Just noticed that you added a #def for triple damage

[Peter Mardahl <>]

But that has the effect of making the edges of the cone as strong
as the center....

So either the cones are a lot weaker, or significantly stronger,
under your proposed patches.

Also, there is this effect:  objects in the center will get
hit 3 times, causing a peaked statistical distribution of damage,
rather than once, causing a flat distribution of damage.

I agree that using a single object is better:  can you modify
your patch so that it'll do the "cone-is-weaker-at-the-edge" thing?

PeterM


> > Another play balance issue. We have found NO_CONE_PROPAGATE to even up 
> the game
> > a lot.
> 
> > Should this be the default behaviour? Has anyone else tried using this 
> option
> > recently?
> 
> I think that's not the real problem with cones though.  Cones are 
> currently hyper-powered because a cone spell in fact fires three 
> overlapping cones, one from each initial square, due to some odd 
> behavior in cast_cone(), which also causes cones in flight to chew up 
> 3 times as many active objects as necessary (which can make a server 
> drag if you're being spammed by a mob of skulls or the like).
> 
> John, you might want to try the attached patch and remove 
> NO_CONE_PROPAGATE.  It removes this triple overlapping behavior, and 
> depending on whether you #define BALANCE_CONES, either leaves the net 
> damage as before (by tripling the damage from each cone cell), or cuts 
> it to 1/3 (by leaving the damage numbers alone).
> 
> Any comments, questions, flames, lightning bolts, or other feedback? 
> :-)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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