Good morning all. I will try not to mess up this, but I have an issue.
I play ASL. With some of the games units will take damage and this needs to be reflected to a new game. New map board the whole shoot’in match. I spotted a note about using counter tray .exe. This SOUNDS like just what I need.
I tried to look into this but SWIFTLY got lost!
I did some “programing” LONG time ago! Hard wire, binary, hexadecimal, basic and a bit of Pascal. But that is about it. Also it’s been some 25 years since I did any of that. Still dabbling in hardwire.
So PLEASE tell me if I should go away and not bother you anymore. You won’t hurt my feelings!
Is there an English translation (easy) way to add one of these trays to a module?
Do you mean that you play some sort of campaign where units state (e.g., damage, experience) from scenario to scenario?
Vassal - off hand - has no facility for this. It would require you loading some file which will modify the state of pieces. E.g., US squad 5 has gained experience in scenario A, and has achieved a +1 morale rating. At the end of scenario A, this information is saved to some file. At the start of scenario B, the US player loads the file previously saved, and the morale rating of the US squad 5, is increased by 1.
In principle, this could be achieved by loading some sort .vlog file, but since .vlog files saves a lot, it would interfere with the definitions of scenario B.
Best option is probably for modules to allow modifications of piece states in some sort of set-up phase.
Uh!? Not sure what you mean.
Do you mean some third-party app called countertray or similar? Do you have a reference?
English translation of what exactly? Do you have a reference?
[/quote]
Yes, That is exactly correct. It is an attempt to add operational capability to ASL. Where larger formations square off and then go down to squad level, Survivors ( diminished/damaged units ) move to someplace else to fight on, but as weakened ASL units. These things need to be tracked from scenario to scenario.
This is what I think I have found and it sort of looks right for what I want to do. Unfortunately right off the bat when I put it in my extension folder (where other extensions are and seem to work). Don’t know if I need to put some counter “in” it to prime it or what? I searched the preferences and found no references to how to activate this.
The English translation part? Like I said I’m not real savvy with higher level computer talk. I get lost with VMDX Vs .com. I used to build the chips not program them.
Thanks again for ANY help you might wish to offer.
Activating extensions is covered in the VASSAL User’s Guide, which is available right from the Help menu in the module library view. It amounts to right-clicking on the module and choosing “Add Extension”, then navigating to the extension file (.vmdx) you downloaded. That will both copy the extension file into the right place and update the module’s preferences to be aware of it.
Was this message AI generated? The style and tone is very different from the last one.
For VASL related issues, you may want to check https://vassal.info. For example, VASL has it’s own way of handling extensions.
I presume you are talking about the extensions tray.vmdx
When you start the VASL module, you should see the message
Extension tray v0.0 loaded
in the chat.
The tray extension seems to merely give you a window where you can place pieces. It does not - on its own - store any kind of state or the like, so probably not what you are after.
.vmdx files are Vassal module extensions. These augment an existing module (a .vmod file) with new elements, such as units, maps, boards, etc.
.com files are an older MS-DOS way of naming small utility programs - e.g., cmd.com, the DOS command line.
These two types of files have nothing to do with each other.
Check the chat log for messages. Note, the extensions should reside in the sub-directory extensions under the directory where you keep VASL module (e.g., vasl-6.7.0.vmod).
The tray map allows you to save the tray as an image (a PNG to be exact). When you press the camera icon, you will be prompted for a file name and a location where to save the image.
Note that the image is not really useful as it is not directly readable by Vassal. Rather, you can use it to recreate the state of units by hand. You could achieve the same thing by noting down the states in some auxiliary document of your choosing.