Conflux III discussion thread - potential spoilers

[Zyx]

1) Crab and Coral Poleyn

I've never seen the crab reported to be there despite of searching the underwater area systematically multiple times. The Coral Poleyn was on the floor. As I first found it I reloaded a game before entering the area to make sure not having killed the monster which should hold the item by accident with spells from a distance while fighting another creature.

Big bug, any missile was causing a fire explosion, and there are immaterial missiles in the crab level. Fixed for next version.

I found also Ven Eggs at quite a few spots where I didn't remember to have killed a Muncher before, for example in front of the stairs when returning to the air.

Munchers can lay eggs while alive.

2) Sundrier

To the left approximately in the middle of the corridor remained one lock visible while the others vanished when the spell shooters were shut down, but I didn't find another use for it. The last shooter in the row where the Black Flame is could not be deactivated, the lock also kept flashing. The game seems otherwise unaffected.

Fixed for next version.

[Christoph]

Yes, any ring keeps that door open; I was mentioning OH GOR because there are two additional uncharged Stormrings where you got the spell from. In the corridor where you have to carry a Plasma, simply do not bring one along with you on the mouse cursor, cast one into an empty champion's hand instead. Then you can pick up everything on the floor, which gives you at least a lot of bags, which I found to be quite useful to keep things in which would otherwise hatch or rot away. These two Stormrings do have the normal actions, but no lightning charges left, so one of them is the ideal sacrifice for this alcove. There are quite a few charged Rings in the game, which you'd prefer to carry with you for fighting over those uncharged ones because of the additional spell action for emergency use.

The SAR Key pit is mentioned only in an Oracle Hint in front of the SAR locks down on the path to the Emerald Forest that lists locations where to find those.

For the Materialisers you should have the Vorpal Blade from the Haven of Meditation by now and probably the Branch of Fear and Courage from the temple's tree. The latter isn't as good as a second Vorpal Blade, but a far better weapon than you would expect a stick to be, and one of the few weapons affecting immaterial monsters.

The armours…, well, I looked at the DM/CSB item list of course, but it doesn't even mention an "Elven Aketon" and "Elven Mail", are those better than Mithral (which is astonishingly better than the much heavier plate mail, according to said list)? Even the normal properties being slightly better can save you in a difficult fight, for instance granting you the little extra time needed to heal yourself before being killed… I think the draining armours aren't generally worth the tradeoff, and I prefer elven boots over heavy footwear, because you can carry much more stuff with you.

It's true, most of the "immobile councillors" are invulnerable, but not so the ones in the Council Chamber on the pits, I think you must attack them to escape, but I'm not sure. The figure in front of the Merchant Maze is also killable, as well as the citizens from the Altar of the Assault.

If you want WIP002, I've got it here and can send it to you if the server is unreliable or the link broken.

Another question: what about Spiked Maces, are they better than normal ones and inferior to Maces of Order? I think I must test the one I've found…

[Christoph]

And what about the inscription "TALK" near the sundrier, by the way? Does that mean anything?

[beowuuf]

Elven aketon/mail are just reskinned chainmail, I believe.

If you have WIP002 then you could send it to beowuuf@yahoo.com (already gets tons of spam) and I can host it through DM.com for other people.

I think the plazma test is broken if you can pick up items, I htink the idea was to be tempted with useless items you couldn't take away.


Not sure about the other stuff, I'm afraid!

[Zyx]

TALK is a bug. Fixed for next version.
Beo is right about the plasma test, items are not intended to be pickable. However if you clever enough to beat the vexirk's design, well, you deserve the junk on the floor
I tried downloading the WIP002, it worked fine.

[beowuuf]

Woohoo, it works now! The full 15Mb downloaded, cool!

[Christoph]

Oh, I had already sent it; well, you've got another one then. Where do you host it, by the way? Most links on "dungeon-master.com" go to "free.fr" and the like.

As I said, it's really simple to get hold of these items at the Plasma Test. I've read about far more clever approaches to beat the games' design in this thread (many of which probably won't work any more…)

[Christoph]

Hm, has a Key of B been relocated from behind the hidden wall on the Apprentice Level where you get teleported in a "circle"? I don't find one there in the current version while it is marked on the map; or must it be "unlocked" somewhere first?

