[ANNOUNCE] PosBand-0.2.0alpha3

[uav]

PosBand 0.2.0-alpha3 is available at:

http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/posband-0.2.0-alpha3.tar.bz2 (Sources, 1.1M)
http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/posband-0.2.0-alpha3-cygwin.zip (Windows build)
http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/patch-0.2.0-a2-a3.diff.bz2 (Source patch, 64k)

Please note! PosBand has now new home page:

http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/

It is now located at Orthanc, Russian Angband site. Many thanks to Ilya Bely
for hosting PosBand!

My new e-mail (for PosBand):

posband AT chat DOT ru

***@urmail.ru also works, but I'll probably change my provider soon
(remember troubles with alpha2), so use the new address, unless you have
something not *band-related.

I'm terribly sorry for leaving everyone without new release for a month. You
might think I'm doing something huge, when actually I'm not. It is just one
more bugfix+few new races release. I have another project to work at this
summer, so PosBand won't change a lot for a while. Randart descriptions are
still not working properly.

New features:

* New races:

- Shadow Dragon. Everyone likes dragons -- here is the
undead variation! Progression: Shadow drake --> Death
drake --> Dracolich. Shadow Dragon is an undead and
has the same immunities/vulnerabilities as the Lich.
Shadow/death drakes are immaterial. They can breath
pure fear, nether and darkness. Death drakes can force
weaker living creatures to do their bidding ("charm"
actually, but I don't think this is the right term
here). Dracoliches can breathe cold and mana as well,
and summon undead dragons as pets. Shadow dragons
(except the dracolich form) are physically weaker than
other dragons, and their powers stat is INT.
King monster - The Shadow of Glaurung (can be generated
only if Glaurung is dead).
- Skeleton. Classical undead warrior. The main power is
absorbing skeletons and bones of another (dead) creatures.
That heals them for (creature level) * 5 HPs. Only actual
skeletons and bones are usable for this; you cannot
extract bones from the corpse (too complicated for the
poor brainless thing :). Other powers - super-attack,
remembrance, resistance. Power stat is STR. King is
Cantoras.

* Monster will not receive rewards they have no slots for, even if
that item is not tailored.
* Messed with pet AI even more. In particular, if a monster
successfully sleeps, confuses or scares another monster, it picks
another target for itself -- the previous target is neutralized,
fighting it is pointless (especially for sleep).
* You can now set pet's allowed spells via 'y' menu. There are six
spell groups: innate ranged attacks (missiles/breathes),
offensive spells (bolts/beams/balls), teleportation spells,
spells with a saving throw, summoning spells and mass summoning
spells. No more pets teleporting away in the middle of battle.
No more pet Great Hell Wyrms wasting time in confusing and scaring
kobolds.
* New news.txt design. No, I'm no ascii-artist, sorry.
* Monster race spoilers (the progression part) are now generated
by a special Python script. No more lags in updating it.
And I finally learned that damned language everyone's keep talking
about :-). (BTW, great thing -- I wrote that script in just three
hours without any previous knowledge of Python!)
* Added new item: Shadow Dragon Scale Mail (RNether+RDark+RCold+
RPois; activates for breathing Nether/Dark/Cold, dam 400,
recharge 300+d300; rarity - as Chaos DSM; zero weight, zero
base AC (base AC enchantment +25)).

Bugfixes:

* Chaos Dragons had 350% exp penalty...which was truncated to 94%.
200% now, more reasonable as well.
* "Failed a quest to kill 0 <player>".
* Screenshots were created with "NPPAngband" meta generator field.
(Thanks to Jeff Greene)
* main-ros.c contained NPP references as well. Although I don't
think anybody dares to compile Pos for RISC OS. Not an alpha
version, at least.
* Create darkness monsters' spell always darkened the area near
player, no matter where the monster was and who was its real
target.
* When pets killed monsters, experience fractions (for player)
were not taken into account, leading e.g. to Qs unable to earn
any XP for pet kills worth less that 2 xp.
(Thanks to Hugo Kornelis)
* The message about the king unique presence could be generated
when the actual unique failed to generate.
* Randart rings with (+0) pval could sometimes be generated.
* Player's weight changed to 16-bit value (from 8-bit), so giants
are not lighter than my girlfriend now :-).
* Lowered the exp cost of the Guardian of Chaos -- he was worth
more than Morgoth! Although it is a VERY tough opponent.
* SP are not displayed now if player has no powers.
* Monsters can now teleport away each other.

