Mercenary Mood -- choiceadv adjustment as you go, modifier maintenance, etc.

zarqon

Well-known member
[size=+1]Mercenary Mood[/size]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eyes. For on this day, this steaming hot August 1st, I release unto you the long-awaited mood script: Mercenary Mood! Here's what it does:

ChoiceAdv Adjustments

Anyone familiar with my BBB script will recognize this first feature, as it has moved here from BBB (and thus BBB has shrunk considerably). This is to allow for better separation of relay vs. automated play. As you adventure, if your mm_adjust_choiceadvs setting is set to true, MM will adjust certain choiceAdventure properties as you adventure in the relevant location. Here's a list of the adjustments made:

  • A-Boo Peak -- Endure the spooky coldness. Allows for automating clues.
  • Barrrney's Barrr -- Step up for beer pong if you have more than 5 insults.
  • Bat zones -- adjusts your goals if you have encountered a Screambat.
  • Black Forest -- get goal items first (including any blackberry footwear), then get a beehive if it's necessary in your path, then go for the +items buff if you're wearing all the black gear. Consider the blackberry galoshes a goal until you've got them or you've fully explored the black forest. If all goals are achieved, get all the black gear, then default to fighting bushes.
  • Broodling Grounds -- Uneffect buffs that would damage seal parts. Print warnings for some familiars or equipment that may damage seal parts.
  • Castle (Basement) -- Furry: With titanium umbrella, unlock ground floor. Otherwise, if there's nothing to do in Neckbeard, get primestat moxie. Proceed to Neckbeard. Neckbeard: With dumbbell, unlock ground floor. Otherwise, if Fitness is set to unlock using amulet, proceed to Fitness. Get goal O'RLY manual or open sauce. Get mainstat myst. Skip. Fitness: With amulet, unlock ground floor. Open the gym bag for goals. Finally, get a dumbbell or skip.
  • Castle (Ground Floor) -- Foodie: Get an electric boning knife. Otherwise, skip it.
  • Castle (Top Floor) -- Raver: Unless you have a mohawk wig equipped, get a quest record if you lack one. Otherwise, fight Raver Giants for goals. Otherwise, if the user has set the preference to restore HP/MP, respect that. Finally, proceed to Punk. Punk: With mohawk wig equipped, complete quest. Otherwise, fight Punk Rock giants for goals. If Raver isn't set to Punk, proceed to Raver. If shortcut option exists, proceed to Steampunk. Steampunk: With model airship, complete quest. Then, pick up a steam-powered model rocketship, get goal brass gears, or fight Steampunk Giants for goals. If none of those options were selected, proceed to Goth. Goth: With record, complete quest. Otherwise, with multiple candles as goals, get candles. If there's something to do in Steampunk, proceed to Steampunk. Finally, fight Goth Giants.
  • Chinatown Tenement -- If you have enough GP, turn it in and enter Debasement.
  • Convention Hall Lobby -- Create and discover the various slime colors as you can.
  • Daily Dungeon -- Open the chests in rooms 5 and 10 only if they may contain goals, otherwise skip. Open doors using your best available method, saving one skeleton key for the Tower. Skip traps with the 11-ft. pole if you have one.
  • Defiled Areas of the Cyrpt -- gets mm_miniboss_items (default is 1) special combat items, before getting mainstats or skipping the adventure. It will never get more than one phylactery, and it always skips the puny stats in the Cranny.
  • Le Dègueulasse Marais -- Unlock all the locations as available.
  • Dungeons of Doom -- Get goal magic lamps and dead mimics (will also work if you set any of the possible dead mimic contents as a goal).
  • Enormous Greater-Than Sign -- Handle getting the plus sign, Teleportitis, and goal parentheses or stats.
  • F'c'le -- If you have a valuable trinket and no pirate fledges, banish the chatty pirates with it. Get delicious primestats.
  • The "Fun" House -- Only fight the Clownlord with sufficient Clownosity.
  • The Haiku Dungeon -- Get goals, otherwise get a fairy gravy boat if you don't have the familiar yet, otherwise skip.
