New Bailey

[K01mbm]

I finished the first good copy of my first vault today. It's a bailey featuring a friendly dragon that serves as both a built in ally and loot. I worry that because the dragon and cash is found at the beggining of the vault that it will ecourage players to take off with their reward rather than play the Bailey. I thought about moving the exit portal to within the miniature castle, but I thought it would be bad to force the player to go through the vault instead of allowing them to abort.

I also worry that it's too small or doesn't have enogh loot. Any critique is welcome, especially on appropriatness of the challenge level of the map.

#######################################################################
# The Dragon.
#
# The player begins this bailey in a dragon's den. There is miniature castle
# just outside of the den which the player, with the help of the
# friendly dragon will storm. The dragon itself constitutes part of
# the loot of this vault, as well as some cash and a glaive of dragon
# slaying on the orc knight in the den (sent to slay the dragon of
# coarse). This is a small vault and according only has a bit of loot.
#
# Sometimes the orc knight will be victorious. In these cases it is
# up to the descretion of the playey whether to continue, I hope this
# is fair.
#
# Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME: bailey_dragon
WEIGHT: 10
ORIENT: encompass
TAGS: bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen no_pool_fixup
KFEAT: > = exit_portal_vault
KMONS: D = dragon att:friendly
KMONS: H = patrolling orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS: B = bat
KITEM: $ = gold
MAP
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx$xxxxx
xxBxxxxAxxxxx$$$xxxx
xxBBxxx>xxxxx$$xxxxx
xxx..xxD.xxx.$$$xxxx
xxxx.xx..xx..xxxxxxx
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..................x
x..................x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c22+......+22c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c...x
x...c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c2222c..c...x
x...+..c2222c2.c...x
x...+..c2222c..c...x
x...c..c2222c..c...x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c22+......+22c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..................x
x..................x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

[nicolae]

Giving out free allies is frowned upon in vault making for a number of reasons, and I'm not aware of any other vaults that actually give the player an ally. If the core idea of the vault is to give the player a free dragon then it probably won't get accepted.

[Psiweapon]

Giving out free allies is frowned upon in vault making for a number of reasons, and I'm not aware of any other vaults that actually give the player an ally. If the core idea of the vault is to give the player a free dragon then it probably won't get accepted.

I foresaw this was going to be the conclusion and, even if that's correct, it's a pity because it sure sounds like FUN

What about not letting the dragon get out of the vault?

If vault allies were confined to the vault itself, it would really be just like a normal vault but with decreased challenge.

In fact, I'm going to make a case for this in GDD, even if it doesn't go anywhere.

[nicolae]

What about not letting the dragon get out of the vault?

I don't know how easily that's done in Lua, if it can be done at all. The concept of free vault-specified allies would probably work better in a Sprint map.

Aside from the free dragon buddy:
The '2' glyph isn't defined, so it just generates random monsters. Is this intentional? I'm assuming the player is supposed to have help from the dragon but there are an awful lot of enemies in this vault.
The gold, glaive, and free dragon buddy are pretty close to the entrance. At the very least, I would think the player should have to fight through a few orcs to get to a caged dragon (glass or iron grates, runed door), and then release it before taking it to the castle to get the gold.
There's no need for the no_pool_fixup tag if there's no possibility of deep water.
The code tag will make it easier to read vaults:

  Code:

#######################################################################
#   The Dragon.
#
#   The player begins this bailey in a dragon's den. There is miniature castle
#   just outside of the den which the player, with the help of the
#   friendly dragon will storm. The dragon itself constitutes part of
#   the loot of this vault, as well as some cash and a glaive of dragon
#   slaying on the orc knight in the den (sent to slay the dragon of   
#      coarse). This is a small vault and according only has a bit of loot.
#
#   Sometimes the orc knight will be victorious. In these cases it is
#   up to the descretion of the playey whether to continue, I hope this
#   is fair.
#
#   Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME:    bailey_dragon
WEIGHT:  10
ORIENT:  encompass
TAGS:    bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen no_pool_fixup
KFEAT:    > = exit_portal_vault
KMONS:    D = dragon att:friendly
KMONS:    H = patrolling orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS:    B = bat
KITEM:    $ = gold
MAP
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx$xxxxx
xxBxxxxAxxxxx$$$xxxx
xxBBxxx>xxxxx$$xxxxx
xxx..xxD.xxx.$$$xxxx
xxxx.xx..xx..xxxxxxx
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..................x
x..................x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c22+......+22c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c...x
x...c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c2222c..c...x
x...+..c2222c2.c...x
x...+..c2222c..c...x
x...c..c2222c..c...x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c22+......+22c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..................x
x..................x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

[K01mbm]

Thank you for your support Psiweapon, I appreciate it.

