Difference between revisions of "UOAM:uoamh8"

Latest revision as of 15:51, 8 February 2009

UO Auto-Map On-Line Documentation: UOAssist Pane

Log Houses to this file: - whether or not you have the radar checkbox turned on, UOAM can automatically record all houses in your vicinity to a file of your choosing. You can create a new file on the Files pane and select that file from this list. UOAM will then log any houses that it sees to the selected file and they will continue to be displayed on UOAM's map even after you have moved out of rage. (More details below.)

Send Notifications to game window - when checked, causes certain messages to be displayed directly in the UO client's game window. These messages include the following:

Player enters Panic! mode. Player leaves Panic! mode. Player connects to the UOAM server. Player disconnects from the UOAM server. Overhead directional indicators indicating the direction your character must travel to reach a marker, shared marker, a player in Panic! mode or a player being tracked. (For example: Marker North) At the bottom of this and every control pane is a zoom slider which adjusts the zoom level of the map and a world slider that tells UOAM whether it should display locations pertaining to Felucca or Trammel.

Additional features available when UOAssist is running

In addition to the controls listed above, when UOAssist is running, you gain the following added features:

UOAM gets your position directly from UOA instead of using the self-calibration routines.
UOAM automatically detects which world you are in (Felucca or Trammel) and sets the world slider accordingly. (Note, you can change the slider by hand, thereby changing which labels are displayed on your map, but UOAM will still know which world your character is standing in and behave accordingly.)
UOAM can be controlled from directly within the game by using one of the following commands:

- -find name - - tries to find the place or person named (see details below)
- -mark - - drops a marker at your feet
- -panic - - turns on Panic! mode (alerts other players on your UOAM server that you need help)
- -share text - - drops a shared marker with optional text
- -unmark - - picks up any markers (shared or otherwise) and resets tracking on the player
- -unpanic - - turns off Panic! mode
- -who - - lists all players who are logged on to the UOAM server and tells you which city they are closest to
- -text - - sends a chat message to all players who are logged on to the UOAM server
- -name>text - - sends a directed chat message to the indicated player (only the first few letters of the player's name are required)

Note that -panic, -share, -unpanic and -who only work when you are connected to a UOAM server.

Details on house logging

UOAM logs houses to the file you specify in the following manner:

Whenever a house comes within range, UOAM checks to see if the log file already has a label at that spot. If it doesn't, UOAM adds one for the appropriate category with an empty label text. (If a category for that house doesn't already exist, UOAM will create one.)

If UOAM discovers a label in the log file with empty text that is within a certain range of your location, it will verify that the house is visible to your character. If the house is not actually in the game, then it is automatically removed from the log file. Note that if you right-click on a house and give its label a name, it will NOT be removed automatically should that house disappear at some future time. This is a way to keep UOAM from removing labels that for some reason you wish to remain in your log.

NOTE that house logging comes at a price. First of all, all of this additional checking and re-checking of labels is costly. It takes time to check if a house still exists and if a house hasn't already been recorded. Users with slower systems may discover that house logging creates an undue burden on their system. Also, logging every house on a shard can create a pretty large log file. You have been warned.

Suggestions for effective use of house logging

In my experience, the best way to make use of this feature is to go to the Files pane and create a file for each shard on which you regularly play. (For instance "Houses on LS" and "Houses on Baja".).

Before you log on to a shard, go to your Files pane and enable the file that corresponds to the shard on which you will be playing (and disable files for the other shards). Then go to the UOAssist pane and set UOAM to log houses to that file.

Each time you change your shard, you will want to use a different log file so that you can be sure that the houses in your log file have a reasonable chance of being correct.

NOTE that there is NO WAY that any program can tell you with 100% certainty all of the houses that exist on a given shard. That information resides on OSI's servers and is only sent to players on an as needed basis. This means that only the area in your immediate vicinity is guaranteed to be accurate.

But what about boats? Why can't they be logged?

Boats tend to move around a lot. I decided that logging boats would have a minimal benefit since the likelihood that the log would be inaccurate is very high.

Details on using the -find command

The -find command looks for a match on the name you specify using the following algorithm:

If you are connected to a UOAM server, UOAM first tries to find a player who's name begins with the same letters as the name you specify. (Example, -find bel would match Belxan.) If it finds a player, UOAM is set to track that player and you will begin seeing direction indicator messages above your head telling you in which direction you need to travel to reach that player.

If no player is found (or if you aren't connected to a UOAM server), UOAM tries to match the name to a category that begins with the same letters and drop a marker on the nearest label for that category. (For example, -find tink would drop a marker on the nearest tinker.)

If no category is found, UOAM tries to match the name to a label that begins with the same letters and drop a marker on that label. (For example, -find Lord Br would drop a marker on Lord British's Castle.)

If no label is found, then UOAM tries to interpret the name as a set of coordinates and drop a marker. Coordinates can be specified in x.y notation (-find 4708.1116) or the standard latitude/longitude notation used by sextants (-find 44o38'N 122o0'W). UOAM will assume you are using the coordinate system for the land where you are standing. If you need to specify a specific land, add (B) or (LL) to the end (-find 44o38'N 122o0'W (B)). If you wish, you can leave off both sets of minutes (-find 44oN 122oW is the same as -find 44o0'N 122o0'W).