Sangband 1.0.2 Beta

[camlost]

Sangband 1.0.2 Beta

• Ents, Druadan (Woses), and Beornings.
• Shapechanging skill
• New warrior talents

Project website
Windows executeable
Source

Please note that this is actually a beta. Expect some bugs, especially regarding shapechanging.


Major changes since 1.0.1

• Savefile INCOMPATIBLE! (again)
• Significant increase in talents for warriors -- press 'p'.
• Removal of bowmaking -- all functionality merged with weaponsmithing.
• Addition of Shapechanging skill - press ']'. Nature lore and blood dominion will open up additional forms.
• Now able to dual wield multiple weapon types.
• Weapon skills will increase each others skill (applies less across martial arts and weapon-based).
• Clearing out store will now cost significantly more.
• Brand damage will scale with skill.
• Blessed weapons now use player's best weapon skill.
• Sauron tougher.
• Improve pack AI when cover is blown.
• Add beorning, druadan (woses), and Ents.
• Monsters can abuse LOS against player using ball spells.
• Much easier to loot traps.
• Druids and mages can now cast in the dark also.
• Increased mana and HP at lower levels.
• Hindrance trains skills now.
• Allow skill reduction
• Utility magic devices easier to use
• Quiver will return ammunition to it on pickup
• Can no longer target ranged attacks beyond their maximum distance.
• Significant increase in pseudo-id rate and power

Bugfixes

• Empty wands will stack with known-charges wands
• Traps with (nothing) will no longer crash the game when disarmed.
• Overmind spell works
• Characters can now be restarted without crashing
• Shops no longer leak flavors
• Character display subwindow will function properly now
• Returning property will now display in 'I'nspect and in dumps, and on detailed item screen.
• Color code hunger messages
• Gauntlets will brand martial arts.
• Talents will now be acquired at the proper level, regardless of oaths.
• Prevent crash when activating palantir.
• Improve monster trap interface
• Display temporary poison resistance on screen.
• Players can now ID items on ground with infravision.

Gameplay changes

• Athelas will now wilt, but monsters will have to be deeper to drop it.
• Additional ego items and jewelry
• Cure medium wounds at 15%
• Easy swap dual-wielded weapons command '|' (requires a turn)
• User option to raise skills beyond power cap (100 power)
• All characters recieve some innate spell resistance, skill increases saving throw less, but also costs less.
• Low level monsters generate less experience, high level monsters more. (as defined relative to your power)
• Ironman characters can commit suicide.
• Gnomes better with crossbows, elves better with melee weapons
• Storm Crows, manticores, nruling, and lighting jaws made less awesome
• Martial arts will receive its resist and free action earlier.
• Physical damage resistance (or immunity) will reduce damage instead of stopping damage, and is less potent. It also now properly applies to thrown and fired weapons.
• Quests will be more spread out to prevent problems with too-difficult quests.

[Magnate]

Awesome. Will I ever play a caster again?

[camlost]

Awesome. Will I ever play a caster again?

Casters get lots of nice things. It was time for non-casters to have some toys also. I'm a little worried about making the game too easy with all these new options, though.

[Magnate]

Casters get lots of nice things. It was time for non-casters to have some toys also. I'm a little worried about making the game too easy with all these new options, though.

Well if that happens, come to the support group at #angband-dev ... we have lots of remedies!

[Nick]

Awesome announcement post!

Just one technical point - V has taken the ']' command for object list, so it may be a good idea at some point to move shapechanging to another key. I am aware of this issue because I get occasional complaints from people who come to FA from V ...

[NotMorgoth]

Great announcement; by "good luck" my latest character has just died, so I'll give the new version a go straight away...

For me, making the game easier is not necessarily a bad thing; I haven't had a winner since 1.01 came out, though I put this mostly down to stupid deaths caused by playing the game when I'm too tired to concentrate properly, rather than the game being too hard or the RNG being unkind.

[Bostock]

The two best pieces of news for me are:
- no enhanced quiver yet, so I don't need to fret about having started a thrower in a save-incompatible version
- no muzzle on skill reduction yet, so it's not time yet to get used to not being cheesy

[Bostock]

[

[*] Addition of Shapechanging skill - press ']'.

Could you give a few details on this? True, I can "play and see," but a bit of documentation is nice sometimes.

[*] Weapon skills will increase each others skill (applies less across martial arts and weapon-based).

Is this charged to the power cap? (Or to see the glass half-full: is the player blessed with a power-level boost based on this?)

[*] Clearing out store will now cost significantly more.

Much-needed. I'm a little afraid this could, in extreme cases, lead to *manual* buyouts, which would be a very undesirable effect... on the other hand, perhaps that's too pessimistic, especially when I consider that I, for one, couldn't be bothered to do that. I suppose in the worst case a restocking fee (with an "are you sure") could be charged upon purchase of the last item in stock.

[*] Sauron tougher.

Damn, the secret got out.

[*] Traps with (nothing) will no longer crash the game when disarmed.

THANK YOU!!

[*] Athelas will now wilt, but monsters will have to be deeper to drop it.

This one is why I posted, really. "Problem for the player, butworse problem for the player?" Did you accidentally a word somewhere?

[*] Cure medium wounds at 15%

Is this the famous nerf, or a rebuff?

[*] Easy swap dual-wielded weapons command '|' (requires a turn)

Yayyy!

[*] Ironman characters can commit suicide.

Why only Ironman? Bad shop contents have prompted many a suicide in normal games for me as well. They're worth solving in their own right (by this I mean guaranteeing a non-enchanted weapon of the cheapest type in its class in the shops at the start of play) but I suspect that other examples of suicide-worthy starts could be found.

