Development version of PWMAngband 1.1.12 released for testing

[Derakon]

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

The tension this creates is a good thing, IMO. If you lead off a fight with your artifact ammo, then something happens that forces you to flee, you should be tempted to try to return to that dangerous situation to recover your artifact. Given the nature of the game, the only way we can get players to take risks (and therefore have fun) is by tempting them to do so, so more temptations is a good thing.

[PowerWyrm]

Ok reverting artifact ammo to the previous system... I'll nerf the static arts and try to find a way to nerf the randarts by limiting the number of slays and todam they can get. If I end up with supercharged tohit randart ammo, I'm fine with that...

[PowerWyrm]

b) a Sling of Buckland (x4) (+21,+23) <+4, +2>

d) a Magic Shot (1d3) (+0,+0) {@f3}
Returns when thrown.

Combat info:
3 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 306.3.

That's another problem...

[PowerWyrm]

Ok time for another round at balancing shooting vs melee I guess...

Here's my base setup for melee. A warrior with max STR/DEX using:

a) the Mace of Disruption 'Deathwreaker' (7d10) (+18,+18) <+6, +4>

5.2 blows/round.
Average damage/round: 978.8 vs. creatures not resistant to fire, 1734.2
vs. creatures susceptible to fire, 727.4 vs. evil creatures, 727.4 vs.
animals, 978.8 vs. dragons, 1482.7 vs. undead, and 475.5 vs. others.

Since this is pretty much the best melee weapon in the game (excluding Grond and some OP randarts that will rarely see the light of day), I'm gonna aim at equivalent damage when using returning missiles.

[PowerWyrm]

Round #1: slings

Pretty straightforward: nothing can beat a sling of buckland with 2 extra might/shots.

With the best artifact, a warrior does:
3 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 653.7 vs. animals, and 435.9 vs. others.

Now with an archer (same as ranger, but gets the +2 extra shots with all shooters):
5 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 1069 vs. animals, and 712.5 vs. others.

This is ridiculous. Sentence: Buckland slings get nerfed -- only +1 extra shot allowed.

Our archer now does:
4 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 855.2 vs. animals, and 570 vs. others.

Still too high, but this will do for now. For our warrior, the damage becomes:
- 290.6 vs all with the artifact
- 451.4 vs all, 677.2 vs evil with heavily enchanted mithril shots of holy might

I like the result: a perfect combination is on par with melee, and the artifact ammo is way less powerful than before.

[PowerWyrm]

Round #2: bows

More variety here:
- long bow of extra shots (or Belthronding): x3 might, +1 shot
- long bow of lothlorien (or Bard): x5 might

Using a magic arrow:
- a warrior does 166 vs all (2 shots) with the long bow of extra shots
- an archer (or ranger) does 407.1 vs all (3 shots) with the long bow of lothlorien

With the best artifact, our archer does:
3 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 160 feet away.
Average damage/round: 1212.9 vs. dragons, and 606.3 vs. others.

A bit more than with a sling of buckland. For our warrior, the damage becomes:
- 247.2 vs all with the best artifact
- 356.8 vs all, 594.6 vs evil with heavily enchanted seeker arrows of holy might

This is less than with a sling of buckland, but remains correct.

[PowerWyrm]

Round #3: crossbows

Again, two options (three if you count Umbar, which has x6 might, but aggravates):
- light xbow of the haradrim or heavy xbow of extra shots: x4 might, +1 shot
- heavy xbow of extra might (or Uruk-Hai): x5 might

Using a magic bolt:
- a warrior does 225.6 vs all (2 shots) with the heavy xbow of extra shots
- an archer does 441.6 vs all (4 shots) with the heavy xbow of extra shots

In this case, heavy xbow of extra shots (or haradrim) is always the best shooter. With the best artifact, our archer does:
4 shots/round.
Hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 1178.4 vs. creatures not resistant to lightning,
and 673.2 vs. others.

Way too high, but still lower than a warrior with Deathwreaker vs evil, so it'll do for now. For our warrior, the damage becomes:
- 343.6 vs all with the best artifact
- 517.6 vs all, 776.4 vs evil with heavily enchanted seeker bolts of holy might

This is more than with a sling of buckland, and a bit too high, but you need perfect shooter/ammo to get such result. It'll do for now.

