Again, since you seem to have interest, do you have any suggestions? I am certainly am willing to make a sample and send it to you for your critique.
Not if I make a sample first.
The funny thing is that I don't even
play with VASL (I much prefer FtF), nor do I play Starter Kits anymore. But I started my ASL career with Starter Kits and I am interested in your setup files because A) they can be a great help to newbs and helping newbs is near to my heart as well. B) I do use VASL to study the maps and maybe set up units before an actual FtF game and it's great for heavily modified terrain SSRs like "all hills are woods" so I can print those out.
Anyways, I don't know how to overcome to color limitation but actually I do have other suggestion(s) (with your permission of stating my thoughts).
I think I figured out a fool proof, rules proof, funtionality proof and a non-compromising way to show the setups for entering units. Instead of marking all the off-board hexes they can set up onto, simply only show the hexes they must show up to during this turn. Two reasons:
1) In ASL units can do offboard movement to their hearts content as long as they enter at some point during that turn. Thus nothing prevents them to set up further away from the board, beyond the shown perimeter hexes. Although this is really important only in SK3+ when Tanks appear, so one can make a long off board column for vehicles using road movement.
2) The scenario cards sometimes limits the hexes where one must enter (for example "between M0 and P0"). If you mark only the off board setup hexes a newbie might forget the limitations and sidestep out of the boundaries by accident. But if you marked the hexes where they
must enter then accidents can't happen.
3) Plus I think it looks more neat and less crowded.
So... I took pictures. I used S14 - 88s at Zon as an example.
First your version:
The problem I see here (in addition to half-hex setup confusion I mentioned earlier) is that a unit setupping in M11 or E11 can accidentally enter on L10 or D10 respectively if they forget the entering limitations of "M10-P10" and "E10-H10".
My suggestion is to only show the hexes where units
must enter:
This way the entering units can setup anywhere they want as long as they make the entry in one of those hexes. For consistency sake I did the same to the black exit hexes. So those are the hexes a unit must exit through.
Then another idea hit me. These perimeters are great for setup but can be distracting during play (I imagine). I personally would hit the "Remove All (Perimeter)" button after turn 2 when the final reinforcements have arrived. The problem is that it would remove the exit hex perimeters also which I would like to see throughout the game. So just for kicks I made a variant example where I used Victory markers instead for exit hexes: