Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:54 pm
LOTRO setup
So,
I have been refining my LOTRO setup over time and have intended to create a useful guide to assist others in being able to get LOTRO to do some of the more needed things (i.e. some of the cool and useful things that can be done with FTL in WoW). I recently went through yet another revision of how I do things in my setup and have simplified things to the point that I think others might find it useful as a starting point, or at least be able to glean a few tips.
I have attached a very limited ISBoxer config profile. The best way to take advantage of what is here would be to open you main / active profile in ISBoxer (after making sure you have a good backup of course
) and then open another copy of ISBoxer with the attached profile. This will allow you to copy from the sample and paste into your active profile.
So, given the above initial setup the following steps would serve to integrate the features into your config:
1) Copy all the 6 "Action Target Groups" and the 2 "Keymaps" from the sample config and paste them into your config (making sure that you do not have any naming conflicts first).
*NOTE: The sample config also has a generic character named "char" and a generic character set named "set". These do not need to be copied into your config, but are there to demonstrate a few of the setup pieces that I am describing here.
2) Now, add the 2 keymaps "VirtualBase" and "VirtualChar" to one* of your character sets that you are wanting to try this on.
*NOTE: If your character set has an also launch to run the team over multiple computers you will need to add the 2 keymaps to each character set for the team.
3) For each character in your character set, create a mapped key in the "VirtualChar" keymap for the "Join" function*. My naming convention is a combination of the function ("Join", "Select", "Assist") followed by the name of your char. So, if your char were named Moe, then create a mapped key named "JoinMoe". This mapped key does not need to have any actions since it will never actually fire.
*NOTE: In the "VirtualChar" keymap you will see 3 generic mapped keys that are simply there as examples of what would be created for a character named "Char". Even thought there are mapped keys created there for each function "Assist", "Join" and "Select" you only need the "Join" as I will explain later.
4) Now, go to each character and create a virtual key mapping for the "Join" function where you will map the generic "Join" from the "VirtualBase" keymap, to the character specific "JoinMoe" mapped key that you created in step 3. IF there are 6 characters in your team, you will need to do this 6 times, once for each character.
5) Now, go to your character set (or sets depending on your setup) and create a virtual key mapping for each character that is in that set only (i.e. if you have a 6 character team with 3 characters running on each of 2 computers, then you would have 2 character sets and would only create 3 virtual mappings in each set for the 3 characters that are assigned to that set). This virtual key mapping is to map the "JoinMoe" mapped key from the "VirtualChar" keymap to the "JoinChar1" (or "JoinChar2" etc... depending on the slot that the character is in) in the "VirtualBase" keymap.
*NOTE: This is the most difficult piece of the configuration if you are unfamiliar with virtual mapped keys. For a team of 6 characters, there will be one virtual key mapping created in the appropriate character set for each character (so 6 mappings total). The key here is that you invite the characters into the fellowship in the exact same order that the configuration assumes. So, "JoinChar1" is always assigned to the fellowship leader (your main) and "JoinChar2" is assigned to the first character that is invited into the fellowship as you load the team in LOTRO. "JoinChar3" needs to be assigned to the second character invited (and accepted) into the fellowship. So, the number in the "JoinChar" mapped key name will equate to the F keys used to select the members of the fellowship when you are on you main.
6) In you character set you can assign a mapped key to execute when the set loads. If you are not using this already, you can put "VirtualBase"->"SetATG" to execute when you load the character set. This will in theory make sure that each character knows his place automatically. I say in theory because (for me at least) it does not work reliably. The mapped key "SetATG" also has a hotkey assignment that can be used after the team is assemble to take care of all the plumbing that is needed to finalize the setup at run time by adding each character to the appropriate Action Target Group.
7) Neither of the base functions (i.e. "Assist" or "Select") have any default key bindings, so you would need to either call them with a "Do Mapped Key" from one of your other mapped keys, or assign them a hotkey. However, there are 2 mapped keys created in the "VirtualBase" keymap that you can use to test the configuration - "VirtualAssist" and "VirtualSelect" (refer to the keymap for the key assignment). If you select a target from your main and then hit the hotkey for the "VirtualAssist" mapped key (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A) all you team should change to your target. If you hit Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S ("VirtualSelect") the team should all select your main. Now, if you switch to each member of the team and repeat those tests, they should continue to work for each character.
