Wiki - turns to read spellbooks

[Janis Papanagnou]

I was looking at the tables about spells in the wiki[*] and wondering
about two issues; first, are the various number of turns correct that
spellbooks of the *same* difficulty level require, and second, I was
quite sure - but may be misremembering, so CMIIW - that in my games I
partly needed much more time than the one given in the "Turns to Read"
column.

Janis

[*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook

[TJR]

On 13 Feb., 08:55, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Yes, spellbook reading times vary. The difference between turns and
actions adds to the confusion.

Some of this is clarified in the live wiki - the one at wikia.com is
dead.
http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks

[bcode]

Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I was looking at the tables about spells in the wiki[*] and wondering
> about two issues; first, are the various number of turns correct that
> spellbooks of the *same* difficulty level require, and second, I was
> quite sure - but may be misremembering, so CMIIW - that in my games I
> partly needed much more time than the one given in the "Turns to Read"
> column.

The old wiki uses turns here. Some of the values just seem wrong, though.
(Finger of Death should take more than 10 turns, for example.)

Spellbooks of the same difficulty level don't have to share a count of
actions needed; it also depends on oc_delay, which may be different even
for books of the same type. (The level _does_ affect the duration too,
though.)

>
> Janis
>
> [*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook

I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks
It uses actions and seems to have correct values (I didn't verify all of
them, but those I looked at seem to be correct)

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:
>>
>> [*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook
>
> I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
> http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks

Searching with google I still can't tell the two apart from just looking
at the URL. (Probably because I only rarely inspect the wiki.)

> It uses actions and seems to have correct values (I didn't verify all of
> them, but those I looked at seem to be correct)

Yes, the values on the quoted page match much more with my own observations.
Thanks to both of you, TJR and bcode.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

> On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:

>> http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks

Another observation... (a programming/design issue)

The formula for the turns to read a spell-book depends on the oc_delay
object attribute. This attribute is used for various object classes;
for spells it is only used in calculating the effective spell learning
delay, which is also based on the oc_level attribute. That calculation
is implemented using some bulky switch case and four different formulas
depending on the spell levels. I wonder why the effective spell delays
are not just stored in the oc_delay attribute; then that calculation
would be obsolete, the code much simpler, easier to understand (and even
[if only marginally] faster).

Janis

[TJR]

On 14 Feb., 01:08, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

No idea, really. A consequence of this weirdness is that player speed
makes successful reading faster, but has no effect on how long you get
paralysed by a cursed or difficult book. Speed runners teleporting
through Gehennom using a cursed, fast-to-read book might want to keep
this in mind.

[Pasi Kallinen]

Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:
>>>
>>> [*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook
>>
>> I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
>> http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks
>
> Searching with google I still can't tell the two apart from just looking
> at the URL. (Probably because I only rarely inspect the wiki.)
>

I'm sure you're able to tell them apart the moment you visit...


--
Pasi Kallinen
pa...@alt.org
http://bilious.alt.org/ -- NetHack Patch Database

[Janis Papanagnou]

Am 14.02.2012 15:42, schrieb Pasi Kallinen:
> Janis Papanagnou<janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook
>>>
>>> I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
>>> http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks
>>
>> Searching with google I still can't tell the two apart from just looking
>> at the URL. (Probably because I only rarely inspect the wiki.)
>>
>
> I'm sure you're able to tell them apart the moment you visit...

Actually, no. Any hint on a reliable criterion? - Mind, I entered the
Wiki from a search result directing me to the specific page mentioned
above. The old page did not "look wrong" at first glance.

Janis

[ais523]

The most obvious difference is that Wikia has obnoxious advertising; the
second-most-obvious is that Wikia have forced a rather ugly formatting
on the wiki, that looks particularly odd with unusually narrow or wide
browser widths.

There's also a huge difference in who updates the wikis and how often
(pretty much everyone remotely knowledgeable about NetHack who
updates wikis have moved over to the new wiki, and are just leaving the
old one to die), but that's much less obvious just by looking at the
pages (unless you come across obvious misinformation).

--
ais523

[Spon]

On Feb 14, 4:56 pm, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> > I'm sure you're able to tell them apart the moment you visit...
>
> Actually, no. Any hint on a reliable criterion?

Almost every page on the old wiki seems to have "(Old Site)" at the
end of the page name.

