Development version of PWMAngband 1.1.12 released for testing

[PowerWyrm]

Seems to me storing levels makes more sense per player than per grid region. MxN gets big fast. But the number of players should be more or less constant.

Only a pointer is stored per wilderness square, which is NULL by default (except the town/suburb). The corresponding level is only allocated when a player enters the area (and deallocated when there are no more players on the level).

[PowerWyrm]

Last update before the end of the world. Changes since last time:

- Change monster names to appropriate English case
- Make monster lookup case-insensitive
- Fix monster summoning (Dungeon Master menu)
- New ambient sounds for wilderness and deep dungeon levels
- Remove hardcoded WILD_RADIUS define, use value from wild_info.txt
- Make wilderness level info array bidimensional
- Reorganize wilderness.c
- Add (world_y, world_x) coordinates to the "chunk", "house_type" and "wild_type" structures
- Put symbol describing each wilderness feat in wild_feat.txt
- Revert "Allow dwellings on WILD_WASTE terrain"
- Revert "Make town suburb WILD_WASTE if not already WILD_GRASS or WILD_WASTE"
- Fix modified Angband-style town layout

Files updated: binaries and source code.
Files are available for download at the usual location: http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr

[PowerWyrm]

End of the world. For those who survived the apocalypse, here's the list of changes since last time:

- Replace "depth" with "struct worldpos" containing both depth and wilderness coordinates ("player", "player_death_info", "monster", "object", "chunk", "arena_type", "house_type" and "wild_type" structures)
- Set depth to 0 when in the wilderness
- Move "chunk_list" and "players_on_depth" arrays to "struct wild_type"
- Allow special manually-designed levels/towns in the wilderness
- Replace "recall_depth" with "struct worldpos", parsing "@Rx,y" inscription to recall to a specific wilderness level
- Nuke "num_wild"
- Add two "struct worldpos" for starting town (where level 1 characters start the game) and base town (where the main Angband dungeon resides)

Also found some time to add more stuff from V and fix some bugs:
- Fix mowing down trees in town not decreasing the trees_in_town counter
- Fix color of light slate monsters
- Fix weight of unbelievers, remove weight for Emperor Mimic
- Don't add stealth to players polymorphed into a race with no base weight
- Excise mon-power
- Split object data file reading into obj-init.c
- Replace linked lists of curses with arrays
- Parse slays from slay.txt
- Remove the slay cache
- Replace linked lists of slays with arrays
- Parse brands from brand.txt
- Replace linked lists of brands with arrays
- Add power field to brands and slays
- Remove monster power and scaled_power, weight slays and brands by fixed weights, adjust monster feelings
- Make player know all combat runes at birth
- Tone down greater vaults for non-classic profiles
- More refactoring
- Make cursed sticky artifacts just sticky, remove sticky curse
- Change how curses are added during object generation
- Adjust slays, brands and modifiers on randarts
- Some improvements to curses on randarts
- Distinguish between ratings for template rooms

Took some time to get something stable, the game was crashing on me almost every minute with all those changes in wilderness, slay/brands and curses.

Files updated: binaries and source code.
Files are available for download at the usual location: http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr

[PowerWyrm]

About the new special manually-designed levels/towns...

Features of special levels:
- loaded from file "server.level.x.y.z"
- always allocated
- no feeling displayed upon entering
- "Looks like a special level" displayed when recalling the feeling
- no artifacts generated
- true artifacts cannot be dropped/thrown
- cannot by bypassed by deep descent
- no darkness/fire/kill wall/polymorphing/alter reality/destruction/earthquake effects
- creation of traps/stairs/walls/glyphs/doors disabled
- monsters cannot breed or raise dead
- ignored stuff is not automatically dropped

Features of special towns:
- loaded from file "server.town.x.y.z"
- "Looks like a typical town" displayed when recalling the feeling
- no monsters
- no food consumption
- no summoning
- all features from special levels

Next step will be to rebuild a new world after the end of the old one.

