1.  Zadir (Pri Hum Fem Neu), killed by overexertion, 2147483647 points, 
HP:4140, Astral Plane, max depth: 49, played on 20050228-20050309, on NH 
v3.4.3
This lengthy rant roughly outlines one way of getting the highest possible 
score, within the game's given limits.
To start, the Priest role was used, primarily because that class can get the 
polearm ability to 'skilled' (for the "Death farming" that would happen 
much, much later), as well as getting 3 key spell categories to 'expert'. 
The starting inventory plus intrinsic blessed / cursed detection didn't hurt 
either. The character can start with a random healing spellbook, although 
that didn't happen this game, but it would have helped in the protection 
racket. I don't recall ever casting any kind of heal spell in all 700k turns 
of this long trial actually. All in all a welcome variation from the 
overplayed Wizard role.
Not having done anything of this magnitude in Nethack before, I decided to 
overprepare for the ensuing journey. Part of that was to do the protection 
racket, which after some close brushes and one level gain from a pesky 
wererat, was a success after scamming 2 storekeeps out of their gold and 
donating the 6k gold to the minetown priest for a 9 AC reduction. A toolshop 
with 2 magic markers and a bag of holding certainly helped things along, 
although the character could have lived just fine without any of those at 
that point. Sokoban yielded a "oR and a wand of polymorph, both of which 
proved immensely useful, while mine's end was uneventful, with no surprise 
poly-traps triggered, even though that was planned for by wearing a 
disposable body armor and robe. Poison resist is important to have before 
attempting either, since a close call with a poisoned dart resulted only in 
a "you feel sick", instead of an insta-death.
Having collected every bit of magical armor up to that point, and with a 
poly wand, it was time to upgrade armor some. Blessing everything to be 
polymorphed, fumble boots and all, and zapping the poly wand at the shiny 
armor pile resulted in a helm of brilliance and speed boots, which were 
welcome additions. The helm of brilliance was +0, so the random +3 dwarvish 
helm would have had to do until an enchant armor scroll was found.
The next step was to determine if the increase damage rings were edible, and 
to avoid artifact generation so that certain key quest artifacts could be 
wished for, which meant no sacrificing until the castle wand was found. Up 
to this game, a number of failed game attempts were made to determine if 
that ring was edible, which if not, would have made the objective much 
harder to reach, for lack of damage. So, on to the castle!
Down, down, down the floors, finding a random ring of levitation, being 
cautious with cloak and armor since I didn't have magic resistance yet and 
poly traps were a threat (as well as finger of death, which does not come 
across very often at XL 10), venturing up to the castle. Quick float over to 
the back door, meleeing a shark, and using a few summoned boulders pushed 
into the moat to isolate the remaining eels from any nearby squares. Go in, 
fight the dragons, get a yellow scale mail (only one out of 7 dragons fought 
up to that point), drink a blessed !oOD, check weapon room for any 
artifacts, hope that none are generated, then open that middle door. I stood 
behind a trap door so that the walking monsters would simply fall down, to 
deal with later. A few brown "L"'s were the biggest threat of that monster 
group, which are really not much. Clearing out the monsters was undramatic, 
not even a disenchanter was there to make things interesting. Throne, nada. 
Walk up to the wishing chest, unlock, bag the brass wand before anything 
stupid happens like a wayward bolt of lightning from an angry troll, kill 
off any monsters nearby, then begin wishing.
First wish was for a blessed +1 ring of increase damage, resulting in a 
shiny ring! This was a huge relief to me, knowing that the effort didn't go 
to waste this time.
Second wish was for the Eye of the Aethiopica, which, in hindsight, was the 
ONLY artifact I really needed this game, the other 4(!) wished artifacts 
were used infrequently. In order of use, they were the Staff of Aesculapius, 
the PYEC, the Eyes of the Overworld, and lastly the Orb of Fate. (Half spell 
damage, half physical damage, a weapon that recovers half of the lost health 
with one invocation, a tool that gives unlimited uncursed charging, and 
unlimited enlightenments) I really went overboard with those, but the first 
3 artifacts were had with one wishing wand. (EotA, PYEC, SoA), with the 
remaining 2 wished up for with items from the .. pudding farm.