[PowerWyrm]

Time for a new update. Latest things from V (minus the randart changes since that's a server option in PWMAngband), and a few balance issues with archery. List of changes:

- Move Tik'srvzllat to level 124 of Angband
- Move Senyakaze, Sorceress of the Nether Realm to level 125 of The Nether Realm
- Move Xakaze, Father of Abominations to level 126 of The Nether Realm
- Set max depth of The Nether Realm to 126
- Remove Senyakaze/Xakaze from the list of questors, making them optional kills
- Make last four uniques fixed encounters always appearing on their base depth
- Allow force-location monsters to appear in the main Angband dungeon on no-recall/no wilderness servers
- Restrict The Nether Realm and Utumno, Portal to the Void to winners
- Mention dungeon name when looking at a dungeon entrance
- Mention dungeon name instead of "Dungeon" when displaying the wilderness metamap while inside a dungeon
- Merge NO_RECALL and TOWN_WALL server options into DIVING_MODE (0 = normal mode, 1 = no wilderness, 2 = no recall)

- Parse object power calculations from object_power.txt
- Parse object properties from object_property.txt
- Use new object power calculations
- Write less detail to savefiles for dead players
- Move higher level parsing functions to datafile.c
- Stop infinite loops in scatter()
- Move artifact light activations to the object kind
- Allocate ?ID to level 100
- Stop handling special artifacts separately for randarts
- Re-order artifact.txt and ego_item.txt to match the ordering in object.txt
- Make a hard cap of 6 on non-speed randart mods
- Curse a few randarts
- Fix brands on randart ammo also giving the corresponding resist
- Make "returning" an object flag, replacing the corresponding object kind flag
- Remove generation of item/ego by number (Dungeon Master menu)
- Generate true artifacts by kind + name (Dungeon Master menu)
- Give archers extra shots at level 20 and 40 (instead of 15/30/45)
- Remove extra shot from The Heavy Crossbow of the Uruk-Hai
- Limit extra shots to +1 on Slings of Buckland
- Limit damage power on artifact ammo to +10
- Allow only one of KILL_XXX or SLAY_EVIL on artifact ammo

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

[PowerWyrm]

Made a blunder while porting new object power calculations, so any object with an effect has the effect value set to zero. So scrolls of satisfy hunger currently instakill characters from starvation. ROFL...

[PowerWyrm]

New update with the fix for object power calculations and implementation of Vanilla's Home building for servers with "no wilderness" option. Currently, it's not very useful, as it's shared among players (using "store" inventory like all other stores instead of "player store" inventory). I'll change that in a later update.

List of changes:

- Move amb_senya/amb_xakaze ambient sounds to depths 125/126
- Add ambient sound (amb_melkor) for depth 127
- Generate no other town than the base town if DIVING_MODE is non-zero
- Don't pierce exits in the base town if DIVING_MODE is non-zero
- Implement the Home (in Carn D&ucirc;m) on no-wilderness servers

- Fix object effects always having a calculated value of zero
- Add 'D' command in stores to describe an item
- Reorganize player store feature order to match regular store features
- Update modifying.txt with latest additions
- Add some sanity checks on server options (mangband.cfg)
- Reduce monster saving throw against status effects

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

[PowerWyrm]

New update with latest from V, modified artifact set, plus big gameplay change on how levels are saved. Now a level is saved:
- if it is a special level (hand designed)
- if it has players on it (connected or not)
- if it has owned houses on it
This means towns now can change like in V when the player leaves, so it's not recommended to leave stuff on the ground, especially in solo player games.

List of changes:

- Add back searching skill
- Add back all the searching items and modifiers
- Adjust class and race searching skills
- Implement basic trap searching
- Add visibility ratings for traps
- Re-include detection spells for arcane magic users
- Change create traps to radius 3, make created traps and vault traps only appear one in four times
- Give priests back detection
- Tweak some artifacts, delete a few, add new ones from TomeNet
- Fix INSTA_ART randarts (light sources + jewelry) having no weight/level

- Make a path from Hobbiton to Bree that doesn't involve crossing an entire watery area
- Don't keep towns allocated if they don't have players or owned houses

[Pete Mack]

- Make a path from Hobbiton to Bree that doesn't involve crossing an entire watery area

I believe that's the Brandywine bridge... Make it guarded by a Sackville-Baggins, probably a blue 'h', thief?

[PowerWyrm]

- Make a path from Hobbiton to Bree that doesn't involve crossing an entire watery area

I believe that's the Brandywine bridge... Make it guarded by a Sackville-Baggins, probably a blue 'h', thief?

Hey... that's a good idea

I simply changed the wilderness type from water to grass since there's no "bridge" type area, but I could probably design a special level for the area with water and a bridge.

[PowerWyrm]

Note to self: in C, macros can be multiline... so not only you should put them inside curly braces when doing if/while/do... but also NEVER use code that modify their parameters like this:

COORDS_SET(&special_levels[num_levels++], y, x, i);

If you expect this code to set the coordinates of your special level, you're in for a big surprise... a nasty one when you try to set the last element in the array too...

I spotted this in the PWMAngband code in a harmless place... I just hope there are no other occurences anywhere else.

[PowerWyrm]

- Make a path from Hobbiton to Bree that doesn't involve crossing an entire watery area

I believe that's the Brandywine bridge... Make it guarded by a Sackville-Baggins, probably a blue 'h', thief?

This is now implemented