Posts from ·MarvinPA·

Crawl 0.13: “Pan-Galactic Gargoyle Blasters”

We are proud to announce that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.13: “Pan-Galactic Gargoyle Blasters” is released! 0.13 adds a new species: Gargoyles, made from living stone. It also features many new and reworked spells, monsters and items, including a reworked Skald spellbook and a brand new monster set for the Crypt.

Download DCSS 0.13 here, or play it online on one of many servers across the world!

The release tournament will begin at 20:00 UTC on Friday 11 October, with all online 0.13 games counting towards your score. See the tournament website for more details, including how to set up or join a clan.

0.13′s highlights include:

  • Characters: A new species, Gargoyle, has been added. Made from living stone, they have low HP but are very tough and have a number of innate resistances. Sludge Elves have been removed, as has the Priest background. Stabbing skill and Traps skill have both been removed, with stabbing effectiveness now based on the average of weapon and stealth skills, and trap detection based on experience level.
  • Monsters: The Crypt contains many new monsters. Revenants cast spells of ghostly fire, jiangshi are fast and possess strong vampiric attacks, plague shamblers erupt in a cloud of miasma on death, and lost souls sacrifice themselves to heal nearby undead. Many existing monsters from both inside and outside the Crypt also have new spells or abilities, including improvements to lesser demons, elementals, deep elves, and many others.
  • Places: A large number of layout generators have been improved and added, including new unique layouts for some branches. All timed portal vaults now give an announcement upon entering the level. Mechanical traps no longer generate randomly. A new Sprint map has been added: “|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||” by st (also known as linesprint).
  • Gods: Hill Orcs are given the chance to convert to Beogh on the spot upon meeting an orc priest in the dungeon. Zin’s Recite ability can now be used while moving and fighting, instead of forcing the player to stay in place doing nothing else for its duration.
  • Spells: Skalds now start with the new book of Battle, containing a number of new spells. Infusion spends MP each hit to increase melee damage, Song of Slaying grants increasing slaying bonuses when killing monsters, Spectral Weapon creates a clone of your weapon that attacks with you, and Song of Shielding causes damage to reduce MP instead of HP. Other new spells include Searing Ray, a conjuration which deals damage over multiple turns, and Discord, a high-level hex that causes monsters to enter a frenzy, attacking one another indiscriminately. Summoning spells have also been adjusted, with each spell having an independent cap on the number of monsters that can be summoned at a time.
  • Items: Many evokable items have been reworked. The elemental evokers each have themed effects in addition to summoning multiple elementals, but require the player to gain experience to recharge. The box of beasts now creates 3-headed chimeras, with abilities and melee attacks from multiple randomly-selected beasts. The sack of spiders is a new evokable item which creates webs and spiders nearby.

For a list of other major changes, see the changelog. Many thanks to all those who have contributed to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. We hope you enjoy playing 0.13!

Server default settings

We’ve changed some of the default interface settings for servers (not for desktop versions), so now:

travel_delay = -1
explore_delay = -1
rest_delay = -1
show_travel_trail = true

The second-to-last setting (rest_delay) is a new setting that was also added so resting/healing now happens instantly (this only makes a difference in webtiles, since in console the stats area always updates).

These settings will make online play better by default for webtiles users who are being particularly affected by lag. The game is much quicker and more fun to play without waiting for autoexplore/travel/rest. Additionally this should reduce overall server load which will hopefully be significant during the tournament!

Webtiles players should also be aware that there was recently a change to the way webtiles data packets are batched, which should also result in a significant speed gain for laggy connections (much less round trips are being made overall).

See the options guide for more details on these options, and please comment here if you have any issues or questions with the new settings.

Crawl 0.12: “High Vaultage”

We are proud to announce the release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.12: “High Vaultage”! This latest version contains many new and overhauled features, including revamped Vaults and Abyss branches, a new weapon effect for axes allowing them to cleave through multiple enemies at once, and much more!

