root/trunk/changes.txt

Angband 3.1.0
=============

This is an Angband development version -- it may be buggy, so be warned!

Thanks for this release go to: Eytan Zweig, pelpel, Kenneth Boyd,
J.D. White, and more
XXX fill in before release

Leon Marrick's dungeon generator from O was imported briefly, but since
he wasn't around to answer questions or improve it at all, it's been
reverted (see revisions 306 and 612).  Also, using the 3.0.x dungeon
generator makes it much easier to balance the object allocation changes.
The dungeon generator is scheduled for some attention sometime in the
3.1.x series, but it's not my main concern right now.

Noticeable up-front UI changes
------------------------------

 * Add EyAngband-style quickstart option.
 * Notes, like NPP and FA, except with brand new code by J.D. White.
   (#10)
 * Add a trap detection indicator (#19)
 * Make status bar display all timed effects, left-to-right, which
   involves moving the dungeon level to the bottom of the left-hand
   display. (#191)
 * Add show_lists option, which is the same as always_show_lists in
   Ey. (#25)
 * Auto-wield birth items (#24)
 * Change the object information screen quite a bit: (#214, #26)
   - Show average damage for weapons and ammo (#26)
   - Make descriptions a fair bit terser (#399)
   - Show breakage chance for ammo
   - Track item origin, so every item has a tag telling you where it
     came from (#149)
 * Recolour the monster recall: (part of #152)
   - Monster's depth is in red if it's beyond maximum depth, light green
     otherwise.
 * Add how many items the player already has when buying something at
   the store.  (closes #151)
 * Allow use of the space bar to advance a screenful in all
   menus.  (#244)
 * Make all menus wraparound at the top/bottom.  (#244)
 * Monster recall display now cycles through monsters in level order,
   not in the order that the monster definition file is written
   in.  (#302)
 * Add an indication of maximum capacity in the inventory
   display.  (#358)
 * Menus should use 1234567890 as little as possible for "tags".  (#292)
 * Remove the "depth_in_feet" option, instead displaying both the
   dungeon level and the depth everywhere.
 * Ensure that store-bought and birth-given torches have the same number
   of turns for stacking purposes.
 * Death screen now uses scrollable menu. (#416)
 * Drop squelched items
 * Append {tried} to tried items in the object browser (r606)
 * Put {tried} items before untried items in the object browser
 * The monster list display has a little more colour-coding
 * Death menu now uses a scrolly menu.


Gameplay
--------

 * Remove autoscum.  (#365)
 * Make point-based points worth less gold.

Detection:
Try a different approach at detection: make all of magic mapping and
detect trap/door/stair/monster/item/treasure use the same width and
height rectangular area around the player.

Stores:
 * Phase Door is now a staple item.
 * Start stocking deeper items as the character descends.

ID:
 * Make ID reveal all powers of an object, and remove *ID*.  (#158)
 * Make pseudo-id not occur whilst resting, but also make pseudo-ID
   lengths shorter (by a little over half) to compensate.
 * Some items, when worn long enough, get automatically ID'd
 * Items pseudo-id'd as {average} are automatically ID'd, and thus will
   stack properly
 * Make wands/staffs stack even when un-ID'd
 * Remove "good" pseudo-ID, replace with "magical" -- for non-cursed
   non-average non-ego non-artifacts
 * Add "strange" pseudo-ID, for when items have mixed blessings
 * Stop automatically cursing all bad weaponry
 * Make weak pseudo-id notice the difference between magical and
   excellent
 * Stop making rings of Stupidity, Weakness, and Woe.
 * Allow any/all rings/amulets to be cursed if the game wants to
   generate a "bad" item.  This is liable to be rethought in the future.


Combat:
 * On shooters, slays affect rolled damage, not total damage, like
   combat.  Also, transfer slays and brands from the shooter to
   ammunition. e.g. Cubragol is firebranded.  This tones down ranged
   combat quite a bit at the high end.

Monsters:

Monsters have only had one change, but it's not a very noticeable one
(hopefully): monster HP is specified as an average value around which to
randomise, instead of using a "12d5"-type calculation.  Uniques always
have the number of HPs specified in the monster.txt file, like before.

Pack AI for trying to confront the player in rooms was exploitable: it
was not considering open spaces created by digging creatures or
stone-to-mud, making it possible for the player to clear "safe" open
space at the side of a room.  Now the pack AI tries to attack in any
open space where the player can be surrounded, not just room interiors.


Objects:
#310 #228 #311 #313 #316

There is a new object allocation algorithm, something like the Sangband
system but not quite the same.  This made it possible to rebalance the
object rarities with better accuracy and knowledge of how such changes
would affect the game.

