Size of various datatypes, Map generation, half levels

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

What is the usual size for the various types(items, monsters, map
cells, player charachters) I guess it kind of depends on the nature of
your maps, items, the number you expect to have, etcetcetc. I just want
a general idea of what other people have done.

The other thing I wanted to know was about map generation. My map
generator is basically conway's life, slightly modified and applied to
a random map. at this stage of map generation, I've already got the
basic layout, but I need to include lairs and homes of various beasts.
the problem is, most of the solid spaces in my map are non-regular
shapes. so I need messy lairs, like the sort of thing a termite of
unusual tenacity would chew out of the rock, and something a dwarf
might carve out, irregular only in the ways that the geometry of the
stone requires it to be.


On to my real point/question/ +3 item of discussion!
WHat are everybody's thoughts on including half-levels? By half levels,
I mean ramps. basically, you have a certain area, and if you approach
it from one direction, you go a certain distance(a half-level) down,
but if you approach it from another direction, you go half a level up.
how would this interact with digging and stuff? could there be a
diagonal up/down dig? in Nethack, it always annoyed me that you could
dig yourself into a pit, but not dig a ramp to get out. The whole idea
here is to eliminate stairways, the fact that they have no place in
caves, and the awkward tactical situations they create. of course, said
tactical situations can be interesting, which is why I'll have
sinkholes in the floor, which like stairways, lead to a single
location, but unlike stairways, require a dexterity check to
successfull descend, and can only be ascended with a grappling hook
and dexterity check, unless they are adjacent to a wall, in which case
the dexterity check is harder, but no grapple hook is needed, but it
can be used to make the check easier. if you find yourself stuck, there
might just be a long way to walk around and get back up, thus the half
levels and ramps.

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

On 20 Jul 2005 09:44:38 -0700, NIm wrote:

>What is the usual size for the various types(items, monsters, map
>cells, player charachters) I guess it kind of depends on the nature of
>your maps, items, the number you expect to have, etcetcetc. I just want
>a general idea of what other people have done.

If you mean what data type is used, I stick with what's fastest for the
platform I'm writing for (16-bit ints on DOS, 32-bit ints on most modern
systems, 64-bit ints once I break down and get a 64-bit system) unless I
*need* something else - the seed used to generate my dungeons, for
example, is type single.

>The other thing I wanted to know was about map generation. My map
>generator is basically conway's life, slightly modified and applied to
>a random map. at this stage of map generation, I've already got the
>basic layout, but I need to include lairs and homes of various beasts.
>the problem is, most of the solid spaces in my map are non-regular
>shapes. so I need messy lairs, like the sort of thing a termite of
>unusual tenacity would chew out of the rock, and something a dwarf
>might carve out, irregular only in the ways that the geometry of the
>stone requires it to be.

I would think that dwarves would prefer fairly well-planned communities;
only their "for money" mining would be irregular.

The generator I've got is semi-random and *very* simple, especially when
compared to what most others in here are doing. Lots of inaccessible
rooms, few corridors, etc.

>On to my real point/question/ +3 item of discussion!
>WHat are everybody's thoughts on including half-levels? By half levels,
>I mean ramps. basically, you have a certain area, and if you approach
>it from one direction, you go a certain distance(a half-level) down,
>but if you approach it from another direction, you go half a level up.
>how would this interact with digging and stuff? could there be a
>diagonal up/down dig? in Nethack, it always annoyed me that you could
>dig yourself into a pit, but not dig a ramp to get out. The whole idea
>here is to eliminate stairways, the fact that they have no place in
>caves, and the awkward tactical situations they create. of course, said
>tactical situations can be interesting, which is why I'll have
>sinkholes in the floor, which like stairways, lead to a single
>location, but unlike stairways, require a dexterity check to
>successfull descend, and can only be ascended with a grappling hook
>and dexterity check, unless they are adjacent to a wall, in which case
>the dexterity check is harder, but no grapple hook is needed, but it
>can be used to make the check easier. if you find yourself stuck, there
>might just be a long way to walk around and get back up, thus the half
>levels and ramps.

