Can confused monsters attack my boulder&jelly fort?
TJR
monsters by pasting large amounts of commands, so I have to worry
about rather unlikely events.
The setup is: Every relevant tile has an Elbereth burned into it. The
level is lit, undiggable, no-teleport, and has no stairs down. I am on
the stairs up wearing a mummy wrapping. Each of the 8 adjacent squares
has a cursed object, a spotted jelly, and a boulder on it. Outside, my
pet archons are roaming and killing. (I need the jellies to keep
blinded xorns from killing me, and the jellies to avoid soldiers
shattering the boulders.) In summary, I am not in line-of-sight, and
neither conflict, invisibility, nor displacement play a role.
Normally, a monster will not attack a square it cannot move onto
(boulders, except giants/titans/phasers), a square protected by
Elbereth (except blinded or "resisters"), or occupied by a non-player
monster that did not attack first (except purple worms vs. shriekers).
That is handled in dochug(), distfleeck(), and finally line 553 of
monmove.c.
However, confused monsters in range can move and attack from m_move(),
and that is where my mind turns into a pretzel. I can't even find any
special handling for boulders.
1) Is it possible for an umber hulk to confuse non-tame monsters if
neither I am in sight nor the position it thinks I am at?
2) Is it possible for a confused non-tame monster to attack my
jellies?
3) As above, but except giants/titans/xorns/earth elementals?
Links that may or may not be related:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread/thread/3b6bc50138f9bb13/bb61b11d552bb5ac?lnk=gst&q=confused+m_move#bb61b11d552bb5ac
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread/thread/2478130055db380d/0b75cf0e0bfbe735?lnk=gst&q=confused+m_move#0b75cf0e0bfbe735
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/browse_thread/thread/1f25b623b992c316/147cc6bfdeb0b447?lnk=gst&q=bug+m_move#147cc6bfdeb0b447
http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Monmove.c#line593
http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/User:Paxed/Source_Functions
Please start separate threads for: Ethics of farming or pasting into
Nethack, how to protect archons from purple worms, levelporting
monsters completely filling up shallower levels, 32k items crash, how
to keep the archons from wielding a bad weapons, etc
TJR
> Nethack, how to protect archons from purple worms, levelporting
> monsters completely filling up shallower levels, 32k items crash, how
> to keep the archons from wielding a bad weapons, etc
If you wish to discuss other subjects. (I'll participate ;-)
The Wizard of Berkeley
I am on a level with a Field Stripping Prevention Barrier. This is a
quest level. To avoid spoilers, I will keep it as elemental as I am
capable of. I am waging a battle against a powerful Umber Hulk. His
Umber Hulk minions are capable of entering the level.
The level is filled with Nymphs, Set, Some eels, and there is a Dark
Forest to the South. Entry to the forest requires either fealty to
the powerful Umber Hulk, or picking a lock which may raise an alarm.
The player character is a rogue loyal to Amaterasu Omikami. I am
racking up huge amounts of experience points playing strange games
with the ladies of the "island" . The problem is, these Umber Hulk
minions keep coming in, cornering two nymphs at a time and
polymorphing them into jackals. I have an interest in retaining as
many nymphs as possible. Jackals are not wanted, because they sift
loyalty back to the powerful Umber Hulk, who is an agent of Shang Kai
Shek, an opposing god. This game is breaking my morale because I seem
powerless to stop the Umber Hulk minions from their polymorph setup.
The game is currently frozen in a sacrifice of a floomp on a lawful
altar. I am allied with Chaos and Set seems agreeable. It is
breaking my morale waiting to see if Amaterasu Omikami will grow
stronger from my sacrifice. The RNG says that I must wait until the
conflict between Amaterasu Omikami and Shang Kai Shek is resolved.
Can you please give me some tips on what I should be doing?
Jay the Scuba Diver
Doug Freyburger
>
> Normally, a monster will not attack a square it cannot move onto
> (boulders, except giants/titans/phasers), a square protected by
> Elbereth (except blinded or "resisters"), or occupied by a non-player
> monster that did not attack first (except purple worms vs. shriekers).
> That is handled in dochug(), distfleeck(), and finally line 553 of
> monmove.c.
That's melee. I've had monsters throw missiles and zap wands at me
across boulders. You should have reflection and MR. Wand of striking
can still smash the boulders changing the line of sight aspect, though
the rocks will still anchor the burnt Elbereth.
Monsters never seem to gather enough missiles to be a problem once my AC
is okay but wands could be very irritating.
Just to check - You're doing this very deep, right? If you are trying
to extinct a lot of monster types you probably don't want to leave only
the most powerful types to spawn once you're finished.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> I am on a level with a Field Stripping Prevention Barrier. This is a
> quest level. To avoid spoilers, I will keep it as elemental as I am
> capable of. I am waging a battle against a powerful Umber Hulk. His
> Umber Hulk minions are capable of entering the level.
>
> The level is filled with Nymphs, Set, Some eels, and there is a Dark
> Forest to the South. Entry to the forest requires either fealty to
> the powerful Umber Hulk, or picking a lock which may raise an alarm.
> The player character is a rogue loyal to Amaterasu Omikami. I am
> racking up huge amounts of experience points playing strange games
> with the ladies of the "island" . The problem is, these Umber Hulk
> minions keep coming in, cornering two nymphs at a time and
> polymorphing them into jackals. I have an interest in retaining as
> many nymphs as possible. Jackals are not wanted, because they sift
> loyalty back to the powerful Umber Hulk, who is an agent of Shang Kai
> Shek, an opposing god. This game is breaking my morale because I seem
> powerless to stop the Umber Hulk minions from their polymorph setup.
