I’m a big fan of Avalon Hill games. I used to play their Starship Troopers board game growing up. I recently got really excited when I learned about VASSAL and saw this module, its amazing. I looked through all of the modules and I feel the lonestar alternate is most complete. Everything is working perfectly except I am having one issue.
One of the core functionalities of this game is the hidden hive complex the Arachnid player has which should not be visible to the Terran player. The problem is I cannot hide any of the tunnels or complexes on the map. I see the option of hiding the units in the right click menu but it is grayed out. I have tested with a friend and as the Terran player he can see the tunnel network. I’m just wondering if I’m doing something wrong and other people are not having this problem or if this is a known issue with the module that the hide function does not work.
You’re right… looks like a typo, as Alien was chosen as a side for hiding those pieces, rather than Arachnid. You can either try using Solitaire as the arachnid side, or I can detail how to edit the module (not hard).
Thanks for the reply! I did a little digging myself and came to the same conclusion there is a typo under the definition of ArachnidInvisible. The player side is stated as “Alien” instead of “Arachnid”. After changing “Alien” to “Arachnid” the hide option works perfectly for all new units taken from the counters menu.
There is still an issue with the preloaded scenarios as the pieces that are already placed on the board and in hive complex cannot be hid (probably because these games states were created with the typo). But this is pretty easily fixable simply by deleting the preexisting hive complex and making a new hidable complex from the counters menu.
Hopefully this helps anyone else trying to play this module in the future.
