Toggle Hidden Units not working

[Blackcloud6]

I'm setting up Mentor Scenario 3 and try to hide the German units and it does not work.  The pull down for this is grayed out.  Could this be that I am playing solitaire?  It would still have a function to be able to show these hidden in solitaire, maybe a grayed out unit, as one could still play with the reduced spotting, otr to indicate a potential position one uses the full solitaire hidden units rules.

[plloyd1010]

Hiding units doesn't work in solitaire mode. You will need to mark the spotted or unspotted.

[Blackcloud6]

Hiding units doesn't work in solitaire mode. You will need to mark the spotted or unspotted.

It would be nice to have a different way of marking units as hidden as some units will actually become spotted when they pop up and fire.  In a small scenario, one can remember but in a big one it would be tough.   On actual noard play I could rotate counters a certain way .  maybe just include a hidden counter?

[Shad]

Hi Blackcloud6, if I'm reading you right then you need the following statuses in solitaire play:

• hidden
  
• not hidden, unspotted
  
• spotted
  

Is that the basic idea?

We will need to look at the hidden unit algorithm within Vassal. Being able to hide something is an intrinsic part of the Vassal engine and depends on setting the unit owner's side and comparing it against all other sides present. It may not be programmatically possible to hide during solitaire.

We'll give it a try!

[Blackcloud6]

Hi Blackcloud6, if I'm reading you right then you need the following statuses in solitaire play:

• hidden
  
• not hidden, unspotted
  
• spotted
  

Is that the basic idea?

Yes.  The last two could simply be done with the spotting indicator now in the module.  The "hidden" status might be done with a counter of top if you can't do a flag.   This marker could be used for potentially hidden pieces using the last portion of the hidden rules for solitaire, or simply to note that the unit is hidden and thus harder to spot; either way depending on how the player is playing.

[Matt W]

With respect to hidden units I would love a function that permitted a solitaire player to see only those Side 2 units that were not hidden during a Side 1 activation.  This could be something like the toggle switch used in a lot of other game modules that permit the player to hide units to view the map, just removing certain units.  Not sure if that is possible but as long as we are putting in wish lists!

[plloyd1010]

The problem was that there isn't a way, that I have found, to partially apply hiding effects.

[joe_oppenheimer]

For solo maybe have  Hidden? markers that can be placed on the map. I use the solitaire method of putting out twice as many markers as actual hidden units and then drawing to see if there really is a unit. We could either use the marker with a manual method for determining if someone is in the hex, or have another random holding area where you put your hidden units plus an equal number of dummy markers. When you want to see if a unit is hidden under a particular Hidden? marker you draw from that holding box.

[Schoenwulf]

For solo, could one use the modifiable terrain marker, marked with a "?", and place twice as many of these on the board as there are hidden units as Joe has suggested. Then just roll a die with 1-3 drawing an active unit, and 4-6 a dud. Do this until all hidden units have been discovered.
When I have played ftf with Vassal online via Skype, I just gave my opponent a password-protected document with the hidden unit locations; after all hidden units had been revealed, he was given the pass code to open the doc and could verify that I had played them all correctly.