Scouting - currently you have to work around how this is programmed by manually scouting X+1 times when X are already scouted. it seems like the baddie chips piles are implicitly face-down so I don't know how easy it would be to implement actual scouting like how the rulebook lays it out (ie that scouted baddies remain face up in their pile, and additional scouts should look at the next unrevealed baddie) but it would be nice if it could be done.

Originally posted by The Slothful Pixie:

Scouting - currently you have to work around how this is programmed by manually scouting X+1 times when X are already scouted. it seems like the baddie chips piles are implicitly face-down so I don't know how easy it would be to implement actual scouting like how the rulebook lays it out (ie that scouted baddies remain face up in their pile, and additional scouts should look at the next unrevealed baddie) but it would be nice if it could be done.

I agree that scouting as it is implemented in this mod is not the best. It is something that I've wanted to go back and improve but without much clamor or request to do so was low on my list of things to do.

TTS seems to have an aversion to having both face up and face down chips in the bag at the same time. When I tried to return chips to the top of the bag face up the game started a weird duplication loop that ended up leaving behind many floating copies of the chip in the air and in the bag.

However this is driven by code so I can work around this.

Let me work on a change to:
1. Track face up versus face down chips in each bag internally in the scripting code.
2. When scouting a baddie stack I'll pull the first face down chip from the stack.
3. When returning chip to the top it will go to the top of the face up chips in the stack which sit above the face down stack of chips.
4. When returning chip to the bottom of the stack it will go face up to the bottom of the stack.

Naturally since TTS is using a bag for the chip stack you won't really see this behaviour and if you manually pull a chip it'll still be face down unfortunately. This is a limitation of using the bag in TTS as the chip stack rather than assembling an actual stack of chips in the mod.

Would this work out for what you are looking for?

I've made the changes above to the mod. Let me know if this is what you were looking for.

Cheers

The scouting part works (though I think enemies are supposed to go either to the bottom or back to their original position, not onto the very top? Rulebook isn't explicit but it doesn't say to put them on top, only that you may put them on the bottom)

But it also seems to now attempt to perform arithmetic on a nil value if you try to use the Baddie Setup chip (or BQ setup tool) on a chip you had scouted and returned to the top

Thank you for pointing out the issue with the BQ setup tool and the Baddie setup chip. I've just pushed a fix to that.

You are also right about where the chip should be returned to the top if there are already scouted chips on top. I'll need to redo the mechanism for doing that but I'll work on that next.

I'm also not happy with the bag hiding the chip stack which makes it hard to see what baddies on the top that you've already scouted. I want to add a new button that will lift up the already scouted baddies on top of the stack for inspection. It will then return them to the stack in the correct order once ready.

I'm hoping that this will make scouting in the mod easier to use.

No worries, glad to have helped with it.

It would be nice if the bag behaved more like an actual stack but to be fair even with an actual stack you can only see the topmost one without manually moving things around anyway, so when you have multiple baddies scouted you aren't much worse off with how it is.

But a button to reveal the known information would be great

I've finished the changes to the Scouting function. There is now a new button next to the `Scout` button that will lift up all previously scouted baddies that are on top of the baddie stack.

Pressing the same button will return the chips to the stack.

When returning baddies to to the top of the stack after scouting they are now placed under the previously scouted baddies and above the rest of the not-yet-scouted baddies.

Now that the mats, reference sheets, and dice are finalized for the new Unbreakable Gearlocs, is there an ETA for when they're able to be added to the mod like Riffle was?

While the final versions of the reference sheets, mats and dice have been finalized I'd not be able to add them into the mod in any final way.

I could reconstruct enough to have Gale, Polaris, Figment and Static playable in the mod there are still cooking cards for Carcass that have not been shown off to the public yet.

If there is enough request for more Gearlocs added to the mod, with the understanding that the graphics aren't as good as they will be once the product is delivered next year, then I could try it out and see if it is good enough to use in the mod as a placeholder.