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 14.02.2012 20:34, ais523 wrote:
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
[ distinguish old wiki from the new one ]

>>
>> Any hint on a reliable criterion?
>

> The most obvious difference is that Wikia has obnoxious advertising;

Sorry, no. I see no ads at all. (Maybe due to my ads blockers.)

> the
> second-most-obvious is that Wikia have forced a rather ugly formatting
> on the wiki, that looks particularly odd with unusually narrow or wide
> browser widths.

Frankly, it looks good enough with my settings.

> There's also a huge difference in who updates the wikis and how often
> (pretty much everyone remotely knowledgeable about NetHack who
> updates wikis have moved over to the new wiki, and are just leaving the
> old one to die), but that's much less obvious just by looking at the
> pages (unless you come across obvious misinformation).

Yeah, a closer inspection may have helped; and indeed I had noticed the
strange values, as noted upthread. But then I think it's easier to just
memorise the URL instead of some content analysis.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions :-)

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Okay, the browser's title bar had never been of interest to me; but
now that I know I'll have a look at it to distinguish the wiki's.
Thanks again.

Janis

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Feb 14, 2:34 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:

> The most obvious difference is that Wikia has obnoxious advertising;

The old NetHack wiki on Wikia has advertising?

Where?

I've never noticed it, and I just looked over a couple of the
articles,
specifically looking for said obnoxious advertising, and I can't find
so much as a text advert at the bottom of a sidebar.

Does it, like, only show up if you install some kind of gratuitous
media plugin that I've never bothered with, or something?

> second-most-obvious is that Wikia have forced a rather ugly
> formatting on the wiki, that looks particularly odd with unusually
> narrow or wide browser widths.

I've never noticed that either, including just now when I was
specifically looking for it. Are we talking about the same site?
nethack.wikia.com?

The most obvious difference I've noticed is that the search
box is in a different place (top of page on the new wiki, near
the bottom right on the old one). Also, the old wiki has the
text "(old site") in the title of every single page. Oh, and the
header at the top of each article is significantly taller on the
old site, so you have to hit pgdn once to get to the actual
article text.

[ais523]

Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:

> On Feb 14, 2:34 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> The most obvious difference is that Wikia has obnoxious advertising;
>
> The old NetHack wiki on Wikia has advertising?
>
> Where?
>
> I've never noticed it, and I just looked over a couple of the
> articles,
> specifically looking for said obnoxious advertising, and I can't find
> so much as a text advert at the bottom of a sidebar.
>
> Does it, like, only show up if you install some kind of gratuitous
> media plugin that I've never bothered with, or something?

I assume so, it seems to be using some weird sort of lazy advert loading
nowadays that is somewhat buggy. (I tried turning my ad blocker off
there, and it just froze Firefox for a while, and opened up a space
where presumably an advert should go, but it didn't load.)

Then I opened it in a different browser, with Flash enabled, and it
seems to have not one but two obnoxious adverts at the bottom of the
screen, which scroll with it. (Some crazy toolbar with five
mini-adverts in, and above it, a huge advert that takes up around a
quarter of the vertical screen space.)

There was also an advert at the top of the page, but it took so long to
load that I'd written everything in this message up to this point before
I saw it.

>> second-most-obvious is that Wikia have forced a rather ugly
>> formatting on the wiki, that looks particularly odd with unusually
>> narrow or wide browser widths.
>
> I've never noticed that either, including just now when I was
> specifically looking for it. Are we talking about the same site?
> nethack.wikia.com?

Indeed. I just narrowed my browser window to around 500 pixels (half the
screen of this laptop), and the site content didn't reflow at all, just
gave a horizontal scrollbar. Which is disappointing, as that's a
perfectly reasonable width for a browser window.

The other problem is that there's a useless right sidebar on pretty much
every page. "2,022 PAGES ON THIS WIKI" "1,116 PHOTOS ON THIS WIKI"
/every single page/. Given that, say, pages about monsters have a
reasonably wide sidebar, there's pretty much no room for actual content.

I think it's possible to set browser settings to be locked-down enough
that Wikihack is somewhat readable, and it seems that you do something
like that by default (which is reasonable; I do too). But for the
majority of the Internet-using public, rather than the sort of people
who frequent rgrn, the old site is pretty much unusable.

--
ais523

[bcode]

ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
> Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
>
>> On Feb 14, 2:34 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:

[...]

