General CSB debugging

[billgus]

Having recently played a CSB/Amiga game, I decided to look through the RTC source and enjoy analyzing the puzzles.

I have already found one bug - see the Skeleton Key thread.

I have now started a party ... the first bug is the 'get the flask' corridor near the 'run & jump' pit. This was set to be triggered pits but should be continuous.

I didn't see the 'Monster Naming' scroll. Is this supported by RTC yet?

[Lubor Kolar]

What's that Monster Naming scroll? I don't remember I have seen any item like this.

[George Gilbert]

Thanks very much for spotting the omissions; I'll implement them for the next release of RTC (along with a few other things!).

I have to say I'm quite surprised by the lack of comments about CSB especially compared to the number of missing or wrongly implemented puzzles I had in my earliest version of DM! Has anyone played CSB through yet, or is it a case of the DM dungeon being so ingrained in peoples psyche that differences between the RTC version and the original stand out more!

[Gambit37]

I simply haven't had the time to play it - and when I rarely do get a chance my PC doesn't exactly handle it very well...

I'm in the process of building a new PC at the moment - it's slow as I'm still unsure which motherboard to buy - too many choices. But when it's done, it will make everything I do on the PC so much more pleasurable that I'll return to RTC CSB and give it a more thorough seeing to!

Good to see you're still around George!

[billgus]

More problems:

I tried the lower KU path. When I reached the "No Fireballs" room, I found a bug. Normally you use a minimum Poison Cloud on the Munchers. But RTC doesn't do spells on criters inside a spinner. Later, I was on trying Dain path for another bug - below - and found I (the party) could stand in a spinner and not be warmed by all the fireballs. So the bug works both ways.

Also in the Dain Fireball Room, I could not open the gate behind the spinner. Apparently, my fireballs would being spun - or the grate door wasn't set to be imflamable.

Another bug: Poison Cloud spells don't go through grate doors. This is needed several places and required for the DDD upper Dain path entry. (I didn't try throwing objects - they pass grates based on Ninja level.)

-------
I also found the Dain path Fireball room malfunctioning greatly. I suspect this is not in the engine.

1) The Fireballable Grate door isn't (mentioned above).
2) The fireball shooters are continuously on. They are one-shot triggered - see DMute.
3) The spinners are set the relative - they should be absolute.
4) The secret passage opened without an item in the niche. I believe it is suppose to open when you put a object back into the niche (like the scroll from the entrance to the room).

[amaprotu]

First I just don't have time for any sort of playing right now. But even when I do get time (should be just a couple more weeks, then school is out!), I have never played CSB before so I won't be able to point out differences.

Gambit: I very highly, very strongly recomend ASUS motherboards. If you want more specific let me know, just send me an e-mail to amaprotu@amaprotu.net with the type of computer you are building (P4 or Athlon).

[Gambit37]

Thanks for the tip Amaprotu. However, I've decided on an Abit KX7-333 (Socket A, AMD XP) - it's a good all round board and has received good reviews on several different sites. Whatever I get though will be great - it's 4½ years since I had a new PC and my poor old AMD-233 is beginning to die. It's done me proud!

[amaprotu]

It is of course up to you, but I have had problems with Abit boards on more than one occasion. And perhaps more importantly I have had trouble dealing with their tech support; I still have a motherboard that broke within the 1 year warrenty that I could not get them to fix or replace.

I would seriously recomend the A7V333 from asus ( <a href="http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v333/o ... .htm">Link Here</a> ) which is probably the same chipset as the board you are looking at from Abit. All ASUS boards have 3 year warrenties.

[Gambit37]

I had a look at that Asus board, but I've been unable to find the standard version to buy anywhere in the UK. The only models I've found have the onboard sound, firewire, RAID etc - all things that I don't require at the moment and I'd only end up disabling, which seems a waste of money.

If I can find that board in a standard configuration, then I'll be more than happy to buy it, based on other reviews I've read and your recoomendation. I'll have one more search!

[billgus]

(Engine) Criiters in the same square wander off. Once together, groups should stick together.

(Engine) Monsters dropped through pits should be instant kills. This is because DM's engine only supported limited types of critters per level. RTC doesn't have this limitation.

So you can drop a criter through a pit and then go down to get an item it was carrying - and, behold, it's still alive!

I saw this on the Ros path. Dropping Knights to the basement should kil them, but I found at least 2 alive.

(Dungeon) The Ros puzzle corridor is messed up. The teleport I have never seen active in CSB is running and blocks completion of the puzzle. The one that turn on doesn't.

