MACRO TUTORIAL

Part 1: Different kinds of macros
Part 2: use of special characters to program macros.
Part 3: Tips on commonly used macro strings.
Part 4: Recommended Macros for Mages
Part 5: Insight in my macro-world, for all who keep asking me, how I do this.
Part 6: Aliases and Nicknames
P.S. On Spam Filter


by Magus Sodagayo, Leoni's Ambassador, Year 170

One can use several keys to adjust macros for all different kinds of needs.

First of all, there are 4 macro layouts.

1) The INGAME macros (type macros and help macros to see), are placed on the numbers 0-9.
2) the hotkeys programmed in the wizard on alt and ctrl key-combinations.
3) the hotkeys programmed in the wizard on F-keys. You can program macros on F-Keys in combination with shift, Alt, Ctrl. Also you can set 10 different sets for the F-keys. Change the set by ALT-. Example: If F-key macros set 5 is called hunting in pass, hit ALT-5 once you start hunting in pass.
4) Nicknames and Aliases programmed in the wizard tp expand strings of text.

The type 1) macros are programmed ***IN GAME*** by submitting them to the engine.
The type 2), 3) and 4) macros are defined in the wizard program on your own computer. In your wizard window look in Config-->Macros for type 2) and 3), in Config-->Nicknames and Config-->Aliases for type 4).

Comments:

to 1) These macros are special, as once you entered 5 and hit enter, the game engine itself will look what macro you put there, then doing the complete thing itself. When you are lagged, these macros work better.
On the other hand the engine works thru these macros with a bit delay, as it processes these macros in 2 steps: First it is recognized as a macro and looked up, then it is applied. So you may end up messing your macros by squeezing new commands inbetween. Solution to this: Organize macros which have the whole string of action in one.
Example:
macro 5 pack right
macro 6 wield sword
You hit 5-enter. The engine looks up the macro, THEN applies it. If you hit 6-enter right away, the engine gets this between looking up macro 5 and doing it, starting to process macro 6, thus getting "confused" so you *might* end up with wielding the sword first, and packing it after. Solution: make one macro: macro 5 p right;;wield sword

**Note: a double semicolon will add up several commands to be processed in a row. This will always work.
You can use it when typing next commands (ie. gwave;;qq), also use it in all the macros you set. Details later.

To 2)These six sets (Alt, Ctrl, Alt-Shift, Ctrl-Shift, Alt-Ctrl and Alt-Ctrl-Shift) will always be the same, regardless of macro set you use., so I recommend using them similar like the 0-9 macros for stuff you do all the time. If you have two related macros, I'd put one one say alt-g and the other one on alt-shift-g, so you can remember them more easily.

To 3) Use the F-keys for stuff you need QUICK. These are the only true hotkeys. program F1 aim;;charge&, and you will aim or charge by simply hitting F1. You will literally need only one finger. (The & is explained in chapter 2. It's a special macro key for the wizard.)
If you want, use the 20 possible F-key sets ("Macro Sets"), for different situations. Like for hunt vs. pub vs. guild. or for different locations, so you always have the stunners macroed, that are in these areas. You can toggle Macroset 0-9 by Alt-0 thru Alt-9. In order to access Macroset 10-19, program the ALT-SHIFT-numbers with {Macroset 10} thru {Macroset 19}: ALT-SHIFT-0 {Macroset 10}.

To 4) Use Aliases for up to six commands, when you find a word easier to remember than an abstract alt/ctrl/leter combination.
Use Nicknames to save typing time (and risk of typos) on difficult strings.

1.) Semicolon.

The most important characters are the double-semicolon ;;. This is the only special key which is recognized by the engine itself. Use it whereever you want, your added up commands are submitted as ONE string, and the engine will work it out.

**Caution: Do NOT enter another command until at least a second later. Else, the engine will squeeze the new command inbetween.

Example: I programmed two macros to walk me to the entrance to cats2. Its e, n, s, se, and whatever else directions lined up with ;; inbetween. As this is long, I needed to make it two macros. Depending on lag, the engine needs up to 3 seconds to process either one. (trust me, it's as fast as compassing). So if I enter both macros too quick after another, they will get messed up bringing me to 3 arms or whereever. Solution: Wait a moment, before submitting the next macros, if your macros are long. Also the Spam filter will require more breaks. Else yer macros get eaten up "spam filtered"

***NOTE: All following characters can ONLY be used in the wizard macros. Period.***

2.) The et-sign.

The et-sign & is a key telling your wizard, to submit a macro right away, WITHOUT waiting for your approval by hitting enter.
Example: the macro F1 aim;;ch& will make your wizard submit aim;;ch to the engine, once you hit F1.

