Unangband 0.6.2 gold released

This release is a development check point which allows you to play a "relatively" bug free version of Unangband, while we significantly hack on the source to add extra features that may potentially destabilize further releases.

Please save often.

This release would not be possible without my collaborator Mikolaj and contributions from Big Al, Anne and the other members of the angband.oook.cz forums.

You can download the source from http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-gold-src.zip

You can download a precompiled Windows executable from http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-gold-win.zip

Macintosh and Linux compiled versions to follow shortly.


Unangband 0.6.2 Gold "As Is" aka "The Unwarranted Release"

### Game Play ###

- Show basic resists as numbers (similar to pvals) to indicate
that basic resists are cumulative.

- Add Invisibility spell and potion of Invisibility.

- Make restoring a stat cure temporary stat loss.

* made !oBloating worth some gp so that shops stock it

* filled up runes for some egos

* toned down some artifact stat boosts to make it harder for thorgot next time :)

* added nutritious potions to 2 shops

- Rework low-level bard spellbooks to include another book
(Sympathies) which fits between Chords and Harmonies, as well as
remove archery related spells and movve throwing/melee related
spells so that they are available earlier. (Suggested by Arralen).

* added lights to the Elrond's house

- Further monster tidy ups including moving Tangleweed and golems
deeper.

- Try to make golems more interesting.

- Give some monsters hit to dispel attacks.

- Uncontrolled objects are now mastered over time, as opposed to
being uncursed. This should make them more interesting, as well as
rings of teleportion etc. less boring.

- Allow ego items to have activations. This means Seven League boots
should correctly randomly teleport again.

- Added boots of dancing.

- Try to make mouse shape a little more useful, cheetah shape a
little less like boots of speed. Shapes are still a bit hackish in
general.

- Player construction of pit traps now requires a digger and spikes,
making them not exploitable.

* make debug-mode cure-all get rid of diseases, petrification, etc.

- You can't over-exert yourself if you cast a spell that costs no
mana (eg. concentration).

* less XP for Beorn

### User Interface ###

- Allow browsing of shrines, magic circles.

- Add a warning when you can't go back to where you came from.

- The big monster color commit. Monsters should now have a unique
colour / letter combination unless it is for a good reason.

* YAT to char dump (flags move foremost, as in V)

* YAT to dungeon dump

* YAT (yet another tweak) to visited dungeons list

- First pass at 256 color implementation.

- The cause of death is now noted in the character dump.


### Bug fixes ###

- Remove pvals from wands that accidentally had them.

- Fix mislearning about HURT_LITE when actually BRAND_LITE.

- Fix for bug Bug #13254 No death from bad mushrooms even if
identified.

- Fix for Bug #13443 No pval displayed in object name for REGEN_MANA,
etc.

- Improve correctness of price guessing algorithm, to try to rectify
various bugs with pricing.

- Fix for Bug #13588 Casting Mana Pool in deep water yields Potion of
Poison.

- Fix for Bug #13589 One charge missing from selling wands message.

- Fix for Bug #13594 Bridge of stone on lava, spells no longer
pass over.

- Fix for bug Bug #13599 Globe of Invulnerability is broken.

* probably fixed #13624 (Home Knowledge screen ('~6') crashes game)

- Remove center block of Minas Morgul, Tirith and Dol Guldur so that
you don't get stuck in stone when you come out the bottom.

- Partially fix #013424 (remember locations of the windows at game startup on OS X)

* got rid of "Lev 0" in ~7

* fixed broken color_table in main-x11.c

* fixed crash when getting gold stolen

- Add back in entry format hints to the lib/edit files where they
were removed. This makes it easier to quickly refer to, or at least
guess, the entry meanings.

- Fix for Bug #13582 "A (offscreen) fails to teleport you away."

- Slight tweak to source_birth death message.

- Improve death messages and move generation of death messages to
point where player is actually killed.

- Fix cause of death issues with activating ego items.

- Fix for Bug #12899 disarming player traps should not give XP.

- Fix bad logic that caused wands and staves to be fully IDed when
discovering its flavour for the first time. Closes #13456.

- Fix several problems that meant resting until dusk/dawn didn't
work or wasn't charged for in stores.

- Monsters that left a body which was hidden in terrain did not
redraw the 'visible monsters' term window.

- Make mushrooms of poison actually poison you, and fix up a couple
of (currently unused) note formats.

* fixed services in Heavy Armoury

* fixed a pink mushroom

* fixed store services broken by the blows

- Fix bug that might have caused .raw file initialisation problems.

