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[ZenoR]

I think I have fixed the crash problems. Get the new version here (and see the changelog here, there are mostly bugfixes).

Golems made of metal can be fixed in the forge (but I am not sure whether it is currently worth the trouble). You can also envelop golems/zombies with one-time frost effects... maybe there will be some more permanent inscriptions added later.

I think that the reason for the malware alert was that I used UPX to reduce the executable size. Version 0.56 no longer does this.

[forsaken1111]

This is relevant to my interests.

[Frumple]

Golems made of metal can be fixed in the forge (but I am not sure whether it is currently worth the trouble). You can also envelop golems/zombies with one-time frost effects... maybe there will be some more permanent inscriptions added later.

Yeah.. trouble with forge is just getting the golem to and from it, or visa versa, I guess. Permanent inscriptions would be awesome. Especially if you could like, overload them or something. Stack a bunch on a corpse, destabilize the whole thing, hop it up on some kind of haste-like spell and send it slamming into a nearby village the closest enemy. Arcanochromatic fallout Fun times!

In the meantime, kamikaze frost-bomb zombies will suffice I'll have to spend some time figuring out how to do that next time I sink some time into VoI.

Incidentally, I'm wondering about the possibility of sorta' lesser golems... grass, twigs, etc. Origami, tiny mud golem, whatever. Small, quick and cheap to make, flimsy, good to slap a timed explosion hex (assuming VoI can do that, heh) or some sort of distance viewing spell on and send it around the corner.

[miauw62]

Hmm, apparantly this is easily moddable.

Deon-time?

Looks intresting, i think that i'll try this.

[Poltifar]

I havent played much yet, but I need to ask: Is there a way to inscribe runes to make new enchanted amulets/weapons/armors/wands?

[Paul]

Been playing around with it. Looks interesting. Seems really hard to gain xp though - as soon as I had spent the bit of xp I started with I never really managed to raise my skills anymore. And I wasted almost all of it learning skills from books in the house I spawned in that I couldn't get rid of.

Tried an artificer and raised an army of zombies, but never got any XP that way at all. Do you get XP for having your zombies kill stuff?

-edit- Heh, that was fun. I started an artificer and went and murdered a local village, then piled up all the iron in the village except one suit of armor and melted it. I then used all that iron to make a golem. I then took the suit of left over iron equipment and suited up the golem in plate armor and an axe. Sadly, the golem was still ridiculously wimpy - the first horse I came across promptly murdered it. You'd think a giant living chunk of iron would be a bit more durable.

The funny thing is I carried the golem back and fixed it up and have been playing around with it. When it fights, it kicks and bites stuff - and each time it does so it damages itself more than the enemy. I had it attack me and it killed itself by kicking and biting me even though I didn't fight back. I also found a way to repair golems outside of forges - the "fix" spell which is often found on orbs. I was able to manufacture a bunch of orbs with the fix spell on it by examining one orb with the analysis skill and then creating them, the new ones came out with power 25 fix spells (original was 90, but I guess my skill sucks). This would be great if the golems actually worked well, since you can melt and remake the orbs as needed to keep the golems healthy. But they're super squishy, way more squishy than the zombies, so they'd be dying every fight.

Even the iron mechanical horse I found is really weak. Even mounting the iron golem on top of the iron mechanical horse and equipping the golem with the iron gear still sucked - the horse charged in and they fought together but both died pretty quick (they did manage to take out two humans, though). I guess automatons just suck. Zombies are surprisingly hardy. A zombified horse managed to take out 4 human NPCs at once and then go on to kill a living horse and nearly kill another human npc before being massacred. I bet taking a couple zombie horses and putting a couple zombie humans on them would crazy powerful, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.


Speaking of, with all this murdering of towns and such - I get the feeling my protagonist isn't actually the good guy trying to save the world from these vapors. I think he's just some nutcase who thinks these vapors are messing with everyone, when he in fact is the one who is crazy and on a murderous rampage. 

[Matz05]

Hmm... Do the golems need quenching or something? I dunno if golem-making cools them, but from your story I picture red-hot metal men punching people and bending their hands out of shape! Try getting them wet (but they might rust?) or using some kind of cold AOE spell just barely within range of them? I don't know if VoI tracks the temperature of items that way, but it's worth a shot.

Another option would be that it's just shoddy workmanship! 

[Paul]

I think automatons just suck. The iron horse was one I found inactive and reactivated.

As far as cold spells, hitting them with cold just hurts them

That's actually the only spell Artificers know (although I'm hoping you can eventually find and learn more, just frost is rather boring).

It can still be powerful though. Combining spells until you have a spell of frost-frost-frost-frost-frost-frost-frost-frost and enchanting all of your equipment and yourself with it can be a funny way to go into battle. Everything that hits your enchanted armor or you, or that you hit with your weapon starts taking massive cold damage and dies (for the first attack, at least). It uses all the mana I have on my current character for each cast, but you can rest up and keep casting it. Can even store extra casts of it in orbs by making an enchantment spell that casts an enchantment spell that casts frost and just rub yourself with the orb to impart the magic whenever you need it.

You can also cast it on daggers and bolts and stuff. Shooting bolts that explode in frost at things would probably be effective if I could figure out a way to learn to use a crossbow moderately accurately. My one attempt I had 10 bolts enchanted with frost and they all hit randomly across the field, missing my actual target my a large margin.

Artificer is interesting though. Probably way overpowered, but you can do fun things with it. By carrying a bunch of orbs and enchanting all of them and all your equipment and yourself with a spell so powerful that it uses your entire mana pool you can carry with you way more power than a wizard can. The orbs can be used both to set traps or enchant yourself so that whatever hits you gets hurt. I only wish I had more variety in spells to play with. If I could find a healing spell I could carry around super healing orbs to patch myself up if I got wounded, for instance.

