How Much Strength of Atlas is Too Much Strength of Atlas?

[Superteeth]

Hello everyone. I am currently playing a mist elf wizard, which is basically the race/class combination that most resembles a glass cannon. I know I could have made a more hardy wizard by choosing a gnome, but I want to win with every race. The early game is actually still not over, but seeing as how I managed to keep Phaedra alive long enough to get gardening from Guth'Alak (along with the all-important black torc, which provides me with resistances against most of the vortices, which could kill me), and detect traps from Yergius (which is now in the 90s, paired with alertness in the 90s), I think I should be okay barring stupid mistakes.

Now, to the question: I am creating a huge herb farm in the big room (because I am damn well not going to die because I didn't want to spend time getting my stats up), and am bookcasting Strength of Atlas just about every time I reach maximum PP (to train mana). I know that at some point I will reach more Strength of Atlas than I ever need, but seeing as how getting crushed is a common way for powerful wizards to die, I want to be sure. However, knowing that integer overflows exist in the game, does anyone have any clue as to when the duration of Strength of Atlas will overflow to the point that it wraps around and I am auto-crushed? The best idea may very well be to stop overdosing on the spell, but I am paranoid about whether or not I have enough to last through the game. Also, is there a limit on how much you can stack the duration of such spells? Thanks in advance.

[anon123]

The amount of turns Strength of Atlas' effect is to last for is stored as a signed 32-bit integer. The game only seems to remove the carrying capacity boost when the timer equals zero, and doesn't check for values below zero. So if you overflow it beyond 2^31 and turn it into a negative number, you only get the "strength is waning" message every turn until it underflows back to a positive one (at that point, the spell continues to wear out normally).

An actual overflow is unlikely to happen on a normal game, though. Assuming SoA gives you 2000 turns per cast, you'd need to use it over a million times to cause one.

[Blasphemous]

I don't remember ever overflowing SoA despite playing wizards regularly.
On the other hand, I never cast it enough to last for the whole game.
Generally it's mana dependent. Considering you're a mist elf, either you're already 25+ in mana department or will soon be.
I believe that it's best to just cast it occasionally and wait for it to run off. You retain more control and there are no surprised.
I can tell you that as archmage with 99 mana, casting it 10 times lasted me for the rest of the game, but that was usually done at the point where not much game was left to play.
I don't think there was any testing done specifically to find out if and when SoA overflows.
I suppose you're kind of exploring an unknown land with this ;)

[Stingray1]

Willpower affects spell duration.

[Blasphemous]

From my experience, Mana has significantly stronger impact on spell duration than Willpower.

[Superteeth]

24 willpower, 36 mana. Assuming that the overflow number is at 2^31, I have nothing to worry about, even with 99 mana. The duration it currently lasts at the effectivity it is at 720 turns. I have stopped casting it for a while now, but have casted it at least 100 times (likely quite a bit more than that). I think I should be set for the rest of the game, but will still cast it occasionally to train mana, since theoretically it won't ever overflow, according to anon123. I do know that my use of bookcasted farsight spells to train mana before finding strength of atlas is a pain in the ass now while farming herbs in the big room, but strength of atlas doesn't share that problem. Thanks to everyone who responded!

Edit: Speaking of training mana, just how many PP do you have to burn and regenerate to train mana when it is at a certain value? Because it appears to ramp up considerably as you gain more mana. I have been stuck at 36 for a long, long time, while the first couple of points (starting at 29) came a lot quicker, leading me to believe that the amount you have to burn and regenerate increases exponentially.

[Stingray1]

I have nothing to substantiate my claim, but memory of my experiences. I think it might have something to do with the percentage of your PP being used as a factor of training Mana.

[Mobius]

My subjective impression is that the number of casting matters. 100 times casting light is worth more than 1 time casting Petrification.


I have nothing to substantiate my claim, but memory of my experiences. I think it might have something to do with the percentage of your PP being used as a factor of training Mana.

[_Ln_]

From my experience, Mana has significantly stronger impact on spell duration than Willpower.

http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Strength_of_Atlas

Mana affects carrying capacity (dynamically btw - if your mana drops after you cast the spell, your carrying capacity will also drop), willpower and spell level affect duration.

[Sami]

You can't overflow it unless you really try to do so... And even then you might get tired before you succeed.
Assuming +2000 turns per cast (huge overestimation) it would take over 1 million castings to overflow 32 bit integer. I don't think I've ever had a game lasting over 250000 turns which is well less than one fourth of required turns to overflow the counter.