[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice released

[Sideways]

Get your copy of FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice here, with the source code, precompiled Windows full game (without the source code) and precompiled Windows executable. (Windows users who download the .exe should also download the source code, but not the full game, which would be superfluous. Windows users who download the full game won't need to download any other files.)

There's some new stuff, like Igors, Blue-Mages, the Split personality and instant-coffee mode; but the main focus for this release was on improving (and better documenting) the existing content. The in-game help has been thoroughly rewritten and updated, though I do believe there are still a few bits left that date back to the original Moria manual...

As usual, savefiles are unidirectionally compatible; you can safely use old savefiles in 7.1.liquorice, but you can't use 7.1.liquorice savefiles in older versions.

Many thanks to everyone who provided suggestions and feedback! Keep it up

Changes in FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice:

* Added a new player race (Igor)

* Added a new personality (Split)

* Re-implemented the Blue-Mage class

* Updated the in-game help

* Game speed is now selected from the race/class menu rather than as a birth option. Added instant-coffee mode (ultra-accelerated game); note that this mode is much harder than normal coffee-break mode, and not recommended for players new to the game

* Added many new random artifact names; also, random artifact weapons now sometimes pull their names from sub-lists specific to the type of weapon, and the game tries to keep repetition of artifact names to a minimum

* Quylthulgs crashed on game start in thrall mode; this has been fixed (thanks to meltdown for reporting)

* No warning was given on escaping downstairs from a quest level (possible for some Disciples); this has been fixed (thanks to OmniNegro for reporting)

* Burdening was not checked properly after eating food; this has been fixed

* The option to never apply the Mogaminator also turned off the easy auto-destroyer; this has been fixed

* Fixed typos in outlying makefiles that caused problems if "make install" was used to install the game (thanks to isnok and Kreutzer for reporting)

* It was possible to get nexus-warped to closed dungeons with ironman_downward on; this has been fixed

* Projectiles did not lose the "Worn" tag on being placed in the quiver; this has been fixed

* The slowing immunity of player inertia hounds and Hermes demigods did not apply to incremental slowing; this has been fixed (thanks to ster and Marty for reporting)

* Arrow keys could not be used for Mogaminator or option menu navigation on angband.live; this has been fixed

* Quests were not properly flagged as completed on Troika disciples if killing a monster caused the patron to dispel the remaining monsters; this has been fixed (thanks to bostock for reporting)

* Fixed an exploit that allowed selecting any dragon realm on any dragon except Steel Dragon (thanks to OmniNegro for reporting)

* Fixed visual glitch when reforge details were shown immediately after requesting a quest (thanks to bostock for reporting)

* Fixed infinite loop when a player Ring with no mount tried to use autoget (thanks to bostock for reporting)

* Casting spells on a Possessor, Gray-Mage or Skillmaster did not trigger Fragile fatigue; this has been fixed (thanks to ster for reporting the problem on Gray-Mages)

* Filthy Rags could not get Hold Life; this has been fixed (thanks to Aav for reporting)

* The "repeat" command did not work properly on Magic-Eaters if absorbed items had been inscribed; this has been fixed

* Magic-Eaters could only use floor devices if they also had pack devices of the same type; this has been fixed

* Fixed conflict between Magic-Eater item labels and menu commands

* Fixed inappropriate body types on some recently added monsters (thanks to clouded for reporting)

* Innate attacks could trigger the Monster Confusion scroll but not the Touch of Confusion hex spell; this has been fixed (thanks to clouded for reporting)

* Fixed display weirdness in situations with opposite non-resist flags present

* Fixed bug in tracking the origins of items reforged by Craft dragons

* Player Undead Beholders were vulnerable to life drain; this has been fixed

* Fixed bug in display of device power bonuses on a player Filthy Rag (thanks to Aav for reporting)

* Fixed bug with Repeat Last Command on rings when the player cancelled the first spell prompt (thanks to bostock for reporting)

