There's a great guide for getting some of the basics of using Vassal to play Armada online, but there's additional things that I've learned as a newbie in the last several weeks of playing with Vassal for the first time. I think you'll find them useful for getting started in the online Armada scene. Your first step in exploring Armada via Vassal is to join the Facebook group,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarsarmadaonline/
. There is a getting started guide there to help you install Vassal and join games, but I wanted to supplement it with more things. As you will learn, you can manipulate every piece in the game with a right-click menu. For some of these things, it can be easier to use keyboard shortcuts, and these are listed where appropriate.
Offline games to learn the Vassal interface
Offline games are the best place to learn the interface to Vassal. Armada is a complex game, and the interface to Vassal can be equally daunting. Start an offline game to go through practicing critical components of the game. I recommend practicing all of these things:
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putting pieces on the table and setup
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measuring squadron movement and ship ranges
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rolling dice and dealing damage
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moving ships
Putting pieces on the table and setup
The most time consuming part of any Armada game is setup, and it's exactly the same with Armada on Vassal. In order to set up your fleet, you click the Table button and the Pieces button, then drag the components you need onto the table for your fleet. I prefer to set my ships into the gray area above or below the map.
Command dials
You need command dials for each of your ship, and there are multiple options. The one you want to use is a full command stack with 1, 2, or 3 dials and the rectangular tray around them. If you use a different one, odd things might happen.
Naming ships
To help avoid confusion, you'll want to rename your ships and their associated command stack uniquely. Ctrl-N will make it faster. This is important so you can view the log for which dials you have set and which ship is being manipulated with the maneuver tool.
Cloning items
Do you have 4 copies of the same card, ship, or squadron? You can click on one and press Ctrl-C to clone it. It will appear right on top of the other one, so it may look like it didn't do anything. Just click and drag it to a new location to see both of them.
Objective cards
You can flip cards over so your opponent cannot see them before choosing 1st or 2nd player. Ctrl-F is the keyboard shortcut here. By the way, you can right-click an objective card to add objective tokens to the appropriate player.
Saving a fleet for fast setup
Because of the time that it takes, you want to create your fleet before joining a game. To do so, set up your fleet on one side of the map in the gray area. Once you have it ready, go to File -> Begin Logfile and select where to Dave your fleet's file. Then select your entire fleet including objective cards and press Ctrl-D to delete them. Then click the Undo button in the main Vassal window to undo your delete. Finally, click End Logfile. To load your fleet, join a game and click File -> Load Continuation. Select the fleet file you created and then press the play button twice to load your fleet. If you update Vassal versions, you'll want to load your fleet to see if you get any errors about missing images or files. If you do, you'll need to modify the components of your fleet that generated errors. I prefer to make a saved fleet for both the top and bottom sides of the map.
Deployment
For obstacles, you can rotate them from the right-click menu. Click and drag your ships into position and then use the left and right arrow keys to rotate them until they are at the angle you want.
Checking your command stack
If you want to look at your command dials without showing your opponent, you need to mask them first. Both masking and viewing are available from the right-click menu of a given command stack.
Important Vassal buttons
Report Set and Remove Tool are two buttons that are useful throughout the game. Remove Tool will remove the most recently added measurement tool. It's useful if you can't remember the keyboard shortcuts yet to do it.
The Report Set button is critical for telling your opponent when you are ready for them to do the next step - after you place a ship during setup, after you roll and finish modifying dice, after you move a squadron or a ship, etc etc. Get in the habit of clicking it any time you do something that your opponent needs you to complete.
Measuring squadron movement and ship ranges
The next two most critical keyboard shortcuts in my opinion are the distance and range rules. Shift-space bar is the distance ruler. Each distance has a different color to help you identify them. Ctrl-space bar shows the range with the appropriate arcs for a given ship. Just like in a table-top game, you'll want to make sure you and your opponent agree on anything close before moving onto the next thing.
Before shooting, you should use the LoS tool in the main Vassal window to draw a line between your model and the target model. If you click anywhere on the table after drawing the LoS, it will clear and you'll have to draw it again. If a ship is covering its yellow dot, you can hide the ship model by clicking and and pressing Ctrl-F to fade it. After you finish resolving the attack, click the table to clear off the LoS line. (There's currently a bug that can make it permanently stuck for a given game, so be sure you do this.)
Rolling dice and dealing damage
To load the dice rolling tool, click the dice button in the main window. You then roll dice by right clicking a color and choosing a number. You can add more after rolling, reroll dice, set to a specific side, and cancel dice from each die's right-click menu.
When applying damage to a ship, use shift and W-A-S-D just like you might on many computer games for the front, left, back, and right shields respectively. You can add a shield back by using the Alt-key and the same letter. The same thing works for hull points on ships and squads except you use Shift-H to reduce and Alt-H to increase.
To deal a damage card, you click your player number in the main Vassal window and drag cards to the table. If you need to deal a crit, you can use the Ctrl-F combo to flip a card over after putting it on the table.
Moving ships
Just like in real-life Armada, you can premeasure your ship movement. To do so, right click on the ship and choose Place for the left-hand or right-hand maneuver tool. If the tool isn't straight, you can click the Straighten Tool button in the main Vassal window. To change a given joint, you can right click and select left or right to add or remove clicks. Once you are ready, you can right-click on the ship again to Notch the tool on the appropriate side. To move the ship for a right-hand notch, press Alt-1 to go to the first joint, then Alt-2 to go to the next one, etc etc until you reach the speed you have set. You do the same for the left side but use Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, etc. If you end up overlapping another ship and have to go back, use the Undo button in the main Vassal window. Undo includes chat messages, so I recommend using Undo as soon as you see it over lap to avoid having to hit Undo many, many times.
For you old Vassal pros, is there anything I missed? For everyone else, any questions you'd like clarified?
