Could VASL handle...

[Spinks]

Hey guys...

I was going through my scenarios last night and found Gold Beach from the Monster Pack.

Here's the description (cut and pasted or stolen from Desperation Morale: http://www.desperationmorale.com/worldofasl/worldoneshotwonders.html)

Normandy, 1944. 16 players, 8 per side. This 24-map scenario may be the largest published ASL scenario. Moreover, it is one that has actually been played (at least three times: in Colorado, in Michigan, and in Great Britain). Essentially, each player manages a 3-map sector of the invasion beach. It will take at least four hours just to set up the maps.

Could the VASL program handle this? Could the server? Just plain curious, I ain't crazy enough to do it.

Spinks

 

[dreenstra]

Hey guys...

I was going through my scenarios last night and found Gold Beach from the Monster Pack.

Here's the description (cut and pasted or stolen from Desperation Morale: http://www.desperationmorale.com/worldofasl/worldoneshotwonders.html)

Normandy, 1944. 16 players, 8 per side. This 24-map scenario may be the largest published ASL scenario. Moreover, it is one that has actually been played (at least three times: in Colorado, in Michigan, and in Great Britain). Essentially, each player manages a 3-map sector of the invasion beach. It will take at least four hours just to set up the maps.

Could the VASL program handle this? Could the server? Just plain curious, I ain't crazy enough to do it.

Spinks

Interesting question Mike, don't know if the limits of VASL have been pushed to that extreme. Offhand, the highest number of players I've seen in a VASL room is 8-10, usually for a large CG game like RB, KGP or more recently VotG. Certainly large maps with a high number of counters, but nowhere near 24 maps.

Only one way to find out, throw the maps together one night and pester anyone who comes by the Main Room to come into your room and sync up. Then again, with the threat that the server might crash for the night, you might not have too many takers...

Hope to see you in Raleigh in few weeks.

Dave

 

[Jazz]

Hey guys...

I was going through my scenarios last night and found Gold Beach from the Monster Pack.

Here's the description (cut and pasted or stolen from Desperation Morale: http://www.desperationmorale.com/worldofasl/worldoneshotwonders.html)

Normandy, 1944. 16 players, 8 per side. This 24-map scenario may be the largest published ASL scenario. Moreover, it is one that has actually been played (at least three times: in Colorado, in Michigan, and in Great Britain). Essentially, each player manages a 3-map sector of the invasion beach. It will take at least four hours just to set up the maps.

Could the VASL program handle this? Could the server? Just plain curious, I ain't crazy enough to do it.

Spinks

Someone posted a message about the difficulties of setting up exactly this scenario. The problem arises when there are multiple copies of the same board getting overlays added.

Not sure what the answers were, but what I would try if I were being so silly as to try to set this monster up:

-As you add duplicate boards, add overlays to them before you add another board to the list. Someone mentioned that VASL seems to pick the last incarnation of a multiply listed board?

-Make multiple copies of the board in question in your boards directory but re-name the board files so that each board can be uniquely identified in VASL.

 

[countermanCX]

-Make multiple copies of the board in question in your boards directory but re-name the board files so that each board can be uniquely identified in VASL.

This is on the right track, but it's a bit more complex than just making a copy of "bd10" & naming the copy "bd10a".

A bdfile is a zipfile, and VASL req's that the bdfile name be the same as the gif imagefile it contains. So you gotta rename your "bd10a" to "bd10a.zip", open it in WinZip, extract its 'main' mapfile "bd10.gif" to your desktop, rename that file to "bd10a.gif", add that file back to "bd10a.zip", delete "bd10.gif" from "bd10a.zip", then rename "bd10a.zip" to "bd10a".

I dunno if the LOS-data file "bd10.map" also needs to be re-named as "bd10a.map", prob'ly it does, but will it still work? Will its 'internal overlay' files such as "10_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10.gif" also need re-namin' to "10a_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10a.gif", along w/ editing the "overlaySSR" & "SSRcontrols" textfiles?

I've not experimented w/ any of this, but it'd be interesting to find out.

 

[dreenstra]

This is on the right track, but it's a bit more complex than just making a copy of "bd10" & naming the copy "bd10a".

A bdfile is a zipfile, and VASL req's that the bdfile name be the same as the gif imagefile it contains. So you gotta rename your "bd10a" to "bd10a.zip", open it in WinZip, extract its 'main' mapfile "bd10.gif" to your desktop, rename that file to "bd10a.gif", add that file back to "bd10a.zip", delete "bd10.gif" from "bd10a.zip", then rename "bd10a.zip" to "bd10a".

