Adamo's questions about monsters

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:05 pm

Adamo wished to ask some questions based on this screenshot:

http://www.dmjump.net/monster_stat_values.JPG

Go for it adamo!

Daecon · Post by **Daecon** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:53 am

There's also an "Unused 1 & 2" under hitprob and poison.

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 3:38 am

thanx Beo!

I`ve got a few questions about monsters stats, that you can see on Beo`s screenshot (ADGE monster editor). Not all functions of monster values and yes/no flags from DM are known to me. Does anyone have a knowledge/idea what are there for?
I marked six areas here on the screenhot to show you that.
First of all, an area, that I marked as "1" on the screenshot, isn`t unknown anymore. I already wrote about it on the forum.

But the rest of them are still strange for me. Does anyone knows, what are the four flags (marked by me as "2" on the screenshot) for? Some types of monsters (gigglers, hellhounds, rusters, golems, mummies, knights and demons) have these flags, descripted as "unknown2" and "unknown3" signed together (while "unknown1" and "unknown4" always stays unsigned). Does it means that "unknown1" and "unknown4" are really unused?

There are also three values, signed by me as "3", "4" and "5" on the image, wchich might be in use. Their values are changing from 0 to 15, depending of the monster type. Those are: second value from word 14, first value of word 16 and first value of word 18.
There are also 4th value from word 18 ("unused2") and forth value from word 20 ("unused1"), marked by me as 6th area on a screenshot, that are always set to zero, wchich means they might doesn`t have a use. Same thing about two values on the second row ("unused1" and "unused2") below the "poison" value (didn`t marked on a screenshot, sorry!).

So, what do you think, what are "area 2" on the screenshot for?
Are areas 3,4 and 5 really unused, if they have different, monster depending values, or just unknown?

So, are there at least two flags and three values, wchich ARE in use, but we don`t know what are for?

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:55 am

I did not check, but I think this could be different attack modes.
Some monsters use wisdom , others A-Fire to determine damage..
According to the encyclopaedia. As said , I am not sure.

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:02 am

what about "unknown2" and "unknown3" in area2? They have to do something. A question to rain`: why do you think "unknown1" and "unknown4" on area four are used and unknown, and not unused, as there are always set to zero?
Does it have something with pits/fake walls/monster AI/running from closing doors etc.? what do you think? I tried to investigate it, but it ain`t easy !

I`ve got also few questions about known stats:
- what are "dumb" & "short" flags for?
- what does "skill", "status speed" and "atk stat speed" doing? Does "atk stat speed" have something with "attack speed"?
Does "skill" have something with "strenght"/"hit prob"?
- what are "teleporter" value for? I`ve never seen teleporting creature
- what is the difference between "awareness" and "sightrange"?

(sorry if these questions sounds stupid, but I`m inquisitive person)

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:48 am

Adamo, I think this is rather complicated stuff .
In the documentation is about attack computation written that it
is being hardly explained by words(therefore diagrams)
Monster Movement is spaghetti code. Some timers are mysteries.

What do you want to accomplish? I mean it could be that you are
just searching for a special monster behaviour that -maybe- can
be approximated by altering similar existing creatures to your needs.

Or would you like to get an overview how to balance monsters, or squeeze
the the last bit of juice out to tailor to your needs(hp-armor relation)?

Some buttons have maybe not yet a function or are not clear to the
guys that spent much time finding out!
Nevertheless I am curious

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:49 am

Rain set these to 'unknown' because, at the present time, he doesn't know. There's a funny kind of logic there....

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:56 am

what I mean, that if something is absolutely unused in any of the monster types (always set to zero), it`s probably really empty (unused), wchich means that this value, if changed, doesn`t really change anything in a monster behaviour. Unless the designers made a function, wchich they never decided to use of (I think it`s less probable). In that case these buttons should be named rather "unused" than "unknown" (check out area 2 on the screenshot; "unused1" and "unused4" are never changing, while "unused2" and "unused3" sometimes does).

If there`s a bit, wchich is changing, depending on a monster type, it`s probably in use, but we don`t know it`s appriopration (check out areas 3, 4 and 5 on the screenshot; these values are changing form 0 to 15, while area 6 seems infact really empty; these bits, no matter if the values changing or not, are always named as "unused". I guess shoud be named as "unknown").