Head over to the Downloads page to get 0.12, or see the How to play Online page for a list of available servers.

There will be a tournament from May 11-27 to celebrate the release. All 0.12 games played on one of the online servers (CAO, CDO or CSZO) will count for scoring. See the 0.12 tournament website for the rules and start forming clans!

Some of 0.12′s highlights include:

  • Places: The Vaults branch is now 5 levels deep, with a revamped layout and new guardians. The Abyss consists of 5 (still infinite) levels of increasing danger, with the rune found only on the deeper levels, and contains many new monsters. There are many new layouts and vaults in other branches. Secret doors have been removed. Three Sprint maps have been added: “Thunderdome” by evilmike, and “The Pits” and “Arena of Blood” both by st.
  • Monsters: In the Vaults, vault sentinels alert monsters to your location, ironbrand convokers recall monsters from elsewhere directly to you, vault wardens seal nearby doors, and ironheart preservers reduce the damage that their allies take. The Abyss is inhabited by a variety of new eldritch horrors: ancient zymes, tentacled starspawn, lurking horrors, starcursed masses, wretched stars, apocalypse crabs, thrashing horrors and spatial maelstroms. Two uniques have been added: Jorgrun, a deep dwarf earth elementalist, and Lamia, queen of the nagas. Other new monsters include moths of suppression (with an aura that suppresses the effects of magical equipment) and deep troll shamans and earth mages. Ant larvae, bumblebees, rock trolls and wood golems are no more.
  • Spells: Many non-elemental conjurations have been added: Force Lance (causes low-range knockback), Dazzling Spray (blinds multiple enemies), Iskenderun’s Battlesphere (creates an autonomous globe that attacks alongside your other conjurations) and Fulminant Prism (creates a smite-targeted time bomb). Another new spell, Disjunction (blinks away all nearby enemies for a duration), can be found in high-level translocation books. Fulsome Distillation, Evaporate, Cigotuvi’s Degeneration, See Invisible and Insulation have been removed. Venom Bolt, Bolt of Magma, Teleport Other and Dispersal have been made more effective.
  • Characters: Conjurers now start with a spellbook containing the new non-elemental conjurations. Summoned allies now only attack while both the summon and the target are in line-of-sight. Levitation and controlled flight no longer exist – all sources of flight are controlled instead. Stalkers have evaporated.
  • Items: Axes cleave through multiple targets when attacking, but have slightly reduced damage. One-handed maces and flails have been improved. The wand of polymorph other is now the wand of polymorph, and causes random transformations instead of mutations in players (with a number of new bad forms: tree, wisp, porcupine and fungus).
  • Gods: Vehumet now gifts destructive spells one at a time, starting with low-level spells at low piety and ending with multiple high-level spells. Vehumet no longer supports summoners. Worshippers of Yredelemnul and Beogh can recall their allies from different floors, and Beogh allies gain experience when the player gets kills. Xom has a number of new available actions, and some negative effects are toned down or removed.

See the changelog for a summary of other major changes. Thanks to Stone Soup’s many contributors, and enjoy playing 0.12!

Crawl 0.11: “Arachnophobia”

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.11: “Arachnophobia” has been released! We proudly present the new Spider Nest branch. It is five levels deep, contains the gossamer rune of Zot, joins the Lair branch roulette, and is filled to the brim with spiders. And they are scary indeed: large groups of fast hard-hitting enemies in a fairly open layout that is riddled with webs. The melee spiders are backed up by slow but powerful orb spiders that try to keep their distance while weaving orbs of destruction. Almost all spiders were rebalanced to fit into a Lair branch, so they are generally much more powerful than before.

You can get 0.11 at our Downloads page, or see the How to play Online page for a list of available servers. There will be an official tournament to celebrate this release, but we’re waiting for the new CAO server before setting a date. As soon as more information is available a new announcement will be made.