Originally posted by Trindall:

While the final versions of the reference sheets, mats and dice have been finalized I'd not be able to add them into the mod in any final way.

I could reconstruct enough to have Gale, Polaris, Figment and Static playable in the mod there are still cooking cards for Carcass that have not been shown off to the public yet.

If there is enough request for more Gearlocs added to the mod, with the understanding that the graphics aren't as good as they will be once the product is delivered next year, then I could try it out and see if it is good enough to use in the mod as a placeholder.

Fair enough. Would you mind if I were to make a new thread to gather opinions on this topic?

Originally posted by Kyubey:

Fair enough. Would you mind if I were to make a new thread to gather opinions on this topic?

Certainly. Anyone can make a post in this discussion board about anything mod related so go for it.

There is a sticker pack that comes with the updated Trove Chest that has Gearloc stickers for all of the new Gearlocs.

I use that artwork for the selector in the mod. If anyone is able to take a good photo of that sticker set then it'd make my life easier in adding the new Gearlocs to the mod. Otherwise I'll be mocking up artwork to use.

Hi! awesome job on the mod. The only nitpick i have with it is the way the health values are displayed above the chip stacks. having them straight up and down like they are makes it so you cant see or interact with them with a natural "top down" camera angle. Not too much of an issue for the gearlocks cause they have the hp buttons beside the board, but the baddies are kind of rough to deal with.

when i do "floating text" like that i usually try to keep it at around a 45 degree angle that way you can see and interact with it from most viewing angles.

Originally posted by Nightbreez:

Hi! awesome job on the mod. The only nitpick i have with it is the way the health values are displayed above the chip stacks. having them straight up and down like they are makes it so you cant see or interact with them with a natural "top down" camera angle. Not too much of an issue for the gearlocks cause they have the hp buttons beside the board, but the baddies are kind of rough to deal with.

when i do "floating text" like that i usually try to keep it at around a 45 degree angle that way you can see and interact with it from most viewing angles.

This is a valid issue and a good point. I can parameterize the rotation of the baddie health text and then let the player decide what they want. There could be buttons for 0, 5 and 90 degree values which should cover most use cases and keep the UX selection fairly simple.

I'm working on updating some of the 3D models in my other mod at the moment but let me see if I can get this change worked in presently for this one.

Originally posted by Trindall:

This is a valid issue and a good point. I can parameterize the rotation of the baddie health text and then let the player decide what they want. There could be buttons for 0, 5 and 90 degree values which should cover most use cases and keep the UX selection fairly simple.

I'm working on updating some of the 3D models in my other mod at the moment but let me see if I can get this change worked in presently for this one.

Awesome!
as a side note: I noticed you was loading in some modules or something in the code. I've scripted several mods and stuff on tabletop, but I don't really have knowledge of how that workflow operates. Is there any resources you could point me towards so i can look into it?

Originally posted by Nightbreez:

Awesome!
as a side note: I noticed you was loading in some modules or something in the code. I've scripted several mods and stuff on tabletop, but I don't really have knowledge of how that workflow operates. Is there any resources you could point me towards so i can look into it?

I was fairly new to Lua when I started this mod and I followed some tutorial in setting up an IDE to start development.

I never actually used the imported modules as I started small and added code organically to the objects. Then the code grew to such a level that it is a bit embarrassing how it is laid out. I really want to set up a git repo for the code, break it out into modules and clean up a lot of the code but I put it off in favor of other things. (I really do a lot of inefficient, silly stuff in the code that I wouldn't have done if I planned things out from the beginning.)

There are other mods, like the Gloomhaven TTS Scripted mod that has done this the "right" way and I've seen a git repo or two that could be looked through to see how things are done.

I'll need to look around to see if I can find them again. Below is a link to a simple description of the module workflow.

http://blog.onelivesleft.com/2017/08/atom-tabletop-simulator-package.html?m=1