very newbie questions on angband and unangband

[Halloween Jack]

hi all,

i'm just wondering whether to get into angband. in my wanderings i found unangband and liked the look of it. i downloaded both, and they seemed to install easily enough but i don't get a couple of things.

i've got unangband vers 0.6.0 beta2 and angband 3.0.6.

i'm not sure which i want to play. unangband i guess as i like the LotR setting and the isometric tiles.

so here's what i'm rambling about:

1) in angband i don't like the way if you go up some stairs and then straight back down again you're in a new dungeon. i thought the Generate dungeons with connected stairs option would govern this but it makes no difference. is this just the way it is and i'm stuck with it? or am i doing something wrong?

2) in unangband if i start to generate a char i get the option of male or female and then it whizzes me straight to hobbiton as an istari. what's wrong there?

sorry if these questions are really basic or i should've found the answers somewhere, but my computer knowledge isn't great and i don't have much spare time with work and family so i was kind of hoping someone would give me a nice easy solution.

cheers.

[Big Al]

1) That's the way it is in Angband and nearly all its variants (including Unangband I think). It's part of the challenge, knowing that anything left on the ground when you leave the level will pretty much be lost forever. The 'connected stairs' option makes it so that if eg. you go down a stair set, you won't land on an up stair on the next level. There are (a few) variants that do keep the previous levels. There is also some way to play with graphical tiles too in vanilla angband, though I'm not quite certain how.

2) The very first time that you started up Unangband, you had a choice of something like "a) never played any 'band variant before, b) never played Unangband before, c) played unangband before". If you picked a) then you go into a kind of "tutorial mode" which automatically chooses an istari since it's the easiest class. As you go farther in the game, more classes and races get unlocked. If you want access to all the races/classes, I think that you'll need to delete the pref files for your user. Keep in mind that Unangband is still beta.

P.S. Angband 3.0.6 is old now - try version 3.0.9.

[Halloween Jack]

great. that makes sense. i'll give the tutorial a go.

cheers

[andrewdoull]

Originally Posted by Big Al

2) The very first time that you started up Unangband, you had a choice of something like "a) never played any 'band variant before, b) never played Unangband before, c) played unangband before". If you picked a) then you go into a kind of "tutorial mode" which automatically chooses an istari since it's the easiest class. As you go farther in the game, more classes and races get unlocked. If you want access to all the races/classes, I think that you'll need to delete the pref files for your user.

The file you need to delete is startup.prf which will usually be in the lib/user directory.

[andrewdoull]

Originally Posted by Halloween Jack

hi all,

i'm just wondering whether to get into angband. in my wanderings i found unangband and liked the look of it. i downloaded both, and they seemed to install easily enough but i don't get a couple of things.

i've got unangband vers 0.6.0 beta2

You'll want to download a more recent version fairly soon. Links to downloads are available from http://unangband.blogspot.com. However, from reading your other emails, it sounds like you have 0.6.2 as opposed to 0.6.0.

Andrew

[petebull]

Originally Posted by Big Al

2) ... If you want access to all the races/classes, I think that you'll need to delete the pref files for your user.

Nah, just hit '=' on the first question, go to 6) Birth options and switch the first option (birth_beginner) to no, or the third option (birth_first_time) to yes to be asked all the questions again.

[Darkhorde]

I have recently just started about a day ago running a Dunadan Paladin. Soni seen I know runes and it says something about inscribing. How do I go about enchanting or inscribing gear. Thanks for any help.

[backwardsEric]

Originally Posted by Darkhorde

I have recently just started about a day ago running a Dunadan Paladin. Soni seen I know runes and it says something about inscribing. How do I go about enchanting or inscribing gear. Thanks for any help.

You can inscribe an item with the '{' command or remove an inscription you placed with the '}' command. The inscriptions you add are a way of customizing the user interface for interacting with items. Some also use them as a summary of key properties of an item - so a glance at the equipment list or inventory is enough and a look at the detailed object description or the character sheet isn't necessary.

Inscriptions that I use often are

=g

on ammunition (so if I shoot all of it, I still automatically pick it up from the floor) and

@z1

,

@z2

, ... on my most commonly used rods (so the zap command, 'z', will accept a number, '1' in the first example,
to select the rod rather than having to use the letter for the rod's position in the pack). On a spell book, I may use a more involved inscription, like

@m1@b1@G1!k!v!d=g3

for the first spell book. The first part,

@m1@b1@G1

says allow the use of '1' instead of the letter for the pack position with the 'm', 'b', and 'G' commands. The next part,

!k!v!d

gives an extra confirmation prompt if I try to ignore, throw, or drop the book. The last part, which only works with 4.2.1 or later, prevents me from automatically picking up the book if I already have three or more copies.

In vanilla, enchanting items is limited to some scrolls (enchant armor, enchant weapon to-dam, enchant weapon to-hit, and, I suppose, remove curse) and some spells which either have a similar effect to one of those scrolls or which temporarily brand an item for some form of elemental damage.

[Darkhorde]

Thanks much I forgot inscribing on a rogue game was something totally different than enchanting and I stumbled on some scrolls for enchanting weapons to bad the mages blew me to dust.