Darkage Warlord - General Discussion

[Mulsiphix]

This thread will be used to discuss any random questions about the system or its development.

[Mulsiphix]

How do you want to handle the map Maelstrom? I think this will prove to be key. What do you think of hosting the map on another website? One where players could move their units? Keeping this completely confined to posts would have to use screenshots wouldn't it? Either way the person is going out of their way to control their units on the map. Which do you think would be easier?

[Maelstrom]

That is a distinct possibility. I was thinking that we'd keep the map as a reference and just post the new locations of units in grid coordinates, but updating the map would be much more visually pleasing.

Any ideas of how to do that? MapTool as you suggested for DDM2?

[Mulsiphix]

MapTool would be extremely easy. I've worked with it extensively and have some map generating programs that would work nicely with it. We could definitely use coordinates for troop movement but I personally would find it quite difficult to imagine the battlefield when there are a lot of troops on the playing field. Given this system is for large scale combat I think some form of visual representation would be most useful.

If we had a website we could use flash or php or asp or something along those lines to create a board. Players could login, complete their turn, and if any info was needed for the PBP it could be output to a box that they could copy and paste. Either way there are different ways to go about this. If we go the software route I think MapTool would be best. If we go the cross platform/no software route, I think a web interface would prove most beneficial.

Here is a very basic example of what we could do in maptool. I'll be using fantasy tokens as that is what I have available but I could mass produce quality medieval tokens if we went the MapTool route.

[Maelstrom]

Looks pretty good! Hopefully we can scale it down a bit to keep the size down and see more hexes (we'll need something somewhere around 20 hexes wide).

[Mulsiphix]

Just give me the specs for the map and I'll see what I can do. The hard part is going to be giving the hexes coordinates that can be seen when the map is scaled down. This map is already heavily scaled down as the program used creates printer friendly BattleTech maps which are quite large. I'm sure we can work something out.

I still can't believe you don't like tables. Tables are your friend

[Maelstrom]

22 wide by 14 tall ought to do it for now. We can probably scale it in paint to about half or 1/3 the size.

Tables? What do you mean by tables?

[Mulsiphix]

For unit damage and general game stats. I'm just used to the overwhelming use of tables in BattleTech. Last I heard you were trying to get rid of the tables and replace them with equations.

[Mulsiphix]

Nevermind. The map size cannot be changed in this program. This sucks. Going to have to find a new map making program for this. Grawr! Anybody have any suggestions for one?

[Maelstrom]

For unit damage and general game stats. I'm just used to the overwhelming use of tables in BattleTech. Last I heard you were trying to get rid of the tables and replace them with equations.

Ahh, yeah, that. Well, tables have their purpose, and I don't think I'll be able to avoid them entirely. Just don't want to bog play with lookups.

[Mulsiphix]

If we can fit one or two in them, hell I can find some optional rule for some of them, that would be great. Then again once I start playing with equations they'll probably just be a hindrance

[Maelstrom]

You want to put in tables for the sake of having tables? That's sick!

[Mulsiphix]

You want to put in tables for the sake of having tables? That's sick!

I'm a troubled man

[Riftwalker]

Nevermind. The map size cannot be changed in this program. This sucks. Going to have to find a new map making program for this. Grawr! Anybody have any suggestions for one?

Can you scale the image after it has been exported?

[Mulsiphix]

Yes I can. The main problem I had was I couldn't add or subtract hexes from the map making program. It is a one size map. It is a utility used for making custom BattleTech Maps. But with some copy and pasting I could easily make a map as big or small as I liked. It exports the map at a very large resolution so resizing is always a given anyway. I don't think the need for unique maps will be all that high in the beginning and it wouldn't take long to make them. I think this program will actually work out just fine. I've sent it to Maelstrom to play around with as well.