0.10.0

This page gives an overview of the major changes found in the 0.10 family of releases, which began with 0.10.0.

0.10.0 has since been superseded by the 0.10.1 bugfix release.

0.10 announcement

(changelog is below)

Some of the major changes this version include:

• New species: Octopodes, capable of wearing eight rings, but not most other items of armour.

• Removed species: Mountain Dwarves have returned to the mountains. Read why they were axed here.

• Changed species: Hill Orcs have had their aptitudes improved, and Minotaurs have gained both better aptitudes and a retaliatory attack with their horns. Centaurs have a slower metabolism, but are now somewhat herbivorous, gaining bonus nutrition from plants but less nutrition from meat. Draconians cannot wear body armour anymore, but can wear gloves and boots. Some Demonspawn mutations have been adjusted, and a number of new mutation sets are also available. Kenku have rediscovered their roots and now prefer to be called Tengu.

• Backgrounds: Arcane Marksmen are back with a Hex-based spellbook. Transmuters have Beastly Appendage (a new spell providing a temporary beneficial combat mutation) instead of Fulsome Distillation and Evaporate. Necromancers have Control Undead instead of Dispel Undead. Monks have been rewarded for their devotion to asceticism and gain a one-time boost to ** piety when they first convert to a god.

• Skills: You will now need to find an appropriate item or spell to train most skills (and doing so allows even unknown skills to be trained). Additionally, partial levels of skills (e.g., ‘15.2’) matter.

• New monsters: Blizzard demons can call down freezing cold and howling winds with but a gesture. Profane servitors are angels that have been corrupted by Yredelemnul. These undead beings radiate unholy darkness and are resistant to holy forces. Several new holy monsters have been added.

• Removed monsters: Giant toads have croaked, vipers have rolled snake eyes, and blue deaths have all died.

• Changed monsters: Reapers are much more powerful. Fiends are now known as Brimstone Fiends, and imps are now known as crimson imps. Some demons have found themselves on different glyphs. Summoning monsters bring fewer creatures with each cast, and monsters with breath attacks (e.g., dragons) need to recover between attacks. There are many new monster descriptions and quotes.

• Spells: Combining Swiftness and Flight no longer gives bonus movement speed. Mephitic Cloud and Evaporate no longer guarantee a 3×3 cloud. Passage of Golubria creates two portals when cast, and allows more than two portals to exist simultaneously. Lee’s Rapid Deconstruction and Shatter are stopped by walls unless the spell manages to destroy them. To account for the monster summoning changes, Abjuration is now a single-target spell. The screen-wide version is available as a new level 6 spell, Mass Abjuration. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Levitate have been removed.

• Cheibriados: Ponderous equipment has been replaced. Instead, gaining Cheibriados piety slows you down. Followers are no longer given resistances, but gain the Temporal Distortion ability, which moves nearby monsters forwards in time a few turns.

• Makhleb: The demon prince of destruction deals only in blood and souls! Makhleb’s invocations now cost health instead of magic. Followers will be rewarded for kills with a larger amount of health, but no magic.

• The three good gods now have piety decay over time, but each has new methods of gaining piety. Elyvilon piety from pacification has been greatly increased and piety from weapon sacrifices has been adjusted, Zin demands a tithe of all gold collected in return for piety, and The Shining One gives piety for meeting new monsters (and determining whether they need to be eradicated!).

• Constriction: Octopodes, nagas, some snakes, and tentacled monstrosities can now prevent their foes from escaping while squeezing the life out of them.

Various changed mechanics: Poison resistance is now only 90% effective against most effects. No spells work through glass or trees anymore. The slaying property (incribed as {Dam+X}) now works identically to weapon enchantments. Contaminated (‘brown’) chunks always give nutrition and cause nausea instead of sickness. Nauseous characters can only eat when near starving and might make themselves ill.

• Items: All polearms have been lengthened and may now be evoked (‘v’) to attack non-adjacent squares (like the reaching brand). Potions of healing are now known as potions of curing, and wands of healing are now known as wands of heal wounds. Many new fixed artefacts have been added.

• Branches: Terrain in the Abyss now shifts with nearly every step. This may open new escape routes for stranded adventurers – or seal ones they were planning to take. Pandemonium has a dangerous new holy-themed unique level. The Hive is no more. Tiles players can enjoy the newly redecorated Snake Pit, Labyrinth, Vestibule of Hell, Crypt, Dis, Tartarus, Cocytus, and Pandemonium. Many new vaults have been added across the entire dungeon.

• Interface: Spell success adjectives are replaced with failure rate percentages which are coloured based on potential miscast severity.

Thanks to Eronarn for compiling the list of changes, and to the many contributors to this version. See the full changelog for much more!