[beowuuf]

Thank you!


The files are direct downloads, I usually put the link in the first post of the dungeon threads. In general, the encyclopaedia on dmweb.free.fr hosts engine files, etc and is usually the better place to link to


Edit: No clue about the Key of B, or rather no memory!

[Christoph]

More questions:

1. Flood Test in the Room of Fate reachable from the Guilds: what does this do apart from the obvious? Are other levels affected?
2. Mildew area, "Counterweight for Salvation": according to my spell-enhanced compass, there is the level's main treasure, how do I get there? Is that a matter of timing?
3. The same spell tells me on the temple level that I've already found the sewers' treasure. Is this a bug?
4. The oracle where you find the dragon helmet on level 7 says something about a "gong". Going to the place it mentions reveals nothing special, and I don't hear a gong. I hope this isn't an acoustic riddle, because the Linux version of CSBwin has awful sound.
5. Can the flood on the Council level of the Stairs of Ashes be stopped? I opened the drain downstairs until any water had gone, but upstairs it returns. I haven't opened the half-open door yet; perhaps the key is more useful elsewhere.
6. The sewers have some areas (to the south-west and to the east) that open and close, and I don't find the triggers. Even one broken door can be "resurrected" as it seems. This wouldn't be so important, but I might have trapped some cartographer with a map password, not found all of them yet.

[Zyx]

1. If you have a slow machine, you can decrease the flood effect to keep the game fluid.
3. Looks like a bug, I'll check.

[Christoph]

Since I've discovered Conflux, I've been using the maps at megar's site http://dmwiki.atomas.com/maps/view/Conflux/0/ rather than drawing my own on paper and included my findings there. Apart from the problem that these "findings" might be actually incorrect and just false assumptions, I'm wondering if I might be giving away too much information, thus spoiling the game for other users; therefore I'd appreciate your comments.

[Zyx]

I find them terrific. Is a too much? I think a few screenshots would enhance them. I would help, but strangely I'm not allowed to edit.

[Christoph]

I'm astonished and impressed that even the Demiurge Himself is following my endeavours. That tells me that I'm in fact not too far away from the truth, but what about lowly players? What do they think about my efforts?

[Christoph]

Screenshots, in fact, wouldn't be THAT terrific. I'm using the Linux edition which is quite closely emulating the Atari ST. I've seen screenshots from the underwater level that actually show water, which seems to be restricted to Direct X users. I'd be willing to help enhancing this for OpenGL, but not on my own.

[Zyx]

What ? The Overlay function is not working under Linux?
You can use the screenshots from my page in the meanwhile.

[Paul Stevens]

The Overlay function is not working under Linux

The overlay function has nothing to do
with DirextX or Linux. The whole thing
is done by code within CSBwin.

But it appears that the conversion of
CSBwin to Linux rewrote the 'Screen.cpp'
module. It probably never got updated
after we implemented overlays. I think
this was a big mistake. It was the wrong
place to convert the graphics....much too
early in the process. There is nothing wrong
with using SDL for the graphics. In fact,
I might be persuaded to change the Windows
implementation to SDL. That would make
other conversions easier, too.

Quote:

Code: Select all

/*
* Linux screen handling...
* I use SDL for for the graphics part,
* and Hermes to stretch the image
* (oddy enough SDL doesn't appear to
* have any stretch-blit functionality?)
* Anyway... SDL uses some pre-
* processor magic that requiers
* pragma pack NOT to be used,
* at least not pack(1),
* unfortunately CSBTypes.h defines pack(1),
* so SDL is included in stdafx.h, before
* we define any pragma packing.
*/

[Zyx]

*persuades* It's worth it!

[Gambit37]

Wow, Zyx, I didn't know you had your own page for Conflux. Some cool stats there -- 10,000 hours design! According to Gladwell, you're a true expert, but of course we know this already

[Zyx]

To be fair, most of this time was spent playtesting.

[beowuuf]

So you are an expert in being driven insane then?

[Christoph]

Overlay function? I did obviously miss something… Well, almost anything regarding the Linux version is outdated, it's already difficult to compile under current Linux distributions (requires to install old libraries), hence the only solution worth the effort would be to resolve all those problems once and for all (at least for another couple of years.)

