[Announce] PosChengband 6.0.0 Released

[nikheizen]

Dude post this onto the PosChengband github bug tracker...Chris might notice it sooner this way

Alright, maybe.

[elliptic]

Chris, thanks for taking many of our changes into "vanilla" poschengband! I'm particularly happy that you added (and expanded) my option to mix standarts and replacementarts in the same game, since that is one of my favorite changes personally.

I haven't yet played 6.0 myself (this is due to a combination of being distracted by other games and not being very interested in the quiver (I have all ammo on autodestroy...)), but I noticed that there are a few important bugfixes in elliposchengband that you don't seem to have taken, as well as some minor changes that you didn't comment on previously and thus might be interested in. So I took the elliposchengband changelog here and tried to remove the changes that you've taken, leaving these:

[SPOILER]
Significant gameplay changes:
-----------------------------
- Remove non-rune spells from rune-knights, remove MP costs from rune spells.
(a7754bd, 926bae6, 1526f52)

Minor gameplay changes:
-----------------------
no_wilderness changes:
- Give dungeon guardians their special drop in no_wilderness. (bd8e73c)

randart changes:
- Keep activations of replaced randarts. (27716f8, 425a0eb, 151d683, bc0a7c9)
- Tweak replacementart object_level. (81ad7bc)

specific races/classes:
- Make !newlife reroll subrace for those monster races with random subrace
(a2907a6, 2a14d0d)
- Remove erratic movement for players. (c3d6de5)
- Make Duelists automatically duel when attacking a monster. (32c911e)

quests:
- Tweak dungeon quest depths. (eb5275b)

other:
- Only trigger eldritch horror/fear effects for monsters in LOS (a150551)
- Allow small_levels to work on all dungeons. (0b7aecd)
- Allow teleporting/recalling to all locations from birth. (e959e35)

Interface changes:
------------------
birth/town:
- Don't randomize starting gold. (7d1b8fa)
- Don't randomize starting object quantities. (5ce8ea8)
- Start with a lantern instead of torches (7d1b8fa)
- Allow all species to eat at the inn.
(b4aa846)
- Give Beginner spell proficiency immediately upon casting the spell once
(since you can get to Beginner with 15 casts in town anyway). (12be6d5)

easy_lore (not all changes implemented properly for games with easy_lore
turned off, since I always use it):
- Show average spell damage in monster recall.
(dc853ff, a6c0a2d)
- Revert "Monster Lore: Always display the observed spell frequency" - at
least in easy_lore this commit isn't good. (3be7781)
- Give players auto_id at XL 25 when using easy_lore. (5a2b4b8)

other:
- Display seconds in playtime. (681321c)
- Automatic character dump on death (e79b7c5, 92c6322)
- Don't give a message when failing to autodestroy artefacts (5ac422f)
- Always allow browsing spell information (6cbc176)
- Change landmines/lurkers etc to the 'x' glyph (4939c3c)
- Remove maprot from the Labyrinth (dc9fc7b)
- Let Ninjas regain stealth by spending a turn stationary. (498aba1)
- Allow creation of monster spoilers without wizard mode. (9534461)

Bug fixes:
----------
- Fix branding spells working on randarts. (c233c82)
- Fix enchanting prices not being additive. (8636a03)
- Fix aether vortex damage display. (7addefc)
- Fix shoggoth speech. (45b7da5)
[/SPOILER]

I'd like to comment on a few of these changes - a couple of them I know you said you didn't like, but I thought I would explain my reasoning for them:

[SPOILER]
Rune knight changes: I don't feel particularly strongly about these (though I made them in response to everyone telling me that rune knight is ridiculously overpowered), but I think you are mistaken if you think that the rune knight MP mechanic places any interesting restrictions on placing runes on items. Since you can only place one rune on any item and can't remove it, you are only placing a couple dozen runes all game and you aren't likely to be doing this in combat, so you can just find some weak casty monster to regenerate your MP when necessary. That said, rune knight is a bit close to weaponsmith after the changes I made so perhaps there is something better to be done... I really hate mechanics like runeknight MP that just make the game more tedious though.

