User:Tjr/12-conduct ascension

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In the future, I might write an article how to go for a 12-conduct ascension. Until then, these are my collected notes:

Lessons from one early 12-conduct game

for others: buc early, get several pets, don't waste scare mosnter, don't run too far from your pets so you don't get cornered, name monster inventory items, autopickup projectiles, move only with "safe" commands, don't carry junk. Get a tin whistle from mine town. Is it better to go down with or without the pet? Don't waste time - complete each level so you won't have to come back. BUC-test in corridor ends. Stay out of monsters' line of fire, and especially don't get your pet hit with ranged attacks. Why didn't Jspeed fountain-dip the cursed magic whistle instead fo the dunce cap? Sokoban: drop stuff under boulder; cursed object in front of the pits, autopickup food, displace/whistle pets into the zoo. Don't whistle your good pets on a poyltrap. Leave them on a different level if need be.

Early game: don't wander too far from your pet. The travel command is dangerous.

Lesson: make corridors with /dig, not > if stuck between mosnters. Jspeed discarded a titan, went for marilith & jabberwock & pet foocubus. He dropped a dupe down the sink. He doesn't fully explore levels, perhaps b/c of food problem and magic whistle. Dark mines: wall walking. And he's an orc - with infravision.

ways to exercise: WIS minor oracularity, castle tune finding, foocubi, quest eviction; STR: the door resists, DEX: locks, #untrap

Monster behind boulder: 55 turns total. Next time, throw the BoH with =SD and armor on the boulder, then wait there.

Always lock up the mine town watch. Sometimes, they wander into sight while you're making pools.

Try to have enough HP for a land mine on quest home. Take those healing potions out first.

Lesson: polymorph for a pet incubus. Monsters split tame puddings, but give them a puddingbane. Ring of PC might be superfluous if throne farming for potions. Other people's bonse aren't that bad.

Drafts for a future 12-conduct article

tasks in this game:

  • scare tool
  • scare monster scroll (price-ID in container, then BUC change)
  • pets survival
  • Oracle level-up
  • magic whistle,
  • polymorph trap
  • polymorph for polyself
  • holy water,
  • ring of polycontrol, for nutrition recharge. (Not so important.)
  • unholy water
  • two unihorns
  • speed intrinsic
  • got pick axe
  • make a stack of cream pies
  1. untrapping large boxes 15 times

while read YORN ; do screen -S naopaci12 -X stuff '#U .y' ; done

  1. dual slow digestion

while sleep 0.7 ; do screen -S naopaci12b -X hardcopy dual.txt ; TURN=$( grep -Ea 'HP.*Pw.*AC.*Xp.*T' dual.txt | sed -E 's/.*Xp:[0-9/ ]*T:([0-9]*).*/\1/' ) ; REMAINDERLEFT=$[$TURN - 4 - 20 * ( ($TURN - 4 ) / 20) ] ; REMAINDERRIGHT=$[$TURN - 12 - 20*( ($TURN - 12) /20) ] ; ONTURN=$[ $REMAINDERLEFT * $REMAINDERRIGHT ] ; if [ $ONTURN -eq 0 ] ; then echo stay ; else if [ $REMAINDERLEFT -lt $REMAINDERRIGHT ] ; then echo Right hunger $[ $TURN + 20 - $REMAINDERRIGHT ] ; else echo Left hunger $[ $TURN + 20 - REMAINDERLEFT ] ; fi ; fi ; done

  1. how to start up nethack for that

screen -S tjr -c ~/.screenrc-pacifist telnet nethack.alt.org

Wiki

  • likelyhood of good items: magic whistle, magic lamp, eucalyptus leaf, stethoscope, leash, enough candles, bag of holding, touchstone.
  • gem page text sucks, needs rewrite

Meta

Almost 8 hours of game play per game to get to the Oracle and below town, just to get killed with projectiles, after seeing three pets dies. That's not a good way to ascend. Lesson: Take better care of pets, go slow enough for them to heal. Things get easier once you have several. Perhaps also reroll for a scaring tool.