>>> second-most-obvious is that Wikia have forced a rather ugly
>>> formatting on the wiki, that looks particularly odd with unusually
>>> narrow or wide browser widths.
>>
>> I've never noticed that either, including just now when I was
>> specifically looking for it. Are we talking about the same site?
>> nethack.wikia.com?
> Indeed. I just narrowed my browser window to around 500 pixels (half the
> screen of this laptop), and the site content didn't reflow at all, just
> gave a horizontal scrollbar. Which is disappointing, as that's a
> perfectly reasonable width for a browser window.
>
> The other problem is that there's a useless right sidebar on pretty much
> every page. "2,022 PAGES ON THIS WIKI" "1,116 PHOTOS ON THIS WIKI"
> /every single page/. Given that, say, pages about monsters have a
> reasonably wide sidebar, there's pretty much no room for actual content.

I wonder what the people who designed that skin were thinking. Designing
a good MediaWiki skin is not easy, and the only really good skins I've
seen are Monobook and Vector (which is mainly an "improved" version of
Monobook); what Wikia enforces, however, seems like the designers didn't
even *try* to make a good skin. Rather, it seems to serve more as a
promotional frame for Wikia than as a usable interface to the wiki.

> I think it's possible to set browser settings to be locked-down enough
> that Wikihack is somewhat readable, and it seems that you do something
> like that by default (which is reasonable; I do too). But for the
> majority of the Internet-using public, rather than the sort of people
> who frequent rgrn, the old site is pretty much unusable.
>

The Wikia skin seeems quite unusable to me, too (for reasons already
mentioned in this thread). If I really need to use the old wiki (for
example, if nethackwiki.com is down), I append the ?useskin=monobook
URL parameter; it seems not to include most of the ads and also
scales much better. (Thinking about it, it actually surprises me
Wikia still allows this...)

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue, 2012-02-14, ais523 wrote:
> Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
>
>> On Feb 14, 2:34 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> The most obvious difference is that Wikia has obnoxious advertising;
>>
>> The old NetHack wiki on Wikia has advertising?
>>
>> Where?
>>
>> I've never noticed it, and I just looked over a couple of the
>> articles,
>> specifically looking for said obnoxious advertising, and I can't find
>> so much as a text advert at the bottom of a sidebar.
>>
>> Does it, like, only show up if you install some kind of gratuitous
>> media plugin that I've never bothered with, or something?

> I assume so, [...]

No. I don't have Flash or anything, an oddball browser (Opera) and an
ad-filtering proxy. I see plenty of ads and irrelevant self-promotion.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Feb 14, 5:33 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Then I opened it in a different browser, with Flash enabled,

Oh, Flash, right. I have Flash installed on my computer
and use it occasionally for this and that, but I do NOT
have the plugin where my main browser can find it, for
rather obvious reasons.

> I just narrowed my browser window to around 500 pixels

Can't say as I've ever had the urge to use a browser window
very much smaller than 1280x1024 on a modern system,
except when testing the scaling/reflow on web content that
I'm creating. Even then, I don't get very upset if 640x480
is the smallest res that the layout can comfortably handle.
Even when the web was brand new, most computers could
easily handle 640x480 (albeit not usually with 24-bit color).

> The other problem is that there's a useless right sidebar
> on pretty much every page. "2,022 PAGES ON THIS WIKI"
> "1,116 PHOTOS ON THIS WIKI" /every single page/.

Yeah, but it's down below the main page content, so who cares?

> I think it's possible to set browser settings to be locked-down
> enough that Wikihack is somewhat readable, and it seems that
> you do something like that by default (which is reasonable; I do
> too).

Most modern web browsers do a fair amount of locking down
right out of the box. It's kind of necessary on the modern web.
Otherwise every third website you visit will completely take
over your whole computer. Just off the top of my head, here
are a few things that web browsers *used* to let sites do, and
now they don't allow it any more by default:
* Open any number of additional windows.
* Turn off important aspects of the browser's UI.
* Run client-side scripts for unlimited amounts of time.
(The default time limit in Firefox is much too long, and
then instead of just stopping the script it bugs the user
whether they want to continue or not, but at least there
is a limit now. Older browsers would just lock up forever.)
* Change the desktop wallpaper.
* Some browsers used to install plugins requested by a website,
without asking the user.

