Nauticus
Tracks the precise arrival & departure schedules of boats and Zeppelins around Azeroth and displays them on the Mini-Map and World Map in real-time.
For better accuracy, get your friends and guild mates to install Nauticus as well.
Official Homepage: drool.me.uk/naut
Click here to report an issue or request a new feature
(Please do not post in the comments section to report bugs)
Before posting a comment...
Please read the entire addon description below - especially the Frequently Asked Questions section! You can also comment on the WowAce.com page.
What is Nauticus?
Nauticus tracks the precise arrival & departure schedules of boats and Zeppelins around Azeroth and displays them on the Mini-Map and World Map in real-time.
Look up arrival & departure schedules for any transport and know exactly when you need to be there. Less time waiting on platforms, more time at the AH or mailbox, less duelling rogues or shamies who want you to take a seat while they crit you... 'for fun'...
To track a transport requires that you, or someone else running the addon, has taken the route sometime earlier. Nauticus uses hidden addon-to-addon communications to synchronise and share up-to-date schedules between players automatically.
Important: This addon works best the more players on your realm also using the addon. So get your friends and guild mates to install Nauticus - the more the merrier! Even if you don't use transports because you're only ever in Outland, you can help store and transmit up-to-date data to everyone that needs it. Nauticus performs well in the background and you can disable the map icons for zero interference.
Main Features
- Plots all (16) Horde, Alliance and neutral transports on the World Map in real time
- Displays the most relevant transports on the Mini-Map, based on your current zone
- Map icons rotate to show their actual direction at any point in time
- Shows arrival or departure schedule for each platform when you mouse-over any map icon
- Discovers schedule by travelling a route in either direction
- Calculates future schedules, based on precisely measured round-trip cycles
- Automatically share schedules with other users of the addon on your realm
- Differential delayed updates keep communication bandwidth low even with many users (O(1))
- Ranks quality of data based on number of reboots and swaps, always picking the best
- Remember schedule data even after computer reboot (see FAQ for caveat)
- Select any transport for viewing in any LibDataBroker (LDB) display addon.†
- Shows the next arrival or departure event in the button text.
- Button icon changes colour to indicate status (yellow = docked, red = about to depart, green = in transit)
- Auto-selects nearest transport when standing at a platform (optional)
- Alt-click button to manually set audio alarm to warn you before next departure
- Less spam: Filter ship crew talk and Zeppelin Master yells from your chat window (optional)
† If you're new to Broker plugins, they're a bit like FuBar plugins but displayed how you want. Try StatBlockCore, Button Bin or Fortress for display addons and see here for more plugins. Titan has LDB support built-in. FuBar requires the lightweight bridge addon Broker2FuBar (not to be confused with FuBar2Broker, which does the opposite).
Usage
Find out the status of a transport via World Map/Mini-Map or via an LDB button display.
For options, type /nauticus or /naut in the command line.
To Do
- Auto pop-up tooltip and/or sound arrival/departure alarm (i.e. Zeppelin horn or boats bell) when at platform
Note: Nauticus is always in continual development. You should try to keep your version up-to-date, not least because the addon interacts with other users and they rely on good quality data from you. You'll be notified upon login when there's a new version available, after other users are seen using a later version. For this reason, please DON'T redistribute or include in a compilation pack!
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. I just installed Nauticus, why don't I see any schedules?
A player with the addon needs to travel on the boat/Zeppelin/turtle before the schedules come up. This could be you or someone else who may have taken the transport earlier. The most recent schedules are synchronised between other players running the addon, so after a short while the data will most likely be available to you before you take any transport. Get as many of your friends and guild mates to install Nauticus - the more the merrier.
Q. How does Nauticus get the schedules?
There are no Blizzard-provided API methods to directly determine the transport schedule. Thus we do it indirectly by getting player coords and comparing them to a known set of coords along the route. When the player 'triggers' these coords, we know the cycle and can subsequently work out future schedules at any point in time.
Q. How accurate is it?
Round-trip cycles have been calculated to one microsecond (six decimal places) over a 1-2 week period. This is significantly better resolution than provided by the API, which only measures in milliseconds (three decimal places). Baring slight adjustments in Blizzard's clocks etc., 99.9% of the time there should be no observable drift of more than a second or two.
Q. Why are some of my schedules wrong?
Rarely, schedules can become corrupted due to changes in your computer's system clock that may occur between WoW sessions/reboots. This can also be caused by dodgy CMOS batteries and some over-clocked systems. Otherwise, Nauticus can normally keep track of schedules between reboots. Additionally, while realm servers appear to keep very precise clocks for running the transports and to generate their positions, from time to time they may re-synchronise these clocks, sending the data slightly out of wack. Nauticus should quickly fix the schedules, as it will gather more recent and better quality data from other users or from your own travels.
