[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[UglySquirrell]

Awesome, thank you very much, that's really cool , um forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about upgrading? I'm playing the last version with the virtues intact. Lazy Bunny is only level 15, but she just charmed her first Hydra with a kiss. and i just had a Horrible Visions Of Death fill your Mind, on level 12 of the Orc Caves, and found a Ring of Lordly Protection +14. Not sure what it does yet, but im thinking its pretty nice

[chris]

Awesome, thank you very much, that's really cool , um forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about upgrading? I'm playing the last version with the virtues intact. Lazy Bunny is only level 15, but she just charmed her first Hydra with a kiss. and i just had a Horrible Visions Of Death fill your Mind, on level 12 of the Orc Caves, and found a Ring of Lordly Protection +14. Not sure what it does yet, but im thinking its pretty nice

I recommend "installing" different versions of Poschengband in different directories. For example, on Windows, you might install 1.0.14 in c:\games\poscheng-114. The name doesn't matter, this is just an example. And be sure that you have full permissions to whatever directory you choose.

When running 1.0.14, let's say you are playing a character named 'Foo'. Then their are several key files that will be created:
[1] Your savefile: c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\save\Foo.
[2] Your pickup preferences: c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\user\pickpref-Foo.prf. This assumes you have activated the pickup preferences by pressing '_'.
[3] Your macros file. You *do* play with macros, don't you? You interact with macros by pressing '@'. When done, you get to name the file to use, but lets assume you keep the suggested value of 'Foo.prf'. Then you will get a macro file: c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\user\Foo.prf.
[4] (Windows Specific) As you position your windows and choose fonts and graphics options, these are saved in c:\games\poscheng-114\Poschengband.ini.

Now, let's say you want to upgrade to 1.0.21. You can install it anwhere (and install just means extracting the files from the zip file), but let's say you are as methodical as I am and install it to c:\games\poscheng-121. After you are done, you can then simply copy the files listed above from their respective places in the 1.0.14 install to their corresponding places in the 1.0.21 install. Obviously, this means:

c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\save\Foo -> c:\games\poscheng-121\lib\save\Foo
c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\user\pickpref-Foo.prf -> c:\games\poscheng-121\lib\user\pickpref-Foo.prf
c:\games\poscheng-114\lib\user\Foo.prf -> c:\games\poscheng-121\lib\user\Foo.prf
c:\games\poscheng-114\Poschengband.ini -> c:\games\poscheng-121\Poschengband.ini

I say copy rather than move in case something goes wrong. One final note, when you run the 1.0.21 executable and it prompts you for your save file, make sure you are opening the file from the correct directory.

EDIT: Never try to "install" into your "Program Files" directory. You are just asking for trouble if you do!

EDIT: Obviously, these are instructions for Windows. On Linux, you will also have 3 files to copy over (savefile, pickup preferences, and macros) but I'm not sure where they go by default. The ini file is only used on Windows.

[Nick]

To all the people worried about PosCheng not having an entry on the variants tab, now it does. In fact two, but one is a dud (apparently I can't follow simple instructions) that pav will probably destroy soon.

EDIT: See, already gone. Faster than a speeding bullet point.

[clouded]

Very minor bug: in the hjklyubn keyset, you can't buyout stores.

[AnonymousHero]

To all the people worried about PosCheng not having an entry on the variants tab, now it does. In fact two, but one is a dud (apparently I can't follow simple instructions) that pav will probably destroy soon.

EDIT: See, already gone. Faster than a speeding bullet point.

Unfortunately the current link points to the out-of-date googlecode page.

[Nick]

Unfortunately the current link points to the out-of-date googlecode page.

...as do all the links in this thread. Is there somewhere else?

[chris]

...as do all the links in this thread. Is there somewhere else?

The links for PosChengband in the Variants tab are correct. Perhaps he clicked Chengband by mistake? Chengband is still around and I'm hoping Dave takes up development one of these days

As for the download links, I imagine those will get stale over time (I'm really trying not to release ... honest!). Perhaps just linking to the site (i.e., Homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/poschengband/) would be enough? Google puts somewhat strict size limitations for their free service so I need to continually pull down old releases.

BTW, thanks for the update to the Variants tab If there is anything I can do to help out, please let me know.

[Nick]

Google puts somewhat strict size limitations for their free service so I need to continually pull down old releases.

Right - so putting a link to the original release was silly. I've removed that.

BTW, thanks for the update to the Variants tab If there is anything I can do to help out, please let me know.