* a couple of text fixes from the forum

* REGEN_MANA from objects now affects SP not HP

* REGEN_MANA, etc. are displayed with 'I' also for objects that
don't modify stats

* fixed the inability to fill things from fountains

* temporary Big Al fix to #13409 (Disturb detect problems)

* tweaked the shopkeepers

- Start work on modding.rtf documentation.

* added WOR to temples, slight price tweaks

- Fix for Bug #13256: Throw or fire in place of service "Recharge
Item II"

- Part of ongoing fixes for Bug #12885: Feature request: let
Lanterns, etc. set fire

- Fix for Bug #13347 Allow access to documentation at level up
screen

- Fix for Bug #13255: "Dise" does not disappear

- Fix for Bug #12710: Cumulative Disease broken

* fixed Mighty Blow at empty spave weirdness

### Build / Platform ###

- Add modding.rtf and .txt which provide information about modding
Unangband and the various lib/edit files.

- Player spell damage scaling now controlled from within spell.txt.

- Move damage specification and number of spell blows from blows.txt into spell.txt.

- Initial blows.txt parsing code and data structures.

* Makefile.std from V; move config.example to config to get nice
compilation caching and debug binary

* added docs/ to build_win.sh

Unangband 0.6.2 beta 2 has been released!

Have a lot of fun and save often! The files are at

http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=331

The release notes follow.

Unangband 0.6.2 Beta Release 2: "Help of the shopkeepers"

This probably the last release with so big changes before 0.6.2 gold.
Among other things, options' names are changed, so some of your
old pref files may not work as expected (old option names are ignored).
This release is somewhat tested, but it may crash on you without
any warning just as well. Please backup your savefiles before
upgrading and save often.

Thanks to all involved: testers, reporters, contributors
and to the new, volunteer shopkeepers.

Changes from 0.6.2-beta to 0.6.2-beta2:

### Game Play ###

* made nexus temporary (via temporary stat bonuses)

* fixed #12919 (Flask and wand of Nexus do not (un)scramble stats)

* removed potions of Slow Poison

* removed instrument-specialized bards' icky hands penalty. It was irregular,
no other class gets icky hands for anything else than magic books use.
Instruments are underused anyway.

* made wands of Spark less common outside Hobbiton

* made resting for the night more expensive --- vampires are not liked

* made Ranger's cache more lucrative

* moved auto-eat to before the travel; tweaked messages and allowed food

* mega patch changing the options subsystem to the V setup and tweaking
the amal gamation of V and Un options is various ways

* Savefile version bumped; options are reset when loading older savefiles

* hack: options I abandoned in the mega-patch are ignored in prf files;
warnings displayed when old savefile imported

* some slight bag tweaks

* no level feeling in town and wilderness

* removed feeling delay; changed the scale of level feeling

* remove feeling boost from items

* random hacks to make level feeling better; it will improve further
when more rooms is generated in some cramped dungeons

* changed feeling messages to negative ones from S

* bumped the level of low-level monsters, except breeders that were already
bump ed; in this way we have less monsters of the same level in monster groups
and higher level feeling with the same danger

* made good and great objects more common to compensate for no level feelings
related to objects

* a hack to move Black willow deeper (paralyze spell); it's now at DL7,
it it's not enough, make paralyzation even shorter for shallow monsters

* made ecologies start at DL3 so that both Maggot's and Isengard start with
all the fun; only Bree has first 2 levels weird

* an experiment with limiting powerleveling for low-level characters;
this count ers higher amount of OoD monsters after my previous changes;
this does not affect XP from in-depth monsters; it almost does not affect
CL30 and older characters

* reverted my year old stupid change, which made the Three Trolls worth
lots of XP

* described Black willow in more detail to help players

* added a shopkeeper, changed the races of others, made the Maias even more
secret

* made also the evil shapechanger shopkeepers hide their race. Make them
and Maiar really outgoing to their kin. Added a (hidden) ******** shopowner

* done #13304 (don't repeat shop owners, if some are still left);
no savefile format change needed

* lots more shopkeepers; the shop-owners overhaul is beta2-ready now

* slight tweak to detect magic and wizard mode display

* a slight tweak to the message after defeating the guardian

* moved some rubbish potions deeper to make stat potions and other
useful potions more common while they are really useful

* the final few shops from the polls


### User Interface ###

* corrected description of Tree of Life spell and similar

* shortened Wonder description to fit the screen

* fuelling now auto-lights

* changed some flag descriptions to be understandable by newbies

* fixed zero rechange times and mangled descriptions of activable objects
(rods and artifacs were fine)

* added description of the resting services

* tweaked line splitting and fixed some quirks

* tweaked description of mana-adding objects

* changed filename of a tip kind to be prettier to display

* store help tips (their file names) permanently in the order of their display

* help tips knowledge screen

* removed spurious messages when refueling

* fixed broken description of charm spells, etc., as reported by Anne

* wording of the birth_beginner option

* moved Un options to the end of menus so that V people feel at home

* added 'R'eset options command to '='

* fixed layout of '=' and '~' menus

* removed some obscure and half-broken commands

* corrected some command help

* various little fixes from the forum

* committed the new options help file by Mysterious Anne

- Added lib/docs folder which will contain .rtf files with various
in-game and out of game documents. (May use .htm instead at a future date).