Q. Doesn't weekly maintenance ruin the schedules?
It doesn't! We can only assume how Blizzard calculates transport schedules and their positions but it's probably based on the realm server's system clock, which is likely synchronised with a centralised ntp time server at each data centre. You can verify this by visiting another realm (at least, in the same geographical location - e.g. EU, US Eastern) to observe exactly the same schedules. This is another way to obtain accurate schedule data - from other realms. If there is one, an epoch is presently unknown - if any maths wiz can manage to reverse engineer it (simultaneous equations?), do let me know!
Q. Why does Nauticus have to use a chat channel?
Blizzard's SendAddonMessage() API is effectively limited to guild and raid addon communication, which is insufficient to get data spread furtherest across your realm. For maximum availability and accuracy of schedules, we need to use a chat channel. You shouldn't be concerned if you have the channel slot spare - we're extra careful not to mess up channel numbers.
Q. Where did the GUI disappear to?
The red window was removed in favour of map icons with tooltips. It became difficulty to maintain the rather clunky code necessary to provide this functionality and consumed more resources than desirable. Plus it didn't cater for other languages very well due to its fixed size. Native FuBar support was removed in favour of LibDataBroker (Broker/LDB) displays. Broker allows ''you'' to choose your method of displaying plugins. The lightweight bridge addon Broker2FuBar returns the old FuBar functionality, as well as allowing you to put it as a Mini-Map button (even if you don't use FuBar).
Q. Can you add the Deeprun Tram?
Unfortunately no, since it's treated as an instance and we can't properly track player coords within instances.
Nauticus is a complete rewrite of ZeppelinMaster which was originally conceived by Sammysnake. He runs a DKP hosting service online @ dkphost.net.
Comments
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Forge_User_65007114 Owner
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Posted Apr 10, 2007I tried setting Nauticus to "Show GUI when zone change contains a transport". The window was minimized, and I walked out of Ogrimmar into Durator and it did automatically open, but the window was offset to the right of where I have the window placed. This causes the window to be partially off the screen for me. The options and minimize/maximize buttons did not move. Clicking the minimize/maximize button at this point did bumped the window to it's correct placement. Clicking minimize/maximize button again in the Duotar zone minimized the window. I tried this a couple of times with the same result. I'm guessing that you did not intend for this the window to be shifted from it's set placement like this, or is this working as intended?
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Posted Apr 14, 2007Thanks for the report, it's definately not intended - I was kinda aware of something funky going on. Basically I have to shift the window at some point because frame positions between sessions are saved using the top left corner. This top left corner changes depending on whether the window is minimised or not (as it snaps to the top-right corner).
I'll look into a fix after I get my head around some hefty code changes which I made very shortly after the last release (but just haven't had the time to finish them off since, until now maybe...).
The plan right now is to revamp the sync code and then work on a brand new UI - integrated into the main map and minimap, maybe a minimap button as well for mouse hover info - and do away with the main UI window and Titan/FuBar bars (simply because we'll be able to view all transport times at the same time).
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Posted Feb 12, 2007Yup, already caught. Will be fixed in next release.
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Posted Feb 4, 2007Backward-compatibility would be good. On our server there were some people who used ZM. But no one uses Nauticus except me because they don't get informed that a new version is available.
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Posted Feb 4, 2007No point in backwards compatibility. I'm not putting effort into supporting the older ZM since there's no reason for people to not upgrade to the newer, better versions...
Trust me, getting people to upgrade - even if the addon informed them of a new version - is near impossible. On my server, there are a mix of players in the 'ZeppelinMaster' channel using versions between v1.90 and v1.93. The pre-v1.93 people should get notified there's a newer version, but do they upgrade? Nope. You can't force people to upgrade you just can't.
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Posted Jan 29, 2007no data available for any zep or boat on my french client...
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Posted Jan 29, 2007From the notes: "To track a transport requires that you (or someone else running this addon on the same server as you) have taken the route sometime earlier that day". Do a /chatinfo NauticSync to see who's in the channel. Or try to take one of the transports.
Quite normal if you've just installed it, or until your server goes through maintenance.
Incidentally, if you or anyone would like to do a French localisation, please do let me know.
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Posted Jan 20, 2007The latest version (v2.0 - now known as Nauticus) includes Feathermoon and more accurate timers. Please read the notes above and the changelog. ;)
Being able to display one transport at a time is a design limitation of the UI. In future, you'll be able to see all the transports on the world map and all those for the current zone on the mini map.
