"Softlink" Reference to another piece in a Game Piece Window

In the VASL Game Piece Window, there are many counters displayed that are actually alternative views of OTHER counters. For example, a squad could be displayed in one Panel, then its component half-squad be displayed in another. In reality, both squad and HS are the exact same unit in the buildfile, but two different layers are displayed to the user.

When maintaining the module, it becomes difficult to make changes because you’re not quite sure whether you’ve caught all the places where that counter was used. It’s a nontrivial problem because VASL can have ~10 different displays for the same unit, given how squads can ELR Break or Battle Harden to weaker/stronger units (and their halfsquads).

What would be nice is to have a CloneOf Trait that basically says, “This unit in the Game Piece Window is a clone of an original that lies somewhere else.” Clones would not have editable properties, but could be displayed with different Traits showing, in order to present the user with different versions of what is really the same counter.

Just a thought.

Tom

You have essentially described the Prototype trait.

Well, but I wasn’t meaning to go that high up the chain. Prototypes are useful as general classes of units or functionalities, but I’m talking about showing specific game pieces that have different views that can be shown in the Game Piece Palette.

Think of it like a Pokemon with three different life cycles. Stage 1 is a Repettibo, a spineless little thing not unlike myself. Stage 2 is a Repettichu, larger with some fangs. Stage 3 is Ragnapetti, huge and frightening (like my aunt Edna).

All three are represented as different layers within the same game piece because a Repettibo can ingest a plate of Kansas City BBQ Ribs and metamorph into a Repettichu under ctrl-R, while a Repettichu can eat an Entenmann’s Crumb Cake to become the epitome of its existence, the Ragnapetti, with another ctrl-R.

You want to show all three as separate pieces in the Game Piece Palette. However, the current system requires you to cut and paste that game piece twice in the Module Editor, which effectively creates three separate Game Pieces that need to be maintained separately. What would be nice is to allow Repettibo and Repettichu to point to Ragnapetti, where the full menu of Traits for this single game piece would be kept.

I understand how Prototypes could be used to solve this problem, but I don’t think you want us creating zillions of different prototypes for all the different Pokemon out there.