x-v: Monster info screen improvements

[bt]

There are two (well, two and a half) things that, I think, it would be great to have in the monster info screen:

1. Comparative movement speed

In DCSS knowing the relation between your and enemy move speed is one of the most important things, cause it heavily influences the terms of engagement. Currently the info screen simply states "It is fast/very fast" and such, but that doesn't really help much if you are playing Sp, Ce or Fe, or are hasted/slowed/swift, or have boots of running, or if the enemy is slowed/hasted etc. Even worse, in some cases info screen doesn't tell you jack, but you still can't outrun the enemy (ugly/very ugly things for example).

Suggestion is to put in another line (in addition to the action speed line) in following style (or something similar):
"It moves faster than you"/"It moves slower than you"/"It moves at about the same speed as you"
"It moves faster than you (you are slowed)"/"It moves at about the same speed as you (it is hasted, you are swift)"

The info provided is intentionally fuzzy to allow for random energy. The boundaries of what exactly is considered "faster/slower/same speed" number-wise will need to be agreed upon, but consensus can be reached there, I believe.

2. Max spell damage and type, and what defenses affect the spell in question

2a. Same as there are numeric info for max attack damage, it would be very helpful to have the same for monster spells.

So suggestion is to add a line in monster spell description that goes something like:
"This spell/ability can hit you for up to 60 fire damage"

2b. I think, it would really help newer players (and it'll help everyone, when new spells are introduced) if monster description showed which defenses (AC, EV, SH) affect which spells.

It can be done in the same way spell success chance is done for hexes. So:
"a - Fireball (checks AC)"
"c - Bolt of Fire (checks AC, EV)"

or without the word "checks" for more clean look:
"d - Iron Shot (AC, EV, SH)"
"f - Call Down Damnation"

(I'm still not quite sure if Iron Shot checks AC, which prompted me to make the suggestion in the first place).

Currently information about move speed and spell damage is hidden in learndb (you have to do some calculations to get actually useful info for move speed even) and information about spell defenses is all over the place and often is missing outright. Considering how important this info is, it would be really nice to have it readily available, and, it seems to me, it can be done in a fairly simple and clean way.

[duvessa]

I'm concerned about displaying spell damage in this way because unlike monster base melee damage, spell damage is not consistently distributed between spells. An orc priest's Pain and Smite have maximum damage of 14 and 17 respectively, but their average damage is 7.5 and 12 respectively, a much bigger difference than you'd expect just from comparing the maximum damage.

Also you probably have to remove monster chain lightning...which would be great, actually, I'm starting to like this proposal.

[bt]

I'm concerned about displaying spell damage in this way because unlike monster base melee damage, spell damage is not consistently distributed between spells. An orc priest's Pain and Smite have maximum damage of 14 and 17 respectively, but their average damage is 7.5 and 12 respectively, a much bigger difference than you'd expect just from comparing the maximum damage.

Also you probably have to remove monster chain lightning...which would be great, actually, I'm starting to like this proposal.

I see, yeah, displaying max damage is a compromise of sorts, mostly useful for seeing if you're in one-shot territory. Probably still better than nothing, and I think more useful than averages, if we had to choose only one number to display.

Who besides Nikola has chain lightning? My guess - ghosts and pan lords, no big loss there, IMO. Spell is freaking weird, hard to predict and very swingy, anyway. Nikola maybe can have some different mechanic, like spawning ball lightnings when damaged - TRJ-style, this is bound to kill some people. Anyway, if the change ever gets implemented, there will inevitably be some special cases, hopefully they can be dealt with individually (and not just get removed every time).