Lantern of Shadows should have -4 to light, which overpowers the light. I'll have to check what they're doing.

EDIT: OK, so everyone's right. Lantern of Shadows can do two things:

1. It has fuel, gives +3 light, but then -4 because that's the ego property, for -1 light or
2. It's out of fuel, in which case it has no light effect, so 0 light

All makes sense, really :)

You can carry around that ego lantern and fuel another lantern with it if you find one. Not as good as an empty command, but still better than resting if turn count matters.

Thanks! I missed that

You can fuel a lantern with itself to empty it. This may be a bug. You might have to use the i or e command to get there rather than F.

Didn't know you could do that. After how many years? Still learning new things about the game. :D

Makes sense you could dump oil out of the lamp.

@ just drank an unid Potion of Surprise, and the same thing happened. Remaining potion on the floor is identified as Potion of Surprise, but when examined all the information known is the name and that "It can be drunk". That condition persists until @ leaves the floor, at which point the item knowledge is populated.

New builds are now up on the nightlies page and angband.live (source is here). Changes are:

• Labyrinth and moria levels can now be disabled completely from dungeon_profile.txt (set their cutoff to -2)
• Some errors (possibly with bad consequences) fixed in copying chunks of dungeon
• Three new rare types of dungeon level added
• Chaos life drain adjusted so it's less devastating early on, but still mostly worse than nether
• Bug in placement of windows in Windows when taskbar is at top or left fixed (#4218)
• Teleportation curse now gives a message when it activates (#4387)
• Error compiling on archlinux fixed, I hope (#4416)
• 'U'se command starts on the inventory by default (#4414)
• All curse activations now disturb the player
• Food value of !*Healing* set to 0, !Healing to 1 (thanks to many people, kind of)
• Hall of fame is now scrollable when accesssed from knowledge or death menu (part of #4290)
• Winners come first in hall of fame (rest of #4290)
• Single-use objects are now learned properly on use again (thanks Ingwe)
• Farmer Maggot now additionally drops a mushroom or two (thanks tangar)

There are now only 3 bugs outstanding, so it seems likely that 4.2.1 should be released soon. If there are other remaining unfixed bugs or issues, please let me know.

Thank you, Nick.
Going melee against Morgoth is tolerable again.

Two totally minor things. Gervais set is missing the tile for the Bear-Beorn and the tile for the Apple is a red circle.

From the current tileset 0x93:0xAF seems to be an unused and a bit special bear and could be used for Bear-Beorn.

A tile for the Apple could be added from the Tangar tileset.

Would be nice if player_best_digger() accounted for the object's weight and STR modifier, so it could identify the best digging implement in all cases and not just when it had a direct tunnelling modifier.

Wait, do you just need to have a digger in your inventory? It doesn't need to be equipped to dig?

Yeah, maybe - I'm reluctant to make it too convoluted.

Correct - it gets automatically swapped in and swapped out again :)

Didn't know that! Swapping equipment usually costs an action, yes? Does the automatic digger swap as well?

Nope, it's free.

Still seeing two issues with the latest nightly. Every so often, i get double moves from hitting movement keys with my keypad. I don't see this with other keypresses on regular keyboard.

Crash while fighting monsters. First it was fighting 'U's and now 'A's. Really tough to get a savefile, but a crash log is at https://www.dropbox.com/s/100vtmkk0v...shlog.txt?dl=0

I'll replay the level tomorrow and try get a save file before the crash if possible.

I think this must be a local issue; I haven't touched that code since (I believe) 4.0.

No need - there was enough info in the crash dump. I've pushed a fix now; if you would play with the new version (which should be up in a few minutes), that would be great.

Fix also includes an option to sort the monster list by experience gained, courtesy of Cuboideb :)

One more issue on tiles. Both Shockbolt and Gervais render the passable rubble with black background instead of floor tile. I vaguely remember some discussion on this at the time passable rubble was introduces and even more vaguely some reasoning for it, but can't really remember the verdict.

It is possible my keypad just needs new batteries. Or one of the keys is getting stuck. Haven't noticed if it is one particular key, it seems to be random.

Looks good so far. Thanks!

Next bug, seeing Archliches getting stuck in the wall. Not moving towards @ even though he's one block away.

Save file at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ge69sdt70kq7gcm/mrfy?dl=0

randart.txt at https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3fnj44xvn...02d87.txt?dl=0

Dig south, and he is able to move and attack.

Thanks, found it, and it's pretty funny - more of an AI fault than a bug. There's a check for PASS_WALL monsters not to get too close to permanent walls, because they can get trapped, so the archlich is stopping before it gets to the vault, even though the player is between it and the vault. I'll think about how to adjust that, but it's going to be a pretty rare occurrence.

Fatal crash on angband.live.

Happened on some new no-teleport level. I shot Nexus Q (it never saw me with 100% certainty) with Bard bow from hockey stick range, game crashed and the save file does not open anymore.

