Well i like to point my units in the direction they are moving or shooting

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I'd go with holding in the right mouse button and twisting, myself.

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Currently, left clicking opens menus, activates buttons, picks up and places units. Right clicking when carrying a unit returns it to it's original position. Clicking and dragging with the right buttpn activates the tape measure. Ctrl-right clicking deletes things.

I'll likely go for ctrl-left clicking and moving the mouse to rotate.

Looking good. Did you build this from scratch or use an engine/framework?

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I use an existing game engine, though technically it's a game engine designed for a first person shooter!

Very interesting keep on going with this.

I just made a basic map for Zombo to use as the box he was testing it in was ugly. Also, that's the first computer game level I've made in a good 8 years, albeit a very simple one!

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That looks intuitive enough I could get into it, unlike Vassal. I know you're still in development, but you will fix the issues with clipping to the walls, and intact buildings being Impassable instead of fancy hills?

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Why should intact buildings be impassible? Infantry can enter them in epic, so people should be able to place models on them. Not sure what you mean by clipping to the walls...

I'm not going to make anything impassible or have any rules in the game, my task is to provide a sandbox in which players can play their own games, supplying the rules themselves.

Ignore the intact buildings comment. I usually assume they are impassible if they have no reasonably traversable roof, but you're right, that's for the players to decide. At 0:43 in the youtube video, you move the tactical stand in such a manner that it clips to the wall of the box, instead of clipping to the nearest point on the actual "table".

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I see what you mean, but I don't plan on fixing that. It's up to the players to not place things half way up the walls.

New video on the new map, which is a 6' by 4' table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkX9p_kEFBY

Just wishlisting here, but for use with E:A rules...

It would be nice if the game engine would allow for tagging units for certain properties (for E:A this could be infantry, AV, wlaker, skimmer, etc.). This could be used in concert with terrain tagged with its own properties (ruins, swamp, etc) that the engine could flag when there is a rules-consequence for certain unit types being in (or moving through) certain terrain types. The engine would not necessarily have to prevent moves, just flag them so the players are aware of them.

This interaction could also be used to place an icon next to units in cover (due to being in B-to-B with and AV, terrain effects, or being on overwatch).

Also, It would be nice if the engine could group individual units into formations. This could be used by the engine to flag units that are out of coherency, flag formations that are intermingled, or to move units in a formation as a block. It could also be useful in showing which formations are broken, on overwatch, have already activated, etc.

Visual range circles (both for shooting and for movement) would be nice, as well. Preferrably allowing a player to turn them on/off on either a unit-to-unit basis or for an entire formation. This type of function would also be useful in showing a formation's ZoC, or which units are in position to contest an objective.

Allowing the game engine to assign a bunch of variables to individual units, such as movement speed, shooting range, and special rules, would make it much more useful than Vassal is.

The biggest problem I have with vassal is that all it lets you do is move icons around the screen [table]. It would be nice if it would be smart enough to tell you when you've moved a unit too far, or where the enemy AA cover is, or where the LoS shadows are for a given unit, etc.

Maybe that's more than you are going for, but I thought I'd throw them out there anyway.

I think he just wants to have a better version of vassal with integrated measurement, and real-time multi-player capability, rather than a complete game.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

My intention isnt to create a computer game of epic, it's to create a virtual tabletop environment where people can play games. Much like in real life, the table doesn't know the rules, so it's up to the players to just play. This also means I'll be able to open it up for people to create modules for other games.

Essentially I'm trying to make a 3d, better and more intuitive version of Vassal rather than a game that referees an epic game.

I could however do one or two simple things, like having a movement distance stored for each unit and making the distance text go red if you move more than it for example (actually I could make it a bit more sophisticated: green for single move distance, yellow for double, orange for march, red for over maximum). On the whole though it'll be up to the players to judge the rules, as normal.

Making a full epic game that understood the rules would be a MUCH bigger endevour, and not worth doing as a bit of freeware fun.

Ooo, I need to make templates.