Yes, a pudding farm. How else can huge amounts of rings be generated in a 
short period of time? The setup was straightforward, clear out the highest 
floor that has an altar, light up the level, burn "Elbereth" on the square 
behind that altar, plunk a container on said square, and surround those with 
boulders, leaving the end opposite of the "Elbereth" square open for pudding 
input, like
0000
0.(_
0000
The "." is an empty square, useful for cancelling items on, like with 
diluting hundreds of potions in one stroke. The potions of booze, juice, or 
oil can be diluted further with the other uncursed water potions that result 
from the cancel.
A few precautionary measures were made, like genociding "c"'s so that no 
inopportune stonings take place, and "H" after strength was maxed, so that 
none come in and ruin the nice little boulder fort. Again, conducts were the 
last thing in mind here.
What results after this is thousands upon thousands of turns of cut-pasting 
text, and using a macro program called "KeyText" for windows to speed things 
up. The next objective was to obtain a high enough damage bonus to kill an 
end rider in 1 turn, which, with eit_brad's last attempt, was +59, but I 
wasn't totally sure that was enough. My original goal was to have a +100 
bonus, but that proved much too time consuming, and even un-necessary. +82 
was enough, made possible in part by a lucky polymorph of hundreds of 
scrolls that yielded a pile of 60 charging. As well as that, -128 AC and +7 
helm of brilliance and gauntlets of dexterity were wanted, and gained after 
hundreds of polypiling attempts. A neat discovery was that polymorph at 
'unskilled' can be cast at lower than 40% failure with a robe and that +7 
helm of brilliance. This all fits under the overpreparation stance.
So, with everything needed, the last thing was to have a few dozen cursed 
and blessed genocide scrolls, a dozen or so create monster scrolls, 4 gold 
detection scrolls, a wand of wishing + scroll of charging for said wand, and 
a "BoH-in-BoH" containing hundreds of blessed blank scrolls, 3 dozen holy 
water and some key spell books, which all together did not even result in a 
'burdened' weight. I was considering carrying copious quantities of food, 
which were really not needed, since Death's death drops more than covered 
that need. If anyone wants to know though, a PYEC and a horn of plenty alone 
will keep a player nourished in game indefinitely, even if all other sources 
of food were exhausted.
On to the Astral Plane! Descending, grabbing the amulet, and getting up to 
the Plane of Water was a complete non-adventure, considering the sick amount 
of preparation that took place. In the Astral Plane though, some of the 
creatures there actually took 2 hits before keeling over!
What ensued was borrowed in large part from eit_brad's post during the 2003 
dev/null tournament, regarding his successful Pestilence farming attempt. He 
was able to trap Death in a jelly/boulder prison in this kind of 
arrangement, using the Eyes of the Overworld to see the rider through the 
boulder using Astral Vision, which allowed him to hit that rider using a 
polearm, and to revive the rider immediately afterwards with a push attempt.
jjjj|
j@0&|
-----
This setup was very convenient for him, as it allowed him to rack up points 
without ever moving. Unfortunately, this ability was considered a "bug" and 
fixed in the 3.4.3 update, so that polearms no longer can be used through 
boulders. There was a workaround though, and it was this:
jjjj|
j&jj|
jj0j|
jj@ |
Where the @ can kill and revive the & and move back to the original square 
in only 4 moves, instead of 6 had the polearm ability been less than 
'skilled'. As well, more movement results in more room for error, and 1 
square of movement is more than enough. This initial setup was adequate for 
short bursts of monitored macroing, but packet loss would often cause one 
mis-step and a displaced jelly was all that was needed to mess up the entire 
setup.The remedy for that was to put boulders in certain key areas to remove 
risk factors, so that the final workable setup looked like this:
00jj|
0&0j|
0j00|
j0@ |
-----
Which left one final risk factor, if the "j" to the immediate top left were 
displaced and the macro of "aw78.674" were to continue, the polearm would 
strike the boulder to the immediate top left of the & in that diagram, a 
"Nothing happens" message occured, and a turn would be used, which was bad. 
The solution was to read a cursed scroll of light in the top left of the 
room in which that setup was placed, so that further attempts to polearm 
that boulder in question would result in a "You won't hit anything if you 
can't see the spot" message, and  would _not_ use up a turn, which was good.
To actually do the macro I wanted a minimum of interruptions, so the titans 
and archons had to go, along with their constant castings and summonings. 
