Guess its as good a time as any to ask.

Could someone please confirm what the latest Vassal version is, and what the latest F&E Module is?

And maybe even confirm that using the latest versions will work just fine with older saved game files, and also whether everyone involved in the game would need to be on the same version for both Vassal and F&E module?

Thanks !

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Friday, November 11, 2016 - 07:56 pm: Edit

The latest version of Vassal is 3.2.16.

The latest official version of the F&E module is 1.3.1, and is available here.

The new version is currently 2.0 Beta 9.

If starting a new game, I highly recommend you contact me and get version 2. (I just need to get around to completing scenario setups before I consider it 'complete'.)

A game started in 2.0 is completely incompatible with a 1.x game and vice versa. Various versions of 1.x will work with each other.

I recommend you always use the latest version of Vassal; at the moment each release is just minor bug fixes. I also recommend that you be on the same (minor) version of the F&E module, and that you use the latest available of whichever major version you're using.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, November 11, 2016 - 08:53 pm: Edit

Could we get some screen shots?

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Saturday, November 12, 2016 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Of the new version?

See my reports on a play of Four Vassal War:
http://www.rindis.com/blog/category/gaming/boardgaming/fne/four-vassal-war

There's also the development post which shows off the new status markers:
http://www.rindis.com/blog/3469

Since doing that I've added an Out of Supply marker.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 12:42 am: Edit

After way too many delays, version 2.0 of the Vassal module for Federation & Empire is officially out, and available for download at the top of this thread. There have been some small fixes over the last few months, but mostly I've been trying to get the gumption to get extra scenario setups done. It's past the point of delay for no gain, so the module has been released without all of them done.

New features of 2.0:
* Both regular and large-scale maps.
* New counter art, which is easier for me to work with than the old set.
* The ISC, LDR, Vudar, and Seltorians are in the main module.
* The stack viewer counts ships and SEs. This isn't nearly as good as it sounds because I can't do the 0.5 for cripples, but it will be easy to update if/when Vassal becomes able to do it.
* Crippled ships can be flagged to their new owner, and show up in the tracking under the owning empire.
* The regular map features sector and cordon borders as layers that can be turned on and off as needed. (This ate the memory of most testers on the large map, sadly.)
* All bases, and ships with multiple EW settings, can be set to their current usage, which will adjust the AF in reports.
* Combined MON+pallet and TUG+pod counters are in the module.
* New markers added, such as 'Free Strat' to note just built/repaired ships.

You can see the look of the new module, and the large-scale map in my reporting on Bel and I's game of the Four Powers War.
http://www.rindis.com/blog/category/gaming/boardgaming/fne/four-vassal-war

Scenario setups are included for the first few scenarios of the General War in both sizes. The small map also has setups for the Maelstrom and Winds of Fire. Future releases will include setups for 4PW, ISC conquest, and Minor Empires (note that the initial Seltorian force is already present in these setups, allowing you to use them when your game gets that far) for both size maps.

The zip file also contains a PDF explaining some of the fine points of the module.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 02:55 am: Edit

That looks very nice.

Great to see ISC, Vudar, Seltorians and LDR added.

Can you load old save files with vassal module F&E 2.0?

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 02:58 am: Edit

No. The fact that it's all new graphics precludes that. (In part because the size of the map is different.)

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 03:29 am: Edit

How hard would it be to make a map with the Paravians and Carnivons from CL#48 and CL#51 if I provided images for counters?

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 11:22 am: Edit

I've actually got that laid out on my master map already (note the full map I sent you a while back). I just need to do some adjustments and make overlays out of them (all such map modifications are best done with overlays, like with the Vudar).

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 11:27 am: Edit

That would be awesome.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 12:18 pm: Edit

The problem part is that I would prefer to do the counters myself (so they'll match properly), but I won't have those CLs for quite a while. (I've been getting them in PDF to save space lately.)

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 12:41 pm: Edit

James,

I sent you an email to the address in your profile.

Ryan

By Byron Sinor (Bsinor) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 01:13 pm: Edit

The new module looks beautiful. Thanks for this work!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 - 03:54 pm: Edit

After CL52 is out, drop me a note about images you want of maps or counters. It's not a simple issue but maybe we can do something. Trick is I'm not sure what you already did and don't need another disaster like SFBOL2G that cost us half a million dollars.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 01:38 am: Edit

Error found in the Gale Force large scale scenario:

Kzinti Capital System:
Kzinti Major should have 4 bdes, 2xSB, BTS, FSD
Kzinti Minor RGT
Rest of the planets devastated with no PDUs.

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 02:23 am: Edit

Hallo, everyone!

This is an awesome upgrade. Actually I've been more attracted to the cyberboard module with its cool graphics, but I always missed the functions that vassal offered. This upgrade looks like the perfect combination of both.

I instantely started to convert our recent game from cyberboard to vassal. En route I found some issues on which I'd like to ask for some advice:

1) I began with setting up late war Lyran fleets and noticed that all the PF-carring vessel came without PFs loaded, so I loaded them with PFs in their properties section. Yet the PFs don't show up neither as ship equivilents nor as compot factors in the summary sections. The Lyran SCS still shows up as :

"SCS: 1(1 SE): 12-12 (0H6) [0H0] 0EW 0G"

No sign of the PFs I loaded. Did I make a mistake?. Maybe do I have to add a seperate PF marker?