I have, admittedly, disabled a few more things, including
looping animations, page-specified colors, fonts smaller than
12 pixels, the stupid "download manager" window that by
default pops up every single time you save anything,
Javascript's abilities to move, resize, raise, or lower
windows or to alter the context menus or status bar in
any way, and probably some other things I've forgotten.

> But for the majority of the Internet-using public, rather
> than the sort of people who frequent rgrn, the old site
> is pretty much unusable.

So it might seem, but the thing is, half the web is like that,
and "the majority of the internet-using public" use it anyway.
Fire up your other browser with Flash enabled and have a
quick look at FaceBook, YouTube, Yahoo Mail, Twitter,
MySpace, MSN, and eBay, then come back and tell me
about how bad Wikia is for the internet-using public.

(I'm not saying we should use Wikia. I like the new
wiki just fine. I'm just pointing out that Wikia is not
particularly unusual in its badness.)

[ais523]

Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:

> On Feb 14, 5:33 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>> The other problem is that there's a useless right sidebar
>> on pretty much every page. "2,022 PAGES ON THIS WIKI"
>> "1,116 PHOTOS ON THIS WIKI" /every single page/.
>
> Yeah, but it's down below the main page content, so who cares?

Aha! Not for me, it isn't; it's beside the content, forcing the actual
content into a narrow portion of the screen. Something your browser is
doing is saving you from the horrors of Wikia.

--
ais523

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Wed, 2012-02-15, Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> On Feb 14, 5:33 pm, ais523 <ais...@bham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Then I opened it in a different browser, with Flash enabled,

...

> So it might seem, but the thing is, half the web is like that,
> and "the majority of the internet-using public" use it anyway.
> Fire up your other browser with Flash enabled and have a
> quick look at FaceBook, YouTube, Yahoo Mail, Twitter,
> MySpace, MSN, and eBay, then come back and tell me
> about how bad Wikia is for the internet-using public.
>
> (I'm not saying we should use Wikia. I like the new
> wiki just fine. I'm just pointing out that Wikia is not
> particularly unusual in its badness.)

I think the thing is, people compare it with other Mediawiki-based
sites. They know what these look like and where the controls are.

In /that/ subset of the web, the wikia.com sites are unusual and bad.

[TJR]

On 13 Feb., 19:34, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:
> > I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
> >  http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks
>
> Searching with google I still can't tell the two apart from just looking
> at the URL. (Probably because I only rarely inspect the wiki.)

A lot of people seem to have that problem, e.g. bloggers who want to
be nice and provide a link to the wiki etc.

If you can think up a way to make the new wiki more distinct without
being obnoxious, by all means, please implement it.

[Janis Papanagnou]

Thanks for your confidence :-) Given that I "rarely inspect the wiki"
(as said above), it's quite unlikely that I implement any wiki feature.

But wouldn't a better way be to make the old wiki more distinct - maybe
even by making it more obnoxious ;-) - than changing the new one (which
looks quite good as it is)? - Just a thought.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 14.02.2012 17:56, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Am 14.02.2012 15:42, schrieb Pasi Kallinen:

[ old/new wiki ]

>>
>> I'm sure you're able to tell them apart the moment you visit...
>
> Actually, no. Any hint on a reliable criterion?

Hah! - I think I've just noticed one criterion; the old wiki seems
to have an [f] link on every page. - Good to know, good to avoid.

Janis

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

I found another difference, which you can see e.g. in the article on
Saber.
In (non-heading) cell of the table, the new wiki says "Invalid tag
extension
name: math". The old wiki instead contains images of black text in a
thin
font excessively anti-aliased to an assumed white (which is absent;
the
images are transparent), which are only readable if you enable Evil
Blinding
White Background mode (i.e., either page-specified colors, or custom
colors
that have a light background and dark foreground). Thus, while the
contents
of the table aren't useful on either version of the wiki, they are
different.

[Hendrik Weimer]

Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> writes:

> Am 14.02.2012 15:42, schrieb Pasi Kallinen:
>> Janis Papanagnou<janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 13.02.2012 14:50, bcode wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> [*] http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Spellbook
>>>>
>>>> I'd recommend looking at the new wiki instead:
>>>> http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Spellbook#List_of_spellbooks
>>>
>>> Searching with google I still can't tell the two apart from just looking
>>> at the URL. (Probably because I only rarely inspect the wiki.)
>>
>> I'm sure you're able to tell them apart the moment you visit...
>
> Actually, no. Any hint on a reliable criterion?