If you leave the & out, the programmed macro will appear in your command prompt. Very useful if you keep hunting with someone called rashingfrashinggrabbing. Make a macro like ALT-R rashingfrashinggrabbing and whenever he needs guard, type guard, then hit ALT-R then hit enter. If you want to message him, type message ALT-R {your message text}. Of course Nicknames will do this easier.

3.) The Tilde

The Tilde ~ tells your wizard to add a one second delay inbetween macros. You can add several ~ to add up to a longer delay.
Examples:
CTRL-H cast heal&~~~~~t& Assumed your heal spell delay is 5 seconds, this macro will heal yourself.
CTRL-P poison sodagayo&~~~~~~~~~~hide& this will poison sodagayo's blade and autohide after. Of course hiding first is more of a style for most rogues.

Think about following ones and their differences:
hide&poison sodagayo&
hide;;poison sodagayo&
hide&tell sodagayo
The first one will submit two commands, the second one will submit one command, and the last one will submit the hide and prompt you with "tell sodagayo" so you can start telling him things right away.

4.) The at-sign

The at-sign @ will place your cursor someplace in a macro.

This is most useful for autotags:
F4 sh @ {Rainbow Sodagayo}

Whenever you hit F4 the sh command with the autotag will appear on your prompt, having the cursor right at the shout-message spot. I hit F4 and type what I want to shout right away, and tada, one enter without a second look, my shout appears the way you are used to it.

5.) The question mark

The question mark ? will make the wizard use the same string several times.

Example: ALT-C
hug ?;;cuddle ?;;snuggle ?;;tickle ?;;giggle&
When you hit ALT-C you will be prompted with a window. Enter sod in this window, and then you will hug, cuddle snuggle and tickle me and burst in giggle, all in one series of action.

There are a lot of tips for the advanced user. If chapter one and two were news to you, go out and try this. Learning by doing is the best for macros. And when you got different scenarios to work, then come back and read this. If chapter one and two was boring to you, you *might* find new hints in here.

Charging is defaulted to attack when advanced.
You have a ch& hotkey, but when already advanced do better with aim? And you are tired of waiting to get to program the NUMPAD 5 from a (attack) to aim, whenever the wizard is updated for this feature?
Solution: make your hotkey aim;;ch& *if* you can live with the resulting scroll. (P.S. Thanks to ever busy Raislin, Immortal of Magic in Terris, the NUM keys ARE programmable by now. As a mage I programmed my 5 as t;;rest, you could still program yours with aim;;ch.)

Working with delay (~~~) and messing your inputs?
You use macros like: p right;;g chest;;cast 21&~~~~~~t chest& and end up with submitting smilet chest and getting "command not recognized"? Or with shouting: "You are right, Astert chest".
Solution: add another &: p right;;g chest;;cast 21&~~~~~~&t chest&. whatever you tried to do, while the wizard waits your delay time to unlock the chest, the & infront of the new commands, will make your wizard hit enter for you. So you might accidentally only shout half a message, but a) the target command will work, and b) the t chest wont appear in your shout.

Changing the weapon ending up with 8 second delay?
You use macros like p right;;wield ruby bladed sword because the ruby sword has a hold enchant and the cyclops is beating you up, hit the aim;;ch macro after, and actually aimed after packing your bastard sword, and before wielding the ruby sword, so you get a 8 second delay because bare hand is martial arts and you are a fighter? And you die in these 8 seconds?
Solution: Make macros like: p right;;wield ruby bladed sword;;aim;;ch. Relax, you will get the hold enchant out and get the cyclops held. Use the same way for switch back, so you wont waste your enchant.
You fight in cats2, and dont want to hold anything that is advanced on you, but the banrog?
Prepare a p right;;wield ruby bladed sword;;aim banrog demon;;ch banrog demon. This will scroll a bit, but also prevent you from holding a hob goblin, because your hunting mate already finished the rog.

Kill stunners.
I find it most useful to enter stunners' names in the configuration-highlight strings-user defined names menu and make them all look purple (or whatever else than red). So you see when stunners enter the room in one glance. If you then happen to have a macro set like:
ch giant spider;;ch mouther;;ch stun jelly;;aim crocodile;;ch imp you are pretty much on the safe side. Especially after retreating to an adjacent room. (Note: It is aim/attack on the crocodile, so ye wont charge it by mistake, and get stunned, but only kill it when it ALREADY advanced you)

You also may think about adding another ch in the end: ch giant spider;;ch mouther;;ch stun jelly;;aim crocodile;;ch imp;;ch. In case you need to battle yourself free first, or your party already got all stunners, this way you wont waste time by reading the scroll telling you, "there are no hostile creatures in the room".

