[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.salmiak released

[CyclopsSlayer]

I cannot reproduce the bug, even in a freshly installed copy of salmiak-win on a lucky female Artemis demigod.

Well, I found the issue. Win10 had an update yesterday and in the process it reported file corruptions. An hour-long SDD check and repair. And Archer is working fine.
No idea specifically what was corrupted, but it seems my C drive is having issues.

[Saru]

Weird behavior with monster light / dark radius

On a new char I started I noticed some unexpected behavior that (probably?) seems like a bug. In the 'Trouble at Home' quest, I attacked a mean mercenary with a ranged attack. Upon waking up, he suddenly had a range 1 light radius. I didn't think this was unusual until I later attacked a silver jelly (I think?), which put a range 1 darkness radius around it only after I had woken it up. Shouldn't at least the jelly always have the dark radius? It could make some sense that the mercs don't light their torch until they wake up, but it is pretty weird to use a ranged attack on a jelly only for it to put up a shield of darkness so you have to move in closer to target it.

Who knows, I could have sworn that previously things like dreadmasters / lords always had their radius even while asleep.

[Sideways]

I don't think I've changed anything there lately, will note it and review whether the light/darkness should be active on sleeping monsters.

[CyclopsSlayer]

That behavior has been around on the sleeping Mercenaries and Silver jellies for so long it seems natural to me. The same appears in the Theros Cleaning the Lab.

[GrimaTheBold]

I have a quick question about item generation. Outside of vaults, is it just very unlikely to find a very out of depth item? Or is it literally impossible? I play coffee-break mode if that makes a difference.

My memory may be faulty, but I feel like in Vanilla, if you played enough hours, you would very (very very) occasionally run into an extreme OOD item, and I get the feeling in Frog this just doesn't happen at all. For example I could have sworn there were times I found one of the later dungeon spellbooks very early. Meanwhile in Frog, I don't think I've ever once had a character find their 4th spellbook, and I've taken a decent # of characters to CL40+, DL60-75 (though never beyond that). But maybe I'm wrong about Vanilla and that's just my memory of Nethack bleeding over, where you could in theory find a wand of wishing on DL1.

I do like to have that feeling that, no matter how ridiculously unlikely, it is theoretically possible to find Boots of Feanor on DL1. The closest I've gotten was getting the One Ring from Smeagol, but I know that's hard coded.

[Sideways]

I believe in Frog you can get level-boosted normal items, and (very rarely) extremely level-boosted artifacts and egos, but you can't get extremely level-boosted normal items. So you could (probably?) roll Feanor at DL1 in theory, it's just super-hyper-unlikely, but you can never a find a power dragon scale mail or a potion of experience at DL1.

Extremely out-of-depth items are fairly common in V.

[GrimaTheBold]

Another quick question - I hate creating separate threads for what is (hopefully) a simple question, hope that's okay.

Is there any resource, either in-game or on the web, explaining Samurai Stance, Form, Posture or Guard Position (which I think are all terms for the same thing and Kata as well).

I'm looking at the source samurai.c and it looks like Koukijin adds +5 to all stats but also adds elemental vulnerabilities. Musou looks like it adds all kinds of intrinsics.

My current CL 26 Samurai only has one option available, Iai, and I have no idea what it does.

[Sideways]

Samurai (and Monk) postures are caught in a trap where people don't use them much because they're poorly documented (and the classes are so strong anyway there's little need to complicate play); and because they are so easy to not-use there aren't very many calls to document them better. I do still know I should document them better at some point

As far as I can tell from looking at the code:
- Iai: gives a single retaliatory blow (with a +20 to-hit bonus) against monster melee attacks, but any damage you suffer (from any source) is increased by 20%. Any melee attacks from you (including the retaliatory blow) dispel this posture
- Huujin/Fuujin: gives reflection unless blind, at the cost of -1.00 to blows
- Koukijin: gives +5 to all stats and +50 melee to-hit, at the cost of -50 AC, vulnerability to the four base elements and no regen. Using inventory items tends to dispel this posture
- Musou: gives full telepathy and ultimate resistance, halves most types of damage, and gives a full round of retaliatory blows against monster melee attacks; but practically any action other than retaliation dispels this posture

[CyclopsSlayer]

Back a few years ago under PosCheng(?) someone posted an analysis of all the effects, most of which seemed to have larger penalties than benefits. As I, vaguely, recall, all but one of the Monk's were deemed suicidal.

