Planet M.U.L.E.

Well, it seems are selection of "M.U.L.E. Tools" is growing, so I thought I'd make a compiled topic.
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Plot Trackers.
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So far we have two options for Crystite and Resource Tracking.  Both very nice, and there are features in both that if combined together would make one that is perfect.

1.  Rogue Cat's Crystite Tracker v. 1.2 (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1255.0;attach=12978)
(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/5418658439_c97d7320a3_z.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54842312@N05/5418658439/)
Rogue Cat's Tracker (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54842312@N05/5418658439/) by SLINC78 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54842312@N05/), on Flickr

Download: Roque Cat's Crystite Tracker v. 1.2 (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1255.0;attach=12978) (Screen shot is from v 1.1, the change is minor, I didn't see any point in doing a new screen shot.)

This is a very clean manual tracker.  It will allow you to track plot ownership, crystite levels, and global events.  My favorite feature is the re-sizable graphical interface.  Want to display the events and the map screen at the same time, simple, just run it twice.

Key Features

• Re-sizable Interface
• Manual Ownership Tracking
• Simple Icon Based Crystite Tracking
• Global Event List
• Visual Appeal

What's Missing?

• Automatic Tracking
• Development Tracking
• I'd like the option to turn off the titlebar

Rating 4 out of 5 Mules.


2.  Ciscoheat's Crystyter (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1253.0;attach=854) with  Source Code (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1253.0;attach=855)
(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5418658191_2a2d198e7d_z.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54842312@N05/5418658191/)
Ciscoheat's Tracker (http://www.flickr.com/photos/54842312@N05/5418658191/) by SLINC78 (http://www.flickr.com/people/54842312@N05/), on Flickr

Download: Ciscoheat's Crystyter (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1253.0;attach=854) with  Source Code (http://www.planetmule.com/forum?action=dlattach;topic=1253.0;attach=855)

A neat new tracker was just posted by Ciscoheat.  He wanted some things that Rogue Cat's tracker didn't include.  Have to admit, it would be awesome if those features existed in Rogue Cat's.

Key Features.

• Automatic Ownership and Development Tracking
• Crystite Tracking From Within the Game
• Autofills the Grid around Crystite Plots Flagged as High.
  
• Global Event List
• If you put the executable in your mule program folder, it will autostart M.U.L.E. when you run it.

What's missing?

• Re-sizable Interface
• Visual Appeal
  

Rating 4 out of 5 Mules.


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Joystick Emulation
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Download: Joystick Cursor Tool (http://www.deinmeister.de/jct_e.htm).

This tool allows you to map keys on the keyboard to the joystick.  Tada, you have a joystick on P.M.  Just run this goodie, map space bar to the joystick button and directional keys to the directional movements of the joystick and play mule.

I haven't been able to try this out yet, I don't have a USB joystick, but I've heard this works well for the most part (although, not perfect, no diagonal controls, guess the joystick doesn't know about hitting two keys at once.)

For those of you that use it and like it, great, hoping something better will come along.

Rating 2 out of 5 Mules. (Revised after DeathMules Review.)

  ERROR: joystick emulator 5/5

 Hey chucky, id have to say the joy emulator is not as good as a keyboard(and i NEVER use keyboard for anything but pm). The first and biggest reason is that you cannot assign diagonal keys, making it impossible to cut corners. Ya sure if you want to look like a bot while you play, its the bomb.

I give joy emulation a 1/5 tops.

Seems like an exploit to me.

If you want to play MULE with a Gamecube controller or a 360 controller, you can. Just download "JoyToKey"!

If it's an exploit so it using pen and paper to chart crystite, think of it as saving the enviroment, E-Mule or Green Mule ;)

I don't always use it, in fact, I'd say my most recent wins have been just using my memory of what's going on, but they're fun to use sometimes.

LoL it isnt an exploit...... It is an aid

An exploit for example, is using the game mechanics to disguise your assay result by catching the wumpus instantly after completing an assay!

Aid - Exploit 2 different things

Pen and paper, old skool. I print double sided & recycle my used up pages. It's not surprising how similar my system is to those shown in the posting, great minds think ... how does that go?

Seriously: charting the game is part of the fun. It's like keeping score when you go bowling. Actual bowling, like Jeffrey Lebowski. Not the other kind.

Thanks for the thread Chuckie Chuck, but you might want to re-revise your rating of this tool (and get a $3 USB joypad).

* ERROR *

As there are no diagonal keys on any of my keyboards,
this really could not be a problem Death_Mule17.

On my systems this li'l gem gets a 9 out of 10
due to it's somewhat obscure documentation and poorly explained interface.

Just like the Planet M.U.L.E., it works great, including diagonal movements! 

For M.U.L.E. I certainly prefer a nice joystick.

With a common USB joystick such as this one

(http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2003/10/24/annual_review/logitechdualaction1.jpg)

one can assign all main game inputs: SPACE, J, U, A, ESC, ENTER

to joystick buttons.

