After a pause of several years, I started a new nethack game. My first
one in version 3.6.6. Last time I posted here, I used to be a slashem
player (and Janis Papanagnou still played NH 3.4.3), but I never
developed the ambition to ascend all character classes in slashem (as I
had done in nethack before) and have resumed roguelike games now mainly
to experience the new features of NH 3.6 vs NH 3.4.3.

Assuming my reflexes to be a bit rusty, I decided to play something
simple, i.e. a barbarian, but an orcish one for a change. I learned that Cleaver has become a bit more powerful by not just hitting the attacked
monster but also the ones to the left and right of it. That cost me a
pet, and since I am not sufficiently attentive to this new feature, I
also accidentally attacked the peaceful Yeenoghu whom I had summoned by sacrificing an orc. (I just wanted to continue sacrificing and he stood
too close.) That was a bit scary, because he paralyzed me and my hit
points went down to 2/3 of the maximum. But then he escaped upstairs and
next time I met him, I wore a ring of free action...

Also I kept confusing item properties of slashem with those of NH. For
example, I blessed a set of scrolls of teleportation just to relearn
that they still don't give you controlled teleport, so I had wasted a
potion of holy water. I whistled my pet purple worm onto a chameleon
corpse so it ate it, thinking this would give him a higher survivability against accidental hits with Stormbringer. It did, because he was a
giant mimic then, so running accidentally into him after having left him
for a while just made me realize he was my pet, not an item. But my
expectation that he would return to purple worm form eventually was of
course completely wrong... On the other hand, the permanent polymorph of non-player monsters makes a wand of polymorph a useful weapon against disenchanters (which it is not in slashem, unless you avoid killing the monster). They seem to always hit, contrary to wands of lightning or fire.

However, the anecdote I wanted to report, is about illogical behaviour
of Stormbringer. On the castle level, a number of gremlins had spawned,
all peaceful, and I wanted to get rid of them, so they would not later
block my ascension run. Since Stormbringer attacks without warning, I
thought it was o.k. to just kill them. It was Stormbringer's
responsibility to make them angry, not mine... However, later in the
game, I noticed that Stormbringer kept blasting me after I rewielded it, unwielding my pick-axe. Since that had never happened to me before with
a chaotic character, I decided to investigate. Obviously, my alignment
had gone down due to killing many peaceful monsters. A stethoscope
applied to myself revealed that I was "insufficiently chaotic". Now Stormbringer is called an "intelligent" artifact. But is it intelligent
to blame the character for killings initiated by the bloodthirsty blade
itself? And to blast him as a reward for having the blade have its will?
I would call that stupid rather than intelligent. :-)

In fact, I would consider it more in line with the internal logic of the
game and this particular artifact, if attacking peacefuls with
Stormbringer would not incur an alignment penalty. Also what would be
more chaotic than attacking everything with a blade that is
bloodthirsty? How can this make you "insufficiently chaotic" rather than "piously chaotic"?

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On 20.03.2021 19:44, Klaus Kassner wrote:

After a pause of several years, I started a new nethack game.

Welcome back!

My first
one in version 3.6.6. Last time I posted here, I used to be a slashem
player (and Janis Papanagnou still played NH 3.4.3),

Meanwhile, since a couple years now, I'm playing Slashem.

but I never
developed the ambition to ascend all character classes in slashem

That would really be a challenge. Too many combinations for my taste,
too much time necessary, and some combinations (also specific roles
and races) I just don't like to play.

Assuming my reflexes to be a bit rusty, I decided to play something
simple, i.e. a barbarian, but an orcish one for a change. I learned that Cleaver has become a bit more powerful by not just hitting the attacked monster but also the ones to the left and right of it.

Yeah, players have been warned.

Also I kept confusing item properties of slashem with those of NH. For example, I blessed a set of scrolls of teleportation just to relearn
that they still don't give you controlled teleport

What? - Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?
(I'm playing quite some time now but that evaded my attention yet.)

