Author Topic: Alien Playfield Module - Keep track of alien PF (Read 26132 times)

craized · « **on:** April 28, 2005, 09:32:04 am »

ALIEN PLAYFIELD MODULE

Description:
A module which keeps track of when the gates open for the alien playfield. The module notifies privgroup and org chat at 1 hours, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, and when the gates open.

WARNING: Timing for the playfield seems to jump when the servers go down, so until I find a better way of calculating the time, all I can do is do my best to keep the downloadable version current.

Lal · « **Reply #1 on:** April 28, 2005, 10:22:34 am »

Last patch FC did something to the gates, the exact time might have changed.

Glarawyn · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2005, 06:59:12 pm »

How is it you're guesstimating the gate opening/closing? Looks like you have to know when one opening happens then the timer?

If you want to go more advanced, you could make use of the server information provided at http://probes.funcom.com/ and guess at the gates based on when the server goes up and down...

craized · « **Reply #3 on:** April 28, 2005, 09:19:41 pm »

Definitely a good idea following server down time, but when the server goes down, the bot char gets kicked from that chat servers making it tricky to track down time. I may use $commands[disconnect] and $commands[connect] to track it through the DB. Hopefully it works, thanks for the suggestion.

Ryvral · « **Reply #4 on:** May 16, 2005, 07:59:55 pm »

I noticed a !setpf in the modules.. Is this used to set the timer? If so can you show an example?

craized · « **Reply #5 on:** May 16, 2005, 08:55:21 pm »

Yes, the !setpf is used to set the timer, but unfortunitely it doesn't work. I was trying to make the module re-write a variable inside iteself when the !setpf was used, so that changes don't get lost every time it restarts.

Recently I've stopped playing AO, so my means of testing/developing these modules has become a problem. I'll still continue hosting them, but I'm not expecting much to happen as far as updates. Everything here is open source, anyone is free to take my code, use it in their own modules etc. I would be very happy to see my work being used to complete existing modules.

If anyone is interested in hosting the files for me send me an e-mail, my server will be going down when I move for college in late August. Until then, all of it should be available.

Ryvral · « **Reply #6 on:** May 24, 2005, 07:47:08 am »

How about using the database for keeping time? Then !setpf could just update the database?

Nesi · « **Reply #7 on:** May 29, 2005, 02:06:35 pm »

The chat servers usually stay up when the game servers go down. So making it reset on a reconnect might not be a good idea. On apfbot the admins set the time until gates open when the servers come back up.
It puts a timestamp in the database and everyone can check the remaining time using !gates !time or !timer in a tell.

Got no clue how it works these days cause i don't play the game anymore, but im not getting any complaints so i guess it's working alright:)

Derroylo · « **Reply #8 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:37:12 am »

i am using the db to save the pftime cuz this version doesn´t seems to work coreectly. When you are interested i can post it

craized · « **Reply #9 on:** June 20, 2005, 01:21:12 pm »

Please post it. I may not be playing, but I'm still interested in how you're planning on getting this to work right.

Glarawyn · « **Reply #10 on:** June 22, 2005, 12:03:42 am »

I have no idea if my server uptime is right anymore, but I put together a web based timer as an expirment before making a bot plugin.

APF Spawn Time guesstimator

Currntly it takes the uptime, adds 7 hours. Then that value goes into a loop that adds 7 hours and 20 minutes (or was it 15 or 10? hmmm...). I don't do anything with the times that have already passsed, but I do keep track of how many times the script added 7 hours and 20 minutes so that the webpages displays:

There have been 37 gate openings since the AO servers were last restarted.
(Or however many gate openings there have been.)

Anyway, I added the extra time because the opening and closing of the gates is dependant on the Unicorn Gatekeeper, who runs around to each playfield to open the gate before resetting his timer. So adding somewhere between 10 and 20 extra minutes to account for the putzy Gatekeeper and the 10 minutes of the gates being open seemed to get a fairly accurate guess...as long as you get the uptime right.

For a bot plugin, I'd use similar logic I suppose.

/tell botname !setpf
- Sets timer using now as the opening time of the gates.

/tell botname !setpf 2005-06-10 18:33:18 UTC
- Sets the timer using the given time stamp.

/tell botname !apf

Bot would retrive the last opening time from the database, loop around till it found the first timestamp > than current time, and stop looping when timestamp > timestamp + 7 hours.

/tell username APF gates will open at <timestamp>, X hours and Y minutes from now.

From there just add a cron job that to do the org/channel announcments...

Or something.

craized · « **Reply #11 on:** June 22, 2005, 12:57:28 am »

Has it been accurate after a server reset? And if so could you post the PHP, or zip your code/change the extension so people can view/download it please?
Great job getting this together.

Glarawyn · « **Reply #12 on:** June 23, 2005, 04:59:37 pm »

http://zibby.isa-geek.net/apf.phps

There are a few obvious issues, such as the clock on the server hosting the code in it's current state needs to be set to UTC time.

Notice that there is no way to set the uptime except by editing the source. I made this to be a test after all...

Derroylo · « **Reply #13 on:** July 04, 2005, 04:51:29 pm »

Modified PF Modul

This is the modified Version of the PF Modul from craized. It is using the DB now to save the timer. This is not the version i am using atm cuz i changed some commands. Using SQLite instead of the normal MYSQL Database atm. When there is some interest i will show you how you can switch to SQLite

I just got a idea how i could check maybe if the server is up or not. Need to test it when the Server is going down for a patch/maintenance. Hope it works

Derroylo · « **Reply #14 on:** July 05, 2005, 02:56:57 pm »

You can get the infos from http://probes.funcom.com/ao.xml if the servers are up or down. Hope i have some time the next days to implement it in the module