Use run and walk.
If you have lure-macros, or run-to-locations-macros, put run in front, and walk near the end:
examples: CTRL-S run;;s;;n;;walk;;s;;n&
CTRL-F1 run;;w;;w;;w;;w;;w&~&w;;w;;w;;w;;w;;w&~&w;;w;;s;;s;;s;;walk*~&e&. This will bring you from recall to forgrims.
(The delay was added due to the Spam filter)

You can add group at the end of macros, that walk you to pass, to check, whether you have lost members of your party. You can add follow soda;;guard sodagayo in the end of a lure macro, and aim;;ch as well. ***Make sure that commands that cause delay (like charge) are the very last ones. If you want to auto-pick up gold, make it g gold;;ch not the other way round.

You macroed your way from forgrims into sewers and back and it isn't working?
Using items (like the crowbar in this case) is supplying an answer to a quest, a so-called CHANT. CHANTs will only work if submitted as ONE command. Solution:
ALT-F1 run;;w;;n;;n;;n;;n&~&n;;n;;n;;n;;hold crowbar&use crowbar&~&d;;e;;se;;walk;;se;;ch& Note: the "use crowbar" has a return (the &) in front and right behind. Hence it is submitted as ONE single command and will work.

Macros like the sewer one above still don't work.
Of course. The engine was a tiny bit lagged, so your "use crowbar" was already applied before you ever reached the manhole.
Solution: ALT-F1 run;;w;;n;;n;;n;;n&~&n;;n;;n;;n;;hold crowbar&~&use crowbar&d;;e;;se;;walk;;se&. The delay-~ was added below the CHANT now, so the CHANT comes AFTER the engine processed the previous macro-string.

Of course Mages is what I am expert in, so here goes:

Set hotkeys for your spells:
Example:
F1 cast 1& (that's fireflames)
F2 cast 4& (that's chill)
F3 cast 7& (thats zap)
F4 cast 10& (that's ensnare)
F5 cast 31& (that's heal)
F7 retreat&
F8 rest&

**Note: The most important ones (ensnare/heal; retreat/rest) are put on the F-Keys next to a gap. Saves you reaction time.

Add rest in practiacally EVERY macro you do. Resting the most possible of times, will grant you the most chances to be resting when another pulse comes around.
Example:
F1 cast 1;;rest& (In case you already have a fireflames cast, you will rest instead)
CTRL-W w;;e;;w;;e;;t ogre;;rest& (you lure to west, having ensnare cast, and when you come back you snare any ogre that appeared and rest right away. The only time you don't rest here is during the time needed for the lure, without lag thats practically no time at all)

Add t;; in front of your spell macros.
Example:
F1 t;;cast 1;;rest& etc.
This way, whenever you decide to cast a fireflames spell, you will *at least* put the spell you had readied before to use, if it's possible. Assume you had cast heal before, and are hurt yourself, you will heal yourself and cast fireflames without lost time in-between. Use this principle to hunt.

Scenario:
Cast ensnare by t;;cast 10;;rest&, then lure. An ogre enters. Hit t;;cast 1;;rest& thus ensnaring the ogre and casting fireflames. Hit the same key again, thus toasting first half of the ogre and casting a new fireflames. Now hit the ensnare macro, finishing the ogre and casting a new ensnare for the orc, who keeps firing at you. Now hit t;;cast 31;;rest& snaring the orc, casting a heal. proceed with the fireflames macro, healing yourself, and getting the fireballs ready to finish the orc, while he is snared.

Have a set with macros that include retreat. use the same principle as above, adding re;; inside.
Example:
F1 t;;re;;cast 1;;rest& This is the best way to stay untouched. You will EITHER retreat, OR cast a fireflames spell, *if* you are NOT advanced.

You can figure out macros to change the runes in your staff (wield staff;;break;;activate rune&~~&swap;;mix&), to mix runes, rings and whatever else.

