Several members have already made some great guides about different aspects of Mushclient. The first protip would, of course, be to read those. This is a collection of additional tips and tricks that may be of use. Some may even help folks using other clients.
Client Side Alias Output Options
Your alias can be sent to a number of different places, but you will mostly use “World” or “Execute”. Which should you choose? If you want your alias to always be dumped straight to the game without any additional processing, you should choose “World”. This option does not allow other aliases and the like to mangle with it on the way. If you may want to do additional processing, you should send to “Execute”. This option allows for other aliases and such to continue to work before the output gets to the game. Note that either option will behave exactly the same way with respect to Mud-side aliases.
Mud Side Aliases for Fun and Combat
There are ways to use triggers and add-ons to do many things in Aardwolf, but some things just aren’t to be automated. Combat is one such thing. This can lead to a mad dash across the keyboard trying to type cast 62 target to loose our magic missiles. The experienced folks will know that we can just type c instead of the whole word cast, but it’s still kind of a pain. The logical solution is to create an alias. Pick a letter that’s easy to type twice; let’s use ii for our example. Now, we could easily create an alias in Mushclient to replace ii with cast 62. That’s doable, but it creates a pain in that we have to go in and change it every time we get a new attack we like better. (Side note, it may be a good idea to have at least two of these aliases to different attacks, preferably to different damage types.) A better option is to use mud-side aliases. We start by typing alias ii cast 62, which creates the alias. Now, in combat, we only have to hit ii to unleash our fury. Once we get a better spell available (perhaps fireball?), we can update the alias on the fly by simply overwriting what we already have (type alias ii cast 45). To see what we’re using with our aliases, all we need to type is alias.
This is also useful if you want to be able to grab potions on the fly. Pick a different letter to double (because, again, we may be doing this in a hurry mid-combat). Instead of an alias to cast number, we will alias to quaff potion. Be careful to be precise so that you don’t try to quaff your rusty halberd. This allows you to start with a lower level pot and update the alias as you get the ability to use better ones (up to a level 60 healing pot). This can also be done with Black Lotus and Refresh pots, making you able to respond quickly, even mid-combat, to a changing battle scenario. The last thing you need is to be almost dead and having to look at your keyboard to type out the potion or skill you need.
The Number Pad is your Friend
Mushclient allows for pretty much complete customization of the number pad keys. Leave NumLock turned on. Many will be aware that 8,2,4, and 6 on the pad send the North, South, West, and East commands, respectively. 5 should be to look. Somewhat strange at first, but – goes up and + goes down. It can be handy to set up a key for spellup and another for who area to see who else might be in the area you are playing (who area is even more important if you go to a PK clan, although you may want to customize it to something that shows only enemy clan members). Zero is scan, and the dot key is score by default. You probably won’t use score very often, so it may not hurt to reassign that to something else. 1 is probably aliased to cons all, which is incredibly useful. The slash key defaults to showing your inventory, and the asterisk shows what you have equipped.
Mapping custom exits
Mushclient has a built in mapper that automagically adds rooms as you explore the mud. The S&D plugin makes use of that map when assisting you in running to a mob, whether for a quest, a campaign, or a global quest. The map is also used when you move to an area via xrt instead of rt. Just playing the game will build up a useful map. There are, however, some things that can make the map more useful.
- When you enter a new area (and aren’t limited for time, such as in a GQ), explore as many rooms as you reasonably can.
- Create an alias in Mushclient (sent to execute, not world) that sends mapper cexit %1 to use the first time you encounter any nonstandard exit. For example, if your alias is ce and the custom exit is enter crack, then you would use the command ce enter crack to teach the mapper how to go through. Note that you have to wait a couple of seconds after you get through the exit to let the mapper know where it leads. Blue text should pop on the screen and then you can continue as before. This way, the mapper can navigate through custom exits to get you where you need to go.
- If you don’t always have passdoor (or even if you do), you can create a similar alias so that the mapper knows to open doors for you to go through. In this case, you should set your alias to open %1;;%1 (%1 is whatever you enter after the alias). This way, if your alias was dw, you would enter dw e to register an exit with a closed door to the east. Again, you only need to do this once for the mapper to remember it. The mapper will then negotiate the door for you as you go about your bloody rampages.
New guide!