From: Jeffrey Bay
Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack
Subject: [spoiler/strategy] using pets to steal from shops
Date: 22 Jul 1998 14:05:01 -0500

using pets to steal from shops

I know people have access to spoilers that explain using pets to steal from shops, but I read them all, and only recently began to get it right. The spoilers tell how things work, but they don't always tell you the best way to use the knowledge. With that in mind, here is my rough draft of a new spoiler/strategy guide available for anyone to add to any of their pages as long as you include my name as author. [Jeff Bay]



First of all, understand that just like getting a pet in real life to learn a trick or do anything useful is difficult, especially if you don't know what you are doing. It takes time and patience, and patience... and, oh, uh... oh yeah. Time. Expect to spend your early years in the dungeon just prepping the shops...

My motto when stealing from shops is "Everything must go, AND my money back!"

You'll need enough gold to buy any tripe in the shops. You can obtain this much by selling stuff like short swords, armor, etc. A friend of mine collects Dwarvish cloaks, crossbows, and a couple of other things which he considers the most valuable items to sell. Selling items in the shop and putting them all in a big pile also aids in keeping a tidy dungeon. If there is anything I can't stand, its a big crowd of hill orcs coming through leaving their damn junk everywhere.
0. As you travel the dungeon, anytime you think that your pet might be hungry, save corpses for it. If it is in sight, but you can get the corpse first, pick it up and drop a dart or similar worthless object. Stand back 4 paces, and if it drops it next to you, chase it down and throw the corpse at it. (Bats are the best for this, since you can't typically eat them yourself and your pet can.) (monster corpses degrade as food in a bit, if you can't get the pet to do it for 50 turns or so, toss the corpse and try again next time.)

1. Never let your pet pick up any object on screen when you are about to implement this strategy. This lowers its tameness, whether the drop is a blessed magic lamp or an uncursed -1 dart.

2. Leave your pet on another level while you prep the shop.
2a. if you can't leave it elsewhere, then at least close (and lock, if possible) the door to all the shops including the one you are curretnly working on. (this goes along with 1.) The best strategy seems to be to prep all the shops on a given level at the same time, and then let the pet assault them one at a time.

3. always get to the shops first (aided greatly by 2.) The pet will eat tripe which is the most valuable thing at this stage.

4. enter the shop, throw darts down each row until you've determined there are no mimics in the shop.

5. Close the door to the shop, lock it if possible. Gather *everything* in the shop, and pile it into one big humongo pile in the farthest corner from the door of the shop. This has three purposes: 1) the stuff is out of your way, 2) the pet won't stray too far from you while very tame, so it probably won't even get to the pile, but 3) if there are *any* cursed items in the pile, the pet won't step on them.

6. go to the big pile, and grab everything you want the pet to steal. array the stuff around the shopkeeper near the door, with the stuff you want most nearest the front. 
     +------------+
     |/ + ?!     X|    
     |""  ?!      |    
    @=S  +        |    
     |""/ ?!      |    
     +------------+
big pile at X with everything you've ever sold or
don't want. S is the shopkeeper. = is the door.
" most valuable items, /+?! less valuable items in
that order.

7. This is an example of how to arrange things for maximal effectiveness. You want to leave an open space pathway to each item you drop. Do this for 2 reasons.
1) allows you to move freely without having to walk over items. (I use autopickup a lot to avoid wasting moves while gathering pet stolen items)
2) makes sure your pet won't be blocked from some objects due to cursed objects.

*** now open for bidness *snap* :) ***

8. Open the door to the shop. Go retrieve your pet and force them into the shop.

9. wait for pet to bring an item to the front two spots. autopickup them if possible, since that saves a move that the pet will possibly be retrieving another item.

10. if any edible monsters happen along, especially light ones, kill them, and hold them on you. In 11, they count as food for about 50 turns, after that you might as well toss them, because the pet won't eat them. If your pet is not hungry, it will not eat corpses, either, but will always take tripe rations.

11. There are two situations you have to deal with now.
11a. Your pet is already tame enough to be dropping items. In this case, you want to get the perfect shot with your tripe ration or monster. hold off until the pet drops the item RIGHT next to you and STAYS right next to you for the turn you need to throw the tripe/corpse.
11b. You are trying to tame an unruly pet. (One that is tame, but it's edog->apport field is 0. (that means it doesn't care about dropping items really. This is when it sometimes takes serious patience. Once the pet drops something, if the pet immediately moves off, don't wait for the perfect throw as in 11a, you need to get it at least a little tame right now. (otherwise you might starve it to death trying to get it to get an object...) Chase the little bugger down if you have to, and throw the food asap.


12. After you have cleared away the stuff near the front of the shop, the process will slow somewhat because the pet wants to stay relatively close to you if you are in sight. In this case, herd the pet out of the shop, close the door, rearrange the items to put them in a better configuration near the door, and then herd the pet back into the shop.

13. If you want a particular item in the shop above all else (can you say magic candle? [this is a slash specific item - Sascha] I thought you could...) just use the same techniques, but have 2 piles. Pile 1: stuff you want. Pile2: stuff you don't want. Then put the one item you want next to the shopkeeper, get it, and then spread out the items you do want.

14. Learn or macro program this key sequence to drop one unpaid item.
Du<CR>y<CR><ESC>
Drop some items, unpaid, return, yes, return, escape.
use escape as the last char, and not "q", because when moving quickly using this sequence, the last item short circuits out when you don't have anything to drop, and if you are using "q" you will try to quaff something.

15. Another key sequence/macro I find useful in shops is:
Dua<CR><ESC>
(drop all unpaid objects without confirmation.) 


-- 
*****  Jeff Bay  *****    *------------->> jbay@rsn.hp.com <<--------------*
"Why are we here?         |       @}->--   a rose by any other name,       |
 because we're here."     |         would still not compare to her.        |
-- Rush: Roll the Bones   *------------->> jbay@rsn.hp.com <<--------------*