0.5.0

Release notes

Stone Soup 0.5.0 (released on June 12, 2009. (20090612))

Disclaimer: These are merely the highlights, not an exhaustive list of changes.

Breaks saves and bones compatibility.

0.5 Highlights

• New species and job: Deep Dwarf, Artificer.
• Removed three species: Gnome, Grey Elf, Ogre-Mage.
• Several cool new uniques and other monsters.
• Several great new portal vaults.
• Zombies and skeletons can no longer use stairs.
• Transformations meld equipment instead of removing it.
• Many spell ranges shortened.
• Much more useful monster descriptions.
• More convenient tiles version.

Levels

• New portal vaults (Sewer, Ice Cave, Minitomb, Ziggurat), and many new vaults.
• Self-changing labyrinths (mappable but subject to map rot).
• Teleporting within a labyrinth always sends you away from the exit.
• The Orcish Mines are completely interconnected via the branch bottom.
• Shortened Hive to two levels.
• Ghosts may no longer appear in the Ecumenical Temple.
• Traps remember how much ammunition they have.
• Branch descriptions mention depth and whether they contain a rune.
• Fixed KMONS not accepting comma-separated list of alternative monsters.
• Tweaked most of the oklob vaults to make them less dangerous.
• Allow bazaars outside of the main dungeon.
• For timed portal vault alerts, give directional feedback.

Characters

• Removed Grey Elf and Gnome species.
• Merged Ogre-Mages into Ogres with completely new aptitudes.
• Added non-healing species: Deep Dwarves.
• Swapped Kobolds' aptitudes for Long Blades and Maces & Flails.
• Added Artificer job.
• Transformations cause worn equipment to be melded rather than removed.
• Overhaul nutrition values and duration for Vampires feeding on corpses.
• Vampires can no longer heal via potions of blood or non-fresh corpses.
• Vampires recover lost stats depending on blood level.
• Draining of the experience pool is reduced by life protection.
• Merfolk can swim in heavy armour, albeit with doubled armour penalty.
• Player and monster nagas no longer flounder or lose stealth in shallow water.
• Secondary unarmed attacks wake sleeping monsters.
• Pure spellcasters don't start with a weapon anymore.
• Tweak starting choice restrictions.
• Going into berserk rage doubles Health, ending it halves Health.
• Added the slow healing mutation, affecting hitpoints and stat regeneration.

Monsters

• Disallow zombified monsters' use of stairs.
• New monsters: trapdoor spider, rock worm, flaming corpse, chaos spawn.
• Monster descriptions list resistances and some other attributes.
• Several cool new uniques.
• Many of the later uniques appear a few dungeon levels earlier.
• Polymorphed uniques retain their spells and speech.
• Reintroduce chance of orc wizards and priests in early orc bands.
• Most monsters of the same genus will attempt to surround the player.
• Implemented monster miscasts caused by Zot traps or mummy curses.
• Make all allies (including zombies) avoid Zot traps known to the player.
• Ghosts don't get holy wrath branded attacks anymore.
• Monsters will shout when woken, unless stabbed.
• Monsters will drink !healing to cure confusion, etc.
• Allies no longer mind being teleported by the player.
• Causing fear will make permanent allies flee but does not anger them.
• Retain the teleportation enchantment on polymorphed monsters.
• Make vampiric draining and torment alert and anger its target.
• Fixed draconians being able to strike 3 times per turn with their weapons.
• Account for randart shields when scanning monsters' inventories for randarts.
• Fixed monsters getting stuck in deep water after entering it while confused.
• Monsters behind glass but with a path to the player interrupt rest/travel.
• Monsters raised from the dead are equipped with their original equipment.
• Zombies/skeletons no longer drown, but will still avoid water.
• Fixed summoned monsters taking non-summoned items with them.
• Summoned monsters are no longer susceptible to Vampiric Draining.
• Make abominations resist poison.
• Butchered corpses sometimes leave skeletons.
• Finally fixed monsters acting before being announced as "coming into view".

