[Announce] Poschengband 3.4.0 Released

[youtoo]

guys I asked about race/class combo. So what race goes good with chaos-warrior?

[Nivim]

Pick something that sounds amusing to you! Chaos-warriors get random big effects upon level-up, so the faster the race levels, the more effects you'll get. Slower leveling things might be safer, but if it's too slow it'll be boring.

[debo]

guys I asked about race/class combo. So what race goes good with chaos-warrior?

Race doesn't matter much with chaos-warrior since you're likely to get polymorphed into another race by your patron before the game is over :P

[chris]

guys I asked about race/class combo. So what race goes good with chaos-warrior?

Beastman, of course! Double the fun! Of course, there is also High-elf, Hobbit, Demigod, ...

[Thraalbee]

No brainer. Beastman Mauler! When rolling character, don't ask for too extreme stats to ensure you get many chances to choose a good mutation. Attention from a chaos patron is double fun in the beginning. Telepathy is great. Poly self is fun but seldom good for you... Use as heavy weapon as possible, 30lb or more

[youtoo]

No brainer. Beastman Mauler! When rolling character, don't ask for too extreme stats to ensure you get many chances to choose a good mutation. Attention from a chaos patron is double fun in the beginning. Telepathy is great. Poly self is fun but seldom good for you... Use as heavy weapon as possible, 30lb or more

I dont understand what does rolling a character have to do with getting a mutation? I have never gotten mutations at the beginning?

[youtoo]

I am trying out a nibelung samurai. where is documentation on the skills? For ninjas I did a google for chengband ninja or something like that. I cant find the descriptions of the samurai skills?

[youtoo]

@chris: Here aer a some suggestions. I am not criticizing. just suggesting. I know you worked hard on this. I am not an angband expert. So writing it as more of a newb.

1.Rogue Basin post: recommend you post to rogue basin when you release a certain version. it doesn't have to be an 'official release'. the community on this forum is really small. you will get more people. I'd also include a link to the thread you start here for each major release

2. newbie help: you have suggestions in a variety of places. in one file you recommend a vampire/ninja which is great for a beginner. I see a variety of posts in threads. one of them has your suggested dungeon order. above here you responed to my question where you have race/class combos.

I highy recmmend a newbie help. and add the following (its hard to find)
-- the doc on vampire/ninja start for newbs.
-- list of recommended newbie race/class combos. 6-7 are fine.
-- you have a post about your recommended dungeon order. that is very helpful to new players.
-- i dont understand the auto-pickup doc at all. i don't get it. an example would be help
-- a few example macros. I have trouble following this. Lets say I want to make a spell. how do i do that? pick 1 class and 1 spell
-- another macro is switching from a pick to your weapon. I have not figured out how to do that and its too much trouble to hit all those keys to switch.

3. User interface
-- quest page: Can you include the town that quests came from and which building you got it from? I tend to forget.
-- town page: this game adds alot of buildings and they hae the same symbols with different colors. can you have a key on the main page when you go to a town with a reference to each building. then if i go to it highlights the building so i can find it?
-- proficiencies page: can you put these in alphabetical order?

4. skills: its really hard to find docs on skills. i have to hunt. most of them i think come from hengband or chengband if they are new. maybe you can add a link in the help for each class that has chengband doc. for example i just found the samurai skills and it took a while:

http://www.kmc.gr.jp/~henkma/heng-e/class/samurai/index.html

or take this doc and copy it into the help? so when you look at a skill you get the description of the skill as well?

5. IDing items: how about if you have already ID'd a weapon/armor previously its permanently ID'd to you. so 'average of +0,+0, is already ID'd once you ID it. selling it auto-IDs. A 0,+1 will always be Id. I know that 'perception adds to this, but how about it just IDs new stuff? It gets really tedious IDing things... iding stuff is useful for sell price.

6. auto-suppress average items: is there a way to auto-suppress average items? after a while its clutter and hard to find things?

7 easier selling: not sure if you can chnage this, its in the engine. i shouldn't have to hit 'spacebar' multiple times when i sell. you don't in other games. how about a bigger window for this?

8. Wimpy for HP: if i get below 'X' HP, the game freezes and I have to press 'Y' to continue. i know don't be careless. alot of us are careless. this can be optional...

9. outside: I like that you are adding stuff outside. it doesn't appear there is much to do outside. Is this the same map as zangband? I don't really know the variants real well. Please make the outside more interesting.

[Derakon]

Beastmen specifically get mutations when they are "born", and also have a chance to get a mutation with every levelup. A beastman chaos-warrior is, aptly, a very chaotic game.

[mrrstark]

Can beholders 'f'ire their gaze? Seems like they should be able to. ... Or is it melee only?