  • Haunted Ballroom -- Learn the Spookraven skill if possible, otherwise fight an organist for goals, otherwise get goal or primestat moxie, otherwise skip.
  • Haunted Bathroom -- Get goals, otherwise open the medicine cabinet, in which you get goals or skip. Overridden by manually setting to GMoB.
  • Haunted Bedroom -- Elegant: get Lady Spook's gown, then goal nightsticks, then skip. Can override to get nightsticks. Ornate: Get Spook's specs, then a disposable camera if you still need one, then myst stats if playing a myst class, otherwise skip. Can override to get stats or meat.
  • Haunted Billiards Room -- maintain the Chalky Hand effect if you haven't gotten the key yet. Also handle the pool ghost: if cubes of billiards chalk are a goal or your pool skill is maxed, get those. Otherwise, increase your pool skill.
  • Haunted Gallery -- Fight the appropriate knight to learn the Spookyraven skill if appropriate or get goal items, otherwise skip. Override by choosing lights. Also set your default Louvre goal to primestat once you've gotten the slippers; can be overridden by anything else.
  • Haunted Library -- Rise: Read the tome to learn a Spookyraven skill if available, or gain goal stats, otherwise skip (can override to gain recipes). Fall: Same, minus the Spooky skills.
  • Haunted Pantry -- With an unlit birthday cake as a goal, start the Baker mini-quest, otherwise skip it.
  • Haunted third floor zones -- Deal with using toys to gather babies.
  • Hidden Apartment Building -- If Thrice-Cursed, fight the boss if you still need to, otherwise relocate lawyers if you haven't, otherwise get more cursed if you still need it, otherwise skip.
  • Hidden Bowling Alley -- Buy a bowl of scorpions if you have meat and aren't in Fistcore.
  • Hidden Office Building -- with a complete McClusky file, fight the boss, otherwise get the boring clip if you need to, otherwise fight pygmies for goals (or file pages), otherwise skip.
  • Hidden Park - Dumpster dive for the antique machete or goals of bowling balls or doctor clothes, otherwise relocate janitors, otherwise skip.
  • Hidden Temple -- if you have choiceadvs or the Nostril as a goal, use a stone wool if you have one. Such Great Heights: gain the Nostril if you lack it, then 3 adventures, then goal myst stats. Fitting In: head to the heights to get a Nostril if you lack it, otherwise head to the Heart to unlock the Hidden City, otherwise show in browser.
  • Hobopolis Town Square -- if you don't have a binder, automatically gets one if you have enough nickels; otherwise skips the adventure. Skips the marketplace if you don't have a binder equipped or if you have hobo nickels as a goal, otherwise shows the marketplace in the browser.
  • Ice Hotel -- Fill your bucket by 15% if on a quest for Walford, otherwise raid the hotel room if you haven't yet today, otherwise get cocktail ingredients (can override to skip).
  • Island Barracks -- Explore the entire Hacienda!
  • Jungles of Ancient Loathing -- Proceed into the city until the point you have to actually make a decision.
  • Kegger in the Woods -- gets orquette phone numbers if you have them as a goal or have less then 20, otherwise turns them in for goodies.
  • Knob Barracks -- ignores the footlocker if you have the guard outfit, otherwise completes the outfit.
  • KOLHS Locations -- Sit with the appropriate group at lunch.
  • Madness Bakery -- Meet and fight the Cake Lord, then if you have the ingredients get an epic tart, goal bagels, or mainstat myst. After completing the Armorer's quest, can be overridden by anything.
  • Massive Ziggurat - With 4 triangles, fight the final Protector Spectre; otherwise, skip.
  • Mer-kin Elementary School -- Get goal sawdust or cancer sticks, otherwise fight the monsters.
  • Mer-kin Library -- with full vocabulary skill, learn clues.
  • Mer-kin Outpost -- Fight the appropriate monster based on who dropped your lockkey.
  • Mob of Zeppelin Protesters -- For the semirare/clover adventure, choose your most effective method of scaring away protesters.
  • Neverending Party -- If you are on the quest, make all choices necessary to speed up the quest.
