Talk:Pudding farming

PuddingBot

Has anyone ever heard of something called PuddingBot? I have heard mention of it a few times, but cannot find any hint of it online. KiTA 02:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Also heard of it a couple times, but don't have time to look into it more deeply. I also heard it was written separately from TAEB. 98.227.74.29 05:06, December 17, 2009 (UTC)Shadowpho98.227.74.29 05:06, December 17, 2009 (UTC)

It was called farmbot. Info: http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/2006-08/msg02522.html And original post: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/65948-13-putting-pudding-farmers-business Github: https://github.com/blind-coder/nethack-farmbot

In SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, can't you get death drops out of the puddings using a polytrap? (Or the polymorph spell, for that matter.) --220.255.2.117 11:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

No, because the new monster would revert to a black pudding instead of dying. -- Qazmlpok 11:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

In that case, how about polymorphing the pudding corpses? Can you get other corpses that you can use undead turning on, and get death drops from the resulting monsters? Or can you get eggs that will hatch? Other useful things may be produced too. What about stoning the puddings and polymorphing the statues, then casting stone to flesh on them? Can you get death drops that way? What about polymorphing the puddings and giving an appropriate resulting monster an amulet of unchanging, then killing it and taking back the amulet?

Poly'ing corpses won't produce more corpses - corpses aren't randomly generated, so it'll just produce more permafood. Among those might be hatchable eggs, but I imagine that the ratio of eggs produced to puddings required would be so small, it would not be worth it. As for the amulet, monsters won't wear it - they only wear reflection and life saving. Stoning and unstoning the poly'd monsters would work, but it requires a constant source of stoning - not easy when you consider that each cockatrice, on average, would give you much less than 1 wish. You could poly into a female stoning monster and lay eggs, but that consumes nutrition and lowers your luck.

Basically, pudding farming doesn't work in SLASH'EM. Gremlin farming will net you death drops, but the problem is that it's somewhat finite: whereas split puddings retain their original max hp, meaning they will eventually recover back to full hp and let you make more puddings, split gremlins halve their max hp along with their current hp. A wand of healing or extra healing (not the spells) will raise their hp by one for each zap, but again, this is a finite resource.

Essentially, these nice sources of infinite items are broken in SLASH'EM. On the other hand, gypsies are basically a source of 120 more or less free wishes; even those not wanting to scum can get a few off of them. And SLASH'EM is broken in lots of other ways... -Ion frigate 04:33, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

You can use conflict with gremlin farming once they're at 1 max hp. They will kill each other and gain at least 1 hp, so the net result is more gremlins. There's also throne farming, which creates an endless number of monsters, particularly those that begin with offensive/defensive/miscellaneous items.

Also, you could polymorph a black pudding, stone it, unstone it, and kill the resulting monster - this should make the polymorph permanent. But honestly, if you're going through that much work just for a single pudding, is it really worth doing it at that point? Plus you'll be fighting random polymorphable monsters - this includes shoggoths and Catoblepas. -- Qazmlpok 11:51, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If you want to avoid the tough monsters, you can instead kill the puddings, let the corpses get grown onto by molds, stone the molds and polymorph the statues (NOT live monsters): that way, you can choose which monsters to unstone and which not to.

Poly'ing the statues will cause them to shudder 1/8 of the time, and the corpses aren't even certain to generate molds. Also, you can't stone green molds, which are reasonably commonly generated on corpses. It's a lot of work for an incredibly diminished return, especially when throne farming on a scroll of scare monster is a much better option. -Ion frigate 14:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Screenshot

I agree with the removal of the second screenshot - it wasn't that necessary, and looked very cluttered. I'm not vastly fond of the first one either, though: it shows a brown pudding farm (not what one usually is thinking of when referring to pudding farming), and unless I'm mistaken it shows a lot fewer puddings than the average farm. Could anyone make a screenshot of similar size that shows a more typical example? -Ion frigate 06:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Needs expert attention

The article needs expert attention. Some quotes from Berry:

• Farming on the upstairs also gives you a place to test wands. And heal up (manually).
• Layout that protects against monsters with wands of striking (don't be invisible or diplacing!):

000.
0@P0
0000

Also, protection from pyrolisks.

