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Beginner Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 15

I am having some problems with the automapper in that it only will recognise rooms and follow me if the weather conditions and time of day are the same as when I first mapped it.

The mud i am on has descriptions of weather and lighting conditions that sometimes (not always) display when moving to different areas. For example, sometimes, before the description of the room, it will display "The afternoon sun hides behind a cloud" and then later will display "the afternoon sun peeks out from behind a cloud". How do I set the mapper to ignore this, or at least so that it accepts multiple conditions to recognise a room. It would be a pain, but I would train it to every single condition if that's what it took.

Also, related to this, where could I find a good guide to syntax and in depth explanations of how to code with the automapper and zmud in general? I am very new to using mud clients, but have some experience coding, so some definitions of functions and operaters, etc, would be useful. Thanks!

Oh yeah, also it will put actions like people walking into the room or npcs doing that into the description as well, need to get around that too. Thanks again! :D

Another thing: whats happening is that I have it set not to capture room names, because there aren't any usually. It just gets room descriptions, the only thing is that somtimes the descriptions have junk in front if it that may take up one or two lines, I could figure out from some of the other posts on here how to get around that, if it was consistent, the problem is that the junk is NOT ALWAYS there, sometimes just the description comes up and no extra information.

And: Descriptions can change entirely depending on the time of day.

It's probably impossible to get around all of this I am starting to think....

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:57 pm

Reconfigure the mapper and uncheck the Room Description box. That'll keep the mapper from looking for the description at all, which should help.

As for your general scripting questions, take a look at the getting started section of the manual. zScript is quite different to most scripting languages - it'd probably be easier to give you some simple examples for things you want to do than it would be to try and explain it generically. Take a look at the examples for things like #if and #loop, and search the forums for more. Start a thread if there's anything you're stuck on; I'm sure you'll pick it up fast.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Or if you want to capture the Room Description to your map, but not use it for verifying rooms, you can tick the "Room Description changes" box in your Mapper Configuration Settings.

EDIT:
Hmm, if you don't have any Room Names and your room descriptions change too, you are going to have serious problems using the mapper. Or is the first line of the room description always constant? Because the mapper in zMUD only actually uses the first line of the room description for verification purposes... If even the first line of the room description changes, the only way is if there is virtually no verification that you are in the correct room. But the mapper is probably going to get lost easily and have trouble finding where it is supposed to be. Tell me, how do you know where you are?

Beginner Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 15

Well, turning off descriptions seemed like it would work Fang, and I think it might, but it seems like my automapper automatically switches it all back on. I just logged back on and looked at the settings and they were not conserved. Also, they must have changed even when I was using it to map, because descriptions are still being captured.

Having the mapper only look for exits would solve my problem. I don't really need description to be in my map, as I name all important rooms and color them and whatnot myself anyway. I just want the mapper to follow me properly in follow mode. But I can't seem to get the mapper to just stop capturing that info. I tried to turn off room name and descriptions, but the settings don't stick.

Seb: Nothing seems to be constant when you are outside in my mud. It depends on the time of day. I would say there are a few descriptions that are constant for each room, but that they switch by time of day and weather conditions. And there are no room names at all.

Only looking for exits and only using exits to verify rooms would solve my problem. Like I said before I am new to mud clients, and am not sure how powerful or customizable they are. I'll look into the helpfile that you suggested and see if I cant just program the mapper to do what I want myself. The autconfigurations don't seem to stick very well. And going into configuration settings menu also seems to not save the changes I make.

As for how I know where I am: the mapper often doesn't know where I am at. Not unless its the right time of day, etc. But just from the descriptions I know where I am, and have to constantly reset my current position on the map every dozen or so moves. Which isn't to bad, and I can live with it if it comes down to it, but I'm the kind of person that would die trying to get what I want to work to work :p. But even if room descriptions change, the info in it about where you are is still generally the same, just slightly different based on lighting and weather and time of day.

EDIT: But when I do turn off room names and descripions on configuration settings, it seems to work much better, with fewer problems. I think that if I change the settings everytime I log on doing that should work!

Wizard Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Posts: 1265 Location: USA

This looks like a job for fast mode to me. The mapper simply follows you without checking ANYTHING when you are in fast mode.

An example.

You are standing outside next to a lake. The lake is to the north of you and you have an exit to the south. If you are allowed to walk on the frozen lake in the winter you might have a room to the north of you as well. In the summer you might get the message, "The lake is wide and the water is deathly cold you may not proceed." While in the winter you can simply walk north unhindered.

If you are in any mode except Fast mode the mapper tries to determine if you actually made it into the next room before moving your dot into it. This is where you are having trouble because the mapper doesn't think you did make it, the description changed. In fast mode the mapper doesn't even try to make the match it simply sees that you attempted to go north and moves your dot to the north.

Now if the mapper moves you when it shouldn't you can sometimes use the fail message to recenter the map on you automatically using the #move command.

So we create the trigger.

#trigger {^The lake is wide and the water is deathly cold you may not proceed.$} {#move %reversedir(%lastdir)}

For that matter you could use triggers and the #move command to move around in the other modes. I do not think this will work in fast mode and it WILL NOT work offline.

#ONINPUT {^(%w)$} {}
#COND {^{The exits are|There are no exits}} {#if (%t1=%lastdir) {#move %t1}}

Beginner Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 15

Thanks for all the help!

It seems that I can get by if I keep room names and descriptions off, map in safe mode, and use follow mode in fast mode!