I'm not exactly sure how to go about stopping the dragon from leaving the vault, If I was I probably would have done it in the first place. A one way door or something off the sort would have been lovely. As it was I just refrained from including much more loot, figuring that allies are an assets just like steam dragon armour would have been.

Nicolae, would it work to change the dragons att: to good_neutral? I would want to remove some mooks to balance the change out (assuming my balance is okay already) and add some normal loot, but I think it could possibly be an acceptable modification. I thought that having a freindly dragon would allow it to take a more central role in the attack, but neutral would work as well.

Also, I wouldn't say that the entire vaults porpose is to give the player a free dragon, the dragon was intended as an interactive thematic element. The vault is based on a "Saint George and the Dragon" sort of scenario, indeed I breifly considered including Maud as the princess, but decided against it. Dragons usually threaten settelments or castles in these stories, so it seemed appropriate for the player to help the dragon in this context, at least in portal vault.

Oh, and also Nicolae, the use of "2" is intentional. I tried defining the monsters earlier but must have done it wrong, because I was getting random monsters anyway. so I just replaced all of the glyphs with "2" and called it good. And thanks for your other feedback, it's very helpful.

[Psiweapon]

Thank you for your support Psiweapon, I appreciate it.

I'm not exactly sure how to go about stopping the dragon from leaving the vault, If I was I probably would have done it in the first place. A one way door or something off the sort would have been lovely. As it was I just refrained from including much more loot, figuring that allies are an assets just like steam dragon armour would have been.

Nicolae, would it work to change the dragons att: to good_neutral? I would want to remove some mooks to balance the change out (assuming my balance is okay already) and add some normal loot, but I think it could possibly be an acceptable modification. I thought that having a freindly dragon would allow it to take a more central role in the attack, but neutral would work as well.

Also, I wouldn't say that the entire vaults porpose is to give the player a free dragon, the dragon was intended as an interactive thematic element. The vault is based on a "Saint George and the Dragon" sort of scenario, indeed I breifly considered including Maud as the princess, but decided against it. Dragons usually threaten settelments or castles in these stories, so it seemed appropriate for the player to help the dragon in this context, at least in portal vault.

Oh, and also Nicolae, the use of "2" is intentional. I tried defining the monsters earlier but must have done it wrong, because I was getting random monsters anyway. so I just replaced all of the glyphs with "2" and called it good. And thanks for your other feedback, it's very helpful.

I also thought that the idea behind the dragon ally was simply more, different interactions with monsters, rather than granting the player an ally.

About the random monsters, I'm no expert in the game, but as far as I can remember, baileys are strongly themed in terms of the monsters present. Well, most portal vaults are, actually. I think you should give them some uniformity to make them look a bit more like an army. They don't need to be ALL orcs, or even orcs, but this vault would feel more "bailey-like" with a common theme for monsters.

Also: case made for vault allies.

[dpeg]

Ally as loot is problematic, but ally as vault companion is certainly fine. There could be very interesting portal vaults (especially early ones) where the first task is to get access to an ally which is a lot more powerful than you, and then use that ally to conquer the rest. (All kinds of captured beings can be used, works with almost any flavour.)

Slightly more general: Even loot allies could be okay, but then they should be temporary, in my opinion. (Permanent allies are the cause of all kinds of grief, and I somehow regret having helped add them to the game. On the other hand, Beogh has a lot of appeal to new players, so it's not all bad.) This is very easily justified: the grateful ally will support you for a while until it is time to part ways.

K01mbm: Thanks for the map, it is definitely an interesting idea! Don't give up, this can certainly be tweaked to get it into the game.

[nicolae]

Nicolae, would it work to change the dragons att: to good_neutral?

It'd be better than att:friendly, at least, but currently good_neutral is only used for peaceful monsters in Elyvilon altar vaults.

Also, I wouldn't say that the entire vaults porpose is to give the player a free dragon, the dragon was intended as an interactive thematic element. The vault is based on a "Saint George and the Dragon" sort of scenario, indeed I breifly considered including Maud as the princess, but decided against it. Dragons usually threaten settelments or castles in these stories, so it seemed appropriate for the player to help the dragon in this context, at least in portal vault.

