On obtaining buffs

[fronobulax]

In my Gloriously sub-optimal play style, I have one character who just keeps the same three AT buffs running all of the time (one of which is Ur-Kel's Aria of Annoyance). I had been manually visiting http://kol.obeliks.de/buffbot/ but that buff is no longer available from the web because people were harassing other players by casting it on them.

So what is the easiest way to obtain and maintain my buffs? I understand the desire not to directly support philanthropic buffs in mafia, although the availability of free services may undercut some of the arguments. Should I script a kmail interface to http://kol.obeliks.de/buffbot/ (or steal someone else's) and trigger it via a mood or login script? Is there a better or different solution, especially one that could adjust as bots go on and offline or as prices change?

Somewhat related, the existing buff interface is organized by provider. I keep wishing I had something that would allow me to pick a buff. It would then display all of the provider bots that were offering the buff, sorted so that the lowest meat per turn was on top. Bots that were definitely online would have their price/turns displayed in bold. Clicking on the offering would attempt to obtain the buff. Anyone else think this would be a good idea? Would this be better as a mafia feature or a relay script? Pitfalls I have not thought of?

Just thinking out loud.

Thanks.

 

[Catch-22]

Whilst I agree that the current buffbot interface feels a bit cumbersome, I think your vision for it seems a tad decadent and would probably be better suited to a relay script.

On the topic of philanthropic buffs, well, you can't "upkeep" philanthropic buffs as you can only use them once per day. Full price isn't too much, especially if you buy in bulk

For upkeeping buffs, I think you could set a mood and a command action to trigger when the effect is lost like "acquirebuff.ash annoyance"

Edit: Regarding your Ur-Kel problem, I saw this note on the website.

You can use possibly abusive buffs like Ur-Kel's Aria of Annoyance only on yourself. To ensure this, you have to request it either via KMail or privmsg (nothing changes there), or you have to set a web-password for yourself.

Which seems to suggest you can request the buff from the website, provided you authenticate yourself.

 

[Sentrion]

Doesn't Buffy support PM commands?

 

[fronobulax]

I know I can register with Buffy or use kmail. I'm trying not to reinvent the wheel but I'm also being lazy. I should probably just invest the time and script my kmails.

 

[Sentrion]

You can just PM Buffy. No need to register, kmail, or anything. I don't know how well it matches stuff, but "ur-kel" worked fine for me and gave me 375 turns of it. So just put a chat_private() in your breakfast script, and you're good to go (well, unless you want to make sure the bot's online first and all that).

 

[fronobulax]

So just put a chat_private()

Thank you. That is something I had not looked for yet but it seems pretty clear that I have spent more time typing in this thread then it would have to just add the calls.

 

[fronobulax]

For closure...

1) I was definitely trying to make the problem harder than it is, or over-engineer a solution, and chat_private works just fine for my particular case.

2) It seems like my speculation about changing the organization of the buff obtainer to be by buff rather than provider is not especially interesting to anyone so I won't think about that as a Feature or FR.

Thanks.

 

[Veracity]

I believe that when I first created the Request Buff frame, it was organized by Buff, sorted by Meat/turn, and you could pick the offering you liked best. hola then rewrote it and put it into the form it is now.

Bashy told me, several years ago, that he didn't like the current layout - and that was one of the reasons he didn't want the N-O buffbot in our list. I didn't ask him what he would like better - mostly because I didn't especially want to do all the U-I and database coding to adapt it into something that I'm sure other people would like LESS than the current approach.

The current approach does have the advantage that if you want to support a particular buffbot, it's easier to do that. It has the disadvantage that if you really want the cheapest possible price/turn of buff, you have to do a lot of searching.

You can't please everyone. I also think you can't necessarily achieve every UI design goal. But, as a non-UI designer, what do I know?