Vault suggestion thread

[caotto]

Make vaults involving eldritch tentacles. Eldritch tentacles should be the new glass.

If you place an eldritch tentacle as a monster in a vault it will work correctly, and be permanent. I guess you can't place the portal in a vault currently, but maybe someone could be convinced to add support for that. Or you could place them on top of an abyss portals or something.

Disclaimer: views expressed are mine alone, and don't constitute an official position on the use of eldritch tentacles in vaults.

[jaega1]

My favorite vault would probably be the gnoll fortress (I assume that is considered a vault right?) Many of the vaults in the game are primarily aesthetic and do not offer much difference in how the game is played. The gnoll fortress is different in that it presents a significant challenge to overcome at you level. If you succeed, however, you can gain a lot of XP.

What I would like to see is a really big vault like this for kobolds. It would effectively be a home for them. I am not sure exactly what it would look like but I would have lots of winding passages and very small rooms. I envision kobolds to be barely better than rodents so they would actually build well at all. This idea would need to be fleshed out better but this is at least a starting idea. There is already a vault (actually just a room) that is filled with kobolds so there would have to be work to show that it is actually something different. A unique kobold moster with slightly higher stats would be nice.

[danr]

Yes, I agree, the Kobold vaults could be a bit more interesting - when you find something like that, you're looking for some kind of key or feature. Is this a barracks, or just a Kobold war party that's camped out?

Some ideas:
- room could be scattered with bones from all those carnivorous kobolds feasting on rats and such.
- an armoury at the back with a bunch of short blades, whips, with a chance of one being branded.
- I agree, some kind of "leader" would be nice. He could also have the "prize" - a branded weapon, or a +1 dwarven cloak, or something.

Maybe this is just me, but whenever I encounter a vault I'm hoping for some kind of prize or "end" and I feel disappointed when I kill a bunch of tough monsters and that's all she wrote. An altar, an interesting item, a boss, a portal, something like that.

[fnwc]

Is there a vault creation tutorial around here? I used to write areas for dikuMUDs a long time ago, and this seems like a nice way to contribute something small.

I think I read a vault text file that came with crawl a long time ago, but reading it just made me want to go do something else. :p

[GameKnut]

My favorite vault would probably be the gnoll fortress (I assume that is considered a vault right?) Many of the vaults in the game are primarily aesthetic and do not offer much difference in how the game is played. The gnoll fortress is different in that it presents a significant challenge to overcome at you level. If you succeed, however, you can gain a lot of XP.

I love the gnoll fortress, myself. Few things in the game can match the feeling of overcoming hordes of monsters. Even the occasional room filled with orcs/kobolds/bees is a welcome change from the usual monotonous winding corridors where you pick off one or two lone monsters at a time.

I'd like to see more vaults in the style of Fort Ludios or the Castle from Nethack (gasp), with waves and waves of enemies guarding all sorts of riches.

[evktalo]

Is there a vault creation tutorial around here? I used to write areas for dikuMUDs a long time ago, and this seems like a nice way to contribute something small.

I think I read a vault text file that came with crawl a long time ago, but reading it just made me want to go do something else. :p

Making vaults is a great way to contribute. It's also easy and fun.. actually, you can make pretty complicated stuff with lua scripting and whatnot, so you can make it as challenging as you like, eventually. My advice would be to start with simple entry vaults. Load up entry.des in a text editor, you should be able to figure out most of the basics just looking at the existing vaults. Use syntax.txt from the level documentation to look up keywords and tags that aren't immediately obvious or don't function like you expected them to (just do a text search from that file). Syntax.txt also has a handy legend of the symbols used ('x' for rock wall, '+' for a door, and '{', '(', '[', ']', ')', '}' for the stairs.. I always need to look up those..).

To get it to appear, you can give the entry vault you made a large WEIGHT tag (such as WEIGHT: 20000); CHANCE: 100% probably works too. Just save your entry.des and start the game. No compiling etc needed!

