Development version of PWMAngband 1.1.12 released for testing

[PowerWyrm]

Hi there!

Took a looooong break and I'm glad how lively mangband / pwmangband are yet (new version in may and pwmangband seems to develop just fine)

I downloaded the latest beta and need some refresh on a few things. For now a question regarding the server options:

ALLOW_RANDOM_ARTIFACTS = false / true
Does this option generate random artefacts in addition to the default ones, or does it reroll the standard artefacts to be something else with simliar power level? When I change this option, do I have to delete the server save?

EDIT: One last question, the vaults.txt in PWMangband has some enhancements compared to the vaults.txt of the mangband version? Some symbols are not explained e.g. / B V etc... are the symbols [a-z] the corresponding monsters?

EDIT2: Disabling BASE_MONSTERS = true and EXTRA_MONSTERS = true will only leave standard (m)angband monsters right?

EDIT3: Most importantly ..... I am unable to find the stairs from the starting town in hobbiton... I even tried logging in as DM used scrools of deep descent and to fly down (nothing below you). Where did the stairs go? (xposted on reddit)

Looking forward to get some advice!

Bye!

ALLOW_RANDOM_ARTIFACTS = true means each character gets a set of randarts generated from the basic arts in addition to the standard set. If false, you just get the standard set, which has to be shared between all players.

Vaults in vault.txt use Angband's set of vaults instead of the MAngband set, which is based on ZAngband. I kept Chris Atenasio's extra medium vaults though. And yes, putting a-z or A-Z symbols will add a corresponding monster on that spot.

Disabling BASE_MONSTERS and EXTRA_MONSTERS will only leave standard Angband monsters. It is not recommended though, as it will remove all new dungeon bosses and level 100+ monsters.

And last... there are no stairs in Hobbiton, it's now the starting town for players on regular servers (with wilderness). The main dungeon (Angband) is in Carn Dûm (northeast of the starting town). Many side dungeons are now disseminated everywhere on the world map, with most of the early ones east of the starting town. If you want to remove the wilderness and play with a regular Angband-style dungeon, set DIVING_MODE = 1 in mangband.cfg.

[Acenoid]

Thanks for the responses! I will check it out.

I will check how difficult it is to reach a dungeon.
Is there a list of dungeons available? I mean I would like to use the full set of dungeons why not, but w/o a map of the wilderness and no information I could find about those dungeons Iam at a loss really on where to go. I suppose if I just walk east I will end up in another town, but it seems to be a task to get there first

Currently trying not to drown in the swamps,,,,

Suggesting a new option to choose the starting town :P

[PowerWyrm]

Thanks for the responses! I will check it out.

I will check how difficult it is to reach a dungeon.
Is there a list of dungeons available? I mean I would like to use the full set of dungeons why not, but w/o a map of the wilderness and no information I could find about those dungeons Iam at a loss really on where to go. I suppose if I just walk east I will end up in another town, but it seems to be a task to get there first

Currently trying not to drown in the swamps,,,,

Suggesting a new option to choose the starting town :P

For the world map, check wild_info.txt. For the list of all dungeons, it's in dungeon.txt. To reach Bree (the next town to the east), use the bridge at -19,21 to cross the river... after all, the map is based on actual Middle-Earth.

[Acenoid]

Hi again!

Thanks for the help so far. The map helps a bit. I tried now to fly around with the DM to see what way to take later with a normal character. I am excited how this will work out with a lowly lvl1 character that has been just generated...

Some more unrelated questions:
What is the purpose of the home house there? (0)
And how to use the deed of property? Is it to "build" houses?

Update:
So far iam at my 6th attempt to get to the barrow-downs dungeon (the one with the lowest min level) with a dunadan necromancer. I already began to increase con and str stats instead of the spellcasting skills. Everytime I died not even reaching the dungeon (I have no problem with dying...) but having to rebuy all the standard stuff to prepare (phase doors, potions, inscriptions, some armor or weapon) and walking through the wilderness is a bit discouraging. The monsters that appear there kill the character on the spot with lowish chances of even running away.

I really do like the idea of having a world map and multiple places to go!

However I need some directions on how to get started in a pwmangband wilderness game, because the "go to the stairs (from hobbiton) and enter the dungeon" is not it...

Update #2: Noticed that regeneration of the server map recreated a wilderness compatible town with the angband dungeon. So I removed one question.

[Pete Mack]

Necromancer is traditionally a very difficult class. Try Warrior or Ranger.

[Acenoid]

Necromancer is traditionally a very difficult class. Try Warrior or Ranger.

I understand that there are easy and hard combinations. I have some mangband experience and I'll admit I am a total newbie in pwmangbamd. But how would an experienced player get to the easiest dungeon as necromancer? Also I would like to experience the new classes and things that pwmangbamd has to offer.