The one game I finally find Ringil..

If you get me the savefile, I can probably fix it.

I'm going to have to disable those levels again, I think, and wait until I'm sure they're fixed.

@Nick

I have no idea how to get a savefile from angband.live. Attempting to start the game just throws me back to the main page.

I vaguely thought there was a way to, but I'm probably wrong. I've asked the question on the angband.live forum.

New builds now up on the nightlies page and angband.live (source is here) include the following changes since the last list:

• Fix (I believe) a bug causing crashes in monster lore
• Add a feature to sort the monster list by experience gained (thanks Cuboideb)
• Make the alter command close doors and disarm or open chests (Cuboideb again)
• Deactivate special levels again, because they still have problems

I'm trying to fix the special levels at the moment, and still waiting for more opinions before finalising the Shockbolt Light/Dark graphics settings.

Occasionally, I've asked Gwarl to deliver crashed angband.live savefiles to Nick to help him troubleshoot bugs.

IIRC the answer was rubble would be better implemented as an obstruction (like webs) rather than a terrain feature (like walls), and that would also fix the tile issue (because it would appear superimposed over a floor tile). Because of maintaining savefile compatibility in the 4.2.x series, though, that should wait for 4.3.

Is the priest smite evil prayer supposed to apply to shooting ammo? The "info" screen when the prayer is active shows the boost to vs. evil damage for ammo, but shooting it does not give the stated "info" damage vs. evil.

New builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live (source) with these changes:

• PASS_WALL monster behaviour near permanent walls is less dumb (thanks mrfy)
• Critical hits now depend on melee skill instead of player level (suggested by David Medley)
• Two versions of Shockbolt tiles now available, dark and light (thanks Sky and others)
• Special levels re-activated - I'm pretty confident they're bug-free now, please report bugs and opinions

Nice. You'll most probably also want to change doors to match the dark walls.
The change looks like this:

Attachment 1837 -> Attachment 1838

Also the town doors don't match the buildings, but there's not much to be done there. Unless the town buildings could be mapped to use special tiles. In this case the wall tile from the light version could be used or if you switch the town doors to the new gray versions, then the wall tile from there could be used. Might work better in the dark theme.

I thought town doors were already different

Thanks - I had trouble finding the right doors.

Shop doors have the problem that there is only one of each and no variation for light, but there is a version of them I can use which is grey not brown.

One of the changes, I guess a couple nightlies ago, was to the operation of "r"eading scrolls. Possibly there was an unintended consequence, or perhaps it was intended. When reading a stack of Enchant scrolls, one used to be able to "repeat" the read command and choose another item. Now, "repeat" instantly applies to the same item as chosen before. After playing a bit to give the change a chance, I've got to say, I think this consequence of not getting to choose a new item is less than desirable.

This was intended, and it's a reversion to the former behaviour that was broken a while ago. IMHO it's in the spirit of the repeat command, which means do exactly the same thing again (as much as is possible). So if you want to keep on enchanting the same thing with the same stack of scrolls, you repeat. If you want to change that in some way, you issue a new command. This is how it works with shooting - repeat will fire the same ammo at the same monster, and only prompt if the ammo has run out or the monster is dead/out of sight.

I support the "repeat as much as possible" approach.

Ok. I guess it will just take awhile longer to retrain my muscle memory.

For some reason there's only one variant of light for all doors in Shockbolt tiles. The set would definitely benefit from variation in lighting.

About the shop doors, the grey version is definitely better. What I meant was that if it was possible to configure the shops to use some other tile than permanent wall tile, the shops could be made to match the tiles available.

Easier to see again from images:

Grey door tile:
Attachment 1839

Grey door tile with matching wall tile:
Attachment 1840

Edit: Then again, maybe it's just easier to use new gray permanent wall tile in the dark set:

The Iron Shots still cost 3 gold. Is that intentional?

Yes, they still have the THROWING flag which makes them better for throwing than arrows or bolts, just not as much better as they were.

There's this new thing (I think) where you sort enemies by XP. What, then, is the default sort?

By monster depth.

Recharging wands/staves in a shop is a bit confusing and not very obvious. Is there a way of seeing which wands/staves will be recharged before giving them to the shop? The in-game help currently only hints that "Some wands and staves will also be recharged". Why not all btw?

Is it worth the shop's time and resources to recharge a wand such as heal monster, haste monster, or clone monster? I think the wands with negative attributes are the ones that don't get recharged.

It's the ones that the store sells. I guess the idea is that you're giving them some of their regular stock, so they know what to do with it, but these other weird devices they don't want to mess with, so they just sell them again as is.

I see. And it's still not that obvious. My beginning character tried to recharge a staff of cure light wounds. Nothing negative in that staff, but maybe the shop does not sell that kind of staves or something.

