making a semi-variant (more talk about modifying the /edit .txt files)

**Daven_26d1** · November 24, 2007, 03:07

Just distribute your edit files, there's no point wrapping up another copy of Angband with them if 99% of the people who will use them already have a copy of Angband.

A couple install scripts so that anyone can use your mod quickly and easily and you'd be away.

EDIT - I would guess that STUPID monsters always use the stupid AI?

**will_asher** · November 24, 2007, 07:29

Install scripts to replace the original edit files with mine automatically? That sounds cool, but I wouldn't know how to write it. maybe I'll ask someone to do that for me once I have them ready to download.

**zaimoni** · November 24, 2007, 14:17

If I was providing those scripts, I'd back up the original edit files as well. They'd be somewhat platform-specific.

At minimum
* *.bat for DOS/Windows
* *.sh for *NIX (least common denominator, something that works on all non-buggy shells out there.)

I'd want
* initial install
* uninstall
* switch to original
* switch to revised

**will_asher** · November 24, 2007, 23:06

looking for suggestions about uniques

I've already replaced several uniques, but I'm wanting to add just a couple more. Vanilla Angband has 97 uniques, mine currently has 99 but about six of them are minor orc uniques which I don't want to count since I want to make them not much tougher than their escorts.

I didn't like Cantoras because he's not from Tolkien nor from another popular story or mythology that I know of. If he was just made up for Angband, Moria, or DND, then I don't want him in the game. But if he is from a fantasy story or mythology, or possibly from Tolkien (but didn't get into the Guide to Middle Earth by Robert Foster which I use to find out if some uniques are from Tolkien or not because it's been awhile since I read the Silmarillion and I don't remember a lot from it.) ..then I'll put him back in my monster.txt file. So if Cantoras is from a fantasy story or mythology that I don't know about, please let me know, if not I was thinking about replacing him with a mummy unique. any suggestions?

Also, I'm pretty sure that Tselakus was probably just made up for Angband, and want to take him out. I would like to replace him with a ghost unique.

I also thought I might like to add a snake unique, I was thinking possibly Apophis (the evil snake-shaped brother of Ra in egyptian mythology), but welcome other suggestions.

Some stuff I've already done with uniques:
Atlas and Kronos are taken out. The quylthulg unique is cut. The yeek uniques (like the rest of the yeeks) have been terminated. I already mentioned Tselakus and probably Cantoras will be expelled. Baphomet is changed a lot (because it shouldn't be called a minotaur). Smeagul is changed and appears later (and is called Gollum not Smeagul). The dL3 unique is now Lotho-Sackville Baggins. Gorlim has been released because he really wasn't a bad guy (I felt sorry for him). Farmer Maggot has been replaced by Harry Goatleaf. The elemental uniques have been rejected. The Cat Lord has been replaced by the White Cat of Beruthiel (who rules over the black cats) but is essentially the same. Omarax has been plucked out. The angel uniques (along with the other angels) don't belong in Angband. I took Medusa out because 1) if she can't petrify then she's not Medusa 2) she is unrelated to hydras and nagas like she appears to be in Angband.

Not sure about Polyphemus and Fundin Bluecloak. Polyphemus I took out at first, but I'm thinking I'll probably put him back in. Fundin Bluecloak is not mentioned as either a bad guy or a priest in the Guide to Middle Earth or the Enclyclopedia of Arda (on the internet). I'd look him up in the Sillmarillion, but I don't have a copy of my own. When I read it, I was borrowing it from my parents. oh well.

Some uniques I have added (besides minor orc uniques):
Harry Goatleaf and Lotho Sackville-Baggins like I mentioned already
Bill Ferny
Wolf, Farmer Maggot's other dog (BTW, I also made slight differences between the dogs 'cause I didn't feel like having them all exactly the same)
Three uniques from The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon: Siniava, and the two evil gods Achrya and Liart.
Wulf, Renegade of Rohan (from the Sillmarillion)
The third of the Stone troll brothers (I forget which one is missing from vanilla ..wait, aren't they all in vanilla? maybe he was already there).
Old man Willow who lives near the Shire, and The Watcher in the Water at the doors of Moria.
Bel-Shamharoth, a beholder-type from Discworld (much earlier and not nearly as tough as the old beholder unique)
The Cerberus and The Minotaur of Crete from greek mythology
Huwawa, Guardian of the Forest from the story of Gilgamesh
Two uniques from Wagner's the The Ring (which Tolkien got some ideas from): Alberich the Nibelung (the Dwarf Lord, who currently replaces Fundin Bluecloak), and Fafner the Giant.
and a couple others which I will leave as surprises.

**andrewdoull** · November 25, 2007, 00:11

Originally posted by will_asher

I've already replaced several uniques, but I'm wanting to add just a couple more. Vanilla Angband has 97 uniques, mine currently has 99 but about six of them are minor orc uniques which I don't want to count since I want to make them not much tougher than their escorts.

Hi Will,

Shawn McHorse did a lot of what you are suggesting previously for Angband, and came up with a comprehensive list here.