Dungeon guardians getting their special drop in no_wilderness: This seemed pretty reasonable to me given that we already have a bunch of uniques with special drops (artifacts) and no_wilderness is going to be harder than wilderness regardless. It's nice to smooth out item drops by guaranteeing dungeon spellbooks, one !newlife, and such.

Replacement randarts keeping their activations: I don't care as much about this feature now that I can mix standarts and replacementarts in the same game, but I added it because randart activations are mostly incredibly boring (and bad) compared with the standart ones. Previously I could easily play an entire randart game and not find a single activation that I had any interest in using. It's also sort of a nice reminder of what the standart that was replaced was... e.g. the Phial still makes light. The activation is taken into account when computing the power of the replacementart, too.

Make !newlife reroll subrace for monster races with random subrace: This felt consistent with !newlife rerolling wild-talent or psion abilities.

Tweak dungeon quest depths: The current progression (6, 12, 24, 38, 44, ...) is very weird... it is actually an artifact of the original implementation of random quests in Zangband, which let you choose a number of quests (1-49) at game start. This commit (eb5275b) smooths out the sequence of depths and also tweaks the monster selection so that there aren't some depths of unique that never get placed by a quest - there are currently a bunch of uniques that are never quest monsters just because of their depths.

De-randomizing starting gold and other object quantities: It isn't very fun to restart characters until they start with 5 potions of speed instead of 3.

Allowing all races to eat at the inn: This is again just an exercise in reducing unnecessary tedium. A balrog can run around and kill and eat townspeople whenever it is in town, so why not save players the trouble? You still need to handle nonstandard eating while in the dungeon.

Give Beginner spell proficiency on the first cast of a spell: As I noted in the commit, this is just saving players from casting the spell 15 times in the town with no danger. I wouldn't mind seeing spell proficiency being made less scummy in general (it is my least favorite part of poscheng spellcasting), but the Beginner part of scumming it up is especially bad.

Show average spell damage in monster recall: This seems like a reasonable thing to show, at least in easy_lore. It has been one of the more popular changes...

Show actual spell frequency in monster recall: I really, really don't understand why you want to replace the true spell frequency by the inaccurate proportion observed by the player when easy_lore is on. From my perspective, the whole point of giving perfect recall to the player when easy_lore is on is so that players don't feel the need to consult r_info.txt or other spoilers all the time while playing, so giving accurate info there seems like a good idea...

Auto ID at XL 25 when using easy_lore: This removes the tedious swapping of stone of lore, which players usually find at around this XL anyway. If players can ID things more or less for free by pressing a couple keys, why not give it to them for free?

Automatic character dump on death: This makes it impossible to miss out on getting a death dump by accidentally pressing a key at the wrong time after dying, which is one of the more annoying things that can happen in *bands.

Always allow browsing spell information: It is nice to be able to see what spells will do before learning them. This isn't a big deal, but I don't see any reason to hide this from the player either.

Fix branding spells working on randarts: In your 6.0.3 post it seems that you misread this commit (c233c82). Currently there is a rather serious bug that lets players use various branding spells to add slays to randarts. This commit fixes this bug by disallowing this. Branding spells already don't work on ego items or on standarts, and this commit doesn't change this.

Fix enchanting prices not being additive: Currently if you have a +0 weapon and want to enchant it to +11 at the appropriate town building, you can either enchant it up one notch at a time or enchant it all the way to +11 in one step. However, the total price is not the same either way. I forget the details at this point, but there was a bug that could sometimes make it cost substantially more to enchant all the way to +11 in one step, and this commit (8636a03) fixes it.

Fix aether vortex damage display: This commit fixes a bug that caused the damage display for aether vortex melee to underestimate its damage by a significant amount.
[/SPOILER]

Finally, like others here I was a fan of the ironman_quests option... it really makes unique quests more fun to be able to check who the quest is and then decide whether you need more preparation before fighting them. It's also annoying to enter a quest level accidentally without this option if you forget what depth it is.

[Ironshod Al]

In that case, I'm happy with the way quivers work. Apart from the problem with possessors, but there is a long for me to go before playing anything more complex than meelee or rogue classes.