  • Octopus's Garden -- if you have a sea fruit/vegetable as a goal and have both a seed packet and green slime, equip the straw hat and plant seeds. Otherwise, skip planting seeds.
  • Old Landfill -- Get goal items, otherwise set choices so that you complete your junk junk, default to fighting sprites.
  • Outskirts of the Knob -- completes cake quest if you have the unlit birthday cake, otherwise gets a random item if you have "kiss the knob apron" as a goal, otherwise enters combat.
  • Overgrown Lot -- Get flowers for Doc Galaktik, then get primestat moxie, otherwise food if you can eat, otherwise drinks. Once you've completed the quest, can be overridden by anything.
  • Palindome -- gets a Ye Olde Navy Fleece if it's a goal, otherwise skips the adventure.
  • Penultimate Fantasy Airship -- gets a bronze breastplate if it's a goal and you lack one. Otherwise, skips the adventure. Gets a model airship if you haven't completed quest, otherwise enters combat against a MechaMech if it has goals, you're in BIG!, or its stats are better than the stats you'd get from the stat choice. Otherwise, chooses chests if they are a goal or have been set manually. Otherwise, gets stats.
  • Primordial Soup -- Handles unlocking the zone by managing the choice to get an acid, use the acid, and then swim upward. Also attempts to create up to three base pairs you haven't yet used against Cyrus so they are available in combat.
  • The Road to the White Citadel -- If you haven't yet cleared enough burnouts, you have the ingredients for an opium grenade, and you don't already have one in inventory, create one. This combined with SS throwing them will facilitate speedier clearing of the zone. Also uses a plastic rock if you've acquired one.
  • Rowdy Saloon -- Cheat with a pocket ace if you have one, otherwise, cheat with as many sleeve deuces as possible.
  • Secret Council Warehouse -- Use a warehouse map page if you also have a warehouse inventory page.
  • The Shore, Inc. Travel Agency -- Take goal stat locations, or default to your primestat. Buy any goal items you have the scrip for.
  • Skeleton Store -- Complete the Meatsmith's quest, then if you can get a skeleton key (reserving the one you'll need for the tower) open the chest, otherwise get primestat muscle, otherwise get a little meat.
  • Sleazy Back Alley -- Accept Harold's hammer quest.
  • Smut Orc Logging Camp -- Set the choice at the shack that will get you the most pieces. Also visit the bridge when you can construct more, to enable simply adventuring for bridgeProgress.
  • Sonofa Beach -- This is not exactly a choiceadv, but should be noted: if you have Pulverize and only one goatskin umbrella or wool hat in inventory (and they are not goals), smashes them before continuing, as per this suggestion by Bale.
  • South of the Border -- tries for a poultrygeist if it is a goal or if you lack a sombrero. Otherwise, skips the adventure.
  • Spooky Forest -- Navigates the choice adventure tree for quest items regardless of goals in this order: mosquito larva, then tree-holed coin, then Spooky-gro fertilizer, then temple map, then spooky sapling. Closets some of your bar skins before you visit the bar hunter guy.
  • Spooky Gravy Barrow -- fights Felonia if you meet the necessary requirements (inexplicably glowing rock, spooky glove equipped, more than 2 adventures remaining); otherwise, skips the adventure.
  • Tavern Cellar -- with enough elemental damage, make the correct choice vs. the rats.
  • Twin Peak -- Sets the correct choiceadv path depending on your preparation. If you are not prepared, sets the choice back to "Show in browser".
  • VYKEA -- Fill your bucket by 10-15% if you're on a quest for Walford, otherwise get a hex key if it's a goal or it will help you get bolts, otherwise raid the lounge for gift certificates, otherwise raid the cafeteria for tasties, otherwise get a rune (can be overridden to skip).
  • Waste Processing -- Use handfuls of juicy garbage to help you clear the zone. Also, equip a bugbear communicator badge if possible.
  • Whitey's Grove - Gets goal cake/rice/white picket fence/wine/mullet wig (will also get the mullet if it can still help with the Castle); otherwise, gets stats.

Modifier Maintenance

Mercenary Mood originally began as a simple script to manage my combat rate modifier for me as I played, but over the years it expanded to handle more modifiers besides just combat rate. Down the road I'd like for it to be able to handle nearly all ascension-relevant modifiers, but I made a promise to release this script by today and gosh darn it, I'm keeping it!

Presently, MM has support (in varying degrees of completeness) for maintaining all the modifiers listed in the mm_modifiers setting: Combat Rate, Monster Level, Initiative, Item Drop, and Meat Drop. These are some of the most important modifiers to maintain during a run so I've started with them. MM will only maintain the modifiers listed in that setting, so if you don't like the way MM is handling buffs for a given modifier, edit the setting to remove that modifier. That means you can disable this feature entirely by setting mm_modifiers to an empty string.

  • Combat Rate
    MM looks at your goals and adjusts your combat rate up or down to help you reach them. Certain locations will always be adjusted up or down, but beyond that, it will adjust your rate down to help you get choiceadvs or autostops, or up to help you get insults or factoids. This means that it's usually a good idea when running MM to set the goals you're after even for relay play.
  • Monster Level
    MM will try to reach specific targets for some locations (e.g. 82 for the Haunted Boiler Room). Beyond that, it will try to maintain the maximum +ML it can in your current location without going above the safe level you've specified in your threshold setting. Too much +ML can be costly for lower-skilled accounts, so adjust your threshold to be as dangerous as you'd like to be.
  • Initiative
    For the Defiled Alcove or passing the test in the Twin Peak, MM will buff your initiative accordingly. Beyond that, if your moxie is low enough that you'll get hit, it will try to maintain a high enough initiative to get the jump on the monsters in your current location.
  • Item Drop
    If you have goals set, MM will try to maintain a high enough item drop rate to reach a 100% drop rate for those goals. Another reason to set your goals even for relay play.
  • Meat Drop
    This is currently only minimally supported. For now, MM will try to increase your meat drop as much as possible in specific locations: The Filthworm Queen, Themthar Hills, Tower Level 2, and the Boss Bat's Lair.

Disclaimer: I'm not as OCD as some of the players around, and will sometimes take a less optimal path simply because the more optimal path is just too much clicking. This mood script was my way of playing much more optimally without micromanaging (my daycount/turncount for semi-casual HC runs went down considerably). There may be cases in which it is inefficient or suboptimal. While I'd appreciate your bringing those cases to my attention, I can't guarantee that the script will ever handle all the buffs with the exact level of detail or efficiency you want, so if you want something fine-tuned to all your preferences, you're probably better off maintaining your buffs manually, or with your own script. However, if you'd like a good starting point for buff management which saves you a lot of time, or a huge improvement over "barely managing your buffs at all", this script is exactly what you want.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

There are a variety of additional little features I've added to MM over the years, while this was my own personal mood script. Since some may prefer to do things differently, as desired I could add settings to make various aspects toggle-able, or you can find the offending line of code and edit/remove it yourself. I think most of these are universally helpful behaviors, however.

  • Avatar of Boris - MM will manage your Songs and make sure Clancy has the most appropriate equipment for your goals.
  • Avatar of Jarlsberg - MM will make sure you're running the best sphere you can for your goals.
  • Avatar of Sneaky Pete - If your audience reaches +50 or -48, MM will Throw Party or Incite Riot as appropriate. This plays very nicely with SS's handling of managing your audience.
  • Avatar of West of Loathing - MM will try to keep you using your best possible walk for your goals. It will also use corrupted marrow to try to keep up Cowrruption as a Cow Puncher in Hardcore.
  • Zombie Master - After setting aside brains for you to eat that day, MM will lure minions to try to keep your hoard at a size of 20-100, depending on your level. It will also try to keep up Zombie Chow.
  • Crown of Ed - As Ed the Undying, or even as a regular Joe, if you have the Crown of Ed the Undying equipped, MM will try to keep the best animal piece on there for you.
  • Heavy Rains - MM will always try to maintain Thunderheart.
  • Nuclear Autumn - MM will use Rad-Pro when possible to keep you safe from radiation.
  • Path of the Plumber - MM will use available healthy juice to gain some HP regen when helpful.
  • Hobopolis Sewer - MM will help ensure you have what's needed for sewer tests.
  • Iron Palm - MM will run this intrinsic whenever it's helpful.
  • Flavour of Magic - MM keeps the most effective Flavour going for your current location.
  • Gremlins - MM will cast Stiff Upper Lip for this sidequest if possible to increase your DR vs. gremlins.
  • Scamming Tourists - MM will use How to Avoid Scams in Barf Mountain to increase your meat drops there.
  • Mushrooms - If you're on the questESlAudit quest for Taco Dan, MM will use slight-of-hand mushrooms when adventuring in the Fun-Guy Mansion.
  • Trick-or-Treating Tot - If your familiar is a Trick-or-Treating Tot, MM will manage your tot's equipment in much the same way it managed Clancy's.
  • The Sea - In an underwater location, MM will use your fishy pipe for the free Fishy buff if needed, and try to maintain Donho's Bubbly Ballad. If your character's name is 'zarqon', it will also use recordings of Donho's if the skill is inaccessible and use fish juice boxes for Fishy after the pipe. :)
  • Barrels - For followers of the Barrel God, MM will use your barrels as you get them, since there may be tasty things in them. It will only do this during a run (if you !can_interact()).

