Looks good, a few questions

[asimpkins]

What exactly is 'infravision'? I've looked through the Documentation and the FAQ and I can't find any explanation... (Note: You might want to add the answer to this question to your FAQ or documentation.)

Secondly, in the original there used to be a cheat option accessed by pressing Alt-4... it would do an item dump of whatever you targeted (people, chests, bags, etc.) While the NPC pickpocket is a great solution for people, it doesn't help with locked chests (particularly if you don't have the key and it can't be picked or smashed). Could the pickpocket option be expanded to work on locked chests as well?... or is there a way to provide an item dump feature?

Thirdly, this is kind of out there... but I was wondering if there was any way you could easily find a chest/door that matches with a key, or vice-versa. A few times in the game (BlackGate) I've come across keys that I've never found a use for, or doors and chests that I could never find a key for. I'd love to clear some of these mysteries up. I suspect that there is no easy way to do this, but I figured you guys knew the inner workings of this game pretty well and it doesn't hurt to ask...

Andrew

[wjp]

You can get the contents of chests by deleting them (Press Ctrl-D while the cursor is over the chest)

Finding a matching door/key is a very interesting idea... I'll look into it.

[nadir]

Infravision just turns on "full outdoors daylight" even when you're in caves/night, etc.

[asimpkins]

Great... thanks. Yeah, putting a description of infravision in the documentation wouldn't be a bad idea... Another suggestions: A quick key for returning your sextant position... (similar to the abacus and pocketwatch).

As for the key issue... I thought I'd list the keys I wasn't sure about, maybe someone around here would have an answer for me.

The first key can be found in Minoc. It's on the second floor of Gregor's house. Gregor is head of the Mining Company in this town. The key is red and blue and found on a table. I've never found a use for it....

The second key is found at the northernmost part of Serpent's Spine. 45 North, 1 East... or in hex: (03b9, 02ab, 00). You can get to it by entering the dungeon through the nothern entrance (not the magic carpet entrance). Head north until you come to a locked door, cheat to get past that and you'll come to a room with mushrooms and scroll... look for an invisible passageway through the northeastern wall. By the teleporter is a pink key. I never found a use for this key...

There's also a chest in this same dungeon that I could never open (0429, 0366, 00)... as well as two doors (02fe, 0377, 00).

In the old version I could use the F9 cheat feature to find out their quality numbers. Keys and chest matched up with quality numbers. I wondered if knowing a key's quality number, you could do a search to see if any items shared the same number? I might be able to fire up U7 in dos mode and get the quality numbers for these items and post them here later.

Thanks if anybody can me help out on this...

Andrew

[wjp]

Exult will also output the quality of items if you click on them. However, in Windows this is somewhat of a pain to use, since it outputs the data to the file stdout.txt. (In Linux, the info will just appear on stdout)

[asimpkins]

Well here's a little more information... this is the output I get when I F9 click on these items.

Minoc Key in Gregor's House -
Ref = 11440, @5d6 13a 8
Type = 641, Frame = 12, Qual = 243

Pink Key in Northern part of Serpent's Spine -
Ref =18720, @3ba 2a9 0
Type = 641, Frame = 13, Qual = 202

Chest in Serpent's Spine -
Ref = 9848, @427 366 0
Type = 522, Frame = 1, Qual = 149

Doors in Serpent's Spine - (these seem to need the same key)
Ref = 22166, @311 379 0
Type = 376, Frame = 14, Qual = 241

Ref = 25040, @2ec 37a 0
Type = 376, Frame = 14, Qual = 241


I'm at work on a fairly in-depth FAQ... I'd really like to clear up these loose ends. I think these five items are the only things in the game I'm not entirely sure about. If anyone knows anything about any of these items, I'd appreciate the help...

If there's some way to search through the game's code to find matching items with matching quality numbers, that would be great also. I'm willing to do the work myself to, if it's within my grasp. I'm only midly savvy when it comes to these things, but if someone could point me in the right direction, I'll give it a try.

Of course, there is a chance that there are no items that match up with these... They could be oversites... or maybe stuff was removed or never finished. I dunno. I'd really like to be sure though.

Thanks for any help.

Andrew

[suraimu]

To be more in-depth, infravision is technically being able to see infrared, or in other words, being able to see in the dark. In D&D this is an ability that Dwarves have.

[wjp]

I did a quick scan for those qualities, but couldn't find anything other than the objects you mentioned. This wouldn't have found any keys inside containers, or usecode-created objects, though, I'm afraid.

[asimpkins]

Thanks... so nothing inside containers or usecode-created objects. Assuming I understand what usecode-created objects are, that seems to indicate that the keys most likely don't go with anything. I guess there could be a locked chest inside a set or drawers or something, but that seems unlikely. I don't think I've seen anything like that in the game.

I've searched pretty thoroughly and scanned through the newsgroups... I'm getting the feeling that those items are most likely left over loose ends.

Thanks again for taking a look.

Andrew

[wjp]

Oh, incidentally, the door to Weston's jail (SW of LB's castle) seems to have the same quality as the doors in Serpent's Spine (241)

[asimpkins]

That's odd... I don't think you are ever meant to get access to Weston's jail cell... so that probably means you aren't supposed to find a key for those doors either.

(Incidentally, you don't need to unlock those doors anyway, there's an invisible path to get you in the room... The doors are probably intentionally impossible to unlock).

That chest is still bugging me. There's a red and green potion inside of it... and it can't be bashed open. Oh well...

Andrew

[SB-X]

No reason to think they are loose ends. They could be keys that go to no doors by design.