--Eino

[Mychaelh]

Hello, first post of me.
I don't have knowledge of DCSS programming, so I don't know how much coding this would take, or if this is possible at all with Dungeon Crawl code.
but anyway, here is my idea:

Vault of a Rattenkönig
Chance of generation in each level, that contains rats.
Should contain many single rats and a rare chance of a Rattenkönig.
If a Rattenkönig is generated, it is composed out of a random number of rats (more rats, lesser chance, mix of different rat types possible).
Rattenkönigs are always confused, but each rat it contains has of course the chance for an attack in a combat round (with chance to desease).
In sewers there should even be the (very, very rare) chance of generation of a

Vault of The Rattenkaiser.
The Rattenkaiser is by default a big Rattenkönig which contains additionally a single 'leader rat' (the Kaiser), which has the abillity to try to chancel the confusion state each turn by chance, but also to fart Mephitic Cloud. If a Rattenkaiser is generated in a game, there is no chance of generation of a additional one, even if the first gets killed.
The Kaiser should always have the possibility to leave the Rattenkaiser and flee. The Rattenkaiser becomes a Rattenkönig in this case.

From wikipedia:


Rat kings are phenomena said to arise when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, ice, excrement or simply knotted. The animals reputedly grow together while joined at the tails. The numbers of rats that are joined together can vary, but naturally rat kings formed from a larger number of rats are rarer. The phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany, where the majority of instances have been reported. Historically, there are various superstitions surrounding rat kings, and they were often seen as an extremely bad omen, particularly associated with plagues.
The original German term, Rattenkönig, was calqued into English as rat king, and into French as roi des rats. The term was not originally used in reference to actual rats, but for persons who lived off of others.

The phenomenon may have diminished when the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) displaced the black rat (R. rattus) in the 18th century. Sightings have been sporadic in the modern era; most recently comes an Estonian farmer's discovery in the Võrumaa region[4] on January 16, 2005.

Specimens of purported rat kings are kept in some museums. The museum Mauritianum in Altenburg (Thuringia) shows the largest well-known mummified "rat king", which was found in 1828 in a miller's fireplace at Buchheim. It consists of 32 rats. Alcohol-preserved rat kings are shown in museums in Hamburg, Hamelin, Göttingen, and Stuttgart. A rat king found in 1930 in New Zealand, displayed in the Otago Museum in Dunedin, was composed of immature Rattus rattus whose tails were entangled by horse hair.[5] Relatively few rat kings have been discovered; depending on the source, the number of reported instances varies between 35 and 50 finds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_%28folklore%29

[Mychaelh]

Some more explanation/ideas:
There should be:

Vault of Rats:
Not that uncommon. Just contains many rats.

Vault of a Rattenkönig:
A Vault of Rats with a Rattenkönig. A Rattenkönig is build out of normal rats with knotted tails and is alomst always confused (because the single rats can't coordinate their actions). When rats of the Rattenkönig are killed the 'confused level' should go down, but 'slow'-Level goes up. so let's say we have a Rattenkönig build out of 5 rats in the start. As rats get killed by player, the chance for successfull attack of 'rat king' should go up, but also the 'slow' level. Chance of confusion should only be 0 if there is only one living rat left in the Rattenkönig but 'slow'-level should be most high, because all the dead rats, still conected with the last living rat.

Vault of The Rattenkaiser:
A Vault of a big Rattenkönig with a 'Kaiser'. The Kaiser is just a single normal rat, which is not knotted to the Rattenkönig, but can actual sit on it like a throne and steers it. The chance of generation of a 'Kaiser'-rat should be very, very seldom and uniqe for the whole game. If a Rattenkönig gets 'possesed' by a Kaiser a Rattenkaiser is generated. The Kaiser can flee from the Rattenkaiser at any time but then the Rattenkaiser turns back to a 'normal' Rattenkönig.
A Rattenkaiser functions like a Rattenkönig, but has a chance to chancel confusion-state for every combat round. The more rats of the 'king' are killed, the greater this chance gets. Additionally the Kaiser can 'cast' a Mephitic Cloud insted of try to chancel confusion. The Mephitic Cloud affects the player, normal rats and the rats of the Rattenkaiser alike.

