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Thread: L to L+ alignment change at lvl.50 - rounding errors and 0 gains/floating numbers?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2021
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    Default L to L+ alignment change at lvl.50 - rounding errors and 0 gains/floating numbers?

    Lost L+ at lvl.50 due to my stupidity, with around 4860 white stones now according to scroll of balance.

    The problem is, PV is too high now for any whip to work, and if the unofficial formula is correct, it seems I get only 2% of any alignment gain from actions at lvl.50. In the very rare case whip of slaughtering got through, it gave no gain. 2% of 5 points of damage is very, very low...

    Tried healing a companion in the watery cave, no gain at all after nearly hundred tries. Gave around 100 herbs to a beggar, I finally I got a few points. Gave a thousand coins to a beggar, got one point.

    Is the alignment stored as a floating point number internally, or is it an integer? In case of the latter, wouldn't that mean zero gains for any action that would give lower gain than 1 after that "2% if positive" is applied? Effectively that would mean that giving anything less than 25 blessed stomafilia herbs or $1000 to a beggar at once is just a waste, as any gains would get lost to rounding?

    Thanks.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
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    While I dont know how the game stores the data I would guess from what you just said that it is acting as though it were an integer, otherwise the hundred times of pet healing should have eventually resulted in a raise.

    Though I should note that healing pets only works if they are actually hurt, and hurting non-hostile monsters is chaotic. (If you didnt take this into account its possible you sabotaged your own efforts inadvertantly)

    "you are the only cactus in the garden of my life" Gomez - Adams Family

  3. #3
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    Mar 2021
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    Thanks, I wasn't hurting him myself, took him to WDL underwater.

    Did a bit more testing, seems I ran into two separate problems:

    1) First, my problems with healing were trying to heal Hawkslayer in the Watery cave (WDL), as I read it here or elsewhere as a tip and I had him stashed nearby. Didn't work, zero gains. Now I tried it with created (white necromancy) homunculus, that did indeed work! Nice gain of +6 alignment at lvl.50, which translates to +300 at base if the formula is correct.
    So it still works, but only for some companions. Pets and summoned or created familiars only? Worked for a scroll summoned quickling queen as well (before she panicked and turned on me in blind rage). I guess the game treats recruitable NPCs differently from pets, didn't know that!

    2) From a very limited testing, it seems that it indeed is integer value (like most or all the other values) and gets always rounded down after applying the positive gain vs. level formula. Giving a beggar $1000 gives +1 point at lvl.50 (base is +50 points?). I gave him $980 in one turn and $40 in another, and indeed, no gain at all. So any positive gain that's less than +1 gets discarded.

    So if you need to change alignment at high levels, healing some companions in WDL works (but not Hawkslayer and possibly other recruitable NPCs) for +6 points, and giving exactly $1000 (no less, no more!) to beggars works for +1 point. I'd be careful of doing ANY action that has a base positive alignment change value of less than +50, since it will get lost.
    Giving beggars food is better, since it has no $1000 max cap so you can give big stacks (and most normal food seems always +1 or more) - 5 iron rations gave me +5, 200 cooked lizards gave me +200, blessed stomafilia +2, 2 loaves of bread +2, 15 large rations +15, fresh meat +2, etc. That seems like the easiest way.

    That would explain why self-flagellation is almost useless at lvl.50, as even if you do manage to hit occasionally (with probably high To and PV by that time), the damage would still need to cross some threshold (50dmg?) to give you at least +1 gain, which is much less likely.

  4. #4
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    Oct 2014
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    cool, good to know, glad you managed to figure it out.

    "you are the only cactus in the garden of my life" Gomez - Adams Family

  5. #5
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    I think healing any wounded non-hostiles is a lawful act, as long as you didn't hurt them yourself.
    "Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

  6. #6
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    Mar 2021
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous View Post
    I think healing any wounded non-hostiles is a lawful act, as long as you didn't hurt them yourself.
    Strange. Definitely didn't hurt them myself, it was the Watery cave. Zero gains with Hawkslayer companion, but showed the +6 (at lvl.50) gain instantly with summoned/created others. Could be just a specific bug - might test it again with other recruitable NPCs.

  7. #7
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    Mar 2021
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    FIY, just tested it out with mercenary NPC from Borderland village that I dragged to Watery cave and healed him there as he slowly drowned (sorry, poor guy!).

    No alignment gains at all.

    So it seems I was correct - Adom treats existing recruitable NPCs differently from random pets, summoned or created ones (or healed monsters) regarding positive alignment changes. If you are in desperate need of positive alignment change at high levels, probably just don't bother with them. It could be there is no gain at all with them, or that it's just such a small gain with the NPCs that it gets "lost to rounding" at lvl. 50. Or the WDL map might be the culprit, but it did work there with summoned familiars. Could still be a bug, for all I know

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