I'm used to cursed scrolls for guaranteed level teleports, or confused
teleport scrolls for unreliable level-teleport. Blessed scrolls always
kept me within the same level. IIRC, it may ask for a confirmation to
teleport. (And I thought Nethack-343 and Slashem behave similar here.)

I am confused.

However, the anecdote I wanted to report, is about illogical behaviour
of Stormbringer. On the castle level, a number of gremlins had spawned,
all peaceful, and I wanted to get rid of them, so they would not later
block my ascension run. Since Stormbringer attacks without warning, I
thought it was o.k. to just kill them. It was Stormbringer's
responsibility to make them angry, not mine... However, later in the
game, I noticed that Stormbringer kept blasting me after I rewielded it, unwielding my pick-axe.

I have no clear memory about the effects in Nethack and Slashem; I
recall to have observed exactly such a gremlin case in one or the other
game. OTOH I seem to recall that killing a peaceful as Chaotic character
won't affect you with bad effects. But probably alignment is decreased
in any case and just other bad effects only applied to non-chaotics?

Since that had never happened to me before with
a chaotic character, I decided to investigate. Obviously, my alignment
had gone down due to killing many peaceful monsters. A stethoscope
applied to myself revealed that I was "insufficiently chaotic". Now Stormbringer is called an "intelligent" artifact. But is it intelligent
to blame the character for killings initiated by the bloodthirsty blade itself? And to blast him as a reward for having the blade have its will?
I would call that stupid rather than intelligent. :-)

Either your barbarian orc character or the blade wasn't-intelligent. :-)
One is free to choose and use another weapon.

In fact, I would consider it more in line with the internal logic of the
game and this particular artifact, if attacking peacefuls with
Stormbringer would not incur an alignment penalty. Also what would be
more chaotic than attacking everything with a blade that is
bloodthirsty? How can this make you "insufficiently chaotic" rather than "piously chaotic"?

Bad (generic) wording for a special case? But "piously chaotic" seems
also not quite right. ;-)

Janis

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On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

On 20.03.2021 19:44, Klaus Kassner wrote:

After a pause of several years, I started a new nethack game.

Thanks. I was surprised that there were still some of the names around
that I knew.

Traffic decreased dramatically. Not sure about the reasons, but I can
think of a couple. Maybe a change of the medium/forum? Maybe the long
time where nothing got released? Maybe the (IMO) insignificant changes
to the game in the 36x releases - nothing interesting to talk about?
The dinosaur generation amongst the players slowly vanishing? Modern
and innovative games with more depth available as alternatives?

Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control.

Have to keep that in mind.

Slashem usually has more different ways to
achieve the same thing than NH. Three ways for controlled teleport in Slashem, only two in NH.

Yes, that seems to generally be a design aspect in Slashem.

Specifically also the more attacks/defenses/items without support
of new slots (amulets/rings/armor/weapons) make the decisions not
as easy as in NH.

Since it's much more difficult than NH I'd wish it would still get
developed further. (Message and stat colors would certainly have
saved me from quite some unnecessary deaths.)

I don't know what else should have decreased my alignment. Also, the
nethack wiki says that killing peacefuls will decrease alignment, and it
does not make an exception for chaotics.

Yep, that's what I meant.

[ handling hordes of peaceful gremlins ]

One is free to choose and use another weapon.

That would not have changed the bad alignment effects. But with another weapon, it is clearly the character's fault, because he is asked whether
he really wants to attack the peaceful monster. With Stormbringer, the
attack simply happens, because it is a "bloodthirsty blade". So the responsibility (in game) should shift to the blade.

I don't think so; it would make that restriction of an overpowered
artifact an advantage. From a moral point of view it might be better
but balance-wise I think it would be worse. As it is now one has to
develop solutions or workarounds.

I tried a couple things in the past, almost none worked reliably...
* let a powerful horde of pets kill them (difficult especially in NH)
* conflict to let them kill each other - doesn't work @Medusa/Juiblex
* genocide - works without penalty(?), but may be considered a waste
* digging holes to lure them to non-watery levels (not quite sure)

Janis

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Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

On 20.03.2021 19:44, Klaus Kassner wrote:

After a pause of several years, I started a new nethack game.