Zooom: I want to investigate it somehow, because I neet it for balancing strenght of some monsters, but I don`t know how to do this. When I changed these values (wchich are probably in use, I didn`t noticed any changes on monster`s behaviour).. That`s why I started this thread; maybe someone will solve these mysterious..?

ps: why are "unused2" and "unused3" flags on area 2 always set together?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 7:42 am

YHeah, you already discovered the 'can attack fro mthe side and back' bit! Every little insight if people start thnking about this or notice connections is cool : )

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:42 am

btw, what does unknown 1 do?

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 11:43 am

"Can attack from the side and back"? I never knew that. What monsters have those abilities? Does RTC emulate them too (I don't think so)?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 12:53 pm

Beholders and screamers I think...wheras a rock monster does have a back and sides, you just can't tell

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:30 pm

ok, what`ll be the best way to investigate these strange values?
I`m going to make a new, very simple, one - level dungeon with three rooms (party starting room, 1st creature room and 2nd creature room) with 2 kinds of monsters set on the level: say mummy1 and mummy2. Mummy1 will be a typical mummy (id num10), mummy2 will be, say, skeleton (id num12) with the same values on ADGE monster editor set as mummy has and with skeleton bitmap replaced with mummy bitmap (so the bitmaps and the behaviour of these two kind of creatures should be 100% identical), but.. with different one of the unknown values. Say mummy1 will have "unused1*" from word 14 set to min value (0), while the second monster will have the same function set to it`s maximum (15) and notice changes in behaviour of these two creatures.
I hope there isn`t anything hardcoded with mummies & skeleton ids !

* - doesn`t seem really unused as it`s changing depending of a monster type

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:56 pm

people, please write here your observations, some of them may be helpful

for example: I just noticed, that in "unused1" word18 (area 5 on my screenshot): all "lords (Gery Lord, Lord Order, Lord Chaos) has that "unused" value set to maximum (15), so it might be some (non magic and non-poison) resistance...*

* - it`s in the same byte where magic resistance and poison resistance are

Grey Lord, Lord Order and Lord Chaos has MAX (15),
Demons and Dragons has (13) of it,
Flying Eye has (12),
Vexirk has (11),
Deth Knight has (10),
Oitu and Black Flame has (9),
Couatl and Rive has (8 ),
Water Elemental & Stone Golem has (7),
Zytaz and Scorpions has (6),
Mummy and Giggler has (5),
Muncher, Screamer and Hellhound has (4),
Worm, Skeleton, Rock Pile and Ruster has (3),
Slime Devil has (2),
Antman has (1)
and no monster has (0)

what do you think, what can that be?

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:15 pm

ok, here goes the next one:
"unused1"/word 14 (area 4 on my screenshot). Might be concerned with sightrange, spellrange and awareness, cause it`s in the same byte (?)

worm (10)
oitu (9)
water el (8 )
giggler (7)
rock pile and ALL lords (6)
scorpion, hellhound and zytaz (5)
couatl, antman, demon and dragon (4)
slime devil, ruster, vexirk and muncher (3)
rive, stone golem and mummy (2)
screamer, black flame and skeleton (1)
flying eye and deth knight has minimum (0)

what could that be?

rain` · Post by **rain`** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 9:40 pm

Ahh the good ole unknown ADGE values !!!

Amazing aren't they? Heres a quick summary:

Unused#: If its Unused1, or Unused4, or anything w/ Unused before it, that means I searched every nick and cranny in the CSBWin source code for any routine that used that value. None existed. I deemed it "Unused". No matter what value is in there, I am 99.9% positive that it is completely irrelavant.

Unknown#: If its Unknown prefixed, it means I searched every knick and cranny of CSBWin source to figure out what exactly it does but just came up empty. The difference here is I know it is used somewhere, I just can't decypher what it is doing. (Just noticed someone found the attakcs-from-all-sides bit, nice!).

Dumb flag: Monster is dumb, believe this means they pick a random person out of the group to attack, not the one in front of them (could be back row ala water eles/gigglers).

Short flag: only purpose is to make doors above them go further down before "hitting the monster" and going back up. Screamers, rocks, Worms, etc.

Attack/status speed don't remember, would have to delve into the code again or check the readme (think i summarized them in the readme...) Skill is the multiplier for amount of EXP gained when attacking the monster.

Does "skill" have something with "strenght"/"hit prob": No.

