very low priority feature request - metric system option

[bebo]

i just noticed that some variants actually use the metric system, i was wondering how much effort it could take to give an option in V to have stats, weight etc displayed this way. This of course being an incredibly low priority feature, the only problem with it i seem to think of is the range of launchers, where every 10 feet mean one square of the dungeon if i'm not mistaken - translating this to the metric system could be tricky.

[CJNyfalt]

Originally Posted by bebo

... the only problem with it i seem to think of is the range of launchers, where every 10 feet mean one square of the dungeon if i'm not mistaken - translating this to the metric system could be tricky.

10 ft is 3.048 m, which is usually approximated to 3m.

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by bebo

i just noticed that some variants actually use the metric system, i was wondering how much effort it could take to give an option in V to have stats, weight etc displayed this way. This of course being an incredibly low priority feature, the only problem with it i seem to think of is the range of launchers, where every 10 feet mean one square of the dungeon if i'm not mistaken - translating this to the metric system could be tricky.

Some variants do have it, but Tolkien was British, as were the original authors of Angband, and British measurements are in feet and pounds. Also, I don't like options, so they have to reach a pretty high bar for me to consider them, and this one doesn't, I'm afrad.

[buzzkill]

Just use your imagination. Imagine that everything is already measured in meters. Suddenly you're a giant playing in a giant sized world versus giant sized monsters, and giants, well, they're really giant. Yeah, I know, it's weak.

[bebo]

what about displaying stats in a linear fashion?

I'm sure this was discussed before, but now that stat increases/decreases have been coded so that they work only in +1 or +10 increments (i started to check out the trac page), i see no reason to still mantain the 18/xxx display method - changing the system so that stats go up and down only in +/- 1 increments would make the game more beginner friendly, and probably even simplify the code

[pndrev]

I understand the reason behind measuring everything in feet historically, but I'd also appreciate switching to the metric system. It's the 21st century, and all.

[Pete Mack]

Any more complaining and I will volunteer to be a maintainer again, briefly, so I can change all units to cubits! (Or maybe rods and chains.) Adding a toggle for metric in a "middle earth" setting just seems wrong on so many levels.

In particular:
1. Metric is way anachronistic.
2. adds an unnecessary option toggle. (Big no no)
3. Horizontal units either are inconvenient (3 or 5 meters) or make no sense (10 meters), and changing them requires code churn.
4. I suppose vertical units could be every 10m instead of 50', leaving horizontal units unchanged, but that would mean having a mixture of metrics, which seems even worse.

It ain't gonna happen.


Signed, The Complainer

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Any more complaining and I will volunteer to be a maintainer again, briefly, so I can change all units to cubits!

So your variant will be Arkband?








(I agree about metrification being undesirable btw.)

CC

[Kramborn]

This is my first post.
First of all, I would like to thank the dev-team for improving this grate game.
I think it is getting better and better.

I completely agree that V should use feet.

On the other hand, for people not using feet or pound at all in real life (like me), numbers used in angband don't give any flavor.
So, I wrote a short patch to change the display to use metric system (basically for myself).
I am not asking to change the official V code, but if someone who wants to use meters and grams can try this patch.
The patch works for me well, but I am not an expert of angband development, so please use it at your risk.

In my patch
depth : 1 level = 20 m
distance : 1 square = 2 m
char height : 1 inch = 2.5 cm
1 pound = 0.5 kg

I wrote the patch for v4, and not sure if it works for vanilla.

[Cold_Heart]

I support both metrification and linear stats feature requests.