Announce: Nethack 0.51

[sephiroth111]

Oh, i forgot to say in my last post: "Thank you for releasing GPA killer version 3.4.3 ...damnit "

seriously, good stuff mate, keep it up.

Edit: oh, is there any reason why you can loot your pet? the little dog was chilling next to me, and i was apparently able to loot him...whatever that means.

 

[Tobriand]

Yeah, speaking of selling, dare I ask how it's done? I can buy stuff easily enough, but couldn't see a sell option...

 

[Dzz]

Yeah, speaking of selling, dare I ask how it's done? I can buy stuff easily enough, but couldn't see a sell option...

Drop what you'd like to sell when you are in a shop.

 

[Ze_ro]

Yeah, speaking of selling, dare I ask how it's done? I can buy stuff easily enough, but couldn't see a sell option...

Just walk into a store and drop whatever you want to sell. The shopkeeper will make you an offer, and if you accept, then the sale is done.

As for the highscore table, I'm not complaining, it's functional. Maybe a gravestone image in the background?

I agree. Aside from the formatting errors (ie, HP numbers not aligned and such), it's just the way the original Nethack did it. Perhaps just have several different info layout options... like by default it might just list your name and character attributes (preferably translated to real words rather than "Fem-Neu-Bar" or whatever), and if you hit L, the layout would switch to just show your name and how you died. Might make things a little less cluttered, if that's a problem.

And ammunition should probably be Quiver or Ammunition/Quiver (you ready things in your quiver)

While we're talking about this option, I think it would be more appropriate to put it in the Wear/Wield menu rather than the Advanced menu. Also, I've recently been expanding my play to include ranged weapons more than I used to, and I've noticed a few problems:

- Whether or not a bow (crossbow, sling, etc) is readied, when you try to fire a weapon, the message always says "Throw" when asking for a direction... so I'm never sure if my character is actually performing archery or just throwing arrows at monsters. I've been able to fire off multiple arrows in the past, so I'm sure I'm not throwing them, but this seems confusing. (Do I have to have the bow as my active weapon? Or will it still have effect as a secondary, unwielded weapon?).
- There's an "autoquiver" option in Nethack that is supposed to attempt to choose a suitable missile to fill your quiver with when you run out of whatever you were firing. Can this be implemented in this port?

I also noticed some bug that happened while teleporting, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was...

Oh, and any chance 0.6 will allow character names longer than 8 characters?

Another nice feature would be for the opening screen to show a list of available saved charactes (maybe using the appropriate tile to show that characters class), which you could just choose without entering a name. I suppose it's easy enough to just use Vol+ to get the name, but it might be a bit easier and more intuitive for new players.

--Zero

 

[Dzz]

While we're talking about this option, I think it would be more appropriate to put it in the Wear/Wield menu rather than the Advanced menu. Also, I've recently been expanding my play to include ranged weapons more than I used to, and I've noticed a few problems:

- Whether or not a bow (crossbow, sling, etc) is readied, when you try to fire a weapon, the message always says "Throw" when asking for a direction... so I'm never sure if my character is actually performing archery or just throwing arrows at monsters. I've been able to fire off multiple arrows in the past, so I'm sure I'm not throwing them, but this seems confusing. (Do I have to have the bow as my active weapon? Or will it still have effect as a secondary, unwielded weapon?).
- There's an "autoquiver" option in Nethack that is supposed to attempt to choose a suitable missile to fill your quiver with when you run out of whatever you were firing. Can this be implemented in this port?

I will rename Ammunition to Quiver and move it to the wear/wield menu.

I'll also look into the other issues you mention here and figure out what's what.

Oh, and any chance 0.6 will allow character names longer than 8 characters?

I suppose so. If the names get too long they will make a mess of the status line given the screen real estate available, but I guess that'll be your choice.

Another nice feature would be for the opening screen to show a list of available saved charactes (maybe using the appropriate tile to show that characters class)

I'm not quite sure about the motivation for this one. Is it really that common to start a character, play half a game, then start another one and abandon that game and keep doing this so many times that you lose track of the characters? It seems quite odd to me. It seems to me that the primary benefit of this would be to make it easier to deal with copies of save files, which isn't something I really want to encourage anyway.

Thanks as always for the comments! I shall work diligently to smooth the rough edges.

 

[Ze_ro]

Oh, and any chance 0.6 will allow character names longer than 8 characters?

I suppose so. If the names get too long they will make a mess of the status line given the screen real estate available, but I guess that'll be your choice.

Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that... I guess this would just leave things open for bug reports of "Long names screw up status line" in the next version.

Another nice feature would be for the opening screen to show a list of available saved charactes (maybe using the appropriate tile to show that characters class)

I'm not quite sure about the motivation for this one. Is it really that common to start a character, play half a game, then start another one and abandon that game and keep doing this so many times that you lose track of the characters?

Well, most of the time I play, I just start a character and play them until they die (which doesn't take very long at all ), and then turn off the system... I figure something like this would be nice for situations where more than one person uses the system though.

