KoLmafia Guide: Basics (Relay Browser)

We are going to play using KoLmafia in the easiest manner possible. Here is a shot of the main frame where you will click one button and then minimize:

1. On the Mafia Frame, click the RELAY BROWSER icon. It is second one over from the top left and looks like a little treasure map with an X marks the spot. Or, under the Main MenuBar click 'General', then click 'Relay Browser'.
   1. This opens your default browser to KoL and looks just like what you are used to when you login to KoL.
   2. It might use the wrong browser by default. For example, Internet Exploder instead of Firefox or Chrome that you might prefer. If this happens, do this:
      • Click General from the top menubar.
      • Click Preferences
      • Click the Browser Tab.
      • In the Browser textbar, click the [...] button to browse and find the executable for the desired browser. Alternatively, you can try typing in the name of the browser and KoLmafia will attempt to find it for you.
2. Do you have any greasemonkey scripts? You can still use many of them in this relay browser. I don't really recommend using any invasive ones since we are trying to migrate away from them and focus on Mafia for the time being. Go ahead and disable all Greasemonkey scripts for now. Just keep in mind that you can still use them if you want functionality that Mafia cannot easily duplicate. For example, there is a Greasemonkey script that tries to calculate your total meat value that I still use. A Raid Manager is also a great one once you start doing Clan Dungeons which parses your clan dungeon logs. There is no equivalent in mafia at the time being.
3. Completely ignore the Mafia Frame or minimize it. Play like normal for a while (at least 20 turns), using the Relay Browser. It is practically identical to standard play. Try to play in a zone with some non-combat choice encounters.

Seeing KoLmafia in Action:

While using the Relay Browser, you will start noticing some cool stuff that it does automatically to help you out. Here is a short list of stuff to note/try:

1. If you encountered a non-combat adventure with choices, you will see the first Mafia bonus. Mafia gives you a short description of exactly what happens when you select that particular choice. This is super cool and really lowers the Wikipedia usage or guesswork, especially if you are a new player!

   

2. When you fight a foe, it gives you a quick display about that monster's level, estimated hit points, item drops and percentages, meat drop rate, and so forth. This is really helpful information and is much easier than looking up stuff in the Wiki, or playing blind.

   

3. There is a hidden counter that gives you a semi-rare encounter periodically. It is normally tracked by eating a fortune cookie or two, then logic-ing out what the magic number is. Then keeping track of how many turns are left until the encounter. If you have no idea what I am talking about, look up semi-rare at the KoL Wiki.
   • With Mafia, when you eat a Fortune Cookie, it notes the 3 numbers given. It knows which numbers are out of bounds, based on your Ascention Path (Oxycore, Standard, BadMoon, etc) and can sometimes determine the Semi-Rare countdown number based on one cookie. In any case, all valid numbers are added to your buff entries as 'Fortune Cookie(XXX)' counters.

     

   • Eating a second cookie will get rid of ambiguity if there are multiple valid Fortune Cookie counters.
   • The counter counts down as you adventure. When it is gone and you try to adventure, it will stop you. It reminds you that the counter is up and what your last semi-rare was (so you don't try to do the same one again, which negates it).
   • After the semi-rare, two buffs appear which are a minimum and maximum cookie counter. This makes it a lot more likely that Mafia can figure out the right counter number with only one cookie.

     

4. Your Last Adventure link now has a history which shows your last five adventure locations. Any of them are clickable. This is very convenient, especially when you make short-term detours such as doing a semi-rare and then have to find your adventure location again.
5. If you use Action Bars (an interface choice in your KoL Account Preferences), you might notice a "Script" button at the top-left when in a fight. We will learn how to use that later in the tutorial to automatically perform a series of combat actions.

   

6. If you use the standard text-based stuff in a fight, you will see additional hotkey-able clickable buttons along the top with certain actions. Normally to use a combat skill, you have to select your combat skill to use from a drop-down. Mafia makes appropriate buttons for you to save time. It will always have buttons for noodles and olfaction if you know those skills. There's a button to jiggle your chefstaff if you have one equipped. It also adds a script button which will be discussed later. Other buttons are the last several skills you have used.

   

7. You will notice that Mafia helps you out some with quests. For example, it auto-fills in answers to certain puzzles, remembers which Dungeon of Doom potions do what, and misc other stuff.
8. If you click the underlined number under an effect, KoLmafia will use an appropriate item or spell to remove it.
9. You might even notice that Mafia does some stuff automatically whether you like it or not! For example, if you get beaten-up, Mafia might use an item to remove that condition automatically. This can be a source of irritation, but we will learn to handle it by setting our preferences appropriately in a later lesson.

BOTTOM LINE: You can play KoL just like normal and get a lot of handy bonus information very easily.

Continue to Lesson 2: Java Interface