Messages

31

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Allure of the Stars/LambdaHack 0.5.0.0 are out, open, supported (Haskell/ASCII)

« on: August 02, 2015, 12:46:23 PM »

Allure of the Stars, the Sci-Fi squad roguelike game, with source and binaries

https://github.com/AllureOfTheStars/Allure/releases/tag/v0.5.0.0

(screenshots: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Allure_of_the_Stars)

and its free software engine in Haskell (with it's own little game)

https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/releases/tag/v0.5.0.0

(screenshots: http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=LambdaHack)

are out, ready for your tinkering, the API is frozen, the branch will be bugfixed and supported for some time.

Enjoy!

P.S. Windows and Linux binaries are included, but OSX binaries would be very much appreciated as well.

32

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 29, 2015, 11:43:27 AM »

Actually, I've just added a few more tactics, which can be changed with Ctrl-T during a game, as opposed to being set for the whole game in content. One of them makes your followers ignore all items. Another lets your henchmen only melee, yet another only melee and throw (both are useful, e.g, when setting an ambush around a staircase, otherwise the henchmen crowd over staircases or just wander away). Unfortunately, the tactics change UI is still very cumbersome, contributions welcome.

33

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 28, 2015, 08:34:16 AM »

I don't mind if henchmen are doing these tasks by themselves. In case they find something that I would rather have on leader, I can always later manually move it.

Sure, but when you switch the leader to another actor, the previous one can spontaneously decide to get rid of that item and/or equip other items.
Another solution would be to let player mark items with an inscription {henchmen off} so that the henchmen AI knows it may not touch them. Post-5.0.

This one I haven't done yet, but should. Does weight of a thrown object affect to damage or distance any way? Or would it be better if I would assing maluses to very heavy weapons?

The weight only affects the distance of throwing. Additionally LH melee weapons have attributes like 'toVelocity 40' in their ifeature field that limit the throwing velocity further. But, e.g., a dagger realistically can be thrown quite far. OTOH, not being balanced for throwing, it can hit with the wrong side, so additionally I add 'AddHurtRanged (-60)', which makes it as weak as a dart, but travelling much slower and closer. That balanced well with the durability, I guess, so the darts are not made obsolete once you find a few daggers.

34

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 28, 2015, 12:19:13 AM »

Thank you again for the report. It's fixed now on branch master. I couldn't reproduce it, because I never use the 'e' command available when the game shows me the description of an item (the noun-verb command). Instead I use the standalone 'e' command and only then pick the item to equip, changing display modes as needed (this is the verb-noun command).

BTW, you probably noticed that your henchmen (non-leaders) sometimes move items from equipment to pack, etc. Would you perhaps prefer to reserve such item management for yourself and only allow them to autonomously pick up items? Or perhaps you'd prefer to only pick up items with your leader? If the former, I'd need to separate the picking up skill from the current item management skill, so this is post-0.5. The latter can already be accomplished by changing fskillsOther of playerHero.

Another thing: I just remembered that the ranged damage bonus (AddHurtRange) aspect only applies to the item in question, not to other items. The aspect comes into play only when the item is used as a missile. The logic is that when the missile hits, bonuses are calculated as if the missile actor hit the target actor in melee. The only tweak is that, instead of the melee damage bonus, the ranged damage bonus is taken into account. In the future, when missiles comprise of many parts, the bonuses of all the parts will naturally be taken into account, since all the parts are carried by the missile actor.

That's different than for AddHurtMelee and AddArmor*, which are summed over all items of the original actor, as can be seen in the ! screen. That's intentional, only the bonuses on the ammo and perhaps on the launcher should affect the ranged damage, which otherwise easily gets overpowered and also induces equipment micromanagement when switching from ranged to melee combat and back again. (That's also how, e.g., Angband does it.) I wonder how to prevent confusion both in the UI, the player guide and in the content code naming. Perhaps when launchers are added to the game this will settle down and become clearer, but I'm open to suggestions already.

So, items that add AddHurtRange are useless in equipment, they can as well be kept in the pack and thrown when appropriate.

