Vassal Prototypes

As far as counters of a similar type are concerned many of them will have a certain number of characteristics that are the same under all circumstances.

For instance, taking the ship counter, it would not matter what type of ship we were talking about when it comes to turning to port or turning to starboard since ALL ships that I know of have this feature.

Similarly, nearly all ships move forward bow first. They may have a reverse gear but generally they turn around to go back in the direction they have come from so they are still moving 'forward'.

These are particular traits of the ship counter that are common to all other ship counters and are ideal for grouping together as a 'Prototype'.

Prototypes are VERY useful in Vassal, very useful indeed.

So, instead of having to create a whole list of counter traits again and again each time we create a ship counter, we can group them all together in a single Prototype and simply give each new counter a 'Prototype' trait which already contains all the other traits within it. This saves a LOT of time.

The benefits of using a Prortype are many, but in particular there are two clear benefits. However, I'll explain them after I have gone through the steps of creating a prototype for the ship counters.

OK, I want the ship counters to ALL be able to do the following;

1. Be deleted from the game map
2. To be rotated left or right through 360-degrees in increments of 60-degrees
3. To move forward one-hex by using the keyboard rather than click-and-drag
4. To leave a movement trail behind them showing the path they have travelled
5. To be able to have a visula indicator that the ship has moved this turn

Fortunately all of these requirements can be met by using counter-traits in Vassal. So, the first thing I do is create a new prototype that I will call ship and I will assign to this prototype each of the traits necessary to enable the actions in the above list to be carried out.

The Traits required are as follows;

1. DELETE Trait
2. Can Rotate Trait
3. Mark When Moved Trait
4. Movement Trail Trait
5. Move Fixed Distance Trait

Here is the completed prototype;

The Vassal Prototype called 'ship' that will be applied to all Naval vessals

Next post I'll go through the individual traits of the Prototype as well as look at further Prototypes and traits that will round off the ship counters and make them ready for play-testing.