Mapper and Identical Rooms

I'm really impressed with the learning mapper, good job!

I've tried in the past to use the mapper for the MUD I'm playing, ZombieMUD, and I know there was a problem where if the rooms are identical then the mapper didn't work which seems to be common in this MUD.

I recently tried again with the learning mapper and I noticed right away if the room is identical then it would say "No description for this room" even though the learning engine correctly identified the description. Everything else seemed to work great and it would correctly identify if its a description, exits, etc. And this is for areas that are not mazes or fogs.

So is there a way around this or is it still a dead-end?

Maybe it would be possible to build the map based on typing a command and receiving a room description, exits and a prompt? Like if I go west and that results in a room description, exits and prompt then draw a room to the west. Additionally, if that results in a message where you can't go west, like "you hit a wall" or "what ?" then don't.

Thanks for making such a great client!

You can make the "room identifier" anything you want, including description, name, exits, prompt and so on.

However some MUDs show different exits depending on circumstances, and your prompt changes.

I actually spent considerable time (days) trying to make a way of handling identical rooms.

I thought: "Well, if room A has a non-unique description, let's identify it by saying if we are in room B, and we go west to room A, then now room A is unique". Except ... if room B is not unique, then we have to say "well we identify room B because we went west from room C". But what if room C isn't unique? (This is often the case in mazes). What if we have just logged on and we are in room A and we don't know that we happen to be west of room B?

After a considerable amount of work I couldn't get it to work any better than before, and perhaps, worse.

I think the best way is to petition the MUD admins to have some option where they put the room name in the prompt (or on the room name line). Or perhaps some "out of band" thing like telnet sub-negotiation.

Failing that, put up with the mapper behaving weirdly when you hit non-unique rooms.

Thanks for looking into this!

I'm not that smart when it comes to creating these concepts and even worse when coding them, lol but I like to try.

I'm thinking when I do this on paper, your right, its based on the connections of the rooms, the rooms themselves are not-unique, but their series of connections do make them unique. Finding the unique connections of rooms might not be discovered until you make so many moves and realize they are connected, then the past rooms might have to be re-labeled or connected to show their positions.

Also in the MUD I'm playing non-unique rooms are not so often, but enough that it confused the mapper.

Anyways, I hope that even made sense, coding that will be an endeavor if I'm even capable.

Alternatively, maybe there can be a manual mapping mode, where the user is in complete control of room placement. I know there are already commands for correcting mistakes and the such. I just read through all of you AI mapper and I haven't looked at the old instructions for the mapper. I'll have to look through the mapper commands again, that might be the best way to handle this MUD and use a in-client map.