• Some pros use bots, some use 1000-turn pastes. Operator error shows up as really stupid deaths.
  • Or hold down a key that sends no more than "\eFl", where \e is the byte 0x1b (escape), and let go if something important happens.
  • If pasting Fl without the escape, try MSGTYPE to kill all expected output, and Msgtype=STOP "*" to make your paste halt on anything unexpected.
  • Msgtype example, put this in your options file:

#msgtype for pudding farming
MSGTYPE=hide "The black pudding divides as you hit it!"
MSGTYPE=hide "Your * looks completely corroded."
MSGTYPE=hide "You kill the *!"
MSGTYPE=hide "The * turns to flee!"
MSGTYPE=hide "You attack thin air."
MSGTYPE=hide "You hear a slow drip."
MSGTYPE=hide "You miss the *"
MSGTYPE=stop "*hungry*"

• If you paste, then don't be fast/very fast. speed introduces too much randomness.
• Don't deplete enough of the pudding population to let the random-gen monsters in.
• Autopickup exceptions to sort the loot. Clear it up regularily to avoid scrolls of scare monster, or items that could kill you.
• Watch out for mobile monsters with passive attacks in the early stages of farming. Also, non-E-respecting ones. That's why you generally wield a killer weapon in your off hand.

Writers, please help yourself and make an article. --Tjr (talk) 22:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Expert Farming

My expert farming guide. If someone wants to tidy this up that would be great:

Mandatory requirements

• A weak iron weapon, a -3 dagger works fine
• A wand of fire/lightning for engraving 'Elbereth'
• A pick-axe or other digging tool to create a nice hiding nook
• Some Initial Food
• A Black Pudding or a Sink to generate one
• A Container of some sort (Not a Bag Of Holding)
• Enough hit-points to survive several

Useful requirements

• A ring of slow digestion, this should be one of your first priorities, once you have this you can start farming much faster
• Reflection & Magic Resistance
• A scroll of Earth on case a monster gets away with a wand of digging or to generate a boulder fort if necessary
• A wand of striking, In case a boulder shows up
• A Unicorn Horn
• An Altar
• Boots of Speed
• A stethoscope, only really useful for initial farming

Preparation

First, you need to find a level with either a Sink or method of generating a black pudding. A Sink can be kicked multiple times and always has a chance of spawning a pudding before it breaks. Be aware the it is possible to spawn a foocubus before a pudding. So be prepared.

Ideally you want to find a level where with an altar for offerings. However, this won't be all that useful. Once you start farming fast, you won't need an Altar as every non-quest artifact has a chance to drop.

Once you have located a method of spawning a Pudding (or found a level with one available), the next thing you need to do is prepare your farming location. Ideally an Elbereth engraved stairs is a good choice, as it allows for you to leave the level if necessary. A common farming locations may look like:

     ##P@
-----.------
|..........|
...........|
|....{.....|
|..........|
|..........|
---.--------

The above farming location has various pros and cons:

• It provides shelter from attacks from multiple angles
• The P(udding) square is puts you in harms way by one Monster
• You have no escape
• Attack wands are still able hit you

A slightly better setup might be:

     @
     #
      #
     #
-----.------
|..........|
...........|
|....{.....|
|..........|
|..........|
---.--------

The only advantage this offers is that you can no-longer be targeted easily by attack wands. However this creates an issue where large monsters may block the passage of Black Puddings.

Once you have a farming location setup. Drop a chest and engrave 'Elbereth' on you Home square. Now Generate a Black Pudding and begin by splitting it slowly. You will find that if you aren't careful that you may be able to kill off the initial puddings if they aren't given enough time to regain their health. Once you have a large amount of puddings ready you can begin automation

Automation

Once you have a small farm going, you can begin an automation process. On NAO this is significantly easier than vanilla nethack due to the MSGTYPE addition.

