Beginners questions

[belphanior]

Hi everyone!

I've been playing angband for 3 days now and I'm on my second char (a ranger, level 13) after my first, a warrior died at level 18, and I have a couple of questions:

1) My armour is getting weaker over time, ie from [16, 0] to [16, -4]. I assume it's getting damaged, but I haven't figured out how/where to repair it.

2) I'm used to nethack, where inventory letters never change, and the constantly shifting inventory letters in angband are driving me crazy. Essentially I have to look into the inventory *every time* I want to use a potion/scroll/whatever, because I can never be sure it's the same it was the last time I looked.
Is there anything I can do about this?

3) I would *like* to leave my gold in the house. That would seem to be the sensible thing to do, because the only thing you can do with gold in the dungeon is have it stolen. Leaving it behind does not appear to be possible, which is just silly and annoying.
On a related note, do gold-stealing monsters *eat* the gold??? I have never managed to recover any, despite the fact that I know that I've killed some of them (smeagol for example).

4) detect doors/traps/stairs seems to detect everything on the screen, which seems a bit unfair for people with small(ish) screens. *I* don't particularly mind, but then my screen is 1920x1200, so I can always see ~90% of the dungeon (I'm running the sdl-ui on linux)

[Matthias]

Originally Posted by belphanior

Hi everyone!

I've been playing angband for 3 days now and I'm on my second char (a ranger, level 13) after my first, a warrior died at level 18, and I have a couple of questions:

1) My armour is getting weaker over time, ie from [16, 0] to [16, -4]. I assume it's getting damaged, but I haven't figured out how/where to repair it.

Yes it is damage by Acid. You can repair it using scrolls of enchant Armor, but it is usually not worth the money. I usually try to avoid anything acid until having equipment that resists getting damaged.

2) I'm used to nethack, where inventory letters never change, and the constantly shifting inventory letters in angband are driving me crazy. Essentially I have to look into the inventory *every time* I want to use a potion/scroll/whatever, because I can never be sure it's the same it was the last time I looked.
Is there anything I can do about this?

You can use inscriptions on items you use at a regular basis. For example @r4 written onto a scroll will allow you to read that scroll by pressing r4. Or inscribing a potion with @q1 will allow you to drink it by pressing q1. To inscribe an object press {

3) I would *like* to leave my gold in the house. That would seem to be the sensible thing to do, because the only thing you can do with gold in the dungeon is have it stolen. Leaving it behind does not appear to be possible, which is just silly and annoying.
On a related note, do gold-stealing monsters *eat* the gold??? I have never managed to recover any, despite the fact that I know that I've killed some of them (smeagol for example).

Yes they eat it (it is actually chocolate gold) and no you can't leave it at home. Try not getting hit by monsters that steal gold. A good idea is to spend everything you have before going down, and store things you want to sell at home until you need the gold. If you increase your dex to more than 18/150 your gold will be save.

4) detect doors/traps/stairs seems to detect everything on the screen, which seems a bit unfair for people with small(ish) screens. *I* don't particularly mind, but then my screen is 1920x1200, so I can always see ~90% of the dungeon (I'm running the sdl-ui on linux)

Yes it is easier with bigger screens. Some Variants have a fixed detection range, but Vanilla doesn't.

[belphanior]

Originally Posted by Matthias

Yes it is damage by Acid. You can repair it using scrolls of enchant Armor, but it is usually not worth the money. I usually try to avoid anything acid until having equipment that resists getting damaged.


You can use inscriptions on items you use at a regular basis. For example @r4 written onto a scroll will allow you to read that scroll by pressing r4. Or inscribing a potion with @q1 will allow you to drink it by pressing q1. To inscribe an object press {



Yes they eat it (it is actually chocolate gold) and no you can't leave it at home. Try not getting hit by monsters that steal gold. A good idea is to spend everything you have before going down, and store things you want to sell at home until you need the gold.

This seems like the obvious answer. Why didn't I think of that

Originally Posted by Matthias

If you increase your dex to more than 18/150 your gold will be save.



Yes it is easier with bigger screens. Some Variants have a fixed detection range, but Vanilla doesn't.

Thanks!

[Djabanete]

I'd just like to mention that the NetHack inventory system drives me completely insane.

Also, you can go beyond just macroing the items you use often - you can hotkey entire actions so that wherever the relevant item is in your pack, you can use it simply by pressing a single key. I don't know if this system exists in NetHack so I thought it would be worth mentioning.

To access the keybindings menu, press "@". They'll save you a lot of time and keystrokes.

[will_asher]

Originally Posted by belphanior

Hi everyone!
2) I'm used to nethack, where inventory letters never change, and the constantly shifting inventory letters in angband are driving me crazy. Essentially I have to look into the inventory *every time* I want to use a potion/scroll/whatever, because I can never be sure it's the same it was the last time I looked.
Is there anything I can do about this?

Hello, fellow post-nethacker. I also started playing Angband after having played Nethack for several years. In support of Angband, I'll just say that I haven't played Nethack in a long time.
The Angband inventory system also drove me crazy when I first started, but someone pointed me to the Angband inscription/macro FAQ (I don't have the link anymore, could someone post it for this guy?), and the inscriptions really help manage the inventory and I have no problem with it anymore.
[Although, honestly, I do still like the Nethack way of doing inventory better, where there's no need for inscriptions or macros.]

3) I would *like* to leave my gold in the house. That would seem to be the sensible thing to do, because the only thing you can do with gold in the dungeon is have it stolen. Leaving it behind does not appear to be possible, which is just silly and annoying.
On a related note, do gold-stealing monsters *eat* the gold??? I have never managed to recover any, despite the fact that I know that I've killed some of them (smeagol for example).

I had to get used to this too. The thing about gold is that it's not nearly as important in Angband as it is in Nethack, so it really doesn't matter a whole lot when some of it gets stolen even though it can't be recovered. To prevent much of it from getting stolen just use range attacks against things that steal gold, and stay away from groups of novice rogues until you have very high dexterity. Oh and don't fight Smeagul or Wormtongue until you're able to kill them.

Angband is a fun game. It takes some getting used to after playing Nethack for several years, but it's worth it.

[Matthias]

Originally Posted by Djabanete

To access the keybindings menu, press "@". They'll save you a lot of time and keystrokes.

It's not mentioned anywhere but I guess he is playing V309. That menu has moved from @ to =M this Version

[Bostock]

Originally Posted by Matthias

It's not mentioned anywhere but I guess he is playing V309. That menu has moved from @ to =M this Version

Does anybody passing through know what the reason was for that shift? Granted, it didn't take me *that* long to guess where the "missing" functionality had wandered off to, but I'm curious as to what the gain from the move is supposed to be.

Bostock

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by Bostock

Does anybody passing through know what the reason was for that shift? Granted, it didn't take me *that* long to guess where the "missing" functionality had wandered off to, but I'm curious as to what the gain from the move is supposed to be.

One key for all options is better than different keys for different options, esp. for people new to the game. It also frees up another key for macro use. (It's easy enough to macro @ to =M if you must.)

[Bostock]

Thanks. That makes perfect sense.

While I have you on the phone: Shift-direction for running is supposed to not work, or is supposed to work? If the former, can that be changed for 3.1.0?

(You may have noticed that Shift-direction running is a schtick of mine. But I really do feel much more comfortable using it than dot-direction running.)

Bostock

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by Bostock

Shift-direction for running is supposed to not work, or is supposed to work? If the former, can that be changed for 3.1.0?

Not meant to be broken, no; can you file a bug report at dev.rephial.org/trac for that please?