[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[Arjen]

How can you find out how much strength you need to one hand wield weapons while riding?

I found a heavy lance (on a dead dude), but with /119 I wasn't able to actually wield it. I was wondering how much STR it required to actually be able to use it. Can you calculate it somehow? The game doesn't show stats when a weapon is too heavy.

[Djabanete]

Fantastic. Thank you!

Edit: OK, wait, still confused. Having chosen "yes" for the "auto-destroyer leaves unknown good/excellent" options, I find that the auto-destroyer is treating the two kinds of items differently. I'm using

!unidentified common weapons
!unidentified common armor

and I find that an Executioner's Sword {excellent} is squelched while a Robe {good} is untouched. Is this how it's supposed to work?

Edit2: Of course, ideally I want to set "leave unknown {good} items" to No and "leave unknown {excellent} items" to Yes, and I want the Sword {excellent} to be left untouched while the Robe {good} is destroyed.

[chris]

Hi Chris,
I'm having some trouble with auto-pickup. I'm playing version 1.0.13.
At first I was using your default auto-pickup settings, but I wanted to make some changes. So I tried implementing the rules

!unidentified common weapons
!unidentified common armor

as well as similar rules for other equipment types. But instead of destroying the items like I was hoping, it started to just pseudo-ID the items off the floor.

The issue is with the options leave_good and leave_excellent. Turn off leave_good and you should be fine unless you really want to destroy common item egos as well, in which case you may turn off leave_excellent.

Both leave_good and leave_excellent were added as a means to completely bypass the pseudo-id system, as you have noticed (since it gives instant pseudo-id and destroys all common average stuff). But I've made changes to pseudo-id and when I get around to playing a bit, I may decide to remove both of these options in a future release.

[Djabanete]

Hi Chris,
I'm having some trouble with auto-pickup. I'm playing version 1.0.13.
At first I was using your default auto-pickup settings, but I wanted to make some changes. So I tried implementing the rules

!unidentified common weapons
!unidentified common armor

as well as similar rules for other equipment types. But instead of destroying the items like I was hoping, it started to just pseudo-ID the items off the floor. Now the floor is cluttered with {good} light crossbows and short bows and no instructions I give will auto-destroy them. I've tried very harsh conditions like

!weapons
!good
!unidentified

and nothing touches them. However, items that have been identified respond properly --- for example a Do-Maru [20, +4] gets auto-destroyed by

!nameless common armors

There are some weird quirks, for example, {excellent} items seem to respond properly to my instructions. So it's just {good} items (the overwhelming majority, sadly) that I'm having trouble with. Edit: Another quirk is that when I manually destroy, say, a {good} Tulwar, and then select "Auto", a message appears saying that the object is already registered to be auto-destroyed, even when I have not registered Tulwars for auto-destroy.

Am I missing something obvious?

Savefile and .prf file available on request.

[chris]

Version 1.0.23 is now available here. This is a small release, but fixes a major bug for the Sorcerer class.

[1] Sorcerers should use Charisma as the spell stat, not Intelligence.

[2] Trump Branding now generates a pval (1d2).

[3] Any Band Weapon by the player marks the object at a 99% discount, and won't re-enchant an ego or artifact. If Brand Weapon fails, Mysticism is decreased.

[4] A couple of objects had their costs set to 0 in k_info.txt (since we no longer use hard coded costs for most objects). However, having a cost of 0 flags the object as broken so that the auto-destroyer will attempt a squelch. I gave these objects gibberish non-zero costs for the time being.

[5] The Marilith Enchantment power is now a bit easier to cast.

[jevansau]

If you don't mind pushing an update that would be appreciated.

I'll get Visual Studio express anyway, but it looks like a large slow download.

Regards,
Jonathan

[chris]

I'm happy to have a try at compiling. is there a makefile for Windows - I couldn't see one in the source.

For Windows, I use Visual Studio Express 2010 for development, which is available for free. You do have to register it or it looks like a trial version (i.e. says something about 30 days left for evaluation ISTR), but registration is free and once done, you won't be nagged again.

There is a Visual Studio solution file: Poschengband.sln in the src directory. Simply double click on that, make your source changes, and compile. The output directory for the binary is set to "$(SolutionDir)\..\" so it places the executable up one level, parallel to the lib directory, which is just where the executable needs to be if you are to run it properly.

If you don't already have VS installed or feel like this might be too much of a hassle, just let me know and I will push my update. Really, this is not a bother and only takes me about 5 minutes. I only hesitate to push an update for a single change though since other users will see it and feel like they should upgrade to the latest version. And unless you are playing a sorcerer, there is no need But, if anybody has other ideas/bugs/changes/wants/desires then perhaps I can spend tonight developing a more substantial release.

As an aside, I don't recommend using VS 2012. I tried it, but MS seems to love to rewrite all their software from scratch on every release. They broke the Intellisense compiler going from 2010 to 2012 so that it perma-spikes one of your CPU cores when editing certain large C files (like spells1.c with its gargantuan 5kloc project_m function). Obviously, that gets rather annoying, not to mention that the Intellisense often stops working altogether. VS 2010 works just fine (using less than 1% of the CPU that 2012 does) and Intellisense never breaks for me.

