In my current Slashem game, playing a lawful archaeologist, I found
(I think on dlvl:2) the chaotic Hellfire on the floor. Was reluctant
to pick it up (because of the possible blast) but didn't want to let
a precious artifact lie around in the dungeon. Next level in a shop
the neutral Giantkiller - doh! Two artifacts already in the game that
reduce the chance for further artifacts when sacrificing. Dlvl:5 was
the mall-level; and in a weapon-shop I found two more artifacts, in
this case both lawful, the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice. Now
sacrifices seem unnecessary; with help of crowning I can unlock the
longsword skill (for the Sword of Justice), and dip for Excalibur
(for level-drain resistance), and to two-weapon longswords, or with
the sabre. So far the plan, with XL:4 I just have to stay alive long
enough...

Janis

On 13.07.2022 23:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> In my current Slashem game, playing a lawful archaeologist, I found
> (I think on dlvl:2) the chaotic Hellfire on the floor. Was reluctant
> to pick it up (because of the possible blast) but didn't want to let
> a precious artifact lie around in the dungeon. Next level in a shop
> the neutral Giantkiller - doh! Two artifacts already in the game that
> reduce the chance for further artifacts when sacrificing. Dlvl:5 was
> the mall-level; and in a weapon-shop I found two more artifacts, in
> this case both lawful, the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice. Now
> sacrifices seem unnecessary; with help of crowning I can unlock the
> longsword skill (for the Sword of Justice), and dip for Excalibur
> (for level-drain resistance), and to two-weapon longswords, or with
> the sabre. So far the plan, with XL:4 I just have to stay alive long
> enough...

It continued as it started...

"The Rat King wields a long sword named Frost Brand {40}!"

Before that I found Magicbane in a bones heap, speed boots, the
artifact cloak Deluder, cloak of magic resistance, free action,
conflict, a bag of holding, a magic lamp, and whatnot. It seems
my luck for the next 1000 games is used up in this game.

Janis

On 14.07.2022 13:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 13.07.2022 23:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> In my current Slashem game, playing a lawful archaeologist, I found
>> (I think on dlvl:2) the chaotic Hellfire on the floor. Was reluctant
>> to pick it up (because of the possible blast) but didn't want to let
>> a precious artifact lie around in the dungeon. Next level in a shop
>> the neutral Giantkiller - doh! Two artifacts already in the game that
>> reduce the chance for further artifacts when sacrificing. Dlvl:5 was
>> the mall-level; and in a weapon-shop I found two more artifacts, in
>> this case both lawful, the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice. Now
>> sacrifices seem unnecessary; with help of crowning I can unlock the
>> longsword skill (for the Sword of Justice), and dip for Excalibur
>> (for level-drain resistance), and to two-weapon longswords, or with
>> the sabre. So far the plan, with XL:4 I just have to stay alive long
>> enough...
>
> It continued as it started...
>
> "The Rat King wields a long sword named Frost Brand {40}!"
>
> Before that I found Magicbane in a bones heap, speed boots, the
> artifact cloak Deluder, cloak of magic resistance, free action,
> conflict, a bag of holding, a magic lamp, and whatnot. It seems
> my luck for the next 1000 games is used up in this game.

Then at Sam's Black Market the Whisperfeet (speed boots), at the
Spider Caves on the floor the Fire Brand.

Not the usual tons of junk artifacts, but really good ones. And
so many that I don't know what to do with them.

Janis

On 15.07.2022 15:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 14.07.2022 13:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 13.07.2022 23:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>
>>> [first dungeon levels] the chaotic Hellfire on the floor
>>> in a shop the neutral Giantkiller
>>> in a weapon-shop the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice
>>> dip for Excalibur
>>
>> "The Rat King wields a long sword named Frost Brand {40}!"
>>
>> found Magicbane in a bones heap, [and] the Deluder
>
> Then at Sam's Black Market the Whisperfeet
> Spider Caves on the floor the Fire Brand

Valley of Death provided the Skullcrusher

(And at some time during the course Sting and Ogresmasher
from sacrifices.)

Are there any artifacts left to be found in Gehennom?

