PRIME 2.2 (27th March 2013)

[jim]

I have one suggestion, and for all I know it may be heresy. If so, forgive me.

I have finally given PRIME the time it deserves and it is awesome. However, I would really, really, REALLY like a quick way to switch between melee and ranged (or item 1 and 2) with a single keypress, without setting up a macro or whatever. This is assuming that you don't want to have someone equip a ranged and melee item at the same time. It is frustrating to have to switch back and forth between my lock-shooter and my mop, and since PRIME requires this sort of switching constantly, I feel that the process should be more streamlined.

[guest509]

  You are more advanced that I am Jim. I've yet to outlive my ammo. I play Space Marine.

[Ancient]

Name: Pesky Reticulans, Improvements, Moar Everything
Synopsis: Hacklike roguelike game with all kinds of aliens.
Version 2.0 (release #16) published 18th September 2012

DOWNLOAD: Windows --- Linux 32 bit --- Linux 64 bit --- Source code
Website: http://arcywidmo.republika.pl/prime/

I have one suggestion, and for all I know it may be heresy. If so, forgive me.

Hmm, developers here have strong grasp on how PRIME should be developed but this disclaimer seems a bit overblown.

I would really, really, REALLY like a quick way to switch between melee and ranged (or item 1 and 2) with a single keypress, without setting up a macro or whatever.

The switch to prepared from current weapon like NetHack does or switch from item keyed as 'a' to 'b like Crawl'. Plus vice versa of course. A great idea. Has been put on to-do list with high priority.

This is assuming that you don't want to have someone equip a ranged and melee item at the same time.

We can't do that really. There is no clear distinction what is ranged and melee weapon. There are items that have both qualities. Combi-stick and Smart-Disc spring to mind.

It is frustrating to have to switch back and forth between my lock-shooter and my mop, and since PRIME requires this sort of switching constantly, I feel that the process should be more streamlined.

True. I prefer to kick the lock door open as a janitor but once you have pea shooter it is good not to lose health to door kicking.

[getter77]

BUG FIXES:
- Look command exits also on enter, space and rest. [Hero.cpp, Interface.cpp]
- Reticulan zap baton could cause floating point error. [Weapon.cpp]
- Mental blast also angers peacefuls. [Mutant.cpp]
- Melee attacks name the attacker correctly while blind. [Fight.cpp]
- Object detection reports quantities while blind. [FloppyDisk.cpp]
- Armor subclass corrected for advanced bio armors. [LoreHelp.cpp]
CHANGES:
- God mode renamed to BOFH mode. [God.cpp -> BOFH.cpp, other files]
- History extended to 300 lines. [Interface.cpp, Interface.h]
- High score table extended to 100 entries. [Tombstone.cpp]
ADDITIONS:
- Necklace of the Eye support! WOOT! [many]
- Equippy chars from Angband. [Interface.cpp]
- Damage dealt is shown. [Creature.cpp, Fight.cpp]

Very nice gains here in the land of v2.0---the momentum continues to surge!   

[Ancient]

I have learned to edit RogueBasin first and post announcement later. It turns out it is not enough to deter Getter from reminding us (or in this case doing it for us) to do something important. Kudos!

If this was not apparent we lost the momentum somewhat. However, everything is hopeful. NotEye has been integrated and adding improvements and features to graphical interface will be as smooth as adding to core game.

[getter77]

No problem---and don't lose heart:  Momentum of Timed Frequency and Momentum of Weight of Actions are not one and the same, even just the NotEye goodies and Damage dealt shown are excellent denizens of the latter type.

The timewarp is a sight to behold coming together....just a matter of time until Laserdiscs and Tracker Music make it into the game such that an amalgam of 80's/90's pulp and popular sci-fi warps and folds in on itself so hard that awesome is created outright.   

[guest509]

  I just had my funnest game evar! Thanks for the new release.

[El Barto]

Congrats for the new release!
Unfortunately you were right, the new build system has introduced a few quirks in the compilation under osx lion, I'm struggling a bit to iron them.
The juicy changelog is a good incentive, and, well, roguelikes teach persistency

edit:
it compiles, finally.
99% of the problems were bound to the lack of support on osx of noteye.
After a few tests (install the exact versions of lua (the 5.1 one) it wants, playing with the SDL settings, changing the (linux) #includes of pty.h in their equivalent under osx (that is util.h)), I give up on fixing this.
So goodbye noteye, I think it's better to fallback to Good Old ASCII
By changing a few lines in the makefile, in order to NOT include
NEMenu.cpp
NEUI.*
prime compiles with some warning, mainly about global.h.
These warnings were present in the previous versions too, although I didn't check if they are exactly the same.

Then, I changed the default interface to curses, by changing
bool noteye=true
to false in main.cpp.

After the character selection screen, it correctly displays the (ascii) map, BUT it doesn't accept any input. If I dare to touch something, after a few seconds a core dump welcomes me.
I then tried to drop the legacy support, that is, to compile for just the native architecture, but it didn't help...
The exact error message is:
Segmentation fault: 11 (core dumped)

Any idea?