This is also why I have huge AddHurtRange maluses on the melee weapons in LH --- this prevents their use as super-ammo (they have large damage dice and they are durable, unlike normal ammo). And, OTOH, this doesn't affect other items, so keeping them in equipment doesn't make other ammo weaker.

35

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 27, 2015, 08:31:04 AM »

Bummer, I cannot reproduce the problem even with exactly the engine version you indicated. Could you send to mikolaj.konarski@funktory.com all the data you have, including a savegame (the whole saves/ directory to be sure), if you can reproduce (or just seeds if you manage to reproduce with automated tests)? Thank you.

Edit: I reproduced this using the command I never use normally: the 'e' command available when the game shows me the description of an item.

36

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 26, 2015, 10:04:17 PM »

Created some more books that can be used to boost your stats. One such is book of close combat, that gives 3% damage to close combat, but 3% penalty to ranged one.

Fun stuff, as well as the librarian that often carries those. From my experience in my games (but YMMV), 3% bonus to damage dealt is not worth an equipment slot, and if there's a penalty, it's not even worth the turn spent picking it up. OTOH, if you scale up the bonus and the malus, players may be tempted to wear some items for melee combat and take them off for ranged combat. Which may be fun on levels with corridors, where you risk that you start a fight with wrong equipment, but is rather tedius on open levels, where you just need to remember the routine. The joys of endless balancing.

I also noticed a bug in the engine. If your character has maxed equipment (as many items equipped as possible) and you try to equip one more, the game crashes with error message: execFailure: cannot equip any more items

Thanks a lot. Could you give the the git hash (or commit message) of the commit on the LH master branch that you work with? Also did it happen when the player's leader tried to equip, or another player's actor or the AI faction?

LambdaHack has pretty refreshing take on inventory management and used items. I like that I'm able to equip several weapons that boost my stats and use the strongest one in combat.

I'm glad to hear that. The idea was to make the inventory management as automatic as possible, given that the player controls many actors and also given that newbies should be taken care of until they learn to make their own equipment choices (the 'make your own detailed equipment choices' part is partially WIP, e.g., we still don't have a way to order the actor to attack with a particular weapon).

37

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 22, 2015, 06:45:27 PM »

I was experimenting with creation of wands, but didn't manage to do anything useful (I either burned myself with wand of fire or just threw it away). Looking at https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/blob/5476c9352782f6ce688e984673ef06224fef6b04/Game/LambdaHack/Common/Ability.hs I didn't see anything about zapping specifically, so I guess wands aren't currently possible?

Yep, they are incomplete and disabled in the LambdaHack content. The best you can do currently is have multiple copies of a wand instead of wand charges. But the UI still tells you that you 'throw a wand' instead of 'shoot a want' and in the end you have no wands instead of an empty wand with all charges spent, as you would in, e.g., Angband. I'm still undecided if I the two differences are all there should be to wands or if we should somehow make them yet different from a stack of projectiles. Perhaps when we implement your distance cone attacks proposal, etc. that will make it different enough.

OTOH, it's already possible to define fully featured Angband rods that take time to recharge and can be stacked and then the UI should tell you '5 rods, 3 still charging'. I haven't defined any yet, because I prefer one-time items, such as scrolls, potions and flasks, since they are easier to balance (you easily have an interesting decision if you lose the item the moment you apply it; but if you only have to wait for it to recharge, too often the decision is a trivial 'use as often as possible').

Btw, good catch with storm hammer being overpowered. I added a short charging period on it and now it's not as effective at keeping enemies at distance as it was before. I might add some secondary effects on it still, like you have.

Well done. When I had stolen the pushing hammer idea from you, I made it a halberd, and an artifact one. I have no other effects on it (long item descriptions are hard to read and remember). Keep going, I need more ideas to steal.

38

Programming / Re: LambdaHack and new content

« on: May 19, 2015, 10:37:17 AM »

Thank you for asking. These things have changed many times, but now they stabilized as a part of the v0.5 content API, so it's the perfect time to spell them out and see it they make sense.

Especially are aspects of all items that are being carried active or only those that are currently equipped?