Tips

  • untrap chests 15x until you level up and max your Luck. That's 0.1% residual chance of a trap. You're dead if one of your startscummed-for items gets busted.
  • record everything - fountains, chests, altars, shops(wares and gem type), picked-up-state of scrolls, sinks, "vlad was here", etc. Uses of these: fountains -> unholy, altar -> bad luck for dilution or use-testing sustain ability, chests can have potions or eucalyptus, shops for price-ID and cream pies, picked-up state in case it's scare monster, to make them stack; sinks to gain alignment and for the ring. Known but hidden doors to use-test ring of searching.
  • track traps on levels with a fixed number of traps which are deep enough to have a polytrap, e.g. oracle and lowermines
  • track pet tameness
  • Pick up all food, because it's a potential pet. Name eggs by turns so you know when it's unhatchable - you want to carry a hen's egg for stackability testing, and to attract your pet.
  • Keep track of nutrition: displacing, and stressed, and turns you're without slow digestion, or wearing jewelry etc.
  • Since your pet healing rate is the limit to how fast you can go, a red/brown mold can really ground you. Don't push forward faster than you really should.
  • Remap movement keys to avoid bump-kills. Make a macro that masks the difference between tooled horns and leather drums.
  • Attributes: a) exercise: doors and boulders for strength is worth it. Perhaps locks and instruments for dex if bored. Wisdom is unimportant, and you gain it for free from Foocubi, but you could donate to the Oracle. Don't search known but unrevealed secret doors because you need to use-test a ring of searching. b) Alchemized blessed gain ability will take care of everything else. You quaff it at XP4, before leveling up further for the quest. Next, you can either cursed-unicorn your stats and level down (to avoid trappers etc. when throne farming), or you could level up for teleport control. Drain for gain is where rings of increase constitution etc are useful.
  • Don't let pets play unnecessarily, you might need the apport.
  • Polytrap: don't displace (hunger), leave others on a different level and visit every 50 turns; protect it with a boulder made by digging monsters. Throw coins to make a boulder fall down the stairs, if necessary.
  • Lock shop doors. That keeps your price ID alive when you late come back with a balrog.
  • If you don't get a magic whistle -- crossing water, especially if your pets can't. Branchporting will do for a while, but not the endgame.
  • Huh, scare scrolls don't protect your pets. That means you have to exclude engulfers while farming by not leveling up. The "easiest" one is difficulty 12.

Rerolling

  • start the game with those vitals you cannot make and are unlikely to be found: Ring of slow digestion, holy water, one of scare monster and polymorph control (both for nutrition).
  • If you want to reroll for anything else, a horn or drum is by far the most important. The spells of charm monster, identify, or healing are nice, but overrated since you will always be in metal armor anyway. Perhaps sleep is the only really useful thing.
  • Table of probabilities of finding various items.

Starting out

Phase: before Oracle.

  • Top priority: Level up for the hit points. Gather $600 for the Oracle, then race down.
  • explore fully until mines level, you won't ge going here again. Besides, you want your starting pet to grow up - the rather safe environment helps.
  • dip fountains for unholy water only if safe, i.e. you know the way down and have a scaring tool, or you have a magic whistle with a balrog attached.
  • wield a scroll until you get cream pies
  • push boulders to train up strength. Important for carrying capacity, and leave some to run around in circles.
  • Try to clear out wimpy monsters, because you'll be dead if you meet them while your pet is goofing off. Later, this becomes less practical as more difficult monsters spawn, and irrelevant when you get a magic whistle.

Oracle and Mines

  • bats are the deadliest monsters because you cannot toot your horn in advance, and you cannot run away.
  • You likely want to #quit if you've cleared the mines and still have neither a magic whistle nor eucalyptus. Kick, then cut down those trees. Disregarding main dungeons shops, that's a 48,3% chance. The rest above level 16 (including Sokoban and Quest) won't give you one either, with 68.7% chance, and best bets still in the Quest. (Combined: 33.2%, total above medusa around 30.3%). Chance of no stethoscope >=level16: 47.6%

throne farming

  • Write a bot. Really. Still takes a few days.
  • preparing the arena: see below. Check for polytraps on the level.
  • lug all potions to your farming level, since you will need them here.
  • to make pets move onto their scare scrolls, put a chest (sack) full of junk on top of the scare scroll, but no cursed objects.
  • Level appropriately or drop extra scare monster to protect pets from engulfers.
  • Don't extinct domestic animals. "Stash" a few in some Sokoban level, just in case.
  • Cockatrices: Yellow dragon patrolling outside. Pet Xorn/vortex/winged-gargoyle in the farm etc. don't work.
  • If farming the quest throne, make sure you lock up the apprentices and Neferet, but not into a room with a polytrap.
  • Quest versus dungeons: Quest is non-tele (preserves tele charges), undiggable (preserves boulders but not your wands), has water, is easy to leave with the chest by #chatting to Neferet, but also generates a lot of useless xorns and bats later on.
  • Goal: 1) potions ID, 2) alchemized see invisible, gain ability; and some acid to cure stoning. 3) lots of wands of digging, tele, and a few speed monster for pets and death for medusa. Digging wands are your plan for gehennom, so pack lots of them. 4) >50 booze for 30k turns nutrition, 250 blessed full healing to survive Astral without decent armor, lots of gain level: 19 per pet balrog, and enough cursed gain level to avoid mapping gehennom. You save levitation to mass-alchemize gain level.
  • Pet-test the armor and wear it to see its enchantment, and price-ID some of the weapons. I found a +5 orcish helm that way. Unenchanted junk can be disposed of in a cursed bag of holding, using no game time to actually destroy it.