Janis

On 17.07.2022 01:08, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 15.07.2022 15:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 14.07.2022 13:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>> On 13.07.2022 23:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [first dungeon levels] the chaotic Hellfire on the floor
>>>> in a shop the neutral Giantkiller
>>>> in a weapon-shop the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice
>>>> dip for Excalibur
>>>
>>> "The Rat King wields a long sword named Frost Brand {40}!"
>>>
>>> found Magicbane in a bones heap, [and] the Deluder
>>
>> Then at Sam's Black Market the Whisperfeet
>> Spider Caves on the floor the Fire Brand
>
> Valley of Death provided the Skullcrusher
>
> (And at some time during the course Sting and Ogresmasher
> from sacrifices.)
>
> Are there any artifacts left to be found in Gehennom?

Yes. - "You see here a samurai sword named Snickersnee {40}."
Found on the floor @dlvl:47 (Yeenoghu).

Crazy game!

Janis

On 21.07.2022 00:11, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 17.07.2022 01:08, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 15.07.2022 15:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>> On 14.07.2022 13:39, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>> On 13.07.2022 23:49, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> [first dungeon levels] the chaotic Hellfire on the floor
>>>>> in a shop the neutral Giantkiller
>>>>> in a weapon-shop the Grayswandir and the Sword of Justice
>>>>> dip for Excalibur
>>>>
>>>> "The Rat King wields a long sword named Frost Brand {40}!"
>>>>
>>>> found Magicbane in a bones heap, [and] the Deluder
>>>
>>> Then at Sam's Black Market the Whisperfeet
>>> Spider Caves on the floor the Fire Brand
>>
>> Valley of Death provided the Skullcrusher
>>
>> Sting and Ogresmasher from sacrifices
>
> "You see here a samurai sword named Snickersnee {40}."
>
> Crazy game!

Okay, that was it. Only Trollsbane followed from a late sacrifice, then
some artifacts carried by monsters (Sunsword, Demonbane, Thiefbane) as
I've seen in the files. Too heavy to carry or take with me to the bar.

The generated artifacts (w: wielded/worn, b/i: carried in bag/inventory)
Deluder (w), Whisperfeet (b) - had worn ordinary speed boots instead,
Excalibur (w), Grayswandir (w), Magicbane (i) - only for engravings,
Fire Brand (b), Frost Brand (b), Sword of Justice (b) - as souvenirs,
plus all the quests' artifacts.

Left behind in the stash (being too heavy) or at the carrying monsters
Ogresmasher, Giantkiller, Skullcrusher, Snickersnee, Hellfire, Sting,
Sunsword, Demonbane, Trollsbane, Thiefbane.

A Wizard incident annoyed me at dlvl:1 while doing the final inventory
and stash management; while standing on my chest he created a pool
under my feet and my loot vanished there. Not a serious issue, though.

And I nearly died at Astral; took one of my blessed magic lamps and
wished for a "blessed fixed partly eaten chickatrice corpse <Enter.."
No, I didn't hit <Enter> - just in time I noticed my strength being
St:18/** instead of the St:23 (from the gauntlets of power). Getting
that corpse in my ungloved hands would certainly qualify as YASD.

Janis

On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:48:40 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[Game with (almost) more artifact weapons than normal ones]
>> Crazy game!
[...]
> And I nearly died at Astral; took one of my blessed magic lamps and
> wished for a "blessed fixed partly eaten chickatrice corpse <Enter.."
> No, I didn't hit <Enter> - just in time I noticed my strength being
> St:18/** instead of the St:23 (from the gauntlets of power). Getting
> that corpse in my ungloved hands would certainly qualify as YASD.

So the gods didn't actually manage to lure you into the fatal moment of
abstraction usually linked to an abundant game. - Congratulations! :-)

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

On 23.07.2022 21:16, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:48:40 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>> [ c'trice corpse wish...] - just in time I noticed my strength being
>> St:18/** instead of the St:23 (from the gauntlets of power). Getting
>> that corpse in my ungloved hands would certainly qualify as YASD.
>
> So the gods didn't actually manage to lure you into the fatal moment of
> abstraction usually linked to an abundant game. - Congratulations! :-)

Thanks.

Now that I think about it; it may be useful to have Nethack's user
interface extended by a "ABCGHST" string that is indicating the worn
items ([body-]Armor, Boots, Cloak, Gloves, Helmet, Shield, T-shirt).
In my case above that I'd have seen "ABC-H-T", in case of foocubi
encounters that could be "-------", a black dragon integrating your
shield in the first round, say, "ABCGH--", etc. And with red/green
highlighting that could make the interface better, preventing some
stupid interface-supported deaths.