2) I set up serveral planetary ground defenses in regimental or brigade strength. I took a standard battalion with fighters and PFs and used the increase function to upgrade them into regiments and brigades. Afterwards I noticed that the properties still show the 6 fighter factors and the half flotilla of PFs of the original battalion.
Is this a glitch or did I make a mistake. I might easily set up 4 battalions to create a brigade but that seems somehow unneccessarily complicated.

3) Speaking of increasing/decreasing the value of several markers like bases, provinces, neutral zones and planets.
I'm from Germany and my computer shows the hot key as:

Increase: CTRL SCHLIESSENDE_KLAMMER
Decrease: CTRL ÖFFNENDE_KLAMMER

I bet this is due to the translate of my german windows. I tried several combinations on my german keyboard, but to no avail. Can anybody give me a hint what actual hot key you use to increase or decrease the value of markers?
Even with cloning, always using the right mouse button is quite tedious.

Thanks in advance for any advices.

And again: My compliments on this great work to James Lowry.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen from Germany,
Soeren Klein

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 03:03 am: Edit

For 1), I suggest using PF markers.

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Saturday, December 17, 2016 - 09:21 am: Edit

Thanks, Richard!

Worked for the compot count. But the marker does not show up as a ship equivalent as the flotilla should be. Maybe I simply have to make an analog count with it.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Sören

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Sunday, December 18, 2016 - 09:08 pm: Edit

Aw, futz. I forgot I was going to change the PF markers to show SE. Generally, I have not been doing that on those markers because I didn't know how, but while doing 2.0 I learned how to do... 'non-linear' counting (i.e., the fact that only 6 PF count as a full SE).

1) PFs are normally an accounting exercise, and are little different in Vassal. You can use the properties to track them, but it won't affect any stats, and you have look it up again later (and the default on that is 0 PFs because they have to be bought separately). Or you can just label the counter with a reminder of how many PFs it currently has. Or you can use the independent PF marker, which will show ComPot at least.

2) You need to go into the properties of the PDU to change the fighter number; sadly, I can't have something else set that property automatically. To change the max values, right-click on the check-boxes and type in new values (you'll probably need to expand the box to be able to see the text that comes up).

3) Increasing and decreasing markers: Ctrl-] and Ctrl-[
Or, (forgive my non-existent German) eckige klammer instead of runde klammer, if I understand Wikipedia correctly.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Sunday, December 18, 2016 - 09:39 pm: Edit

Ryan, I just checked the large Gale Force scenario, and I'm seeing just that in the Kzinti captial. What are you seeing?

Though... both SBs are in the 'near' position. I'll fix that.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Monday, December 19, 2016 - 12:21 am: Edit

James,

Weird. Maybe I was looking at another scenario. Because I see it correct now. The FSD was present.

Ryan

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Monday, December 19, 2016 - 01:53 am: Edit

Hi, James!

Thanks for your advice.

1) Well, Richards idea with the markers worked well for me. I would just have to remember taking them into account manually. But hey, having to make most accounting and calculations manually without a computer working in the background for me, is part of what I love about F&E and SFB. It is not just hitting a few buttons.

2) Found it. Yeah, that worked. Pretty easy if I also use the cloning so I do not have to set the properties again and again. Thanks for that.

3) I tried that, but my germen keyboard would not comply. But luckily while experimenting and looking for solutions myself I found the way of setting my whole keyboard to american mode and that finally worked. Now, I wonder where to find a keyboard with american lettering in Germany.


Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Soeren

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Monday, December 19, 2016 - 02:09 am: Edit

James,
there is another glitch I stumbled over while converting our game to Vassal and experimenting with its functions:

My LDR warships (not the auxilliaries) are somehow considered by the summaries to be Tholian warships.

I checked it in several other scenarios and their LDR warships are also recognized as Tholian ones.

In case of capturing they are still considered LDR warships and can not be captured by them (but by the Tholians), but the Empire Summary somehow disagrees.

Now our Tholian player has given our Klingon player a mysterious new Tholian fleet in their backyard to worry about. Maybe the 313th battlefleet arrived to warn their brothers of the incoming bug infestation. :-)

I hope I don't annoy you too much by mentioning these things. I don't want to appear nagging. I realise what an immense and diffcult task it was to create this module. You have my biggest respect for your work.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Soeren

By Sören Klein (Ogdrklein) on Monday, December 19, 2016 - 02:20 am: Edit

Addendum to my last post:

As I am a curious guy who klicks on every button until he finds the big red one for the self destruct, I just got the idea of recapturing my LDR warships which are somehow considered by the Empire Summary under "Tholian management".

And look what happens. After a successful revolt against their mysterious Tholian masters my LDR warships are now back under LDR control.

Still, new warships are considered to be Tholian ones at first and have to be recaptured first before being recognised by the Empire Summary as LDR warships.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Soeren

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Monday, December 19, 2016 - 11:43 am: Edit

Okay, that bumps the schedule for 2.0.1 up a bit.

Good catch! It took a little doing to find the one setting that was left over from a copy and paste.

And then I had to shut down and restart the module for it to take effect (this is not usual). So it's a kind of nasty little bug.