Have I misunderstood the speed system?

[magnate]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

I just lost my ~32nd Kelumen to a Creeping Diamond Gems. I was at +0
speed with over 100hp. I read a phase door scroll and ended up next to
it. It has +10 speed and 4 attacks. It hit me four times. Then it hit
me another four times - ok fair enough, it's twice as fast as I am.
Then it hit me ANOTHER four times and I thought, hang on! But then I
thought, well maybe it's actually at +12 speed because I read somewhere
that non-uniques get from -2 to +2 perm speed on generation. So it
could just about get a third move on me.

Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.
The only explanation I can think of is that it was hasted somehow, but
there were no shriekers anywhere on the level. It had just come out of
a treasure pit, and none of its buddies were hasted (I'd been fighting
them prior to reading the ?PD).

The alternative is that I really don't understand how speed works. It's
listed in monster.txt as speed 120, which is +10, right? So it can have
a max speed of +12, yes? So how could it get a quad move on me at +0 if
it wasn't hasted? Or, how could it have been hasted? The message log
shows no shriek messages. What else can haste monsters?

Yours in irritation,

CC

 

[magnate]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

I'm not playing Heng, but thanks for the analysis - interesting! This
is the NPP competition char, and as far as I know NPP uses the V speed
system, where +0 speed gives you 10 energy points per turn and +12
speed gives you 22 energy points. If that's correct then there's no way
it could have got a quadruple move on me without being hasted. I think.

CC

 

[magnate]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Thanks for the suggestions Jonathan, but no I was neither slowed nor
paralysed. I had just slowed down from +10 speed to +0 speed. If I'd
been slowed I would have seen "Slow -X" on the status line at the
bottom of the main window ...

CC

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

"magnate" <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<1114084837.872073.133830@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>...
> I just lost my ~32nd Kelumen to a Creeping Diamond Gems. I was at +0
> speed with over 100hp. I read a phase door scroll and ended up next to
> it. It has +10 speed and 4 attacks. It hit me four times. Then it hit
> me another four times - ok fair enough, it's twice as fast as I am.
> Then it hit me ANOTHER four times and I thought, hang on! But then I
> thought, well maybe it's actually at +12 speed because I read somewhere
> that non-uniques get from -2 to +2 perm speed on generation. So it
> could just about get a third move on me.
>
> Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.
> The only explanation I can think of is that it was hasted somehow, but
> there were no shriekers anywhere on the level. It had just come out of
> a treasure pit, and none of its buddies were hasted (I'd been fighting
> them prior to reading the ?PD).
>
> The alternative is that I really don't understand how speed works. It's
> listed in monster.txt as speed 120, which is +10, right? So it can have
> a max speed of +12, yes? So how could it get a quad move on me at +0 if
> it wasn't hasted? Or, how could it have been hasted? The message log
> shows no shriek messages. What else can haste monsters?
>
> Yours in irritation,
>
> CC

Hmm. That is impressive. I can only guess that maybe you were
carrying too much stuff and were slowed. But even a -2 or so to speed
should not be enough to allow it to move 4 times in a row on you.
Perhaps you had an errant keystroke somewehre?

k2

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

On 2005-04-21 14:00:38, "magnate" <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> I just lost my ~32nd Kelumen to a Creeping Diamond Gems. I was at +0
> speed with over 100hp. I read a phase door scroll and ended up next to
> it. It has +10 speed and 4 attacks. It hit me four times. Then it hit
> me another four times - ok fair enough, it's twice as fast as I am.
> Then it hit me ANOTHER four times and I thought, hang on! But then I
> thought, well maybe it's actually at +12 speed because I read somewhere
> that non-uniques get from -2 to +2 perm speed on generation. So it
> could just about get a third move on me.
>
> Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.
> The only explanation I can think of is that it was hasted somehow, but
> there were no shriekers anywhere on the level. It had just come out of
> a treasure pit, and none of its buddies were hasted (I'd been fighting
> them prior to reading the ?PD).
>
> The alternative is that I really don't understand how speed works. It's
> listed in monster.txt as speed 120, which is +10, right? So it can have
> a max speed of +12, yes? So how could it get a quad move on me at +0 if
> it wasn't hasted? Or, how could it have been hasted? The message log
> shows no shriek messages. What else can haste monsters?
>
> Yours in irritation,
>
> CC
>
>
>

Are you buy any chance playing Hengband? If so, that occurence was unlikely but
not impossible. Haven't looked into the code, but the spoilers say that energy
is normally distributed with standard deviation 31 for both you and the
monster, which means that if you get really unlucky, something the same speed
as you could quadriple move you:

You: 1.94 standard deviations bad = 160 time between moves

Enemy: 1.94 standard deviation good = 40 time between moves

Probability of you getting screwed over by 1.94 standard deviations while the
enemy lucks out by 1.94 standard deviations 4 times in a row:

Z(-1.94) * Z(-1.94)^4 = (0.0262)^5 = 1.23 * 10^-8

So, it's expected to happen about once every 81 million moves you make.

^^

Dave

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

magnate wrote:
> Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.
> The only explanation I can think of is that it was hasted somehow, but
> there were no shriekers anywhere on the level. It had just come out of
> a treasure pit, and none of its buddies were hasted (I'd been fighting
> them prior to reading the ?PD).