That is pretty much all there is to the basic setup. For fun, I have also included a couple of simple formations ("V" and "Spread"). These are not very useful unless you have more than 2 or 3 in your team.
You will also find in the "VirtualBase" a set of "Custom" mapped keys. These are intended as a place where you can add any custom modifications / additions that you want for your own use. The appropriate custom mapped key is fired from the Join mapped key at startup and is in context for the characters position in the team, so if you need to do something based on that this would be a good place.
Now if you have gotten this far and are still curious as to the comment I made in the note for step 3. In my initial implementation for virtual keys, I was creating virtual mappings for each character for each function that I wanted to provide. So, for the example here of Assist and Select, I would have added 2 virtual mappings to each character and then 2 more for each character in a character set (a total of 24). If you had 4 functions that you were wanting to create and support, then that count would double (now you are creating 48 mappings and I had even more functions that just 4...
). Needless to say, setting up a new team was a bit of work and I generally would forget what all was needed in between times of creating new teams.
And so it was with this new revision at first. Then, I realized that I could simply do all that work one time in a Join function at the point at which I knew which character was in which position in the team. This means that once I had my basic configuration I would never need any more than one virtual mapping for each character and then one for each character in a character set. For a team of 6, that is only 12 virtual mappings total and they are all essentially the same. If I want to move a character to a new team, I do not have to change the character at all (assuming that it was already setup in a previous team), I only need to create the virtual mapping in the character set. This is a VAST improvement for me in term of simplicity and versatility. I left the legacy keys in the sample for reference, but that level of manual setup is no longer required.
I have asked Lax to incorporate this into a future wizard for LOTRO which would make things even easier... *hint* *hint*...
This basic setup has been created for LOTRO, but for the most part it is not game specific and could be used for any game where you do not have an elaborate macro system to support select and assist functions.
I will probably come back and add additional comments here as I think of them.
Feel free to ask questions, and I will do my best to answer.
Cheers,
creo
I have been refining my LOTRO setup over time and have intended to create a useful guide to assist others in being able to get LOTRO to do some of the more needed things (i.e. some of the cool and useful things that can be done with FTL in WoW). I recently went through yet another revision of how I do things in my setup and have simplified things to the point that I think others might find it useful as a starting point, or at least be able to glean a few tips.
I have attached a very limited ISBoxer config profile. The best way to take advantage of what is here would be to open you main / active profile in ISBoxer (after making sure you have a good backup of course
) and then open another copy of ISBoxer with the attached profile. This will allow you to copy from the sample and paste into your active profile.So, given the above initial setup the following steps would serve to integrate the features into your config:
1) Copy all the 6 "Action Target Groups" and the 2 "Keymaps" from the sample config and paste them into your config (making sure that you do not have any naming conflicts first).
*NOTE: The sample config also has a generic character named "char" and a generic character set named "set". These do not need to be copied into your config, but are there to demonstrate a few of the setup pieces that I am describing here.
2) Now, add the 2 keymaps "VirtualBase" and "VirtualChar" to one* of your character sets that you are wanting to try this on.
*NOTE: If your character set has an also launch to run the team over multiple computers you will need to add the 2 keymaps to each character set for the team.
3) For each character in your character set, create a mapped key in the "VirtualChar" keymap for the "Join" function*. My naming convention is a combination of the function ("Join", "Select", "Assist") followed by the name of your char. So, if your char were named Moe, then create a mapped key named "JoinMoe". This mapped key does not need to have any actions since it will never actually fire.
*NOTE: In the "VirtualChar" keymap you will see 3 generic mapped keys that are simply there as examples of what would be created for a character named "Char". Even thought there are mapped keys created there for each function "Assist", "Join" and "Select" you only need the "Join" as I will explain later.
4) Now, go to each character and create a virtual key mapping for the "Join" function where you will map the generic "Join" from the "VirtualBase" keymap, to the character specific "JoinMoe" mapped key that you created in step 3. IF there are 6 characters in your team, you will need to do this 6 times, once for each character.
