Aardwolf Mapper Tutorial (by Lunk) 2/2

Lunk's Aardwolf Mapper Tutorial 1/3

Quote of Nick Gammon - "You probably have ";" configured as your "command stacking character". Therefore to have the ";" make its way to the mapper you have to double it. This will not apply to people who have disabled command stacking, or use a different stack character."

The Mapper in Aardwolf's MUSH client package is a very powerful and helpful resource for finding quest mobs, campaign mobs and even gq mobs.
If you don't already have the latest aardwolf version of MUSH client you can get it here : http://github.com/fiendish/aardwolfclientpackage click the "Download ZIP"
button in the bottom right corner of the web page.

Once you have MUSH client running and connected to aardwolf it's time to take a look at the mapper.
The first thing you want to type just to get an idea of what the mapper is capable of is to enter "mapper help".
You will notice several categories.

In this tutorial I am going to cover the basic functionality of the mapper as well as :

-mapper exits
-removing mapper exits
-the wait command
-mapper moving
-mapper searching
-mapper portals

basic functionality :

the mapper is essentially a database of areas, room titles, and cexits along with lots of helpful commands that can be found reasonably quickly using the mapper help command.
the mapper can move you around the mud very quickly, especially with aliases set up for the various mapper commands.
clickable rooms (listed alphabetically) for a customised runto (with cexits/portals)

*** IMPORTANT - YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY VISIT THE AREA/ROOM AND HAVE IT EXPLORED FOR IT TO HAVE AN ENTRY IN THE DATABASE... THE MAPPER WILL NOT WORK UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN TO THE ROOM YOU ARE TRYING TO GET TO IN THE PAST ***

1. mapper exits

Firstly what is a mapper exit? it is a "custom exit" or "cexit" that is programmable into MUSHclient that will aid with auto movement.
How do I make a mapper exit? like this - "mapper cexit open e;;e;;close w" this will open a door to the east, move east then close the door again (which is to the west after moving)
You may be thinking what use is this? It will become clear as you read on through this tutorial.

2. removing mapper exits

To remove a custom exit (mapper exit) from the mapper database. For example if I wanted to clear the custom exit I just made because it didn't quite work how I wanted it to I would
use this - "mapper delete cexits" - this would clear all cexits for the room I am in when I type it.

To remove an entire area's custom exits (which can be useful for some areas with big mazes that rotate) I would use this - "mapper purgezone *" swapping the asterisk (*) for the area
for example : "mapper purgezone nenukon" would clear the mapper exits in the area Nenukon.

3. the wait command

The wait command can be very handy for rooms that require some waiting before moving again, a good example of this is in the sandcastle area getting to the lamp section.

we use "wait(*)" as the wait command e.g in kobaloi you may want the cexit to wait before moving up (once you have purchased the pass) into the main section so we would use this: mapper cexit u;;wait(2)

It's worth noting that the minimum wait is 2 seconds. If you want a longer wait you can swap out the 2 for however long you need.


4. mapper moving

It's now time to put a cexit to the test using the mapper goto command. First I will assume you have a cexit in an area with no aggro mobs, a good place to try this out is beer goblins.

first find a closed door and make the cexit as described in part 1. of this tutorial. Make a note of the room you end up in after you have made the cexit.
next test it - make sure the door for the custom exit is closed and you are at the start of the area, next use the mapper area command to find the room you want to move to like this -
"mapper area *" again, replacing the asterisk for a word in the room title, for example - "mapper area home" or whichever room you made a note of and finally click on the blue writing of the room...

And like magic - you move to the room using the cexit you programmed into the mapper :)

5. mapper searching

To search for a room whilst you are in the area of the room you want to search for you would use "mapper area *" again, where the asterisk (or *) is part of the room you want to search for.
This works for one word or multiple words with spaces in-between for example - "mapper area home" would list all rooms in the current area that contained "home" in the room title,
"mapper area a cozy home" would list any rooms that contained ALL the text "a cozy home"

To search the entire mapper database for a room we do not know the area of, we use mapper find like this "mapper find *" or e.g "mapper find home"
Again the rooms in the database that contain the word "home" will be displayed in blue writing in a organised alphabetical list along with the area that contains them. And yes, they are clickable
(with the mouse).