I don't know about "half levels", but if there's another level below, I
always assume that digging down makes a pit that acts as a 1-way stairs.
--
auric underscore underscore at hotmail dot com
*****
Windows error: OMFG THERZZ AN ERRROR!!111 WTF??!?!?!
Linux error: Hello there, you have an error. Here's a detailed list of
what's gone wrong and here's how to fix it. Would you like some coffee?

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

NIm <bladedpenguin@gmail.com> wrote:
> What are some of the previous ideas for 3d terrain?

I have never read a coherent solution to the problem, except to make the
game 3d and rendered accurately (in which case I'd contend it isn't very
roguelike).
Mostly there have been lots of musings on the subject with no happy
solution. Though there's a certain designer's delight in tackling such a
problem, I'm yet to be convinced that the "pretty toy" benefits outweigh
the massive mechanical / display problems which it creates. Or, for that
matter, that the rare cases where it's important can't better be solved
by hacks.
If you want half-level ramps, I'd recommend simply labelling them as
such and indicating the general gradient from one side of the screen to
the other, with minimal change to the display (assuming you're using
ASCII- if you're not, you have more display options, but I'm still not
convinced it adds anything to the gameplay).

As for datatype sizes, I'm guessing you're looking for more specific
info than this, but:
Using Objective Caml's Marshal module, my 64x64 tile map blocks
(internally stored as "records" ) save into approx. 25k, and then
compress to approx. 1.6k with gzip. This leads me to believe that I can
safely ignore file sizes for some time to come, because the maps are
sufficiently detailed that I don't think they'll blow out by much. But
perhaps I am too tolerant, and other people will actually object to
having a 5-10Mb savefile after a long game. Hence the planned savefile
compression.

--jude hungerford.

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

"NIm" <bladedpenguin@gmail.com> wrote:
> The other thing I wanted to know was about map generation. My map
> generator is basically conway's life, slightly modified and
> applied to a random map. at this stage of map generation, I've
> already got the basic layout, but I need to include lairs and
> homes of various beasts. the problem is, most of the solid spaces
> in my map are non-regular shapes. so I need messy lairs, like the
> sort of thing a termite of unusual tenacity would chew out of the
> rock, and something a dwarf might carve out, irregular only in the
> ways that the geometry of the stone requires it to be.

Seed the map with random rock as you normally would, then separate an
area of it with permawall (walls which are excempt from the game-of-life
rules) that has a single opening of permafloor. eg
???????????
?########??
?#??????#?? ? randomized
?#??????#?? # permawall
?#?????...? . permafloor
?#?????...?
?#?????...?
?#??????#??
?#??????#??
?########??
???????????
(Probably more interesting if you mark off a larger area than that.)

There's an old article I wrote on cellular automata, which Google Groups
seems not to have for some reason, so I put it at
http://www.jimrandomh.org/misc/caves.txt

Note that it's still possible that you'll end up with your lair entirely
filled with rock, or not fully connected. You could handle that by re-
randomizing and life'ing the interior, by throwing out the whole map, or
just not trying to put a monster in there.

--
CalcRogue: TI-89, TI-92+, PalmOS, Windows and Linux.
http://calcrogue.jimrandomh.org/

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

jimrandomh wrote:
>
> There's an old article I wrote on cellular automata, which Google Groups
> seems not to have for some reason, so I put it at
> http://www.jimrandomh.org/misc/caves.txt
>
> Note that it's still possible that you'll end up with your lair entirely
> filled with rock, or not fully connected. You could handle that by re-
> randomizing and life'ing the interior, by throwing out the whole map, or
> just not trying to put a monster in there.

I like the caves that that generates! Thanks for sharing that
algorithm, I might look into it to supplement my current cave
generation.

Connectivity can be handled by just drawing corridors between random
points on the unconnected components. Solid rock likewise detected by
computing the ratio of wall to floor and rejecting if it doesn't lie
within a certain range.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)