(Dungeon) The long corridor behind the Ros throwing puzzle is suppose to have wall decorations - the 'bug' imprint - at the two illusionary walls.

(Engine?) In the Neta Shrieker room, I came back up from the cellar and discovered 6+ Spyders! I had stepped onto the generator - apparently it 'remembered' the triggers from the battle.

(Engine) The Mummies don't run away from the Horn of Fear. They just wander off. This makes the Four Caged Mummies Puzzle very hard.

(?) The Munchers in the Neta Munch room survived Poison Cloud spells extremely well. Munchers are supose to be very vulnerable to Poison.

DDD/Ku - the teleporter that removes the rocks as part of the Earth Elemental creation remains on. I will have to check if this is the same as the real game.

[amaprotu]

Sending you an e-mail Gambit so this thread can get back on topic.

[beowuuf]

I haven´t had the time to play the last two versions of RTC! Argh!
So that´s why I haven´t been able to comment...played enough CSB4win and DM CSB to work my way through it when i get the chance (not for the next month at least...boenos..something...from mexico everyone =) )

Whcih is evil...just when RTC is getting even more exciting than it already was, with CSB and editing...no one has time to test it!

[George Gilbert]

A brief reply to the points:

- Creature Naming scroll is implemented in (the unreleased) V0.20

- Creature independence is there by design. The AI for monsters with intelegence actively gets them to flank you when you're already being attacked from the front as a creature at the rear of the tile can't do much damage to the party there! This is different from DM but intended.

- The RTC engine makes no distinction between the party and monsters when it comes to damage. So being hit by a door or dropping down a pit causes a certain ammount of damage (dependent on armour, height dropped and, for pits, weight carried) to both monsters and the party. Sometimes it kills, sometimes it doesn't. Again this is different from DM but intended.

- All fear attacks have a certain probability of failing, depending on the monster type (e.g. screamers are easily afraid, Lord Chaos never is) and attack type (confuse < horn of fear < war cry). If you fail to scare a monster, then repeatedly doing the same thing won't help you (in fact it makes things worse as the monsters just think you look silly, and attack you more). If this happens, either kill the monster and try again with a different one, or wait a while (a few mins)and try again.

I think everything else is a bug in the CSB dungeon and I'll have a look at fixing them ASAP...

[billgus]

> Creature independence is there by design.

It should be noted as a difference - just like the 'thrown over a pressure plate' difference. So people understand where to expect differences and be ready to change their play style.

> dropping down a pit (doesn't) kill

Again, a difference that needs to be noted.

- All fear attacks...

That's not what I want to report. The Mummy (critter) should usually run directly away from the party. Not off to the side. If you are frightened, you normally try to distance yourself from the fear object - not circle it. Even just more randomness to the movement would help. The AI seems very deterministic at the moment - a problem with this type of puzzle.

> I think everything else is a bug in the CSB dungeon and I'll have a look at fixing them ASAP...

I have been commenting the CSB.txt file and fixing a few things. If you send a message to billgus@teleport.com, I'll send it to you.

[cowsmanaut]

the only reason for killing a monster when it's dropped down a pit is due to the allowance for what kind of monsters are allowed on each level and how many types. Since the engine couldn't support that at the time.. is only natural that it would be changed once the ability to support it arised.

[billgus]

Absolutely correct.

However, the level designers in CSB used this hardware induced limitation as part of the 'puzzle'.

If you have trouble with monsters not dieing in pits, just drop them and then run over and Climb Down on top of them. Unlike Captive, which tries to move the criter out of the way, DM/CSB treats this as an instant kill. I fell threw the Flask pit in the DDD one time and instant kiled the dragon there.

This does reverse the Ros path puzzle. Instead of opening the lower pit (next to Mummy room), leave it closed and use Climb Down to kill the Knights. This is the exact opposite of what the level designers expected.

[George Gilbert]

Ah.

To pre-empt someones next post who rushes off to try this, the above trick won't work with RTC. I've implemented the code such that if you drop (or teleport) onto a tile with a monster, the monster will be moved to a neighbouring tile - only if all the adjacent tiles are full will it die instantly...

[Gambit37]

This monster dying behaviour is also what controlled random placement of objects by using gigglers to carry objects, then teleporting them to levels where they immediately die.

I haven't looked in detail at the CSB dungeon for RTC, but I guess you've implemented this differently George?

It would be (reasonably) easy to replicate the CSB ROS/Knights puzzle using the new functionality of RTC to teleport the knights elsewhere off the normal map, then teleport a pile of armour to the required spot in the basement.