(Settings mentioned above (in this font) can be configured by typing "zlib settingname = value" in the CLI, by editing your vars_myname.txt file, or by using Prefref Plus. See what they are set to currently by typing "zlib vars" -- or "zlib mm" in this case -- in the CLI.)


Installation
  • Install MM by typing the following in your CLI:
    Code:
    svn checkout https://svn.code.sf.net/p/mercenarymood/code
  • Then, add Mercenary Mood to your current mood by typing trigger unconditional, , MercenaryMood.ash in the CLI, or by adding it with an unconditional trigger on KoLmafia's Mood Setup tab.
  • To disable this script, remove it from your current mood. However, since you can separately disable/enable almost every component of this script using the relevant script setting, I hope this will be an unlikely event.

Enjoy!
 
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Magus_Prime

Well-known member
Hi zarqon. The new BatBrain and Mercenary Mood combination looks interesting and I will try them after rollover. A few questions:

Haunted Bedroom -- handle the Ornate Nightstand (specs, then myst stats if playing a myst class, otherwise meat).

The disposable instant camera can be very helpful in the Palindrome. Why not configure it as the second choice for the Ornate Nightstand?

Hidden Office Building -- with a complete McClusky file, fight the boss, otherwise get the boring clip if you need to, otherwise fight pygmies for goals (or file pages), otherwise skip.

If the second choice adventure is due in the Hidden Office Building it can be better to fight pygmy accountants in the Hidden Apartment Building if pages are still missing. Is something like that outside the scope of Mercenary Mood?

You include familiar management for the Trick or Treating Tot. Is this an area that you plan to expand in the future?

I realize that you copied from the old BatBrain logic for your list but if they are unchanged in Mercenary Mood I offer the above for your consideration.

P.S. It's good to see you active again.
 
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zarqon

Well-known member
Okay, today I updated the choiceadv handling list in the first post to reflect the actual current handling of MM. Ugh! New locations (at least, new compared to that old list) are underlined to help you see at a glance what's new in MM vs. the old BBB.

BatBrain and Mercenary Mood combination

Best Between Battle and Mercenary Mood! I try not to refer to BatBrain as BB to avoid this exact confusion. :)

The disposable instant camera

You'll note that is in the updated list!

it can be better to fight pygmy accountants in the Hidden Apartment Building if pages are still missing. Is something like that outside the scope of Mercenary Mood?

What would you like MM to do in that case? (Aside from actually go adventuring, which is well outside the scope.) We could print a warning/suggestion, I suppose?

You include familiar management for the Trick or Treating Tot. Is this an area that you plan to expand in the future?

The Tot has a small collection of equipment that can be shuffled without shuffling the familiar itself, and which affect all the same modifiers that MM manages. If a similar mechanic comes along I don't doubt support for that will show up here. However, the actual shuffling of familiars is in BBB's wheelhouse, and though I would like to expand handling for that, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

P.S. It's good to see you active again.

Thank you! Though it seems it's always a catch-up game, it's still fun.
 
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Saklad5

Member
I have a request that I have not seen done anywhere else, but should be fairly easy to implement: being able to store and switch between custom sets of choice adventures.

Specifically, I have a set of choice adventures I like to choose for manual play (aftercore, messing around, etcetera), and these always get messed up by ascension scripts and such. I want to be able to revert to my chosen set with the click of a button.

Alternatively, you could implement this in Prefref Plus for any group of settings. It’d be even better if you could have some sets extend others (like classes in Java or moods in KoLmafia).
 
