FAangband 0.3.6

[Nick]

FAangband 0.3.6 is now available from the usual place, as source, or compiled for windows, WinCE and OSX (no NDS port yet).

This is an unusual release, though - Psi is responsible for this one. After putting up with my ignorance of what it's like to play the endgame for some time, he finally started making tweaks, and this is the result. The big changes to my eye are:

• Pseudo-id quicker and stronger
• Many tweaks to item, ego and artifact types, and artifact sets
• NPP-style shafts have replaced the optional double down stairs
• Archery is better in the early game, toned down in the late game
• Ents' superstealth is more sensible

Full change list:
NPP style shafts replace the old double stairs
Automatic pseudo happens on wielding
Weak pseudo now detects {average} items
Monsters that hit you when you are hidden (superstealth) will now target that
grid until you move
Enhanced dice for weapons are more variable
New damage dice on ammo. Archery should be better in the early game and less
powerful at the end
Brand and slay multipliers on ammo have been reduced
New ammo egos: 'of the Noldor' (combines and replaces Hurt Orc, Hurt Troll,
Hurt Giant), *Hurt* Evil, Holy Might (slay evil, demon, undead)
New shield ego 'of Preservation' (at a minimum sustains STR, DEX, CON and has a
selection of resists)
Reworked weapon ego 'of Angband' (can now potentially be a good weapon - at a
physical price)
Reworked weapon ego 'of Nogrod' (will now have more dice, be lighter and also
give a bonus to strength)
Great Axes are now 4d5 rather than 5d4 (marginally better criticals, but
enhanced dice versions will be much better)
Potions of Death and Ruination are a lot less likely to ruin your game
Crowns of Lordliness now get a bonus power
Multiple resists slightly more common on extra resist items (elvenkinds etc)
Wands and rods of Teleport Away and Staves of Banish Evil are now considered
good items
Perception rods are much more common
The three sustain rings have been replaced by rings of physical endurance and
mental strength
Rings of Light and Dark have been replaced by Rings of the Dawn, which also
give blindness resistance
Eregion rings now have power + resistance(s)
Rings of Speed have a slightly better chance of a higher pval
Rings of <Element> now apply a (weaker) brand to your melee attacks in addition
to their old properties
Dragon armour now gets a DL weighted speed bonus (1-5), quicker recharge and
can be Dwarven or Resistance ego
The breath activation is now based on player level and is potentially a lot
more powerful
New item from V: Amulet of Trickery (max pval +3)
Rebalanced how various objects, egos and artifacts affect the level feeling
Throwing hammers and axes are no longer considered powerful base objects for
randarts (their dice are rubbish)
Randart Dragon armour will be slightly better
Powerful randarts are less likely to aggravate
The enhance dice code for randart weapons has been improved. It is now more
likely to generate extra damage dice rather than spiralling
dice sides.
Randarts are more likely to get speed boosts
Randarts are less rare (no point in generating random content if you can't find
it!) except...
Randart jewelry is rarer and power rings rarer still
Randart shields can now get immunities
Many other tweaks and bugfixes to randarts!
Ents can now walk easily through trees
Ents now get superstealth when on tree grids rather than on Forest levels
Rangers now get strong pseudo - same as rogues and assassins
Great launcher speed and rapid fire now give less bonus shots
Paladins have faster pseudo
Runes of Protection are easier for monsters to break
Morgoth casts teleport to
Morgoth is faster
More artifacts have speed bonuses
Nearly all the equivalent artifacts with speed in Vanilla now have speed
bonuses and...
Razorback gets +10 speed
Bladeturner gets +5 speed
Cubragol now fires (weaker) branded bolts rather than having a branding
activation
Belthronding has a (weaker) slay evil
Bregor has a (weaker) slay animals
Several artifacts have bigger dice
Firestar (3d6)
Eonwe (4d7)
Dramborleg (5d5)
Several artifacts have been tweaked
Holhenneth has rConf
Carlammas has rNether
Angrist is less rare
Elessar gets combat bonuses
Stone of Lore grants ID on pickup
Chain Mail (Dwarven) of the Mormegil is now [19,+15] - in line with AC boost
from Dwarven ego armour
New artifact: The Amulet of Denethor (formerly Faramir in OAngband)
New artifact: The Small Metal Shield of Khazad-Dum (formerly Thorin in OAngband)
New artifact: The Spear of Boldog
New artifact set: Mablung's Items
*Big* enhancements to all existing artifact sets.
Bug fixes:
Artifact set item resistances now work properly on reloading the game
Artifact set item immunities now provide immunity
Greater vault, Snake Maze is no longer considered an interesting room
OoD monsters were not included in level feelings unless you were cheating (!?)
Various bug fixes from Nick's enhancements to OAngband
Buttons no longer vanish after changing name from 'C' screen

[Seany C]

Hurrah - this sounds like fun - right, it's download time... Well done, both of you...

[HallucinationMushroom]

So, does the complainer have some new quotes?

[Nick]

Originally Posted by HallucinationMushroom

So, does the complainer have some new quotes?

Not yet - I'll have to pay him some attention for 040.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I can see it now... the complainer whines that there hasn't been enough whining lately.

Cool! You made a prediction long ago that one day you could kill the complainer and not see any repeat whines... I think I came awfully close today.

[Pete Mack]

The 3.6 source distribution is really massive--6.5MB. Most of it is various binary objects in the src directory, apparently related to nds. Are they necessary?

There are also a couple main~.nib directories in osx, which are not useful (oops). (They are backup data for OSX Integration Builder.)

Also, there are still a lot of bmp files in lib/xtra/graf; these are really huge compared to png. Is the windows port still unable to use png files? I know png is supported in windows now.

EDIT:
Also, the various Makefile.osx files need -DHAVE_FCNTL_H added to CFLAGS to get rid of some really annoying diagnostics.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

The 3.6 source distribution is really massive--6.5MB. Most of it is various binary objects in the src directory, apparently related to nds. Are they necessary?

Completely unnecessary, not for this version, and probably not even functional - 3.5ish MB versions now uploaded.

There are also a couple main~.nib directories in osx, which are not useful (oops). (They are backup data for OSX Integration Builder.)

Not very big, though? I'll remember that for next time.

Also, there are still a lot of bmp files in lib/xtra/graf; these are really huge compared to png. Is the windows port still unable to use png files? I know png is supported in windows now.

I have done very little to main-win.c versus Vanilla - and V still uses bmp. I'm hoping that takkaria (or one of his minions) will have an SDL port for windows soon

Also, the various Makefile.osx files need -DHAVE_FCNTL_H added to CFLAGS to get rid of some really annoying diagnostics.

Yeah, thanks for the reminder - I see that every time I compile for OSX and think "I really should fix that - but later"

[Pete Mack]

OK, I got things to compile, sort of, using Makefile.osx-ppc (which really should be Makefile.osx-native.) Using Makefile.osx-ub, I get a weird link error:

ld: library not found for -lcrt1.10.5.o

Unfortunately, with the native compile there are massive missing symbols. The following files are missing from the object file list:
ui.o
z-files.o
randname.o

Additionally, the file osx/Angband.icns has been renamed FAAngband.icns

EDIT:
BTW the new V makefile model is infinitely cleaner than what you are using. If you switch over, you will never have to maintain individual OS makefiles again (knock on wood.)

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

BTW the new V makefile model is infinitely cleaner than what you are using. If you switch over, you will never have to maintain individual OS makefiles again (knock on wood.)

I'm planning to look into all the Vanilla improvements for 0.4.0. Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated.

[Seany C]

One minor glitch - it's still not possible to access slots '2' and '4' in the quiver (as in 0.3.4)...