5) Now, go to your character set (or sets depending on your setup) and create a virtual key mapping for each character that is in that set only (i.e. if you have a 6 character team with 3 characters running on each of 2 computers, then you would have 2 character sets and would only create 3 virtual mappings in each set for the 3 characters that are assigned to that set). This virtual key mapping is to map the "JoinMoe" mapped key from the "VirtualChar" keymap to the "JoinChar1" (or "JoinChar2" etc... depending on the slot that the character is in) in the "VirtualBase" keymap.
*NOTE: This is the most difficult piece of the configuration if you are unfamiliar with virtual mapped keys. For a team of 6 characters, there will be one virtual key mapping created in the appropriate character set for each character (so 6 mappings total). The key here is that you invite the characters into the fellowship in the exact same order that the configuration assumes. So, "JoinChar1" is always assigned to the fellowship leader (your main) and "JoinChar2" is assigned to the first character that is invited into the fellowship as you load the team in LOTRO. "JoinChar3" needs to be assigned to the second character invited (and accepted) into the fellowship. So, the number in the "JoinChar" mapped key name will equate to the F keys used to select the members of the fellowship when you are on you main.
6) In you character set you can assign a mapped key to execute when the set loads. If you are not using this already, you can put "VirtualBase"->"SetATG" to execute when you load the character set. This will in theory make sure that each character knows his place automatically. I say in theory because (for me at least) it does not work reliably. The mapped key "SetATG" also has a hotkey assignment that can be used after the team is assemble to take care of all the plumbing that is needed to finalize the setup at run time by adding each character to the appropriate Action Target Group.
7) Neither of the base functions (i.e. "Assist" or "Select") have any default key bindings, so you would need to either call them with a "Do Mapped Key" from one of your other mapped keys, or assign them a hotkey. However, there are 2 mapped keys created in the "VirtualBase" keymap that you can use to test the configuration - "VirtualAssist" and "VirtualSelect" (refer to the keymap for the key assignment). If you select a target from your main and then hit the hotkey for the "VirtualAssist" mapped key (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A) all you team should change to your target. If you hit Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S ("VirtualSelect") the team should all select your main. Now, if you switch to each member of the team and repeat those tests, they should continue to work for each character.
That is pretty much all there is to the basic setup. For fun, I have also included a couple of simple formations ("V" and "Spread"). These are not very useful unless you have more than 2 or 3 in your team.
You will also find in the "VirtualBase" a set of "Custom" mapped keys. These are intended as a place where you can add any custom modifications / additions that you want for your own use. The appropriate custom mapped key is fired from the Join mapped key at startup and is in context for the characters position in the team, so if you need to do something based on that this would be a good place.
Now if you have gotten this far and are still curious as to the comment I made in the note for step 3. In my initial implementation for virtual keys, I was creating virtual mappings for each character for each function that I wanted to provide. So, for the example here of Assist and Select, I would have added 2 virtual mappings to each character and then 2 more for each character in a character set (a total of 24). If you had 4 functions that you were wanting to create and support, then that count would double (now you are creating 48 mappings and I had even more functions that just 4...
). Needless to say, setting up a new team was a bit of work and I generally would forget what all was needed in between times of creating new teams. And so it was with this new revision at first. Then, I realized that I could simply do all that work one time in a Join function at the point at which I knew which character was in which position in the team. This means that once I had my basic configuration I would never need any more than one virtual mapping for each character and then one for each character in a character set. For a team of 6, that is only 12 virtual mappings total and they are all essentially the same. If I want to move a character to a new team, I do not have to change the character at all (assuming that it was already setup in a previous team), I only need to create the virtual mapping in the character set. This is a VAST improvement for me in term of simplicity and versatility. I left the legacy keys in the sample for reference, but that level of manual setup is no longer required.
I have asked Lax to incorporate this into a future wizard for LOTRO which would make things even easier... *hint* *hint*...
This basic setup has been created for LOTRO, but for the most part it is not game specific and could be used for any game where you do not have an elaborate macro system to support select and assist functions.
I will probably come back and add additional comments here as I think of them.
Feel free to ask questions, and I will do my best to answer.
Cheers,
creo