"what are "teleporter" value for? I`ve never seen teleporting creature": You never seen lord chaos eh? I found the value near the teleport code so i just called it teleport.

"what is the difference between "awareness" and "sightrange": No idea. AI Code is spaghetti, I got lost in it. Very very hard to follow.

Theres more in the readme, otherwise get the latest CSBWin source code and jump right in, you'll find the values are named very similar (for this precise reason). The unknown1/2/3/4 you wonder about is part of word4, which makes it even harder to find. Honestly, i spent alot of time jumping into the source, and unless Paul Stevens cleaned up that section of the code I don't see anyone besides Paul Stevens getting any sense out of it. Good luck though! The AI code especially is very, very messy and hard to follow.

Hope this helps.

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:00 pm

ooh thanx for description rain` !
so you say these values are 99.9 % unused.. I`m curious why (some of them) were set then (I`m thinking about areas 3,4 and 5 on my screenshot). Maybe FTL guys were planning to put another three functions to the monster behaviour, and even put a values for each monster, but gave up, not to overrun the CPU or something?

Too bad we don`t know the destination of "unknown 1-4" yet (area 2 on my screenshot). maybe we somehow find out what it does (if does).

"You never seen lord chaos eh? I found the value near the teleport code so i just called it teleport. "
I mean, a rive for example has teleport value set to 4 (see my screenshot above), but I never saw teleporting rive. What does that mean then? Is it a probability of teleporting or.. ?

EDIT: readme just readed

Code: Select all

Teleport: Not sure exactly, but when set to 15, allows the monster to "teleport" a few squares away (i.e. lord chaos)
Attack length: Amount of time to display attack graphic
Status speed: Amount of time to 'turn' ????
Atk Stat Spd: The amount of time after turning required to pass until an attack can be made ????

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:25 pm

ok, so now I would like to make a list of hardcoded functions for all the creatures in CSBwin.
00 Scorpion: ___ hardcoded
01: Slime Devil: ___ hardcoded
02: Giggler: ___ hardcoded
03: Flying Eye : ___ hardcoded
etc.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:30 pm

Adamo, you wrote:
I mean, a rive for example has teleport value set to 4
(see my screenshot above), but I never saw teleporting rive.
-----------------------------------------------
Have you ever wondered why rives disappear suddenly while
chasing them? THey teleport! That makes these beasts and
their dm counterparts really nasty opponents
Nice to now why they vanish.

just guessing here:
Could be that they teleport away only when they are being
chased "value" squares, or "bravery lowered" enough to
initiate(start) teleportation or how far away from party.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:35 am

I have never seen a rive or ghost teleport, ever! Are you sure it's not just because they are hard to see? : )

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 10:03 am

materializers and rives vanish, I am sure - but only when
frightened (brandish/calm effect on monsters).

Same with Chaos; also only teleports away when your party is
scaring him with warcry/blowhorn whatever.

Without the fear effect, Lord Chaos would certainly not vanish
while being in meele with the party.
No reason for a monster to choose escape route while
having the chance to wipe out party.

Materializers and rives are strong opponents, because
when the battle is in your favour, and you chase the hard to
see monsters to finish them off - they are gone -
just to retaliate. Really wears you down .guerillia tactic.

btw, on an Amiga game of csb (was completed)
I missed Lord Chaos on level 1 , so never met him!!
Was kind of unhappy not to see the end boss of csb back then.

ghosts somehow don't vanish...

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 10:50 am

Nope, rives don't vasnish, they are jsut bloody hard to see on a dungeon floor

Materialisers 'vanish' becuase they have an almost invisible graphic when scared away - bnut this isn't a teleport either : )

Chaos teleporters for a number or reason - usually trapped though...he doen't telporter when scared unless also trapped

Post by **Lunever** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 11:32 am

Zooooom: Sorry, but you should verify your assumptions more often before posting them. As Beo said, rives don't vanish, not do ghosts or materializers. Rives' graphics merely consist of a couple of white dots on the dungeon floor as long as they are not attacking, and in CSB Dain some dissappear because they fall through the laughing pit. Materializers don't vanish either, they merely oscillate between a more solid and a less solid state, and in the less solid state they are mostly transparent and thus hard to see, especially if they are not floating directly before your party. The transparency of ghosts however does not oscillate, they are always transparent in the middle and have clear lines on the borders, so if you think one of them vanished it might just have been because it moved outside your vision angle and you got a bit disoriented and confused. Except for DMJava which I played only once, I played most versions and clones of DM/CSB several times, first on ST and Amiga years ago, later the MS-DOS-PC version, then CSBWin, and then mostly RTC through many releases. No one ever teleported except Lord Chaos.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:26 pm

ok ,maybe too self confident here.
what I posted were my assumptions-not more.
For, me they make perfect sense.

