[crossfire] Item stacking (was: Map cache)

[Brendan Lally]

On 8/26/05, tchize <
     
     tchize at myrealbox.com
     
     > wrote:
>
     
      limiting the number of object on a specific square sould be a good thing too.
     
     >
     
      It's such bizzare to be able to put 600 axes on one appartment square :s
     
     
well, yes, but how do you do it otherwise? if you have a big stack of
items then sure, any more items could slide off to adjacent squares
(like gates do currently), but what happens when you reach nearby
walls?

maybe an alternitive would be to autocreate 'piles' as
psudeo-containers? so that if there is 5 axes, they would be sent as 5
axes.
6 might get sent as 'a small pile of axes' - which would be no pick,
but 'openable' to get the axes inside.

having more than 20 odd, might give a 'pile of axes' and more than 100
'a massive pile of axes'.

of course then if there are items of the same type, but different
names, then it would become a pile of weapons when a sword was added.

If stuff of a different item type were dropped, then the pile would
lose the classification of 'weapons', and become merely a 'massive
pile of junk'

by having a weight limit on these psudeo piles, then there would be a
way to stop too many items being dropped, this weight limit would have
to be quite high.

The interesting question then is, what should stack in that way?
Clearly if you saw a dozen axes, you would refer to them yourself as a
pile of axes, and wouldn't think to try and pick up all of them, but
only to take one from the pile (this assumes that you /are/ an
axe-wielding maniac in your spare time of course....)
however clearly the same is not true of money. if 20 coins of various
types were on a table, and you were taking money with you, you'd
probably grab the whole lot and put it in your pocket.

the difference is that there are some things that are naturally
stackable (money, arrows, gems), and others which aren't (swords,
armour, rods)

one way of dealing with this might be to check whether the item uses a
body slot, and make a determination based on that, but it doesn't help
much with things like books, which probably should stack in that way.