Since they couldn't be genocided, the next best thing was to use create 
monster repeatedly until they would just stop spawning, which was 
surprisingly faster than I originally thought, since they would spawn 
frequently at XL 30 on that level. So once create monster attempts resulted 
in nothing being created, I then restarted the macro. Things went smoothly, 
with regular macro movement killing any wayward monster spawn on the 
neighbouring squares, and the only thing left between the score then and 
2^31-1 was mere repetition.
Crashes seemed to occur frequently, which paxed was nice enough to remedy 
through character restorations. I don't know what particular events 
triggered the crashes, but I've had no success in recreating them 
voluntarily. One such crash resulted in a 150 million point loss, after 
about 30 minutes of effort, which, if anything, gave me a gauge on how fast 
the points were actually coming.
After several hundreds of thousands of repetitions of that (I had turned the 
step counter off at this point), the counter creeped over 2.1 billion, and 
eventually to within a few thousand points of 2147483647, at 2147475424. 3 
wishes had been used for 15000 gold a short while previous to that (easily 
avoidable in hindsight, and wish sources were overly plentiful at this 
point), to round off the final tally at exactly 2^31-1, with a minor 
calculation, death reducing gold points by 90%, so 9136 gold coins were 
needed (not 9137, since nethack seems to round up in every case regarding 
gold, although 9137 is a regular roundup)  The final choice of death decided 
in irc.freenode.com's #nethack was "snu snu", so the final setup took place 
accordingly. First I blocked up the final "resting place" with boulders, 
then a wish was made for a blessed succubus statue, but a suggestion (1 wish 
too late) that I press ^X to see the gender proved useful, since it had 
changed a number of times through failed polymorph attempts. So, another 
final wish on a blessed incubus statue (could have easily wished for an 
amulet of change, I guess presence of mind wasn't a huge factor in choosing 
the best way to die), applying said statue, level draining self to 1, 
wearing 2 really crappy rings of adornment, making a homage to the 
Hitchhiker's Guide (which is full of sage advice for all stripes and 
colors), and finally, initiating snu snu with the mancubus. A few good 
rendezvous occured, even a level gain, but finally, one really bad session 
capped off the journey.
Zadir, neutral female human Priestess
                                                            ! !    [
                                ---------------
                                |?``%[%[/(*=*)|
                                |?[---------%(| 
/
                                |`(|)=```"?|()|
  ---------------  
|(`|*)/[*)`|[?|               ---------------
  |)!`[)%)[??[[!|               |![|?[[$)(`|`?| 
|%[*![)!_()%[?|
  |%)---------[%--   ---------  
`)|`/?%[(`|[`|  ---------   --`(---------)?|
  |)*|)!("[/)|[))-- --!_[)[/_--  
|`+|`(?[)`*|[*| --`%[_?[+-- )-(*%|`))(/(`|*?|
  |((|)_?!*__|*[=_---=([`[((??--|)/----)----[*|--!?[[_*_!*---)[%(|!()``)%|?)|
  |*)|)$!!*_!!?*_(+`)*`/?([)[[/||%[)(/`%[+`[**||(+)(__)=*(%/?_)*)%/) 
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  |!%|!/%=_(+|/_?_---_%%__!"[(-----%`[[?%)_*-----%(%_!/[?=---?![(|%)!````|?%|
  |(%|`*=_)+%|![?-- --/)?[)+[--   -----)-----   --*%?!=!?-- --[%%|=%/I`@&|_/|
  |[!---------[*--   ----!----    --[))[/_(--    ----*----   --==---------=?|
  |)?+_[=%?[%[))|      |+(/--------%([)_!`![--------_()| 
|?*?%[=?()[%=%|
  ---------------  
|+`_%_?(!%|*![%[[[?(/(|?*_![/!/(|      ---------------
                       -------**[--%?)[_[=/(--%(`-------
                             |[?!%--[[!**??--(/+)|
                             ---!"`----!----=!_---
                               |?))[[[)[_+%**([|
                               -----------------
(Note: That mess of items is the result of zapping a wand of teleport > at a 
pile of 20,000+ items, not recommended)Zadir the Aspirant St:18/** Dx:18 
Co:18 In:18 Wi:18 Ch:7 Neutral S:-2147482736
Astral Plane $:9136 HP:4140(4140) Pw:88(88) AC:-80 Exp:1 T:716770
Your inventory
  Armor
  z - a +0 T-shirt named Don't Panic!