--Zero

 

[Kannibaal]

Thanks!

What mechanism do you use to lock a box? (Just want to make sure that this port hasn\'t accidentally made it impossible)...

Maybe locking is the wrong word. when you put something in a chest or box the lid will close prohibiting other creatures to get something out.

If you put something in a icebox it will delay the decay of food..

When I have time I will check if you can close the chest with a key (apply key is already functional for other uses)

As far as I know all the options are now set up to accommodate the beginning user. Maybe an advanced user from the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethack could shine a light on some advanced keycombo\'s used in the later part of the game?

Marco

 

[Dzz]

Maybe locking is the wrong word. when you put something in a chest or box the lid will close prohibiting other creatures to get something out.

If you put something in a icebox it will delay the decay of food..

When I have time I will check if you can close the chest with a key (apply key is already functional for other uses)

As far as I know all the options are now set up to accommodate the beginning user. Maybe an advanced user from the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethack could shine a light on some advanced keycombo\'s used in the later part of the game?

Marco

Thanks! I looked into it a bit last night and everything should be fine. I've streamlined and fixed some issues with dealing with boxes a bit.

On a different matter, on the archive site Magnulus commented that the save speed is slow. I agree that it is annoying on slow SD cards. On fast cards it seems to be pretty good though. I don't see any really horrible stuff in the code but will make an effort to see if there is something I can do about it.

 

[DaveN]

And another 2 bugs, the first one is minor but the second one could stop you from beeing able to complete the game:

After selecting the Spell/Wand you'd like to use ( in the 'Zap Wand' and 'Cast Spell' actions ) even if the white box at the top says 'X to cancel' X will still zap the wand/cast the spell.

----------------------------

I'm trying to cast the spell 'Sleep' on myself. So there would be the option to cast it at a wall and let it bounce back. You could also cast in on the floor or at the ceiling and it will bounce back. But if you cast it on yourself ( by selecting the square you're on and pressing B ) it will cast it at the last direction you moved. Try this with a spell that's got a ray which will show the direction. It will be easier to see that it doesn't actually get casted on yourself.
This happens also with wands and maybe with all commands that will force you to select a target direction.

​

I hope these bugs will be easy to squash and that this will be done in the next version.

 

[Dzz]

And another 2 bugs, the first one is minor but the second one could stop you from beeing able to complete the game:

After selecting the Spell/Wand you'd like to use ( in the 'Zap Wand' and 'Cast Spell' actions ) even if the white box at the top says 'X to cancel' X will still zap the wand/cast the spell.

----------------------------

I'm trying to cast the spell 'Sleep' on myself. So there would be the option to cast it at a wall and let it bounce back. You could also cast in on the floor or at the ceiling and it will bounce back. But if you cast it on yourself ( by selecting the square you're on and pressing B ) it will cast it at the last direction you moved. Try this with a spell that's got a ray which will show the direction. It will be easier to see that it doesn't actually get casted on yourself.
This happens also with wands and maybe with all commands that will force you to select a target direction.

​

I hope these bugs will be easy to squash and that this will be done in the next version.

Thanks again for your help! Without this feedback this stuff would never get fixed!

In the first case, the you can press X to cancel in the targeting mode but you'll still get a message like "the magical energy is released!" or "the wand glows and fades". This is normal NetHack activity... if you cancel at that point the wand is discharged or the spell points are lost, but there is no effect. That's the behavior I see; if you're getting something different please let me know but I can't reproduce the wand or spell firing normally when canceled. It sucks that you can't truly cancel it by that point but I guess the idea is that you've already lit the fuse and it's too late to fully cancel it.

Thanks for the heads-up on the second issue, it shall be fixed in 0.6. In the meantime a workaround is to always move the cursor then move it back to target yourself (instead of just not moving the cursor at all).

 

[Muncher666]

Hey Dzz,

Couple of small quips - first up, is there any way to change the 'Select a Direction' bit back to the way it was, without a selection box? It's more accurate sure, but as an advanced user used to playing it with a keyboard I was quite comfortable with the setup it was in earlier, as I have a tendency to kick in a lot of doors. In fact this particular interface change quite put me off the quite promising Vulture's Eye.

Second, is there a way to change the background on certain tilesets to straight black? I really like the fake ansi tilesets and such but the light grey background I find quite distracting. I imagine all I have to do is fiddle with a tileset.

BTW, I'm not being critical (he's busy doing an Amiga emulator) - I really am impressed with ol' Nethack.

Allan.

 

[Dzz]

Hey Dzz,

Couple of small quips - first up, is there any way to change the 'Select a Direction' bit back to the way it was, without a selection box? It's more accurate sure, but as an advanced user used to playing it with a keyboard I was quite comfortable with the setup it was in earlier, as I have a tendency to kick in a lot of doors. In fact this particular interface change quite put me off the quite promising Vulture's Eye.

Second, is there a way to change the background on certain tilesets to straight black? I really like the fake ansi tilesets and such but the light grey background I find quite distracting. I imagine all I have to do is fiddle with a tileset.

