[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[chris]

Hmm only that many animated weapons? Might be difficult to gain 'slots' on a smooth way. I should use the animated polearm and death scythe too. How does damage work? Do you 'copy' the abilities of the monsters or do you create you own damage output? I've no idea, I can't program stuff (tried to read pieces of the source once, failed) so I don't know the mechanism behind it.

This is your idea, so I'll let you decide the best approach. I'll just let you know what is possible and we'll go from there:

[1] Adding new monsters is possible and perhaps even desirable. I was thinking we could add 'Diamond Edge' and 'Mace of Disruption' monsters

[2] The code does not copy the monster info in any way, except for the symbol used to draw the player. We are free to do whatever we want, though it is obviously desirable to make each evolutionary step behave like the original.

[3] For attacks, we can do one of two things. Either give the player an equipped object and use the normal attack code. Or we can give the player innate attacks. The equipped object approach would be easier to implement since all the code for all the various slay flags is already implemented. Also, the object ... I mean the player ... will show up in the Equipment dump.

[4] But we need to decide about other equipment slots. The realistic option is none! But perhaps we could give a few jewelry slots and say that the weapon is "adorned".

If you can create everything yourself, the Death Scythe is just a name and symbol on your map. If you actually gain his damage it will be too powerful, you might need to create a second Death Scythe monster who has a spawn chance of 0.0% with changed stats. But just copying the barehand fighting doesn't make sense either, you can't punch or kick stuff. But you have more experience with this with all those non-weapon monster classes. So that's up to you to fix.

Agreed. For the evolutionary approach, if the player is in the form of a Death Sword, then their equipped weapon is a long sword. Rather, the player is a long sword If they are a Hellblade, then the player is a Blade of Chaos (6d5). And if the player is a Death Scythe, then, well, the player is a Death Scythe (10d10). Probably, we should keep the same expected damage dice, though the Death Scythe should not get all the slays automatically. And perhaps number of attacks can be limited to balance the power.

But I like monsters with multiple evolutions. Especially if you gain stuff with an evolution.As weapon you could get Vorpal_Flag as Death sword and the retaliation as Scythe. I've also no idea how many slots are needed, might use the same system as jellies.

Then by all means, lets go with this approach.

I would go with Broken Death Sword -> Death Sword -> Animated Polearm -> Hellblade -> Deathscythe

Broken Death Sword: res_poi, res_blind, no_cut (no blood in metal), hold_life
Death Sword: Same as above + Vorpal
Animated P: Same as above + res Cold + res Elec
Hellblade: Same + res chaos
Death scythe: Same + retaliation

Sounds good. I like the Death Scythe retaliation, but then we really do need to limit their blows.

Every evolution gets +1 item slot(?) and evolving should be in a non-linear way. First three forms are those of low level monsters and the last two (especially the DS) are very deep. Would be weird to be a Hellblade while killing the orcs in the OC. But getting the DS form around lvl 30 is a bit late.

Item slots? What can a sword realistically wear? Not armor I hope

Enough spamming from my side. Your turn to make stuff balanced (or just making it work).

*edit* made this post without seeing your last one, im going to read it after making/eating dinner

Actually, I'd like you to decide which way you prefer. You don't need to design all the details, but if you like evolution, lets do evolution. Does the player lose absorbed flags when they evolve?

My thoughts on absorption was to track everything by flag, rather than by object. For each flag, then, their would be a formula as for how to translate the number of absorbed essences into player attributes. So, absorbing infravision would be fairly easy up to maybe 100', but then would become more difficult. Absorbing Slay Evil would be rather difficult: perhaps you need 10 essences before you actually get slay evil.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. Feel free to suggest alternatives if you had something different in mind. I'll let you know if you suggest something that is too difficult (or "impossible).

[Arjen]

At this point, there are a couple of ways to proceed.
[2] Player is simply an animated weapon. Perhaps for an added challenge, they must choose a specific kind of weapon at birth (Sword, Hafted, Polearm). The player can absorb weapons (perhaps only of chosen kind) as they find them, thereby destroying the object and accumulating essences. But, the player does not improve this way. Rather, they have a "racial power" called "Reforge Self". When chosen, the player chooses an object from their inventory (perhaps only of chosen kind) and the player becomes that object. Also, all of their accumulated essences are drained into further improving themselves in one fell swoop. Should the player reforge themselves again, they lose their "current object" as well as *all* of the abilities gained from essences applied at the time of their last reforging. The player does not evolve. Rather, they are simply an "Animated Weapon".

