New Player Guide - Macros
As you get a feel for how things work in Ultima Online, you may find yourself doing a lot of mouse clicking, or perhaps performing some repetitive actions.
There are a variety tools that can be used to reduce the tedium of excessive mousework.
UO has a built-in macro system. To access it, press the options button in your paperdoll. This opens the options window which you will want to use to customize your client to suit your needs. For now, click the tab on the lower-left to access the macro system.
When you create a new character, the client already sets up a few macros for you, for example alt-i to open your backpack. Press the "previous" and "next" buttons to cycle through and see what macros have already been created for you. Press the "add" button to create a new macro entry. This will make a blank macro, so now enter the details of the macro you want to make.
Here are some examples of things you may want to assign as macros:
- Say, [bs - command to bandage yourself.
- Say, [band - command to bandage something.
- UseSkill, Animal Taming - assign keys to skills that you frequently use.
- CastSpell, Magic Arrow - assign a key to each spell that you use often.
- LastObject - when you double-click an item, such as an axe in your hand, the game remembers the last item that you used. If you want to use the same item over and over, you can press use the LastObject macro instead of having to double-click that item each time.
- LastTarget - similar to LastObject, the game remembers the last item that you targeted. For example if you mined at a particular spot on the ground once, you can press the LastObject key (this will double-click your shovel again), and then the LastTarget key to target the same spot on the ground. LastTarget can be a location, an item, or a person/monster.
- AttackLast - initiates combat with your last target, the same as going into war mode and double clicking them.
- PrimaryAbility and SecondaryAbility - toggles your weapon's special abilities
- AllNames - displays the names of all of the people/monsters around, as if you had just entered.
One more useful macro that should already be set up in your client. Press and hold down ctrl-shift; this is a variation of the "all names" macro. If there are people or items around, you'll see their names as ovals above their heads. This is an essential tool in some situations, such as when trying to recover a corpse that you're having trouble clicking because it's behind a wall.
You may have seen that you can create multi-step macros. Use them with caution, as you may find that their behavior is not perfect.
If you use razor, you may prefer to use the hotkey system there. The razor interface for creating hotkeys is easier to use, though some find that their response time suffers when they use it. You can download it here. Their configuration guide is here.
In addition to allowing you to assign actions to keys, razor also allows you to create multi-step macros by simply recording your actions and allowing you to re-play them. This can be very useful for activities such as skill training.
Finally, for very complex activities, you may want to try a scripting tool called easyuo. It is not easy to use, however you can download scripts that other players created to perform a wide variety of tasks. Go to easyuo.com if you're interested in trying it.
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