[Christoph]

The Overlay function is not working under Linux

The overlay function has nothing to do
with DirextX or Linux. The whole thing
is done by code within CSBwin.

But it appears that the conversion of
CSBwin to Linux rewrote the 'Screen.cpp'
module. It probably never got updated
after we implemented overlays. I think
this was a big mistake. It was the wrong
place to convert the graphics....much too
early in the process. There is nothing wrong
with using SDL for the graphics. In fact,
I might be persuaded to change the Windows
implementation to SDL. That would make
other conversions easier, too.

Quote:

Code: Select all

/*
* Linux screen handling...
* I use SDL for for the graphics part,
* and Hermes to stretch the image
* (oddy enough SDL doesn't appear to
* have any stretch-blit functionality?)
*/

I've checked this; the whole thing is done in "LinScreen.cpp", so anything regarding graphics has to be implemented twice for Windows and Unix-like systems.

I think (only an assumption of mine) that many of the current problems emerge from CSBwin being sort of an M68K emulator with specific enhancements.

There's this unsolved Hermes problem: the current Linux version cannot be resized by dragging the window edges with the mouse; you must use the 1x-2x-3x-4x-function implemented elsewhere.

The sound is a big problem as well: sound events are "stacked" running under Linux; at some point an overflow of whatever occurs, preventing any further sound output.

The function of printing the characters' status values at 1x screen size is also not implemented in Linux.

If anything is being changed, those problems should be resolved first, I think, otherwise the Linu version will die.

[Paul Stevens]

The big reason Linux built its own Screen.cpp is that
I used assembly language.

The WindowCE version uses no assembly language
and is just as good without it, IMHO. If I ever
get my CSBwin hat on again (I will....but my DungeonCraft
project is too active right now), I'll convert screen.cpp
to the WindowsCE version.

Then we can remove the Linux version of screen.cpp.

It will still only have 1x, 2x, 3x, and 4x. But if someone
does not like it, it will be easier to fix. These modern
CPUs are remarkable devices compared to a 68000.

Does Linux use SDL sound? Is it SDL that is queuing
the sound?

I think that if I convert CSBwin to use SDL graphics
that I will lose my menu. Perhaps that is not so bad.
A hot-key to bring up a dialog box might be just the
ticket. Well, I promise to look into SDL someday.

[Christoph]

Oh, I've forgotten to mention something: for a programme to be truly platform independent it's not wise to rely on Direct X in any form (I've read about DX being the default as of Conflux version XXX…)

This is MS Windows specific. If enhanced graphics functions are required, I'd suggest to use OpenGL which is available on any platform.

[Christoph]

Oh, yes, the menu… the Linux version has got a separate menu window which is only there if GTK+ (The GIMP Toolkit) is available.

[Paul Stevens]

programme to be truly platform independent

I don't use DirectX graphics. Seems complicated. The
Windows version use OS calls directly.

We will never have that. To be truly platform independent
we would have to switch to Java or something.

I have used SDL. Easy to use and works fine for what
I was doing. Moved between Windows and Linux without
source-code changes. Graphics....not sound.

OpenGL appeared complicated to me. Perhaps just
my unfamiliarity. But I only need one function:
Copy buffer to device.

[Christoph]

Even Java isn't platform independent per se, while it tends to consume huge amounts of system resources. I'm not fond of it.

For platform independency it's good to use libraries like GTK and SDL which are available on almost any platform.

I think there's nothing wrong about sticking with C++ (although I'm not fond of it either), as long as one's aware of the fact that every "#ifdef windows" type exception requires new Linux code as well.

Speaking about platforms: I'm curoius; are the special CSB map spells involving GOR supported in CSBwin or aren't they because it's been derived from the ST version?

[Paul Stevens]

This duscussion continued in CSBwin/CSBuild forum.

Edit by Zyx: here

[Christoph]

The WIP001 and WIP002 come with a new "hcsb.hct" file for the Hint Oracle.
I cannot load this one with my saved game (I've started the game with 3.5B8.)
The file is in the path, and is found according to the command line output (it stops searching for it as soon as it reaches the location where I've put it.)
Nonetheless I get a "file not found" type error message box.