I don't really get (understand) this version. You collect a weapon, take over it's form (destroying it), gain it's abilities. But where does the essences come into play? (Sounds interesting, I like weaponsmith too because of this essence gathering ability.) What do you improve with them? And only getting the abilities of one weapon will make it hard to cover resists. Could you explain it a bit more?

But I do like the idea that you don't evolve according to clvl, but you get stronger destroying weapons. It will be a combination of leveling up by killing monster, but really getting stronger by using weapons in some way.

With this version it will be very interesting to have specialties.

Maybe you should create 2 monsterclasses: Death Sword (maybe keep it as your suggested 3 stage evolution) and Animated Weapon. They will be so much different from each other.

[Arjen]

Wow! This is a very original idea ... I like it

So, essentially, the player *is* a single object (e.g., a broken sword or, much later, a blade of chaos) and has no equipment as such! This could be fun!!

Broken Death Sword -> Death Sword -> Hellblade with Stormbringer as boss is consistent. Or we could let Polearm of Animated Attack into the mix as well. But probably not the Death Scythe ...

Hmm only that many animated weapons? Might be difficult to gain 'slots' on a smooth way. I should use the animated polearm and death scythe too. How does damage work? Do you 'copy' the abilities of the monsters or do you create you own damage output? I've no idea, I can't program stuff (tried to read pieces of the source once, failed) so I don't know the mechanism behind it.

If you can create everything yourself, the Death Scythe is just a name and symbol on your map. If you actually gain his damage it will be too powerful, you might need to create a second Death Scythe monster who has a spawn chance of 0.0% with changed stats. But just copying the barehand fighting doesn't make sense either, you can't punch or kick stuff. But you have more experience with this with all those non-weapon monster classes. So that's up to you to fix.

But I like monsters with multiple evolutions. Especially if you gain stuff with an evolution.As weapon you could get Vorpal_Flag as Death sword and the retaliation as Scythe. I've also no idea how many slots are needed, might use the same system as jellies.

Broken Death Sword -> Death Sword -> Hellblade

I would go with Broken Death Sword -> Death Sword -> Animated Polearm -> Hellblade -> Deathscythe

Broken Death Sword: res_poi, res_blind, no_cut (no blood in metal), hold_life
Death Sword: Same as above + Vorpal
Animated P: Same as above + res Cold + res Elec
Hellblade: Same + res chaos
Death scythe: Same + retaliation

Every evolution gets +1 item slot(?) and evolving should be in a non-linear way. First three forms are those of low level monsters and the last two (especially the DS) are very deep. Would be weird to be a Hellblade while killing the orcs in the OC. But getting the DS form around lvl 30 is a bit late.

Enough spamming from my side. Your turn to make stuff balanced (or just making it work).

*edit* made this post without seeing your last one, im going to read it after making/eating dinner

[chris]

How about the animated weapons? Might be troublesome with equipment. Maybe instead of equipment, drain/destroy x weapons to gain their abilities, where x is of course a very very low number. To prevent overpowering chance of successfully drain abilities = 100%/number of drained weapon. So the first gets 100% chance, second 50%, third 33%. Or just of it's abilities you get 50%/33%/ect. of stats and 50% of resists/abilities. Or an combination of both. It's should not get too easy to get overpowered deep in the dungeon with all those überweapons.

Resist should stack, so getting resist fire 2x gives you the normal 65%. I don't know what you should do with slays, would they become too powerful?

At this point, there are a couple of ways to proceed.

[1] Player evolves as normal monster races, for example as Broken Death Sword to Death Sword to Hellblade. The damage dice of the player is determined by their current form. The player can absorb the essences of weapons they find, thereby improving themselves. The precise improvement algorithm remains to be determined, of course, but getting the first "flag" should be easy while improving an existing "flag" to a higher value should become increasingly difficult. Also, some flags like TR_SLAY_EVIL should be harder to acquire than others, like TR_RES_FIRE.