Sadly I didn't save it, but I did save the Human powers breakdown.

[NotCIAAgent]

Samurai (and Monk) postures are caught in a trap where people don't use them much because they're poorly documented (and the classes are so strong anyway there's little need to complicate play); and because they are so easy to not-use there aren't very many calls to document them better. I do still know I should document them better at some point

As far as I can tell from looking at the code:
- Iai: gives a single retaliatory blow (with a +20 to-hit bonus) against monster melee attacks, but any damage you suffer (from any source) is increased by 20%. Any melee attacks from you (including the retaliatory blow) dispel this posture
- Huujin/Fuujin: gives reflection unless blind, at the cost of -1.00 to blows
- Koukijin: gives +5 to all stats and +50 melee to-hit, at the cost of -50 AC, vulnerability to the four base elements and no regen. Using inventory items tends to dispel this posture
- Musou: gives full telepathy and ultimate resistance, halves most types of damage, and gives a full round of retaliatory blows against monster melee attacks; but practically any action other than retaliation dispels this posture

That would be mighty helpful to have in-game. I find weird that some skills and spells lack descriptions at all, and would be really thankful if most of the descriptions that are in would just spill the beans already. I detest making non-informed decisions in a perma-death game.

So, as a new player, I have a few questions that I would like to ask that I didn't get answers for in the Discord channel. There are experienced and helpful players there, but the bulk of the developers and code divers seem to be here.

1 - Whenever I see a class that have a Riding skill cap above Beginner (I see either Skilled and above or 0), I kinda feel like it is a big missed opportunity for the character to not make use of it. I found out that some classes that, despite having good Riding caps, don't really make good use of it (Samurai can't Concentrate on the saddle, Daggermasters can't dual wield properly). I don't even have to go too much out of my way to find Riding weapons most of the time, and the only thing that I really feel like I'm giving up is on ranged combat. Is there any article or essay regarding riding, so I can learn more about it? I know it is a play-style among many others, but is it even particularly good to just stand on foot, double handing a weapon or dual wielding or having a shield?

2 - I managed to find some documentation regarding various aspects of the game as the _info.txt files. Neat and all but for the most part it is information I can find in-game in a more readable format. What I actually want to find is documentation about classes, specially monster classes. Is there anything like that among these files, or I need to seach the internet?

3 - While on the subject of monsters, I kinda feel enamored for the Orc Fighter because I have an obsession of playing with underdogs. If Kobolds or Skaven were an option, that would be them, but as they aren't, making a lowly Snaga a Warlord is a goal that really entices me. Specially as they can evolve, unlike a standard-mode Snotling or Kobold. Have people written anything regarding Orc Fighters? A guide, or at least impressions that could be enlightening? As well the best way to make use of the only racial power they have, summoning orcs.

4 - Artifacts. Let us say I got a low value artifact weapon and want to convert to another weapon chassis (non-riding into riding, is what I did the most so far). I understand that non-ego targets are a necessity, but how about enchantments? If I want to turn a Glaive into an artifact, it would be better to be a plain Glaive or the best Glaive +X +Y I can get?

For now it is that. I got over the basics for the most part by playing obsessively (got Angband vanilla a week or two ago, three days later found FCB, it is the only thing I play now) and asking on Discord. These are the only questions I have that come to mind right now.

[Sideways]

Is there any article or essay regarding riding, so I can learn more about it? I know it is a play-style among many others, but is it even particularly good to just stand on foot, double handing a weapon or dual wielding or having a shield?

