This pack is a collection of scripts and triggers, powered by MushClient and Blake Oliver's socketwrap, designed to bring a few last bits of life back to the Wastes.
Or that's the flashy wording, anyway. In reality, it all started with a desperate desire to get out of a terminal window and into something that would let me review more than a few dozen lines of text. One amazing coder later life was perfect and the possibilities were starting to open up.
Note that for the rest of this manual I'm going to presume you're at least familiar with the Wastes and MushClient. If by some minor miracle my site's gotten enough traffic that you found this without direct-linking to it and need more clarification than the links above provide, drop me a line and I'll be happy to help you figure things out.
First things first, this is only about 20% my work, and its probably safe to assume the least significant 20% at that. There are a huge number of people represented here, and I want to offer a heart-felt thank you to all of you for making your projects, sounds and libraries freely available so I could put this together. Yes, I wrote the triggers and scripts specific to the Wastes. All the internals have been sourced from elsewhere, and are where the real magic happens. In no particular order:
The pack is designed to do two primary things: keep track of stats to cut down on the amount of text displayed, and allow for some controlled updating of the game. In addition, a lot of work has gone into optimizing for screen readers. When you're working in a terminal and have text repeated over and over, it can get very difficult to follow along or to enjoy a sense of fluidity while playing (this was a second inspiration for starting the project).
The following commands display information about the current state of your character.
Most of this information is constantly updated behind the scenes whenever the game displays statistics. In the cases where you can make changes without getting an immediate result (such as picking a lock since lockpicks are only displayed when you visit the inventory screen), I've done my best to ensure the client keeps accurate track. If you notice a point where numbers turn up looking strange, let me know.
In addition to the aliases above, the output_functions plugin has been included in the pack. Thus, you can press ctrl tab to switch into a notepad window to review recent text. This also means that if you find something awesome, you can easily copy it anywhere (no screenshots needed!). If you notice that new text isn't being added, you may need to clear the output window (there's a maximum amount of text it can hold). To do this, press ctrl w while in the window, and save or discard the contents as desired.
This section includes info on some of the major alterations I've made to the game's display. There have been a lot of small changes, but these are the highlights, at least as I see them.
There are three steps to getting set up and ready to play. First, download and install mushClient (installing to your documents folder is a good idea in newer versions of windows with UAC enabled). If you already have the program working, you can skip this step. The pack has been designed to play nicely with existing worlds and settings.
Next, you need to make a base world file for the game. Open up MushClient, and go to file>new world. Fill in information on the connection tab as follows:
At this point, you can make any other configuration changes you'd like to the world (click here for personal recommendations).
The rest of the installation process has been designed to be as simple as I could make it. Download the main plugin, and save it somewhere you can find it later. The best place is MushClients worlds\plugins directory, but anywhere is fine as long as you know where it is.
Now, navigate to file>plugins in MushClient (or press ctrl shift p), and add the plugin to your world.
You'll be asked if this is your first time running the pack. Before you say yes, make sure that you have an active internet connection, and that mushClient can reach the outside world. If you're behind a firewall, you're going to get an awful lot of errors. The pack only requires an internet connection for installation and update checking. Getting everything set up may take a few minutes, especially over slow connections. You'll be asked a few questions before setup starts, such as if you want ascii graphics or to have the game start automatically when you open the world. Just follow the instructions, and go grab a snack while everything downloads.
Once the initial download completes, the pack may need to run a few rounds of updates. These should not require any input, and be much faster than the previous step. Once they complete, you're ready to start playing.
The technically inclined can read some notes and discussion about the project if you want details about what's going on under the hood without reading code, or just get bored while files are downloading.
If the pack displays errors during installation, try the following:
Once you get your world file set up for the first time, I'd strongly recommend making a shortcut on your desktop (or wherever else you like to keep such things) so you can find it more easily. To do this, save your world file (file->save), and then bring up the open dialog. Instead of selecting the file you just created though, right click on it, select send to, and then select desktop (create shortcut). This way, whenever you want to play the Wastes, you can just click on the shortcut.
If you requested automatic starting during setup, the pack will automatically launch the game for you. If not, simply type startup and wait a few seconds. Once you see a notice that the server has started, navigate to connection>connect, or simply press ctrl k.
You'll see a welcome message, and be placed at the main menu. For details on playing the Wastes, check out the wiki.
In general, you want to enter the number that matches your choice or, if none are available, just hit enter to move forward.
There is a known bug in the base game that causes an infinite loop if you select to save your game at the start of an area. Additionally, avoiding this programatically through the pack is difficult. Type with caution.
You can turn the client volume up and down by pressing alt+f11 and alt+f12, respectively. In addition, you can type volume_up and volume_down to achieve the same. The volume of those sounds handled by the Wastes can be adjusted by going to options>volume settings in the main menu.
If you are using a screen reader, you will almost certainly want to reduce the volume level substantially. Once the game is running, press alt F12 at the main menu until you can comfortably hear speech over the main menu music.
If at some point you want to change the settings you chose during installation, type config to have the pack prompt you again. This can, for instance, allow you to install the TTS components or enable autostarting.
There are three commands you'll want to be familiar with in order to update the pack. They are changes and update, and patch.
Changes downloads the most recent change log, so you can see if there's anything new. If you see something you like, type update to download and set up new content.
The patch command is used for smaller, incremental updates that are less complicated. Rather than going through the full update process, it simply fetches the latest plugin for you. This is most commonly used if there are small bugs in a previous update that can be resolved quickly, or for changes that can be made without needing to modify anything beyond the main script. Patching is much faster than updating.
Regardless of what you choose, the pack will work for a while, and let you know when the process completes. You now have two options.
You can continue playing your current game through (if one's active) and the pack will automatically finalize the update or patch when you next open MushClient. If you want the update to be active immediately, you can navigate to the plugins dialog, and reinstall theWastes.xml. Its recommended that you only reinstall the plugin at the start or end of a game, since the client will lose track of your stats and take a little while to make sense of everything again.
That's all folks. I hope you enjoy playing around with the pack as much as I have creating it. Please do send me your feedback (this project only exists because people told me they wanted it further developed), and good luck out in the wastes!