How are Mercs turned ON?
 

Has anyone tried turning on Mercs recently? I found the mercs.sql script and ran it, then went in the rule_values table and turned them on. Reset the server afterward. Mercs still are not activating. All the usual merc liasons say is something about keeping the area clean...

Is there a specific set of scripts or specific set of optional scripts that need to be done in a specific order to get them to work now?

The link in the windows setup guide points to this webpage:
http://wiki.eqemulator.org/p?Enabling_Mercenaries

That basically states to run mercs.sql, then run 2 sql statements, one to turn it on in the rules, and the other to change the npc types, so that they can be hired. What happens is the merc UI comes up, you select the merc, then when you click on the "Hire" button you get a long red set of sql:

[MySQL Error] 1054: Unknown column "m_stats.attack_delay in the 'field list'


There are many patches in the utils/sql/git/required and optional directories. Which of these is necessary to make mercs work now?

thanks,
Riklin (Halls Havoc)

I ran across that issue last night helping someone else..

There are actually 3 queries on that page..did you run the 'class' change one?


Try running this query:
that will set your db version to just before the 'mercs.sql' load..

..and then run eqemu_update.pl manually and select option '3' until all of the updates have taken.


The guy I was helping said he got mercs to work by doing that..but, I don't think he's online just yet, so i haven't gotten any more feedback from him.

Make sure your database is backed up before trying that, too.

There are people on the server right now, but when I get a moment, I'll restart the server and do these updates. If this can be confirmed as a reliable fix, the mercs page needs to get this added to it...

Thanks Uleat...

This doesn't work. The script 2013_03_01_Merc_Rules_and_Equipment.sql fails. From what I can tell it's failing because of a foreign key problem with the table merc_inventory.

There is one other script that won't run also. 2013_02_25_Impr_HT_LT.sql

I'll see if I can figure out what's going on there tomorrow, when I'm not so tired...

This used to work easily, but I suspect a lot of servers don't use mercs, so there aren't many people "testing" it...

That's what I'm concerned about atm..

..mercs are updating without having the initial file sourced...


And, I suspect, that once mercs.sql is sourced in, some of that information is being reverted. (Which is why mercs really need to be fully installed in the peq db distro.)


I'll take a look at those scripts and see if I can figure out what's causing their issues.

Thanks Uleat!

I've bandaided it by removing the foreign key constraint. It works and the nasty red messages do not show up when a merc is hired, but I suspect even though the animation shows them all geared up, I suspect they really have no gear.

For what it's worth, I had issues getting my merc list to populate on the merc vendors. Turns out I just needed to update the Mercs:AllowMercs rule on all rule sets, not just rule set 10 (poknowledge is using pop+ rules, not eqemu_default apparently). I ran this query to update them all:

UPDATE `peq`.`rule_values` SET `rule_value`='true' WHERE `rule_name`='Mercs:AllowMercs';

Be sure to swap out "peq" with your database name first, if different. Hopefully this saves a few gray hairs somewhere.

That rules set value can kiss my sarnak. It has a use but for the average person it is such a headache at first.

That rule_values issue isn't the one that's causing mercs to not work. I had already set them all to true.

delete, I had a compile issue, fixed

Just to reinforce this being a problem. All of my servers, when I upgrading them from January 2015 source, ran into these two scripts failing on the automatic upgrade.