Routes
v1.6.0
19 July 2018
(Written for Live Servers v8.0.1.27101)
Routes allow you to draw lines on the worldmap linking nodes together into an efficient farming route from existing databases. The route will be shown (by default) on the minimap and zone map as well.
Use /routes to begin.
See spikey star-shaped routes?
You haven't optimized the route yet. Go into the route you created and optimize it. Instructions below.
Quickstart:
Video about configuring this addon.
Download and install:
- Routes
- GatherMate2
- GatherMate2_Data
Start up World of Warcraft and make sure all addons are marked to be loaded (in the addon selection screen).
Importing into GatherMate2:
type: /gathermate2
- Go to 'Import Data' and then to 'GatherMate2Data' (left side)
- If you already have herbs/mines of yourself, select 'Merge' from the 'Import Style' dropdown, otherwise 'Overwrite' is ok.
- Select which sources you want to import (ea: Mining/Herbalism) and tick their respective boxes.
- Hit the 'Import GatherMate2Data' button on the bottom.
Creating your first route:
type: /routes
- Go to 'Add' (left side)
- Type the name of your route (and press 'Okay' or enter)
- Now select the zone you want to create a route in from the 'Select Zone' dropdown.
- Make sure the 'GatherMate2' source has it's checkbox ticked.
- Select which nodes (ea: what type of herbs/mines/fish) should be used to create your route.
- Hit the 'Create Route' button.
- Done! you can now go to the zone and follow the generated 'route' on your minimap.
You can change the color in the 'Line Settings' tab (and also completely hide the route)
Open your worldmap on the zone you just created a route in, and you will see a massive whirling of lines (light-redish).
Changing/Optimizing your route:
type: /routes
- Go to 'Routes' and then the zone you made your route in and finally to the route you created. This has taken you to the 'Information'-tab of this route.
- Click on the 'Optimize Route' tab.
- Hit the 'Cluster' button, this is usually advisable as most zones contain large amounts of nodes. Clustering will group 'nearby' nodes onto 1 point and the default distance is easily viewable on the minimap.
- Hit the 'Foreground' button, this will try an optimization of the length of your route (you can see it being updated after it finishes if you use a map addon like Mapster).
- Keep hitting the 'Foreground' button to try and make the route smaller,
Features:
- Select node-types to build a line upon. The following are supported
- GatherMate2 (Author's preference)
- Gatherer
- HandyNotes
- Optimize your route using the traveling salesmen problem (TSP) ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm
- Background (nonblocking) and foreground (blocking) optimization
- Select color/thickness/transparency/visibility for each route
- For any route created, finding a new node will try to add that as optimal as possible
- Quick clustering algorithm to merge nearby nodes into a single traveling point
- Quickly mark entire areas/regions as "out of bounds" or "taboo" to Routes, meaning your routes will ignore nodes in those areas and avoid cross them
- Fubar plugin available to quickly access your routes
- Cartographer_Waypoints and TomTom support for quickly following a route
- Works with Chinchilla's Expander minimap and SexyMap's HudMap!
- Full in-game help file and FAQ, guiding you step by step on what to do!
Download:
The latest version of Routes is always available on this page... or at:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/routes.aspx
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11401-Routes.html
Contact:
If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, you can contact us on:
- Forum: http:forums.wowace.com/showthread.php?t=10369
- IRC : Grum or Xinhuan on [[irc://irc.freenode.org/wowace|irc://irc.freenode.org/wowace]]
- Email: Grum ( routes AT grum DOT nl ), Xinhuan ( xinhuan AT gmail DOT com )
Paypal donations are welcome ;)
STILL getting spiky, star shaped routes even after I cluster & optimize.
Encountered a bug:
Message: Interface\AddOns\Routes\Routes.lua:63: Usage: EmbedLibrary(addon, libname, silent, offset): 'libname' - Cannot find a library instance of "AceHook-3.0".
Time: Fri Feb 26 05:04:22 2021
Count: 1
Stack: Interface\AddOns\Routes\Routes.lua:63: Usage: EmbedLibrary(addon, libname, silent, offset): 'libname' - Cannot find a library instance of "AceHook-3.0".
