INVENTORY ========= omega inventories are now much different from other rogue-like games. Unlike rogue, et al., you cannot directly employ every object you carry. Every object may either go into your "pack" or into some specific inventory slot such as "belt" or "ready hand" or "left shoulder" etc. Some slots are dedicated to certain types of items (eg, only armor can go in the armor slot), but other slots are general purpose, like your belt or your shoulder. It takes game time to transfer an object from your pack, (which can hold a fixed number of items) to specific slots from which the item may be useable. The pack is implemented as a mock-stack, so the deeper you burrow into your pack looking for some item, the more game time you are wasting. Therefore, carrying a whole lot of (semi)useless items may be a strategically bad move. Of course, as always, you can't carry more weight (either in your pack or in your inventory slots) than is dictated by your current STRENGTH and AGILITY. Since you can only activate (read, quaff, zap, etc.) objects which are not in your pack, and since it requires a move to take something out of a bag, you now have to consider strategy in apportioning the items you pick up. INVENTORY CONTROL MODES ======================= There are two type of inventory control: Display mode and Quick mode. Which mode you use by default can be toggled by the TOPLINE option settable with the 'O' command and in your .omegarc file. In Display mode, all the inventory slots are displayed in the menu window. In Quick mode, only the message lines above the main window are used, and therefore the slots are not all displayed, only one of them at a time. Additionally, the commands are slightly different. The amount of time each action takes is indicated below. Dropping two items takes twice as long as dropping one item. Note that your pack is treated as a LIFO stack; the last object you put in is the easiest to get at. DISPLAY MODE: ^l,^r: Redisplay inventory (if screen is munged). Takes no time. d: Drop the item currently in the 'up-in-the-air' slot, or in the 'selected' slot if there is nothing 'up-in-the-air'. Takes one second. p: Put the 'up-in-the-air' item into your pack, or the 'selected' item, if the 'up-in-the-air' item is vacant. Takes 5 seconds. s: Show the contents of your pack. Takes 5 seconds. t: Take an item from your pack and put into the 'selected' slot, or if that is full, tries to put into the 'up-in-the-air' slot. Takes 5 seconds + 1 second/item examined in pack. I.e., rummaging at three items before taking one takes 8 seconds. x: Exchange the 'up-in-the-air' slot with the 'selected' slot. This will merge two quantities of an item together if possible. Either the 'up-in-the-air' slot or the 'selected' slot can be vacant. Takes 2 seconds. >: Cause the next slot lower down to be the 'selected' one. Takes no time. <: Cause the next slot higher up to be the 'selected' one. Takes no time. ?: Print this help. Takes no time. ESCAPE: return to game, dropping any object in the 'up-in-the-air' slot. Takes no time. In Display Mode, the 'selected' slot is the one with a highlighted '->' before it. QUICK (TOPINV) MODE: d: Drop an item. Takes one second. e: Examine some inventory slot. Takes no time. p: Put some item into your pack. Takes 5 seconds. s: Show the contents of your pack. Takes 5 seconds. t: Take an item from your pack and put into some inventory slot, or into the 'up-in-the-air' slot if the one selected is full. Takes 5 seconds + 1/item examined in pack. x: Exchange the 'up-in-the-air' slot with some slot. This will merge two quantities of an item together if possible. Either the 'up-in-the-air' slot or the other slot can be vacant. Takes 2 seconds. ~: Enter Display Mode. Takes no time. ?: Print this help. Takes no time. ESCAPE: return to game, dropping any object in the 'up-in-the-air' slot. Takes no time. In quick mode, there is no 'selected' slot, instead the letter identifying the slot must be entered following the command. The 'x' command in both modes is the one you'll use most; it combines taking and putting from inventory slot to "up-in-air" where picked-up items will be, and where you will drop items from on leaving the inventory mode.