Thanks to Polarhound for reporting most of these bugs.

0.2.0-alpha{1,2} savefiles are compatible.

I will probably give up Angband-R (Russian localisation) at all. I get very
little feedback, and I don't feel like making 3.0.5r.

[Polarhound]

Upon startup:

Unknown artifact creation 'NETHER_STORM'. Error at line 315 of
'uniq_art.txt'

Record 19 contains a 'parse error' error. Parsing 'A:NETHER_STORM'.

Error in 'uniq_art.txt' file.

Program quits.

This was after overwriting 0.2.0b with 0.2.0c in the same directory.

Installing in a fresh directory and copying save files results in normal
startup.

[Polarhound]

Post by Polarhound
Unknown artifact creation 'NETHER_STORM'. Error at line 315 of
'uniq_art.txt'
Record 19 contains a 'parse error' error. Parsing 'A:NETHER_STORM'.
Error in 'uniq_art.txt' file.
Program quits.
This was after overwriting 0.2.0b with 0.2.0c in the same directory.
Installing in a fresh directory and copying save files results in normal
startup.

Also, for Q balancing, I would suggest allowing demon
summoners/commanders to be summoned earlier.
manes/lemures/homonculus/tengus just don't cut it past about 800'.

[uav]

Post by Polarhound

Post by Polarhound
Unknown artifact creation 'NETHER_STORM'. Error at line 315 of
'uniq_art.txt'
Record 19 contains a 'parse error' error. Parsing 'A:NETHER_STORM'.
Error in 'uniq_art.txt' file.
Program quits.
This was after overwriting 0.2.0b with 0.2.0c in the same directory.
Installing in a fresh directory and copying save files results in normal
startup.

Did you use old posband.exe? The new executable is angband.exe.
Sorry, compiled alpha3 for Windows in a hurry, forgot to rename.

Post by Polarhound
Also, for Q balancing, I would suggest allowing demon
summoners/commanders to be summoned earlier.
manes/lemures/homonculus/tengus just don't cut it past about 800'.

Perhaps I should make a TODO list :).

[Polarhound]

Post by uav

Post by Polarhound

Post by Polarhound
Unknown artifact creation 'NETHER_STORM'. Error at line 315 of
'uniq_art.txt'
Record 19 contains a 'parse error' error. Parsing 'A:NETHER_STORM'.
Error in 'uniq_art.txt' file.
Program quits.
This was after overwriting 0.2.0b with 0.2.0c in the same directory.
Installing in a fresh directory and copying save files results in normal
startup.

Did you use old posband.exe? The new executable is angband.exe.
Sorry, compiled alpha3 for Windows in a hurry, forgot to rename.

Post by Polarhound
Also, for Q balancing, I would suggest allowing demon
summoners/commanders to be summoned earlier.
manes/lemures/homonculus/tengus just don't cut it past about 800'.

Perhaps I should make a TODO list :).

Here's another one to add: Make *I* scrolls a bit more common in the
BM. As of right now I have 3 randarts that I can't *I* as I can't
really power-dive with a Q.

[Harriet Bazley]

On 24 Jul 2004 as I do recall,
uav wrote:
[snip]

Post by uav
* main-ros.c contained NPP references as well. Although I don't
think anybody dares to compile Pos for RISC OS. Not an alpha
version, at least.

Apparently not. :-(

[Polarhound]

PLEASE fix the mob issues.

I just tried 15 dark elves in a row, and every single one got killed
because of rat/worm mobs going out of control.