Changelog

Stone Soup 0.10 (20120216)

0.10 Highlights

• New species: Octopodes, sentient land-capable octopuses.
• Skill training system reworked. Dancing is really gone this time!
• All polearms have reaching.
• Constriction (nagas, octopodes, some snakes, tentacled monstrosities).
• New version of the Abyss.

Branches, portal vaults, levels

• Remove Hive. Guarantee some limited food supply in the dungeon.
• Completely reworked Abyss: it now morphs continuously over time, is mappable,and extends infinitely in all directions.
• Most abyssal runes are in special vaults.
• Escaping the Abyss returns to place of banishment.
• Ziggurats have much more colourful holy levels.
• Ziggurats: spriggan levels.
• Pan monster set tweaked.
• More Volcano portal vaults.
• Web "traps", can briefly entangle those caught.
• A "twisting cavern" map layout.
• Many vaults, including large altar vaults, Abyss vaults, Pan Lord maps,and several branch endings.
• A number of branches have a completely new set of tiles: Snake Pit,Labyrinth, Vestibule of Hell, Crypt, Dis, Tartarus, Cocytus, Pandemonium.
• The chance of getting a unique Pandemonium level increases for each level of Pan you visit.

Gods

• Ammo gifts can include large rocks and javelins.
• Lugonu accepts kills of demons.
• Cheibriados loses the "Make Ponderous" invocation, slows you down all the time depending on piety.
• Cheibriados can slow down Abyss morphing and Orb run monster spawns.
• New Cheibriados ability: Temporal Distortion, moves nearby monsters forwards in time a few turns.
• Cheibriados doesn't grant resistances anymore.
• Makhleb's powers use Health instead of Magic.
• Makhleb gives more Health for killing but no Magic anymore.
• Makhleb's Greater Destruction costs less piety.
• Zin followers pay mandatory tithe for piety. No more piety for waiting.
• Zin takes some gold upon conversion; this gives more piety than donation.
• Zin's Vitalisation is proactive, protecting from all bad statuses.
• Prayer to Zin doesn't provide feeding, Vitalisation gives satiation instead.
• Zin's Imprison duration increased.
• TSO: piety decays; gain piety for spotting non-evil monsters.
• Elyvilon: piety decays; piety for pacifications doubled.
• Elyvilon has piety loss for ally deaths instead of penance.
• Elyvilon doesn't grant piety for non-evil weapons past *** (even if you drop lower later!). Evil weapons get identified on sight.
• Deaths of plants and non-living beings no longer count as friend deaths for god conduct purposes.

Species

• Octopodes: sentient octopuses that can wear eight rings.
• Draconians cannot wear body armour anymore, can wear gloves and boots.
• Centaurs can survive longer on vegetarian food.
• Felids gain lives every three levels.
• Minotaurs instinctively retaliate in melee.
• New Demonspawn mutations: Foul Stench, Ignite Blood, and Augmentation.
• Kenku are now called Tengu, and get more MP.
• Mountain Dwarves are no more.
• Minotaur and Hill Orc aptitudes are a lot better.

Character

• Wild Magic mutation: reduced spell success, increased power.
• Evolution mutation: extra mutations as time passes.
• Always gain partial nutrition from brown chunks.
• Bad food causes nausea instead of sickness.
• Non-full carnivores cannot eat up to "engorged" without gourmand.
• A little score increase from runes for non-winners.
• Poison resistance is only 90% effective.

Spells

• New spell: Beastly Appendage (Transmutation 1).
• Flame Tongue has slightly longer range.
• Removed: Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Levitate.
• Abjuration becomes single-target. The old version (Mass Abj.) is available as a new level 6 spell.
• Swiftness and Flight no longer give an extra boost when cast together.
• Swiftness halves stealth and makes it harder to detect traps.
• Flight lowered to level 3, Dragon Form lowered to level 7.
• Dispel Undead raised to level 5.
• Summoned Ugly Things are now always friendly.
• Shadow Creatures don't last as long anymore.
• Tornado's damage has been slightly improved.
• Conjure Ball Lightning improved, ball lightnings explode when their duration expires.
• Mephitic Cloud and Evaporate don't guarantee a 3x3 cloud anymore.
• Recasting a transformation is no worse than the original cast.
• Animate Dead animates stacks.
• Lee's Rapid Deconstruction: prevent abuse, improve targeting.
• Summon Greater Demon only has tier 1 demons turn hostile over time.
• Spider form is susceptible to poison.
• Shatter doesn't work through walls, unless it manages to destroy them.
• No spells work through glass or trees anymore.
• Metabolic Englaciation slows down enemies.
• Twisted Resurrection is improved: corpses merge into abominations on their own without needing to be stacked.
• Alistair's Intoxication is less reliable, depends on spell power.
• Boost the effective power of some hexes: Corona, Slow, Mass Confusion,Cause Fear, Control Undead.
• Olgreb's Toxic Radiance is more effective at high spell power.
• Confusing Touch is less reliable.
• Inner Flame leaves clouds of fire when an affected monster explodes.
• Passage of Golubria creates two portals when cast, and allows more than two portals to exist simultaneously.