I did pick up on the theme of a dragon attacking a castle, yes. Allies can follow you out of a portal vault, though, which means intentionally or otherwise this vault is basically "free permanent dragon", especially if you just exit the vault after the dragon notices you.

With Crawl's gameplay being what it is, if I were making a vault along the same story theme, I'd probably make the dragon neutral, if necessary maybe make it a bit stronger so it can take on a bunch of orcs more easily, and make the player fight both the orcs and the dragon, as if they had stepped in at exactly the wrong moment.

Oh, and also Nicolae, the use of "2" is intentional. I tried defining the monsters earlier but must have done it wrong, because I was getting random monsters anyway. so I just replaced all of the glyphs with "2" and called it good. And thanks for your other feedback, it's very helpful.

Baileys use lua functions to simplify defining monsters with the appropriate weapons for that bailey's theme. The existing polearm baileys filled with orcs use
: orc_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_warrior_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_knight_with_polearm(_G)
which define the 1, 2, and 3 glyphs to mean polearm-carrying orcs, orc warriors, and orc knights, respectively.

[K01mbm]

Thank you for creating that rule proposal string Psiweapon, I feel like part of the community already, and thank you Dpeg for your encouragement. Also thank you Nicolae for clearing up the monsters issue for me.

Out of curiosity could someone list the reasons that permantent allies are bad? I remember some of the ally nerfing updates of the past but never bothered to find out the reason for them.

I had a thought on the problem of preventing the player from leaving with the dragon; what about those portal things from the Nemelex: The Gamble overflow vault? If memory serves the vault featured an alter with a sort of portal thing behing it, with two transparent rooms on either side. The first featured a couple of moderatly strong enemies while the other featured a reward item or two. The alter room portal closed after one use but the other portals could be reused to return to the alter room.

I don't know if allies could follow the player through these but it's worth a shot, I'll have to check.

I think this setup could help with the early loot problem as well without compramising the aesthetics. A one way "portal" out of a transparent superhard rock enclosed exit Portal and arch area would force the player to either take the loot and push through the vault to a seprate Portal, or leave safely.

Changing the dragon to att:neutral sounds like a good approach also, especially because it's a dragon. Will a neutral dragon still search for and fight the castle residents instead of mostly wandering randomly?

EDIT: It's actually a stand alone alter vault, not an overflow vault.

[Sandman25]

Some monsters can't use stairs, I think they could be tested as portal-only allies to see how it goes.

[dpeg]

Out of curiosity could someone list the reasons that permantent allies are bad? I remember some of the ally nerfing updates of the past but never bothered to find out the reason for them.

Sure! It boils down to two problems, interface and balance.

There are few interface issues with short-term allies, like summons. But as soon as you want to travel with them (and that's always the case for permanent allies), then trouble is near. We made Beogh and Yrelemnul much better about travel, but there are still interface woes. Players want to equip allies (and allowing access to individual allies' inventory is a very bad idea), or they are unhappy about ally behaviour, like them walking into shallow water or into someone's line of fire etc.

The other problem with permanent allies is about balance. That depends on the monster in question and the location -- a dragon at Bailey time might qualify

Changing the dragon to att:neutral sounds like a good approach also, especially because it's a dragon. Will a neutral dragon still search for and fight the castle residents instead of mostly wandering randomly?

Neutral might work, but is probably more cumbersome to play. I don't think it will go out of its way to attack hostiles. You can try it out... Given your vault, I'd suggest to either (a) make the dragon staying at the den; in this case there should be more loot, and perhaps more forces attacking the dragon, so that the player has to help out more positively, or (b) give the dragon a finite duration, which could be long (something like 2000-3000 turns).

[nicolae]

Using some of the teleporter code would probably work for preventing portal allies from following you back out -- I think they have to be special-cased to let monsters use them, and one could just remove the special-casing. Setting portal allies to have a long duration could work too -- how many turns is dur:6? Making portal allies summons-only would also prevent people trying to kill them for XP before they leave the vault.

Hm, I wonder if this concept might work on its own for a portal vault, instead of just being a bailey variant. A prison or zoo, perhaps.

[dpeg]

Hm, I wonder if this concept might work on its own for a portal vault, instead of just being a bailey variant. A prison or zoo, perhaps.

Absolutely! You could also add a version of this to almost all existing portal vaults, however: the ossuary where they are about to mummify a still-living wizard, the sewer where the kobolds have a hutch of humanoids to be eaten, the yet-to-be demonic portal vault where imps and their ilk are preparing someone for Makhleb sacrifice.

