dead monsters counter

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:23 am

CSBwin-CSBuild.zip

Version 9.8v153 counts monster deaths
and reports them via a pull-down menu option.
I am open to sugestions as to how the
default list should be formatted. And other
statistics that might be useful. But don't
start naming lots of things just for the fun
of it. The key word is 'Useful".

I have not done any work on the Filter yet.

Post by **PaulH** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:47 am

Much appreciated, I shall take a look asap and report back, well, asap

rain` · Post by **rain`** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:22 am

Adamo wrote: -Maximum Kills Competition:
Let`s say there`s a lot of weak, respawning monsters (mummies, skeletons etc.). Max competition is a "race" who`ll kill more creatures.
Max kills conditions:
1. limited water
2. limited food
3. limited time

Adamo, why not take this to a new level? You have a great idea here. Reread it again and check out some of the characteristics of such a dungeon:

A) Its simple and small, you can have essentially a one level dungeon.
B) Its basic, theres no traps or riddles to come up with.
C) Its appealing: After I read this, I really did have the mind to kill some monsters.
D) It's very open for innovative ideas and uses of DSA's!

Adamo, I don't know if you were serious about this, but you could probably pull out a dungeon like this in VERY MINIMAL effort. Theres no shame in releasing a one-level dungeon if that dungeon is crazy fun!

One room, constant waves of monsters that spawn, time limit. The goal of course would be to survive the waves... Start it off with some easy mummies, then some skeletons, mix in some rocks and a few worms, etc, all the way up to knights, spiders, and even dragons! Make new monsters/items with ADGE!

You could even setup a system where monsters drop gold/silver coins which can be used to buy items in a little shop (that you perhaps teleport too). DSA's provide endless possibilities here. (Warcraft 3 has many scenarios similar to this, see tower defense or hero defense maps)

This is a good idea that doesn't require alot of work. This is doable. You should do it! A whole new genre of dungeon master!

Just my 0.02$

MitchB1990 · Post by **MitchB1990** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:56 am

^^^Agreed^^^

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:56 am

What graphics.dat tweaks do you need to do to dungeons to accept this engine (you get complaints otherwise)? Also, where is the pull down menu?

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:12 pm

Any runtime I release should work with any and
all OLDER dungeons, savegames, graphics.
I tested it just now with the ORIGINAL Atari
graphics files and it worked just fine.

If I have broken something please send me
an example. It has to be fixed.

I somehow failed to get the newest version posted.
I remember uploading it, I think.
It is there now.
Menu "Misc/Statistics"

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:22 pm

rain`: I would gladly do the "max kill competition game", but I need some time. Unfortunately I couldn`t do it in a week or two: I have less time now, besides I`m working on a big, 11 levels dungeon (Dungeons of Death), wchich I cannot finish, because of the small time I`ve got. I don`t want to release crap game, wchich would discourage people to a competitions like this! I dont think I could put out that dungeon in a very minimal effort. First of all it needs to be well-though and well-tested before releasing. You said about its bacicity [sorry for my english]: I think there should be a lot of buttons/pads, wchich open/close doors, walls etc and makes some surprises. Indeed, that little game would have to contain very high number of actuators.
That feature wasn`t even realised yet, and if so, needs some testing (maybe addictionary features?).
I was thinking about at least two 32x32 tiles levels, with a lot of up/down stairs and some pits on a higher level, rather with no teleporters and a lot of monster generators. (Two levels to magazine all possible creature, because there`s a 15 per level limit in CSBwin - I think 25 existing creatures would be ok).
Time limit - hmmm... I have contradictory feelings about it... it`s good in some way (in little games of course!), but personally I don`t like time limits in games. I would like to exchange time limit to food/water limit. But I might be wrong.
There shouldn`t be any food or water to make a playing time limited in some way. Besides, the game should be rather bigger than smaller, otherwise killing hundreds of monsters would easily become boring. That`s why I said about a lot of those up/down paths.
I think that game should be rather unlinear, so if you`re a coward, you could easily finish it without fighting hordes of mosters, but then you would get very bad result on statistics table.
Oh and my favourite, SAVING DISABLE feauture: I would GLADLY disable saving on every tile of the game, but it would be pure sadism from my side, hehehe

Characters: you would have to resurrect 4 strong characters of course (reincarnating in such a small dungeon doesn`t make a sense). I was planning to put a lot of them to choose, to make a competition more interesting (tactics of choosing characters: 4 strong fighters, or maybe 2 fighters and two weak characters with a lot of mana, etc.). OR I could make limited food/water in a dungeon, and it`s up to you, how many characters you`ll get to the party (4 characters would eat the food 4 times faster).
I was planning to make a lot of choices like that.
What`s also important is to find best way of killing highest number creatures in short time.
Besides, you have to decide, wchich cretures you would kill most: you can kill 800 screamers of course, but other players would mock you on the forum. The thrue is, that there`s no good way of comparing statistics with so many (25) different numbers each: how to compare 30 killed mummies by 15 killed skeletons? You cannot count them of the points. I`m not saying it`s bad - that just is.
You said about DSAs - well.. I have little known about them!

So, I would try to make that "race" game, but don`t expect it too soon.. I don`t want to work fast, because allways when I do it, I get bad results.. Or I could make a base and send it to other designer to finish it..

So I would be happy if some other, experienced person would do it (Beo, Zyx etc?), IF IT WAS GOOD, well-though and well-tested.
Some of my assumes might be wrong, so if you don`t agree, say what you think about it.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:26 pm

With Conflux and my small timer test dungeon, using the runtime only it complainted with a pop up window about something to do with monsters==0 and the graphics file. I replaced my test dungeon's graphics file with the supplied graphics.dat and got no complaints

I will check Conflux again with the newest engine (I did spot the v152 but assumed the rev hadn't been increased properly) and let you know if there any errors

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:52 pm

Oh, double posting...