It definitely got 14 attacks? That sounds like a bug. There was a bug in
old Vanillas that let monsters sometimes get a double move on a faster
player -- one supposes this would also let them get a triple move on an
only slightly slower player and a quadruple move on a significantly
slower player. Perhaps this bug is unfixed (or crept back in) in NPP?
(This was the NPP comp char, right? Though there's no variant tag in the
subject...)

Also, if you're fighting pit monsters and need to flee/get away for a
bit to heal, use proper teleport, not phase. Phase door can land you
right in the middle of the effing pit, and is very likely to land you
near a monster from it at least, as you found out to your chagrin.

> The alternative is that I really don't understand how speed works. It's
> listed in monster.txt as speed 120, which is +10, right?

If you're unsure, check the monster memory. If it says "moves quickly"
then it's speed 8 to 12. If it says "moves very quickly" it's 18-22 and
could get a legit quadruple move. If it says "moves incredibly quickly"
it's 28-32 and might be the fastest monster in the game. (Morgoth, like
all uniques, gets no +/-2 and is only ever exactly +30. A death mold can
be faster, up to +32 -- fortunate then that it doesn't move or have
ranged attacks!)

> So it can have a max speed of +12, yes? So how could it get a quad move
> on me at +0 if it wasn't hasted? Or, how could it have been hasted? The
> message log shows no shriek messages. What else can haste monsters?

Too much stealing and getting caught on one dlevel with a rogue. You
didn't do that with your Kelumen, I hope? (I'd imagine there'd be some
kind of message when this happens, best interpreted as "go to the
nearest up stair and <> , pronto, before you die horribly". )

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

"magnate" <chrisc@dbass.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1114098733.077456.233560@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I'm not playing Heng, but thanks for the analysis - interesting!
This
> is the NPP competition char, and as far as I know NPP uses the V
speed
> system, where +0 speed gives you 10 energy points per turn and +12
> speed gives you 22 energy points. If that's correct then there's no
way
> it could have got a quadruple move on me without being hasted. I
think.

Unless, of course, *you* were *slowed*.

Could you have been slowed by something else without realising it?

Indeed, can monsters hit to slow?

Or did it hit to paralyze you, which would have let it get infinite
turns on you?

Jonathan.

 

[magnate]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

I'm a big one for errant keystrokes, which is why I always play with
flush_before on! The message log shows nothing other than its 14
attacks (except "You have been stunned", which wouldn't deprive me of a
turn), so I didn't get a move unless I pressed 5 or one of the other
numpad keys. I use the space bar to clear -more- prompts so that
wouldn't have ended up with me moving by accident.

I'd love to say it's a bug, but I don't know. I'll keep an eye out for
it happening again. Still looking for another explanation though - are
there any monster attacks which use less than 100 energy?

CC
P.S. Neo - yes this is the comp char and no I didn't steal anything,
ever!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Magnate writes:
>I'm a big one for errant keystrokes, which is why I always play with
>flush_before on! The message log shows nothing other than its 14
>attacks (except "You have been stunned", which wouldn't deprive me of
a
>turn), so I didn't get a move unless I pressed 5 or one of the other
>numpad keys. I use the space bar to clear -more- prompts so that
>wouldn't have ended up with me moving by accident.

I can think of one other possibility. If there was an "It's a mimic!"
truncated from your message log prior to all those whacks, the log is
exactly as I'd expect it to be. And it's exactly the kind of thing
that happens if you dare go near a creeping coins pit. (In NPP I've
done exactly one creeping coins quest. It took hours of real time, was
horribly boring, and had minimal reward. Finding just a dozen
half-decent weapons has the same gold value, and is a lot less dreary.)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

pete mack wrote:
> I can think of one other possibility. If there was an "It's a mimic!"
> truncated from your message log prior to all those whacks, the log is
> exactly as I'd expect it to be.

?

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:39:54 -0400, Twisted One
<twisted0n3@gmail.invalid> wrote:

>magnate wrote:
>> Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.
>> The only explanation I can think of is that it was hasted somehow, but
>> there were no shriekers anywhere on the level. It had just come out of
>> a treasure pit, and none of its buddies were hasted (I'd been fighting
>> them prior to reading the ?PD).
>
>It definitely got 14 attacks? That sounds like a bug. There was a bug in
>old Vanillas that let monsters sometimes get a double move on a faster
>player -- one supposes this would also let them get a triple move on an
>only slightly slower player and a quadruple move on a significantly
>slower player. Perhaps this bug is unfixed (or crept back in) in NPP?
>(This was the NPP comp char, right? Though there's no variant tag in the
>subject...)
>
This bug can't occur when either the player or the monster is normal
speed or at speed +10. (or gets an amount of energy each game turn
that divides 100)
The most likely explanation it that there was more than one creeping
coin.

--
Wim Benthem

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Wim Benthem wrote:

>>magnate wrote:
>>
>>>Then it hit me twice more and I died. So it got a quadruple move on me.

> The most likely explanation it that there was more than one creeping
> coin.

First one with +12 speed and gets triple move then gets pushed away and
another creeping coin moves in and gets single move (two moves for it).
Total four moves. I can see that is possible. Very scary.

Timo Pietilä