[Un]angband 0.6.2 beta 2 has been released!

[Big Al]

Suggestion: when you level up and improve your stats, you should gain the equivalent amount of stats to your "curr" stat as to your "best" stat. (eg. One stat is at 18/20 and it's drained down to 18/19. I choose to improve that stat: the maximum goes up to say, 18/30, but curr stat stays at 18/19. The "curr" stat should go up to 18/29.)

Also, is there any reason that you can get to Lake town before clearing Mirkwood? Thematically, it doesn't make any sense, but maybe there's a game balance reason. I'm the type of person who feels it necessary to explore every location in the same order as the books though... I'd kind of like it if it was clearer which areas are in the Hobbit campaign and which are in the LotR campaign, but I don't know what the interface would look like.

Also, I might suggest toning down the XP gain for Beorn a bit - he's trivial to kill if you just light the forest on fire, and I just jumped up five levels (17 to 22) upon killing him. (Got to improve 7 stats for casting a single fire bolt and a half a dozen magic missiles to finish him off, yay!) FIXED IN SVN.

Also, I just got a "too many ecologies" bug: I had just gotten to the lonely mountain and gone down the first staircase. I saved the game and quit; when I reloaded it, it complained about the too many ecologies and gave me several warnings about backing up my savefile. It restored my character fine, but the dungeon was lost. (I have the savefile if you want.) REPORTED.

[thorgot]

You guys should post dumps when you die. If nothing else, it feels great when you realize you've long since passed your previous highest leveled character.

[Big Al]

Bug: Beef Jerky doesn't tell you how much nourishment you get from it, while all the other basic foods do. EDIT: nevermind, foods only show you the turns of nourishment if you've eaten at least ten of them.

Also, Pink mushrooms show up as light blue. FIXED IN SVN.

[Anne]

Well, I just killed my latest one, a lvl 30 mage, to another dumb mistake. A unique summoned help when I was getting low on HP, and I confidently attempted twice to teleport away, forgetting about my newly-acquired Boots of Stability. Wasted the last of my mana on that while I was surrounded. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I should have stayed in the doorway so I couldn't be surrounded. I should have remembered to remove those boots before teleporting. I should have... ah well, time to reroll another one.

But you're right, that's the key to a game with holding power. When the deaths seem as though they somehow could have been avoided, it's more of a personal challenge - it encourages you to try again, confident that you can get further this time. On the other hand, when you experience too many deaths that seem more random and less avoidable, then it just seems like a frustrating game and there's less to hold you.

[Big Al]

Yeah, kathoum summed up pretty much exactly my thoughts in his entire post - 'n' does the exact same thing as 'm1d0' if you've already targeted the monster once.

That's why it's especially dangerous I suppose - I mostly only use macros on the easy foes, around which I'm more careless anyway.

Tell me about it. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten tired or distracted and done something just slightly careless and boom! Dead.

Indeed. Unangband seems unique in that it's the one *band that whenever I die, I consistently think to myself, "now I know not to do that again." It seems that I rarely die to difficult or unique monsters; it's always due to some other (seemingly insignificant) reason. Maybe that's the thing that has kept me hooked on Un for so long over other variants - every time I die, I learn something new. It seems like a lot of the dangers from vanilla (eg. paralyzation, big poison breaths, etc.) aren't nearly so bad in Un (or maybe I've just never gotten deep enough yet). I like it.

[kathoum]

Such macro use is unsafe (see the thread about shooting macros). What I find safe is turn on repeat_last_target (or whatever the option is called) and then target manually (without a macro) a single monster (e.g. a magic user, whom you'd like to kill first) and peck away with macro 'm1d0'. The macro will stop your tapping (with bells if you keep pressing it) as soon as the monster is dead or out of LOS. This is perfectly safe (I'm not sure about roguelike keymap, though) takes only a pair of keypress more per one killed monster and makes sure you concentrate your firepower on a single, most dangeours monster and review the situation after each kill.

This macro is only good in case you want to repeatedly target a single monster, but for this purpose the 'repeat last action' command is equally good.

