# Vassal posting to chat what decides what order the posts happen in?
**URL:** https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553
**Category:** Module Design
**Created:** [September 29, 2026, 12:03pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553 "2026-09-29T12:03:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ChuckS](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/ChuckS)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 12:03pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/1 "2026-09-29T12:03:37Z")
I am having initiative rolls display on the aircraft automatically and to chat. It appears the order of posting in chat is random is there something that determines order?
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### Author:  [@uckelman](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/uckelman)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 12:44pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/2 "2026-09-29T12:44:25Z")
For questions like this, it would help anyone trying to answer them to see an example of what you’re asking about.
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### Author:  [@ChuckS](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/ChuckS)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 1:32pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/3 "2026-09-29T13:32:55Z")
My Red Baron’s War has the Initiative rolls placed on the counter and I use a hot key to fire off the rolls and to report them to chat. It looks like this for example:
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### Author:  [@ChuckS](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/ChuckS)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/4 "2026-09-29T13:33:33Z")
So I can’t tell if this is driven by map position of the counter, or if something else drives it.
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### Author:  [@ChuckS](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/ChuckS)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/5 "2026-09-29T13:36:58Z")
So I rolled initiative then I picked up 4 planes and move them on the map and it changed the order of reporting:
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### Author:  [@ChuckS](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/ChuckS)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/6 "2026-09-29T13:37:43Z")
By picking up Dickson, Hill, Payn and McCudden and moving them it changed the order of reporting.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_Hunter](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/Jim_Hunter)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 1:53pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/7 "2026-09-29T13:53:15Z")
I believe the messages in the chat log appear in the order that their associated Report Action traits are executed. In your case there is one Report Action for each game piece which listens for the same Global Key Command. So the real question is - how does Vassal determine the order of units to send the GKC to?
I’ve always considered that order to be random, but perhaps some Vassal Mavens can expand on that.
If it is important that those chat messages always appear in order, there are ways to achieve that using Vassal traits, but it would be somewhat inefficient.
Cheers,
Jim Hunter.
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### Author:  [@cholmcc](https://forum.vassalengine.org/u/cholmcc)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2026, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.vassalengine.org/t/vassal-posting-to-chat-what-decides-what-order-the-posts-happen-in/90553/8 "2026-09-29T19:40:18Z")
The command that triggers the chat message (whether in the trait it self or via `Report Action`) arrives at the pieces is a seemingly random order. However, as your example illustrates
| Before move | After move |
| --- | --- |
| McCudden | |
| Dickson | Dickson (\*) |
| Jennings | |
| Hill | Hill (\*) |
| MvR | MvR |
| Bohme | Bohme |
| Wortman | Wortman |
| Walz | Walz |
| Collin | Collin |
| Payn | Payn (\*) |
| | McCudden (\*) |
| | Jennings |
| Readman | ReadMan |
(\*)Moved
shows you there’s some sort of system to it, One guess could be that those pieces that are closest to the top-left-most corner are seen first. It is not the order in which they were moved that matters, because then Payn and Mccudden would be on top, or similarly. The ordering may also be further complicated by caching.
The upshot is, that you should consider the order to be random or at least unpredictable.
Yours,
_Christian_