Welcome back!

Thanks. I was surprised that there were still some of the names around
that I knew.

Also I kept confusing item properties of slashem with those of NH. For
example, I blessed a set of scrolls of teleportation just to relearn
that they still don't give you controlled teleport

What? - Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control. Slashem usually has more different ways to
achieve the same thing than NH. Three ways for controlled teleport in
Slashem, only two in NH.

However, the anecdote I wanted to report, is about illogical behaviour
of Stormbringer. On the castle level, a number of gremlins had spawned,
all peaceful, and I wanted to get rid of them, so they would not later
block my ascension run. Since Stormbringer attacks without warning, I
thought it was o.k. to just kill them. It was Stormbringer's
responsibility to make them angry, not mine... However, later in the
game, I noticed that Stormbringer kept blasting me after I rewielded it,
unwielding my pick-axe.

I have no clear memory about the effects in Nethack and Slashem; I
recall to have observed exactly such a gremlin case in one or the other
game. OTOH I seem to recall that killing a peaceful as Chaotic character won't affect you with bad effects. But probably alignment is decreased
in any case and just other bad effects only applied to non-chaotics?

I don't know what else should have decreased my alignment. Also, the
nethack wiki says that killing peacefuls will decrease alignment, and it
does not make an exception for chaotics.

Since that had never happened to me before with
a chaotic character, I decided to investigate. Obviously, my alignment
had gone down due to killing many peaceful monsters. A stethoscope
applied to myself revealed that I was "insufficiently chaotic". Now
Stormbringer is called an "intelligent" artifact. But is it intelligent
to blame the character for killings initiated by the bloodthirsty blade
itself? And to blast him as a reward for having the blade have its will?
I would call that stupid rather than intelligent. :-)

Either your barbarian orc character or the blade wasn't-intelligent. :-)

The character had already Int 18 at the time, wearing a +2 helm of
brilliance.

One is free to choose and use another weapon.

That would not have changed the bad alignment effects. But with another
weapon, it is clearly the character's fault, because he is asked whether
he really wants to attack the peaceful monster. With Stormbringer, the
attack simply happens, because it is a "bloodthirsty blade". So the responsibility (in game) should shift to the blade. (Of course, I as the
player knew what I was doing, and maybe my character could have been
suspected to know it after the second or third gremlin at least.)

In fact, I would consider it more in line with the internal logic of the
game and this particular artifact, if attacking peacefuls with
Stormbringer would not incur an alignment penalty. Also what would be
more chaotic than attacking everything with a blade that is
bloodthirsty? How can this make you "insufficiently chaotic" rather than
"piously chaotic"?

Bad (generic) wording for a special case? But "piously chaotic" seems
also not quite right. ;-)

These are the messages that you get when applying a stethoscope to
yourself. "Insufficiently chaotic" if your alignment is negative.
"Chaotic" (I believe) if it is zero. If it is slightly positive, you
become "fervently chaotic", then "stridently chaotic" (I may interchange
the sequence, not knowing whether fervently or stridently is the
stronger adjective.) And finally, you get "piously chaotic", which
corresponds to the best level of chaoticity. Of course, you can also be
piously neutral or piously lawful, with the appropriate character.

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On 21.03.2021 18:04, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control.

Have to keep that in mind.

Just tried it...

You have much trouble removing W - a blessed scroll of teleportation {5}.
Do you wish to put something in? [ynq] (n)
What do you want to read? [FIJW or ?*]
As you read the scroll, it disappears.
To what position do you want to be teleported?
(For instructions type a ?)

...and it didn't work as you describe. It just lets me decide whether
or not I want to make a teleport on the same level.

(I am playing Unix SlashEM Version 0.0.7E7F3.)

Janis

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On Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 9:06:29 PM UTC-4, Janis wrote:

On 21.03.2021 18:04, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control.