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

http://groups.google.com.au/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_thread/thread/520dc43050c9d33e/5b6c88bff0a9da9e?hl=en&lnk=st&q=shawn+mchorse+angband+uniques#5b6c88bff0a9da9e

I then took that list and modified it for Unangband, incorporating various monster stats from a number of Angband variants, as well as re-using the stats for some uniques that he drops.

Keep up the good work.

Andrew

**andrewdoull** · November 25, 2007, 00:13

Originally posted by will_asher

Not sure about Polyphemus and Fundin Bluecloak. Polyphemus I took out at first, but I'm thinking I'll probably put him back in. Fundin Bluecloak is not mentioned as either a bad guy or a priest in the Guide to Middle Earth or the Enclyclopedia of Arda (on the internet). I'd look him up in the Sillmarillion, but I don't have a copy of my own. When I read it, I was borrowing it from my parents. oh well.

Don't bother looking. Fundin was the first Angband winner ever...

Andrew

**will_asher** · November 25, 2007, 02:12

`

Originally posted by andrewdoull

Hi Will,

Shawn McHorse did a lot of what you are suggesting previously for Angband, and came up with a comprehensive list here.

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

http://groups.google.com.au/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_thread/thread/520dc43050c9d33e/5b6c88bff0a9da9e?hl=en&lnk=st&q=shawn+mchorse+angband+uniques#5b6c88bff0a9da9e

I then took that list and modified it for Unangband, incorporating various monster stats from a number of Angband variants, as well as re-using the stats for some uniques that he drops.

Keep up the good work.

Andrew

Thanks for the link, it's a very interesting post by someone who did some good research. I find it very funny that Sauron was originally a cat. Ted Sandyman I can use as another early unique to let me take out Bullroarer (who, as the post says, wasn't a bad guy). I heard Ted was in a variant or two but wasn't sure if he was from Tolkien.

<..reads the rest of the message from the link> I think I'll make some changes to my uniques now..

I almost removed Vecna, but I did kindof want to have a lich unique so I left him in. I had only heard of him as a Hindu god though. I was never interested in DND and don't want to have too much influence from it.

I knew the names of the Nazguls besides Khamul were not from Tolkien but it's appropiate to make each nazgul a unique and to do that it helps to have names for them.

That fact about Fundin might've actually made me put him back in the game if I had not already found a replacement (mentioned in my earlier post). I did keep Draebor after all. There is a mythology which is original to roguelikes which would include things like Fundin and Draebor.

more later..

**Nick** · November 25, 2007, 03:52

Hi Will,

I've done a lot of this sort of thing for FAangband. Because it's First Age based, I needed to remove all the later uniques (Saruman, Grishnakh, etc), but I did keep ones like Vecna and Cantoras who are not mentioned in Tolkien. I also removed anyone from other mythologies (although there were already not many of those in O, which I forked from). You seem to have worked out what you're basing your selections on, which is the important thing.

You might like to have a look at the FA monster list - in particular the Phantom of Eilenel is a Tolkienian ghost unique. It's worth noting, too the gameplay purposes of some of these uniques - the angels, for example, are among the few high-level uniques which are not evil.

Keep us posted.

**Daven_26d1** · November 25, 2007, 15:15

Originally posted by zaimoni

If I was providing those scripts, I'd back up the original edit files as well. They'd be somewhat platform-specific.

At minimum
* *.bat for DOS/Windows
* *.sh for *NIX (least common denominator, something that works on all non-buggy shells out there.)

I'd want
* initial install
* uninstall
* switch to original
* switch to revised

My idea would be to unpack scripts & edit files to the angband folder, and run the install script there. After that, run a provided angband.sh or angband.bat instead of angband or angband.exe and the script can prompt you for a choice regarding which version you wish to play, swapping over the files where neccessary. Of course, when it swaps edit files in/out, it should also swap in/out the savefile if it exists.

**Daven_26d1** · November 25, 2007, 15:21

Originally posted by will_asher

Install scripts to replace the original edit files with mine automatically? That sounds cool, but I wouldn't know how to write it. maybe I'll ask someone to do that for me once I have them ready to download.

I can do those for you. They're very simple and will take minutes to get working. Only thing I'm not certain about is the savefile naming conventions on different platforms, but I can find that out. Send me a message when you have them ready, and I'll do the Linux and Windows ones, but you'll have to get someone else if you want scripts for Mac.

**will_asher** · November 30, 2007, 06:30

Originally posted by will_asher

Is there any possible way (maybe a slight tweak in the code that someone can tell me how to do) to make the dumps different from vanilla dumps so there can be a separate section of the ladder for it? (I'd like to be able to dump characters on the ladder).

I've heard suggestions in another thread to get rid of some of the artifacts, and I'd like to do that except I don't really know which artifacts to take out. any suggestions? (please don't ask me to take out the uber-good stuff, I don't want my semi-variant to be harder than vanilla -just different).

Also, there are a couple flags I still don't know what they do, can anyone tell me?
POWERFUL (someone said it increased breath damage, but in the monster blow spoiler it only says that it increases the radius of the breath, and I'd be a little surprised if that was all it did.)
STUPID
(I think those are the only two I'm not sure about)

Is there a difference/ What is the difference between HURT and FIRE,ACID,COLD,ELEC besides the effect of the elemental damage?
(someone in a recent thread inplied there was a difference besides the effects of the elemental attack.)