[Magnate]

Could you give a few details on this? True, I can "play and see," but a bit of documentation is nice sometimes.

Have you not grokked the Sangband Way yet? Bung in a fabulous load of features, and then put one or two lines of atmospheric but content-free help text ... Sangband is the most Crawl-esque of *bands in its opacity ....

[NotMorgoth]

A few bugs/typos/weirdnesses I have come across...

In the documentation (manual.html) dwarves are still shown as having +2 wis and -2 int. I also think the change in melee weapon aptitudes for elves has not been updated.

In the in-game help, Druedain are called 'Dredain' - I don't know if this is caused by a typo or by some character not being recognised on my computer.

The first time I went into the dungeon, there was a glyph of warding on the dungeon floor, something I have never seen before. What's more, I could 'see' it from across the dungeon in an otherwise-black unexplored area.

[Magnate]

In the in-game help, Druedain are called 'Dredain' - I don't know if this is caused by a typo or by some character not being recognised on my computer.

I have this too, it's to do with "extended character support". Since Sang relies on SDL, it's all about whether the fonts in use support xchars. I presume we're using ones which don't. Simplest is for the game to ship only fonts which do.

[camlost]

(to Bostock)

* Shapechanging -- there are various forms associated with the shapechanging skill. The skill provides 4 forms by itself; you'll probably want access to either the 4 forms provided by nature lore or 4 by blood dominion. The help has brief descriptions of the forms. When you get a form initially, it won't last permanently, but as you become more experienced, it'll last longer and longer, then permanently. Apart from that, you'll have to test them to see what they do.

Bear (10), Maia (20), Troll (40), Dragon (90)
Mouse (10), Serpent (20), Cheetah (40), Hound (60)
Bat (10), Werewolf (20), Vampire (60), Lich (90)

Huh. After looking at this list, I'll need to spread out levels a little more to have more, smaller breakpoints.

* Compentancy minimums on weapon skills are not charged to characters. They're also not very large. They're intended to make it less painful to switch weapon-type mid-game. This should be extra-helpful when switching to martial arts.

* Manual buyout will not restock the store. You'll have to pay the 100000 fedex charge tariff to get new stock.

* Athelas will now wilt, as written, but monsters will have to be deeper to give black breath. As a reminder, quest rewards include athelas if you need it.

* _CMW 20% -> 10% -> 15%. It's a partial rebuff.

[camlost]

A few bugs/typos/weirdnesses I have come across...

In the documentation (manual.html) dwarves are still shown as having +2 wis and -2 int. I also think the change in melee weapon aptitudes for elves has not been updated.

In the in-game help, Druedain are called 'Dredain' - I don't know if this is caused by a typo or by some character not being recognised on my computer.

The first time I went into the dungeon, there was a glyph of warding on the dungeon floor, something I have never seen before. What's more, I could 'see' it from across the dungeon in an otherwise-black unexplored area.

Thanks for the bugs.

I've never seen the glyph of warding either. I'll open a ticket if it's seen again.

Just one technical point - V has taken the ']' command for object list, so it may be a good idea at some point to move shapechanging to another key. I am aware of this issue because I get occasional complaints from people who come to FA from V ...

I'll take votes/suggestions for where to put it. But ']' used to be the unshapechange button, and it's proximate to 'p' and '[', the other talent keys.

I have this too, it's to do with "extended character support". Since Sang relies on SDL, it's all about whether the fonts in use support xchars. I presume we're using ones which don't. Simplest is for the game to ship only fonts which do.

Well, I also have this problem, so I'm going to simplify the 'Drúedain" to "Druedain" in the in-game help until such time as I figure out if there's a proper way to deal with this issue.

[NotMorgoth]

Not sure if this is a bug or just an option I have missed somewhere, but I've been noticing some strange behaviour with the auto pickup/add to quiver.

When I buy my first stack of bolts and shoot some, if I walk over them, it will automatically pick them up and add them to the quiver.

But, if I then get a second stack that does not merge with the first, they will not be auto picked up after I fire them.

However, if when I find a new stack, I drop all other bolts then wield the new ones so that they are the only bolts in my quiver, they will be auto picked up. It seems like as soon as a stack becomes the only stack in the quiver it then gets auto picked up, but I have to drop all the others each time I find a new stack.

I haven't tested this exhaustively, or with different types of ammo, as I've only played a crossbow archer so far in this version. I'm also not sure how this behaviour compares with earlier versions, but I'm pretty sure in 1.01, all throwing ammo at least would be auto picked if it had previously been in the quiver, and I think arrows were too.

[camlost]

Not sure if this is a bug or just an option I have missed somewhere, but I've been noticing some strange behaviour with the auto pickup/add to quiver.

When I buy my first stack of bolts and shoot some, if I walk over them, it will automatically pick them up and add them to the quiver.

But, if I then get a second stack that does not merge with the first, they will not be auto picked up after I fire them.

However, if when I find a new stack, I drop all other bolts then wield the new ones so that they are the only bolts in my quiver, they will be auto picked up. It seems like as soon as a stack becomes the only stack in the quiver it then gets auto picked up, but I have to drop all the others each time I find a new stack.

I haven't tested this exhaustively, or with different types of ammo, as I've only played a crossbow archer so far in this version. I'm also not sure how this behaviour compares with earlier versions, but I'm pretty sure in 1.01, all throwing ammo at least would be auto picked if it had previously been in the quiver, and I think arrows were too.

I don't think I touched ammo pickup between 1.0.1.169 and 1.0.2b. Anything that was fired from the quiver should return there, if there's room for it. I'll check it out tonight.