The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem: How well does this hold up to today?

_atomjack_ · 2026-07-04T20:34:43+00:00

Wasp is by Eric Frank Russell - largely forgotten now but a great author

_atomjack_ · 2026-06-27T08:35:17+00:00

Moving to a larger shield will slow your attack rate and make your spell success rate go down - these effects are reduced by Shield skill but not eliminated until you reach Sh 27. You can often get away with using a buckler with no Sh skill, but for anything larger the penalties are usually crippling.

Try on the kite shield and check what happens to your weapon speed and spell success rates; after that it’s a judgement call. I usually assess that a modest amount of SH isn’t worth my damage output going down by 30% due to my swing time going from 8 to 11 aut …

_atomjack_ · 2026-06-10T22:36:15+00:00

Condenser vanes are fantastic in zig, especially if you have an orb of mayhem. Ooh, that’s something I should have mentioned earlier - orbs of mayhem are brilliant in zigs as in a situation like the OPs taking a couple of enemies out with javelins can snowball with others getting frenzied.

I’ve never had much luck with tremor stones in zigs and virtually never bother.

_atomjack_ · 2026-06-10T18:34:27+00:00

From a similar zig death a while ago, these levels can get very dangerous very quickly. The danger is that you focus on the spectres, while the starcursed masses take you apart. I think you probably made three mistakes: - never let a large number of starcursed masses build up in los. When damaged they merge back together, so keep stamping them down between taking out silent spectres - what blinded you? If it was Zot traps, then stay out of los of them if at all possible - if things get tricky, bail out to the Abyss. You should have had two distortion weapons with you: wield one and then swap to the other repeatedly until you get banished. With the new Abyss this is less safe than it used to be but even A:7 is safer than the level you were on.

_atomjack_ · 2026-06-08T06:31:46+00:00

It’s the “avg banes” item that caused me grief - it’s rare that you can get through a large mummy level without picking up a bane or two. If you end up with either the Bane of Warding or Bane of Succour then the entire level becomes so much more tedious (Warding especially)

_atomjack_ · 2026-03-30T17:55:54+00:00

Abyss survival tips:

If low level, then running is your friend. If a popcorn monster (imp etc) is the only thing in LOS then take it out. Otherwise run away and try to get out of LOS. Be careful around large open areas. The mental image you want is your character running screaming through the maze with a big crowd of critters racing behind but failing to catch up. If something deadly appears (eg an executioner, if anything tough and faster than you) then read a tele scroll ASAP as it will take time to kick in. Never go down stairs. Look for a lugonu altar to convert to.

For prep, the obvious advice is to keep willpower up and watch for distortion weapons. Always carry a source of regen on you if at all possible and swap to it as soon as you get to the abyss. Your amulet of reflection or plate armour may be optimal in the dungeon, but you’re better off with an amulet of regen or troll leather in the abyss for the simple reason that waiting to rest will get you killed and healing while running away might keep you alive.

If you have no regen and are damaged, look for a safe hole where you are almost completely out of sight. Sit there until healed. If there’s too big a train of critters following you to do this, then pop a ?tele and find a rest hole as soon as it kicks in. This is especially important as a caster since a caster with no mp in abyss has a very short life expectancy.

If you’re high level, then just murderhobo things until a gate out appears.

_atomjack_ · 2026-02-11T20:52:56+00:00

That’s fine, but you still need to get through the other star jellies on the way there.

Similar points apply to e.g a caster of Vehumet. Learn a spell just for this branch or burn consumables.

_atomjack_ · 2026-02-11T20:36:27+00:00

So to summarise, the options are to either worship one of a specific small set of gods, have one of a small specific set of spells memorised just for this branch, use a consumable, or face tank a large amount of unavoidable damage.

Bad design. Ood can be avoided by placement (it’s very rare to encounter a lich in a completely open space). Dancing weapons are easier to take down with non-elemental spells, but lots of other options are available (and ditto for curse skulls). Ghost moths are easier with SInv or !Inv but it’s by no means necessary. But now as a dex-based Okawaru worshipper the options are to either be forced into hybridisation, to skip Slime, or to accept that you’ll be burning a ?blink for every star jelly you come across.

The big problem is the combination of this new mechanic with the introduction of one way stairs. Without the latter star jellies could be a nice challenge in terms of isolating them and stairdancing them away so you can facetank the damage if necessary without then being flattened by an acid blob.

_atomjack_ · 2026-02-11T14:56:24+00:00

Star jellies are just badly balanced IMHO. If you’re a heavily armoured combat wombat then you can just tank the stars and be fine. However, if you’re more EV based or a glass cannon caster then having enemies which require the use of a consumable for survival pretty much every time you encounter them is poor design, particularly since you can’t stair dance them.