Have to keep that in mind.

Just tried it...

You have much trouble removing W - a blessed scroll of teleportation {5}.
Do you wish to put something in? [ynq] (n)
What do you want to read? [FIJW or ?*]
As you read the scroll, it disappears.
To what position do you want to be teleported?
(For instructions type a ?)

...and it didn't work as you describe. It just lets me decide whether
or not I want to make a teleport on the same level.

(I am playing Unix SlashEM Version 0.0.7E7F3.)

Janis

This is odd. Blessed scroll of teleportation has always worked for me as
Klaus states. Acts as if you have teleport control.


---

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On 22.03.2021 03:18, RecRanger wrote:

On Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 9:06:29 PM UTC-4, Janis wrote:

On 21.03.2021 18:04, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control.

Have to keep that in mind.

Just tried it...

You have much trouble removing W - a blessed scroll of teleportation {5}.
Do you wish to put something in? [ynq] (n)
What do you want to read? [FIJW or ?*]
As you read the scroll, it disappears.
To what position do you want to be teleported?
(For instructions type a ?)

...and it didn't work as you describe. It just lets me decide whether
or not I want to make a teleport on the same level.

(I am playing Unix SlashEM Version 0.0.7E7F3.)

Janis

This is odd. Blessed scroll of teleportation has always worked for me as Klaus states. Acts as if you have teleport control.

I have only extrinsic teleport by using a ring, and I removed the ring
before I read the scroll. I also read a cursed scroll to levelport and
had (by accident) not worn my ring with the result that I got a random levelport. - And I repeated that test just now. In addition I zapped a
wand of enlightenment to confirm that I have no teleport control. The
only somewhat related thing is that I have teleportitis (uncontrolled
random teleports), but that should not matter for levelports (AFAIK).

And here's the source code, where I also don't see the behavior as you
describe it:

case SCR_TELEPORTATION:
if(confused || sobj->cursed) level_tele();
else {
if (sobj->blessed && !Teleport_control) {
known = TRUE;
HTeleport_control = 2;
/* if (yn("Do you wish to teleport?")=='n')
* break;
*/
}
tele();
if(Teleport_control || !couldsee(u.ux0, u.uy0) ||
(distu(u.ux0, u.uy0) >= 16))
known = TRUE;
}
break;


What version are you playing?

Janis

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Am 21.03.2021 um 18:04 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

On 20.03.2021 19:44, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Yes, that seems to generally be a design aspect in Slashem.

Specifically also the more attacks/defenses/items without support
of new slots (amulets/rings/armor/weapons) make the decisions not
as easy as in NH.

Right. You need reflection and either flying or water walking, because
of the damned spells of create pool. Which means that I usually
renounced on permanent speed using potions and the haste self spell to
have it at least temporarily. Then I could have the amulet of reflection
and water walking boots. Level drain resistance may be necessary at
least temporarily, suggesting to either switch with the amulet of
reflection, if someone with a wand of draining appears, which is a bit dangerous as then reflection is gone for a while, or to have deep dragon
scale mail plus a cloak of magic resistance. Or silver dragon scale
mail, the cloak and an amulet of drain resistance. The downside is of
course that with amulets of reflection or drain resistance worn you
don't have the slot for flying available, which would allow you to wear
speed boots. A shield of reflection is not a good option if you want to
have spells... If you forgo drain resistance, then you can have flying,
the silver mail, cloak of magic resistance and speed boots. You may
still have to switch with the amulet of drain resistance from time to
time and then the spell of create pool may be deadly...

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Am 22.03.2021 um 02:06 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

On 21.03.2021 18:04, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 21.03.2021 17:21, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Am 21.03.2021 um 01:23 schrieb Janis Papanagnou:

Blessed teleport let you do a controlled teleport in Slashem?

Yes. It makes blessing the scrolls useful, as long as you do not yet
have teleport control.

Have to keep that in mind.

Just tried it...

