Re: Is (s)earch linked to an ability?

On Dec 5, 3:45 am, APLer <AP...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
innews:gh78t9$llb$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
APLer wrote:
"EMK" <noneofyourbusin...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:gh2b0i$fs4$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

1. Does INT or WIS (or any other ability) have a direct
effect on how many times I have to hit the (s)earch key to
find things?

Yes, wisdom is directly tied to your ability to find secret
doors/traps. Along with luck.

Huh?

http://www.geocities.com/dcorbett42/nethack/exercise.htm#WISEX

This is only about exercising and abusing wisdom, not about whether it
changes your search abilities.

*if* you want to be spoiled.

Basically, wisdom is exercised by searching and searching
gets easier with higher wisdom. [...]

I thought this has already been answered by many others
*correctly*; so why this unchecked statement now?

It hasn't been answered at *all*.

Several people (including myself) have said no.

Only the other parts of the post were.

I *did* search the code and found this in allmain.c:moveloop()
do { /* hero can't move this turn loop */
...
if (!monscanmove && youmonst.movement < NORMAL_SPEED) {
...
if(!u.uinvulnerable) {
...
if(Searching && multi >= 0) (void) dosearch0(1);
dosounds();
do_storms();
gethungry();
age_spells();
exerchk();
invault();
if (u.uhave.amulet) amulet();
if (!rn2(40+(int)(ACURR(A_DEX)*3)))
u_wipe_engr(rnd(3));
if (u.uevent.udemigod && !u.uinvulnerable) {
if (u.udg_cnt) u.udg_cnt--;
if (!u.udg_cnt) {
intervene();
u.udg_cnt = rn1(200, 50);
}
}
Horrible coding style, (I don't believe I left out any
relevant conditions, but any code that doesn't use if <cond1>
then <cr> <indent> <block1> <cr> else <cr> <indent> <block2> I
find badly written) but it does seem to point towards INT and
DEX being relevant.

I'm not sure what's relevant here, since I don't know exactly
the context when this code is executed, but the only thing that
would seem relevant to searching is the line:
if(Searching && multi >= 0) (void) dosearch0(1);
Which just calls dosearch0(1) in certain cases.

Inspecting the source code I cannot find any code indicating
that wisdom would make searching easier. If you think so
please quote some reference.

Do you have any reference of what *does*? I did find
detect.c:dosearch(), with mention of the wisdom exercise in
the code, but I could see no indication of what makes
searching easier - aside from lenses.

That's dosearch0(aflag). And the only things that are relevant
are Lenses, an artifact (only Excalibur, as it happens), and
luck (because the function uses rnl, which takes luck into
account).

And this bit which seems relevant, but I don't know where to
proceed from:

if ((trap = t_at(x,y)) && !trap->tseen && !rnl(8)) {
nomul(0);
Pure random if it hasn't been found that it becomes found?

Sort of. rnl() is a random value which takes luck into account.
It's sort of a strange function itself. If I understand it
correctly, it will usually subtract luck/3 from the normal
random value, then force this new value into range. So that in
this case, with luck 0, you have one chance in 8, and with luck
10, one chance in 2.

And neither lenses nor Excalibur play a role, although they do
for other searching, and Excalibur automatically searches each
move. (For other things, lenses add 2, and the charge of

The rest is irrelevant for the odds; it just handles what
happens when you do find it.

[...]
So there's absolutely no connection between finding secret
doors and wisdom?

There is a connection: finding the door exercises wisdom. But
wisdom doesn't have anything to do with the chances.

Interesting. Do you have a source for that.

The sources of nethack.

I gave mine. Wisdom is exercised by finding traps and secret
doors. Whether the reverse is true or not, I'll leave to
suspicion for now and that it *seems* easier to find things
after the ability gain for wisdom - without level gains even.

Wisdom doesn't play a role. Your luck does.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@xxxxxxxxx
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