I have a dungeon I am pottering arund on myself in ebbs and flows, and not really interested in the kill race. I have other uses for the internal kill counter!

Sounds like PaulH is your man - he is both interested and experienced!

Right, with v153 I still get the following error warning using the run time with Conflux:

"Graphic File error
Mosnter 'Time-per-move'==0"

It doens't stop the game, but it does come up twice before entering the dungeon. I used the supplied graphics.dat and again it was fine. I'll post the conflux version I can mail the conflux version I have if you don't have a recent one yourself

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:14 pm

I think the Conflux Author can best deal
with this first. It does not happen on the
'Stable' ConfluxIII that he sent me a few
days ago.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:23 pm

That's good to know. I've realised it must be an error with the beta E graphics.dat and the engine, as that was what I took to use with my test dungeon. If it works now with the current graphics.dat, then no problems!

Post by **PaulH** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:38 pm

A simple competition I was thinking is to kill at least one of each species in the original DM dungeon then finish the game. So no dodging the dragon, golems or demons, you have to fight them. Any team you like, reincarnated or ressurected.

Of course, attempts to be recorded. If a few people are interested I will gladly have a go tonight and try and set a reasonable pace.

Post by **Zyx** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:51 pm

Beo, the error you mention is due to DSA using a non-existent alternate graphic. It is fixed in my current version.

Post by **PaulH** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:04 pm

I had a go at the 'kill one of each' comp as mentioned above. It is harder than you think, and really tests your skills, party choice and training combined with efficient path through the dungeon to kill monsters. Like the knight level, which Oitu? Do you go for a wizard or cold steel? It requires more thought than the out right race for fusion, and I bet in CSB the challenge is even more varied. But if nobody fancies a go...

I think 2 or 3 saves should be allowed!

Post by **PaulH** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 5:15 pm

OK, I made a run through killing at least one of every species of monster. I can make a recording available if anyone wants it. Quite an interesting game, especially the 'dance with the water elementals'. And quite possibly the quickest and most efficient fusing of Chaos you ever saw!

Time: 22001 ticks. 61mins 7seconds
Moves: 11879
Using Stamm, reincarnated, DM rules

A few things I noticed: I pit fragged the knight who has the key early on in the level but the stat counter failed to note it as a death. Also I am damn sure the dragon moved when I tried to jump on its head after freezing it.

Also Stamm was useless with the diamond edge! I counted 13 consecutive missed hits when fighting the dragon!

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:26 pm

If you think there were errors then by
all means let me have the dungeon, graphics
file, and recording. (Or tell me where to get
them.)

LogCvt.exe will make the recording
a lot smaller and more compressible.

Post by **PaulH** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:36 pm

I shall email you the files. I also took the liberty of a reload, and therefore need to splice two logfiles which I am finding problematic. But thats my fault, not yours!

I think the knight problem arose from teleporting it (via a pit) to a level where knights are not specified (the chaos level). The dragon, well, I'll watch the recording closely, again could be my own error of judgement.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 12:14 am

Are you using the most recent SpliceCSB?

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:12 pm

I got the files. We got problems.

I cannot play back the recording. Dies
on very first level during combat with second
screamer. So far no luck finding the problem.
Not good. Unless you fiddled with the
recording or something.

So it looks like my day is shot. Perhaps a
few days, depending on how lucky I get.

Post by **PaulH** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:08 pm

If you turn on DM rules before you start the recording, it works fine

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:23 pm

I just figured that out. It is running in
the background now. I gotta fix that so the
recording indicates the 'DM Rules'. Blast it.
I just wasted about 4 hours.

Post by **PaulH** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:26 pm

Confused me for a while too!

The second recording takes up the game from the scorpion level onwards, while the 1st I quit when I got annoyed with a water elemental. I tried at first to manually splice at the save point, I didn't know of the utility that tries to do this.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 12:58 am

utility that tries to do this

It does not merely 'try'. It succeeds.
It works very well.

I fixed your missing Deth Knight. It
would also have missed the Monster Death
Filter so I am very glad you found and
reprted the problem. I will look into
the 'Moving Dragon' problem next.

Post by **PaulH** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:01 am

Rephrase: I tried to use it.

I'll also restate that the Dragon problem could be an error of my perspective.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:56 am

The easiest way is to put all your log files
*.log
into a directory along with SpliceCSB.exe.
Then drag the last log file onto SpliceCSB.
It looks at all the .log files and splices the
ones that preceed the one you gave it and
ignores any that are not part of the
same game or are on different 'forks' of
the game. You need the latest SpliceCSB
(compiled February 2006).

Your files were *.log.log. That won't work.
They must have their original names.

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:34 pm

I am damn sure the dragon moved

He did move.

This may come as a bit of a surprise to many of
our faithful readers. But ..........

FREEZE LIFE only freezes life on the Party's level.
When you went upstairs, the Dragon was free to move.
It also does not freeze invincible monsters but you
probably knew that.

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:37 pm

Yep, I knew that! (Well, in fact, in very early versions of the game it *was* possible to freeze things across the entire dungeon, but FTL changed this when people discovered they could telefrag the dragon)

Post by **PaulH** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:12 pm

Well, would you believe it?

I think it was Sucinum or Antman who said that freezing the dragon and telefragging him was the quickest way to beat him. I just took the statement at face value.

I have accidently telefragged many dragons in CSB. I shall certainly take note of this little discovery.