Hobby page of Dr. Andrew White
Choose
your first
Destination:
Angband Borg
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ DrAngband Homepage
On this page, I share information about my borg. The borg is an automatic player for the game Angband. To learn more about Angband, check out the Official Angband Home Page. This borg runs on the most recent vanilla version (3.0.6), as well as DrAngband and Zangband 240. You can find executables for Windows here. If you need a DOS executable, email me and I'll send one to you. I work on it daily. So check this site often for the latest version
These files were last updated on 1 March 2008. All files compressed in a .zip format.
Please make sure your borg.txt file is located in your \lib\user\ directory.
Vanilla Angband 309:
Borg Source--You
will need the rest of the game source. Be sure to have the
ALLOW_BORG_GRAPHICS turned on in
config.h if you want to use graphics. This source code also works only
with Angband
3.0.9. You need to make sure that the game source files included here
write over the original game source. There are several changes to the
game
source in order for the 309 borg to run.
309 Windows Executable --For 3.0.9. Just the Windows EXE file with some required borg files.
309 Windows Borg ScreenSaver Executable-- The borg engine updated. You will need the rest of the supporting files. Read the Borgread.txt for installation
Vanilla Angband 306 and 305:306 Win9x Executable --For 3.0.6. Just the Windows EXE file with some required borg files.
306 Win9x Borg ScreenSaver Executable-- The borg engine updated. You will need the rest of the supporting files. Read the Borgread.txt for installation
305 Win9x Executable--For 305. You will need the rest of the supporting files.
305 Win9x Borg ScreenSaver Executable-- The borg engine updated. You will need the rest of the supporting files. Read the Borgread.txt for installation instructions.
DrAngband 299:
Drangband Borg.
You may want to visit the Drangband
Homepage to learn more about it.
Zangband 240:
Zangband Borg.
You may want to visit the ZBorg page
to learn more about it.
Information on this Borg and my To Do list
Many parts of this code came from Adam Goodman. He is a wonderful programmer. He did the work on *ID*, home optimization, borg_prep, speeding up a borg with telepathy, and basic borg defense routines. I expanded on each one, but he laid down the important skeleton. He also wrote the code for the Dynamic Calcs. Which allow external influences on the borg behavior. He deserves a huge thanks.
Be sure to modify your delay under the Options menu to watch the borg. If you have questions or want to know how certain bugs were squashed, just drop me and email at apwhite@itctel.com As I mentioned, improvements are made on a daily basis. Your comments are greatly appreciated. If there is a command or certain things you would recommend for the borg, just email a description to me.
This borg is customizable. Meaning you can select certain play options and have the borg play along those themes. To learn more, read the borg.txt file located in the file archives.
Click Here to see a massive list of what sets my borg apart from the others. It is truely impressive.
All bug reports are appreciated.
To Do List:
-The borg does not pickup Grond or the Massive Crown.
-Fix the bug with big screens. If the borg resumes a game
which had been
regular sized screen, but is now a large screen then the borg will
crash the
game. The borg will not crash if the screen is expaned in town. If the
game was
saved with a large screen, and the borg resumes a large screen game, it
will
not crash. So if you want to play the borg in a large screen, make the
change
in town or wizard light (or clairevoyance) the whole level before
activating
the borg.
Very bad things can happen if the borg is used in Big Screen
mode. It is
recommended that you not use Big Screen.
Statistics on Borg Deaths/Survivability
Tables of various borg deaths. Made from Excell using Pivot Tables. (special thx to Dan L.)
Send me your Winners, as well as your borg.dat if it has more than 100 deaths listed and I can add them to the database
Thangorodrim from Robert Ruehlmann. He has cool graphics on his page. Not at all like the rest of us. He enabled graphics for this borg.
The Official DrAngband Homepage. The variant of this wonderful game, with new dragon races and much, much more. Maintained by myself.
Amiga & Variants Page from Bablos. He has compiled many of the amiga versions and has links to just about every variant out there. There is also a link to borg statistics.
If your link is not here and you would like it to be, email me the address.
Daily
Record of Changes
Archive of old changes.
March 1, 2008, 1) The borg could miscalculate the benefit of using Teleport Other if he were fighting only a single guy.
February 27, 2008, 1) Updated the 309 borg. If the option to remember torch-lit grids was on, then the borg believed that those grids were glowing grids and would get stuck if he ran out of torch/lantern light. This lead to a few starvation deaths. It's now corrected, that option can be set either way.
