[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[chris]

PosChengband 1.0.10 has been uploaded here. Only one change this time:

* Weapon Info now displays stats required for your next attack (if possible). This works for both normal melee characters and for monster races with innate attacks. It does not yet work for monks and martial arts.

[chris]

PosChengband 1.0.9 has been uploaded here. Nothing major has changed but there have been a few minor bug fixes and tweaks:

* Crimson now gives Shards resistance rather than Nether
* Olympians are now more common (since they are confined to Mt. Olympus)
* Weaponmaster Old Castle rewards were all reversed, so you got the high reward 80% of the time rather than 20%. Fixed.
* Subtle Casting and Peerless Sniper now never trigger monster retaliation.
* New demigod powers: Speed Reader and Fell Sorcery.
* Snotlings are now only -5 Chr (and 45% xp rather than 35%)
* Fear is less difficult early on.
* Artifact rings are now (slightly) more powerful
* Vanilla Town gets no random quests.
* Vanilla Town now restocks stores normally.

[Djabanete]

Actually, Derakon's suggestion is what I want deep down inside, but only because I am OCD. I want the town services to be available, but I don't want to even have the option of doing quests. Playing in Lite Town mode and avoiding the quests isn't good enough, because they'd still be in my peripheral vision. (Besides, "Vanilla Town" has a great ring to it.) I want to play the most bare-bones, stripped-down Town possible, but even in that town I need to be able to *Identify* my artifacts; and so, acting on an inspiration that struck as I was reading the last few posts, I might just change the town edit files to suit my needs. (I remember replacing the Vanilla layout with the Zul layout with my one Entro winner a while back to enable mutation removal.)

I like the concept of Vanilla Town mode and I would certainly like the concept to reflect the reality of what Vanilla Town is or once was, but this one concession to playability must be made: the Heng-derived variants require much more extensive usage of *ID* than Vanilla did (at least back when I was playing Vanilla), and so *ID* must be more available. Heng variants have randarts alongside standard artifacts, and many more hidden powers on ego items. That *ID* is sold in the Alchemist shop is a big improvement, but if it doesn't appear in 7 or 8 restocks, what good does it do me?

On the other hand, this is the first time I've felt the problem so acutely. In all likelihood it's a fluke of probabilities. I think this can be safely regarded as a tempest in a teapot

However I will say that if I had infinite jurisdiction over all *bands (which would surely be a wonderful power for someone who does none of the coding/developing work!), I'd change the stores to make select contents permanently and infinitely available without hesitation. The only question in my mind would be, which items are so conspicuous in their absence that they prevent the player from carrying out a satisfying game? Those items and only those items would be stocked, for ever and ever. (Exception made for the Black Market.) Because what's the big problem with that? Anything that's routinely stocked is already available in essentially arbitrary quantities if you have but the persistence to accumulate it. Again, in real life I'll do just fine with the way things are, messing with some edit files if need be.

Edit: @Arjen: Yes, it's Vanilla Town mode ^^

[chris]

What if Vanilla Town was augmented with the appropriate store services? I expect the main thing people playing Vanilla Town want is not having to deal with the surface world -- i.e. focusing on the dungeon, returning to town only when they need to retreat and reassess their situation.

There is the Lite Town option for that. This has no wilderness, but has every service imaginable crammed into Outpost. There are also numerous quest lines to choose from and only a single dungeon (Angband).

[Derakon]

What if Vanilla Town was augmented with the appropriate store services? I expect the main thing people playing Vanilla Town want is not having to deal with the surface world -- i.e. focusing on the dungeon, returning to town only when they need to retreat and reassess their situation.

[chris]

[2] Question/Plea: My current character is having a hard time with stores not stocking certain necessities. I'm down to 3 scrolls of Word of Recall, and I'm afraid of recalling to depth 35 or so where the remaining 2 could easily be burned away; but the 4, 5 and 8 are not stocking any WoR. Similarly, I really need *ID* in order to figure out what gear to wear; but in the last several restocks (5 and 8), I haven't seen a single one. So unless I can figure out how to town scum, I won't be able to go into the dungeon or figure out what to wear ... but how to town scum? I don't know what the shop code is like anymore. Would it be so bad if certain items were always on hand in the stores?

I can make the Vanilla Town restock normally if that would help. But I think you will have a lot of trouble no matter, especially with stat and life drain. Both of these are cured with a town service normally, and happen every trip down to the dungeon at a certain stage in the game (I often recall to abort my current trip early once I get drained and can't imagine how you will get the hundreds of Restoring potions you will need though perhaps a non-melee character won't suffer so much).

Both Word of Recall and *Identify* can be found in stacks in the dungeon, though *Identify* won't show up until deeper (It is a rarity 2 object that begins to show up on L30). Rods of Recall can be found on L15 (rarely) and are more common by L30. And once you have one, you no longer need scrolls.

