Prevent grinding that arises from food clock bypasses

[HangryHippo]

Getting players to push forward is probably a good idea. Currently, the prospect of a reward from exploration in the form of items and a punishment in the form of the food clock are the means by which we nudge players forward. However, these two game mechanics can be overcome. With enough healing, players can bypass the food clock. Once players bypass the food clock, they can wait until monsters with items periodically spawn. Both the carrot and stick have been foiled. The game then changes from a "make do with what you can find" game into a "force some item(s) to drop" (i.e. force/choose a build) game.

Several solutions have been proposed which come with their own problems. Disabling healing while starving will punish non-grindy uses of healing while starving. Stopping item spawns after a certain number comes with the difficulty of figuring out the precise cutoff point.

I think I have a better solution. Roughly, check to see whether the player has positive nutrition before progressing or dispensing a reward. Additionally, as being paralyzed allows the player to pass turns without spending nutrition, also check that the player is unparalyzed.

There are two parts that need fixing. The first is wear-identification (armor, rings). The second is item generation from periodic spawns. I think weapon identification (from 20 kills) is okay since players do engage with the game.

Here's what a fix looks like for the first part (wear-ID). Add && ((player.status[STATUS_NUTRITION] > 0) && !(player.status[STATUS_PARALYZED])) to the first conditional check in processIncrementalAutoID in Time.c, before theItem->charges--;

As for the second part (items from periodic spawns), I'm not sure how to go about fixing this which is why this is a git issue rather than a PR.

[HdotCrinkle]

This wouldn't account for players holding the amulet and using food from mastery depths, would it? This would seem to be a viable (but tedious, due to the warden) alternative to healing (whether by priestess/unicorn or empowered ally, by self-reflection through a staff of healing, by health charm, or by an elaborate setup using transference/reaping) for exhausting the held items list or identifying weapons, armour and rings. Maybe this method is considered less scummy, by nature of consuming food, albeit at a much slower pace?

[HangryHippo]

Yeah, I'm not sure of others' opinions on the scumminess of amulet/food grinding. That said, the way to disable that would be to iterate through the entire pack and if the amulet is there the rest of the code (decrementer) doesn't execute. This should be the extra code in the case of amulet/food grinding, I think:

for (item *theItem = packItems->nextItem; theItem != NULL; theItem = theItem->nextItem) {
    if (theItem->category & AMULET) {
        return;
        }
}

[HangryHippo]

Forgot to mention that the code block from the previous post should be placed before the rest of the code.

Also, the changes suggested would impact those who are starving but not grinding. Maybe this is acceptable?

Again, monsters generating items is the main thing, which I'm not sure how to handle, so it's a git issue.

[HangryHippo]

[CONTINUED]

The code block to check for the amulet can probably be replaced by:

if (numberOfMatchingPackItems(AMULET, 0, 0, false)) {
    return;
}

To address the issue of players who are starving but not grinding, perhaps a small leeway can be added? After e.g. 100 turns of starving, then we can be sure that players are either dead or grinding.

Alternatively, perhaps we could just indicate in the game somehow that starving disables identification and items generating from periodic spawns.