NPC damage/casting
 

Here's my problem, with Drawde's Database and the normal emu run files, the mobs will only single attack, miss very much, and not hit very hard. They will only attempt to cast spells if below 30% hp and RIGHT when you hit them, leading to an interrupt every time. I have had several occaisions where i've been able to hit it only once, it will cast right as i hit it, it will still say that it was interrupted, but it will get the spell off. Using Malevolent's Halls of Malevolence .exe, the monsters hit much harder, but still only single attack, and their casting issues remain the same. Also, there is the fact that the actual hunger issue in the zone is a very nice idea, but very frustrating for new players getting killed right away as they pop in. My friend told me he played on a server where the NPCs were flurrying for 2k. I have tried to use #npcspecialattk and set A-N on true, but i dont see any change.

Also, I am running a 1.8 ghz 512 ram machine running Windows XP. The server gets INCREDIBLY laggy at times, with just me and my friend on. I have a cable modem. I have noticed that other servers run very smoothly with even 5 people on. Is everyone with a server running a 2.5 ghz 1 gig ram monster?

Thanks in advance,
Frax

I haven't had any luck with getting spellcasting, multiple attacks, or special attack types to work. The only spellcasting that seems to work is that NPCs will cast healing or protection spells when badly injured, as you say. This seems to be hard-coded into the emulator (haven't checked the code though) and have nothing to do with the npc_types spell list.
As for damage, I'm currently trying to work out the best formula, but haven't perfected it yet!
The current one I'm using is 10+(level*6) plus a modifier for strength, minimum damage is 50% max (that's the main reason monsters miss so often with the 0.8 data, the min. damage was only 1, and really low damage will be reduced to 0 by AC and displayed as "missing").
What monsters are you fighting, and what's the class, level, AC and HPs (approximately) of your character?
Knowing this might help me with balancing damage values.

The chance to hit is level based, means if you are level 50 and the mob level 10, it won't hit that much (30% to be excact). AC is a minor factor atm and will reduce damage up to 30% (atm, might be adjusted later).

The chance to channel is skillbased (with ~ 50% base chance for npcs/per hit), so they should have a good chance to channel spells. I'll lok into this, since i didn't tested this very much.

This is not supported ;) Well ask Mal about this.

This is maybe bugged, i dunno...

Actually, your bandwidth is much more important than your CPU-Power (well at least above 800 Mhz). So your server is probaly laggy because your connection/isp sucks