[wobbly]

It wont let you deliberately take it off without emptying it. However something like a possessor can lose the slot dropping the quiver but keeping the contents.

[Ironshod Al]

You can equip the new quiver without doing anything else. The ammo isn't actually in the item, equipping a quiver just gives you access to a second inventory essentially.

Thanks, that is really useful information.
I wonder what happens if you just take off your quiver. Will the ammo drop to the ground, disappear or just stay in the 'quiver dimenson'?

[clouded]

I normally upgraded quivers (e.g. from [70] to [90] to [100]) by dropping all ammo, dropping the old quiver, wielding the new quiver, then picking up the ammo again. Perhaps there are better/less tedious ways to upgrade quivers. I used this method as I was uncertain what would happen to the ammo if I just dropped the old quiver.

You can equip the new quiver without doing anything else. The ammo isn't actually in the item, equipping a quiver just gives you access to a second inventory essentially.

[Ironshod Al]

It looks like autoget in 6.0.3 will path through detected traps. The character will (attempt to) disarm traps, without using items, and continue towards the intended item. This could be a bit dangerous in some situations. In my first encounter with this situation there was plenty of space to navigate around the trap. My character also carried scrolls of disarm traps. Maybe traps could be marked as obstacles/walls in relation to autoget pathfinding.

Hibagon (apparently some japanese variant of yeti) has no description. Perhaps one of the descriptions from wikipedia could be used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibagon

A black creature with white hands and large white feet, standing about five feet tall.

or

The Hibagon has a large nose, large deep glaring eyes and is covered with bristles.

or

It has a chocolate brown face and is covered with brown hair, It has deep glaring eyes.

Suggestion:
Inscribing items with !* displays the message 'Do you really want to try [the item]'. This is a bit scary the first time you attempt to sell a cursed item (inscribed with !* to avoid accidental wear / wield) in a shop. Maybe it could be rephrased in some way to indicate that trying does not involve wearing / wielding the item.

Two things I really enjoyed in my latest game (half-troll warrior in 6.0.3): autoget is wonderful in combination with auto-pickup/squelch and quivers are great for the added inventory space.
I normally upgraded quivers (e.g. from [70] to [90] to [100]) by dropping all ammo, dropping the old quiver, wielding the new quiver, then picking up the ammo again. Perhaps there are better/less tedious ways to upgrade quivers. I used this method as I was uncertain what would happen to the ammo if I just dropped the old quiver.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Hey Chris. Compiling with gcc seems to be broken.

"pie and ld may not be used together"

I think because the latest gcc (6) uses pie automatically, so you may need to disable it explicitly in the build process.

Pleasee help, I really want to play the new versions wihtout downgrading gcc if possible!

Dude post this onto the PosChengband github bug tracker...Chris might notice it sooner this way

[nikheizen]

Hey Chris. Compiling with gcc seems to be broken.

"pie and ld may not be used together"

I think because the latest gcc (6) uses pie automatically, so you may need to disable it explicitly in the build process.

Pleasee help, I really want to play the new versions wihtout downgrading gcc if possible!

[murphy]

the "identify possessions" service in the thieves den does not identify items in the quiver

[chris]

Version 6.0.4 is up at https://sites.google.com/site/poschengband/home

This is a quick update mostly because I integrated many contributions from pseudo and elliptic. Since cherry-picking commits generally involves manually fixing merge conflicts, I'm hoping to save others some tedium! I also converted some more quest changes (q_vapor2.txt and q_haunted_house.txt) and I resurrected the sdl port.

