Age Builder KI Hack

[Paradox]

Many people use ULM to visit their Ages, but I've heard a number of complaints about it not properly detecting Ages that aren't uploaded to the server. If you're building an Age and want a fast way to test it, fiddling with ULM isn't a fun thing to do.

This KI command takes the form "/link [AgeName]" and will link you to whatever Age you specify. Be careful, this does not provide any checks, and assumes that you are smart enough to link only to an Age that actually exists.

You will need the full KI from ABM in order to use this hack. Add the following code to the ICheckChatCommands section of xKI.py.

Code: Select all

        if string.lower(chatmessage).startswith('/link '):
            age = chatmessage[len('/link '):]
            vault = ptVault()
            info = ptAgeInfoStruct()
            info.setAgeFilename(age)
            vLink = vault.getOwnedAgeLink(info)
            if (not vLink):
                link = ptAgeLinkStruct()
                link.setAgeInfo(info)
                link.setSpawnPoint(ptSpawnPointInfo("Default", "LinkInPointDefault"))
                link.setLinkingRules(PtLinkingRules.kOriginalBook)
            else:
                link = vLink.asAgeLinkStruct()
            mgr = ptNetLinkingMgr()
            mgr.setEnabled(1)
            mgr.linkToAge(link)

Thanks to Hoikas for reviewing this and offering suggestions.

This code is provided with no warranty in the hopes that it might be useful. Always back up your files before hacking.
General rule: if you don't understand the hack, don't try it. There is more than enough information here about how to install it if you know what you are doing.

Have fun

[kaelisebonrai]

ok, how about... we actually provide some info, for once..

How does one access the "full KI" from ABM?

Not everyone has been around in the uru hacking community since day 1. Or, whenever this info was originally supplied. How about people stop lording their extra knowledge over everyone, and start sharing the wealth of knowledge around?

Just because we weren't in the community from the word go.. does not mean we lack the necessary skills and ablity to actually do these things, if there was some info at least *somewhere* on how to do this kind of thing?

This is a modding community, and decent modding communities share their knowledge.

[Paradox]

Much of the old information is avilable (although outdated) at http://wiki.cobbs.ca/.

[kaelisebonrai]

thankfully, that link wasn't down as it has been quite often, lately..

I also happened to look through it for a good hour, and could not find how to access the full KI using ABM and PotS..

Isn't it time that there was a new site that would contain the info?

If required, I can offer webspace and domain (guildofartisans.org) for said project and site...

Its high time the info was updated, for the new members of the community, and organised, decently..

[Tsar Hoikas]

This is a modding community, and decent modding communities share their knowledge.

Disagree.

I remember poking around the Sim City 4 modding community one time, and the information was somewhat sparse. You pretty much had to ask questions and hope someone knew.

You'll find the few of us who do understand intimately how Plasma works are somewhat tired of being badgered... It comes from 4 years of hacking the engine and answering the same questions over and over again, I suppose :\

[GPNMilano]

I somewhat agree with where Hoikas is coming from, and somewhat don't. I've been hacking and modding Uru for the last year. I moderately know how plasma works, and the PRPs are set up etc. I would have loved to have some questions answered when i started my MOCC modding, but I choose to do it myself so that I could learn more about where stuff goes, what interacts with what etc. Learning for yourself is the best way to learn. Period. You will never walk if you're afraid of falling down etc. On the flip side there are some things that everyone should know off the bat, and a place where people can find said information. Basic to moderate modding/hacking resources should be archived so that new people can find it easily, and learn from stuff done in the past. There is alot of information out there that is outdated, like on Cobbs. And new people to the community won't know its outdated unless they're told so. They shouldn't have to spend time doing something the old way and then have someone say "we haven't done it like that in over a year man"

[kaelisebonrai]

This is a modding community, and decent modding communities share their knowledge.

Disagree.

I remember poking around the Sim City 4 modding community one time, and the information was somewhat sparse. You pretty much had to ask questions and hope someone knew.

You'll find the few of us who do understand intimately how Plasma works are somewhat tired of being badgered... It comes from 4 years of hacking the engine and answering the same questions over and over again, I suppose :\

I said /decent/ modding communities. Please note the qualifier.