The in-game help has some notes about riding at ?jh (scroll down a bit) and ?se (nominally just about riding proficiency, but it briefly notes a few potential downsides of riding that might otherwise not be clear). Not aware of a more detailed treatment anywhere.

2 - I managed to find some documentation regarding various aspects of the game as the _info.txt files. Neat and all but for the most part it is information I can find in-game in a more readable format. What I actually want to find is documentation about classes, specially monster classes. Is there anything like that among these files, or I need to seach the internet?

Not entirely sure what you mean there, monster class could mean a few things.

Player monster races don't really have a class in the normal sense, the race itself is effectively also the class. (They do have a pseudo-class, but it seldom matters much; you won't really miss out on anything if you have no idea what a race's pseudo-class is.) Enemy monster races also have pseudo-classes, and those might matter a bit more if you play a Possessor; so for Possessors only, they should probably be documented better than they currently are.

If you're just looking for information on the player-monster races themselves, the in-game help is at ?fd; but you've probably already found that, and it largely just has the basics.

Have people written anything regarding Orc Fighters? A guide, or at least impressions that could be enlightening? As well the best way to make use of the only racial power they have, summoning orcs.

I don't think so. To my knowledge I'm the only player who's won an orc fighter so far, at least the only win on the oook ladder is mine. It was a while ago, so I have no clear recollection of that particular @; my guess from looking at the dump and comments is that it played much like a regular non-monster warrior and that I used Summon Orcs less for help in battles and more to give me something to vampirise.

4 - Artifacts. Let us say I got a low value artifact weapon and want to convert to another weapon chassis (non-riding into riding, is what I did the most so far). I understand that non-ego targets are a necessity, but how about enchantments? If I want to turn a Glaive into an artifact, it would be better to be a plain Glaive or the best Glaive +X +Y I can get?

Well, first of all, I'd say reforging low-value artifact weapons is seldom very rewarding, though since I seldom ride I'm not sure if there might be some riding-related edge case. The general advice I give is that early/mid-game reforges should generally be cheapish (but okay-by-slot-standards) stuff into lowish-value slots where you otherwise lack a good item, while reforges into the weapon and armor slots only really come into play later; and even then, the weapon slot is one of the slots I'm least likely to reforge into.

If you are reforging onto a glaive, though: it will keep and improve the +X,+Y, so you will in theory get better results out of a glaive with higher to-hit and to-dam. Note, however, that due to the power limits the extra +X,+Y means there's slightly less room for other stuff like resistances or stat bonuses. So a glaive with higher +X,+Y is slightly better if you want high +X,+Y on the result and very slightly better if you want to optimize the score, but a +0,+0 glaive could be slightly better if you want a statstick.

--

More generally, detailed specific tips on how to play a specific class or a monster race are outside the scope of the in-game help, and while such tips might have been posted here and there over time (at least for some classes/races) they will not be easy to find. The ideal place to collect tips for specific classes would, in theory, be Gwarl's angband wiki; unfortunately development on the wiki has pretty much stalled, and the site-wide common.css (editable only by Gwarl himself) is empty and lacks all the bits and pieces that would make a wiki easy to navigate and organize. So there's basically nothing on the wiki.

[NotCIAAgent]

Well thanks for the advice on artifacts. I was, indeed, looking for special attributes on my artifacts rather than simple enchantment bonuses that I can get elsewhere (specially regarding low level artifacts for a pinch). Still, chances are, my odds of finding a good Ego are much higher than making a good low level artifact, so that's something worth keeping in mind.

Not entirely sure what you mean there, monster class could mean a few things.

I meant what I already found: the .c files in the development version in github. For example, frogcomposband/tree/master/src/archer.c. This is the actual code for the classes and monster races, and there, with some effort and guesswork regarding terms, I can find all elements that constitute the class or monster, visible in-game or not. Now I only need one of these for the weapons to check if they do have hidden attributes.