@ found the Cloak of "Colluin" and activated it and got 5 temporary resists activated and at the same time learned the runes for fire, cold, electricity and acid, since the cloak has the runes also. But not the poison rune even though the cloak has the resist poison rune.

Another thing. I have a vague memory that this has been brought up before, but anyway, I find it a bit glitchy that @ immediately recognizes the Ring of Teleportation as Ring of Teleportation even though the teleportation curse has not been learned yet.

I like this idea, and this new sort is somewhat useful. Distance from @ comes to mind as an option for monsters and treasure.

What if racial flags were grouped with status effects rather than equipment flags? This would (mostly) make these racial effects more impactful into the mid and late game, as racial resist light, dark, and poison would stack with the equipment you often obtain mid-game. Some things still can't stack, like sustains and prot_blind. And there are choices to make about whether some things like hold life or regen should stack. But I think it would make the racial choice more interesting and definitely more impactful.

This may not make the imminent 4.2.1, but what do you think?

Looks like a bug, thanks.

Yes, agreed, but that's currently the least worst way to deal with it.

I think no. Racial resists are permanent, so should behave like other permanent resists (and racial RPois does stack with temporary RPois). So unless we're thinking of a big rethink of how resists work (and the same applies for things like regen stacking), I think it should stay as is.

New builds are now up on the nightlies page and angband.live (source) with these changes:

• Check of monster generation code to try and make sure dead uniques don't come back to life (#4245) - I think this is now fixed, probably because of something backwardsEric did a few weeks ago
• Rework how targeting of Lightning Strike works - now requires monster target on a visited grid (#4245)
• Light town correctly (most notably fixes part of #4232 for persistent levels)
• No more artifact spoilers for persistent levels (the rest of #4232)
• Updates to Shockbolt dark tiles to make doors and shops look right (thanks spara)
• Fix to learning of RPois rune from temporary RPois (spara again)
• Update of object info following the change to melee criticals (thanks David Medley)
• New makefiles for compiling curses and SDL2 Windows versions (may still need some refinement - thanks Adriankhl)
• Update to VC project file (thanks Kusunose)
• Test to check that monster.txt is parsed correctly by the lore parser (Kusunose again)

This leaves no bugs remaining on current master (that's zero). I expect version 4.2.1 to be released some time in the next week.

Are you meant to be unable to throw the weapon you are wielding?

Yes, that's correct.

I still don't get the recharging at shops mechanic. I just gave a Wand of Frost Bolts and a Wand of Stun Monster to the Magic Shop in hopes that they get recharged. Instead they are now in sale with 0 charges for 800 and 500. How do I, as a player, know which wands and staves get recharged? Could the message when giving to the shop them give some hint or something? Or maybe even have the description say "Can/Can't be recharged at Magic Shop" or something.

This is not the most user-friendly, but if you look in store.txt you will know what they carry/recharge.

:D I deliberately refuse to look at code or config files when reviewing game play. All game play information should be available in the game. Either a) the is no recharging service and the player must stock recharge scrolls or b) there is an easy to use and understandable recharging service. Currently it's neither a) or b). The use of recharging service requires the player to possess exact knowledge on what shops can carry. In my opinion this is something that should be improved to make a great game better.

If I were you I'd demand your money back :D But, yeah, it is confusing and should be improved when possible.

This kind of goes to the Selling option as well.

The problem is that the "recharge" mechanic is a side effect, vs a first class concept. The shop isn't recharging the item, it's simply replenishing it's stock and HAPPENS to recharge the item.

If it were a first class idea, then we'd have a "Recharge" option along with Selling, and Giving.

The selling thing, if the game is not "buying" stuff, then it should simply "refuse" to let you sell things for 0 gold. You can always "give" stuff to the shop, it's just Sell option would remain, but offer a message like "Sorry, I'm not buying things right now."

I don't see the addition of a first class recharge option any time soon. And I don't see "shop rechargability" being a first class property that can be I)npected on an item either.

Right now it's just notes on a sticky for an item taht won't be recharged.

My guideline, if I don't see it in the shop when I first arrive, i assume they won't recharge it.

True that. However the only thing missing is in-game information. No need for actual recharging feature or like. Just in-game information what the shop is able to sell/recharge. There already is a confirmation prompt when giving the item. Maybe the information could be added there. "Give the item for recharging?" or something when it's going to get recharged.

Or when you 'i'nspect the item...

Is it me or the number of chests you find in a game is quite low? It's like you find one every 100 levels or so...

That is still not ideal. You'd have to give a rechargeable item to a shop to get the prompt.
New players without any previous knowledge would probably give a couple of potions or weapons to the shop, figure out they get 0 gold back, and forget about selling.

Hm. Anyone else noticed that?

How many are you supposed to find?

So it seems that someone (*hm*) made chests rarer and more valuable before 4.1; looks like the "rarer" might have been overdone. I'll have a think about that.