Bug: Unused Map/Deck and duplicate hotkeys

I’m dealing with a module that has two alternative map boards and predefined scenarios, some with one map and some with another. Each map has a deck of cards on it, populated with cards for that map. The decks are both set to reshuffle on the same hotkey.

The hotkey executed on one map, also fires on the other, supposedly not present, map. So a reshuffle using the hotkey results to two Send to Deck messages.

It has dawned on me that a map that was excluded when the predefined scenario was created is still very much active within the Map Window, albeit hidden. By active, I mean it is receiving and responding to hotkeys, at least the Send to Deck hotkey, but I’d assume others too. Also the hidden deck’s numPieces property returns the number of pieces in that deck even though the map it sits on has been logically deleted during game setup and so I’d expect that property to be null.

Is there some valid point for this unintuitive behaviour or can this case of a zombie map be considered a bug ?

Perhaps it is less contentious to call out as a bug that Send to Deck triggers its message even when the deck that was “sent” is empty, so in fact nothing is sent. If a message was sent only when cards were actually sent, that would solve the immediate issue for me.

Hi Mark,

I have tried to reproduce the issues you describe in a simple module without success.

Do the issues persist if you recreate the setups?

It is very difficult to answer without knowing exactly which component is generating this extra ‘Send to Deck’ message or seeing the module and the save.

Regards.

Thanks Brent, I will experiment with the setups and get back with more information. Already, I can see that there is a difference between setups in the module (C&C Ancients) - one group shows the behaviour I expected, the other (the “Epic” set) shows the “zombie board” effect.

I’m confused. What does a “return to deck” report message have to do with reshuffling a deck?

It appears that you expect a deck belonging to an unused board to be deleted? I would not expect that, and in fact, the behavior you described is what I would expect to happen. The deck still exists, and I would expect the same for at-start stacks attached to the unused board.

Also, I would never think to implement this as you did. For me, I’d have two off-board decks, and during setup, I would send the cards from the appropriate deck to a single “active” deck, which would be empty to start. That way, all commands (return-to, reshuffle, etc) would be to that single active deck.

In one vmod I made (Race Formula 90), I had 20 different boards (tracks), and each track had its own custom track deck. In that case, I saved all 20 decks in separate deck files, and during the scenario build, I would load that track’s deck file into a single empty track deck.

Reshuffling is not a Vassal term of course. What I am referring to is this section of the Deck configuration panel. When the deck is sent, the specified report gets issued.

I haven’t found the intended behaviour defined anywhere, so understanding that is part of the purpose of my post. Whilst I see your point, if the matter is open for debate, at the moment I incline to the opposite view. We aren’t talking about fixed maps here (private windows etc) but about maps that have been specifically excluded when the game was set up.

As it happens, I didn’t create this module. I am just trying to do some enhancements. I would probably do the same as you; certainly now that I’ve seen this issue. In any case, the layout of the two deck boards differs between the two setups and, at the time the module was written, I am not sure that the hotkey would have been passed to the other map.

There are 100s of scenarios. The wider issue for me is that properties of decks are cast in stone in game save files. Some way to maintain deck settings would help. Ideally, I would like deck settings to be determined always by the module, just as map settings are.