LambdaRogue: The Book of Stars 1.6.1 "The Morning Star Conspiracy" released

[getter77]

http://lambdarogue.net/

"Finally, I'm able to release the next significant update for
LambdaRogue: LR 1.6.1 "The Morning Star Conspiracy":

    -More Gameplay: Besides a more clever AI, rebalanced magic, and
numerous small additions, bug fixes and tweaks, the update introduces
a significantly enhanced profession and religion system, with unique
powers depending on profession rank.
   - New Graphics: Amazing Brasilian artist Cecilia Favo de Mel
created an exclusive new tileset, new effect icons, new GUI elements,
and new character portraits. Enjoy a breath of fresh visual air
blowing through LambdaRogue's dungeons.
    -New Questline: Ever wondered why Thanan betrayed the Temple of
Enoa? Ever wanted to know what the real story behind the Crystal of
Redemption is? And ever asked yourself which role Eris really plays in
the ongoing events? The Morning Star Conspiracy has all the answers.

Within the next days, the website will be updated with new
screenshots, the new quickstart guide, and a complete spoilers file
(guidebook) in full-color PDF format -- but the game itself can be
enjoyed today!"

"CHANGELOG:

-- 1.6.1 aka "The Morning Star Conspiracy" --

The Rubyred Apostolate welcomes you to its conspiracy ^^ Well, this is
LambdaRogue 1.6.1, introducing many new features, both in gameplay,
and
visuals. Scroll down to read the complete changelog; here a just some
highlights:

* New secondary questline. Talk to Brother Marcus to start.
* Improved gameplay with greatly enhanced profession system, extended
religious
  influence, better monster AI, and many smaller additions.
* New small tileset, character portraits, and GUI graphics --
exclusively drawn
  for LambdaRogue by Brasilian artist Cecilia Favo de Mel.
* Dozens of bug fixes and minor tweaks.

Save games of previous versions are not compatible with the 1.6.1
update;
too big fundamental changes were made.


NEW FEATURES:
- a new sidequest: The Morning Star Conspiracy. Talk to Brother Marcus
to start the quest
- a great new small tileset -- incl. male and female character tiles
for all professions
- new GUI graphics and character portraits
- improved monster AI: they use items, some follow you through closed
doors
- there is a chance that new characters (not in quickstart mode) may
not be able to cast magic
  (can be changed by hard training)
- sometimes, dead creatures leave their corpse behind
- paper can be destroyed by fire (so be careful when carrying books
with you)
- fire, water, and ice can transform the ground (e.g. fire melts ice
to water)
- the webs (formerly known as spider webs) are now created by antbees
(but dissolve much faster)
- praying at altars *can* make the deity ask the player to enter a
(one-word) request
- the "identify tile" function now also shows HP/PP and WP/GP/AP of
monsters on the identified tile
- each profession has one special ability invoked by pressing x.
Depending on profession rank,
  this special ability gets stronger or more useful
- changed the way how divine rage and divine attacks work (now
activated manually)
- the player can poison enemies by different means
- the player can grease his current weapon with potions
- new attack type "AreaDamage"
- several new and changed quests, books, items and item combinations

