Sangband 1.0.2 Beta

[camlost]

So why does it cost a turn to be reminded that you need to disarm an existing trap to free up your equipment?

Ok, actually, this is because using the alter command attacks monsters instead of setting traps, so you'd get free invisible-detection once you'd set all your traps. Unless I separate out trap-setting from the other stuff, this isn't likely. Best I can probably do is add a notification at the bottom of the window. Which is now done.

[Bostock]

Now all we need is the application of <BLINK></BLINK> and a marquee to the shapechange indicator*, and a forgetful burglar's turn-loss problems are a thing of the past.

* Do not actually do this.

Just so that there's some useful content in this post too: in my opinion it would be nice if there were someway to more strongly emphasize the @'s position in the Map screen. It can be quite hard to find oneself there sometimes.

[Bostock]

Just a minute ago, I examined the Spear of Orome on the floor with the "I" command when I still only had it pseudod and nothing more, and I got the Orome-specific description for it. While the practical impact of this is, I'll admit, pretty minimal, it's kind of wonky.

No clue yet how widespread this is.

[camlost]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the interaction of race-changing and skill aptitude? I assume that it would be possible to keep the original racial skill-aptitudes if I tried.

Also, should shapechanging replace racial stat modifiers? Or maybe reduce racial stats by 1/2? I.e. is there a difference between a giant-mouse and a halfling-mouse? If so, is it exactly the same as the difference between a halfling and a giant?

Just a minute ago, I examined the Spear of Orome on the floor with the "I" command when I still only had it pseudod and nothing more, and I got the Orome-specific description for it. While the practical impact of this is, I'll admit, pretty minimal, it's kind of wonky.

I think this has been noted before. I'm not sure if I consider this a bug. Maybe looking carefully at a weapon reveals its true nature? I think I'm ok with that.

[camlost]

Sangband 1.0.2 Final

Project Home
Windows download
Source

Since we are out of major bugs to squash, it's time to release 1.0.2 final. Here are incremental changes since b4.

• Ents and woses can walk through forests easily.
• Various fixes.

[Bostock]

I think it's more intuitive for race-changing to keep affecting aptitudes the way it does now -- no exceptions to remember, you simply "are" the new race. (It would be kind of nice if dying while race-changed didn't make quickstart generate you as the changed-into race though! )

I imagine shapechanging as a less total, less internal, less fundamental change though, so yes, I can definitely see Halfling-mice being different from Giant-mice. I like the "1/2" idea.

I'll take this excuse to re-mention one thing that's always kind of weirded me out: Troll-formed Half-trolls and Ent-formed Ents. Maybe the shapechange form is some kind of ur-Ent or über-Ent though.

[NotMorgoth]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the interaction of race-changing and skill aptitude? I assume that it would be possible to keep the original racial skill-aptitudes if I tried.

I don't have any experience with race-changing, so I don't really know how it works at the moment. This is essentially because:

1. When I start a game I am generally trying to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a particular race and/or win with that race, so I don't want to go changing race in the middle of the game.

2. By the time Metamorphosis is likely to appear, I have normally stopped eating mushrooms as I find that their effects are generally more negative than positive.

However, thinking about race-changing, I guess there are 3 obvious ways it could go. Assume you are a Hobbit with 60% Stealth and you suddenly get changed into an Ent.

1. You keep 60 levels of hobbit-grade stealth, but learn stealth as an ent from now on.

2. You keep 60% skill in stealth but the effects are calculated from the point of view of an ent with 60% stealth, so you will be a lot less stealthy than before. (AFAIK this is how stealth works..)

3. Your actual skill level is recalculated based on how many XP you spent to learn the skill and the relative difficulty for the 2 races. This will mean that as an ent, your stealth skill will end up at less than 60% as ents need to spend more XP to raise stealth.

I think 2 seems the most intuitive, and I'm guessing this is closest to how it works now.

Also, should shapechanging replace racial stat modifiers? Or maybe reduce racial stats by 1/2? I.e. is there a difference between a giant-mouse and a halfling-mouse? If so, is it exactly the same as the difference between a halfling and a giant?

I'm not sure about this one. I think totally replacing racial modifiers could lead to some strange results; for example a half-troll going into bear form would end up with less str and con than in their own form, while an elf in bear form would get a huge boost in str and con.

This could become a big disincentive for some races to use shapechanging, while making it very powerful for others.

Overall, I think it would work best to keep it the way it is, but I'd have to actually playtest the other options to be sure.

By the way, I agree that having permanent bearform available with 1 point in shapechanging is a bit cheesy, but also negates the uniqueness of Beornings being able to use bearform innately.

[NotMorgoth]

Two new small bugs (these were both found in b4, so they might have been fixed, but I haven't seen a note indicating this, so they might not have been noticed.)

1. When you shapeshift into an eagle, "golem" is displayed in the character info column. I'm pretty sure you actually get the effects of eagle form, it's just the display that is wrong.

2. When you shapeshift into either eagle or fire vortex, you get the message 'you shapeshift into a monster.' AFAIK, with the other forms it mentions the specific monster type rather than just 'a monster.' I haven't tried out all the new forms yet, however.