-OR-

[2] Player is simply an animated weapon. Perhaps for an added challenge, they must choose a specific kind of weapon at birth (Sword, Hafted, Polearm). The player can absorb weapons (perhaps only of chosen kind) as they find them, thereby destroying the object and accumulating essences. But, the player does not improve this way. Rather, they have a "racial power" called "Reforge Self". When chosen, the player chooses an object from their inventory (perhaps only of chosen kind) and the player becomes that object. Also, all of their accumulated essences are drained into further improving themselves in one fell swoop. Should the player reforge themselves again, they lose their "current object" as well as *all* of the abilities gained from essences applied at the time of their last reforging. The player does not evolve. Rather, they are simply an "Animated Weapon".

With [2], the player can strategically upgrade themselves throughout the game, but, they will cease to grow more powerful once this is accomplished. Of course, they can reforge again later, but they lose their current power in the process.

With [1], the player simply accretes power and can thus grind themselves to victory. With [2], I think the balance will be better. Also, I would prefer limiting the class of animated weapon as well, for extra challenge!

Thoughts?

[chris]

(About the question which new monster races could be implemented)

How about the animated weapons? Might be troublesome with equipment. Maybe instead of equipment, drain/destroy x weapons to gain their abilities, where x is of course a very very low number. To prevent overpowering chance of successfully drain abilities = 100%/number of drained weapon. So the first gets 100% chance, second 50%, third 33%. Or just of it's abilities you get 50%/33%/ect. of stats and 50% of resists/abilities. Or an combination of both. It's should not get too easy to get overpowered deep in the dungeon with all those überweapons.

Resist should stack, so getting resist fire 2x gives you the normal 65%. I don't know what you should do with slays, would they become too powerful? I don't think you can get those as monk. But monks can equip armor and you loose that ability as animated weapon. Maybe non-stackable slays are not too overpowered.

And only 'barehand' fighting abilities, so no draining of +hit +dam +AC. Maybe you should also be able to drain Armor too for access to resist (but might be more fun to restrict armor for extra difficulty. Don't restrict type, so as broken sword, you can also drain a mace).

About equipment, you need a light somehow. Make the sword shine?

You also should get to power to "Clean" your weapon, removing all flags, so you won't get stuck with your first drained weapon

Might be troublesome to build, but doesn't it just sounds like fun flying around as lump of steel? (Maybe also give the deathsword the ability to actually move ?)

This way you create something completely different than the existing monsters.

Wow! This is a very original idea ... I like it

So, essentially, the player *is* a single object (e.g., a broken sword or, much later, a blade of chaos) and has no equipment as such! This could be fun!!

Broken Death Sword -> Death Sword -> Hellblade with Stormbringer as boss is consistent. Or we could let Polearm of Animated Attack into the mix as well. But probably not the Death Scythe ...

[Arjen]

(About the question which new monster races could be implemented)

How about the animated weapons? Might be troublesome with equipment. Maybe instead of equipment, drain/destroy x weapons to gain their abilities, where x is of course a very very low number. To prevent overpowering chance of successfully drain abilities = 100%/number of drained weapon. So the first gets 100% chance, second 50%, third 33%. Or just of it's abilities you get 50%/33%/ect. of stats and 50% of resists/abilities. Or an combination of both. It's should not get too easy to get overpowered deep in the dungeon with all those überweapons.

Resist should stack, so getting resist fire 2x gives you the normal 65%. I don't know what you should do with slays, would they become too powerful? I don't think you can get those as monk. But monks can equip armor and you loose that ability as animated weapon. Maybe non-stackable slays are not too overpowered.

And only 'barehand' fighting abilities, so no draining of +hit +dam +AC. Maybe you should also be able to drain Armor too for access to resist (but might be more fun to restrict armor for extra difficulty. Don't restrict type, so as broken sword, you can also drain a mace).

About equipment, you need a light somehow. Make the sword shine?

You also should get to power to "Clean" your weapon, removing all flags, so you won't get stuck with your first drained weapon

Might be troublesome to build, but doesn't it just sounds like fun flying around as lump of steel? (Maybe also give the deathsword the ability to actually move ?)