* Running only checked for confusion on the first step; this has been fixed (thanks to Hugo for reporting)

* Fixed remaining one-in-a-million loophole that could cause double stat gain rewards (thanks to Hugo for reporting)

* Fixed malformatted failure message for the Trouble at Home quest (thanks to Hugo for reporting)

* Equipment slots were not recalculated after a permanent race change; this has been fixed (thanks to clouded for reporting)

* Monster list subwindows did not update properly after monster polymorph or evolution; this has been fixed

* Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Mass Identify to consume an inappropriate amount of charges

* Fixed problems with the online_macros option

* Fixed weirdness with birth menu visuals on some non-Windows installations

* Fixed misleading "You have gained the power of X" messages when a ring absorbed an activation not actually available to rings

* Fixed misleading Psion spell/power descriptions

* Polearm Weaponmasters can now only trip opponents on successful hits (as was already claimed by the description)

* Blood-Knights and Blood-Mages can no longer use magic while polymorphed into bloodless nonliving creatures, fixing some weirdness (thanks to ster for pointing this out)

* Plugged an exploit that allowed killing the Resurrection Machine easily by using pets or friendly monsters (thanks to Aav and ster for discovering)

* Increased the maximum number of distinct object inscriptions or random artifact names allowed; also, an emergency name is now used if the limit is exceeded (thanks to MITZE for triggering the limit...)

* Mysterious messages about monsters who are nowhere to be seen should now happen less often

* Vampiric drain can no longer exceed the HP of the monster being drained

* Nerfed player Hydras a mite (slightly lowered to-hit bonuses and life rating modifier)

* Added "melee challenge" and "no-melee challenge" options (i.e. "monsters can only be damaged by the player's melee" and "monsters cannot be damaged by the player's melee")

* Added new option to leave on the floor all items marked for destruction by the Mogaminator (even if always_pickup is on)

* Added new option (on by default) to ignore all identified items while travelling

* Added an option to change the order in which rewards for wanted corpses are given from the default (reward depends on unique's position on list of wanted uniques) to being based on the number of wanted uniques turned in

* The autopick entry "items" (aka "pick up all items") is now ignored for the purposes of the object list command's Wanted Objects section (in every other case the entry still works normally). This allows picking up all items with always_pickup off (which may be desirable to e.g. not override Mogaminator autodestruction) without cluttering the Wanted Objects list

* Added Tetsubo and Baseball Bat as favored weapons for Club weaponmasters (thanks to Aav for suggesting this)

* Walking speed modifiers like Fleet of Foot, Craven bonus, Limp mutation etc. no longer apply to riding (thanks to Aav for bringing this up)

* Prevented sleepscumming the coffee-break Black Market (thanks to clouded for bringing this up)

* Pet kills now give accelerated XP in coffee-break mode (thanks to clouded for bringing this up)

* The 'Restore life' Hex spell now restores life points in addition to stats and experience (thanks to clouded for suggesting)

* Kutars' Expand Horizontally is now a level-independent +35 AC, and can stack with other temporary AC buffs (thanks to Bucephalus for suggesting)

* Completely changed Reaping on Polearm-speciality Weaponmasters; it is now a vampiric effect instead of granting wraithform, and can no longer be exploited to easily kill high-AC enemies such as the Metal Babble

* Polearm Weaponmasters' special automatic attacks against monsters moving to adjacent squares no longer work if the player is blind or confused

* Player Mariliths are allowed to use shields again (although they are icky and penalize melee quite heavily)

* Deprecated monster races are now omitted from spoiler files

* Possessor ball spells fired in compass directions no longer uselessly overshoot everybody

* Disallowed riding monsters with a parent monster (eliminating the evil gotcha mechanic of a mount disappearing when its parent disappeared)

* Stat default allocations are now re-initialized for Quick Start characters if the old class is not retained

* Allowed throwing ammo from the quiver

* Reduced resist randomness somewhat, especially with multiple levels of resistance