(Note: I suppose there's UI variants that already show you in
separate windows this information and more. So my proposal would
be useful specifically for the minimalistic text interfaces.)

Janis

On Sun, 24 Jul 2022 16:11:39 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

>> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:48:40 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>
>>> [ c'trice corpse wish...] - just in time I noticed my strength being
>>> St:18/** instead of the St:23 (from the gauntlets of power). Getting
>>> that corpse in my ungloved hands would certainly qualify as YASD.
{...]
> Now that I think about it; it may be useful to have Nethack's user
> interface extended by a "ABCGHST" string that is indicating the worn
> items ([body-]Armor, Boots, Cloak, Gloves, Helmet, Shield, T-shirt).

If the decline of AC went unnoticed, the missing letter in an armor
stat line would most likely be missed as well. The only advantage
immediately coming to mind would be the "during a wish" situation you
described: You could /indirectly/ see the missing gloves, because they
should have boostered your strength. With simple leather gloves, there
is no way to check /during/ the wishing process.

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

Subject was "Re: [slashem] Wimpy archaeologist with early artifacts"

On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 7:11:42 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
> Now that I think about it; it may be useful to have Nethack's user
> interface extended by a "ABCGHST" string that is indicating the worn
> items ([body-]Armor, Boots, Cloak, Gloves, Helmet, Shield, T-shirt).

That wouldn't help someone who plays slash'em.

A few years ago I implemented three extra status conditions
that were analogous to hunger or encumbrance in that their
value changed depending on circumstances rather than them
being on or off. One was for weapon(s), another for armor,
and the third for the type of terrain you're on or over. Each had
an option to enable or disable it (independent from each other).

Weapon was "bare handed", "empty handed" (wearing gloves
so not "bare"), one-handed weapon, two-handed weapon, or
two one-handed weapons. The one- or two-handed values
included a generic description of the weapon itself (so "sword",
"sling", "2H-polearm", &c).

Armor was "naked" or the armor type if wearing only one item
or something like your suggested "ABC..." for more than one.

Terrain was straightforward and included features like altar or
throne. I don't think it handled "unknown" when levitating while
blind; that was something which hadn't been implemented yet.
Offhand no other special cases come to mind.

I think those had been implemented for tty and curses; not
sure about the other interfaces. But that is a fundamental
issue with something like this: if it needs support in the
interface then some of it has to be replicated, and done so
by people with access to the relevant platforms.

It is suffering from several years of bit rot, plus I don't have
any recollection of why it wasn't ready to be used at the
time I set it aside. To-be-3.7 already has a bunch of optional
status conditions (of the on/off sort) and this overlaps some
of them.

> In my case above that I'd have seen "ABC-H-T", [...]

Note that wishing for a cockatrice corpse when not wearing
gloves is safe (at least in nethack; not sure about slash'em).
Those only matter if/when you wield (or sacrifice) it.

> (Note: I suppose there's UI variants that already show you in
> separate windows this information and more. So my proposal would
> be useful specifically for the minimalistic text interfaces.)

Changing status for X11 or Qt generally requires more work
than for tty or curses. No doubt for Windows GUI as well.

The Qt interface has a "paper doll inventory" panel in
between the message panel and the status panel (which
are side-by-side above the map panel) that can be shown
or hidden at run-time. It isn't particularly doll-like (which is
typically a silhouette with information at the hands, head,
and so forth). Instead it's a 7 by 3 array of object tiles
depicting worm/wielded equipment. The top row has
blindfold, helmet, and quiver (IIRC), the next row has right
hand weapon, amulet, shield or secondary weapon (when
in two-weapon mode) or a mirror image of right hand
(when wielding a two-handed weapon), and so forth.
There's a color border around each tile reflecting its known
BUCX state. So you can tell at a glance what equipment
is in use /if you bother to look/. It also supports tool tips:
moving mouse pointer over one of the cells of the array
of tiles and pausing will show the description of the item
including inventory letter.

I suspect that the paper doll becomes ignored as noise
pretty quickly, but it has a secondary benefit early on of
assisting to learn what some tiles depict. [Like X11, the
Qt interface can change back and forth between tiles and
text map. But the Qt paper doll is a tiles-only feature.]