EDIT: If you don't already have VS installed or if you have little interest in developing with it, then I don't recommend installing it. The download is rather large and takes a looong time, especially if you don't already have .NET installed.

[jevansau]

I'm happy to have a try at compiling. is there a makefile for Windows - I couldn't see one in the source.

[chris]

I've been playing a bit, and I have to say I'm really liking the changes to ID, especially the Stone of Lore. An item I would never have considered using suddenly became useful -- though a bit "dangerous" if you're playing with Preserve: On(*)... which is just perfect as a balancing factor IMO.

(*) In the heat of battle (or with a full inventory) you might step on something and not notice it being unique... a you'll lose it forever. (Pseudo-ID as "{special}" doesn't count as having "found" an artifact, I believe, so with normal insta-pseudo you should be safe.)

You can add the line

artifact

to your pickup preferences. Then, the only worry is a full pack. But if you are cautious, and use map mode ('M' 'M') then you shouldn't have a problem.

I don't think the Lore is too powerful, just convenient. IMO, it is balanced by opportunity costs: There are much better lights available later on.

[chris]

Trying out a sorcerer and it seems that despite the description (under birth) and stat bonuses, Intelligence rather than Charisma is the spell stat.
I could be wrong in this, but raising charisma didn't raise mana and I note that in the source, me.which_stat = A_INT; which I'm assuming is setting the spell stat.

Anyway, thanks for this amazingly diverse variant.

Regards,
Jonathan

Ah, that's a bug. If you can compile then just change A_INT to be A_CHR. You'll notice below that they get +6 Chr and only +0 Int, so you will be playing an ironman sorcerer if you keep Int as your spell stat

I fixed it for the next release (1.0.23).

Regarding Sorcerers, I'm not sure how balanced they might be. They are one of the classes I have yet to play test since Hengband (where they were fine). Notable changes including monster retaliation and a new hp system might have made them too fragile.

[jevansau]

Trying out a sorcerer and it seems that despite the description (under birth) and stat bonuses, Intelligence rather than Charisma is the spell stat.
I could be wrong in this, but raising charisma didn't raise mana and I note that in the source, me.which_stat = A_INT; which I'm assuming is setting the spell stat.

Anyway, thanks for this amazingly diverse variant.

Regards,
Jonathan

[AnonymousHero]

I've been playing a bit, and I have to say I'm really liking the changes to ID, especially the Stone of Lore. An item I would never have considered using suddenly became useful -- though a bit "dangerous" if you're playing with Preserve: On(*)... which is just perfect as a balancing factor IMO.

(*) In the heat of battle (or with a full inventory) you might step on something and not notice it being unique... a you'll lose it forever. (Pseudo-ID as "{special}" doesn't count as having "found" an artifact, I believe, so with normal insta-pseudo you should be safe.)

[UglySquirrell]

On the topic of identifying items. I'm not sure if its a benefit of the virtue system, but i notice that i sometimes identify items just by picking them up. Or if i remember correctly just walking over them occasionally.

I think having a system like this in general would be really cool. I agree that at the early parts of the game identify is fun and makes sense. But being able to automatically sense what an item is after seeing a hundred others of the same type makes sense.

In game it would fit, after picking up 1000's of objects you should eventually have a pretty good idea what has a magic aura, or whatever.

You could have pseudo id set up with level, and your lore level (increases the more items you identify). This way the more you use identify, the more your understanding of items increases.

Of course artifacts and ego's should still need to be identified.

I'm 99% sure this works to a point already with the Knowledge Virtue, but it would save a lot of time in game i'm thinking.

[chris]

QQ: Is 0% spell fail achievable for the Monster/Demon races (with or without Shrewd?). I'm playing without virtues, just in case it matters.

All monster powers have their minimum fail rates set to 0%. But this won't always be achievable for high level powers even with max casting stat. Mana Storms (Lich), Darkness Storms (Beholder), Hellfire (Balrogs), etc all have initial fail rates set high enough that one can never achieve 0%. Usually 8% or so is about the best you can get for these, but I don't know the exact details off the top of my head.

Virtues (alignment, actually) can effect fail rates, but only for book spellcasters and only for certain realms. Monsters can ignore alignment at the moment, though it might be worthwhile to penalize demons for being good, or angels for being evil in some future release.

[chris]

I hope this means that players who inspect magic items (potions, rods) will now see the powers of the item without having to *ID*!

The descriptions for potions/wands/rods/staves all spoil somewhat, so the object needs to at least be identified to see them. For example, potions of healing have the following description: "It heals you and cures blindness, confusion, poison, stunned, cuts and berserk when you quaff it." Obviously, you would not want that showing up for that unidentified light green potion in your sack On the other hand, additional information is available once *idenitified*. In this case, the fact that the potion heals 300hp (or 375hp if you are a CL50 Potionmaster).

Wands/Rods/Staves are similar. The description tells what the rod does so requires identification. Knowledge of the amount of damage (for example) and the fail rate requires *identification*, though now that I think about it, I suspect fail rates might be given erroneously for even unidentified objects when you try to use them. Hmmm ...

On the other hand, objects like long swords have descriptions like: "A long, straight, two-edged blade, with two hand guards projecting out from the hilt to form a perfect cross." These can be displayed even if the object is not identified.

Question: what does Resist Magic do? (Holy Grail activation.)

Resist Magic increases the player's saving throw.