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  • Unbelievable bones level

    From HugoB@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 19 23:27:23 2022
    I'm playing the Android port of Nethack 3.6.6 and have enabled bones sharing via Hearse. Now my Valkyre found unbelievable bones of some other player, containg some artefacts, a BoH with lots of good stuff, and an ascencion kit with each item enchanted
    up to +10. Now I have AC -67. ;-)

    a blessed rustproof +10 helm of brilliance
    an uncursed +10 pair of gauntlets of dexterity
    an uncursed fireproof +10 pair of speed boots
    an uncursed fireproof +10 cloak of magic resistance
    a blessed fireproof +10 T-shirt
    an uncursed greased +10 silver dragon scale mail

    How realistic is it, that the player who left these bones played normally, or did he cheat? Maybe you can achieve this with massive polypiling?

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  • From Janis Papanagnou@21:1/5 to HugoB on Tue Dec 20 08:57:45 2022
    On 20.12.2022 08:27, HugoB wrote:
    I'm playing the Android port of Nethack 3.6.6 and have enabled bones
    sharing via Hearse. Now my Valkyre found unbelievable bones of some
    other player, containg some artefacts, a BoH with lots of good stuff,
    and an ascencion kit with each item enchanted up to +10. Now I have
    AC -67. ;-)

    a blessed rustproof +10 helm of brilliance an uncursed +10 pair of
    gauntlets of dexterity an uncursed fireproof +10 pair of speed boots
    an uncursed fireproof +10 cloak of magic resistance a blessed
    fireproof +10 T-shirt an uncursed greased +10 silver dragon scale
    mail

    How realistic is it, that the player who left these bones played
    normally, or did he cheat? Maybe you can achieve this with massive polypiling?

    It is known that usual armor can be enchanted once from +3 to +4/+5,
    and they say that specific armor (like elven armor or cornuthaum)
    can be safely enchanted from +5 to +6/+7. This enchanted armor can
    be polymorphed to retain its enchantment for the polymorphed item.

    Decades ago I *thought* to have seen in the source code that there's
    a _chance_ that weapons or armor don't vaporize when over-enchanted.

    Getting crowned may make a wielded weapon go beyond the usual limit.

    I don't think that polypiling plain unenchanted armor will create an enchantment different from the original item.

    If there's a chance to not vaporize armor that would require a lot of preparation and time. Since AFAIK pudding farming doesn't work in 3.6
    my guess would be some form of cheating (like a direct change of the
    bones file before uploading it).

    I like getting bones when playing on public servers. (The idea that I
    get them from unreliable sources rather repels me.)

    Janis

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  • From Pat Rankin@21:1/5 to HugoB on Tue Dec 20 12:18:53 2022
    On Monday, December 19, 2022 at 11:27:25 PM UTC-8, HugoB wrote:
    [ set of armor with all seven slots having a +10 item ]
    How realistic is it, that the player who left these bones played
    normally, or did he cheat?

    It looks like blatant cheating by the player. It you play
    in wizard mode, you can wish for normally out of reach
    enchantment values, and if you die you're asked whether
    to save a bones file (intent being to set up for testing
    uncommon scenarios in regular play, not to acquire
    god-like loot in subsequent games). I think that Hearse
    rejects bones files made in wizard mode, but modifying
    the file to clear the mode flag isn't rocket science.
    Modifying the source code to clear the mode flag when
    saving, then rebuilding the program would also be trivial.

    That bones file should be reported as abuse. If Hearse
    is still actively maintained, the machine that the file got
    uploaded from won't be allowed to provide future uploads.

    Maybe you can achieve this with massive polypiling?

    Objects retain their own class (armor or food or whatever,
    with a handful of exceptions) and their own enchantment
    (if applicable) when polymorphed. So you could only get
    a +10 item of armor from polymorph by enchanting an
    item of armor which is already +10. You still have the
    problem of generating one of those to be poly fodder.

    With weapons, you could gather a huge stack of arrows,
    bolts, or darts and enchant them up to safe enchantment
    limit, then split the stack into smaller stacks and risk
    enchanting those higher. With enough scrolls and luck,
    you could get some highly enchanted missiles and then
    attempt to polymorph them into other types of weapons.
    That cannot be done with armor because no types of
    armor stack. So any over-enchantment event destroys
    the lone item and puts you back at square one.

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