Finding more decaying houses - tools

[Gemviper]

I've personalized a looting script to my Fel-side playstyle and, with the help of all the finder and other tools, am doing well. I'd like to do better! I'm not hardcore about IDOCs but I am hardcore about being efficient in what I do. I've been to about a dozen IDOCs in the past 2 weeks but, with the help of this type of tool, could reduce my time spent looking a great deal.

While my scripting skills are not yet up to the challenge of keeping up with my ideas/desires I do know what/how I want to improve my chances at good loot and the first step is finding those idocs. There is a shard full of houses to check for IDOCs and, as Pokemon would say, gotta catch them all! I was also inspired by kal's awesome SoS mapping tool, you'll see some similarities between the following and her fishing related SoS script.

ME wandering all over checking houses vs COMPETITION using custom tracking scripts and websites etc isn't working for me! hehe

What the tool should do
- Have a map of the facet with a spot marked with my current location that updates as I move around
- Place a small dot on the map of the co-ords of every house sign I check, regardless of condition (script can use sextant to get co-ords?)

So far this mapping feature is already part of Kal's script but for MIB locations. It was also part of UOAM but required UOAssist and I'm not even sure UOAM is working anymore. Even if it is, it will not do the rest of what I'd like anyway. Point is this wouldn't be entirely new, there is inspiration out there.

- Set a timer on each house I check that changes their pin color based on how long it's been since I last checked them. ie: Green = like new and checked within the past 3 days. yellow = was like new but not checked in over 3 days. Red = not checked in over 7 days(or however long it takes to go from like new to IDOC).

This part I have not seen on any script, yet, though I'm sure it exists. It would only require a timestamp be recorded at the time of last check and then used to set marker color when rendering the markers. That's it!

With this type of tool you could take one quick look and know which areas you need to head out to and you could make sure to run by all of the houses you know are there. Difficulties I would anticipate include performance issues and marker/map sizing issues since some houses are spread out but some are quite clustered. The thing I do NOT like about the in-game mini map is how small an area it shows, this tool would show the entire facet and allow me to know which sections need attention. I could even section each off and mark a rune to each area if I wanted... that would make it easier to use rails for those who do.

Does such an idoc mapping system exist already? a player in game tipped me off to a Japanese site which does something similar but it downloads the data to a database for all of the players with access to the tool to use on their site. I think that's a bit much if you're just tooling around solo and not an addict of IDOCs. I know this is the type of tool people would not want to share, greed makes people nasty sometimes, but I will likely end up building my own version if nobody else knows of such a script... you could help me not waste weeks doing what's already been done

[Crome969]

[Gemviper]

Not standalone, no. I don't think I made myself clear though...

- no pathfinding wanted or required, this is not an afk tool
- map movement is possible, you can see it in action via the script "MIB SOS MASTER" by Kalinex. Download the sosmaster file, I think it's hosted on the easyuo site(http://www.easyuo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=97820#97820).
- I think the script picks up the location from the MIB text when opened and plots a dot on the map. A version for Idocs could check a sextant each time a sign is checked and grab the text from that.
- Plotting dots on the map is also possible via easyuo, that script does it already. Here is a screenshot http://thedemigod.com/pics/lazysos5.jpg

As you can see in the screenshot the orange dot by #3 is the player character, the dot moves when the player does. Also, over by #10, are green dots for MIB locations... this could be on the map for IDOC locations. A function that turns the dots from one color to another over time to let you know how long ago you last checked the house would be ideal.

That MIB script is almost exactly what I would like for IDOCs actually, just switch MIBS for IDOCS and voila. Again, the map co-ords can come from a sextant reading since there is no MIB to read and house signs don't give you co-ords.

[Crome969]

[Gemviper]

Try Kali's script for MIBs and you might feel differently, have you tried it out? It's really well done. If you have then I appologize but I'm not understanding what part of the idea is not possible since I've seen the idea working for another item.