The latter. You can verify, using the ! menu, that only aspects of items in equipment (menu E) and among organs (menu @) add up to the total actor stats.

What are EqpSlots used for? For example, ring of Rush has EqpSlot EqpSlotAddSpeed "".

The slots do not influence stats that the item confers.
Slots are used by AI to decide what the main use of an item is. This is not obvious when an item has many aspects and possibly also effects. E.g., the Ring of Rush has a couple of other aspects added to balance it: https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/blob/v0.4.101.1/GameDefinition/Content/ItemKind.hs#L405

Slots are also used by UI to decide whether to put an item in equipment on pickup by default, or not. The user can always override the default or just move the item elsewhere afterwards.

How does rarities work? ItemKind has field rarity that has array of tupples. First value is dungeon level and the second one is rarity.

More precisely, the first value is a level number assuming there are exactly 10 levels.
If there are more, the level number is scaled. E.g., if dungeon has 100 levels, rarity specified as 5 actually refers to level 50. In this ways the same item definitions can be used for dungeons of various sizes.

For levels not mentioned among the rarities, the value is linearly interpolated (always rounding up), assuming that level 0 and level 11 have rarity 0.

But what does rarity 1 or rarity 10 signify?

This is a relative rarity among all items that can be generated at the given level. E.g., on a bookshop level that can only hold "any scroll" items, we consider all items that have "any scroll" in the ifreq field, take the value from that field, multiply it by the rarity at the level depth and then item is picked randomly with this relative frequency. See https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/blob/v0.4.101.1/GameDefinition/Content/ItemKind.hs#L615

39

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaHack/Allure of the Stars (v0.4.101.0 "Officially Fun")

« on: April 18, 2015, 08:09:00 AM »

Just released an official new version v0.4.101.1 of Allure of the Stars:

https://github.com/AllureOfTheStars/Allure/releases/latest

and an updated LambdaHack (the engine and the game), more than ever sternly condoned for your daily intake of official fun:

https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/releases/latest

The next version will be the grand v0.5, but the API is already frozen (won't succumb this time, promise).

Enjoy!

40

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaHack/Allure of the Stars (v0.4.101.0 "Officially Fun")

« on: April 06, 2015, 01:00:10 PM »

hiding in darkness

[...] glad to hear this game is not only amazingly strange but also complex.

If it seem too complex and cryptic, let AI take over (Ctrl-A) and see what it does.
AI is sometimes quite dumb, but at least it knows its goals well
and most of the time reaches them (on easiest difficulty, at least).
In particular, sometimes it uses stealth really competently
(most frequently in the Ambush scenario).

Yes, playing Windows version of Allure from the December link. Anything newer is most welcome

Here you go.

https://github.com/AllureOfTheStars/Allure/releases/tag/v0.4.101.0-rc1

Edit: just replaced the Allure binary with one based on a slightly improved version of LambdaHack library.

41

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaHack/Allure of the Stars (v0.4.101.0 "Officially Fun")

« on: April 04, 2015, 09:21:27 PM »

So, a "decoration robot" just threw a bottle at one of my team making her both drunk and healed,

From your description that obviously matches a flask of whiskey.

then "stomped" her down to death.

Yeah, decoration robots are fast, intelligent and relatively strong.
Their only weakness is that their spotlights make them visible in dark,
so you can easily fight them from a distance, hiding in darkness yourself.
Actually, let me note down the idea for Scrolls of Darkness
because they would be handy in that case (in fully lit levels).

I just love how weird/mad this game is

Thank you.
BTW, you can lower difficulty, there's no shame in that.
E.g., AI (that never cheats) can reasonably often win campaign
only in lowest difficulty.

and thankfully this update sorts out the keyboard "always run" bug - can finally play it properly!

I'm glad to hear that, though if you play on Windows, you need
to use Control instead of Shift for running, because GTK on Windows
just doesn't distinguish keypad keys with and without Shift.
Oh, and you have mouse now, for go-to, aiming and inspecting tiles.