[chris]

Can beholders 'f'ire their gaze? Seems like they should be able to. ... Or is it melee only?

Beholders "fire" their gaze thru their spells: They can gaze to paralyze or confuse.

They also melee with their gaze when up close which gains some pretty cool effects at later levels (I won't spoil unless you ask). Their melee damage numbers are weak, but they are effective.

Their main liability is blindness which makes them unable to cast spells or to melee (or to read scrolls). Watch Out!

[chris]

@chris: Here aer a some suggestions. I am not criticizing. just suggesting.

Thanks. I always appreciate ideas and feedback, as well as perspective from a new player. I'm not doing much coding at the moment, though, but I'll keep your list around for when I get back into stuff.

For the autopickup, I recommend you simply use the in game prompt to auto-register stuff for destruction that is presented every time you destroy an object. Treat this as a poor man's squelch feature. Later, if you like the game and play more, you can put effort into learning the syntax.

The macro engine is the same one the game has always had for 20 years or so. You could probably google for instructions, but here's a lame scenario:

Your a mage and have a spell called "Kiss of Succubus" that is an attack ball spell which you would like to cast as your primary offense. The spell is in your third spellbook listed as "a Daemon Spellbook [Demonthoughts]".

First, you need to understand that when you cast a spell, you are prompted for a spellbook to use, and this letter to choose the book depends on the current state of your inventory (pack). So, the letter can change, which is annoying. Defeat this "feature" by inscribing ([) "@mc" (without the quotes) on your book. The 'c' is now the letter to use for choosing this book with the 'm' command. Use whatever letter you like, but I go with 'a' for my first book, 'b' for my second, etc. Keeps things consistent across games.

Now, pay attention to what you do to use this spell. The sequence of keys to use will vary depending on how you configure options. This is an old game, and different people want things to behave differently, so a lot of behavior can be modified using non-standard options. In particular, I use the use_old_target option and this should be on by default. This allows you to target your foe up front before you cast the spell. So, with use_old_target turned on, you find that you generally use the spell by pressing the sequence "*tmcg". OK, this is almost the macro sequence you want but not quite. It turns out that the macro system is rather naive and just inserts the key sequence you enter into the queue. This causes problems unless you prefix your macros with an escape character ('\e') which causes the message queue to flush any -more- prompts which normally require a keypress to continue. So the final macro sequence to use is "\e*tmcg" which stands for: Flush the message queue, target the nearest monster, invoke the magic command and choose spellbook 'c' and cast spell 'g' from that book.

Finally, you create this macro by binding it to whatever key you like. Press '@' to interact with macros and follow the instructions: Press '4' to create a macro. Enter the key you'd like to bind this command to. Then enter the macro key sequence we worked out above. Finally, save your changes by pressing '2' to append your macros to the indicated file.

[youtoo]

@chris: how do i turn this on I never get asked:

"For the autopickup, I recommend you simply use the in game prompt to auto-register stuff for destruction that is presented every time you destroy an object. Treat this as a poor man's squelch feature. Later, if you like the game and play more, you can put effort into learning the syntax."

I have auto-destroyed corpses from unique monsters too. how do i keep that from happening? I try to pick up, but it gets destroyed.

[AnonymousHero]

@chris: how do i turn this on I never get asked:

"For the autopickup, I recommend you simply use the in game prompt to auto-register stuff for destruction that is presented every time you destroy an object. Treat this as a poor man's squelch feature. Later, if you like the game and play more, you can put effort into learning the syntax."

I have auto-destroyed corpses from unique monsters too. how do i keep that from happening? I try to pick up, but it gets destroyed.

Non-"wanted" corpses get autodestroyed in the default setup, IIRC. EDIT: Even without detailed knowledge of the auto-X system it should be relatively simple to find the relevant line in the default configuration file and remove it.

[chris]

@chris: how do i turn this on I never get asked:

"For the autopickup, I recommend you simply use the in game prompt to auto-register stuff for destruction that is presented every time you destroy an object. Treat this as a poor man's squelch feature. Later, if you like the game and play more, you can put effort into learning the syntax."

I have auto-destroyed corpses from unique monsters too. how do i keep that from happening? I try to pick up, but it gets destroyed.

Press '_' to initialize the auto-destroyer. Unfortunately, you still need to perform this step manually for each character. The default pickup preferences has lines to pick up wanted corpses for you:

wanted corpses#Wanted!k!k!k   
wanted skeletons#Wanted!k!k!k

Everything after the # character gets automatically inscribed on the object, in this case to tell you the corpse is wanted and to prevent accidental destruction with the k command (unless you really, really, really want to, that is!).