When you have your rooms and exits you need to configure them to the proper LaMush format, both in assigning them to the right parent and by adjusting the ANSI-Colours to fit the LaMush default grid-name- format. These are some of the things that need to be set:
• &hood
• &grid
• +compass
• the indoor/outdoor parent of the domain.
• ANSI-colors
11.1 Assigning the Hood
For more information see: +news building/coordinates and domain
The grid-room that your building will be linked to, is part of a specific area or neighbourhood. This neighbourhood needs to be defined. You can set the ‘hood’ of your project by using the following command:
&HOOD <room-number or name>=<Hood-name>
You can also use ‘here’ when you’re in the room that you assign the &hood to:
&hood here=<neighbourhood name>
Note: You need to set the &Hood for every room of the project that you build!
In my example Dummy_BLDR types:
&HOOD Storage=Downtown Core
11.2 Assigning the Grid
For more information see +help ic/map
Assigning the grid-number of the room that the building will be linked to is necessary for providing information for the +map command (see +map SM for the map of Santa Monica, +map SC for the map of South Central and +map GD for the map of Greater Downtown).
+map/list will give you the areas (used to decide the &hood attribute when building) within each of these three active Domains.
Note: When you used the +build-command to set up your skeleton you already set your &grid automatically.
If you did not however, the command that you use is:
&GRID <room-number or name>=<gridcode>
You can also use ‘here’ when you’re in the room that you assign the &grid to:
&grid here=<gridcode>
Note: You need to set the &Hood for every room of the project that you build!
In my example Dummy_BLDR types:
&GRID Storage=A1
11.3 The Compass
For more information see: -> +news building/compass and +help ic/compass
When you use the build-command this also automatically (so you don’t need to –do- anything here ;) creates a +compass. When you type +compass a small map of the area is displayed.
This compass-tool displays valid directions from your current position. It scans exits for "north", "southwest", etc. and creates an appropriate form, graphically. Outdoors, this looks something like a street layout, indoors, more like a star. These can be overridden by setting the &COMPASS attribute on the *room*. There are two commands:
+compass Display compass at current location
+compass/formats List all available formats
11.4 Automated Parent and ANSI setting by means of +build.
For more information see: +news ooc/build
When you’re in a room or when you look at the +who list you always see the name of the room displayed in the same format.
First comes the highlighted name of the room that you are in, subsequently followed up by the name of the project, the name of the area and then the name of the Domain.
Every domain also has it’s own (highlighted colour). South Central is (highlighted) Cyan, Downtown is (highlighted) Magenta and Santa Monica has (highlighted) Red.
This (highlighted) colour is something that you need to set as well. There are several ways to do this, but the following command makes it easy and automated. First make sure that you are –in- the room that you want to assign the domain-colour/code to and then type:
+build/domain (SM|SC|GD)
The currently valid domain codes are SM (Santa Monica), SC (South Central), and GD (Greater Downtown).
In the case of the Little Shop of horrors; after building the storage (when you are automatically transferred to the Storage-room) I type:
+build/domain GD
11.5 Assigning the ‘Parent’ manually
For more information see +news building/parents. This also offers information about nesting parents and using zones.
Using +build/domain doesn’t just update the name and colour of the room, it also sets the so-called ‘parent’ of a room.
Each domain has an indoor parent and an outdoor parent room, and every room on the grid should be @parented to one of these rooms. The parent that is set with the build-command will be the –outdoor- parent for the Domain. –Indoor- rooms will need to be switched to the indoor parent (For more information see +news build/parents).
In general, any room where weather or the outdoor environment might be a consideration should be set to the outdoor parent, i.e. parks, gardens, courtyards, etc. Any room or area which is fully enclosed and roofed should be set to the indoor parent.
The command that you use to set the parent of a room is:
@parent <Room-name or number>=<appropriate parent Room>
You can also use ‘here’ when you’re in the room that you assign the parent to:
@parent here=<appropriate parent room>
Object: Is the name or number of the room-object.
Parent: Is the Master/Parent indoor or outdoor-rooms or each domain. These are:
Downtown Indoor Master - #1063
Downtown Outdoor Master - #144
Santa Monica Indoor Master - #1064
Santa Monica Outdoor Master - #221
South Central Indoor Master - #1065
South Central Outdoor Master - #222.
In my example the Storage Room was assigned to the GD (Downtown) –outdoor- parent, when this storage-room clearly is –indoors- and hence should be assigned to the GD –indoor parent-.
Hence I type:
@parent Storage=#1063
In stead of typing ‘Storage’ I could also use the #number of the room-object.
When you type this command and then ‘look’ you see that the description of the room has changed. In this case it will say:
This room has been parented to the Downtown Indoor Master Room(#1063). Its &hood is , its &grid is A1, and its domain is Greater Downtown.
Note: You need to set a Parent for every room of the project that you build!