[K01mbm]

Dpeg, how precisely would I go about confining the dregon to the den, or makeing it temporary?

[dpeg]

Dpeg, how precisely would I go about confining the dregon to the den, or makeing it temporary?

It's been mentioned here already:
att:friendly dur:6
should do the trick. Note: I didn't test it, and I have no clue how long dur:6 actually is. (These suffixes are just me reading the MONS section of syntax.txt in the level-making docs.)
That's a good way to start. If we want to go down that route --and I think we should, because there's potential for gameplay *and* flavour--, then ultimately the syntax needs to be expanded slightly: for example, we'd want that the monster changes attitude from friendly to neutral once the duration is over (instead of just going poof), and perhaps we want an accompanying message.

Fixing it to the den is also possible right now, but harder. A crude hack would be setting its intelligence to mindless but I don't think that's possible via MONS definitions at the moment. So you'd have to resort to the teleporter trick.

However, while both concepts are good, I think the temporary gift is easier to turn into good vaults. So let's just start with that! (It's also much closer to what you wanted in the first place.)

[K01mbm]

Sorry for asking again, Dpeg. Please be pateint with my questions, I'm reletively new to vault design and development in general.

Here's the design updated with specifically defined mooks and teleporters. I'm not sure how to get the teleporters to actually teleport, but I included them for illustration. The first teleporter should move the player to just outside the enclosure behind the dragon and the second teleporter would move the player to the portel embedded in the wall to the right of the den's mouth.

  Code:

#######################################################################
#   The Dragon.
#
#   You begin this bailey in a dragon's den. There is miniature   castle
#   just outside of the den which the player, with the help of the
#   friendly dragon will storm. The dragon itself constitutes part of 
#   the loot of this vault, as well as some cash and a glaive of dragon
#   slaying on the orc knight in the den (sent to slay the dragon of   
#   coarse). This is a small vault and according only has a bit of loot.
#
#   Sometimes the orc knight will be victorious. In these cases it is
#   up to the descretion of the playey whether to continue, I hope this
#   is fair.
#
#   Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME:    bailey_dragon
WEIGHT:  10
ORIENT:  encompass
TAGS:    bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen
KFEAT:    > = exit_portal_vault
KMONS:    D = dragon att:friendly
KMONS:    H = patrolling orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS:    B = bat
MONS:
: orc_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_warrior_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_knight_with_polearm(_G)
KFEAT:    KkjJ = teleporter
KITEM:    $ = gold
MAP
xxxxxXXXXXxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxXKA>Xxxxx$xxxxx
xxBxxXXoXXxxx$$$xxxx
xxBBxxx.xxxxx$$xxxxx
xxx..xxD.xxx.$$$xxxx
xxxx.xx..xx..xxxxxxx
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxx>xxx
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..................x
x..................x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c...x
x...c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...+..c11J1c2.c...x
x...+..c11|1c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..................x
x..................x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

Here's the temporary dragon version. Dur:6 was too short so I used dur:20. I haven't play tested it as thouroughly as I have the other vaults I have presented because for some reason the dragon almost always dies fighting the orc knight. Is this a coincidence or are temporary monsters weaker? Also I have added two enormous slime creatures guarding the gold to foil grab and run gameplay. Really I think I personally prefer the teleporter approach.

  Code:

#######################################################################
#   The Dragon.
#
#   You begin this bailey in a dragon's den. There is miniature castle
#   just outside of the den which the player, with the help of the
#   temporaraly summoned friendly dragon will storm. The dragon itself
#   constitutes part of the loot of this vault, as well as some cash and a glaive of dragon
#   slaying on the orc knight in the den (sent to slay the dragon of   
#   coarse). This is a small vault and according only has a bit of loot.
#
#   Sometimes the orc knight will be victorious. In these cases it is
#   up to the descretion of the player whether to continue, I hope this
#   is fair.
#
#   Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME:    bailey_dragon
WEIGHT:  10
ORIENT:  encompass
TAGS:    bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen
KFEAT:    > = exit_portal_vault
KMONS:    D = dragon att:friendly dur:20
KMONS:    H = patrolling orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS:    B = bat
KMONS:    N = enormous slime creature
MONS:
: orc_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_warrior_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_knight_with_polearm(_G)
KITEM:    $ = gold
MAP
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx$xxxxx
xxBxxxxAxxxxx$$$xxxx
xxBBxxx>xxxxx$$xxxxx
xxx..xxD.xxx.$$$xxxx
xxxx.xx..xxNNxxxxxxx
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..................x
x..................x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c...x
x...c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...+..c11>1c2.c...x
x...+..c11|1c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..................x
x..................x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

[nicolae]

Sorry for asking again, Dpeg. Please be pateint with my questions, I'm reletively new to vault design and development in general.

