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[UltimateChaos]

I'm not sure if this has severely annoyed anyone else, but it's been a constant bother to me in every incarnation of DoomRL and I'd like to open it up for discussion.

Why, oh why, can't we use the look command to examine things that a computer map has displayed?  I understand that in most cases it is moot, everything can be easily identified by knowing the color and symbol of the object.  However, what about exotics and uniques?  They are all the same color and have to be examined up close.  Large healing globes can't be distinguished from berserk packs. 

The real kicker, however, is that when under the effects of an envirosuit, berserk, or invulnerability not even the color is available to identify objects.  I can understand that it's a very pretty graphical effect and it's true that it adds an extra element to gameplay.  I still think it makes little to no sense that you can't distinguish many objects from their similarly shaped counterparts when "under the influence."

With the graphical version of DoomRL somewhere on the horizon, all the objects will have individual tiles and be distinguishable with a computer map anyway.  That gameplay advantage alone is a good enough reason to play the tile version over the ASCII version.

Well, what does everybody think?

[thelaptop]

I see the current implementation as a bug.

I think we should fix this bug in a way to make things consistent: computer map shows that on particular tiles there is a globe/weapon/armour/special device/thermonuke.  And these symbols are kept gray until they are physically seen or looked at within view range.  This is actually a much more liberal form of the computer map that vanilla Doom had -- in vanilla Doom, computer maps only return the terrain instead of the objects.

[Kg]

Or just to make it more Doomish - only reveal terrain. So you can see objects with intuition.

[UltimateChaos]

Even Intuition, unfortunately, doesn't let you see what type of powerups they are when "under the influence"

[Tavana]

It replicates well the state of being berserk or invulnerable in "vanilla" Doom, I think. Yes, you will have to use that pesky [l] key to see things better, but considering that while berserk or invulnerable in vanilla Doom, you would need to do much the same. You'd have to concentrate to tell the different between globes, or medpacks.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

There's a rational explanation for that actually -- if you're Berserk, you really don't give a damn to whether that's a medpack, envirosuit, or even a gun. You want to kill NAOW! Even more, I'd actually play around with the idea of Berserk locking your map memory for it's duration at all :).

[rchandra]

rational for berserk, and somewhat for invulnerability, but certainly not for the environment suit.  (MUST .. SEEK ... WATER / LAVA / ACID!)

I do think that for exotics/uniques needing to see it yourself makes sense.  So my proposed solution is that tiles that aren't empty should be displayed in their normal colour - monster/barrel/item/etc.

[UltimateChaos]

I don't mind using "l" too see things, it's mostly when I have intuition or a computer map running that I would love to know what those other objects are.  Maybe if I am berserk, I can stare at that computer map or my intuitive brain more closely?

There's a rational explanation for that actually -- if you're Berserk, you really don't give a damn to whether that's a medpack, envirosuit, or even a gun. You want to kill NAOW! Even more, I'd actually play around with the idea of Berserk locking your map memory for it's duration at all :).

Quit making the game harder D=