- Move explanation of monster.txt file to lib/docs/monster.rtf.

- Decide to consolidate all lib/edit comment files into a single modding.rtf
document.

- Updates to artifact.txt, ego_item.txt, flavor.txt, object.txt, p_race.txt,
p_class.txt, spell.txt to use newly formated artifact.txt file.

* added Pete Mac description of display_knowledge

* modified display_knowledge, according to Pete Mac lore,
so that dungeon_knowledge starts at the current location (not zone, yet)

* added reminders about lighting torches to two more help notes

* yet another dungeons dump tweak

* a bit more informative messages when taking the guardian stairs

* feet -> stories for towers

* made the 'fumble' message longer, as it happens rarely

* made stat potions a little bit more common; some cleanup


### Bug fixes ###

* fixed display of temporarily drained stats on the main screen

* corrected rod of CMW

* Rod of Haste Monsters did nothing

* Potion of Boldness no longer of Holy Water

* fixed a crash at cheat_lore option

* fixed inactive Rod of Slow Monsters

* fixed uninitialized variable that mangled object details display
(e.g. Phase Door distance)

* now saving store generation level, this now really fixes #10307
(restocking of the black market, thanks to kajmace's persistence)

* a fix to message saving; if your messages get garbled upon version change,
don't be alarmed --- it's a one-time annoyance

* fixed a lots of object generation quirks; not sure what I'm doing;
no more negative pval objects in shops; but I'd prefer that there remain
a few with sane maluses

* fixed too high guesses price of unknown gauged weapons

* fixed 13138 (Can't use staff in hand)

* remove spurious flags in spells such as the one invoked by eating mushroom of
Blindness

* cleaned up dungeon knowledge function thanks to pmac

* hacked a fix to #13235 (Shield of Sustain Wisdom didn't work)

- Fix for Bug #13250: Tree trunks can be opened (and bashed with the same descr)

- Only update monster experience and rarity if we are trying to output
a new monster txt file.

- Remove various monster.txt file hacks from init1.c so that the flags
in the monster.txt file are an accurate representation of the monster.

- Update the monster.txt file to improve formatting and so that all
monsters stats are correctly represented.

- Disable ALLOW_TEMPLATES_OUTPUT so we don't write output files every
time we start.

- Fix for bug Bug #11856 Wrong greyed out classes.

* enable the slow debugging of spell.txt, but only if ALLOW_TEMPLATES_OUTPUT
defined

* fixed #13205 (infinite torches from the wall)

* a fix for a bow with EXTRA_MIGHT (-8) in a shop

* fixed #13293 (No screen update after command: wear)

* made mushrooms of Mana blue again

* a quick hack to remove broken egos from quest reward shops

* fixed #13328 (Guaranteed good and great items still get negative pvals)

* unfortunately the quadratic pval costs make cheaper flags much more common,
because more expensive stuff can't get into the 19/20 of the expected power;
reduced this to 18/20, but still... for the same reason non-pval flags
are very rare --- they can't fine tune to 18/20 by pvals or, deep down,
get high enough by pvals (in magic items, randarts cope)

* removed/redone some of my tweaks from last month, when I still didn't
understand the code

* fixed a crash in homes knowledge screen

* fixed the Wall of Fire crash reported by Big Al

* fixed bag refusing mashrooms

* disabled the "bad maze" message unless cheat_xtra

* shop_owners apparently cannot have purse bigger than 30000;
fixed a related bug

* prevented sensing pval when already identified (then items would not stack)


### Build / Platform ###

* silenced mingw warnings

- Allow OS/X to compile again due to changes in use_sound introduced
in the Angband porting work. This will undoubtedly break the OS/X menus.

- Workaround for Bug #13249 ] Crash on exit with show_itemlist on Windows.

Unangband 0.6.2 beta released

This release was prompted by Mikolaj Konarski reminding me we should probably do a beta release at some point, and pointing out that I hadn't added any broken features or crazy ideas in a little while. Mikolaj also reported the majority of bugs in this release, as well as fixing most of them.

