PenUltima Online

As reported, posting here for reference for us devs.

Out of sequence target cursors are reported, when the client sends a target response without the server requesting one. One way to cause this, is an EUO script that sends last target info without any target cursor request by the server. Should simply ignore instances where the cursor id is not real and in que for the client. Or maybe just change it for this case to "Client sending target cursor without target request." Should help in showing bad macros and such, and help admins decipher issues that could be scripts, or macroers.

According to the issue. Is it possible to perhaps start a script in future cores instead of logging. Because if a lot of users work with wrong delays in their scripts it could spam the pol.log.
With a script you can give out a warning to the player to optimize his script and if he ignores that 1-2 times more simple do a disconnect via the script. Something like that

An 'UnexpectedMessageScript' with a character ref and messageType as parms would be so awsome.

If Repsak's suggestion could also be done it would be awesome. Just fishing these damn cheaters

its not always cheating, especially targeting. Its just people cant script macros to wait for a target and they send the target before they get it. POL ignores this and spams a message usually.

Actually CWO, I suspect it may be just the opposite. Their macro requests to many target cursors (aka, requests a new one via skill use etc, before replying to the last one sent). That is what causes a lot of the problems.

In 097 Beta, this was addressed. Now, if the client already has a cursor in que, it errors out with Target() and TargetCoordinates() when they are called IMMEDIATELY, with an error struct. That keeps the new script sane, and keeps the existing request un-molested.

Well I've seen the problem many times on my shard with many different people and every single case was macros not waiting for their targets and just doing it many times to achieve the fastest possible timing.

Ex: Buttons in the skill menu that of course have a delay. They have their macros hit the button and target about 5 times a second even though it'll work once every 5 or so seconds because they wanted to get the fastest possible shot at it without the lag (stupid? very... but not actually cheating.) Although I implemented the packethook that will eventually kick them for making such a careless macro.

Sorry cheating was the wrong word in the case of the target cursor issue.
Mostly its simply the lack of knowledge e.g. of Easy UO. They get a script somewhere and don't know how that work. If there is a "wait 11" instead of a "wait 11s" inside they simply don't see the problem even if they always get a "you are already doing ...." message

Every time I have experienced this, was due to an crappy macro, as CWO described.
Basically I’m tied of telling players not to use the “force targetâ€

Ya but EUO has a very nice command - Target.

Target 10s

will wait for the target for up to 10 seconds. If the target comes sooner, it will stop waiting and go on (which would probably be Last Target if you're a good enough EUO scripter)

Any hints how to handle this?

Upgrade to 097?

A lot of targeting has been rewritten in 097 now. Check out the core-changes for 097.

In core-changes I found only this:



I search every .src and .inc in distro for "out-of-sequnce" but have found nothing. So i dunno how to handle this...

that is why it is called core-changes...

Shinigami

Was the IP just added to the message in the console, or has somethign like the described below been implemented?

It's just informative. The best way to battle this, is using #Cprop checks for checking if client has existing cursor, removed after the cursor call in a script.

That would require that we/I add that in every script using Target(), polluting the script base with something basically unnecessarily.

The hook feature would allow us/me to handle this problem in a single script, without polluting the already existing scripts base

I don’t know how demanding it is to make a hook for this in the core, but there is no doubt a hook is the best solution. Just give us a character ref and messageType.

Thats how I handle it right now, a packethook. I set it to set a prop on someone when either a regular target packet or a Multi placement packet is sent and check for that prop and erase it on the target return packet. If the prop isnt there when they return target, then I send them a warning about targeting when not having a target and stop the packet from going to the core.

Of course, why did'nt I think of that, to hook the Target cursor.

Thanks.