I’d like to know whether a unit’s AOE is visible or not. Are there any properties that would tell me this?
I hope my question makes sense. I’m picking up Vassal slowly.
Sorry, but the area of effect has no associated properties. Afraid its just toggle on, toggle off.
You can use a property for the range though. Said property being calculated using a CP, DP or probably even a GP. (calculated, dynamic, global property).
I am just coding up a change for this to both add a property and add a On/Off keys. It is inconsistent that the AoE doesn’t have this.
It will be a 3.7 feature though.
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Good for you Brent, well done indeed (in anticipation).
Can that be extended a bit so who sees an area of effect can operate similar to the movement trail. That is, seen by all players or only the ‘activating’ player. That and the view by one or all can be overridden by a command.
I’ll try to explain this.
When using the AoE to determine ‘what ifs’, where can this unit get to, etc, a player would normally like for their opponent(s) to not see the AoE. Not a good idea show what you are thinking for the game being played.
Then there are the occasions that the AoE need to be seen by all. With my World in Flames modules, there a house rule that Fighters flying CAP can stay on the hex they flew to until used in combat or game turn end. The CAP FTRs can also cover a certain range of hexes, not just the hex they are above. This range being equal to (FTR full hex range - hexes moved from start hex to CAP hex) divided by 2 and the rounded down (Math.floor). I have set up the traits and math so that this range is displayed. ATM as AoE is always seen by every player no problems. This needs to continue for this house rule.
Probably not making sense here, but I hope there’s sufficient to carry on.
Excellent to hear, Brent. That will make things much easier.
Would it be sufficient that a particular AoE be limited to being configured for either local (current client only) or global (broadcast to all clients) operation?
If you wanted to be able to have both on the same unit, you would need to add 2 AoE’s and manually (or by trigger) engage either the local or the global one.
Having the local/global operations separated like this would be vastly easier to implement and avoid the issues of additional keys needed to swap between local and global.
Brent, Just a nice to have. I’ve use trigger traits to control what occurs ATM, and the last action is to turn AoE effect off (when the CAP mission is complete).
Having an AoE property, like aoe_Active (true/false) would make some things simpler, as it can become problematical when the activating hot key is merely a toggle. Being able to add a condition for the current state of the AoE really helps.
I have built a test version that implements the local/global visibility as a preset setting. It cannot be changed on a particular AoE trait. Do you see this as a problem? If you want to make an AoE toggle between global and local visibility, you would need 2 of them and turn one off and the other on.
The test version is VASSAL-3.6.8-SNAPSHOT-4f5b932-11523-AreaOfEffect at Builds of vassalengine/vassal .
Looking good Brent. Possible as a user preference in lieu of module developer for all or only player to see an AoE? Like that ability to use different commands to turn on/off also. I can the value/worth of that. For my modules I’ll have to leave that as ‘visible to all players’ as the CAP ‘function’ AoE visibility is important to the other side as well.
PS Also used the Open all pieces version. Absolutely great. Not only way quicker getting those game pieces opened, but also great for the reduced RSI risk.