This way you create something completely different than the existing monsters.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Problem (It's more of a suggestion!) - I really, really think all items (especially ego and artifact) should indicate where they have been found!! ...because I (as well as many players) lose track! With my recent char, HugoIncarnate, I'm going so fast that I can't remember if I found my ego weapons in Angband or Icky Caves.

Also: How do I access notes that I put in the game. You know, the notes you put in via the : (colon) command?

[chris]

Question: What does a scroll of Madness do? I found one with a dead character but didn't have a chance to test it before he died.

Why it drives you mad, of course Actually, its effects are random, as the description suggests. You might get an awesome result, but it could kill you if you are unlucky and unprepared!

[HugoVirtuoso]

Question: What does a scroll of Madness do? I found one with a dead character but didn't have a chance to test it before he died.

[chris]

OK, in hopes I can take a break, 1.0.28 has been uploaded here:

* Elementals now start with better equipment (In particular, they no longer start with stuff that gets insta-ruined!).

* Added more Elemental flavor: Water, Fire and Earth get a "healing" type spell, provided they are in their element.

* Added more Elemental flavor: Water, Fire and Earth now move quickly in their element.

* Winning/Losing in the Arena now affects player fame. Really, there is no longer any excuse for players being unable to reforge artifacts rather early on, unless they habitually fail quests!

* Reforging is now much cheaper. Minimum cost is 250,000gp rather than 1,000,000gp. But target scoring is tighter, so you are unlikely to get something significantly better than what you start with, and are likely to be considerably poorer to boot!

[chris]

EDIT: I should finish reading your post before replying ... Please disregard.
EDIT: I pushed your getcury(curscr), etc suggested changes (Thanks!). I don't have a clue regarding you savefile issues, however. Can anybody shed light on how savefiles are handled for curses/cygwin?

[clouded]

I recently tried to compile a GCU version with cygwin and ran into some errors:

main-gcu.c: In function `Term_xtra_gcu_alive':
main-gcu.c:603: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
main-gcu.c:603: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
main-gcu.c: In function `Term_nuke_gcu':
main-gcu.c:739: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
main-gcu.c:739: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type
<builtin>: recipe for target `main-gcu.o' failed
make: *** [main-gcu.o] Error 1

However, I have a friend who gave me sage advice to modify the code in main-gcu.c as such:

Both instances of

mvcur(curscr->_cury, curscr->_curx, LINES - 1, 0);

to

mvcur(getcury(curscr), getcurx(curscr), LINES - 1, 0);

And I was able to compile.

I also had a problem where the game didn't seem to be able to save. It created the directory ~/.angband/PosChengband but that remains empty. I created /lib/save in the poscheng directory (which is where the windows binary puts saves), and the game was then able to save.

[chris]

Googling the error gives this, which seems to have some good suggestions.

Thanks, but I don't think this is related. I am getting 502 errors, not 403 errors. Also, I've successfully pushed over 50 times and it suddenly stopped working? With no changes on my end?

But continuing to try, I managed a push through the Windows UI program (which I never use, but it does generate a log file). Then to test, I made more changes and push failed with 502. Now, a push from the commandline worked.

I'm guessing there are server problems on github ... So, hopefully, I just wait and it goes away?

EDIT: Check out https://status.github.com/messages. I think they are just having problems. Sorry for making a fuss!

[Nick]

Googling the error gives this, which seems to have some good suggestions.

[chris]

If you haven't decided on a version control system (VCS) yet, I personally don't much care which version control you use, but of course a Distributed VCS is probably preferable (Git/Mercurial/Bazaar, probably in that order according to popularity). Git has the lovely Github for hosting and Hg has bitbucket (which incidentally also supports Git).

I resisted using any source repository for a long time because my experiences with code.google were so bad (nearly daily outages). Now, github has stopped working (no changes on my end):

C:\src\poscheng\poschengband [master]> git status
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 3 commits.
#   (use "git push" to publish your local commits)
#
nothing to commit, working directory clean
C:\src\poscheng\poschengband [master]> git push
error: The requested URL returned error: 502 while accessing https://github.com/
poschengband/poschengband.git/info/refs?service=git-receive-pack
fatal: HTTP request failed
C:\src\poscheng\poschengband [master]>

Does anybody who uses github have any idea what the problem might be? I'm at a loss ... This was working (I have 54 commits or so) and now, with no changes, stopped working. Grrr ...