FAangband 1.3

[Nick]

FAangband 1.3 is now available from the download page. Thanks to pav for hosting, and to everyone who has sent feedback.

The big changes for this release are:

1. A compressed wilderness map - the wilderness and all the dungeons except Angband have had levels cut out, and it is much quicker for any character to get to the first dungeon (Amon Rûdh);
2. Autoscum has gone back from being a birth option to being a switchable option; also there's a new "hard mode" (also switchable) where levels have a much higher rate of interesting rooms, pits and vaults;
3. Shockbolt's tiles are included, and default in windows, and Nomad's tiles now work much better;
4. The new trap handling (although introduced in some 1.2.x) is probably worth a mention, as traps and objects can now exist in the same grid.

I have also updated the page summarising the state of play with Shockbolt's tiles - there are gaps, but mostly I've plugged them with 32x32 tiles. Obviously I would like to see them filled properly, but I expect Shockbolt may have one or two other things to be doing

It's worth noting too that there are RPMs for a number of linux distributions, and both Carbon and Cocoa versions for OSX.

[Magnate]

Congrats on the release (and on the rapid production of RPMs!). What made you decide to make autoscum switchable? (And doesn't the new "hard mode" somewhat duplicate it? How do they interact?)

[Nick]

What made you decide to make autoscum switchable?

It just seemed like more fun for the player. I tend to favour more choice where possible.

And doesn't the new "hard mode" somewhat duplicate it? How do they interact?

Technically they're independent options, but I suspect that autoscum is irrelevant if you turn hard mode on. Hard mode levels that I've played have yet to be anything less than 'very good'

For the statistically minded, I have a room distribution R(n), where n is the room type, and replaced it with nR(n). This is crude and easy to implement, but brutally effective.

[getter77]

Congrats on the release, and well done on this sort of a "hard mode" that should indeed make for some interesting times.

[Nick]

One thing I forgot to mention - the old wilderness map is still available as a birth option, but the new compressed one is the default.

[Seany C]

Well done, Nick - looking forward to trying the new version. Have any particular wilderness branches been excised or is it more like ramping the danger level changes from 1 and 2, to 2 and 4 respectively?

Also, has this replaced the 'open wilderness' plan or is this still a future prospect?

[Nick]

Well done, Nick - looking forward to trying the new version. Have any particular wilderness branches been excised or is it more like ramping the danger level changes from 1 and 2, to 2 and 4 respectively?

Typically danger level changes are 2, 3 or 4 (and that includes in the lesser dungeons). There are no branches excised, and there is a new short path added so you can get quickly from Belegost/Ossiriand to Amon Rûdh. Now I just need buzzkill to make a new world map

Also, has this replaced the 'open wilderness' plan or is this still a future prospect?

That's Beleriand, and "future prospect" is a good description. At this point it's a massive rewrite from the ground up, incorporating elements from Sil as well as all the other stuff I've talked about, and is likely to be playable sometime after 2020.

I blame you.

[buzzkill]

Now I just need buzzkill to make a new world map

I'll be glad to once I get around to it. I'm mildly obsessed with HoMist right now. There's no real magic making a world map. I just took screen shots (smallest font) from the in game M)ap, and then stitched them together in a photo editor.

I wouldn't mind making something prettier if Shockbolt would lend permission to use his his minimap tiles... and then produce some depicting trees and mountains, etc. Hmm, it might be easier if... "Hey, Shockbolt..."

[getter77]

Now that this sizable hump has been cleared, what's the state of the plan of attack or rough order of events to come for the First Age here beyond 1.3 heading towards some other nifty integer or some such?

[Nick]

Now that this sizable hump has been cleared, what's the state of the plan of attack or rough order of events to come for the First Age here beyond 1.3 heading towards some other nifty integer or some such?

I don't have specific plans for FA at this point - I'm planning to put a fair bit of time into Beleriand next. That said, I will be doing bugfixes to FA (I have some already), and will add new features if I think of any I want to add.

[getter77]

Ah rounding it out while attacking Beleriand eh? Excellent!

[Seany C]

That's Beleriand, and "future prospect" is a good description. At this point it's a massive rewrite from the ground up, incorporating elements from Sil as well as all the other stuff I've talked about, and is likely to be playable sometime after 2020.
I blame you.

