Re: CF: Beginneers Guide

[swedel@Tymnet.COM (Scott Wedel)]

Anthony Thyssen wrote:
> Nice idea about the mice, I have only used them for initial
> experience gain. mice are of course no good against dragons.

James Cameron wrote:
> 
> Aren't they?  I'm sure I've seen it work.
> The trick is that the magic attack creatures (beholders, skulls) don't
> seem to want to fire their long range spells if they don't have a clear
> square next to them in your direction.

Well, actually monster's want a line of sight.  The LOS algorithm is to
basically head towards player and if most direct square towards player
is blocked to then check other square(s) which still head towards player.
So a few mice around the monster or player, or blocking a passage will
stop monster from firing range weapon since player cannot be "seen"
by the monster.  I actually tweaked the LOS algorithm a while back to
make it better at spotting players.

I suppose the fix would be for monster's line of sight to ignore
monsters significantly less powerful than the searching monster (ie
dragon breathes through mice, but not through other dragons or significant
monsters).  The current situation could be regarded as a cute feature
to use against some particularly powerful sentimental monster which,
even after being fixed, could be induced by falsely setting a monster's
level or something like that.


This LOS stuff recalls another CF weakness.  The inability for players
or monsters to fire at any angle.  So dark angels one row off from player
will always miss and player can send fireballs that explode on the wall
and engulf the dark angels.  Precise angles for fired weapons should be
possible by specifying angle and x,y position as floating point and rounding
when indexing next square.  And then monster's should fire a percentage of
shots intentionally to the side of the player so that player can be hit
even when moving.

I need to get laid off with a nice package so I have the time implement
some of these ideas.

							sdw
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