And you still have about a dozen more buttons free to assign to other keystroke combinations,
which could be used in conjunction with a keyboard macro generator for bot commands for example.  ;D

My understanding, and I have not personally tested it, but the joystick/keyboard emulator does not support two keypresses at once.  Since you can use to keys to go diagonally on the keyboard, this seems a ligit limitation to the joystick/keyboard emulator.

It actually is possible to reassign keys in mule itself to use the numeric keypad for diagonal single key use too I think.  So it is possible that what I've heard is incorrect, but that is what the complaint about it has been by people who have tried it.

My experience from use is if one pushes the joystick towards the NW
the Joystick Cursor Tool program sends out the correct signals just
as if the up and left keys are being simultaneously depressed.

After trying out the dual analog in the game I have to announce that the (cheaper generic)
digital joypads are a better, more natural input device for this game than the analog ones. 

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FQH0FSW2L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

Get a USB one that has the digital joypad and enough buttons like the one shown.

There are four "shoulder" buttons not shown.

Enough buttons you say? Try the X-Arcade Tankstick!

(http://www.woldsendhouse.co.uk/images/xarcadetankstick.jpg)

LOL, nice, seems a bit overkill for mule, but whatever works :)

If your gonna call me out with an error msg, then at least tell everyone what program you use that lets you move diagonal. I was rating the joycur.exe program, and I stand by my decision 1/5, and as drillian says  "nothing more"

Are these plot trackers still being updated?

Although already great, a feature I would like to see is a way to mark a plot I would like to get in the next round. I am using old fashioned paper and pencil and apart from the information these trackers give I also mark plots which I would like to go for in the next land grant as a plan for the next few rounds.

I use the quotation mark "?" for that, but I guess it would be easy to add a new tile for highlighting plots on/off, in case you have a crystite flag there. That and the colors are often enough to plan your next move. If you make a tracker too complex, you'll spend more time managing the tracker than playing the game itself. Anyway, if it makes you happy, :P I can try to get a few free minutes to add the changes. New version on the way?

Well, I finally got into it and made the little update to tracker version 1.2. I took me just a few minutes to change it, but I have been procrastinating for too long until now. Sorry.

The only difference is the option to mark a plot without interfering with the rest of crystite and plot marks, other than that it's exactly the same than version 1.1. For those who might want to mark the "plot to grab" or any other use you might give to it.

Nice Cat.  Nice, Cat.  Do you still play?

Yes, but not as often as I used to. However, now I have a new Internet connection. No more weekends-only, but I'm into other games that sometimes leech too much time. I'll try to play some MULE games again when I have managed all the other stuff I have "parked". I can always try to get some free hours for a quick match.

It's actually pretty intelligent, with the exception of if another high changes things, which you'll figure out when you find that next high, the assumption is accurate.  It corrects the incorrect ones everytime you mark another high.

As for mine, it's purely an user-controlled tracker, it does no automatic nor semiautomatic tasks.

That's what the green colored icons were intended for, possible results but not sure yet. I mark assay results with the cyan icons, while those I manually place the green ones where I think the possible plots might be. The "?" one is for miscellaneous use, you can use it for marking what plots you might want to assay for example, or anything else you might consider it useful for.

I suposse I might do an AI version for "revealing" possible plot outcomes without modifying the user's input, but that might go a bit against the traditional spirit of MULE paper-and-pen trackers. And yeah, also would give me some work to plan the script and adjust it to the current code. :P Might require re-writing it all again in a more complex way.

I am not sure if the tools are still up to date but when i tried both tracker tools they dont want to run on win 7 64bit. Are they too old to be used, not running on 64bit or am i doing something wrong here?

Well, mine was done with Macromedia Flash 5, which was quite old already by that time. Maybe activating compatibility with previous Windows versions? What exact error does it display?

I run them on Windows 7 64-bit ultimate, no issues.

The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you´re running. Check your Computers system information to see whether you need an x86 or x64 version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

i tried compatibility for xp service pack 3 and vista also.

nothing worked so far.

A message like this can also mean that your file has been corrupted somehow and should be re-downloaded.

I think you got the right answer mik.  May also be the archive on the server has corrupted because of the server failures here at M.U.L.E. and new archives need reuploaded.  I have working copies so maybe I will do that.

They can be found at www.facebook.com/groups/planetmule in the file section as well.  Those are my working copies so they ought to work.

when using cisco's heat tite tracker on my win7 64 bit hp laptop, I get this error. "the version of this file is not compatible with the version your are running ...etc see what system is set at 32 or 64 bit" . It does this with rogues cats tite tracker as well, so I think there is a problem on my machine... and Rogues ran fine on this system before. Any ideas what could be causing this error?

Kind Regards,

Metahive

There was a theory that the archives here on Planet M.U.L.E. were corrupted by a crash, and I believe I have working copies posted in the facebook group, have you tried those?

www.facebook.com/groups/planetmule

There is a file area, check out the downloads.

 :) Yes, that would seem to be the case I have joined the FB page and downloaded it and it worked fine. Some one could maybe upload those files again if they have been corrupted.

Thank you,
Metahive