The source code is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-beta-src.zip

[Edit] A precompiled Windows binary is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-beta-win.zip

A precompiled OS/X binary is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/Unangband-0.6.2-beta-osx.dmg

[Edit] A precompiled Linux binary is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband_linux_062-beta.tar.gz

Changes follow:

### Game Play ###

* Made most deep dungeons shallower now that you cannot WOR to bottom; cannot make Angband shallower, I guess, or no-campaign mode will break

* You can never be permanently stat drained now.

* Made the number of quest rewards slightly random

- You can also no longer try to cast with insufficient mana if you are at 3 CON.

- You can now inscribe anything edible with =<> max_hp/2 player cannot be instakilled by traps

* The new rods where as heavy as staffs; fixed

* another pseudo-id hack, so that broken items do not get {magical} when worn

* Fixed inability to fill empty flasks (bottles were OK)

* Changed the maximal attained depth per dungeon field to be absolute rather than counted from the surface; lots of code is simplified now

* Saving replacement guardians now, to avoid false dungeon knowledge about recycled guardians

* Fixed WOR that didn't take into account different depths in different dungeons

* Fixed description of *Enchant** items

- Fix for Bug #12794 Wrongly guessed Resist Confusion.

* Changed depth display with ^T and in dump to absolute, as everywhere

* Fixed some warnings by mingw; one of them was a bug making GIANT monsters hard to melee only rarely

* Probably fixed the bad interaction between easy_corpses and easy_floor

* Added auto-correction of too low saved player dungeon depth

* Fixed #12742 (shopekeepers sense curses on all sensed items)

Unangband competition results; new competition

The Unangband competition is over. The winner listed on the competition results was Bandobras, my co-developer. However, controversy abounds.

I mentioned previously that the deepest unique killed so far was Smaug, a level 55 monster, and the eventual winner was only successful in killing Beorn the Shape-Changer, a level 38 monster. It appears that the character doing so was not only successful in killing themselves in a tragic spell-casting accident, but the spell backfired so badly it erased the character save file.

You can keep following the latest competition, which is with a Steamband character - a game that I reviewed previously, or submit your own success and/or failure stories to the Unangband ladder. Remember, the point of the competition is participation and challenging yourself. Of course, the glory of submitting a winning entry is quite a nice icing on the cake.

Unangband 0.6.2-wip7e has been released

This is a work in progress (and moreover interim, by Bandobras) release, so please save often and report bugs. Savefiles are compatible, unless the level you are on has fallen out of the levels range of the current dungeon, so it's safest to upgrade when in Rivendell, Bree, Hobbiton or Bucklebury (their depths are unchanged).

To play the freshly downloaded competition savefile, load the character, quit, start again, answer 'y' to quickstart question and you'll have no problems with some dungeon guardians prematurely dead (those not in the game when the competition savefile was created). Doing quickstart every time you die you'll also get more monster memory, which is OK in this competition (since code-diving is allowed, anyway). Social-status scumming to become a king's only child is not OK. :)

The source code is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-wip7e-src.zip

A precompiled Linux executable is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband_linux_062-wip7e.tar.gz

A precompiled Windows executable is available at http://prdownload.berlios.de/unangband/unangband-062-wip7e-win.zip


Changelog from wip7c to wip7e is below (don't ask me about wip7d, OK? I'm still a greenhorn sidekick:). Some changes are listed as tentative, please test and provide feedback.

### Gameplay ###

- If the player is blocking, he gets a +20 to hit in melee and +15 to hit with bows/throwing. This allows bad melee practitioners to increase their odds of hitting by blocking.

- If the weapon you are attacking with or the ammo you are firing / item you are throwing is not an ego item, artifact, coated weapon or magic item, it will inherit brands/slays from your equipment as follows:

* In melee, your gloves/gauntlets are checked first.
* If you have no gauntlets, instead, your right hand ring.
* Except for blows with your secondary weapon, which use your left-hand ring.
* For throws and ammunition, only your left hand ring is checked.

- Rings of ice/acid/fire/electricity now have the appropriate brand. This makes them highly useful for archers/throwing specialists as well as mage-type spell casters which do not use gloves/gauntlets.

- Modified low-level bard spells, replacing Holy Water with a more bard specific spell.

- Added spells that modify a single round of blows, shooting or throwing.

- Scale down upper end of monster drop sizes.

- Minimise number of townsfolk who drop gold.

- various changes and additions to the wilderness map, guardians, depths; in particular, added the Great Grey Wolf and a slight upgrade to Boldog, the Orc Captain, to have missile attack.