[billgus]

Or teleport them to a room that detects monsters and shoots them until they die - teleporting objects back.

Note this is needed in the Cistern too. CSB teleports monsters from the grate to another level assuming they will die. In RTC, they will just acumulate and eat processing time. They target room should have some shooters added.

[billgus]

I did a quick romp into Amiga/CSB to see the Ros Puzzle Corridor. It has two teleporters - one on the far side of the pit next to the grate door and the second behind the party.

These teleporters are contolled by the facing of the party. They are only active when the party is facing them. I looking at DM's Clockwise loop because I remembered from some old walk-thru that facing is required there, but RTC's code doesn't use facing.

How does one set up a facing sensitive pressure plate?

[beowuuf]

RTC did/does use facing too, it´s an option...umm ,something like OPTION (Facing: East) at the end of the floorpad line that activates it...check the level 11 in RTC DM, of the JoW in RTC CSB, it should be there

[Zyx]

I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to allow, as a dungeon option, monsters to die when reaching a level where they're not allowed or when the party is teleported into the same tile. The code for it should be small, and the CSB dungeon remake would remain unchanged.

[Lunever]

I also don't have enough time for the CSB dungeon, because I always want to test a new version with DM first and then transfer characters to CSB. But when I'm ready with thoroughly testing all corners of the DM-Dungeon and just have started playing the CSB-Dungeon, a new version of RTC is released...


1) The collision of spells/missiles should be checked before the functionality of spinners is checked.
Also, spinners should not work on spells cast on their very tile.
Yet I think, I remeber puzzles in FTL-CSB which reflected spells on the party, but I also remeber puzzles, where you could blast a door in front of youfor example while standing on a spinner tile.
In RTC the latter one doesn't seem to be possible.

2) Especially Lord Chaos was very well susceptible to Fear, so you could chase him into the fluxcages.
It is ok to have different resistance to fear etc. for different monsters, but there should be a chance to scare them that is at least somewhere within the range of FTL-DM. Undead and demonic monsters should be especially suscebtible to being turned by a priest despite their power.
<p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

[billgus]

George:

I have noticed a few pits that don't show correct graphics. How do you setup...

1) Invisible pit - plain floor
2) Camaflogued pit - outline

There are several other combos, including switched versions. I'm sure you'll document it all at some point.

[George Gilbert]

Can you please explain exactly what you need in a bit more detail - I think the things you want are there, but am not sure.

[billgus]

In DM/CSB, some pits are completely invisible. For example, the Neta Mummy room in CSB is suppose to have invisible pits. Some places, like DM Knight level have camoflouged pits - they have a slight outline visible (execpt for AMiga user's using the TV output - too blury).

The Dain Snake Spiral (I can't spell Cuogel off the top of my head) has both. 4 pits are camoflogued and several are invisible.

Of course, a real switched pit might have almost any combination of graphics. The DM Knight level has outline when active and nothing when inactive. The Neta Mummy pits have no graphics in either state.

[George Gilbert]

Got it.

- The camouflaged pit is already implemented as FLOORITEM_PIT_INVISIBLE

- I didn't know the "invisible" pits existed (and before you say, no, I didn't see them) but you can recreate them by simply cloning a FLOORITEM_PIT and changing all the graphics to be NULL. That way you won't be able to see it regardless of what state it's in which will give you the desired effect.

This begs the question; should I change the name of my invisible pit to camouflaged, and create a new "invisible" object with no graphics. Any thoughts?

[Gambit37]

There are no invisible pits, at least not in any version of CSB I've played.

The Neta mummy room has two pits that have outlines in CSB for Amiga. I remember this clearly from playing it on the Amiga, and also recently from playing it emulated.

The ST version of CSB also has outlines for these pits, although they seem to be a little harder to see from the side. They are definitely there though.

There are no completely invisible pits in DM or CSB on any platform as far as I am aware.

[beowuuf]

ìnvisible' pits are simply ones that open and close instantly when you stand on them...from what i recall the hex only supports:

visible
camouflaged
fake
fake camouflaged

each one can be toggled open and close, even the fake ones

soitsnot worth having invisible pits, as you don't see normalonmes til its too late anyway!

[Gambit37]

Then it's nothing more than semantics. Bilgus' interpretation of invisible pits is exactly as you state Beowuuf - solid floor that opens a pit and closes immediately. I assumed that he meant an *actual* pit that is always open but looks like solid floor - these clearly do not exist.