An IVAN DLC Attempt.

Greetings everyone. I'm not the best designer, but I am a quick learner. And what I lack in knowledge about IVAN's basic structure, I do know how to copy a few things.

On my list of things that I see possible, through simple modification of previous items, are as follows:

Spell Swords (Wands that can double as a weapon. Based off of the Rata Taiha and the like, the weapons can be bladed and function as wands. Being a wand-type, they will explode when broken. Perhaps they can only be found as soft materials such as earthy stones, coppers and bronzes?)

Artifact Armors (Armor that could potentially make the user invisible, or perhaps, boost raw stats. Paper armor that makes the user more agile for instance.)

Weapons that splash acid when you block with them (Taken from Acid Shield coding; though it negates the point of having the acid shield shield.)

Medical Support Friendly Unique Mob (Based off the code seen in the Bare Hands Doctor. The BHD allows you to remove, and attach your severed limbs to yourself.)

Healing Gases (Toggling a modifier to make a liquid into also a gas)

Different Harmful Gases (Such as Fire.)

More Enemy Uniques (How about self inserts of some of the cast we've got here, eh?)

Safes/Hidden Goodies (Couches apparently have rare stones inside of them. Why not break them open?)

More Mistress Varieties (Have some fun with the Sadist/Masochist tag.)

This sounds fun. You can count on me to do the testing.

It does indeed sound like a lot of this could be easily done with copying of code.

With respect to the healing/harmful gas, I think that could even be done with just a quick edit of the script files.
For example:

  Config HEALING_VAPOUR;
  {
    Color = rgb16(200, 60, 60);
    NameStem = "regenerative gas";
    Alpha = 200;
    AttachedGod = SOPHOS;
    Effect = EFFECT_HEAL;
    BreatheMessage = "Breathing this gas makes you feel refreshed!";
  }

In fact we already have mustard gas as the template for harmful gas, which could be simply copied and re-worded for fire gas. Otherwise we'd have to program in a new status effect for "on fire" rather than recycling what I assume is the acid code.
Also I am of the opinion we need more gas emitting monsters if we're going to be adding more gasses. Obviously they can be based off the skunk or magic mushroom code. An example could be healer monsters that use short-lived healing clouds to heal larger groups of monsters - giving you the opportunity to reap the benefits of these clouds too.

On the lines of artifact armors, I feel like cursed items like those in so many other roguelikes would be a really good fit for IVAN. But the other suggestions are pretty much covered outside of unique armor pieces (Boots of Strength, Helm of Brilliance etc.), so any artifact armor would have to be really unique, like the ridiculous shirt of the golden eagle. The shirt of the jaguar in LIVAN and the Decos Banana Co. shirts are also good examples.
I'd also like to see some less-practical effects or trade-off armor pieces like one that gives you ESP in exchange for making you absolutely blind, for example.

For safes, we already have chests and strongboxes made of different materials, and hidden vaults for said containers. On the other hand, we do not have mimics.
But I do like the idea of having the chance to find an item inside objects that you wouldn't normally break.

I'd be glad to help in any way I can. It'd be a good opportunity for me to practice my programming outside of a familiar language.

Well, is there any way to have for instance, a couch suddenly turn into a monster when you try to destroy it? I know sometimes breaking coffins can spawn ghosts.

is this true?

Yeah. If you take a pickax to them, you get a message saying "You find some valuables the owners left behind."

Not always though. IIRC this is also true for thrones and beds.

As for having couches turn hostile when you attack them, I don't know whether there's any existing code we can use for that. Using the ghost spawn code from coffins may work, but then the problem is whether we can specify an exact spawn position for the couch monster - so the destruction of the couch spawns a couch monster in the same position, so it appears you've angered the couch when really it's just spawned a monster on top of it.

Whoa.. geez! After all these years, still learning new things about IVAN. I did not know you could break open couches

Lots of good ideas. The "self-inserts" would be awesome... probably not appealing to anyone outside this forum, but maybe you could do that for scripting practice

Just confirming that the healing gas I wrote up above works and is good fun. I made it a possible dwarven grenade payload.

