Fairly Simple Additions for Wargaming

[KaylaKaze]

I've decided 1/10 inch scale should be good enough for most war gamers. Using that scale, pathing does work with only minor speed hiccups. It'd be much faster if I could figure out how to make the path highlighting only process the outside and center paths instead of all of them for evey cell of the token, but I still can't find that spot in the code.

[trevor]

I've decided 1/10 inch scale should be good enough for most war gamers. Using that scale, pathing does work with only minor speed hiccups. It'd be much faster if I could figure out how to make the path highlighting only process the outside and center paths instead of all of them for evey cell of the token, but I still can't find that spot in the code.

Actually, the performance hit you are probably hitting is not rendering related, but pathing related. The cell paths use an A-Star AI algorithm to figure out the path (it was presumed that eventually we would have movement blocking areas and the pathing would automatically move around it). Over very large distances (600 cells did you say) it can get slow because of some of the implementation decisions.

It seems that measurement based systems wouldn't want a cell based path anyway ?

[KaylaKaze]

Yeah, I know it's not rendering related. I turned off the rendering and it still did it. I meant only processing those paths in the first place.

A cell based path wouldn't be wanted necessarily, but the added functionality MapTool provides for cell based paths (waypoints, measuring, and user-defined arbitrary measurement units) are.

Dose the die roll code just use straight randoms? I'm getting an AWFUL lot of sixes as well as a lot of same rolls in multiple die rolls (such as d6 + d6 + d6 resulting in 6 + 6 + 6). But dice often do weird patterns so maybe that's just how it's doing.

[trevor]

A cell based path wouldn't be wanted necessarily, but the added functionality MapTool provides for cell based paths (waypoints, measuring, and user-defined arbitrary measurement units) are.

user-defined arbitrary measurements should work with 1.3b2, let me know if that's not the case.

For waypoints and measuring, I'm all for making those work correctly. waypoints for non snap to grid tokens has been requested before.

I'm all for investing the time to make a correct solution

Dose the die roll code just use straight randoms? I'm getting an AWFUL lot of sixes as well as a lot of same rolls in multiple die rolls (such as d6 + d6 + d6 resulting in 6 + 6 + 6). But dice often do weird patterns so maybe that's just how it's doing.

It uses the standard pseudo random number generator. They typically do have a greater likelihood for sequence of numbers.

[KaylaKaze]

Well, waypointing a non snap grid shouldn't be any different than drawing a polyline.

As far as arbitrary measurment, it doesn't seem to be working and the tape measure doesn't work at all.

You may want to replace the facing angles of the gridless grid with the following in order to allow more freedom of the units.

Code: Select all

private static final int[] FACING_ANGLES = new int[] {
		-175,-170,-165,-160,-155,-150,-145,-140,-135,-130,-125,-120,-115,-110,
		-105,-100,95,-90,-85,-80,-75,-70,-65,-60,-55,-50,-45,-40,-35,
		-30,-25,-20,-15,-10,-5,0, 5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,
		50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90,95,100,105,110,115,120,125,130,135,
		140,145,150,155,160,165,170,175,180
	};

[trevor]

Actually, the waypointing is a bit tricky because the current system is based on cellpoints, so I have to change it to use mappoints instead. But it's entirely do-able.

The measure tool is broken, I had put in a tracker to make sure I fix it, but forgot to put it into the notes, so thanks for mentioning that.

Tell me more about the movement distances not working. What are you observing (including the selected Distance per cell and the Units per cell) and what were you expecting. We can figure out where the disconnect is.

Thanks for the facing, I"ll put that in right now.

[trevor]

Thinking of facing, you know you can hold CTRL and free rotate, right ?

[trevor]

Thanks for the facing, I"ll put that in right now.

Actually, are you trying to get a free rotate from this ? It feels like having fewer catch points would make it easier to do things like line up angles on stamps (since they behave the same as tokens).

[KaylaKaze]

Nope, didn't know that. It's not like there's much in the docs about how to do stuff

I just added a new capability to grids for wide pathing. That fixed the issue except the path is drawn from their top left corner instead of center, though that doesn't really matter much except for aesthetics.

I still don't really see how you expect to have a completely gridless system. It's a computer so it HAS to have some sort of grid, it's just a matter of how fine you make it's coordinate system compared to the size of the units.

[trevor]

I still don't really see how you expect to have a completely gridless system. It's a computer so it HAS to have some sort of grid, it's just a matter of how fine you make it's coordinate system compared to the size of the units.

Correct. In the gridless grid, the grid has one cell per map point, so, the map itself has a grid of 1:1. But it's more the semantics of how the tokens interact with the grid that's the really interesting part.

[KaylaKaze]

Maybe so. I haven't messed with stamps much. As I said, I didn't know about free rotate. I've got the WarGrid grid type working quite nicely though so you can do angles however you want on noGrid. I just figured if you wanted to add more rotate points on it, it'd be easier for me to paste than for you to have to type it all.

[KaylaKaze]

Correct. In the gridless grid, the grid has one cell per map point, so, the map itself has a grid of 1:1. But it's more the semantics of how the tokens interact with the grid that's the really interesting part.

Correct, and it works the same on a square grid if you set pixel size to 1 and grid size to 1, but still has all the functionality of the regular square grid. If you make your pieces fairly large (I'm using a 1/10th inch scale so my 30mm pieces are 12 units diameter) they can move with plenty of precision while using waypoints, and tape measureing as well as vision for accurate radius measuring (until the range circles are done, anyway).

[KaylaKaze]

I've got it to send messages to the chat box when someone measures, when they pick up a token, and then how far they moved that token. I'm attempting to get the RangeRings done, and I think they mostly are but I have to do the ui stuff like adding an option for them to the popup menu and a dialog box for configuring them. I'm not sure i my routine for drawing them is right yet, but I'll have to get some made before I can find out.

Edit: Actually, I'm thinking token serialization is probably most important at the moment. I'll probably start on that.

[trevor]

Edit: Actually, I'm thinking token serialization is probably most important at the moment. I'll probably start on that.

Hmmm, hold off on that one. We're working on a file format library to help with that stuff, then we'll move campaigns and tokens over to it.

[KaylaKaze]

Yeah, I was just looking at the code and about to say I think you should handle it 'cause it looks like it'd be something you'd want to structure yourself. Right now, I guess I can just set all the tokens onto the fireld and save campaign.

I've got a Cygnar vs Cryx Battlebox fight set up that I think is 100% playable, though I think I should make a token state file for the possible effects. I am worried about that die rolling issue though. In Warmachine, if you roll 2 dice the same on an attack roll, it's a crit and from the test rolls I've done, there's a lot of criting going on.