Here's the design updated with specifically defined mooks and teleporters. I'm not sure how to get the teleporters to actually teleport, but I included them for illustration.

There's some lua code in the wizlab for Golubria's Roulette, and also see the serial_teleporters.des vaults from 0.13 (they're gone in 0.14).

Here's the temporary dragon version. Dur:6 was too short so I used dur:20.

Specifying dur:20 doesn't actually make the dragon temporary, at least not when I tried it in wizmode. Summoned monster durations are specifically 1 through 6. It's important to test vaults: even if you can't implement the teleporters, it's important to make sure the rest of the vault works right.

Also I have added two enormous slime creatures guarding the gold to foil grab and run gameplay. Really I think I personally prefer the teleporter approach.

Enormous slime creatures seem pretty rough for the level at which most baileys generate. If you want to prevent players from just running to the loot and making off with it, the best solution is to not put the loot right next to the exit. Move the $ to the bottom side of the map and make the player fight through the orcs to get to it.

[wheals]

What's a dragon
(but seriously it should be changed to "fire dragon" to get to run in trunk.)


How do you guarantee in wizmode that you get a specific bailey? I wanted to try to test this, and used the "place vault" command once in a bailey I generated, but it dumped me in a random place in the castle.

[K01mbm]

How do you guarantee in wizmode that you get a specific bailey? I wanted to try to test this, and used the "place vault" command once in a bailey I generated, but it dumped me in a random place in the castle.

You could change the weight to something like 10000 to vurtually guarentee it will be placed. Usually I just place the vault like you did and use the XT teleport command to move myself into position.

Enormous slime creatures seem pretty rough for the level at which most baileys generate. If you want to prevent players from just running to the loot and making off with it, the best solution is to not put the loot right next to the exit. Move the $ to the bottom side of the map and make the player fight through the orcs to get to it.

Part of the point of the gold even being there is that it represents the dragons hoard. if I'm going to remove it I might as well just add another supurb item instad of creating a whole new compartment within the minicastle (the bottom of the map is easy to get to without waking anything up). I'll try to get the teleporters running on the teleporter map, and will post the result. Unfourtunatly my lua is more than a little rusty, so it could be a while, but I think I should be able to adapt the code from Golubrias Roulette. Oh, and thank you Nicolae for the pointing that out to me, it helps.

[nicolae]

What's a dragon
(but seriously it should be changed to "fire dragon" to get to run in trunk.)


How do you guarantee in wizmode that you get a specific bailey? I wanted to try to test this, and used the "place vault" command once in a bailey I generated, but it dumped me in a random place in the castle.

I think you can use the &P command to generate a level around a specific bailey vault while you're in a bailey, or you can try WEIGHT: 50000

[Marbit]

I don't think that the ally will be a problem if it is temporarially summoned. Then you won't need teleporters.
Still, be aware that some gods may not like seeing a friendly (even summoned) ally getting killed and your vault may grief some players. Creating the dragon as soon as the player sees a landmark may do the trick.

[nicolae]

Part of the point of the gold even being there is that it represents the dragons hoard. if I'm going to remove it I might as well just add another supurb item instad of creating a whole new compartment within the minicastle (the bottom of the map is easy to get to without waking anything up).

So why not rearrange things? You could put the dragon's hoard inside the castle; maybe the orcs stole it and it wants it back. You could put orcs outside the castle on guard duty so you can't sneak by, while removing a few guards from inside the castle. The idea of your vault could work if done right, but I don't think the current layout of your vault works well at all.

[galehar]

So why not rearrange things? You could put the dragon's hoard inside the castle; maybe the orcs stole it and it wants it back.

I think that could work great. The theme is good and then it would make sense to have the dragon actually storming the castle. If you give it a patrolling point to its gold, that's going to make it go to the castle. And you can make it neutral instead of allied which would solve the "free ally" issue.

[nicolae]

If you give it a patrolling point to its gold, that's going to make it go to the castle.

How could someone do that in lua?

[galehar]

Oh right, using the patrolling flag, you can only make it return to its spawn point. But maybe we can add support to set a patrolling point different from the spawn point.