6. mapper portals

Last but by no means least, mapper portals, this is what will really shave seconds and even minutes from your cp/gq times (once you have a good set of portals)

The best way to program the mapper to use portals is to use MUSHclient alias' and a variable for held item/duel wielded weapon.

Lunk's Aardwolf Mapper Tutorial 2/3

What is an alias?
An alias is a keyboard short-cut to perform a set of pre-programmed actions.
for example I could make an alias "mpo1 *" with the send set to this:

Send :

hold %1
enter
hold @mportal_item
put %1 @portal_bag

To use variables in the variables table of the MUSHclient config we need to click (and make sure "expand variables" is ticked)

I do believe that in order to use variables in an alias we also need to "Send To : execute" in the drop down menu for the alias in the world config as-well as ticking the expand variables tick box over on the right for the alias.

What does this do? firstly the * in the actual alias (short-cut) itself is called a wild-card which means it can be anything
then we can use it in the send with %1 as it is the first and only wild-card in the alias (short-cut).

If you wanted to use more than one wild-card you would still use an asterisk * and use it in the set of instructions (send) as whichever
position it is in e.g for the 3rd wild-card we would use %3 in the send.

Secondly the @mportal_item and @portal_bag are both variables which we would need to set up in the variables table of
MUSHclient as explained below (How do I make a variable?)
So if we had this alias setup with variables below and then we enter this - "mpo1 honeycomb" - we should then see the set of instructions we made entered as if we just typed them
and hit enter:

hold honeycomb
enter
hold tanelorn
put honeycomb luggage

What is a variable?

A variable is a container for a piece of information that varies with time. (eg - a different portal bag or a different dual wielded weapon or a different held item)

How do I make a variable?

To open the variables part of MUSH client we want to hold ALT and press Enter on the keyboard,
this should bring up the world configuration window.
On the left hand side at the bottom you should see "Variables"..
click on it and then click "add"
then in the name field you can call your variable whatever you like
I would advise something suitable like: mportal_item
once you have done that you need to give the variable a value which is the information that the variable will hold
which for me would be: tanelorn, but for you would be whatever you dual wield or hold in your off-hand.

The other variable we want to set up is: portal_bag.
So as we did with the portal item we go to the world config with ALT + Enter,
click Variables
on the left and at the bottom, click add and name it: portal_bag or whatever you want to call the variable
give it the value of whichever bag you want to use as your portal bag which for me would be: luggage

What good will the above do?

It will mean that if and when you decide you want an aardbag for all your portals you can just change the value of the portalbag variable in the variables table to your new
aard bag instead of re-programming every single mapper portal with a different bag.
And again after, if you decide to restring your bag to Portals with portals also as a item keyword actually stored on the aardwolf server as part of the item. (read help restring in aardwolf)
It's the same theory with held/dual wielded items and the mportal_item variable.

The other alias we want to setup to actually program the portal into the mapper databse is this :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alias : mpo2 *
Send :
mapper portal hold %1;;enter;;hold @mportal_item;;put %1 @portal_bag
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now with the 2 aliases setup as explained above we could do something like :
mpo1 honeycomb - this will take us to the entrance of war of the wizards (through the honeycomb portal)
mpo2 honeycomb - enter the honeycomb portal into the mapper portals database for later use + fast transport
you will also need to enter the level of the portal after using the second alias.

Golden chaos portals can be used during campaigns and gquests
It's best to either restring those or copy and paste the item id number as you use the aliases you made as above, the same applies if you have 2 portals with similar names.

Enjoy !

And remember - if you get stuck there is always the tech channel, I will try my best to answer any questions if I am logged in.

