Can anyone think of an ADC2 module that uses elevation and LOS? ADC2 has an impressive mechanism for calculating LOS, but I can’t find a module that actually bothers to use it.
Perhaps because the LOS rules vary so much between games, it is extremely difficult to encode them? I would be very interested to hear a rundown on what ADC2 offers in this regard.
Brent.
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I don’t really pretend to understand LOS in ADC2 yet, but I now know where all the information is stored in the file (and there’s a lot of it) 
The documentation is less than satisfactory. Basically, each primary terrain type has an elevation and each hex has a width. Secondary terrain types can add to the elevation. Some terrain types add blocking points and if the blocking points exceeds a certain amount, LOS is blocked. There are other features as well which don’t appear to be documented.
Another feature exists that allows you to reveal opponent’s hidden units if it is within line of sight. The amazing thing is that you can change your own range for revealing hidden units without a password! In fact, you can change the entire LOS setup without a password (hmmm… letsee, no obsticles, terrain elevation = 0, gotcha!). Of course, you can also move your pieces off line all over the board to reveal your opponents units and then restore a backup copy of the file which is why I suspect that such a feature will not be implemented in VASSAL. All of this tells me that no one has bothered to use it…
- M
On 20/03/2008, Brent Easton <b.easton@exemail.com.au (b.easton@exemail.com.au)> wrote:
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Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:
One way to do this without information leakage would be an online escrow
for hidden piece information, where you can request anything you want,
but your opponent is notified when you do.
–
J.
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I’m not sure how that works. Joel, do you know a lot about encryption?
- M.
On 20/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:
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Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:
It’s not an encryption thing. It’s a trusted-third-party-having-the-
information thing. E.g., you have a server which knows where all of
the hidden units are. It will let you probe any hex for hidden units
and report the result back, but it also reports the result to your
opponent.
Successful cheating requires both availability and secrecy. Most
methods for preventing cheating attack the availability of information,
but often it’s easier to attack cheating from the secrecy end. That is,
if you can guarantee that cheaters will be found out, then you don’t
have to spend much effor securing the information in the first place.
Re: encryption. I have a vague awareness of some aspects of encryption
—enough to explain to students how public-key encryption works, and
things like key exchange and vairous eavesdropping and information
leakage scenarios, but I’m no expert.
–
J.
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Could hidden units be kept on a server? Is that practical?
- M.
On 20/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:
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Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:
Sure, if someone wrote one to do it.
I have an escrow I wrote for DoWs in my Empires in Arms game—it’s
not something you’d want to use for anything high-volume, but the
idea is the same.
–
J.
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On Mar 20, 2008, at 7:09 AM, Joel Uckelman wrote:
I wonder if there is any solution which would also work for PBeM games.
With proper design, I guess a server-based approach could work, perhaps
in some way similar to using an on-line dice server without having to
play the game on-line.
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Thus spake Thomas Russ:
Yes, one way is what you say below.
You need on-lineness in order to get to the server, but you don’t need
your opponent(s) to be on line at the same time.
–
J.
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The obvious, already working example is ACTS (acts.warhorsesim.com/index.asp)
Quite a while back I contacted the ACTS people to see if they where interested in opening up an interface that Vassal could talk to directly. They weren’t negative to the idea, but they weren’t particularly helpful and it didn’t go anywhere.
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On 20/03/2008 at 7:34 PM Joel Uckelman wrote:
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