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TripleM
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
There's a brain in the room. Brained snakes will take the shortest path to Beethro.
05-18-2012 at 10:53 AM
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thog smash beethro
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
Of course. D'oh!
05-18-2012 at 10:55 AM
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Jacob
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
We will be updating the drod ingame doc files.
does anyone have any comments on what should be changed or expanded or added?

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09-05-2013 at 12:56 AM
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Nuntar
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+4)  
You mean the help screens you get by pressing F1? Okay, here are a few things I've noticed.

* Most glaringly, there are a few mentions of other elements' interactions with shallow water, but no section on shallow water itself.

* Neither "Basic Game Elements" nor "Advanced Game Elements" includes tarstuff.

* The section on bombs mentions that fuses respect force arrows, but doesn't mention that explosions also do so. This is quite counterintuitive, so it's worth making a point of it.

* The section on rock golems says that you have to be in an orthogonal line with them for them to move. Spot the mistake.

* The section on wubbas doesn't even mention that they share golem movement.

* The rattleserpents section says they "change directions after certain multiples of moves". There's no reason to be so secretive about what that multiple is; that's just frustrating to the player who wants actual help. Also, in this section, "orthogonal" is misspelled.

* The spiders section doesn't mention that they can move on shallow water (this is mentioned in Mechanics of Monster Movement, but it's so basic that it could appear in the main entry).

* Seep section: "usage" is misspelled.

* Mechanics of Monster Movement:
** The brained seep section is completely wrong.
** The fegundo section can't make up its mind as to what the plural of "fegundo" is.
** The bulleted lists in the stalwarts and miscellaneous sections are missing full stops after each item.
** You mention that explosions activate orbs and destroy broken orbs. So, what do they do to cracked orbs?

* The room editor page lists level entrances as being under the fourth tab (they are under the second). Also, "customizable" is misspelled.

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[Last edited by Nuntar at 09-15-2013 11:59 PM]
09-15-2013 at 11:56 PM
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mrimer
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (0)  
Great feedback. We'll make a note of all this.

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09-16-2013 at 04:55 PM
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Jacob
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (0)  
Thanks for the comments.
As you can see, monster descriptions are divided into two sections: the more narrative/descriptive ones that don't go into much detail about how things work, and the more complex monster movement mechanics section (in which, for example, we do state that wubbas move like golems and explain how rattlers move).

I wrote most of the monster movement mechanics section, but left the original narrative/descriptive monster sections unchanged - clearly there are a few omissions/mistakes that will need to be remedied.

We should probably remove the distinction between basic and advanced elements, as this really only applied to the Gunthro hold.

I wonder if we should simlarly try to integrate the simplistic and more advanced mechanics descriptions (e.g. see as it is on the drod website itself)

Can you, or anyone, suggest a correction for the brained seep section? I have to admit I haven't fully understood how this works.

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09-16-2013 at 06:21 PM
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Nuntar
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
Okay, here's what I've learned about brained seep from Advanced Concepts :P (Actually, the AC rooms that discuss this use brained waterskippers, but the two act the same.)

The seep finds the "least resisted" path to Beethro, counting by the number of obstacles (that is, non-wall squares, and wall squares containing Brain-Visible Obstacles such as force arrows). Among equally resisted paths, it chooses the shortest, breaking ties in the same way as other brained monsters.

It gets a bit more complex than that when disconnected areas of wall are involved, but I guess that would be too much detail?

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09-16-2013 at 09:22 PM
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mrimer
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
Here are the help pages, modified for GatEB with the fixes mentioned by Nuntar here.

We'll rearrange and consolidate the monster content in the 5.0 help docs.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 11-24-2013 09:27 PM]
11-24-2013 at 09:26 PM
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phoenix-girl
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
A question of Snakes and Clocks.

bibelot wrote:
Serpents:

A serpent first checks to see if Beethro is directly in front of or behind its head. If he is, the serpent continues moving in that direction. It also has an internal counter; the first five turns it prefers horizontal movement, the next five it prefers vertical, and then this repeats. The serpent picks a square into which it wants to move; if it is thinking horizontally, then it picks which of the two squares horizontally adjacent to its head is closer to Beethro. If it is in the same vertical column as Beethro, it picks which of the two vertical squares adjacent to its head is closer to Beethro. Note that the square it picks may be occupied by a wall or the serpent's own body. If it is thinking vertically, it does the same thing but looks at the vertical squares first, then the horizontal squares. The serpent then tries to move into the square that it has picked. If that square is blocked, the serpent tries to move N, then E, then S, then W. If it can't move into any of those squares, its tail shrinks by one square. Serpents will always try to move unless its head is outside of smelling range when Beethro is invisible, in which case it will only move if a brain is within smelling range of Beethro.

Is that why a clock appears when there is a snake around? I have always wondered why a red snake needs a clock?

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07-10-2014 at 02:26 PM
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Tuttle
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+1)  
Yes, the serpent has horizontal preference when the turn count the clock is moving to ends in 0-4, and vertical preference when the next turn count ends in 5-9. Note that means that when a room starts the serpent will move with horizontal preference only four times, and switch on the fifth move.

[Last edited by Tuttle at 07-10-2014 02:40 PM]
07-10-2014 at 02:39 PM
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phoenix-girl
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (0)  
Ahhhh-ha, I finally get it. :smile

I always wondered.

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07-11-2014 at 09:49 PM
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CelestialThoughts
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (+3)  
VERY Interesting.:D

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07-05-2016 at 10:50 PM
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Resert On
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (0)  
I have questions :

What exactly preference that used by citizens when building that have same distance?

What exactly preference that used by citizens if there has more than one same type relay station that have same distance?

What difference of 'Halph' and 'Young Halph' in DROD 3? (This isn't monster movement clarification)

What preference that used by constructs when attacking foes (stalwart, soldier, player) that the foes has same distance?

What preference that used by slayer when killing his foes (stalwart, soldier, player,etc)? (I already tested it but when I move it that change -_-)

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[Last edited by Resert On at 07-11-2017 02:26 AM]
07-11-2017 at 02:26 AM
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Dragon Fogel
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icon Re: Monster Movement Clarification (0)  
Most of your questions can't actually be answered, because the entities you're asking about use code that isn't actually human-predictable to make their moves.

See this thread for details: http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=42389

The only gameplay difference between Halph and Young Halph is that Young Halph can't go in shallow water and Halph can.

This is also the only difference between stalwarts and soldiers.
07-11-2017 at 04:22 AM
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