February 20, 2008, Major fixes today. 1) When the borg was respawning (rerolling a character after one dies) the startup equipment included torches with 0 turns. Prior to 309, the Pval of the torch determined the turns of light remaining. In 309, it is the Timeout. This is now corrected. 2) Significantly improved how the borg calculates damage to and fear of compromised (sleeping, confused, slow) monsters. This will allow him to use the wands of slow/sleep, etc. Previously, he would very rarely use those things eventhough he knew how. 3) Removed some old 3.0.5 references to clean the code. 4) Improved how the borg will use the defence and perma maneuvers for Bless. This made a huge improvement for his mana in the very early game. 5) Improved how very low level borgs will explore the dungeon and stay close to the stairs. Previously, he would return to town after a short exploration of the dungeon (usually just one hallway). The problem is the town is a very dangerous place with no exp reward for that risk exposure. He will now return to town less frequently and explore the dungeon a little more efficiently while still staying close to the stairs. Staying next to the stairs is a good idea so he can make a prompt escape from Grip/Fang/Jackals, etc. Basically he will explore more than just one hall. 6) The borg will now clear his flow codes when a monster changes his sleep state. This will allow him to abort his flee attempts and attack a monster which has just been put to sleep.
February 19th, 2008, 1) Because the General Store no longer buys torches or cloaks, the borg is filling his inventory with them. The torches are useful, but the way he was sorting them, he prefered higher pvalue torches (3000 turns) over used ones (~500 turns) and would refuel his torch with the higher pval ones. I corrected how he sorts for them and will now prefere the shorter stacks over higher pval. This will keep him from filling up his inventory with a bunch of used torches. 2) I will sell cloaks to the Black Market for the same reason as above. 3) added a borg_verbose flag to borg.txt which will cut back on how many reports are sent to the log. (Cuts back on all the parsing messages making the log much easier for noobs to read.)
February 17th, 2008, 1) Slight tweak on strategic Backing Up, which will allow the borg to step back into a hall or other safe place to avoid being surrounded and such. The restrictions were loosened so the borg will be more likely to do this.
February 16th 2008, 1) Bless is more likely to be cast for low level guys. 2) If fleeing the level from a scaryguy and a monster is adjacent, he will attempt to attack that guy. He keeps dying to bats and really easy guys. 3) Some improvements to the critical Phase Door attempts. Borgs with several ?PD would rather fight in a suicide fight rather than even attempt the phase.
February 9th, 2008, 1) Slight correction to how the borg store the array of runes of protection. 2) the borg will no longer cast Rune of Protection (Glyph) in anti-summon corridors. He was using too much mana doing this. 3) Another slight fix to the 309 borg.
December 14, 2007, 1) Had to repair the 309 borg. It is still not perfect but it does run. There was an issue with Torches of Brightness and the borg thinking that he was glowing.
October 26, 2007 1) I have been working daily on the 3.0.9 version borg. There have been quite a few issues to address. The borg is running and is mostly stable. I find little bugs every few days. Today, I found that the message for failed glyph creation changed. So I had to make that correction. Little things like that pop up. It is stable enough to send out for beta work. I find some unhooks after shopping. You can find a copy of the borg source code and the necessary game code changes here. I am pretty sure I included all the game files that were altered. If the borg won't compile, drop me a line so I can fix that zip file. 2) I added some better handling for *Heal* and Life potions. He will be more careful about storing potions in the home rather than carrying them around and running the risk of getting them shattered by cold attacks. 3) Correction to how the borg deals with a glyph creation in an anti-summoning corridor. 4) Some work on getting the borg to run under a big screen (wider than 80 columns).
Sept 28, 2007, 1) Corrected a bug which could cause the game to crash while fighting Morgoth. 2) The mage spell of Rift needed to be defined as a beam, had been a bolt. 3) Shooting into grids that contained the borg_invis feature need some corrections for pass_wall ghosts. 4) Placing a possible wall under a pass_wall ghost if the borg shoots and misses a pain response. 5) Leave_level() has some changes to make him want to stay on level 100 longer. 6) Minor repair to how the borg will rest if he is in a sea of runes waiting for Morgoth. 7) The borg's self-defined money scumming limit is now 85k. I have a machine with him scumming to get $334,000. He has been there for 2 weeks already. 8) Rewrite to the banish nasties defence routine in borg6.c. This routine will count the number of certain monsters and bast Banishment on them if they get too numerous on a level. I modified it to make it much easier to expand the list and modify its usage. 9) Mass Banishment scrolls are collected and stored in the home better. 10) Interestingly, the borg was doing some interesting behavior. He would stay on depth 99, collecting *Heal* potions, as expected, and storing some in his home. As soon as his *Heal* potion goal is met (adding the personal supply and home supply), he would dive to 100. The problem is, he would dive right then, instead of returning to his home and gathering up all his stored items. He will now return home first, to gather his gear before driving. There were a few changes to the borg.txt, so its a good idea to replace yours (or set the Dynamic Calcs off).
Sept 21, 2007, 1) There had been a very elusive bug were the borg at depth 99 would literally get naked in the dungeon, taking off all his stuff and throwing it on the ground. He would usually pick it back up again, but not always. He would sometimes trade out his nice gear (like Ringil) for an {excellent} weapon. I have seen the borg after this event but never caught him in the act. I received a savefile with this behavior in full swing. With the help of the savefile, I think I was able to identify and correct the error.