[K01mbm]

After some consideration I decided to move the player's starting point to the other side of the vault.

  Code:

#######################################################################
#   The Dragon.
#
#   One begins this bailey outside a miniature castle with a dragon that
#   is about to storm it. The player must work with the dragon to
#   acheive this, as the exit is only reachable from inside the castle.
#   
#   In the dragons lair there is an orc knight with the glaive of dragon
#   slaying that makes up part of the loot (sent to wait for
#   and ambush the returning dragon) and in the castle there is also
#   a superb item as part of the player's reward. One of the branches of
#   the dragon's den contains a good quantity of hoarded gold as well.
#
#   Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME:    bailey_dragon
WEIGHT:  10
ORIENT:  encompass
TAGS:    bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen
KFEAT:    > = exit_portal_vault
KFEAT:    KJ = teleporter
KFEAT:    kj = floor
KMONS:    D = dragon att:friendly
KMONS:    H = orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS:    B = bat
MONS:
: orc_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_warrior_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_knight_with_polearm(_G)
KITEM:    $ = gold

MAP
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx$xxxxx
xxBxxxxxxxxxx$$$xxxx
xxBBxxx.xxxxx$$xxxxx
xxx..xx..xxx.$$$xxxx
xxxx.xx..xx..xxxxXXX
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxXjX
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxX>X
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxxxXXX
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..............2...x
x..2...............x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c..2x
x.2.c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...+..c11J1c2.c...x
x...+..c11|1c..c...x
x2..c..c1111c..c.2.x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c.2x
x..cccc....2.cccc..x
x.........D........x
x..2......k....2...x
xxxxxxxxXXoXxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxX>AXxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxXXKXxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxXXXxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

Now the player has to at least push their way across it to get the den loot. I also added some guards outside the castle to make this a non-trivial task. Additionally, I have updated the description to reflect all of the changes so far.

[K01mbm]

Changing the dragon's att: to neutral and setting a patrole point in the castle sounds like a great idea. I can't wait until the support is added for this.

Here's the map modified slightly to have gold in the minicastle and not the den:

  Code:

#######################################################################
#   The Dragon.
#
#   One begins this bailey outside a miniature castle with a dragon that
#   is about to storm it. The player must work with the dragon to
#   acheive this, as the exit is only reachable from inside the castle.
#   
#   In the dragons lair there is an orc knight with the glaive of dragon
#   slaying that makes up part of the loot (sent to wait for
#   and ambush the returning dragon) and in the castle there is also
#   a superb item as part of the player's reward. The center of the
#   minicastle contains hoarded gold stolen from the dragon as well.
#
#   Beware I have encountered some glitches on this map.
#
NAME:    bailey_dragon
WEIGHT:  10
ORIENT:  encompass
TAGS:    bailey_polearm no_item_gen no_monster_gen
KFEAT:    > = exit_portal_vault
KMONS:    D = dragon att:neutral
KMONS:    H = orc knight ; bardiche ego:dragon_slaying
KMONS:    B = bat
MONS:
: orc_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_warrior_with_polearm(_G)
: orc_knight_with_polearm(_G)
KITEM:    1 = gold

MAP
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxx
xxBxxxxxxxxxx...xxxx
xxBBxxx.xxxxx..xxxxx
xxx..xx..xxx....xxxx
xxxx.xx..xx..xxxxxxx
xxxx...Hx..xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxx....xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx..xxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx
x..............2...x
x..2...............x
x..cccc......cccc..x
x..c22cccccccc22c..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..cccc...2..cccc..x
x...c..........c..2x
x.2.c..cccc+c..c...x
x...c..c1111c..c...x
x...+..c11>1c2.c...x
x...+..c11|1c..c...x
x2..c..c1111c..c.2.x
x...c..cccccc..c...x
x...c..2...2...c...x
x..cccc..2...cccc..x
x..c23+......+32c..x
x..c22cccccccc22c.2x
x..cccc....2.cccc..x
x.........D........x
x..2......A....2...x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ENDMAP

[galehar]

I can't wait until the support is added for this.

Well, I had a quick look at it and it's not trivial. And this isn't really my domain of expertise. So, don't hold your breath, I'm not really working on it.

[K01mbm]

I can't wait until the support is added for this.

Well, I had a quick look at it and it's not trivial. And this isn't really my domain of expertise. So, don't hold your breath, I'm not really working on it.

Sorry, I got excited.