Problem with Touch Macro

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Admiral Ackguh

Problem with Touch Macro

Post by Admiral Ackguh »

Hello...

I am a new user here, who remembers ACK from the mid-90s, and is glad to see it revived.

Touch Macros don't seem to work at all. This is true for both my large game-in-progress, and a small one I created from the Ultima kit just to test TMs. The Version for both is set to 3.2.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance...

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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

I haven't tried touch macros yet so I can't answer that one. Chris sometimes takes a while to answer so just be patient and check back daily. In the meantime I'll try some experimentation with touch macros to see if your problem gets reproduced on my end. First thing you should try is downloading the complete and latest package [not the updater] but don't overwrite the old one where your customized files are. Make the new download your fresh copy of ACK and try a touch macro in it using one of the included kits instead of copying any files over from your old copy of ACK. This way you can determine if it is a corrupt file in your old copy. If you get it to work then try copying your custom game folder over to the new fresh ACK folder and load it up, try your touch macro again and see if it works. Report back here, to Chris, on your findings.
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Admiral Ackguh

Post by Admiral Ackguh »

I did all that, and it seems that TMs simply don't work. I suspect that Chris may have disabled them due to the code not working properly, or causing other problems. Maybe TMs are simply difficult to implement in ACK.

Until we hear back from Chris on this point, I'll have to do without TMs. (Unless I have so much time that I can patch the ACK code itself, as suggested on another topic...)

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Post by Garth's Equipment Shop »

My test confirms the lack of touch macro functionality. There is not even faulty functionality. It just simply does nothing apparent.

I created a very simple test macro, it just shows a short message saying "Your caught!" and if it worked I intended on having certain enemies set so that they did not harm you but would chase you and if they caught up with you thus 'touching' or bumping you or you bump into them you get caught and teleported to a POW cell. But it did not even show the short message upon collision.

But there is a way to accomplish what I tried to do without using a creature. Just make a space or obstacle that runs a macro when bumped that displays the message your caught or whatever and then use some set LOC[] commands to teleport the player to wherever you want, like my POW cell. My POW cell is in an altogether different region so I have to change all the LOCs, example:

[Add short message here or just have it the msg that displays when blocked by this space/obstacle. I prefer to put it in the macro here and use SMSG instead of BMSG so that it waits for a keypress to continue before teleporting thus allowing you time to read the message explaining what is happening.]
SET LOC[RG] = 2
SET LOC[RM] = 1
SET LOC[x] = 3
SET LOC[y] = 3

That would send the caught playerchar to Region 2, Room 1, at coordinates 3,3 - the location of my POW cell. And I can also place the above inanimate guard or jailer over a 'live' guard that can move and fight and have the jailer space disappear if destroyed [setting a low threshold]

That should allow it to be replaced by the real guard underneath when shot at [with the low threshold it ought to disappear in one shot and since the icons are the same the change should appear seamless as if he just all of a sudden decided to start shooting and ranged attacks should not trigger the bump/capture macro.

Hope that helps ya out with what you were trying to accomplish. If that didn't make sense to you, let me know and I'll try to show by example since I am describing something I've actually already done in my own game.
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Post by rld »

I can also confirm that the touch macro function does not appear to be working. It is included in the code, but it is possible that it was working in an earlier release and then was broken by changes in a later version.

One note - according to the manual, the touch macro will only trigger when a creature hits the player with a melee weapon. The attack must actually connect and do damage in order for the touch macro to fire.

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