I have been puzzling over how to reveal an opposing sides invisible piece when it is in a hex next to my own piece, similarly the opposing side should see my piece in their next turn. I have seen that other modules players have produced have a piece trait called “Reduced Vision” that only allows your piece to see into the next hex and therefore all the opposing sides pieces are presumably not visible to the player unless they have a opposing piece next to one of theirs, but it is not available as a trait option for my modules pieces. Is there another way to accomplish “Fog of War”, which is what I require, or do I need to create a new trait, if so, then how???
This is a very tricky situation, and I would very much like to know/see this/these modules you speak of!
One of the main problems of pulling this off is that any piece turned invisible, is off limits from commands sent by any player other than the one controlling the piece. The same goes for pieces using the mask trait.
I’ve actually pulled this off before using the invisible trait, but it was not the most graceful system and only revealed pieces that moved within visible range, not the piece nearby that saw it.
I’ll look into making this work better myself, but in the mean time, being able to see those modules you speak of would be great, and any other input anyone else can give on the matter would be awesome.
Thanks for taking the time to reply Reddeblu, although I was not intending publishing my own module, I was only creating it for local use within my gaming group as a prop to use as a Peninsular Campaign battle generator for 6mm Napoleonic Piquet games. It will only be a very basic map movement module, some counters for “Army Commands” with no specific units, the unit list within an army command will be managed on a excel spreadsheet, and no combats through the module itself. The module to which I have referred to as having a reduced visibilty trait was “1914 TITE (2nd edition modified)”. Your ungraceful system seems to have a limitation, which could possibly be overcome by having a visible range distance of two hexes for both units, with a restriction of movement to one hex distance only, this would allow for the non moving counter, having seen something move into their visibilty range, the option of retreating out of possible visibility range of the other counter or moving to contact in their next turn (which is the point of a battle generator), but the 1st moving unit should see the other unit has moved, either away from but possibly not where to, or into a hex next to it. If you could let me know how you did it, and then update me with the “Better Way” if you find one, I would be extrememly grateful.
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Ahem, sorry for the over bloated type, but I’ve done it! I’ve made a near perfect functioning visibility fog of war!
It does hopefully exactly what you wanted, all without any custom traits. Pieces are “invisible” to opponents, and only “visible” to their controller. Until two opposing pieces come within a set range and “see” each other, then both pieces become “visible”, and return to “invisibility” once they move out of visible range.
For logics sake, this of course works best when every piece is moved one space at a time, and of course when players take turns moving their pieces.
But from my testing and experiments, it functions 100% as you’d expect it to! Huzzah! This is a big personal victory for me, bause I originally made the less graceful way on a module I was making long ago, and this new way blows that thing out of the water!
Anyway, without further a due, attachment below. Also, if you have any questions about it feel free to come back and ask, I’ll be more than happy to help out.
P.S. I looked at that TITE module, interesting module, a bit unstable though, but thanks for sharing it was the first of its kind I’ve ever seen.
P.S.S I just re read your post. This example is just the bare bones basics of a fog of war system, which your free to build off of if you got the experience. Forced single movement can be done in two ways, the hard way, and the slightly cumbersome way (player side). If you don’t mind using right click menus to move, you can use the Move Fixed Distance trait with relative ease. For forced single movement with mouse dragging, it will be quite complicated, although theoretically doable. As long as all players are good mannered, good sported, trustworthy players, none of this should be necessary.
Though this isn’t exactly a full game you intend to publish, I will still be happy to continue helping if you wanted to make it the best battle generator thingy it can be.
Thanks Reddeblu, you are a master of speed, agility and intelligence.
Having had just a quick gander, it does not look too complicated for a novice like me to follow, and once I have edited and tested the module I will write up the results.
I am very grateful for your help.
Neil
P.S I would never game against a player who was not, well mannered, a good sport or trustworthy.
You flatter me too much, I’m not a master of speed nor agility, and there are plenty of others here who are more deserving of intelligence. All I have compared to anyone else is a lot of free time on my hands. 
Besides, this little experiment has given me inspiration for a new module, but I’ll still be happy to help if you encounter any troubles with your thing.
