PG Survey Helper Tool!

[desophos]

Thank you so much for developing this tool! It makes surveying much less painful. I have a couple comments:

1. It's difficult to place the dwarf marker precisely; it's half opaque, doesn't show up well in all environments, and doesn't seem to actually have a nose to position. Having its beard pointed at the location instead would be easier to place, or you could use a clearer marker. A bug related to the visibility: the color change for Kur doesn't apply for Motherlode surveys.

2. I'd really like to be able to add a third location (or more?) for Motherlode surveys. That would make the survey's location unambiguous (I think) and maybe less finicky with regard to small position changes.

I'd like to help with development if that's an option! I would love to help improve this incredibly useful tool. Is it open-source and would you be willing to collaborate?

[Clip]

1. It's difficult to place the dwarf marker precisely; it's half opaque, doesn't show up well in all environments, and doesn't seem to actually have a nose to position. Having its beard pointed at the location instead would be easier to place, or you could use a clearer marker. A bug related to the visibility: the color change for Kur doesn't apply for Motherlode surveys.

Thanks! The dwarf icon is a tribute to Ormorek (whether he wants tribute or not!), but I think we could improve the visibility and ease of positioning. One idea that leaps to mind is, how about if the icon changes while dragging? Like, we could add a small red reindeer nose dot while it's in motion. I'm sure Ormorek wouldn't mind a temporary clown nose. Or maybe it's a "too many beers" red nose?

Thanks for the bug report! I'll fix that, and we could definitely look at better color choices per zone. (Also, now that there are Treasure Maps in new Sun Vale and Gaz(?), those zones need to be added.)

2. I'd really like to be able to add a third location (or more?) for Motherlode surveys. That would make the survey's location unambiguous (I think) and maybe less finicky with regard to small position changes.

I have thought about that, too. The problem with three or more locations is that you're not likely to get all N points positioned so perfectly that you'll get an exact single triangulated solution. More likely, you're going to get a cluster of points, one for each pair of locations. (So, you'd get a cluster of 3 points per motherlode for 3 starting markers, 6 points for 4 starting markers, etc.)

That mostly becomes a challenge to display it cleanly in a web UI. Maybe you could display it as a fuzzy soft-edged cloud that would be come more like a hard point if the starting markers lined up well.

In the end, my measure for the Motherlode tool was, if I can do 10 motherlode surveys, and for each one, walk to the position and dig it up on the first try, then the tool was good enough that it didn't need further improvement there. It does work that well for me. Maybe this is related to not being able to position the marker? I've noticed that the biggest factor for me (after the tool was calibrated to zone size), was expanding the map so it took up most of the screen, and then I was able to hit motherlodes reliably with no fuss.

I'd like to help with development if that's an option! I would love to help improve this incredibly useful tool. Is it open-source and would you be willing to collaborate?

Sure, though I've tried hard to keep the tool simple for maintainability's sake. Features should have a relatively high usefulness/code complexity ratio, unless there's a strong Ormorek-worship-related argument for them. I assume long stretches will pass with no changes and want it to be low effort to do simple changes like add a zone.

I'll put it on github (which I should have done anyway, bad me!) and post the link here. Oops, I also forgot to put public domain attributions. That was the plan.

[Clip]

The motherlode marker colors should be fixed for Kur. Pubic domain dedications were added to all two of the source files.

[Clip]

Okay, the tool is now on github for anyone that wants to collaborate. My SLA on pull requests is going to be fairly slow, since I'm actually online playing PG quite a bit less these days, (painful unarmed and power nerfs, and zones like Rahu re-tuned for groups only, waaah ) but still hopeful future updates make the game a bit friendlier to players like me that prefer to group less often.

Github: https://github.com/gchristopher/pg_survey_helper

I'll update the original post.

[Dozy]

Followed the instructions. Blank map.

On the basis that it works for some/most then I must be at fault. Oh well.

[alleryn]

Followed the instructions.

If you want to get it working, it would be helpful if you described step-by-step what you did. I can't help but be skeptical that you followed the instructions precisely and it simply didn't work.

[Clip]

Followed the instructions. Blank map.

On the basis that it works for some/most then I must be at fault. Oh well.

Maybe I broke it? Could you post some of the chat log you're using? Then we could try to reproduce the problem.

So far, I'm not aware of it being broken for anyone, at all, so let's figure out how to get it to work for you!

[Dozy]

Hi all. I clicked the surveys. Found the chat logs on my hard drive. Copied from hd. Chat logs tab, where is that, please?

Many thx in advance

[alleryn]

Chat logs tab, where is that, please?

It's on the website. (Right click, open image in new tab for zoomed in version).

[Dozy]

Damn. How did I miss that.

Don't answer that.

My heartfelt thanks