BTW, you must be playing Allure, which will be released in a few weeks
(some balancing still to do; in particular probably too hard).
Did you compile from source? If not, if you are playing a 3-months
old Allure v0.4.100.0, let me make some prerelease binaries of v0.4.101.0
for you. Windows, I presume?

Or you can give the LambdaHack game a go.
The two are diverging more and more. In particular you are safe from
robots in LambdaHack. But rest assured, it's just as mad.

https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/releases/latest

42

Programming / Re: LambdaHack

« on: December 15, 2014, 12:40:35 PM »

tuturto, congratulations, you discovered the first bug in the new release of the engine.

Took me quite some minutes to diagnose, because the code in question is obfuscated by my efforts to remain backward-compatible. Also, you didn't get the line number of the failure, because optimized libraries don't provide that (use 'cabal install LambdaHack -f-release' to get libs for development).

I'm afraid you have to put

Code: [Select]

   , mfreq    = [("campaign", 1), ("starting", 1)]
in GameDefinition/Content/ModeKind.hs. The good part is I'm now able to remove the backward-compatibility cruft, by assuming there's always a "starting" game mode defined in the content.

If you instead insert

Code: [Select]

screensaver = campaign
  { mname   = "campaign screensaver"
  , mfreq   = [ ("starting", 1)]
  , mroster = rosterCampaign
      { rosterList = (head (rosterList rosterCampaign))
                       {fleaderMode = LeaderAI $ AutoLeader False False }
                     : tail (rosterList rosterCampaign)
      }
  }

and add "screensaver" to the 2 lists where currently only "campaign" stands, the executable will by default run in screensaver mode (AI vs AI, you need to remove your save files to see it initially). See if you like it better.

Edit: actually, that you needed 'cabal install LambdaHack -f-release' was a bug. I've just fixed it. But in this case what would really help was a stack trace. For that you need `make install-debug` and then `make xcplay`.

43

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaHack/Allure of the Stars

« on: December 12, 2014, 01:15:12 AM »

Doh, double post. Have a double allowance of fun, then!

44

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: LambdaHack/Allure of the Stars

« on: December 12, 2014, 12:04:17 AM »

The unexpectedly extensive updates of LambdaHack

https://github.com/LambdaHack/LambdaHack/releases/tag/v0.4.100.0

and Allure of the Stars

https://github.com/AllureOfTheStars/Allure/releases/tag/v0.4.100.0

are finally out!

Linux and Windows binaries are ready and should be easy to run.
Source code is free, heroes are alert, monsters and aliens are uncowed.

Credit (or blame) for such a big stack of changes before v0.5 goes to tuturto, for suggesting a timeout on hammers of pushing and requesting a timed effect for drinking (or neglecting to drink) the daily allowance of piratey grog. It turned out both could be easily implemented using the same basic mechanism, without resorting to a post-v5.0 FRP-style rewrite. However, the mechanism proved so much fun that the games now have lots of new items, a totally revamped balance and a quite changed AI. I'm also ashamed to admit, the content API of the engine is rather incompatible with v0.4.99.0 despite my solemn promises. But since the content is extensively rewritten to match the new item effects and AI behaviour,, the API seems the least of the engine users' and other piratey types' problems.

Enjoy!

45

Programming / Re: LambdaHack

« on: September 11, 2014, 07:44:22 AM »

I think I would wait for timed effects and have a privateers who is somewhat drunk to have advantage in combat. Could even add more alcoholic beverages with slightly varying effects and alcohol content.

That one slowly turns into a PEGI (ESRB) 21+ game.

Currently calm affects if character can access to shared cache or use potions. Mikon, was there anything else that it affects?

Indeed, Calm below 2/3 of max inhibits any item manipulation involving the shared stash.
Also, summoning depends on and uses up Calm. Current Calm also bounds the sight radius.
And a nasty effect: at Calm 0, when an actor is impressed by enemies, he defects.

In the future there may be one or two more effects, but I think especially the last
one is grave enough, though not trivial to figure out in casual games. Perhaps I should
mention Calm in the message about the actor defecting. Anyway, it only happens in games
that have enough items (or organs) that impress enemies (or oneself).