Since you mention it ... I've got the source for all the stuff that's currently up (ie back to 1.0.13) for the variant repository, but if you still have the previous versions and can put them somewhere that would be great. Or if there's a code repository I can slurp them from, that would work too.

[chris]

Since you mention it ... I've got the source for all the stuff that's currently up (ie back to 1.0.13) for the variant repository, but if you still have the previous versions and can put them somewhere that would be great. Or if there's a code repository I can slurp them from, that would work too.

I do have all the source code zip files still on my hard drive, as well as a mercurial repository that I am using for development. However, I don't really understand why keeping each and every release would be desirable. Chengband had nigh 140 "releases" but the reality is that these were more akin to nightly builds and completely lacked the quality control one normally would associate with a "release". With PosChengband, I aimed to do better, but failed ...

At any rate, if you really want the source I can provide it.

EDIT: Source code for versions 1.0.0 thru current is now available here.

[Nick]

I do have all the source code zip files still on my hard drive, as well as a mercurial repository that I am using for development. However, I don't really understand why keeping each and every release would be desirable. Chengband had nigh 140 "releases" but the reality is that these were more akin to nightly builds and completely lacked the quality control one normally would associate with a "release".

I see your point - but as I build the variant repository there are lots of variants where there are big gaps in the record, and I'm trying to forestall that with PosCheng.

EDIT: Source code for versions 1.0.0 thru current is now available here.

Got them - so no need to leave those up if you don't want to. I'll try and grab the future ones as they come out.

[UglySquirrell]

Thanks for the explanation on upgrading my savefile. I decided to do a clean install in the end. Having lots of fun, i;m playing an Aphrodite Demigod Beastmaster.

The Kiss skill works great alongside dominate, instead of making a creature your pet and following you around it makes them friendly. So you can use it to cover corridors, or rooms, since they tend to stay in the same area and an added benefit is there's no upkeep cost. I think that Kiss has the potential to work against any creature too so endless fun there.

The new Virtues are great, i'm slowly raising my nature skill, and have noticed that i now have friendly monsters being generated in levels. Has a real feeling that my actions are affecting the world

I'm finding the autopicker it really streamlines the game a lot, not having to check every item to see if it's worthwhile speeds the game up, at level 20 it destroys all non magical armor/weapons, and at 30 all under excellent (with exceptions for superior, like poison needle, elven cloaks etc.)

Automatically picking up known great items like rings of speed, damage and slaying is also a nice touch. I noticed that it still does this even if the item is known to be cursed though.

And finally Is there a way to change the display for areas that have been checked for traps? Like in Vanilla with the green border, or an option to change the non detected area's color. The light gray is quite distracting. And covers my whole screen even on small levels .Maybe a slightly lighter shade of black.


Thank you,

[UglySquirrell]

Oh, i was wondering does Arcane Mastery work to decrease spellrates for the Lazy personality? As far as i can tell Lazy gives you a 10% hidden spell failure rate. Would the -5% from this Skill work to decrease that?

[Djabanete]

Chris --- I had some ideas about virtues. Since there seem to be people who really appreciate playing with them, I'll try to refine the ideas a bit more (and I'll post here when I do). Essentially, I was thinking that virtues could tie in to quests... like, say, completing Old Man Willow Quest could improve your Valor (+1) but hurt your Nature (-1). Then, you could reap certain benefits from correctly cultivating your virtues. The idea is to remove the benefits from repetitive/boring actions and reward global character planning instead. Of course, the system would have to be "grokkable" for a new player, since the weirdness of the old system was its main flaw. I haven't really thought through all the details yet... I'll post again when I have

[AnonymousHero]

The links for PosChengband in the Variants tab are correct. Perhaps he clicked Chengband by mistake? Chengband is still around and I'm hoping Dave takes up development one of these days

Sigh. I'm a dork. Apologies.

[chris]

Oh, i was wondering does Arcane Mastery work to decrease spellrates for the Lazy personality? As far as i can tell Lazy gives you a 10% hidden spell failure rate. Would the -5% from this Skill work to decrease that?

Yes it would, except the effect is only -3% for Arcane Mastery.

And finally Is there a way to change the display for areas that have been checked for traps? Like in Vanilla with the green border, or an option to change the non detected area's color. The light gray is quite distracting. And covers my whole screen even on small levels .Maybe a slightly lighter shade of black.

If you are playing ASCII, then you can change this in the feature file. But I think you are playing graphics and any change will require a change to the tileset (Something I've been trying hard to avoid). When I get time, I'll try to see what Angband is doing these days to see if there isn't an easy improvement to be made.