Interface

• New command for evoking inventory items ('V'), replaces wand zapping ('Z').
• Casting spells with 'z' aborts without prompt if no monsters are in range.
• Casting spells with the new 'Z' allows casting in any case.
• Changed quick save command to 'Ctrl-S' (was Ctrl-X).
• Change exclusion commands to e, E, Ctrl-E (was Ctrl-X, x, Ctrl-E).
• New monster/item view command ('Ctrl-X'), allowing travel to items, features.
• Store message history across saves.
• Some message condensation for identical messages.
• Added stat_colour option to highlight dangerously low stats.
• New option: Automatically set travel exclusions for statues and oklob plants.
• Switch off autopickup and autoswap if you see a monster turn invisible.
• Killing an invisible monster reactivates autopickup.
• Added ally pickup mode for items dropped by either player or allies.
• Shops use shopping cart behaviour.
• Wizard commands can be used from the wizard help screen.
• Allow quivering/firing of wielded missiles and wielded weapons of returning.
• With a full pack, check entire list of selected items to allow for merging.
• Eating prompts for chunks sorted by age and side effects.
• Added an option to make menu colours apply to shops.
• Use menu colours for announcements of items found while travelling.
• Pressing Esc at -More- automatically clears all queued -More- prompts.
• Added FAQ to help screen ('?Q').
• Purchases and donations are noted.
• The database search also prints armour base AC/EV and weapon plusses.
• Add spells and books to book/spell descriptions when searching the database.
• Ability and card descriptions are searchable in the database ('?/').
• Allow wishing for specific fixed and randarts in wizard mode ('o' command).
• Add food item based hunger descriptions to spells.
• "Glow" status is grey for harmless contamination, yellow for dangerous levels.

Items

• New scroll: ?vulnerability, applying to all creatures in LoS including you.
• New weapon brand: chaos, available only via Xom and pandemonium lords.
• Introduce randart spellbooks with random spell selections.
• Book acquirements are much more random and may yield manuals.
• Missile enchantment decreases chance of destruction on impact.
• Freezing weapons can slow cold-blooded monsters.
• The staff of channeling trains Evocations.
• Potions of magic no longer increase maximal magic points and are more common.
• Item descriptions mention enchantment/charging limits.
• Randarts get their known properties autoinscribed.
• Randarts are noted as identified even if the plusses are still unknown.
• Eliminate RAP_ANGRY and RAP_BERSERK for launcher weapons.
• Ammo that IDs through throwing merges in your pack instantaneously.
• ?immolation doesn't burn scrolls anymore.
• ?summoning creates a permanent abomination.
• ?random uselessness autoidentifies.
• ?vorpalise weapon fixes temporary brands instead of Enchant Weapon III.
• Nemelex-gifted decks identify after drawing one card.
• Decks of punishment are no longer randomly generated.
• Removing rings of levitation or invisibility no longer cancels the effect.
• Identify the Horn of Geryon when wielding it.
• Skeletons rot away in inventory at the same rate as on the floor.

Gods

• Greatly improved Yredelemnul.
• Nerfed TSO/Beogh's blessings of followers.
• Xom is more active and more useful in combat.
• Cleansing Flame centers on the player and deals less damage.
• Killing a holy being is sometimes avenged by TSO.
• Split Elyvilon's healing powers into "heal self" and "heal other" versions.
• Evyvilon's Lesser Healing (for pacification) does not cost piety anymore.
• Move Divine Robustness from Zin to Elyvilon, replacing Incredible Healing.
• Make Zin's retribution-summoned plagues permanent.
• Sif Muna no longer gifts Kiku/Vehumet specific books, spells still possible.
• Trog accepts kills of demons.
• Trog's Hand provides magic resistance as well as regeneration.
• Vehumet accepts undead killing for you.
• Beogh no longer accepts butchery but likes prayer over orcish remains.
• Beogh accepts more kinds of kills.
• Beogh has a non-cannibalism conduct.
• Disallow shapeshifters in orc form to become Beoghites' followers.
• Offer card descriptions when using Nemelex's Triple Draw or Stack Five.
• Enable automatic note taking for Xom effects.

Tiles

• Overhauled and improved tiles code, now using SDL.
• Added auto-sizing for font, map, and window sizes.
• Support for full screen mode and for small resolutions (800x480).
• Graphical menu improvements: some menus are clickable and show icons.
• Mouse clicks on the map when unsafe travel one square in that direction.
• Mouse-over item/monster descriptions.
• Added new and improved tiles: Pandemonium lords, draconians, randart books.
• Monster tiles include health bars.
• Added type-specific icons for jewellery, shops, and weapon brands.
• Vaults can specify floor and wall tiles in their description.

Miscellaneous

• Greatly reduced spell ranges (both player and monster).
• For most bolts, hitting a monster reduces range by one.
• Added arena mode to watch monsters fighting other monsters.
• Fixed crashes involving "invisible/unmoving" monsters.
• Crashes leave highly informative crash dumps.
• Poison Weapon is a level 2 spell.
• Extension will also extend temporary weapon brands.
• Lua errors report the line numbers of the actual code.
• Flying can be cancelled.
• Petrify is an Enchantment/Earth spell.
• Lee's Rapid Deconstruction deals great damage to petrified monsters.
• Removed stash_tracking option, always track all stashes.
• Rewrite and clean up of (among others) beam, trap, and mutations code.
• Store code revision in save files for easier bug tracking.
• Many useful new wizard mode commands.