Modern UIs are almost entirely awful, though. Mid-90s-early 00s is where it's at.

Modern UIs are almost entirely awful, though. Mid-90s-early 00s is where it's at.

I am not talking about any Windows 8 Modern UI ʇıɥs here, or mobile-like. Something similar to the old Magic: The Gathering Shandalar PC game would be totally fine, with context-aware popup panels that show the information needed when it's needed or hovered-over. Instead of having 9 windows, all open at the same time, overlapping one each other, and not doing anything meaningful most of the time.

9 windows? During gameplay you need:

-map

-dice

-hands (these can be almost completely overlapping)

-a little bit of space to click on Pieces sometimes, if you don't have a map-side template for that

You have:

• Vassal module selector window is always there. No point on it being an active window all the time.
• Server window with the chat, room list and tool bar.
• The Map window
• The Pieces window for templates, tokens, etc.
• Your hand window
• Your opponent's hand window
• You need at some point the damage deck window. A window with literally one single button that you need to press twice.
• The dice window.
• If you use any VoIP program, like Skype, Hangouts or TeamSpeak, they are also there, clogging the ALT-TAB tasklist

I know that Vassal is free software and I shouldn't demand anything. And I don't. But I still think that all of that could be reduced to a single fullscreen Map, with popup panels that appear when needed and disappear when not needed.

Module selector is a separate window in the OS sense, the others are part of the module and don't clog the taskbar.

Server/room stuff is background, and the frames are part of the chat/main window

The pieces window is almost totally irrelevant except when you're /making/ a list, I have a .vlog that loads all the templates+asteroids beside the map. Separate tokens are mostly pointless (focus for Moldy Crow title so it doesn't clear at end of turn), but I just use the token indicators on the ship bases to save clutter.

Hands - you don't need to see both simultaneously, so they can be roughly the same size but offset so you can click-to-swap

Damage deck window is only needed once per game, yes, you never need to open it otherwise.

Let me just screenshot (keep in mind my monitor is kind of small by modern standards, and this works just fine):

I end doing the same with the templates and tokens, just putting them in a big pile in the map. But sometimes you need a ion token you forgot to take, or a crit token because you keep forgetting that crit effect on that ship. How is he going to move that StarViper? Let me check the movement card that sits next to the starviper's pieces. In the end, I keep the pieces window open all the time.

At my 1080p resolution, I cannot have the whole map showing, with plenty of room for templates, without making the miniatures look tiny. I usually need to zoom in and scroll all the time. Then having to scroll to look for the right template. It's cumbersome.

I don't think it's a problem with the module. But how Vassal itself is designed. It abuses the MDI paradigm. I have the same feelings with it as I do when working with GIMP. Probably you will laugh at me and belittle my opinion for what I am going to say, but I think one of the few programs that did their UI right was SimCity 4. If you know it, you'll understand what I mean.

Crit/ion tokens can be toggled on the bases, though, and I know most dials from memory?

I only zoom for bumps and sometimes range checking.

I'm not even slightly familiar with any SimCity UI. Thing is, I really don't care how "optimal" a UI is by whatever design metric, but rather how it works within my personal access paradigm, and I'm perfectly willing to put some time into figuring out where things are.

Heck, I play Aurora. VASSAL doesn't even phase me.

I think there's a natural aversion for tokens on the sides of the ship, especially if you play like most people, using as much of the height of the screen as possible and zooming -> fit to height. The icons are small and at first, you run the risk of confusing evade for boost. As you gain familiarity with the module though, your eye needs less direct visual contact with stuff and you start discriminating the icons against each other.

There's been a surge of users all about those Pieces/chits for focus, evade, stress, etc, lately. It slows down play, but only lightly.

Ask yourselves if you actually really care about the legality of it, or just care about some non-existent rivalry between the two games.

My issue with it is that they're reproducing TM'ed cards. That means you have zero need to actually own anything FFG produces to play that game.

The Vassal mod however does everything possible to make ownership of the product required. Sure you can find everything out on the net, but that's beyond Mu0n's control, and he's made a good faith effort to protect FFG's IP. Something the people behind the other game have not done.

If they'd blank out the cards, and not include the ship stats by default there wouldn't be an issue here.

Ask yourselves if you actually really care about the legality of it, or just care about some non-existent rivalry between the two games.

My issue with it is that they're reproducing TM'ed cards. That means you have zero need to actually own anything FFG produces to play that game.

The Vassal mod however does everything possible to make ownership of the product required. Sure you can find everything out on the net, but that's beyond Mu0n's control, and he's made a good faith effort to protect FFG's IP. Something the people behind the other game have not done.

If they'd blank out the cards, and not include the ship stats by default there wouldn't be an issue here.

But FFG already publicizes the card text for free. It's on wikis. It's already not an issue since a sentence describing the effect of something in a game can't legally be trademarked, since it's not a slogan or something.