In my experience, a shooting macro is more useful when it auto-targets the nearest visible monster, so it can be used with groups of weak monsters, or to automatically take care of the many insignificant lesser beings that have no other purpose than to disturb my running.

I don't know your playstyle, but I don't use macros when I'm dealing with dangerous foes, because they deserve something more painful than a magic missile (or the path is blocked and a ball is needed).

Dario

EDIT: Are you considering binding the '.' key to the nearest targettable monster? It's very useful.

[Anne]

The *one* time that I get lazy and decide to just hold down the key... sigh.

Tell me about it. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten tired or distracted and done something just slightly careless and boom! Dead.

Actually, I'm not sure what my highest level character has been. Late 20's or early 30's, I imagine. I probably could have gone farther with my last one, but I decided to start over because I'd learned more about where to put those stat points and which spells were more worthwhile to learn.

Edit:Anne, thanks for taking over the complaints and newbie pampering department. When I get back I'll fill in the gaps and fix the bugs.

LMAO. You're welcome.

[Bandobras]

*catching a moment of good net connectivity from a forest on a mountainside*

I have a macro 'm1d*t' which normally targets the closest monster with magic missile, but it seems that if there aren't any other monsters on screen, * defaults to yourself.

Sorry about your failed magic experiments.

Such macro use is unsafe (see the thread about shooting macros). What I find safe is turn on repeat_last_target (or whatever the option is called) and then target manually (without a macro) a single monster (e.g. a magic user, whom you'd like to kill first) and peck away with macro 'm1d0'. The macro will stop your tapping (with bells if you keep pressing it) as soon as the monster is dead or out of LOS. This is perfectly safe (I'm not sure about roguelike keymap, though) takes only a pair of keypress more per one killed monster and makes sure you concentrate your firepower on a single, most dangeours monster and review the situation after each kill.

I know it takes some time to get used to. It took me ~12 years to start using it. It you use a keypad, it helps to target only with multiple * and then a single '0' (at the bottom of the keypad). Then bind the macro to a key nearby, e.g. Insert, keypad '/', etc.

Edit:Anne, thanks for taking over the complaints and newbie pampering department. When I get back I'll fill in the gaps and fix the bugs.

[Big Al]

My bet is that you targeted your character. I've done that a number of times when I wasn't paying close enough attention. When you're targeting, if you hit the '*' to choose a specific monster to aim at, and you can't get a straight shot at a monster (maybe there's an obstruction that you can't shoot through), the cursor box will sit on your character. If you go ahead and click enter at that point, you aim at yourself.

OK, thanks, that must have been what I did. I have a macro 'm1d*t' which normally targets the closest monster with magic missile, but it seems that if there aren't any other monsters on screen, * defaults to yourself.

Your message came about five minutes too late though - I just learned this the hard way: my level 28 character (best I've done in Un - just got to the lonely mountain) just bit the dust from mm'ing himself to death. The *one* time that I get lazy and decide to just hold down the key... sigh.

[roustk]

EDIT: One more: I was wearing some boots of stability (which prevent teleportation) and when I try to phase door or teleport, I get the message "A <player> (offscreen) fails to teleport you away."

Well, *you* are offscreen. Out of the plane, even.

Kevin

[Anne]

I get the message "You die." a turn later - the tombstone says that I died by badly casting a magic missile? Is there anything I can do to prevent this death or was it just bad luck?

My bet is that you targeted your character. I've done that a number of times when I wasn't paying close enough attention. When you're targeting, if you hit the '*' to choose a specific monster to aim at, and you can't get a straight shot at a monster (maybe there's an obstruction that you can't shoot through), the cursor box will sit on your character. If you go ahead and click enter at that point, you aim at yourself.

What is the significance of of "a statue of an ancient god" and other such statues?

You can sell those. Some are worth more than others, and I believe some are worthless. But they're extremely heavy, too, so I only pick those up if I want to head directly to a shop to sell them.

EDIT: One more: I was wearing some boots of stability (which prevent teleportation) and when I try to phase door or teleport, I get the message "A <player> (offscreen) fails to teleport you away."