Surviving monsters

  • especially frail before the Oracle. That's why you race to level up, and quaff gain level for sleep resistance in case a monster has a wand of sleep.
  • Always know where your pet is, and stay close.
  • Stay near your pet, because it will run off periodically. Especially before you get any kind of whistle. Kicking at empty space is a pseudo-tin-whistle. You have a bit more leeway with a scaring tool as long as you are in rooms, but not in corridors.
  • Avoid at all cost to get into a dead-end corridor with a monster chasing you. This applies even after getting a scaring tool.
  • Keep at least one pet leashed, in case you hit a trap door. Getting separated from your pet is the number one cause of death.
  • Toot horn when going around corners. Especially if there are weapon-wielding enemies around.
  • Know which monsters typically spawn in groups - you can hold off a single monster by running in circles, but you have to gamble if you're facing a group.
  • Mimics: throw gold, and let them recloak
  • dance around pet to bring it between monsters and yourself, provided your pet is not out of its depth. You can't in corridors, which makes them much less safe.
  • until you get a scaring tool, doors are your escape mechanism. Especially with a key.
  • Prepare the area for when you get isolated from your pet. There isn't much you can do without a scare tool (drum, horn, mirror). You can run in circles around boulders or loops of corridors with kicked-down doors, lure monsters onto traps (but name them since they learn), cast your second spell, kick empty space to attract your pet. Try to save your scroll of scare monster until you can re-bless it.
  • Have an idea in what health your pet is.
  • Gas spores: stay away once your pet is buff enough to attack one. You won't survive.
  • Pet management: 1) magic whistle or blessed eucalyptus, 2) horn or drum to shoo it away, 3) tin whistle from the mine town watch or a bell to substitue for 1, or even kicking around.
  • Every bit of speed helps. Engrave-ID all wands, and put on unidentified $50 boots.
  • Even with a drum, stay near your pet. You never know when you step on a sleeping trap.
  • After the mines, your main offensive and defensive item is a magic whistle with several balrogs attached. They will appear between you and enemies, and they will kill them fast enough. To keep it that way, don't dilute your fighting force with bad pets.

Nutrition

  • Track it, and avoid losing nutrition at all cost. Displacing pets, wearing jewellry, and getting your ring of slow digestion stolen all decrease it.
  • Two viable strategies: Polyself, or liquid diet. Polymorphing into a new elf requires a ring set if you want to keep doing it indefinitely, and you have to be able to deal with your stats random walking. Which likely means throne farming anyway. The liquid diet strategy means creating lots of monsters at a throne, and alchemizing blessed booze from their potions. You need a few pet balrogs, a scroll of scare monster, holy water to rebless it, two unicorn horns, unholy water to curse one of them, the Sokoban scroll of earth, and a throne, preferrably on a shallow, undiggable, no-teleport level. Speed is necessary to get Nefert off her guaranteed throne. You can confuse yourself with forgotten spells instead of the cursed unicorn horn, but there is a significant nutrition gap until that becomes available.

Potion strategy

  • Finding holy water: pet test for curses, and either stackability testing, dipping your quarterstaff, or price-ID to find out if it's holy.
  • Price-ID everything, but try not to use up anything.
  • Identification: Price-ID, dipping unihorn, monster inventory items (including nymphs) at a throne, alchemy output, preplaced potions at the wine cellar. If nothing else helps, throw it upwards to breathe the vapors unless you can rule out polymorph.
  • Kill a shopkeeper to ID healing. Wand shop or Izchak.
  • Lug your entire supply to your throne level.
  • Levitation can in principle be alchemized if you're willing to blast some 190 potions. You're not.

Deaths

  • bat. Shouldn't have bought things, instead saving for the Oracle and inscreased survivability.
  • hobbit came around a dark corner and 1-shotted me. The fault was running around on a dark level for too long, while my pet was goofing off. I had been trapdoored several levels down and couldn't find my pet on return.
  • Water demon. No, a wand of teleportation does not make it safe. You will spend ages trying to get your pet to follow, while the demon keeps making a bee line for you.
  • Killed by a fox while on a sleeping trap, on the oracle level even.


Discussion on IRC

Basically, the first step is to find out what you need (for 12-conduct).

You're in for a huge amount of frustartion. I suggest you try with a few non-startscummed (or bones-stuffed) games first. well, atheist pacifist alone would be a good prep, and an illiterate ascension, and a game-time speed run. Once you have combined pacifist atheist illiterate, you might as well go the whole way.