You have much trouble removing W - a blessed scroll of teleportation {5}.
Do you wish to put something in? [ynq] (n)
What do you want to read? [FIJW or ?*]
As you read the scroll, it disappears.
To what position do you want to be teleported?
(For instructions type a ?)

...and it didn't work as you describe. It just lets me decide whether
or not I want to make a teleport on the same level.

Since it asked you to what position you want to be teleported, all you
needed to do is to indicate a position in the usual way. Of course you
cannot teleport to a different level, but you can teleport inside the
level to every non-trap or non-wall spot (I don't know whether moats
will be avoided, if you indicate a moat position, in order to drown
yourself :-)).

If you don't give a position, e.g. by typing escape, I assume you will
be randomly teleported.

(I am playing Unix SlashEM Version 0.0.7E7F3.)

Which is precisely the last version I was using. Under Cygwin, i.e. a
Linux emulation on a laptop.

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On 22.03.2021 15:08, Klaus Kassner wrote:

Since it asked you to what position you want to be teleported, all you
needed to do is to indicate a position in the usual way. Of course you
cannot teleport to a different level, but you can teleport inside the
level to every non-trap or non-wall spot

Ah, I misread your post. You wrote "controlled teleport" and I read
it to mean "teleport control". Right, you get the former but not the
latter.

(I don't know whether moats
will be avoided, if you indicate a moat position, in order to drown
yourself :-)).

Typically there's a safe-spot test, so I'd expect you shouldn't land
there and drown.

And yes, sometimes drowning seems to lead quicker to the same result
with less pain than, say, an 'A' summon storm at the Plane of Air. ;-)

Janis

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Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com>:

Traffic decreased dramatically. Not sure about the reasons, but I can
think of a couple. Maybe a change of the medium/forum? Maybe the long
time where nothing got released? Maybe the (IMO) insignificant changes
to the game in the 36x releases - nothing interesting to talk about?
The dinosaur generation amongst the players slowly vanishing? Modern
and innovative games with more depth available as alternatives?

I think I might steer clear of expressions like "modern and innovative",
but since around 2016 I have been playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and
then our Stoat Soup variant. DCSS is a distant relative of NetHack (Linley Henzell's original Crawl is full of unexamined NetHack-isms). I find it
hard to imagine going back to playing NetHack seriously now, although I
did win a Valk in Junethack 2018 (and die in the Sanctum in Sporkhack).
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Second Leicesterday, March.
Tomorrow will be Second Brieday, March.

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On 22.03.2021 19:23, David Damerell wrote:

Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou@hotmail.com>:

Traffic decreased dramatically. Not sure about the reasons, but I can
think of a couple. Maybe a change of the medium/forum? Maybe the long
time where nothing got released? Maybe the (IMO) insignificant changes
to the game in the 36x releases - nothing interesting to talk about?
The dinosaur generation amongst the players slowly vanishing? Modern
and innovative games with more depth available as alternatives?

I think I might steer clear of expressions like "modern and innovative"

Usually I put marketing-typical phrases like these in quotes (or avoid
them completely). Though since I'm still playing a decades old type of
game I thought it was yet a fair characterization.

Janis

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On Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 10:04:32 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

Traffic decreased dramatically. Not sure about the reasons, but I can
think of a couple. Maybe a change of the medium/forum? [...]

The majority of internet users today have never even heard of
Usenet news. Whether that's true of nethack players is harder
to judge but I think it's likely to apply to them too. As to why
most old timers have given up on this newsgroup, I can't say.
The old user base of students sharing a university computer
is long gone.

I've no doubt that fragmenting the player base with variants
contributes to reduced traffic. (There are too many for me to
keep track of these days.)

People looking for tips and spoilers probably end up at
nethackwiki.com rather than come here.

Many people play by connecting to NAO (nethack.alt.org) or
hardfought.com and apparently interact with each other via IRC.
There's a separate channel primarily for variant developers.

reddit.com/r/nethack probably gets a few new posts, often
about variants, and a couple dozen replies per day. There
seems to be a tendency to ask repetitive questions instead of
digging up answers from posts even a week or two old.

