Alter Aeon FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

FAQ 22.2 - What is a "plane change" on rack check? How do I avoid them?

On rack check, you may see an entry like the following:

Room  70896: (plane change from -736 to -1258).

You don't want this. This is bad.

The universe of Alter Aeon is divided up into planes, where each plane can
have a bunch of rooms in it. Plane 0 is the prime material plane, where you
can find the mainland, the newbie islands and other known continents.
Distances on the prime material plane can be walked, teleported, sailed
or otherwise traversed without interruption.

The positive planes, from 1 on up, are things like the outer planar fire
world,  the plane of elemental water and so forth.  Positive planes have
to be set by hand using worldbuilder commands. These represent real
locations that are distinct and very distant from the prime material plane.

Negative planes are when the game can't figure out what plane a room belongs
on. Normally the game figures out where rooms belong by running the mapper.
The mapper spreads outward from anchor rooms, and every room that it can
find on exits gets mapped to plane zero.  The rooms that are left over are
basically disconnected from the world, which means players can't walk to them.
Each block is assigned a plane with a negative number, which generates error
messages that they should be fixed.

If you want to build a room that is only accessible through a portal or
a special effect such an interactive or a dproc, please build it normally
first using the 'rlink' command. You can then seal it off behind an
unopenable, unfindable door. To set up such a door, dcreate a new door,
then type 'dset barrier' and the game will automatically set all the
necessary flags. Then place the door where you need it.

If you want a portal leading to a different plane, you should contact
Dentin or a world builder about setting up a separate rack on that plane.