Need Help: Multiple Ratting Machariels

Hello all. I'm sry for the amateur hour post / questions from me. I've been playing with ISBoxer for a couple days now and I have the basics setup. It's launching the clients, the account names are correct per window. I can log in and get things started, but I am having a problem with the repeater. It seems that the mouse broadcasting isn't exact. This could just be a few pixels off, but it's amounting to re-sizing a window in only 1/2 of my clients instead of all of them as intended.

Please bear with me as I am a newbie to multiboxing, but I am a technical troubleshooter by trade, so I'm more than happy to get whatever info is needed to help get the resolution I am seeking.

My theory is for 6 accounts, 5 Machariels mirroring each other as one, and the 6th will be a carrier initially; later upgraded to a mach as well for identical fleet. I currently have 3 characters in the Machs + the carrier. I've done the 3 Machs on my main screen configured using just repeater, and the carrier opened independently on my other screen. The problem is when in game the efficiency of the Machariel cluster is so low that I'm actually making much less isk than just running 1 Mach + carrier traditionally. It's not hardware performance, or anything like that, but I think I am missing some major features & configs that I should be using to make the Mach cluster more reliable.

The inaccuracy in the repeater is causing me to have to spend much of my time checking all the clients as if I was playing traditionally. I know this is a learning curve to get it, but I need some pointers. I reset default window positions & used repeater to re-position everything to be identical, but I'm finding variances so large in where things are that the cursor is catching the target in 1 or 2 of the clients and the others it's clicking outside the target item and being useless.

I'm sure this is due to errors on my part, I just don't know which mistakes I'm making. I'm not using repeater regions yet, and the only broadcasted buttons are the F-keys. Otherwise it's just using the repeater to broadcast the mouse movements, clicks, and key strokes to all clients sans the carrier.

Those of you that are running medium sized groups of identical ships efficiently.. Could you please share some info on how you have your ISBoxer configured? Some info on tactics for this type of setup would be much appreciated as well. I'm mainly looking for tips & tricks to help increase efficiency & reliability within my Mach cluster. For example, should I be trying to run off of the broadcast window, or is there a way to make the overview window reliable enough to always have each client lock the same target? Is there a way to broadcast this function from my "odd man out" client to have the mach cluster all target that one NPC reliably?

My end goal is to have all of the Machariels operating as one & mirroring the main one. Having them work much like the DPS portion of a large scale pvp fleet. Determine target, obtain target lock on THAT target (not mixed ones as I have been getting), volley all guns at once & assign drones to attack via hot key (if possible in one command / keystroke). Then rinse & repeat. My end game result will be 6 Machariels and no carrier as that character will be in a Mach soon too.

Perhaps the largest hurdle I have to figure out is how to get all clients to target the same NPC simultaneously. Can you guys share how and or if you have had successes in this part? Can it be setup where when I Ctrl + click on my carrier account that it targets that same NPC on all clients? It sounds simple in theory, but whether sorting by range, type, name, or anything else on the overview; the order of NPCs always seems to be random within the type or name when multiple NPCs of the same type are on grid. I tried to overcome this by using broadcasts, but then the inaccuracy of repeater became my nightmare. Some clients try to lock the target, others are totally missing the broadcast entry and clicking on the border, or header of the UI window.

Any info or direction on where to start my search / research in resolving these issues would be greatly appreciated. I'm not asking for someone else to do all the work, I just need a compass in this program, as it's such a powerful tool & becomes overwhelming very fast.

Here's the paste of my config:

Thx a ton from a 6 year eve vet & total ISBoxer newbie.

Sry for wall of text.

~Darkmojo

[Alge]

I don't play Eve, so will only address your mouse broadcasting issue.

First, you may see some improvement by changing the Cursor positioning mode in your Repeater Profile to "Scaled to fit"

If that doesn't fix it, some things to check/try:

- all of the Regions in your Window Layout are the same aspect ratio
- all of your game clients are using the same windowing mode (fullscreen, fullscreen (windowed) or windowed)
- change to a Stacked Full Screen window layout and use a dxNothing window and VideoFX to see your slave accounts.

I run a Drake team on a pair of 1920x1200 monitors.
I run all 5 clients full-screen/stacked on the main monitor and have a dxNothing window on the second monitor with 15 video feeds displaying 5 overviews, 5 drone windows and 5 control windows.
I use a repeat region over the fleet broadcast window to share my targets out - someone else may come along with another solution but I was never happy enough with using the overview for targetting.
I toggle broadcast on to launch/retrieve all the drones - didn't use a repeat region for this as I may want to control just one set of drones and recall just them if they have aggro, say.
I toggle broadcast on to use target painters and to fire missiles, too - again, didn't want a repeat region as I may not want to fire all 5 drake's missiles at a frigate, for instance.