[PowerWyrm]

Beginning of a new world, part 1. List of changes since last time:

- Change starting town and base town to "struct town" containing name and coordinates
- Parse starting and base town names and coordinates from town.txt
- Rename starting town and base town Hobbiton and Carn Dûm and place them at their real location on the pseudo-Middle Earth map
- Remove WILD_GRASS restriction for town suburbs, allow houses on waste and glacier terrains (for base town)
- Parse wilderness level from wild_feat.txt
- Set monster/object level depending on wilderness level and distance from towns
- Use an array of "struct town" for towns
- Parse town features from town_feat.txt
- Add town of Bree, parse coordinates from town.txt and layout from town_bree.txt
- Add town of Lothlorien, parse coordinates from town.txt and layout from town_lothlorien.txt
- Add town of Minas Anor, parse coordinates from town.txt and layout from town_minas_anor.txt

Also more stuff from V and some bugs fixed:
- Remove trap, door and stair detection
- Replace Sense Traps, Doors & Stairs with Spiritual Hammer (Telepath class)
- Tidy menu for curse removal
- Move objects when lava is created
- Make stone to mud destroy passable rubble
- Prohibit stone to mud effect in towns
- Fix some TOWN_WALL (no wilderness) issues

Files updated: binaries and source code.
Files are available for download at the usual location: http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr

[PowerWyrm]

Been a while since last update. Latest changes mainly are refactorings from V:

- Move magic realms to realm.txt
- Some refactorings
- Reduce the supply of gold, in line with its value in older versions
- Adopt some of James Doyle's suggestions from the forum (flavors)
- Fix some memory error and leaks
- Tidy up some parser errors
- Provision for conflicting curses
- Include spell power, use it instead of monster level
- Replace origin_xtra with origin_race (struct monster_race)
- Reorganize setup.bat a bit
- Fix tiles of curse removal scrolls
- Fix tiles of new traps
- Fix trap tiles in graf-xxx.prf
- Remove indices from (many) text files
- Replace indices with strings in savefiles (PWMAngband: keep indices by default, use a #define to switch to strings)
- Put monster spell lore colours into monster_spell.txt
- Put monster blow lore colours into blow_effects.txt
- Implement monster flag types
- Use monster flag types to write lore abilities
- Use monster spell types to write lore spell descriptions
- Use monster flag types in monster type descriptions
- Put element/projection info into projection.txt
- Refactor project_m_is_threat using projection.txt

- Try harder to make town surroundings passable
- Prevent digging/burning stuff in towns (except starting town)
- Simplify town_feat.txt
- Update modifying.txt
- Add a system to restrict monster creation to certain locations
- Make Farmer Maggot only appear in Hobbiton

About removing indices from text files and replacing indices with strings in savefiles:
- use #define SAVE_AS_STRINGS in savefile.h to replace indices with strings in savefiles
- save indices as unsigned integers, using range of [1..max] instead of [0..max-1] (index 0 is used for empty entry)
- remove all empty struct[0] entries

Files updated: binaries and source code.
Files are available for download at the usual location: http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr

[PowerWyrm]

To whoever plays with the beta version... I've seen a house full of GMMs in the wilderness on my local server, not that far from the starting towns. You have been warned

Note to self: only apply "night level boost" to random monsters generated in the wilderness, not to fixed ones.

[PowerWyrm]

Nothing from V this time, but finally all the dungeons are in place. List of changes:

- Parse dungeon names and coordinates from dungeon.txt
- Tweak metamap layout a bit
- Add towns of Umbar and Gondolin
- Add "The Orc Cave" with Azog, King of the Uruk-Hai as dungeon boss
- Add "The Old Forest" with Old Man Willow as dungeon boss
- Add "The Sandworm Lair" with The Sandworm Queen as dungeon boss
- Add "The Land Of Rhûn" with Ulfang the Black as dungeon boss
- Add "The Barrow-downs" with The Wight-King of the Barrow-downs as dungeon boss
- Add "The Maze" with The Minotaur of the Labyrinth as dungeon boss
- Add "The Heart of the Earth" with Golgarach, the Living Rock as dungeon boss
- Add "The Small Water Cave" with The Watcher in the Water as dungeon boss
- Add "Erebor" with Smaug the Golden as dungeon boss
- Add "The Helcaraxe" with The White Balrog as dungeon boss
- Add "The Mines of Moria" with The Balrog of Moria as dungeon boss
- Add "The Illusory Castle" with The King in Yellow as dungeon boss
- Move The Glass Golem to The Illusory Castle
- Add "Cirith Ungol" with Shelob, Spider of Darkness as dungeon boss
- Add "Númenor" with Ar-Pharazôn the Golden as dungeon boss
- Add "Mirkwood" with Radagast the Brown as dungeon boss
- Add "Mordor" with The Mouth of Sauron as dungeon boss
- Add "The Sacred Land Of Mountains" with Trone, the Rebel Thunderlord as dungeon boss
- Add "Dol Guldur" with The Necromancer of Dol Guldur as dungeon boss
- Add "The Paths of the Dead" with Feagwath, the Undead Sorcerer as dungeon boss
- Add "Mount Doom" with The Balrog of the Sammath Naur as dungeon boss
- Add "The Nether Realm" with Xakaze, Father of Abominations as dungeon boss
- Move Senyakaze, Sorceress of the Nether Realm to The Nether Realm
- Add "Utumno, Portal to the Void" with Melkor, Lord of Darkness as dungeon boss
- Move Tik'srvzllat to level 127 of Angband