I dunno if the LOS-data file "bd10.map" also needs to be re-named as "bd10a.map", prob'ly it does, but will it still work? Will its 'internal overlay' files such as "10_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10.gif" also need re-namin' to "10a_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10a.gif", along w/ editing the "overlaySSR" & "SSRcontrols" textfiles?

I've not experimented w/ any of this, but it'd be interesting to find out.

Creating a custom map using PhotoShop might also be worth a shot. You could load each board in VASL individually, apply terrain transforms and overlays and save as a separate PNG file. Then use Photoshop to piece all the boards together and save as a massive custom GIF. Not 100% sure if the LOS tool would still work properly and you would have to circulate your custom map to anyone that wants to play on it. But it would get around the trouble of applying overlays to duplicate boards with the same number.

Dave

 

[countermanCX]

Creating a custom map using PhotoShop might also be worth a shot. You could load each board in VASL individually, apply terrain transforms and overlays and save as a separate PNG file. Then use Photoshop to piece all the boards together and save as a massive custom GIF. Not 100% sure if the LOS tool would still work properly and you would have to circulate your custom map to anyone that wants to play on it. But it would get around the trouble of applying overlays to duplicate boards with the same number.

I'd be wary of using PhotoShop & the .png file-format for this kind of work.

My (obsolete) version of PhotoShop doesn't have the ability to save / modify a gif-image's color-palette, so i prefer to use my (obsolete) version of PaintShopPro when I'm working w/ map-board files. VASL's innards for terrain-transform require strict adherence to specified RGB color-numbers, & saving files back'n'forth to different formats is an easy way to mess them up. Stick w/ the .gif format!

 

[dreenstra]

I'd be wary of using PhotoShop & the .png file-format for this kind of work.

My (obsolete) version of PhotoShop doesn't have the ability to save / modify a gif-image's color-palette, so i prefer to use my (obsolete) version of PaintShopPro when I'm working w/ map-board files. VASL's innards for terrain-transform require strict adherence to specified RGB color-numbers, & saving files back'n'forth to different formats is an easy way to mess them up. Stick w/ the .gif format!

Hmmm, guess I always took the VASL tooltip at it's word and assumed that the only file format you could save an image file to was .png. Now that I try it, looks like it can be saved directly as a .gif file as well.

Thanks for the tip, counterman!

Dave

 

[Larry]

This is on the right track, but it's a bit more complex than just making a copy of "bd10" & naming the copy "bd10a".

A bdfile is a zipfile, and VASL req's that the bdfile name be the same as the gif imagefile it contains. So you gotta rename your "bd10a" to "bd10a.zip", open it in WinZip, extract its 'main' mapfile "bd10.gif" to your desktop, rename that file to "bd10a.gif", add that file back to "bd10a.zip", delete "bd10.gif" from "bd10a.zip", then rename "bd10a.zip" to "bd10a".

I dunno if the LOS-data file "bd10.map" also needs to be re-named as "bd10a.map", prob'ly it does, but will it still work? Will its 'internal overlay' files such as "10_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10.gif" also need re-namin' to "10a_DenseJungle.gif" & "SRTbd10a.gif", along w/ editing the "overlaySSR" & "SSRcontrols" textfiles?

I've not experimented w/ any of this, but it'd be interesting to find out.

In "creating" new boards, I rename everything. It is possible to use the same board twice though, even with overlays. Overlays can be used over and over again.

To use the same board twice, I have found that VASL reads left to right and line by line. Put board 10 in the appropriate spot furthest from the upper left corner. Modify it at will. Add the next board 10 in order and place the overlays. Etc. I am not sure if the LOS engine will handle this ... that I will have to check.

 

[Carl_Alex]

All the mapboards here are in a single column.

I tried the following.

For each repeated mapboad.
1. leave all occurences except the last blank
2. apply beach overlays to the present mapboards
3. exchange blank spaces with next occurence (one of each)
4. apply beach overlays on the added occurnces
5. (repeat until all blanks are filled in)

This seemed to get the beach overlays right.

My problem now is how to get the ocean overlays onto the beach overlays, since I can't get VASL to accept the beach overlay coordinates, so I guess I would have to express it in mapboard coordinates instead.

Cheers,

Carl

 

[Larry]

My problem now is how to get the ocean overlays onto the beach overlays, since I can't get VASL to accept the beach overlay coordinates, so I guess I would have to express it in mapboard coordinates instead.

Correct. If the beach overlay is on A3/A4 and the beach is one hex wide, then the ocean overlay would be at A4/A5, e.g.