Expert questions (game mechanics)

[PicturesInTheDark]

Hi all,

these questions are related to both DM and CSB but are posted in this forum as I am working on a documentation for CSBuild. I will also post them in Cowasmanauts forum, but please answer them <b>here</b> to avoid double posting.

Please let me know about anything you can add, even if it is only a part of a question. They are in random order.

1) What effects would "Des Potion", "Sar Potion", "Um Potion" and "Zo Potion" have? Neither appears in the original dungeons but is there a clearly intended use that can be assigned to one of them?

2) What effects would "Kath bomb", "Pew bomb" and "Ra bomb" have? Again, neither appears in the original dungeons but is there a clearly intended use that can be assigned to one of them?

3) What exactly is “The conduit”, in the code of which versions did it appear and are there any assigned functions or was it simply never used ?Furthermore, what is its numeric type ?

4) Who experienced problems with multiple chestings and who did not? Which were they? Are these problems reproducable ? Is there any known limit to chesting ?

5) Values of objects (i.e. apple with value 6 does mean what ? I think I recall something in the forums about nutrition values of different foods - am I right? If so, do you know where I can find the list ? And since this applies to all other objects as well like a blue gem, what do they mean in this case ?) and charges of a weapon/piece of clothing (any use if not a staff or storm ring for example ?) are pretty mysterious to me. What does a broken or even poisoned item entrail for the game itself (poisoned armet, for example) ? What does “torch type” have for consequences if selected when editing an item ? How many levels of strength are there for potions and what do they actually mean for use in the game?

6) This is not a question but a phenomenon. I'd be interested in comments.

There’s a funny effect if you have bones (party) in the dungeon – don’t know if you are familiar with that. I placed them in the topmost level of my test dungeon, right after the champion portraits. Now if you resurrect/reincarnate only one character and then go to those bones (party) they are named like the character you just took. If you then go to a “Vi Altair” and use those bones you get a new kind of “ghost” – a character symbol appears (same color as the original one), but no character sheet/tab is available. As far as I found out you can’t do anything with this double. Only tried in CSBwin though. Is that a known phenomenon? Should it be "allowed" as part of the game or not? What do you think ?

Thank you very much,

regards PitD

[Ulmo]

This is what I've understood when reading CSBwin code :

5)
I do not know what the value of an object is, and where the 6 value comes from.

There is an array with the foodvalues of food, the values seems to be found in the dungeon.dat file.
Playing CSB, these values are :
WormRound Apple ScreamerSlice Corn Bread Cheese Shank DragonSteak
350 500 550 600 650 820 990 1400

To understand what these value represent, you must know that :
* both food and water are ranged from -1024 to 2048
* Hungry/Thursty (yellow) : -511 < food/water < 0
* Very Hungry/Thursty (red) : food/water < -512
* Starting values (resurect/reincarnate) are 1500+Rand(0-255)
* A flask contains 1600 water units.
* A Waterskin contains 3 times 800 water units.

Also note that a pixel represents 32 units (but the last pixel not shown if value is exactly 2048...)

5) again
I simply think that charge/poisoned/cursed/... are ignored when not concerning a proper object.
Don't know what "torch type" is.

5) once more
The strength of a potion is a value in the range 0-255 (in practice 40-255).
Noting "power" for the LO/EE/PAL/... valued in 1-6, the strength of a potion created by magic is : 40*power + Rand(0-15)
The value read by a neophyte priest is strength/40, so is exactly the power used to create the potion.
For example, the use of potions are :
*FulBroKu :
if Strength >= 151 Strength += (5 + Potion.Strength / 35) / 4
if Strength 121-150 Strength += (5 + Potion.Strength / 35) / 2
if Strength <= 120 Strength += (5 + Potion.Strength / 35)
Never more than 170
*OhBroRos :
if Dexterity >= 151 Dexterity += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 4
if Dexterity 121-150 Dexterity += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 2
if Dexterity <= 120 Dexterity += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25)
Never more than 170
*YapBroDain :
if Wisdom >= 151 Wisdom += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 4
if Wisdom 121-150 Wisdom += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 2
if Wisdom <= 120 Wisdom += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25)
Never more than 170
*YapBroNeta :
if Vitality >= 151 Vitality += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 4
if Vitality 121-150 Vitality += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25) / 2
if Vitality <= 120 Vitality += (5 + Potion.Strength / 25)
Never more than 170

[PicturesInTheDark]

Hi Ulmo,

thank you very much for the detailed information. I will put it to good use in the documentary I hope. One question regarding the potions strength though: you say it ranges from 0-255 and give formulas below - if I try those formulas I would need a potion strength of 16875 (for example for a Ya Bro neta potion, if vitality was higher than 151:
-> (5+16875/25)/4
-> (5+675)/4
-> 680/4=170

This can't be right - but even if I assume that the last division should be a multiplication (*4) and if I take the maximum from the range I never even get close to 170:
-> (5+255/25) *4
-> (5+ 10,2) *4
-> 15,2*4 = 60,8

So are you sure, those formulas are right?

Regards, PitD

[Ulmo]

Please correct formulas for Vitality/Wisdom/Dexterity :
not 5+Strength/25, but 8 + Strength/25.
The 5 value is for strength attribute potion.

If the attribute is above 120, the gain is divided by 2 or 4, but is then raised by 1.

I think we misunderstood un the += operator.
I wrote "Vitality += 1" for gaining one Vitality point (C/C++ notation. Sorry...)
So a YapBroNeta potion give 5 plus 0-10 (potion strength) vitality points, or only half of it if vitality is already high, or only a quarter if vitality is very high.

For a Vitality of 151, a potion of 255 strength, you gain :
(8+255/25)/4 + 1 = (8+10)/4 + 1 = 18/4 + 1 = 5 points.
(remembre all rounding are below)

In a scientist spirit, I will check :
A potion of casting level five (where the Random result doesn't matter, because 200/25 = 215/25), you gain 8+8=16 points, or 16/2+1=9, or 16/4+1 = 5.
(Playing a little...)
It works fine !
It has just pointed out the 2 corrections above...