Backgrounds

• Arcane Marksmen are back, with a Hex-based spellbook.
• Artificers get a weaker staff and skills, but an extra wand.
• Transmuters lose Fulsome Destillation and Evaporate, gain Beastly Appendage.
• Necromancers lose Dispel Undead, gain Control Undead.
• Monks get ** piety upon taking on their first god.

Skills

• Non-integer values of a skill matter.
• Add skill training restrictions instead of requiring victory dance-style usage of unknown skills.
• Stealth skill is no longer heavily discounted.

Interface

• Experience points are no longer shown directly, just a percentage to the next level.
• Throwable starting weapons are autoinscribed with "=f".
• Leaving an unique Pan level without the rune asks for confirmation.
• Uniques and player ghosts annotate the level on the overview screen.
• New character dump options: spell_usage, which counts spells you have cast,and action_counts, which also counts non-spell actions.
• Ctrl-W toggles weight display in inventory and dropping menu.
• Better ?/G and ?/B menus.
• Spell success adjectives are replaced with failure rate percentages. Failure rates are coloured based on potential miscast severity.
• Many new monster descriptions and quotes.

Monsters

• Ignacio no longer uses Torment, and he'll appear repeatedly until killed.
• New monster: profane servitor - an angel corrupted by Yredelemnul (undead).
• New monster: blizzard demon - a cold/air rank 2 demon.
• New holy monsters: silver star, cherub, phoenix, paladin, seraph.
• Removed: giant toads, vipers, blue deaths.
• Renamed: Fiend -> Brimstone Fiend, Imp -> Crimson Imp.
• Reorganized demon ranks, moving easier 1s to 2s.
• Feature mimics may now masquerade as most features.
• Item mimics can move once revealed.
• Monsters will retreat when hit from behind an obstacle they can't walk around.
• Unique Pandemonium lords can hunt you on the Orb run if you've stolen their runes. Violate the 5th Commandment, not the 7th!
• Monsters cast emergency spells more often.
• Breath timeout for dragons, draconians, drakes.
• Most monster summoning spells toned down slightly.
• Monsters flee at lower health thresholds, and less predictably.
• Queen bees can send nearby killer bees berserk.
• Killer bee larvae turn into killer bees if they eat honeycombs or royal jellies.
• All abominations are now both demonic and undead.

Items

• Slaying works like weapon enchantments.
• Acquirement allows choosing missiles.
• Nagas and Centaurs get far better chances to acquire bardings.
• Staff acquirement is more random.
• Miscellaneous item acquirement gives better decks.
• Weapon acquirement avoids useless weapon types.
• Misc items start identified when there are no doubts about them.
• The Orb of Zot has a slightly mutagenic glow and reduces stealth.
• The Crusade card can no longer give you permanent allies.
• All polearms have the reaching brand built in.
• Quarterstaves are split into two weapons: weak "staff" and good"quarterstaff". Gladiators and Priests get to start with the latter.
• Common two-handed weapons are easier to use effectively.
• Several new fixed artefacts: lightning scales, Black Knight's horse barding, ring of Vitality, autumn katana, shillelagh "Devastator", dragonskin cloak, rings of the Octopus King.
• The Sceptre of Asmodeus can be evoked for temporary charmed unabjurable demons (instead of random conjurations or hostile demons).
• Scrolls of enchant and vorpalise weapon are always identified upon use.
• Amulet of guardian spirit draws from HP and MP simultaneously.
• Remove crystal balls of seeing.
• Crystal ball of energy restores less MP but has less severe failure effects.
• Scroll of magic mapping detects secret doors.
• Tomb card is rarer.
• Portal card does not give instant teleports.
• Early weapons tend to be better.
• Rename potion of healing to potion of curing.
• Rename wand of healing to wand of heal wounds.
• Known properties of unique enemies' gear are pre-identified.
• Medium armour is better.
• Banded mail is no more, plate mail has been renamed to plate armour.

Webtiles

• Monster list.
• Webtiles games create a ttyrec, allowing them to be watched from SSH.
• Scale cells for small screens.
• "Glyph mode" which shows letters instead of tiles.
• Tiles in menus; Menus are sized according to each spectator's window, and spectators can scroll independently.
• Improvements to the lobby: show gods, allow sorting on XL/Character/Level, and show milestones.

Zot Defence

• You can now choose which map to play on.
• Disable useless gods.
• Disable hunger, except for Vampires.
• Creating altar asks for god, at much higher ability cost.
• Start with some consumables (as in Sprint) to make the early game a little easier.

Technical

• Tarballs use xz rather than bz2 compression.
• Wizard mode is compiled in by default unless you specify NOWIZARD=y.
• Custom shops can be used in vaults.
• Multithreading, currently only to speed up database loading.