Apparently the pre-OSX Mac interface had something
similar.

On 24.07.2022 19:24, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2022 16:11:39 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>>> On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:48:40 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>
>>>> [ c'trice corpse wish...] - just in time I noticed my strength being
>>>> St:18/** instead of the St:23 (from the gauntlets of power). Getting
>>>> that corpse in my ungloved hands would certainly qualify as YASD.
> {...]
>> Now that I think about it; it may be useful to have Nethack's user
>> interface extended by a "ABCGHST" string that is indicating the worn
>> items ([body-]Armor, Boots, Cloak, Gloves, Helmet, Shield, T-shirt).
>
> If the decline of AC went unnoticed, the missing letter in an armor
> stat line would most likely be missed as well.

There's a difference. With status colors available in Nethack it
could be displayed continuously in colors (like other permanent
status colors that depend on status not status change). Unless I'm
misremembering, a decline in an AC value would just be temporarily
displayed, wouldn't it? - While the plain pattern, say, "ABC-H-T"
would probably not be perceivable "en passant" a colored pattern of
letters (green, green, green, red, ...) would be well perceivable.
Note that perception is a subjective matter, so that YMMV.

Janis

On 24.07.2022 19:33, Pat Rankin wrote:
> Subject was "Re: [slashem] Wimpy archaeologist with early artifacts"
>
> On Sunday, July 24, 2022 at 7:11:42 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
>> Now that I think about it; it may be useful to have Nethack's user
>> interface extended by a "ABCGHST" string that is indicating the worn
>> items ([body-]Armor, Boots, Cloak, Gloves, Helmet, Shield, T-shirt).
>
> That wouldn't help someone who plays slash'em.

Yes, that's why I suggested it for Nethack. (In the past you
already and repeatedly pointed out that Slashem isn't further
developed, currently.)

(If I read a bitter connotation in your words about my choice
of a Nethack variant then let me say that my current preference
is not a persistent decision. I think I already explained my
choice at the time when 3.6.x came out, basically; nothing new
implemented, and a couple changes that I don't like. So if I'll
switch back in the future to some Vanilla NH-4.0 I'll be happy
with all UI improvements meanwhile provided. :-)

>
> Note that wishing for a cockatrice corpse when not wearing
> gloves is safe (at least in nethack; not sure about slash'em).

Ah, okay. Good to know. At that stage I wouldn't have wanted to
risk it, so I preferred to waste the wish. (At that stage there
are usually enough wish-providing items in my inventory so that
I don't have to worry.)

> Those only matter if/when you wield (or sacrifice) it.

I recall from the past that a c'trice in the inventory was safe
but some action of mine (not sacrificing or wielding) triggered
the stoning-check; it instantly ended a good (I think Nethack-)
game at the Valley of Death. And I still wasn't sure about what
wishing for a corpse would actually trigger.

>
>> (Note: I suppose there's UI variants that already show you in
>> separate windows this information and more. So my proposal would
>> be useful specifically for the minimalistic text interfaces.)
>
> Changing status for X11 or Qt generally requires more work
> than for tty or curses. No doubt for Windows GUI as well.
> [ snip detailled description ]

What I had in mind was something I saw at NAO; a 'curses' window
where the inventory (or the used items from the inventory) was
displayed in a separate sub-window on the large screen. - Nothing
for me with my legacy 80x25 arena.

Janis

On Tue, 26 Jul 2022 12:23:27 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

[Worn armor classes status]
>> If the decline of AC went unnoticed, the missing letter in an armor
>> stat line would most likely be missed as well.
>
> There's a difference. With status colors available in Nethack it
> could be displayed continuously in colors (like other permanent
> status colors that depend on status not status change). Unless I'm
> misremembering, a decline in an AC value would just be temporarily
> displayed, wouldn't it? - While the plain pattern, say, "ABC-H-T"
> would probably not be perceivable "en passant" a colored pattern of
> letters (green, green, green, red, ...) would be well perceivable.
> Note that perception is a subjective matter, so that YMMV.

I guess, you are right. While declining AC may go unnoticed during its
special coloring period, can realizing a "missing gloves" status occur
even hundreds of turns later and may still be early enough to prevent
a major "mishap". Maybe such a status /would/ be worth putting to test,
after all...