I do not want to spread some rumours(again).
If so, apologies!
But I am not so sure about what both of you tell me.

I know basic stuff like the materializer has an almost invisible
graphic, rives can fall through pits etc and now I am going to
start a dm game (to prove me wrong ; ).

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:31 pm

Rives don't fall through pits, they float over them!

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:31 pm

Just checked .
Materializers can go through closed doors,
(in such a way that they are never on the door but effectively
2 squares away with one move -but no teleportation
This makes you believe they teleport.
Anyway I have no clue about it whatsoever;.

Edit>Forget that, was because the monster was facing
away from party and on the other side of door or sth

rives do not fall down pits put portcullis?

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:05 pm

you can easily chack if monster IS teleporting, or not: just make a micro-dungeon with ONE (1) monster only (from that kind, that you`re interested in), start the game and and turn on a "monster AI trace" (it`s in game options). You should get about 20-30 kb file after, say, 30 monster movements with all moves, that monster did (a whole monster`s trace with all it`s moves on x/y space). Then you can very easily see all moves/actions, that monster did during the play.

If there`s a gape (lap) between monster movements [say: 00(01,01), 00(01,02) and then immediatelly 00(03,06)], then there`s a strong proof, that monster is really teleporting itself.

You can do it in a "normal" dungeon, of course, but that would show the movements of ALL monsters in the game, so I dont recommend (the AI trace file would be very big).

PS. there`s a comparation between bravery (B) (fear factor) and teleportation factor (T) used in CSB, if it would help for anyone...

Code: Select all

Scorpion                 B 9  T 2
Slime Devil              B 10 T 3
Giggler                  B 0  T 7
Flying Eye               B 10 T 9
Hellhound                B 15 T 5
Ruster                   B 3  T 4
Screamer                 B 15 T 1
Rock Pile                B 12 T 2
Rive                     B 6  T 4
Stone Golem              B 15 T 3
Mummy                    B 9  T 5
Black Flame              B 10 T 5
Skeleton                 B 9  T 6
Coualt                   B 3  T 5
Vexirk                   B 5  T 13 *
Worm                     B 10 T 1
Antman                   B 4  T 2
Muncher                  B 15 T 1
Deth Knight              B 15 T 7
Zytaz                    B 7  T 10 *
Water Elemental          B 7  T 7
Oitu                     B 6  T 6
Demon                    B 15 T 11
Lord Chaos               B 3  T 15 *
Dragon                   B 7  T 11
Lord Order               B 3  T 15 *
Grey Lord                B 3  T 15 *

* - these monsters have low bravery factor and high teleport factor

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:29 am

anyone knows how do the monsters treats fake (opened & visible or invicible) walls? Do they threat them as empty tiles when the flag "walk through walls" is set to 1?
Do they know about it or do they know only when the party walks trough it? If so, who knows that the wall is fake:
- only the monster, who already "seen" the party walking though it,
- all monsters of its kind,
- all other kinds of monsters with that flag set to 1?

I assume that kinds of monsters without that flag set treats all un-ordinary tiles as walls, such as opened-invicible walls?

EDIT: ha! I already anwered myself in the "all monster characteristic" topic

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:25 am

right, another crazy idea.

I heard somewhere, that if you attack some kinds of monsters (eg. rock piles), while being in their "attack state" (for example, when rock pile`s jaws is open), they`ll get more damage than normally. If it`s thrue, cause that might be a legend.

http://www.dmjump.net/monster_stat_values.JPG
maybe those unknown flags (2nd and 3rd) from "area 2" on the screenshot above are responsible for decreasing monster`s armor value (or increasing character`s strenght) in the time of attack?

But on the other hand, WORD4 is concerned with displaying the creatures graphics, not it`s behaviour (it`s for WORD4, not WORD2).

Does anybody has a list of monsters with those flags enabled? (I cannot run ADGE right now).