As a result, object rarities have undergone fairly extensive changes,
especially with regard to consumables and rechargeables.  Some items
have been removed, some new ones have been added, and most rarities have
been changed.  There are a few quirks with the allocations as they
stand, like speed potions being abnormally common on the first few
dungeon levels.

A selection of the most notable changes appear below:

 - Water and Apple Juice are gone.
 - Various potions have a tendency to appear in stacks.
 - Reduce the number of food varities in the game.
 - Add a new timed telepathy effect to some items
 - Make potions of CLW, CSW, CCW heal a proportion of wounds, not just
   a set value.  In the process, make all the potions more useful, to
   the point where even CLW can be used usefully; CSW is about as useful
   as the old CCW, and CCW is now only found in the dungeon -- albeit in
   piles.  (#313)
 - Add a selection of "gain one, lose one" stat potions to replace the
   old stat loss potions-- they guarantee a stat to raise and reduce one
   randomly.
 - Stop Broken Daggers being generated, make Filthy Rags [0,+0], and
   make Broken Swords (+0,+0) by default.
 - Stop fixing the flavour for slime mold juice.
 - The Elven Rings have a variety of healings, at the suggestion of
   Timo.  Also, apply some other changes from the TV-patch (r428)
 - Bad potions (confusion and the like) have a more damaging effect than
   good potions when thrown.  This is like a lazy version of potions
   actually having the proper effect on monsters they hit.
 - Make torches always be found at 5000 turns, and lanterns at 7500
   turns


Port
----

 * X11: Add -x commandline option for choosing the location of the
   settings file (#333, patch by morth)
 * GTK2: Continue work; add term windows, graphics, etc. and also some
   special dedicated display windows, like "messages" and "monster
   list". (shanoah)


Code-level
----------

A lot of code-level cleanup has been applied to this release, much of it
still in flux.  Many new files have been split out of existing files,
which should now have much more self-explanitory names.

There is also a new generic effects handler so that all item activations
and use abilities share the same code; this replaces use-obj.c and a lot
of descriptions from lib/edit/object.txt. (#234)

Memory handling has been reviewed.  Now, all code should assume that
allocation will succeed, just like it did already.  There is also a
realloc()-style function along with its own hook.  string_make() has
been modified to no longer return a "const char *", and so all the code
now only uses "const" when it means "const".  Some macros have been
removed.

"Elly" rewrote the message and quark packages, previously in util.c,
and in the process split them out into their own z- files.  The z-msg
package is now much more understandable but marginally less "efficient",
and certainly less "optimised".

Option definitions have moved to option.h, and the names and
descriptions for options have moved to option.c.  Option data is now
stored in a much more visually compact way, much more suitable for
editing than the old system was. (#64)

Additionally, a new file API has been introduced which combines the
previous mishmash of fd_*() and my_f*() calls into a simpler, better
documented interface.  (#137)

Set up an event system for UI display updates, where the game
communicates with the UI by sending messages saying that something's
changed that the UI might be interested in, rather than deciding that
specific things should be redraw.  The main screen updates all use this
system now.  Amongst other things, this system should help things like
the borg and graphical frontends, because they can hook right into
changes in state.  (#348)

object1.c and object2.c have been split out into a series of files,
obj-{desc,make,ui,util}.c.  This makes it much easier to remember what
is where.  Also, object_desc() has seen a rewrite, so hopefully it's a
lot more hackable now.

The beginnings of an organised code documentation scheme have started,
using doxygen.  Makefile.std provides an easy mechanism to generate docs
(try "make docs").

There is some new and preliminary load/save code, which has involved
creating a host of new files:
 - z-blockfile deals with "tar"-like blocks of data, where each block
   contains a number of records
 - z-smap is a serialisable map type, used to store values in the
   blockfile
 - compress is a quick and space-efficient compression algorithm stolen
   from "liblzf".

The new code is much easier to use and read, but it's not ready for use
by anyone who cares about their characters yet.

Other assorted changes:
 * Remove a whole load of useless or unused configuration options from
   config.h.
 * "make -f Makefile.inc depgen" will output "Makefile.new", which then
   contains up-to-date dependencies for the project.
 * Add "flags" back to object_type, removing the need for the hacky
   "xtra" bytes.  This paves the way for e.g. fireproofing scrolls
   later. (#120)
 * Makefile for MSVC/NMAKE command-line build.  Currently works with
   MSVC 6+; flags could use tweaking for MSVC 8+.
 * Clean up racial and class skill values into arrays.  (Kenneth Boyd)
 * Use header file guards in all header files, and use a consistent
   naming scheme for them ("Elly")
 * Add a very basic test harness for "unit testing" of the game's code,
   though this is barely used at present.  Thanks to Fennec for cleaning
   this up a bit.
 * Introduce the one_in_() notation to the game, for percentile dice.