KeeperFX Unofficial 0.4.6

[YourMaster]

Imps will indeed mine gems only for a while before they pick up other jobs. I've made no changes to this behavior. What I did change is that in FX imps would mine all gold before they would start to mine gems, in 0.4.6U imps give gems the same priority they do gold. You said 'especially', implying there is more strange behavior. Could you elaborate?

I've not made any changes to Kari-Mar, but looking into it now, and the Keeper will try to destroy you, getting himself killed. I've made a small change to the map to prevent this: 82KariMar.zip.
Try this one.
If nobody has any objections to the modification, I'll include in when I make a new version.

[Wiegraf]

Like you said, I'm not totally sure imps didn't already have the same behavior. But I don't remember them digging gems only once then going up fortifying walls either. It's common to see gems barely mined at all now. Maybe it's me, but this seemed weird.
In anycase, I too edited Kari-mar in order to finish it properly, but thanks for your effort if that ends up in your new version.

[YourMaster]

To test, I just started level 4 of the normal campaign, did not touch or build a single imp and instead just selected the gems, the gold and lots of gold to be dug out. They started digging out gems for a long time before finally continuing with excavating my dungeon. They only started reinforcing walls when my treasure room was full and they could not continue mining. When I build more treasure room, they continued mining gems. So this all seems fine.

If you have a saved game of where your imps are behaving strangely you could share and I can look into it more. For example it could be related to pathfinding issues with your imps falsely thinking the gems are too far away.

[Wiegraf]

Hi again,

First, thanks for your quick answers. I played a bit more through the campaigns content from KeeperFX, and I keep on seeing imps behaving as I explained. So here's a save, https://app.box.com/s/gp7zm80uhpu6fvawthbnypq3721obodr, it's from Burdened Imp second level.
As you will see, there's not a lot of jobs for imps here, except mining gems, which they do. However I find them frequently deserting gems and treasure room in order to fortify walls. Feel free to play around with the gems and see if you note the same behavior I talked about. Thanks for your time.

[YourMaster]

I've loaded your save, and see you've got three imps mining the single tile of gems. You've got six imps, so three spare ones that are free to do other stuff. Of course when an imp goes to the treasure room there's space for a fourth one to join in, and that happens. I've made some more tunnels, and the gems kept on being mined.
So I'm sorry, I see nothing strange. When I play a map with gems I'll keep an eye out though.

[Wiegraf]

Okay, thank you for having that checked anyway. I still find it strange how imps work with gems sometime, and I did play a lot at this game. Then again imps may have always been like that and I simply don't remember too well, =].

[Zycho]

Greetings to you all, Keepers!

a pre-christmas present expect you from me for KeeperFX Unofficial 0.4.6!
I've studied the KeeperFX libraries a bit and I've created a package that helps you to play the game over LAN absolutely reliable without annoying crashes.

And don't forget to feed me (respectively us) back.
For further information read the 'README_LP.TXT' file, please.

Have fun!

DOWNLOAD
KeeperFX Unofficial 0.4.6 LAN Patch
KeeperFX-Unofficial-046-LAN-Patch.zip

[YourMaster]

Sounds great. Unfortunately I have no way to test it now.

I've read the readme, but that only gives some information on how to play, not what you did. Could you elaborate a bit more on what changes you made?

[Zycho]

Of course.

I've adjusted the creature properties of ghosts, skeletons and vampires (see in the readme file), furthermore replaced the SDL libraries with the most recent versions (SDL.dll and SDL_net.dll) and on top of that I've removed the lightning traps and the heroes on all multiplayer maps.
Unfortunately with the most recent netcode of KeeperFX, in this way it's reliable to play over LAN, only.

[Lquiz]

So you just... implemented your own thoughts on balance by removing a load of stuff and adding speed to creatures?

I agree that lightning spell sort of breaks multiplayer if you get vision of the enemy gems/gold, but I think the fix could be a bit more elegant than just removing it and all dark mistresses!
Also, heroes in multiplayer games are designed to slow you down, so that you're not able to instantly rush, do you not like that?

I'd like to test this out to see if it improves the gameplay, but I don't have anyone to LAN with!

EDIT: Does the lightning break the game? Is that why you removed it?