- substituted guardians (e.g. Black Riders) now guard only the first zone and are described as such

- recycled some guardians so that changes to the world, as the game progresses, do not make uniques undefeatable, except a few plot-motivated cases

- ad hoc tweaks to pseudo-id (until this is rethought and rewritten more systematically), in particular, broken items are no longer reported {average} for mages;

- on shallow levels, OOD monster rarer and not so OOD

- moved multiplying monsters (especially shallow but high HP ones) much deeper by increasing their hp rating in the power calculations; giant black louse is thus level 6, not 3 as before (is 7 in monster.txt)

- removed restore potions, made stat potions much more common and cheaper, tweaked prices of starting magic devices

- made traps, potions, etc. that do more than p_ptr->mph/2 damage leave player at 1HP instead of killing him; please revert if this is too munchkinish, but note that it only affects early game, when detect traps and ID are scarce; with this also later in the game test-id and no-trap-detection become viable; tentative

- made apple and berries a bit lighter and berries somewhat nourishing

- you can now die from starvation second turn after travel, beware

- other minor tweaks and additions


### User Interface ###

- Pval modifier is now included in the description of an item.

- added dungeon level names (only about half of dungeons, please contribute)

- more information in the dungeon knowledge menu; the location blocked by a guardian revealed

- some info about dungeons reachable via one step of travel, in particular, warning if no way back or if no escape via maps

- overhauled and sorted visited dungeons listing in the character dump; tentative

- added link to map and to dungeon knowledge from the travel menu

- overhaul of the main screen UI, especially of the no-sideboard mode; the town level is now one line lower, I hope this does not break anything; tentative

- corrected layout of the top line inside shops

- warn about starvation, especially after travel

- changed default wrap column to 80 now that we have long texts to print, e.g. dungeon descriptions; some are still 75 column, e.g. ego powers, because they are subordinate to their main item descriptions; tentative


### Bug fixes ###

- Fix for Bug #12538 Chain-summoning Termite Mounds.

- This also modifies the 'power curve' of monster ecologies so may have far-reaching effects.

- Fix for Bug #12570 bards "Find Hidden Traps/Doors" =|= "Find Traps".

- Fix bug Bug #12569 browsing spellbooks "prerequsite" => "prerequisite"

- Fixed by Bug #12568 Priest Cure Moderate Wounds required mage Cure Light Wounds as a pre-requisite.

- Fix for Bug #12457 Rings of tele not activable when identified via ring spec

- rings of teleportations should now be always found cursed

- Fix for Bug #12567 Potion of Detonations .. broken ?

- Prevent loading a character from marking worthless items as broken.

- corrected the destinations of maps (the ones bought, sold, etc.)

- fixed a bug that made all MFLAG_STRONG monsters twice as strong as intended (I think); these included (some?) low level uniques

- as a temporary fix to the problem of empty Nature book and others, I've removed the books of Negations, Nature, Space, Annihilation, the Void, Immolation and Gambits; please report if any of the books worked for you in earlier versions

- some code cleanups, minor fixes and changes to the engine under the hood

- crashes when inspecting bags, etc. fixed, I hope

- fixed another crash with bags and lack of equip term refresh when canceling item selection from a bag

- gmake from Vanilla that allows both native- and cross-compiling using mingw (by takkaria)

- Windows build packaging script for use on Unix, to complement build_win.bat (by takkaria)

Unangband competition update

We're roughly half-way through the current Angband competition with an Unangband save-file. The deepest unique killed so far is Smaug, a level 55 monster. However, the character doing so has just passed away due to an unfortunate spell casting accident, opening up the game to anyone who is able to surpass their efforts.

You can keep following the competition, or submit your own success and/or failure stories to the Unangband ladder. Remember, the point of the competition is participation and challenging yourself. Of course, the glory of submitting a winning entry is quite a nice icing on the cake.

Reviewers wanted

While I'm working on other things, I thought I'd ask if anyone was interested in reviewing Unangband. A few of you have spoken positively about the variant, but I 'd like an overview if possible for someone coming to either here or the Unangband home page to get a 'feel' for how the game plays out, without necessarily having to download it themselves. It doesn't have to be all positive - feel free to point out any problems, flaws, quirks or just plain trash the whole game if you feel like it.

Either write the review on your own website, and put a link in the comments section below, or send me a copy of the review and give me permission to host it on your behalf. I'll accept most document formats, but I'll be changing the format to html if at all possible (e.g. if you send me a word document or PDF). My email address is on the splash screen when you start the game.