Comp 230

[Gwarl]

Last one in the series! Elf ranger. You have a bow, so it can't be harder than blackguard - right?

[LordRotharoth]

You sure this one needs to be a month long? I get the feeling it wont take long for some people to win with a ranger, I could be wrong though. And maybe you can't change that once it's started.

[Gwarl]

It can be changed but even if someone kills Morgoth quickly someone else might do it again with a lower turncount.

[LordRotharoth]

Alright, fair enough I suppose.

[DavidMedley]

I haven't tried digging in the code for this answer. It seems like extra shots fire just one missile but use less energy per turn, while multiple blows take the full amount of energy per attack but get in multiple strikes. I.e., you can't choose to hit once if you have 3 blows/turn, but you can choose to shoot once if you have 3 shots per turn. Is that correct? If so, what is the rationale behind that?

[Pete Mack]

More or less. It is a very recent change. Note that any fractional blows you have will be treated the same way.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by DavidMedley

I haven't tried digging in the code for this answer. It seems like extra shots fire just one missile but use less energy per turn, while multiple blows take the full amount of energy per attack but get in multiple strikes. I.e., you can't choose to hit once if you have 3 blows/turn, but you can choose to shoot once if you have 3 shots per turn. Is that correct? If so, what is the rationale behind that?

That is correct. I can't speak for how and why this was originally introduced, but I can explain why I have left it as it currently is.

The basic idea is that the game is turn based, and almost all actions take the same amount of time. So melee blows fit with this; increasing STR and DEX make the player take less energy per blow, and then they take as many blows as they can in their turn until it reaches 100 energy.

I think the main reason for not doing the same thing with shots is that there is not an obvious repeat, as there is a choice of which ammo to use; even if you said "Just use the same one", there would need to be a special case for when you ran out of that ammo (or maybe ran out of ammo completely) mid-turn. It has been suggested that instead of extra shots, there should be a scale-up in damage - but that's essentially extra might, and it puts all the player's eggs in one basket in terms of hitting or missing.

On the whole I think the current system is reasonable, others may disagree

[Grotug]

Congrats to Wobbly and Sphara on blisteringly fast wins in 4.2.0! I downloaded the competition.php file and tried to open it in Angband 4.2.0 and it said "save file is corrupted -- incorrect file header." And "broken save file". Any ideas?

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Grotug

Congrats to Wobbly and Sphara on blisteringly fast wins in 4.2.0! I downloaded the competition.php file and tried to open it in Angband 4.2.0 and it said "save file is corrupted -- incorrect file header." And "broken save file". Any ideas?

There is no starting savefile for this competition - you just have to create your own with the birth options specified on the competition page.

[Pete Mack]

That win by Sphara is nuts--mediocre equipment (at best) and awful HP. Wobbly's has amazing gear and HP for such a fast game.