problems with monster hps in UAShell

[OutoftheBlue]

I've recently started using UAShell to manage FRUA designs.  I have FRUA 1.2.  Weird things have started to happen when I edit a monster's hit points in the monster editor.  In one case it reverted to the original creature's hps, in 2 other cases to changed the monsters' hps to 104.  If I go back to the editor it will show the values I entered, but in playtesting it will have the other values.  Everything else, like the monster attacks and abilities seem to function according to my changes.  Has anything like this happened to anyone else?

[ProphetSword]

Are you using an editor in UAShell to alter the monsters or are you using FRUA's built in editor?

[OutoftheBlue]

I'm using running UAShell and using FRUA's built in editor.  I've also noticed when I hit "run"(F8) in UAShell I'm starting to get some cryptic and disturbing messages in Dosbox before FRUA's first screen appears:
"Illegal command:MODE"
"Press any key to continue."
"Illegal command:MORE"(x2)
"Press any key to continue."
After UAShell closes I get another:
"Illegal command:MODE"

[steve_mcdee]

Yes, I also get the "Illegal command: MODE" message when trying to "Run" a module. I have not noticed anything actually going wrong with the way FRUA runs though. I'm not sure what causes it, but had thought that perhaps it is a dos command that is not recognised by DOSBox? I also get "Illegal command: MORE" when trying to view text files in UAShell.

[Ishad Nha]

I think DosBox only has a few of the total number of the Dos commands. File Compare is another example.

[Nol Drek]

When you run "UASHELL.BAT" it executes the following list of DOS commands:

Code: [Select]

@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST CKIT.EXE GOTO STEP1
ECHO UA-Shell may be installed only in a valid UA directory.
GOTO ENDJOB
:STEP1
IF EXIST CKIT.TMP DEL CKIT.TMP
IF EXIST CKIT.TMP GOTO DELERROR
COPY CKIT.EXE CKIT.TMP
IF NOT EXIST CKIT.TMP GOTO COPYERROR
DEL CKIT.TMP
IF EXIST CKIT.TMP GOTO DELERROR
IF NOT EXIST DOCS\NUL MD DOCS
IF NOT EXIST FTHING\NUL MD FTHING
IF NOT EXIST DOWNLOAD\NUL MD DOWNLOAD
IF NOT EXIST PROGRAMS\NUL MD PROGRAMS
IF NOT EXIST TEMP\NUL MD TEMP
IF NOT EXIST UASHINST.EXE GOTO DONE
IF NOT EXIST TEMP\*.* GOTO STEP2
ECHO Warning -- TEMP directory contains files.
ECHO Cannot guarantee correct installation.
PAUSE
:STEP2
IF EXIST *.TXT COPY *.TXT DOWNLOAD
COPY UASHINST.EXE TEMP
IF NOT EXIST TEMP\UASHINST.EXE GOTO COPYERROR
DEL UASHINST.EXE
IF EXIST UASHINST.EXE GOTO DELERROR
CD TEMP
CALL UASHINST.EXE
CD ..
IF NOT EXIST TEMP\*.TXT GOTO UNZIPERROR
COPY TEMP\*.TXT DOCS
DEL TEMP\*.TXT
IF EXIST TEMP\*.TXT GOTO DELERROR
COPY TEMP\*.* PROGRAMS
DEL TEMP\DIFF.TBL
DEL TEMP\DRAWBACK.TLB
DEL TEMP\INSTR.AD
DEL TEMP\*.COM
DEL TEMP\*.DAT
DEL TEMP\*.EXE
DEL TEMP\*.HLP
DEL TEMP\*.MN?
IF NOT EXIST TEMP\*.* GOTO DONE
ECHO Warning -- TEMP directory contains files.
ECHO Cannot guarantee correct installation.
PAUSE
GOTO DONE
:COPYERROR
ECHO Unable to copy file(s).
GOTO ABORTED
:DELERROR
ECHO Unable to delete file(s).
GOTO ABORTED
:TEMPERROR
ECHO TEMP directory contains files.
GOTO ABORTED
:UNZIPERROR
ECHO Critical UA-Shell files are missing.
:ABORTED
ECHO UA-Shell installation aborted.
PAUSE
GOTO ENDJOB
:DONE
IF NOT EXIST PROGRAMS\UASHELLZ.EXE GOTO UNZIPERROR
CALL PROGRAMS\UASHELLZ.EXE
MODE 80
IF NOT EXIST PROGRAMS\TEMP.BAT GOTO ENDJOB
CALL PROGRAMS\TEMP.BAT
UASHELL.BAT
:ENDJOB

MODE 80 sets the DOS display to be 80 columns wide. DOSBox doesn't support this command.