Working on:

• Wand of Rain (causes rain of random liquids - healing liquid/blood/water/pepsi/vodka etc.)
  
• Wand of Clothing (splorts out a random piece of armor, few charges)
  
• Mushroom variant that uses mustard gas/healing gas alternately
  
• Exploding grenades / flasks. Probably possible through script editing only.
  

I'm also going to see if I can stop mystic dark frogs teleporting away your equipment if you have a ring of telecontrol equipped.

ADOM did well with a crowdfunding initiative that rewarded the donors with special monsters named after them. if the ownership of ivan could get organizd It could serve as a good vehicle to get a new official version released.

I don't know how well crowdfunding for IVAN would go, just being realistic

I think we're all agreed that whoever out of us is the first to be a millionaire will fund IVAN development themselves though. Right?

What are the odds of that, though? I've never had so much as 10k, let alone a million.

you would be surprised. if you set the goal at a modest level like $5k or $10k I would bet that you get it funded.

The other problem would be finding the devs again and convincing them to work on IVAN again.
I suppose a couple of grand is a pretty nice incentive though, but then I don't know how kickstarter and the like would appreciate it essentially being a bribe

I don't think kickstarter or indiegogo cares. I am pretty sure one of the devs is running for office. It could prove to be a source of campaign funds.

also on this, Im pretty sure the eddy/couch thing is a refrence to the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I think having some kind of level teleport aspect of the couch would seem more thematic.

I've currently done my attempts at making Fire a actual material, so far, its just a modified version of Mustard Gas.

Are materials stronger based on density and weight, or?

That would be:

StrengthValue = X;

Not sure about density or how it affects anything. Maybe how much of said thing you can put in a chest, or how likely to break the item is?
EDIT: Going to go with the likeliness of an item of that material breaking, considering Illithium has a really, really high value at 6000, and an easily broken material like balsa wood for example has a density of 250.

Just how likely to break the item is also seems to depend on other factors, such as how much of it is present.
For example, GLASS has a density of 2500 (only 1000 below Diamond) and a strength value of 40, but glass bottles are known to break easily - likely because a bottle is comprised of very little of said glass material, but is still at least a little impact resistant due to glass' large density rating.
Maybe it's a little bit of everything - strength value, weight, and density?

Also note that Illithium is much more dense than Diamond and Valpurium, but is entirely inflexible (Flexibility of 1) with a lower strength value to boot.
However, after running some wiz mode tests it appears than an item made of Illithium actually is slightly less durable than one of Diamond or Valpurium ("extremely strong" vs. "almost unbreakable" for the other two) which leads me to conclude that it is, in fact, a matter of both density and strength value. Density also appears to have an adverse affect on weapon accuracy - although this may depend on the weapon type, as I have so far only tested quarter staves and bastard swords.

Attempts at making new weapons are turning interesting. Tip Swords apparently have a chance to deal auto crits, or something like that. I'll figure out what this stuff does, after I make a test-dummy NPC.

Heheh, this reminds me of the time I modified the chars.txt so Kaethos was hostile, had enormous END but no AGI or any other stat really. Good times.

IsExtraFragile = true;
IsSadist = true;
IsMasochist = true;

Any explanation on what these tags /specifically/ do?

IsMasochist determines whether friendly fire turns the monster hostile.
Not sure about the IsSadist thing, but it might be why the Banana Grower Encourager kicks the workers as they walk past (Banana Growers are masochists)

And I have no idea about IsExtraFragile.

Closer inspection of the Is Masochist and Is Sadist tags revealed that allied mistresses will lash each other to death.

Masochist Tag also adds a unique set of dialogue if you critically hit them. (Oh, the delightful pain!)

Pretty sure IsExtraFragile means prone to losing limbs. Dark knights have this tag and lose limbs like crazy in reference to the Monty Python bit. Skeletons suffer the same thing. I guess it works by making the limbs easier to hit, but don't know really.
Upcoming Finnish news: Local politician creates computer game focused on demonic slave mistresses dismembering each other with whips. Leaves campaign in shame. Garners massive public support.

hahaha. Awesome. The dark knight thing and the headline