Welcome to the first draft of Mog's Macro Guide for Beginners...
I've created this guide to help other players understand macros. I myself am no expert and some of my methods are rather crude and probably could be done more efficiently. This is how I do things and may not be the 100% correct way but it does the job for me and I hope it will give you enough insight to apply your own theory to and better and develop your own macros...
Macros are a very powerful way of setting up automatic sequences of commands which can make tasks much easier or even enable you to do certain things away from the keyboard. However with this power comes responsibility and as such should not be abused at the cost of other players in your surroundings. I'll cover this more later.
There are hundreds of commands that can be entered into macros leading to limitless macro combinations. For a full list of commands click the link below.
LINK ALLAKHAZAM COMMAND PAGE HERE
Where a command is used as a string an explanation can be pulled up in most cases by entering the command into the chat window without a suffix. For instance the /ui command is very powerful and by typing /ui into the chat window a list will shoot down the chat window showing you all the variables and how to use them.
The AFK Macro (and the basics of macro making)
One of the most basic and most used macros is the afk macro which enables you to keep yourself logged into the game when you would otherwise be logged out. This is done by showing the server that your character is actively doing something and not stood still performing no actions whatsoever. Explaining how to create this macro will show you the fundamentals of macro making and then from here we can learn how to make more complicated ones:
Press the ";" key to open your abilities window. From here click the macros tab and click "New Macro." Enter "Afk" as the name of your macro and choose a suitable icon to represent your macro. This is the icon that will be used on your toolbar if you bind the macro to your toolbar later on. In the macro window enter this text:
/mood none;
/pause 900;
/macro afk;
Each of these lines represents a command being automatically being typed into the chat window. The ";" at the end of the line represents the Enter key being pressed and the command being activated. If you do not enter the ";" on each line the game interprets the whole text as one command and it will not work properly.
The first line tells the game to change your mood emote, which would be attached to the beginning of everything you say in spatial chat. By setting it to none it remains at default. You can see a full list of moods by looking in the moods tab of your abilities window or typing /mood into the chat window.
The /pause is the most used command in any macro and puts a pause inbetween the commands. Otherwise it would activate all the commands simultaneously. This usually ends up with commands cancelling each other out and not being activated or in the case of some specials, firing them off before they can be fired to maximum effect. In this case it has been set to pause for 900 seconds which is 15 minutes. You are not limited to seconds with this command. You can use milliseconds also. For example: /pause .1; would be 1/10 of a second.
The last line is setting this macro to loop. The /macro command followed by the name of the macro will execute that macro. In this case it is just setting this macro to run again thus creating a loop. Sometimes when you are creating a macro that is complicated and performing several tasks at once it is convenient to break it down into several smaller macros (or link to existing macros) and create a mother macro. In this case pauses are not required and that macro may look something like this:
/macro grind;
/macro strike;
/macro heal;
/macro afk;
When macros are running you can cancel your macros at any time by using the /dump command.
Using The Toolbar and it's commands in macros
This is where the really useful stuff starts. On the SWG toolbar there are up to 22 slots to hold commands, inventory/datapad items and of course your macros. There are also 6 different toolbar panes making up a total of 132 toolbar slots that are easy to access by keystrokes, mouse clicks and macros.
/ui action toolbarSlot00 - is the command to fire the first slot of your toolbar (change last two digits to anything up to 23 to fire the corresponding slot.)
/ui action toolbarPane00 - is the command to change to the first toolbar pane (change last two digits to anything up to 05 to activate the corresponding pane.)
