Trap changes

[Gorbad]

If we assume CunningGabe's plan is followed and the s key is only effective once, a magical 'detection-aid' could also be a timed effect which:

a) increases you search skill and/or radius for a timed period and
b) gives a guaranteed warning if a trap is within your radius (just not where) for that timed period ('Spidey sense is tingling')

This would increase anxiety (a good thing!) and provide the player with a choice ("I've dropped consumables earlier on the level, better get them before I hit a trapdoor" or "How badly do I want to see what that unID'd potion is over there, I know the area is trapped").

[d_m]

Sounds like a great plan.

Personally I would remove the (s)earch command altogether, since under your scheme the "optimal" play is to travel until you hit the "search detection boundary" and hit s. But maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal.

Probably, the best thing to do is get it coded up and let us all playtest it!

[Magnate]

Having monsters set off traps wouldn't be too difficult. But how do you decide how likely a monster is to notice or evade a trap? And once you figure that out, you need a lot of storage if you want every monster to maintain its own list of which traps it knows about. Maybe it would be easiest to only allow "obvious" traps to hit monsters.

Sangband deals well with monsters' awareness of player traps (you don't mention those, so I presume they're not in this phase). But I don't think it uses a separate trap layer - I think there is some hackery that treats traps as objects.

FA, however, does have a separate trap layer, or rather a more generalised separate terrain feature layer. I understand it's really quite brilliant - not sure how easy it would be to borrow rather than reinvent.

A traps.txt file is excellent, and fits well with my ideas for effects.

[jevansau]

Sounds very good.

One way to deal with the magical side would be to change the locate trap spells to a "improve searching ability/radius for a turn" spell.

Have you thought yet about the other side of the problem - disarming traps?

It is exciting to see work in this long neglected area.

Regards,
Jonathan

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Sounds excellent! I've got no complaints.

[CunningGabe]

I've put some more thought into the way I think trap detection should work (for players). Here is what I have come up with, building off of buzzkill's idea:

1. Each trap has a rating of how hidden it is. A rating of 0 indicates that it is immediately obvious. A positive rating indicates that the trap starts out hidden.
2. Each player has a searching range and a search rating.
3. Whenever a hidden trap is within your search range, if your search rating is at least as high as its hidden rating, then the trap is revealed. This is completely passive detection; i.e., it does not require you to 's'earch or to be in 'S'earching mode.
4. Whenever you 's'earch, you make a check to spot traps as if you were using passive detection, but your search range is increased by 1, and your search rating is increased by 20. As before, if your (modified) search rating meets or exceeds the hidden rating, then the trap is revealed. 'S'earching mode remains the same as before; i.e., when it is on, you make a 's'earch with every step you take.
5. If your search rating does not exceed the rating of the trap, there is no chance to find the trap.

I expect this last point to be the most contentious, so let me say how I decided on it:
1. It meets the important criterion of "Standing around and hammering the 's' key is never optimal play."
2. It makes gear that increases your searching ability more relevant. It also leaves open the possibility of some kind of magical trap detection (though there would certainly be changes from the status quo).
3. It makes it easy to use the same system for finding secret doors and mimics, or any other hidden feature we might want to include.

Now, my plan is to determine each trap's hidden ratings based on how dramatic of an impact they have on the immediate tactical situation. For example, teleporting, summoning, paralyzing -- these would all have low hidden ratings. In contrast, the stat-draining darts, and traps that do minor damage would be hidden better.

Incidentally, handling trap detection this way makes it a little easier to support monsters being affected by traps -- but I would still have to figure out how to decide if a monster notices a trap.

[CunningGabe]

It would be awesome if monsters could be affected by traps. I'm not saying all traps should necessarily affect all monsters, but for instance pits and turrets are both traps that would seem to be pretty "equal-opportunity".

Having monsters set off traps wouldn't be too difficult. But how do you decide how likely a monster is to notice or evade a trap? And once you figure that out, you need a lot of storage if you want every monster to maintain its own list of which traps it knows about. Maybe it would be easiest to only allow "obvious" traps to hit monsters.

[d_m]

I have warding runes in walls that may be turned on and off if you have good enough Disarming. They affect both the player and monsters.

It would be awesome if monsters could be affected by traps. I'm not saying all traps should necessarily affect all monsters, but for instance pits and turrets are both traps that would seem to be pretty "equal-opportunity".

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You may want to take a look at EyAngband's trap layer, which sounds pretty similar. (And of course UnAngband's terrain features.)

In the development version of Fay, I've managed to hack Eytan's trap layer into a more general terrain feature layer.

I have warding runes in walls that may be turned on and off if you have good enough Disarming. They affect both the player and monsters.

[d_m]

This sounds amazing! Please keep us in the loop

[CunningGabe]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I've decided to go ahead and start trying to completely overhaul the trap system. In particular, I am making traps their own "layer", separate from terrain, which should make some modifications much easier.

I'm putting together a trap.txt file that is similar to the monster and object edit files. Each trap will have the following characteristics:
- How difficult it is to detect. (Not every trap will start hidden.)
- How difficult it is to disarm.
- Average depth
- Experience for disarming
- Trap effect

There are probably other characteristics I'm forgetting as well. Once this is in place, then there are a lot of things I'd like to add:
- Traps that act every so often -- like the turrets in NPP.
- Trapped doors
- "Traps" with positive effects -- like a glyph on the floor that gives you a burst of speed when you step on it.
- Unique traps? Traps with "friends"? (e.g. a bunch of flame-jets in a row)
Furthermore, I can create different levels of trap types -- a teleportation trap might have different ranges at different dungeon levels, for example.

As for the exact mechanics of detection, I like buzzkill's idea. Once I successfully separate traps out from terrain, I'll start working on a detection system.

[d_m]

Please ensure that there's no advantage in spamming the 's' key - that is for each location, once you've searched from it by moving into it with searching mode enabled, searching again doesn't reveal more traps.

This is my number one priority.

[ghengiz]

FA has this already.

Personally, I nicknamed FA "emacs-band" for it includes almost everything
I prefer vim though, no offence

[Magnate]

Oh, and potentially multiple traps per grid - FA has this already.

Isn't that ... like ... something to do with ... *layers*?

[Nick]

How about making magical trap detection, physical disarming, and magical disarming all have the same failure rate, and make physical searching a one chance thing. Simple, makes traps relevant, makes guessing where they could be a skill.

Oh, and potentially multiple traps per grid - FA has this already.