Lunk's Aardwolf Mapper Tutorial 3/3

Useful Mapper Commands :

cexit *;;*;;* - programs a cexit into the mapper
wait(*) - adds a wait command into the cexit
mapper thisroom - displays mapper information about the current room
mapper area * - displays rooms in area that contain *
mapper find * - displays rooms in entire MUD that contain * as well as the area that contains them
mapper purgezone * - removes an entire area's cexits from the mapper database
mapper delete cexits - removes cexits from current room
mapper portal * - enters a portal into the database with the level of the portal *** NOTE : YOU DO NOT NEED TO RE-PROGRAM ALL YOUR PORTALS WHEN YOU TIER, THE MAPPER WILL HANDLE TIER ADJUSTMENT ***
mapper goto * - use the room ID for example 32418 for recall

for anyone who is wondering the best use for the mapper - it's to combine it with the hunt trick (whilst in aardwolf try "help hunt trick") which can be made even faster with the fasthunt wish (yes it is expensive but worth it if you cp a lot), another thing that is definitely worth checking out is winkle winkle's search and destroy triple pack found here : https://code.google.com/p/aardwolf-scriptalicious
It uses the mapper to xrt (x runto) in the quickest path possible using portals and anything else in the mapper database that you have programmed as shown in the tutorial above. The updated Mapper_Extender plugin can be found here :) -

https://github.com/nokfah/MUSHScripts

Be sure you know what IS and what ISN'T allowed (maybe check "help botting" ?) I will NOT be held responsible for anyone caught botting due to further modification of the s&d triple pack/addition of triggers.

Happy qp'ing :)

I know I'm kinda late reading this, but your mpo2 is bad. You should be using your mpo1 alias to run your portal sequences instead.

Example with explanation...

You have:


But the mapper portal execution sequence has no way of expanding variables (it currently just calls Execute, and variable expansion is a feature of aliases explicitly). The result is that one of two things necessarily occurs:
1) You have set mpo2 to expand variables, in which case you are directly storing the values of @mportal_item and @mportal_bag and not the variable names. This means changing your portal_item or portal_bag value requires redoing all of your stored portals again.
2) You have not set mpo2 to expand variables, in which case your portals just won't work because the execution sequence also won't expand them.

The better way would be to do:


Except now it's quite obvious that you don't need mpo2 at all!

So really the best thing to do is to just type:


And let mpo1 do the variable expansions. (Though I wouldn't use the name mpo1 for an alias. I'd use something more meaningful like use_portal.)

Also your mpo1 never gets the portal from the bag. It needs to be:

Thanks for this Nick, I did realise that the mpo2 alias was not functioning as I intended in my mapper ninja plugin and I actually updated the plugin at github to only use a hold item for mpo1 (or mpor1 as my plugin uses) I think that this is the best work-around for the plugin as far as my technical knowledge supplies me, however if there is a way of working with a variable stored actually as a variable rather than just the contents of the variable in the mapper database that ships with the MUSHclient package please let me know as I have been unable to find such a technique and I feel most people would benefit from such a thing.

p.s - to all those who use my mapper-ninja plugin or have made use of my tutorials in any way; Thank You and keep it up!

Thanks. :-)

Not Nick.



Yes, by only putting an alias call into the mapper database and letting the alias expand any variables. It's exactly what I showed.

1. Not Nick - my sincerest apologies, had a heavy boozing session yesterday and my brain hates me today

2. Thank you for your quick feedback on my last post

3. I am going to adjust my plugin after posting this to the correct method for using variables within the mapper database

4. Thanks again for the correct method

Cheers everyone ! (Evenz Lunkz likeses to get boozered)!

I fixed my plugin to work with variables as suggested, again thank you :-)n btw got your email and that's helpful too... thanks Fiendish!

The home for mapper ninja as-well as a few other handy plugins is : https://github.com/aardwolf-lunk