Some people post 'issues' and 'pull requests' (patches they
want to see be installed) to github.com/NetHack/NetHack.
Traffic is low and does not veer off into variants. It isn't really
intended for back-and-forth discussion but some traffic which
would have come here in the old days ends up there.

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On 23.03.2021 16:20, Pat Rankin wrote:

I've no doubt that fragmenting the player base with variants
contributes to reduced traffic. (There are too many for me to
keep track of these days.)

In the farther past users of some NH-based variants also
posted here. But all of them vanished together with most
of the NH community. (Singular exceptions disregarded.)

Janis

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Am 23.03.2021 um 16:20 schrieb Pat Rankin:

On Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 10:04:32 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

Traffic decreased dramatically. Not sure about the reasons, but I can
think of a couple. Maybe a change of the medium/forum? [...]

The majority of internet users today have never even heard of
Usenet news.

Yes, there are other new-fangled social media nowadays. Some of which I
never tried out and have no intention to...

Whether that's true of nethack players is harder
to judge but I think it's likely to apply to them too.

To the younger ones, certainly.

As to why most old timers have given up on this newsgroup, I can't say.

Some of them may simply have stopped playing after some years. I did so
after having achieved certain game-related goals. NH 3.6 came up only
after I had already switched to slash'em and I found it difficult to
switch back then, given that slash'em has so many more options for
creativity. You will not as easily get stuck before the Castle, because
you are missing an important ingredient to attack it (such as magic resistance). There are so many more branches and items in the game that
a bad-tempered RNG will not necessarily harm your game (if you survive,
say, down to level 15), because the more items exist, the closer their
number will be to the expectation value, and so you will eventually also
get the rarer items. Moreover, there are more guaranteed ways to get
certain things. (There are cursed -9 gray dragon scales in the lawful
quest, protected by an arch lich trap statue, but if you can genocide
arch lichs, there you have a guaranteed source of magic resistance. A
wand of cancellation is of course very helpful here.)

Now, after a pause of several years, it is rather easy to start with NH
again, which is interesting, because I would like to learn about the
changes with respect to the latest version I played before (NH 3.4.3). I
find the game still pretty addictive, so I will probably stop playing
again after a few ascensions -- when I think I can play it as well as I
did before. (At present, I am still making many mistakes, partially
because I confuse slash'em behaviour with nethack one, partially,
because of the changes between the NH versions.)

The old user base of students sharing a university computer
is long gone.

Yes.

People looking for tips and spoilers probably end up at
nethackwiki.com rather than come here.

Right. This way I learned why Cleaver behaves differently in NH 3.6 than
in NH 3.4.

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On Monday, March 22, 2021 at 7:40:32 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

Ah, I misread your post. You wrote "controlled teleport" and I read
it to mean "teleport control". Right, you get the former but not the
latter.

The code snippet you posted shows HTeleport_control = 2 which
should provide timed control lasting for 2 turns. The current turn
would use up 1 of them, but it looks like reading a blessed scroll
to teleport within the current level and then immediately reading a
cursed one (assuming you aren't burdened or poly'd into something
too slow to move every turn) would allow a one-shot controlled
level teleport.

NetHack's to-be-3.7 has controlled teleport within level for a
blessed scroll (which I think might have been an explore mode
feature a long time ago), but it doesn't confer any sort of temporary
intrinsic in the process.

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On 25.03.2021 01:43, Pat Rankin wrote:

On Monday, March 22, 2021 at 7:40:32 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

Ah, I misread your post. You wrote "controlled teleport" and I read
it to mean "teleport control". Right, you get the former but not the
latter.

The code snippet you posted shows HTeleport_control = 2 which
should provide timed control lasting for 2 turns.

When I had looked that up I thought that this variable was a flag
(not a number/count), given that is is somewhere used as flag like 'HTeleport_control |= FROMOUTSIDE', but I may misinterpreted that.