An Idiot proof draught/paste macro for the precious spell points (aye, spam proof as well) is:
t;;p left;;hold paste of the spirit;;eat paste;;hold draught of the gods;;drink potion&~~~&p left;;wield shield&

Hehe. here goes. Figure out why I did those this way and what they do yourself and enjoy! A hint for the first two: they are bleeding-proof (for those using the older wizards)

F1: say ^V@^N
F2: em ^C@^N
F4: sh ^V@ ^W{^RRa^Vi^Yn^Gbo^Cw Sodagayo^N}
CTRL-4: em hands ? ^Ga big bag of ^Ygold ^R!;;pay ? @
The secret's out: SHIFT-F4: sh ^w:: ^Wwaves his ^RW^YE^yL^gC^GO^CM^cE ^V? ^Wflag ^w::&
ALT-G: guildsummon ?;;greet ?&
ALT-R: activate Mage's Guild ring&~~&n;;dr shield;;p rose;;buy 1;;wear ring;;wield rose;;g shield&
CTRL-A: sh ^W:: waves a ^CI am back ^RRealm ! ^Wflag :: {^RRa^Vi^Yn^Gbo^Cw Sodagayo^W}&~gsh ^V:: waves a ^RMages are GREAT! ^Vflag ::^N&
ems ^Cknees tremble as his heart ^Vskips ^Ca beat or two or three.^N&
yem do the ^RS^rE^RC^rR^RE^rT ^cMacros! ^wsign. ^NYe ponder what that might mean. ^CIt's all their fault! ^Nhe blurts.&
g all scroll;;g all small aquamarine;;g all chest;;g stick;;g all strongbox;;clean&
gsh ^VBe sure tae check the ^CMages Message Boards^V, ^YGNOTICES ^Vand ^YGUILDVOTE^V regularly.&

In the latest Wizard Releases a new way to set a Macro was added. The Alias and the Nickname function.

Nicknames will expand a string to a (usually) longer string. Define the nickname XIU as Xiuhtecuthli or RRB as Rrbhaunoch, and whenever you have Xiu or Rrb in anything you type, it will automatically expand it to "Xiuhtecuhtli" or "Rrbhaunoch". Like when you do: Sh congrats Xiu! it will show as: You shout 'Congrats Xiuhtecuhtli!' and everyone else will see Sodagayo bellows forth 'Congrats Xiuhtecuhtli'.
If you want it to show the short way, use a trick like this: say I love calling Xiu ^NXiu. The wizard will recognize the first Xiu as nickname, NOT the second one, because ^NXiu is not how the nickname was defined. It works by word boundary. So what happens is this: You say 'I love calling Xiuhtecuhtli Xiu'. Now obviously, if you really love doing that, you prolly shouldn't define this nickname.
You can also use Nicknames to make other things easier. Like Rainbow defined as ^RR^Oa^Yi^Gn^Cb^Bo^Vw^N. This way whenever I say rainbow, it will show like a rainbow! You can also use it for things like Insult Steenking halfbreed Ogre-Troll insulting mix of toenails and nose scum. That way you can insult people faster, by Say you insult ! which will show the whole insult as predefined. Just over time people will wonder if you cant think up other insults. Note: There is an extra space between insult and !. If you type insult! (no space), the wizard again won't recognize the Nickname. Most useful I find to nickname internet links you often pass on to other folks. Like wwwmacros which I have defined as the link to this tutorial here: www.legendsofcosrin.com/tips_wizard_macros.shtml. When someone asks in chats, I type chat wwwmacros and it will chat the whole link.

Aliases are the same like macros. They do not require any special parameters like ampersand. They consist of a trigger string and the command. Nothing else. Program crazy as hop;;bounce;;jump;;wee;;cartwheel;;agh and whenever you type Crazy and hit enter, you'll act like a maniac.
Like the IN-GAME Macros, only the semicolon can be used however. Due to Spam Filter, an Alias can hold up to six commands.
Also bear in mind that emotes are added constantly, and your wizard will not let you do emotes, if you used them as alias. If you put an Alias on hop, you can't do the hop-emote anymore. You can use Aliases for easy things you forget otherwise. You could define greetings on names. Orchid sh Ooh, now Anyana will be thanked again finally, welcome back Orchid! or Arc sh May time be on your side, Arcadain! Welcome back! The number of Aliases is practically unlimited, you could program an extra greeting for every person you know, technically. Unlike Nicknames, the Alias will only come in effect when you enter the alias (and NOTHING else) and hit enter. The command Greet Orchid won't be affected by the previous Alias.

The Spam filter will only allow 6 commands at a time.
This means, using wizard macros you can add up up to 6 different commands in a row (combined with either ;; or & operators). It does not matter, how long the single commands are. Two commands added by ;; are however two commands, as the engine will split them apart again.

When you use the INGAME macros (0-9), you can only use 5 commands in a string. This is because the engine will decipher the number (0-9) as a macro, which is the first command, so only 5 commands are left, to be processed right away.

If you need to add more commands than these six together, you will have to add ~ in-between.

Day 26 of First Harvest, Year 170. Sodagayo