Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:53 am
Multiboxing Terraria 1.2 (Oct 1, 2013) with ISBoxer
Terraria (http://terraria.org) is a multiplayer side-scrolling adventure by Re-Logic, an indie game studio. It's a fun game and available on Steam, check it out. Some people consider it like a 2D minecraft, but it's more adventurous. It's also available on XBox Live, so a lot of people are familiar with the game anyway.
It's not the typical MMORPG that people multibox with ISBoxer. But that also means you don't need to own multiple copies of the game in order to multibox it, and multiboxing can come in handy for various reasons -- such as to quickly dig tunnels downward or to the side without getting a friend to help you. Your character is 2 blocks wide, so digging downward is usually done by holding your mouse button down and tediously moving the mouse left and right; also 3 blocks tall, so digging to the side is usually done by holding the button and tediously moving the mouse up and down. With ISBoxer and a clever use of Repeater Regions, you can just hold the button down, your 2 or 3 guys can each dig in an assigned spot, and you can keep moving and dig much more quickly.
Oh, and even if you're only playing one copy of the game, you can use ISBoxer to get rid of the title bar. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally clicked or double-clicked that damn thing while playing Terraria, especially during boss fights that require clicking all over the place.
Note: Terraria support currently requires the Development build of Inner Space
To get the development build, right click Inner Space in the system tray (notification area), select Patcher, check "Download development (test) patches" and then close and restart Inner Space to let it patch up
This is a Steam game, how do I launch multiple copies of it with ISBoxer?
Yes, yes, good question. Here's the trick. You need to launch Steam via Inner Space/ISBoxer as if it were the game's Launcher -- because it is. Then, as with any other game's Launcher and Inner Space/ISBoxer, the launcher needs to close after the game instance is launched, before the next launcher can be opened. To avoid also closing the game instance that is already opened, this means you have to kill the running Steam.exe rather than just selecting "Exit"; this can be done via the Windows Task Manager ("End Process"). This process might get improved in the future...
So first of all, add Steam to Inner Space. To do so, right click IS and select Add Game. Then drag your Steam shortcut into the Add Game window and click OK. You will need to select the Steam Game/Game Profile when setting up your team in ISBoxer.
After you've got your team created and configured to use the Steam Game/Game Profile, the launch process goes like this:
1. Close Steam entirely, because ISBoxer needs to launch it.
2. Launch your ISBoxer Character Set (or use the ISBoxer Character Set Slots menu to launch just the 1st slot); this launches Steam under Inner Space. Log into Steam as you normally do.
3. Use Steam to launch the game, in this case Terraria
4. After Terraria is running, open up the Windows Task Manager -- you can do this by right clicking your Taskbar and it's just an option in the menu there. In the Task Manager, find Steam.exe in the Processes tab, and select End Process. Terraria should still be running, and Steam should now be gone
5. If all of your Characters are launched, then stop -- otherwise continue launching the same way, from Step 2
Note that you should close Steam afterward, as any game you launch via Steam will be affected by Inner Space until you close it and launch Steam without IS!
I've got my game up and running. You said something about Repeater Region tricks to dig fast?
I did, didn't I...
Okay, so we're going to use the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel to set up some Repeater Regions. These are areas on the screen where the mouse (and any modifier keys, e.g. Shift) will automatically broadcast to other specified windows. Generally the mouse cursor gets sent to exactly the same spot in every window, but by giving our Repeater Regions a Name -- the same Name in each window -- the broadcasted cursor aligns to the Repeater Region in each window with the same Name. Then we just arrange the Repeater Regions in each window to be in a slightly different position, and our characters each remove a different block at the same time, as we keep our mouse still.
Here's what to do.
1. In the game press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G to bring up the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel
2. Click the Repeater Regions tab
3. Fill in the Name box; note that if you'll be digging in different directions, it might be useful to name them according to the direction it's for. "West" would be regions for digging westward, "Down" would be for digging downward, etc.
4. In the Target drop-down box, pick "all other"
5. Leave "Block click from current window" un-checked, and don't pick anything in the "Mapped Key on enter/exit" boxes.
6. Click "Add"
7. Size and position the new Repeater Region that appeared, either to the left, right, or below your character in the game, directly over at least one of the blocks. This will determine where the cursor should go in this window in order to dig with all windows.
8. Click "Sync" in the ISBoxer Control Panel in order to copy the region to the other windows; note that if you have other Repeater Regions besides this one, this syncs ALL of them to the other windows and matches their size and position...
9. Switch to each other window, open the ISBoxer Control Panel (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G) and position the Repeater Region over a different tile
10. Save your Region Set, probably as something other than Auto. Type in "Digging" or something next to the Save as button, and then click Save as. This saves all of the regions, in all of the windows, so you don't have to do this in each window. Because we're not saving as Auto, these Regions will not activate when we first start the game (we probably don't always want them). Load them when you need them via the ISBoxer Control Panel -- select "Digging" from the drop-down box and click Load.
After setting up the regions, close the ISBoxer Control Panel in all windows (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G again) and test it out. Place your cursor in the right spot, and the cursor should appear over the different tiles in each window. Click, and your guys should each hit that tile. Now you're ready to dig continuously just by holding down the button (and left/right if you're digging to the side; turn on Broadcasting Mode with Shift+Alt+R for that).