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Magus_Prime

Well-known member
I wrote:
it can be better to fight pygmy accountants in the Hidden Apartment Building if pages are still missing. Is something like that outside the scope of Mercenary Mood?

And Zarqon replied:
What would you like MM to do in that case? (Aside from actually go adventuring, which is well outside the scope.) We could print a warning/suggestion, I suppose?

A warning or suggestion would be great.
 

fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
Would you consider a flag that disabled casting buffs? MP recovery fails when there is not enough meat and, following BCCA's lead, my preferred solution is to just not cast buffs until the meat shortage has been addressed. A simple parameter that could emit some king of warning that Buffs Are Disabled would be acceptable. I can construct schemes where detecting an autorecovery success or failure would toggle something internal but I can also construct ways where that would not alays do what was wanted. Thanks.
 

zarqon

Well-known member
There is a setting (mm_modifiers) that controls buff maintenance:

MM will only maintain the modifiers listed in that setting, so if you don't like the way MM is handling buffs for a given modifier, edit the setting to remove that modifier. That means you can disable this feature entirely by setting mm_modifiers to an empty string.

I assume you're talking about something more automatic though, like a temporary disabling in the event that we can't afford to maintain buffs? We could add some logic to skip maintaining buffs when below, say, 1000 meat.
 

fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
What BCCA did, which I am comfortable with, was a toggle that turned off all buffs or turned on all buffs. In this case "all" was determined programmatically. mm_modifiers will come close but I need to do something to decide which ones are expensive and which ones that I had turned off, can be turned back on.

If you want to implement (say) mm_buff_meat_threshold that would work although you might want to prioritize casting order.

Fundamentally this is a restore/automation issue. A setting that said "do not try and restore if there is not enough meat but do not abort either" seems like it would also solve the issue, but with Bale AFK and the degree of integration with mafia's restore, I don't see this as trivially likely.

To step back, I am running out of meat because of MP recovery in a situation where my CCS does not cast anything so the only drain is mm's buffs.

Thanks.
 

fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
Not sure what the solution is.

In a Disguise run, the only skill that works against certain masks is attack. I can kill most monsters but sometimes I get a fight ended because of the 30 round limit. Having MM decide it wants a ML circa 40 and taking steps to achieve that is not helpful if only because I can get the kill at lower MLs. I can disable MM so there is a work around but...
 

zarqon

Well-known member
MM's +ML target is sensitive to your threshold setting. Perhaps in a Disguises run, adjust your threshold so it will run less +ML. Optionally, remove "Monster Level" from mm_modifiers to have it skip +ML buffs entirely.

ETA: Also in r12 I added a line to skip buffs if you have insufficient MP (so you'd need to restore) and your meat is below 1000.
 
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fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
Not sure whether this is MM, BBB or something else.

SC, Standard. I pulled 4 rusty hedge trimmers in anticipation of the Twin Peak. Something immediately used them. While I appreciate the attempt at convenience, the character was not prepared to meet all of the prerequisites so the net effect is that the trimmer use was wasted. I obviously can avoid this in the future. I'd be all right with never automatically using the trimmers but the ideal solution would be to only use them if there was one unmet condition that was satisfied. It is certainly possible I have missed a configuration option but...

Feature Request - a toggle that defaults to false. When it is true and a character is about to adventure in an area with a new latte ingredient the mug will be equipped and the latte ingredient added to conditions. I do not expect this to work for the verge of war frat house and hippy camp but most of the other areas should support this.

Feature Request - I very much admire and appreciate the way Veracity's Meatfarming Script handles voting monsters. I would be very glad if similar functionality were (optionally) available for all scripts and semi-manual adventuring. That sounds like a job for MM.
 

zarqon

Well-known member
Hmmm. BBB's code for using rusty trimmers is:

PHP:
   if (!qprop("questL09Topping") && get_property("twinPeakProgress") != "15" && !($strings[0,6] contains get_property("choiceAdventure606")) && item_amount($item[rusty hedge trimmers]) > 0 && be_good($item[rusty hedge trimmers]))
      use(1,$item[rusty hedge trimmers]);

It's an if rather than a while, so it should use at most one of them at once. It also checks that the choiceadv property is set to one of the tests (which happens here in MM before BBB is called), so if you have 4 trimmers and go to autoadventure at Twin Peak, you should ostensibly keep using trimmers so long as you have a valid choice. I don't generally play SC so I've never tried this with multiple trimmers at once, though. Did you have MM active?