Edit your NAO config and insert the following:

#msgtypes for instant death!
MSGTYPE=stop "The couatl swings itself around you!"
MSGTYPE=stop "The electric eel swings itself around you!"
MSGTYPE=stop "The giant eel swings itself around you!"
MSGTYPE=stop "The kraken swings itself around you!"
MSGTYPE=stop "The python grabs you!"
MSGTYPE=stop "You don't feel very well."
MSGTYPE=stop "You are turning a little green."
MSGTYPE=stop "Your limbs are getting oozy."
MSGTYPE=stop "Your skin begins to peel away."
MSGTYPE=stop "You are turning into a green slime."
MSGTYPE=stop "You are slowing down."
MSGTYPE=stop "Your limbs are stiffening."
MSGTYPE=stop "It constricts your throat!"
MSGTYPE=stop "You find it hard to breathe."
MSGTYPE=stop "You're gasping for air."
MSGTYPE=stop "Your blood is having trouble reaching your brain."
MSGTYPE=stop "You can no longer breathe."
MSGTYPE=stop "You're turning blue."
MSGTYPE=stop "Your consciousness is fading."
MSGTYPE=stop "You feel deathly sick."
MSGTYPE=stop "You feel much worse."
MSGTYPE=stop "You feel even worse."
MSGTYPE=stop "* needs food, badly!"

##msgtype for pudding farming
MSGTYPE=hide "You hit the black pudding*"
MSGTYPE=hide "The * divides as you hit it!"
MSGTYPE=hide "Your * looks completely corroded."
MSGTYPE=hide "You kill the *!"
MSGTYPE=hide "The * turns to flee!"
MSGTYPE=hide "You attack thin air."
MSGTYPE=hide "You hear a slow drip."
MSGTYPE=hide "You miss the *"
MSGTYPE=hide "You hear the footsteps of a guard on patrol."
MSGTYPE=hide "You caitiff!"
MSGTYPE=hide "The * oozes under the door."
MSGTYPE=hide "It divides as you hit it!"
MSGTYPE=hide "Your * feels completely corroded."
MSGTYPE=hide "You hear a * howling at the moon."
MSGTYPE=stop "The * hits!"
MSGTYPE=stop "The * strikes at you*"
MSGTYPE=stop "The * swings *"
MSGTYPE=stop "You are jolted with electricity!"
MSGTYPE=stop "You are splashed*"
MSGTYPE=hide "Your long sword named Excalibur is not affected."
MSGTYPE=stop "There are many objects*"
MSGTYPE=stop "*digging*" #You want to know when someone uses a / of digging
MSGTYPE=hide "The ware*changes*"
MSGTYPE=stop "*are suddenly very hot!"
MSGTYPE=stop "*are jolted with electricity!"
MSGTYPE=stop "*are suddenly very cold!"

#Testing for scroll detection
MSGTYPE=stop "*a scroll*"
MSGTYPE=stop "*boulder*"

MSGTYPE=stop "You are beginning to feel hungry."
MSGTYPE=stop "*faint*"
MSGTYPE=stop "You are getting the munchies"
MSGTYPE=stop "You are beginning to feel weak."
MSGTYPE=stop "*weak*"
MSGTYPE=stop "You faint from lack of food."
MSGTYPE=stop "You regain consciousness."
MSGTYPE=stop "*confuse*"

Once you have added that to your NAO config, you can start an automated 'paste' farming. The following example below will constantly attack left, check for scrolls, and save occasionally to prevent NAO crashes.

;h;FhFhFhFhFhFhFhFhF;h;FhFhFhFhFhFhFhFhF

Repeat this as many times as you like, Ideally you want to end this just before you become hungry, and end it with a 'Sy' so that your game is saved. NAO has issues in the past with long farming sessions where it may corrupt your game. Saving and quitting occasionally seems to prevent this.

When used with the MSGTYPE above, the paste will be interrupted whenever the following conditions are met:

• You need food
• You find a scroll of scare monster
• You attack a monster that passively damages you
• You become confused
• You become in a situation where instant death is possible
• When a monster picks up or uses a Wand of Digging

--Glisignoli (talk) 02:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)