Can anyone help with the questions I asked in the original post (quoted above) please?

Also, I have one other question:
The S_WRAITH flag make the monster summon ringwraiths right? So how does the game know which W's are ringwraiths? There's no flag for it, and there's the black wraith which has the exact same symbol as the ringwraiths.

Does it summon any unique W's? If so, that would mean I can't make any other uniques use the W symbol unless I want them summoned with that spell, right?

I put Balder the Hapless and the Lord of the Shadow Host (from the paths of the Dead) in the game, and IMO their description fits best as a wraith-type (using the letter W), and I'm wondering if that would confuse them with ringwraiths.

**andrewdoull** · November 30, 2007, 08:21

Originally posted by will_asher

Can anyone help with the questions I asked in the original post (quoted above) please?

I can... but your best bet is to master the grep command and go looking through the code yourself. You'll get to understand C, if not necessarily using it. Character dumps are in the files.c file IIRC.

Andrew

**will_asher** · November 30, 2007, 09:53

Originally posted by andrewdoull

I can... but your best bet is to master the grep command and go looking through the code yourself. You'll get to understand C, if not necessarily using it. Character dumps are in the files.c file IIRC.

OK, I looked in the files.c file and found this:

/*
* Hack -- Dump a character description file
*
* XXX XXX XXX Allow the "full" flag to dump additional info,
* and trigger its usage from various places in the code.
*/
errr file_character(cptr name, bool full)
{
int i, x, y;

byte a;
char c;

int fd;

FILE *fff = NULL;

store_type *st_ptr = &store[STORE_HOME];

char o_name[80];

char buf[1024];

/* Unused parameter */
(void)full;

/* Build the filename */
path_build(buf, sizeof(buf), ANGBAND_DIR_USER, name);

/* File type is "TEXT" */
FILE_TYPE(FILE_TYPE_TEXT);

/* Check for existing file */
fd = fd_open(buf, O_RDONLY);

/* Existing file */
if (fd >= 0)
{
char out_val[160];

/* Close the file */
fd_close(fd);

/* Build query */
strnfmt(out_val, sizeof(out_val), "Replace existing file %s? ", buf);

/* Ask */
if (get_check(out_val)) fd = -1;
}

/* Open the non-existing file */
if (fd < 0) fff = my_fopen(buf, "w");

/* Invalid file */
if (!fff) return (-1);

text_out_hook = text_out_to_file;
text_out_file = fff;

/* Begin dump */
fprintf(fff, " [%s %s Character Dump]\n\n",
VERSION_NAME, VERSION_STRING);

That looks like the part to tweak to mark the character dump. What do I do with it?
All I can understand in the file is the comments (not even all of them). I know what version name is and a character dump, but I have no idea what to do with it or how to find the answers to my other questions.
Is grep something you can use if you don't have unix? I looked it up on the internet and wherever I find grep, it says it's a unix command.
When I looked at the edit .txt files, it sure looked like I could make my semi-variant without having to learn C. And I pretty much can, I just have these few questions in order to know what I'm doing better. I don't have time to learn C. If I had to learn C, I'd give up on my semi-variant until sometime when I have enough spare time to learn C, which would probably never happen since I'm not planning to have a job in programming.
How did all these variant makers learn it? Did they major in computers in college? Are they programmers by profession? I'm just kindof curious, I guess.

EDIT: okay, I found the answer to the questions about S_WRAITH and STUPID. I found the piece of code about HURT and the attack types but can't figure out the difference there. (it says something about attack power, but I don't know what that does).
I also found out that S_HI_UNDEAD only summons L,V,W symbol monsters which kinda stinks. I thought it would be based on monster level.
And that S_HI_DEMON only summons U's which also stinks because I had two different symbols for major demons in my semi-variant.

It's looking like I will make a couple slight tweaks in the code, meaning I'll have to distribute the whole thing instead of just the edit directory. Guess it'll be longer than I thought before it becomes available.

EDIT2: hmm, if I change this:
case SUMMON_HI_DEMON:
{
okay = (r_ptr->d_char == 'U');
break;
}
To this:
case SUMMON_HI_DEMON:
{
okay = (r_ptr->d_char == 'U') ||
(r_ptr->d_char == '&');
break;
}
will that make it summon U's and &'s?

Also, is there a way I can change this:
case SUMMON_WRAITH:
{
okay = ((r_ptr->d_char == 'W') &&
(r_ptr->flags1 & (RF1_UNIQUE)));
break;
}
so that it will also check for the color?

**zaimoni** · November 30, 2007, 16:38

Originally posted by will_asher

Is grep something you can use if you don't have unix? I looked it up on the internet and wherever I find grep, it says it's a unix command.

On Windows, yes. (Installing huge chunks of MingW32 tools, doesn't install *NIX. grep is in core utilities, a lightweight download.)

making a semi-variant (more talk about modifying the /edit .txt files)

making a semi-variant (more talk about modifying the /edit .txt files)

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