Janis

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Am 25.03.2021 um 01:43 schrieb Pat Rankin:

On Monday, March 22, 2021 at 7:40:32 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

Ah, I misread your post. You wrote "controlled teleport" and I read
it to mean "teleport control". Right, you get the former but not the
latter.

The code snippet you posted shows HTeleport_control = 2 which
should provide timed control lasting for 2 turns. The current turn
would use up 1 of them, but it looks like reading a blessed scroll
to teleport within the current level and then immediately reading a
cursed one (assuming you aren't burdened or poly'd into something
too slow to move every turn) would allow a one-shot controlled
level teleport.

That is something I never realized! I mean, controlled teleport within a
level is useful enough and makes it worthwhile blessing a scroll of
teleport in early game (gives you essentially a certain escape from a
tight situation on ordinary levels, whereas uncontrolled teleport may
take you not far enough away from the pack surrounding you).

However, I do not really see how one can put in an action after reading
the blessed scroll before it does the teleport, so probably one will
first have to teleport within the level and then, on immediate reading
of a cursed scroll one might get to choose the level...

NetHack's to-be-3.7 has controlled teleport within level for a
blessed scroll (which I think might have been an explore mode
feature a long time ago), but it doesn't confer any sort of temporary intrinsic in the process.

In any case, it is a good thing to make blessed scrolls more useful than uncursed ones. (Which they aren't really with the choice of not
teleporting, given to the reader right now. After having identified the
scroll, there is no reason to ever read a blessed scroll, if you do not
want to teleport...)

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Klaus Kassner <Klaus.Kassner@gmx.de> writes:

In any case, it is a good thing to make blessed scrolls more useful
than uncursed ones. (Which they aren't really with the choice of not teleporting, given to the reader right now. After having identified
the scroll, there is no reason to ever read a blessed scroll, if you
do not want to teleport...)

Maybe to reduce the weight of your inventory without giving any monsters
a chance to read the scroll, when there are no containers around?
(Yeah, a corner case..)

--
Jukka Lahtinen

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On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 5:06:35 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

On 25.03.2021 01:43, Pat Rankin wrote:

The code snippet you posted shows HTeleport_control = 2 which
should provide timed control lasting for 2 turns.

When I had looked that up I thought that this variable was a flag
(not a number/count), given that is is somewhere used as flag like 'HTeleport_control |= FROMOUTSIDE', but I may misinterpreted that.

It is, but the lowest bits are where the timeout is stored. You'll
find places that use (Hsomething & TIMEOUT) to get an intrinsic's
timeout value with FROMOUTSIDE and so forth stripped away
and Hsomething = ((Hsomething & ~TIMEOUT) | newtimeout)
to replace a timeout without disturbing FROMOUTSIDE and such.

Setting it to 2 instead of using the second expression above would
clobber any current value, but execution won't reach that code
unless the value is 0 so there aren't any other active bits to clobber.
It has a side-effect, probably intentional, of preventing the reading
of a set of blessed scrolls on turn after turn from accumulating a
larger timeout. It will always be decremented to 1 at the start of
the next turn--possibly move, I'm not sure offhand--and then to 0
and no longer effective on the turn--or move--after that.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Am 25.03.2021 um 22:17 schrieb Jukka Lahtinen:

Klaus Kassner <Klaus.Kassner@gmx.de> writes:

In any case, it is a good thing to make blessed scrolls more useful
than uncursed ones. (Which they aren't really with the choice of not
teleporting, given to the reader right now. After having identified
the scroll, there is no reason to ever read a blessed scroll, if you
do not want to teleport...)

Maybe to reduce the weight of your inventory without giving any monsters
a chance to read the scroll, when there are no containers around?
(Yeah, a corner case..)

Sure, but then I might risk teleporting closer to monsters I want to
avoid. Also, if I don't want the scroll for myself (to use it later with teleport control) and am strong enough to deal with any single monster,
I would not care too much, if a monster read the scroll for escape purposes.

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