That's an interesting message, alright. But boots of stability do prevent you from teleporting as well as preventing monsters from teleporting you. Word of Recall still works while wearing them, though.

[Big Al]

More questions:

I started a new mage, go down into the Bree sewers and the very first thing I do is cast a magic missile. I get the message "You die." a turn later - the tombstone says that I died by badly casting a magic missile? Is there anything I can do to prevent this death or was it just bad luck?

Potions and Mushrooms of poison never seem to actually poison me. Bug? FIXED IN SVN.

What is the significance of of "a statue of an ancient god" and other such statues?

EDIT: Also, bug: it seems that all mouse clicks in the knowledge screens are off by two lines down and a dozen or so character to the right.

EDIT: Are there any non-average torches? If not then why not make them automatically identified? It's kind of weird to have two stacks of identical looking torches in my inventory: one stack bought from a store and one stack found in the dungeon.

EDIT: Also, the "rest to recover stats" command doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. From experimentation, it only ever recovers stats if you are gorged when you start resting - was this intentional? When I was experimenting with it, I would eat until I was full, then rest until I was weak from hunger, over and over again, and never gain any stats. But if I eat just a little bit more (to the point of gorged), then a gain a stat point every time I rest. It seems that this is a bit overpowered IMO - for 12 gp (ie. three food rations), I can recover one of all my stats.

EDIT: I was experimenting more with this recover stats feature and found a weird bug: I'm sitting in the dungeon, with my torch doused. I gorge myself on food and hit 'R$' to rest to recover stats. But before I recover anything, a Brown Faerie casts a fearful illusion on me and a fruit bat attacks me right afterwards (I can see them with infravision, but don't have any other light). I try to attack the bat, but it says "There is a granite wall in the way." rather than "You're too afraid to attack it." Very odd. I'm standing like this:

    ##########
    # @   H
#####b########
      #
#######

I'm certain that I was attacking down-left and that the bat was right beside me to the down-left. By the time I had lit my torch again, the fear had worn off, and I could attack the bat like normal. Not sure what caused this, but it might be the very rare occurrence of being awaken from rest by a terrifying illusion *and* being attacked at the same time.

EDIT: Sorry for so many questions, but one more: Why do some weapons or armour pseudo (as a Maia Istari) as {uncursed} and some things pseudo as {good/very good/great}? Am I understanding this correctly:
{good} - low +todam, +tohit or +ac
{very good} - medium +todam, +tohit or +ac
{great} - high +todam, +tohit or +ac
{excellent} - ego item
{superb} - high ego item
{uncursed} - any of the above?

EDIT: One more: I was wearing some boots of stability (which prevent teleportation) and when I try to phase door or teleport, I get the message "A <player> (offscreen) fails to teleport you away." Reported on Berlios.

EDIT: Also, why is it that when you down *down* the stairs from the Elvenking's hall's (level 24) to the Storage Cellars (level 25), you arrive on another set of *down* stairs?

EDIT: Also, bug, perhaps: I was low on mana (in the mana reserve range), and cast Concentration to gain mana. This spell costs 0 mana, but I still got my CON damaged. I don't think that you should have the possibility of damaging your CON when casting 0 mana spells. FIXED IN SVN.

[thorgot]

* made nexus temporary (via temporary stat bonuses)

Yaaaaay.

* reverted my year old stupid change, which made the Three Trolls worth
lots of XP

Awwww.

I'll definitely be starting another game of this soon.

[EricCamp]

wow

I've missed alot going on.....

[Anne]

Bandobras could respond to that much more intelligently than myself, but since he's absent for awhile, I'll relay what I've experienced. When the item is only pseudo-IDed, and it looks like it could be an ego or better, the shopkeeper only knows as much about it as you do. He'll take a wild stab at it and pay a price based on the possibility of what he thinks it -might- turn out to be. Sometimes he'll find out that while the item is good, it isn't as good as he'd hoped and that he paid too much for it. In that case, he'll say 'darn' or something and then lower the price for the rest of it.