Is Vassel Right for Me?

Hi folks, having just downloaded Vassel or its support files in the past couple of days and having looked at the reference manual, I’m wondering if this system is what I’m looking for. I hope you can indulge me so that I can tell you what I’m looking for and some of my background. After that, I’m hoping someone will tell me I’m in the right place! :slight_smile:

I’m a miniature wargamer who is looking for a system that I can share with my friends (some local and some distant from where I live) to conduct moves of forces on a map. When forces contact, I’d like to resolve the games with miniature table top battles and afterward, assess losses and damages to various units.

If Vassel is indeed suitable for such activity, can I design my own modules without a huge investment in time? Or is it more practical to use existing modules?

I’ve had a look this evening through the reference manual while off line. I must confess, I had some difficulty with some of the concepts. I’m an Oracle database developer who uses VBA/MS Access as a front end development tool and am quite experienced with that combination. I don’t know java, though I understand what a class is (but I don’t often use them in my own programming work).

Is there a forum here to help with newbies like me in Vassel module development? I know there’s a module design forum, would it be OK to bumble about there for a time?

TIA

Tim

You don’t need to know a lick of Java to make a VASSAL module, there’s a ‘tree-like’ structure that you simply add/edit components to. Load up VASSAL and then go to “Edit a Module” and pick one that you’ve downloaded, you’ll see what I mean.

I would think that you could easily do what you want to do - though I must admit that I’m confused as to why you want to go from the computer screen to the table-top and back for combat resolution (ok, maybe it’s the whole ‘get down to eye-level’ and actually see what the troops see that is the compelling part).

On Nov 19, 2008, at 7:06 PM, CharlieJake wrote:

Pretty much. Just pick an appropriate looking topic area for your
questions.

I think it should be suitable for that purpose. Part of it depends
on exactly how sophisticated you want to make your campaign module.
But it needn’t be all that complicated.

Well, if you are designing modules, then you shouldn’t need to know
Java at all. Java is only required if you are trying to modify the
underlying Vassal Engine. To use Vassal and to design modules, you
would use the standard Vassal module editor. It doesn’t require any
direct programming knowledge, although if you start trying to
automate things in your module, some general familiarity with the
concepts of programming come in helpful.

Well, this is generally the place to come.
To get started, I would first explore some existing module to see how
it operates as a user.

Then you can go through the module creation tutorial, and then you’re
on your way.

You will find the community generally welcoming and the more
experience module designers will be happy to share tips with you if
you get stuck.


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Thank you tar and Gjk.

VASSAL is pretty well suited for this purpose. There are a number of mineatures modules already. Search for ‘mineatures’ at http://vassalengine.org/community/index.php?option=com_vassal_modules&task=displayAll&Itemid=30 You may find one you can use directly, or you can examine them in the editor to see how they’re put together. If you decide to make your own, a significant part of the work will be creating/collecting the artwork.

rk

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