Here is a shortlog of changes:

GenericPseudonym (18):
Re-color some easily confused monsters.
Add a flag in autoinscription for weapons that inflict stun.
Fix the "odds" text in the casino's monster arena
*Recharging* fails if the player doesn't have enough sp.
Add display_race option to control the player's symbol
Metamorphosed draconians become D instead of @
add some MSVC 2015 stuff to .gitignore
Cancel fasting on anything that increases nutrition.
Fix spell fail messages for Sorcerors and Red Mages
ditch ""These resistances can be added to which from equipment for more powerful resistances. ""
Buff hephaestus demigod slightly, and give better messages.
Clarify some race descriptions.
Give snipers a different message at maximum concentration.
Rename sniper's "plasma bolt"
Let Psionic Speed override smaller speed buffs.
Dont lose turns when trying to zap a 0-charge device.
More informative failure messages for riding/rodeo.
Let wands of heal/haste monster target pets.

elliptic (5):
Add a few flags to monster recall.
Change Warning to apply only to traps.
Use the previous game's race/class/etc as default (if the same game mode).
Don't reduce weaponsmith essence gain due to removable curses.
Reimplement no_selling option.

poschengband (25):
Recharging: cherry-picked 61cb737 was broken. After clipping amt to max resource, it reset amt back to power.
Bump Version to 6.0.4
no_selling: minor wording changes
quickband: quicker stat gain (potions)
Quests: Replace Vapor Quest (st_)
Quests: New Haunted House by clouded
quests: display quest name when appropriate
py_display: add color to some notable options
-fsanitize=undefined on 1 << 31
mingw: improve my cross-compile script. prune Makefiles
quests: display monster level for random quests in quests_wizard (^Aq)
quests: remember last filter
sdl: make it compile ... still lots of warnings
sdl: compiler warnings
sdl: macros for arrow/numpad direction keys
sdl: tabs to spaces; reduce repeat rate
sdl: use Angband fonts
sdl: shift+numpad5 should recenter the viewport
sdl: other macros (home, end, etc). reasonable menu font
sdl: make inkey_special work
sdl: configure issues
sdl: experimenting with fonts. cleanup colors
sdl: reformat for the sake of sanity
Wilderness Centering
tiles: adam bolt's 16x16 tileset

[HugoVirtuoso]

I'm not sure if Force-Trainer Spells are included in the 6.0.3 chardump either

[murphy]

6.0.3 still has the bug introduced somewhere in 5.x where blue mage spells are omitted from the char dump

[HugoVirtuoso]

Another probable long standing bug (involving game mechanics in a way):
Apparently, you can still get messages saying "You see [foo] on the ground" or something like that while blind. Perhaps, the messages should be changed to, 'You feel something on the ground' WITHOUT saying what's on the ground because you CAN'T SEE or something that makes more sense for the blind. A BLIND Hugo shouldn't be able to *see* a Power Dragon Scale Mail on the ground, for example. While blind, the 't'argeting and 'l'ook commands should be disabled (unless you have telepathy).

Better yet, how about making the entire screen going completely black while blind like in the Moria era aka 'You feel a veil of darkness surround you!'?? That 'black-out' will surely increase the dangers of Blindness by a huge amount because it definitely adds to the challenge and strategy of the game. If already have telepathy, you can of course see the monsters moving, but 'see' wall surroundings while 'blind'?...I don't know. I'm thinking semantics here.

Also this:
Going to the Town Hall to pick up a new quest causes nearby items and chasing monsters to disappear. This is probably working as designed. But in RL terms, if you've got a new mission, whatever awaiting monsters mobs should be in the same place before and after the quest assignment and reward pickup.

And this:
In the 2.x or 3.x era (I forgot which one), monsters could follow you through the stairs and even recall to town with you. How about re-instating this, especially the one with monsters recalling with you, or at least a chance of this occurring? Think of 8 GWoPs following you upon recall! Sounds awfully brutal, but that surely adds more adrenaline to what PosChengband stands for!

This:
Any thought of asking chem aka Entroband maintainer if The Mad Chemist from Entroband could be included for completeness sakes?

And notably this one - courtesy of clouded:
The Sniper class is seriously underwhelming. Check out clouded's Sniper here and you can see why: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=20517

[Avenger]

Just wanted to report an apparent bug - as a High Mage of Hex, I don't seem to be able to 'G'ain any spells. The game doesn't appear to recognize my Handbook of Hex as a spellbook I can learn from.

Haven't done enough digging to tell whether this is specific to High Mages, Hex only, or a more general bug, but I suspect it's specific to Hex magic.

Edit: I haven't had issues with other types of High Mages, so it's fairly safe to assume this issue is unique to the Hex school.