Trap changes

[Derakon]

You can just use a special character to indicate "trapped square with item on it", without trying to be specific as to what the item is. For example, a green ampersand or asterisk. Presumably this will be a sufficiently rare scenario that requiring the player to manually look at the square isn't a huge hardship.

[Nick]

How do you display such a square? The current v4 code has traps and items in the same grid too, but not so much by design as by accident. Currently it only displays the trap.

FA shows the trap, on the grounds that you can't get the object until you disarm the trap anyway.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You can just use a special character to indicate "trapped square with item on it", without trying to be specific as to what the item is. For example, a green ampersand or asterisk. Presumably this will be a sufficiently rare scenario that requiring the player to manually look at the square isn't a huge hardship.

Ey and Fay show a red ampersand by default but there's an option to show the trap.

In the next version of Fay you can only try once to disarm a trap. Sometimes you will have to step on a trap to retrieve the item.

[CunningGabe]

Here is a brief summary of the changes made since the initial trap overhaul:

- All repeatable trap detection is gone. The mage and priest spells now just detect stairs and doors; the rods of trap detection are gone; and rods of detection no longer detect traps.
- Scrolls of trap detection now detect the whole level for traps. They now cost more than they used to, as well.
- Items can be on the same square as a trap. When an item is on the same square as a known trap, the symbol is a red '&'.
- A few new trap types added: alarms, trap spawners, and earthquake traps.
- Trap evasion chance (which was added with the initial commit) has decreased significantly.

Here is what I am planning to work on soon:
- Make vault traps less common but more dangerous. Instead of each '^' in the vault layout becoming a trap, maybe only 25% of them will become traps (on average), and with a 10 level boost.
- Let different traps have different ratings of how hard they are to evade.
- Replace the class and race dependent Perception (which now does nothing) with a boost in detection radius. For example, rogues, hobbits, and kobolds should all get a boost. Also, consider whether the default search radius for any character should be higher than 1.
- Make the "Searching" flag also boost detection radius.
- Start thinking about how best to deal with autonomous traps (i.e., traps that affect you without you stepping on them).

As always, feedback is appreciated!

[Old Coach]

I am a fan of the 'autonomous' traps in npp. Some of the turrets can hurt if you don't have the correct resistance. I have not played NPP past DL 60, so I don't know if they continue to be interesting at the deeper levels.

[mixer]

If you want traps to be interesting you need to reduce trap detection. I would remove the rod & staff and increase the cost of the spell to say 30 mana a time. Then people will have to search for the traps or take the risk. This will mean that when you add an interesting trap it is likely to be triggered.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Were these trap changes partially implemented?

I am running a char in angband-win-v4-716-gf7c33f8 and while all the Detect Trap scrols, and the Find traps/doors/stairs spells are still in game, it seems they don't find the traps, or at least not always?

Entered the mini-vaault room, the cross-shaped two 3x10 rooms east and west, and two 2x3 rooms north and south, a single spaced room in the center with object and mob in it, there are always several traps in these rooms. Cast the Find and 2-3 steps later I stepped on a still invisible gas trap.

If the Mage spell no longer detects traps, maybe the name and description should be changed?

edit: the Scrolls work, the Find spell does not.

[CunningGabe]

edit: the Scrolls work, the Find spell does not.

The spells have changed to not find traps. The scrolls are now the only foolproof way of finding traps, but the really dangerous ones are always visible. I'll update the descriptions -- sorry for the surprise!

[CyclopsSlayer]

Ahh, cool! I just assumed since it had said it found traps, that it would. No biggie.

Sadly though that drops the value of the now "Find Doors and Stairs" spell in my priority, a LOT

[CunningGabe]

Ahh, cool! I just assumed since it had said it found traps, that it would. No biggie.

Sadly though that drops the value of the now "Find Doors and Stairs" spell in my priority, a LOT

The mana cost could change, though I understand that that won't make it much more exciting. Is there some other way to give the spell an interesting boost now that trap detection is gone?

[fizzix]

The mana cost could change, though I understand that that won't make it much more exciting. Is there some other way to give the spell an interesting boost now that trap detection is gone?

Well, it could also detect interesting dungeon features (if we had them) things that indicate that certain groups of monsters are nearby.

[CyclopsSlayer]

The mana cost could change, though I understand that that won't make it much more exciting. Is there some other way to give the spell an interesting boost now that trap detection is gone?

Well, is it possible to add scaling effects?
ie. @level 5 it just finds doors and stairs, @15 it adds say also lights current room/area, @25 also detects monsters, all the way to eventually doing something like a full detect, and map.

With traps, is there any passive detection now, or are we back to Angband 1.0, search, step, search, step, search, etc... Maybe my High Elf Mage is just diving too fast and so not in a 'proper' level range, but I cannot recall ever spotting a trap without actively searching first or walking onto it.
Died due to over confidence, most common reason, so it will be a while until I can get deep enough to compare again.

BTW, this change just made, if they still exist, Rods that can detect traps mandatory gear imo.

[Derakon]

I think the presumption is that active trap detection should not be necessary -- any trap that could kill you will be obvious even without detection, and the more subtle traps won't kill you unless you were already in over your head, in which case they're just providing the last nail in the coffin.

Whether or not this has actually been achieved yet, I don't know; Gabe's been working quickly and it's hard to keep up, playtesting-wise.

[CunningGabe]

With traps, is there any passive detection now, or are we back to Angband 1.0, search, step, search, step, search, etc... Maybe my High Elf Mage is just diving too fast and so not in a 'proper' level range, but I cannot recall ever spotting a trap without actively searching first or walking onto it.

There is passive detection, but some traps are harder to spot than others. The really dangerous ones (like summoning and teleport) aren't hidden at all. Traps that are not very dangerous are better hidden, and some of them you might not find even if you actively search.

Rods of trap detection no longer exist

[grinder]

One thing I don't recall being mentioned, which is fairly easy to add and would already have interesting uses is a command to set off a trap on purpose. Even if trap types don't change much or don't start to affect monsters, I can see some scenarios where setting off an earthquake or teleport trap can save you. Making an alarm ring or triggering summon trap can also be tactically interesting (and a bit prone to monster farming...).