Ok Reddeblu, I have hit a snag, you have only used two counter types, 1 blue aquare, 1 red square. in the game piece prototype definitions, I have created a fog system for each of the 22 pieces to be used (each has its own image you see), which is fine. However, at the bottom of the string is a game piece pallet called “Hidden Pieces”, in it there is a single piece called “Tracker”, under the trait “Mask” you have an image of a blue square, but no “Tracker” with a red square, why is that, does this mean I need a tracker for each of my 22 pieces (each with its own image) or not.
Waiting in anticipation, Neil (novice, but learning quickly)
Yes that is exactly what it means, let me try to explain. The blue square is a tracker piece which must be paired with “each and every single piece that has fog”. The trackers purpose is to let the owner know where his piece is, as the real piece is truly “invisible” to everyone, BUT the real piece follows its assigned tracker, and the tracker follows its assigned piece. The tracker is made to be forever masked for its owner, letting you see your pieces locations at all time, while keeping their location hidden from others.
I’ve made some modifications to better support varied pieces, each piece now needs its own Fog prototype, and its own traits in the new “Tracker Maker” prototype, along with a matching hidden piece.
So now let me explain how this works graphically, the image used in the Fog prototype, for the “Visible” layer is the actual image of your piece. The hidden piece with the mask is the image of your piece while its hidden from others, but only for the owners eyes.
I’ve gone ahead and made four individual colored pieces that should work with the system, and help you modify/add more pieces to it as you want. Please download the new example before continuing reading, unless you feel brave.
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Here’s a quick run down on how to do it:[/size]
Copy a Fog Prototype, and name it Fog (Your Pieces Name), like right now they are Fog Red and so on.
Change the Visible Layer second image in the Fog prototype to the image of your piece.
Make a new Piece and add your new Fog to it, be sure to name the pieces Basic Piece an appropriate name.
Now make a new Hidden Piece for it, hopefully with a similar name to the first piece, these pieces should not be accessed by players. Give it a mask, make sure the “View When Masked” is blank, no image.
Now change the “Display style” to use image, and give it the image you want it to have while it is unseen by the enemy. Make sure the Keyboard Command is Mask.
Then give it the Prototype named Tracker System.
Now go into the Tracker Maker prototype, and add a new Place Marker trait, or copy an existing one.
Change the description of it to Tracker (your piece name), make the Keyboard Command be Make (your piece name), and set the “Keystroke to apply after placement” to Start.
Now add or copy a Trigger Action trait here, and make the description your pieces name.
Put the “Trigger when properties match” to {BasicName==“your piece name”}, It Is Vitally Important That The Name Matches Exactly With The Name Of The Basic Piece trait You Set At The Start Of This.
Now set the “Keyboard Command” as Make Tracker.
Then, in one of the boxes below “Perform these keystrokes” put in Make (your piece name), just as you put it in the Place Marker trait above.
And that should do it, I’m not sure if I missed anything or not, but I think those are all the steps of adding new pieces to the current example, hope it helps.
Ok Reddeblu, I get the why now, and also this is where I go “oooops” as I realise I have already made a mistake with images in the Fog trait (note to self “change 1st image to coloured square not counter image, change 2nd image to counter image and not blank” doh). I think this will need my full attention and concentration, not a good idea to start it after a full day’s work, even if it is the only day in the week I work. I will let you know how I get on.
Thanks
Neil
I’m not sure what the counters are that your using, but just to clarify a bit:
They don’t need to be colored squares, I just used that as a placeholder example.
The Fog prototype image is the counter “everyone” should see, and the Mask image of the hidden piece is the counter “only you” should see. All other images that have been left blank, should be left blank. This includes one of the layer images in the Fog trait, AND the basic piece images, nothing goes in those two.
As an example with the colored squares, I made the “everyone” Fog prototype counter a solid color, and the “only you see” Mask counter a transparent color, to represent its hidden ness to you. Aka let you know you are currently unseen.
However you can have both images be the same counter, it will all still work the same, its just a matter of how you want them to be displayed to your players.
Hope that helps, look forward to hearing how it turns out. 