Enemy-free area around staircases...

[Mystery]

Does anybody have any information about this?

In the beginning I thought that the whole room the stairs are in would be free of enemies. But that's not true, as in lvl 15 the stair-room can contain enemies.

Is it a certain radius in this room? And does the enemy-free area affect other rooms close to the stairs?

I'm interested in more information about this.

[Jarulf]

Does anybody have any information about this?

In the beginning I thought that the whole room the stairs are in would be free of enemies. But that's not true, as in lvl 15 the stair-room can contain enemies.

Is it a certain radius in this room? And does the enemy-free area affect other rooms close to the stairs?

I'm interested in more information about this.

Have not looked at it in a loooong time, but I think it is indeed a range check. Basically the game check if it is within that range for randomly placed monsters. Special "rooms" don't have that check. It can most easilly be seen in the caves were at times one get a small fenced "room" close to the stairs were monsters are not only acctivated immediatly but at times, even can be seen at once.

On a special note, it is possible that only the first randomply placed monster in a group has the range check, and other monsters in the group can be closer, but I am not sure. Perhaps I can check, but I have not looked at the game code for a long time so won't find my way arround so easilly any more.


EDIT: I made a quick check, and the code that places monsters does not have such a range check. It do check the monsters location versus a few things on the maps though. I would guess that possibly the map will have the "room" with the stair marked in a special way and that monsters are simply not (randomly) palced within in (regardless of the range). That would seem quite reasonable and within game play experience, no?

[Yogi_Baar]

It can most easilly be seen in the caves were at times one get a small fenced "room" close to the stairs were monsters are not only acctivated immediatly but at times, even can be seen at once.

This does indeed happen.

I would guess that possibly the map will have the "room" with the stair marked in a special way and that monsters are simply not (randomly) palced within in (regardless of the range). That would seem quite reasonable and within game play experience, no?

It would seem reasonable, but as Mystery said, on dlvl 15 you get 4 big rooms, and one of the big rooms that has the stairway sometimes contains monsters. This usually happens when the stairs are very close to one corner of the room, IIRC, and the monsters would then be somewhere in the opposite corner or so. That made me think that there is a range check as well.

Strange that those special rooms mentioned in the first quote didn't get such a range check.

[Jarulf]

This does indeed happen.

It would seem reasonable, but as Mystery said, on dlvl 15 you get 4 big rooms, and one of the big rooms that has the stairway sometimes contains monsters. This usually happens when the stairs are very close to one corner of the room, IIRC, and the monsters would then be somewhere in the opposite corner or so. That made me think that there is a range check as well.

Strange that those special rooms mentioned in the first quote didn't get such a range check.

I don't think "room" always correspond well with visial "rooms" and walls. But I don't remember that much. The game uses a few different internal maps with various bits set for various things. One can relatively easy extract thm out at run time and have an external program plot them for show. Don't think I have any such program left though. In any case, the special rooms are if I recall correctly, the first ones placed (I would say stairs are first placed), then the type of the room is randomly chosen (I have mostly looked at church and cats here) and populated. Basically there is a sort of density value for each room type and the game simply crams in monsters and then eventual object (perhaps in other orther) into the room. I recall there being a bug even where the game (programmer) accessed the valeus incorrectly (there is different values for each difficulty as well) for one room type in the cats. Nothing major though. Caves are a bit special in that rooms can hev "walls" you can see and fire over/through. And it add some extra spice :)

[Attika]

Just curious here, but is the room containing the pentagram on dlevel 15 considered a "stair" room or no?

I haven't been to 15 much recently, but it seems I recall running into bunches of monsters in the room containing the pentagram. Could be mistaken though.

Is the pentagram room not considered a "stair " room, or does even it have to have some "free" area around it?

Thanks.

Attika