I "wrote" an object generation spoiler to scratch just this itch. It lets you compute how often you'll get what you need, hence what you need to startscum for. In my opinion, it boils down to: you need 0) an elven wizard (some people do orcs), 1) a ring of slow digestions, 2) a scroll of scare monster, 3) at least one of holy water or a ring of polymorph control. So you're in to about 6000 startscummed games per game played.

In the end, I decided not to scum for a drum/horn. I case it's a mistake, I'll notice that by dying. Those games aren't wasted, because it will give me practise. So I don't lose anything by not scumming for a drum/horn

The second step is to ask paxed for permission. I got shown out of nethack.eu because my script was taxing the server too much. (which is another reason to practise with bones-stuffed games or make-believe games first)

The third step then is to construct a reroller. I deleted mine in one of my "no more nethack" binges, so you'll have to write it. This takes some patience, but it's nothing compared with the amount of patience you need for the farming in a 12-condcut attempt. You can try pexpect (google for it), it's what the big minds recommend. Or, if you can't really code, you can use GNU screen to read the screen (-X hardcopy) and type things automatically (-X stuff jjjkkkjjkhlhh). That's how I did it. I used a simple bash shellscript to drive screen to drive nethack. Grep is a good way to test if nethack is displaying what you want it to display. And, BTW, you might want to edit your nethackrc to suppress anything you can, e.g. the character selection prompt or any startup messages. you can grap tjr12a's nethackrc

You have to play with !bones if you want people to admire your acheivement. There's no other way to exclude seeded ascension kits etc.

Basically, if you want to write a start scumming bot the shell script way, this dual-slow-digestion mini-script (above) can show you how to read stuff from nethack and check for favorable output.

The fourth step is to "play", err, work. Since you're in for a lot of frustration, you might as well analyze each death and figure out how to prevent it. Roughly, (1) drums and horns are your friend, (2) learn to dance around your pet for protection, (3) you're basically game-time speed running sinc eyour pets are slowsing you down that much, (4) you need to have a magic whistle, mine's end, the sokoban scrolls and bag, speed, and a throne (preferrably not quest home), and a cursed and a non-cursed unihorn, and a lot price-IDd potions set up until turn 15000. (5) David Damerell's object identification spoiler is your friend. It pays to memorize all the intricacies and quirks, since you will never, ever get a formal identification or altar test. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/games/nhid.html To max your Luck, combine it with gem pricing, the shopkeeper ID thing in http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Gem#By_color

You can easily get gain level pots by throne farming >> only if your pets kill monsters fast enough. I've had trouble getting to those potions consistently.

thrones don't break a conduct, but they are a rare resource you need for farming. they are your only way to generate lots of monsters. So you want several on different dungeon depths. The castle throne in particular is your source of poison resistance (i.e. green dragon scales, made from dragons) you need to know the details of boulder fort care for that (i.e. get visible while you're summing. in an ideal world, reflection comes from the shield. you won't be casting spells beyond 2k turns, anyway. you can get the shield from perseus' statue, or if you're lucky an aleax, or medusa's random A. if you want to scum for books, charm monster and light are better IMHO. sleep won't serve you beyond your 2k turns. lit corridors stay lit. getting surprised by badass or bumpkill monsters is one of the bigger dangers. to compensate, you can play elf/orc, throw gold pieces down corridors to get a "you miss" message, and you can keep a pet army attached to your magic whistle. and you can remap the movement keys to cut down on bump kills. fast monster are particularily insidious, until you have an army of balrogs.

I'm a bit torn whether you have to fully explore every level because the big problem is not having enough items. On the one hand, items are definitely your weak point. On the other hand, it just takes too damn long. You can always come back later, once you have several non-eating pets and a way to make nutrition. So I tend to explore levels in one circle (take every right turn etc), then descend.

Avoiding traps is somewhat of a problem. Even harder is finding your first polytrap. Useful things are 2 leashes with pets on them (they whine), or a crystal ball. Or just step on every square in the lower mines. See my object ID page for where to look for polytraps.

Nutrition can come from 4 things: (1) feel like a new elf (needs =poly and =PC), (2) alchemized blessed booze (needs a throne farm setup, a unihorn, lots of potions, and holy water), (3) dual =SD, (4) find a horn of plenty and the PYEC in a bones pile. But dual slow digestion is way too tedious for my taste.

Ways to gain alignment record: 1) find a helm of opposite alignment (and a way to uncurse it). Steal things from shops as a chaotic, then repay as a lawful. 2) sleep with foocubi. You need to that anyway to level up (since your potions of gain level are needed cursed for the ascension run and/or to level up pets) or 3) play a healer, get alignment by healing up your pets, and then die because of lack of MR/=SD/...

!lg * nconducts=12 turns>18000 gmax=name Once you've got a feeling what's important, you might want to watch a few of those ttyrecs, too.

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