The old wiki is usually the one that comes out top of a Google
search. :-/

Hendrik

[Pasi Kallinen]

Not really different.

Apparently MediaWiki moved the math-tag out of the MW core into a
separate extension in 1.18.0. When I updated the wiki, I
skipped 1.18.0, and went directly to 1.18.1, and I missed that
particular change in the changelog.

I'll install the math extension either today or tomorrow.


If you have any good ideas how to do the math image colors Correctly,
I'm all ears.

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Feb 16, 8:40 am, Pasi Kallinen <pa...@alt.org> wrote:
> If you have any good ideas how to do the math image
> colors Correctly, I'm all ears.

They'd be legible if the "background" of each image were 50% opaque
white, instead of fully transparent. (But note that putting a 50%
opaque background image behind them via the CSS background-image
property won't work, because people who don't use page-specified
colors usually don't have their browser set to load background images
either.)

[G-Mon]

On 13 Feb 2012, TJR <tilmi...@googlemail.com> wrote in
news:d279c091-1353-4966...@f5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com
:

> [...] player speed makes successful reading faster, but has no effect

> on how long you get paralysed by a cursed or difficult book. Speed
> runners teleporting through Gehennom using a cursed, fast-to-read
> book might want to keep this in mind.

Well, if you're using cursed L1 spellbooks to teleport, your best bet
would be to use detect monsters, light, sleep, or knock: they all can
be read in three actions, faster than any other spellbook, and thus can
only paralyze you for one turn. (Paralysis from a cursed or difficult
book lasts for [<ACT> - 2] turns, where <ACT> is the number of actions
needed to read it.)

--
ATTENTION:

Our trolls are kept on a very strict diet.
Please do not feed them.

The Management,
REC.GAMES.ROGUELIKE.NETHACK TREASURE ZOO

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Feb 18, 3:50 pm, "G-Mon" <gmon5...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Well, if you're using cursed L1 spellbooks to teleport, your best
> bet would be to use detect monsters, light, sleep, or knock: they
> all can be read in three actions, faster than any other spellbook,
> and thus can only paralyze you for one turn.

Interesting.

Knock has the added distinction of being otherwise useless
(assuming you've had a skeleton key since way before you
even thought about trying to acquire unholy water so as to
be able to curse things; I suppose it is theoretically possible
for the RNG to give you no keys or lock picks or credit cards
for the entire game, but it seems mighty unlikely -- though I
have noticed that the probability of any unlocking tool being
generated on the floor of any given level is apparently directly
proportional to the number of them that already exist in the
game so far when the level is generated; you can go ten or
fifteen levels before finding your first unlocking tool but will
then always see another within 4-5 levels, and after that
they show up even more frequently).

[bcode]

Jonadab the Unsightly One <jonadab.the...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 18, 3:50 pm, "G-Mon" <gmon5...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Well, if you're using cursed L1 spellbooks to teleport, your best
>> bet would be to use detect monsters, light, sleep, or knock: they
>> all can be read in three actions, faster than any other spellbook,
>> and thus can only paralyze you for one turn.
>
> Interesting.
>
> Knock has the added distinction of being otherwise useless
> (assuming you've had a skeleton key since way before you
> even thought about trying to acquire unholy water so as to
> be able to curse things;

Knock can open drawbridges and make engulfers release you; a skeleton
key (or a lock pick or credit card) cannot do this. Also, you can
unlock things from a distance with it and don't risk triggering a
trap. Additionally, using knock won't anger the Minetown watch.

> I suppose it is theoretically possible
> for the RNG to give you no keys or lock picks or credit cards
> for the entire game, but it seems mighty unlikely -- though I
> have noticed that the probability of any unlocking tool being
> generated on the floor of any given level is apparently directly
> proportional to the number of them that already exist in the
> game so far when the level is generated; you can go ten or
> fifteen levels before finding your first unlocking tool but will
> then always see another within 4-5 levels, and after that
> they show up even more frequently).

I've found no such special case in the code.

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 19.02.2012 04:23, bcode wrote:
>
>> I suppose it is theoretically possible
>> for the RNG to give you no keys or lock picks or credit cards
>> for the entire game, but it seems mighty unlikely

Yes, I had been close to that once; no key in the upper dungeons,
including mines, Sokoban and many levels of Gehennom (where I have
to admit that the mazes below the Valley have not thoroughly been
explored for loot).

