Older player considering adjusting to multi

[Regulus]

Honestly I am looking for a little guidance.  I have played solo champs my entire time on Arctic.  The advantages are clear to using two characters, but I am the only person who hasn't actually taken the time to familiarize themselves with their client to be able to do so?  I am not looking for someone to just /tell/ me, I am curious if anyone does have a recommended resource or tips to start moving in the direction of learning how to control two characters simultaneously.

[gulca]

Step 1.

Grow another pair of hands.

Jokes aside. You need to tell us how are you connected and what system you are on. Im sure people will glad to share their setup with you.

[el conquistador]

i think class selection is important. 

i do okay at it by just using one character pretty actively and the 2nd character will be something really simple.  like a warrior is perfect. 

so i will just have 'assist;bash;stand' pretyped on the warriors jmc.  i can just play my first character normally and then every now and then push alt+tab to switch to the warriors window and press enter then alt+tab back.

it just becomes reflex after a little while.  i barely notice i am doing it sometimes and it is pretty strong

[Regulus]

Step 1.

Grow another pair of hands.

Jokes aside. You need to tell us how are you connected and what system you are on. Im sure people will glad to share their setup with you.

Hey bud!  Thanks man, much appreciated. 

I've used CMUD in the past but have come to prefer my OG mushclient and it's simplicity. 

I have not really invested the time in doing much other than setting up simple aliases.  Currently I am leveling up a thief/dk thinking the combination of strong solo potential & darkness + stabber could be a lot of fun.

I'd just like the ability to synergize these two as much as possible.

[Regulus]

i think class selection is important. 

i do okay at it by just using one character pretty actively and the 2nd character will be something really simple.  like a warrior is perfect. 

so i will just have 'assist;bash;stand' pretyped on the warriors jmc.  i can just play my first character normally and then every now and then push alt+tab to switch to the warriors window and press enter then alt+tab back.

it just becomes reflex after a little while.  i barely notice i am doing it sometimes and it is pretty strong

Bet bet.  Alt tab is simple and clean, thanks!  Going to keep working on some aliases to keep it simple.

Ive seen someone use methods that trigger their secondary character to do actions, working on that as well.  Thanks!

[Malthros]

Some mud clients let you enter commands for one window when typing in another.  Set up some macros for the other character and you can effectively play both from a single location.  No tabbing or focus-swapping needed.

[wembley]

the idea is to send commands from the main screen to secondary and to send important info (spells wearing off, skills cooldown, hungry/thirsty, etc) from the secondary to main.

say, you're using tintin which only has single text screen, nothing to alt-tab there. but it has named sessions and sending a command to another session is as simple as putting a sesstion name before the command.

so, you log your main char as #main and your secondary basher as #war

Code: [Select]

#alias b {#war bash;#war stand}
etc etc..
and in the #war sesion you have something like

Code: [Select]

#action {You are hungry} {#main #showme YOUR BASHER IS HUNGRY!}


[Zozen]

the idea is to send commands from the main screen to secondary and to send important info (spells wearing off, skills cooldown, hungry/thirsty, etc) from the secondary to main.

say, you're using tintin which only has single text screen, nothing to alt-tab there. but it has named sessions and sending a command to another session is as simple as putting a sesstion name before the command.

so, you log your main char as #main and your secondary basher as #war

Code: [Select]

#alias b {#war bash;#war stand}
etc etc..
and in the #war sesion you have something like

Code: [Select]

#action {You are hungry} {#main #showme YOUR BASHER IS HUNGRY!}


I'm terrible at Arctic after seeing this.

[Edwai]

Wow i never knew about this, thank you Wembley!!

I tried it out and it works, but there's no way to move my session to another screen. Personally i love playing on 2 screens, it's the best way to stay engaged without alt-tabbing or anything, and helps you see every action (hard to keep up with though in big fights).

The biggest challenge i see personally is i use a tell or grouptell system, with some serious limitations. For the purposes of this example my Main character will be Mainchar 2nd character will be "altchar"

Code: [Select]

#alias h {gt altchar fight}}
and altchar has a separate action and alias:

Code: [Select]

#act {^Mainchar tells your group '%0'} {%0}; #alias {fight} {cancel;st;assist;kick;punch;bash}
There are some other functions i use like this, but the overall problem i typically run into is if "altchar" is blind or stunned or in darkness or otherwise disabled it becomes harder and harder for him to recognize who he is receiving messages from and then the command input fails. If you could run 2 sessions on 2 screens this allows a player to input to both sessions without having to switch screens or use a tell system. #ideal

From my experience this wipe my favourite class for an "altchar" that can do effective damage but doesn't require much direct attention is mountain scout, i can pretty much ignore my scout while he beats everything to death, just needs to keep spamming his instincts.