Also, these have been mentioned before, but I don't know if you've picked up on them - again, they may have been fixed in 1.02 final...

1. Lunge appears to be broken - it seems you can use it an unlimited number of times without the monster getting a chance to act.

2. You (camlost) mentioned in another thread that gloves of Magic Mastery cannot be generated because of something missing, presumably in object.txt, not sure what the follow-up on this was.

[camlost]

Two new small bugs (these were both found in b4, so they might have been fixed, but I haven't seen a note indicating this, so they might not have been noticed.)

1. When you shapeshift into an eagle, "golem" is displayed in the character info column. I'm pretty sure you actually get the effects of eagle form, it's just the display that is wrong.

2. When you shapeshift into either eagle or fire vortex, you get the message 'you shapeshift into a monster.' AFAIK, with the other forms it mentions the specific monster type rather than just 'a monster.' I haven't tried out all the new forms yet, however.

Also, these have been mentioned before, but I don't know if you've picked up on them - again, they may have been fixed in 1.02 final...

1. Lunge appears to be broken - it seems you can use it an unlimited number of times without the monster getting a chance to act.

2. You (camlost) mentioned in another thread that gloves of Magic Mastery cannot be generated because of something missing, presumably in object.txt, not sure what the follow-up on this was.

Thanks for the reminder -- all of these are now fixed in SVN. Maybe I'll release a latefix version in a little bit.

[NotMorgoth]

Interesting that the change to cheetah form speed applies to druidic spellcasters as well as shapechange skill users - I'm assuming it will still max out at +6 when my nature lore gets high enough?

I think this is a good thing as it maintains consistency between the two types of shapeshifters.

Also, I don't know if this is intentional, but cursed Amulets of Magical Vulnerability still give a high resist and free action. Even if this is technically a bug, I think it should be kept as it can make for some interesting tactical choices - eg do you risk the extra vulnerability to some magical attacks for an important resist?

[camlost]

Interesting that the change to cheetah form speed applies to druidic spellcasters as well as shapechange skill users - I'm assuming it will still max out at +6 when my nature lore gets high enough?

I think this is a good thing as it maintains consistency between the two types of shapeshifters.

Also, I don't know if this is intentional, but cursed Amulets of Magical Vulnerability still give a high resist and free action. Even if this is technically a bug, I think it should be kept as it can make for some interesting tactical choices - eg do you risk the extra vulnerability to some magical attacks for an important resist?

I decided to make the forms dependent of nature lore instead of shapeshifting, which lends itself nicely to druids also. It caps at +7, IIRC.

[NotMorgoth]

Just got a Jeweled Amulet of DOOM [-5] (-3) as a quest reward.

Occasional (or frequent) useless rewards are one thing that I guess can't really be avoided, but getting actual cursed items doesn't seem right.

I suppose I could use it as a throwing weapon (for 9d25 damage!) but I would imagine that unless I removed the curse it wouldn't actually be that useful for this either.

[NotMorgoth]

Just noticed something that seems to be a bit of an anomaly if not actually a bug...

Some or most monsters with pass_wall seem to have problems with doors - ie they can neither pass through them nor open them, so in vaults made up of permanent walls, ghosts and the like are trapped in their rooms unless something else opens the door.

Not sure if this is a deliberate design decision, to make ghosts less scary in some vaults though.

[Chud]

Display bug, or something I have locally weird?

I'm having regular problems getting the display to work on startup. With 1.0.2-final, on Windows 7, I run the game and the opening splash screen displays fine, but when I press a key or click the mouse I get a plain blank, black screen. The game appears to be running; if I don't have a current character I also see a single yellow underline cursor at the far left about 25% of the way down the screen.

If I do have an existing character, I see nothing, but <CR> ^X <CR> <CR> exits the game as you might expect, and I see the yellow cursor print at the top of the screen.

I have a couple of times gotten the game to display correctly, usually the first time after unpacking a new version, but I'm not sure what I'm doing differently otherwise.

I do have dual monitors on this box, but disabling one of them does not fix the problem. Deleting config.txt does not fix the problem either. What other information might be useful?

Thanks!

[camlost]

Display bug, or something I have locally weird?

I'm having regular problems getting the display to work on startup. With 1.0.2-final, on Windows 7, I run the game and the opening splash screen displays fine, but when I press a key or click the mouse I get a plain blank, black screen. The game appears to be running; if I don't have a current character I also see a single yellow underline cursor at the far left about 25% of the way down the screen.

If I do have an existing character, I see nothing, but <CR> ^X <CR> <CR> exits the game as you might expect, and I see the yellow cursor print at the top of the screen.

I have a couple of times gotten the game to display correctly, usually the first time after unpacking a new version, but I'm not sure what I'm doing differently otherwise.

I do have dual monitors on this box, but disabling one of them does not fix the problem. Deleting config.txt does not fix the problem either. What other information might be useful?

Thanks!

I don't think I've heard of or seen this before. The yellow cursor sounds familiar though.

This is the only reference I've found.

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpost.php?p=43483&postcount=101

Maybe try deleting your prf files? Are you setting highlite_player?