[Matz05]

Cool, I've got to get back into this game. I guess that finding that variety is the main difficulty of Artificers, but reverse-engineering all the magic you come across to mass-produce sounds like fun!

[ZenoR]

Hmm, apparantly this is easily moddable.

That's a rather distant goal, probably it is not that easy yet

I havent played much yet, but I need to ask: Is there a way to inscribe runes to make new enchanted amulets/weapons/armors/wands?

Not yet (except the Rune of Entanglement that artificers start with and that can be used to inscribe one-time spells). But I have plans to add such a skill for the next version.

Tried an artificer and raised an army of zombies, but never got any XP that way at all. Do you get XP for having your zombies kill stuff?

No (but the zombie/golem itself gains some experience). You do not get XP if the enemy is much weaker than you, that's why you usually do not get any XP for your first kills (you start with more XP to make the early game easier, as a counterbalance to relatively weaker equipment). On the other hand, XP is supposed to rise quite quickly if you are fighting stronger monsters, so having zombie/golems and still keeping some monsters for yourself should work.

-edit- Heh, that was fun. I started an artificer and went and murdered a local village, then piled up all the iron in the village except one suit of armor and melted it. I then used all that iron to make a golem. I then took the suit of left over iron equipment and suited up the golem in plate armor and an axe. Sadly, the golem was still ridiculously wimpy - the first horse I came across promptly murdered it. You'd think a giant living chunk of iron would be a bit more durable.

Yes, it should, but the game is not balanced yet It seems that zombie/golems need heavy balancing... Golems should be powerful, and zombies should be rather weak. Also it seems there is currently no practical way of improving the golem's axe skill (and they have this skill only if animated/reprogrammed while already wielding one, and there is no warning if you do not concentrate on the Animate skill while trying to use it -- the golems are very weak otherwise).

I was able to manufacture a bunch of orbs with the fix spell on it by examining one orb with the analysis skill and then creating them, the new ones came out with power 25 fix spells (original was 90, but I guess my skill sucks).

That's a bug... you should not be able to clone enchantments with analysis/smithing that easily.

Thanks for playing and all the feedback! I am trying mostly Fighters and Wizards myself, but it seems that Artificers get much attention, so I should work on improving them next.

[Paul]

Not yet (except the Rune of Entanglement that artificers start with and that can be used to inscribe one-time spells). But I have plans to add such a skill for the next version.

Maybe it could be added to smithing? Blacksmiths and artificers both start out with that skill, but it doesn't seem that raising the skill has a whole lot of utility right now since you can find the nonmagical items pretty easily just by hitting a town and even low skill can repair stuff. Especially since the duplicating magic effects thing is a bug.

There could be a special book on it that teaches you smithing and wizardry and the design for a basic rune or two, and you could examine permanent runes on items with the analysis skill to learn to create them. Then you could use the "new item" interface targeting an existing item and selecting a rune design, at which point it would inscribe the runes onto the item. Then there could be an option under wizardry to empower runes, which would use your mana to empower the item (with more wizardry and mana required to empower the stronger runes, and a combination of the wizard's skill and the inscription quality determining the enchantment power).

No (but the zombie/golem itself gains some experience). You do not get XP if the enemy is much weaker than you, that's why you usually do not get any XP for your first kills (you start with more XP to make the early game easier, as a counterbalance to relatively weaker equipment). On the other hand, XP is supposed to rise quite quickly if you are fighting stronger monsters, so having zombie/golems and still keeping some monsters for yourself should work.

Ah, I was focusing more on raising an army of zombies than engaging stuff myself so I never got any xp. I loaded that save and was able to get a bunch of xp by laying down runes on the ground and having enemies walk into them and die (I had advanced way beyond where killing stuff gave me xp just using zombies, so engaging in actual combat was fairly suicidal at that point heh). Maybe there should be some XP sharing between a master and his minions? It could compare the minion's XP to the target's XP and then multiply the xp the minion would get by 0.9. If the minion got xp for the kill then the master would be compared to the target's XP to see if he should earn some, and if so it would be multiplied by 0.1. That way you get 10% of the xp value of the critter as if you had killed it, but only if the minion would be getting xp for the kill - so you can't just rely solely on xp from the minion since he would outlevel the monsters compared to you.

Also it seems there is currently no practical way of improving the golem's axe skill (and they have this skill only if animated/reprogrammed while already wielding one, and there is no warning if you do not concentrate on the Animate skill while trying to use it -- the golems are very weak otherwise).

Ah, that probably helped my golem suck more, since I believe I animated it before equipping it with gear and never reprogrammed it. Maybe that's why it was dieing so fast - instead of hacking with the axe it was more focused on kicking and biting (which damaged it more than the enemy, haha).

The damage taken from hitting things with your limbs might need to be toned down a bit, though. I notice golems and zombies alike can quickly beat themselves to death by attacking a target that doesn't fight back (a corpse, or me). Even the player can beat himself to death by punching a corpse (I killed myself as a knight by repeatedly attacking a butterfly's corpse, hahaha).

That's a bug... you should not be able to clone enchantments with analysis/smithing that easily.

I thought it seemed a bit too easy. I was also able to copy other enchantments I found - like I examined some goblin boots of jumping made out of human skin, changed the race of the design to human, mirrored it, and created a set out of steel. Both of them had the enchantment.

Thanks for playing and all the feedback! I am trying mostly Fighters and Wizards myself, but it seems that Artificers get much attention, so I should work on improving them next.

I think the attraction of artificers is most roguelikes out there don't let you create and enchant items and raise golems and such, so it's kind of novel being able to. Wizards and knights are pretty standard fare in comparison.

Thanks for the fun game!