FAAngband, and my first impression is that the UI needs to be upgraded:

- ToME/S/O style ingame savefile handling menus needs to be added. Lack of that makes it a pain to play multiple characters.

- The main-x11 port doesn't use a settings file to store UI settings.

- And of course the main-x11 port looks crappy and primitive compared to the SDL port in Sang.

[pav]

It's magical resistances, surely plain sum makes as much sense as multiplication

[Nick]

EyAngband does plain sum of percentile resistances, but cap them at 70% for high resists, and 55% for low resists (temporary resist adds 40% and rises the cap here to 95%).

The problem with a plain sum of percentages is that it doesn't make as much sense in terms of damage getting through - so a 20% source of resistance will cut damage by 20%, but a second one will cut the damage by 25%. This is why Bahman introduced the current resistance points system (which approximates multiplying) into O, which FA has inherited. The multiplicativeness will actually not make a huge amount of difference to how resists work in FA, but it allows me to have variable resistances much more easily.

[pav]

EyAngband does plain sum of percentile resistances, but cap them at 70% for high resists, and 55% for low resists (temporary resist adds 40% and rises the cap here to 95%).

[Nick]

New resistance plan

I'm planning a revamp of resistances for the next version. The plan goes something like this:

1. Some items will give a percentage resistance (probably typically about 30).
2. Resistances will be multiplicative - so two 20% sources of resistance will give 36% resistance, and so on.
3. Resistance on things like armour of Resist Fire will vary.
4. Temporary resistance will be 50%, so a genuine halving.

This way no amount of resistance will add up to immunity, and ego items will be more interesting.

[andrewdoull]

Gah! I don't see any reason for good and evil NPCs not to take out each other...

Sorry, having a fat-fingered day...

Surely it'd be smarter for one side to stand back and let the other side take you out first... I mean, we are talking about monster AI.

[Seany C]

Gah! I don't see any reason for good and evil NPCs not to take out each other...

Sorry, having a fat-fingered day...

[Seany C]

I don't see any reason for 'good' and 'evil' NPCs to attempt to take out each other but watch out for chain-summoning - Z has a handful of 'good' characters and it can lead to high-level summons all over a level occasionally...

Trading NPCs? It's the not-so-Desperate Adventurer, all of a sudden...or has Alebeard gone for a stroll?

S.

[petebull]

More problematic - should you be able to enlist them for help? Should they attack other monsters?

Absolutly. If there are undead and paladins coming after me on the same time those that are after me and can't reach me should fight undead instead.

Should you be able to trade with them?

Hm, tough call. No idea. My gut feeling says no.

[andrewdoull]

There's an unused side-band in text mode that might suit for this: use overstrikes with various diacriticals, although some 'bands are using accents already as decoration.

A Wolf with tail between it's legs: Ç

A crosseyed (confused) Floating Eye: ë

A hasted Elemental: É

A slowed Insect: Ě

A haloed (neutral) Angel: Ĺ

You need font metrics to do this properly for multi-glyph characters that don't have default encodings, but it's available on many platforms.

No idea how to do it with graphics.

You display the monster health bar over or under the monster graphic, with the colour coding representing the monster health state.

Andrew

[Pete Mack]

When you do this, have a long hard think about two things:

2. Secondly, once you've got the behaviour you want: How do you impart the information to the player? F.E.A.R.'s AI is particularly impressive because it tells you what the enemy is doing at all times. In fact, they 'fake AI' occasionally by having a command 'call for reinforcements' if one guys is left by himself: that does nothing.

If you want neutrals, maybe replace their monster symbol with an 'N' until they attack the player. etc.

There's an unused side-band in text mode that might suit for this: use overstrikes with various diacriticals, although some 'bands are using accents already as decoration.

A Wolf with tail between it's legs: Ç
A crosseyed (confused) Floating Eye: ë
A hasted Elemental: É
A slowed Insect: Ě
A haloed (neutral) Angel: Ĺ

You need font metrics to do this properly for multi-glyph characters that don't have default encodings, but it's available on many platforms.

No idea how to do it with graphics.

[Chris Wesling]

I'm definitely thinking about awake = aware of the player. However, I don't have any concrete way of displaying the difference between an 'awake' monster and an 'aware monster'. I was thinking of changing the line of sight routine if the player is 'sneaking' by having monsters display their cone of vision. However, this is a slightly difference mechanic.

Actually, when you have telepathy there do seem to be certain ranges where you can see that a monster is awake, but you're still out of its perception range. (At least in Vanilla.) They mostly just sit around doing nothing until you do come within their perception range, and then they start moving toward you pretty obviously. So you don't really need to be told that they've just detected you. So that's something to consider.

If you want them to engage in seemingly purposeful activity before they detect you, that might make it harder to tell when they do detect you.

[Psi]

Heh, I'm the wrong person to ask as I've never been there yet. Part of the problem(?) is that you don't get a speciality for the 3rd 'guardian' and Mim and Glaurung are relatively easier than Ungoliant and Sauron to bump off.

So maybe an incentive (a minor 4th speciality? an artifact not found elsewhere?) should be put in place for clearing out ND and/or TIG to reflect their greater difficulty...or maybe not, as I don't hear anyone else complaining...

As I've said elsewhere, I think a randart (of a guaranteed minimum power) should be the prize for the other guardians. As it is I don't mind taking out Sauron, but ND is horrible and Ungoliant is welcome to it!

[Nick]

Ick - that blue ink was a bad idea.

Someone needs to test this stuff out...