I'll try to list what tactics I tried to follow:
- find weak monsters around town to gain a few levels before starting to travel.
- start to journey in daylight
- buy the best possible weapon I can afford
- best long range
- but potions, escape scrolls at.
...

Do I just need to try harder or is it necessary to get some equipment from another character?

How can I change the birth options? I would like to enable selling at stores but it does not work. Even after Character creation the birth options seem to be fixed to their defaults.

PS: Read up now all 7 pages. Again awesome work! I hope I will be able to provide useful feedback.

[PowerWyrm]

Ok I guess I'll have to put back the Training Tower from TomeNET if navigating through the wilderness is too hard for some classes. Usually, I have no trouble: I take the character east into the suburb area then north to (-19,21) to cross the Brandywine Bridge then east to Bree; by the time I reach the second town the character is usually level 8 or 9 and has no trouble reaching the Barrow Downs.

About your questions:
- the Home (store "0") is for non-wilderness servers to be able to store your items (just like regular Angband) because no regular houses will be generated
- the deed of property allows any starting character to buy a house (limited to a value of 10k -- usually 2x2 or 2x3 squares), it will be used instead of money when pressing ctrl-e to buy the house; to extend a house, buy house foundation stones and a scroll of house creation in the General Store
- to change birth options, press '=' during character creation (same as Angband)

Necromancer is really hard now because of change in the "stunning" effect. The old effect was similar to paralysis, so you could punch stuff to death without them retaliating. Now it's just "stunning".

[Acenoid]

Hey Powerwyrm!

Thanks for the response! Great feedback.

Birth options: Damn, I did not see it. Tried to change the options on the news screen and right after "birth" in the tavern. So this one was easy to solve!

Wilderness/Training Tower: I did some workaround by editing the dungeons.txt and adding downstairs in Hobbiton, to get a new 250ft. deep dungeon added. It seems, that it works. Still dying with the necromancer, but at least I see the end of the tunnel. But I will try the regular route that you recommended as well.

Necromancer/Stunning: Will the class be reworked? Let me know if you would like to hear specifics (battles encounters ecetera) or if it's better just to ignore the class for now.

Noticed one more thing: I have enabled sound (works also in MAngband) but I have yet to hear some fx in pwmangband. Win10 64bit onboard card (VIA)

In case you still use IRC and need specifics, I can usually be found in the #mangband channel.

Thanks again.

[PowerWyrm]

Necromancer/Stunning: Will the class be reworked? Let me know if you would like to hear specifics (battles encounters ecetera) or if it's better just to ignore the class for now.

Noticed one more thing: I have enabled sound (works also in MAngband) but I have yet to hear some fx in pwmangband. Win10 64bit onboard card (VIA)

I don't think I'll rework Necromancer, it's way too powerful already in the endgame... so a rough start is ok.

Concerning sound, I'm facing a strange issue... When I compile the client with my C++ Builder IDE, I get the sound effects. When I compile the client using the client.bat file (which is what I do for the releases), I get no sound. I'll have to investigate.

[PowerWyrm]

Concerning sound, I'm facing a strange issue... When I compile the client with my C++ Builder IDE, I get the sound effects. When I compile the client using the client.bat file (which is what I do for the releases), I get no sound. I'll have to investigate.

I'm a dumbass...

The client.bat file compiles all three clients (Win, SDL, GCU) with different #define variables (USE_GCU for GCU, USE_SDL for SDL, nothing for Win), but doesn't force recompile of the source files in which they appear, so only the .exe are regenerated. Since GCU is done first and has no sound, all three clients are generated without sound. Deleting the corresponding .obj files (in particular sound-core.obj) fixes the sound problem... and probably many other hidden problems.

Next release will have that fixed (I also added a Training Tower in Hobbiton to level up to 5 easily before moving out of the starting town and avoid lots of permature deaths).

[PowerWyrm]

New update with some stuff from V, especially the "assign spellbooks tags 1-9 based on sval" feature, removing the need to inscribe books @m1-9 to cast spells from keymaps (using m4c will always cast Haste whatever books you have in your inventory as long as you carry a copy of MB4). Also this fixes the problem with sounds and adds a 100ft deep Training Cave in Hobbiton for starters.