* Draugluin now resists confusion

* Trying to use a Scroll of Artifact Creation on an inappropriate target no longer consumes the scroll

* Buffed wands of heal monster

* Nerfed Warlocks and Weaponmasters a bit

* Nerfed Clear Mind slightly

* Potions of Clarity no longer generate in town shops

* Allowed using an item from a stack as a reforge target

* Allowed using the 'J' and '(' keys in targeting mode to set a target for travelling; if we weren't aiming a spell, device or projectile, this automatically begins a new travel (thanks to Melum for suggesting)

* Added options to display known future race/class spells or powers in lists (inspired by Oposband and requested by players)

* Adapted the Omarax rework from new PosChengband (thanks to ster for this suggestion)

* Improved generation of tailored items to disallow icky egos (such as encumbering gloves on a mage-type)

* The speed indicator is now displayed in red if the player is both hasted and slowed in equal amounts (thanks to bostock for suggesting)

* Monster lore now automatically displays all monsters known to be undead as being immune to nether

* Tweaked spell proficiency gain to discourage repeatedly casting useless spells in safe nooks for proficiency

* Inscribed devices absorbed by a Magic-Eater now retain their inscriptions; also, if an inscribed device is replaced, the old device's inscription can be easily copied to the new device

* Restore Mana no longer recharges devices absorbed by a Magic-Eater

* Water, lava and nukage pools now muffle the earth-shaking steps of player Cyberdemons

* Rescaled skill discriptions in race/class/personality tables (the general rule now is that average skills are described as "fair", and differences should be clear without being too exaggerated)

* Psionic timed effects now disturb rest and travelling on running out if the disturb_state option is on (the same way other timed effects already did)

* Allowed Psions to cancel Dimension Door and Psionic Travel without spending a turn

* Werewolves and other shapeshifters can now use the "take off" command on satchel items

* The roguelike movement keys 'j' and 'k' can now be used for movement in the monster and object lists (thanks to bostock for suggesting)

* Improved handling of numbers and Roman numerals in player names
- numerals are now automatically bumped by 1 on quick-start if possible
- the game now looks for pref files of characters with lower numerals if no pref files are present for the current incarnation

* Improved Mogaminator functionality
- look for pickpref-[classname].prf, or pickpref-[racename].prf on monsters (thanks to grodrigues for suggesting this)
- look for pickpref-UserDefault.prf (local default pickprefs)
- allowed Save As of current preferences (thanks to grodrigues and OmniNegro for suggesting this)
- inscribe pack objects when Mogaminator is first activated (at birth if Mogaminator is active from the beginning)
- apply the improved handling of numbers and Roman numerals in player names

* Pressing '!' in the help now always returns to the help main page

* Allowed highlighting pets and friendly monsters in monster lists (on by default; thanks to bostock for suggesting)

* Improved pet/friendly monster AI
- pets no longer bump into the player so often
- fixed friendly fire from bolts
- fixed friendly fire from Saruman's psycho-spears
- pets now pathfind more aggressively and intelligently if a target monster has been specified

* Various minor tweaks and code improvements

Good luck everybody, and have fun!

[budswell]

In celbration of the new Igor race, my current faviourite music video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osqf4oIK0E8

[Destro]

Blue Mage!

[werecobalt]

Originally Posted by Sideways

* Improved pet/friendly monster AI
- pets no longer bump into the player so often
- fixed friendly fire from bolts
- fixed friendly fire from Saruman's psycho-spears
- pets now pathfind more aggressively and intelligently if a target monster has been specified

Very good improvement!

[budswell]

Hi, getting an issue where I have created my custom pickpref.prf file in /user but for every new character it seems to go back to the default in /pref. I know I can just update /pref but that doesn't seem the "right" way.
Have I stuffed something up? Or does it not work the way I thought?

[Sideways]

Originally Posted by budswell

Hi, getting an issue where I have created my custom pickpref.prf file in /user but for every new character it seems to go back to the default in /pref. I know I can just update /pref but that doesn't seem the "right" way.
Have I stuffed something up? Or does it not work the way I thought?