- Fix @R recall inscription
- Fix parsing error in pref files (INERT -> INERTIA)
- Allow the Dungeon Master to summon uniques
- Fix kobold tile mapping (Adam Bolt tileset)
- Don't generate "tough" (house) inhabitants/invaders in the wilderness at night
- Fix monster spell descriptions (lore)

Files updated: binaries and source code.
Files are available for download at the usual location: http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr

[PowerWyrm]

Ok, I'm getting tired of trying to balance randart ammo with the current system... whatever I try I always end up with overpowered ammo (over +10 todam and almost all slays/brands in the book). So instead of trying to nerf them, I'll simply leave them overpowered... but remove the automatic ability to return when thrown. You then have some poscheng-style randarts that can serve as opening shots for high damage, but that can't be abused to kill stuff too easily. So here's the new system:
- "return when thrown" becomes a flag
- it is automatically added to the plain and unenchanted magic shots/arrows/bolts and boomerangs
- it is added to a couple standard artifacts (the ones with the lowest power)
- it is included in the artifact power calculation with a high power value to generate either a powerful normal randart or a weak returning one

[krazyhades]

I feel like I'm being something of the bad guy here by saying this, but here goes...

I am sympathetic to the balance troubles, but the poschengband artifact ammo does not really see use, with the unusual exception of a character briefly carrying the black arrow for wyrms before finding a weapon sufficient to clear them cheaply. People just don't use the pcb artifact ammo basically at all, because it's a precious slot for singleton nonreturning ammo that doesn't massively change one's options (and that one likely will forget on the ground at some point to boot). I've never once seen the pebble of david used outside of slingmaster class returning shots. Cupid's arrow is cute but like all single target charm effects in PCB not actually good, and there are easier ways to kill humanoids than carrying around the bolt of William Tell (the scary humans are uniques and harder to reliably find and farm than wyrms, so the spent slot is painful), and only sometimes does the black arrow see play, and then as just a brief stepping stone until a wyrm drops your new weapon.

That said, maybe your ammo is strong enough to merit the slot despite the headache? I also have not yet truly delved into your variant, so take this all with a grain of salt as I'm missing some context.

[Derakon]

It sounds like artifact ammo is either too useless (bad inventory/damage tradeoff) or too good. Maybe artifact ammo is a bad idea?

[krazyhades]

If it had returning and a cooldown (or similar) I could see it working out, especially if it were in a quiver or whatever and not the main inv. With just returning, you effectively have "infinite stack of uber ammo." but without returning you have "not worth it PITA"

That said, dev-wise that's getting pretty far afield from low hanging fruit, despite being an interesting design concept to entertain.

[PowerWyrm]

That said, maybe your ammo is strong enough to merit the slot despite the headache? I also have not yet truly delved into your variant, so take this all with a grain of salt as I'm missing some context.

Yes my problem is the following:
- you have very powerful ego ammo (for example: seeker arrows of holy might) that deal a lot of damage, but they can break and need to be picked up once fired
- you have unenchanted returning ammo (magic arrows/bolts/shots) that deal minimal damage, but never break and return to the quiver once fired
- you have artifact ammo

Currently, artifact ammo not only deal massive damage, but also never break AND return to the quiver once fired. Basically, once you have found one of these, your quiver becomes pointless, since you don't need anything else to shoot. So I tried to make them less powerful, so their damage is less than the ego ones but still better than the regular magic ones... but that still leaves room for overpowered randarts. So instead of reducing their power, I decided to remove the "returning" part and increase their power even more. Basically you get "opening shots". And yes, this makes quiver management more interesting...

[PowerWyrm]

especially if it were in a quiver or whatever and not the main inv.

My variant is based on V, so it has a quiver. It's just 8 slots instead of 10, but that's enough to store 2-3 artifacts, 3-4 ego stacks and a magic ammo.

[PowerWyrm]

(and that one likely will forget on the ground at some point to boot)

That's another problem... If anything bad happens (trap door, monster casting teleport level...) you lose your artifact ammo forever.