Talk:Damage type

New version

Hey, editors and interested readers. Please have a look at User:Furey/Sandbox, where I have a draft new version for this page. Leave any feedback on the talk page for my draft, or here is okay, too. Furey (talk) 23:02, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the corrections and the addition of all the flags data, however I feel this particular format is a bit inconvenient since the reader must scroll to a separate section to figure out what the flags mean. I almost think the flags should have their own table, or that the summaries of each flag effect should be included in the main table and repeated for each applicable damage type.

Thanks, this is great! I did several things:

nohp: Put "No hit point damage" in the effects.

nocc: Replaced with a section on cancellation. It lists the 10 damage types that are not affected by cancellation.

nomc: Replaced with a section on magic cancellation. It lists the 16 damage types that are eligible for magic cancellation.

instadeath: Deleted. It's in the effects.

mondiff. Deleted. Effect lines already have "against the hero ... against a monster" wording.

So no more flags. Furey (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if the pre-existing giant table was such a great idea in the first place, especially the effects column. Many of the damage types already have their own articles describing their effects. Maybe we could have new articles for the remaining damage types and then remove the effects column. But that can probably be done after your changes if anybody is interested

I think a giant table is good. Otherwise readers have to click on 30 or 40 different articles. Damage types without articles do need articles. I have a todo for drain energy. Furey (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

A couple of other nitpicks: I think cells with no content should be totally blank rather than having a hyphen. Also, instead of the table in the Internals section, there should be references to the source code as seen elsewhere in the wiki. —Aximili (talk) 09:40, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

hyphen vs blank: i changed to blank. Blanks do look better in finished article. Hyphens helped me during construction, to distinguish "not done yet" from "done, result is empty". Furey (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

internals section: I made it collapsible. It's essential for maintaining this article, that the maintainer knows this is the stuff to read. Following 100 scattered references does not work. (Think about the editor who is going to do the 3.4.3 and 3.7-dev information). However, it really does need to be "you don't need to read these to play NetHack".

i moved the internals to a new article: https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/User:Furey/NetHack_Combat_Internals_(3.6.7) . I have several articles in the pipeline which can benefit from referencing a single article about combat. Furey (talk) 21:38, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that each flag should have its own column, rather than all sharing one, for ease of sorting. If that makes the table too wide, then I think the "example monsters" column can be removed, as it isn't really useful. I also think the flags would be more clear if they were expressed as positives rather than negatives. --Darth l33t (talk) 15:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I redid all the flags. No more columns for any of them. Polarity is moot now, but I chose the polarity based on how many attacks are xxx vs noxxx. For example there are only a few "nohp" damage types, it would be noisy to add "does hp damage" to about 30 lines.

Example monsters are good for reader to make mental connections in reverse direction. Reader knows what an energy vortex is, now they can be sure they are on the right line.

Now that the flag information is all redone, what do you think? Furey (talk) 17:01, 14 June 2024 (UTC)