Revision as of 20:51, 16 December 2010

Virindi Tank

How do I use Alinco with Virindi Tank?

First of all, you need the latest version of Alinco3 (Alinco3 1.0.1.4 or later). You must also have either the Virindi Tank Bundle release or Virindi Tank version 0.3.1.0 or later.

Now, login with both VT and Alinco3 running. Open VT, go to the profiles page, and click 'New'. You should see a list of loot systems VT can use. If it includes a message about the Alinco Connector (*.los) then you have installed the plugins properly. Now you must tell VT to use Alinco to select loot items.

Create a new loot profile in VT (using that new button) with a file extension of .los (for instance, alinco.los). Make sure VT has this new profile selected as your loot profile on the profiles page.

You're done! Virindi Tank will now use your Alinco rules to loot whenever that .los file is selected as its loot profile.

If you want Alinco3 to use its own combine rules for salvage, set Alinco3 to autosalvage. Otherwise, VT will salvage according to its rules.

How does Virindi Tank know what level of spells to use, and how can I change it?

Virindi Tank selects the proper level of spells to use based on your current buffed skill. If, at any time, your skill makes you able to cast a higher level of buffs than you have, it casts them.

The amount of skill that is required for Virindi Tank to consider you 'able' to cast a spell is controlled by two settings in the Advanced Panel: SpellDiffExcessThreshold-Hunt (default 25) and SpellDiffExcessThreshold-Buff (default 5). These numbers indicate the number of skill points above the spell's difficulty that you must have in your buffed skill.

For instance, if your buffed life magic skill is 257, Virindi Tank will by default use level VI spells to buff (VIs have a difficulty of 250, plus 5 for SpellDiffExcessThreshold-Buff equals a minimum of 255 skill), and level V spells to hunt (250 plus 25 for SpellDiffExcessThreshold-Hunt is 275, which is above your skill, so the spells are considered too difficult).

By changing these numbers, you can set both your spell levels directly and your preference for chance of fizzling.

Note: Even when buffing, stamina to mana, revitalize, and heal use the number for SpellDiffExcessThreshold-Hunt, since these are often cast when your mana is very low and thus a conservative estimate for the potential for fizzling is required.

How do I choose what spells are used to buff?

Creature buffs are always cast. Which ones are used are selected automatically based on the skills that you have trained.

Life protections and banes can be selected through the advanced panel by changing the BuffProfile_Prots and BuffProfile_Banes options. The builtin selections are:

• All (Bludgeon, Pierce, Slash, Acid, Lightning, Cold, Fire)
• None
• B (Bludgeon)
• BPS (Bludgeon, Pierce, Slash)
• BPSA (Bludgeon, Pierce, Slash, Acid)
• ALFC (Acid, Lightning, Fire, Cold)
• Custom (see below)

'Custom' element sets are specified similarly to the above, by selecting among the letters BPSALFC. To do this, set the option in the advanced options panel to 'Custom' and then issue a command like the following, replacing BPSALFC with the letters you want:

• /vt opt set BuffProfile-Prots BPSALFC
• /vt opt set BuffProfile-Banes BPSALFC

How does Virindi Tank choose WHEN to buff?

Virindi Tank has two ways to buff. Normally, it rebuffs when there is less than 5 minutes left on a buff. Optionally, if you check 'Rebuff when idle', if the macro isn't doing anything and there are less than 20 minutes left on a buff, it rebuffs then.

Both of those time periods (5 and 20 minutes) can be customized. They are controlled by the RebuffTimeRemainingSeconds and IdleBuffTopoffTimeSeconds, respectively, in the advanced options panel.

Does Virindi Tank support casting walls or using rares?

No.

How do I get Virindi Tank to refill the mana of my items?

The Bundle edition of Virindi Tank currently supports both mana stones and mana charges. If you add a mana stone/charge type to your consumables panel, it will use those to recharge your items.

When a mana stone type is present in consumables, VT will automatically loot and keep filled a small number of that type of mana stone, if looting is enabled.

Virindi Follower seems better at following than Virindi Tank. Why?

Virindi Follower has a system where it can follow the path of the target rather than just always going towards where the target is at the moment. Virindi Tank does not currently contain this code.

UPDATE: The Bundle edition of Virindi Tank now contains a port of the 'follow around corners' code from Virindi Follower. This should no longer be an issue.

Why are some unknown scrolls looted and learned and not others?

Unknown scrolls are looted if your buffed skill in their magic school is greater than 15 points below the spell's difficulty. For instance, to loot and learn a level 6 life magic scroll, your buffed life magic must be greater than or equal to 235.

To completely disable learning unknown scrolls, set the option ReadUnknownScrolls to false in the Advanced Options Panel.

Is there anything special about Virindi Tank and Darktide?

No.

Virindi Tank does not attack PKs.

It does not report your location or any information about your character to anyone. (Note that running Virindi Integrator 2 allows others to see which character and server you are logged in to, if you are logged in as a non-anonymous user. If you join a VI2 fellow, others in that fellow can see your location, but nobody else.)

You are on your own on Darktide.

Does Virindi Tank work on Windows Vista?