You'll have to keep me appraised as to whether Vanilla Town is playable or not. I never thought it was even in Hengband

[Arjen]

[2] Question/Plea: My current character is having a hard time with stores not stocking certain necessities. I'm down to 3 scrolls of Word of Recall, and I'm afraid of recalling to depth 35 or so where the remaining 2 could easily be burned away; but the 4, 5 and 8 are not stocking any WoR. Similarly, I really need *ID* in order to figure out what gear to wear; but in the last several restocks (5 and 8), I haven't seen a single one. So unless I can figure out how to town scum, I won't be able to go into the dungeon or figure out what to wear ... but how to town scum? I don't know what the shop code is like anymore. Would it be so bad if certain items were always on hand in the stores?

Do you play Vanilla mode? If so, I don't know how to help you. If not, go to the Maze, the guardian drops a -oRecall. And for *id*, you can use the *id* service in all towns except Outpost.

[Djabanete]

Sadly, that doesn't work in PosChengband... I think the rationale had to do with de-emphasizing town scumming and emphasizing dungeon exploration. But PosChengband is balanced from the perspective of there being multiple towns to shop in, and in Vanilla town there's less availability. I guess I'll go explore with my 3 scrolls of Word of Recall and hope I can get some more in stock

[Derakon]

Assuming that the town restock system hasn't changed from the old days, spending 1000 normal-speed turns outside of town should be enough to provoke a restock.

[Djabanete]

Bump.

[1] Nitpick: The Burglary books need to be called Thieves' Guides, not Thieve's Guides.

[2] Question/Plea: My current character is having a hard time with stores not stocking certain necessities. I'm down to 3 scrolls of Word of Recall, and I'm afraid of recalling to depth 35 or so where the remaining 2 could easily be burned away; but the 4, 5 and 8 are not stocking any WoR. Similarly, I really need *ID* in order to figure out what gear to wear; but in the last several restocks (5 and 8), I haven't seen a single one. So unless I can figure out how to town scum, I won't be able to go into the dungeon or figure out what to wear ... but how to town scum? I don't know what the shop code is like anymore. Would it be so bad if certain items were always on hand in the stores?

[Djabanete]

Done (1.0.9). Vanilla Town mode now forces the number of random quests to 0 (no option for now).

Thanks, and thanks for the weaponsmith info.

Jellies need to use staves of perception to identify stuff. If this is not enough, perhaps we could make it so that selling wands/staves to the Magic Shop recharges them as well? Another alternative is to let jellies in on the berserker vanilla town hack which gives a couple of (expensive) black market commands for identify and *identify*. Thoughts?

Sounds good. Tangent: There's a cool trick with Jellies: if you play in No Pets mode, the initial Divide ability lets you set up a Black Ooze farm for experience and gold. I farmed up to level 12 in just a few minutes of play. This isn't a bad thing: I don't mind that some characters play this way. Trump casters are the same way --- their spells are mainly good for generating experience in the early game.

[chris]

Request: Disable/optionalize dungeon quests in Vanilla Town mode? Quests aren't "Vanilla" --- admittedly, their interference with gameplay is minor (just duck back up the stairs), but there would be some problems if anyone tried that with Preserve Off.

Done (1.0.9). Vanilla Town mode now forces the number of random quests to 0 (no option for now).

Question: If Jellies can't read scrolls, how can they ID things in Vanilla Town mode?

Jellies need to use staves of perception to identify stuff. If this is not enough, perhaps we could make it so that selling wands/staves to the Magic Shop recharges them as well? Another alternative is to let jellies in on the berserker vanilla town hack which gives a couple of (expensive) black market commands for identify and *identify*. Thoughts?

Question2: With a Weaponsmith, how do I know in advance how far I can enchant my gear, without risking wasting my essences? There's some algorithm based on level that I don't know.

Weapons and bows can enchant to 5 + 15L/50. Arrows enchant to 10L/50.

[Djabanete]

This change mr (and posinilty others) less likrly to plsy then nefore this change. ( thiugh I have been busy else whree/

Brother OKURE!

Edit: Question: If Jellies can't read scrolls, how can they ID things in Vanilla Town mode?

Edit2: Question2: With a Weaponsmith, how do I know in advance how far I can enchant my gear, without risking wasting my essences? There's some algorithm based on level that I don't know.

[JohnCW9]

Done, done and done (1.0.9).



Well, I've played quite a bit after this change, and the effects are rather small. Its only killed me once (summons RNG wrath!) but that was very early on, and I failed twice in a row. Of course, you might consider bailing sooner than previously for some fights.

As for rationale, my main reason was extreme annoyance that even a mage with a Teleport spell prefers to carry and use scrolls instead. At least until the fail rate goes to 0%. For many classes, this will never happen. So the spells never get used, except perhaps for lazy dungeon exploration late in the game.

As a side note, scrolls of teleportation now have another huge drawback: Reading them takes 50% more energy! Be warned ...


?

This change mr (and posinilty others) less likrly to plsy then nefore this change. ( thiugh I have been busy else whree/

[Djabanete]

My two-handed wielding "bug" was another false alarm... really sorry about that. It's like you said, selecting either arm gives two-handed wielding >.<

Request: Disable/optionalize dungeon quests in Vanilla Town mode? Quests aren't "Vanilla" --- admittedly, their interference with gameplay is minor (just duck back up the stairs), but there would be some problems if anyone tried that with Preserve Off.