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Wondering if this was possible?

Wondering if this was possible?

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Posted by

Pharas USA (9 posts)

bio

Date

Wed 09 Mar 2005 08:42 AM (UTC)

Message

Samson has been releasing a bugfixed smaug for awhile now and it seems if this will be the only release of an almost base smaug with any future support. He just fixed the probs with resets which has plagued smaug for awhile now and since it has changed the area files I was wondering if you would consider adding support for it to areaeditor. I am sure that I wouldn't be the only one to appreciate it.

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Posted by

Zeno USA (2,871 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #1 on Thu 10 Mar 2005 03:55 PM (UTC)

Message

It probably is possible and I like the idea, but lately Nick seems to have been busy. He hasn't posted very much.

Zeno McDohl,
Owner of Bleached InuYasha Galaxy
http://www.biyg.org

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Posted by

Samson USA (683 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #2 on Thu 10 Mar 2005 11:23 PM (UTC)

Message

Obviously I'd fully support the idea of getting it updated to handle the new format. If I had the source code I'd even tackle the effort myself assuming I knew how.

For now though, until Nick decides what he wants to do, you can still use the editor as is and FUSS will still read the files just fine - I just can't predict with any certainty that the resets will all work as intended.

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Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (22,975 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #3 on Thu 07 Apr 2005 01:07 AM (UTC)

Message

What is the nature of the changes to the resets?

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com

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Posted by

Samson USA (683 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #4 on Thu 07 Apr 2005 01:47 AM (UTC)

Message

This is what I included in the patch to upgrade old code to the new system:

The problem
-----------

Nested put resets in Smaug have had a notorious history for not working correctly.
In stock form, the code is incapable of generating them properly using the OLC,
incapable of processing them properly when area files are loaded, and incapable of
loading items properly according to how resets are defined in the file even if the
file is manually edited.

Part of this was corrected with a previous bugfix which allowed the OLC to generate
the proper resets which will then save correctly into the area files. These resets
load to the area in the proper order but the nested puts still did not perform as
expected.

An example of the issue:

Load a chest into a room.
Load a bag into the chest.
Load a pouch into the bag.
Load a trinket into the pouch.

The expected result would of course be to have to dig through all that to get the trinket
out of the chest, but what really happens is that it all just loads as contents of the chest.
This problem has existed at least as far back as Smaug 1.4a and therefore affects practically
all codebases derived from it. I have confirmed that this problem exists on Smaug FUSS, as well
as ResortMUD and the public AFKMud code, so in all likelyhood all Smaug derivatives are affected.

The solution
------------

In order to fix this problem, I decided it would be best to disassociate resets with an overall
area and instead focus them on individual rooms, which are then associated with an area so
that normal whole area resetting can still take place. Of course this required alot of reworking
of how the entire system works. But the end result is that the example above will perform properly
and all objects assigned to put resets will load exactly as intended.

Areas now have a list of rooms.
Rooms now have a list of resets that should take place in them.
Object and Mobile resets now have child resets which belong to them.

There is one caveat to be aware of though. Area files may have invalid data still in them and once
the fix is applied they may produce unexpected results, such as swords loading inside of shoes, etc.
Affected area files will need to be fixed by hand, so you will need a working knowledge of how
they are formatted. Trap and Hide resets will also not be convertable because the code has no
confirmed way to know where they should be place. These will also need to be hand corrected.
There may also be items and mobs loading into unexpected rooms. Some functionality of the
manual reset editing has also been removed for now. Best to scale back and rebuild rather than keep
kludgy code that would only need to be rewritten anyway. If this functionality is desired, it
can be added back in easily enough.

Once all that is corrected though, the reset system will hum along quite nicely. :)

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Posted by

Conner USA (381 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #5 on Sat 14 May 2005 01:42 AM (UTC)

Message

If you download a copy of SmaugFUSS 1.6 you could take a look at the area files that come with it to see the effects of the reset changes. But basically, instead of there being a reset list at the end of the file, the resets are listed within the entry for each room.
-=Conner=-

-=Conner=-
--
Come test your mettle in the Land of Legends at telnet://tcdbbs.zapto.org:4000
or, for a little family oriented medieval fun, come join us at The Castle's Dungeon BBS at telnet://tcdbbs.zapto.org
or, if you just want information about either, check our web page at http://tcdbbs.zapto.org

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Posted by Samson USA (683 posts) bio

Date Reply #6 on Sat 14 May 2005 08:33 AM (UTC)

Message

The typical room with resets will look like this:


#21074
Inside the Southern Gate~
You stand inside the southern gate of Darkhaven.  To the north is the
intersection of Vertic Avenue and Law Avenue.
~
0 1048580 1
D0
Two roads cross to the north.
~
~
0 -1 21020
D2
The gate leads outside of Darkhaven.
~
gate~
7 21073 21075
R M 0 21068 1 21074
  R E 1 21073 2 17
  R E 1 21056 28 1
  R E 1 21057 17 3
  R E 1 21058 30 5
  R E 1 21059 30 6
  R E 1 21060 30 7
  R E 1 21061 30 8
  R E 1 21062 30 10
  R E 1 21063 30 9
  R E 1 21064 26 14
  R E 1 21066 16 20
  R E 1 21067 28 0
  R E 1 21069 23 16
S

It's very much like how SmaugWiz did it. The indentation isn't necessary but I made it do that to help illustrate nesting in the files when people examine them.

As was mentioned before - the files the editor generates will load. The only problem comes after the loaded area is then folded/saved in game. The editor will then be unable to read them because of the new room format.

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Posted by

Conner USA (381 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #7 on Sat 14 May 2005 06:11 PM (UTC)

Message

Yes, that's exactly what I had been thinking, Samson, that the new reset system seems to be almost identical to the way resets are handled by SmaugWiz.
-=Conner=-

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Posted by

Conner USA (381 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #8 on Sun 15 May 2005 06:41 PM (UTC)

Message

I know that it's bad form to reply to myself, but just had another thought... if Nick could make Area Editor be able to read the new area files, not only would it help us trememdously, it'd also open another market to him, the admins of SmaugWIZ muds could also start using it to make areas for their muds and to convert areas to/from ROM and Smaug 1.2/1.4/1.4a and SmaugFUSS 1.4/1.6, then we'd all be able to share areas even more than we already can/do.

As it is, I've got a friend who runs a heavily modified SmaugWIZ mud that has tried to trade an area or two with me and we've had to use notepad to try to convert the areas back and forth, it's been a real pain, but it's doable... he'd be sure to register a copy of Area Editor if it was usable for his mud's area files too.
-=Conner=-

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Posted by

Samson USA (683 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #9 on Sun 15 May 2005 10:56 PM (UTC)

Amended on Tue 11 Mar 2008 03:19 AM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message

As they say, ask and ye shall receive. Posted a snippet to the smaugfuss.org site that will now let SmaugWiz zones be loaded into the 1.6 FUSS package.

[EDIT - 11 March 2008] - The Smaug FUSS site is now http://www.smaugmuds.org/

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Posted by

Conner USA (381 posts)

bio

Date

Reply #10 on Mon 16 May 2005 01:00 AM (UTC)

Message

Samson, you're absolutely amazing. I've downloaded and installed your new snippet and it compiled cleanly (also hotbooted cleanly). This solves a big part of the problem. Now if Nick can solve the remaining part of the problem we're all good. That being that we still need Area Editor to be able to read/write our area files once they have been converted to the new format so we can use it to edit our area files again like we'd been doing, even if they've been folded...
-=Conner=-

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