[Announce] Poschengband 2.0.0 Released

[emulord]

Bug report: Quick restarting as a possessor gives you 0 HP and getting hit like this causes a crash. Also in the character startup it says you have -99 speed.

[Nick]

Bug report: Quick restarting as a possessor gives you 0 HP and getting hit like this causes a crash.

Must be a sporadic thing, as it hasn't happened to me in my 30-odd possessor quick restarts...

[chris]

Bug report: Quick restarting as a possessor gives you 0 HP and getting hit like this causes a crash. Also in the character startup it says you have -99 speed.

Thanks. I can reproduce both issues and fixed them for 2.0.1 (to be released shortly).

[chris]

Must be a sporadic thing, as it hasn't happened to me in my 30-odd possessor quick restarts...

30 restarts? Is the possessor too hard to start? I think I'll give them a small amount of starting hp so they can withstand a single magic missile or whatnot.

Killing a Battle Scarred Veteran or Mean Looking Mercenary is not a bad initial option, and those guys stay sleeping so you can setup from a distance.

[Nick]

30 restarts? Is the possessor too hard to start? I think I'll give them a small amount of starting hp so they can withstand a single magic missile or whatnot.

No, I'm just impatient. Plus I've been experimenting with possessing lots of stuff - floating eyes are pretty funny

[chris]

I guess the crash on 0hp deserves a new release:

* Players always get at least 1hp

* Possessors start with 15 extra hp. Should be easy to get that first corpse now.

* Added autopicker option to only keep corspes above a certain level (See above in this thread). Note: The leave_special option is on by default so that new savefiles don't auto destroy corpses for the possessor. You will want to turn off leave_special at some point if you are using the autopicker.

* Innate monster attacks are now slightly more powerful for The Possessor.

* Tweaked a couple of monster body types (Manticore and Benedict).

* Possessors no longer display as -99 speed during birth.

[clouded]

I did a little skimming of r_info to see what sort of late game things would provide corpses and noticed a few things that seem unintentional: Hela, Iketa, Sauron and hell knights all have Copy: lines but no DROP_CORPSE, lords of chaos only have DROP_SKELETON (and a Copy: line), and Santa has two Copy: lines.

Edit: killing Corwin gave me a "You've killed the boss of your race" message (no permaheroism though).

[Nick]

Ahh, gotta use the Linux/X11 build.

FWIW, I'm having a go at hacking the cocoa port and the linux build system in from V. ETA - who knows. I have the ulterior motive that if I can do this, it may makes the process easier for a bunch of old variants.

[chris]

FWIW, I'm having a go at hacking the cocoa port and the linux build system in from V. ETA - who knows. I have the ulterior motive that if I can do this, it may makes the process easier for a bunch of old variants.

There is a main-mac.c in the source code that I inherited from Hengband. I have no idea how to build it though ... but who knows, perhaps that would work for PosChengband?

[molybdenum]

There is a main-mac.c in the source code that I inherited from Hengband. I have no idea how to build it though ... but who knows, perhaps that would work for PosChengband?

I would ditch main-mac.c. If you haven't done anything weird to the Term stuff, you should just be able to do the following to get a port running for OS X:
- Copy the following from V: the src/cocoa directory, main-cocoa.m, and Makefile.osx.
- Update the creator code macro ANGBAND_CREATOR in main-cocoa.m. This is just four chars (and since they're not really used anymore, you shouldn't have to worry about conflict).
- In main-cocoa.m, you'll want to search for the following lines and then change them as needed (these have to do with the app name):

static NSString * const AngbandDirectoryNameBase = @"Angband";

NSRunAlertPanel( @"Missing Resources", @"Angband was unable to find required resources and must quit. Please report a bug on the Angband forums.", @"Quit", nil, nil );

[window setTitle:@"Angband"];

return [@"~/Documents/Angband/" stringByExpandingTildeInPath];

NSMenuItem *angbandItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle: @"Angband" action: @selector(selectWindow:) keyEquivalent: @"0"];

- In src/cocoa/Angband-Cocoa.xml, look for the following:

<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
	<string>A271</string>

Change the stuff between <string></string> to match whatever you used for ANGBAND_CREATOR.
- In Makefile.osx, change NAME and BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER as needed. You'll have to change the rule containing this line:

	lipo -arch x86_64 $@.x86_64 -arch i386 $@.i386 -create -output angband.o

Change that angband.o to $(NAME).o or whatever makes sense.

I think that's all, but I've probably forgotten something. Once 3.5 is released, I'm going to finish up my overhaul of the OS X port, so these steps may not be useful in the future.

[Nick]

I think that's all, but I've probably forgotten something. Once 3.5 is released, I'm going to finish up my overhaul of the OS X port, so these steps may not be useful in the future.

Thanks, that's great - I had got some, but not all of those.

The main issue is that PosCheng is from a much older codebase, and stuff like file- and command-handling is different.

EDIT: And, on closer inspection, proper installation on both linux and Mac require more careful treatment of the libpath and datapath.

[Arjen]

Being a Spider doesn't give you that spidervision, but you also can't wield a light.

[HugoVirtuoso]

You guys should check http://tome.dreamer.hu for ideas on body configurations for ToME's monsters. Maybe these can be used as suggestions for monsters that can be possessed in PosCheng.

[chris]

Thanks to everybody for all the possessor playtesting! I've decided to make some fairly dramatic changes so we'll see how it goes.

Change #1: The Possessor can become ejected from their current form!

I resisted this for a bit, but decided to give it a go after all. To make things playable, it is a low probability event that triggers if your health goes very low (less than 25%). Early on, this might happen more often than later, but it is something to be concerned about. For a must win fight (Serpent, Oberon, Quest monster) you might consider bringing a spare corpse, just in case.

To compensate for this change, the Possessor Soul (native form) now has more hp and can advance all the way to CL50. It also as a few slots (2 rings, helmet, light and cloak) so that ejection won't auto dump your speed to 0. Also, when ejected from your current form, you get fully healed first!

Change #2: The Possessor is unable to possess a body above a certain level.

This is designed to prevent wilderness scumming a massively out of depth corpse in the early game, a tactic I pioneered, but one that will also diminish the early game. Also, your power always depends on your current level in a strong fashion, so having a 20-something in an Ancient Dragon form, for example, is a bit unbelievable as you are still rather squishy!

To compensate for this change, you no longer need to leave your current body to possess a new one. Indeed, the game will block you if the target corpse is too high for your current level and it would be cruel indeed if you were forced to jettison your current body (thus destroying it) first.

Change #3: Many monster forms were rebalanced. Early breath amounts were extremely OP and have been adjusted down.

Change #4: Monster shatter attacks now cause earthquakes rather than giving a ridiculous damage increase.

Change #5: Nerf the humanoid prejudice.

To achieve this, humanoids only get 1/3 of the speed boost and their AC bonus decreases for each piece of armor worn. Non-humanoid forms can get full speed from their form, but still suffer the AC reduction. But many monster forms cannot wear body armor so they end up with a higher AC bonus.

Change #6: More forms! I added Spiders and Hounds for early stealthy options. Both forms can detect monsters as well. I also added some nice high level forms to the mix which I don't want to spoil

Other minor changes include fixing the heavy corpse bug (no more negative weights) and implementing the fear aura. Also, the possessor is now born with a tiny ring of damage to encourage adoption of non-humanoid forms.

[Arjen]

The changes sounds reasonable. I only don't like the forced ejection, but I will see if it's really that bad.

*edit*
I don't like it