Her script tracks you around an active map and marks MIB locations based on the MIBs you scan in your pack. The only real conversion I'm talking about is to place marks on the map at house locations instead of MIB locations. She grabs the MIB coordinates via the MIB gump, an IDOC version could drag the coordinates via the sextant gump and/or journal. To put it over the top as an IDOC tool the house markers would need to change color over time so that I know when it's time to go check that house again.

This tool would do nothing else, it wouldn't move your character for example, it's just a mapping tool that tells you where you can look and to not miss houses. Tell you what, my scripting skills are limited but I'll try to figure out how to plot sextant co-ords to an external file with a timestamp and will then try to get a map image, like Kali's MIB map, to plot those co-ords on it. The last step would be the marker color changes depending on how old the marker timestamp is. I hope that's more clear.

P.S. I'm not looking for a rail type system because I can run around much faster myself and rails in Fel get you killed, eventually. I only need to know where ALL houses are and to know what ALL their conditions are and when I last checked them ALL... too much to ask?

[Crome969]

[Gemviper]

Ahh that makes sense, I was looking at the code and began to realize why the data isn't saved. Trying to load a shard's worth of data for each sign(or step) isn't going to work, lol.

Thanks for the detailed writeup, now I get it. I'm not easily told something can't be done but I'm also able to listen to more experienced people... when it makes sense to me, which it does now.

Thanks again.

[Crome969]

Ahh that makes sense, I was looking at the code and began to realize why the data isn't saved. Trying to load a shard's worth of data for each sign(or step) isn't going to work, lol.

Thanks for the detailed writeup, now I get it. I'm not easily told something can't be done but I'm also able to listen to more experienced people... when it makes sense to me, which it does now.

Thanks again.

Sure thing, you wroted it up properly and asked the right questions, so you deserve a properly answer :-)

[Endless Night]

Fully automatted idoc hunting scripts have been done  and probably more than a few times.   But it is a huge undertaking and thus no one will ever share such a script  I cannot underestimate the enormity of the task......

Like with most scripting for Easyuo  if this is truly something you really want and is custom to you ...  I am afraid you are probably going to have to write it yourself.

A simpler script would be one that just recalled around to a book/s of known idoc's and recorded the time stamps.  So if you are manually running around you could fill the book and then have your script check the status daily.

[Crome969]

[Endless Night]

i wouldn't recommend writing such a script in Easyuo that is for sure.

[TrailMyx]

Remember that MASSIVE script SuperSlayer wrote for IDOC finding?  I wonder if he ever got that to work.. 

[Crome969]

[Gemviper]

The best way to do a worldrunner would be Marking specific Spots where no house\Player would be there then walk aroudn the area dynamicly and port to next area.

Unless YOU are the worldrunner and you just want a map in your pocket pointing to which houses you haven't checked in a week. The whole "search the world for you" part of any idoc script isn't for me. I'm going to run around myself, I do it on my thief in Fel in case I find player marks, and I just want to miss fewer houses and not waste my time re-checking places I checked a few days earlier. Having a map marked by each sign I check would be helpful.

I can make a script record sextant co-ords near every sign I check, and print it to a file, but I'm not sure how I'd render that list onto a visual map. The mapping part doesn't need to be in game, it can be a desktop tool for example. It seems like it should be simple, but I'm still learning.

Anyway - just a roadmap of known house locations would be better than randomly running around checking.

[Endless Night]

I probably have a copy of superslayers script, but wouldn't feel right releasing it.   And yes it did work but was awfully complex. As to the blocking issue I did solve that the notes for the solution are in the OpenEUO path-finding script on Easyuo.   Was something to do with a hidden item that is always at the center of houses,  and when you combine that with the house sign type you can calculate plot size and easily walk around it....  Something like that


Gemviper -- you could use one of the mapping tools for uo, I believe you can import coordinates for pins on the map....

UoCartographer  http://downloaduocartographer.com/

Does this still work ??  UOAutoMap:  http://forums.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19046