BUG FIXES:
- spells could not be trained when songbook was full
- resting lasted one turn too much, thus wasting food, auras, etc.
- dying while resting several turns did not stop the resting counter
after the game over screen
- ammu damage rating was not taken into account by long-range damage
calculation
- Missing stairs in 1st space ship level
- Dwarvenfall and Weapon's Officer were missing
- Some quest rewards not working (Roslin; the Commander)
- throwing DecPara-items on monsters with Paralization attack had no
effect
- spaceship levels had wrong names
- Ned's, Fred's, and Ron's quests were available without speaking to
the Riddle Master first
- Academy preparation courses did cost 1 Credit more than shown
- debug console had several bugs, causing crashes and other unintended
effects (not that this
  would be of any relevance for the released game anyway ... but still
a bug)
- in character dumps, player was called dead if he prayed or saved
during the game, regardless
  if player actually has won the game
- in rare cases, player could pickup "unknown credits"
- help file on status values was not up to date regarding PP
regeneration
- heal aura health regeneration could exceed maximum HP of player and
monsters
- missing "unique" flag for Psychic Ring
- wrong description of "Vitarin"
- item information of equipables showed the (in equipbales unused)
range value of associated effects
- status effects "invisible" and "max. move" were not displayed in
status area ...
- ... and "invisible" had no effect icon
- when "crystal of 'revenge'" was rejected at altar, the related
message was unreadable in SDL mode
- chapter graphics for "Noldarur" was not shown in SDL mode
- several typos and grammar mistakes
- in the old small tileset, there was no tile for Benito Leone
- on MacOS, the check for existing save games of a character did not
work
- monsters could move after executing long-range attacks
- there was a bug in flagging unique monsters as killed which caused
the game to crash when this
  unique monster was created not using CreateUniqueMonster(), but
CreateMonster() (for example when
  summoned, instead of generated due to level)
- character dump did not show player's equipment correctly

BALANCING:
- chant PP cost, refresh rate and price (of the crystals) are now
calculated automatically based on
  the chant's efficiency; all crystals are significantly more
expensive than before, and chants which
  cause area damage or aura damage cost 25% more than normal chants
- gained EXP is reduced if a high number of monsters of a certain type
have been killed
  (> 25 monsters: only 75% of EXP;
   > 40 monsters: only 50% of already reduced EXP;
   > 50 monsters: only 30% of already twice reduced EXP;
   > 60 monsters: no EXP at all)
- reduced the amount of stone needed for item crafting
- removed old deprecated status bonus from praying
- Psychic Ring reduces PP costs of spells by 1/4 (instead of restoring
PP)
- antbee webs disappear after about 12 turns
- reduced price of Psychic Ring to 200
- deactivated growing monsters, but monsters in levels deeper than
their standard level are
  stronger (WP/GP) by 1 + the difference between current and standard
level
- "dragon poison" is now obtained by combining potions, instead of
simply dipping beer into a well
- increased effect of "dragon poison" and "phial of rage" (which is
now called "phial of distress")
- enchanters now need 7 known songs to become mage
- changed rewards and profession requirements for some low-level
quests
- when humility is trained, the number of prayers is increased by the
new humility level
- reduced the amount of old horses to hunt to 8

MISC:
- changed audio output to SDL and audio files to .ogg format
- on MacOS, fullscreen option is deactivated
- Some better descriptions for items and in context-sensitive help
- Item information screen now shows ammu damage value for ammu
- Questlog may now contain up to 128 entries on 8 pages
- spell info screen now uses the standard effect descriptions (similar
to item info screen)
- Some additional messages about enemy actions (like regeneration
etc.)
- Items are not generated on lava anymore
- spider webs are now called antbee webs (because there are no spiders
in the game)
- when trapped in an antbee web, the number of turns until the web
dissolves is shown
- Renamed the hospitals
- removed deprecated parts of lambdarogue.cfg
- potions thrown on monsters are now destroyed after their effect
- combined items are now automatically identified
- static levels are now stored in data/levels/premade
- "View" skill is now called "Hit", because this is much more precise
- "Sergeant" rank is now called "Lieutenant"
- not all NPCs will answer with the standard "I am glad to know you"
sentence
- for now removed all NPC portraits -- too much to keep this up on my
own. Maybe I will
  pay someone to draw new portraits sometime like I did with the
tileset
- moved Adam to the Catacombs to free up a NPC slot in DLV 1
- "Halls of Eris" renamed to "the Core"
- the NPCs in the Temple of Enoa have now ranks like abbess, prior,
brother etc.
- renamed items with "NeoTerr" to "Herbstwelt"
- updated "History of NeoTerr", books I and II (and called them
"History of Herbstwelt")
- completely rewritten "History of Herbstwelt", book III
- removed an obsolete interlude screen
- made sure that evil players have a way of becoming good again
- minimap shows environment of all levels now"