The two question threads on this very subject yesterday (the fourth of May, 2005) got me thinking about the problem of finding out about targetting arbitrary squares when there are monsters present. That is a very handy thing to be able to do for many reasons which should become apparent very quickly for magic users and deathmolds.
Click here to get some more background.
And here is the other thread.
* p is how I always used to do that, coming from Vanilla. I just now took a look at ToME's interface and found out that * o does almost the same thing.
Oh, and you can use the trick for 'l'ooking around too.
Targetting Poll
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Targetting Poll
Last edited by Nerdanel on Thu May 05, 2005 1:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Zothiqband -- still an Angband variant.
[Assorted whispered suggestions deleted (including a rather dyslexic mistake 
); nice fixing, Nerdanel!]
Hm... I did not know about this trick, but I never really saw a real need for it. * plus directional arrows always seemed to work just fine. But I'm definitely going to try it out on my next dungeon crawl.h
); nice fixing, Nerdanel!]Hm... I did not know about this trick, but I never really saw a real need for it. * plus directional arrows always seemed to work just fine. But I'm definitely going to try it out on my next dungeon crawl.h
"Confusion tolerance, Pez..."
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The targetting prompt at least used to tell you about 'p' and 'o' so yeah, I've known that almost since I started playing Angband. Both 'o' and 'p' have been in V at least since 2.7.9v5. I think I only used it once or twice in V for BATFing*. It's much more important in ToME because of targetable cloud attacks (noxious cloud and demon field).
* Ball Against The Floor.
* Ball Against The Floor.
Digitochracy
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
n. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.
I think the results make it clear - even if this trick is mentioned in a corner of documentation, it needs to get into the FAQ. I think the problem is that it isn't the kind of thing people know must exist (like the command key for eating food) and will therefore comb the documentation for. It also isn't readily visible in a way that it would catch the eye of those skimming the documentation.
Zothiqband -- still an Angband variant.
Another thing that these keys are very useful for is when 'l'ooking around. For instance, when trying to find the one granite wall allowing access to a greater vault, rather than try to tunnel each wall, just 'l'ook, then 'o' or 'p' and run along the outer walls. Saves a lot of hassle.
*Child of Feanor*