[wembley]

well, most of the time both chars are in the same room, so don't really need first person view for the second char. but if you REALLY need to see it in another window you could log the session and then watch it with tail -f command (linux, but there are ways for windows) in another terminal window :)

Code: [Select]

#MACRO {\eOm}
{
    #ses +
}
this macro (numpad -) circles through sessions when I need to switch to my secondary char and run it to guild or something.

and this splits the screen and makes something like status bar so I can see my secondary char's prompt

Code: [Select]

#split 0;
#war #action {^%1H %2V %3X %4% %5C%6Exits%7} {
  #main #showme {%1H %2V %3 %6----------------------------} 1;
}

covers most of my needs

[gulca]

Why would you use the game mechanics to sync between your multi sessions? 

I think the tintin forums have scripts or posts that describe how to play multi chars at once. Arctic is not the only mud that allows multi playing. No point in trying to reinvent the wheels when someone has already done it.

I don’t have a solution, but if i was to start, i would just get the tank char setup with enough triggers to survive. And the support char would be the main one i control. Once you get the hang of things, you can start to build a more complex system to issue commands to both char from a third non game session. That way, you will end up having full control of both chars and still be able to play without writing 1000 lines of scripts at the start.

So, being able to set action triggers and save them as you go along is important. Issuing direct commands to the tank from the support is critical too both through the game and through the client session.

Of course, besides the client mechanics, you should also choose how you equip your chars to get the best out of both of them. Having nightvision, anti blind, anti curse, anti silence, fly, det invis, max ac etc on both or one of your char would be critical than dam/hp. You need to be able to issue commands and the tank has to be able see things to execute them.

[Lloth]

What the......am I the only one who just alt tabs between JMCs and types everything out? It appears I'm living in the past!

[Gnua]

and this splits the screen and makes something like status bar so I can see my secondary char's prompt

Code: [Select]

#split 0;
#war #action {^%1H %2V %3X %4% %5C%6Exits%7} {
  #main #showme {%1H %2V %3 %6----------------------------} 1;
}

covers most of my needs

Wow! that is brilliant. You are the tintin god

[gulca]

ok here is a setup i have for tintin running on raspberry pi 3b.

start 3 screens. 2 screens will be used to log and tail the log for the 2 chars. commands are sent from main session call #gts.

0th screen
for cleric login
#sess s mud.arctic.org 2700
for warrior login
#sess a mud.arctic.org 2700
for main control
#gts

in #gts
#alias aa {#a %0}
#alias ss {#s %0}
#alias ff {#a %0;#s %0}

to control warrior, aa command
to control cleric, ss command
to control both, ff command

next thing is to log the session in #a and #s
#a
#log append a.log
#s
#log append s.log
#gts

in screen 1
ctrl+a, tab
tail -f a.log

in screen 2
ctrl+a, tab
tail -f s.log

back to screen 0
ctrl+a, tab
#gts
run around now with setup complete

[gulca]

I tried it out and it works, but there's no way to move my session to another screen. Personally i love playing on 2 screens, it's the best way to stay engaged without alt-tabbing or anything, and helps you see every action (hard to keep up with though in big fights).

tintin also have chat function that you can connect between 2 separate terminal/console sessions.

in first terminal, start tt++, once you are connected to arctic,
#chat init 4050
#chat name Ed

In second terminal/console, start another tt++ connect to arctic
#chat init 4051
#chat name Wai
#chat call 127.0.0.1 4050
#chat message all test

So you can create triggers off the chat messages and be able to send commands to a totally separate tt++ session in a different terminal window. If needed, you can still alt-tab quickly between the windows.

Code: [Select]

<CHAT> Initialized chat on port 4050.                                           
<CHAT> New connection: 127.0.0.1 D4.                                                                         
<CHAT> New connection: 127.0.0.1 D4.                                           
<CHAT> Connected to Wai@127.0.0.1:4051                                                                                     
<CHAT> Wai chats to everyone, 'test'