  Comestibles
  a - a silver-grey glass fish bowl named "So Long, and Thanks For All The 
Fish!"
  Rings
  V - a -5 ring of adornment (on right hand)
  P - a -6 ring of adornment (on left hand)
  Tools
  C - a towel
Final attributes
  You were the Envoy of Balance
  You were piously aligned
  You were fire resistant
  You were cold resistant
  You were sleep resistant
  You were disintegration-resistant
  You were shock resistant
  You were poison resistant
  You saw invisible
  You were telepathic
  You were poorly adorned
  You were invisible to others
  You were stealthy
  You could survive without air
  You had a +18 bonus to hit
  You had a +82 damage bonus
  You were protected
  You are dead
Spells known in the end
      Name               Level    Category     Fail
  a - charm monster          3*   enchantment   94%
  b - remove curse           3    clerical      27%
  c - create familiar        6*   clerical     100%
  d - drain life             2    attack        68%
  e - sleep                  1*   enchantment    0%
  f - force bolt             1*   attack         0%
  g - cone of cold           4*   attack       100%
  h - cancellation           7*   matter       100%
  i - levitation             4*   escape       100%
  j - fireball               4*   attack       100%
  k - slow monster           2*   enchantment   68%
  l - clairvoyance           3*   divination    94%
  m - magic mapping          5*   divination   100%
  n - detect treasure        4*   divination   100%
  o - confuse monster        2*   enchantment   68%
  p - polymorph              6*   matter       100%
  q - restore ability        4*   healing      100%
  r - invisibility           4*   escape       100%
  s - detect monsters        1    divination     0%
  t - detect unseen          3*   divination    94%
  u - detect food            2*   divination    68%
  v - extra healing          3*   healing       91%
  w - healing                1*   healing        0%
  x - knock                  1*   matter         0%
  y - finger of death        7*   attack       100%
  z - teleport away          6*   escape       100%
  A - identify               3*   divination    94%
  B - light                  1*   divination     0%
  C - create monster         2*   clerical       0%
  D - wizard lock            2*   matter        68%
  E - cure sickness          3*   healing       91%
  F - cure blindness         2*   healing       62%
  G - stone to flesh         3*   healing       94%
  H - cause fear             3*   enchantment   94%
  I - magic missile          2*   attack        68%
  J - protection             1*   clerical       0%
  K - turn undead            6*   clerical     100%
  L - jumping                1*   escape         0%
  M - haste self             3*   escape        94%
  N - dig                    5*   matter       100%
Vanquished creatures
  Asmodeus
  Baalzebub
  Orcus
  Juiblex
  The Wizard of Yendor (9 times)
  Death (255 times)
  Pestilence (255 times)
  Famine (255 times)
  3 high priests
  9 mastodons
  Medusa
  6 krakens
  119 Archons
  255 iron golems
  120 ki-rin
  119 titans
  118 glass golems
  5 balrogs
  Nalzok
  48 purple worms
  4 gray dragons
  12 silver dragons
  7 red dragons
  4 white dragons
  6 black dragons
  7 blue dragons
  a green dragon
  a yellow dragon
  5 minotaurs
  37 jabberwocks
  47 baluchitheria
  115 Angels
  Vlad the Impaler
  111 stone golems
  11 Olog-hai
  7 Nazguls
  3 pit fiends
  a sandestin
  6 hell hounds
  32 titanotheres
  22 trappers
  a baby silver dragon
  a baby orange dragon
  a baby black dragon
  a baby green dragon
  3 baby yellow dragons
  a disenchanter
  48 vampire lords
  39 aligned priests
  26 captains
  5 shades
  7 liches
  120 clay golems
