Second version of the feature isn't very common. The only situation other than reinforcements where I ever know of it being used is if the scenario wants to have two players draw something, which they don't know immediately what it is, and also make sure that no two players draw the SAME thing, otherwise you could just roll the dice at the appropriate time. It's one of those crazy scenarios like used fighter, but I don't think it's actually used fighter. Other scenarios with weird situations have players draw cards from a deck, or whatever.

Hard to make the feature come out just right for all the possible cases, but rolling dice in a private room is a good way of doing it for now, that's a good idea and handles most situations. Probably there are higher priorities for implementing.

By Robert Grey (Tugger) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 11:13 am: Edit

Create 6 mine counters, setting each skip count to a different number between 1-6, in randomish order. Have opponent pick on, move it to a map corner till later. Move other counter to Off Board, for later conformation. Reveal Info on counter when needed. Could also use the Type of Mine to store alphanumeric information, as needed.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Friday, March 18, 2011 - 12:11 pm: Edit

You'd think it would be easy to create a special counter, just for doing this sort of thing.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 11:22 pm: Edit

I have no idea if this has been discossed but has anyone been playing SFBOL on a tablet computer? (iPad or Xoom or whatever?)
It should work on at least a Win7 tablet, right?

Does it work? Would I be able to play SFBOL at Starbucks?

Would it work on Android? SFB-OTG?

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 01:40 am: Edit

Loren:

Paul mentions it on the podcast every week

I think right now its:

1: Smartphone (Iphone, Android, RIM, Palm, whatever) -- NO

2: iPad -- Maybe

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 02:45 am: Edit

Wow, I didn't see the mine counters suggestion - that's great, I'll try it. Thanks Tugger if you see this...

You can play SFBOL at Starbucks if you take your laptop! I wouldn't want to try to play on a tablet even if the client did run, maybe the best thing would be to run the client at home and use a remote desktop to control it. That way at least it will work, but still probably too hard to use. SFBOL needs a real mouse and keyboard and the biggest screen you can get.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 12:12 pm: Edit

Gottchya. Thanks.

By Chad Carew (Blackhawkckc) on Sunday, June 12, 2011 - 10:11 pm: Edit

This may have been asked before but I can't find it. In defining styles for chat, where are these settings saved? I really want to be able to save these and just import them if they ever get lost, or so I can use the same settings on windows or Linux. I know most settings are saved in userinfo.properties but chat styles don't seem to be there, so what do I need to save to get them back?

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Monday, June 13, 2011 - 09:18 pm: Edit

They are in the userinfo.properties . The defaults are saved there. The styles are also saved with each game.

By Chad Carew (Blackhawkckc) on Monday, June 20, 2011 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Hmm ok. I guess I just don't see them. Are the userinfo.properties files interchangeable between OS's? Can I import the one on my Linux box over to Win so they are the same styles?

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - 10:27 am: Edit

Chad,
For the most part. The only thing you will need to adjust is the location of the libraries. Do a search for "libraryDir=" you will find the directories in the properties file.

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Not sure if this should go here or under enhancement requests, but is there a way to make Seltorian shield crackers fire in the operate shields step where they belong instead of in direct-fire?
I handwaved it last night by manually typing it in at the correct point in the SOP and then tacking them on in direct-fire just so the client would track the correct impulse of fire, but this seems a less-than-optimal workaround.

By Gregg Dieckhaus (Gdieck) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Is there an easy way to make the client HET on an impulse a unit doesnt move?

By Andrew J. Koch (Droid) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Is it possible for the expendables screen to show destroyed drone racks sim to the fire allocation screen?

By Kerry E Mullan (Nomad17) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 04:53 pm: Edit

Gregg for a HET on an impulse it doesn't move I've always just used the "Change facing" drop down. ie the box in between the "unit designation box" and the "movement" boxes pretty much directly above the dice rolling area.

As with Andy's question is there a way to show destroyed weapons on the EA form as well? By this I was thinking of a red highlight similar to the weapons fired screen or fire allocation screen.

My only issue is I tend to load the destroyed disr while leaving an undestroyed one empty due to not checking it beforehand.

By Troy Latta (Saaur) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 05:41 pm: Edit

Kerry: I did that with my PCs last night. really would have loved to have that 3 pts in reinforcement when the Kzin was at range 0...

By Paul Franz (Andromedan) on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Gregg,
Kerry is correct. I can look into changing the client to allow you to use the keyboard shortcuts to make a HET while not moving and have the ship not move. (i.e. like seeking weapons do)

Andrew,
When it comes to showing the drone rack in the expendables as red like it is in the "Fire Allocation" action. That is a doable enhancement.

Kerry,
Thank you for being helpful and answering people's questions.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - 01:43 am: Edit

Question - I'm setting up a scenario to solo that is...kinda big.

Not unmanageable, but I'd definitely like to have the two forces involved in separate fleets (IE., so I don't have 'all EAFs for everyone' in one UI tab and 'all SSDs for everyone' in another UI tab, etc...but broken up per-player)

Is there any easy way to do that? I see that when I set up an online game, my login does show up as one thing that is an 'owner', and there is 'nobody' as another person playing (as in, an 'owner' of the units that is named 'nobody'). I can sort of force a match to start that way, and kinda mime through it - but I can't fill out the energy allocation forms for that side, then.

(I suppose what I'd be looking for on that - and maybe nothing like this is present - is an ability to define an arbitrary number of 'owners' in a match, each acting exactly as a distinct player does now with their own fleets, SSDs, weapons fire tracking, etc in their own UI. There would be a drop-down box up top, then...between the impulse and 'submit feedback' button?...that had all the owners in it that I set up, and I could switch between them at will. That'd make solo games a HECK of a lot easier to play...)

By Jeff McKlevey (Low) on Monday, October 17, 2011 - 10:47 pm: Edit

IS there a list of the /Commands andwhere. I have the the /nick command down, but if there are some useful ones out there, i would love to know them.

By Peter Thoenen (Eol) on Monday, October 17, 2011 - 11:43 pm: Edit

/nick
/ping
/whois
/topic

Only ones I know

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Not really sure where to ask this so this is my "best guess".

It's not strictly speaking a SFBOL question I figured it would be the best place to ask.

I'm been banging my head against a wall trying to program a hexmap. It's original intent is for campaign map random generation. The random generation part hasn't really been a issue (aside from one array related problem I can't or the world of me figure out)

Figuring out how to make a graphical hexmap though that I can assign a single image to a hex has been a huge headache. iguring out how to make counters move on it later is a related but further down the road part.

I've searched for examples without to much luck so since you guys did such a nice job on you hexmap system I was hoping you could maybe point me to a resource on the subject or something.

oh; also; I've had to teach myself a decent amount so it's possible I'm simply missing something that would be considered o be a "basic" foundation and not know it.

Any help would be, well, helpful

-DKT

By Mike Kenyon (Mikek) on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 12:24 am: Edit

What programming language?

By Daniel K. Thompson (Dkt0404) on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 04:07 pm: Edit

Mostly been using Visual Basic but C# or C++ shouldn't really be a issue. Using a language other than those would be a bigger issue since I'm less familar with them but not really a stretch.

The code just takes some minor rewritting of calls and names and such to switch languages so that is less of a issue for me than the how.

By Troy Williams (Jungletoy) on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 04:08 pm: Edit

Look here for all things hex map related.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 05:34 pm: Edit

The PBEM group has code to do put the counters down and move them. The code that is there could be modified without too much hassle to create a campaign map.