These two commands are case sensitive so remember the capital P or S here. For example on my dark jedi I have both dark fury and guardian sets of heroic jewellery and both dark jedi and tanking clothing sets. Sometimes when in a group I might need to change my equipment so I can tank. The following macro makes this change nearly instantly:
/ui action toolbarPane05;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot00;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot01;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot02;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot03;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot04;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot05;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot06;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot07;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot08;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot09;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot10;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarPane00;
You can also make another similar macro (with the original clothing/jewellery set placed in the top row of the 6th toolbar pane) to change back to the original setup. Note: This macro will still work if the clothes are stored in a backpack/waistpack. With what you have learnt so far it should be pretty simple from here to create your own macros for firing specials, switching toolbar panes, activating buffs etc. With this info it's just common sense and knowing the commands. The only thing missing from being able to farm items afk (such as junk loot) is the actual targetting which I will cover in the next part of this guide.
AFK Farming Static Spawns
As we've now covered coverd how to fire abilities and inventory/datapad items from the taskbar we're nearly ready to fight npcs without even touching the keyboard the only thing missing is targetting. There are three commands we need that will make this possible, again using the powerful /ui command:
/ui action cycletargetInward
/ui action cycletargetOutward
/tar self (or /ui action targetSelf)
To efficiently wipe out groups of npcs it's best to use a profession that has a few AoE attacks, in my case I use my officer. Also to prevent your toon from dodging and skipping out of the area you're farming always use a melee weapon. If you don't it's possible your toon could be 100m from the spawn within a few hours rendering the macro useless. Here's an example of a farming macro:
/ui action cycletargetOutward;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot00;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot01;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot02;
/pause .1;
/ui action toolbarSlot03;
/tar self;
/pause .1;
/macro afker;
Within this macro are several attacks and also there may be a heal or similar skills. Of course experiment with the macro to suit your needs placing your skills into the slots and adding the slots to the macro as necessary. I mentioned earlier about how some specials require to be spaced out from others being fired to hit for maximum effect. It's not something I'm particularly knowledgable in all honesty. But on the plus side specials have different cooldown timers so are rarely firing back to back once the macro has started. By putting a 0.1 pause between the macros it just ensures they will be fired as soon as they are ready to be fired.
The first line will cycle your targetting outward from your location by one while the "/tar self" will target yourself so when the macro loops it targets the closest npc again and does not continue to cycle outwards. The same effect can be achieved with the "/ui action cycletargetInward."
Remember you can simplify and reuse other macros in this process. For instance:
/macro afker;
/macro heal;
/macro afk;
This would run your afking macro, your existing heal macro and also your afk macro. Before a recent update it was required to run an autoloot macro. This is no longer required as you can now do so by clicking an option to autoloot inside Miscellaneous options. When farming your inventory will eventually fill up. The only way to get around this is to manually empty it. There is another way to do this using 3rd party programs, for example Auto-IT which runs scripts that simulate HID (Human Interface Device) signals such as keystrokes, mouse movements and clicks etc. It's an incredibly powerful application and can automate a lot of process in windows. However I believe it is against SOE's EULA to use such programs but I somehow doubt they can detect their usage in the first place. If you see a junk looter that is never afk it is quite likely they are using such programs.
Just remember as I said earlier that AFKing is something you should do responsibly. Always show consideration for other players when doing so. Don't afk somewhere where it will prevent other players from completing quests or hogging a spawn that ATK keyboards frequent. SMC vs NS battle is such a place, if you know me you may well have heard me go on one of my rants about this issue. In the next part of this guide we shall look at how to turn your alts on different accounts into an unstoppable AFK army...
LOLarmy 101...
My LOLarmy was never something I set out to create but something that just grew over time and became a matter of convenience. It's something that directly contradicts the very essence of playing an MMO and something that petrifies some people and convinces others that you're an outright lunatic. It's difficult to argue with these people because well let's face the very concept of a group controlled by one person is insane. Why play a game that's designed for players to rely on each other to complete their objectives if you are to emulate the other players you rely on?