  38 nurses
  4 ice devils
  5 nalfeshnees
  25 lurkers above
  118 Aleaxes
  3 frost giants
  2 ettins
  3 golden nagas
  255 black puddings
  53 vampires
  28 lieutenants
  81 ghosts
  an archeologist
  a barbarian
  a cavewoman
  a samurai
  a wizard
  a queen bee
  25 winged gargoyles
  3 mind flayers
  18 giant mimics
  39 zruties
  a fire giant
  38 ogre kings
  11 ice trolls
  16 rock trolls
  20 umber hulks
  114 flesh golems
  28 Elvenkings
  49 doppelgangers
  9 hezrous
  13 bone devils
  7 large mimics
  4 wumpuses
  10 fire vortices
  4 baby long worms
  7 baby purple worms
  13 long worms
  255 couatls
  29 stalkers
  111 air elementals
  255 fire elementals
  86 earth elementals
  93 water elementals
  a hill giant
  8 giant mummies
  a black naga
  42 xorns
  18 giant zombies
  60 elf-lords
  51 sergeants
  11 barbed devils
  9 vrocks
  7 salamanders
  30 wargs
  4 winter wolves
  4 hell hound pups
  7 small mimics
  4 glass piercers
  5 warhorses
  3 steam vortices
  25 xans
  2 ettin mummies
  12 ogre lords
  13 quantum mechanics
  25 trolls
  a sasquatch
  6 wood golems
  3 erinyes
  a marilith
  2 djinn
  6 sharks
  2 electric eels
  3 gelatinous cubes
  a pyrolisk
  3 large dogs
  9 freezing spheres
  6 flaming spheres
  14 shocking spheres
  6 large cats
  11 tigers
  25 gargoyles
  10 tengu
  255 ochre jellies
  21 leocrottas
  12 energy vortices
  9 mountain centaurs
  3 stone giants
  2 elf mummies
  6 human mummies
  2 red nagas
  7 pit vipers
  8 pythons
  27 cobras
  135 wraiths
  11 carnivorous apes
  43 ettin zombies
  6 leather golems
  27 Grey-elves
  66 soldiers
  9 horned devils
  13 succubi
  7 incubi
  11 chameleons
  6 crocodiles
  64 giant beetles
  8 quivering blobs
  5 cockatrices
  7 wolves
  16 winter wolf cubs
  6 lynxes
  4 panthers
  49 gremlins
  a spotted jelly
  27 leprechauns
  10 orc-captains
  2 iron piercers
  8 mumakil
  16 giant spiders
  34 scorpions
  3 horses
  5 ice vortices
  11 black lights
  13 vampire bats
  5 forest centaurs
  6 gnome kings
  an orc mummy
  5 dwarf mummies
  14 ogres
  51 brown puddings
  7 rust monsters
  26 owlbears
  6 yetis
  6 gold golems
  5 werewolves
  20 Green-elves
  3 piranhas
  10 giant eels
  20 lizards
  9 chickatrices
  2 dogs
  4 dingos
  a housecat
  9 jaguars
  8 dwarf lords
  79 blue jellies
  10 white unicorns
  2 gray unicorns
  4 black unicorns
  14 dust vortices
  7 ravens
  10 plains centaurs
  a gnome mummy
  10 snakes
  5 apes
  110 human zombies
  10 rope golems
  19 Woodland-elves
  71 soldier ants
  58 fire ants
  23 bugbears
  7 imps
  2 lemures
  13 quasits
  9 wood nymphs
  9 water nymphs
  5 mountain nymphs
  14 Mordor orcs
  16 Uruk-hai
  3 orc shamans
  7 rock piercers
  8 rock moles
  5 ponies
  8 fog clouds
  11 yellow lights
  3 violet fungi
  26 gnome lords
  9 gnomish wizards
  5 kobold mummies
  a red naga hatchling
  a golden naga hatchling
  5 gray oozes
  6 barrow wights
  39 elf zombies
  30 ghouls
  6 straw golems
  12 paper golems
  3 jellyfish
  55 baby crocodiles
  116 giant ants
  3 little dogs
  18 floating eyes
  a kitten
  28 dwarves
  8 homunculi
  5 kobold lords
  4 kobold shamans
  33 hill orcs
  16 rothes
  3 rabid rats
  31 centipedes
  13 giant bats
  33 orc zombies
  39 dwarf zombies
  4 wererats
  4 werejackals
  20 iguanas
  88 killer bees
  164 acid blobs
  8 coyotes
  4 gas spores
  9 hobbits
  28 manes
  7 large kobolds
  39 hobgoblins
  11 giant rats
  88 cave spiders
  2 brown molds
  6 yellow molds
  3 green molds
  4 red molds
  74 gnomes
  12 garter snakes
  35 gnome zombies
  24 geckos
  24 jackals
  6 foxes
  3 kobolds
  5 goblins
  3 sewer rats
  13 grid bugs
  3 bats
  11 lichens
  43 kobold zombies
  9 newts
  7654 creatures vanquished.
