My list of monsters for Rain Man is too HUGE!

Bale

Minion
Have you ever had to scroll through a list of over a thousand copyable monsters using the Rain Man skill? Just to find the dozen of them which are worth summoning? Two words for that activity, "NOT FUN!"

I wrote a script to pare down the available options to the few which have some practical value. The script pays some attention to your current quest status so that (for example) it knows that you don't need writing desks if you've already given Lady Spookyraven her necklace. It is even smart enough that it will only show you gremlins if you possess a molybdenum magnet and it will only show the gremlin that has the tool. It will then display this short list of monsters in a second drop-down right under the giant drop-down of nofun. I leave the original, complete, list of Rain Man targets intact just in case you want something which this script dislikes.

Just download this script into your /relay directory and it will automatically make Rain Man 20% cooler and 120% more fun. That's 144% more awesome!

Monsters this script likes, but only if you still need them:
  • drunken half-orc hobo, or hung-over half-orc hobo
  • writing desk
  • banshee librarian
  • animated ornate nightstand
  • screambat
  • ninja snowman assassin
  • 7-Foot Dwarf Foreman
  • mountain man
  • modern zmobie
  • swarm of ghuol whelps
  • Blur
  • Baa'baa'bu'ran
  • Bailey's Beetle
  • War Hippy Spy
  • Orcish Frat Boy Spy
  • gaudy pirate
  • whitesnake
  • white lion
  • Bob Racecar
  • forest spirit
  • pygmy janitor
  • lobsterfrogman
  • dirty thieving brigand
  • Blooper
  • ghost
  • morbid skull
  • Astronomer
  • Skinflute, or Camel's Toe
  • Bram the Stoker
  • sleepy mariachi
  • remains of a jilted mistress
  • Knob Goblin Elite Guard Captain
  • Quantum Mechanic
  • mind flayer
  • alley catfish
  • piranhadon

If I missed one of your favorite Rain Man targets, post here to let me know and I'll probably add it.
 

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Bale

Minion
Added more monsters to Rain Man list:

  • whitesnake
  • white lion
  • Bob Racecar
  • forest spirit
  • War Hippy Spy

If you're one of the 15 people who downloaded this, please do so again.
 

ckb

Minion
Staff member
Can you add banshee librarian? Useful if you want to get a killing jar for the desert.
 

Theraze

Active member
Since the list of useful monsters is likely to shift in the future as new suggestions and zones are added, would this be a prime SVN candidate?
 

Bale

Minion
I worry about negative interactions with other choice.php adventures. (I already found two that are excepted in this script.) As a result I am hesitant to put this on SVN where more people will use it. If I could put this out as choice.970.ash I might change that decision, but lost explains about that feature, "It would be harder to support choice.php since the choice number is determined by parsing the page rather than from the URL." Consequently I am stuck overriding the entirety of choice.php!

Also, there isn't much future for this script since it will lose a lot of relevance as soon as Heavy Rains is no longer current and I'm not sure I will continue to support it in future seasons. Although if there are other Faxing choices in the future, I might need to ammend that decision.
 

zarqon

Well-known member
Does the Rain Man dropdown always contain all your script's chosen monsters? If so, perhaps you might consider making your own relay script (e.g. relay_RainMan.ash, not an override) that casts Rain Man. You could even present the data in a table or somesuch.

Using CLI Links or some other chicanery, you could even have a click of the selected monster dump you right to the combat page (since otherwise you'll need to mess with sending post data back to your script):

HTML:
<a href='formsubmissionurlfromrainmanchoice' class='cliimglink through' title='skillsurltogotorainmanchoice'><img src='selectedmonster.image' title='monstername'></a>
 

Bale

Minion
Does the Rain Man dropdown always contain all your script's chosen monsters?

No.

Though doing it as a relay script is still a very valid idea. I could present a button to cast the skill and then filter the results.
 
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zarqon

Well-known member
I should mention then that BatBrain / BatMan RE / Factroid will be tracking factoids per character in an int[string] data file, if BatMan RE is installed. So you could have your script attempt to load the factoids_<name> data file, and if it has a "lastchecked" field, present a pre-skill-cast list; otherwise require an initial button press to build the list (by casting).
 

lostcalpolydude

Developer
Staff member
Does BatMan RE have a lastchecked field even for people without Manuel? Rain Man is usable with no factoids in that case (you just have to encounter the monsters in a Heavy Rains run first).
 

zarqon

Well-known member
BatMan RE's data file is just for tracking factoids and won't have any info on whether the monster was encountered in a Heavy Rains run before. So my suggestion is really just a way to give people commitment-free information if they have Manuel. Otherwise you have to commit to casting the spell before you get the information.

The "lastchecked" entry in the factoids data file is set by the Factroid relay script whenever it scrapes Manuel (which it does if there is no lastchecked field, or if manually refreshed, pardon the pun). It is deleted by BatBrain when you learn a factoid from a monster that doesn't exist yet in the data file (since although the majority of mafia monster names translate directly to KoL monster names, some don't and we thus have to rescrape Manuel after learning the first factoid of a new monster). Thus, if the lastchecked field is present, it means that the data is up-to-date (or, at least, that it has been checked and no new monsters have since been encountered by a BatBrain-powered combat script).
 

ckb

Minion
Staff member
If you are still actively updating this, it would be nice for the list to include any applicable monsters that drop required tower items. Extra credit for Telescope and gate checking too.
 

Bale

Minion
Oy. I really don't want the drop-down to get that big. The tower monsters can have their own, separate, drop-down. Nobody minds me adding another, right?
 

ckb

Minion
Staff member
I am bumping this thread in the hopes that Bale will make a similar thing for the new Time-Spinner monster recall (mostly so I won't have to).

Edit: an update to the original script should be reasonable to apply to the spinner by using the same monster function with new page modifications.
 
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Bale

Minion
I'll probably adapt it eventually.

Though it seems much less significant since the list of monsters the time-spinner can summon is gimped and reasonably easy to search for the one you want.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
My choice.ash override which just labels monster ids automagically worked here. Relevant excerpt:
Code:
     matcher whichchoice = create_matcher("(?<=<table  width=95%  cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0><tr><td style=\"color: white;\" align=center bgcolor=blue><b>).*?name='?which(?:choice|monster)'? value='?(\\d+)'?", visit_url());
     results.append(whichchoice.replace_first("$1. $0"));

I'm thinking this script probably won't need much changing, as a result.
 
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