Which leads me to something I have been meaning to ask, regarding FCB weapon statistics system. Lighter weapons seem to out-DPS heavier weapons by simple virtue of they allowing more strikes per turn. For example, the humble spear, with its 1d8 damage, could outperform broad spears and the like, by being the lightest weapon in the category. The only advantage heavier weapons seem to have over lighter weapons is the (*generally*) better damage rolls and improved crit chance. Details that aren't really explained or elaborated upon in the manual. Anybody wrote anything regarding that?

[lea2501]

I need help compiling and running under arch linux, wanted to try again to compile and run but now im getting the following error with the following commands:

$ sh autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make clean
$ make
$ ./src/frogcomposband -ufrog -mgcu -- -n1
./src/frogcomposband: Fatal Error.

Edit: forgot to add my dependencies installed:
The github page states that i need:
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf gcc libc6-dev libncursesw5-dev libx11-dev

and in arch i have this installed:
autoconf 2.69-7
gcc 10.2.0-1
lib32-ncurses 6.2-1
lib32-ncurses5-compat-libs 6.2-1
ncurses 6.2-1
ncurses5-compat-libs 6.2-1
libx11
libstdc++296

[Sideways]

Which leads me to something I have been meaning to ask, regarding FCB weapon statistics system. Lighter weapons seem to out-DPS heavier weapons by simple virtue of they allowing more strikes per turn. For example, the humble spear, with its 1d8 damage, could outperform broad spears and the like, by being the lightest weapon in the category. The only advantage heavier weapons seem to have over lighter weapons is the (*generally*) better damage rolls and improved crit chance. Details that aren't really explained or elaborated upon in the manual. Anybody wrote anything regarding that?

I don't think there's any general rule that lighter weapons are better; if you have, say, a spear of Westernesse and a broad spear of Westernesse then either one could be better, depending on your character and the exact specifics of the weapon. In Vanilla the tendency is for light weapons to be better in the early game and for heavy weapons to be better in the late game; but in FrogComposband, weapons of all weights are competitive throughout the game. Lighter weapons giving more blows than heavy weapons is cancelled out by heavier weapons dealing more damage per blow; and the higher dice on heavy weapons also mean slays and brands are more effective on them. (And a fully developed endgame character will likely get close to maximum blows with any weapon.)

I do use light weapons quite a lot, even in the endgame, but that's largely just because there are many great artifact weapons (like Sting) that happen to also be fairly light. Sting is almost always outdone damage-wise by many bigger weapons, it's just an awesome statstick that also gives acceptable damage.

I am not aware of any detailed treatment on critical hits, and if you did find one it might well be outdated. Understanding the exact mechanics behind critical hits is in no way required, though, since the average damage/round shown on your character sheet fully accounts for the extra damage from criticals.

There are a few class-specific mechanics regarding weapon weight; Duelists (and Sneaky characters) prefer light weapons, while Maulers prefer heavy weapons. (Ninjas and Ninja-Lawyers don't prefer lighter weapons per se, but all the weapons that aren't icky for them are pretty light; lighter weapons are also the most suitable for dual-wielding, and the ninja classes almost have to dual-wield.)

I meant what I already found: the .c files in the development version in github. For example, frogcomposband/tree/master/src/archer.c. This is the actual code for the classes and monster races, and there, with some effort and guesswork regarding terms, I can find all elements that constitute the class or monster, visible in-game or not. Now I only need one of these for the weapons to check if they do have hidden attributes.

I still have no idea what you mean, sorry.

If inspecting a weapon (or some other item) with the 'I' command does not reveal all of its attributes you will need to *identify* it, usually by using the Research Item town service available in most towns.

[NotCIAAgent]

I still have no idea what you mean, sorry.

If inspecting a weapon (or some other item) with the 'I' command does not reveal all of its attributes you will need to *identify* it, usually by using the Research Item town service available in most towns.

I meant if there's a file where I can see the actual code for the individual weapons, akin to the files where I can see the code for the individual classes (for example, weaponmaster.c, in the directory I already mentioned). Also thanks for your explanation regarding light weapons, specially how the Sneaky personality treats them.