My World in Flames module uses chits of various values to determine when the USA may declare war on an axis power (WW2) and many various other options. The chits are drawn from a common pool (as in any other player may draw chit when required to do so by the RAW). Chits are then placed into other decks that determine (via the total value) what options the USA (or other players) can do. The Mask trait is used to prevent any other player from seeing the value of these chits.
Trouble is the mask trait is not working (properly or as it used to). Any other player can drag a chit out of the USA pools and see its value. That should NOT happen.
Appreciate that the chits are contained within another deck, but if I mask a chit drawn from the common deck pool then it belongs to me until I send it back to the common pool. Until that event happens, ONLY I can see the value of that chit - unless unmasked of course).
It should not matter what new deck it is in. The owner status should only change when, and if, the chit goes back to the common pool deck.
A couple of clarifying questions, if I mayâI simply do not know the game.
There was a reference to a common pool and a USA pool. Which is the part that should âNOT happenâ with regard to the USA poolâa non-USA player drawing a chit from the USA pool in the first place? Or they should be able to draw a chit out, just not see the info on its reverse side?
I ask because there are a lot of possible combinations between all the config options of a Mask trait (the âcan be masked byâ setting) and decks. Misunderstanding the in-practice implications of the different Mask trait config options in particular is very common in my experience. Nailing down exactly which bit isnât performing as desired will guide the response about what needs to be adjustedâit could be the Mask, but it could simply be restricting access to a deck to a subset of player sides.
Thanks for your response Joel. Iâll try to elucidate further.
Pic shows the area of focus. Black dots are decks. Red dots can be used by any of the various players. There are 8 Major Powers thus there can be up to 8 players. Normally though 8 players is extremely unusual. Most games tend to have 4 to 6 players with some players having 2 Major Powers to control.
Iâve studiously ignored setting âsidesâ, as Iâm not sure how all that would work overall. Particularly when some players would need to have 2 sides (is that possible when 8 sides are defined?).
The USA Entry Chits are set to âCan be masked by any playerâ. Thus ownership is conferred to that player. However, by placing a chit into another deck, any other player can draw a chit out and they then become the owner. The preference is to not have that happen. The decks mare set to âContents are face down Alwaysâ. Perhaps this is the problem area. If the chits were to be drawn âNeverâ then maybe ownership does not change as the original masking player is still the one who masked the chit. The player drawing the chit should see the masked face. This all supposition though.
I believe that there could be an additional element added to the deck definition. Restrict access to the player (players ID or whatever) that controls the masked chit(s) within a deck.
The alternate, and the one that is already within Vassal, is to bite the bullet and set up sides. That then comes down to can a player be on multiple sides?
Found the answer the multiple sides for a players. Basically nope. So sides are out, without overcomplicating the variety of available sides to use as indicated in that other post.
I might have to do a test to verify all this, but I think this is where the problem lies. My experience has always been that placing an item in a deck clears any ownership.
Even if a deck is configured to show its contents facedown, thatâs not the same as the contents still being masked. Activation of a mask (and thus ownership assignment) is premised on the Mask trait in combination with being drawn facedown.
Iâm pretty sure itâs not possible to have an itemâs Mask trait be âactiveâ when itâs in a deck.
The chits are still owned by the masking player, even when in another deck. I confirmed this by using a modified âdraw specific cardsâ message to â{ObscuredToOthers==âtrueâ?$BasicName$:ânothingâ}â. The owning player sees the basic name but all others just see ânothingâ. I also tried âObscuredâ and the owning player just saw ânothingâ.
Regardless of which owner pieces in a Deck âseemâ to belong to, all pieces in a face-down Deck are treated as owned by no-body and are free to be drawn.The change of ownership is made when the piece is drawn.
There are several mechanisms to prevent this from allowing players to arbitrarily un-mask pieces by dropping them into Decks and re-drawing them.
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The primary check is that you are not supposed to be able to drop pieces masked by someone other than yourself into any Deck. They should âbounce backâ to where they came from. Sounds like this check may be broken.
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The module designer can add a specific restriction to prevent specified pieces being placed in a Deck. See the 'Restrict adding counters by Drag ân; Dropâ option. Obviously, there should need to be a need to do this, or add it to every Deck if 1. was working, but you might give it a try as a workaround
{Obscured!=true} -
The module designed can restrict access to Decks via sides. Not an option in your case.
Usage of the draw specific card message with conditional statement would seem to make that point not valid.
As per my post on that, I was the owner of the chits drawn from the chit pool. I dropped them into the various US Entry/Tension pools. When Obscured==true was used, all I could see in the draw specific card message window was the text ânothingâ. Changing the draw specific card to ObscuredToOthers==true I could see the various basic names of every chit in that (US) pool. Ergo, even though the chits were in another deck, they still belonged to me as the drawer from the main chit pool. If the chits are treated as owned by nobody, then I should probably always see the chit basic names, whatever is used for the condition to be met.
Perhaps more than the âbounce backâ is broken?
Wouldnât surprise me. Decks in Vassal are held together with Fairy floss and tinsel.
Very descriptive that. I like the reply.
My suspicion is that itâs related to the fact that you donât have sides defined and the code is not coping.with the player-based masking and is behaving differently.
I remember taking some time to get it working on a module with sides, but I forget that they are not mandatory.
Iâll try and find some time to have a look at it.
Thanks Brent. But sides are definitely out for a World in Flames game. Some players need to play 2 (or sometimes more than 2) countries for a game.
Appreciate that ver 4 is likely occupying resources as is your offer to try and have a look at it. What will be will be.
Update. Playing a game last night. I asked a player (opposite team) to right click on the US Entry pool and let me know what he saw. I was rather hoping he would just see the text âNothingâ. Sadly, that was not to be. He saw the BasicName of each chit in the deck. Therefore, we are back to you being correct Brent about chit in a deck ownership being annulled.