Would you rather the information be kept to the minds of individual people?
or would you rather the information be spread far and wide, in a similar way as the open source community does?

And, if you are tired of being badgered, damn well stick the info out there somewhere, so you can just point them to a decent site with all the info.

You want to complain about being asked the same question over and over? make it so people don't /need/ to ask the question!
Supply the knowledge, so everyone can learn it, and not have to beg others for the info.

And blast it, keep the info updated.

You complain of being badgered, but, put no effort into solving the issues that keeping all the information to yourself causes...

Bah!

[andylegate]

kaelisebonrai,

in the tool team's defense, please note that Cyan has in the past asked them to keep the intimate workings of Plasma to themselves.

While you may or may not agree with that....Plasma does belong to Cyan. And when Cyan speaks about something that belongs to them, the majority of their fans tend to listen.

I too do not like COBBS......simply for the fact that EVERY SINGLE TIME I've tried to follow a link to it, it's been down. I thought it had been completely abandoned due to this.

So yes, I can understand where people like Hoikas is coming from. I've had questions that I've asked been given the "Cyan said not to tell, sorry." answer.

What I don't like is the: "Oh, you can find all that here at some link to cobbs that doesn't work 90% of the time"

I agree that information that we can access....we should be able to access......

But you're also talking about a LOT of work. There are only a few people that are working on things for the plugin, and all their volunteered (emphasis on that word) time is tied up on that. Transfering all that info from Cobbs to here would take a lot of time. Just like writing up a decent tutorial takes some time.

That is one thing that I've seen over, and over, and yet over again in modding communities, from FPS's to RPG's, people DEMANDING things, as though they are paying for a product.

Remember.......everyone here do what they do purely on a volunteer basis and on their own time. No one here get's paid to do this, nor is it their job.

Yelling at them may make you feel better........but it's not going to solve anything, nor get you what you'd like.

[Justintime9]

Okay... so... if the tool team must keep the secrets of plasma, then what's the point of even posting a topic like this, as the average person on GoW will be thoroughly confused. I am very much a newbie on plasma, and don't appreciate "Hey look! a new tool for linking to ages! all you have to do, is get the complete ABM KI, enter this code, and presto!"
you don't have to reveal all of plasma's deep dark secrets, but you could at least say how to get this "complete ABM KI" thingie.
That link to COWIKI does not tell me anything. I understand it must be frustrating to have people always asking questions, but if you post a topic like this, you'll have to reveal something, or it's completely useless to a large majority of explorers on this forum.

[Nadnerb]

Andy hit the nail on the head. Please remember that no one here is paid, and that no one owes you anything, and that it is not your God given right to have people put in large quantities of work for your benefit. They do it because they feel so inclined. If you yell at them when they put in a little effort to tell you something, they are not likely to feel so inclined again.

Now, I happen to agree that the above information is not particularly useful in isolation without certain additional instruction, however, because those further instructions are so simple, it was reasonable to assume that it would be possible to find them somewhere, and as such, I will fill in a couple details. However, if I see this kind of response to a topic again, I may not feel inclined to reply.

If you install "Uru - Ages Beyond Myst" without any patches (such as To D'ni or Path of the Shell), you can enable the full KI by decompyling xKI.py from Python.pak, and inserting the lines: (and then repacking xKI.py into Anything.pak and placing it in the Python directory)

Code: Select all

def PtIsSinglePlayerMode():
    return 0

Anyone with enough knowledge of python and access to tools like UruPython or PlasmaShop should now be able to do this.

Finally, a little history lesson. The linking code you see above is one of those things you are not likely to find anywhere, because of something called the AdminKI. Back in the days of Until Uru, it was a ridiculously closely guarded secret known only by the people who wrote it, the Shard Admins who had been given access to it, and by people clever enough to figure it out for themselves. (and if the latter used it, they'd probably get banned from the shard) Even today, there are people afraid or unwilling to give out info like this. I could list off a dozen still active members not including those you know as "the tool developers" who could have shown you linking code like that before. So tell me.. has the Uru community ever been a "decent modding community" by your standards?