Also hmmm... this presents a situation in which BBB will not function correctly without MM, yet it does not require MM as a dependency. I'll have to do something about this. I'd prefer to keep them independent if possible.

FR1: I could definitely see auto-equipping the latte, but I don't think I'll add it to conditions. I expect people would go out of their way for certain important ingredients; but for less important ones you'd probably just want to gather whichever you happen to find along the way, without adding extra turns.

FR2: I believe that would probably be the job of a counterScript. Unfortunately the primary counterScript on these forums is not presently being maintained, so I added this to said script (which will still need some attention; I simply added this as a patch to help me get factoids):

PHP:
   case "Vote Monster": if (my_location() == $location[through the spacegate]) return true;
      if (have_equipped($item["I Voted!" sticker])) return true;
      cli_execute("checkpoint; equip acc3 i voted sticker");
      (!adv1(my_location(), -1, ""));
      cli_execute("outfit checkpoint");
      return true;

Perhaps you can take that and make it complete!
 

Magus_Prime

Well-known member
I'm trying my first run with only Mercenary Mood as my mood and I'm noticing a few things that I wish were different but didn't take careful notes. I will do so on my next run. The things that really struck me as odd are:

  • When fighting the Haunted Boiler with the unstable fulminate equipped Mercenary Mood didn't take advantage of character skills to boost ML.
  • When searching for tomb ratchets Mercenary Mood didn't take advantage of character skills to boost +item.
  • While there were a few areas where I noticed Mercenary Mood manipulating +/- combat there were other locations where I didn't see it. Whitey's Grove, when looking for ingredients for Wet Stunt Nut Stew, comes to mind.
Most of the desired changes involve either swapping Accordion Thief songs around or casting, low MP cost, buffs.
 

Rinn

Developer
MercMood seems to be setting The Neverending Party choices to a state that causes an abort, here's the snipped log from yesterday:
Code:
[5634] The Neverending Party
Took choice 1322/1: accept quest
choice.php?whichchoice=1322&option=1&pwd
> MM: Choice 1324: Go to the kitchen for food stuff.
> MM: Choice 1326: Ask the kitchen lady which food to collect.


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: "plain" girl


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: jock


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: biker


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: jock


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: burnout


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: "plain" girl


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: biker


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: It Hasn't Ended, It's Just Paused
Took choice 1324/2: to kitchen
choice.php?whichchoice=1324&option=2&pwd
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
Took choice 1326/3: find out food to collect
choice.php?whichchoice=1326&option=3&pwd


use 1 van key
You acquire nailswurst (3)
You acquire black forest cake (2)


[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: party girl




[5634] The Neverending Party
Encounter: "plain" girl


[5668] The Neverending Party
Encounter: jock


[5669] The Neverending Party
Encounter: jock


[5670] The Neverending Party
Encounter: jock


[5671] The Neverending Party
Encounter: biker


[5672] The Neverending Party
Encounter: party girl


[5673] The Neverending Party
Encounter: It Hasn't Ended, It's Just Paused
Took choice 1324/2: to kitchen
choice.php?whichchoice=1324&option=2&pwd
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
> Redirected to a page other than main.php
Encounter: Gone Kitchin'
> Redirected to a page other than main.php

My guess here is that it went to the kitchen once to get the quest food then hit the choice adventure again without having the required food and the option to finish the quest wasn't available. I had all my van keys in the closet so BBB wasn't able to use enough to finish the quest.
 
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zarqon

Well-known member
  • When fighting the Haunted Boiler with the unstable fulminate equipped Mercenary Mood didn't take advantage of character skills to boost ML.
  • When searching for tomb ratchets Mercenary Mood didn't take advantage of character skills to boost +item.
  • While there were a few areas where I noticed Mercenary Mood manipulating +/- combat there were other locations where I didn't see it. Whitey's Grove, when looking for ingredients for Wet Stunt Nut Stew, comes to mind.