If you actually want to try understand what you’re doing when you assign a ‘parent’ object, the following might explain:
Parent objects provide a way for several objects to inherit common attributes, exits, and $-commands from a single object, so that changing the parent object affects all of its children. When searching for attributes or exits, first the object itself is checked, then the parent is checked only if the object does not have what was searched for.
Any attribute the parent object has will be passed down to its children, if they don't already have one. For instance, if the child object has no description, it will inherit the description of its parent.
11.5.1 Manually setting the format and ANSI of your Room-name
For more information please see: +news building/rooms
As mentioned before LaMush has a fairly strict format to which room and exit-names must adhere.
In the case of a room name this should look as follows:
The name of an individual room in a sub-area should be in colour-coded highlight (bold), followed by its general project-name without highlight (if applicable), followed by its neighbourhood and/or its Domain. This would be written out as: (Look at +who for examples.)
Every domain also has its own colour:
• South Central is Cyan
• Downtown is Magenta
• Santa Monica has Red
• Long Beach is Yellow
• The OOC-area’s are Green.
An example for SC:
Arena – Forum – Inglewood – South Central
Or yet another example for SM:
Kitchen – Mansion – Venice – Santa Monica
Note that, as setting ANSI and formatting goes, the text-part of the Domain (so Downtown, South Central and Santa Monica) is already covered. This happens when you set the parent of the room.
The part of the room-name that you do you need to format is:
(highlighted) room-name (normal) – project-name – neighbourhood.
In order to achieve the format shown above, you can use the following command:
@name here=[ansi(<colour-code>h,<room-name>)] [ansi(<colour-code>,- <project name – neighbourhood name>)]
‘here’: can also be replace by the room-name or number.
room-name: is the room you are in.
project name: is the name of the overall project that you are building. When your project only consists of 1 room you can leave the overall project name out.
neighbourhood name: is the name of the neighbourhood that the project is situated in.
With regards to setting ANSI-colours, here’s a list of what colour-code covers what:
• g = green
• r = red
• m = magenta
• c = cyan
• h = highlight
So, in order to set a name for a Downtown Area you type:
@name here=[ansi(mh,<room-name>)] [ansi(m,- <project name – neighbourhood name – Domain name>)]
In order to set a name for a Santa Monica you type:
@name here=[ansi(rh,<room-name>)] [ansi(r,- <project name – neighbourhood name – Domain name >)]
And, in order to set a name for a South Central Area you type:
@name here=[ansi(ch,<room-name>)] [ansi(c,- <project name – neighbourhood name – Domain name >)]
From our example:
Dummy_BLDR types:
@name here=[ansi(mh,<Storage>)] [ansi(m,- <Little Shop of Horrors – Downtown Core – Downtown)]
In the example this would come down to:
Storage – Little Shop or Horrors – Downtown Core - Downtown
11.5.2 Set the format and ANSI of your Exits
For more information please see: +news building/exits
After handling the room-format and colour of your room, you can set the format and colour of your exits (as far as they aren’t displayed properly yet).
Exits should show their cardinal direction aliases in parentheses after their name, with the letters highlighted and in bold.
For example:
Yellow Door (N)
In addition, all exits should have the following as further aliases: the full name of the exit, the logical initials of that name, the full word for the cardinal direction, and the letter abbreviation for that direction. As mentioned before at least one exit in each room should be designated as 'out', with the following aliases: out;ou;o;back;exit;x;leave. Each building complex should have a path of travel with 'out' that will ultimately lead characters to the nearest outdoor grid room.
When you used the +build-command as explained in section 10.2, all formats and settings should have been taken care of automatically. If they didn’t however, you can use the following commands to make it so:
@name <exit-name or #>=<Primary Exit-name> ([ansi(h,<compass-direction>)]);<exit-aliases consisting of abbreviations and directions>
exit-name or #: is the exit you want to rename/format.
primary Exit Name: is the exit-name that you want to be displayed.
compass-direction: is the direction-abbreviation in capitalized characters. Options are (N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW,U,D).
aliases consisting of abbreviations and directions: These are the exit aliases like the abbreviations of the primary-name, the (abbreviations) of the compass directions and, where appropriate the aliases required for the way ‘out’: out;ou;o;back;exit;x;leave.
Alternately, the exit-format can be created by using:
@name <exit-name or #>=<Primary Exit-name> (%xh<compass-direction>%xn); <exit-aliases consisting of abbreviations and directions>
The use of %x is an alternative way to deal with ANSI-colours. %x indicates that a formatting-order will be given such as ‘h’ (highlighted). ‘n’ indicates ‘no’ ANSI, so in this case the ANSI-command ‘highlight’ is cancelled.
For example:
Dummy_BLDR types:
@name Storage Fence=Storage Fence ([ansi(h,W)]);storage;fence;sf;west;w;out;ou;o;back;exit;x;leave
or:
@name Storage Fence=Storage Fence (%xhW%xn);storage;fence;sf;west;w;out;ou;o;back;exit;x;leave
Storage Fence (W)