One change that may cause problems for upgrading users, especially online players, is a slight change in the way the options file works: the default options file now consists only of commented out lines. If you modified your config and are reusing it for 0.11, which is done by default on the servers, you should comment out or delete all lines that you did not change from the default. This will ensure that you are not using any default values from older versions. You may also need to update your config to use the new syntax for various list options (such as message colours or travel stoppers), by ensuring you use “option += value” to append to the list instead of “option = value” (as in the future this will replace the list entirely instead of appending to it). Using the old syntax will cause an ingame message to be displayed, to remind players that the options format has changed. See the List Options section of the options guide for full details.

Some of 0.11′s major changes include:

  • Places: With the addition of the Spider Nest, the Lair will now contain one of Swamp/Shoals and one of Snake/Spider. The Swamp has an improved layout with more compact levels. The Elven Halls are shortened to three floors. As always, there are many new vaults, including new branch endings and full-level vaults. The frequency of vaults has also been slightly increased. Upon escaping from the Abyss, you now land back where you came from, but with a few turns’ banishment immunity. A new Sprint map has been added: Ziggurat Sprint by st squeezes an entire Ziggurat into one floor, and contains appropriately ridiculous amounts of loot and monsters.
  • Monsters: Fannar, an elven ice mage, and Arachne, a poisonous half-spider, join the ranks of Crawl’s unique monsters. The omniresistant Hell Sentinels replace Pit Fiends. Boulder beetles can now curl up and roll at you for heavy damage. Mimics can now constrict their foes, although early mimics are much weaker: their constriction does no damage, and they don’t resist elemental attacks. Monster constriction formulae have been changed to make it much easier to escape, but blink counts as two escape attempts now instead of always letting you get out. Equipment-using monsters can now wear rings and amulets and benefit from most of their effects.
  • Items: Ammo enchantment has been removed, which greatly simplifies inventory management for those who use ranged weaponry. Weapon skill now fills the role of ammo enchantment, instead. You can now abort changing your armour instead of slowly getting nibbled to death by a rat while putting on your shiny new crystal plate armour. Most fixed artefacts now start out identified. Weapons are identified by having a certain amount of the corresponding skill instead of by whacking plants with them. Rods of smiting are replaced with lightning rods that let you shoot cones of lightning. You can adjust the width of the cone to either do heavy damage to single targets or quickly clear out hordes of popcorn.
  • Gods: Okawaru now gives almost no piety for killing and sacrificing weak enemies, but gives much more for winning difficult fights. Nemelex worshippers can now earn the ability to use the top four cards in a deck at once, replacing the old “Mark Four” ability. Nemelex also gifts fewer decks of summoning, and various cards have been adjusted. Kikubaaqudgha gifts randomised necromancy spellbooks instead of the fixed ones. Xom now usually times his pranks to coincide with interesting situations.
  • Interface: Several new options were added, including automatically dropping old chunks when burdened, and sacrificing corpses before autoexploring. The spell targeting interface has been greatly improved, showing the affected area for AoE spells and beam paths for bouncing lightning bolts. The ‘\’ known items menu lets you adjust your autopickup options while you play. The HUD now displays current gold and game time, so you can see in brackets how long your last action took. Local versions now include a scrollable highscore list that lets you easily open the morgue files of your most successful dead or victorious characters.
  • Tiles: As always there are many beautiful new tiles for the dungeon, its inhabitants, and many items. These include special tall tiles for the unique lords of Pandemonium and the Hells, and a huge amount of new weapon tiles, including tiles for the different racial weapon variations.

There are a lot more changes, and as always the changelog lists all major ones. Many thanks to galefury for writing most of this post, and to all the contributors to Stone Soup. Have fun playing DCSS 0.11! Beware of the spiders!

CAO Downtime

The US Crawl server, crawl.akrasiac.org, is currently down for repairs. It will return (with upgraded hardware!) in September.

In the meantime, you can get your fix here on CDO or play on the new US-based server at crawl.s-z.org - for console use SSH (port 22, username crawl, OpenSSH key here, PuTTY key here).

Check the How to Play Online page for more detailed information on online play.