Hurrah - I've finally found my niche, as a 'Helping Mimic'- a monster that sets impossible development tasks, cunningly disguised as easy-to-implement modifications"...

Some random playtesting observations from ten minutes with 1.3.0 (not necessarily bugs, and trivial in many cases)

* The quick start option when respawning a dead char is great, but it displays the character as having 3 HP (the race/class bonus only) initially, which might put off mew players;

* Beginner's Curses is now purple, not black / dark grey - I thought I'd found Utumno on DL10!;

* Ulfast is now light grey instead of light blue and looks initially like a Novice Ranger (oops);

* Ulfast again - either I'm lucky or he's a slow learner - he just cast six spells of set traps consecutively (in between movements) - despite healing or offence spells making more sense against a non-moving slinger;

* A hangover from 1.2.3 - the small-scale 'M' map doesn't show many details of monsters / treasure (neither does the 3.X V map);

* Nice possibly new feature - the 'M' map of the world is now scrollable - was that possible in previous versions?

* Future feature request - any chance of including the 8x13 font for ASCII players (to replicate the Moria / V 2.x experience) please? Happily, importing the font file from earlier versions works fine, except that for this version only, the tiles then need resizing (I think this is a problem from V 3.4, as I encountered exactly the same issue there).

* Finally, based on your Glaurung experience, he's not been breathing much on me recently either. A really evil maintainer would tweak breath spells to make dragons, etc breath more often when on high HP (>50%) and rely on melle and other spells when <50% HP.


Right, that's enough Complaining for now.

[LostTemplar]

A really evil maintainer would tweak breath spells to make dragons, etc breath more often when on high HP (>50%) and rely on melle and other spells when <50% HP.

It is a feature of FA, dragons cast blind/confuse first, only if it fails they try to breath, It was suggested to change this but then it was thought that things will be too hard. Btw there is an AI cheat option, that fixes such a behavior, so monster will never attempt something, character is immune to.

[Nick]

* The quick start option when respawning a dead char is great, but it displays the character as having 3 HP (the race/class bonus only) initially, which might put off mew players;

OK, I hadn't noticed that.

* Beginner's Curses is now purple, not black / dark grey - I thought I'd found Utumno on DL10!;

Yes - now there are two shades of purple, I've made the Necro books bright for the low books and dark for the high books like all the others.

* Ulfast is now light grey instead of light blue and looks initially like a Novice Ranger (oops);

He's meant to be Teal, which is not very common - but it's showing up fine for me. What port are you using?

* Ulfast again - either I'm lucky or he's a slow learner - he just cast six spells of set traps consecutively (in between movements) - despite healing or offence spells making more sense against a non-moving slinger;

I hope that's lucky, but I should check.

* A hangover from 1.2.3 - the small-scale 'M' map doesn't show many details of monsters / treasure (neither does the 3.X V map);

No, it's pretty crap. I need to redo.

* Nice possibly new feature - the 'M' map of the world is now scrollable - was that possible in previous versions?

Awesome - I must have done this and forgotten! Or else Lost Templar did it. The wonders of getting old. That's really handy.

* Future feature request - any chance of including the 8x13 font for ASCII players (to replicate the Moria / V 2.x experience) please? Happily, importing the font file from earlier versions works fine, except that for this version only, the tiles then need resizing (I think this is a problem from V 3.4, as I encountered exactly the same issue there).

I think I removed it because of persistent problems with having a file of that size in Windows and then Windows trying to use its own font and displaying nothing. For that reason I'm reluctant to put it back, and you seem to have a workaround

* Finally, based on your Glaurung experience, he's not been breathing much on me recently either. A really evil maintainer would tweak breath spells to make dragons, etc breath more often when on high HP (>50%) and rely on melle and other spells when <50% HP.

Hm, I think I need to check monster AI to make sure I haven't broken something.

Right, that's enough Complaining for now.

Which reminds me, he needs an upgrade too.

[tg122]

Congrats on the release. Noticed one very minor thing, the height and weight of longbeards seem to be off. Longbeards are currently rolling as 8 to 9 feet tall. Not sure if that is new or not.