Light effect stacking?

[Thraalbee]

How does light stack?
I've got a star with +3 radius light + a ring with +4 radius light and I only see five steps in all directions not counting the tile I am standing on.

[Carnivean]

I believe that 5 is the maximum light radius.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Carnivean

I believe that 5 is the maximum light radius.

IMO that's restriction we shouldn't have. There is no point of restricting light radius, if you get lucky enough to get bigger than five radius light then you get lucky with light. Maybe put limit to LoS range.

[mushroom patch]

Light radius is meaningless on the high end anyway. It's such a tiny fraction of total LoS that you need alternative methods of seeing monsters for ranged combat. Indeed, such alternatives are readily available.

Making light meaningful past the early game would require rethinking LoS (not hard: max LoS should be about 10, so that the part of the map that matters fits on a standard terminal) and detection/telepathy effects. Lights should have more interesting effects as well, rather than nonsense like rBlind (a resistance that shouldn't even exist), e.g. no see invisible except from lights and then only in light radius, anti-summoning area effects, etc.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by mushroom patch

Light radius is meaningless on the high end anyway.

I wouldn't say meaningless, just low importance. You need light or magic mapping to see twists in corridors nearby and that sort of things.

[mushroom patch]

The state of design perfection: Everything is the most important thing, except for everything else.

[bio_hazard]

We could have light provide other benefits than just illuminating squares. For example, if light >+4, provide see invisible or passive damage to light sensitive creatures within radius. Or auto-detect traps (whatever happens to traps in 4.1)

[AnonymousHero]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

IMO that's restriction we shouldn't have. There is no point of restricting light radius, if you get lucky enough to get bigger than five radius light then you get lucky with light. Maybe put limit to LoS range.

I was thinking the exact same thing when I actually thought about it after seeing the "5 is max" post.

Light radius of various items/egos could always be tweaked if deemed necessary, but it doesn't seem logical nor necessary (balance-wise) to restrict light radius. Perhaps this is actually just an implementation artifact from when these things took a lot of CPU?

[AnonymousHero]

Originally Posted by bio_hazard

We could have light provide other benefits than just illuminating squares. For example, if light >+4, provide see invisible or passive damage to light sensitive creatures within radius. Or auto-detect traps (whatever happens to traps in 4.1)

One thing I'd be a fan of would be providing fuzzy enemy detection beyond LoS/Light radius, i.e. just show an asterisk (but randomize it slightly so you don't necessarily see it every turn). (Sil has this and it is really brilliant, even though I can't say I like the game itself very much.)

[Tarrasque]

I support removing the max light radius restriction. Light doesn't make that much of a difference, especially past radius 2.

Having darkness that works like negative light could give some more reason to have powerful lights. But even without that I think it's still neat when I get a better light.