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![]() There are few facts of Palace life more frustrating than the absolute certainty that somehow, some time, you are going to lose all of your props. It will happen. You can get them back.
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Backups
So the props are in the Palace.prp file. We know that. You should make
regular backups of this file. Use the method you like best, but keep a
backup it's by far the easiest and fastest way to get those props
back (Personally, I use Stuffit Deluxe, but you can use any
archive/backup utility).
You should always make a
backup whenever:
/ [ "Thunbd2-1" "Thunbd2-2" ] setpropsand boing! you pal has dressed in your supposedly-lost-forever prop, retrieved from their .prp file! A prop they can now handily give back to you. Of course, this would never have worked if you hadn't had the foresight to (1) make friends and (2) carefully name both halves of the Thunderbird prop "Thunbd2-1" and "Thunbd2-2," Mr. Tracy.
Copy Your Faves to Your Own Server
By running your own local copy of the server, you can drop copies of
all your faves in almost any room and use it as a warehouse. The
server will keep track of any dropped prop, and writes it right into
the mansion.script, (aka "PServer.dat" on some machines) like this:
PROP PROPID 0xAD527B51 CRC 0x76077F6C LOC 76 ,171 ENDPROP
PROP PROPID 0xAD527B32 CRC 0x64B2C1DB LOC 123,124 ENDPROP
PROP PROPID 0xAD827B24 CRC 0xECC755A5 LOC 74 ,124 ENDPROP
PROP PROPID 0xAD328D19 CRC 0xAC13F95B LOC 106,314 ENDPROP
(a handy tool for saving props this way is the botbot "hang" script...)
We don't have to really decode
all these internal ID numbers, but here's an important thing to
remember
you can shut down the server for a minute,
make a tiny backup copy of the mansion.script along with PServer.prp,
restart the server and then go back into the palace and
"clean" the room
you can always restore the mansion.script if
you need to get the props. Now that's a hidden treasure
chamber.... so hidden, the treasure's not even there except when you
call for it.
Further thought will tell you
that since entering such a room ensures that you have seen
all of these props, they will automatically be present in your
Palace.prp file, even without dragging them back into the satchel. So
once you've entered a prop room that contains your missing props, you
should be able to use any scripts or macros that use those props
instantly.
Copy Your Faves to Other Servers
You can do the same thing by dropping props into (possibly hidden)
rooms on other peoples' servers, but you run a couple of risks that way
the
risk that people might either take the props or accidentally clear the
props, and the risk that the remote server's mansion.script or
PServer.prp might be purged without your knowledge. It's a working
solution for some folks, but a riskier one than just using your own
little bank.
The Downside of Prop Names
Scripts that use prop names can be "spoofed." Since many props can
have the same name, there's no guarantee that when you call up a prop
with a generic name like "heart" that you'll really get what you
expected. For this reason, it's always a good idea to name props with
pretty obscure labels, that only you (and your cyborg) know.
Cloners
So what does all this have to do with cloning? It's simple, if you
read the above description of the prop-transmission process. Every
time your client sees a prop, your client has a copy of that prop,
already tucked away in your .prp file. All a "cloner" does is figure
out which of those props to wear. That's every prop every prop
you see is in your local file, and every prop your wear that is seen
by anyone else is now in their local prop file.
This is important to remember
because it means that cloning cannot be stopped by a server
operation. Cloning is a local operation. The cloner isn't
really taking your props, the cloner has already been given the props
the moment he sees you wearing them. The only thing the cloner has
done is identified them and worn them himself.
Of course, this is unethical.
And the "cloner client" found in obscure places on the web and
traded-around by some snert feloows is an illegal hack that will get
you kicked off any site run by Communities.com and can even get the
distributors in a pile of legal trouble. But that's not a technical
issue, so I'll leave it at that.