Genocided or extinct species:
  giant ants (extinct)
  acid blobs (extinct)
  gelatinous cubes
  chickatrices
  cockatrices
  pyrolisks
  jackals
  foxes
  coyotes
  little dogs
  dogs
  large dogs
  dingos
  wolves
  wargs
  winter wolf cubs
  winter wolves
  hell hound pups
  hell hounds
  gremlins
  gargoyles
  winged gargoyles
  hobbits
  dwarves
  bugbears
  dwarf lords
  dwarf kings
  mind flayers
  master mind flayers
  blue jellies (extinct)
  ochre jellies (extinct)
  small mimics
  large mimics
  giant mimics
  rothes
  mumakil
  leocrottas
  wumpuses
  titanotheres
  baluchitheria
  mastodons
  lurkers above
  trappers
  baby long worms
  baby purple worms
  long worms
  purple worms
  xans
  zruties
  couatls (extinct)
  Aleaxes (extinct)
  Angels (extinct)
  ki-rin (extinct)
  Archons (extinct)
  baby gray dragons
  baby silver dragons
  baby red dragons
  baby white dragons
  baby orange dragons
  baby black dragons
  baby blue dragons
  baby green dragons
  baby yellow dragons
  gray dragons
  silver dragons
  red dragons
  white dragons
  orange dragons
  black dragons
  blue dragons
  green dragons
  yellow dragons
  stalkers
  air elementals (extinct)
  fire elementals (extinct)
  earth elementals (extinct)
  water elementals (extinct)
  giants
  stone giants
  hill giants
  fire giants
  frost giants
  storm giants
  ettins
  titans (extinct)
  minotaurs
  jabberwocks
  liches
  demiliches
  master liches
  arch-liches
  kobold mummies
  gnome mummies
  orc mummies
  dwarf mummies
  elf mummies
  human mummies
  ettin mummies
  giant mummies
  red naga hatchlings
  black naga hatchlings
  golden naga hatchlings
  guardian naga hatchlings
  red nagas
  black nagas
  golden nagas
  guardian nagas
  ogres
  ogre lords
  ogre kings
  gray oozes
  brown puddings
  black puddings
  green slimes
  quantum mechanics
  rust monsters
  disenchanters
  garter snakes
  snakes
  water moccasins
  pit vipers
  pythons
  cobras
  trolls
  ice trolls
  rock trolls
  water trolls
  Olog-hai
  umber hulks
  vampires
  vampire lords
  barrow wights
  wraiths (extinct)
  Nazguls (extinct)
  xorns
  monkeys
  apes
  owlbears
  yetis
  carnivorous apes
  sasquatches
  kobold zombies
  gnome zombies
  orc zombies
  dwarf zombies
  elf zombies
  human zombies
  ettin zombies
  giant zombies
  ghouls
  flesh golems (extinct)
  clay golems (extinct)
  stone golems (extinct)
  glass golems (extinct)
  iron golems (extinct)
  elf-lords
  Elvenkings
  doppelgangers
  nurses
  soldiers
  sergeants
  lieutenants
  captains
  erinyes (extinct)
  142 species genocided.
22 species extinct.
Voluntary challenges
  You genocided 142 types of monsters
  You polymorphed 2692 items
  You changed form 10 times
  You used 50 wishes (Could easily have been much less, even 1 or 0, but 
convenience was more important than conduct here, same with the genocides)
Your skills at the end
  Fighting Skills
    (none)
  Weapon Skills
    mace               [Basic]
  Spellcasting Skills
    clerical spells    [Basic]
Goodbye Zadir the Priestess...
You died in The Astral Plane with 2147483647 points,
and 9136 pieces of gold, after 716770 moves.
Killer: overexertion
You were level 1 with a maximum of 4140 hit points when you died.
You made the top ten list!
 No  Points     Name                                                   Hp 
[max]
* 1 2147483647  Zadir-Pri-Hum-Fem-Neu died on the Astral Plane.
                Killed by overexertion.                              4140 
[4140]
  2 2003016348  Babamus-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Cha ascended to demigod-hood.   14888 
[14888]
  3  179897206  Vector-Tou-Hum-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.        - 
[2638]
What can I say? It's not a journey I'd recommend to even the most hardened 
of nethacker, since the tedium is easily replaced by something more 
constructive than pushing a 32 bit signed integer to the positive limit, but 
it was a good test of resolve.
