Draft:First Bank of Omega
The First Bank of Omega is Rampart's bank, operated through an Autoteller Carrel: an ATM that wakes up when the player approaches. It holds deposited gold and also contains a deliberately staged computer-failure sequence that pays out extra money at the cost of destroying the machine.[1]
| Location | City travel name | Opening hours |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed city location, known from the start | bank | All hours |
City location
@ highlights this facility within its surrounding city streets.
These are spoiler maps. Coordinates are (column, row), starting at zero. Letters and highlighted symbols are article keys for sites and initial placements, not a literal game screenshot or a promise that a creature remains there.
Map key
| Key | Meaning |
|---|---|
| " | Hedge |
| # | Wall |
| . | Floor or open ground |
| @ | First Bank of Omega entrance or principal site |
| G | Guard post |
Coordinates retain their positions on the full Rampart map. The diagram shows the initial city; doors, alarms and other state can change.
Banking
Use O to open an account and choose a nonempty password. Opening the account authenticates the current visit; on later visits, use P and enter the same password before making transactions. D deposits carried gold, W withdraws savings, X exits, and ? shows the available commands. These menu commands are uppercase.
There is no opening fee or minimum deposit. Purchases at other establishments use carried gold, so withdraw what you need before shopping. Deposits are separate from the cash lost when an ordinary monster accepts your surrender.
Savings are not guaranteed to survive. An indoor random event can erase the entire positive balance through a bank failure; another can add 5,000 Au through an error in your favor. Both require an existing positive balance and each occupies one outcome of the same 1,000-outcome event roll. They are occasional events during play, not interest paid for each day or each visit. A bank failure empties the account but does not itself break the ATM.[1]
Robbing the ATM
The password-error sequence is a one-time source of 1,000-3,999 Au, in addition to returning your existing balance:
- Open an account if you do not already have one.
- Use P and deliberately enter a different password.
- At the warning that summons the police and asks for the space bar, press a key other than Space.
The machine displays fake errors, aborts the police alert, reboots and spews gold. Your alignment moves 5 points toward Chaos, your balance becomes zero, and the ATM is broken for the remainder of the game. There is no repair service. A deposit and a separate return visit, although included in some older instructions, are not required.
Pressing Space instead moves alignment 5 points toward Law and calls the game's jail procedure. For a current Paladin, that procedure immediately expels the character from the Order. A mistyped password is therefore more consequential than an ordinary rejected transaction.[1][3]
Strategy
Robbing the machine provides early spending money without combat, but gives up all later banking. The alignment shift can make a neutral character Chaotic, or compromise a slightly Lawful character's eligibility for religious and guild services. Consider those commitments before taking the payout.
Keeping the machine intact offers a different gamble: even a 1 Au balance qualifies for the favorable 5,000 Au event, while exposing only that small deposit to a bank failure. Leaving a large fortune there does not improve the event's payout. Keep enough cash on hand for food, healing and fees, and do not count on a random windfall arriving when needed.
Trivia
The ATM claims to withdraw 4,294,967,297 Au, one more than 232, before reporting arithmetic overflow and a core dump. This is scripted comedy: the actual bonus is the much smaller amount above. The error messages and delays are part of the game, rather than evidence that the running program has crashed.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 site1.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 14 (
l_bank). - ↑ lib/city.dat in Omega 0.90.4; city.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 9–285; city.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 303–447.
- ↑ A. Light (editor), Omega Spoilers, version 1.10, updated 3 May 1994, reposted 19 April 1995; mixed older game versions. Robbery, lines 580-586. Preserved locally as
omega-0.75-spoilers.txt.