Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:22 am

Any idea how it might be possible to speedwalk from one location to another that incorporates dynamic behaviors? For example ...

1. Walk to a specific location
2. Check if the ship is available
3. If the ship is not available signal the ship and wait for it to arrive - if the ship has not arrived within 10 seconds, signal the ship again. repeat until the ship arrives.
4. When the ship arrives, enter the ship, and send a command to sail to the destination
5. If we have not arrived at our destination within 10 seconds, send the command to sail to the destination again - repeat until we get there
6. Once we get to our destination, exit the ship and continue speedwalking to the final destination

Is something like this possible? If so, any ideas what the best way to solve this problem would be?

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:33 am

Looks to me here's the time for Multistate triggers.

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:59 pm

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Almost any Cmud code with multistate triggers _is_ a finite state machine. For that matter, you don't even need multistate triggers to write a finite state machine in Cmud. A fairly simple set of interacting triggers would suffice. People have written some quite complex Cmud scripts, including entire autonomous bots on some muds that allow them.

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:31 am

Trying to think about how to approach this ...

Let's go back to the problem above with the ship. Let's say I want to speedwalk across zones and I need to take the ship.
So, would it be possible to bind a script to a particular exit? So let's say I enter the room that links to the ship - if the ship is present (enter ship). The speed walk path knows that the next step is to "enter ship" so CMUD intercepts that command with a "sail" script that saves the target speedwalk destination, then performs a series of steps to ensure we sail correctly using the ship, then resume speedwalking from the current room to the previous destination.

Is that fesable? And an appropriate way to solve this problem with cmud? Is there a better way?

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Yes, this would be possible. If you can describe the specific situation in detail, we can help figure out a way to do it. There will probably be half a dozen possible ways.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:14 pm

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:36 pm

Seems to me that you will need to:

1. give the various dock and destination rooms a short room name. (room properties window, beside the actual room name)
2. use a variable to keep track of which dock your ship is at

with that you will always be able to speedwalk to your boat when you need to- %pathfrom(,@dockname)

3. then i would make an alias to start the boarding, sail setting scenario
4. make a trigger for arrival to disembark and speedwalk to your final destination.

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

There's a few more details lacking.
a) From any one location, can you get to more than one ship? I don't know how your mud's world is designed, but, assuming it is a set of distinct islands, can there be more than one ship per island? If there is more than one ship per island, it will be more complicated, because we have to set it up such that the mapper can figure out which ship to go to, based on total distance.
b) You say that the ship can sail to multiple destinations. Are any of these destinations on the same island? If so, we will have to set it up so the mapper can figure out which destination to go to, based on total distance.
c) Is it possible for the sailing voyage to be interrupted--the ship stops in the middle, sinks, or something? If so, you will have to account for failed journeys somehow.
d) Is it possible for a ship not to come when you signal for it?
e) Are there actual ocean spaces on the map between islands/continents/whatever? If so, are there different descriptions of these spaces? Can you interact with them in any way (swimming, fishing, etc)? Are there any manually controlled boats which you can steer yourself in arbitrary directions?
e) Is it possible to leave the ship in the middle of the water? If so, I would recommend a completely different solution which would try to track the ship's journey so that the mapper can put you in the right place if you leave the ship somehow.
f) Does the ship itself have room name/description/exits/etc.? If so, does any of that change while you are underway, or when you are in different cities?

I can think of at least three possible types of solutions, but they all depend on different answers to these questions.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:21 pm

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Okay, cool! The first idea I have is pretty much what you were already thinking of. Let us suppose you have a location ThisPlace, from which you can ship to Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.

In ThisPlace, create three exits of type Other--one for each ship destination.
For Alpha, set the exit command to be 'shipto Alpha'; do the same for each exit.
Set the destination room for the Alpha exit to be the landing at Alpha.
Create the alias 'shipto', which does all the work: signal ship, wait for ship, enter ship, ask captain, wait for destination message, exit ship.
Set the movement timeout to be long enough for all of this.

One possible problem is that the timeout would be rather long, causing a problem for other walks that don't need such a long timeout. So, here is an alternative:

For each landing on every island, create a new room which represents the ship at dock. So you would have a room for the ship at ThisPlace, a room for the ship at Alpha, etc.
For each landing, create an exit linking it to the matching ship room.
Set the command for this exit to be 'callship'; the opposite direction should obviously be 'exit ship' or whatever.
Create an alias 'callship' which signals the ship, waits, and enters the ship.
Make sure each ship room gets the room name and description to match.
Set each ship room to automatically Pause walks.
In each ship room, create an exit to the ship room of every possible destination.
Set the exit command between ship rooms to be 'ask captain to sail to <destination>'.
In each ship room, set up triggers matching 'we have arrived at <destination>' to execute #STEP.
Set the movement timeout to be long enough for a ship to arrive after signaling.

With this scenario, here is what would happen:
Walk takes you to ThisPlace.
Walk executes 'callship'.
The callship alias waits for the ship, then moves you to ShipRoomThisPlace.
You pause automatically.
(Hm. Some kind of trigger here needs to execute #STEP, but I'm not sure what it could fire on).
Walk executes 'ask captain to sail to Alpha', which moves you to ShipRoomAlpha.
You pause automatically.
The message ''we have arrived at Alpha' triggers the command #STEP.
Walk executes 'exit ship' and continues the path.

This is at least a start on possible methods.

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:12 pm

Thanks Rehab. I'm working through your algorithm. Looks good. I'm not sure exactly how the alias/trigger system will work yet, but from what I understand so far, this is how the room layout should look:

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

That would be one way to do it. It is slightly different from what I described, but is an option I thought of before.

If you do it that way, you would probably have a room trigger in "On ship Docked at South Coast" which catches "all aboard, we're sailing to " and teleports you to "Ship Underway". Then you would put a room trigger in "Ship Underway" which catches "we have arrived at Island A" and teleports you to "On Ship Docked at Island A", then executes #STEP. "Ship Underway" would of course have room triggers for every possible destination. This might make your scripts a bit easier, actually.

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

By the way, if you don't know how to make a room trigger...

In Cmud you can give a class a "key" value. If you use a key of "roomXXXX", that class can contain scripts that are specific to a particular room. Cmud will automatically enable that class when you enter the room, and disable it when you exit. You can also have keys like "zoneXXXX" which can contain scripts that will be active only in particular zones.

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:28 pm

So I just did some comprehensive documentation of the ship system. I was wrong on a few points. Here it is:

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

Oh, excellent. We should be able to make fine triggers from that. I don't have time just now, but will look at it some more later.