Thanks to irc.freenode.com's #nethack for all the help, to paxed for putting 
up with me, and dtype for allowing thousands of users to drain their free 
time this way! (and for putting up with me as well) 
Another bit of info for anyone who wants to do something similar, be 
cautious of generating more than 32,768 items on one square, as the result 
isn't tested, at least to my knowledge. That's about 1424 pages of items on 
a 24 row high terminal (23 per page), so keep the number below that however 
possible. Lastly, Death is the safest rider to macro that way, since his 
attack only reduces health by a small amount if you have magic resist, 
whereas the other two can kill you outright in a short period of time. 
Wow. Congratulations!
(I think?)
- John H.
I'm curious. Has this been done before? If so, by who and how often?
Are there any techniques for achieving the highest possible score that
don't involve Rider farming?
Very.
Impressive enough to only leave one thing I can say:
"Humans really ARE intelligent animals"
Eskimo
-- 
//------------------------------
//Remove tämä all the way to and including soomee to mail directly.
//Ascended:W,V (genopolywish),P(ill ath), T,K,H,S,B,C,P,W 
(naked),Ro,Ra,A,W,almost pacifist A
//In progress:PAIN
> (Yet Another Stylish Suicide)
Heh.
Thanks for the writeup. That was fun!
xanthian.
> Another bit of info for anyone who wants to do something similar, be
> cautious of generating more than 32,768 items on one square, as the result
> isn't tested, at least to my knowledge.
It has. See the thread containing <slrnd1cf5b...@turtle.stack.nl>.
-- 
Philipp Lucas
phl...@online-club.de
Uhm, you _really_ wouldn't want to dally with mancubii.  The last time I 
checked (in Doom 2), they were all grossly overweight...
1KB
Congratulations! Quite a fun story.
-- 
Daniel Sjöblom
Remove _NOSPAM to reply by mail
>(Yet Another Stylish Suicide)
>
>1.  Zadir (Pri Hum Fem Neu), killed by overexertion, 2147483647 points, 
>HP:4140, Astral Plane, max depth: 49, played on 20050228-20050309, on NH 
>v3.4.3
Congratulations, Zadir, and thanks for doing this on NAO, and letting
us kibitz in freenode!
Now somebody needs to top you by getting that score with an ascension -- 
won't the calculation be much more difficult?
I think what would be really challenging, though, now that "High" score
is ruined, would be to achieve the theoretical *MINIMUM* score on
ascension.  I don't think that's possible, but then, that's been said
about every crazy conduct that's ever been proposed, and I would have
said it about numerous elements in your game had I not witnessed it.
That was fun, Zadir.  What's next?
> 
> legopowa wrote:
>> (Yet Another Stylish Suicide)
>>
>> 1.  Zadir (Pri Hum Fem Neu), killed by overexertion, 2147483647
>> points, HP:4140, Astral Plane, max depth: 49, played on
>> 20050228-20050309, on NH v3.4.3 
>>
>> This lengthy rant roughly outlines one way of getting the highest
>> possible score, within the game's given limits. 
> 
> I'm curious. Has this been done before? If so, by who and how often?
Someone actually managed to overflow the score variable durring the 2003
(?) /dev/null tournament by using much the same tactic.
> I think what would be really challenging, though, now that "High" score
> is ruined, would be to achieve the theoretical *MINIMUM* score on
> ascension.
Given what Seraphim said about someone wrapping the score counter in 2003,
the minimum score would be zero.
>
> legopowa wrote:
>> (Yet Another Stylish Suicide)
>>
>> 1.  Zadir (Pri Hum Fem Neu), killed by overexertion, 2147483647
> points,
>> HP:4140, Astral Plane, max depth: 49, played on 20050228-20050309, on
> NH
>> v3.4.3
>>
>> This lengthy rant roughly outlines one way of getting the highest
> possible
>> score, within the game's given limits.
>
> I'm curious. Has this been done before? If so, by who and how often?
>
The closest similarity is to eit_brad's attempt, which I borrowed heavily 
from. Don't know of any others.
> Are there any techniques for achieving the highest possible score that
> don't involve Rider farming?
