From 8767119a72d6885ab40380e77c2224a4c16896c1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: zelgadis Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 05:00:22 +0000 Subject: First draft of documation for the arena. git-svn-id: https://crawl-ref.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/crawl-ref/trunk@8350 c06c8d41-db1a-0410-9941-cceddc491573 --- crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt | 119 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 119 insertions(+) create mode 100644 crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt (limited to 'crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt') diff --git a/crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt b/crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..b70d2e827b --- /dev/null +++ b/crawl-ref/docs/arena.txt @@ -0,0 +1,119 @@ +The crawl arena is a special mode during which the player is absent and +monsters fight each other, useful for both testing/debugging and for +entertainment. It can be invoked on the command line like this: + + crawl -arena "kobold v goblin" + +Which will cause one kobold to fight one goblin, with crawl shutting down once +one of them has won. To make them fight for three rounds you can do: + + crawl -arena "t:3 kobold v goblin" + +You can make monsters fight for at most 99 rounds. You can stop the +arena simulation early by pressing Escape, 'q' or Control-G (though if +the arena has lots of monsters it might take a few second before it +stops). + +You can also give each side more than one monster. For example: + + crawl -arena "rat, giant cockroach v kobold, goblin" + +will give team A a rat and a cockroach and team B a kobold and a goblin; a +victory is declared when all of one team is dead and at lest one member of the +other team is still alive. + +You can also make multiple of a single type of monster (note that the singular +form of the names are still used): + + crawl -arena "2 kobold v 3 goblin: + crawl -arena "2 rat, 3 giant cockroach v 4 kobold, 5 goblin" + +You can even have multiple instances of uniques: + + crawl -arena "10 Murray v 11 Boris" + +Additionally, you can specify the monsters by a place in the dungeon, in +which case a random monster appropriate for that place will be chosen. +For example: + + crawl -arena "2 Lair:10 v 3 Vault:7" + +will choose two random monsters from the 10th level of the Lair and pit them +against three random monsters from the 7th level of the Vaults. + +If you want endless hordes of monsters to kill each other forever you can +use the test spawner, an unkillable monster which does nothing but sit there +and summon monsters with the Shadow Creatures spell: + + crawl -arena "test spawner v test spawner" + + Options and parameters +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +There are three arena parameters that you can set in your crawl options file: + +* arena_delay: The delay in milliseconds between turns within the arena. + Can be set to 0 to make the simulation zip along. + +* arena_dump_msgs: If set to true causes messages to be dumped to the file + arena.result + +* arena_dump_msgs_all: If both this and arena_dump_msgs are set to true + then diagnostic messages will be dumped as well as other messages. + +The are also a number a parameters you can use by putting them in the +string which specifies the monsters: + + crawl -arena "parameter1 parameter2 parameter3 goblin v kobold" + +The parameters include: + +* "arena:name" lets you pick the name of the arena to place the monsters + in (defaults to "arena:default"). See source/dat/arena.des for + a list. + +* no_force_ai: The monsters in the arena are somewhat smatter than they are + than when they're facing the player. This parameter removes that + extra intelligence. + +* names: Causes all non-unique monsters to be given random names. + +* no_animate: Prevents corpses from being animated into zombies. + +* no_summons: Prevents monsters from summoning more monsters. + +* no_chain_summons: Allows the original monsters to summon more monsters, + but the *summoned* monsters can't themselves summon any more. + +* no_immobile: Prevents immobile monsters from being randomly generated. + +* allow_zero_xp: Allows zero xp monsters like plants to be randomly generated, + which are forbidden from the arena by default. + +* "arena_place:place" sets the place used when determining which monsters the + spell Shadow Creatures uses. So "arena:Lair:5" would make it + summon the types of monsters you'd find on the 5th lair of the Lair. + (This defaults to the 20th level of the main dungeon). + +* real_summons: Summoned monsters are made real as soon as they're placed in + the arena, so they can drop corpses and equipment (no_chain_summons + still prevents them from summoning more monsters, though). + +* move_summons: Moves summoned monsters to a new, random location as soon + as they're placed, so they don't end up clustered around the + summoner. + +* "summon_throttle:N" prevents summoned monsters from being placed if the + summoner has N or more allies present. + +* cycle_random: If any monster summons monsters with the spell Shadow + Creatures spell (including test spawners) then arena cycles through + the list of valid monsters, rather than taking rarity into account. + +* random_uniques: Any monster using Shadow Creatures will summon uniques. + +* "ban_gylphs:ABC" prevents monsters with the listed ASCII glyphs from + being placed in the arena. For instance, "ban_glyphs:&C" prevents + demon lords and giants/cyclopses/titans/etc from being placed. + +* "delay:N" allows the delay between turns to be specified on the command + line instead of in the options file. -- cgit v1.2.3-54-g00ecf