[Announce] PosChengband 4.0.0 Released

[HugoVirtuoso]

I don't really want to spend a lot of time in the early game, the quicker it is the better.

There is one quick way to rapidly level-up in the early game...If you're playing a melee-based character, play a Draconian or any winged race, or somehow get Levitation in the early-game, and go fight dragons in the mountains. For instance, especially near the Volcano or Zul. I've been able to level-up as fast as clvl 28-29 within the first hour from the start. Yes, clvl 28+!!

[debo]

There is one quick way to rapidly level-up in the early game...If you're playing a melee-based character, play a Draconian or any winged race, or somehow get Levitation in the early-game, and go fight dragons in the mountains. For instance, especially near the Volcano or Zul. I've been able to level-up as fast as clvl 28-29 within the first hour from the start. Yes, clvl 28+!!

CL isn't really the problem, it's finding all the other stuff you need to not want to rip out your own eyes

[HugoVirtuoso]

CL isn't really the problem, it's finding all the other stuff you need to not want to rip out your own eyes

Being at clvl 28+ already is a strong enough to safely take down even more dragon dudes. At times, I've been able to get good stuff this way.

[Cold_Heart]

I don't mind early game too much, there are methods to accelerate it somewhat (one is described above).

What I think can be improved however is the CL 28-40 span (especially bad for expensive race/class combos).

[HugoVirtuoso]

In my experience, the clvl 28 - 40 span can be sped up once you are stocked with resistances and have good speed (base speed = 10+). Then, you can start taking on the Arena dungeons and fight dudes for good leveling-up

[nikheizen]

In my experience, the clvl 28 - 40 span can be sped up once you are stocked with resistances and have good speed (base speed = 10+). Then, you can start taking on the Arena dungeons and fight dudes for good leveling-up

That's all well and good, but the playtime required for getting all those resists and speed can be hugely variable depending on character.

You often don't get much speed before you start hitting the later dungeons (i.e. Arena and later) and if you have done all the early and midgame dungeons (low bosses down sans Utgard, not getting much out of anti-* caves, deeper glass castle is suicidal), but can't yet go to arena the game gets incredibly boring.

I strongly feel that the 28-40 stretch is place where the progression needs the most work.
On the other hand, the game after CLvl 45 or so is probably the most fun, since the big draws of PCB for me (and others, I'm sure) is fighting huge monsters and getting huge loot.

[HugoVirtuoso]

That's all well and good, but the playtime required for getting all those resists and speed can be hugely variable depending on character.

You often don't get much speed before you start hitting the later dungeons (i.e. Arena and later) and if you have done all the early and midgame dungeons (low bosses down sans Utgard, not getting much out of anti-* caves, deeper glass castle is suicidal), but can't yet go to arena the game gets incredibly boring.

I strongly feel that the 28-40 stretch is place where the progression needs the most work.
On the other hand, the game after CLvl 45 or so is probably the most fun, since the big draws of PCB for me (and others, I'm sure) is fighting huge monsters and getting huge loot.

Point taken. This should be on the PosChengband 5.0.x (and future versions) to-do list. Chris should consider this at some point. If not, one of us should remind him.

[raz]

does anyone know a way of getting a list of the tiles in order from PosChengBand for the purposes of making a new tileset?

[Pete Mack]

The pref file has all this information. You may need to massage it with Unix commands sort, tr, and join.
If you like, I can work up a script to do it.
Edit: Just looked.
The file graf-xxx.prf in lib/graf already has all this info, incusing the names. No massaging necessary.

does anyone know a way of getting a list of the tiles in order from PosChengBand for the purposes of making a new tileset?

[raz]

Thanks, forgive me for being ignorant, but how should I be reading the .prf? If I open it in Notepad I get a bunch of numbers along with the tile names, I assume these are like grid references?

I was planning on blowing up the 8x8 tileset included with PCB in Photoshop and using that as my reference. Is there a way of outputting the tile order as they appear in the 8x8 set?

Sorry for not knowing this. I draw, I don't understand the technical stuff...

[raz]

Are these two links accurate for everything that is included in PCB?

http://mikedebo.ca/files/poschengband-spoilers/mon-desc.spo

http://mikedebo.ca/files/poschengband-spoilers/obj-desc.spo

If so I can just position them in order as I see them in those two files and someone smarter than me can help with making the game read them in the correct order later...

[Pete Mack]

Correct. The number is the position in the file, indexed from 0 (black/unknown grid). It's sequential order, not x,y. The pref file already is exactly what you want. It looks like the file is already sorted by index.

[Pete Mack]

Not quite. There's also the player,various tiles for empty squares and other features. It'd be a whole lot easier just to use the same pref file.

Are these two links accurate for everything that is included in PCB?

http://mikedebo.ca/files/poschengband-spoilers/mon-desc.spo

http://mikedebo.ca/files/poschengband-spoilers/obj-desc.spo

If so I can just position them in order as I see them in those two files and someone smarter than me can help with making the game read them in the correct order later...

[Pete Mack]

So, I was able to compile poschengband using gcc, in Seeing whether it's easy to allow other tile sizes.
1. Fix dir_exists in init2.c so it doesn't use stat(). Just return true. (I have no idea how to get this to compile correctly. I tried using _stat, and a whole lot of other things.)
2. Fix makefile.win so it _actually works_. The one in there is horribly stale.
3. Replace main-*.c with more recent versions--pick the one from angband-3.1v2, as that is fully compatible. This lets you select any of the other bitmap sizes, though it still requires bmp and mask files--and the names are 'Adam Bolt' and 'David Gervais', and 'Shockbolt', not 8x8, 16x16, and 32x32. (It'd take a very little more work to allow png files--just add readpng and libpng.)


In passing I noticed some really strange stuff. It uses "software" 64-bit numbers, rather than using the 64-bit built-ins from even C89. And it is just plain mean about assigning exp for summoned uniques, giving them even less relative EXP than for ordinary monsters. Allow me to observe that it is IMPOSSIBLE TO FARM SUMMONED UNIQUES. At least I think that's what's happening. That stretch of code in xtra2.c is under-commented, and for no particular reason, it uses RSHIFT(1), iterated n times, rather than just RSHIFT(n).

Edit: I will further note that dependencies are horribly messed up in Makefile.inc. Really, all files should depend on z-*.h, just on general principles. It beats spending time trying to figure out why your exe doesn't link.

[raz]

Not quite. There's also the player,various tiles for empty squares and other features. It'd be a whole lot easier just to use the same pref file.

OK, will do. Thanks for the help!