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[Frumple]

I still don't understand why having an inventory management system that isn't stupid would detract from the gaming experience.

I mean, the inventory management system seem to suffer from a major case of needless complication.

... it adds one step. Just... one. To your average inventory system. And particularly with the container cursor it's pretty fluid once you're used to it. Even moreso with the autoloot macro. Major case of needless complication is not what I'd call it. Minor case of unintuitiveness, sure, but that's about it.

As for detraction, insofar as I can tell, the game it was lifted from did it for simulationist reasons -- making the inventory management process more realistic. Mensch put it in that way as homage to Omega. To the gaming experience, it adds a degree of tactical consideration that would be lacking in a game that didn't have your "up in the air" mechanic, as well as detract from the original dev's intended experience.

But you -- anyone, really -- are welcome to go in and code up an alternative. I'd be kinda' interested to see what someone manages considering that short of an added mouse interface and some kind of drag and drop mechanic, getting rid of the in-air mechanic would necessarily add... what, at least two three -- and, more likely, around a half dozen -- extra keys to the game? You'd need something to tell the game if the item you're trying to manipulate is going in its intended wear slot (if there is one), your hands, your shoulders, or your belt, after all, and it would be nice to be able to specify which shoulder/belt/hand slot stuff went in to. Inc's system is actually a pretty effective way of dealing with multiple wildcard equipment slots, honestly. Probably not the most effective, but it does a pretty good job. Just takes a bit of practice to wrap your head around it.

[hops]

Oh well, talking about inventory management, can you examine an equipment without having to equip them? I'd rather not put on an armor that may or may not be cursed just to check its stats.

Also I'd love a hotkey to just swap items between containers, because flipping around from your chest to your bag for every single item is kind of annoying.

I could look up how to make a macro, I guess.

[Frumple]

If you press x over an empty slot while the item's in the air, you will examine the in-air item. Sticking them on a shoulder (or belt, if the item's small enough) instead of equipping them can also work. You can also do the whole x thing on stuff in a container, of course -- the container cursor makes that easier.

Not a hotkey to swap items between containers, but there is autoloot, which will put whatever you choose from a container on the ground into your current backpack. Default button is F8.

[Zireael]

But you -- anyone, really -- are welcome to go in and code up an alternative. I'd be kinda' interested to see what someone manages considering that short of an added mouse interface and some kind of drag and drop mechanic, getting rid of the in-air mechanic would necessarily add... what, at least two three -- and, more likely, around a half dozen -- extra keys to the game? You'd need something to tell the game if the item you're trying to manipulate is going in its intended wear slot (if there is one), your hands, your shoulders, or your belt, after all, and it would be nice to be able to specify which shoulder/belt/hand slot stuff went in to. Inc's system is actually a pretty effective way of dealing with multiple wildcard equipment slots, honestly. Probably not the most effective, but it does a pretty good job. Just takes a bit of practice to wrap your head around it.

Would love to see an alternative

[Dutchling]

Is the Zombie template just that strong or are lvl 1 enemies unkillable 0.0?

[Frumple]

Zombie template's a mixed bag, but part of that bag is  a host of immunities, extra health, and natural armor -- they're quite substantially harder to kill. On the other hand, they're easy to hit (-2 def, -4 dex) and incredibly freaking slow -- half everything speed, and their natural movement speed cut to a third. They can be one of the harder things to kill for a starting character, but they're also almost always (barring ranged attacks, but that -4 dex and halved attack speed still mitigates that tremendously) a complete non-threat. You can just walk away and they can't really do anything about it. Similarly, reach weapons tend to be their infinite bane, since their reflex save gets kicked in the crotch by that dex penalty.

Basically, they hit really hard and they can be bloody hard to kill, but they're incredibly easy to completely trivialize. Not so much strong as annoying, ha.

Incidentally, you can 'l'ook and then e'x'amine (l->select critter-x) creatures to see... pretty much everything about them. Templates are completely detailed, most information, including spells (or at least spell access, in the case of stuff with caster levels), is provided. Incursion is very, very transparent in regards to most things.

[Dutchling]

Those templates have too much information to be of any use for me

[Hamel]

I've got another Y9 save with a repeating crash here:

http://www.filedropper.com/gremlinssave

Interacting with the earthen gremlins to the northeast seems to cause the crash to happen immediately, but it will still crash after a while if they're avoided. Casting an Ice Dagger at the gremlins is a quick way to crash it. There are also some spell effects going on to the southeast, so the gremlins might not be to blame.

Hopefully someone can derive some useful information from this. It's possible this bug may have been found and isolated already.

Tch. And that character was doing pretty well, too.

Thanks to chooseusername for putting in the effort to squash so many of these bugs!

[Dutchling]

Bugs getting squashed? I thought development on this ceased a year or two ago?

[Frumple]

The original dev let it go open source... what, a few months back, now? Choose has been working on bugfixing (and has fixed up several major and a whole host of not-as-major ones, already) and whatnot, and I think a couple other people might be taking cracks at it, as well? You can get the latest version over here.

[Mindmaker]

Considering how long this game has existed, I really hoped at least more information on the basics existed.
Learning it by yourself has this unfocused, sandbox feel to it and that's not exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm in love with the concept of the game, but I worry that nothing will be done in terms of documantation no matter how much I'll wait.

[Frumple]

What are you looking for, exactly? The manual is, well... it's pretty thorough. Not quite the best organized for crash-coursing a new player to the game, but most everything you could be after is in there, somewhere, or provided by one of the in-game help menus.

The big thing about Inc being unfocused and sandboxy is, well... it's technically a tech demo. A thoroughly complex, fairly lengthy tech demo with a win condition, but a tech demo all the same. Presumably the full game would have included some sort of starting thing, to introduce the player to the world and whatnot, but here... well, you've got the manual and a great deal of mechanical transparency.

All that said, I don't think adding a new section to the in-game manual would be too terribly much trouble from a coding perspective, so long as someone writes it (and probably annotates it properly for the engine to use).

[Mindmaker]

Well sure, a lot of the mechanics are explained, but it kind of lacks a general outline on how to play the game that links all the different mechanics together.

Is there any sort of documented playthrough anywhere?

[Frumple]

Mm... closest to it would be some of the DitL (roguelike term for a Let's Play, mostly) writeups over on the google group, I think. Here's a link, pre-searched.

[Mindmaker]

That appears very useful.
Thanks.