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Posted Jan 20, 2007A couple of comments...
The boat at Feathermoon is not listed. This one is a definite must, because if you miss it it is faster to swim.
I am not sure if it was just my use of the mod, but standing at menethil I would like to be able to see when both boats leave, rather than having to cycle through them one at a time.
My times were at least a minute out, but I am not sure if anyone else uses the mod. I am going to update to the latest version and see if this is the same.
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Posted Jan 19, 2007Absolutely nothing has changed in Nauticus to make it use so much memory. Mostly it was just a name+data change, so I suggest there's something wrong with your system...
Have you uninstalled ZeppelinMaster folders? Are you using the included MapLibrary dependency? Get an addon like tekSupport and see which addon is using your memory. It's not Nauticus.
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Posted Jan 18, 2007Mojor Issue: this was a problem with the older version of zep also.... when addon is active HUGE MEMORY USAGE i run about 280 addons and my usage is about 2-5k/s as soon as i have naught running 50k/s, the last version of zepplin master i did not expierence this huge lag so it must of been something u added in or removed recently
looking forward to a fix :)
SkOO~
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Posted Jan 18, 2007Well I plan to fine tune the timings even further to drift no more than 500ms over several hours (excusing various forms of unavoidable server lag - which I guess must happen from time to time - then again, all servers' transports appear to be synchronised perfectly, so maybe it's using a single centralised server?).
One obstacle however, is my PC's hardware clock - because I'm overclocking, it races ahead about 12 seconds in every hour. :)
But the main problem atm is the sync protocol...
As data is broadcast in the sync channel, the latency between each game client adds to the inaccuracy (especially if you're standing around in Org/IF during a busy evening, where you can often noticed your own chat lag take numerous seconds to come through).
Blizzard's API doesn't give a good enough latency reading (I believe it's averaged over about a minute, so it's pretty crap). Thus I gonna have to find my own way to get the current latency so as to adjust the timestamps pre-broadcast and again when receiving. I'm thinking maybe pinging oneself every-so-often with a hidden whisper can do it but the implementation will be tricky. zug zug...
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Posted Jan 18, 2007Thanks for the update ^_^ It seems to be working fine.. I noticed that it seems more accurate then befor.
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Posted Jan 16, 2007ZeppelinMaster has changed name ... to Nauticus! Please remember to delete your old ZM folders before extracting. Read notes above.
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Posted Jan 9, 2007Yes some routes will drift a bit out over time but I intend to re-calibrate everything in time for a TBC release...
To find out who's on your sync channel, do /chatinfo ZeppelinMaster. Though, remember not everyone in it will have a working up-to-date version (some ppl just didn't get around to updating after the last patch).
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Posted Jan 9, 20071st, great work on this. Nice idea and a good departure from the millions of run-of-the-mill mods. That out of the way, I am on the Duskwood server and I have noticed that 50% of the time the info is off. Aub
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Posted Jan 7, 2007If you're referring to actual times as opposed to what ZM reports, all platform dockings are exactly 60 seconds - including BB and Ratchet. I know this coz I've been developing a very precise method to re-calibrate each transport. No stopwatches involved. :)
At the moment, ZM shows departure times as high as 70 secs or so - some of that overlaps the moment before it arrives and just after however, so the round-trip times are still roughly accurate. But when I finish the new re-calibrations of all the transports (in time for TBC), the platform dockings will show exactly 60s at the very moment it stops, plus the round-trip times should be very precise indeed.
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Posted Jan 7, 2007I noticed that where most boats wait exactly 60 seconds at port, the one in BB / Ratchet waits 63 seconds.
Wierd
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Posted Jan 6, 2007Where has this addon been all my life!!
I started writing one for myself and figured I should check....glad to find it, and VERY nice work.
- FRRjak (author of UberBanish)
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Posted Jan 3, 2007ZeppelinMaster will already notify those using older versions when they sync data with any newer version.
Something I have noticed though, when developing this addon. There is the situation that, for example with the last patch, older versions totally broke and people of course won't get that notification via the addon. I've seen many people join the ZeppelinMaster channel and not send any sync data at all...
So yea, it's a good idea actually. Generally people are lazy updating their addons. :)
A cmd to ping the sync channel and list or even auto whisper unresponsive clients would be useful. Especially with TBC on the way (ZM works fine on the beta btw but it may need some very minor fix and/or .toc update after release day).
There'll be new transports added and hopefully a full re-calibration of all the existing ones, the times should be far more accurate...