(legal) macros and long pauses...

[Mjodvitnir]

Greetings everyone,

I was trying to setup a forage (legal) macro that would perform multiple forages last night. I had done something similar (awhile back) with cannidance such that I could get 2 "dances" for the price of 1 keystroke, and was trying to get something similar for forage.

So I figured it would look something like this:

/pause 10, /doability 1 -- forage, then pause for ~ 1 second
/pause 1100, /autoinventory -- autoinventory, then pause for ~ 110 seconds
/pause 10, /doability 1
/pause 1100, /autoinventory
/doability 1

What I found, using a stopwatch and the /say command, was that the /pause command was limited to approximately 60 seconds. So:

/pause 600 was approximately 60 seconds
/pause 800 was approximately 60 seconds
/pause 1000 etc.

This is a problem given that the recycle time for my forage ability is about 100 seconds.

Is this time limit on /pause:
a) a bug
b) old news
c) some mistake on my part

or, for those few who prefer personal attacks
d) you are unable to operate a stopwatch

Comments appreciated,
Mjod

[Cubwynn]

old news.

/pause 600,/doability #(forage)
/pause 400
/autoinventory

That's my forage macro.

[Cantatus]

/pause 600,/doability #(forage)

That's the important part. The way the macros are set up, putting pause on a line with another ability tells it to pause after the ability, not before. You'd have to put /pause on a seperate line before the /doa part if you wanted it to pause first.

[Mjodvitnir]

ah ok... maybe I'll try something like this:

/pause 400, /doability # (forage)
/pause 600, /autoinventory
/pause 400, /doability #
/pause 600, /autoinventory
/doability #

If it works like I think it will (if being the operative term), then anything foraged will simply stay on the cursor for 40 seconds or so. And this will yield a solid 5 minutes of foraging. It's uses will be limited in scope, but when I am bound and determined to forage item x it may come in handy.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, I searched for this information but was unable to find anything relevant...

Thanks for the input.

Mjod

[Cubwynn]

that'll work.

[Spirish]

When I try to put more than one command on a line it doesn't work. I must be missing something here. I see a comma with a space before the next command and then I see a comman without a space. So, which is it?

[Cubwynn]

without. also, the pause is put first, but is done AFTER.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

When I try to put more than one command on a line it doesn't work. I must be missing something here. I see a comma with a space before the next command and then I see a comman without a space. So, which is it?

The *only* time you can put more than one command on a line is with /pause, were you can put two. If you're trying it with any other commands, it won't work.

[Itek]

Hmm...

1) Search, author Itek, /pause in text should bring this up

2) Romeo Tango ****** Mike ... the /pause 600 limit (60 seconds) is -clearly-spelled-out- in the EQ manual for socials on your hard drive. I promise you. Go forth and look.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

2) Romeo Tango ****** Mike ... the /pause 600 limit (60 seconds) is -clearly-spelled-out- in the EQ manual for socials on your hard drive. I promise you. Go forth and look.

oooh ya, that thing. Forgot it even existed. "Revised May 7th, 2002" - from the headings, looks like it was last updated around early SoL - if I remember right, launch day with adding in the AA description? But anyhow, it does have some decent descriptions. The files are

eqmanual_supplement.txt
eqmanual_supplement.doc

Choose whichever format you prefer to read, they should have the same actual content.

[Mjodvitnir]

Yeah, it appears my original search was hasty at best... I just found the "3 forage" macro that was posted about a year ago.

The funny thing is that it never crossed my mind to check the manual! The last time I read the thing was during my raiding guild days back at the time of the Velious expansion. I'll have to check and see what is "new", or what I've forgotten, as the case may be.

Mjod

[Sylphan]

It's old news. However, the length of a pause varies from machine to machine, and even from zone to zone if some have more lag than others. /pause 600 isn't necessarily 60 seconds. This makes it hard to share macros with other players.

[Kilauea Bacchus]

Even on the same computer, macros won't necessarily time out the same. Back when you had to actually hit your sense heading to raise skill, I had a 5 sense heading macro on each of my characters. On some the pause was 15, on others, it was 17 or 18. Like Sylphan said, it depends on the zone and variables.

[mrchaos101]

Bah you dont need to even do that much trouble bro. DO THIS

/doability 1 (for forage)
/pause 5 (to show you what you found)
/autoinv (to put it aut on your back.)

Put it in the socials then DRAG it over to actions

Then ALT - O go to macro

I use the E key to walk forward. SO I set alt HOT button alt to E on number 10.

THUS

Every time I press the E, I not only walk forward but it will run those 3 lines of code. If forage hasn't recoverd it does nothing. BUT once forage has recoverd it will forage when you take a step.

Don't bother with the timers. Warring this macro is a pain in the butt on toons that cannot forage, as you will get all kinds of bindwound msgs.

[Itek]

*sigh*

I think, could be wrong but, that the question regards 'how can I forage multiple times with one keypress' rather than 'how can I save myself the tedium of pressing forage every single time' with the subtle difference.

1) Most foragers either have, or at least know about, binding their movement keys to forage/track/sense heading/etc.

2) Most people that want to forage up a ton of junk with one macro want to be able to ... oh say ... WALK AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD for more than 100 seconds while they continue to forage. (for example when I want to go to the bathroom I like to give myself more than 100 seconds to do my business) So while you can't forage for hours in your sleep a quick little "forage 2 times for me" macro can give you 5 whole minutes to do your AFK business. (phone, spanking kids, doorbell, nuke cold pizza, beverage of choice from fridge, potty break, quick record setting on VCR, turn sprinklers on/off, whathave you)