Sept 20, 2007, 1) Repaired a potential bug in how the borg tracks the glyphs. It was causing crashes in some battles with Morgoth. 2) Major improvement in anti equipment loops. There had been a persistant 3-way armor bug with Belegonnon, Thalkettoth, and Isildur. I now have the borg tracking the artifacts he wears and will forbid him from rewearing an artifact which had recently been removed. This will not effect the swapping of armor or weapons from the Swap routine which is designed to help him wear a backup item. You will still see him swap a tiny bit with respect to the Best Combo routine.
Sept 19, 2007, 1) Repaired a swapping loop at the house. This one involved swapping staves. He still loops a little but not nearly as much. I fear this change may adversely impact his food purchase ability. Keep an eye out for an increase in starvations. This repair will significantly improve his turn count. He would previously flee town in a swap loop. That flee would take him to depth 1 for a while then return to town and swap again. This will help reduce the time on depth 1. 2) Made a major bug fix on the money scumming for the botg. He kept buying stuff instead of saving all his money for the scum item. This should help reduce the number of rounds he spends scumming.
April 9, 2007, 1) Borg will no longer attempt those emergency teleport spells if clevel >10. 2) Borg will have an extra check on using the EZ_Heal potions. 3) There is still one more 3-way armor swap that needs to be fixed. I have a save file demonstrating the bug. I will work on it over the next week. 4) A few winners were submitted.
April 8, 2007, 1) More improvements to the borg resting to recover his mana points. 2) Another repair to equipment swaps. The most likely 3-way armor swaps include Rohirrim. 3) Improvement to the use of Sanctuary spell. 4) Improvement to use of missile/ball attacks to Pass Wall monsters while they are in a wall (Dreads, etc) 5) Offset attacks that only do 1 damage are less likely. 6) Some monsters have immunities which, in the game, reduce the damage by 90%. The borg would previously make this exact calculation which often permitted the borg to use an expensive spell and only do 10% damage. The damage is now reduced to zero which should save him some mana. This was often seen as the borg using offset attacks (usually poison ball) on a never_move monster. While the borg rested to regain his mana, the monster would typically heal up. If any of this behavior is seen following this update, send me the savefile while the borg is doing it.
Feb 23, 2007. 1) Borg will be slightly more likely to
rest to
recover his HP/SP. 2) Borg will reset his recall depth a
little
more often especially if he is slightly out of depth (maximal
depth is about 5 deeper than what he is prepared to
handle). 3)
Borg will be slightly more likely to quaff his !Speed if fighting
certain annoying uniques (Wormtongue, Orc Uniques, Bullroarer)
Feb 11, 2007, 1) Repaired some of the Staff Buy-Sell loops. These were introduced when staves stacked. 2) Money Scumming seemed to double up some times. Meaning, after he scummed for the 20k to get the stat potion, he would purchase the potion then continue to scum another 20k. This is now repaired.
October 7, 2006, 1) Borg was having problems counting charges in his staff stacks.
July 15, 2006, 1) Sometimes the borg would cast Create Door in town which could leave him trapped in the ring of doors and he did not understand how to open them. That is now repaired.
July 11, 2006, 1) Found and corrected one source of shop-loops. If the borg was in rough shape upon returning from the dungeon, he might decide to buy something and sell something in the same turn.
July 8, 2006, 1) Some fine tuning to the sea of runes technique. 2) Do not use Teleport Level Defence maneuver if Morgoth is on the level. 3) Log the reason why the borg is looking for up-stairs. 4) I used a savefile of a mage at depth 100 to kill Morgoth about 10 times. There were only a few instances were he was getting whipped. I will try to resolve those this month.
July 6, 2006, 1) Some borgs (Paladins and Priests with < 650 HP
and valid Heal spells) were trying to Questor Combat Heal while in
town. 2) Borg Perma skills need not be cast in shallow depths, nor
should the high level borgs need to Lunal (stair) scum while shallow.
3) Borg.txt is updated to set the borg_self_lunal = FALSE. Self_lunal
mode was actually taking more turns to dive than looking for the stairs.
June 28, 2006, 1) I think I fixed that crash issue with low level borgs in the dungeon.
April 24, 2006, 1) It was possible for the borg to unhook on level 100 if he ran out of mana while making a sea of runes. 2) The borg needed to not do his Restock() checks while in town.
February 17, 2006, 1) Seasoned borgs (clevel 10) were dying on level 1 while trying to escape a 'scary guy level.' They would choose to not fight on the race to the stairs, and take hits from faster monsters. So now, if the borg is clevel >= depth*4, he will stand and fight. 2) Borg needed to be more open to the idea of using the using the Destruction staves.
February 12, 2006, 1) Borg needed a backup method to see if he was standing on stairs, so that he could use them to escape better. There were some cases of 'flowing to stairs 0' which means stair was under him, but he was not able to use. 2) 'Desperate for Stairs 3' allowed a low level borg in danger to continue moving to stairs instead of turning to fight. The borg was being too risky and dying. 3) Slight tweak on danger-escape thresholds to make the borg a bit more timid.