I see a lot of requests for plug-ins, and to be honest, ElTank covers a lot of them. Different people have different needs, and may have tried ElTank and not liked it because it didnt perform a certain task or something happened that left a bad taste in their mouth about it, but I am going to toss out some of the features on it that I have had to explain to people in-game when they have told me the ever repeating statement "Man, I wish I had a plug-in that ........"

-Buff-bot plug-ins

Buff-bot mode on Tank is very user friendly. It is very easy to setup as well as use. If you dont like the configurations that come default with it, you can add in others with a simple check-the-box type interface. One we have added in on our mansion buff-bots is the simple one spell Strength for mules. The only snag we ran into with setting it up was the person running it wasnt aware that the Mode list scrolled down, which is where the Buff-Bot mode was.


-Ust plug-in

It may not be perfect, but the Ust portion of ElTrack works pretty dang good. The only two snags I have run into it is: if I find something I want to keep that isnt covered by a rule set in my loot profiles, it will get salvaged, even if I move it to a side pack before allowing tank to ust; sometimes it will start making a new bag of salvage before completing an old one.

The first problem was an easy one to fix. I just carry a few bags of Leather with me now and if I find something I want to keep that is made of a material I hunt, such as Steel, I just toss Leather on it and throw it in a side pack. Then I no longer have to worry if Tank is going to check for an inscription, or reach into another pack in its overzealous attempt to fill salvage bags.

The second problem just requires a little vigilance on my part to manually combine the same workmanship bags. No biggie.


-Navigation plug-in

If you spend a couple minutes and do all your recalls and set all your coordinates into ElNav, you will find it to be very helpful in your travels. If the place you are heading to is a place you go to more than once, toss it in your Favorites tab. From there, you can use the Relative coordinates function to find out how far in which direction your destination is.


-Quest timer plug-in

Although it doesnt have the timer for the Eater Jaws in it yet, it does contain the timers for all the pincers and tusks and such. I am sure if someone tossed the information on a timer it is missing to Elgarl, he would probably add it in to a future release. He is cool like that. The only issue I have had with it is that it was off by about 2 minutes on my Bobo timer. I think I can live with that.


-Chat window filter

Tank gives the easy option of filtering all sorts of stuff, and reapplying it with a simple box check. No, it wont filter people swearing, as that is a much larger undertaking for a multi use plug-in to handle, but when you are fighting a large mob of olthoi, it is nice to be able to just turn off the melee evade messages so you can read your favorite chat channel while mindlessly killing.


-Loot finder

Although highly limited, Tank does a good job of covering the basics on finding loot. So you have to spend a couple extra minutes to physically ID the loot it picked up because you had to use a very broad setting, such as Sword, Workmanship 6 or less, 400 Wield. If you know the basic stats of the item you are looking for, you can sort through it all when you are done hunting and either drop or sell off the rest of it.


While it is true that Tank will hiccup every now and again, for everything it does, that is minor. I have found that most times, all I have to do is log off, restart decal, then restart the game, and it works like a champ again. If it is something more serious, nine times out of ten it is because something isnt setup right. That tenth time is when you head to Elgarl's forums and tell him about the bug. He is good about trying to help people troubleshoot, as well as other members of his forums.


My only plug-in wishes that I would like to see added to it is a Cook/Alch/Fletch mule, a Trade Bot, and a inventory sorting function. I wouldnt need to run any other plug-in then.


Feel free to flame me or add any info I might have overlooked. And have a great day!

I use ElTank because it is the swiss army knife of plugins. Learn it once, and it does just about everything you need.


There are better (ie faster) Tanks, but none have the versatility.

I like Tank as well. Easy to use and setup.


As for items not in the Quest log, you can add them yourself Just edit the data.xml file in Notepad. Heres one I added: <quest name="Insatiable Eater Jaw" type="d" time="21" trigger=''/>


I have found that some quests I have to manually trigger them to start, no biggie.


DtB

 

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quoting David_the_Bear As for items not in the Quest log, you can add them yourself Just edit the data.xml file in Notepad. Heres one I added: <quest name="Insatiable Eater Jaw" type="d" time="21" trigger=''/>

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That is exactly what I did for the eaters. With a slight problem of spelling not withstanding, it works great!

Bears Rule


Just not at spelling, ROFL


DtB

 

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I myself don't care much for how Tank works as a buff-bot, and this isn't a biased opinion. Unless changes have been made I really disliked as a customer how El Tank handles customer requests, especially for multiple customers.

 

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I've been using the ElTank buff bot since it came out for ToD (and AC Tools before that) and it works just fine. I used to use Castaway, but now that I am used to ElTank (or more to the point, now that my guild is) I see no need to go back. It buffs armor, weapons, just about every profile I could want.


I provide it free to my guild, like 99.999% of the guild do, and keep it at my Mansion, like most guilds do, so I don't need to worry about a pricing system (IMO, the days of making money off a buff bot are LONG GONE) and haven't really tried any others.


The best think I can say about ElTank .... I just plain works.

ElTank is a versatile plugin indeed, with great features,

I am surprised that Elgar managed to get it running this fast

and other plugin devs need so much more time to even make a

plugin for a single feature. (But who knows, other devs might

have much less time than Elgar does.)


The one and only reason I do not use ElTank and never will is the combat macro feature.

I am not going into a macro discussion here, just pointing out that even people who

choose not to use tank, still can appreciate some it's features and the skill of it's developer.

"other plugin devs" have left the building!!!

Tank is my best friend...


All my chars use it to buff!


My mages leaves it on buff only mode helps by donig the stam to manna and heals for you.


Mt tinker/buff bot can now tinerk things forht cnal when I'm not online!


People are still amazed when I tell them how to get to places so quicky. (they think I knwo it all)


Plus I only need to DL and maintain one plugin Tank.


Kudos for makign such a great plugin.... now if I can just get an inventory export from it i would be set.