[Arturus Magi]

From: uav ***@urmail.ru
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 21:12:42 +0000 (UTC)

Post by uav
http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/posband-0.2.0-alpha3-cygwin.zip (Windows build)

Since the Windows build doesn't require Cygwin, it might be advisable to remove
the reference to it (outside of makefile.cyg and other source compiling
references, of course).

Compiling with gcc -mno-cygwin (as makefile.cyg does, or at least did in
alpha2) uses the minGW gcc port as it's compiler, which has the end result of a
msvcrt-based build, just as if it were compiled in MS Visual C.

[uav]

Post by Arturus Magi
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 21:12:42 +0000 (UTC)

Post by uav
http://orthanc.chat.ru/pos/posband-0.2.0-alpha3-cygwin.zip (Windows build)

Since the Windows build doesn't require Cygwin, it might be advisable to remove
the reference to it (outside of makefile.cyg and other source compiling
references, of course).
Compiling with gcc -mno-cygwin (as makefile.cyg does, or at least did in
alpha2) uses the minGW gcc port as it's compiler, which has the end result of a
msvcrt-based build, just as if it were compiled in MS Visual C.

Yes. I know. I just though I might have legal problems otherwise.
Uses msvcrt -> presumably built with MSVC. And my copy of MSVC
was bought for $2. And someone could notice tha.......
NO CARRIER

[Arturus Magi]

From: uav ***@urmail.ru
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:47:49 +0000 (UTC)

Post by uav
Yes. I know. I just though I might have legal problems otherwise.
Uses msvcrt -> presumably built with MSVC.

I know at least one non-MS compiler uses msvcrt. It *is* a core Windows
component, and one of the few redistributable ones at that (along with
vbrun*.dll, although those aren't of any use to people that don't use Visual
'Basic').

The only Windows C compilers I know of that don't use msvcrt are the
Cygwin-port of gcc (which uses newlib), and one of the third party compilers,
which uses a port of glibc.

Post by uav
And my copy of MSVC
was bought for $2. And someone could notice tha.......

I have a legal copy that cost me $0 (a student edition of MSVC6, which
technically means I'm not allowed to distribute anything compiled with it, but
noone's ever been hassled about it before).

[uav]

Post by Arturus Magi
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:47:49 +0000 (UTC)

Post by uav
Yes. I know. I just though I might have legal problems otherwise.
Uses msvcrt -> presumably built with MSVC.

I know at least one non-MS compiler uses msvcrt. It *is* a core Windows
component, and one of the few redistributable ones at that (along with
vbrun*.dll, although those aren't of any use to people that don't use Visual
'Basic').
The only Windows C compilers I know of that don't use msvcrt are the
Cygwin-port of gcc (which uses newlib), and one of the third party compilers,
which uses a port of glibc.

Okay, if there's no problem, I guess I can remove '-cygwin' part
and stop confusing users :).

Post by Arturus Magi

Post by uav
And my copy of MSVC
was bought for $2. And someone could notice tha.......

I have a legal copy that cost me $0 (a student edition of MSVC6, which
technically means I'm not allowed to distribute anything compiled with it, but
noone's ever been hassled about it before).

Well, you never know...

[Neodymium]

In 2101, war was beginning and we got signal. In

Post by Arturus Magi
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:47:49 +0000 (UTC)

Post by uav
Yes. I know. I just though I might have legal problems otherwise.
Uses msvcrt -> presumably built with MSVC.

I know at least one non-MS compiler uses msvcrt. It *is* a core Windows
component, and one of the few redistributable ones at that (along with
vbrun*.dll, although those aren't of any use to people that don't use
Visual 'Basic').

You misslepped 'Bletch'. HTH.

[uav]

On 2004-07-24 23:12:42, uav <***@urmail.ru> wrote:

[snip]

Post by uav
posband AT chat DOT ru

[snip]

It looks like mail server at chat.ru doesn't work, and I have
no idea when it will be up again. Please write to old
e-mail (uav AT urmail DOT ru). Sorry if your mail was lost.