Dungeon Master Forum

One question about rusters: What items are they capable to destroy? Weapons only, or armor too? Any of those items or just metal ones (like the original rusters in D&D)?
Do items have a "rustable" index? If not, I think they should have, 'cause rusting a wooden club or a leather pant wouldn't make sense. Also, rusting was not included in the FTL-DM published at last to avoid creating unsolvable savegames (imagine the mighty firestaff crumbled to dust!).
So there are certain items, which should be exempt from being rusted.
If items do not have such an index (which I do not know), it should be introduced now (default being YES), since this would be another change in the dungeon format, I suppose, and probably no one wants another change of format after V0.22 .
<p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

It used to be only swords thsat could be rusted in RTC - i think this is still the case?

I don't know what RTC actually rusts, but seeing as the rusters have now been programmed to rust, it would make sense that they can rust anything made of metal. See those long green tentacles? That's what they use to touch you and rust anything they come in contact with, including armour.

I think if they can rust armour that you're wearing it makes this lowly creature suddenly very threatening indeed. Obviously it doesn't make sense that they can rust things within containers, so stuff in the inventory and pouch/quiver should be safe, but imagine losing an entire suit of armour? It would mean a whole new strategy in dealing with them.

I understand why FTL left this feature out, but I don't see any reason why it can't be developed more in RTC. If you as a player lose your best items, then it's tough. It's all part of the learning experience of playing. You can always go back to a savegame, or start over; that's the penalty of dealing with the little guys in the wrong manner.

Of course it's nice to have opponents that are dangerous not only in terms of damage.
I agree, that all metal weapons in the hands of the player and armor worn should be possible targets, items in the quiver/pouch/backpack should be save.
Special items necessary to complete the game (like a firestaff) or puzzles that are important to complete the game and keys (metal or not) should be exempt from rusting for the sake of savegame stability.
Also, the armor of Lyte/Darc/Dragon/Ra should have the special advantage of being resistant to rusting (which is not much of an advantage in DM cause when you get these armors all rusters are probably already dead).
<p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

I'd be tempted to say armour, and anything flagged that is carried i nthe hand (keys, weapons, - not certain items liek the firestaff)

it a dangerous thing...i hate games that can create impossible situations where you have o restart because you can't solve it...

As per the thread on rusters in "suggestions", each item individually has a "RUST_TO" property. Currently this is only set for swords, but could be set for anything if so desired. I'll add it to the metal armour too...

I couldn't find RUST_TO in the v0.21 exe file, but I did find CONVERT_TO. Is that the same thing?

Nope. See the thread in suggestions again

When I get some time I'll document these things; in the mean time, feel free to keep asking!

Armour (worn, not in backpack) will now rust in v0.22...

What armor exactly will rust?
<p>Komm zur bunten Seite der Macht! </p>

I assume all, just like all swords rust
Personally i think this is fine - i'll pre-emptively put a 'no' vote to making lyte/darc exceptions

I wonder.
Can a rusted item be unrusted ? How ?
There are games "Betrayal from Krondor"? "Diablo"? where armors and swords get damaged when used. When they get too much damaged, they collapse, there are ways to repair them to avoid loosing them.
I am just curious to know about RTC.

From how it sounds set up, you can't withoput background mechanics

Eg all swords and armour sounds like it will 'convert_to' rust the way DM is set up- so you can't revert. But in our own dungeons we could just intelligently set al lthe rusting properties to unique things like 'rusted_delta' etc, and then have an alcove that converts those back to deltas

Beowuuf's got it exactly right. There's nothing at all in the mechanics to stop you doing what you suggest; and the way to do it is to have lots of unique rusted items (which may even have exactly the same graphics as each other).

You can also have "stages" of rusting by having intermediate steps. For example

SWORD_DELTA OPTIONS=(RUSTS_TO:SWORD_DELTA_HALF_RUST)
SWORD_DELTA_HALF_RUST OPTIONS-(RUST_TO:MISC_RUST)

In this case your delta would have to be hit twice before it completely fell apart.