jcj (11/28/82)
Hi, I'm new on the net; we just hooked up to cbosgd (Columbus Bell) here at
osu-dbs (The Ohio State Univeristy DataBase Systems Research Laboratory).
Beforehand, I started hacking rogue a few months ago. I've been busy with
other things since mid-September, but hope to continue where I left off now.
However, I found this nifty newsgroup talking about the things I've been
doing and I thought I should let you know and ask for opinions....
PLANNED:
Options loaded from a file (can't get ROGUEOPTS variable to work.)
Some monsters will be given bows and allowed to shoot arrows at you.
Now that potion throwing works, you will be given vials of oil and
something to light them, so that monsters can be burnt.
After that, it will be required to prevent trolls from regenerating.
Then, monster carcases will be retained on the screen as lower case
letters instead of magically vanishing.
And, arrows will remain in the carcass for retrievable and reuse,
but sometimes will be broken or disappeared.
POSSIBLE:
Multiple character parties (ala real D&D.)
NOW:
AC armor classes are normalized, so better is higher. (lower is better is
an historical archaism retained from D&D which retained it from some-
thing else even older.) R (rust monster) cannot rust leather armor,
and I even allow studs mounted in leather to save v acid if magicked.
CONT any of space, cr, lf, esc or ctl/g continue from a --more-- line.
However, since the keypad is read as "meta-characters" (ala Emacs),
to continue via esc another char must follow.
CTLG replaces esc as the char to cancel something (ala Emacs) and is and
is becoming available in more situations than you could cancel before.
DIAGONAL The diagonal option allows you and the monster to move diagonally
thru doorways and around corners in passages. (You must take a full
step back into a passage to reduce number of monsters who can get at
you, instead of just standing in the doorway.)
ESC For the keypad esc must be followed by one or two characters, which are
either used or ignored. If you really try you can get out-of-sync with
the command reader, but one or two ^C^G (quit-abort) interrupts should
fix this. Complain with details if it doesn't.
F The 'f' command is now fire. (The old one is now 'g' for goto.)
This will fire an appropriate missile from the current weapon, or
select the proper weapon and fire it. (Pack order affects this.)
G The goto option makes all directions not 'g' (nee 'f') prefaced con-
tinue motion until something is encountered. A 'g' preface will cancel
this effect for the single following motion. The '.' on the keypad
(and also on the keyboard to avoid confusion) is an alias for 'g' for
the convenience of keypad users.
KEYPAD The keypad option allows use of the numeric keypad on a VT52 or VT100
to enter directions of motion or fire. Motion continued into/onto an
object, monster,... works with the shifted keypad the same as shifted
hjkl's. The old motion commands still work. +, =, lf, cr, or enter
move forward one step. -, _, bs, or 0 move backward one step.
The keypad is used in alternate mode and generates "meta-characters".
PFkeys are not yet used (suggestions welcome).
MISSILES When a missile strikes a monster it disappears iff a potion or
a launchable missile (arrow, bolt, rock) or dart. Everything else
falls to the floor unless there's no room for it to bounce.
O The new 'O' command sets one option from the following list:
a askme d diagonal f fight-flush
g goto j jump k keypad
s slow-inventory t terse
POTIONS may be thrown at monsters and affect them. The effect is like what
you would have experienced if you'd drank it, including raise level.
To let you hold a few more of these I've made the pack 24 items big,
and I am thinking about ways to reorganize it and take encumbrance
into better account.
BUGS FIXED:
In our distributed version 3.6 (mctesq), when a missile struck a
monster all pointers to it were discarded but the space it was using
was not properly freed.
NEW BUGS:
Unknown.