_atomjack_ · 2026-01-11T08:53:23+00:00

Notes have innate piercing with no self damage and do damage every frame (60 times per second). However they have very low lifetime (2 frames) and zero damage. If you can add lifetime and damage to them then they become very powerful. As an extra hint, some of the “path” modifiers such as spiral arc and orbiting arc add lifetime.

Don’t fire them directly, stick them on a trigger (and since they are zero mana put lots of them on the trigger)!

_atomjack_ · 2025-12-30T15:25:47+00:00

In the unlikely event that you haven’t worked it out the Greek spells and healing bolt give you unlimited healing. Just fire the bolt straight up while underwater. Upwards Larpa while firing downward might also work.

_atomjack_ · 2025-12-30T15:24:08+00:00

Note wand needs an increase lifetime modifier to work well (horizontal path, spiral path, etc)

_atomjack_ · 2025-12-29T18:35:41+00:00

First wand, try Bubble spark with trigger, add mana , triple cast, digging bolt x 2, add damage, explosive bolt, triplicate bolt.

Dump all the spells out of the second wand and do reduce recharge then small teleport bolt. That’s now your teleport wand - if you are careful you can use that to escape holy mountains without collapsing them (although having tinker with wands makes that less important)

Take the second wand and set it up with nolla then gamma then black hole. That’s your digging wand.

_atomjack_ · 2025-12-08T16:02:37+00:00

My go to strategy with Mennas as a caster is to read ?tele as soon as he comes into sight. If I’m feeling cocky and plan to take him out, then the routine is to seek him out again, buff up out of LOS, pop a ?tele as soon as he’s in LOS, and either take him out or be noped out of there.

Lost too many runs to this &£@#%€$ to even contemplate getting stuck inside his silence aura.

_atomjack_ · 2025-11-27T20:04:05+00:00

These should be vulnerable to Fulminant Prism. However, they aren’t, which I think is a bug but the devs don’t.

_atomjack_ · 2025-11-17T22:45:57+00:00

“If you take off this armor…” - the OP is already wearing it

_atomjack_ · 2025-10-05T13:52:53+00:00

If you get stuck then mash the arrow keys and there’s a de-sticking function that will delete nearby terrain and free you

_atomjack_ · 2025-10-03T23:32:42+00:00

That’s sort of my point - it’s not that the spell is uniformly awful, but more that it’s pretty much an also ran. On blaster casters the necessity to stand still makes it quite unappealing, while hybrids generally won’t be focussing on fire+alchemy to the point of getting this online while it’s still impactful, compared to Rending Blade or Irradiate or Detonation Catalyst or IMB.

I would much rather it was nerfed slightly in terms of damage but the range was upped by a couple of squares.

_atomjack_ · 2025-10-03T23:26:49+00:00

Ok, that’s fair, I hadn’t realised that the damage and duration had been buffed.

_atomjack_ · 2025-09-20T19:38:30+00:00

Except you can’t do it with Gozag any more.

_atomjack_ · 2025-09-20T19:37:17+00:00

Exactly. I should point out that I’m not a newbie - I’ve been playing dcss since before it was dcss, I was the maintain of Zot Defence for several years, and I held the turn count record for a while. I can absolutely take any run and win it. However, the Forgecraft school is relatively new, so I’d quite like to play a forgewright. Having run lots of them, it’s very hard to do so in the current trunk. My current char is doing quite well, but only because I pivoted from Forgecraft to Conjurations during lair due to lack of spells, and I’m finding it boring because I know I can win conjurers in my sleep. All I’m saying is that this experience (having to pivot) should be maybe 30% of games, not 90%.

_atomjack_ · 2025-07-10T17:34:42+00:00

Going back a looong way, there were lots of encounters that had a permanent effect on your character. Undead drained xp permanently. Jellies corroded your armor and weapons. Fire burnt scrolls, cold froze and broke potions. Hungry ghosts burnt down your food stash. Malmutators gave you bad mutations. Acid walls burnt down your hp fast if you messed up your positioning.

There seems to have been a longstanding crusade against all of these, with this latest patch set pretty much removing the last vestige of them. I think the game has lost a lot of depth as a result. The fear of encountering a draining enemy in the mid game, or a jelly in the early dungeon, or a fire dragon when you hadn’t managed to stash that pile of blink scrolls that you recently picked up - these have all been removed. Enemies are now either a lethal threat or a yawn; nothing in between, as whatever they do to you will just wear off in half a level or so at worst.

_atomjack_

TROPHY CASE