Sorry for the delay in response Magus; I appreciate your feedback. There are some cases where MM may not boost modifiers:

1) Your meat is low (like 1000ish).
2) Your target is already reached. For +ML in the boiler room, that target is 86. Do you happen to recall whether or not you were below this target?
3) You have no target. MM will try to add +item drop to cap goals at a 100% drop rate. If you haven't set any items as goals, however, MM will not boost items. I suspect this may be what happened for your second and third points.
4) The modifier is (mostly) irrelevant. For locations where you can't adjust the frequency of noncombats, +/- combat is not adjusted. If you outmoxie the monsters in the zone, initiative is not adjusted (aside from situations with specific initiative targets like the Alcove or Twin Peak).

Hope this helps. If you are still finding it's not casting buffs and none of those cases apply, please give me some more details so I can get that fixed. Thanks!

@Rinn: Thanks for reminding me of this. It pretty much only happens in Hard Mode (which I only did the 10 days of), where you don't finish the quest in time for the next choiceadv. Rather than abort, the latest update instead opts to fight a random partier if you find yourself in quest limbo. Non-quest handling for this choice is still nonexistent. I'm kinda guessing people mainly want stats? That's what I've mostly used it for.
 

Magus_Prime

Well-known member
Hi zarqon,

I figured you were busy with life. :) In order:

  1. For the things I noted the character had ample meat available as it was late in the run.
  2. I know the character had less than 86 ML in the boiler room.
  3. This may have been the culprit as I was manually adventuring, via the relay browser, for much of the run
  4. Adjusting combat frequency does make a difference in Whitey's Grove and was surprised that MM did nothing. I'll try to remember to set a goal next time and see what happens.

Even without goals set I saw MM fire regularly and manipulate various things throughout the run. Would you be willing to consider putting more location-specific "smarts" into MM? There are quite a few areas where, given some quest log context, many things are givens:

  1. Top level of the pyramid -combat
  2. Middle of the pyramid +item
  3. Whitey's Grove and no Mega Gem +combat and +item
  4. Etc..

I can't really offer more feedback right now as I'm working my way through Dark Gyffte runs.

Thanks,

Magus
 

zarqon

Well-known member
MM is highly sensitive to goals, as a way of supporting various playstyles. Don't want MM to help you get those tomb ratchets? Don't set them as goals. If you set your goals (even for relay play) I believe you will see all of your suggested smarts snap into... effect. (I might point out that BatMan RE is handy for managing goals without leaving the relay browser. Look in the Adventure Again box.)

I'll look into the boiler room issue. I did pay some attention this last run and my ML was over 86, but I also maximized ML and activated the Spacegate vaccine, so I may not have needed any buffs.
 

Magus_Prime

Well-known member
I'm continuing to use Mercenary Mood and I find myself wishing that it were a bit more aggressive in handling ML. Case in point: after getting the jar of oil, in Oil Peak, which was set as a goal. MM boosted ML until the jar was created and then dropped ML. That increased the number of turns remaining, to lower the pressure, in the zone considerably.

In general I find that if I don't pay close attention, and boost ML manually, I end up having to powerlevel much more often than expected.
Even when I do try to manipulate ML manually MM frequently works against me by lowering the ML setting of whatever machine is available to the character.
 
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fronobulax

Developer
Staff member
I also find MM's handling of the mind control device to be not completely satisfactory. My recollection from BBB (or AutoMCD?) was that it set the MCD to the highest value it thought was safe for the zone to be adventured in. It seems like MM sometimes does this but often just leaves at zero. I don't recall a specific case but I have a recollection that I would manually set it and then run and the fist thing that happened was that MM overrode my change. I had to disable MM.

It is quite possible operator error is involved because there are parameters that need to be set to make MM and BBB play nicely with each other.
 

Magus_Prime

Well-known member
Something I noticed today is that MM, in the Smut Orc Logging Camp, is casting Spirit of Bacon Grease followed by Spirit of Cayenne between combats. Not only is that a bit odd, since the second cast cancels out the first, but it should be casting Spirit of Peppermint.

Lots of cold damage in that zone leverages a new-ish "Blech House" mechanic: http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/The_Smut_Orc_Logging_Camp

Edit: It might be helpful if The Spirit of Bacon Grease were cast in the Mob of Zeppelin Protesters.
 
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