Show facing arrow on a top-down token

[Crimin]

I've been using MapTool for years for an RPG, and recently wanted to play a space wargame with it. The tokens need to be able to show both facing and heading separately, and I can't quite figure out how to do it. Making the tokens be top-down lets me turn the ship, but I need a marker (like the facing arrow) to show heading. Is there any way to do this?

Thanks!

[Jagged]

Does the arrow need to be in a separate or different direction to the direction of the picture?

If you just need to show the arrow for top-down tokens, that will become an option in 1.4 and is available in this beta here.

[Crimin]

The arrow needs to be able to be in a different direction than the token is facing. In this game I need to be able to indicate both facing and heading separately.

[aliasmask]

Kind of sort of, but not really. You can play around with conic vision using the offset to indicate facing (the area you can see) and have the arrow displayed when using circle token shape. So, if I offset vision 315 degrees the arrow will appear on the left, if set to 45 degrees the arrow will appear on the right. The image will not rotate.

[Crimin]

Well, drat. I kind of figured that would be the answer, since there wasn't an obvious way to do it, and the only search hit was eight years old (http://www.forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1196).

Thanks for the info, and for pointing out 1.4 - looks like some cool stuff coming down the pipe.

[Jagged]

If you have a limited number of directions, rather than the full 360, you could use states.

Say you were just using the 8 main cardinal points, you could add eight states to your campaign, each being an arrow in the appropriate direction. Then you could have facing and direction (the state).

[aliasmask]

If you have a limited number of directions, rather than the full 360, you could use states.

Say you were just using the 8 main cardinal points, you could add eight states to your campaign, each being an arrow in the appropriate direction. Then you could have facing and direction (the state).

+1 Good Solution.

You could have 2 campaign macros and set hotkeys for them. One to bare left and the other to bare right.

[Crimin]

It's hex-based so I'll need twelve, but I can play around with two different shapes or colors for hex-side vs hex-points to make it more obvious.

I've never noticed that you could assign hot-keys to macros, and that would definitely help here.

Thanks for both ideas! Now to start playing with the States...

[Jagged]

Glad to be of help. Come back and post pictures when you have it working!

PS: What is the game system?

[Crimin]

Here's a sample of some State images I did to try it out. Looks like it'll work, though of course it'll be better once I make macros.

The game system is a home-grown one, and no it doesn't use Space Shuttles, I just put that in to test it out.

[Jagged]

RPGMapshare is always worth a look