Each of the Vaults (Rats, Rattenkönig and Rattenkaiser) should have a special tile called maybe 'drainpipe'. If a lone Kaiser-rat (NOT a 'Rattenkaiser') reaches a drainpipe it can flee (means it exits the level). The Kaiser-rat is remebered by the game and each time a new Vault of Rats or Vault of a Rattenkönig is generated from now on, there is a good chance that it contains the Kaiser again (if there is a new Rattenkönig, the Kaiser can turn it to a Rattenkaiser again.)

The should be no special rewards for storming Vaults of Rats, Vaults of a Rattenkönig or the Vault of The Rattenkaiser. But the killing of the Kaiser-rat should be worth a high score bonus.

[Sealer]

Actually there are already vaults of rats (containing a piece of cheese as a loot ). I'd rather see the rattankoenig generated in each such vault and make it an early rat unique that only appears in such vault. This is because atm rat vaults aren't really exciting to find, and present little to no challenge. Rat unique sounds like a fun and relatively unexplored idea (for now we only have Lenerean Hydra as a monster unique).

[Wravburn]

I cannot think about a rat king without thinking of Ratigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw0HlB54CIw

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

A Water Trap Vault.
Basically, it's a 5x5 room covered with shallow water. There are 5 pressure pads in this room, and each vertical or horizontal line must contain only one pressure pad.
Whenever you step on a pad, it activates one of the following effects:
- electrocution attack;
- poison attack;
- spawn a few snakes around you;
- turn one non-pressure-padded tile into deep water and spawn a water mocassin on it;
- mephitic-cloud the pressure pad;
- cloud its tile and the adjacent tiles with steam.


Earth Trap Vault:
pretty much the same, only that the room is larger (7x7) and there is a solid indestructible block in the very middle of it. Its edges are very hard transparent walls.
Each vertical and horizontal line contain a pressure pad.
When you press one, there is a chance for the following:
- a trapdoor spider;
- a lot of scorpions;
- the middle indestructible tile Rapidly Deconstructs, and a hasted hostile earth elemental appears on its place.


Nikola's Chamber:
a very large room (at least 1.5~2xLoS in width and length) with metal blocks. Each metal block is surrounded by Elven Halls-like blue ornamental floor.
Metal blocks cannot be adjacent to each other, but blue wall tiles can.
Whenever a creature steps on one of the blue tiles, it is checked for rElec. If it is rElec, nothing happens (You hear the threatening crackle of electricity). If the creature is not rElec, it will be instantly:
- electrocution-attacked;
- attacked by a Static Discharge that can arc towards other adjacent enemies;
- attacked by a Shock spell;
- damaged, and some clouds of hot steam will be generated;
- covered in liquid flames;
- granted with temporary rElec;
- blinked further away from the metal block the tile belongs to;
- teleported;
- Bend Space'd (damage + blink);
- heavily Bend Space'd (big damage + instant teleportation);
- given a free +1 to its weapon damage or, if it's not possible, get healed a bit;
- porkolated.

After affecting a creature, all blue tiles that belong to the same metal block as the activated one get disabled for a few turns.
If a metal tile gets Rapidly Deconstructed, the deconstructor will be struck by a lightning charge from the affected block.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Another perhaps too weird suggestion:

a series of vaults containing a corridor (straight or bent, or a 3- or 4-way) with a door (or, in case of 3-4-ways, a large door).
When opened, the door explodes (magical explosion, same as from red glow) and two or three imps (crimson, iron, white -- no shadow imps) appear around you.

Edit: or, probably, there is no need to open it -- just a well-thrown stone (checks Throwing) or a weapon of reaching can disarm it (but range can go beyond 3*3...).