[Ancient]

Thanks for chime in El Barto!

So goodbye noteye, I think it's better to fallback to Good Old ASCII
By changing a few lines in the makefile, in order to NOT include
NEMenu.cpp
NEUI.*
prime compiles with some warning, mainly about global.h.
These warnings were present in the previous versions too, although I didn't check if they are exactly the same.

Then, I changed the default interface to curses, by changing
bool noteye=true
to false in main.cpp.

I am clueless as to setting up Necklace of the Eye on Mac. Will ask Z about it. He might be able to help here.

As for removing NotEye support you do everything all right. However, there is no mention of changing LIBS line in Makefile. You should remove -lnoteye -lz -llua from the list. I am afraid functions exported by NotEye might cause conflict despite being not referenced directly.

Would you do something for me? I'd like to have the output of "make clean <enter> make 2> warnings.txt". It should create warnings.txt file with all the compiler complaints. Please send me this by personal message.

If everything fails I am working on adding a switch to makefile that will compile NCurses only PRIME. Though it would be great if Mac players could also see the sheer awesomeness of Psiweapon's art rendered in isometric and 3D view.

[Z]

I have no easy access to OSX, so I am currently unable to fix the problems with NotEye. Sorry, I know it is very important (also for ADOM).

[El Barto]

I have no easy access to OSX, so I am currently unable to fix the problems with NotEye. Sorry, I know it is very important (also for ADOM).

It may be important, yes, but it's not of capital importance after all...don't feel too bad about it
Of course, if you want me to do some test, just ask.

Hopefully, Ancient will be able to find some indication from the compilation warnings I sent him, as requested.

[El Barto]

After the character selection screen, it correctly displays the (ascii) map, BUT it doesn't accept any input. If I dare to touch something, after a few seconds a core dump welcomes me.

Now it works! the patched source files and an (ncurses, intel only, hopefully 10.5+) osx binary have been submitted to Ancient.

BTW, a little report: roguebasin doesn't show up the new release, yet

[Ancient]

Name: Pesky Reticulans, Improvements, Moar Everything
Synopsis: Hacklike roguelike game with all kinds of aliens.
Version 2.1b (release #17) published 23th January 2013

DOWNLOAD: Windows --- Linux 32 bit --- Linux 64 bit --- Source code
Website: http://arcywidmo.republika.pl/prime/


After a longer pause PRIME comes back.  New toys in store are:

 - Five new ray gun types.  Some existing canisters that used
   to ruin empty ray guns now load them.

 - Graphical effects of guns and explosions are now properly
   drawn.  Developers recommend you have a look at least at
   a blaster pistol, a laser-emitting weapon and some grenades.

 - Computer viruses have been nerfed.  Getting your computer
   infected is no longer such a small disaster.  Floppy disks
   you know to be free of this menace are described 'clean'.

 - Some items have new interactions.  You can quaff fuel drums
   for example.  There are few cases when you would want to but
   when it comes down to this ... surely better than death.

 - Automatic doors may have their logic circuits inverted.  That
   is these open when you walk away from them and close when you
   approach.

 - In graphical mode certain identified items have mini-icon
   indicating type displayed in top right corner.  Most ray guns,
   many canisters, and some other objects sport them.  

 - Skill screen now lists modifiers your abilities have on each
   of your skills.  Should help make better ability increase
   choices at level up.

 - Unidentified items may appear to belong in another category.

 - Swap command for easy exchange between two of your weapons.
   Be it a gun and a stick for meleeing or whatever other pair
   of gizmos you need to be quickly juggled.
   Thank you goes to Jim for this idea!

 - Some new toys: stabilizer belt, floppy disk of logic bomb,
   floppy disk of recursive loop and jump boots.
 
 - Canister names have much more meaning.  For example you can
   count on titanium canisters enduring a throw against a wall
   unless it contains volatile substance.

 - Confusion and stunning affect your aim.  Quaffing a beer or
   two and pointing that laser rifle around might have not quite
   the desired target hit.

 - Brain mold from ZapM 0.6.2 is back!

That would be about it for bigger changes.  Package also includes
several bug fixes.  Did you know Melnorme used to cheat you?  They
were fined and taught the proper behavior around armed customers.

Full (spoily) changelog is available at the website:
http://arcywidmo.republika.pl/prime/changelog.txt

[getter77]

Congrats on yet another marvelous looking stride of progress---2013 continues to particularly improve!   

[Legend]

Gave this a quick try. It seems pretty cool.

Couple things, I can't seem to be able to hold down a key and have it continuously be pressed. As in I can't hold down a direction key and have the character keep moving. I have to continuously tap the key.

The "5" key doesn't seem to rest.

Is there an explanation of the different key set types? 

Is there a way to start the game in ascii console mode?

I'm guessing "buggy" is the same as cursed?

Any chance of being able to make menu selections using the arrow keys and "Enter" key?