>> -- though I
>> have noticed that the probability of any unlocking tool being
>> generated on the floor of any given level is apparently directly
>> proportional to the number of them that already exist in the
>> game so far when the level is generated; you can go ten or
>> fifteen levels before finding your first unlocking tool but will
>> then always see another within 4-5 levels, and after that
>> they show up even more frequently).
>
> I've found no such special case in the code.

I took his statement as a subjective feeling, not as an implemented
mechanism.

Yes, the RNG is teasing us![*]

Janis

[*] Yesterday, in the Valley I spent a wish for a helm of brilliance to
let my samurai cast some (also wished for) spell of identify. Of course
I found such a helm shortly after at the other end of the Valley.

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On Feb 18, 10:23 pm, bcode <betac...@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Knock can open drawbridges

I did not know that. But presumably it can't close them again,
so using it for the castle drawbridge would be rather risky.

> and make engulfers release you;

Okay, but the five hundred thousand wands of digging you
find laying around all over the place can do that.

> Also, you can unlock things from a distance with it
> and don't risk triggering a trap. Additionally, using
> knock won't anger the Minetown watch.

Interesting. I did not know about these wrinkles.

> > have noticed that the probability of any unlocking tool being
> > generated on the floor of any given level is apparently directly
> > proportional to the number of them that already exist in the
> > game so far when the level is generated; you can go ten or
> > fifteen levels before finding your first unlocking tool but will
> > then always see another within 4-5 levels, and after that
> > they show up even more frequently).
>
> I've found no such special case in the code.

I'm not sure it's a special case. It might be automatically
handled by the same code that decreases the likelihood of
edible monsters being generated when you're hungry and
then generates six or eight random o or q right next to you
as soon as you start fainting. I think the function is called
something along the lines of
generateMaliciousRandomNumberToHarmThePlayer()

[G-Mon]

On 19 Feb 2012, Jonadab the Unsightly One
<jonadab.the...@gmail.com> wrote in news:62342263-9ef4-4839-
ac21-89d...@r1g2000yqk.googlegroups.com:

> On Feb 18, 10:23 pm, bcode <betac...@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>> Knock can open drawbridges
>
> I did not know that. But presumably it can't close them again,
> so using it for the castle drawbridge would be rather risky.

That's when you follow up with wizard lock. Duh.

>> Also, you can unlock things from a distance with it
>> and don't risk triggering a trap. Additionally, using
>> knock won't anger the Minetown watch.
>
> Interesting. I did not know about these wrinkles.

Kinda what I like about this game. Few things are completely useless.
Even a scroll of amnesia has a halfway-decent use that doesn't involve
blanking it, but that's well-advanced play.

[bcode]

Jonadab the Unsightly One <jonadab.the...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 18, 10:23 pm, bcode <betac...@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>> Knock can open drawbridges
>
> I did not know that. But presumably it can't close them again,
> so using it for the castle drawbridge would be rather risky.

That reminds me of how I opened and closed the castle drawbridge with
only knock and wizard lock. At some time I typoed and accidentally
cast force bolt instead.

Also, opening the drawbridge with a tonal instrument takes no time,
as opposed to this method. This is a bug, though.

>
>> and make engulfers release you;
>
> Okay, but the five hundred thousand wands of digging you
> find laying around all over the place can do that.

Wands of digging have the additional benefit that the monster's HP
will be reduced to 1. However, unlike knock, they don't work on
whirly monsters (vortices and air elementals).

>> > have noticed that the probability of any unlocking tool being
>> > generated on the floor of any given level is apparently directly
>> > proportional to the number of them that already exist in the
>> > game so far when the level is generated; you can go ten or
>> > fifteen levels before finding your first unlocking tool but will
>> > then always see another within 4-5 levels, and after that
>> > they show up even more frequently).
>>
>> I've found no such special case in the code.
>
> I'm not sure it's a special case. It might be automatically
> handled by the same code that decreases the likelihood of
> edible monsters being generated when you're hungry and
> then generates six or eight random o or q right next to you
> as soon as you start fainting. I think the function is called
> something along the lines of
> generateMaliciousRandomNumberToHarmThePlayer()

Ah, the good old rnh() - generates a random number based on the
amount of harm it would cause. Obviously it cannot be found in the
source since it's in .sadism.c ;)