That's it for now.
It's not the typical MMORPG that people multibox with ISBoxer. But that also means you don't need to own multiple copies of the game in order to multibox it, and multiboxing can come in handy for various reasons -- such as to quickly dig tunnels downward or to the side without getting a friend to help you. Your character is 2 blocks wide, so digging downward is usually done by holding your mouse button down and tediously moving the mouse left and right; also 3 blocks tall, so digging to the side is usually done by holding the button and tediously moving the mouse up and down. With ISBoxer and a clever use of Repeater Regions, you can just hold the button down, your 2 or 3 guys can each dig in an assigned spot, and you can keep moving and dig much more quickly.
Oh, and even if you're only playing one copy of the game, you can use ISBoxer to get rid of the title bar. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally clicked or double-clicked that damn thing while playing Terraria, especially during boss fights that require clicking all over the place.
Note: Terraria support currently requires the Development build of Inner Space
To get the development build, right click Inner Space in the system tray (notification area), select Patcher, check "Download development (test) patches" and then close and restart Inner Space to let it patch up
This is a Steam game, how do I launch multiple copies of it with ISBoxer?
Yes, yes, good question. Here's the trick. You need to launch Steam via Inner Space/ISBoxer as if it were the game's Launcher -- because it is. Then, as with any other game's Launcher and Inner Space/ISBoxer, the launcher needs to close after the game instance is launched, before the next launcher can be opened. To avoid also closing the game instance that is already opened, this means you have to kill the running Steam.exe rather than just selecting "Exit"; this can be done via the Windows Task Manager ("End Process"). This process might get improved in the future...
So first of all, add Steam to Inner Space. To do so, right click IS and select Add Game. Then drag your Steam shortcut into the Add Game window and click OK. You will need to select the Steam Game/Game Profile when setting up your team in ISBoxer.
After you've got your team created and configured to use the Steam Game/Game Profile, the launch process goes like this:
1. Close Steam entirely, because ISBoxer needs to launch it.
2. Launch your ISBoxer Character Set (or use the ISBoxer Character Set Slots menu to launch just the 1st slot); this launches Steam under Inner Space. Log into Steam as you normally do.
3. Use Steam to launch the game, in this case Terraria
4. After Terraria is running, open up the Windows Task Manager -- you can do this by right clicking your Taskbar and it's just an option in the menu there. In the Task Manager, find Steam.exe in the Processes tab, and select End Process. Terraria should still be running, and Steam should now be gone
5. If all of your Characters are launched, then stop -- otherwise continue launching the same way, from Step 2
Note that you should close Steam afterward, as any game you launch via Steam will be affected by Inner Space until you close it and launch Steam without IS!
I've got my game up and running. You said something about Repeater Region tricks to dig fast?
I did, didn't I...
Okay, so we're going to use the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel to set up some Repeater Regions. These are areas on the screen where the mouse (and any modifier keys, e.g. Shift) will automatically broadcast to other specified windows. Generally the mouse cursor gets sent to exactly the same spot in every window, but by giving our Repeater Regions a Name -- the same Name in each window -- the broadcasted cursor aligns to the Repeater Region in each window with the same Name. Then we just arrange the Repeater Regions in each window to be in a slightly different position, and our characters each remove a different block at the same time, as we keep our mouse still.
Here's what to do.
1. In the game press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G to bring up the in-game ISBoxer Control Panel
2. Click the Repeater Regions tab
3. Fill in the Name box; note that if you'll be digging in different directions, it might be useful to name them according to the direction it's for. "West" would be regions for digging westward, "Down" would be for digging downward, etc.
4. In the Target drop-down box, pick "all other"
5. Leave "Block click from current window" un-checked, and don't pick anything in the "Mapped Key on enter/exit" boxes.
6. Click "Add"
7. Size and position the new Repeater Region that appeared, either to the left, right, or below your character in the game, directly over at least one of the blocks. This will determine where the cursor should go in this window in order to dig with all windows.
8. Click "Sync" in the ISBoxer Control Panel in order to copy the region to the other windows; note that if you have other Repeater Regions besides this one, this syncs ALL of them to the other windows and matches their size and position...
9. Switch to each other window, open the ISBoxer Control Panel (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G) and position the Repeater Region over a different tile
10. Save your Region Set, probably as something other than Auto. Type in "Digging" or something next to the Save as button, and then click Save as. This saves all of the regions, in all of the windows, so you don't have to do this in each window. Because we're not saving as Auto, these Regions will not activate when we first start the game (we probably don't always want them). Load them when you need them via the ISBoxer Control Panel -- select "Digging" from the drop-down box and click Load.
After setting up the regions, close the ISBoxer Control Panel in all windows (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G again) and test it out. Place your cursor in the right spot, and the cursor should appear over the different tiles in each window. Click, and your guys should each hit that tile. Now you're ready to dig continuously just by holding down the button (and left/right if you're digging to the side; turn on Broadcasting Mode with Shift+Alt+R for that).
That's it for now.
