Hey there,
I’ve just become addicted to TS and am keen to PBEM.
The latest module release says:
“Can now save and load log files. PBeM is still not supported: Many things will still not work.”
So my questions are:
is PBEM a total no go? (ie: what kind of things break - can I just work around them manually by adjusting influence, moving cards to and from the decks etc), and
alternatively, is there an earlier TS module that will support PBEM?
Cheers,
,att
Apparently some people are trying to play via PBeM, but I can’t support it because it seems like it would be quite difficult in some parts. For many actions, one of the players sees a dialog pop up that asks a specific question like “What card would you like to draw from the discard pile”. Those dialogs won’t appear unless both computers are connected to the internet. So if your playing via PBeM, you will have to do a number of things manually. So you can do it but it will be a pain. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything that would be a total show stopper–I’m just not going to support it and I’m not going to fix bugs that are caused by it until I get a special PBeM mode working.
I am working on something that will work for PBeM, but it’s not ready yet. Keep in mind, most things will actually work. The things that won’t work are those events when the person who is not on line is supposed to receive a dialog.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the module page, you will see much older modules that will support PBeM.
Hey there,
I’ve just become addicted to TS and am keen to PBEM.The latest module release says:
“Can now save and load log files. PBeM is still not supported: Many
things will still not work.”So my questions are:
is PBEM a total no go? (ie: what kind of things break - can I just
work around them manually by adjusting influence, moving cards to and
from the decks etc), andalternatively, is there an earlier TS module that will support PBEM?
Cheers,
,att
Read this topic online here:
Twilight Struggle 3.0.9a and PBEM
messages mailing list
messages@vassalengine.org
vassalengine.org/mailman/listinfo/messages
Thanks for your detailed reply. I see the problem to which you refer - a moment of interaction with the non phasing player currently captured as a dialog. Tricky. I will play the module on a server and get a feel for these cases.
Having only played Wellington (and ASL in the distant past) on VASSAL, I’m extremely impressed with your TS implementation and would like to say a huge thanks! 
If at some point, you would like some help on the TS stuff, please let me know (10 years of Java dev with plenty of Swing, can drive svn etc etc). I’m working my way through the PBEM code myself at the moment with the goal of smoothing some things out that get in my way with Welly (vmod 2). Though I would certainly understand if this isn’t of interest to you - sometimes simple is better.
Cheers and thanks again,
matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the thanks!
As for helping out, sure! Right now the code is a mess. I went head-first
and, right now, the goals are these:
I quickly got to the point were many things were just impossible, so I
started writing a lot of custom Java code. I’ve already gotten a request
for the card count that you see in the player hand button and I suspect that
people will like a way to query opponents as in the TS module.
You’re more than welcome to help, but the code is deeply horrible. I can
show it to you, but it would probably cause seizures. I’m trying to figure
out a way to legally put it on SourceForge. I have to admit, I haven’t
spent a lot of time looking into it. The problem is that the images are
proprietary and they’re tightly integrated into the module. I’m sure GMT
will balk at that. Even if they don’t, SourceForge’s policy is that
everything that goes up has to be GPL.
On 4 March 2011 21:45, zschub mattb@classforge.com wrote:
Thanks for your detailed reply. I see the problem to which you refer - a
moment of interaction with the non phasing player currently captured as
a dialog. Tricky. I will play the module on a server and get a feel for
these cases.
Having only played Wellington (and ASL in the distant past) on VASSAL,
I’m extremely impressed with your TS implementation and would like to
say a huge thanks!If at some point, you would like some help on the TS stuff, please let
me know (10 years of Java dev with plenty of Swing, can drive svn etc
etc). I’m working my way through the PBEM code myself at the moment with
the goal of smoothing some things out that get in my way with Welly
(vmod 2). Though I would certainly understand if this isn’t of interest
to you - sometimes simple is better.Cheers and thanks again,
matt
Read this topic online here:
Twilight Struggle 3.0.9a and PBEM - #3 by zschub
messages mailing list
messages@vassalengine.org
vassalengine.org/mailman/listinfo/messages
–
Michael Kiefte, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Human Communication Disorders
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
tel: +1 902 494 5150
fax: +1 902 494 5151
You’re more than welcome to help, but the code is deeply horrible. I can show it to you, but it would probably cause seizures.
LOL… I have no problems with any quality of code. In particular, software that works has its own beauty - independent of the elegance or not of the underlying code. 
So it looks like you can send 250 KBytes via the vassal messaging which might be enough… or to my email address - which i’ll try desperately to encode to avoid spam:
m a t t aaaaat c l a s s f o r g e daaaawt c o m
- Add a button that will store a dialog prompt command that an opponent can click when he receives saved game.
This sounds like a fun one. I’d be happy to look at it…
- Enforce rules regarding Influence placement – huge pain in the ass.
In my very humble opinion, the humans playing the game can do a lot of that themselves. I have a friend who baulks at vassal modules where the designer tries hard to enforce rules. He’s a cyberboard boy for that reason. I think his view has merit - though I personally get a thrill when automation works well and invisibly.
Cheers,
matt
I did it more as a personal challenge. I understand the desire for a more
manual approach, but in the end, the TS module runs the game very quickly.
I can play a whole 10-turn game in about an hour with someone who knows
what they’re doing. The module turned out to be incredibly popular – last
I checked, it was the third most used module on the server (but also owing
to the popularity of the game as well).
The whole module is under 3 MB I believe, so I should be able to mail it to
you. You can download the latest version yourself and I can e-mail you the
Java code which would be quite small in comparison.
I’ll look into doing this this weekend.
On 5 March 2011 08:25, zschub mattb@classforge.com wrote:
You’re more than welcome to help, but the code is deeply horrible. I
can show it to you, but it would probably cause seizures.
LOL… I have no problems with any quality of code. In particular,
software that works has its own beauty - independent of the elegance or
not of the underlying code.So it looks like you can send 250 KBytes via the vassal messaging which
might be enough… or to my email address - which i’ll try desperately
to encode to avoid spam:m a t t aaaaat c l a s s f o r g e daaaawt c o m
- Add a button that will store a dialog prompt command that an
opponent can click when he receives saved game.
This sounds like a fun one. I’d be happy to look at it…
- Enforce rules regarding Influence placement – huge pain in the
ass.
In my very humble opinion, the humans playing the game can do a lot of
that themselves. I have a friend who baulks at vassal modules where the
designer tries hard to enforce rules. He’s a cyberboard boy for that
reason. I think his view has merit - though I personally get a thrill
when automation works well and invisibly.Cheers,
matt
Thanks.
Thus spake Michael Kiefte:
Even if they don’t, SourceForge’s policy is that
everything that goes up has to be GPL.
No, it just needs to be under some open-source license.
–
J.