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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ncr-sd!laman
From: laman@ncr-sd.UUCP (Mike Laman)
Newsgroups: net.games.rogue
Subject: Re (SPOILER): Throwing weapons through walls (version 5.3).
Message-ID: <371@ncr-sd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Dec-85 14:33:23 EST
Article-I.D.: ncr-sd.371
Posted: Thu Dec 19 14:33:23 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 05:59:34 EST
References: <870@dcl-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: laman@ncr-sd.UUCP (Mike Laman)
Organization: NCR Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 46

In article <870@dcl-cs.UUCP> stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) writes:
>I was in the following situation:
>
> #
> #######
>-------+-------
>|@............|
>|.............|
>---------------
>
>and typed the letters 't', 'k' and 'e' (the arrows I started with).  Guess
>where I found the arrow?
>
> #
> )@#####
>-------+-------
>|.............|
>|.............|
>---------------

Yep,  It is a helpful technique for finding those ``impossible'' secret
door.  You know what I mean.  It seems that one in every 200 games or so you get
a floor layout where you KNOW there are more rooms but you can't find
the hidden door/corridor.  After all, you do have to find those stairs.
When all else fails, I start throwing arrows into the suspected walls and
sides of corridors.  If you don't see it fall, then you know it's laying on a
corridor => search on that wall yet some more.  I had to do this one game.
The old pseudo-random search gods were against me and wouldn't show me the
hidden door in one of three rooms.  Talk about eating up your food!

The routine for placing a falling object places it in a 3 by 3 rectangle
around the place where it stopped the object (the wall in the case above).
[A fix is to move the object one back to it's last valid location, before
calling the routine to drop the object.  As a matter of fact this is a bug
in 5.3.  The next time you get a maze that is next to the edge of a screen,
through an object ``off the screen''.  If the program doesn't die, then try a
couple more times.  It will.]

You may have to throw a couple arrows, since the arrows may fall in the
``visible'' part of the rectangle.

This strategy works for 3.6, 5.2 and 5.3.  I haven't played any other versions,
so I can't mention any others.

		Mike Laman, System Roguer
		UUCP: {ucbvax,philabs,sdcsla}!sdcsvax!ncr-sd!laman