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 3:45:38 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
> What I had in mind was something I saw at NAO; a 'curses' window
> where the inventory (or the used items from the inventory) was
> displayed in a separate sub-window on the large screen. - Nothing
> for me with my legacy 80x25 arena.

The curses interface was added to nethack in 3.6.1. Prior to
that it was available as a source code patch. The persistent
inventory window is enabled by toggling on the 'perm_invent'
option but requires that your terminal/emulator support at
least 106 columns. (I don't recall whether that's with the
window boundary boxes suppressed. When shown, those
need extra rows and columns.)

The curses interface allows moving its multi-line message
window from above the map to below it or the status lines
from below the map to above it, or both of those swaps at
the same time. Or either or both can be placed to left or
right side of the map (but not likely when perm_invent is
enabled; that would require an absurdly wide display).
Status shown on the side gets formatted differently; long
messages just rely on line wrapping so the number shown
varies at any given time.

The X11 interface supports perm_invent too, but you have to
position the inventory window, after it's displayed, to prevent
it and the map from overlapping or it is just about useless.
So it needs a really wide display too, or possibly dual monitors
with the game shown on one and inventory on the other (when
used that way, it's handled by X Windows; nethack doesn't
know or care).

The Windows GUI interface supports perm_invent but if you
don't have a wide screen it overwrites half the map so the
map gets clipped and auto-pans as you move around. I
assume that you can also manually pan to see parts of the
map that aren't shown by the current subset but am not sure.

For any interface that supports it, the persistent inventory
window shows full inventory, no special provisions for
worn/wielded only. Once it becomes too tall for the number
of rows available, it can only show the beginning of that full
inventory. You pretty much need to use the packorder option
to force the stuff you consider to be most important to be
listed first. To-be-3.7 has added a command that can be
used to force it to scroll down/back-up and right/back-to-left
but using that is somewhat clumsy. Also the portion in view
gets reset to display its top+left whenever the persistent
inventory is updated (which tends to happen a lot).

On 27.07.2022 00:14, Pat Rankin wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 3:45:38 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
>> What I had in mind was something I saw at NAO; a 'curses' window
>> where the inventory (or the used items from the inventory) was
>> displayed in a separate sub-window on the large screen. - Nothing
>> for me with my legacy 80x25 arena.
>
> [...]
>
> For any interface that supports it, the persistent inventory
> window shows full inventory, no special provisions for
> worn/wielded only. [...]

Then it must have been that the player had that visible by
coincidence, where her other items have probably been in a
carried container. - It would be useful, though, to have a
persistent sub-window available that contains the equivalent
of the '*' command (a valuable command I regularly use with
my text-window interface).

The implementation questions you mentioned boil down to a
(static) window-packaging/arranging task, I'd assume. Or
alternatively provide a handful of predefined and sensible
sub-window arrangements?

Janis

On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 5:17:38 PM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
> The implementation questions you mentioned boil down to a
> (static) window-packaging/arranging task, I'd assume. Or
> alternatively provide a handful of predefined and sensible
> sub-window arrangements?

Nothing is predefined or sensible because the code involved
is also used to handle dynamically resizing the display while
the program is running. The map window has a fixed
maximum size but might be clipped to a smaller amount.
The other windows are sized to try to fill the screen.

But the curses interface deals with that. NetHack's core just
tells it the settings for the align_status={top,bottom,left,right}
or align_message={top,bottom,left,right} options. Or if they
get changed via 'O', it passes on the new settings. When that
happens, the interface removes all existing windows and
reconstructs a new set; the core isn't involved.

For horizontal (ie, normal) status display, there is also the
'statuslines' option. It can be set--on the fly--to either 2 or 3.
For 3, a couple of ordinary fields are moved and the on/off
status conditions for Stunned, Blind and so forth have their
own line (mostly; two or three of the moved fields share it).
So having a lot of conditions at once is less likely to have
some of them end up hidden by being pushed off the side
of the screen. 3.6.x shows several more conditions than
3.4.3 did, and to-be-3.7 has boolean options to enable a
bunch more. [The Qt interface doesn't support those
optional ones and needs work (tile art) for the 3.6.x ones.]

Support for statuslines:3 was added to the tty interface too.
If you have 24 (or fewer) rows instead of at least 25, the
map will be clipped to make room for the extra status line.
tty also switches to shorter abbreviations when status
would be off the edge with the usual ones, reducing the
need for a third line.