I've not had any problems with cursor positioning since copying my window layout files to get an exact copy running on all 5 clients:

My Eve config files are in C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\CCP\EVE\d_games_eve_tranquility\settings
Each char has a .dat file, eg: "core_char_123456789.dat"
Unfortunately, they're not named by char name but a numeric ID, so first thing to do is to work out which char has which files.
Do this by closing all your Eves, then running a single client, log in as CharX and then log out - the .dat with the newest timestamp is his.
Repeat this for all of your chars, so you know which file is for which char.
Now, setup your windows how you like them on your first char.
When you're happy, log him out and now just copy CharX's .dat file and rename it for CharY, CharZ etc.
Of course, you should backup the whole directory before playing around like this, in case it all goes wrong

You now have all 5+ clients with the same window layout/positioning.
When you now put in a repeater window and sync it across all of your clients, your cursor positioning should be perfect.

My repeater region on the fleet broadcast works perfectly - broadcast the target on one of my clients, then CTRL+CLICK on the fleet broadcast message (which is in the repeater region) and all 5 ships target the corpse-to-be
My Drake pilots are all at various skill levels, so I do find that targetting takes a different amount of time across the 5 of them, which is where the video feed of their overviews comes in handy - when I see all 5 have the target locked on the second screen, I then toggle repeat and fire my missiles... 35 heavy missiles streak off towards the target.

Hope that helps.

Thx guys, both are great pieces of info. The only question I still have until trying my next attempt at this is in regards to the file manipulation to get each window exactly the same. Isn't that file path for the live version of eve as if you were just playing normally? I don't want to reset my configs for standard play. Where can I find the virtualized files that only the clients launched through ISBoxer use?

[BeZ]

ISboxer doesn't effect the eve online client, otherwise that would be considered hacking. Though each number = a character, so whether you log that character on slot 1, or slot 2 they will have the same hud as it retrievers just that number. So what you do is copy all the number filess to a different folder and delete all but one (launch set, find which guy has it). Once that is done, setup whoever the lucky guy is then duplicate the file and rename each onto everybody's numbers.

Another way, is press ESC on everybody -> Reset -> Default Window Position. This will reset everything, then following 2 rules - Only drag the side of windows, and not the corners as well as do NOT drag. Then also wait a second between everything you do to be sure your alts are on your main. I.E. Move mouse *wait a second* click mouse *wait a second* drag mouse *wait a second*... seems like your wasting alot of time, but your really not and it's very effective.
Oh, btw do your best not to move your market/assets/inventory/character sheet&skills&info windows. just leave them in there default location.

Though as for the mouse being out of sync, Alge hit the problem/solution perfectly.

I actually got that part all figured out to keep my ISBoxer settings and traditional play settings separate. I just virtualized those files as well using the file virtualization section of the program. It worked marvelously and kept my client settings completely separate without any issues once I identified which file number was to which character. Thanks for the info though for sure. I'm training up some additional skills on a few more accounts and am going to try a sniper type of configuration. My computer just cannot maintain responsiveness with multiple ship types in fast paced close battles. I almost lost a few Machs & had to switch back to manual piloting to evac everyone from the 10/10 I was running. Once I get it working I'll record a video and post a tutorial on how I was able to make it work, etc.

First off Can I join your corp and follow you with a noctis ? Maybe a fleet of noctis.

I would recommend making a ATG group for all your machs and leave your carrier out of it viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1037 . Set up your overviews to be identical and make some Video fx streams. I don't know how many screens your working with but I would bet you could fit it on just 2. I posted a screenshot in my thread recently of how mine is setup and I borrowed it heavily from a video I saw of 5 drakes and its working well.

**Had to read it a second time, If you are clicking on the wrong thing due to the overview lagging, sometimes a ships that gets killed turns grey and stays on the overview making it hard to target the row on your overview across all the accounts. I only have 3 sentry domis but i end up attacking 2 ships often enough and having a full video fx feed of the overview and targets so when I see one ship is starting to take damage that shouldn't I tell the drones to attack the one that is dying faster, then go through my missaligned target list and get them all ready to shoot the one that took some damage and after that the damage will be synced up. I also sort by Icon and not range since that stays more stable.

[BeZ]

"sometimes a ships that gets killed turns grey and stays on the overview making it hard to target the row on your overview across all the accounts.

This is actually a feature of Eve. They stay there to let you see what is killed until you fire a shot.

As for attacking 2 different targets, once you get the gist of it you never will shoot 2 different targets again.
-Always keep multiple targets locked (unless hes the last guy) and make sure your guns are firing before you start locking more.
^^ If your using missiles only, then this rule does not apply.
-Organize by by Icon (Basically mean they are first organized by Ship Size -> Ship Name -> Distance) = Nearly Impossible to attack different targets.
- Have your alts add your main to watch list..
^^ Say you have 1-2-3-4-5.. Make a repeater that controls only 2-3-4-5, and have them add 1 to the watchlist. Then whenever you warp into a site or place to pew pew, tell 2-3-4-5 to approach 1. and only use 1 to move around.

Been doing this for about a month, and since I've started using those methods (+ my custom overview) I have yet to attack 2 targets despite facing many lol.