I have four accounts, two I started myself, one I continued to sub once my girlfriend stopped playing and another I subbed for a friend and continued to sub for the hell of it. On those accounts I'm able to play jedi, officer, medic and BH simultaneously. By doing so I am able to fill an eight man group by using a droid on each toon and with a little improvisation with macros cruise through pretty much any instance besides heroic instances. With this power at my fingertips I'm able to grind for loot that I would otherwise struggle to get a group for and also by filling the group myself if that loot drops that loot is mine. Yes it could be considered greedy or antisocial but considering the state of SWG NGE and the amount of grouping that goes on for certain instances on a day to day basis it has become somewhat acceptable practice for those of us that can afford to do it. Like I said it wasn't something I aimed to do but once I realised I could do it it's hard to resist and it's also a great tool for helping your friends if they need it.
Droids
First thing is that every toon has a droid. On each of your toons make these three macros and bind them to a button. I bind mine to Home, Insert and Delete as these are all in a collumn above my cursor keys. These macros assume that you have not altered what you say to a droid to make them do the corresponding action. If for instance you normally say "a" to make it attack then that macro would be "/tellpet a"
Macro: Droid Group
/tellpet group
Macro: Droid Guard
/tellpet guard
Macro: Droid Attack
/tellpet attack
So when you enter an instance or start up your LOLarmy switch to each of your toons calling their individual droids and hit the group button. You may or may not want to hit the guard button depending on whether you wish to choose which npcs your droid will attack and aggro.
Following
Decide who is the group leader. In my case it's always my jedi as jedi have good tanking abilities and also jedi are not a wonderful profession to macro as AFK assistants. My personal preference is to make a second group leader who will follow the group leader. All other members of the group should then be set to follow the second group leader. I prefer to make my medic the second leader as in emergency I can switch to my medic and get him to where he is needed to heal etc while not breaking the army's follow. So my jedi leads the charge while my medic follows him, the remaining two toons then follow the medic. At certain points it may be required to break the jedi away from the other toons to pull aggro solo or to start a certain boss battle without complications. Remember if a series of high level npcs lock onto your AFK toons it may be difficult to keep them all alive and shift the aggro to your main. You can watch your army die in seconds if you do not have a strategy for which toons will be where in a certain situation. Bind the /follow command to a certain key for each toon for ease of use. To follow the leader or second leader simply target them and hit the button. You could also macro "/follow [name]" so that toon will automatically follow the named toon without having to target them.
An example: First boss and most subsequent bosses of HK instance. My jedi runs in solo to clear the retainer npcs guarding the boss. Officer and BH (with droids) are set to follow Medic (with droid.) Jedi wipes out the retainers and begins to tank the boss. Then medic runs to karnax with the rest of the army in tow. When the army arrives ALT-ESC to each toon and hit their corresponding macro. Oh yeah their macros, the source of the army's power...
Heal, Assist and Destroy Macros
Macros and their use will vary for each profession and also you will probably find yourself adapting macros for certain tasks/instances. By now you will have enough theory and experience to adapt this knowledge to your play style. To be honest you probably don't need much more from me to do all this without my help. But here's how I do things...
Macro: Assist
/assist [name];
/pause .1;
/tellpet attack;
/pause .1;
/macro assist;
The first line of this macro ensures you are targetting the same target as the named toon. In my case this means my BH and Officer are constantly targetting my Jedi's target. The droid attack line is added in so my droids also attack my Jedi's target. So that's four group members and my jedi all on one target kicking the shit out of it.
Medic
I use different macros depending on the instance and situation. One macro has a line targetting the group tank/leader (/tar [name]) followed by bacta infusion and then area heals. You might also want to put an AoE attack in there. If you feel you may need to switch to medic and fire off a bacta bomb on a certain player you may want to remove the targetting line and do that manually at the start of the battle. If you don't have the targetting line it also leaves the option open to target the npcs manually and hit your autoattack and droid attack command. Just remember that will leave your medic applying bacta infusion to himself which in somecase is the better option as it boosts your chance of keeping your medic alive.
Officer / Bounty Hunter
Both of these should be running their assist macros with droids grouped. Then have another macro running with your specials spamming and also your heals. Creating a mother macro with heal macro, specials macro and assist macro works best.
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