Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:23 am

Hi folks,

I've been a long-time player of ibgames' Federation mud, now in its second incarnation, Federation II, and have recently switched over to zMUD as a streamlined alternative to the feature-creep-infested 'FedTerm' front-end offered for download at their site. While I'm very pleased with the options that zMUD has to offer, I've repeatedly run into brick walls trying to get the automapper configured. I think the problem may be that the software is used to finding the traditional 'Exits are:' text at the end of paragraphs, and Federation is nothing like that. I've tried the auto configuration wizard a number of different ways, and the interface can't seem to figure out what's going on in the text buffer. It repeatedly misidentifies sections of text, and gets the movement paths completely wrong. Here's an example of (outwardly-simple appearing) text that the mapper completely choked on:

>n
Earth orbit
You are in orbit round the Earth. A lump comes into your throat as you gaze at the misty blue-green surface, with its white cloud masses. Few are unaffected by the sight of mankind's home planet.

As you can see, the very first line is the interface echoing the command I just gave it. The second line is the location name (Earth orbit), and the third line is a paragraph of descriptive text. There are no 'exits' listed.

Try as I might, I couldn't seem to get zMUD to pick out these sections of the description, and it refused to map my movements out of the location (there ARE exits, even though they're not listed).

I had somewhat better luck on this section of text:

>south
Interplanetary space
This sector is empty. You brood on the immensity of space, as it weighs down on you.

zMUD correctly identified the location name, failed to identify the description, and then misidentified the exits by picking up on the word 'down' in the description.

Again, I've spent some time trying to come up with a solution for this one, but to no avail. What I'm trying to accomplish is the following:

Get the mapper to properly identify all relevant sections of text (exits are NEVER listed, so it needs to stop trying to find them).
Get the mapper to auto-map based on my movements (and recognize that I HAVEN'T moved when a 'movement not allowed' message (such as: You can't move in that direction.) appears.

Might anyone be able to offer some input? Again - I've tried the auto config - it's not an option.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best wishes,

JM[/list]

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:44 pm

Hi John, you've gotten to the point that you need to write you own identification scripts to let the mapper know what you want done and where you want to go. Just in case Nexela has a great tutorial on how to use the automapper.

For example to recognize when you haven't moved, you make a trigger like the following.

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:00 pm

To get started here's some basic map code... now granted it's off the top of my head and copied from my own mapper.