Should ESP radius be rectangular, like the detection area?

[magnate]

No - detection radius should be circular, like ESP .... ;-)

[rhinocesaurus]

Changed all detection and mapping spells from 81x45 rectangle to radius 32 circle.

[Big Al]

IIRC, detection radii were changed to circular, but then changed back because rectangles overlap better (err, that is to say, they don't overlap as much). A 32-radius circle may be about the same size as a 81x45 rectangle, but it takes many more casts to cover the whole dungeon with a circle. I would go with the original suggestion, if at all.

[magnate]

But you don't need to cover the whole dungeon. If anyone feels a compulsion to clear levels, that's fine, but we don't need rectangular radii just for that case. Circular radii just feel better on so many levels ... I really hope Takkaria implements this patch

[takkaria]

What Big Al said— I did use circular detection areas for a while, but in the end found just using a fixed-size rectangle was less annoying. While a circle makes more sense, rectangles play better, because it's far easier to tessellate them. (Hence this bug being about moving ESP to being rectangular, like the other detect things, rather than the detections being moves to circular.)

[anonymous]

When it doubt, make it a birth option! I think that the detection size should get modified. make the baseline from how strong/rare the spell/magic item is, and then modify with levels and spellcasting stat. even the durability could come into play, scroll of trap detection > staff > rod.

[rhinocesaurus]

Ok, this patch makes ESP rectangular. Moved the rectangular detection constants to defines.h, hope that's the best place to put them - I'm new at this.

[d_m]

OK, so it seems like based on discussions with takkaria and lispy on IRC that it's better to leave detection circular (since circular radius is probably "more correct" but square detection areas are convenient). So rather than force consistency we're just going to leave it alone and close this issue.

rhinocesarus: Thanks for both patches, and sorry that they won't be committed.

[d_m]

Err... that is, leave ESP circular and detection rectangular.