Bug - Fixed Modifier maximizer removes tiny top hat and cane without obvious reason

[Winterbay]

I'm doing a 100% Xenomorph run this run and have been noticing this a bit. Whenever I use the maximizer (either GUI or CLI command) it recommends that I remove the top hat from my familiar even though I have no other familiar equipment to use.

Even when maximizing for item drops (for which the hat is critical when you use a Xenomorph) it wants to remove it (explicitly stating -33 at the moment). This seems not to be like the way things were intended.

It doesn't matter if I use a -tie or not.

 

[Veracity]

I noticed that when I went against the filthworms this morning, it recommended removing the top hat for -76 Item Drop.

I did not accept the recommendation.

 

[Veracity]

Further info. modifiers.txt says this:

tiny top hat and cane	Fairy: 1.0

...which says that with this item equipped, the familiar is a full-weight Fairy. Other familiar equipment which has similar modifiers:

bugged bön±Ã©t	Food Drop: +5, Pants Drop: +5, Candy Drop: +5, Fairy: 1.0, Equips On: "Baby Bugged Bugbear"
mint-condition magic wand	Volleyball: 0.3334, Fairy: 0.3334

When I have the tiny top hat and cane equipped, my Item Drop goes up appropriately. When I do a modtrace, however, I do not see a line for "tiny top hat and cane". Instead, I see a line for "Fairy". I suspect it assumes that that modifier is all on the familiar, rather than being (partially or wholly) supplied by the equipment. Consider the Wizard Action Figure and the mint condition magic wand.

Fam:Wizard Action Figure	Volleyball: 0.3333, Fairy: 0.3333
mint-condition magic wand	Volleyball: 0.3334, Fairy: 0.3334

I'll bet that if you have that familiar equipped and equip or unequip the item, modtrace will show Fairy to be either the Familiar or the sum of the Familiar and the Item modifiers.

Now, when you ask for Item Drop, we know that Fairy gives you that, based on familiar weight. At least, modtrace lists Fairy as providing xxx Item Drop.

But, how does the Modifier Maximizer treat Fairy (for Item Drop), Leprechaun (for Meat Drop), and Volleyball (for Experience)? If you have any of those and want to maximize the corresponding modifier, does it suggest Familiar Weight items and effects?

In any case, it looks like it has trouble with equipment that adds familiar attributes. In the ideal world, if my familiar equipment provides xxx Fairy, if I do a modtrace on Item Drop, I'd like to see the percentage attributed to the equipment, rather than "Fairy".

That could be tricky for the WAF, though: the familiar itself provides 1/3 Fairy, giving such-and-such Item Drop, and the equipment gives an additional 1/3 Fairy, giving some incremental Item Drop - which is LESS than the first 1/3, since there are diminishing returns on familiar weight. I.e., a 15 lb. WAF gives 5 lb. Fairy, or 10 lbs. with the equipment, but 10 lbs. is not double the effectiveness of 5 lb.

 

[redwulf25_ci]

Further info. modifiers.txt says this:

tiny top hat and cane	Fairy: 1.0

...which says that with this item equipped, the familiar is a full-weight Fairy. Other familiar equipment which has similar modifiers:

bugged bön±Ã©t	Food Drop: +5, Pants Drop: +5, Candy Drop: +5, Fairy: 1.0, Equips On: "Baby Bugged Bugbear"
mint-condition magic wand	Volleyball: 0.3334, Fairy: 0.3334

When I have the tiny top hat and cane equipped, my Item Drop goes up appropriately. When I do a modtrace, however, I do not see a line for "tiny top hat and cane". Instead, I see a line for "Fairy". I suspect it assumes that that modifier is all on the familiar, rather than being (partially or wholly) supplied by the equipment. Consider the Wizard Action Figure and the mint condition magic wand.

That may explain why if I tell it to maximize item drops while my tophat and cane are equipped it puts a sugar shield on.

 

[Terion]

I'll bet that if you have that familiar equipped and equip or unequip the item, modtrace will show Fairy to be either the Familiar or the sum of the Familiar and the Item modifiers.

I can confirm that for you. With my 16 pound WAF at my side without any familar equipment, modtrace item drop shows Fairy +19.46.

When I then equip the mint-condition magic wand, modtrace lists Fairy as +31.89 (and has no separate listing for the wand, of course.)

 

[jasonharper]

r9433 should work better here; not tested.

It's not practical for these sorts of indirect familiar effectiveness to appear individually in the modtrace output, since they don't combine linearly. However, you could do something like modtrace Fairy to explicitly request the indirect effects. Note that this isn't going to be entirely complete, either: the various basic 100% fairy familiars (for example) do not actually have a Fairy modifier specified for them, it's inferred from the familiar type in familiars.txt. Only nonstandard sources or values of Fairy will have explicit modifiers that modtrace can show.

 

[Veracity]

Well....

Current equipment:

plexiglass pith helmet
pool cue
shark jumper
plexiglass pants
Order of the Silver Wossname
navel ring of navel gazing
Juju Mojo Mask

Familiar: Li'l Xenomorph (30 lbs.) -> 20 lb. base weight
Familiar item: tiny top hat and can -> makes familiar a 1.0 Fairy

modtrace Familiar Weight:

plexiglass pith helmet +5.00 = 5.0
amphibian sympathy +5.00 = 10.0

modtrace item drop:

plexiglass pants +20.00 = 20.0
order of the silver wossname +11.00 = 31.0
mad looting skillz +20.00 = 51.0
powers of observatiogn +10.00 = 61.0
natural born scrabbler +5.00 = 66.0
Fairy +67.62= 133.6202

Modifier Maximizer Item Drop

pull & equip hat straw hat (+1)
pull & equip weapon bottle-rocket crossbow (+10)
pull & equip off-hand spiky turtle shield (+10)
pull & equip shirt BFE 'cuddly critter' shirt (+7)
keep pants: plexiglass pants
keep acc1: Order of the SIlver Wossname
pull & equip acc2 Baron von Ratsworth's monacle (+6)
pull & equip acc3 Green Clover of Justice (+8)
pull & equip familiar Li'l Businessman Kit (-63)

Switching out the hat lowers familiar weight by 5 but adds +10 Item Drop. That does yield a net gain of 1.4 % Item Drop.
replacing tiny top hat and cane with Li'l Businessman's kit REMOVES 1.0 fairy from familiar and adds +5 Item Drop, for net decrease of -63, as listed.

Anything else I can do to help with this?

 

[jasonharper]

Turns out there was a much more fundamental problem here: the Maximizer was only considering equipment items up to the highest ID found in equipment.txt... which doesn't include familiar items. Fixed in r9437.

I can't imagine how this went undetected for so long, since the situation of having familiar equipment with an ID higher than any player equipment presumably existed for at least a while after each FOTM was released.

 

[Fred Nefler]

It's probably more like it was detected, but no one bothered to report it and just manually worked around it.