> The game is currently frozen in a sacrifice of a floomp on a lawful
> altar. I am allied with Chaos and Set seems agreeable. It is
> breaking my morale waiting to see if Amaterasu Omikami will grow
> stronger from my sacrifice. The RNG says that I must wait until the
> conflict between Amaterasu Omikami and Shang Kai Shek is resolved.
> Can you please give me some tips on what I should be doing?
Sure. Stop drinking those potions of hallucination!
Janis
TJR
> TJR wrote:
>
> > Normally, a monster will not attack a square it cannot move onto
> > (boulders, except giants/titans/phasers), a square protected by
> > Elbereth (except blinded or "resisters"), or occupied by a non-player
> > monster that did not attack first (except purple worms vs. shriekers).
> > That is handled in dochug(), distfleeck(), and finally line 553 of
> > monmove.c.
>
> That's melee. I've had monsters throw missiles and zap wands at me
> across boulders. You should have reflection and MR. Wand of striking
> can still smash the boulders changing the line of sight aspect, though
> the rocks will still anchor the burnt Elbereth.
Strange, I can think of monsters using ranged weapons only against me
and only if I'm in their line of sight. Do you remember how that
happened? I'm ultra-cautious because those many pasted commands will
effectively render my character helpless for thousands of turns at a
time.
> Just to check - You're doing this very deep, right? If you are trying
> to extinct a lot of monster types you probably don't want to leave only
> the most powerful types to spawn once you're finished.
Yes, I'll be doing this first at the Castle, then Gehennom/shallow
level/Mines/Sokoban/Medusa. Archons still come last, in case I need to
charm a replacement.
TJR
> > > (boulders, except giants/titans/phasers), a square protected by
> > That's melee. I've had monsters throw missiles and zap wands at me
> > across boulders. You should have reflection and MR. Wand of striking
> Strange, I can think of monsters using ranged weapons only against me
> and only if I'm in their line of sight. Do you remember how that
I suspect you were invisible and standing right next to the boulder,
or wearing a cloak of displacement and at most two squares away. The
monster could have thought you were on the boulder, which was in its
line of sight. The code in find_offensive() to find wands etc
explicitly checks if the monster and its targeting spot are lined up
and within sight. The same thing goes for polearms, ranged weapons,
breath and spit attacks, and all the non-melee attacks in mattacku()
called at the end of dochug().
http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Mthrowu.c#lined_up
Wearing a mummy wrapping (and not moving once the monster has been
blinded) should eliminate such issues. Then monsters will always know/
remember your true position:
http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Monmove.c#set_apparxy
I have trouble checking the legacy code in m_move(). It can trigger
melee attacks. They only seem to concern confused, impaired, or remote
monsters, though.
Doug Freyburger
>
>> > That's melee. �I've had monsters throw missiles and zap wands at me
>> > across boulders. �You should have reflection and MR. �Wand of striking
>
>> Strange, I can think of monsters using ranged weapons only against me
>> and only if I'm in their line of sight. Do you remember how that
>
> I suspect you were invisible and standing right next to the boulder,
I play invisible a lot so that should be the reason. I thought it was
because the monster saw me with infravision - Telepathy shows monsters
trying to get to be like they can see through walls but don't know the
dungeon well enough to go around. I've also seen it happen in dark
levels of the mines which also led me to believe it was infravision.
> Wearing a mummy wrapping (and not moving once the monster has been
> blinded) should eliminate such issues.
Interesting for use with a boulder fort - MC#3 cloak does not matter if
you will not be subject to melee.
JoaoSantos
> Can confused monsters attack my jelly fort? I'm trying to extinct
> monsters by pasting large amounts of commands, so I have to worry
> about rather unlikely events.
>
> The setup is: Every relevant tile has an Elbereth burned into it. The
> level is lit, undiggable, no-teleport, and has no stairs down. I am on
> the stairs up wearing a mummy wrapping. Each of the 8 adjacent squares
> has a cursed object, a spotted jelly, and a boulder on it. Outside, my
> pet archons are roaming and killing. (I need the jellies to keep
> blinded xorns from killing me, and the jellies to avoid soldiers
> shattering the boulders.) In summary, I am not in line-of-sight, and
> neither conflict, invisibility, nor displacement play a role.
> 1) Is it possible for an umber hulk to confuse non-tame monsters if
> neither I am in sight nor the position it thinks I am at?
> 2) Is it possible for a confused non-tame monster to attack my
> jellies?
> 3) As above, but except giants/titans/xorns/earth elementals?
Have you considered the Archon stun attack? I think your pets can use
it on untame monsters, making them confuse, but I may be wrong.
In any case, how is it going?
solidsnail
TJR
You're right - the archon blinding gaze can also run this bit of code
(Monmove.c#line492). Perhaps it's possible my pets could get a move
before a newly created monster and blind it - it would try to guess my
position despite the mummy wrapping. So far, this hasn't been a
problem in short, supervised runs. Three archons simply killed
everything fast enough. However, it might be better to switch to pet
ki-rin.
Unfortunately, I cannot test such things because the OS X tty port
refuses to run, and other ports don't accept pasted commands.
Dirk Zimmermann
> Unfortunately, I cannot test such things because the OS X tty port
> refuses to run, and other ports don't accept pasted commands.
Hmm. So far I've always been able to compile a tty version for Mac OS
X without problems (I think even 64bit iirc).