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I have a very good network and a decently powerful machine - so if you don't - don't recommend you trying something this big and this network heavy... See if I can setup something where I can theoretically be the ultimate in lazy and not do ANYTHING as a DM and a massive battle plays out.... On page 1 also.
https://youtu.be/ZHOex26Vjic
V1.6 - Feature - when the CT map token is double clicked it will insure the CT scrolls to a point in the window that it is showing that CT token's entry - if visible in the CT list.
V1.7 - Bug - added additional end turn check to resolve an incompatibility with another extension.
Specifically this was for Friends Zone extension.
V1.8 - Bug - Added in client message to try and insure that any owned token change is selected on client after change. Trying to prevent a black screen for player.
The black screen issue where every time I switched an owned NPC to a new map seems to be fixed in the one test I did with a remote user. Will have to see in my next COS game when we get back to it in a few weeks as it was 100% happening in the Ulrich Manor and Berez map I was switching between. Hopefully it resolves it.
The extension was updated as a printstack() statement was left over in the code. No version change. Get new .ext to get rid of spam in log file.
Well finished my Massive ship boarding combat session for SW5e - this was the 2nd session dedicated to the one boarding action and will likely take up most of a 3rd session also. The grand experiment (for my group at least) is working and massive combat while time consuming can be fun. The only issue I have is that I have to click on and off ownership (assistant GM CT button on player side) sometimes when the map goes black and they cannot select the NPC. Same happens for PC but that requires a different work around - closing and reopening the map. Does anyone else suffer from this map blindness?
I note the workarounds (NPC - player clicks off and on ownership CT toggle; PC - close and reopen the map) here in case other are experiencing this. It does not happen all the time but it happens frequently enough to be noticed.
Handy tip for large scale battles using Combat Groups and Assistant GM (from same game as previous post) - Player CT's are limited to what they see by only allowing them to see the same faction and/or the same group. In truly large battles I use the the same group option and just make sure the logged in PC owns any NPCs they control and that they are all in the same unique group. That way the player only sees what they control and can only see allies/enemies on the map (LOS/lighting) for targeting and such (not shared views). This keeps the game flowing much faster and does not give away things they do not see in large combat situations (keeps it simple for them). Unfortunately, the host still has to have all the groups visible on his CT so his CT is heavily populated (not simple). However, whenever an end turn occurs the PC/NPC is scrolled to be visible in the CT. Any double click on the CT token will center that token in the map. Also, anytime a map entry is double clicked the CT will be scrolled to have that entry visible. This is still a pain when you have 20 things visible in a CT display area and have to find that one you are looking for (not their turn - your looking at it to get to CT actions etc.). I find even if I have a host with a ton of entries - if I simply minimize the CT window area so only a few entries are shown at any time - then end turn or double clicking on map will get that entry quickly found in the 3-5 entries I have shown in my host window area - even if there are 50 or so entries currently visible in the CT. I was having trouble in my Monday game finding NPCs that had opportunity attacks on something where I could just click on the CT action (not their turn - buried somewhere in the CT list). It took me 5-10 seconds to find them in the 20 or so entries currently displayed on my host CT. But with a minimal window of 3-5 entries - I immediately found them after the double click insured they were displayed. Gist being - even if I have a zillion entries in the host CT I can just have only a few of them displayed as end turn will center any in CT and map and then if I double click on any in map they will be visible someplace in my CT area and if I double click any CT tokens they will be visible and centered in the map. This makes managing large scale battles with these extensions much easier and the game flows quickly.
V1.9 - Bug - Fixed where GrantNPCAccess button would only clear access of an owned NPC if it was a logged in user. In one of my sessions one of the players was out and another took over his PC and NPCs for that character but I had to recreate the NPCs in CT because I could not free up the usernames owned ones (because he was not logged in). Will now clear owned NPCs (that were assigned by AssistantGM) whether logged in or not when the GrantNPCAccess is turned off for that user.
V1.10 - Bug - AssistantGM would cause NPC's that used polymorphism to lose their ownership when switching back to original NPC by running through CT entries to remove ownership. Rewrite of portions of extension to make sure ownership removal was only done by those who owned the PC/NPC. Also guarded to make sure this logic was never called for a PC CT node. Hopefully this fixes my problems with losing ownership of map tokens for players.
Basically, in my last game I had random hard to pin down ownership issues with PCs and NPCs when going through map transitions or polymorphism. After about 24+ hours of debugging with tons of print statements and multiple test players (remote) I think I've got it "better". Gist is when doing a single player it always worked. With multiple players doing NPC polymorph and Grant NPC access and sharing NPC access directly I would see hard to pin down cases where ownership of map token for player was lost. I eventually trial and errored my way down to timing issues. I've reduced the amount of redundant check/setting that was happening for NPC sharing (dropping NPC on player portrait) and polymorphism to just the CT node getting updated that was actually changed. I've also made sure that no ownership removal will occur unless the CT entry is actually owned by the player currently having their CT updated. Gist is was doing a lot of overkill to make sure the CT entries were always up to date and updated for ownership which I think caused timing issues. Anyway, assuming it was something I could do something about I've tried to do something about it by reducing the amount of changes AssistantGM did to the players CT entries and the redundant checking and setting of ownership. Hopefully, my next session I won't see players losing control of their tokens forcing me to reshare them or open/close their maps.
Note added to page 1:
This was added because I had made a demo copy of one of my live campaigns with around a 100 NPCs in combat tracker (combat groups) with 5 players each running around 3-4 extra NPCs (owned) and another player running all the enemy NPCs (20-30) with about 60 neutral NPCs nobody owned. When I got in my demo copy to show someone I cleared the character owners - logged in as one - and wondered why I could not control any NPCs after I had granted myself "Grant NPC Access". It was only after that I noticed chat filling up my window with warnings about all the NPCs were still owned by someone else and who they were (I had copied a live in progress campaign after all where ownerships were currently in use). So I went ahead and did a Clear All so I could redo it. Well let me tell you - when you trigger around a 100 NPCs to tell everyone their tokens (ownership) and CT entries need to refresh - it can take like a minute. With the clients maps all flashing as the ones they own are updated. And the host has no idea this is all going on because it does those changes and sends the packets to update out to the client fairly fast. So BEWARE. FGU does not let a host know the client communications queues are still processing stuff out and in clients. That's for anything not just my stuff. Usually if you have only around 10 owned things this is not really noticeable. But if you have a BIG complex battle like I do - then your going to notice it.Quote:
Also when you use the Clear All button remember it will remove all ownerships defined and clear the list of current logged in players. To recover the selection list you will need to have them erase their logged in PC and reselect it. Also, best to have players close maps and combat tracker before you do Clear All if you have a lot of owned NPCs ( can be up to a minute while all the clients maps flash and CT's get refreshed for each NPC - small numbers its not noticeable).