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Help: token always visible once players have seen it once

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 4:38 am
by Madeiner
Hi there.

I noticed the new feature in maptool 1.4.1.7, "token always visible" and i designed part of my custom rpg on it.
But then, i discovered the feature doesn't work like i thought it would. I'm now in a really bad position and i'd love some help.

My rpg is designed so that there are lines connecting things in various rooms. The line is a very long and thin token and represents a network connection between nodes in different rooms.
Using the line as an object, once a player has seen a line, it will stay there on the map for future reference.
I also wanted to have that you only need to see a small part of the line for it to completely appear. To do this, i used the "always visible" option (tolerance=1) in the VBL configuration of the token. This way, as soon as you see a small part of the line, you see it all, even through VBL and fog.
However, when i do this, the token stops behaving like an object and disappears as soon as your leave its line of sight.
Is there any way i can have it stay there through VBL and fog AND show the entire token once a small part is seen?

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:08 am
by aliasmask
You'll want to expose the FOW where the token is for it to be seen after you leave the line of sight. Token always visible is a setting for vbl of that token and not a general campaign setting. Basically, if you see the vbl of that token then you'll see the token. Problem is if the token vbl covers all of the token then you won't be able to expose it. Now if it was just an outline, then you can expose the interior part and then it will be visible when not looked at. One way is to have some trigger or macro that will remove the vbl, expose it, then redo the vbl. There are some function that are not in the wiki (last I checked) that may be able to do this but I'm don't recall their names. I'll have to do a forum search.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:15 am
by Madeiner
aliasmask wrote:You'll want to expose the FOW where the token is for it to be seen after you leave the line of sight.
Are you sure? Tokens have always disappeared after you leave their LoS. Unless they are objects.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:31 am
by Madeiner
I may have found a possible solution... but i'd need help.

I could set the "network" token as player, always visible (new 1.4 function), and giving ownership of it to everyone. This makes the token always visible to everyone, no matter what.

Then, remove the flag "visible to players" to hide it from everyone. As soon as a Player characters comes in range, i should re-add the "visible to players" flag.
This works... manually.

I wanted to use the Invisibility purge from Bag of Tricks, but that works by using the Visible to owner only function, and that is not compatible with what i want to do apparently, unless there's some other way to do it. Also, the invisibility purge seems to be broken at the moment for me.

Any help?

Maybe wolph42 could help me make a macro similar to invisibility purge, but using "visible to players" instead of "visible to owners only" functionality? Of course, then that token would also expose other hidden tokens that SHOULD NOT be revealed... but we could use a "filter" so that the invisibility purger only purges those tokens that start with a certain name?

EDIT: possibly even simpler: Token always visible, but without ownership. Give ownership to the Players as soon as within a certain range of a PC? Players would see it as they come close (and see it entirely, as with the always visible flag), and then they can still see it as they leave its LOS, because they now have ownership. Visible to owners only should be unchecked, though.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:32 am
by aliasmask
Madeiner wrote:
aliasmask wrote:You'll want to expose the FOW where the token is for it to be seen after you leave the line of sight.
Are you sure? Tokens have always disappeared after you leave their LoS. Unless they are objects.
I assumed you were talking about tokens on the object layer.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:33 am
by aliasmask
Giving ownership or owned by all would work. If you put on object layer players can't mess with it.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:36 am
by Madeiner
aliasmask wrote:
Madeiner wrote:
aliasmask wrote:You'll want to expose the FOW where the token is for it to be seen after you leave the line of sight.
Are you sure? Tokens have always disappeared after you leave their LoS. Unless they are objects.
I assumed you were talking about tokens on the object layer.
Yes, but as soon as "Always visible" is checked, they seem to start behaving like tokens on tokens layer, i don't know why.

The problem with ownership to all, is that they are always visible on the map even before the players start exploring it. That's not what i wanted, unfortunately.
I'm kinda in panic right now as i need to demo this rpg system next week and this is a major show stopper.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 7:01 am
by aliasmask
Owner to all would need to be triggered. A simple mouseover trigger would do the trick.

Code: Select all

*setOwners:[H: setLayer("OBJECT")][H: setOwner(getPlayerNames())]
Of course, this isn't the best way because everyone will need to be connected once the first person mouses over it. Changing it back to the token layer will allow you to reset it.

I didn't notice the problem you're saying (acts like on token layer) but I didn't notice that the states of the token are still seen, but not the token when not viewed directly. From what I gather you don't need states on your token so that shouldn't be a problem. But objects owned by player will reveal any notes on the token. So, don't have notes on token.

Re: Help: token always visible once players have seen it onc

Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:57 am
by JamzTheMan
Another user reported the same and it may be a bug...I'll be looking into it...