BTW, I'm not being critical (he's busy doing an Amiga emulator) - I really am impressed with ol' Nethack.

Allan.

Thanks for the comments and all your help in the past!

I will think on the best way to accomodate the "fast" direction selection desire.

For the tile sets, the four bottommost pixels of the last column have special meaning. The most extreme bottom-right pixel color is used for the background (where "background" means areas with no tiles drawn in them). So just edit the picture and change the color of that pixel to one you like better.

 

[semyaza]

I quite like the direction box as I havnt got used to the stick and find myself going the wrong way and I play quite slowly so it's nice to see which way I have aimed. So this would need to be a preference to suit.

Still a great port though.

This may seem a daft question with all of nethack's complexities, but why would you cast sleep on yourself?

 

[Magnulus]

I enjoy the new direction chooser myself, but I'd personally like to see it taken even further for some aspects like when I'm shooting things. It feels logical for me to be able to shoot at ANYTHING that I have a clear path to, not just the things that are in a 45 or 90 degree relation to me. I think it's in ADOM and Angband you can choose the object you're throwing at instead of just a general direction. I don't mind it being "slow", because it's not really that much slower.

 

[Kannibaal]

I enjoy the new direction chooser myself, but I'd personally like to see it taken even further for some aspects like when I'm shooting things. It feels logical for me to be able to shoot at ANYTHING that I have a clear path to, not just the things that are in a 45 or 90 degree relation to me. I think it's in ADOM and Angband you can choose the object you're throwing at instead of just a general direction. I don't mind it being "slow", because it's not really that much slower.

I think that will require a change in the core nethack files. So if nethack gets updated then all kind of patches need to be reapplied to make it work again on the GP2X. So if the core program does not support it then it will not be supported (correct me if i'm wrong on this though)

There is still a DEV-Team actively working on nethack. If you go to www.nethack.org you'll see all the open bugs and that they are fixed. But the fixed version with added functionality is not released yet. By the way, any new version can take years to be released. :blink:

Marco

 

[Daid]

You're right about the core stuff Kannibaal.

I would like the direction selected to pop back into center possition when you release the stick. So that it simply follows the direction of your stick instead of moving single squares at a time.

 

[DaveN]

I would like the direction selected to pop back into center possition when you release the stick. So that it simply follows the direction of your stick instead of moving single squares at a time.

That could be a problem with the gp2x stick. I mean, it isn't guaranteed that the user will be able to 'slide' into the diagonals. I mean, there are a lot of different gp2x's with different sticks out there and with this method it is sure that everybody can select the diagonals easily.

And also, imho the current system works fantastic.

And to the choose the target not the direction thing; that will change nethack and no this port. There's been a team behind this game that really thought out how it should work, it's been in development for over 10 years now, and I'm sure even this change of the core will change the fairness, some gameplay mechanics etc. It just won't be the fantastic nethack anymore.

 

[Megagun]

Whoa, really nice port. Very intuitive, fluid and overall nice (even graphics-wise!) menu system. Dare I say better than the original Nethack "got to remember the keys" system... I love the Actions menu.. Brilliant.

However, I did get the thing to lock up on me for quite a few times already, though. Mostly when trying to change tileset or when going downstairs. It locked up, allowed me to open up menus, but that was it.. Really awkward. Also, it was kind of sad since I was finally able to save my little dog up until the 3rd level (I always either lose the dog and/or get it killed (for example by a rock trap)) and then it crashed. However, this crashing might be due to me accidently overwriting the 0.51 version over an older version. Don't know if I did that (I premade my SD card before actually getting the GP2x, so that might be the case), but I've deleted and reinstalled the thing now, and I'll try and see if I can make it crash later today.

Thanks for such a great Nethack port, though. It was one of the things that made me REALLY want a GP2x.

 

[Magnulus]

See, I -told- you it was awesome!
Congrats on getting your Gippex, Mega!

 

[Dzz]

Whoa, really nice port. Very intuitive, fluid and overall nice (even graphics-wise!) menu system. Dare I say better than the original Nethack "got to remember the keys" system... I love the Actions menu.. Brilliant.

However, I did get the thing to lock up on me for quite a few times already, though. Mostly when trying to change tileset or when going downstairs. It locked up, allowed me to open up menus, but that was it.. Really awkward. Also, it was kind of sad since I was finally able to save my little dog up until the 3rd level (I always either lose the dog and/or get it killed (for example by a rock trap)) and then it crashed. However, this crashing might be due to me accidently overwriting the 0.51 version over an older version. Don't know if I did that (I premade my SD card before actually getting the GP2x, so that might be the case), but I've deleted and reinstalled the thing now, and I'll try and see if I can make it crash later today.

Thanks for such a great Nethack port, though. It was one of the things that made me REALLY want a GP2x.

Please let me know if you continue to have any problems. The crash recover should extract you from the difficulties. If you do get another crash, could you save off the 1lock.* files and send them to me along with a description of what you were doing when the crash occurred? dzz@gp2xgamer.com

Thanks!