Yes. It must be installed in a directory other than Programs, or UAC must be disabled.

When I login, I get spammed with ID messages from [Alinco/other plugin]! What's going on?

By default, Alinco displays the details in the chatbox for any item anytime it is identified, regardless of how the identification was requested. In order to track the mana in your items to refill them, Virindi Tank must ID them. It also must ID weapons and shields to determine their rend properties and if they are unenchantable, as well as potions and gems to determine their builtin spells.

The best solution to this is to tell Alinco to stop displaying these messages. In Alinco 1.4.9.9, the option is called "Show Info on Identify".

It has been reported that this is no longer an issue with Alinco3.

Why doesn't Virindi Tank have admin/tell alarms?

Virindi Tank is not designed with UCMing in mind, even if it may be possible to use it that way. Thus, these features are not included.

If you want a macro plugin designed with UCMing in mind, try LifeTankX.

What are those letters on the Monsters tab?

Descriptions are here.

How do I loot corpses at a longer distance?

When you are out of range to just open a corpse directly, the macro relies on navigation approach to get you to the corpse first. The easy way to deal with this is to increase the "Approach" range on the main UI.

Internally, that box actually sets two settings: ApproachDistance (for monsters) and CorpseApproachRange-Max (for corpses). If you want to approach corpses at a farther range than monsters, you can do that by raising CorpseApproachRange-Max in advanced. Both ApproachDistance and CorpseApproachRange-Max in advanced are specified in landblocks (1/240 * yards). So when you put 5 into the approach box in the main UI, ApproachDistance and CorpseApproachRange-Max are both set to 5/240 = 0.0208333.

How do I set up looting in Virindi Tank?

Virindi Tank uses a plugin-based loot system. This means that loot profiles are managed by an external component, and you edit what you want to loot using that component.

Currently there are two loot plugins available: VTClassic (included in the bundle) and Alinco3. Alinco3 provides an easy to use interface, while VTClassic provides a lower-level, more powerful interface.

To configure Alinco3, see question #1 of this FAQ.

To configure VTClassic, you must create a profile with the external editor .exe, installed by the bundle installer in your VirindiPlugins\VirindiTankClassicLooter directory. Information on how to create a VTClassic profile can be found here and here. Example profiles are found at the end of the second page.

How do I set up a simple sticky position?

Open Vtank and go to the Route tab. Once there click the ADD button to add your current position to the list. Now enable auto-navigation on the Profiles tab. You will now run back to the one point you added.

Virindi Tank doesn't attack with melee/archer, but does everything else

If 'Enable Combat' is checked, this may be because of your attack keys. To attack with melee/archer, VT always uses the del/end/pgdn keys. You must have AC set up so that those keys perform a melee attack.

If you want to use other keys as well, simply add them to the second or third column in AC's key configuration so that both del/end/pgdn and your keys make you attack.

What is 'Random Helper Buffs'?

The 'Random Helper Buffs' feature was something I added in 2 minutes a couple years ago. The reason was, at the time a bug had been found in the game that allowed people to cause pets to attack other players. People were using it to kill off tradebots in the marketplace. The idea was that I could stand in the market and my char would cast a random prot spell on a random player within range, with no regard for remembering what had been previously cast (for simplicity). Since the attacking pets were very weak, this would prevent tradebots from being killed by them.

"Random Helper Buffs" is not really something that is intended to have a real use now, I simply never removed it because there wasn't any point in doing so. There is no configuration, and it is completely stateless. The logic involved is approximately 30 lines of code. It is not, nor will it ever be, a buff buddy system. At some point in the future I may write such a system, but it would be a completely separate and new thing.

Is Virindi Tank smart enough not to duplicate debuffs?

Virindi Tank will not duplicate monster debuffs cast by other members of the same Virindi Integrator2 (VI2) 'fellow'.

Virindi Integrator2

What are VI2 'fellows' and how do I use them?

A VI2 fellow is a group that you can join in VI2 that allows chat, VTank helper, and location/HSM sharing. If you are running Virindi Views, joining a VI2 fellow will create a new window with information about other fellow members. VI2 fellows can be used by both authenticated and anonymous VI2 users.

To join a fellow:

• /vij somename

To leave a fellow:

• /vip somename

There are a few very useful but not so obvious uses for these fellows:

• Because there are no level restrictions in a VI2 fellow they are ideal for power-leveling characters under 50. The higher level character can automatically supply heals, vulns, and act as a tank while the lower level character does the actual killing.
• A VI2 fellow does not require the fellow window to be open in order to heal others. So no accidental deaths because you IDd something and then forgot to pull up the AC fellow window again.
• Fellows larger than 9, though they won't share the xp, can be made so that healing and such can be coordinated.
• Virindi Tank coordinates the debuffs between all members of the fellow so as to avoid duplicating debuffs.

Virindi Views

How do I disable Virindi Views or uninstall it?

Follow the instructions at Virindi Views.

General

How can I add information to this wiki?

Anyone who wishes is free to add to this wiki. Create an account and let me know ingame or in a Vault PM, and I will grant your account edit permissions.