You can have custom pickprefs in /user, but you need to call them pickpref-UserDefault.prf instead of just pickpref.prf. Delete the extra copy of pickpref.prf in your /user because it will just confuse the game.

[ShadowTechnology]

Originally Posted by Sideways

Get your copy of FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice here, with the source code, precompiled Windows full game (without the source code) and precompiled Windows executable. (Windows users who download the .exe should also download the source code, but not the full game, which would be superfluous. Windows users who download the full game won't need to download any other files.)

There's some new stuff, like Igors, Blue-Mages, the Split personality and instant-coffee mode; but the main focus for this release was on improving (and better documenting) the existing content. The in-game help has been thoroughly rewritten and updated, though I do believe there are still a few bits left that date back to the original Moria manual...

As usual, savefiles are unidirectionally compatible; you can safely use old savefiles in 7.1.liquorice, but you can't use 7.1.liquorice savefiles in older versions.

Many thanks to everyone who provided suggestions and feedback! Keep it up



Good luck everybody, and have fun!

Not too much discussion going on here about liquorice and its new features. Thanks Sideways for yet another wonderful update to Frog. I am a big fan of Coffer mode, and have been having great fun with Instant Coffee. It's like double espresso - very addicting. I've been generating random characters, and am on number 7 now (a level 35 Noble Archon Necromancer). He has managed to make it through a level 43 quest to kill Stormbringer, barely. He is very nervous about going deeper, but there's little else to do. Instant Coffee is fun and easy to start, but is going to be very hard to win.

Here's the thing. The entire dungeon consists of only the quest levels, with a forced descent to the next one (sometimes 10 levels at a time). You can return to town for shopping, and undertake town quests, or fight in the arena, but eventually you must return to the dungeon and an ever more dangerous OOD quest unique. My other 6 randos died in level quests between levels 20 and 33. They had lots of experience/levels, and a few great items, but had limited choices of wearable ego items and limited consumables and gold. The price for extremely fast early level-up is a relative lack of "cannon fodder" creatures to drop items and treasure. Kill everything you see early the game, because you will be in over your head before you know it, with no opportunity to return to a more shallow level.

Typically I would visit the shop to spend all my gold, and accept all four quests. The Thieves Hideout is easy, and should take you up to abut CL5, and your first stat increase. Collect your reward and shop some more. Then take the dungeon stairs to go directly to the Warg quest on DL5. By the time you kill all 8 of them and everything else on the level, you should be at about CL15. When you complete a level quest a down stairs appears (these are the only down stairs, and there are never any up stairs). Don't take the stairs now or you will appear many levels deeper on your next quest level! Instead, recall up to town to rest, heal, and shop some more. Don't waste a recall scroll to go down again, just take the stairs in town (same result). Repeat. The town quests start at level 24 difficulty. Like I said, Instant Coffee is fun, fast, and addictive, but I don't expect to come close to winning very often.

One of the 6 randos was an Igorr. Interesting, but he did not survive long enough to try any interesting new body parts. I'm try again in regular Coffee Mode.

Split personality is crazy fun! You are not limited to only two. Keep selecting random personalities until you have 6 or 7. Make sure you have Chaotic and Sexy for extra fun. In Instant Coffee you might level-up three times after a single blow, and change personalities 10 times in the process. At any given time, one personality with be dominant, several will be partially active, and several will be repressed. Don't like the current mix? Swing at a another monster and keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks again for the continuing innovation Sideways.

[Thraalbee]

Love the update! Also happy with being able to upgrade nine ninjatos at the same price as for one in the Fighter's hall forge. Proably not intended behaviour though.

[Sideways]

That does seem like a bug, thanks

[Susramanian]

I'm close to winning with an Igor and I have yet to see any ears from dissections with any stats, unlike the other body parts. Bug?

Igors are fun! Thanks for your hard work