List of changes:

- ZLIB upgraded to version 1.2.11
- LIBPNG upgraded to version 1.6.29
- FREETYPE upgraded to version 2.8
- PYTHON upgraded to 32-bit version 2.7.13
- Fix some typos in user manual
- Write error diagnosis file on object pile error
- Allow monster pathing through passable rubble
- Remove unknown curses from removal menu
- Buff breaths
- Switch out 'suicide' for 'kill character'
- Stop HOLY_ORB destroying cursed items
- Tweak =Searching again, explain permanent curses better
- Fix remove curse bugs
- Massive buff to probing
- Amend interesting room Hourglass
- Fix laxity in scatter(), find_nearby_grid(), and vault_monsters()
- Make donation rules the same as selling rules
- Learn runes of innate properties at birth
- Stop giving away ego names when looking at items in the home
- Remove vestigial pseudo-id stuff, add sound for learning a rune
- Fix sound effects not activated in the Win and SDL clients
- Add "The Training Cave" (depth 50' to 100') in Hobbiton
- Add back lore colors for charge drain, eat food and light
- Bounds checking and other fixes in dungeon generation
- Make some runes easier to learn
- Automatically assign spellbooks tags 1-9 based on sval

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

[Acenoid]

Thanks for the update! Installed it right away and trying it out. Including some modifications. Sound is working now.

Low prio bug?
I added and adapted some of my vault creations for PWMangband. When scumming with the DM I see that they show up and seem to work fine. Creating them manually is difficult often nothing happens or the game crashes. I tried creating a "walls only level" and there the generation works fine for a few vaults. After a few vaults I see this message:
150617 232131 Exception 0xC0000005 at 0x438073

I suspect it has something to do if the vault would exceed the level boundaries?

Some Questions:
- Does the default preservation mode "3" mean that an artefact may be sold and later be found again in the dungeon? What's the difference to setting 4?

- I tried to add a dungeon (into dungeons.txt) and a new boss (into monster.txt) in beta 0 in Hobbiton. Then I noticed that it is also necessary to add a down staircase as DM. Is there a better way to do it?

- Is it possible to set more parameters for a new dungeon e.g. force labyrinth / cavern like levels only? Only found a flag for the dungeon to be accessible for winners.

[PowerWyrm]

Thanks for the update! Installed it right away and trying it out. Including some modifications. Sound is working now.

Low prio bug?
I added and adapted some of my vault creations for PWMangband. When scumming with the DM I see that they show up and seem to work fine. Creating them manually is difficult often nothing happens or the game crashes. I tried creating a "walls only level" and there the generation works fine for a few vaults. After a few vaults I see this message:
150617 232131 Exception 0xC0000005 at 0x438073

I suspect it has something to do if the vault would exceed the level boundaries?

Some Questions:
- Does the default preservation mode "3" mean that an artefact may be sold and later be found again in the dungeon? What's the difference to setting 4?

- I tried to add a dungeon (into dungeons.txt) and a new boss (into monster.txt) in beta 0 in Hobbiton. Then I noticed that it is also necessary to add a down staircase as DM. Is there a better way to do it?

- Is it possible to set more parameters for a new dungeon e.g. force labyrinth / cavern like levels only? Only found a flag for the dungeon to be accessible for winners.

I'll look up at the problem with manual vaults.

PRESERVE=3 means that any artifact you sell in shops won't be generated again with the character. To find sold artifacts again, set PRESERVE=4

When you add a dungeon in the wilderness, a staircase is automatically generated on the surface level. It is not the case if you add a dungeon in a town because towns have their own layout. Adding a dungeon in one of the extra towns should be easy: modify town_feat.txt to add the "down staircase" as a possible feature in towns, then add your staircase manually where you want in the corresponding town_xxx.txt. This will not work for Hobbiton and Carn Dum, as these towns are already linked to a dungeon (Training Cave + Angband). The Angband dungeon in Carn Dum should never be modified, as it would break the game. The dungeon in Hobbiton can be easily modified. So instead of adding your dungeon, simply modify the existing one (The Training Cave) in dungeon.txt: you can change the name, min depth and max depth. To add your boss, set force-location:The Training Cave (or the new name) in the monster entry.

Currently you cannot set other parameters for dungeons. I plan to add more of them before the actual release of 1.1.12, especially themed monsters/features.

[PowerWyrm]

I added and adapted some of my vault creations for PWMangband. When scumming with the DM I see that they show up and seem to work fine. Creating them manually is difficult often nothing happens or the game crashes. I tried creating a "walls only level" and there the generation works fine for a few vaults. After a few vaults I see this message:
150617 232131 Exception 0xC0000005 at 0x438073

I suspect it has something to do if the vault would exceed the level boundaries?

And you are right. Function build_vault() doesn't check for level boundaries because it's usually called inside dungeon generation with valid parameters. When building a vault manually, only the position of the center of the vault is checked: player position + half the vault dimensions. If the center is in bounds but either the right side or bottom side is out of bounds, the game crashes. This will be fixed in the next release.

[Nick]

And you are right. Function build_vault() doesn't check for level boundaries because it's usually called inside dungeon generation with valid parameters. When building a vault manually, only the position of the center of the vault is checked: player position + half the vault dimensions. If the center is in bounds but either the right side or bottom side is out of bounds, the game crashes. This will be fixed in the next release.

This reminds me, there was a bug in V (fixed in ace98060) where scatter() could pick illegal grids - I don't know if yours has that problem.