Not sure where the command MORE is coming from.

[joeshell]

I guess  OutoftheBlue  maybe has (accidentally?) used the BATCH (F6) menu entry. This seems to create a batch file RUNDSN.BAT in the design subdirectory. This batch file contains several lines, where text files are displayed with MORE. Therefore I think these warnings have nothing to do with his original problem. Unfortunately I can't help with that, since I doesn't now the editors good enough (I just started to take a look).

Edit: changed "MORE" to capital lettters

[steve_mcdee]

I had thought that "MORE" might be the command to make a text file move onto the next page of text?

[ProphetSword]

The "MORE" command in DOS was used to keep scrolling text from scrolling beyond the screen so that you could view it a page at a time instead of having it all scroll past you at high speed.  DOSBox does not support the "MORE" command natively.  If you own a copy of MORE.EXE from MS-DOS, or you grab the one available in FreeDOS, I've heard that it will work.

[OutoftheBlue]

I guess  OutoftheBlue  maybe has (accidentally?) used the BATCH (F6) menu entry. This seems to create a batch file RUNDSN.BAT in the design subdirectory. This batch file contains several lines, where text files are displayed with MORE. Therefore I think these warnings have nothing to do with his original problem. Unfortunately I can't help with that, since I doesn't now the editors good enough (I just started to take a look).

Edit: changed "MORE" to capital lettters

Ok, so it looks like I did have a RUNDSN.BAT file in the design subdirectory and removing it got rid of the messages, but the problems remains with the monster hps.  Should all these .dat files be in the root (not design) directory?  They look a little suspicious to me.

[steve_mcdee]

The "MORE" command in DOS was used to keep scrolling text from scrolling beyond the screen so that you could view it a page at a time instead of having it all scroll past you at high speed.  DOSBox does not support the "MORE" command natively.  If you own a copy of MORE.EXE from MS-DOS, or you grab the one available in FreeDOS, I've heard that it will work.

Do I take it, then, that we should not be worried at all that DOSBox / UA Shell is displaying error messages re MORE and MODE? If a design which causes this problem is distributed, will the error appear for all users? If so, is there any way to prevent it from arising (ie, stop UA Shell trying to use the MODE command)?

[joeshell]

Do I take it, then, that we should not be worried at all that DOSBox / UA Shell is displaying error messages re MORE and MODE? If a design which causes this problem is distributed, will the error appear for all users? If so, is there any way to prevent it from arising (ie, stop UA Shell trying to use the MODE command)?

I don't know about the different ways how to distribute designs, but I got it, that for "hacked" designs" uashell is needed to run those. Here you always can delete the "rundsn.bat" file and start the design via F8.  Of course you can edit the batch file by hand removing the MODE command (which only sets the number of characters per line to be displayed) and the MORE command to remove the warning messages. The only consequence of dosbox not implementing those commands is, that README files and introductory remarks are no longer displayed automatically. The player has to look at them of his own. But this would be no reason for me, not to play a design.

BTW.: I took this thread as a reason to play with some other methods of emulating dos yesterday (dosemu, qemu and bochs). Since all of them kind of use freedos, the whole command set should be there. Using dosemu, I could start "Temple of elemental evil", but after moving around a little bit in town, the game froze. qemu and bochs seem to require creating hard disk images for each game, so I decided to stick around with dosbox, even if MODE and MORE are not implemented  and produce the aforementioned warning messages.

[hans]

...Should all these .dat files be in the root (not design) directory?  They look a little suspicious to me.

 

Yes, the *.dat files should be in only in design (*.dsn) folders, except for the Item & Items.dat(s) which you might find in a design folder but also in the DISK1 folder.  The DRAW****.lbm(s) and .pcx(s) are belong in the ART folder. 

Unfortunately, it does appear that UAShell was improperly installed.   

After a successful installation, your main FRUA folder should include (more or less):
CKIT.EXE
INSTALL.EXE
ISETUP.INI
README.BAT
SOUND.EXE
START.BAT
START.DAT
UAHELP.TXT
UASHELL.BAT
-----and also these folders>
ART
DEFAULT.DSN
DISK1
DISK2
DISK3
DOCS
DOWNLOAD
HEIRS.DSN
PROGRAMS
TEMP
TUTORIAL.DSN
WORKING 

I know this can be very frustrating, OutoftheBlue, but I really hope you won't give up.  It's well worth it to get to the other side and be able to enjoy the many hacked mods our community has produced.  And we're always here to help, even if it may take a little while for someone with the answer you seek to visit and see your question...