Wait Delays

My friend and I have been messing around with wait delays, from 0.1, 0.5 and so on. This came about because we're looking to see how we can make more efficient macros, however, it's not easy to test the minimum wait times you can get away with between actions.

Has anyone played around with this? My friend says you can bring in an equipset and still get the maximum effect for a weaponskill with only a .1 (0.1) wait time. I feel like the general rule of thumb should be to have at least a .5 for anything you do, but if anyone can prove otherwise, it would be sweet to know. Thanks.

So, it appears that this has come up a few times, and I've answered it a few as well. lol

EDIT: To clarify, these posts address what wait value are actually valid and executed by the FFXI macro system. I've not messed with equipsets and required waits for anything to equip.

Sorted by newest first...
In 2018.
In 2015.
In 2014.

EDIT#2. Here's a tidbit from the 2018 post.
Long story short, decimal values in the FFXI macro system waits do not actually wait the specified time. Whole numbers only.

As for testing the required delay after equipping something but before WS'ing. I'd suggest designing a 1 or 0 result test.

To give an example for magic, say, having an equipset equip twilight cloak, or daybreak, and then casting the associated spell. if it allows you to cast at all, then the gear was equipped before the action executed.

You could perhaps make a WS type test by equipping skill+ gear that allows a certain WS to be used. Maybe one of the /sam or /nin WS that you can only get enough skill for from sub with gear?

This way if the WS fires at all, then you know that the gear was equipped before the action executed. Once you have a binary result, you can easily experiment with delays and get a yes/no on the timing.

I generally use a /wait 2 for anything if I'm firing straight from the macro itself. If I'm firing from a script and have a longer command list (my BLU's CV/MG for instance), then I can use a pause 1.5. As far as I know, you can use decimal places with scripts and using pause.

So the past 10 years of my life have been a lie.

Good to know.

i also recall ingame rounds to whole numbers and lua script can handle decimals. to find the shortest delay possible at perfect conditions with lua you'd probably want to look at FFXI's tic rate? i don't know FFXI's tic rate but it feels like something pathatically low like 2 tics/second.

Is this sarcasm because he's wrong? Or admitting you had used decimals and thanking him for the information?


By the way, my friend thinks that decimal places aren't working like it says above. Told him how it could be tested, but he's trying to do it with ranged macros, so it's probably tougher to test in that environment.

PS: I see why now, he was talking specifically about 0.1, which is something you bring up in the 2018 post. Is 0.1 usable? Or is it too short of a wait for the game to recognise a gear change in time for another command? I'm guessing it's asking too much.

PPS: Wow, that's pretty cool how <wait> defaults to <wait 1>. Learning things is sweet. How does <wait 0> work? I see someone talking about it working with Summoner's Blood pacts, but how?

Doing a wait 0 is basically the same thing is not having a wait at all. Doing a wait 0.1 is exactly the same.

There's a native delay in going from one line in a macro to the next. Though it is a very small delay. Call it 0.01~0.02 seconds or so. You do a <wait 0> and you're getting only that default 0.01~ delay. Which you'd get even if there wasn't a wait at all.

To summarize again. Only integer value waits actually wait. All decimal values either don't wait at all, or the decimal is ignore and only the integer value is waited.

Basicaly, wait uses the first number it finds. And as soon as it find something that's not a number it ignores it.

Wait 1 will wait 1 second.
Wait 0 will wait 0. Or rather, not wait at all.
Wait 0.x will wait zero, cause it sees a 0 and doesn't care about the decimal. Doesn't matter what x is.
Wait .x will wait 1, because it found a non-number character after wait and defaulted to 1. I could put <wait derp> there and it would still wait 1 second.

If you want to use any sort of decimal in your waits, you'd have to use a windower script instead. The FFXI macro system does not support them in any way.

As far as vanilla FFXI is concerned, equipsets happen instantly. As such, you don't need any wait at all for them to execute before the next line, including for weaponskills.

However, FFXI has a minimum wait time between using equipsets of 1 second, so you can't do something like Equipset 1 > Weaponskill > Equipset 2 to make it so you're only in Equipset 1 for the instant of the WS, and have to put a /wait of at least 1 between the equipsets. Mixing equipsets and individual slot /equip lines can work without a wait in between, but it has a tendency to be unreliable in high data situations, so be wary.

Thanks guys, you've answered all the questions I could think of related to this subject. One of the biggest things for me personally was if my preshot and midshot sets were coming in properly for my Corsair's ranged attacks, and Geriond's explanation means it is working and puts any doubts I had (which were minimal) to rest.

I can also explain this to my friend, who seemed pretty adamant that SE may have changed something, but I highly doubt that. Cheers.