ToME WikiNerdanelVampire: I just won the game. When I reached level 11 I decided to put one point into firearms just to try them out. Previously I had resorted exclusively to my hand-to-hand combat, which I had maxed by that time. I equipped my rifle, soon to be astonished...
The combination of insanity:
- Unlimited ammo
- Shooting apparently uses up no energy at all!
Result: Free line-of-sight death effect. Monsters get in one turn worth of attacks, maximum (far less on average), and that doesn't matter much with the player hitpoints being what they are.
Oh, and the damage per shot is quite significant, but that's not very important after the previous points. I killed Sharkey without him even getting one attack at me.
NeilStevens: Doesn't... use.... energy.... oops. Do you think it'd be fine if it cost normal amounts of energy? As in, fine to ship E-Team 1.0 tomorrow (or even later today)?
NerdanelVampire: I think that would be a clear improvement. Game balance needs looking into, however. For example, I think firearms could probably benefit from being a few levels deeper. Even with energy use, they are really vastly more useful than knives and swords. The damage per turn is great and the get-hit-back factor is drastically smaller.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the game got into a mysterious eternal loop and had to be given signal 7 when I first reached level 1 on my way back from the depths, but I wasn't able to reproduce that.
NeilStevens: Yeah, the FIRST thing I did once you said you got a rifle at B11 was to cut by a factor of three the depth bonus drops get from dungeon level. So instead of getting items as deep as monster_level + 1d(dungeon_level), it's monster_level + 1d(dungeon_level / 3).
But yeah, it's intended there be a clear progression: knife -> machete -> saber -> pistol -> rifle.
As for the loop: thanks, I'll look into it.