>
Babamus used kraken and (possibly) Asmodeus farming to attain a large chunk 
of his little over 1 billion score that was doubled after ascension. 
Thank you for for the accolades james! As for what's next, probably a long 
hiatus, and then a wishless genoless extinctionist knight perhaps. It'll be 
tricky to get an eye of aethiopica with that char without using a wish. 
Maybe even one that ascends with 0 points just for kicks. 
Not so. It seems that (at least in legopowa's executable) the score is
held in a signed 32-bit integer, which would lead to a minimum score of
-2147483648 in the case of two's complement systems, or -2147483647 for
one's complement and sign- magnitude machines, if NetHack is played on
any of those.
Richard
Like playing a "01" darts game, going *over* the score is not as hard as 
precisely meeting it. 
I'm sure with patience, you can get into any of the "endless play"
situations and bring your score wherever you like.  If you go over,
just get another 2 billion.
Even if the counter is changed to unsigned long, it's only good for 4
billion.  Beyond that, we run into cross-platform compatability issues.
>Thank you for for the accolades james! As for what's next, probably a long 
>hiatus, and then a wishless genoless extinctionist knight perhaps. It'll be 
>tricky to get an eye of aethiopica with that char without using a wish. 
I'll say! You probably think it's even possible, but I can't imagine how.
I meant, the theoretical minimum score without exploiting any program or 
platform bugs.  (I consider allowing a value to overflow its limit to be 
a bug.)
Bones-stuffing springs to mind, weak as it is, it's possible.
-- 
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is First Gouday, March.
> Quoting  james <fish...@conservatory.com>:
>>legopowa <lego...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>Thank you for for the accolades james! As for what's next, probably a long 
>>>hiatus, and then a wishless genoless extinctionist knight perhaps. It'll be 
>>>tricky to get an eye of aethiopica with that char without using a wish. 
>>I'll say!  You probably think it's even possible, but I can't imagine how.
> 
> Bones-stuffing springs to mind, weak as it is, it's possible.
Sounds very tedious if it has to be done without wishes even on the
stuffing runs. What if you die and leave no bones? You have to start all
over again, complete the Quest, and die again. 
> I'm sure with patience, you can get into any of the "endless play"
> situations and bring your score wherever you like.  If you go over,
> just get another 2 billion.
>
> Even if the counter is changed to unsigned long, it's only good for 4
> billion.  Beyond that, we run into cross-platform compatability issues.
You already do with unsigned long, which is 64 bits on some machines, no?
-- 
Benjamin Lewis
A small, but vocal, contingent even argues that tin is superior, but they
are held by most to be the lunatic fringe of Foil Deflector Beanie science.
> james wrote:
> 
>> I'm sure with patience, you can get into any of the "endless play"
>> situations and bring your score wherever you like.  If you go over,
>> just get another 2 billion.
>>
>> Even if the counter is changed to unsigned long, it's only good for
>> 4 billion.  Beyond that, we run into cross-platform compatability
>> issues. 
> 
> You already do with unsigned long, which is 64 bits on some
> machines, no? 
I think that was what he was refering to when he was talking about beyond 
4 billion. 
I'm sure as you're aware, in terms of storeing integers between 0 and 4 
billion a 32 bit unsigned long is just as good as a 64 bit one.
> Benjamin Lewis <bcl...@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:
>
>> james wrote:
>>
>>> I'm sure with patience, you can get into any of the "endless play"
>>> situations and bring your score wherever you like.  If you go over,
>>> just get another 2 billion.
>>>
>>> Even if the counter is changed to unsigned long, it's only good for
>>> 4 billion.  Beyond that, we run into cross-platform compatability
>>> issues. 
>>
>> You already do with unsigned long, which is 64 bits on some
>> machines, no? 
>
> I think that was what he was refering to when he was talking about beyond
> 4 billion.  I'm sure as you're aware, in terms of storeing integers
> between 0 and 4 billion a 32 bit unsigned long is just as good as a 64
> bit one.
Oh I see; I misinterpreted what james said.
I don't see why that would be the case. Someone willing to bones-stuff is
already happy to bend what is reasonable; and, after all, in a normal
wishless game one doesn't complain if one finds unstuffed bones with the
result of wishes.
Even if the stuffing runs were wishless, it would still be possible, which
is my sole contention.
-- 
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is First Chedday, March - a public holiday.