[string "=[C]"]: ?
[string "@Interface\AddOns\GatherMate2\Libs\AceAddon-3.0\AceAddon-3.0.lua"]:189: in function `EmbedLibrary'
[string "@Interface\AddOns\GatherMate2\Libs\AceAddon-3.0\AceAddon-3.0.lua"]:171: in function `EmbedLibraries'
[string "@Interface\AddOns\GatherMate2\Libs\AceAddon-3.0\AceAddon-3.0.lua"]:138: in function `NewAddon'
[string "@Interface\AddOns\Routes\Routes.lua"]:63: in main chunk
Locals: (*temporary) = "Usage: EmbedLibrary(addon, libname, silent, offset): 'libname' - Cannot find a library instance of "AceHook-3.0"."
In reply to oggeboyn:
I too had this issue and it was frustrating. Installing: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/ace3 fixed my issue.
In reply to oggeboyn:
I too had this issue and it was frustrating. Installing: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/ace3 fixed my issue.
In reply to oggeboyn:
I too had this issue and it was frustrating. Installing the addon "Ace3" from curse fixed the issue..
EDIT: double post
Anyone else having trouble optimizing routes? I've been using this addon for several expansions, and in Shadowlands, it just won't cluster or optimize.
Is there a way to rename a route?
Is it possible to get a Classic version ?
I found a almost working version for Classic on GitHub, but still many bugs in it.
In reply to SubbyDK:
+1 on that would be great af
is there no way to make ur own custom route without needing herb/ore locations?
i want to draw one from scratch to immitate someone elses...
i could only find editing existing route points, nothing about how to add new ones..
should be basic information on the front page of addon settings IMO
thx
In reply to szien94:
you make a blank route and then edit it to your liking
I have this issue with Routes where when I click an herb node that is not part of my route, it automatically adds it to my route. Is it possible to disable this feature? There are certain zones where I have 2 different routes, for example a Northern route and a Southern route. And when I'm only running one of the two routes, clicking a node, automatically adds that node to the other route I'm not running, which completely screws up the my routes. I can see how this feature is supposed to be helpful but it's only helpful if you run a single route at a time. If you use multiple routes, its screws stuff up.
How can this be fixed?
In reply to Jakobud:
Create a 'taboo'. It's like a route, but will shade in the part of the map that's inside the route. It starts as a triangle, but you can make it as complex as you want. Once you've drawn your taboo and saved it, go to the route you don't want to go into that area, click the taboos tab, and check the premade taboos you want to exclude.
Slight bug on line 363 of Routes.lua. Facing for me was nil. I added line 362 saying "minimap_rotate and facing ~= nil" to fix it.
Clustering "Script ran too long" workaround.
Create a Taboo that covers half the nodes and activate the Taboo on your route.
Cluster the remaining nodes.
Deactivate the Taboo. This should automatically cluster the nodes previously covered by that Taboo.
Tested in Tirasgarde Sound with 1567 nodes.
In reply to Forge_User_65382693:
Another workaround is literally getting the TSP lua algorithm out of wow entirely, so the running time limits the wow engine puts on the script execution are removed.
My port can be found here https://github.com/justinkb/routes-lua
It requires the user to input:
1) the ["route"] array of the route to be clustered from their Routes.lua SavedVariables (set the nodes variable to that data)
2) the zone height and width, which can be queried from within WoW
3) the clustering distance (defaults to 60)
It generates output the user should manually paste back into Routes.lua (in the right spot obviously), overwriting old data if existing (probably only "length" and "route" will already exist)
(It should obviously be run in whatever Lua interpreter you prefer)
In reply to Forge_User_39865531:
I don't guess you'd be able to post a "For Dummies" tutorial for doing this? :D
Is it possible to make a route trough multiple zones?
Specifically i would love to make a felwort route for Legion
In reply to Forge_User_81802037:
I made on that went over the peak between Boralus and Stormsong. Basically, there was one route in each zone, but the line connecting the entrance point to the exit point was outside of the zone bounds at the edge of the map. When you cross the boundary, Routes automatically loads the route from your new zone, making a seamless transition.